Linden Hills

by Gloria Naylor

  The sun was just beginning to set when Willie and Lester turned into Fourth Cresent Drive. They walked up the flagstone path at the rear of the Parkers’ home and Willie stumbled on his loosened shoelace in the fading light. He bent down to retie it. “Ya know, we’ve been going in through back doors all day. I thought Martin Luther King did something about all that.”

  “Yeah, but this guy really apologized over the phone. Said he was having a whole house full of people because of his wife’s funeral tomorrow. He’s not out to insult us like that dishrag, Xavier, was.”

  “Aw, he wasn’t so bad. But I can’t see why he hangs with that other guy—Christ, was he out to lunch.”

  “Yup, and vultures of a feather nest together. Donnell was just trying to hide his slimy wings.”

  “He gave us fifty eagles though.”

  Lester sucked his teeth. “Vulture money.”

  “It still spends.”

  “Anyway, I’d rather go around back here. I don’t want to chance running into my mom ’cause she’s probably in there with the rest, giving her respects to the dead and all.”

  “I’ve always wondered why folks say that. You can’t really give the dead nothing. It’s more like giving your respects to the living. Ya know what I mean?”

  “It’s more like a whole lot of nonsense as far as I’m concerned.” Lester rang the bell. “This poor guy probably wants to be alone tonight instead of having a crowd of losers in here, eating up his food and trying to figure out how much he got from her life insurance.”

  The door surprised them when it opened, because they didn’t hear the tumbler click. The hinges moved with a whisper and the presence of the short, balding man holding the knob seemed to do the same. “Ah, I’m glad you could come, Lester.” His eyes were huge and distorted through the rimless bifocals.

  “Sure thing, Mr. Parker. I brought along my friend, Willie Mason, to help.”

  “Of course, of course. Please, come in. I’m sorry you had to use the back way, you could have come in through the front because no one’s arrived yet. And the caterers have set up and left long ago.”

  “Naw, it’s all right. We understand.”

  “No, I didn’t want you to think that I was sneaking you into the house or something.” His eyes blinked rapidly as he spoke in a fierce whisper. “There’s nothing shameful in what I’m doing, nothing at all.”

  They looked at each other over his head and frowned.

  “Why would we think that, Mr. Parker?” Lester glanced uneasily around the huge, barn-shaped kitchen.

  “No, not you. But some people wouldn’t understand. And they just didn’t know Lycentia. Mrs. Parker would want me to have you here. She’d want me to do what I’m doing tonight. And she’d know that I couldn’t without your help.”

  Willie cleared his throat. “But what exactly do you want us to do?”

  “Of course. I haven’t said, have I?” Parker’s false teeth gleamed in the dark room. “Well, come, come.” He beckoned them out of the kitchen.

  The only thing Willie knew was that Lester had said something about eight dollars an hour and they had been so excited, they hadn’t thought about what it could be. But maybe they should have.

  They followed Parker up a set of double stairs that led from the kitchen to the second floor. And since the house was a shrunken replica of a Victorian mansion, there was a second set of steps leading up from the front hall. Its curved mahogany banister continued along the open hallway, turning it into a balcony that overlooked the living and dining rooms. The tread of Parker’s tiny feet was muffled by the thick carpeting that covered the upstairs hallway. He would tip along in the dark for two feet or so and then stop to look back over his shoulder. “Come, come.” He finally came to an oak door at the end of the hall and paused to smile at them again before turning the handle.

  Willie quickly gauged the size and age of the man. If he tried something weird, he and Lester could take this guy on with no trouble.

  Parker turned on the lights in the room. All of the furniture had been pushed to the middle of the floor and covered with sheets. The rest of the room was completely bare except for a rolled-up carpet, a pile of newspapers, and a steam machine in the corner. The huge irises turned to them triumphantly. “Now you see what I mean?”

  They didn’t, but felt they should nod. Maybe his wife’s death had sent him over the edge or something.

  “The paperhangers, you know. With them coming tomorrow, there won’t be enough time to strip the walls and redo them before I return from the burial. They can put the new furniture in place but there’s just no time for steaming off the old paper, so I rented the steamer myself.” He began to tremble as a sense of urgency crept into his voice. “But the wake’s tonight and it must be off tonight. And I’m offering you almost as much as it would cost me if they did it. Sure, they’re twenty dollars an hour but you aren’t unionized or anything, are you?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Well, I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to take advantage of you. If you insist on more, I can arrange that, too.”

  “No. You want us to steam off the wallpaper, right?” Lester spoke slowly as you would to a child.

  “Of course, of course.” Parker nodded his head impatiently. “But do it quietly because I’ll have guests soon.”

  Willie wondered how noisy he thought steam could be.

  “And I don’t see why I should have to explain, do you?”

  They shook their heads again.

  “I have a perfect right to redo her room.”

  “Oh, this is your wife’s room?” Willie said.

  “Of course!” Parker frowned at him. “And they’ll probably wonder just like you why I’m doing it now.”

  Willie mumbled quickly that he wasn’t wondering at all.

  “But they didn’t know Lycentia like I did. She would want it just this way. She would want me to walk back into this house with a new bedroom. She was a very determined woman, you know, with her own ideas about everything. And she often said, ‘Chester, if I should be the shortest-liver, I don’t want you to be moaning and groaning like a fool. Life marches on’—that was Lycentia tooth and nail—‘I want you to start new, do you hear me?’” Parker’s shrunken face almost glowed as he surveyed the room. “And so I’m doing what she wants, what she told me to do.” He turned back to Lester and Willie sharply. “And I don’t see anything to be ashamed of—do you?”

  They agreed that they didn’t either. He should be proud that he had respected his wife’s wishes this promptly.

  “Of course, of course. I’m very proud. And I’m going to that service tomorrow with a clear conscience. But I’m not up to explaining all that to other people right now, so just be quiet, huh, fellas?”

  When he left the room, shutting the door firmly but gently behind him, they turned to each other and grinned broadly. Then Lester tiptoed cartoon-fashion to the covered furniture and held the sheet in his hand. “I’ll give you even odds that it’s already under there.”

  “You think I got this old, this healthy, by taking sucker bets like that? Man, I know it’s under there, but two to one it’s psychedelic pink with vinyl cushions ’cause she’s probably under thirty.”

  “Naw, that wouldn’t be his style of under thirty. It’s brass with purple velvet cushions.”

  “Okay, you’re on.”

  He yanked the dustcover off the bedroom furniture, and the vanity set they were betting on was chrome with a white leather seat.

  “Everybody loses.” Willie laughed.

  “Except old Parker.” Lester covered up the furniture. “I wonder if he’ll have the minister marry them right after the funeral. No point in wasting all those flowers.”

  “Of course, of course,” Willie whispered hoarsely, “because Lycentia would have wanted it just that way.”

  Lester crouched and tiptoed over to plug in the steamer. “She said, ‘Chester, don’t throw your money away. Have it all do
ne in one day and get a discount from that preacher, do you hear me?’”

  “Well, he sure got a discount from us.” Willie ran his hands along the peeled and aging paper. “This mess will take half the night. No wonder you said he was so eager to run you down today. A lousy eight dollars an hour between the two of us.”

  “What do you mean between the two of us? Shouldn’t it be eight dollars for each of us?”

  “Hey, you’re right.” Willie snapped his fingers. “And that’ll still be a lot less than he was gonna pay those paperhangers. But I don’t think he’s gonna buy that.”

  “He’ll have to,” Lester said, “if we only do half this room and then call him back up here. ‘You see, Mr. Parker, my buddy and I were just having a little dispute here. I thought you told me eight dollars an hour for each of us, and now he’s saying you said eight dollars between us. And I know that couldn’t be what Lycentia told you she wanted since she wanted this here room done before the engines warmed up on her hearse, now could it, sir?’”

  Willie smiled. “I see you don’t live in Linden Hills for nothing, Shit.”

  “Hey, look, the name of the game is break or be broken when dealing with these folks.” The head of the steamer hit the wall with a dull hiss. “Now, get ready to scrape.”

  By the time they had finished stripping half of the room, the downstairs foyer was full of neighbors. People were moving slowly between the living room and dining room, forming quiet clusters of conversations that kept breaking and shifting as someone left to greet a newcomer, refill a coffee cup, or help themselves to the cold buffet that was laid out on a sideboard in the dining room. Willie and Lester walked along the banister in the darkened upstairs hallway, trying to locate Parker in the crowd. Lester recognized quite a few faces from First Crescent Drive, and his mother was sitting in the corner of the living room with a plate balanced on her lap. They finally spotted Parker seated quietly in the dining room at the head of a large oval table with a glass top and a centerpiece of white tea roses. The twelve chairs around the table were continually changing occupants. As soon as someone finished eating, another person would take his place, carrying one of the clear glass plates, which were stacked on the sideboard. From the second floor, the brass chandelier reflected the changing faces bent over the tabletop as clearly as a mirror.

  Lester tried to get Parker’s attention without calling out, but he sat with his eyes lowered to his lap and his plate untouched. Mrs. Donnell sat beside him and occasionally she would lean over, pat his arm, and urge him to eat.

  “Oh Christ, how are we gonna get him up here?” Lester whispered. “He’s down there playing the grieving husband.”

  “He won’t have to play soon when we tell him we ain’t finishing that room. Maybe we could throw a note down into his lap or something.”

  “Well, let’s just wait a minute. Maybe his neck will get tired and he’ll change expressions. And when he moves into one of those anguished appeals to heaven and rolls his eyes up here, we’ll signal him.”

  But for the next five minutes all they could see was the light bouncing off Parker’s smooth bald spot and occasional reflections from his rimless bifocals in the glass tabletop. Then a bloated hum started at the other end of the table and rose above the quiet murmurs in the rest of the room before a woman’s sharp voice cut into it.

  “Bob, this isn’t the time or place to bring that up.”

  “Well, I still think it’s a damned shame,” the man beside her almost shouted.

  Parker’s head swung up toward that end of the table. “What? What’s a shame?” His whisper, carrying the import of the bereaved, silenced the others. “Now don’t be too hasty, Bob. Believe me, Lycentia would have wanted it that way, she was always saying—”

  “Lycentia was the first one to bring it to my attention, Chester—God rest her soul—and she was dead set against it.”

  Parker began to tremble, little rings of moisture forming on his bifocals. “Why, that’s not possible. She—”

  “Chester, just last month she told me she had all the petitions in to the city commissioner and she was sure the council was going to impose that zoning restriction. Now I get the news today that they overturned our petition. And I think it’s a damned shame, that’s all. Because all that aggravation is probably what killed her—excuse me, Chester—this may not be the time for all this. But with all that woman’s hard work, the city’s still going to erect that housing project.”

  Forks clattered all around the table. “What?”

  “There has to be some mistake.”

  “Mistake, my eye. Where’s Bryan?” Bob twisted around in his chair toward the dining room door. “Bryan, you’re the councilman for this district, so I know you’ve got the inside dope. Didn’t the planning commission use our petitions for toilet paper last week?”

  “Now, Bob, it wasn’t quite like that.” The champagne-colored man cleared his throat. “There was a lot of time spent considering all the issues involved. And certainly the feelings of this community were given quite a bit of weight. Why, I personally made a vehement appeal and used every ounce of influence I could to be sure that your views were given a fair hearing—just as I did for the new sewage plant and the renovation of those vacant lots across—”

  “Cut the mumbo-jumbo,” Bob interrupted him. “We heard all that when we elected you. All we want to know is did they or did they not approve of building those low-income projects.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “See!” Bob turned back to the table.

  “But by a small margin.” Bryan tried to raise his voice above the scattered outbursts. “Bob, you and the others have got to understand that there has been a lot of pressure on the mayor to do something about the living conditions in Putney Wayne. People are over there in tenements that should have been condemned years ago. There’s no heat in most of them and at times no water. The health department reported three cases of diphtheria within six months—and it’s no wonder, the way they live. And one of the kids who caught it last year died recently, so your petition was just bad timing, that’s all. It’s not my fault. People were starting to talk epidemic.”

  “Well, you can’t help but feel sorry for those mothers,” one of the women said, “but the city should just renovate the housing that’s already there. God knows they milk us enough as it is for services we’ll never use—all that welfare and food stamps. You know what it costs just to print up those stamps—it’s scandalous.”

  “It’s not that simple, Mildred. The city has to apply for federal funds to undertake any building plans and there are regulations about size and number of units. It’s really less expensive for you if they build an entirely new complex.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Bob said. “And then they’ve got to fill those units and that means you’re doubling the size of Putney Wayne in half the space. Then we get a whole army of them right across Wayne Avenue. Practically in our backyards. So you can kiss your safe streets good-bye.”

  “And just about everything else in our homes. You fill up the neighborhood with people like that, the next thing you know your TV’s and stereos are walking out the door.”

  “Well, crime is everywhere. If worse comes to worst, you can always get extra security for your homes. But what about our children? The local schools are overcrowded as it is. We’ve managed to maintain a pretty decent standard of education so far, but this is just going to swing the ratio too far over. And I refuse to have my child suffer because the teachers will be overloaded with a lot of remedial cases and troublemakers.”

  “Thank God I don’t have to send my Ernestine to these public schools.”

  “Well, if the council gets their way, we’ll all have to take our children out of these schools—for their own sakes.”

  “Yeah, or the next thing you know, they’ll be coming home with drugs and knives.”

  Upstairs, Lester touched Willie’s arm. “Just listen to them,” he whispered. “Any minute, someone’s gonna say,
‘The next thing you know, they’ll be marrying your daughter.’ Let’s get out of here before I throw up.”

  Willie motioned for Lester to wait. He hadn’t really been listening so much as looking down into the faces that were looking up through the clear dinner plates from the glass-topped table. And something was haunting him about the rhythm of the knives and forks that cut into the slices of roast beef. Click-scrape. Click-scrape. Click-scrape. Click-scrape. Now, where had he heard that before? Click-scrape. Click-scrape … These days-of dis-inheritance. Yeah, that was it. These days of disinheritance, we feast on human heads … The plates never seemed empty of the brown and bloody meat. The utensils worked their way from center to edge, exposing an ear here, a chin there. Parts of a mouth, a set of almond-shaped eyes.

  The church bells clap one night in the week.

  But that’s all done. It is what used to be,

  As they used to lie in the grass, in the heat,

  Men on green buds and women half of sun.

  The words are written, though not yet said.

  Willie knew it was just an illusion. Those plates were actually being emptied, so the clicking and scraping couldn’t go on forever. They had to stop in spite of what he was seeing. They had to put those forks down.

  But the voices were beginning to circle the dining room in a fevered crescendo accompanied by a steady metallic tempo from the table.

  “I hope they don’t expect us to take this lying down.”

  “What is this—South Africa? As decent citizens and taxpayers, we should have something to say about what these officials do.”

  “Does Nedeed know about this?”

  “Bryan, what should be our next move?” Bob asked. “We can’t let it end here.”

  “Well, your community isn’t the only one that’s upset about the proposal. I was talking to Phil Mackelberg, the councilman who represents Spring Vale, and he’d just met with an ad hoc committee from the Wayne County Citizens Alliance, and it seems that they’ve been working to place this proposal on a referendum in the next election. It could be stopped in November.” He cleared his throat nervously and glanced around the room. “But it would mean that Linden Hills would have to form a coalition with Spring Vale and the Wayne County Citizens Alliance in order to get enough support to defeat it.”