by Kia Corthron
The white man at the morgue is frosty but efficient. Rosie, Beau, and Eliot leave the building, standing outside.
“I’m gonna stay with my sister a few days, help her get situated. You tell Winston?”
Eliot nods.
“You got to get on the road.”
Eliot had peeked at his watch just a minute before—11:05. To allow the hour leeway to get to his overnight in Memphis before sunset he was supposed to have left by eleven. He drives the siblings back to Rosie’s. As he lets them off, it begins to drizzle. “Thank you. You were very kind to my sister and me,” and Beau surprises Eliot with a quick, awkward embrace. Rosie also hugs Eliot, though the gesture is mechanical, her mind worlds away. As he pulls off Eliot waves and they, zombies, wave back.
An hour down the road, the rain comes down in buckets. When Eliot can see nothing, he pulls off and waits. The torrent seems to have no intention of subsiding, and he is too spent to be actively impatient.
When the cloudburst finally abates to a gentle shower, it’s half past noon: no leeway for making it to Memphis before dark. Eliot is tempted to try but, a bit of superstition related to the fact that the day had begun so morosely, he turns the car around. It’s wasted gas, but he’s in the middle of nowhere, and he certainly isn’t going to knock on any of these rural Alabama doors, a black stranger with a Northern dialect looking for accommodations. He’ll have to call the car owner to explain the situation, to apologize but he’ll need the station wagon another night. He heads back to the Coatses’, figuring on the way he’ll stop in Nathan to see if he can do anything for Rosie and Beau.
Without warning the sun emerges, bright through the soft rain. Eliot sees it forming and pulls over, stepping out. A clear, crisp rainbow and above it a second taking shape, longer and more elliptical, a mother protecting her child.
**
Randall wakes every hour from a dream in which he is part of the inferno, a small figure in Henry Lee’s miniature train world that Randall had set ablaze at the junkyard last night. He opens his eyes. 10:20. He doesn’t ever remember sleeping this late.
His sister’s right. He never wanted to be a damn salesman. He ought to celebrate getting fired, breaking ties with that blamed shoe store but my God, Benja was nearly killed the night before last by her good-for-nothing better half and Martin had no sympathy? Yesterday slowly coming back to him, his fists clenching, Stop thinking. He picks up yesterday’s clothes from the floor, throws them on, and descends the stairs.
Pacing the kitchen, wiping her eyes.
“I couldn’t sleep at all. I can’t believe you could sleep after everything!”
How the hell you know I slept since you moved your ass into the guestroom? he thinks. Reaches for the coffee canister. Second thought he opens the refrigerator and pulls out a beer. Snap.
“It’s cold.” Erma wears a shawl. “Chilly in here, drafty ole house.” She stares at him. “Well? Whatchu plannin on doin for a new job?”
“Since it barely been twenty-four hours since I lost the previous one I really ain’t had time to ponder on the matter.”
“Well you better ponder! What we sposed to do for food?”
Randall sips his beer. She lets out a helpless cry, then picks up the medicine bottle from the middle of the table. The prescription sedatives the doctor gave her after her most recent miscarriage. She squints at the label as if it were Chinese, then twists it open, her trembling right hand pouring into her left. A pill slips through her fingers, vanishing under the stove. “Oh! He only gay me ten! He only gay me ten an I jus lost one. I think he’s worried I might try n do somethin foolish.”
“I’ll pour em.”
“You gotta mash em up. You know I cain’t swallow no pills whole!”
“I’ll fix em.”
“Only two at a time, he said! Only two.” Randall picks up the bottle, tapping it. “I guess I ain’t never gettin to Paris France, am I!” He slowly raises his eyes to her. “You don’t know what I’m talkin about. Paris France! That little girl’s book, when B.J. was teachin me to read! In a ole house in Paris that was covered with vines I always wanted to go to Paris France!” Randall lowers his eyes back to his palm, tapping, the bottle stubbornly clinging to the tiny tablets. “You don’t care! I ain’t never had a day a happiness in this marriage, an you—” The phone. “Oh that’s Mama, I called her this mornin an Daddy said she was down volunteerin for the hungry children.” Ring. “I didn’t wanna worry Daddy but I told him to tell Mama to call me right away, soon’s she got home. I needta tell her what’s goin on.” Ring. Erma starts to exit the kitchen, then suddenly hurls behind her, “Don’t forget my milk!” She rushes out of the room and up the stairs to the bedroom extension.
Randall opens the drawer that serves as his toolbox and pulls out a hammer. He grabs a saucer and places one of the minute yellow pills on it, then begins gently hammering it into powder.
“Mama!” Bawling so loudly he can hear her all the way downstairs. “It’s awful, it’s jus awful! He lost his job!”
Randall takes a second pill, gently hammering it into the powder.
“No! The shoe store, that nice job. Well he started throwin shoes at his boss, actin like a maniac!”
Randall takes a third pill, gently hammering it into the powder.
“He was in jail! I had to go down an bail him out, it was so humiliatin!”
Randall takes a fourth pill, gently hammering it into the powder.
“An then we’re walkin home through the streets, everyone lookin at us, I jus know they all heard!”
Randall takes a fifth pill, gently hammering it into the powder. He contemplates the size of the mound, which is starting to look suspicious.
“RANDALL! Are you ready yet? God, I jus need some sleep, I cain’t sleep!”
“Just a minute.” Randall takes two more pills, hammering them into the powder. He pours the powder into a teacup, softly blowing to make sure no granule is wasted. He brings the cup to the faucet, a modicum of water to absorb the particles. He pours a glass of milk, then brings the cup and glass up to his wife. He’s surprised to see she’s still on the phone since he hadn’t heard her voice in a while. Her mother must have plenty to say.
“I should get off now, Mama.” She hangs up, wipes her eyes, and takes the cup. Randall wonders if she might be at all curious as to how those two tiny little pills made the water turn so yellow, but as always she closes her eyes tight, scrunching up her face, and throws the contents down her throat, immediately followed by the milk to cut the taste. “So bitter,” she mutters, sliding herself under the blankets and wiping residual moisture from the dark circles under her eyes. Randall looks at the clock. 11:05.
He goes outside to the shed. Heavy gray, like the sky might open up any minute. Still he pulls out the mower. The old manual. Slow as it is, he prefers its tranquil quiet to the goddamn motor machine. Erma feels the modern model does a cleaner job and naturally will complain. Well. Not this time.
As Randall rolls the blades over the lawn, he deliberates on the suicide note. He imagines realistically she would use it as a final nag session regarding his general inadequacies as husband and provider. On the other hand the thousandth miscarriage would have more likely tipped her over the edge, maybe he should focus on her devastation in wanting so badly to be a mother and to have had the opportunity denied her yet again. But perhaps it would be most poignant if in her final moments she was at peace, forgiving all. He likes that. Erma the virtuous.
He finishes the job at 11:55. He’d promised himself he’d wait a full hour before he went back and checked. He smokes a cigarette and wonders if there’s any bacon left. When ten minutes later a few raindrops quickly transform into a drenching thunderclapper, he calmly pushes the mower back into the shed and walks into the house, strolling up to the guestroom.
He stands staring at her, the rain beating hard against
the windows. Her eyes are closed. She makes no sound, he notices no rise and fall of her chest. He sits in the chair.
I hope you’re dead.
Then his lips move, mouthing it. I hope you’re dead.
Then he whispers it. “I hope you’re dead.”
Then very much aloud so she would hear, if she could hear: “I hope. You’re. Dead.”
A sudden ring and Randall leaps out of the chair. He fixes his eyes on her again, she who would come sprinting from down the street if she thought she heard their phone. Stillness. He imagines touching her, feeling her flesh cold. Hard. The phone rings ten times before stopping. He allows several moments of silence before placing his right hand on her chest. Warm, some faint beating. He’s not sure what that means as he isn’t certain how long these things are supposed to take. He walks to the kitchen to make breakfast.
Bacon and eggs and toast. He washes his meal down with beer, staring at the rain letting up. It’s incredible to him, miraculous how quiet the house is. He glimpses something. Walks to the door, steps out. Double rainbow. Too bad Erma isn’t here for it. These small joys of life meant a lot to her. Then the phone. After the eighth ring he sighs and goes inside.
“Hello?”
“Hello! Figured I called enough I’d catch ya, Randall. This here’s Francis Veter.”
Randall has to do some major sifting through his mind files before he comes up with it: his high school “fan” from the voter registration yesterday. The one who was so impressed with Randall’s little performance at the school anti-integration back in September, the one who remembered Randall was the eighth-grade valedictorian, remembered Randall on the eighth-grade debate team. And still excited about it. These would be the kind of friends Randall attracts.
“Okay?”
“Listen. I don’t mean to be in your business but I heard about you losin your job. That’s a goddamn shame.”
Randall imagines himself undressing unconscious Erma and carrying her naked body into a tub half full of water. How long would it take for her to naturally slip under, or would she need some help? Twenty minutes below the surface would certainly bring clarity to the present ambiguity of her existence.
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Listen. I’m a manager out at Oldham’s. You know, hardware.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We needin some help with the inventory in the immediate. Whaddya say?”
Randall’s mouth falls open. For a dazed moment he pulls the receiver from his ear, staring at it as if it were playing a cruel trick on him.
“You offerin me a job?”
“Temporary for sure. But my boss come to like ya, good chance it go permanent.”
He holds his breath. Luck? For him? “Oh. Oh I gotta tell ya, I been goin through a little bit of a bad time, this the firs kind thing I heard in days!”
“Happy to oblige! Toldja, you’re my hero, Randall. Listen, I get off at three today. Might I take you out for a drink after?”
**
Eliot creeps to the Coatses’ in the bright sun. They will have gone to work but no one around here locks doors. As he gets closer, a flood from the earlier monsoon materializes, in some places water halfway up his tires. His windows are open in the post-storm humidity so he hears, “Welcome to The Bowl.”
A young neighbor woman smiling at him as she hangs her laundry. Her property is on a slight incline, so while her bare feet squish in the mud, she is otherwise protected from the newly formed pond.
“The dip out here. Floods practically every rain. You that voter registration lawyer, right?”
“One of them.”
“I thought yaw went back North this mornin.”
“Well.” He tells her about Roy’s death, and her smile fades. He’d stopped by Rosie’s but no one was home.
“Hunter’s on Clark Street.” She sighs. “Only colored funerals in the county.”
The office at Hunter’s Funeral Home is just off the entrance parlor, so as soon as Eliot walks in, Beau and Rosie, seated and talking to the funeral director, see him.
“Got stuck in the rain?” Beau asks. Eliot nods. “I wondered.”
“Well come on in,” says Rosie. “We pickin out the casket. Maybe you got some thoughts.”
It has only been seventeen days since he sat in their place next to Dwight making arrangements for his mother. Eliot is willing to offer any help he can, unhappily feeling experienced. But the elderly Negro director seems honest, and Rosie and Beau old hands at dealing with the loss of loved ones.
Eliot is not sure how word got around already, but by the time they walk through Rosie’s door at two, several sympathy plates have been left on the kitchen table: baked chicken, pigs’ feet, potato salad. Knowing she’s about to become inundated with visitors, Rosie begins tidying up, accepting brother Beau’s offer of assistance but refusing guest Eliot’s. The younger gazes at the photographs on the living room wall, his eyes resting on one in particular—Roy in his sergeant’s uniform, about as high a rank as a Negro could get. Eliot calculates that Roy’s service was somewhere between the world wars. The U.S. occupation of Haiti? of the Dominican Republic? of Nicaragua? Or were his amputations some home-front mishap like his childhood friend Jeanine’s uncle Ramonlee?
“Handsome, wa’n’t he?” Eliot turns to see Rosie smiling beside him, her shining eyes on the portrait. Though it’s only head and shoulders, the image gives the impression of a large, commanding presence tempered by forbearance.
People start coming around three. Eliot is just about to call the Coatses to let them know what’s going on when the family walks through the door. After they pay their respects to Rosie and Beau, Martha walks up to him.
“Looks like we get our houseguest back sooner n we thought.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Mind? The ride over Leona tole me she got three new jokes she need to try out on you.”
Twenty minutes later Eliot walks outside, gazing at the lowering afternoon sun in the autumn sky.
“So whatchu plannin on doin tonight?” Rosie suddenly beside him.
“Martha said I can stay with them again.”
“Uh-huh. I was jus talkin to Martha. You know they live in The Bowl.”
“I found that out earlier.”
“So if the rain start up, you could get stuck there.”
“It looks pretty clear now.”
“Can change fass these parts. What I’m thinkin is maybe you should stay here. Then you be able to get out in the mornin, no matter.”
Eliot glances into the crowded house. Earlier he’d overheard Rosie on the phone with far-flung relatives who would be arriving. Given that she refused to let him help clean earlier, he’s pretty certain his presence would be just one more burden.
“Dontchu worry, we’ll find a place for ya, even if it’s on the floor a Beau’s room. You don’t mind the floor, do ya?”
“I don’t. But the storm seems to have passed. I think I’ll be fine at the Coatses.”
“Well the invitation stands. If yaw get down the road an the rain starts, you can always turn aroun.”
“Thank you.”
“Course you always could jus stay another day. But I guess with the overnight drive that mean you wouldn’t get to Indianapolis till late Friday, not back in your office till nex week.”
“That’s the problem.”
“Awright,” she sighs, “you all hardworkin people.”
It’s just past four when they get into their cars, Eliot to follow the Coatses. Leona is in the backseat but as soon as her grandparents are seated, she opens her door and runs to Eliot behind his wheel.
“Whaddya call a cat suckin on a lemon? A sourpuss!”
“That’s a good one.”
“Girl!” her grandmother calls. “Get in this car!”
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Leona runs back. The Coatses pull out, and just before Eliot follows suit he glimpses through the picture window Beau and Rosie among the throng, the siblings holding up but their faces swathed in exhaustion and sorrow. He wonders what Beau must be thinking, having not seen Rosie and Roy in twenty-four years and within twenty-four hours of reuniting with them, this: death. Does he feel he brought bad luck? Or was it on the contrary a divine blessing—that he was able to see Roy one last time, that the brother Rosie adored was here for her in her hour of greatest need. Eliot is certain the latter is what Rosie is telling her guests, and what she believes.
**
Randall’s bad mood is somewhat mitigated by the job offer. Still, the more he thinks about the events of yesterday—Benja’s battered face, Benja and his mother nagging him in the hospital, the uncaring cop outside her room, the humiliation of B.J. having to rescue him from Benja’s bastard husband, the humiliation of getting fired, the humiliation of jail, the humiliation of his humiliated wife calling the jail—the more beer he consumes.
He’s supposed to meet Francis Veter at the bar at four, so at 3:30 he heads up to the guestroom. He thinks she may have moved slightly from her previous position but he isn’t certain. He touches her chest. Her heartbeat seems remotely stronger. He walks down to the kitchen, fills a pitcher with water. Back up, standing over her again, he sticks a couple of fingers into the water and flicks the drops at her eyes. She remains still as stone. He flicks more. Nothing. He takes the jug and pitches its entire contents into her face, soaking her hair, pillow. Now a stir, a little coughing. So she survived. He’s neither especially relieved nor disappointed. Well, tomorrow he’d probably realize he wasn’t quite ready for widowerhood anyway, tomorrow the anger would dissipate and he’d be back to his usual state of being: ennui. He descends the stairs and out the door.
He walks into the tavern five minutes early. Francis Veter, sitting on a barstool facing the entrance, holds up his drink. “Hello, Randall Evans!”
Randall stares at the gold rim of the shot glass in front of him. Francis Veter has been chattering nonstop since he arrived.