The Boy in the Black Suit (2 page)

The other thing everyone knows him for is, well, cancer. Mr. Ray beat it twice, and the only reason everybody knows that is because after he beat it the second time, he basically became, like, a Jehovah's Witness for cancer, knocking on doors and passing out pamphlets. He swears the only reason God spared his life twice is so that he could spread the word about the illness, as if nobody knew what it was. My mother used to always joke with him and say, “Willie, God saved you just so you could torture the hell outta the rest of us? That don't make no sense.” He never got upset with her. He just used to laugh and shake his head while heading on to the next house.

“Mr. Ray?” I called out.

“Matthew, I didn't see you sitting there. How are you?” he said, walking toward me with his familiar limp.

“I'm okay.” I stood and shook his hand. “What's with all the chicken?”

“Man, it's a funeral. Well, really it's a repast. They didn't have
anyone to cater it, so they paid the funeral home extra for us to take care of the accommodations. So we always just come down here and get the chicken. It's easy and everybody likes it,” he explained. “What you up to?”

“Just trying to get a job.” I pointed to the application that I had literally only filled out my name on, so far.

“Where, here?”

“Yes sir.”

Mr. Ray stood there for a second and gave me a once-over, as if he was upset that I was trying to work in Cluck Bucket. As far as I was concerned, it was an honest gig. I figured it was probably tough at times, but still, honest. Plus, I figured I could maybe learn what the secret to some of that fried deliciousness was so that I could take it back to my own kitchen. Maybe make those biscuits for me and my dad one day.

“Matthew, if you work here, you'll never be able to eat here again,” he finally joked.

I didn't really think that was true. I mean, certain things you just never get tired of. Cluck Bucket, for me, was definitely one. That's like saying that if I would've gotten that job working at the bank, I would've eventually gotten sick of money. Yeah, right. Not that Mr. Ray was wrong. I just couldn't see it. But I didn't say nothing. Just shrugged.

“Listen. Your mother was a friend of mine. And your father still is. If you need a job, I'll pay you a couple of bucks to help me out down at the funeral home. I mean, I heard they pay pretty good in this crap shack, but I'm sure I can get close, and you won't have to
come home smelling like deep-fried fat every night, or put up with these knuckleheads. What you think?” Mr. Ray inched his jacket sleeve up just enough to see his watch, which he twisted around so that the gold face was on the top of his wrist. “Unless,” he said low, his eyes still on the time, “you got a thing for hairnets.”

Funny. Real funny.

I thought for a moment. Mr. Ray was definitely a friend of my folks. He was the one who talked to my mother about the chemo­therapy, and what that would be like. He said he didn't know much about breast cancer, but he did know that ice cream is the secret to feeling better when the treatment makes you feel sick. As a matter of fact, Mr. Ray was there the day my mom was taken to the hospital, the day she left home for good. He helped my father get her down the steps because she refused to let the
EMT
guys put her on a stretcher.

“I ain't no princess and I ain't no baby, so I don't need to be carried nowhere,” she had snapped as Dad and Mr. Ray held her up by her arms and eased her down the stoop, one painful step at a time.

Dad cracked a joke about her being a queen. “Damn right!” she replied, and Mr. Ray was right there to cosign.

“The queen of your house, this block, Bed-Stuy—hell, Daisy, you the queen of all of Brooklyn!” Mr. Ray joked. “And guess what? Your throne will be right here waiting for you when you come home.”

She never came home, but we appreciated Mr. Ray's positivity. He was always that way—a good guy. And even though I trusted
him, did I really want to work at the funeral home with him? I mean, it wasn't him I was worried about. It was just the whole death thing, and the fact that I would have to be around sad people all the time. Losing my mom was already damn near too much for me to deal with, so being around a bunch of strangers dealing with the same crap just seemed like hell.

But the way Mr. Ray was talking, hell paid pretty good. And even though I didn't buy the whole “You wont be able to eat here” crap, I didn't want to risk it. But still, I didn't know if I could really do it. A funeral home?

“Thanks Mr. Ray,” I said, tapping the ink pen on the application. “But I don't think I can do that. It's just . . . I just . . .” I struggled to explain why, but I could tell by the way he looked at me that I didn't really have to.

“No need to explain, son,” he said, putting his hand up. “Trust me, I get it.”

I looked down at the application, embarrassed. Even though Mr. Ray said he understood where I was coming from, I still felt a little stupid turning down his offer when the only other option was to work in a grimy chicken spot. But on the other hand, it just didn't seem like a good idea to take a job somewhere where I'd have to relive my mom's funeral everyday. Like being paid to replay the worst day of my life over and over again.

Mr. Ray put his hand on my shoulder. “Just let me know if you change your mind.” I didn't look up. I just nodded and started filling out the address line, signing myself up for fry-duty. But it was either that or die-duty. Lose-lose.

As soon as Mr. Ray turned around to walk back toward the counter, the door swung open and a young girl came rushing in, her hand pressed tight to her mouth, her cheeks bulging from her face. And before she could get to the bathroom—hell, before she could even get all the way inside—she spewed red, lumpy slime all over the already sticky floor. It looked like that old-lady pudding. What's it called? Tapioca? Yeah. It was like tapioca. But red. And if there's one thing I just can't deal with, it's puke. Two things, really—tapioca and puke. I just can't. Everything about throw-up is gross. The way it looks, the way it smells, the way it sounds. All of it. Straight-up nasty. So when this girl came in chucking her lunch, I sprung from my chair and damn near jumped on Mr. Ray. I literally almost knocked him over.

“What the—” Mr. Ray whipped around after hearing the belching and hacking sound of spit-up, along with my chair sliding back from the under the table and my footsteps running up on him. “Clara!” he shouted. “Clara! You got a situation out here!”

I stood next to Mr. Ray, but faced the opposite way. I looked straight ahead at Renee and the other customers who were also grossed out, while Mr. Ray focused on the sick kid, who I could hear heaving.

Renee stretched her neck to see what was happening, and once she saw the mess, she just tightened her lips and shook her head. Like this was normal. “Clara, we need a clean-up,” she said in a bored voice.

“Clara!” Mr. Ray barked again.

“I'm coming, I'm coming!” Clara yelped. She came through a
door on the side of the kitchen, rolling a yellow mop bucket. A guy followed behind her with what looked like a bag of sand and one of those big orange cones.

“Jesus,” Clara said, passing me. I locked my eyes on the chicken. I couldn't stand to see the puke, because if I had seen it, they'd have had to clean up
two
tapiocas. “Put that stuff down and go get her some water,” Clara said to the guy with the sand.

The dude ran back toward the kitchen and in a flash came back with a cup of water.

“Sit down,” Clara said to the girl.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” the girl cried over and over again, and I could tell she was lifting the cup to her mouth because her voice changed. “I'm so sorry. I just . . . couldn't make it to the bathroom.” She sounded embarrassed, and to be honest, I was pretty embarrassed too. I mean, I was already feeling a way when I turned down the job Mr. Ray offered me, but now I was visibly scared of upchuck and I just knew the girl at the register was looking at me act like a pussy. So, yeah—pretty embarrassed.

“Next in line!” Renee called. Turns out she wasn't paying me no mind. She wasn't tripping about anything. For her this was just another day at the job. I didn't know how anyone could still have an appetite, especially since the whole place smelled like old, wet socks now, but people went on ordering.

Mr. Ray faced the front of the restaurant and put his arm around me. “All good, Matthew,” he said. “Go ahead and finish up your application. Hell, they should hire you just for having to endure that!” He chuckled to himself and moved toward the register.

“Wait. Mr. Ray.” I reached out and grabbed his arm. He turned back toward me. “Will I . . . uh . . . will I have to touch dead people?” Honest question.

He crossed his arms. “Do you want to?”

“No.”

“Then, no.”

I weighed my options. Funerals suck. The possibility of not being able to eat my favorite fast food, dealing with random crazies who come in and talk trash, and mopping up throw-up really,
really
sucks.

“Okay,” I said to Mr. Ray.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Mr. Ray smiled. “Okay,” he said with a nod. “C'mon, you can start right now.”

I followed him up to the register. I set Clara's pen on the counter while Mr. Ray reached in his suit jacket and pulled out a few cancer pamphlets and left them in front of Renee's register, like they were some kind of tip or something.

“Give these to your grandma,” he said while we gathered up all the buckets of chicken.

“You got it,” Renee said nicely as we headed toward the door. I held my breath as me and Mr. Ray tiptoed over the pile of sand that covered whatever was left of the vomit, leaving the application with only my name and half of my address on the table.

“So, who's funeral is it up there?” I asked Mr. Ray as we laid the chicken out on platters. The repast (I actually didn't know that's what they're called, but it's the dinner after the funeral—the repast) was happening in the basement of the funeral home, and the actual service was going on upstairs. The only reason I knew that some funerals happen in the funeral home is because we used to always see people standing outside of Ray's dressed in all black, hugging, just like they do at funerals that happen at churches. The good thing about Ray's Funeral Home is, at least the AC worked.

“You know Rhonda Jameson?” Mr. Ray asked.

He placed a breast next to a leg.

“Ms. Jameson died?”

“No. Ms. Jameson is fine. Her father passed last week.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, at least she had him for a long time.”

“Yeah.” Still, he shook his head. “But it never gets any easier.”

Mr. Ray put these big, really nice bowls on the table and was scooping out spoonfuls of canned greens. I have to admit, the food area looked pretty good. He had tablecloths down and fake flowers on the tables (I hate real flowers, but I'll get to that), and had me set up the cushioned fold-up chairs instead of the regular, hard-butt ones.

After all the food was out and all the tables were set, there really wasn't much else to do, but I still didn't want to go home yet. At the same time I also hoped Mr. Ray didn't start digging into how I was feeling and all that. I mean, I know people mean well when they ask those kinds of questions, but at the end of the day, they are stupid questions.
How am I feeling? Well, let me think.
My mother's funeral was a couple days ago, so I damn sure ain't happy.

Lucky for me, Mr. Ray didn't ask anything like that. He actually didn't say nothing about my mother at all. Instead he started talking about what he was like when he was my age.

“Man,” Mr. Ray said with a sigh, “you better than I was. You responsible, y'know?” He leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles.

“I guess,” I said, unsure of where this conversation was going.

“I mean, I wasn't thinking about no job or nothing like that. I was thinking about one thing only—skirts.”

“You were thinking about wearing skirts?” I asked, shocked.

“No, man! I didn't mean”—his raspy voice sounded even more scratchy when he got excited—“I mean girls, man. Skirts. We were thinking about girls. Like your buddy, Chris.”

Mr. Ray seemed disappointed that I didn't pick up on his old-school slang.

“Oh.” I smirked. Chris
definitely
thought about girls. “Well, I think about them too. A lot. I just also think about other stuff, I guess.” I didn't really see the big deal in that. Girls are great. But so is graduating from high school and leaving it behind. Forever. Seemed pretty basic to me.

“And that's why you're different. Man, me and my brother Robbie done wrecked many a car, taking our eyes off the road to check out some lady's hind-parts.”