The Boy in the Black Suit (12 page)

“No,
you
listen, Doc,” my dad said, joining in on the joke. “I'm gonna cry if I feel like it. And if anybody got a problem with that, well, my ass will already be out for them to kiss.” Then my father glanced at Dr. Fisher, who just stood there looking at them both like they were two teenage boys. “Not you, Dr. Fisher,” he said, smiling.

Then Dr. Winston burst into laughter, shaking my father's hand. And I realized that my dad sounded like himself again. He sounded like Daisy Miller's husband.

Once we left, Mr. Ray told me he was having a hard time building up the courage to ask the receptionist lady—her name was Melissa—out on a date. See, even though my dad was transferred to the rehab, Mr. Ray would still pop by the main hospital part to see her while he waited for me.

“I just can't seem to do it,” he said, palming the steering wheel.
“If this was twenty years ago, I'd a already married her.” He gave the poor steering wheel a pound. Mr. Ray had no problems opening the door, but he just couldn't close it, as my dad would say. This was the one area Mr. Ray's too-smooth brother, Robbie, had over him.

“What you scared of ? She sure likes talking to you,” I said. Not that I had any good advice to give. Talking to girls wasn't that easy for me either, and now I told myself that if I saw Renee again, I would take a shot. It might be a bad shot, but still a shot. But Mr. Ray was . . . Mr. Ray. The man. He had money, a job, and was the nicest guy in the world if you asked me, or anyone else in my neighborhood.

“Scared?” His face suddenly tightened up. “How long has it been since I been talking to her up there?”

I ran through the dates in my mind.

“About two months.”

Mr. Ray looked at me, surprised at how fast two months went. He slammed his hand down on the steering wheel again.

“A'ight, I'm gonna do it. Soon. I got to. This is crazy.” Then, like usual, he turned the radio up and headed toward my school.

“So who we got today?” I asked Mr. Ray, casually. I always liked to know ahead of time whose funeral it was, just because every now and then it was somebody I knew. And if it was, then I could relax a little because it was easy to fit in to a funeral of a person I actually knew, and then I didn't feel like as much of a weirdo.

Mr. Ray turned the music down. “A woman named Gwendolyn Brown. You know her?”

Gwendolyn Brown. Gwendolyn Brown. I thought for a second to see if the name rang a bell. “Nope. Didn't know her.”

“I did. She was a good lady,” Mr. Ray said. “Everything's pretty much taken care of. All you have to do is make sure the repast room is ready to go with food on the tables and all that. Oh, and of course you need to set up the flowers, which I know you
love
to do.” He was used to me ranting about flowers, how they were a total waste of money and all that. “Other than that, you can”—he paused and flashed a slight grin—“y'know, do your thing.”

I was pretty sure that the grin meant that he knew I had a thing for these funerals, but he would never say anything about it. He probably knew since the first time I asked to sit in on one. I wasn't sure if he understood it or not. But he didn't mind.

“What time?” I asked as he pulled in front of the school. I reached in the back and grabbed my backpack.

“Early. Church doors open at twelve thirty. Service starts at one.”

“But I don't get out of here until noon,” I explained, slipping out of the car. I grabbed my suit jacket off the back of the headrest. Mr. Ray taught me that. It keeps it from getting wrinkled.

“I know.” He smiled. “That's why I'll be right here to pick you up. Twelve on the dot.”

In New York it's pretty hard to see something you've never seen before. No one trips about anything because most of us have seen it all. But at noon, when that hearse pulled up outside and I went
and got in, the fifty or so students who could leave early like me were definitely confused, and I knew there would be a new rumor boomeranging from lunch table to locker about how I ride around in death-mobiles.

“The hearse?” I asked, quickly ducking into the car. “You had to drive the hearse?”

“Well, how the hell else were we gonna get Ms. Brown here to her big event?” Mr. Ray laughed. “Now you're
really
the coolest kid in school.”

Great. I had finally gotten people to stop staring at me for being the kid whose mom died, and then for being the boy in the black suit, and now I was the boy in the black suit whose mom died and who rides around in a hearse. Perfect. I was officially weirder than the goth kids. Even better, I was the kid the goth kids wanted to be.

“We got ten minutes to get to the church, so strap up,” Mr. Ray said, mashing the gas pedal and whipping the car around the corner like it was a go-cart.

As we zoomed down Brooklyn streets, I looked out the window and stared at New York in the fall, the only time everybody realizes that there are way more trees in the city than we think. Normally you never pay attention to trees here, or even recognize them, but then November hits and every step you take, crispy leaves crunch under your feet, and you're forced to notice trees are clearly everywhere. But we never seem to see them. Maybe even they get drowned out by the madness.

When we pulled up to the church, the steps were covered
in brown and gold and red leaves that blew around in clusters.

“If it wasn't so windy, I'd ask you to sweep,” Mr. Ray said, killing the engine. “But ain't no point.”

Robbie Ray was already sitting on the top step, his gold chain gleaming in the sun, the blowing leaves slapping him in the face, driving him crazy.

“I kinda like the wind, actually.”

I checked my cell phone. No missed calls, of course. 12:17.

Thirteen minutes. I had my instructions. Set up the repast room and take care of the flowers.

First the flowers. Usually they're sitting right in the front, five or six bouquets. But this lady, she had flowers galore! I mean, fifteen or sixteen bouquets of all these crazy-ass flowers I had never even seen before, in pots and vases just as wild looking as the plants. I didn't even know where I was going to put them all. I lugged each one up to the front and began putting them around the casket. By the time I was done, Ms. Brown looked like she was lying in a rainforest. And I looked like I had just run through one, I was sweating so bad. Some of those bouquets weighed a ton!

After that it was on to the easy stuff. Repast setup. I went to the basement of the church and laid all the cold food out on platters. The hot food, I had to put in pans that sit propped up on braces. They all come with these little cans, like jelly candles. I had to light the can-candles and put them under the pans of food to keep them hot. Nothing to it.

Next and last, tables and chairs. Mr. Ray said they were
expecting it to be a pretty big repast. Like fifty people. So I set up ten tables, five chairs each. While unfolding the brown chairs and sliding them under each table, I could hear the people start to come in upstairs. Someone started playing the organ, but I don't think it was a specific song. Just something to set the mood. Something sad, not like organs in churches can make another kind of sound other than a sad one.

I finished setting up, then tiptoed up the steps and slipped in to where the service was going on. It was a pretty good turnout. Almost full. Mixed crowd. Some old folks, some young folks, some middle folks. The usual funeral line was moving down the aisle, only a few people left to take one last look at Gwendolyn Brown. I took a seat in the last row of the church, and as soon as I sat down, someone was right there to hand me a program.

“Thanks,” I mouthed to the old usher lady, her hair a weird purplish gray color.

She nodded with a tight face and quickly stepped back to her post along the wall like a soldier. Ushers had a way of being like that.

Gwendolyn Brown. The picture on the program was of a caramel woman with an afro, wearing an orange suit and big gold hoop earrings. I knew it must've been an old picture because she looked much younger than the woman in the casket. Plus, the afro and the orange suit. Seventies all the way.

The inside of the program was filled with other pictures. One with her playing cards with some other old people. One with her in the kitchen holding a spoon to her mouth, cheesing. Some of the photos were of her holding kids.

I skimmed through the obituary as the choir sang. She ran a homeless shelter for forty years. Loved playing cards and bingo. Never married. Survived by one granddaughter. Loved God. Loved music. Loved cooking. Loved flowers, obviously. And loved taking pictures.

I flipped the program over. One last picture took up the whole back of the program. It was her arm in arm with what I figured was the young granddaughter, but I couldn't really tell because the photo was so blurred, and basically looked like a thousand little colored squares.

“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, saints and sinners, old and young,” the minister started. His voice vibrated, like he was singing, like he was some kind of bootleg Dr. King. “We are all here today to celebrate the home going of sister Gwendolyn Brown. We don't come in sadness. No, we come in joy, for sister Brown is finally at peace with the mighty King of Kings.”

Blah, blah, blah. Heard it all before. I was used to almost every church funeral starting this way, and it killed me because I knew that the truth is that people
do
come in sadness. As a matter of fact, I don't think anyone comes in joy. It's a
funeral
.

The preacher continued explaining that it would be a short service because “it ain't no point sitting around pouting,” and “sister Brown wouldn't want no whole lotta tears.” He explained that the entire funeral would just be a few of Ms. Brown's favorite songs, and a few words from her granddaughter, Love.

“But with all things, we start with a prayer. Bow your heads and look to the Lord,” the preacher said.

As he prayed, I thought for a moment about who in the world would name their daughter Love. I mean, black folks can get creative with names, but Love? Not that Love was a bad name, just different, I guess. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's better than my name, the most normal name of all time. Matthew Miller. Sounds like I was born to wear blue button-up shirts tucked into high-water khakis or something. But still . . . Love?

The singing went on for a while, one song after another. They were all upbeat, and, luckily, it was one of the few times a funeral actually had a good choir. I'm talking high notes, low notes, harmonies, solos. Before I knew it I was tapping my foot like everyone else, pretending to sing along to songs I didn't even know. I looked around at all the people clapping their hands and singing Gwendolyn Brown to heaven. Old ladies with their wigs wiggling around on their heads like live animals as they started really getting into the music. Some of them were even standing up, their big butts wobbling, and one was slapping a yellow tambourine against her hip.

This was going to be another happy funeral, and usually at happy funerals it was hard to find the person hurting the most. But I knew it wouldn't be too hard at this one because the preacher already said that the service would be carried out mostly by the granddaughter, Love, and I had already read in the obituary that this granddaughter was the closest family member left since Ms. Brown lost her daughter. So she was who I was looking for.

I tried stretching my neck to see if I could spot the granddaughter sitting in the usual spot, the front row, or as Robbie Ray
called it, the good seats. I could see the back of the head of who I thought was her, but couldn't tell how she was feeling. With most people I could tell, even if I couldn't see their faces, just based on how they hung their heads. If the head was tilted up, that meant they were struggling and trying not to cry. If the head was down, they were already crying but still holding on, trying not to let anyone see them. If the head was down and the shoulders were bouncing—full-blown breakdown.

But with the granddaughter, she looked straight ahead and bobbed her head to the music, clapping and singing just like everybody else. None of the usual signs were there yet. At least that's what it looked like from the back.

After the final song the preacher returned to the microphone.

“God is good!” he called out.

“All the time!” the church said.

The preacher smiled and waved his finger. “No, y'all don't wanna send Sister Brown off the right way, 'cause if you did you'd act like it. I said, God is good!”

“All the time!” the church, now even more amped up, hollered. The old lady with the tambourine held it in the air and shook it.

The preacher nodded his head, satisfied by the response.

“All right, that's what I'm talking about.” He looked over at Love. “You ready?”

She nodded.

“Like I told y'all at the start, we won't be here too long. Sister Brown's baby girl gonna come and say a few words, then we gonna pray, and sing it on out. Amen?”