“Hey there, Miz Lowe. How you doin’? I don’t know if you know it or not, but I’m the new girl for the First Farm Insurance Company. Got me a name tag, a clipboard, and everything. Now, it say right here that you owes two dollars on that burial policy that you got, and I come to get it. It also say that you gots to pay or else… .”
“Or else what? Ain’t but one Jesus, and that’s the onliest one that I bow down to. Come on in and rest your feet. I got some iced tea made. Girl, you sho’ done got big! How’s your mama? I ain’t seen her in a month of Sundays.” Emma Jean knew it would be a mistake to follow Miz Lowe into that parlor and then sit herself on one of them dusty old Victorian chairs with the smelly velvet and threadbare seats, but she did it anyway. She had two dollars to collect, and if one glass of tea was the price to pay, so be it.
The tea was pretty good, and the glass did appear to be clean, so Emma Jean figured she could afford to relax a li’l. It was obvious Miz Lowe was in a pretty good mood, so maybe this wouldn’t be too tough after all. She sat back and took a deep breath. As the musty smell of mildew and dirt pervaded her senses, she realized relaxin’ might be a terrible mistake — best not to get too comfortable. It was really time to be gettin’ on her way. She was just about to speak up when she noticed that Miz Lowe had grabbed hold of that tattered li’l Bible of hers that was settin’ on the coffee table when they came in. Uh-oh, trouble!
“Miz Lowe, that tea was good, and it sho’ was nice of you to be inviting me in, but I got some stops to make ’fore I got to be at the office early this evenin’. If you would just pay that …”
“You know your Bible, girl?” Miz Lowe cut in. “I know you go to that new church they built ’cross Big Road, and I don’t claim to know what that young preacher is teachin’, but mine tell me you got to live by the word. You eat a piece of this here,” and she lifted her Bible accordingly, “and you ain’t never got to be hungry.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know, ma’am. My mama done raised us up with a righteous hand — she say all the time that our house been anointed with the power of the Lord. Yes, ma’am, my mama has done her Christian best by all of us, but today I ain’t come to talk about the Word. I come to — ”
“I know why you come. The Lord told me all about it last night, but I can’t be dealin’ with the ways of the world till I tend to my Father’s flock. Now us old sheep already know the road, but you young lambs, well, you still got to find your way. I got a message for you, girl, and I aims to deliver it.”
“But Miz Lowe — ”
“Hush up, girl. You ain’t supposed to be talkin’ when a saint is in the spirit. Now I was lookin’ here at Matthew,” and she turned to it in her Bible, “and there’s a story in here that you need to know somethin’ ’bout. You see there was this humble servant, sorta like you — you servin’ them white folks what got that insurance company, ain’t you? No, don’t answer that, ’cause I already know you are ’cause you told me that when I first opened the door. Anyway, like I was sayin’, this servant come to his master and beg him to forgive all his debts, to have just a li’l bit of mercy. Well, the master forgive him like he was supposed to, and the servant went on his way. Later, that servant come up on a fellow that owed him some money, and do you think he forgive him? No siree, he commence to tryin’ to beat the money out of him. He clean forgot what the other had done for him. You see how easy peoples forget what they ain’t want to remember? Well, folks heard ’bout it sho’ ’nough and went back and told that master that forgived him. Well, that master was mighty put out by how that servant was actin’ — shameful, just shameful. It’s a disgrace what some folks do in this world.
“Now, you take them two dollars I owe. I ain’t got it now — won’t have it till next week — but I ain’t worried ’cause you a good girl, and you remembers how I took care of y’all when your mama wasn’t able. It wasn’t easy for me, but I’m steady on my feet when I’m marchin’ for the Savior. I reckon that’s been ’bout ten years ago. I know you remembers it, ’cause I sho’ do. Like I said, I ain’t worried ’cause you a real good girl. Don’t let that Devil walk on side you, you hear? Cast him to the wind. You tell that company of yours you got to see me next week. Now go on, chile, and git. You got a job to do, and you won’t have it long if you don’t git to it. Oh, and tell your mama I said hey.”
• • •
Emma Jean figured this second stop ought to go a li’l bit easier. It was Miz Lucille’s house, and she always had plenty of money. Nobody had ever told her exactly what Miz Lucille did to get all that money, but where she got it from wasn’t none of Emma Jean’s business anyway. Miz Lucille owed a dollar on her account book, and she was gonna get that dollar or her name wasn’t Emma Jean James.
“Hey, Miz Lucille,” Emma Jean said when Miz Lucille came to the door. “Right pretty day today, ain’t it? I’m the new girl at the First Farm Insurance Company. This here is my first day. See here on the name tag — it say Agent. That’s me, Agent. I come by to get that dollar you owe, and then I’ll be on my way.”
“I can’ believe them crackers hired no colored! How you get a job like that?”
“I guess I’m just smart. Them white folks like clean coloreds, and the ones who’s smart, too. Yeah, I reckon that was what it was. I’s just smart. It’s a real good job, too, and I aim to keep it. My mama’s so proud — you ought to see her, she’s grinnin’ from ear to ear.”
“Well I got yo’ money, you ain’t need to be worryin’ ’bout that. I did a funeral Wednesday past and made two whole dollars. I put aside one ’cause I knew this bill was due.”
“I don’t understand, Miz Lucille. You workin’ for Joyners or somethin’? Ain’t nobody told me that.”
“No, I ain’t workin’ for no Joyners. What I mean is I’m a cryin’ woman. I just did that big funeral in Wilson, and I did the best job I ever done. Woman told me to cry good and loud but not to get snotty or slobberin’. Told me if I could get the whole place goin’ good, there would be somethin’ extra in it for me. Well, I knew what to do. I waited till they played ‘Amazin’ Grace.’ They dragged it good and slow, too. I waited a minute or two and then I let my tears just rip! Started out with a nice soft boohoo and worked my way to wailin’ in no time flat. In five minutes I had the place all tore up. Everybody was goin’ then. I looked over at that woman what asked me to come, and she seemed real pleased. I made two dollars for that one — usually I just get a dollar. Wasn’t you at Deacon Easeley’s buryin’?”
“Yes, ma’am, I was.”
“You don’t remember how I carried on? Took me near ’bout twenty minutes to get them folks going. I thought I’d run out of tears ’fore I got ’em going good. Just when I was ’bout ready to forget it, Old Lady Mae Rae jumped up and hollered. Once she went, all the others followed right after. I only got half a dollar for that one ’cause the Widow Easeley is my friend. Some of that sadness was for real.”
“You mean you get paid to put on like you’re grievin’ and moanin’ over the dead, just so other folks get all riled up?” Emma Jean couldn’t believe you could make a living like that.
“’Course I do. That’s too much work to be doin’ for free. You got to have you a little bit of spirit in a place if you want the dead to leave easy. Don’t nobody die round here ’less I got a say in things. Onliest time I ain’t got nothin’ — well, they offered, but I wouldn’t take it — was for that Thompson boy who died two years back. You remember him?”
“Yeah, I sho’ do.”
“Mama got tired of bein’ a mama and took that young’un and strung him up in the middle of a cottonfield. Just lynched him like he was a thievin’ Georgia nigger. My soul bled for that one there, and the tears that fell, well, I give ’em freely. Seem like my heart ’bout stopped at the buryin’. Sometimes I wonder ’bout folks like that, headin’ straight to hell in a handbasket. Here, you take this dollar, and be sure to post it to my name. Don’t put it next to nobody else’s. I worked hard for that dollar, and I don
’t want nobody else gettin’ the credit. I reckon I’ll see you next month unless you goin’ to Miz Patricia’s funeral. You goin’?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, have I got something special for her! Mister Allen probably gonna want to pay me a dollar and a half. I got this moan all worked out, sound like it’s comin’ straight from the gut. Then I shut my eyes and add this li’l rock that I got, swayin’ my body from side to side. The moan gonna start slow and easy, kinda soft-like, and then it’s gonna get louder and louder. I figure it won’t take but ten minutes to heat that whole place up. I didn’t care too much for Miz Patricia, but for a dollar and a half, I’ll cry for Satan. You go on, now. I’ll see you Wednesday at the buryin’.”
• • •
Mister Joseph’s house was nestled among a forest of briars and weeds. It was in town, but as she approached the two-room cabin, Emma Jean couldn’t help but feel like both Mister Joseph and his humble dwelling would be more at home in a Carolina tobacco field. Mister Joseph looked to be ’bout seventy, but nobody knew for sure ’cause Mister Joseph himself didn’t even know. He told everybody that his mama had died early on, and after she passed, didn’t nobody seem to take care of his age.
He had never married. Instead, he’d spent most of his life tendin’ and takin’ care of old Mister Frank, who had been gone now for over ten years. Mister Joseph was in front of the house now, steady tryin’ to piece together what was left of a fence that should have been torn down long ago. Today, instead of steppin’ high and movin’ lively, he looked like his tiredness was comin’ down hard on him.
Emma Jean looked down at her clipboard. Mister Joseph owed five whole dollars on his insurance. He was such a sweet man — a li’l strange, but that just made him interesting. Nita Bay always said that he might be one of them hants that rides around disturbin’ good folks, ’cause one time she seen him when mosquitoes was buzzin’ all around him. They had been pretty fierce that day ’cause it had been rainin’ for three days before. Well, while everybody was busy swattin’ and poppin’ the best they could, old Mister Joseph wasn’t put out in the least — and soon Nita Bay figured out why. Every time a mosquito would land on him and bite, it would just fall off dead. She seen it with her own eyes. Now, if Mister Joseph wasn’t some kind of hant, then how come he could kill them mosquitoes like that? But none of that was anything Emma Jean needed to know. Only thing she had to worry on was gettin’ that five dollars and puttin’ it in the book. Lord, she hoped he had it. This job wasn’t as easy as she thought it’d be.
“Hey, Mister Joseph,” Emma Jean yelled loud as she could.
“Hey yourself. What you doin’ round here?”
“I’m the new agent for the First Farm Insurance Company. See, I got a name tag and everything. I come by to get what you owe. It says here that it’s five dollars. I can just get that and then be on my way.”
“Five dollars, huh? Well, that ain’t no surprise. It’s been five dollars a month since I can remember. I took out a big policy — so big the white folks worried I wouldn’t be able to keep it up good, but I ain’t never missed payin’ up.”
“Mister Joseph,” Emma Jean said, “I don’t mean to be steppin’ ’cross no lines, but I can’t help but be a little curious. You ain’t got no family, Mister Joseph, and your policy is so big. You don’t need near that much for somebody to put you away decent. Fact is, you could be buried for free at the Friends of the Sinner Cemetery since you ain’t got no church home — ’least I don’t think you do. Who gonna get all this money? You ain’t got no outside kids don’t nobody know nothin’ ’bout, do you? I mean, like I said, I don’t want to be steppin’ in your stuff, especially since you elder and all. But you a nice man, Mister Joseph, a right nice man. I just don’t want you sufferin’ no hardship on account of this money — this five whole dollars every month! That’s a lot of money. ’Course the First Farm Insurance Company would be ’bout ready to give me the boot if they heard this here, but they ain’t got to know. I sho’ hate to see you spend that money if you don’t got to.”
“I’m leavin that money to Ebenezer Baptist Church. They ain’t know it yet, but they will when the time come.”
“You a member there, Mister Joseph? I been to that church, and I don’t recollect ever seeing you.”
“I ain’t no member, that’s true. I ain’t a member nowhere. I’m leavin’ that money on account of Bishop Tucker what used to be the pastor there. When my mama died, I ain’t had no one. I wasn’t more than six summers in age, I figure, but ’course I can’t be too sure. Well, when my mama ceased, I couldn’t think of nothin’ else to do, so I run out the house and went and hid in a ditch over yonder. I stayed there and prayed for God to bring my mama back. Old Bishop must’ve followed my footsteps there, though at the time he told me Jesus led him straight to me. He was a good man, too — real good. When I raised up to be a li’l older, he tried to get me to join his church. Wanted to baptize me proper and point me in the direction I needed to go, but I wouldn’t let him.”
“How come, Mister Joseph? How come you ain’t let him?”
“’Cause at that time I just ain’t had nothin’ for no religion. Never did forgive God for not hearin’ my prayers ’bout my mama all them years back. It’s too late to get with it now ’cause I ain’t got no faith or no experience. I ain’t sung them songs, I ain’t prayed them prayers, and I ain’t read one word in that Good Book. When I did think ’bout joinin’ twenty years back or so, old Mister Frank told me there wasn’t nothin’ to all that religious stuff ’cept the ruination of some good livin’ here on Earth. I figured if there was a Heaven, it ought to be a place people wanted to go, but I reckon I won’t ever know. I think my time is almost up here — dreamed of that white horse, so I know it won’t be too long.
“I don’t remember much ’bout my mama, but I know she was a faithful woman. But that old Mister Frank, he didn’t go too strong for none of that there. Wouldn’t let nobody talk ’bout Jesus and such. All them that worked for him, ’specially the coloreds, were sho’ ’nough kept in the dark. Didn’t let us read, didn’t let us know, didn’t let us ask. Whatever it was we needed to get, he fed to us in his very own spoon. He say there was nothin’ to all that churchin’, and he was a right smart man, so I figured he ought to know. I guess even the learned can be wrong ’bout some things, and old Mister Frank might’ve cost me more than I thought. Sometimes, though, when my spirit sinks low, I shut my eyes and I try to pray, but don’t nothin’ come but more emptiness.”
Mister Joseph was lookin’ off into the distance, and Emma Jean was choked up with sorrow. He reached in his pocket and pulled out five dollars. “Here you go, you take this. Maybe it will buy me some of your God’s good grace. Buryin’ insurance and faith — I reckon you need a li’l bit of each, just in case. Yessiree, just in case.”
AFTERTHOUGHTS
They sang spirituals about the glory of leaving one world and moving on to the next. They formed societies, even in the midst of slavery days, to ensure that someone would look after the “gone on.” They defied their masters and snuck out into the night, gathered together, and laid loved ones to rest. They sometimes waited in cemeteries to see if the dead did indeed sing and shout around midnight. They told awesome ghost stories, and they believed them. They decorated gravesites with personal artifacts so the deceased would feel at home, and when they couldn’t afford a traditional marker, they used their creativity and made one like no other. They superstitiously believed such truths as, “If a person dies without speaking his or her mind about important matters, he or she will purge” — that is, foam at the mouth after death — “until it is all out.” They buried their dead from east to west like they did in Africa, and they celebrated passings with food, music, and fellowship. The African American burial tradition is a rich legacy with three hundred years of strong history behind it.
Booker T. Washington once said about his own people, “The trouble with us is that we are always preparing
to die. You meet a white man early in the morning and ask him what he’s preparing to do — he is going to start a business. You ask a colored man — he is preparing to die.”
I’m not quite sure I agree with that statement completely, but I do know there is some truth there. I acknowledge that in the days when Mr. Washington made this statement, it was probably more realistic to plan to die than it was to start a business, if you were colored, anyway; but be that as it may, the reality is that for African Americans, death has always been one of the most important moments of life.
The Africans have always believed that you show your love for someone by providing the best you can upon his or her death. The status and worth of a man were measured by the way he laid his people to rest. That heartfelt conviction — the urge to do one’s best for the dear departed — traveled across the seas and landed here squarely on American soil. If they were helpless to provide for their kin during life, they would do their best for them upon their death. The spirit of the burial was not a sad one, as many might expect, but a joyous one that brought people together so that they could reminisce and share fellowship over wonderful food. The understanding was that the deceased was going on to a better place than anywhere here on Earth. The place of resting was sacred and significant, and often there were two cemeteries, one for homefolks and kinfolks and another one for strangers and the unwelcomed. The purity of the burial place was paramount, and integrity had to be maintained.
The intensity with which African Americans prepare to die is brought truly close to home for me when I remember events and stories involving my own family members. I remember my mother’s telling me that my grandfather, during the most financially difficult time of his life, bought not one burial plot but two! And when my mother escaped the cottonfields and headed off to college, Granddaddy didn’t have a college fund to help her. She would have to make do with his love and his prayers, he said, but if anything ever happened, he did have a burial plot for her. Thankfully, she never had to worry about that. And if someone in the family died and had nowhere else to go, Granddaddy was always prepared because he had his own plot and then, too, he kept a spare — just in case. My mama reminds me that she wants to come back home to rest in eternity, and I promise I’ll do my best by her. That is the ultimate expression of love where my people are concerned: “putting them away proper.” If you do that, then folks won’t have a thing to say. No sir, not one thing.
Just Plain Folks Page 6