When Mr. Whitaker finally left, Mr. Ray waved me over.
“Mr. Miller,” Mr. Ray called, holding his hand out for a shake. “Had a good day?” He gripped my hand tight.
“Pretty good,” I replied, zipping my jacket. The temperature was dropping and it was getting pretty chilly out. “What about you?”
“Not bad. Just been sitting out here, watching life and trying to learn something from it.”
“Yeah, I guess you can say I kinda been doing the same thing.”
“Oh yeah? I figured you spent your day watching Lovey, trying to learn something from her!” Mr. Ray knocked me on the arm. I never should’ve told him we were going out.
“Well, that too. She took me to the Botanic Garden, the one over there off Eastern Parkway.”
Mr. Ray looked surprised. “What the? The homeless shelter, the garden, these are some, uh”—he searched for the right word—“peculiar dates y’all going on.”
I took a seat. “That’s where she wanted to go. It’s a whole thing,” I started, but then I caught myself. Some things shouldn’t be told. If anyone understood that, it was Mr. Ray. “It’s a long story,” I said simply.
“Ah. Gotcha. Well, did you learn something?”
I thought for a moment about the day. The taxi. The kiss. The Polaroid in my pocket. “I think so.”
“Good.” Mr. Ray was obviously all out of cigarettes, because this was definitely one of those times he would’ve been sparking one, taking a drag, and blowing the smoke high into the air. “Tomorrow we’ve got a funeral. Whit came over here to tell me that one of the boys he was trying to help clean up his act got killed a few nights ago, and that his mother wants a simple memorial service.” Mr. Ray paused for a second, and I could tell by how tight his face was that he was disappointed by the news. You would think he’d be used to this by now, but it was kind of cool that it still bothered him. He continued. “His mother said even though Whit was like her son’s mentor, she didn’t want to have it in his church because she was scared her boy’s friends wouldn’t be comfortable there. So it’ll be at the funeral home. We’ll just be carrying the casket, and maybe we’ll provide a little food afterward, but nothing major. Whit said the boy’s mother wants this to be smooth and quick. So come straight here after school so we can be ready by two.”
“Got it.” I stepped off the stoop, then paused. “Before I leave, you never told me if you learned something today.”
Mr. Ray stood up, brushed his pants off, and stretched his long body, which had to be stiff from all the sitting. “Matt, I been sitting here looking at all the kids playing in the street. The people walking down the block, some friends, some strangers, some I’ve known since they were the same age as those kids, stopping to talk to me or share a joke. And I realized that it’s not that death is bad. It’s not. It’s just that life is so good. So damn good that you just wanna hold on to it, and everybody in it. But we can’t. But what we can do, is appreciate it more. Y’know, smell the flowers.” Mr. Ray gave me the old-man finger-gun and headed up the steps. “Have a good night, son.”
As I walked across the street to my house, I heard Brownie, who definitely shouldn’t have still been outside, running down the block yelling Mr. Ray’s name, begging him not to go inside because he finally learned an oldie—“My Girl.” By the time I reached my door, Brownie’s little voice was belting out the words, some right, some wrong, and Mr. Ray’s deep, raspy voice began singing right along with him.
When I got home I noticed that there was a message on the house phone’s answering machine. It was my father, just rambling on and on about how Dr. Fisher was trying to kill him, and that all she was doing was breaking his legs more every day because she didn’t want him to ever leave. His exact words were, “She got it bad for your daddy, boy. I can tell. And you better be careful, because you got my genes. Next thing you know, that girl, Love, be done broke your legs too.” He laughed hard enough to cough, then ended the message with, “Bring me some real food next time you come, okay? Love you, knucklehead.”
End of new messages.
Then it was straight to bed. It had been a while since I came home and went right to my room, took my suit off, brushed my teeth, washed my face, turned the lights off, and went straight to bed. No TV. No Tupac. The only thing I made sure to remember (after listening to my father’s ridiculous message) was to open the notebook, THE SECRET TO GETTING GIRLS, FOR MATTY, to the page where mom laid out how to make the OMG Omelette. I was planning to cook breakfast in the morning. It had been forever since I had done it, but I felt like I was ready; plus, I was tired of eating burned bodega bagels. And also, I made sure to take the Polaroid picture out of my jacket pocket. I had a place for it on my dresser, right next to the old photo of me, Mom, and Dad at the beach. But when I pulled out the Polaroid, it wasn’t of the Sempervivum. Lovey had tricked me! She’d slipped a photo of me smiling into my pocket. I don’t even remember her taking it. Shoot, I don’t even remember smiling! I wrote FIRST DATE WITH LOVE on the white part at the bottom and stared at my face. It wasn’t like I had a big cheese or nothing, but it was definitely a grin, and no joke, it wasn’t bad. Maybe I had been smiling and didn’t even know it.
I put the photo in its spot, next to the old one of me crying. I looked at the pair and could feel a little bit of laughter tingling inside me. Then I hit the light and got in bed. I pulled the covers over me, and when I yawned, it felt like the first time I had ever done it. Like I just let months of tired out of me. At the end of that yawn I was back in the church again. At my mother’s funeral. But this time no one else was there. No preacher. No crying people. My dad wasn’t there, and there wasn’t even a casket. Just me and Mom, sitting in the front row. We hugged and she held my hand, and somehow we were talking, though neither one of us was actually saying anything. It was weird. I couldn’t figure out where everyone else was, though. Maybe the funeral hadn’t started yet. Or maybe the funeral was over.
Chapter 17
ONE STEP AT A TIME
HIS NAME WAS ANDRE WATSON, and I knew him. Well, not really, but I had seen him once. As a matter of fact, the one time I saw him was the day I met Lovey at Cluck Bucket. He was the dude in line trying to get her phone number. The one that she hit with the snapshot joke and embarrassed in front of everybody. He deserved that, but even though I didn’t know anything else about him, I’m sure he did not deserve to be killed.
My job was to set up the chairs and tables as usual, and of course help carry the superlight casket in. Me and Mr. Ray probably could’ve carried it by ourselves, but it happened to be the windiest day of the year and Mr. Ray didn’t want to take no chances. So the usual pallbearer team came. Benny, Robbie Ray, and even Cork, sober, which was definitely a surprise. I hadn’t seen him since everything had happened with my dad. He was on the opposite side of me, so it was a little bit awkward as we carried the casket in, being forced to look each other in the face. Of course he did everything he could to avoid it, and in some weird way, that’s all I needed to let it go. I knew he felt bad. I knew he was sorry, so there was no reason to hate him, especially at somebody else’s funeral. If it was my dad’s funeral, maybe it would’ve been a different story.
Inside the funeral home were maybe fifteen people. Mr. Whitaker stood at the podium, Andre’s mother sat up front, and just about everyone else stood in the back, along the wall. Most of the people there had to be eighteen or nineteen, even though a lot of them looked much older. A lot of hard lives and young faces. I could bet this wasn’t their first funeral, and it wouldn’t be their last, and that Andre’s was the next face painted on a neighborhood wall, or the next RIP tattoo.
Mr. Whitaker tapped the mic to make sure it was on.
“Good morning, everyone,” he said softly. “First let me say to Janine Watson, Andre’s mother, that no one here feels the way you feel . . .” I swallowed hard hearing those words again. The same wor
ds that the minister said to me at my mother’s funeral. The words that started this whole funeral-crashing thing. The preacher continued: “but we will do whatever we can to support you. Second, to all of you out there”—he nodded to the back of the room where we all were standing—“I have a few words, and they come on behalf of Janine, Andre’s mother. She wants me to tell you that she knows you all loved Dre, but you have to let him go without trying to get revenge on anyone.”
I looked at Ms. Watson, and as usual, I counted the seconds before the breakdown. I knew there would be an explosion of tears coming, and I stood along the back wall with everyone else, waiting for it, watching her tremble and struggle to keep the pain down. It had been a few days since my last funeral, and even though I was doing okay—I mean, I had a girl, and my dad was making it—I couldn’t help but slip back into my normal groove of being weirdly anxious to see the meltdown, to be comforted again by someone else’s pain.
But before Ms. Watson crumbled, my phone buzzed. I slipped it out of my pocket and peeked at the screen.
1 NEW MESSAGE
Where are u?
I thumbed quickly.
Funeral home
Mr. Whitaker, meanwhile, noticing that no one seemed to care about what he was saying, decided to try a new approach.
“As a matter of fact, Janine, I think it would mean more if you came up and said it yourself.” He reached out his hand to her.
Ms. Watson walked up to the microphone. She was a young woman. She wore a black top and black pants and had a nose ring. She had dark circles around her eyes, a mix of runny makeup and no sleep. She looked out at everyone for a moment before saying anything. It was almost as if she was purposely meeting eyes with every single person there, the whole crew. She even locked eyes with me for a second, and I didn’t even know Andre.
“Good morning.” Her voice was sweet, but shaky. “I just want y’all to know that I don’t blame none of y’all for this, but I need y’all to end it. No more of this mess. He was nineteen years old,” she said, her eyes filling quickly. She repeated, “Nineteen years old!” I felt itchy. Like, anxious. I knew it was coming, and it was going to be a big one. Maybe even the biggest one I had seen yet. Ms. Watson looked down at the casket and clinched the podium tight to try to keep herself from shaking.
My phone buzzed.
1 NEW MESSAGE
It was Lovey again.
Headed to work. I’m close. Come outside
Come outside? But Ms. Watson was so close! I tried to wait a few more minutes before I typed anything back, but Lovey texted again.
I got something for u ;-)
??? I texted, trying to stall.
Matt just come out! she texted back.
I couldn’t believe what I was missing, but I also couldn’t not go outside to see what Lovey had for me. What can I say, the girl had me. I tried to slip out the door as quietly as possible, but the stupid breeze pulled the door open hard, slamming it against the wall, making a loud bang.
The entire funeral whipped toward me. I mean the preacher, the mother, and the twelve or thirteen hard-looking dudes in the back. Some of them turned with their hands on their waists, and at that point I threw my hands in the air, went straight into robot face, and slowly backed out of the door before something bad happened.
“Everything okay?” Lovey asked, as I closed the door softly.
She had her hair down and it was flying all over the place. She was wearing her grease-stained Cluck Bucket uniform, but to me she was all cute. Her hands were behind her back, obviously hiding something.
“Yeah, everything is cool,” I replied, still feeling dumb about the door, and anxious about what I was missing inside. “Wassup? What you got for me?”
Lovey pulled her hands from behind her back. “This,” she said, proudly holding a small flower pot. “A Sempervivum.”
She moved closer and placed the plant in the palm of my hands. I looked down at it, a star inside a star inside a star. It’s funny, I didn’t really notice until right then that I’m as awkward when I receive a gift as I am when I take a picture. Some people are really good at it. They can jump up and down and light their faces up whenever somebody gives them something. But not me. I didn’t know what to say or do but look dumb.
“Um. Wow,” I said, staring into the pot. I gotta say, I never thought getting a flower as a gift would be cool. But for some reason, it was. “Thanks,” I said, reaching out with one arm to give her a half hug. Lame! I wanted a do-over so I could do a better job expressing how thankful I was.
We sat down on the steps.
“Are there any kind of instructions I need to take care of this? I mean, I’ve never had plants or anything.”
Lovey pressed her hand against my chest softly, just for a second, then said, “Just water it sometimes. Think you can handle that?”
I smirked. “Hmmm. I don’t know. How about you come over every now and then and water it for me. I mean, you’re already such a flower master.”
“Hmmm. I’ll see what I can do, if you promise to make me more cookies. Y’know, a trade.” I knew she had a thing about my block, so the fact that she was even entertaining this idea of coming over was good enough for me.
“Ah,” I said, fully aware that I was smiling now. “Just cookies? I think I can work that out.” She had no idea what she was getting herself into. I was gonna cook her into a coma!
She leaned in for a kiss, but before I could meet her in the middle, the funeral home door flew open again, banging against the wall, scaring us both half to death. This time it was Mr. Ray.
“Matthew, what you doing? We gotta get the casket outta here.” Then he noticed Lovey. “Oh,” he said, surprised. “Hey, Love, didn’t know you were out here. Um, Matt, you know what, I think we got it. Just take these for me,” he said, holding out a handful of leftover funeral programs mixed in with some cancer pamphlets. I ran up the steps and grabbed the folded papers. “Ya’ll make sure to get out the way, we’re coming out in a second,” he added.
Lovey got up, and the both of us stood on the side of the steps, waiting for the casket to be marched out. She grabbed one of the programs.
“Andre Watson,” she said to herself, staring at his picture, trying to figure out where she knew him.
“You remember him?” I asked.
Lovey looked and looked but couldn’t figure it out.
“Remember that day in Cluck Bucket when I asked for a job and that guy was trying to get at you?”
Lovey’s eyes got big.
“Oh my . . .” She put her hand over her mouth. “Jesus.”
The door slammed open again, and Robbie, Benny, Cork, and Mr. Ray came stepping out the double doors of the funeral home, carrying the casket, two on each side. It was a silent march down the steps, into the car. Behind them was Ms. Watson walking arm and arm with Mr. Whitaker. Her face was now covered in black streaks from her makeup, and the preacher was practically holding her up so she wouldn’t fall down the steps. I had missed the explosion. I wasn’t in the room when she shattered, sending me into some kind of warm trance that normally made me feel better about my life. This time I only got to see the aftermath of it all. The wobbly legs and the melted face.
She stumbled down the first few steps, clinching Mr. Whitaker’s arm tight. Then she stopped and whispered something to him. He nodded and she took a deep breath and let go of his arm, and with the wind roaring and blowing hard, she slowly walked the rest of the way by herself. She wiped her eyes, but the tears kept coming as she went step by step, alone, to the car.
I looked at Lovey’s face—plain, but still pretty. Her eyes filling with water because of both the wind and the funeral. Then I looked at the gift she got me. The Sempervivum, still small, just barely sprouting (if sprouting is what you call it), with so much life ahead of it. I thought of my mother, and felt the warm feelin
g again. Like the one I normally feel at the funerals, but it was different this time. It was for a different reason. I reached for Lovey’s hand as we watched the cars start, smoke blowing from the exhaust pipes, kicking brown and orange and yellow leaves up. Robbie Ray was in the front car, and Mr. Ray was driving Ms. Watson in the second, both men hanging their neon FUNERAL tags on the rearview mirrors at the same time. Teenagers stood on the steps and watched, some lighting cigarettes, others slipping fingers behind their sunglasses to wipe hidden tears. And Lovey wrapped her fingers around mine, and we both squeezed tight.
Acknowledgments
This is going to sound weird, but the only reason this book could be written at all is because my mother took me to a lot of funerals at a very young age. So . . . uh . . . thanks, Ma. And thank you to my Aunt Bud and Uncle Calvin, whose constant jokes (oftentimes about really hard things) flooded me with inspiration. This one is definitely for you both. My older sister, Dhimitri Gross, and my college homeboy, Christopher Smith, I appreciate you responding to the random calls and text messages about all the medical stuff. I mean, seriously, I totally get why you have to go to school to be a doctor. Nekeya O’Connor, thanks for the help with patois. Kia Dyson, thanks for pretty much being the muse for the character Love. And last, but surely not least, thank you to my awesome agent, Elena Giovanazzo (E Money), and my insanely talented editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy, for once again believing in me and my crazy tales.
The Boy in the Black Suit Page 20