Getting Mother's Body (4 page)

“You lucky you got such small feet,” Mrs. Jackson says coming back into the main room with a shoe box. “I don't carry many shoes but I did have these.”

“I don't got enough for shoes,” I says.

“Try them on and hush up,” she says.

I pat myself on the back for having the intelligence to wash up before I came here. Sometimes smelling good can make all the difference. Mrs. Jackson brings me a chair and I sit, trying on the shoes like a lady would. When I get them on she helps me up.

“Look at you,” she murmurs.

“Do I look all right?”

“Your poor mother,” she says.

“I only got sixty-three dollars,” I says.

“And here it is 1963,” she says.

I pick up my pocketbook, fish through it and hold the bills in my hand.

“Can you promise me something?”

“Whut?”

“Don't go telling all of Lincoln, Texas, how you got yrself a hundred-thirty-dollar dress and a pair of twenty-dollar shoes off of Mrs. Jackson for sixty-three dollars. People would accuse me of playing favorites.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She takes the money from me, counting it quickly, then sticking it underneath the pincushion on her wrist. “And when I say don't tell no body I mean don't tell no body, you hear? If word gets back to Mr. Jackson, Lord today, I won't never hear the end of it.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Now turn around and style it for me,” she says.

I tell the baby to stay small again. It stays small. I turn all the way around one way then around the other way.

“I look all right?”

“You as pretty as you can be,” she says. “Just as pretty as you can be.”

WILLA MAE BEEDE

This next song I'ma sing is a song I wrote about a man I used to know. It's called “Big Hole Blues.”

My man is digging in my dirt

Digging a big hole just for me.

He's digging in my dirt

Digging a big hole just for me.

It's as long as I am tall, goes down as deep as the deep blue sea.

He says the hole he's digging is hole enough for two.

He says the hole he's digging is hole enough for two.

He says he'll put me down there in it

And put my boyfriend in it too.

He says he's just pulling my leg, but I got to play it safe

He says he's just pulling my leg, but I got to play it safe

I done packed up all my clothes, I'm gonna leave this big old holey place.

Everybody's got a Hole. Ain't nobody ever lived who don't got a Hole in them somewheres. When I say Hole you know what I'm talking about, dontcha? Soft spot, sweet spot, opening, blind spot, Itch, Gap, call it what you want but I call it a Hole. To get the best of a situation you gotta know a man's Hole. Everybody's got one, just don't everybody got one in the same place. Some got a Hole in they head. Now, you may think “Hole in the head” is just another way of saying stupid, but “Hole in the head” means more than that. It means that they got a lack and a craving for knowledge. Not just the lack, now, but the craving too. A man could have a Hole just about anywheres: in the head, in the wallet (which means he burns his money), in the pocket (which means he don't got no money to burn but would like some), in the pants, in the guts, in the stomach, in the heart. You offer a person with a Hole in the head some knowledge and they gonna be in yr pocket cause you done gived him the opportunity to taste what he craves, but if a person's got a Hole in they
heart
and you offer them knowledge, you won't be able to sway them none. A Hole-in-the-heart person craves company and kindness, not no book.

MRS. FAITH JACKSON

I've never seen a girl so happy as Billy Beede walking out my store right now with her wedding dress and them matching shoes all wrapped up in my white store box. Mr. Jackson can say what he likes but it's the formal-wear business that's about making people happy. He says the funeral business is about making people happy but I've never seen no one smiling at a funeral. He doesn't think Lincoln's got the economy to support a formal-wear store and, tell the truth, I don't turn a profit. If it weren't for people dying, we would be out on the street. But, seeing as how folks do continue to die, I can, every once in awhile, afford to sell a hundred-thirty-dollar dress and a pair of twenty-dollar shoes for sixty-three dollars. Seeing as how the Funeral Home is doing so well, and folks is always continuing to die, and Jackson's is the most respected Home, black or white, in the county, which means folks come out of their way to have us help them in their time of grief, and seeing as how Billy has her dead mother buried all the way out in Who-Knows-Where, Arizona, and seeing as how her Mr. Snipes, the man Jackson says is trash, has done right and asked her to marry him, I figure I can sell my showcase dress for the price she can afford.

Laz is gonna be broken up about it. He's had his cap set on Billy Beede for the longest. Too long, I told him when he said he'd seen her running with Snipes. Much too long, Mr. Jackson said when we all seen Billy's belly. Just cause you set your cap on someone, don't mean she'll set her cap on you.

You have to make the best of what God gives you, that's what I say. That's how I live my life. Married Jackson when I was not but fifteen. I was in the family way, but not like Billy Beede. My Israel had already spoken for me, and my mother and dad both were living. I was showing but I could walk around this town with my head up. Not like Billy Beede: shoulders pinched together, her head hanging down like a buzzard.

Me and Israel didn't plan on getting married so early but we did. I had hoped to have a slew of girls. We had two boys. I had hoped Siam-Israel would run the Funeral Home with Israel, and Laz would be a doctor and deliver babies. That woulda dovetailed nicely, you know, cradle to grave with the funeral business we've already got. Nothing worked out like I hoped. Siam is doing time over at Huntsville and Laz, well let's just say that Laz is doing his best. Doing the best with what we got. That's the most that any of us can ask.

DILL SMILES

They call me bulldagger, dyke, lezzy, what-have-you. I like my overalls and my work boots. Let them say what they want. It don't bother me none.

I take the letter back from Teddy. We're still waiting here on his porch for Billy. She ain't come back yet.

“Billy'll be home directly,” Teddy says.

I lean my chair, tipping it back to balance on the two hind legs, like a stallion rearing up. Then I right the chair and get on my feet. “I don't got no time to waste,” I says.

“I ain't said nothing bout yr new truck,” Teddy says quickly.

“It's a ‘Sixty-two. It ain't brand-new.”

“Looks like you just drove it out the factory,” Teddy says.

“It's just shiny,” I says. It's last year's model but the fella never drove it.

“You got all the luck, Dill.”

“I do all right.”

“Bet it runs good.”

“I don't got no time for no jalopy.”

“Course you don't,” Teddy says. “A Beede would have the time but a Smiles would not.”

I sit back down, taking the letter out of my front overalls pocket and resting it on my lap. We sit there quiet. Waiting.

“You gonna give me one of them new pigs you got?” Roosevelt asks.

“You can buy one, same as everybody else,” I says. My good sow Jezebel farrowed last night. Got up in my bed to do it too. She's spoiled.

“Thirteen piglets and no runts. Dill Smiles oughta give Teddy Beede a free pig,” Teddy says.

“Thirteen's unlucky. Why you want an unlucky pig for?”

“Thirteen ain't unlucky for you,” Teddy says admiringly. “You got nothing but good luck, Dill, you got the luck of the Smiles.”

“I don't got nothing like good luck.”

“Yes you do,” Teddy says using his greezy voice. He must really want that pig.

“I ain't arguing witchu,” I says.

“Gimme a pig,” Teddy go.

I shake my head no.

“Hell, Dill, I'm practically yr brother,” he says.

“I ain't no goddamn Beede,” I says and we both laugh.

We see a speck coming down the road. Too small and too slow for no car. It's Billy.

“You think she got her dress?” Teddy asks.

“She's Willa Mae's child,” I says.

“Meaning whut?”

“Meaning by hook or crook Billy got herself a dress. Mighta got herself two or three dresses.”

“Billy don't favor Willa,” Teddy says.

“Billy don't favor me neither,” I says.

Teddy cuts his eyes to me, getting a good look at my profile without turning his head. I'm doing the same to look at him. His pecan-colored cheek is fleshy. Gray grizzle around the chin where he ain't shaved this morning. Willa Mae told me once that I looked like an Indian nickel. Teddy's mouth opens a little. I've brought him to his limit.

“Go head, Teddy, say it,” I says.

“I'm just taking a breath,” he says. He coughs and puts his eyes back front.
Why the hell should Billy favor Dill Smiles?
That's what Teddy wants to say, but he wants me to give him a free pig more than he wants to give me a what for.

The Billy-speck coming down the road gets bigger.

“She's whistling,” I says. We both hear it.

“Guess she got that dress,” Teddy says.

“Billy don't favor Willa Mae but she's got her mother's heart and ways,” I says.

“Not completely,” Teddy says. “Willa Mae didn't never like to work, but Billy had that good job over at Ruthie Montgomery's.”

“Billy
had
a job,” I says.

“Well, Billy was doing pretty good in school,” Teddy says.

“Then she quit,” I remind him.

“Willa Mae was always singing her songs and flaunting herself. Billy can't even carry a tune,” Teddy says.

“What you got against yr own sister?” I ask him. “What you got against Billy taking after her own mother?”

“Willa Mae ended up in the ground,” Teddy says.

“We all end up in the ground,” I says.

The tune Billy's whistling don't sound like a song. Just a bunch of notes and not in a steady rhythm. Then I recognize it. She's whistling around something Willa used to sing. I can't recall the words though.

“You got more luck than anybody in Texas,” Teddy says.

“I've had my share of bad luck too,” I says and Teddy nods cause he knows.

“Where did I come here from?” I ask him.

“Dade County, Florida,” Teddy says.

“Dade County, Florida, and don't you forget it,” I says.

I came here from Florida with the promise of work from Mr. Sanderson, and when I found out the work was just field work alongside the wetbacks and the no-counts, I didn't go back. I stuck it out. I worked harder than all the women and most of the men and saved up enough to start my pig business. Teddy remembers that. And when Willa Mae Beede came home to Lincoln looking to move in with Teddy, her married brother, she ended up living with me instead. Me and her was like husband and wife, almost. When Billy was born, it was me, Dill Smiles, who took care of Willa Mae and her bastard child both. And when Willa Mae left me for good that last time, it was my mother's house in LaJunta where she decided to die at. I drove out there. Billy was standing in the corner of the room like a little dark ghost. Willa Mae was dying in a bed of blood. She'd tried to get rid of her second baby and botched it. She told me she was sorry for the wrong she'd done me and that she wanted to be put in the ground with her pearl necklace and her diamond ring. I gave her my word. Then she died. I was with her. Teddy knows.

Teddy and me can see Billy good now. She's carrying a box balanced on her head and holding it with one hand, like they carry stuff over in Africa.

When Teddy Beede looks at me, he sees what I want him to see: Dill Smiles and Dill Smiles' luck, which, to Teddy's mind, springs from the bounty of Dill Smiles' fairness, which in turn, springs out of a long swamp of unlucky years that hardworking Dill Smiles has bravely lived longer than. To Teddy, because I've lived longer than my bad luck did, I'm now allowed to enjoy thirteen healthy piglets and a shiny new-looking truck. But it ain't that way at all.

I paid an undertaker to wash her body and put her in the coffin that I'd paid for out my own pocket. Before he nailed down the lid, I had a last look and took the necklace and the ring. Then me and the undertaker carried her outside and I saved a few dollars by digging the grave and burying her myself. I put her in the ground, put her jewelry in my pocket and brought Billy back here for Teddy and June to raise. When they asked after the jewels I told them the jewels was underground. In truth, I got Willa's diamond ring in my own pocket. The necklace of pearls she asked me to bury her with, I've been selling pearl by pearl to a fella in Dallas who don't ask no questions. The pearls are all sold but I still got the ring. My hole card. If the pigs fail again I'll have to sell it.

The luck of Dill Smiles ain't no luck at all, but compared to Teddy and June and Billy, it's like I step in shit every day.

JUNE FLOWERS BEEDE

July 16, 1963
The Pink Flamingo Motel
LaJunta, Arizona

Dear June and Roosevelt and Billy,

The past month has been what you could call very interesting. Even and me are on what Even calls “the up and up,” and so I am going to surprise you this time by not asking for payment to keep up Willa Mae's grave.

If you have the time to read this letter you will soon discover what our new circumstances are all about. I hope you are not too busy. From your last letter it seemed like Texas was trying to beat Arizona as the hottest state. I hope your filling station has not run dry (ha ha) but I also hope that it has not run you ragged neither. I hope you have the time to read this because I have taken the time to write to you and it would be a shame to skip this good times letter after all the hard times letters I have sent your way.