River, cross my heart

by Clarke, Breena

  no- Breena Clarke

  like a puff of smoke, or did they keep close by, watching, looking, still feeling for the folks left behind?

  Pearl had stared blankly at Johnnie Mae when she asked her what costume she'd be wearing. Then Johnnie Mae took a turn at being surprised. Where could this girl be from where they didn't dress up for Halloween? But in all of the laughing and giggling and apples and rock candy of the evening, Pearl was nearly forgotten. Johnnie Mae didn't see her after school let out. She wasn't among any of the groups that gathered at houses or fell in together at the street corners. She didn't come to the community house to bob for apples and hear Reverend Jeter tell ghost stories.

  When Johnnie Mae paraded herself dressed in the baby girl's christening gown she'd cajoled Aunt Ina to sew, Mama and Papa caught their breath. It was a short white gown trimmed with eyelet lace around the hem, neck, and sleeves. There was a baby's bonnet trimmed with lace and tied with a satin bow. Johnnie Mae skipped around in front of the stove with her slim, coltish, cinnamon-stick legs and rouge smeared on her cheeks. They were delighted for a brief moment that childlike frolicksomeness had returned to their house.

  Alice's Halloween face was drawn and tearful. She slumped with a cup of sugary coffee at the kitchen table after Johnnie Mae left to join a group of schoolmates. Though it was soon clear that trick-or-treaters were avoiding the Bynum house, Willie walked up and down peeping out of the windows, on the lookout in case a costumed child stumbled up the steps to ask for candy. The Bynum house was still too full of Clara to tempt the uneasy sanctity of Halloween. Poking fun at spirits didn't seem safe.

  The Bynums were probably the only people in George-

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  town not promenading down M Street. Maybe in some other

  cities or towns Halloween was a holiday tor children only, hut Georgetowner> of every age costumed themselves and walked up and down the M Street thoroughfare. A great many folks, big and little, smeared charcoal or talcum on their faces and stuck their heads through holes in old sheets. Lexter Gorson stood on his regular shoe-shine corner with the battered silk top hat he wore every year. Across his mouth he wore a red bandanna.

  The rich people's Halloween was a night of fancy parties and carriages drawn by horses with plumed headdresses. The Chesters up on R Street were throwing their usual big Colo-nial costume ball and had hired Snow Simpson to wear a white powdered wig, a silk jacket, and knickers o{ robin's-egg blue. He stood on the portico bowing the guests through the house's grand columns and into the vestibule. Knots of costumed colored children paused on the south side of the street and peeped through the doors and windows to glimpse the guests and the massive gold-and-crystal chandelier in the foyer. Johnnie Mae and the others in her group laughed at Snow from across the street on their way to the cemetery. Duck Dudley lobbed crab apples at Snow's wig. The first crab apple hit the center of the oak door, but the second caught Snow upside his head and knocked the powdered wig side-ways. The group ran off laughing at Snow trying to settle the thing back on his coal-black head.

  It had been the tradition from as far back as any of the families could remember that on Halloween the costumed children trooped up to the Mount Zion cemetery to tempt fate by running and hollering like banshees among the oldest headstones. Johnnie Mae went along with the group and was fully

  in the cemetery before she remembered that Clara was now among the ones six feet under—the bone folks—the inhabitants o{ the boneyard. Clara was one of the very ones the Halloween children were defying and fooling with their oversize old-lady hats. Mabel Dockery had stuffed one of her mama's old housedresses with pillows in the front and was running and dodging behind the bigger headstones. She had put talcum powder on her face in a haphazard fashion and it picked up the scant light from the torches that an earlier group had stuck in the ground.

  Press Parker stood with his back against a tree that had been propping people up since before the Flood. He watched as he did on every Halloween to see that none of the headstones got toppled in all the chasing and hoo-rawing. He kept an eye on the torches and the little ones so that no one crawled into a crypt playing hide-and-seek and got suffocated like the little Henderson baby had back in '09.

  Press was sure the bones didn't mind some company one day a year. They hadn't heard the sound of children's feet slapping on top of their heads since last Halloween. Most of the children came to the cemetery with their folks on Decoration Day, when the adults came to clean up the graves and slap backs and tip hats. But on Decoration Day, the children were shushed up and made to behave and set to raking and pulling weeds or carrying water. And even if a few children had been here accompanying a new dead person — like Johnnie Mae Bynum — they'd have been walking solemnly with lead in their heels. This would make a heartbreaking, thudding sound on top of the bones' heads. A sound to make the dead sad and make them try to tote up the number of eyes they'd made to

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  cry. No, most of the hones surely welcomed the children's lighthearted steps on Halloween. A happy sound to remember until the next year.

  The grounds of the Mount Zion cemetery were snaggled with small, square, granite headstones. Some had winged baby angels growing out o( their corners, the bent-headed angels looking lovingly down toward names: mother annie diggs;

  BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER, BESSIE DINAH TINSDALE;

  hiram Henderson. Plenty of the stones had gone lopsided in the mushy earth.

  IN MEMORIAM ELLA

  Beloved daughter of Henry and Mary ]. Logan.

  DIED JULY I, 1877 AGED 32 YEARS

  She resteth well

  No tear is on her cheek

  No sighs her bosom swells.

  Ornamental iron fences squared off the plots of wealthy bones, white and black. Some folks laid down in the easternmost portion of the cemetery had been there since the Female Union Band collected funds in the last century to purchase plots guaranteeing a resting place for every freed black in Georgetown. Here most of the markers were wormholed wood or a soft, mealy type oi stone. Still, the ground around them was neatly swept and weeded every Decoration Day.

  Methodist burying ground, slave owners and their bonds-persons lay. They'd been buried so long that they were now jumbled together in the shifting earth.

  Jabboe Coleman, dressed like a pirate, popped his head out from behind a granite obelisk that was chiseled with the name of a family whom no one could now recall. The raging carpet o{ English ivy had not yet died back from its summer onslaught and it tangled the children's legs, adding to the fun of "Look out! The haints have got you!"

  Press Parker was startled when he saw Johnnie Mae Bynum cavorting with the rest wearing an outfit done to look like a little baby's. She was not the only one with that type of costume. A few others wore christening gowns and baby bonnets, too, and on them the incongruity caused the expected laughter. But Johnnie Mae's costume looked too much like the gown they'd laid out Clara in. As she lay in her coffin, Clara's small face had recovered somewhat. It was finally warm brown and soft like jelly, with all the swollen, bruised bigness sunk away. Press had studied her as he polished the casket. There was no expression on her face. If, as some believe, the sins of the dead rise to the surface and leave an imprint on the visage documenting travails and opprobrium, then Clara Bynum died without a sin on her soul and no sorrow or its memory. There was neither a horrified expression nor a puzzled one.

  The purpose of death changed then in Press's mind. He realized only when he stopped thinking it that he had long considered death to be God's punishment for transgressions. Even the welcome deaths o{ the grans and granpops were punishments in not coming till they'd suffered just as much as they were due on account. And to the saintly ones who suffered

  grave, disfiguring illnesses and bravely told God they'd suffer on, death came when it came and cut short their penance. Always, death was God's weapon to say, "That's enough. This much and no more." But Clara's de
ath shook Press's certainty, and he questioned the purpose of death. Because surely it was not Clara's time. This was not on the books. There was no account. This was a false tally. This was cheating. This was Father God caught cheating. And if Father God had cheated Clara— who couldn't have knowingly sinned against him—or if he had just got tired of caring about her, how much more tired would he be of tending to Press? And it's a shaky thing to wonder if Father God has got tired of you. Because who is to know when the time has come when Father God is through with worrying about you and calls you home?

  No, Father God had had his thumb on the scale this time. He had not given what was due. He had made Clara's parents believe they were getting a full measure and had shorted them instead. He had shorted the girl because life is a long thing, or ought to be, a billowing thing, a thing more than what Father God had given Clara. Clara! Clara! Clara! Exhorting in threes: one, then one higher, then come back — the wail by threes. He knew it. Had mourned his mama, his pap, sisters, brothers, half-sisters, lover women, little babies, Aunt Clea, Bo Ronv ney, and others. By the threes — one, then one higher, then come back: unh, uh, unh.

  Press Parker thought that Johnnie Mae Bynum might not even be thinking that her baby sister was buried here at Mount Zion. Maybe it wasn't at all clear to the youngsters whooping and chasing around in the graveyard that this was where the bones lived all of the year. This was their home.

  Johnnie Mae had not been up here since the day they

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  buried Clara, and she couldn't be expected to remember much about that day. But maybe, Press thought, he ought to caution her. Her dead was too recently here for her to be chancing things by playing about in this place. Why in the world hadn't her people kept her at home tonight? Some people didn't have the sense God gave a rabbit.

  Now he was confused. While ago he'd thought it was all right for the children to dance about playing tag among the headstones. Now, seeing Johnnie Mae, he wasn't so sure. What did the bones want? Did they want the playful company or did they want to lie in peace?

  "Johnnie Mae, Johnnie Mae Bynum, go home now. Leave the boneyard to the bones. Go home now."

  Johnnie Mae broke from the gaggle of costumed boys and girls and stared into Press Parker's face. Surely she had seen him since the day of the drowning, but seeing him now she couldn't recollect a meeting since that day.

  Dry bones going to gather in the morning Come together and rise and shine Dry bones going to gather in the valley And some of those bones are mine.

  Some of those bones are my mothers bones Come together to rise and shine Some of those bones are my fathers bones And some of those bones are mine.

  Had Press Parker actually spoken to her? Johnnie Mae wasn't sure. He no longer looked at her but at the other groups of children. He shifted a stick around in his mouth and gave no indication that he'd said anything to anyone. Johnnie

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  Mae lett Mount Zion at the tail end of a group that was led by a boy with a hat made of cornstalks.

  After ,i tew block-, she broke away from the group and walked to Pearl Miller's house. She approached the Millers' house on Dent Place warily, as it she expected haint- to fly out from under the eaves or jump out trom behind a bush. There appeared to be no lamps lit. A big tree on the sidewalk hid Johnnie Mae from the view oi anybody in the house, in case Pearl and her mother were in there peeping out. Johnnie Mae craned her neck from behind the tree to see if a sliver of light could be seen beneath the drawn shades. There wasn't even a jack-o'-lantern on the porch to throw a creepy shadow. She stood there a full fifteen minutes staring at the dark house, the nippv night air creeping up her gown.

  What about the swimming pool? Aunt Ina had said that the white people's swimming pool was built on hallowed ground. She said that it had been the very site oi the old Presbyterian gravevard. She said that men who worked there — who'd turned over the ground — had found pieces oi jewelry and gold teeth and such. And one oi the men who had sold a gold crown he'd found had perished in a fire. Surely that's where some haints were. Why, Pearl Miller was probably up there dancing with other haints right this minute!

  The acorn moon was high and round in the sky and illuminated the streets as Johnnie Mae headed toward the pool. Red cobblestones on Volta Place seemed silver-edged in the moonlight. Johnnie Mae walked past several groups of costumed children without greeting them, making her way briskly to the fence surrounding the pool. The aqua water had been drained and there was only the light blue tiled pit where the beautiful water had been. Leaves and debris lav flattened on

  the bottom of the pit. The shade trees leaned conspiratorially in toward the playground, blocking a clear view from the sidewalk. Johnnie Mae pressed her face against the diamond-shape holes in the fence, searching the area for the sight of Pearl Miller or perhaps Clara or some other haint cavorting. But the pool and surrounding playground were dead still.

  Disappointed that she'd not been able to see any real ghosts roaming the streets, Johnnie Mae decided to walk back to Pearl Miller's house before going home. Maybe Pearl and her ghost confederates had been out when she had stopped by the first time? What about her mama? Was Pearl's mama a haint too? Johnnie Mae swung back toward Dent Place, ruminating on the question of whether ghosts had mamas and papas and whether they needed them and whether Clara now had a ghost family. The moon was still high and bright in the sky.

  At the corner of 34th and Dent Johnnie Mae caught sight of a figure moving quickly toward her. The figure was hunched over but didn't seem to have on a costume. As the figure approached, Johnnie Mae's heart almost stopped in her chest. It was Pearl Miller moving furtively down the street! This looked like the certain proof that Pearl was a haint. Here she was skulking down the street like a thief on Halloween night.

  As Pearl got closer, Johnnie Mae could hear that she was sniffling and that there was another sound — a mewling — that was coming from her vicinity.

  "What you got there?" Johnnie Mae asked, trying to peer at the thing Pearl was hugging to her chest.

  Pearl started at the sight of Johnnie Mae and drew her bundle under the thin coat she wore. "A kitty," she said in a voice that had little more gumption to it than the pitiful noises the thing she held next to her was making. The only

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  voting person out on Halloween night without a costume, Pearl had a thumb-suck demeanor, seemed to have shrunk trom her usual size, and was making small squealing noises like a piglet. As soon as Johnnie Mae saw the crying kitten under Pearl's coat, she also caught a whiff of it. The smell was burned fur and burned flesh.

  u What happened to it?"

  Pearl Miller had never become entirely certain that Johnnie Mae Bynum meant her no harm. Sure, she had come to her rescue in the school yard. But she seemed motivated more by curiosity than a desire to be friendly. Pearl had a feeling that Johnnie Mae was studying her, trying to gain some knowledge ot her. She wasn't sure that Johnnie Mae didn't have some cruel prank up her sleeve and was only waiting for a chance to spring it.

  "Some children set it afire in the alley. It's burnt all up," Pearl wailed out loud. Johnnie Mae thought how different this wailing was from the usual sniffling that Pearl did in school.

  "Why they do that?"

  "They was just being mean." Though she didn't holler out loud, Pearl Miller was mad as a wet hen. Johnnie Mae could tell by the way her face was torn up that anger and indignation were liable to erupt from her like lava.

  "Is it gonna die?" Johnnie Mae asked Pearl outright. The wailing intensified and Pearl backed away from Johnnie Mae as if she thought the girl intended to finish the kitten off. "You ought to take it to Miss Ella Bromsen on Volta Place, next door to my aunt Ina. She knows about fixing up burns. She fixed my mama's arm when it got burned. ,,

  Pearl weighed Johnnie Mae's advice for a moment, then followed behind her to Miss Ella's. Johnnie Mae led Pearl and

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  the kitten, who continued mewing loudly and desperately, through all of her shortcuts, toward Volta Place. She shaved off some of the distance by cutting through backyards and skirting behind trees. Both girls scratched their ankles on bushes that grew along the footpath behind the Piggly-Wiggly store.

  As usual Ina Carson was seated at the front window of her parlor looking out at passersby. Halloween night was particularly interesting and she had been handing out candy treats to every group of children that stopped by. She saw Johnnie Mae and Pearl coming down the block and thought to get up and get them the last of the cookies and two apples. But as they approached, Ina could tell that something was wrong and that they were not heading to her door. The girls walked straight past her door and went up on Miss Ella Bromsen's front porch.

  Since Miss Ella Bromsen was generally thought to be a witch or a root woman or at the very least unusual, the front windows of her house had earlier been smeared with soap by roving tricksters. Johnnie Mae shook a bit and thought to call out for Aunt Ina at exactly the moment that both Aunt Ina's and Miss Ella Bromsen's front doors opened.

  "What all is the matter, girl?" Aunt Ina asked, looking like an owl peeping out of her door, the size of her eyes magnified by her spectacles. In contrast, Miss Ella seemed calm. And her eyes, shaped more oval than round, had a dreamy quality.