by Ann Petry
“Will you come over tomorrow afternoon? Funeral at two. If you’ll just see that everything goes all right. Howard’s a fool,” Frances said.
“You mean at your place?”
“Of course.”
“Oh. I thought you wanted me to go to South Carolina.”
Silence. Then, “South Carolina? And you were going?”
“Certainly.”
“Abbie,” tenderness in Frances’ voice, the voice pitched lower, “why, Abbie—” Laughter. Then, “Abbie, you’re wonderful. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to go to South Carolina. I wouldn’t go myself but they’re paying me so much money that I can’t very well refuse.”
So much money, she thought. “Who are they?”
“The Smith boys. They’re numbers bankers. So they can well afford to spend as much as they want to on a funeral or anything else.”
Frances had said, “I wouldn’t ask you to come over but Howard’s such a fool. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. Not in time for the service. Right afterwards though. And we can have tea over here.”
So here she was, dressed in her best clothes, on her way to attend the funeral of a Baptist deacon that she had never known except by sight, because some numbers bankers whom she had never seen did not want their mother buried in South Carolina. That was complicated enough in itself; in addition, here was this child of Mamie Powther’s, standing in front of her, sucking his thumb. She thought, Of all the unprepossessing sights—his overalls were torn at the knees and he was standing on one foot, and there was a hole in the toe of one of his faded blue sneakers. They were too short for him. His big toe had made that hole. Hole in his sock, too. At that age their toes were always freeing themselves, in fact, the big toe was like a separate aggressive appendage, an added something on the foot which was impelled to keep working its way toward light, going through fabric, leather.
She said, indignantly, “Well, you’ll have to change your clothes.”
He ignored the indignation, took his thumb out of his mouth, looked up at her, his eyes sparkling, his lips curving into a smile. She thought, He has a lovely smile, and she patted his shoulder.
“I kin put ’em on, all alone, Missus Crunch. And I be right down de tairs.” Voice eager, face eager.
She waited for him in the hall, smoothing her gloves over her fingers, with a nervous impatient motion, because she was certain that she would have to dress him. Then he came clumping down the stairs, wearing new brown shoes, different overalls, dark gray, newlooking, too, and a bright red jacket that was much too big for him, the sleeves so long they covered his hands.
“Are you going to be warm enough?” she asked, fingering the material of the jacket. It seemed to be wool but what a dreadful color for a little boy.
“I be warm enough,” he said. He sniffed. “Smell it?” he asked, head cocked on one side.
“Smell what?”
“It’s the printhess,” he said. “It’s her smell.”
“Come,” she said. “We’ll have to hurry or we’ll be late.” You in your red jacket, and I in my sealskin cape, you looking like a thumbling and I looking like Mother Goose. She wondered why a man as sensible, as businesslike, as efficient as little Mr. Powther told fairy stories to his children. J.C. was always muttering about robbers and giants and a princess who was all gold.
They were halfway down Dumble Street, J.C. trotting along beside her, holding on to her hand, when she stopped, said, “J.C., did you go to the bathroom before you left?”
“Yes, Missus Crunch,” he said meekly. Silence. Then he said anxiously, “Ain’t they got no wee-wee chairs dere?” He tugged at her hand, “Missus Crunch,” he said, “where we goin’?”
“We’re going to Washington Street. In the next block. To—uh—” she paused. What was she going to do with him during the funeral service? “We’re going to Miss Jackson’s house.”
“Ain’t they got no wee-wee chairs dere?”
“Yes,” she said absently.
She looked back, down the street. The Hangman, leafless now, was a darker gray than the sky. In fact the lower end of Dumble Street looked like a steel engraving, dark gray river, and sidewalk and buildings. All the buildings looked gray this afternoon. Except Number Six which was a dark red. She did not look at, but was aware of, the redorange neon sign in front of The Last Chance. She shivered, feeling suddenly cold, remembering Bill Hod’s black fathomless eyes, for no reason at all, thinking, Full fathom five thy father lies—
Was the child warm enough? She used to walk along the street with Link, just like this, holding him by the hand. Their hands always felt so hot.
They turned into Franklin Avenue. Smell of kerosene. From the newsstand on the corner. Woman in the newsstand, so wrapped up, so bundled up, dark blue knit cap pulled down over her forehead, bundled up to the eyes, like a Mongolian, layers of clothes, and the little kerosene stove right near her.
Franklin Avenue was filled with people. Curiously enough there were no children in sight. She saw just one woman with a small child by the hand. But there were countless young women wearing red coats and highheeled shoes, and long gold earrings that dangled against their brown cheeks. Voices. Laughter. Most of the older women were milling around in Davioli’s market, talking and laughing, too. Street suddenly warm, because of warm air from the Five-and-Ten, revolving door, going around and around, people going in, coming out, blend of frankfurters, coffee, mustard, perfume.
No wonder there were so few children on the street. They were all queued up in front of the Franklin Theatre, in a crooked, constantly in motion line, a line that suggested a caterpillar, inching along. Argument going on—young, determined voices.
“Dat’s my place.”
“It ain’t.”
J.C. stood still, studied the line.
“Dat’s my place.”
“It ain’t.”
“You git out.”
The line that was like a caterpillar swayed, violent motion in the center, broke in two, became two separate parts, and then bent in on itself. Small boys and girls, all looking. Some in coats too long, some in coats too short, some with no coats, shivering, bent over, hands in their pockets. All watching two small boys who were pushing each other.
“Git outta the way.”
“Git outta the way yourself.”
J.C. said, delight in his voice, “That’s them bastids Kelly and Shapiro.” Two small boys rolled over and over, on the sidewalk, shouting at each other, their voices muffled.
“Kick him in de ass. Kick him in de ass,” J.C. yelled, jumping up and down.
“J.C.!” Abbie said sternly, pulling him along. “How many times have I told you that you simply cannot use that kind of language when you’re with me. I simply will not have it.”
“Yes’m,” he said.
Then she pulled him across the street, crossing Franklin Avenue though they would only have to recross it when they reached the corner of Washington Street. But she had seen Cat Jimmie propelling himself along on his little wooden wagon. She couldn’t bear to walk near that creature on the wagon, it wasn’t just the smell of him, it was the whole horrible degenerate look of him, his eyes, and the mutilated flesh on the stumps of legs and arms, exposed even now on this cold windy afternoon. Pass by on the other side, she thought. “If you believe the Lord looks after and cares about a sparrow, then you must of necessity also believe that He looks after and cares about Bill Hod.” That’s what the Major had said. And she supposed that he would feel the same way about Cat Jimmie. The Major had a capacity for including all men in his sympathy, his understanding, that had sometimes annoyed her, sometimes surprised her. But Cat Jimmie—“there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan . . . whe
n he saw him, he had compassion on him.”
Fall of a sparrow, she thought. Bill Hod? Compassion? For Hod? And that inhuman creature on the wagon? Mouth open, eyes like the eyes of a trapped animal, fierce, crazed. She turned and looked back, and he was lying down on the wagon, looking up under a woman’s skirts, and the woman jumped away from him, went running up Franklin Avenue. Oh, no, she thought, he is no longer human, he is an animal, and it does say, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves—” fall of a sparrow—Bill Hod—compassion—Cat Jimmie.
Once she’d stopped to speak to that creature on the wagon, something in her, pity, compassion, something, made her stop. She saw his eyes, horrible, the whites were red, and she turned away, mounting the steps of her house, and looked back and the pity, the compassion, vanished, replaced by revulsion, because he had propelled himself close to the bottom step and was looking up, trying to look under her skirts, panting, his mouth working, the eyes fierce, vengeful. For a moment she was so overcome by nausea that she couldn’t move, and then she ran up the last two steps, hurried inside the house, and slammed the door.
They walked as far as Washington Street and then crossed Franklin Avenue again.
J.C. said, “What we cross over Franklin for, Missus Crunch?”
She hesitated, thinking, Evasion? outright lie? the truth? Truth. She said, “I didn’t want to walk near that man on the little cart.”
J.C. looked back, down Franklin Avenue. “Aw, him!” he said, contempt in his voice. “Mamie say he don’t hurt nobody. She say he can’t git it no other way but lookin’. And she say seein’s dat’s the only way he can pleasure himself, best thing to do is just let him go ahead and look.”
I know what I’ll do with you, young man, she thought, I’m going to leave you with Miss Doris. Miss Doris was Frances’ maid, housekeeper, cook, whathaveyou, and Miss Doris’ husband, whom she called Sugar, mowed the lawn, looked after the garden, and made all the repairs. Miss Doris could have a white cloth tied around her head, and have on very worn, very faded, but very clean, slacks, and be down on her hands and knees weeding a flower bed, and when she looked you over, she could make you feel as though your hair were uncombed and there were runs in your stockings.
When they turned in at the F. K. Jackson Funeral Home, J.C. tugged at Abbie’s hand, again. “Is we goin’ to a funeralizin’, Missus Crunch?”
“I am,” Abbie said. She looked down at his upturned face. His eyes were sparkling with excitement, pleasure. “But you’re not. You’re going to stay with Mrs. King until I come back.”
Hand in hand, they climbed the front steps. Abbie rang the bell. The door opened almost immediately.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Crunch,” Miss Doris said. She had a white cloth wrapped tight around her head, a shorthandled dust mop in her hand.
Abbie thought she looked more than ever like a statue, short, wide, not fat, but bulky. Her flesh had the hard look of metal, and her voice was hard, cold, suggesting metal, too.
“I were not told to expect you so soon,” Miss Doris said, reproach in the hard metallic voice. “Or I would have been in a state of preparation.”
Abbie said, apologetically, “I’m early, Miss Doris. But I wanted to ask a favor of you. Will you look after this little boy for me, until after the funeral?”
Miss Doris and J.C. eyed each other with suspicion. Miss Doris said, “All right, boy. Come in.” She frowned. “I see you brought your lollipop with you.”
Abbie looked at J.C. He was sucking his thumb again but he didn’t have a lollipop.
J.C. took his thumb out of his mouth. “Ain’t got no lollipop,” he said indignantly. Then put the thumb back in his mouth.
“What’s that in your mouth?” Miss Doris said, sharply.
No answer. Scorn in his eyes. He cocked his round, hard head on one side, studying her.
“Come on, boy. I can’t stand here all day,” Miss Doris prodded J.C. with the shorthandled mop, pushing him inside the door.
Abbie turned away, quickly. She heard J.C. say, “You take dat mop off my clothes,” and then the door closed.
The F. K. Jackson funeral parlor occupied the basement floor of the building where Frances lived, a building that reminded Abbie of the brownstone-front houses in New York. She and the Major had spent their honeymoon in a house very much like this one, same long flight of steps leading to the first floor, same type of basement with a separate entrance, at street level.
Howard, Frances’ assistant, was standing just inside the door of the office.
Abbie said, “Miss Jackson asked me to see that everything—to—asked me to come over,” faltering, remembering Frances’ brusque voiced statement, “Howard’s a fool.”
Looking at him now, as he hovered in the doorway, she thought he was built like a eunuch, or what she thought a eunuch would be built like, very tall, very fat, soft fat, too broad across the hips, and he had a waddling kind of walk. He came waddling toward her, holding out his hand, and he bowed over her hand, then straightened up and looked into her eyes. He said, gravely, “Ah, yes, Mrs. Crunch. So very kind of you. Miss Jackson couldn’t have found a more impressive representative.”
The skin on his face was like a baby’s skin, a kind of bloom on it. Amazing skin. A peculiar color. Almost the exact color of the fuzzy redbrown hair, not much of the hair left, he was getting bald, hairline receding, so that seen close to, without a hat, and she had never seen him hatless before, he appeared to have a high domeshaped forehead, a forehead that just never ended. And he had a moustache, a feather of a moustache, which seemed to have just taken rest, for a moment, over what in a woman would have been an incredibly pretty mouth. Baby’s skin. Woman’s mouth.
He said, “There are always so many details. I almost forgot your gloves. We’ll put them on in Miss Jackson’s office.” His manner confidential, his eyes widening a little.
Abbie smiled at him, feeling as though he had just shared a delightful secret with her. She leaned toward him, ever so slightly. Then she checked the bend of her body, stiffening, straightening up, no longer smiling, frowning a little, thinking, Why the man’s a hypnotist.
The glistening of his eyes told her he was waiting for this leaning response of her body, had known it would come, that he was practised in this business of subtly conveying the idea that here were his strong masculine shoulders, and the whole long smooth-skinned length of him, for widows, for orphans over sixteen, to lean on, to find solace in the leaning.
In the office, he helped her put on a pair of black gloves. He smelt ever so faintly of liquor and she thought of the Major—and that day he died. Frances’ hands were long and bony and hers were short and plump. But they got the black gloves on and then he escorted her to a seat midway in the chapel. She sat staring at the ends of the glove fingers, black, empty, wiggled them once, thought they looked like the armless sleeves of a scarecrow, that a child would be frightened by these empty glove fingers, wondered what J.C. and Miss Doris were doing.
But she was here to see that everything was all right, went all right. The chapel was filling up with people, there were flowers in the embrasure where the casket stood in front of the windows, drawn curtains and shaded lights that cast a mournful pinklavender light. An airless room. Too hot. And filled with the heavy toosweet smell of roses.
The family came in. The widow was heavily veiled, there was a uniformed nurse in attendance, pallbearers in gray gloves. Everything seemed in order. Everything in order except the pressure, the feeling of tremendous pressure about her head.
The service started on time. Then the Baptist minister, Reverend Ananias Hill, grown older these last years, gaunter, slower of movement, even his voice had changed, the thunder had gone out of it to be replaced by a quality that was sad, sorrowful, spoke of the late Deacon Lord, and prayed for his immortal soul, and read from the Bible: “Thou shalt love the Lor
d thy God with all thy heart . . .”
A tremulous old man with an old man’s voice. Mamaluke Hill’s father. Queer the things you remembered about people. For years The Narrows had conjectured about Reverend Hill’s wife, trying to decide whether she was white or whether she was colored. Nobody ever really knew. They said Reverend Hill didn’t know himself whether she was white. The child’s name, Mamaluke, would suggest that she was colored. She finally died in a rooming house, on Dumble Street. The fact that she left Reverend Hill, no longer lived with him, was a minor scandal.
Abbie heard Reverend Hill say that the late Deacon Lord had loved God, and had loved his neighbor as himself, and then she stopped listening to him. She began thinking about Dumble Street. About Link. About the night the Major died.
The Major had said, “Abbie, the house, the house.” And she could smell the morning, the river, see fog blurring the street, feel it wet and cold against her face, drifting in in waves from the river, fog undulating, blurring the sidewalk, and once again she leaned over, blinked her eyes, wiped her eyes, so that she could read what had been written on the sidewalk, in front of her house, “At her feet he bowed, he fell—”
Reverend Hill said, again, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” And the pressure, the feeling of pressure increased. All of us, she thought, young and old, all of us here in this funeral chapel were brought up on the King James version of the Bible, all able to quote it, part of our thinking, part of our lives, and we keep moving away from it, forget about it. Even though we go to church. But we attend a funeral and something in us is fascinated, and afraid, and we keep going back into the past, trying to find ourselves or what we believe to be ourselves, a part of us lost somewhere back in the past.
Someone screamed. She thought for a moment that it was she who had screamed. Then she saw that the relatives, the family, were filing past Deacon Lord’s coffin. It was the widow who had screamed, not so much screamed as wailed. She was a large woman, dressed in black, wearing a black veil so long, so thick, that it was like a curtain, a drapery over her face. Abbie thought of the Major and his favorite joke, “When I mourns, I mourns all over.”