Getting Mother's Body (17 page)

My mamma touches her hand to her chest. “I know that kind of sadness,” she says. She is talking about the sadness of having the man you planned to get old with walk out into the backyard one morning to look over the vegetables and falling down dead of a heart attack. And she is talking about the sadness that goes with that. Of thinking you were having one kind of life, the kind of life with no worries and plenty of money and a son on his way to his father's alma mater college, and then, overnight, your life turning into bill collectors visiting you and marks on the carpet where certain prize pieces of furniture used to sit, and a son in junior college and not even really being able to afford that.

“If your dear husband, by some mistake, had been put into his grave with a treasure that he meant for you to have, me and Uncle Teddy and Aunt June would do what we could to help you get it,” Cousin Billy says.

“She was buried with the treasure by mistake?” I ask.

The Beedes stay quiet.

Billy goes into her pocketbook, taking out a photograph and passing it across the table to us. I lean in to look. There's a white woman, or what looks like a white woman, standing in the middle of the desert right next to one of them big prickly man-shaped cactuses. In the picture, there's also the shadow of the man taking the picture.

“She's beautiful,” my mamma says, the words jumped out of her mouth like she didn't want to say it.

“She's got on the necklace and the diamond ring,” I says. You can see them in the picture plain as day.

“And she and your stepfather meant for you to have them?” Mamma asks.

“That's right,” Billy says.

Uncle Roosevelt coughs. Aunt June moves her food around on her plate. Mamma told me a few things about Willa Mae Beede, but she didn't mention her jewlery or her looks.

Billy reaches to take the picture back. By instinct, she reaches with her left hand. No ring. Mamma raises her eyebrows.

“My dear husband, Mr. Clifford Snipes,” Billy explains quickly, “he refuses to buy me a ring until he can afford the best. From the looks of your house, Aunt Star, I bet Big Uncle Walter treated you just like that too.”

“Big Walter Rochfoucault was a Morehouse man,” Mamma says.

“So you know what I'm taking about,” Billy says.

Uncle Teddy looks at our grandfather clock. They've been here for two hours. “We could use your help, Homer. We need to get out there quick and dig quick,” he says.

I look at Mamma. When she couldn't pay the bills and took me out of school I was ashamed. Mamma gives me her nod of approval.

“All right, then,” I says, getting up to pack my things.

“I'll fix some food for you to take along,” Mamma says, “and you better call me right when you get there, too,” she adds and it's all settled.

ROOSEVELT BEEDE

Homer's got a fancy car.

“Plenty of automobiles come by our filling station on any given day but I ain't never seen one as nice as this one here,” I tell him. We've turned off his street and onto the main road that will lead us back to the highway. West west more west then we'll be there. Homer turns around, taking his eyes off the road, and giving another flurry of waves goodbye to Star, who has gone around the side of the house to catch a last glimpse of us. We go down the main road and she vanishes behind a low concrete garage, but Homer keeps waving anyway.

“It sure was good of her to let you come,” I says.

“I enjoy knowing that I can help my family,” he says. He turns around in his seat, watching the road again.

“She don't like you far from home,” I says.

Homer makes a face. “She figures this is the lesser of two evils,” he says.

“Nothing evil about what we doing,” I says. I'm glad he's coming to help but I don't exactly approve of all the lies Billy told to his mother.

I lean back, getting comfortable in the bright white leather seat. Star said the NAACP of Pecos got together and bought the car for him. When he went away to college they gived him a big send-off, even though Harper's just ten miles to the south.

We turn onto the highway. I look behind and see June and Billy following us in the truck.

“This model's called a Park Lane,” he says. “You can tell by the chroming on the sides.”

“All right,” I says reminding myself to look at the chrome once we've stopped.

“Now I'll show you what this baby can do,” Homer says, stepping on the gas pedal. We got the top down so the wind whips at us pretty good. I hold my hat on with one hand and hold on to the middle armrest with the other. We go fast. Then faster. Homer looks at me and smiles. I smile back.

“I sure do like a fast ride,” I says. I got to yell so he can hear me.

“Mamma hates me going over forty,” he says. He looks at my hand on the armrest. I move it to touch the paneling, pretending like I'm feeling the quality of the dashboard materials.

“A man's got to open it up once and awhile, else he ain't a man,” I yell. Homer nods in agreement. I sneak a look at the speedometer. We're going seventy-five. I take my hat off, before it flies off. If it flies off I'll want to stop for it and Homer ain't stopping. I crunch it down between my legs. Young men go fast. When I was Homer's age I went fast. I didn't have no car but I had a cart that we used to tote wood and groceries and what-have-you. There was this hill out by where we stayed at and on Sunday afternoons me and Willa Mae would go up there and ride down in the cart. Both us together, screaming all the way down the hill. Once we got this barrel, it smelled like pickles. Willa got inside it and rolled down the hill. No one else had ever rolled down the hill in no barrel. Kids, boys mostly, would come and watch her do it. She was braver than any of us. Boys would watch her and girls would watch her. Girls with admiration that became jealousy. Boys with admiration that became lust. She got the idea to have folks pay. And kids would bring they pennies or they favorite things, playing cards, odd-colored marbles, chewing gum and peppermint candy, as payment for her performance. Then one day she announced her retirement. She said the rolling made her stomach feel funny. She asked three older boys to drive the barrel down to the South Concho Draw and we all watched it float away. I thought that was the end of fast Willa Mae.

“We left them in the dust,” Homer says. I turn to look. The road points out behind us, tight and straight, the hot tar of it almost singing in the heat. Sure enough, we have left the truck far behind.

“Blood and Precious stay in El Paso. June and Billy don't got the address,” I says. I got the trip pretty well planned-out. Breakfast with Star in Pecos, dinner with Blood and stay the night there. Get up early and hit LaJunta in the morning. Maybe Star'll put us up for the night when we return, dripping with the pearls and diamonds and whatnot.

“We'll stop at a filling station in a little bit,” Homer says, “the ladies can catch us then.”

We whip down the road. Everything standing still looks like it's moving. A steer raises its head, big long horns pointing east and west, looking at us.

“You studying to be a doctor, then?”

“I'm studying law,” Homer says. “Mamma wants me to follow in Daddy's footsteps but my professor at school, Professor Clarke, he says I got a natural talent for public speaking and such.”

“Gonna be a lawyer?”

“Professor Clarke says I could be a congressman or senator one day.” Homer smiles and sits up straighter thinking of himself behind a big desk. Congressman or Senator Homer Beede Rochfoucault. Then he adds, “I would like to be placed in a position where I can do the most good for my constituents.”

“Your constituents,” I says, repeating, and nodding my head. But I'm not sure what the word means.

“The people need good men,” Homer says smiling at me. And I know then that he will make a good politician, not a preacher, cause he ain't been called, but a politician, one who ain't been called but, through the force of his own personality, calls others to him. That's largely the difference. A man of God is called by God. A man of the people calls the people. Some men are called by God to lead the people. But that's rare. A man of the people thinks the people are calling him but it's just his own voice, overly loud, shouting his own name and hearing it echo back to him through the open mouths of the people, mouths open in awe and wonder watching a man shout his own name loud. A man of God has his mouth shut until God opens it, forces it open sometimes. And sometimes forces it closed. When I took June from her family the first night she cried. So I promised her that we would go to California too. We got in a borrowed car and went. But after a day of riding I got brittle. It was her happiness or mines and when we reached the Texas border, I told her I was as far west as I could go. So I turned around. We headed back eastward, passed through Tryler, seen that piece of land for rent, stopped right there and built the church, and things, for a while anyway, was going pretty good.

Homer looks at me. I look at the speedometer. We're doing eighty.

“How much you think the jewels are worth?” he asks.

“Hundreds,” I say. I see the disappointment working into his face, like a drought coming, but not there yet. “Thousands,” I says, correcting myself. “Several thousand dollars.”

He smiles then hefts up his lower lip, considering. “Cousin Billy isn't married is she?” he asks carefully.

“Sure she is,” I says quick. Too quick.

“We're two men riding in a car,” Homer says. “We can be honest with each other. Maybe Billy could be my wife.”

“That would be a good thing,” I says. How he knew Billy weren't married I don't know. He goes to college so I guess he's pretty smart.

“Billy's situation will just stay
entre nous
. That's French for secret,” he says smiling. Billy's business will stay secret. A secret shared between two men going eighty miles per hour with the top down.

A siren comes up out of nowheres. The police with they single red turning light and they thin wailing siren charging down the road behind us. Homer looks in the rearview mirror but doesn't slow down.

“We can outrun them,” he says. His voice is flat and hard.

“I ain't packing for no shoot-out,” I says, trying to make my voice sound like a cowboy.

“I don't got no gun either,” he says and, slowing down, pulls over to the side of the road.

LAZ JACKSON

I comed over to look at Dill's new piglets. Last time there was a runt, Dill culled it. This time I'm ready to take the runt home. I got a pasteboard box with me. Dill is sitting on her porch. I come up through the gate and just stand there watching her. She's looking at me but not looking at me.

“How you doing, Dill?”

“Whatchu want?”

“Jez had any runts?”

“Nope.”

“None smaller than the rest?”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure,” she says.

I stand there looking into the empty space of my box. There was gonna be a runt in there and I was gonna carry it home. It woulda lived in the box. It woulda growd out the box. Got big and bigger and bigger. And I woulda rode my pig around in my hearse and maybe even won a ribbon, at least third place, in the Butler County Fair. Least that was my plan. Shit. I asked Billy to marry me and she said no. Now there ain't no runts. Double Shit. I let go the box and kick it. It flies a few feet then scuttles along the ground. Dill turns from looking at me to look at the box. She looks at it like it's something worth looking at, so I look at it too.

“You can have it if you want it,” I says.

She don't say nothing.

Then I notice the box is in a place where Dill's truck's usually parked. And the truck ain't there no more. It ain't where it usually is and it ain't nowheres else. Well, it must be somewhere but it ain't in Dill's yard.

“Where's your truck?”

“Stolen.”

“Tripple Shit,” I says.

“Billy Beede stole it,” Dill says. “She stole it and she's gone to LaJunta in it.”

“Shit Shit Shit Shit,” I says.

Dill turns from looking at the box to looking at me. I turn my head away. The feeling I got for Billy is strong but, with Dill looking at me, it shrinks.

“I gotta go get my truck,” she says.

“You getting North to take you?”

“I ain't mixing North up in this,” Dill says.

“Billy shouldn't be stealing from you,” I says.

“I'ma kill the bitch,” Dill says, “I'ma be on the morning bus tomorrow and get out there and I'ma kill the bitch.”

I know she don't mean it. She do want her truck back, though, that's sure. It'd be nice to go to LaJunta. Billy'll be there.

“How bout I take you?” I says.

“No thanks.”

“We could leave today. Hell, we could leave right now.”

“I ain't riding no place in no hearse.”

Mother and Dad don't let me drive the sedan we got.

“The hearse rides good,” I says. “Plus I just cleaned the vents so the air oughta come in nice.”

Dill spits hard at the box and hits it dead on.

“What the hell you standing in my yard for?” she says. “Go get yr goddamn hearse.”

I run down the road all the way home. I got the keys in my pocket and I tell my folks I'm going on an errand with Dill and that I'll be back in a couple of days. I tell them she's paying me for my time. Then I'm gone.

I don't bring nothing but the clothes on my back. Dill brings a cloth bag with brass closures. Something in it looks heavy. She don't bring nothing else. No food or water. I hope she's got money for gas.

The hearse is dove-gray inside, outside it's black-faded-to-green. My father's second-best hearse. His new one, a 1962 Cadillac, is white on white in white. We got the fly windows open plus the vents so the air's coming in good.