Raney (13 page)

IV

Uncle Newton died at home last Friday. On Saturday night before the funeral on Sunday, we went over to Aunt Minnie's with Mama, sat for awhile, and then took Aunt Minnie and Louise, their daughter, up to the funeral home. The family was scheduled to be there from seven to nine.

I had a hard time talking Charles into going with us. I told him I'd cook him some brownies and would he please at least pay respect where respect was due and that I'd feel abandoned up there at the funeral home without him. He kept saying it was all primitive. I wondered what in the world they do with all his folks when they die
—
cremint them? They're doing that in some of the bigger cities now. What I can't understand is: that is what the Indians used to do to settlers
—
tie them to a pole and cremint them.

When we got to Aunt Minnie's, she went all to pieces. Louise was back in her bedroom and hadn't come out more than twice, so Aunt Minnie said. To eat, I imagine
—
not counting the times she went to the bathroom. Louise is seventeen, does ballet, and dates a college boy.

While Aunt Minnie was crying, she told Charles that he had always been one of Uncle Newton's favorite nephews. I'm afraid that wasn't quite the truth
—
Aunt Minnie must have been delirious. The only times Uncle Newton and Charles saw each other was the time me and Charles visited him right before we got married, and then the one time about two weeks ago. Both times Uncle Newton asked Charles how many colored people were at the college and Charles
—
of course
—
complained on the way home, both times, about Uncle Newton being a racist, which of course Uncle Newton is
—
was
—
not.

At about six-thirty we left Aunt Minnie's for the funeral home: Wayside, next to the Goodwill. Mary Faye and Norris were along and had been arguing since we left Mama's: first, about whether or not the army could arrest you for speeding, and then about how much money was in the world. Mama told them they'd have to hush if they wanted to go in and see Uncle Newton.

We walked up to the casket: me, Mama, Aunt Minnie, Louise, Mary Faye, Norris, and Mrs. Fuller. Mrs. Fuller is a neighbor of Aunt Flossie's. She's the assistant treasurer at the church and knows how much money everybody gives, so Mama says. She'll go to the funeral home for a night out. Nosy, but just as helpful as she can be. She takes in cats
—
and dips snuff. (If she's dipping in public, she'll spit into a handful of Kleenex.)

At the casket, Aunt Minnie and Louise went all to pieces. The funeral home man
—
Kenneth Simmons's uncle, Mr. Simmons
—
was real supportive, just sort of standing there. Kenneth Simmons is a boy I used to date, and he worked there at the funeral home one summer
—
drove a hearse
—
and he told me about all the little things funeral home people do, like show caskets, and make all the arrangements, and things like that.

So Mr. Simmons tells Aunt Minnie that the funeral home can do anything she wants about changing the way Uncle Newton looks, his face or anything. She starts bawling again, poor thing, and asks Mr. Simmons to pin on Uncle Newton's Kiwanis pin which she gets out of her pocketbook. He went over and pinned it right on.

I cried too. Aunt Minnie's and Uncle Newton's house was the first place I ever remember visiting, and Uncle Newton always gave me a piece of chewing gum after church. He was one of the kindest and quietest people in our whole family.

I turned around to grab for Charles's hand, and he was
not even there.
He was standing back there in the little waiting room reading the guest book! That's where he'd been the whole time.

I walked back, grabbed his arm, and said, "Charles, what's the matter with you? Uncle Newton looks real good. Come on. He looks just like he's asleep."

He was in one of those battleship grey caskets.

"I don't want to look at your Uncle Newton."

I couldn't imagine. "Charles," I whispered, "he's not just
my
Uncle Newton. He's your uncle too
—
by the act of marriage. Are you deserting him because he's dead?"

Charles was as stiff as a statue.

"Okay, he's my uncle too," he says. "I'd rather remember him the way he was. I have absolutely no need or desire to view a corpse."

About that time Mama comes up with Norris and Mary Faye. "
Don't
he look good?" she says. "Charles, did you look in on him?"

"Look
in
on him?" says Charles.

"Did you see him?"

"No, I didn't."

"Why not, son? You don't want to pay your respects?"

"It's not a matter of respect," Charles says. "I paid him my respects when he was alive."

I didn't want to make the argument any worse, but as far as I'm concerned, Charles paid mighty few respects when Uncle Newton was alive. So I said, "What kind of respects did you ever pay to Uncle Newton?"

"I visited him," said Charles. "Kept him posted on integration."

Can you believe that? That's all Charles could think up to say after the whole life Uncle Newton led as a delivery man and a Christian.

Mama says, "Would you do it for Minnie and Louise, son?

I know it'd make them feel better."

Charles says, "It would make
you
feel better, Mrs. Bell. Because you
—
"

Mr. Simmons steps up and says in this real low voice, "Is there anything wrong? Something I can do?"

Mama and
me
were flabbergasted. Charles, of course, has read some articles which talk about the funeral home business being a "racket"
—
he's talked about it
—
so what he ups and says just about knocked out the bottom of my world, given the condition I was in anyway. He says, "Mr. Simmons, do you realize that some families can't afford a two thousand dollar funeral? Do you realize that by displaying those expensive caskets the way you do, you make people feel guilty if they don't get one? Do you realize that?"

Mr. Simmons stayed composed. "We
—
"

"Why don't you display the cheaper caskets for people to decide on
—
especially poor folks?"

"We believe that
—
"

"I know what you believe. I've read about what you believe. You believe you can squeeze two thousand dollars from some grieving widow who can't think straight
—
rather than explain to her that a funeral does not
have
to be so damned expensive. Your 'profession' has carried this whole business to the extreme. And I can't believe you people stand up there in your casket display room and talk about how one vault is guaranteed not to leak within fifty years and another within one hundred years and that kind of garbage. I'm sorry. It just burns me up."

And Charles walked straight out to the car.

Mr. Simmons says, still in his low voice, "Death affects people in many ways. I'm sure Charles will feel better in a day or two. Don't you all worry about it one
bit.
"

I was so embarrassed. I almost said, "That man is not my husband." But I didn't.

It just doesn't make sense that something so connected to decency, like a funeral, could get Charles so riled up. I know it's those articles he's been reading. One of the drawbacks of being well read like Charles is that sometimes he comes across something in a normally good magazine which got in there by mistake, written by some quirk. I think sometimes Charles don't think for himself.

What really hurts deep down is I don't know if Charles will want to look at Mama and Daddy at their funerals. And, of course, if anything ever happened to me: I just can't bear the thought of me laying up there in a casket in the funeral home
—
dead
—
while Charles stands in the waiting room, mouthing off to the funeral director
—
never having looked on my body.

Last Tuesday afternoon I took Mama some eggs
—
after I got my hair done
—
and we talked about Charles. I was expecting her to bring up something about how he behaved at the funeral home.

"Sugar," Mama says, "I want to ask you a question. Why does Charles sit so quiet when we eat Sunday dinner? I get the feeling I don't know him yet. And the way he acted at Newton's funeral. Where in the world did that come from?"

"Well, Mama, you got to understand something about Charles's background. The whole way he grew up affected him."

"Well, honey, there comes a time when a person has to learn how to get along with other people, how to be a little outgoing. And I don't mind a person disagreeing with me like Charles has a few times, but I just feel like he could show a little more interest in me and your daddy. Course him and Thurman do seem to get along pretty well."

"He's learning, Mama. It takes time. Sometimes his background
experience don't
tell him nothing while mine tells me exactly what to do. Charles got a lot of book learning and that's been good to him in some ways. He's got a good job at the library and he knows about books whereas I grew up around people. And he's a real good musician, and we love the same kind of music, and he gets along with people, and
—
"

"Honey, you had plenty of books when you
was
growing up."

"I know it, Mama, but I'm talking about books on philosophy and astrology and things like that."

"Well, I don't understand how a person's background can make a person sit at the dinner table and
not hardly
say one word to another person throughout an entire Sunday dinner."

"Mama, I just think it might take you some time to get to know Charles. He's trying. Honest."

While we talked I heard this voice inside me saying, "Raney, Charles don't like your mama and you know it."

Now what I want to know is how can a woman like me, or any woman for that matter, say to her own mama, "Mama, my husband don't like you" ?

But on the other hand, how can a woman like
me,
or any woman for that matter, say to her own husband, "Husband, my mama don't like you"?

V

I went to the mall last Thursday for the
new year
specials. When I got home and walked in the door, Charles was standing in the middle of the living room looking at me like I had a snake on my head.

"Charles, what's the matter?"

"Sit down for a minute."

I sat on the couch with my coat on, holding three shopping bags.

"Mr. Donaldson just called."

"What Mr. Donaldson?"

"Your next door neighbor in Bethel."

"What did he want?"

"Uncle Nate shot himself. This afternoon. He's still alive though
—
in County Hospital."

Everything in the room dropped away and all my strength faded. "Charles. What in the world? How?"

"With his pistol."

"Was it
a
accident?"

"Well, I don't know. I don't think so."

"Let me call Mama."

"She's probably at the hospital."

"Maybe Daddy's at home."

I stood up and walked to the phone. My legs were weak and my chest felt tight. Pictures of Uncle Nate were swimming through my head. Mr. Donaldson answered. He said Mama and Daddy were at the hospital. I was trying to think where in the world in the house it happened and if there was blood or whatever, so I asked if there was anything to clean up. Mr. Donaldson said everything was okay, that there won't anything to clean up, and that Uncle Nate must have gone crazy with his nerves and asthma being so bad. He said Mama had carried him up to the VA hospital that morning and that they wouldn't let him in and he came home and tried to shoot himself in the back of the head with a pistol and ended up shooting himself in the neck, and then he walked out on the front porch and fell into the shrubs and nobody knew about it until Mama came home from Nell Howard's and saw him when she started up the front steps.

My chest tightened up more and I felt like I was in a trance. All I could see was Uncle Nate's face with his hair slicked back and the way he looked with his white shirt and coat on when he was getting ready to go to Sunday
School
.

Me and Charles drove to the County Hospital and walked into the emergency room waiting area. The lights seemed too bright. Mama and Daddy and Aunt Flossie were standing with the doctor. "How do you do. I'm Dr. Scarborough," he said. He was tall, skinny, young, baldheaded, and wearing wire rimmed glasses. I didn't like him. Mama and Aunt Flossie looked scared to death.

I thought about Dr. Cisco, who set Norris's thumb. I wondered if there was a way Uncle Nate could get him for a doctor. At least he would know how to talk to us like a normal human being and make us feel better.

"I was just telling your folks," said the doctor to me, "that Mr. Purvis has a less than fifty percent chance of making it through the night. The bullet is lodged near the juncture of his brain and spinal column in the upper neck area. We're trying to stop the bleeding as best we can. If he stabilizes we'll try to remove the bullet. It'll be a while before we know whether or not we can do that."

"He's always been strong," said Mama.

"We'll be moving him to intensive care in an hour or so," said the doctor. "If you'd like to stay, the intensive care waiting room is a little more comfortable than here. I need to be running along now." He walked off.

"I like him," Mama said. "He's a specialist. One of the
best,
said one of the nurses. I asked her about him." So I didn't say anything about Dr. Cisco.

Things jumped around in my head. I saw Uncle Nate standing in the living room door at home on Sunday afternoons after he'd walk down the hall from his room to watch the ballgame with Daddy. I saw him standing at the picture window looking out while he combed his hair.

We got settled in the intensive care waiting room. There was a TV in there and it was on a game show and the color was awful
—
green and pink
—
and I wondered why anybody was watching it
—
how somebody could sit there and watch a game show while their uncle or aunt or mother or father was sick in intensive care.

Mama started telling me and Charles what happened:

"He'd stopped taking them drugs about two days ago. He said he wouldn't start back if it killed him. If he took them he couldn't stay awake and if he didn't take them, he couldn't sleep."

"What was he taking?" Charles asked.

"Librium and thorosene or something."

"Where did he get that?"

"Sedgwick Drugs
—
Tillman Sedgwick."

"He didn't have a prescription?"

"From 1960, '61, I think."

"My God," says Charles.

"He'd been taking them a long time to stay off liquor."

"But...," says Charles.

"So," says Mama, "he hadn't
slept hardly none for three or four nights
—
up
and down, up and down, and having asthma attacks and taking his spray for that. This morning he wanted to know if I could take him up to the VA
hospital, that
he had to get some help. And you know Nate
—
he won't ask
nobody
for help. So I took him. He was as nervous as he could be. Lord knows I didn't know what all this was coming to. His nerves were tore all to pieces. He couldn't stop pulling at his ear
—
like this. He's been doing that for months now.

"We had to wait for two hours. Then this young doctor comes out
—
real young fellow
—
I didn't even know he was a doctor. He didn't introduce hisself or nothing
—
just started in telling Nate he had reviewed his record and that he was sorry but they couldn't treat him because they didn't handle something or other. He didn't even look at me. Nate told him he had to have some help. That
something
had to be done. Anything, but
something.
He was in worse shape than I've ever seen him. He was so nervous he didn't know what to do. So I asked the doctor couldn't he see that Nate needed help
—
couldn't he see he was a sick man, a sick man and a veteran, and that we were in a veterans' hospital and why in the
world
couldn't the government help its veterans if it could help every fourteen year old nigger girl in the country that had a bastard baby. He said he won't
no
politician and he was sorry but that we would have to
leave.
I looked at his name tag
—
Boyd was his name
—
and told him my congressman would hear about him and to send me to his boss right that minute. Nate was crying. Dr. Boyd says, 'Mr. Purvis, do you want to see Dr. Blotner?' And Nate looks up and says
Yes
. So Dr. Boyd gets this Dr. Blotner who says there is absolutely nothing he can do, he is very sorry
—
that there is nothing the VA hospital can do for Nate, that he would be happy to give us a complaint form, but that their priorities didn't allow them to treat drug related problems and that
—
of all things
—
I should take Nate to a psychiatric.

"So we drove on back home and I told Nate that he'd just have to rely on the Lord and that I'd done everything I could for years and years, and that I'd tried to tell him all along what it was coming to
—
that you can't go against the Lord's word for year after year and not expect any consequences.

"Well, I'd told Nell that I'd bring her some frozen squash and Lord it's not but three houses away and I never heard a thing. He took the gun out of that drawer he keeps it in, I reckon. Thank goodness Mary Faye and Norris won't there."

"Could it have been an accident?" Charles asked.

"Oh, no. No, it won't
a
accident. I asked him what happened while he was laying there in the shrubs
—
before I saw the blood. I couldn't imagine. Then I saw the blood pooling out under his neck in the dirt. He was looking up at me. The blood looked like molasses. I said, '
What
happened, Nate?!' And he said, 'I shot myself. To get it over with.' He looked like he tried to lean up, then his eyes closed and his head dropped down in the dirt. I told him that we loved him and that he shouldn't have done that. I grabbed him around the shoulders to try to get him up on the porch. Then I saw how much blood there was and it all struck me like lightning. I stood up and started screaming for help and, oh Lord...." The doctor came in and said Uncle Nate was resting as comfortable as possible and that he was in shock and couldn't have any visitors
—
that somebody would let us know if there was any change. We tried to decide who could stay and who could go home for awhile. Mama wanted to stay, so I said I'd stay with her. Aunt Naomi had picked up Mary Faye and Norris from school and was staying with them at home. Daddy, Aunt Flossie, and Charles stayed for about three hours and then left to get something to eat, and to explain to Mary Faye and Norris. At first we couldn't decide what to tell them but we finally settled on the truth. Mama said they weren't old enough but then she agreed.

Mama and
me
waited in the intensive care waiting room. At about seven o'clock the doctor came in and said Uncle Nate was in a coma. At eight he came back and said Uncle Nate had died about ten minutes before, suddenly
—
that his heart just stopped.

My arms felt numb, and I couldn't cry. I was too tired, I think. Mama burst into crying and said it was all her fault. Then I burst into crying. Then I wondered why they hadn't let us in to see him before he died. Didn't they know we'd want to see him?

I called Wayside Funeral Home from this little office which the doctor took us to. I asked for Mr. Simmons. He came on the phone and said he'd take care of everything but wondered if there was going to be an autopsy. I asked the doctor and he asked Mama and she said no.

Mama wanted to see him. I didn't. I just didn't think I could. I decided I'd wait until the funeral. The doctor took Mama in Uncle Nate's room and I heard her crying. There were all sorts of people in there. I stared at two swinging doors down the hall. People came in and out.

Two or three times during the drive home
—
I drove
—
Mama said that she had failed, that she should have been more patient and that Uncle Nate had never had nobody and always had bad luck and was a good man at heart. I tried to tell her it won't her fault. She wouldn't listen.

This was all Thursday. Right away everybody started bringing food to the house. Friday, Uncle Norris came from Charlotte. Uncle Nate didn't have any living relatives except Mama and Aunt Flossie and Uncle Norris. There had been his wife, but she died in 1957 after they got their divorce in 1952. They got married in 1951.

Everybody wanted to know what happened and Mama told the story over and over. "What in the world happened, Doris?" And "Why in the world do you suppose he did it, Doris?" Mama told it over and over about how he had come home from the war, burned like he was, and with his bad lungs and having those asthma attacks and having to sit still for four or five hours and not able to find a job on account of it, and how she had tried to take care of him all these years and bring him to Christ and that he had finally been saved (she prayed and hoped) in December of '71 and cut back on his drinking but hadn't been able to quit completely and that he had to take drugs to help keep off liquor.

Mr. Brooks, one of the church deacons, came over Friday afternoon and said he had read that the family requested that no flowers be sent. (Uncle Nate liked that Carter family song:

"Give me the roses while I live; trying to cheer me on. Useless are flowers that you give after the soul is gone." And Mama said he wrote down about his funeral one time and showed it to her and it said no flowers, contributions to the Elon Boys' Home instead.) So Mr. Brooks is wearing his suit
—
he always wears it
—
and he's sitting in the living room asking people if they'd like to make a remembrance donation to the Missionary Building Fund, since it had been requested that no flowers be sent. (Next day, Mrs. Fuller said he said something about the unfortunate truth that people who committed suicide were breaking the
ten commandments
. I can't imagine where his heart is.) I've never been able to like Mr. Brooks: he's always quoting scripture and getting mad at people and
places:
like I've heard him run down New York, and Paris, and Chapel Hill. There's bound to be good and bad people in those places, just like anywhere else. I know if Jesus had been like Mr. Brooks he certainly would have had a hard time finding disciples who would
like
him. The twelve disciples
had
to like Jesus or they wouldn't have stuck with him like they did, through thick and thin. People say Mr. Brooks knows the Bible better than most preachers. I just can't ever feel any heart about him. When his heart seems to peep through, it feels like a lie. I know it's wrong to judge him like that but sometimes I can't help it.