The Dry Grass of August

by Anna Jean Mayhew

  “Yes, hello.You helped me at the Daddy Grace parade.”

  “It’s nice you could come to Sister Luther’s service.” She touched the rim of her black hat. “Are you by yourself?”

  “My parents can’t be here.”

  “Why don’t we go inside, let you pay your respects. Maybe put that case by the coatrack.”

  “It’s Mary’s. I want to give it to her children.”

  “They’ll appreciate that.” Mrs. Coley led me into the church, stopping at a rack where empty hangers dangled. “You can leave the bag there. Nobody will bother it.”

  The church was filled with people talking in low voices that hushed as I passed.

  “Was it your mother who dressed Sister Luther so nice to send her home?” Mrs. Coley asked. She straightened a gold pin on the lapel of her black suit.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Put Sister Luther in her Sunday best. Had her hair done. That was kind.”

  So that’s what Mama was tending to while Daddy and I went to see about the Packard.

  Mrs. Coley led me toward the front of the church, where a coffin was set up on a velvet-covered stand surrounded by flowers. Not the pine box we had shipped Mary home in. I kept right on walking toward it without a thought in the world that I would get to it and look down and Mary would be lying there. I just went on with Mrs. Coley propelling me until I almost bumped into it.Then there she was. Her face was soft and pretty, with her hair combed back the way she liked it, her hands on her chest holding her old white Bible. She looked peaceful, asleep.

  I put my hand out. “Mary?” My voice broke.

  “She’s beyond hearing, child,” Mrs. Coley said.

  I didn’t faint. I never for a second didn’t know what was going on, but my legs folded. I sank to the floor beside Mary’s coffin, wailing with all the sadness I’d been holding in. Mrs. Coley sat down beside me and pulled me to her, rocking me back and forth. “She’s with Jesus, child. Her burden is lifted.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Mrs. Coley helped me to my feet. “C’mon, Miss Watts, let’s find a place to sit.” When I turned away from the coffin, I saw Young Mary in the front pew, eyes swollen, lipstick as bright as the cherries on her hat. She stared at me. Her brother, Link, sat next to her, stern, thick-necked and broad-shouldered, bigger than I remembered from when he worked in Daddy’s warehouse. To either side of Link and Young Mary were women dressed in white. Mrs. Coley spoke to several of them and said to me, “Our Mothers Board.” The solemn women regarded me.

  Where was Leesum?

  Halfway down the aisle, Mrs. Coley stopped beside a crowded pew. I followed her into the pew, inching by knees and stepping on a man’s foot. Mrs. Coley spoke to folks as we crowded past them. “Y’all scoot over, make room.” We had just gotten seated when a woman began to play an upright piano against the wall near the foot of the coffin. A panel was missing above the keyboard, and I could see the hammers hitting the strings as she played.

  The afternoon sun streamed through a window made of vivid chips around a white cross of streaked glass that looked like frozen smoke. Rainbow hues fell on Mary, lighting her face. I thought of her cheeks being rouged by a sunbeam through ruby glass, her gray linen dress looking like she’d spilled fruit salad on it. She had been here when others were buried. She might have sat exactly where I was sitting and seen the brilliant colors splash on other coffins.

  A man came down the center aisle, wearing a black flowing robe, with a stole around his neck that hung almost to his knees.

  “Reverend Perkins?” I asked Mrs. Coley.

  She nodded.

  So that was Mary’s pastor, the one Leesum was living with.

  A choir followed the minister, humming to the music, yellow satin robes swaying. A woman sang a solo line in a high, clear voice. “There is a balm in Gilead.” The choir responded, “To make the wounded whole. ” Again the one strong voice. “There is a balm in Gilead. ” And the choir. “To heal the sin-sick soul.” I felt they were singing to me.

  The choir came to a stop at folding chairs along the wall next to the piano. Across from them sat a row of men in dark suits. “The deacons,” Mrs. Coley whispered. One was George McHone, our yard man, wearing a suit and bow tie like he had in the Daddy Grace parade.

  Cardboard fans rustled in the warm air, and folding chairs scraped as the choir settled, still humming. Reverend Perkins put his Bible on an elevated pulpit behind the casket. He turned to face the congregation. He was bald, and so light-skinned he could have passed, except for his flat Negro nose.

  Children came down the aisle carrying flowers, young ones in front, teenagers behind. The last one to pass our pew was Leesum. I put out my hand, pulled it back, spoke his name.

  He turned, handed his flower to another boy, and left the procession. The man next to me said, “What’s going on?”

  Leesum never stopped looking at me. “She my friend.” “Not enough room here,” said a woman on the other side of Mrs. Coley.

  “She my friend.” Leesum wedged himself into the pew beside me.

  “Now, this ain’t right,” someone grumbled.Two people got up to find seats less crowded. When the others spread out, Leesum stayed beside me, just as close as before. He took my hand and I wished I didn’t have gloves on.

  Mrs. Coley peered around me. “What are you doing, boy? You’re supposed to be up front.”

  “Stayin’ with my friend.”

  “I can see that.”

  Behind us someone said, “Y’all shush.”

  Now I could pay attention to Mary, to her service. With Leesum holding my hand and Mrs. Coley on my other side, I would be okay.

  The children proceeded to the front of the church and handed out the flowers to the Mothers Board and to Young Mary and Link.

  At a signal from Reverend Perkins, one of the deacons stood, walked to the casket, and closed the lid.Were they going to bury Mary’s Bible with her? All that family history.

  The preacher raised his arms. “There’s anger amongst us. Some talk of retribution.” He said the last word slowly, emphasizing each syllable.

  “Too many has died,” a man called out.

  “That’s right,” someone else said. “Too many.”

  “Yes, Jesus!”

  Reverend Perkins said, “We’re here for one purpose—to honor Mary Constance Culpepper Luther, who lies before us. She who God has called home.”

  Someone behind me said, “Lord’s will.”

  “But Sister Luther is not lost,” the preacher said.

  “Hallelujah,” a man answered. A woman said, “Sister with Jesus.”

  “Mary Luther’s path was not easy, but she persevered.” Reverend Perkins looked at Young Mary and Link. He stepped from behind the altar and went to Mary’s coffin, extending his hands, palms up, as if to raise her from the dead.

  He spoke again, his voice so low and sad I strained to hear. “The Sister Luther I knew would not listen to words of anger. She’d turn the other cheek to those who would smite her and pray for God to forgive them.”

  “She gone to Jesus.”

  “Praise the Lord!”

  The church was filled with the rustle of shifting bodies, the smell of flowers. Fans stirred the air.

  The preacher wiped his head with a handkerchief and walked back to the pulpit. He looked out over the congregation, his eyes fastening first one place, then another, then on me. “Mary Luther was a cleaning woman, helped her people get their house in order, then went home at night, made order in her own.” I felt pinned to the pew. “Might be midnight before she saw her bed. Next day she’d rise up, go back to her labors. But she was blessed with two fine children, told me how proud she was when her boy got to Howard University on a scholarship.” He looked at Young Mary and Link.

  “Amen! Praise Jesus!”

  “Yes, Lord, yes.”

  Reverend Perkins cleared his throat, took a sip of water. “Sister Luther’s kindness touched everybody in this church, bu
t some got her attention more than others.” He looked right at Leesum.

  Leesum nodded.

  I took a fan from a holder in the pew in front of me, and moved the air with it. The fan had an advertisement for Alexander Funeral Home, where Mary’s visitation had been. I wished I could have been there.

  “There is no room for anger at the funeral of Mary Luther.” Reverend Perkins’ voice rose. “She lived for love, she died in love.”

  One of the deacons stood and said to the preacher’s back, “She were beaten down by hate.”

  “By hate,” someone agreed.

  “Killed in the street.”

  The preacher turned to look at the man. “That’s the truth, Deacon Hull. Hate killed our sister. But the love she lived will triumph over the sin that took her away.”

  “Love conquer sin,” a voice called out.

  “I know you’re angry.” Reverend Perkins spoke again to the man, who was still standing. “But this is not the time for words of vengeance.”

  The man sat, then stood back up and spoke to the congregation. “Come to the meeting Friday night, brothers and sisters. Gather here to talk about what happened to Mrs. Luther.” He sat down. “That’s it for now, Pastor.”

  Reverend Perkins took a Bible from the podium and moved to stand by Mary’s coffin. “Mary Luther—the heart of wisdom—knew her scripture. She’d say turn to it in your anger.” He opened the Bible. “Isaiah five speaks of those who do evil.”

  “Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts. . . .”

  He thumped his finger on the open Bible. “They have rejected the law of the Lord!” He flipped pages. “Same thing, all over the good book. Psalm thirty-seven says it clearly.”

  “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the wicked shall be cut off; but those who wait for the LORD shall possess the land.”

  He closed the book and shouted, “The wicked shall be cut off!”

  Responses rose throughout the church: “God’s word. Fret not. Wait for the Lord.”

  He returned to the pulpit, closed his eyes, bowed his head. The church was silent. “Lord?” the preacher called out. “Can you see into our hearts?”

  A gasping cry, a woman’s voice, “My heart’s full of hate.”

  The preacher’s voice became conversational. “Jesus, send down your love as you did for those who put you on that cross. Fill our hearts with love.” He paused for responses, continued, “This mother lives in the hearts of her children, in the hearts of everyone in this church. And she will live forever in the love of Jesus. World without end, amen.”

  Amens rang out.

  A skinny old man stood in the choir, his head bald except for a ring of white hair. He walked to the front of Mary’s coffin, faced the congregation, and began to sing in a trembling bass voice, “Steal away. Steal away. Steal away to Jesus. ” His voice grew stronger and people around me began to hum with him. “Steal away. Steal away home. I ain’t got long to stay here. ” Tears ran down the old man’s face. The choir joined in, faster, louder. “My Lord He calls me. He calls me by the thunder. ” On either side of me, Mrs. Coley and Leesum sang with the choir. “The trumpet sounds within my soul. I ain’t got long to stay here. ” There were no hymnbooks, but the congregation knew the words. Mrs. Coley swayed against me, moving with the music, the brim of her hat brushing my shoulder. “Steal away. Steal away home. ” Her voice swelled in harmony. “I ain’t got long to stay here.”

  A deacon went to the casket and opened it. Reverend Perkins said, “Anybody who hasn’t done so may now pay final respects to Sister Luther.” Members of the congregation went to the coffin, bowed over it. The only sounds were the shuffling of feet, the creak of the floorboards, sniffles, choked sobs. When all grew still, six men came forward. I wondered if Mary’s brother was among them. At a gesture from the preacher,Young Mary walked to the coffin. She kissed her mother’s face and took the white Bible. Link closed the coffin, and the six men carried it down the center aisle. People stood and reached out to it as it passed. “Be with Jesus, Sister Luther—God bless you, Sister—Praise the Lord.” Hands touched the gleaming wood.

  Mrs. Coley, Leesum, and I moved into the crowd that filled the aisle, walking slowly through the heavy air toward the rectangle of light that opened into the afternoon heat. Outside, the congregation broke into twos and threes, following the pallbearers to the cemetery behind the church. Mary’s open grave was between a marker for her husband, Pharr Lincoln Luther, who died in 1948, and a stone engraved, “CAROL JANE LUTHER, BORN FEBRUARY 2, DIED APRIL 10, 1946.” I was five years old when Mary began working for us. She had a whole life I never knew, a baby who lived and died before I ever met her, a husband whose death I didn’t remember.

  Leesum stayed by my side. I could hardly believe it had been only ten days since I met him. He seemed like my longtime friend. I hadn’t thought of him as being so tall, but he had half a foot on me.

  A woman from the choir sang out, “Precious Lord, take my hand . . .” and others joined in.

  Reverend Perkins said something I didn’t understand as Mary’s coffin was lowered into the ground. Link and Young Mary tossed clumps of dirt onto it.Young Mary had on shoes the same shiny red as her lipstick and the cherries on her hat; her black dress was trimmed in satin and had a peplum that showed off her tiny waist and high hips. I didn’t think her mama would have approved of such a dress at a funeral. She caught my eye, looked away.

  I stood by the grave. Mary would never be with me again. There was no one I could turn to for the goodness I got from her. I was standing with my hand on her husband’s headstone, when Leesum asked, “Where you folks?”

  “They couldn’t come.”

  “That’s sumpin, you comin’ here alone.” He looked down at Mary’s coffin. “Miz Luther took care of me, just like she said in Florida. I been stayin’ with preacher. I’m a junior usher here at the church.” He looked past me. “Hey, Link.”

  I turned. Link Luther stood next to me, his face closed. “Hello, June.”

  I looked for Young Mary, didn’t see her. “I’m sorry about your . . . about Mary.”

  He nodded. “Ask your father—” He took a breath. “Ask Mr. Watts about that room behind his warehouse.”

  “What?”

  He walked away.

  “Link.”

  He didn’t stop.

  “I brought your mother’s things, her flowered bag.”

  He turned.

  “There’s three fruitcakes in it. She bought one for a church party, one for y’all, and one for her best friend.” I was ashamed I didn’t know who that was. “It’s by the coatrack in the foyer.”

  For a second his face softened. “I’ll get it.” He disappeared into the crowd, leaving me with Leesum among the clumps of people standing under trees, talking, glancing at Leesum, barely looking at me. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  Reverend Perkins said, “You all right now, Miss Watts?”

  I nodded. “It was a good service.”

  He touched my hand. “Mrs. Luther told me all about you. All about you.You were . . .” He stopped. “She said you—” He cleared his throat. “She loved you, that’s all.”

  Tears came to my eyes. He put his arm around my shoulders. “You’ll find a way to get on without her. Lord doesn’t give us more’n we can bear.” He looked into my eyes. “You know that?”

  “That’s what Mary always told me.”

  “Just you remember it.” He spoke to Leesum. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Yessuh.”

  I said to Leesum, “I have to go. My folks don’t know where I am.”

  He looked like a man, dressed up, serious, as he walked with me to the street. “We sendin’ somebody to Georgia.They gone find out what happened to Miz Luther.”

 
; “The church is?”

  “Yeah, Deacon Hull, the one what spoke up in the service. Maybe one or two others.”

  “The sheriff’s working on it.”

  “They never try too hard to find out who killed a colored.” Colored. Leesum was colored. I kept forgetting what that meant.

  A yellow cab drove up, the taxi I’d come in. I took Leesum’s hand. “I’ve got to go now.”

  He stared at me with his green eyes. “I be thinkin’ of you, Jubie.”

  “Same here. Good-bye, Leesum.”

  From the backseat of the cab, I watched him standing on the curb.

  The driver asked, “How was the funeral?”

  “Good. I’m glad I went.”

  “Reckon you were the only white there.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you forget your tote?”

  “Oh, no, that belonged to the woman who . . . I took it to her family.”

  We passed the House of Prayer for All People and Daddy Grace’s red, white, and blue mansion across from the ice house. When we turned left onto Morehead, I scrunched down in the seat in case any of Mama’s friends were at the Junior Woman’s Club. When I sat up, I asked the driver, “Why’d you come back for me?”

  “Got a girl your age. Wouldn’t want her in colored town by herself.”

  I liked him for not saying nigger town. When we pulled up to the house, he said, “That’ll be a dollar. You gonna be okay, now?”

  I gave him a dollar and a quarter. “Yes, sir. Thank you for your kindness.”

  My heels tapped on the slates of the front walk as I ran to the house. Back in my room, I sat at my dresser, trying to think what to do. In the mirror my hands went to Stell’s straw hat, removed it, put it down on the glass-topped dresser, like a lady in a movie, taking off her hat after a tea party. I put it back in the hatbox exactly as it had been, returning the box to the shelf in Stell’s closet. I folded the white cotton gloves Meemaw had given me, which I’d never worn before, and put them in the top drawer of my bureau, putting away a girl I’d never really been. When I pulled my T-shirt over my head and zipped up my jeans, I felt I was myself again. I left my room neat, not like my room at all. If I got the car away from the house, there’d be no way for anybody to tell I’d ever been home. Even the shining kitchen could have been Aunt Rita or Young Mary.