The Boy in the Black Suit (3 page)

Hind-parts?
I snickered and Mr. Ray started laughing too. He probably thought I was laughing at him and his brother, but what it really was, was the word
hind-parts
. Such an old-people word.

The whole time we talked I could hear the people upstairs moving around. I couldn't make out voices, but every footstep came through. I wondered what the people at Mr. Jameson's funeral were doing. If they were laughing or crying, or both. If someone was whispering stupid comments to the person next to them about how good Mr. Jameson looked dead. If Ms. Jameson was exploding. Like I did.

“Mr. Ray, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” I could tell he thought I was going to ask him something about girls by the way he crossed his legs the other way.

But I didn't.

“Can I go up there?”

“Where?” he asked, confused.

I pointed up. “Up there? To the funeral. Just for a second.”

“Why?” He cocked his head slightly to the side.

I just shrugged. I couldn't tell him why because I'm not sure I really knew why at the time. I just all of a sudden wanted to. I
needed
to.

Mr. Ray looked at me for a few seconds, hard. Then he sucked his teeth. “Come here, Matthew,” he said, taking off his suit jacket. “If you gonna go up there, be respectful.” He held the coat open so I could slip my arms in. “And sit in the back.”

THE FUNERAL OF CLARK “SPEED-O” JAMESON

Upstairs, the funeral home was pretty much the same as downstairs, except much darker and no tables. Just rows of padded fold-ups
and a wooden podium in the front. The lights were dimmed, which was very different from the bright lights in the church at my mother's funeral. The darkness definitely made it seem more serious. Plus it hid you better in case you exploded.

Robbie Ray, Mr. Ray's younger brother, was the
MC
for the funeral, kind of like how the preacher is when you have one at a church. But Robbie Ray wasn't no preacher. As a matter of fact, he was pretty much still the same man who was crashing cars looking at “hind-parts” when he was younger, except now he was older. But he still looked young. Way younger than Mr. Ray. And he was always dressed like he was looking for a date. Tight suits with his shirt always unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest like we live on some island or something. He always wore gold watches, gold chains, had a gold slug in the front of his mouth, and wore a gold nugget ring on his pinky. My mother used to always clown him, saying he was stuck somewhere between 1970 and outer space.

“And now we're going to have a few words from some of Mr. Jameson's friends,” Robbie said, his voice deep like a late-night radio show host's. Sometimes I thought he was making it that way on purpose, just to go with his whole style. But I could never tell for sure.

He moved his finger over the program to make sure he called the right name. “Mr. McCray?”

I slipped into a seat in the back like Mr. Ray told me. I felt a little silly, not because I was at a random funeral, but because my arms looked like tentacles in Mr. Ray's huge suit jacket. It fit me okay in the shoulders because Mr. Ray was skinny, but the sleeves
were way too long. I kept pulling them up to my wrist, and tried to keep my fingers spread out so they wouldn't slide back down.

Next to me was an old lady dressed in a purple skirt and a black and purple polka-dot shirt.
Who said you had to wear all black to a funeral
, I thought as I looked down at my blue jeans and green and brown Nikes. I glanced over at her and nodded. She gave me an awkward look. At first I thought maybe she knew I didn't belong there. But then she kept wiggling her nose like she was going to sneeze, so I figured it was all the cologne coming from Mr. Ray's suit coat. I don't know what it is about old men and cologne. My mother used to say that when men get old they think anything that smells bad can kill germs better than soap and hot water, so they either bathe in liquor or cologne. I wanted to lean over to that old lady and tell her that I was sorry for the stench and that I hoped it didn't cause her more grief than she was already feeling. But I didn't. I just made whatever face I thought looked like it was saying I was sorry, and nodded my head to her.

“Afternoon, afternoon,” a mumble came over the speakers. “I'm A. J.
McCrary
. Not McCray.
McCrary
.” The old, bent-over man peered at Robbie Ray for messing up his name.

“Anyway, y'all know how Clark got the name Speed-O?” A. J. McCrary leaned on the podium and spoke into the mic. His face looked like leather, and his eyes were big and glassy. He only had white hair on the sides of his head, almost like he was wearing ear muffs made of pure cotton.

“Y'all wanna know?” he asked again, his voice pitchy and weird like all the teeth in his mouth were loose.

Some people in the crowd grunted, a few others shouted, “Tell it!”

“Oh, I'm a tell it,” he said, adjusting the microphone.

“One time, a long time ago when we was kids, there used to be this old doughnut shop over on DeKalb all the cops used to hang at. So we outside of there, and Clark starts talking to me about the pig this and the pig that, and that he been reading black newspapers and checkin' what Malcolm X been saying up in Harlem. This was the sixties, so you know how it was. 'Fros, people changing their names and all that.”

The older people in the crowd nodded their heads in agreement. I glanced over at the lady next to me and imagined her with an afro. Yikes.

“So Clark kicking all this revolution stuff, and I told him, ‘Man you ain't 'bout nothin'. You just yappin' your trap. But you ain't gonna do a”—the old man caught himself about to cuss—“a daggone thing.”

People started giggling.

“He said, ‘Oh, yeah? Watch this.' Next thing I know this fool come running out the doughnut shop with one doughnut in his hand and one in his mouth, and a young white cop running behind him hollerin' 'bout his doughnut gettin' stolen. Can you imagine that? A cop yellin' out, ‘Thief, thief !'”

Everybody started laughing at this crazy story. Even me.

“I didn't see him for a few days after that,” Mr. McCrary continued, “but when I did, he told me he never got caught! And to prove it, he told me he had the other doughnut in his house for
me. He said Brother Malcolm talked about whatever you do for yo'self, you do for your brother. So the other doughnut was mine. I couldn't believe it—one, because that's crazy; two, because he risked his life over some doughnuts; and three, because he actually outran the police! You know how fast you gotta be to get away from the cops . . . on foot? Pretty damn”—he caught himself again—“daggone fast! So I started calling him Speed-O, and it stuck.”

He laughed and began coughing harshly into the mic, digging into his back pocket for a handkerchief to spit in. Robbie Ray reached out for him to help him to his seat, though Mr. McCrary didn't look like he was quite ready to sit down. But realizing that his time was up, he looked back into the crowd and pressed his lips to the mic as if he was kissing it.

“We'll miss him, and many blessings to his family. Thank you,” he added quickly, his voice now way too loud, popping through the speakers.

Everybody shook their heads, confirming that Mr. Jameson was that kind of guy.

Robbie Ray came bopping back up to the mic to introduce the next speaker. I kept feeling something sticking me in my chest, so I reached my hand into the jacket to see what kept poking me. Of course, not thinking, I pulled out what had to be at least ten cancer pamphlets. For a moment I forgot whose jacket I had on. The lady next to me shot her eyes over at me. I just made the weird robot face I make when I'm taking pictures—big eyes, tight lips—and tried to stuff the pamphlets back in the pocket as quickly as
possible. Especially since I didn't know what Mr. Jameson died of. Might've been cancer. That would've been awkward.

“Mr. Wallace,” Robbie said next in his weird, fake sexy voice.

A giant rose from the second row. Seriously, the biggest man I've ever seen in real life. His head was the size of a basketball, and his back was like a king-size mattress. Except made of bricks.

“Good afternoon,” the giant said.

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This humongous monster of a man had the voice of a six-year-old. High, squeaky. Like, cute. I could hear that weird sound when you try to hold in a laugh, but a little bit leaks out—like a mouth fart—happening all over the church. People were trying not to crack up, but his voice made it
so
hard.

“Um, my name is Mouse,” he said, leaning down to get to the microphone. His hands, the size of oven mittens, were gripping the sides of the wooden podium. He could've ripped it apart like nothing if he wanted to.

“And Speed-O trained me when I first got the job with the trucking company. We worked together for a long time. Had a lot of fun. A lot of laughs.” Mouse smiled, flashing a big gap in his two front teeth, as if he was suddenly reminiscing in his mind about some of those moments.

“Anybody who knew Speed-O knows he loved to tell stories, and the crazy thing was, you never knew if the stories were true or not. You knew he wasn't no liar, at least he ain't seem like one. But some of the stories were just so ridiculous.” Mouse laughed a silly laugh. It sounded like a never-ending hiccup.

“Like this one time, we riding through Arizona on a five-day delivery. I think it was August—the heat was kicking something terrible. Brooklyn summer ain't got nothing on Arizona.” He pretended to wipe sweat from his face. “So we pull up to this gas station, some random spot off the map. And Speed-O get to talking about how the last time he had been down in Arizona he stopped at that exact same gas station, and that it was so hot last time that he seen a horse leaning up against the ice chest—you know those old ice chests that sit outside of some stores? One of them. He said the horse was leaning with all four of his legs crossed at the ankle and was panting like a dog. All four legs! Then he said that somebody slipped a cigarette in the horse's mouth to smoke because the dang horse looked so stressed out by the heat.”

The room broke out in laughter.

“Shoot, so I asked him,” Mouse continued. “I said, ‘Speed-O, you sure the heat just wasn't getting to you, and you was seeing things?' You know what he said? He said, ‘Nope. I know it was real, because I was the one who lit the horse's cigarette!'”

The room erupted again. People squealed, rocking back and forth, wiping tears from their eyes. I mean, not only was the story hilarious, but the fact that the huge guy telling it sounded like a little kid made it even better. I looked over at the old lady next to me and she was chuckling. She glanced at me and saw that I was laughing too, and nodded. Everyone was nudging each other and I could tell that some of the other folks in the room had heard that story before. And in a weird way, I kind of felt like I knew Mr. Jameson, at least for that moment.

“He was so serious. He never ever said he was kidding or even cracked a smile. He just told the story while lighting a smoke and unwrapping a honey bun, which was his favorite road snack. He was a good friend. I'm gonna miss him a lot, but I'm glad I got to know him.”

Mouse maneuvered his way back to his seat, bumping just about everything and everyone. While most people were still laughing, Ms. Jameson stepped up to the mic.

“My name is Rhonda Jameson.” She stood there a moment and waited for the crowd to quiet down. “Clark, or Speed-O as most of you knew him, was—is my father.”

Ms. Jameson looked tired, but was still upbeat. It definitely seemed to be a pretty cool funeral from what I could tell. Nothing like my mom's.

“I just want to say thank you to everyone for coming out. My father would be so thrilled to know that you came to say your final good-byes.” And just like that, her eyes started to swell and fill with tears.

“I'm not gonna cry,” she whispered to herself, taking deep breaths. “He would've wanted you to know that he did everything his way. He was honest, his way.” Everyone laughed lowly as Ms. Jameson shot a wink to Mouse, who flashed his gappy grin. “He was loyal, his way.” Now she nodded to Mr. McCrary.

“But most importantly, he loved, his way,” she said, her face starting to melt as the water rose up in her eyes. “He loved . . . ,” she started, but couldn't get it out. The breakdown was coming, and there was no stopping it.

I sat in my seat, suddenly anxious. My stomach started to feel weird, and strangely I felt a little desperate to see what was going to happen next. Would she cry? Would she run out? Would she pass out? It wasn't like I was going to be happy to see Ms. Jameson, a lady I had known most of my life from the neighborhood, sad. But I wanted to see if I could tell if she was feeling what I had been feeling.

“He loved . . .” Her voice fluttered. “I'm sorry. I just . . . I just . . .” She turned away from the mic and looked to her left as if she was looking for someone to help her, but no one was there. She started shaking and biting her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. A few people in the crowd shouted, “It's okay!” But it really wasn't. I knew that and she knew that, more than anyone else in the room. Robbie Ray came over to help her, and he held her close while she stumbled and wept through the rest of her speech. After that—and this may sound weird—I felt satisfied.