Pray for Us Sinners

by Marilyn L. R. Hall

Viola was the only one who heard and understood what Mary Jean said. But the statement had left her stunned and she wasn’t able to communicate her knowledge to her husband or to Rose either. And Mary Jean had hollered out “Santini’s.” That was the funeral parlor. Did that mean Jack Nash was dead?

  Mary Jean’s eyes darted from one to the other of them, still not understanding their lack of comprehension.

  “I said it’s Jack Nash! He’s down at Santini’s Funeral Parlor!”

  That time comprehension came all at once to all of them. Rose sank back against the window of the store, suddenly her legs were too weak to hold her up. She put her hand over her mouth and Leo feared she was going into some kind of catatonic state. She looked as dazed as if somebody had hit her with a baseball bat.

  “Is he dead?” she asked finally, in a stricken voice.

  “Dead?” And then Mary Jean was laughing like a crazy woman. “No, he’s not dead! He’s just out there on the sidewalk, big as you please, leaning on his car and smoking one cigarette after the other!”

  Leo and Viola both reached out to Rose then, but before they could touch her she had crossed the street and was racing down the sidewalk toward Santini’s.

  All three of them were yelling at her to stop and the delivery boy who was young and strong ran after her, caught up with her, and held onto her until Leo and Mary Jean could catch up. She threw a wild-eyed look at Leo and he saw tears washing down her cheeks but she was laughing.

  “Leo, Leo! This is what was so special about today. God has given Jack back to me. Just like that other time. Only on Viola’s birthday instead of mine.” She could see he didn’t understand the meaning of what had happened so she grabbed his arm and squeezed it to her body. “When he came back to marry me, it was my birthday. Now it’s Viola’s birthday!”

  Leo looked anxiously from her to Mary Jean. “Wait, Rose. Before we jump to any conclusions,—let’s hear what Mary Jean has to say.”

  They both looked expectantly at her and Mary Jean shrugged and shook her head. “What’s to say? I don’t know. I just saw Jack Nash and another guy park this car in the street in front of the funeral parlor and after the other guy went inside, Jack got out on the passenger side, lit a cigarette and leaned up against the car and that’s where I left him. Big as life, and even better lookin’ than I remembered. Rose,” she grinned, and thumped Rose’s arm with her forefinger, “I started to go up to him and ask the big dope where he’s been keepin’ himself, but I thought I better go tell Rosy first and so here I am.” She looked from one to the other of them. “Well? You better hurry! Knowing Jack, he might not hang around long.” She winked at Rose and started back toward the store. “I’ll watch the store with Viola. You better go with Rose, Leo.”

  Rose spent one second debating with herself, and then she was gone.

  The funeral parlor was two and a half blocks away, just south of Barney’s Magazine Stand which occupied the corner at this end of the third block. Rose outdistanced Leo immediately and she was already crossing the second street before he was down the first. There was no thought in her mind except Jack. She had no plan, no words in mind, only the thought that he was there and she was going to see him again. She was going to look into those beloved blue eyes and be charmed by that dazzling smile again. After all these years she was going to be in his arms again.

  “O Sweet Jesus! Sweet Jesus! Sweet Jesus!” she whispered over and over.

  Her heart pounded so loudly she couldn’t hear anything else, and she feared it might just quit beating altogether before she got to the end of the last block. When she crossed the street to the final block, a car almost ran her down and blasted its horn at her, but she missed the seriousness of the incident because her mind wasn’t conscious of anything going on around her anymore. Only that she had to get to Santini’s before Jack drove away.

  As she neared the end of the second block she started slowing her pace trying to catch her breath. She didn’t want to be as breathless as Mary Jean had been when she finally got a chance to speak to him. She could just imagine herself standing there sputtering and gasping until his boss came out and demanded “Drive me home, Jack,” and him leaving her stand there waving her arms and stamping her feet and watching her beloved and his car disappear down the street.

  She was in the crosswalk when she heard somebody call out to her and turning toward the sound, she saw Scotty on his usual perch and Cynthia Jackleen sitting in one of the seats and bouncing up and down with excitement at the unexpected sight of her mother. Rose took a moment to walk over and give the little girl a hug and a kiss and thank Scotty for taking such good care of her. Then she told him quickly she was looking for Jack and would he keep Cynthia in the chair until she called for her. Rose was anxious to bring the child to her father, but she wasn’t all that sure he’d want to see her. Scotty’s eyes got wide and he grinned and assured her he would handle Cindy which was his pet name for Cynthia.

  Then Rose turned back toward the street while her eyes studied the handsome young man alongside the automobile parked there.

  And there was no way she could have prepared herself for the moment she saw him again. The sight of him leaning there against the car, hatless, and with the jacket of his suit unbuttoned and hanging open over a beige-colored shirt and a brown tie with an orange and beige pattern splashed across it … the tie caught her eye because it looked like one she had bought to cheer him in the middle of one of his down periods … quite literally took her breath away. So much for taking the time to get it back earlier. She was stopped in her tracks as completely as if somebody had reached out and grabbed her.

  Jack wasn’t looking in her direction. His attention was on the entrance to Santini’s. She saw him raise his arm and look at a watch on his wrist that glittered in the sunshine. He was more beautiful than even she remembered and Rose’s heart fluttered and danced, and the skin all over her body tingled and burned with the anticipation of being in his arms again.

  Standing there on the sidewalk, halfway between her husband and her daughter, Rose felt herself transported into the past again. It was the day that Jack Nash stood before her in that dingy justice of the peace office in Maysfield, Mississippi, and looked deep into her soul with his bewitching blue eyes, while he listened to her promise to love and honor and obey him. “Until death do us part” she swore to him and God both, and while she was looking into his eyes, she could honestly feel him inside her, filling all the empty places, healing all the wounds. She had believed it then, that the two of them were made one, just like Jesus preached in the Word, and she believed it yet. Rose Nash wasn’t a whole person without Jack Nash and neither was he without her. That was one of those truths nobody could understand but nobody could deny either.

  When Rose came back to herself, she heard all the noises around her and she knew she had no more time to waste. Jack lit another cigarette and then he reached for the handle of the door. Just then, panic rising, Rose glanced at the funeral parlor entrance and saw the door was opening.

  “Sweet Jesus!” She cried and took a tentative step or two in Jack’s direction. “Jack!” she shouted. “Jack Nash!”

  Jack turned at the sound of his name and to her relief recognition lit up his face and his eyes worked their way all over her, just the way they used to when he took his first look at her every morning of their life together. Then his lips spread in a big grin that made it plain he was happy to see her.

  And after that, in Rose’s mind, everything started happening in slow motion. She was looking into that wonderful face and he was smiling and revving up all his beguiling ways and seductive charm and pretty soon she was floating a couple of inches above the sidewalk on her way to his arms and that was when he finally called out her name and started moving in her direction. “I’ll be damned! Rose Sharon? Hell’s fire, if it ain’t my Rosy.”

  Rose didn’t pay any more attention to the funeral parlor door so she didn’t see the dark-suited heavy-set man step out, pause to fit
the slate-gray fedora he carried in his hand firmly atop his silver hair and start down the steps. But he looked at her to see what kind of girl his driver had shirked his duty to socialize with.

  Rose was so close to Jack she could see beads of dew on his dark eyelashes and like a bolt of lightning the knowledge came that he was crying for her, and she stopped all forward movement to stare at him in wonder. The joy bubbling inside her then threatened to carry her up to the stars and her only thought was to reach out and hang onto Jack to make sure he went soaring with her.

  Suddenly she was conscious of Leo’s presence, and of Cynthia running toward her only to be jerked back into Scotty’s brown arms. And then there came a strange sound. A popping noise like a whole bunch of firecrackers going off at once, only the noise kept going and Jack and the heavy-set man started doing some kind of eerie dance with their arms flapping and their heads bobbing and their bodies jerking and jumping like puppets. That was when Rose’s mind went off somewhere and left her to stand there like a fencepost with Leo’s arms wound round her like a morning glory vine.

  She just couldn’t make out what was going on, but she heard somebody scream her name and then a whole lot of other noises drowned that out and everything just got more confused. She saw Jack stagger back toward the car and try to cling to it but then he started slipping down, and she imagined she could hear his fingernails scraping the metal and then he was down on the sidewalk and his blood was pouring out into the gutter. Rose imagined she could hear his heart shutting down like the motor of a car.

  Rose couldn’t let him die like that. Leo and Scotty were grabbing at her, trying to keep her from going to him, but only God could have stopped her at that moment and he would have had to strike her dead to do it. The sense of slow motion still prevailed. She went down on her knees beside him and touched his dear face, brushing away bits of debris and blood. She was smiling at him but her eyes were pouring tears while her voice gently crooned as if she were talking to Cynthia. She tried to lose herself in his bright blue eyes. He seemed to know she was there and he was trying to talk. Then her arms were around his shoulders and she was lifting him to her, pressing his face to her throat, kissing him, loving him, begging him not to die. Although there was chaos all around her and sirens were closing in, Rose felt some kind of unearthly peace and she tried very hard to convey that to the man in her arms.

  All of a sudden out of nowhere the Father from St. Mary’s was on his knees beside her. He had something in his hands and he was touching Jack and bending close to his mouth and talking real soft but loud enough and slow enough that Jack could hear and understand him. She felt Jack’s struggle to breathe in her own body and she held him tighter willing her own life into him but she could only feel him getting weaker and weaker. While the priest was still talking to him and while she was still murmuring her prayers for him, Jack opened his eyes wide and looked straight into hers.

  And plainly, above the pounding in her ears she heard him speak to her—”Forgive me for what I did to you, Rosy?”

  Rose’s tears washed over him and she shook her head. “I love you, Jack Nash. I forgave you a long time ago.”

  “Good” he whispered through bubbles of watery blood while his pretty mouth tried smiling at her, “Then maybe I can forgive myself.”

  He sucked in some air and made a hideous rattling noise that scared Rose. She looked at the priest whose head was bowed and who was making a sign of the cross on Jack’s chest and she knew there wasn’t any more time.

  She hugged him closer and kissed him again and again. Jack looked up at her one more time and sighed her name like a prayer and then she watched his bright blue eyes dim and glaze over.

  And after that there was nothing left that would ever mean much of anything to Rose Nash.

  Dazed and bewildered, she watched helplessly as ambulance attendants and policemen took him away from her, and heartlessly ignoring her pleas and tears pushed her out of their way. Nobody would listen and nobody cared that he belonged to her. She was on her feet at last and weeping and grabbing at uniformed arms but they all threw her aside and cursed and swore at her and finally flung her so harshly that she flew backwards into the side of Jack’s car, lost her footing and fell. Then she realized it was his blood she had fallen into and she went completely to pieces. She was screaming and sliding in her struggle to get away from it.

  In the confusion, Scotty got through the police line and lifted her up into his strong young arms and carried her out of that nightmare and with Cynthia in Leo’s arms they ran back to the safety of the grocery store.

  Rose lay her head on Scotty’s shoulder and sobbed. She didn’t have the strength to fight anymore.

  Viola and Mary Jean were frantic. “What’s going on? So many police cars and ambulances!”

  Mary Jean was asking the questions, but Viola, seeing the state Rose was in, shushed her and together they cleared a path up to Mary Jean’s apartment where Scotty laid her gently on the bed. But she didn’t stay there. She struggled to her feet screaming, “I can’t stay here. I can’t lay down in bed. I have to move around … to walk … to run …. I have to run somewhere—anywhere. I have to move. I can’t be still. Sweet Jesus! I’ll go crazy. I’m not going to be able to stand this. Leo! I can’t stand this. I can’t bear this, Jesus. O Jesus. This is just too much to bear!”

  Leo was doing his best to calm her. He had her hand in his and she, as if finding a rope to cling to, drew his hand to her mouth and pressed it there.

  He had managed to get his other arm around her and he held her firmly against his chest.

  The two women watched her sobbing escalate until her shuddering resembled an epileptic seizure and they knew whatever had happened at Santino’s Funeral Parlor undoubtedly had no redress.

  Cynthia cowered forgotten at the entrance to the bedroom, mirroring the horror she had witnessed in her terrified eyes. She had started running to her mother when Rose took those first uncertain steps toward Jack Nash, but Scotty held her back and she watched that dark car come to a halt in the street—she saw something thrust out the back window that glinted in the sunshine. She saw what looked like a flash of fire and a noise like the firecrackers Uncle Walter had lit on the 4th of July. Then there was a commotion on the sidewalk and she saw a big man in a dark suit falling down the steps of the funeral home—she saw him collapse there and lie still with puddles of blood all around. Then she heard her mama scream and turned her head to see Rose kneeling on the dirty sidewalk and there was blood all around her too and she was holding somebody in her arms and she was talking to him and crying so terribly. And the Father in his black dress knelt down, and then the policemen came and took the man out of her lap; she got up and her clothes were all bloody and there was blood all over her face and her hands. And then the policeman pushed Rose and she fell down again and she was screaming and crying and Cynthia was so scared she couldn’t breathe—she was gasping for breath and she knew she was dying just like her Mama was and just like those two men were.

  Scotty was the one who came to her rescue at last. He saw she was paralyzed with fright, and he jerked her up in his arms and talked calmly and quietly to her. He tried to carry her away, but she saw they were leaving Mama so she started to kick and bite and scream for her. That was when Scotty handed Cynthia to Leo and turned back and picked up Mama.

  Viola finally turned her attention away from Rose long enough to see the condition Cynthia was in and tried to comfort her but without much success. So she led her to Rose’s side and attempted to call the woman’s attention to the child. But Rose just stared at her and went on weeping.

  Meanwhile, Mary Jean and Scotty stood together in the kitchen and she was asking him what had happened. Scotty, who wasn’t really sure, shrugged. “I don’t rightly know, Ma’am. Miss Rose called out to this man leanin’ ag’in his car in front of the funeral home. ‘Jack, Jack,’ she hollered, and then he came runnin’ over to meet her and somebody in another car stopped in the stree
t for just a minute and stuck some kind o’ gun out the window and killed him. The other man had just come out the funeral home door and he got killed too. It seemed kinda like he was the one the gun was aimin’ at and that other poor fellah just kinda got in the way of the bullets. But it killed him just as dead anyway.

  Then Miss Rose got down in the street and took that poor man onto her lap and held onto him till the po-lice come and grabbed him ‘way from her. And when she was tryin’ her best to talk to them, they just pushed her off and the poor little thing fell down again and was sittin’ in his blood and nach’erly she just went crazy then.” He was shaking his head, and his expression was one of bafflement and unbelief while his eyes pierced Mary Jean’s, searching for something to calm his own panic and to explain the injustice of life. “The little one, poor little Cindy. She done seen all o’ that too!”

  Viola had just come out of the bedroom and was standing at the door listening. She and Mary Jean were both crying, and even Scotty had tears on his cheeks. His mouth dropped open in a hopeless moan. He looked at Viola and said, “I wonder who that fellah was that Miss Rose was so happy to see.”

  But Viola was too stricken to speak. Instead she sagged against the door jamb and hung there hiding her face against her arms. After she managed to compose herself a little, she cleared her throat and shook her head.

  “That was Jack Nash, Scotty. That was Cynthia’s daddy.”

  The young man gasped, then nodded thoughtfully while his expression grew even more forlorn—Scotty was close enough to these dear people to know the story of Rose’s lost love. “Poor little Miss Rose!” he cried. “Oh Lordy, Lordy.”

  Viola wiped her eyes with her apron and said to nobody in particular. “Somebody has to get word of this to Walter and Claire. They may be able help.” She looked from Mary Jean to Scotty and back again. Helplessness was overwhelming her. The scene took on an artificial look, like a snapshot or maybe even a child’s drawing with little stick people all in a row, staring out at her with blank faces. Little stick people not having any reason for their existence except that they’d been penciled in there. Little blank faces staring straight forward, trusting that whoever had drawn them there knew what he was doing.