Getting Mother's Body (20 page)

When I say I lost my church I let folks think I'm talking just about the structure. I talk about how the bank came and kicked us off the land cause, try as we might, we couldn't pay the rent. That version of the story's easier to tell. I tell how the bank took my church. I don't tell about God leaving my ear. All and all, I still expected the church to be standing. Maybe weathered and worse for wear, but if not standing, then at least a pile of tumbled-down slats and crushed windows, cause we did put windows in, one on each side made of blue- and yellow- and red-colored glass. I expected to walk up here and see the church or the remains of the church or at least, at the very least, the place where my church had trampled down the ground.

I move a little to the left. The worst is coming. I can feel it coming. The path that led down from the church steps is growd over too. And worse than losing my calling, worse than losing my church, worse than seeing the grass green and not brown and trampled down, worse than all that, is that I can't recall
exactly
where it stood. Where, say, the front porch started. If I walked right now into the empty field, and spanned my arms out, I wouldn't know,
for certain,
where the door or windows was. The land has forgot it and I've forgot it too.

There is nothing to look at no more. I go back to the jail. I got my silver dollar in my pocket. It'll go towards breakfast.

June is there, awake earlier than all the others and a little sleepy-looking from laying all night in the truck. She's sitting on the front stoop, rubbing her one knee like she do when she's feeling her artharitis.

“You gone to visit your church,” she says. Not asking cause she knows where I've been.

“That's right,” I say and I smile. “It looks better than it did when we left it.”

“How bout that,” she says, smiling with me.

“Someone fixed it up. It don't bow no more.”

“Maybe it'll be yours again someday,” she says.

I look at her square in the face. “Let's hit the road,” I says.

BILLY BEEDE

I'm riding with Cousin Homer in his car. About twenty miles west of Tryler. Teddy and June are up ahead in the truck. We're letting them take the lead. I got the directions to Uncle Blood's writ out, but we ain't gonna get nowhere near there for a while yet. We lost a whole day on account of that jail.

“Uncle Roosevelt says you going to keep me from going too fast,” Homer says.

“I can't keep you from doing nothing,” I say.

“You ever go fast?” he asks.

“I'm a married woman,” I tell him and he just sticks his bottom lip out and nods his head. I can tell he don't believe me.

We ride along looking at the road. I got a scarf on my head to keep my hair down.

“What you need are some sunglasses,” Homer says, “then you'd look like a movie star, heading towards Hollywood in her convertible.” We both smile at that and before I know it I start singing one of Mother's songs. I say it loud, not really singing more like yelling. Homer laughs.

You may not want me, riding in your car

You may not want me, while you smoking yr cigar

But I'm your jewel, Daddy, I'm your most precious jewel.

“You planning on being a singer?”

“I don't got the talent.”

“Singers make good money.”

“I got a talent for hair.”

“You got more going for you than that,” Homer smiles.

He puts his hand on my thigh. I don't move it. It feels warm. His hand is smaller than Snipes', but heavier.

“Maybe you could be my woman,” he says.

“I don't know about that,” I says.

He keeps his hand there, moving it inch by inch up my leg and when he gets to my crotch he shovels his hand in between my legs and right up against my thing. The baby don't seem to mind.

We ride without talking. We pass a little house right on the side of the road. A man and his wife sit in lawn chairs in the front yard watching the cars pass. They got an oil pump in the back.

“How come you're named Billy with a ‘y'?” Homer asks. He's still got his hand down there.

“It's after Billie Holiday.”

“Her name has an ‘ie' not a ‘y.' ”

“Willa Mae had her own way of doing everything,” I says.

“My mamma told me about your mamma,” Homer says. “What she told me is pretty remarkable.”

“She loved to sing,” I says. “Even though she's passed, I feel like she
still
wants to be a singer.”

Homer hears that and takes his hand away. He looks at me, lifting up his eyebrows. “That's an interesting theory, but it doesn't hold water,” he says.

“It's just something I feel,” I says.

“I've got a whole year of college under my belt,” Homer says smiling. “First thing you learn in college is what holds water and what doesn't hold water. Yr ideas about yr mother being passed and still wanting to be singing, they're nice ideas, but they don't hold water,” he says.

“I knew her pretty good,” I says.

“I'm just saying,” he says.

There's a Texaco up ahead. The red star with the big green T.

“Now, that treasure she's got waiting for you,
that
holds water,” Homer says. He takes my hand, lifts it to his lips. Kisses it. His kiss feels better than Snipes's. Smarter maybe.

He lets go of my hand and pets my titty. It feels good.

“You're a hot and wild mamma,” he says.

“No I ain't.”

“You and me and that treasure could have some hot and wild fun,” he says.

I shrug my shoulders and he moves his hand off. He looks mad.

“Let's stop and get gas,” I says.

WILLA MAE BEEDE

Lucky day,

Oh lucky, lucky day

All day long the day that I met you.

Sunshine and roses

And Valentine-proposes

Lucky, lucky-ducky-lucky day.

My hey-day

Hey, this is my hey-day

How long is such a good day gonna last?

You turned my head this evening

Wore my bed all out, then you set me dreaming.

I woke up alone, I guess my lucky day's done passed.

BILLY BEEDE

This filling station here is better than what we got. The bright Texaco sign, the big clean office with a garage next door to it and, across the road, a place to eat.

A skinny white gal comes out. She's got on a Texaco uniform that fits her close and long yellow hair swinging free. She looks us both over then gives a sly look at the restaurant across the road.

“We'd like some gas,” Homer says.

“Yes, sir,” she says.

Homer holds out a five-dollar bill. I see it's the last bill in his wallet, but the yellow-haired gal ain't seed it. He takes it out slow and confident like there's plenty more bills where that comed from.

“This yr place?” Homer asks.

“You betcha,” she says.

I wanna ask who Rude is, but I don't say nothing.

She takes Homer's money. Her and him look each other in the eyes, then her eyes slide down his body, looking him all over.

“We'll take two dollars' worth and you can keep the change,” Homer says. His voice sounds nervous.

“I thank you,” the gal says.

I cough and she looks at me quick. She don't see no wedding ring, so she looks back at Homer.

“Nice car you got,” she says.

“It's a Park Lane,” he says. Her and him smile at each other.

“How bout that gas?” I says.

“My cousin and I are out for a ride today,” Homer says, his voice sounding deeper now, deeper than it did when he was talking to me. The white gal peels herself off the car, going to pump the gas and clean the windows. Homer watches her as she works.

“Our place is bigger than this,” I tell Homer.

“They've got a restaurant,” Homer says.

“We got a restaurant too,” I says.

“I'll come visit sometime, little cousin,” Homer says, patting me on the head. Patting me on the head like he ain't felt my crotch and kissed my hand a mile ago.

I get out the car. “I'ma go get some sandwiches,” I says.

The gal pipes up quick, “Rude don't serve—well you know, you'd best be getting food someplace else.”

I head across the road anyhow. The diner's got a sign in the window saying

I peek through the screen and don't see no one. There's a radio playing Elvis. I turn back to see what Homer's doing and a truck is passing. When the truck clears I see Homer sitting on the top edge of his seat talking to the gal while she checks his oil.

Inside the diner is quiet. No one around. A list of the specials on the back wall above the grill. Three tables, all of them empty except for salt and pepper shakers and bottles of hot sauce and menus. Out back, sitting in the sun, there's a lean white man, wearing shiny black lizard-skin boots and a white apron and a paper cook's hat. He's reading a newspaper out loud.

“Jesus has been spotted in Dallas!” he says.

There are two pies on the counter, both covered with glass cases.

“Legless woman gives birth to twins!” he says.

One pie is pumpkin. The other cherry. I take the cherry pie, the whole thing, and head back out front, hiding it behind my back. Homer ain't at his car. Probably went to the restroom. I'm making a shovel with my fingers and scooping the pie right out the tin plate. It's still warm. One of them, probably the man in the white apron, cooked it. I got five slices left and I leave them on the front seat of the car to go look for the restroom, around the side of the building where the sign points to. They got one for ladies and one for gentlemens with a “Whites Only” sign that's been crossed out, rewrote, and crossed out again. The ladies room got yellow tile on the floor and a yellow-colored toilet and a yellow-colored face bowl with a tap for the hot and a tap for the cold and a slim, almost-used-up yellow-and-white bar of soap. I take my time in there, using the toilet then washing my hands and patting my face and neck with water and fixing my hair. I lift up my dress and look at my belly. It looks bigger than it did last week. Maybe Homer touching me made it grow. I don't know what to say to the baby so I don't say nothing. I think of it with Snipes' face and that makes it easy to hate.

I look in the office. It's neat and clean, twice the size of ours. They don't got no pallet under the cash register like we got, just a desk and a chair and a cash register and pictures of tires and a calendar with a pin-up gal on it.

Through the back of the office door, where we got our trailer at, they got heaps of junk. Anything you could want. Seats from a movie theater, the purple velvet fabric gone blue-gray in the sun. A tricycle. A baby buggy with big wheels. Three or four rusted-out cars with they broken windows and they hoods up and no engines and no seats. A row of plastic dwarfs riding reindeers, the kind of decorations people like Mr. and Mrs. Jackson put in they yards at Christmas. Piles and piles of old tires. A sign that says “Mobil Gas” with the red flying horse. A shed with a door with a cut-out crescent moon on it, the old outhouse. The door's closed. I'm about to go back to the car when I hear the moaning sounds. More like whimpering, like a dog caught in a raccoon trap.

I look through the slats of the shed. There's plenty of sunlight coming through so I can see them. Homer's leaning up against the wall and the gal is kneeling in front of him. She got his thing in her mouth.

Back in the car I sit on the top of the seat back like I seen Homer do. I eat as many pieces of pie that I can. Three more pieces then I'm full. Homer comes striding through the office with a grin on his face.

“They got a good-looking restroom,” he says.

“How so?” I says, but he don't say. His zipper is opened and he sees me noticing it and turns around and zips up.

The gal comes out of the office and, after looking over at the restaurant and spitting, leans her tight pants in the doorway, trying to look bored.