The Boy in the Black Suit (7 page)

The funniest thing was when the bus came and Chris tried to close the umbrella up. He couldn't get it to snap and lock in place, and it kept flying open every time he tried to step into the bus. He kept cussing and trying and cussing and trying until finally I just turned around and did it for him. People on the bus sniggered. Even the driver. I could tell Chris was embarrassed, but even he knew it was funny.

School went its usual way. I bumped around from locker to classroom, dodging varsity jackets, chicks with fresh doobie wraps peering into cheap, stick-on locker mirrors, making fish faces while applying lip gloss, gossip hanging above our heads like cigarette smoke. I was sure my name was somewhere in it, especially since I was shuffling around in an all-black suit, looking like some kind of secret agent with bad feet. My classmates probably just thought the suit was some sort of grieving thing. Like I was making some kind of point, which I'm sure they all thought was weird. But I didn't really care because, like I said, high school seemed like nothing to me now.

I sat in Mr. Grovener's class and listened to him read Old English stories, where the way they talked was weirder than Shakespeare's language, and I faded in and out of writing notes and scribbling squiggly lines in the margins. All I could really
think about was the day before. Not just my dad, but also Mr. Jameson's funeral. The old man and the big, squeaky-voiced dude telling those crazy stories. The laughing and joking. And of course, I also thought about when Ms. Jameson got up to speak. I sat in class and replayed in my mind, over and over again, that watery look in her eyes, the weird thought of her face fighting itself to smile, and the strange satisfaction I got watching it all go down. I felt bad about it, but I also felt good about it. Maybe misery really does love company. My mother used to always say that, but I had never really thought about it before.

She also used to say a watched clock don't tick, and I was definitely watching the clock. Every second seeming like a minute keeping me trapped in this lame prison of cool kids and square pizza. I didn't care about Canterbury, or whatever Grovener was yapping about. All I cared about was breaking free and going to the funeral home to help Mr. Ray.

And sitting in on another funeral.

Chapter 4

NINETEEN

M
R.
R
AY WAS STANDING OUTSIDE
the funeral home sipping coffee from a bodega cup when I got there. For the most part, my suit was still in pretty good shape. No stains, all tucked in, and only wrinkled on the shoulders because of my backpack straps. And y'know, I felt different in a suit. I felt like I was really going to work to do something important. Little did I know, I was.

“Look at you, slick. Sharper than a ice pick, ain't ya?” he said, extending his hand to me.

“Hey, Mr. Ray,” I said, a little embarrassed. I met his hand with mine.

“What made you wanna put on your spiffs?” he joked, turning the blue paper cup up to take one last gulp of coffee.

“Just felt like it, I guess,” I said. I couldn't exactly tell him that it dawned on me that the suit would make it easier for me to sit
in on more funerals because, well, anyone in a black suit could fit right in to any funeral, no problem.

He looked at me for a second. “Well, you look good, son. Now if you can get all your little knotty-head buddies 'round here to put on some decent clothes and pick their pants up off their asses, we'll really be in business. Pants so low, they gotta walk like cowboys. Like they rode here from the Bronx on a horse.”

I snickered. I couldn't help it, that was a good one, plus it reminded me of something my mother used to say. She used to call the boys from the neighborhood ghetto penguins because of the way they waddled.

“They ain't my buddies,” I told him. The whole pants-sagging thing was never really my style. Just seems weird to have your whole butt showing like that.

Mr. Ray nodded. “I know, Matt,” he said, tossing his cup in the trash.

He looked over my shoulder at a car pulling up behind me. I turned and there was a black Cadillac easing up almost to the bumper of Mr. Ray's car. It had dark windows and a neon pink paper hanging from the rearview mirror. I recognized the driver. Robbie Ray. I could almost smell the hair grease; his oversize dark sunglasses made him look like some kind of bug. There was a man in the passenger seat, but I didn't know him.

“But seriously, son, all jokes aside, I'm glad you wore a suit today, because I need you.”

“For what?” I said, edgylike because all I could think about was how I said I didn't want to touch no dead bodies.

“You know what a pallbearer is?”

“Naw.” Never heard of it.

Behind me, the pop and squeal of one of the car doors opening.

“Any sign of Cork, Willie?” Robbie Ray asked from the car.

Mr. Ray looked at his brother and twisted his mouth up in a sarcastic way, making it clear that Robbie's question was a dumb one.

“Well, what about the kid? He gon' do it?” Robbie Ray asked, his voice concerned and impatient.

Since I was the only kid around, I figured he was talking about me. I also didn't know what “it” was, but sort of put two and two together and guessed it had something to do with whatever a pallbearer was.

Mr. Ray narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Gimme a second,” he said to Robbie in a serious tone.

Robbie Ray nodded his head all nervous, and ducked back down into the black car.

“Sorry 'bout that, Matthew,” Mr. Ray said, tapping a box of cigarettes against his palm. “But like I was saying, pallbearers are the guys who, pretty much, carry the casket.”

I just gaped at him as my heart dropped to my knees.

He continued. “I mean, sometimes family members do it, but a lot of the times the funeral home does it. Usually we have enough guys, but nobody can find Cork.”

Yeah, because he's probably out getting my father smashed,
I thought.

“So,” Mr. Ray said and sighed, “you're pretty much all we got.”

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't say no. I mean, I could
have, but then I might not have been able to go to the funeral, which was the whole point of me wearing a suit. But I wasn't sure I wanted to say yes either. I had never carried a casket. What if it was too heavy? What if it smelled weird . . . like dead people or something? Were there special ways to do it? Would I be able to learn how to do it on the car ride over? What if I dropped it? All these things were flashing through my head as Mr. Ray waited for an answer. I could feel wet nastiness start to develop under my arms as my nerves kicked into superdrive.

“So, whatcha think?” he asked, doing a manly version of the whole puppy-dog thing.

I just nodded my head.
Damn!

“You know where you going?” Mr. Ray said. He was talking to his brother on his phone, but using a headset like the ones they use when they take orders at Cluck Bucket. I thought about maybe suggesting earbuds, but Mr. Ray seemed too old school to switch up.

“No, Robbie. You gotta start paying attention, man.
Monroe
and Stuyvesant. Not Madison.
Monroe
,” he said, frustrated. He shook his head and mumbled something to himself. I looked out the window at my neighborhood as the guy on the radio complained about the New York Giants.

Staring at stoop after stoop, I thought about my mother. I can't really say what I was thinking about exactly. Just everything. Just her. It's crazy to believe you can always put into words what you think of when you think of a person who's gone, mainly because
a lot of times it's not about specific things. Sometimes you just think about how that person made you feel. That's what I was daydreaming about. The way she made me feel. Like I was the luckiest kid in the world. Like I couldn't lose. Like I was somebody important.

Mr. Ray didn't say much on the way, but I could tell he kept glancing over at me. I knew he knew where my head was, because right when I could feel the tears creeping up, he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Hey man, you a'ight?” he asked, his eyes off the road.

I cleared my throat. “Yep. I'm fine,” I said, trying to sound normal.

“You—” and before he could say “sure,” he shouted, “Shit!” and slammed on the brakes. Red light. He almost ran into the back of Robbie's car.

A loud thump came from behind us. I figured we must've been rear-ended, but we weren't. Mr. Ray reached his hand up to the window directly behind our seat and slid it open. It's funny, I didn't even realize there was a window, completely blacked out, right behind my head. It was sort of like how cabs have that window separating the front seat and the backseat, except in Mr. Ray's car, it was tinted.

Mr. Ray peered into the back of the car. I turned my head to see what was back there that caused that thump and practically choked when I saw it. The casket. I thought the casket was in Robbie's car since he was leading the way. Even though I tried not to look totally bugged out, I couldn't help it. It's just what happens
when I'm nervous. Robot face. But can you blame me? A freakin' casket was right behind my head!

“Hey, it's okay, man,” Mr. Ray said, stretching his neck to see the traffic light ahead of us. “This passenger can't feel a thing,” he joked. I forced a smile.

“Yeah, I guess,” I replied, fixing my gaze back toward the window.

The light turned green, and we were on our way to the church again. I could feel fear boiling inside me. I tried to calm down. I thought to myself,
Mr. Ray is right, the person in that casket can't feel nothing. So it won't be the end of the world if my hand slips and I drop it. No biggie, I'll just say “do-over” and pick it right back up. Nobody will even care, right?
Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the side-view mirror, and it was me who looked dead.

THE FUNERAL OF NANCY KNIGHT

“You know her? I mean, you knew her?” I said awkwardly to Robbie. I'm no master of small talk or nothing, but I had enough home training to know that you at least try to spark a conversation with people you're working with.

Mr. Ray had run into the church to talk to the pastor about bringing the casket in, and Robbie didn't seem like he was in the mood for chitchat. At least not with me. I figured that was probably because he was embarrassed about Mr. Ray barking at him in the car with me sitting right there. I guess I could understand that.

“Nope,” he said, swinging the back door of Mr. Ray's trunk open. Looking in that trunk was like looking down a hallway. Robbie ran his hand along the casket like he was stroking the face of some pretty woman.

“Ooh wee! Yo, Benny, we got steel and eighteens on this one!” he shouted like he was talking about a car. Benny was a regular-size, medium-skinned guy, with a thick black beard that looked like carpet covering the whole bottom half of his face. He sat on the passenger side of Robbie's car with the door open, one leg in and one leg out, puffing a cigarette.

“Oh yeah?” Benny said. He got out of the car and closed the door, took one more pull from the cigarette, burning it down to the yellow part, then plucked it into the street. “What's your guess?”

“Hmmm,” Robbie hummed. “I'm going with business woman?”

“Man, please. Business woman? Getting buried around here? Doubt it.”

“What you mean? You don't think folks from around here can be business people?”

I was confused about what was going on.

“Man, you know what I'm saying. It just ain't likely Ms. Knight, or whatever her name is, or was, or whatever, was some banker down on Wall Street. You know it. I know it. Shit, even little man knows it.” He chin pointed at me.

“Well, her casket says different.”

“Man, that casket could've been paid for by anybody. Hell, even
your
broke ass probably gonna have a good casket just 'cause your family in the business.” Benny stung Robbie with that one, but
before Robbie could snap back, Mr. Ray came out of the church with two other guys also dressed in black suits.

“A'ight, I got a few of the brothers from the church to help us out. That makes six of us. Three on each side. Put young blood in the middle. Should be smooth.”

Benny and Robbie straightened up and stopped talking about the cost of Ms. Knight's casket. Mr. Ray got respect. I liked that.

Robbie, Benny, and I got on one side with me in the middle, and Mr. Ray and the other two guys took the other side. Before I knew it, the casket was coming out of the car, and I was holding tight to the steel rails that ran along the sides of it. My hands were slick with sweat, and all I could do was pray that I didn't drop this dead lady's expensive casket. I imagined some old woman telling my mother on me up in heaven, shaking her head and wagging her finger.

Up the steps. One step at a time. Mr. Ray called out each move like a captain in the army. The other four guys grunted with every step, which made me think I wasn't really carrying much weight. But I wasn't about to let go and find out.

Once we got inside the church it was easy. We hauled the casket down the aisle toward the altar. A big wooden cross hung high up on the back wall, surrounded by the usual, big stained-glass windows.

“Okay, gents. Lift on three,” Mr. Ray ordered. “One, two, up.”

We hoisted the casket onto what looked like a big table.

“Jesus, this thing is heavy,” Mr. Ray moaned, using his handkerchief to wipe smudges off the pearl box.

“Yeah, it's got copper and eighteen gauge,” Robbie said, stepping back into the aisle to make sure it was centered on the big table. “Expensive.”

Mr. Ray shot him a look. “Don't start.” He turned to me and spoke softly. “These fools always trying to guess what kind of money folks got based on their caskets.”

I wanted to ask if my mother's casket was heavy. But it probably wasn't.

“Mainly, 'cause they ignorant,” he added while unlocking the first half of the casket.

I took a step back, realizing that he was going to open it up. I wasn't really afraid of seeing anything, mainly because I had seen my mother in one, but I wasn't sure who this old lady, Ms. Knight, was, or what she was going to look like. I imagined she would be wrinkly, but pretty in a rich old-lady kind of way. Pearls or diamond earrings. A ring. A fancy dress. Like she was taking a nap before dinner at an expensive restaurant in Manhattan. Something like that.

Mr. Ray clicked the last lock, and lifted the lid of the casket. I took a peek and was so surprised by what she looked like. Ms. Knight wasn't old at all. As a matter of fact, she was young.

“Sad,” Mr. Ray said to me. “Gone too soon.”

I stared at her face, smooth and round. No wrinkles. Small diamond studs in her ears. A silver necklace around her neck with a little heart charm on it.

“How old was she?” I asked.

“Nineteen.”

Nineteen! Two years older than me. I gulped.

“What happened to her?”

“Her mother said it was an asthma attack.”

“Asthma? How could she die of an asthma attack? I mean, I just never heard of nobody actually dying from that. Like, you just do a few squeezes of your inhaler and you're fine,” I said. Asthma? Nobody dies from asthma!