“Nothing’s going to happen,” Carla said. “Y’all go on. I’m going to put my feet up. Enjoy my quiet time while I can.”
But she would extend an invitation to the old man and me for a late lunch. After the movie, simple sandwiches, potato chips, and dip, all that David knew to make in a kitchen. David offered to barbecue chicken on the hibachi on their patio, but Uncle Root told him, don’t go to all that trouble.
The old man and David would banter through their debate on W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, laughing and teasing. I’d crunch on my potato chips and look at Carla in her classy maternity outfits, her fingers long and elegant, even in pregnancy. Her brown face roundly angelic. She always wore lipstick and eyeshadow.
Carla didn’t seem threatened by me, and I was relieved, instead of resentful. I was over David now. My childhood really was past, and he had indicated the same. He didn’t act uncomfortable around me, but he was no longer flirtatious. At the movies, the old man sat between us. And in the apartment that he shared with his wife, David didn’t avoid speaking about the past, but he always included a third person in his narrative. Remember that time I got him and Boukie whipped? Or, remember that time we three went to Dr. Hargrace’s pecan tree and he told us he was almost lynched?
David’s little girl was born in October. If the weather was fine, he’d take a break from his studying and drive his small family to Red Mound. The baby—Brittany—decked out in her lace dress with petticoats underneath. She was good-natured, either sleeping or cooing through the first half of service. It was only in the second hour that she started protesting, and Carla would take her outside. I would sit on the front steps of the church, talking to Carla as she breastfed the baby, covering herself with a light blanket. I’d ask, did she need anything? Was there something she wanted from her car? Then there would be the strains of the final hymn, the signal that service was ending. We heard David’s grandfather singing off-key, and always, Carla and I would laugh. Mr. J.W. couldn’t sing worth nothing. When he died in January, I felt guilty for making fun of him.
Like my great-grandmother’s homegoing, Mr. J.W.’s funeral was held in the gymnasium of the old high school that my mother had attended. The difference was that Mr. J.W.’s obituary listed a colorful account of his life, such as when he’d been a younger man, he had run the road. He’d chased women and drunk more than his share of liquor. Even after he’d been a deacon, his behavior had been disgraceful. But that was when he’d been “in the world,” before the Lord had spoken to Mr. J.W. and he’d truly been saved, not just by the words of his mouth, but by his deeds.
I was familiar with this testimony; Mr. J.W. had been giving it in church since I was a little girl, though I hadn’t understood the significance of it back then. Someone had written down one of his testimonies, presumably word for word. It appeared beside a picture of him in his golden years. He had worn his hair on the longer side, though it was pure white. In the picture, it flowed from underneath his favorite stingy brim, the one with the blue feather in the band.
At the service, there were no shocking revelations, as I’d seen at other Chicasetta funerals. No secrets decked out in scarlet, because Mr. J.W. didn’t have any mysteries. He had five grown children with Miss Jolene, but also five outside children, from the times he’d stepped out, before following the Jesus-lit path. His widow was a forgiving woman. Miss Jolene made no distinction between any of her dead husband’s outside progeny: they were listed on the obituary, along with their three mothers. These women were labeled “beloved friends of the deceased.”
I sat two rows back from the family, and my heart loosened at the sound of David weeping. He had been his grandfather’s close companion, learning to fish and hunt with him. My mother had flown down, and at our small repast table, she and my granny whispered about Mr. J.W. Look at all these kids he had, and only half of them by Miss Jolene. She sure had been a patient woman, and sweet, too, inviting these heifers he’d cheated with to the funeral.
Like that one at that table across the room. Hadn’t Miss Jolene burned Mr. J.W. with grits over her? That woman sure had gained some weight. Remember that fine frame she used to have? That body had gone to Glory, same as Mr. J.W. And no wonder: the woman was on her third plate. Looked like her arches had fallen, too.
They tried to include Uncle Root in their gossip, but the old man said his name was Bennett, and he wasn’t in this mess. He kept his eyes on his plate while he munched the repast.