This One and Magic Life (9 page)

“Y'all wanted me?”

“We need a priest,” Hektor says. “I heard about you.”

“Where abouts?”

“Mobile.”

“Lots of priests in Mobile.”

“My sister died, Father.” Hektor isn't sure that's the proper way to address him, but he decides it won't hurt. “We need someone to say mass for us.”

“Like I said, there's lots of priests in Mobile.”

“She's cremated, Father.”

“Oh.” Delmore Ricketts concentrates on sticking the toe of his shoes between two boards on the pier.

“She wants her ashes scattered on the bay.”

“Is that legal?”

Hektor is losing his patience. “I don't know
whether it is or not. All we want you to do is whatever you do when you put people in the ground. Can you do that? There's money in it for you.”

“I figured there was. You know I'm out of favor with the Church, though, don't you, Mr. Sullivan?”

“Yes.”

“You want to know why?”

“No.”

“Good.” Delmore Ricketts looks out over the lake. “There's not a damn thing biting today.”

“Well, will you do it?”

“Sure. I was just wondering why you wanted me to.”

“I don't know.” It was the truth. Why did he need this man to say some words and waft incense around over Artie's ashes? And yet he did. Artie did.

“Okay. When do you want me?”

“I'm not sure. My brother's in Birmingham now at the crematorium. Probably in the morning. You could go back with us now if you'd like. I can bring you back or you can follow us.”

“I'll follow you. Tell you what. I need to go by the house and get cleaned up and get my priest stuff.”

“Priest stuff?”

“Priest stuff.” Delmore Ricketts looks at Hektor with narrowed eyes. “You sure you want me to do this? You know you could easily find a priest to hold a special service.”

“I'm sure.”

“Then wait for me at Bouchet's. I'll be there in a little while. Help me get this boat out, too.”

An hour later they leave Bouchet's, the back of the truck loaded with daylilies they have bought from Mrs. Bouchet while they were waiting, three dollars a shov
elful. They are followed by Father Audubon Ricketts in a 1957 Chevrolet, red fins flaring defiantly.

“He doesn't act a bit like a priest,” May says, looking back. “You reckon he really is?”

Hektor sighs. “I don't think it really matters, honey.”

IN BIRMINGHAM, IN THE MEN'S ROOM OF THE MORTUARY, DONNIE
runs hot water over his hands. He is still freezing. The skinny kid who met them at the airport with the hearse had the goddamn air conditioner as low as he could get it.

“Stuck,” he said when Donnie complained. But Donnie knew he was lying, pissed because the casket wasn't what he'd expected and he hadn't brought the right kind of rig to get it off the plane.

“Thought this was a cremation,” the kid had said, eyeing the gray metal that took up the center aisle of the plane. “This is a burial casket.”

“What's the difference?” Donnie never should have asked.

“Cremation casket's made out of wood usually and the bottom drops out.”

“What?”

Patty James stepped up and took Donnie's arm. “Come on, Mr. Sullivan. Sit in the cockpit. Jimmy and I'll take care of this.

“Asshole,” she mouthed to the mortuary guy. He shrugged.

Donnie hadn't seen that, nor did he know how the casket was finally put into the hearse. He sat in the cockpit, studied the instrument panel, and tried not to think until Patty came, patted his shoulder, and told him everything was ready. Then there was the freezing ride across town.

“Bear Bryant's buried over there.” The kid pointed to a large cemetery across the street as they turned into the mortuary driveway and circled around the back. “You ought to go over and check it out. Just follow the red line. Something to do while you're waiting.”

“How long will I be waiting?”

“Depends.”

“Two, two and a half hours,” a middle-aged man in an office told Donnie. This man was dressed in a dark suit and was sitting behind an elegant desk on which were spread the papers Donnie had to sign. “I think you'll find our waiting room very comfortable, Mr. Sullivan. And if there's anything we can get for you or do for you…Or is there somewhere you'd like to go? We can call you a cab.”

Donnie shook his head. “I guess I'll stay here.”

The man pushed a brochure across the desk. “You'll want to look at this, Mr. Sullivan. We have most of these urns in stock, but we can order anything you select, of course. Takes just a few days. Free delivery, of course.”

Donnie took the brochure simply because it was in the air between him and—he looked at the sign on the desk—Mr. Powell.

“And of course,” Mr. Powell continued, “there'll be some refund on the casket. But we'll work that out with the gentleman at Bay Chapel. Okay?”

“Where's the men's room?” Donnie asked.

When he enters the waiting room, a young couple is sitting on a sofa holding hands. Donnie walks past them and outside where he sits on the steps in the sun. Across the busy street, the cemetery looks cool and peaceful with its large oaks and magnolias. No live oaks or Spanish moss like Myrtlewood. Was it his mother who had told him that Spanish moss didn't grow north of Montgomery?

The hearse comes from behind the building and enters the traffic. He knows where it's going, and he begins to cry. Damn it, Artie. We could at least have talked about this. He reaches into his pocket for a tissue and pulls out a wet paper towel which is such a ludicrous thing to find in his pocket that he smiles.

We should have talked more, Artie. Talked more about things that mattered. And things that happened. And Hektor, too, Artie. We all should have forgiven ourselves, forgiven each other.

Donnie wipes his face with the paper towel which he then wads up along with the brochure advertising urns. He's getting a cramp in his leg sitting on this short step. Hell. Mariel keeps telling him he ought to take calcium. “Just chew up a couple of Tums at bedtime, Donnie, or drink a glass of milk and you won't wake up with those leg cramps.”

He walks up and down the sidewalk and then remembers what the hearse driver had said about Bear Bryant. Follow the yellow brick road? He goes to the corner where there is a streetlight which provides a chance for him to survive crossing six lanes of heavy traffic, and darts across into the open cemetery gates and blessed coolness. At some point his chill has vanished; now he's sweating.

He sees instantly what the driver had been talking
about. Yellow, red, and blue lines are painted on the roads that lead from the gate where an old black man holding a broom is sitting on the step of a round guardhouse.

“Hey,” he says to Donnie. “You looking for the Bear?”

Donnie nods yes.

“Down the red line.”

“Thanks.” Donnie turns left onto the road with the red stripe. In the distance, he sees cars and a group gathered for a funeral. Some of these mourners will stop by to give the Bear their regards on their way out of the cemetery, but right now, Donnie has the grave to himself. It was easy to find. At the end of the red line were two large arrows pointing to the grave. Plus, it was the only one with red and white shakers stuck in the ground and a football balloon anchored by a plush red elephant sitting above the marker. The marker itself said simply
PAUL WILLIAM BRYANT, SR., SEPT. 11, 1913. JAN. 26, 1983
.

There should have been more. “Bear” should be on the marker and the number 323 for his football victories. Those sweet, sweet Saturday afternoons.

Donnie picks up what he thinks is a piece of trash and sees that it's a note that says “I love you, Bear.” When he bends to replace it, he realizes he is crying again. His tears fall on the thick green grass.

An elderly couple coming down the red line see Donnie crying. They understand. The man tiptoes over and places a pack of Chesterfield Kings on the grave, and then they leave. Donnie wipes his eyes and follows them back down the red stripe.

Too late, he realizes. Too late. There was so much he should have told Artie. He should have told her that when he studied
Our Town
at the university, he had
decided that if he could be like Emily and come back, that he would choose the summer of 1943 when they were fourteen and Hektor was ten. Mama had spent the spring in a hospital in Georgia and was staying a few weeks with Grandmama in Montgomery. Because there were so few students at the college, Papa was off for the summer. He went to see Mama and then came back to work on his book, a textbook on Greek mythology he had been working on as long as Donnie could remember. Some of the neighbors got together and planted a big Victory garden. But mostly, they had hung around, the three children pretty much on their own.

Papa was too old to go to the war, Donnie and his friends too young. At night they would sit in Papa's office and listen to the news while he moved red pins around on the map of the world on his wall. Stalingrad. Okinawa.

Donnie understood later that it was hormones kicking in, but it seemed that summer that his sense of smell was working overtime. The gardenias that bloomed in late May by the side of the house would wake him during the night, sweet and strong, a presence in the room. The sharpness of the tomatoes in the garden. The smell of the wood they cut for stakes. The creosoty, fishy odor of the pier. He was walking around in a world of smells he had never noticed before.

It was the summer Artie began to paint, too. She talked Mr. Harmon at the grocery into letting her have some of the white paper he wrapped meat in, and she would work for hours using leftover house paint and crayons and anything she could find. They should have talked. Maybe it had been her summer of colors like it
was his of smells. She bought a Tangee lipstick, which she used every day until Mama got back.

One night during that summer, Papa had awakened them. “Come outside. Leave the lights out.” They had first thought it was a jubilee, but it was too quiet. Half-asleep, they followed him out to the dune.

“Look,” he said.

On the horizon were pale waves of light, pink and greenish white arcing into the sky and then falling, seemingly, into the bay.

“It's the northern lights,” Papa explained. “The aurora borealis. Real unusual display.”

“What's doing it?” Hektor asked.

“The sun. Solar winds. They're electrically charged and when they hit the earth's magnetic field they glow like this. You seldom see them this bright and this far south, though, because the particles are drawn toward the poles.”

Hektor pressed against their father. “Is it safe?”

Thomas hugged his son. “Safe and beautiful, Hektor. The only thing it may mess up is the radio. We'll have more static.”

Artie reached for Donnie's hand. “Look at that. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.”

Donnie had thought so, too. He went inside and got a quilt for them to lie on, the four of them. No one had said, “I wish Mama (or Sarah) were here.” Not even Hektor or Papa.

Since then, Donnie has seen the northern lights several times over Mobile Bay, but never again with the intensity of that night. The intensity of that summer.

There were tomato sandwiches and iced tea every night for supper, and they would sit on the porch and eat. And it would stay light so long, and the bay looked
like you could walk on it. But they never again believed the world ended at the bay after that summer.

And now, a lifetime later, the old black man waves Donnie through the gate with his broom. “Come back to see us.”

Donnie turns to him. “My sister is being cremated. My twin.”

“Oh, do Jesus, I'm mighty sorry.”

“Yes.” For a moment the two men look at each other and then Donnie goes through the gate, waits for the light, and walks back to the mortuary. There he washes his face again and sinks down into a sofa.

“Mr. Sullivan.” A slight young man with acne is standing over him. “We're ready. We just need you to sign that you've received the remains.”

Donnie sits up, wiping his mouth. He has drooled on the sofa; he's disoriented by the depth of his sleep.

“Would you like some water?” the young mortician asks. Donnie nods yes. The man disappears for a second and returns with a little paper cone of water. Donnie drinks it gratefully.

“You okay?”

“I was just sound asleep.”

“I understand. I was sorry to disturb you, but I know you want to get home.”

“Sure.” Donnie gets up.

“This won't take but a second.”

Donnie follows the young man to an office.

“Here you go,” the mortician says, handing Donnie a plastic bag and pushing a piece of paper across the desk. “Sign right here.”

Adonis J. Sullivan he writes on the next-of-kin line trying to keep the pen firm. The bag in his left hand is ridiculously light. He imagines it still feels warm, which in fact is not his imagination, but what does he
know? This is what happens with a rush job when you have to use a freezer instead of the usual cooler.

“You're sure you don't want an urn?” The young man is doing his job.

“No.”

“Well, that'll be it, then. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan, and please accept our sympathy.”

“Yes. Thank you. Could you call me a cab, please?”

“Of course.”

Donnie has never fainted in his life, but he thinks he may at any moment. Walking back through the waiting room he sees furnishings and people through a cloud. Outside, he sinks down gratefully on the sunlit steps again, puts his head between his knees, and closes his eyes. In a few minutes, feeling better, he opens them and is looking right into the plastic bag. In it is a small container, the kind you burp. It could be full of applesauce or a morning's shell collection. It's the most matter-of-fact object Donnie has ever seen. It's not Artie. When the cab comes, Donnie picks the bag up easily and heads home.