“No, it was true. I didn’t have clear skin. I was never mistaken for a prom queen.”
“You wasn’t an ugly duckling.”
“I was only given Willie Esther’s old clothes. She’d half-kill me if I altered those clothes. She said that if they fit they would attract boys and attracting boys would make me a slut.”
“I know, I know.”
“It’s okay. It was the truth. I wore what I could. What she allowed me to wear.”
Her pain escalates. With each word I understand the depth of her animosity.
Grandpa Fred has a coughing spell, then shifts his four teeth the best he can. “Never meant to add to what Willie Esther did. Wish I had known I had caused you pain.”
Genevieve pushes her lips up, but her eyes can’t lie.
She says, “Water under the bridge. It was all for the best.”
“And you done married now.”
“I’m married to this wonderful man. Yes.”
“Chirren?”
Her lips come halfway down. “Willie Esther used to tell me that I was going to grow up and be a whore and have a litter of leftover niggers just like Delphinie did.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say to you.”
Her smile returns. “We don’t have any children.”
He nods. “If you ain’t your momma all growed up and citified, I don’t know who is.”
The mention of her mother and Genevieve withers, her eyes go toward the graveyard.
She stands tall, asks, “What should I expect? I mean will they—”
“Nobody gon‘ bring up no old things. Kenya here. She done told people you was here.”
He moves his four teeth back and forth. A coughing fit comes and goes. I hold his wheelchair, afraid it might start rolling backward. He inhales his cigarette, gets settled.
Genevieve asks, “Who is that Bubba Smith? He’s irritating me to no end.”
Grandpa Fred inhales again, still pondering. “He’s your daddy’s stepbrother.”
“One of your other illegitimate sons.”
“From back when I was sowing my oats.”
“How many other kids did you have?”
“Guess around nine, maybe more. Bubba from my other family in Miss’sippi.” He scratches himself with that nub. Coughs. Inhales. “Now I’m reaping what I done sowed.”
“I had a fit in front of him, Grandpa. Almost jumped out of the car.”
She does not give me that raw emotion, that trust, gives it to a man with fewer limbs than Mr. Potato Head. I’m right here and she refuses to peel back the layers. I am her husband.
Grandpa Fred shifts the best he can. “He ain’t gonna say nothing to nobody.”
She nods, her expression as dark as a gypsy’s skin. “How long will this take?”
He says, “We gon‘ head over to First Baptist for the wake in an hour or so.”
She asks, “Funeral home driving the family over?”
He nods toward a brick church beyond the graveyard. “No need having ‘em come all the way out here just to drive us right there. No need wasting money on foolishness. We can do like we always do and all of y’all drive or walk across the cemetery to First Baptist.”
The wake. I had forgotten about that Southern tradition, a ceremony left over from days gone by, when family and friends sit in a room with the dead and pray that they will wake up.
Grandpa Fred asks, “Given any thought about going out to Elmore to see Gravedigger?”
“Not really.”
“Gravedigger would love to lay his eyes on you.”
“Twenty years.” Genevieve speaks with reluctance. “Seems like it was this morning.”
“Time for healing. We not long for this world. Time for healing.”
To them I am not here. I am a six-foot-one-inch fixture with the value of a shade tree on a cloudy day.
Genevieve just said her father has been incarcerated twenty years. If that was twenty years ago, then she was seventeen, maybe sixteen. She ran away at thirteen, came back and endured three more years of suffering, only to witness her mother killed.
Kenya says she was there too. My brain tries to reverse engineer the situation, to come to conclusions without asking about what is sensitive, but too much is heavy on my mind.
Kenya escapes between family members with the ease of a ballet dancer. So limber to be so tall. The tallest in the lot. Her colorful skirt swings and my heart moves with her rhythm. In my mind, we’re back at the Tutwiler, on her bed, her legs open for me, her sighs echoing.
I become to them what Bubba Smith was to us; I push the bloated man in his carriage. The damp wind blows his stench direct into my nostrils. His Jenny Vee walks at his side, silent, eyes back on our destination. Grandpa Fred has a NASCAR sticker on the back of his wheelchair.
Grandpa Fred says, “The neighbors brought cakes and pies. Plenty food for er’body.”
Genevieve swallows, then nods as she lies, “We already ate.”
He says, “If you don’t mind my saying this, I will. It’s not nice, but I have to speak my mind. Jenny Vee, I’m glad I didn’t go before Willie Esther. Never woulda got to see you again.”
Genevieve grunts. “Thought that cantankerous bitch was gonna live forever.”
In that moment, she sounds as Southern as Grandpa Fred. That new voice stuns me.
Grandpa Fred inhales. “We all thought that cantankerous bitch was gonna live forever.”
Then Genevieve does something I’ve never seen her do.
She turns her head to the side, clears her throat, and spits.
Esther. Nazareth. Ruth. I meet them and several others first. They are the slow-moving elders. Then there are the hyper teenagers.
Champagne. Tanisha. Shaquetta. I meet at least ten of them as I cross the yard. Neither the teenagers nor the younger children have any idea who Genevieve is. They stare at her, a woman in black with perfect hair. They stare at us. The perfect-looking couple in tailored Italian clothing and Swiss watches.
Jimmy Lee is one of Genevieve’s brothers, has the same grade of wavy hair, only he possesses a receding hairline, about five-foot-five, not much taller than Genevieve. He has golden eyeteeth. He is twenty-five years old and wears a banana-yellow suit and a black-and-white polka-dot tie.
He says, “Good to see you… how you say your name again?”
My wife says, “Genevieve.”
“I kinda remember you.”
“You don’t look nothing like I thought you would look.”
Unfamiliarity and discomfort rests between them. It’s sad. He looks at me, at my suit, evaluates me head to toe, yields a judgmental pause, then comes to some conclusion about us.
Genevieve pulls away, says, “Good to see you. You’re looking nice.”
“That’s my wife over there. Velma, come meet my big sister.”
“Tired of you hollering at me like I’m a child, Jimmy Lee.”
“Come here, Velma. Don’t show out in front of my big sister.”
His wife is at least five-foot-nine. Velma. Works at Wal-Mart in Wildwood. I doubt if she is twenty. She wears leather jeans with vertical suede patches. She has a moustache. Not thin hair on her lips. A moustache. Her chin is dark, has bumps from shaving with a razor.
Jimmy Lee says, “These our chirren. Y’all come meet y’all, auntie from California”
They have six children, four of them his from other relationships. Little Jimmy Lee. Shaquanda. Bonquita. Lexus. Three of those four are between seven and eight. Mercedes is three and the baby—Sean John—is one, both of the latter the fruit of their labor.
The children address us with epithets, yes sir and no ma’am, something California children would never do. Growing up in this land of vintage automobiles has its pluses.
I step back from that reunion, but Genevieve takes my hand, not wanting to be alone.
Jimmy Lee has bad skin, weathered with a bad diet, will not look under forty in the best Hollywood lighting, walks with a o
ne-sided spring to his stride, as if his right leg were part of an anxious pogo stick. Velma laughs and chews gum nonstop, blows big pink bubbles; her rear end jiggles and she swings her arms when she walks. Her hips sway like she was born to breed. Velma keeps asking if we have any children; it pains me to say I have none. Their little Brady Bunch is testament that propagation of the species seems to be their favorite pastime. They ask what are we waiting for and I manufacture a laugh, or manage to change the subject.
I meet elder men with names like J.B. and J.R. and J.D. and J.P and J.T. Their wives have names like Queen and Big Momma and Esther and Little Ruby and Josephine.
At some point they all ask Genevieve, “How you say your name again?”
“Genevieve.” My wife says that, remaining close to me. “Genevieve Forbes.”
“And you Gravedigger and Delphinie’s oldest girl-child.”
They come to see Genevieve, they judge, they shuffle away mumbling.
Genevieve moves away, seems as if part of her family wants to talk to her in private.
She tells me, “I have to represent my mother’s interest in this affair.”
“I’ll be okay,” I tell her. “If you need me, send me a text message.”
They travel to the other side of the fence, stop feet away at her mother’s grave. I watch Genevieve. She seems so small, as if being here deflates her soul. She knows I am watching her. We have that connection. She glances my way and smiles at me, thumbs up. She’s okay. I stare off to the right, and see St. Clair High School no more than a peaceful hundred yards away. A banner runs across the back announcing that Piggly Wiggly sponsors its sporting events.
I look the other way, toward Route 411.
I imagine Genevieve as a child, running up that road, grocery bag underneath her arm.
Bubba Smith and a rotund man with a thick moustache and greasy blond hair come up and stop near me. Bubba Smith is talking with his hands, excited. The blond man with the greasy hair wears a black suit and a preacher’s collar. And he carries a worn Bible.
Bubba Smith says, “On the Internet. On that eBay. I kid you not.”
“Virgin M-M-Mary in ten-year-old grilled cheese.”
Bubba Smith grins big and wide. “Can you imagine the mold?”
“M-m-maybe it was government cheese.”
“Reverend, that is the exact same thing I said when the missus told me that nonsense. Said it had to be government cheese. Ain’t no other kinna cheese good after ten years.”
The reverend winks at me, let’s me know he’s humoring Bubba Smith.
I interrupt their conversation long enough to ask for directions to the bathroom. Bubba Smith points toward the trailer. It’s open to everyone. Tells me I can’t miss the John. Four wooden steps that look like they were constructed in a middle-school shop class lead up to a screen door. I test each one, not sure if the weather-beaten and time-worn steps will support my weight. They creak but don’t give under my heaviness. That aluminum door is bent, feels as if it’s about to fall off the hinges. So many unpleasant odors greet me as I step inside a dark place that, with the exception of the small kitchen, has no overhead lighting, just huge lamps on worn-out end tables. I breathe through my mouth, wipe the soles of my shoes on a ragged towel being used as a mat, say hello to a few people and take in this claustrophobic space as I do so.
Paneled walls. Wooden ceiling fan. Worn blue carpet bejeweled with cigarette holes.
A blue-haired woman with varicose veins and a bad hip asks, “Who child you?”
She is standing near a worn-out mahogany table filled with flowers and sympathy cards.
I say, “I’m Genevieve Forbes’s husband.”
“You Johnny who husband?”
“Delphinie and Gravedigger’s oldest daughter. Genevieve.”
She thinks for a moment. “The girl that ran away from here?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Lord, have mercy. Where that child at? Thought she had passed on.”
“She’s outside. Very much alive.”
“You know her momma was killed just about right where you standing.”
She says that as calmly as she would tell a friend the sun is shining.
I swallow, shift away from that conversation. “Where is the bathroom?”
“Delphinie buried right there. Third or fourth grave, right over there.”
A younger man helps her get out the door. People who are leaving the trailer point down the hallway, tell me that someone just went inside the bathroom.
I wait, looking around. Smell a combination of cigarette smoke, Pine-Sol, and stale odors that remind me of a resting home, unidentifiable fried stenches that are melded into everything. Pictures of Jesus, Martha Stewart, and Ronald Reagan show who she held on high.
Those images are on the wall facing the rising of the sun.
Ronald Reagan’s picture is up the highest. Then Jesus has an inch over Martha.
In the kitchen area, water spots are on the warped floor. Rust-colored, circular spots are on the ceiling over that damage. Deep-fried foods. Okra. Pies. Butter beans. Peach cobbler. Nehi and Grapico sodas. Milo’s Sweet Tea. Strawberry Yoo-hoos. Grapey grape Bug Juice. Beer. I skip the macaroni and cheese, pork chops, and meatloaf, find some meatballs, put two on a paper plate, grab a plastic fork, and eat most of one. I eat with the hand that doesn’t stink of Grandpa Fred. I look at the small television and I’m glad it’s not on Channel 11. I try to imagine Genevieve and all of her siblings confined in this cramped space. It would be maddening.
In this dark and dreary room Genevieve’s mother died a horrible death. But death’s spot is not what I came to see.
Kenya comes out of the bathroom. She is why I came inside this trailer home.
If there will be more words, perhaps a confrontation between us, so be it.
FIFTEEN
THERE IS A DARK MOMENT OF UNCERTAINTY BETWEEN US, ITS DEPTH immeasurable.
Kenya takes slow steps into the room, her wild hair moving with her sashay, her colorful skirt swaying side-to-side with her uneasy and uncertain rhythm, and she pauses before me.
I chew slow and easy.
She asks, “You like those?”
I swallow before I speak. “Pretty tasty.”
“Those are mountain oysters.”
“What are mountain oysters?”
“Bull’s nuts. You’re eating testicles.”
My eyes widen. Her hand covers her mouth, muffling her laugh. I spit into a napkin over and over, then hurry into the bathroom gagging. Kenya’s laughter spirals, follows me.
She yells, “You might want to chase those nuts with some red Kool-Aid.”
I wipe my mouth on a paper towel and laugh a disgusted laugh. When I look at the back of the bathroom door I see a worn razor strap. The slave master’s whip. I peep inside the medicine cabinet. Medications for hemorrhoids and manic depression. I feel for Genevieve.
When I make it back to the front room, Kenya is alone. Everyone is outside, some are lining up. Kenya stands in the front window, arms folded. Her perfume caresses me. She takes my plate from me, empties the food into a container before she trashes the paper plate.
Her face fills with concern. “Heard your wife had a conniption fit on the way out here.”
That derails me. “Bubba Smith told… ?”
“That peckerwood was about to have a fit himself. You scared him pretty good. He ran and told everybody that you started holding Sister, yelling at her, and you cursed him. Said she went crazy, was scratching and hitting on you, kicking the seats, trying to jump out the car.”
I curse him and his moustache. “It wasn’t like that. She… it wasn’t like that.”
Kenya says, “Told Grandpa Fred ‘nem you had him so upset he almost had a wreck.”
“Grandpa Fred ‘nem?” I take a sharp breath. “Everybody knows about her attacks?”
She nods. “If they didn’t, they do now. That’s why everybody went outside to see y’all walk up. Tha
t’s why everybody still outside. They’re all interested in LaKeisha.”
I’m about to head back outside, go straight to Bubba Smith and have a few words, but I see a stack of obituaries are on a table. Willie Esther Savage.
Curiosity stops me.
I pick one up. Surprise replaces anger. I had expected her to have long, wild hair like the ghost in The Ring. Or have a long nose and be as green as the Wicked Witch of the West.
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