B0047Y0FJ6 EBOK (31 page)

Newspapers or the radio sometimes announced the time and location of a funeral service if the deceased was a famous jazz musician or had been killed in a crime that had captured the attention of tabloids. Reading such announcements, or hearing them, the information first struck me as noteworthy. Perhaps I, too, should go and pay my respects, even though the dead person was a stranger.

I never did go to one of these public funerals. But once, walking home at night via 125th Street, I came to a gathering by the benches in front of the State Office Building. I thought it was a political meeting of some sort, so I stopped. It
was
a political meeting of some sort, but it was also a memorial service. Speakers took turns standing on a bench to address the small crowd which had formed a semicircle on the sidewalk. They were there to honor a man named Yusuf, who had been a regular occupant of those benches and had died of a sudden illness several months before. A
poster-sized portrait of him leaned against one bench. I studied it, trying to recognize him from the many times I had passed the spot. Several of the speakers assured the small crowd that
even if you don’t think you knew Yusuf, you probably did,
and they spoke of the kindness he showed to anyone he met at those benches, his commitment to his neighborhood, and his love of his people and his religion. Soon, the prayers and eulogies gave way to announcements: of various meetings, of an opportunity to join the bus caravan to Jena, Louisiana, to protest the treatment of the Jena 6. At the end, the man who’d organized the service handed out the melted remnants of tiny tea-light candles. Some had been burning throughout the assembly, but others had been snuffed out in the wind.

In the dark of one night I saw a collection of funeral flowers arranged behind a gate on 114th Street. There were a great lot of them, elaborate arrangements propped up on wire stands and on an arbor. Two were designed in the shape of numbers—1 and 23—but there was no way of knowing if these digits referred to the age of the departed, the number of a favorite sports jersey, or the date of death. When I passed some weeks later, all the flowers were gone but the wire stands were still there. The arbor was empty except for a piece of synthetic tulle wound about it, an invitation to pass through.

On Lenox Avenue a bouquet of synthetic yellow roses is fastened to a tree with strong cellophane tape. Above this offering is a photo of a young man who stares hard at the camera while embracing a pit bull. The image is laminated to withstand the elements, and it has survived for many months. Someone seems to be tending the empty cardboard box that, turned on its side as a makeshift altar, shelters the votive candles that are readily available from bodegas, botanicas, and ninety-nine-cent stores. Often they are blown out by the wind. One night, passing such an
arrangement and seeing that all the candles had succumbed, I searched my purse for matches to light them again. Similar memorials are found on trees, on corners, near subway stations, in front of a building or a favorite hangout spot. Someone had been there, in that spot. That person was not there any longer. But the significance of location expanded in my mind when my neighbors told me, in the midst of our customary greetings, that a young woman had been stabbed to death the night before on the corner of our block, and a few days later, a wreath held aloft on a stand, festooned with red ribbons and roses, marked the spot where she fell.

Just across from there on 133rd Street, a black-and-purple swag draped the doorway of St. Andrew’s Church, a small congregation whose sanctuary occupied the parlor floor of a brownstone. The banner stayed in place for months. When it first appeared, I assumed it announced the death of some member of the flock; later I wondered if it was the sign of some festival of the liturgical year. The decoration remained in place longer than would be necessary for a period of mourning or a religious season. A piece of paper appeared on the door. Seeing this from the sidewalk, I knew it announced—like similar signs on the doors of small churches I’d passed—that the church had stopped having services. I don’t know if the congregation moved or was dissolved. Even after this, the black-and-purple swag remained above the threshold, greeting vanished congregants of the vacant church.

I almost didn’t notice when the banner disappeared. The realization came when I finally registered that the blue-trimmed white facade that had set the church building apart from the rest of the houses had disappeared too. It was painted brown to cohere with the other recently renovated brownstones on the block. But there was one trace remaining of St. Andrew’s. Even after its external transformation, the imitation stained-glass windows that had
distinguished the building as a house of worship remained intact for months. Recently I saw they’d been smashed, some shards still held up by the window frame. They were probably destroyed by the construction crew that was working inside.

Raven Chanticleer died just a few weeks before I moved to Harlem, on March 31, 2002. I must have seen
the notice of his death
in the
New York Times,
but I don’t recall having heard about the time and place of his funeral. I am no longer sure if I learned of his existence at the same moment I read of his death, or if I had arrived in Harlem having already heard of his African American Wax and History Museum. I do know that at some time during those first months of living here, after he had already died, I looked up the museum in the phone book, and even called, but did not get an answer.

Chanticleer’s museum was celebrated as the first wax museum dedicated to the famous figures of black history. Established in the early 1990s, it was a completely independent endeavor. Its founder was also its chief docent, head fund-raiser, artist-in-residence, and maintenance man. From the very beginning, the museum garnered lots of media attention. In Harlem, Raven Chanticleer was already something of a celebrity. He was a theater director, performer, and fashion designer known for his
glamorous “garbage bag glamor fashions”
creating
high fashion from plastic bags
.
Notables who had purchased his work
were said to include Mahalia Jackson, Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, and Muhammad Ali. As an artist
he enjoyed solo shows
in Rome, London, Montreal, and Hawaii. In the 1970s,
Chanticleer performed
in
The Wiz, House of Flowers,
and
Cotton Comes to Harlem.
Long before he founded the wax museum, his notorious fashion sense was the stuff of legend.
He made a memorable entrance
at the 1971 “Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and George Frazier at Madison Square Garden, wearing
an ermine and chinchilla cape and leopard skin briefs.
At a Harlem film premiere at the old Victoria Theatre, he was
immaculately attired
in a Russian sable outfit, complete with cape, brocade boots and diamond bejeweled skullcap, alighting from an old-fashioned white carriage drawn by 2 prancing white horses.

Chanticleer said the inspiration for the museum had come when he was living abroad.
I got into my wax thing
in London, after seeing Madame Tussaud’s.
He was immediately
captivated by this
wondrous vibrant art form
.
Another report tells the story differently.
I was impressed
by Madame Tussaud’s on a field trip to Paris but she had no black “herons or sherons”—they were all lily-white…. I said “I won’t take this for an answer; I will open the first black wax museum in the world.”

The first figure immortalized
by Raven Chanticleer’s secret formula of plaster, papier-mâché, and beeswax was Raven Chanticleer himself.
His effigy was soon joined
by others: a figure of Harriet Tubman wearing aviator glasses; Fannie Lou Hamer in a leopard-print evening gown. The wax likenesses were not arranged by chronology or specialty—according to some reports, many were not even strict likenesses. There was Michael Jackson next to Magic Johnson next to Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X was next to Whoopi Goldberg, who was next to Josephine Baker.
Local
herons and sherons
like Mayor David Dinkins, Mother Hale, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. also formed a part of Chanticleer’s pantheon, in addition to African leaders Nelson Mandela and Haile Selassie. A 1998 article in the
New York Times
reported that Chanticleer’s wax renditions of Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson, and Biggie Smalls were
on loan to an exhibition in Europe
. The next year saw the unveiling of two new statues,
Paul Robeson and Langston Hughes
.

Many of the newspaper articles promoting the museum portray Chanticleer next to his creations, often surrounded by children from the school groups and youth groups that frequently visited the museum. In the photos, he always wears a broad and knowing grin. Besides the wax figures, the museum featured art in other media, much of it also by Chanticleer. There was a portrait of
the singer Madonna, depicted with black skin
. Perhaps not referring to that particular incarnation, Chanticleer had said,
Every black home should have
a black Jesus and a black Madonna.
Other religious work included
a version of the Last Supper
featuring the likenesses of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Mary McLeod Bethune, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, and Paul Robeson.

A group of oil paintings on the wall illustrated
the hardships in slavery
. One painting on the wall showed a picture of
cotton-fields in the south
; another showed
shanty-life in Haiti
. Not on regular display were
some skeletal bones
that Chanticleer says are of African ancestors.

When I first came to Harlem, I noticed the great number of funeral parlors. There were at least four on Lenox Avenue, and many more on the other main thoroughfares and side streets. This seemed to be a high ratio of funeral homes per capita. Perhaps it is a stable business, like beauty parlors and ninety-nine-cent stores. The signs in front of most were weather-beaten, as though they’d been operating for many years.

One of the funeral parlors on Lenox advertises its services on its awning with a slogan: “Where Beauty Softens Your Grief.” Another one, just a few doors down, does not carry a sales pitch. Its sign reads Mickey Funeral Service, The Carolina Chapel. I always wondered about the origin of its name. Mickey’s is located
within a graceful mansion on Lenox between 121st and 122nd, near other fine town houses occupied by SROs and churches. Sometimes I would pass when a funeral was taking place, when mourners were arrayed along the stout staircase that curved gently from the front door to the pavement.

But mostly, when I passed, the parlor was empty. It was as if no one was dying. The windows of the Mickey funeral home were hardly ever lit, but I imagined the interior: heavy drapes, overstuffed sofas, thick carpet, faux-wood paneling on the walls, and the kind of sturdy potted houseplants that scoff at inattention. A small window in a door of the garden-floor entrance displayed the funeral home’s
OPEN
or
CLOSED
sign. A
WILL BE BACK
clock alerted visitors when the owner was briefly away from the premises; if in need, one would know the undertaker was returning shortly, and thus not seek out the parlor a few doors down the avenue. Most times when I passed the Carolina Chapel the office was closed, so I began to take note of the clock’s message. Other times, when the sign read
OPEN
I nearly went in, but never followed the urge.

This same absurd drama played out at a different location, the St. Helena Funeral Home on 136th Street. I have also paused out front on the sidewalk. I have exchanged anonymous and courteous hellos when passing its proprietor as he stands outside when I enter and exit the Countee Cullen Branch library across the street. The windows of its upper floor face 136th Street. They are long, narrow, and set high into the wall, so the only scenery visible from the desks is the line of cornices crowning the houses across the way. Sitting there staring out over the rooftops, I could pick out the blue cornice belonging to the funeral home.