Dollbaby: A Novel (28 page)

A
fter the Trouts left, Ibby stood by the kitchen door, listening to Fannie on the phone in the hall.

“I’d like to place an order for delivery on Elysian Fields Avenue,” she said, puffing on a cigarette. “No, not in the Marigny—closer to the lake. . . . What do you mean, you don’t deliver to that neighborhood?” Fannie slammed the phone down, fuming. Her hand remained on the receiver, as if she were trying to decide what to do.

She picked it up again. “Leah, this is Fannie Bell. I need some food sent over to the Trout family. . . . That’s right, Queenie and Crow. . . . What happened? Their boy Purnell was shot. . . . No, they just left to go over to the hospital, don’t know the arrangements yet. I need your help in telling me what I should send over. . . . What’s the usual?” She repeated the order. “Fried chicken, gumbo, fried catfish, bread pudding, and sweet potato pie. What about booze? . . . You’ll take care of that? Whatever you think, you know better than me. . . . Wonderful. Just let me know how much it is, and I’ll send the cash over later. . . . My number? Twinbrook seven four three five one. Bye-bye now.” Fannie hung up, stormed into her bedroom, and slammed the door.

Ibby remained in the kitchen, waiting to see if Fannie was going to come out of her room, when she smelled something burning. Queenie
had been in such a state earlier that she’d left the burner on under the pot on the stove. As Ibby turned the burner off and put the spoon in the sink, it dawned on her that she couldn’t remember being in the kitchen when Queenie wasn’t there.

“Ibby darling, are you in the kitchen? Come on out here,” Fannie called from the dining room.

Fannie was sitting at the table. “Listen, honey, Queenie and Doll won’t be around for a few days, so we’ll just have to make do. Purnell was”—she paused—“such a nice kid before he got mixed up with that crowd. He used to come around here when he was a teenager, do odd jobs, tend the lawn.”

“How’d he get shot?” Ibby asked.

“They didn’t say—I’m sure Kennedy will fill me in later. But I expect it had something to do with his Black Panther friends. Such a tragedy.” She tapped her finger on the table thoughtfully. “Kids get in trouble sometimes—no matter how much you love them.”

“Purnell . . . is he dead?” Ibby asked.

“Crow said Purnell was shot in the head, something about a scuffle downtown with the police. I’m not holding out much hope for his survival, dear. I expect there’ll be a wake as soon as the body is released to the funeral home.”

“What’s a wake?” Ibby asked.

“Oh, sometimes I forget you’re not from around here. It’s an old custom—they lay the body out so people can come and pay their last respects.”

“Where everybody can see it?” Ibby was aghast.

“Out in the open on full display, dressed in their Sunday finest.” Fannie pointed a finger at Ibby. “Listen to me. When I die, promise me you won’t let them do that to me, put me in an open casket to be gawked at. I want a closed-coffin funeral—remember that.” She paused to light a cigarette. “The one thing the Negroes really know how to do is throw a funeral. Goes on for days, with lots of food and drinking and carrying on. Then they have another party, where there’s dancing
and singing. And then they throw yet another party after the funeral, to give the departed a good send-off.”

“I’ve never been to a funeral,” Ibby replied. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”

“That’s right. Your mama saw to that, didn’t she? Saw to it that your daddy was cremated. Never was a funeral. Which reminds me”—she pointed at Ibby again—“don’t let them go cremating me when I die. The departed should have proper burials. Otherwise their souls wander around the earth all agitated. And do you know why else they have funerals?”

Ibby shook her head, afraid to interrupt her tirade.

“They have funerals so the living can say goodbye for the last time, so every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the street doesn’t stop to say ‘I’m so sorry about so-and-so’ for the umpteenth time. It’s worse when you go and cremate somebody, because there’s not even a grave to visit. Then suppose the worker at the crematorium got the dead bodies all out of order—then what? How do you know you have the right ashes? You know what I mean? How would you know?”

Ibby twirled her hair, upset by what Fannie was saying. She still thought of her daddy as her daddy, not as just some ashes in a jar.

Fannie said, “I’m sorry. I got a little carried away—funerals always do that to me.”

Ibby sat up in her chair. “Are we going to the funeral?”

“Of course! They’re family.” Fannie got up from the table. “You can wear the Indian-looking dress Doll made for you.”

After Fannie left, Ibby went into her father’s room to find the urn. When she opened the armoire, it wasn’t in its usual spot between the sneakers and the loafers. Ibby searched under the neatly stacked shirts and pushed the hanging clothes aside. After a while, she sat back on her heels. The urn was nowhere to be found.

Ibby took one last look around the room. She hadn’t realized how much comfort the urn had given her, just knowing it was safe in the
armoire. Now that her father was missing, she felt a part of her was missing, too. Why would someone move it?

The house was noticeably quiet except for the sound of the oak tree in the front yard scraping against the house. It was an eerie sound, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Ibby listened. She felt sure that the old tree was trying to tell her something.

T
he screened door creaked as Doll held it open for Crow, T-Bone, and two neighbors who were carrying Purnell’s body into the house. All the furniture in the front room had been removed, save for the heavy Naugahyde sofa, to make room for the makeshift waking table, consisting of two sawhorses topped with a piece of plywood draped with a cloth.

“If you don’t mind, we be taking our leave now,” one of the men said after they’d settled Purnell onto the waking table.

“We got a houseful of food,” Crow said, “thanks to all of you, and Miss Fannie was kind enough to send over three whole cases of Old Crow. Come by later, take a drink.”

“Be honored,” the man said as he tipped his hat, and the other man followed him out the door.

Doll and T-Bone stood by their father. They were all staring down at Purnell, who was dressed in his finest suit. He looked as if he were asleep, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed. Doll thought she could even detect a slight smile across his lips. She was amazed at how well the undertakers had been able to disguise the bullet hole to his head.

“The undertakers done a right fine job on Purnell,” Crow said as he touched Purnell’s hand with such tenderness it brought tears to Doll’s eyes.

Doll put her arms around her father’s shoulders. “Yep, Daddy. They done a mighty fine job.”

“Purnell looks like he could get up and walk right out of here at any moment. Wake right up, and walk right out. Like nothing ever happened,” T-Bone added.

“Sure do. Sure do.” Crow nodded. “How’s your mama doing?” He looked at Doll with those dark eyes rimmed in yellow that had always made her heart melt.

“She’s taking a rest, lying on her bed with a pillow over her face. Been that way awhile.”

“She taking this mighty hard. Third boy to pass on. Don’t get no easier,” Crow said.

“Nope, don’t get no easier,” Doll repeated.

At a knock on the door, Crow looked up. “Not even sundown yet, and we already got our first visitor. Come on, T-Bone. You gone tend the bar.”

“Birdelia!” Doll screamed. “I need you!”

Birdelia came down the hall and stood in front of her mother. “No need to yell. I’m right here, Mama.”

“Sorry, baby. I didn’t see you. Better start putting the food out. We already got visitors.” She waved her hand toward the kitchen and went over to answer the door.

“Am I the first one here?” a pudgy woman carrying a tray asked. “I brought you some deviled eggs.”

“Yes, you is, Leola, but you always the first one to come.”
And the last one to leave, too,
Doll muttered under her breath.

“I am not,” Leola protested.

“Yes, you is, and you know it, but it don’t matter none. Come on in.” She took the tray of deviled eggs from Leola.

Leola followed Doll to the kitchen. “Birdelia, find a place for Leola’s eggs, then prop the front door open with one of them plastic chairs on the front porch. People can let themselves in. Sure they find the bar soon enough. I’m gone go back and check on Mama.”

“I’ll help Birdelia,” Leola said, shooing Doll away with her hand. “You go on back and tend to your mama. Good thing I came when I did.”

“Uh-huh.” Doll headed toward Queenie’s room at the back of the house. When she opened the door, her mother wasn’t in the bed.

“Mama?”

There was no answer.

She called out again, “Mama?”

The door to the bathroom was ajar. When she crossed the room, she spotted her mother sprawled on the floor on the other side of the bed.

“Mama, what are you doing?” Doll knelt down beside her. “Why you on the floor?”

Queenie was staring up at the ceiling.

“I know you can hear me, Mama. No use playing possum.” She grabbed Queenie’s arm and pulled her up into a sitting position. “What you doing lying on the floor like that?”

Queenie sighed. “Fell out a bed. Didn’t have the strength to get up.”

“Now come on. Get back in bed. Leola is already here. Expect all the other folks be by shortly.” She took her mother’s hands and pulled her up, then settled her on the bed, tucking the covers around her.

“Purnell here?” Queenie asked.

Her mother’s eyes held so much sadness that Doll had trouble keeping her composure. “Yes, Mama.”

“How he look?”

“Just fine,” Doll said. “Undertakers done a fine job on him.”

“I want to go see.” Queenie threw back the covers.

“You got plenty of time for that. You just rest awhile,” Doll said, patting her shoulder.

Queenie slumped back down on the bed and threw her arm over her forehead.

“You want visitors?” Doll asked.

Queenie turned her head and looked at Doll. “I want to talk to you first.”

Doll sat on the bed next to her. “About what? I already got all the food set on platters. Birdelia’s putting it out for the guests, and Daddy and T-Bone, they out back setting up the bar.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Queenie took Doll’s hand.

“What you mean then?”

“You sorry?” Queenie asked.

“Mama, them pills the doctor gave you, I believe they making you all funny.”

“No, Doll. It ain’t the pills. I mean, you sorry you my daughter? You ever sorry you here?”

Queenie had never spoken to her like this, but Doll knew her mother never did take death well. The loss of Purnell was on her mind, stirring up thoughts of her other two sons that had departed this world too soon.

Doll tried to soothe her by stroking her cheek. “Now, why would I be sorry?”

“Things could have been different,” Queenie said.

“Different? How? You the best mama I know. I ain’t going nowhere.” Doll squeezed her mother’s hand.

Queenie squeezed back. “I just wanted to make sure, baby, that’s all. Just wanted to make sure.”