by Damon Wayans
“Talk to your mother, Angel,” he’d warned.
“What are you going to do? I’ll throw the chicken in the middle of the street and watch you get hit by a car trying to pick it up.”
“Momma, please be nice,” Angel had begged.
“OK. I’ll be nice. Darryl, please get your fat ass out of my kitchen so we can save some food for the guests, the invited ones.”
He had taken offense but grabbed some more pieces of ribs and left the kitchen, telling Angel they should go.
“Angel was invited!” Alma had yelled after him.
He hated her, and she hated him, but the rules of a funeral say that you have to put your feelings aside and pay honor to the survivors of the deceased.
* * *
“Momma, can I talk to you?” Jesse asked at the reception.
“Sure, baby.”
“Not here. Can we go in the bedroom?” Alma nodded. She would have to face the bedroom eventually.
In her mind’s eye, she relived Harold’s cold, stiff body lying on the now empty bedframe. Todd and Angel had dragged the mattress outside, because Alma was too spooked to enter the room with it still there.
“What is it, Jesse?”
“Momma, I know this may be bad timing, but Daddy said he was going to give me money so I can get that trumpet. Did he leave me anything?”
“Yes, son. A swift kick in the ass, and I’m going to give it to you right now if you dare fix your junkie mouth to ask me something that insensitive again,” Alma replied.
She knew it had to be more than reefers he was smoking to be that disrespectful. That’s why she hated these funereal rituals, because of stupid people like him not knowing how to act. Jesse was lucky Rae Ann picked that moment to walk through the front door sporting a red miniskirt. Alma turned her attention to the noise in the living room. When she saw the perpetrator of the commotion, it took all of Alma’s children to restrain her as she snatched up her butcher knife.
“Don’t change your clothes, folks, because there’s going to be two funerals tonight,” she said determinedly.
“Why are you doing this, Alma? What did I ever do to you?” Rae Ann’s voice was slurred. She was drunk and probably wanted some closure. “I only want to pay my respects,” Rae Ann drawled.
Alma hated her. Todd begged Rae Ann to leave, but she demanded a quick drink first. Alma threw a bottle of vodka at her head, and she ducked as the bottle splashed its contents all over her exposed legs. That was all the drink she was going to get.
“You’re going to be drinking your own blood after I cut your throat, you little two-bit tramp. Get your bleached-blond ass out of here.”
“Fine! I’ll leave. What goes around come back around, Alma,” Rae Ann warned as she defiantly turned and left.
Harold’s brother, Fred, watched this drama unfold.
“She gave Harold that heart attack,” he whispered to several non-family members, loudly enough for Alma to overhear. “I live three blocks from here,” he went on. “I know how much stress she put poor Harold through. He would come by all hours of the night, complaining how Alma locked him out or called the cops to make him get out his own home. Leave her. That’s all I’d tell him. Now look what’s happened.”
This particular clique of guests murmured their agreement. Alma was livid. Angel squeezed her hand.
“ ‘I can’t leave,’ Harold would say. ‘She needs me,’” Fred said mockingly. “I asked him what he was doing on my couch, then, if she needs him so badly. ‘She just needs a little space till the morning,’ he’d say. Can you believe this? Next thing you know, the sun’s up, and Alma’s waiting outside my place with a hot cup of coffee and buttered roll for him. It was the strangest relationship I’ve ever seen, but thank God I won’t have to bear witness no more. This is the last time I’ll ever have to look her in those squinty eyes. Good-bye and good riddance.”
I’ve still got my butcher knife, little Freddy. Better watch your tongue, she thought.
When the guests had departed, Angel helped her mother pull out the couch and make her bed.
“Lay next to me until I fall asleep,” Alma said through the moans and groans of her aching body trying to dodge the springs poking through the pancake-thin mattress. The reality of sleeping alone made her cry again. “I want him back.”
“So do I, Momma.”
“How could God do this to me?” she asked her Angel.
“Sometimes God allows us to be tested, Momma, but he will never put anything before us that we can’t handle. You have to be strong.”
“It’s going to be hard, baby. I’ve been with him for forty-four years. I don’t know who I am without him.”
“I know,” Angel said as she stroked Alma’s freshly dyed hair. “I want you to come live with us for a while.”
“I can’t do that, Angel.”
“Why not?”
“There’s not enough room for you, me, and Fatso in that house. Actually, there isn’t enough room for him and nobody in that house.” They both laughed.
“You’re crazy, Momma.”
“I’m going to stay right here. I’ll be fine. It will take some time, but your momma is strong. My daddy didn’t raise no punks,” Alma joked. “I’ll be fine. This, too, shall pass, so the good Lord says.”
chapter five
A week had passed since the funeral, and life was hard for Alma with no friends and no routine. She spent most of her time gazing out the window, buzzed by the stronger dosage of Valium prescribed for her anxiety attacks. Still, panic invaded and consumed the tiniest of tasks Alma set out to accomplish.
Something as simple as folding laundry would lead her mind to wondering what she would do for extra money now that Harold’s pension was cut off. How could she keep a roof over her head and not be a burden to her children? Would this feeling of overwhelming guilt ever pass, or would it haunt her for the rest of her existence?
These were the questions playing on a loop in her mind. The only temporary fix was the dulling effects of the drugs. They helped to shut off her receptor.
To make matters worse, Alma had anxiety about becoming an addict like Jesse, whom she had recently threatened to slap with a restraining order. He had come by the house seemingly to look after her.
“Momma, I wanna be here for you. It’s not good for you to be alone right now,” he had said convincingly. “Let me stay here, do the chores around the house, run errands, and cook for you.”
“Thank you, son.”
No sooner had he moved in than Alma noticed things were moving out. One day, she had dashed into her bedroom after a long walk, recommended by Jesse, to find one of Harold’s cufflinks on the floor. It was from his twenty-four-karat-gold square set, the one with his initials, H.S.W. She had picked it up to put it back in the dresser drawer and saw that all of Harold’s jewelry was gone. Alma knew right away that Jesse was the culprit. He had even taken Harold’s wedding ring. Probably pawned it for God knew how little money.
When he came back that night wearing a new pair of jeans, he had lied and said he didn’t know what happened to the jewelry. The next day, Jesse had been busted trying to cash one of Harold’s pension checks. Alma had wanted to press charges, but how could a mother put her son in jail? What would people think?
“I’m ashamed to call myself your mother. You are no longer welcome in my house, and if you do come around, I will take my knife and cut you to the fat meat,” Alma had warned.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to get that horn,” he’d said through crocodile tears.
“You’re sorry, all right. Now, get on out of here!”
On the other hand, Angel called her on a regular basis to make certain she was doing all right.
“Hey, Momma, do you need anything? Are you taking your medicine? Are you sure you don’t want to come to Texas for a spell?”
“No, baby, Momma is fine,” she always said. She wasn’t, but she didn’t want her daughter to worry, so she lied. Angel had enough to o
ccupy her time. Between the new baby and the baby elephant she called a husband, her plate was full.
Todd was a real disappointment. He had left the day after the funeral.
“I had to go,” Todd’s tinny voice had echoed from his cell phone in Germany.
“You just barely said hello, son, and then the quickest of good-byes.”
“I didn’t have the time. This trip wasn’t exactly planned. Everything was so sudden. We were running late for the plane. It’s hard traveling with kids. We couldn’t wake them because they were jet-lagged from the trip over. Plus, my job expected me back for an important project I’m heading up.”
Todd had presented every legitimate excuse in the book, but Alma blamed the white girl. She had his head all messed up. He was under her control. Alma believed the wet dog was against her because she had asked her not to leave her stringy blond hair all over the bathroom sink. Alma was also pissed that Wet Dog had used her good hairbrush and ended up giving it to Helga as a gift. Their leaving like that was her way of showing Alma who the real boss was, snatching her son off to another world when he needed to be with his mother.
Alma noticed that Rae Ann kept her drapes closed since Harold had died. No one else wants to see those ten-inch titties.
The radio was her only friend. It amazed her how vivid the brain was, how a song could pull up not only images but smells and emotions, too.
She caught herself many times having one-sided conversations with Harold. It was funny how long she would be talking, not even expecting a reaction, because that was the relationship they had. She talked, he didn’t.
Alma decided the best thing to do was to put all of his belongings into boxes and either store them or give it all to charity. It was easy to find his things, since Alma relegated all of his worldly possessions to three areas: a dresser drawer in the bedroom, one small section of her closet, and the front hallway closet, where he kept his suits, hats, and jackets. Harold had never complained about the arrangement.
“If it makes you happy, it makes me happy. I don’t need anything else to wear. I’ll just clothe myself in your love,” he had told her after she expressed how bad she felt that he didn’t have more space.
Alma put his favorite burgundy fedora on her head, smoothing out the brim and pulling it down to cover her right eye the way Harold used to wear it. This was the hat he had worn the first and only time they went to the opera. It was the middle of winter, and a customer at Harold’s second job as night watchman at a construction site had given him two tickets to Madame Butterfly. They hadn’t been on a date in a while thanks to the call of parenthood, so they’d jumped at the chance to get out of the house. It was freezing cold as they walked from the train station toward the Majestic Theatre on Broadway.
“We’re never going to make it in time if you don’t walk a little faster, Alma.”
“These shoes are hurting my feet, Harold. Why don’t you carry me?” she’d joked.
Harold hated being late. Alma didn’t mind making an entrance.
“We’re already ten minutes late. Mr. Raven said we had to be on time for this thing,” Harold had reminded her.
When they’d finally arrived at the Majestic, the doors were closed, and the usher told them they would have to wait until the intermission to be seated. That would be in an hour.
“One hour!” Alma had exclaimed. “What are we supposed to do for an hour?”
“You are welcome to go to the bar area,” the usher had offered.
They’d gone to a bar but not the one at the theater. Alma had needed to sit.
Now, she placed a couple of pairs of Harold’s shoes in a box and noticed for the first time that the heels on both right shoes were worn down more than the left ones. In fact, all of his shoes were worn like that. It must have been from the scoliosis, which tilted his spine slightly to the right as he grew older. Harold had been able to mask the defect by shifting it into a cool gait in his walk.
His shirts, sweaters, ties, and socks—even his underwear—all had the same smell. They smelled like him. The scent God made just for him that only a wife, a lover, or a friend would know. Being all three intensified the experience for Alma. She held his worn undershirt to her face and inhaled deeply. She cried softly and let the fabric absorb her tears.
Alma opened the hall closet to find Harold’s jacket on the floor. She remembered him standing in the stairwell, looking back at her with the jacket in hand. The memory was vivid—he had switched the jacket into the other hand to grab hold of the banister that guided him safely from her gaze.
As Alma folded the lightweight, faded blue blazer, she felt something tucked away in the breast pocket. She searched and found the tickets to the dance Harold was going to take her to for her birthday. She had forgotten she was turning the big six-five tomorrow. She had bought herself a beautiful red satin dress she found in a going-out-of-business sale, in case Harold had wanted to take her out. He was always surprising her on birthdays. “Just be ready,” he would say.
He’d never tell her what he was planning, because she would be disappointed, never happy once she knew. He had decided early on that he would always surprise her. Alma liked surprises—they were romantic to her—and loved to dance. After all the years of anger and resentment, they still had terrific chemistry on the dance floor. He was in control of her movements, and she submitted to his direction, but only under the flashing colored lights.
Alma thought about going to the dance by herself but quickly dismissed that idea, imagining people staring at her, asking, “Who’s the old lady standing in the puddle of tears?” Alma wished she could pop another Valium to calm the anxiety that was creeping into her heart.
“My daddy didn’t raise no punks!” she reassured herself. She had promised herself not to take any more of the pills, because they only increased the anxiety when they wore off. From now on, she was going to deal with whatever life threw her way.
Alma slept for twelve hours, and when she woke, she felt exhausted, depressed, and unable to go back to sleep. She realized that was how doctors got you addicted. They made you believe the only thing to stop the hurt was to take another pill.
No, she told herself as she put the phone down after dialing the doctor’s office to request a refill. She was determined to give them up and decided to drink some coffee and take a long walk to help clear her head.
Alma was sipping her second cup of Folgers when the doorbell rang. Standing outside was a deliveryman with a beautiful bouquet of pink roses and bird-of-paradise, a rich variation of a rainbow. They were from Harold! The stranger had to hold her up when she collapsed in his arms, crying like a baby.
How did he send flowers from the grave? Harold must have known his time was short and was taking delight in tormenting her. Wasn’t his death enough? Why couldn’t he have had a little heart attack to teach her this lesson? She would have taken care of him and helped nurse him back to health with her special chicken noodle soup. Harold hated hospital food. If he’d had a small attack, she could have recognized her sins and changed her contrary ways. Instead, he left her with nothing but all this damn guilt! The flowers only poured salt on the wound.
Alma decided she could no longer bear this tortured state.
Dearest Children,
It’s with love and tears that I write this letter to say my good-byes. I can’t take the pain any longer. It’s too hard. It’s just too damn hard for me to move on. I always believed I was tough and would get through this, but now I know I can’t. I can’t because I know what your father knows, which is that I killed him. I killed your father with unkind words, unspoken rage, and a jealous heart that all the love in the world couldn’t tame. I only pray God judges me kinder than I’ve judged myself. Now it’s time to give life for life. Be it heaven or hell, I must join your father wherever death takes me and beg for his forgiveness. It’s the only way to quiet the accuser yelling “Murderer!” in my mind. This is not a suicide note. Rather, it is a farewell to misery,
bon voyage to pain, adios to grief statement. Don’t feel bad for me. I will be at peace. Yes, peace. That’s what I want right now.
Todd, honey, I’m going to hold my tongue about your little “wet dog” and only hope she’s not standing next to you reading my business—serves her right if she is. Todd, thank you for turning out to be such a fine young man. You make your mother proud in every way. My Angel, baby, I don’t want to be any more of a weight around your neck than the ton of a husband you already got. Know Momma loves you more than this life. Jesse, you’ve got to give your life over to Christ and step up to be the great man I know you can still be. I’ve left you a tiny bit of money to help with lessons so you can stop sounding like a raggedy bugle boy. I’ll miss you all.
Love,
Momma
P.S. Make sure they put a smile on my face and bury me next to your daddy, so that if he looks over, he’ll see that he’s the only one who makes me happy.
Alma sealed the envelope with the rest of her tears.
She turned the radio up. She took a long hot bath, made up her face, and put on the red satin dress she bought for her birthday, determined to look and smell good when they found her. Alma pulled the petals from the pink roses and laid them out on a gold silk sheet she draped over the couch. She poured herself a glass of red wine after turning the gas oven on. She gulped the first, then poured a second full glass to sip on as she faded away. Alma took her favorite seat at the living-room window, humming along to the song that was playing on the radio. How ironic. It was Marvin Gaye’s “If I Should Die Tonight”! Alma laughed because she couldn’t cry anymore.
Thank God it would soon be over. She saw the group of six or seven women in red hats passing along the opposite side of the street. One of them, a white woman, looked up and waved at her.
Feeling the effects of the wine-and-gas concoction, Alma waved back. Her head was very light, and she decided it was time to go lie down on the couch. She stood up and immediately fell forward, hitting her head on the windowsill.