by Daniel Black
“Do what you need to do,” Legion said. “Just help us save Lazarus.”
She nodded slowly and smiled, watching, in her mind’s eye, the events transpire.
Chapter 15
A little before 9:00 A.M., Elisha loitered across the street from the downtown office of the Division of Family and Children Services. He remembered the building, having been shuffled to and through it years ago, and now those memories resurrected hurt and embarrassment he thought he’d forgotten. It was the way they stared at him that pierced his heart, those whom the state had said would love and protect him if no one else would. One social worker once whispered, “Why don’t these kids take a bath! No wonder no one wants them!” Her voice echoed in his head for years: No wonder no one wants them! No wonder no one wants them! At some point, the refrain became personal: No wonder no one wants him! And Elisha promised never to trust any of them again.
Yet here he was, hoping the nice lady could help him—if she remembered him at all. He’d put on his best outfit, a blue-and-white-striped Macy’s shirt with a pair of dark jeans that made him look collegiate, he believed. At least he didn’t look homeless, and that had been the point.
Like single-file ants, workers streamed into the building at nine and scattered to various offices, processing paper and making phone calls about children they didn’t know and probably care much about. Elisha sighed. He didn’t want to be negative, but in all the years he’d been moved from one home to another, the nice lady’s embracing arms had been the only he’d known. Without hesitation she’d touched him, grazing his shoulders gently like a proud mother celebrating her son’s growth. He remembered the touch because it soothed him like a healing balm. He rubbed his own shoulders thereafter, vicariously touching her hands as she touched him, and he promised one day to thank her. But for what? You can’t thank someone for touching you, can you?
Harriet DeQueen. That was the woman’s name; that’s whom he was looking for. Elisha crossed the street and entered the building.
At the security desk, a friendly old, fat man in a much-too-tight blue uniform looked up and said, “May I help you, son?”
“Yessir. I’m looking for Miss Harriet DeQueen.”
He nodded. “Do you have an appointment?”
Elisha lied. “Yessir.”
“Then go right up. She’s on the second floor, room two twelve.”
“Thank you.”
Anxiety led the way. What if she didn’t remember? What if she was offended he’d interrupted her at work? What if she called security to escort him out? Every what-if conceivable entered his mind as he rode the elevator up two flights. Before her door, which was slightly cracked, he paused and exhaled enough doubt to knock.
“Come in.”
It was her. He knew the voice. He blinked moist eyes and proceeded.
“What can I do for you?” she asked before turning from the computer screen.
Elisha waited. If she didn’t remember him, there was no point. Now he wished he’d thought this through more thoroughly.
His silence compelled her to swivel and stare. Immediately her hands clasped her mouth and she murmured, “Dear Jesus.”
Elisha smiled and said, “Hi. You remember me?”
Tears flowed before she could block them. Elisha chuckled a bit, relieved that his efforts were proving profitable.
Harriet stood and grabbed him without comment. She laid her head in the center of his chest and squeezed so hard Elisha could barely breathe. He hugged her, too, most of all for not forgetting him.
She stepped back and covered her mouth again. Finally, trembling with disbelief, she said, “I’ve thought of you so many times! Oh my God!”
“I’ve thought about you, too.”
“Sit down!” she practically screamed, pointing to a chair on the opposite side of her desk. “Tell me what you’re doing these days.”
“Well,” Elisha began, “not much. Just kind of hangin’ out.”
She knew what that meant. “Where are you staying?”
“With a friend. It’s cool.”
“Okay, okay.” She smiled the smile of sympathy. “Do you eat every day?”
“Yes, ma’am. Most days.”
She thought to ask other things, semi-intrusive things, but spared him any potential shame. She knew he was hungry even then. She saw starvation in his eyes. “Listen, baby. If you need anything, anything at all, just say so, okay?”
Elisha nodded. “Okay.” Then asked, “Did you ever see my mother again? After they took me away.”
Harriet’s lips pursed shut, her eyes cast to the floor. “Yes, I did. A few times. It wasn’t good, son. She never got it together. She tried so hard, but she just couldn’t beat it.” Harriet shrugged, hoping to lighten the weight of truth, then sighed, surrendering to the reality of it all.
Elisha appreciated that she’d not named the demon, that she’d refused to dignify it with a title and thus conjure its power. He knew the beast firsthand and never wanted to encounter it again, even in casual conversation. She extended her hand across the desk and Elisha took it, glad to have something to hold on to.
“She was a sweet woman, Elisha. She really was. And she tried so hard. She just didn’t make it.”
His frown revealed his ignorance.
“Oh my God, baby. You didn’t know?”
Elisha’s hand recoiled. He rubbed his forehead. The room began to spin.
“I’m so sorry! Oh God! I thought you knew!”
His lips trembled, but he didn’t wail. Harriet’s sympathy elicited fugitive tears, which raced down his cheeks.
Barely whispering, he managed to ask, “When did it happen?”
“Over two years ago. They found her in the house. She wasn’t supposed to be there. They’d condemned the place and boarded it up, but I guess she had nowhere else to go. Most of the houses on our street are abandoned now. I’m probably the last.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Early one morning I saw the police and an ambulance in front of the house, so I went over and asked what was wrong and they told me they’d found a body. I knew who it was. I didn’t have a way to contact you, or else I would’ve. I’m just so sorry.”
Elisha quivered. “Did they say the cause of death?”
She bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “No, they didn’t. They didn’t say anything. I asked, but since I wasn’t a relative, they wouldn’t tell me anything.”
A robin fluttered at the window. Elisha studied it until it flew away. “How can I find out where they buried her?”
Harriet recommended the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office. “They ought to know,” she said. An awkward pause lingered. Time refused to move. “Your mother told me once, that if anything happened to her, I should give you a package she left with me—if I ever saw you again. It’s at the house in a manila envelope. I don’t know what it is. Of course I didn’t open it. I’ll bring it tomorrow if you want to meet me here again.”
Tears saturated Elisha’s cheeks. He didn’t bother wiping them. “No, ma’am, not here, but I’ll come to your house this evening, if that’s okay.” His voice trembled.
“Sure. I’ll be home after five thirty.”
They stood simultaneously.
“I’m just so sorry. I thought you knew.”
“It’s okay. No need to apologize. You didn’t know. It would make sense to think I knew. I’m her only child.”
They hugged tighter than before. She rubbed the center of Elisha’s back, and that’s when he wailed. Deep, heavy sobs came and she encouraged him to let it go. Tears dropped from his chin onto her shoulders, and all the while she held him close. Soon his legs gave way, but Harriet held him up. “It’s all right, baby. You have every right to cry,” she said, and braced him as a soldier might a wounded comrade. He wept until snot poured. All he could think about was his mother in that dilapidated house—with no water, no lights, no food, no joy. As if she’d been a waste of human flesh
. They’d probably taken her out, what was left of her, and tossed her into some unmarked grave. If they’d done that much. They might’ve simply cremated her, Elisha considered, so she wouldn’t take up space in the earth. Did they even know her name?
He tried to stop crying, but he couldn’t. His heart unleashed everything it contained. He’d at least wanted to thank her for trying, for coming back most nights, for not selling him to that bad man, but now she was gone. Elisha’s hope for a glorious reunion with a mother who boasted of months or perhaps years of being clean was gone forever. His dream of standing with her, hand in hand, before the old house and laughing at a cruel past would never happen. He’d have to stand alone now. And as each piece of the dream dissolved, he cried for the obliteration of the only perfect life he’d ever imagined.
Moments later, panting heavily, Elisha sat again and apologized profusely.
“Please don’t, baby. I know it hurts. I buried a mother, too. Just as imperfect as yours. But I still loved her.” She licked her lips and nodded.
“I just didn’t know. I wish I had known.” Hurt burbled in his throat, but he restrained it.
She sat heavily and ransacked her purse for tissue, which he gladly received. “I remember you so well. You were the cutest little boy. I would see you standing at the window, looking out for something, and I knew your mother had left you. But as soon as I started to call the police, she’d return, and you’d jump like a little bear cub and I’d smile and pray that you two would be all right. I confronted her once, late at night, about you. Saw her coming up the street and met her on y’all’s porch. She was high. I could tell. I told her you were too precious to trade for crack. She shifted nervously and told me she wouldn’t never trade you for nothin’. I told her she already had, and she cussed me out. It was okay. I’d seen her type. But I also told her that if she left you again I would call the police and have them take you into state custody. She slammed the door in my face.”
Elisha blew his nose, grateful for a part of his story he didn’t know. He was also relieved somebody assumed his momma a human being.
“So the next time it happened, I did what I said. When the police came, they found you alone, sitting on a mattress in the back room. I was with them. I told them I was a social worker and wanted to make sure you were all right. And that’s what I did.”
Harriet offered Elisha a bottle of water, which he refused.
“I kept you until they placed you. You don’t remember that, do you?”
“No, ma’am.”
She nodded. “Well, I did. You were the sweetest little boy. I had a son about your age, so I couldn’t let nothing happen to you. It just felt right. Plus, I knew your mother wasn’t a bad woman. She just had a problem she couldn’t fix.”
Breathing and nodding awkwardly, Elisha kept listening. He hoped for something more to further soothe his aching heart.
“When my son died, I thought of you every day.”
Elisha’s eyes grew large. Now he felt selfish. “Oh, ma’am! I’m really sorry.”
Her eyes glazed, but she smiled. “It’s okay. He had sickle-cell. What can you do, you know?”
Elisha wanted to hug her again but couldn’t navigate around the bulky desk. Instead, he huffed and hung his head.
“He was sixteen. Smart as a whip!”
Elisha would’ve been her son had she asked, but she didn’t. “I remember him,” he said. “You gave me his shirt that day you found me. I always thought of him as a sort of big brother.”
“Yep. He loved you, too. Y’all used to play for hours in the basement. Then, one day, the state came and said they had a placement for you. I didn’t want you to go, but I knew I couldn’t handle two boys, so I didn’t fight it. I wasn’t supposed to have you in the first place, being a social worker myself and all, but I risked it because, like I said, you were just the sweetest little boy I’d ever seen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So come on by the house this evening and I’ll give you the package. You can stay for dinner if you like.”
“No, ma’am, no, ma’am,” Elisha snapped, then calmed. “I’ll just get the package and get out of your way.” He remembered now the real reason he’d come, but he decided to ask her about that later. For now, there was something else he had to do.
“Well, it’s just so good to see you, son,” she said, standing once more, “and to know you’re okay. It does my heart well. At least I have one son in the land of the living.”
Elisha thanked her for everything—taking him in, holding his mother accountable, keeping the package safe—and eased toward the door. He said, “I’ll see you this evening.” In the center of the doorway, he turned and proclaimed, “You’ll see your son again, Ms. Harriet. I know you will.”
He disappeared into the elevator. She prayed his prophecy would come true.
Chapter 16
Elisha rushed through the exit and onto the street. He crossed to the other side and took refuge beneath a small dogwood tree in a miniature park. There was no sound in the world. His head was vacant and hollow. He didn’t know what he felt or what to do. It was as if he’d been in hibernation for years as the world passed him by. He still meant to help Lazarus, to ask Ms. Harriet what she could do, but for the moment nothing mattered except where they’d buried his mother.
At the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office, a timid middle-aged white woman greeted him with a hushed whisper, so Elisha smiled and inquired softly about the resting place of dead bodies unaccounted for. The lady directed him to an investigator’s small cubicle and told him to have a seat while she located the man he needed. Within seconds, a tall gentleman stood before Elisha, right hand extended warmly, putting the anxious son at ease. He told Elisha that all bodies brought there were held until next of kin could be notified. Sometimes it took months. If no relatives surfaced, the body would be interred at the Lakeside Memorial Gardens cemetery in Palmetto, about thirty minutes south of the city. He didn’t know if a bus went there.
“Do you keep records of all the people you bury?”
“We try, but sometimes we can’t. In that case, we record them as John or Jane Doe. It’s the best we can do.”
“I understand.”
The man grimaced and took a chance: “Did you lose someone recently?”
Elisha nodded. “My mother. But it wasn’t recent. More like two years ago.”
“Are you her only known relative?”
“Yessir.”
“I see. I’m sorry. We would’ve kept her for a while, but certainly not that long. She’s definitely buried at Lakeside.”
Thirty minutes later, Elisha waited anxiously outside the College Park MARTA station. He would take the 180 bus to Fairburn/Palmetto and find his way from there. He spent his last few dollars on the ticket, so he didn’t know how he’d get back, but it didn’t matter. He had to go.
The trip was a blur. He could’ve been in a foreign country for all he knew. Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Kenya, Russia. All he saw was trees, cars, grass, and houses, but nothing special about them. In later years, he would remember everything as gray, as if God had canceled the beauty of the world.
At his stop, he descended the bus and looked around. Residents swarmed casually, but the cloud of confusion hovering in his head lingered. He was on a mission, and no one could deter him.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said to a friendly-looking old white man. “Have you heard of Lakeside Memorial Gardens?”
The man’s head teetered with pleasure. “Sure have! Anybody round here has. It’s the main cemetery. You goin’ there?”
Elisha nodded.
“Well, you ain’t far. Just two blocks that way”—he pointed west—“then make a left and go three or four more blocks and you there.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh sure! Anytime. And”—the man cleared his throat—“sorry for your loss.”
His sincerity warmed Elisha’s heart. Elisha wasn’t looking for sympat
hy, but he’d found it—in the face of a stranger. Perhaps he was one of those angels, Elisha thought, that the Bible speaks of people entertaining unaware.
He followed the man’s directions and entered Lakeside Gardens just before 2:00 P.M. A strong breeze welcomed him and promised a summer rain shower before the day was over. So many graves, so many names, so much regret, so little life. There was no tombstone with his mother’s name on it. He knew that. They didn’t even know her name. But maybe there were generic markers for the insignificant—big rocks or hand-written signs that read: “Here lies a woman,” or “Here lies the rejected,” or “This is the grave of a pauper.” So he set about reading tombstones and grave markers of the young and old. But there was nothing that marked his mother.
Far in the distance, he saw a backhoe digging a grave and a preacher standing off to the side. Thinking that perhaps they worked the grounds and might know something, he approached boldly, eager to ask where one might find a woman whom the world had thrown away.
“Excuse me, sir,” he whispered. “I’m looking for someone who works here?”
The preacher was a short, stocky middle-aged man with a warm, inviting smile. His black suit and white collar were stained with Georgia red clay, yet it didn’t dampen his countenance. His extended right hand trembled with joy.
“Samuel Proctor!” he shouted above the hum of the machine.
Elisha shook his hand but did not state his name.
“How can I help you?” He motioned for Elisha to follow him to the shade of a nearby oak tree.
Away from the noise, Elisha said, “I’m looking for my mother. She might’ve been buried here a couple of years ago.” He sighed heavily. “She was … um … black and poor.”
Reverend Proctor understood. He touched Elisha’s hand. “I’m so sorry, son. This kind of thing’s never easy.”
Tears came, but Elisha restrained them. “Thank you,” was all he said.