A Short History of a Small Place (60 page)

The commander had been instructed to lay Mr. Britches away in a finely appointed child’s coffin, but for what he said were health reasons he cremated the monkey instead and filled up a ceramic jug with his ashes. Then the commander made the appropriate arrangements with the only man he could have made arrangements with, and the morning after Mr. Britches had arrived at the Heavenly Rest inside a plastic bag inside a wooden crate he traveled to Casper Epps’s Holy Jesus Chapel inside a ceramic jug inside a black Cadillac limousine. The service was to be held at two o’clock on the afternoon of October 17, 1981, which was a Saturday, and since word of the proceedings did not get much broadcast roundabout from the commander and from the commander’s employees and from the great preponderance of decent and God-fearing local people me and Daddy and Mr. Russell Newberry and Mr. Phillip J. King near about missed the funeral. In fact, by the time we got to the Holy Jesus Chapel all the chairs were taken and there was not much leaning space left either. Daddy said everybody who is nobody was there, and I guess that’s pretty much the truth of it. There weren’t any Benbows or Singletarys or Fraziers or Tullocks, not any white Tullocks anyway, but there was a scandalous load of everything else, and even with Casper Epps’s chapel expansion and renovation due to the stove explosion of the spring of 1970 elbow room among the mourners was passably scant.

I do not believe Casper Epps had ever played to a full house before. I do not believe he had ever presided over any sort of official function either. But once he came out from a room off the kitchen in what looked like a white linen bathrobe, Casper Epps did not appear the least bit worked up on account of the genuine throng or on account of the special duty. Previously he had taken out what part of the wall between the kitchen and the living room the stove had not taken out for him, and before he passed directly off the linoleum and onto the hardwood he raised his finger and blessed that assortment of mourners who were leaning against the kitchen counter. Then he proceeded straightaway to the altar, which was nothing but an oak tressel table with a Bible and the bottled up monkey on top of it, and he waved his finger at the rest of us and blessed us also. Casper Epps had set aside his Uncle Bill Collier’s upholstered chair for the family, but Aunt Willa, who apparently had not held the monkey very dear, was not present at the Holy Jesus Chapel, so Casper Epps waved Mrs. Pearl Betts towards the upholstered chair and welcomed her to set her phlebitis down in it. However, Mrs. Pearl Betts, who was one of your more lowly Bettses, did not much appreciate all the commotion stirred up by a monkey in a jug, and as she made her way across the living room she gave Casper Epps a piece of her mind, told him he should worry himself with healing the sick and leave dead monkeys out of it, told him there was plenty enough suffering among regular people to keep him occupied from now on, told him she was in some considerable misery herself, told him he’d best toss that jugged up monkey on out the window and see to it, told him she had a son, Claude Laurance Betts jr., who’d come straight over and kick Casper Epps holy butt if he didn’t get back to his regular line of work, and then she sat down in the late Uncle Bill Collier’s upholstered chair and Casper Epps raised his finger and blessed her.

Shortly thereafter the funeral commenced, or anyway I guess that’s what it was since the ceramic jugful of monkey ashes seemed to figure into the proceedings every now and again, but it was not one of your more clearcut ceremonies. I mean it was not all shot through with sobriety and Godliness like the funerals the commander usually put on at his air-cooled chapel. Actually there was very little about the monkey to it, and mostly the eulogy hit upon the highlights of Casper Epps life in preaching and briefly examined several of the more notable and miraculous episodes. We sang once that I recollect, but I do not believe I ever knew what it was we were singing, and we prayed any number of times, mediated mostly with some ecstatic shrieks thrown in every now and again for effect. And then towards the end, when we were all a little worn out and near about done in, Casper Epps raised his finger and said, “Bless this beast among the creatures that crawl and those that fly,” and he scooped up the jug in his arms, crossed the living room, and went out the front door with it. We had not been invited to follow him, had not been in the leastways encouraged to, but curiosity got the better of us and everybody except for Mrs. Pearl Betts and her phlebitis and Mr. Raymond Duggins, who had the excema on his forearms, followed Casper Epps out the front door and around the house to the sideyard. Two little Broadnaxes had been paid fifty cents to dig a hole and by the time Casper Epps got to it along with the rest of us there was still about twenty-nine cents worth to go, so me and Daddy and Mr. Russell Newberry and Mr. Phillip J. King and Mr. Wiley Gant leaned up against the late Bill Collier’s clapboard and Mr. Russell Newberry and Mr. Phillip J. King smoked Mr. Wiley Gant’s cigarettes while Daddy and me chewed gum. And once the hole was sufficiently wide and sufficiently deep to accommodate the jugful of monkey ashes, we all gathered at the graveside and listened to Casper Epps’s benediction, which was a wild and wholly incomprehensible animal itself, and then we watched him set the jug into the hole and kick some dirt in on top of it.

Momma did not want to hear anything of the monkey’s funeral. She would not let Daddy speak of it at supper, would not let him speak of it in the house at all, so after we ate me and Daddy took to the porch and he sat on the glider and I sat on the front steps and we talked about the monkey and talked about Casper Epps and talked about the mayor and, at last, talked about Miss Pettigrew.

“She’s gone two years now,” Daddy said. “Doesn’t hardly seem like it.”

“No sir,” I told him. “It surely doesn’t.”

“She was an odd creature, that one,” Daddy said, “an odd creature.”

“I suppose so, Daddy,” I told him and picked at the top step with a stick.

“I don’t guess she was made for this world,” Daddy said.

“I suppose not, Daddy,” I told him.

“It just never seemed to suit her, never seemed to suit her at all,” Daddy said.

And I scratched at the step and did not bother to suppose one way or the other.

“I mean, Louis, you have to bend some,” Daddy said, “you have to sway a little every now and again, don’t you know.”

And still I did not bother to do any supposing.

“I mean, Louis, the world isn’t ever the same place it used to be. It’s a disagreeable and unfortunate fact, but Louis,” Daddy told me, “it is a fact.”

“Yes sir,” I said, “I suppose it is.”

And I guess that’s the truth of it. I don’t know. Anymore we hardly ever talk about Miss Pettigrew or the mayor, don’t ever talk about the monkey, and rarely have a word to say on the property since the city is still only intending to move the concrete steps and the South Atlantic Finance Corporation has yet to erect anything more lasting and permanent than a wooden sign. We do not worry much about Pettigrews at all anymore. Momma says there is no cause to dally in the past. Momma says we should forge ahead, break new ground, look to the horizon. Lately she is ever making the bravest sort of noise. Daddy figures it’s the fire and the monkey and the prospect of winter working on Momma all at once and together. He says she’s just whistling as loud as she can. But Momma has never much excelled in brave noises, and Neely is cold now and lifeless and near about at the end of another year. We have emptied the gutters and cleaned out the crepe myrtles and stacked all the screens in the cellar, and anymore when me and Daddy walk off our supper to the boulevard and back we wear our lined coats and our gloves and our fuzzy wool hats because the evening air is sharp and painfully cold and sometimes when the moon is out and the clouds blow free of the stars it seems to me you could swing a hammer against the night sky and shatter the whole business.

 

 

State College-Raleigh 1981-1983

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