Passing Through Perfect

by Bette Lee Crosby

  “Oh, Lord,” she moaned, already regretting that she hadn’t left sooner.

  Delia rounded the corner and broke into a run, but before she’d gone half a mile the rain started. It came in torrents with a sharp wind slicing through the trees, smacking against her face then circling back and coming at her from behind. It wasn’t just a rainstorm, it was a mean storm, the kind where lightning tears across the sky in search of something to destroy.

  In Alabama rainstorms happen in a heartbeat. Wind comes from nowhere, and pellets of water materialize from what was moments earlier a clear blue sky. Delia heard the roll of thunder and saw the lightning bolt that slammed into a long leaf pine. It came crashing to the ground. The lightning was close, somewhere not far behind her. She lowered her head and pushed against the wind. Twice she lost her footing and came down hard on her knee. The second time she’d scrambled up with mud covering the front of her dress. As she turned onto the road that ran past their house Delia heard a second tree fall, this one closer than the first.

  When she finally reached the house Delia was soaked through to her skin. Without stopping to remove her waterlogged shoes, she pushed open the door and looked for Otis. He was still right there on the sofa where she’d left him.

  “Thank you, Jesus,” she mumbled, then stepped out of the wet shoes. When she bent to tell him that she’d arrived home safe, Delia saw he was no longer breathing. His skin was still warm, but he was lifeless as the trees that had fallen.

  “Wake up, Daddy Church!” she screamed. “Wake up!”

  She grabbed his shoulder and shook it as hard as she could. After a few minutes of hollering and pounding on his chest, she pulled Otis’ frail body into her arms.

  “Don’t do this, Daddy Church, please don’t do this!” she wailed, then fell to her knees alongside the sofa. She held his hand in hers and cried as she had cried the night her baby girl died.

  When Isaac got home two hours later she sat beside Otis, emptied out of tears.

  “Your granddaddy died,” she said. Her words were raw and riddled with sadness.

  “Granddaddy died?” Isaac repeated, and tears began to well in his eyes. He dropped down beside his mama and wrapped a skinny arm around her shoulder.

  “I’s sorry, Mama,” he said. “I’s sorry for you ’n for poor Granddaddy too.”

  “You can be sorry for me all you want,” Delia answered, “but don’t be sorry for your granddaddy. He’s gone to be with the Lord.”

  Benjamin didn’t get home until nine o’clock that evening, and by then Delia had washed Otis head to toe and dressed him in his Sunday shirt and pants. He was lying in his own bed looking peaceful as a sleeping baby.

  Two days later Otis was buried in the Negro cemetery on the far edge of Grinder’s Corner. He was laid in a pine box that Benjamin himself built. Even though it rained again that day, a crowd of people came. They gathered graveside and spoke of what a fine man Otis Church was.

  “This is no time to be grieving,” Brother Albert proclaimed. “This is a time for rejoicing, because Brother Otis is resting peacefully in the arms of the Lord.”

  Despite anything Brother Albert said Delia couldn’t muster up even the smallest bit of rejoicing. Otis was gone, and as far as she was concerned that was pure misery.

  Cloak of Sorrow

  In the weeks and months that followed, Delia wore her sorrow like a heavy grey cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She gave up visiting friends and moved through the days like a snail without purpose.

  Although Benjamin’s pain was equal in size he carried it differently; he worked longer hours and heavier jobs. When his back throbbed from lifting stacks of lumber or lying in a cramped crawl space, he could focus on the physical pain and momentarily forget the anguish tearing at his heart.

  Five days after Otis was buried, on an evening when Benjamin came home with his hands bloody from working on the barbed wire horse enclosure at the Paley place, he once again brought up the thought of leaving Grinder’s Corner.

  After Isaac was in bed he told Delia, “If you’re still thinking we ought to leave here, I’m willing.”

  Delia shook her head. “I ain’t wanting to leave no more,” she said sadly. “This place is all I got left of Daddy Church.”

  “But,” Benjamin stammered, “what about Isaac?”

  “Isaac’s fine here.”

  “You said if we go north—”

  “I know what I said, Benjamin,” she answered, “but I changed my mind.”

  “You got thoughts about maybe changing it back again?”

  “Not right now I ain’t,” Delia answered. “Not right now.”

  The sad truth was living in Grinder’s Corner settled into a person’s soul like a disease handed down from generation to generation. Folks were born here, lived here, then died here, and there were few exceptions. Delia was once a newcomer and as such she’d had a chance for escape, but that time was long gone. When Otis left this earth, Delia willingly picked up his shackles and slipped them onto her own ankles.

  “Well, if you do change your mind,” Benjamin said, “let me know.”

  Delia pretended not to hear.

  For nearly six months she went through her days acting as if Otis was there resting comfortably in his bed or napping on the sofa. She washed and ironed his clothes, then stacked them on the same shelf he always used. More often than not, she’d absent-mindedly set a fourth place at the dinner table and not bother to correct the mistake. Not once did she leave the house: not to go visiting, not to go into town, not to go to church, and definitely not to accompany Benjamin into Bakerstown.

  “You ought to at least go to church,” Benjamin told her, but Delia claimed there was no need since God evidently wasn’t listening.

  “I prayed every day,” she said, “and He still let Daddy Church die.”

  A week before Christmas Benjamin cut down a small pine, carried it home, and stood it in the front room. It sat there without a single decoration until Isaac started making snowflake cutouts to hang from the branches.

  Sitting there at the table and working alone, he said, “It don’t hardly feel like Christmas.”

  Delia saw the tears welling in his eyes and felt a sense of shame creep over her.

  “You’re right, Isaac,” she said, “and I’m real sorry about that.” She sat beside him, and for the rest of that afternoon they made snowflakes and a string of paper angels.

  That night Delia told Benjamin while he was in Bakerstown to buy Isaac a brand new baseball mitt, some comic books, and a bag of candy.

  “Brand new?” Benjamin exclaimed. “That’s gonna cost near ten dollars!”

  “New,” Delia repeated. “It’s Christmas, and he’s our only boy.” She went on to say it wasn’t as if she was asking for something for herself.

  On Christmas morning Delia rose early, and by the time Benjamin and Isaac came to breakfast she’d set out three places; in the center of the table was a plate piled high with biscuits sweetened with honey and raisins.

  That afternoon Isaac opened his gifts and squealed with delight.

  “I don’t know nobody who ever got a brand new mitt,” he said.

  Delia saw the joy in his eyes and smiled. She said nothing to either of them but promised herself that she would no longer cast the burden of her sadness onto Isaac and Benjamin, no matter how heavy her heart felt.

  She held true to the vow, and whenever one of them was nearby she forced herself to smile and move with a spritely step. But when she was alone Delia would sit in the rocker and creak back and forth, reliving memories just as Otis had done.

  In the third week of June she was busy planting a row of tomatoes on the side of the house when she heard someone yoo-hooing from the front yard. After nearly an hour on her knees she was slow getting up, and before she could stand the holler came again.

  “Hold your horses,” she grumbled, “I’m coming.”

  When Delia rounded the house she saw Luella standing in the walkw
ay. “Well, if you ain’t a sight for sore eyes,” she said and hurried over to hug her.

  “Where you been?” Luella asked. “Every day I been thinking you is gonna come today, but there ain’t been no you for God knows how long.”

  “Since Daddy Church died I ain’t been up for visiting,” Delia said.

  “Ain’t up for visiting?” Luella repeated. “So what you been doing, just feeling sorry for your poor ole self?”

  Delia cracked a smile. “I suppose.”

  Luella raised an eyebrow and gave a disapproving frown. “All this sorrowful you been hauling around, it make you feel better?”

  “Unh-unh.” Delia shook her head.

  “Well, then, maybe you ought to try visiting.”

  Delia laughed, and it felt good. It was first time she’d laughed in a very long time.

  “Get on in here,” she said. “Let’s sit a spell and catch ourselves up.”

  As Luella laughingly told stories of the past months, Delia could see the self-imposed loneliness she’d settled into. It stuck to her skin like a hungry leech, draining away every bit of happiness she’d known. Little wonder she was miserable. She missed the friendships she’d made, and in the span of that single afternoon she came to see what Luella said was true: mourning Daddy Church neither brought him back nor made her less sad.

  “I’ll come visiting real soon,” she promised. “When school gets out for the summer, me and Isaac is gonna be there two or three times every week.”

  “When I sees you standing at the door, I’ll believe it,” Luella laughed.

  Benjamin

  Some folks ask why I didn’t shed no tears when Daddy died. Brother Albert claims a man crying ’cause he lost his daddy ain’t nothing to be ashamed of. Let it out, he said, and your burden will be lifted. ’Course, it’s real easy to dish out such advice when you ain’t the one hurting. I’m not arguing against Brother Albert, I’m just saying it’s easier said than done.

  I loved Daddy much as I love Delia and Isaac and I’m missing him clear down to the soles of my feet, but bad as my hurting is Delia’s is worse. Hers is like an abscess that’s festered and ready to pop open. I see her eyes all red and swelled-up and know I got to be strong for her. When she’s real weepy I tell her give it a bit of time and sooner or later the hurting will stop. How could I say that if I was sitting there blubbering myself?

  Crying is a lot easier than not crying. Crying cleans out the misery in your soul and pulls loose the knife stuck in your heart. I ain’t strong enough to not cry, but leastwise I’m holding it on the inside. On the outside, I go day by day and do whatever I gotta do.

  Loving Delia don’t stop me from hurting, but it gives me strength enough to move past it. I’m being strong for her ’cause she’s being strong for Isaac.

  It’s easier for me ’cause I got work to do. A man don’t think about his misery when he’s hauling wood or cleaning out a chimney; but poor Delia, every day she’s gotta sit there and look at the empty places where Daddy used to be.

  That surely ain’t an easy thing to do.

  A Plan for the Future

  In the year that followed Isaac turned eleven and grew five inches. He was tall enough and strong enough to help out, so Benjamin occasionally took him along when he needed a second pair of hands. It was always something lightweight: painting a fence, repairing a screen door, or trimming branches from an overgrown bush. Although Isaac enjoyed the work, Delia frowned at the idea and more often than not it brought on an argument.

  “The boy’s gonna grow up thinking that’s the kind of work he’s expected to do,” she’d complain.

  Benjamin generally laughed it off, saying the work was honest and there was no shame in it. Even though Delia never came back at him arguing otherwise, she never gave up hoping their son would go off to college and become a professional.

  Sometimes she’d claim Isaac would make a fine pastor and maybe one day become a bishop. “You ever hear of Bishop William Decker Johnson?” she’d ask, and when Benjamin shook his head no she’d move on to telling all he’d done and how he came to be respected by even white folks.

  “Daddy used to claim Bishop Johnson was a credit to mankind,” Delia said. Afterward she remembered the kind of person her daddy was and switched over to saying Isaac would make an even better lawyer.

  “You heard about William Henry Hastie?” she asked.

  Benjamin and Isaac both shook their heads.

  “Well, it so happens,” Delia said, “Mister Hastie was a real good lawyer, and when everybody saw what a fine job he was doing defending people President Truman made him a United States judge.”

  “I ain’t never heard of no colored judges,” Benjamin said skeptically.

  “It’s true,” Delia insisted. “I read a story about him in one of them newspapers you brought home.”

  “I’d jest as soon be a farmer,” Isaac said. “Farmers got a good life, and they grow stuff people can eat.”

  “You like seeing signs telling how you can’t go in this place or that?” Delia asked. “You like going to people’s back door on account of you ain’t allowed to knock in the front?”

  “What’s that got to do with—”

  “Respect!” Delia cut in. “You ain’t never gonna get respect ’less you earns it!”

  “I don’t care none about—”

  “You will,” Delia said ruefully. “You will.”

  That summer Delia visited Luella once or twice every week. She and Isaac would leave the house early in the morning before the sun got too hot and wouldn’t return until after the sun had dropped below the tree line. In the early spring the rain had been plentiful, so the pond near Luella’s house was deep and right for swimming. In the heat of the day they’d head over to the pond and cool their feet in the water as they watched the boys swing from a rope then let go and splash down. On just such a day the question of college came up.

  It was the week before school was to start, and the boys were frolicking in the water when the echo of thunder sounded a warning. Seconds later a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky.

  “Jerome,” Luella called, “get yourself outta the water, we got to get home.”

  “Aw, Mama, it ain’t nothing but a bit of—”

  Before he could finish complaining, Luella yelled, “Out!”

  Still laughing and poking at each other, the boys scrambled out of the water and took off running toward the house. Luella and Delia walked behind at a slower pace.

  “I think we is wasting our time setting aside college money,” Luella laughed. “That fool boy’s likely to get hisself killed ’fore he gets to high school.”

  “You already saving up?” Delia asked.

  Luella nodded. “We got six hundred and twenty-two dollars set aside.”

  “Six hundred?” Delia gasped.

  “And twenty-two,” Luella added.

  “How’d you do it?”

  “Not me. Will. He started saving the day Jerome was born, and he ain’t never stopped.”

  “But,” Delia stammered, “don’t it take all you got for living?”

  Luella nodded. “We can’t save nothing out of Will’s gas station pay, but he got a side business. That money’s for saving.”

  “A side business?”

  “Unh-huh. He buys ’n sells used stuff.”

  “What kinda stuff?”

  “Everything. Ice boxes, baby carriages, kerosene lamps. Just whatever people’s got a need for.”

  “Where’s he get things like that?” Delia asked, and before there was time for an answer she added, “And how’s he find a body what needs it?”

  “There ain’t but one gas station what serves coloreds, so everybody goes there. Will knows ’em all, what they got and what they need.”

  Another flash of lightning streaked across the sky and Luella said, “We’d better hurry.” After that she yelled for the boys, who were now rolling in the grass, to get moving.

  For the remainder of that a
fternoon Delia had a hard time focusing on the conversation. When Luella was talking about a lemon cake she’d baked, Delia was thinking through the possibilities of a side business. Benjamin did most of his work for white people and while they might occasionally give him some of their castoffs they weren’t likely to buy from a colored man, so that wasn’t a good business for him.

  Working more jobs wasn’t much of an idea either since he already left at dawn and didn’t get back until dark. Thought after thought passed through Delia’s mind, but each idea turned into a dead end.

  It was still early in the afternoon when Delia said she had to be going.

  “So soon?” Luella asked.

  Delia nodded. “I got a lot to do.”

  What she didn’t say was that the thought of Luella having all that money for Jerome’s college was poking a jealous finger at her brain. Her desire for Isaac to go to college rocketed from a distant thought to an immediate need.

  That night after Isaac was in bed Delia poured two cups of coffee and sat with Benjamin at the table. For several minutes nothing was said, but a thought had been running through her mind ever since she’d left Luella’s.

  “Benjamin,” she finally said, “we got to start planning for Isaac’s college.”

  He looked across with a puzzled expression. “At eleven years old? Don’t nobody go to college at eleven.”

  “But if we don’t start saving right now, we won’t have the money he needs.”

  Benjamin rubbed his big hand back and forth across his forehead several times before he looked over at Delia sorrowfully. “How? How we gonna save when we ain’t got an extra dime?”

  What he said was true, and Delia knew it. There had been good years when the farm made a profit, but the last three years they’d barely scraped by. They’d already gone through what little bit they’d saved, and now they had to pay Sylvester Crane ten dollars just to stay on land that was too poor for farming.