The Boy in the Black Suit (8 page)

“Yeah, I know. The thing is, no one knew she had asthma. Not even her. So,” Mr. Ray said and shrugged, “no inhaler.” Mr. Ray stared down at the teenager. Then he patted me on the shoulder. “Help me bring in the flowers.”

The funeral was way different than Mr. Jameson's. It was packed with tons of teenagers. Some I recognized from the neighborhood, but most I had never seen before. I sat in the back as they came rolling in in jeans and sneakers. Some wore T-shirts with Nancy's face printed on the front. A lot of the girls came in with their hands covering their mouths, and a lot of the guys would take off their hats, but wouldn't take off their sunglasses. And even though I thought that was a little rude, I got it.

I stood in the back with Mr. Ray, Robbie, and Benny and watched as everyone did the funeral march, the same kind they did at my mom's funeral, when they would look at the body and say some crap about how she looked like herself. But the way the teenagers looked at Nancy was different from the way the old ladies looked at my mother. The young people just looked
surprised. Surprised that their homegirl was gone. That all of a sudden they would never talk to Nancy on the phone again. Or in class. Just like that, it was over. I got that, too.

There was no choir, thank God. Just a skinny girl with braids who got up and blew the roof off the church. She sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” and when I say she sang it, I mean she
sang
it. She dug deep and belted out notes strong enough to reach Nancy, I swear. Tears streamed down her face, and even though I couldn't see anybody else's face, really, I could tell a lot of people were crying by the way folks were thumbing the corners of their eyes. I paid close attention to Nancy's mother, a pretty, dark-skinned woman, sitting up front in all black. She had dreadlocks wound up in a bun, and she rocked back and forth while another woman wrapped her arm around her and fanned her with one of the church fans.

I looked at the program. Next was the obituary.

The preacher stepped up to the microphone. I'm not sure if he had on a sharp suit, or just jeans and a T-shirt, because he wore a long burgundy robe like the ones you wear when you graduate from high school. I was looking forward to wearing that same kind of robe soon. He had a baby face, but I could tell he was way older than he looked by the creases in his forehead. He stood at the mic for a moment, and then began to read the obituary off the program.

It was pretty short, I guess because Nancy's life was only nineteen years long. She barely had time to do anything. I thought about how if I died, my obituary would only be a few sentences.

Matthew Miller was the son of Daisy Miller and Jackson Miller.
His best friend was Chris Hayes. He couldn't land a date to save his life. So he died. The end.
Oh, and there would probably be a picture of me on the front of the program. One of my senior pictures. Robot face number twelve.

The pastor read. Nancy was the oldest of two. She graduated from Brooklyn Tech with honors. Her favorite subject was English. She loved poetry and music, especially R&B, but her favorite thing to do was run track. She got a full scholarship to the University of Maryland to run and did really well her freshman year, winning her first race a few days before she died. Or, as the pastor read off the program, “before God called his angel back home.” The preacher at my mom's funeral said something like that too. I guess that's better than saying “died.” But it still means the same thing. It doesn't really matter what you call it. It still sucks.

I thought about Nancy. She was a runner. A winner. She was good at school and at sports, which almost never happens. And judging from all of the teenagers jammed in this church like kids stuffed in a camp van, all on top of each other, sitting in the aisles, standing along the back and side walls, she also was pretty popular. Nancy must've been a cool chick. But even though she could run, she couldn't run fast enough to beat death.

I also couldn't help but think about her mother, in the front row, heaving and rocking, and occasionally lifting her hands as if begging God for some kind of help. I now knew what it was like to lose a mother, but I don't know how my mother would've felt if she lost me. She used to always say whenever we'd hear about some kid dying in the street, “Parents ain't supposed to bury
their kids. It just ain't right.” I knew, and not just because she told me a trillion times, that she loved me like crazy, and that she would've been shattered just like Nancy's mom, begging for God to take her instead, crying, screaming for me to have a second shot at life. There wouldn't have been a joke in the world funny enough to help her laugh through it. There wouldn't have been a joke in the world funny anymore, period.

So I felt for Ms. Knight. Ms. Knight didn't look like she had a whole lot of money, so I could only imagine how much she spent on that heavy casket. But to her, I bet it was worth it. My mom would've done the same thing.

Nancy's sister was called up to the podium after the pastor was done with his words. She looked about sixteen and I could tell she was cute, even though black lines streamed down her face from all of the tears mixing with her makeup. Her hair was cut short in a little bush, almost perfectly round, and she stood at the microphone holding a piece of paper, shaking with nerves. Her name was Alicia.

“This”—she started, her voice vibrating like her hands—“this is a poem for Nancy.”

Alicia put one hand on her chest and took a deep breath.

“Nancy

Remember when we would run

and see who could beat the moon.

Remember when we laughed

and cracked jokes all afternoon.

Remember when Ma made a cake

and we fought over the spoon.

Remember on your birthday

when I popped the best balloon.

Remember staying up all night

singing our favorite tune.”

She paused and said, “‘Can't Take My Eyes Off of You,' by Lauryn Hill.”

Her mother, now sitting up straight, nodded. Even though I couldn't see her face, I could tell her mom was sort of smiling.

Alicia went back to the poem.

“Remember staying up all night

singing our favorite tune.

Remember snowball fights in January

and water fights in June.

I never thought—”

She stopped again, her hands trembling even more, her throat swallowing what we all knew was a lump of emotions.

Alicia looked up at the crowd, then at her mother, then at her sister Nancy, lying there peacefully. I could feel the churning in my stomach. That feeling. The same one I had the day before at Mr. Jameson's funeral.

Alicia continued. “I never thought you'd be gone so soon.” Her voice gave way to the tears, as they rolled down her chocolate
cheeks. She folded the paper into a small square and slipped it into the casket on her way back to her seat, where her mother wrapped her up in all the love she had left. Like the preacher at my mother's service told me, no one could feel the pain like I could. And I knew watching Alicia and Ms. Knight that the same went for them—no one in that church was hurting as much as they were. And again, I was satisfied.

Mr. Ray started walking toward me, signaling for me to follow. Benny, Robbie, and the other two guys fell in line behind us as we started down the aisle toward the casket. The pastor was giving his final prayer, and the young girl who sang the first song had come back to the microphone to close the funeral with another selection, this time something upbeat that people could sing along to: “This Little Light of Mine.”

I took my place between Benny and Robbie again. But now I wasn't as nervous as we all grabbed the metal bar. I turned my head toward where Ms. Knight and her daughter were sitting. They were both singing and wiping a last few tears from their faces. I caught eyes with the both of them and smiled. Ms. Knight smiled back. Then, Robbie elbowed me in the arm. It was time to go. On Mr. Ray's cue, we lifted and turned, and slowly marched Nancy with all her friends and family behind us singing, into the sunlight.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Chapter 5

WHEN IT RAINS . . .

“'S
UP MAN?
” C
HRIS WAS WALKING
up the block toward me, his giant umbrella now being used as a cane to put some extra cool in his bop. It looked ridiculous, him walking like some potbelly pimp. Like Robbie Ray. Chris's backpack, loose, stuffed with books, sagged down to his butt.

“Chillin',” I said. “Just seeing what you was up to.”

“Yeah, but ain't something wrong? Because you was blowing me up like something was wrong.”

“Man, I ain't blow you up!”

“You was blowing me up, Matt!” Chris pulled out his cell phone and counted out all the text messages I sent him. Nine. I
was
blowing him up. But it was because I was feeling weird. I left the church right after we put Nancy's casket in the back of the hearse. Instead of hopping in and riding in the parade to the
gravesite, I decided to just walk home. Mr. Ray understood, and gave me thirty bucks for the day, and thirty for the day before. Not bad.

As I'd walked home, I'd started thinking about life, and friends, and how things had just been crazy with Mom being gone, and everything being flipped upside down, and how this just wasn't the way things were supposed to be. It was all supposed to be smooth. The most uncomfortable thing I was ever planning to experience was picture day. That's it. Now here I was, by myself, coming back from being a pallbearer at a funeral of a girl around my age who had no idea she was going to go. And to make it worse—oh man, here it is—I liked being at the funeral! Yeah. Weird. But it was like, I felt better there than anywhere else since my mom died. Stuff like that can make you feel crazy, and I just wanted to be around a friend. So, yes, I blew Chris up.

“Man, whatever,” I said to him now. “Look, I got some money. You trying to get something to eat?”

I flashed the cash. Tens and twenties. My mother would've tripped if she knew I was showing off like that. Chris tripped too. His eyes bugged out.

“Man, where you get that from?” he said, as if he expected me to say I was pushing drugs or something, even though he knew me well enough to know that I got it in some legit way. I just wasn't that type of dude.

“Work, fool,” I said, folding the bills in half. “So we eating, or what?”

“Still not cooking?” Chris asked.

“Forget it, you don't wanna eat.” I stuffed the wad back into my pocket.

“I didn't say that! I'm just not used to you not whipping stuff up in the kitchen. You the only dude I know who knows how to burn.” Chris swung his umbrella at something I didn't see.

“I'm just not in the mood,” I said, pushing the sleeves of my suit jacket up. That thing was getting hot. “Y'know, that was something me and Mom used to do. Our thing.”

Chris looked down, now tapping the stupid umbrella on the sidewalk as if he were smashing an ant. “I got you. It's cool,” he said, looking up. “So, where we going?”

I thought for a moment. Chris rubbed his baldy like he was trying to shine it, which he usually did when he was thinking, too. But we both knew what the answer was. It was what it always was. Cluck Bucket.

We started up the block, our cement world of trash cans blown into the street, stray cats begging, stoop sitters dressed in fresh sneakers smoking blunts in broad daylight, old ladies sweeping the sidewalk, tired nine-to-fivers walking slowly on the final stretch before home. The buses, and cabs, and bicycles, and skateboards. The shop owners hollering out their two-for-one deals. The little girls singing, the older boys laughing, the babies crying, and the two of us moving through it all.

“Hold up,” I said, patting my pockets as we got to the corner where the bodega is. “I gotta stop in here right quick. I owe Jimmy some cash.”

“Good to know you'll pay your debts when you get rich,” Chris said, laughing.

I pushed the door open. The cat jumped from on top of the soups over to the paper towels.

“Jimmy, how much is two D batteries?” a woman dressed in business clothes and sneakers asked.

“Two-fitty.”

“Two-fifty! That's ridiculous. For two damn batteries. A'ight, well forget the batteries. Just give me two Wheel of Fortune scratch-offs.” She tapped the thick plastic case to make sure he knew which scratch-offs she wanted.

“Five dollars.”

“Five dollars! Jimmy, these are two-fifty a piece now too?”

Jimmy noticed me come in.

“Matty, what's good, my man?”

The lady slapped a five-dollar bill down and slid it across the counter. Whatever she needed those batteries for wasn't as important as her trying to win more money. Maybe to buy more batteries. Or more scratch-offs.

“Jimmy, wassup. Just wanted to come give you what I owe you,” I said, reaching down into my pocket.

“Naw, it's good man,” Jimmy said. “Your pops came in here and took care of it earlier.”

“Really?” I was confused. “Was he with somebody?”

Jimmy gave the sneaker lady her two scratch-offs.

“Yeah, man. It was weird. He bought a few beers and some loosies for that drunk that always hangs on Albany. The one with all the nasty holes in his face.”

My stomach tightened up.

“Around what time?”

“I don't know. A little before ten,” he said shaking his head. “That's how I knew he was copping for that drunk dude, because Mr. Miller don't seem like he drink in the morning.”

Jimmy was right, my father didn't seem like the type. He was always so on point. So together. But he also always had his wife around to keep him that way. I thought about my prayer—that he would get a handle on this whole drinking thing. Guess God or whoever is up there didn't hear me.

“A'ight man, later.”

I flung the door open.

“Yo, nice suit, Matty!” he called after me in his throaty accent.

Outside, Chris was leaning up against the wall playing a game on his cell phone.

“You ready?” I said.

“Yo, what's the most you ever got”—he paused—“on Temple Run?” he asked without looking up, his fingers flying across the screen of his phone. His umbrella hung from his wrist.

I didn't answer.

Now he looked up.

“What's wrong with you? Jimmy charge you interest?” Chris smiled. Then, when I didn't answer, he shut the game down and slipped the phone in his pocket.

“What?” he asked again.

“I ain't have to pay him. He said my dad came in earlier and took care of it.”

“So. What's wrong with that?”

“Jimmy said Dad was with Cork.”

Chris frowned, but he didn't say anything and neither did I.

We walked a few more blocks. The silence was thick between us. At Albany I thought about heading down the block to check on my father. But I didn't want to do that with Chris with me. I mean, all right, I felt embarrassed enough—I didn't want Chris to see my old man not being the Mr. Miller he knew growing up. I didn't want to see it either. My mom always said you can't run from reality. But I wanted to. Man, I wanted to.

Chris decided to break the awkward silence.

“How was work, suit boy?” He dragged the tip of the umbrella over a drain. It rang out like a church bell.

I thought for a moment about how the only things I had to talk about was my dad tripping, or how I spent the day at some teenage girl's funeral. Maybe Mr. Ray and Robbie had it right when they were my age. I should've been thinking about girls. About skirts, as Mr. Ray called them. And maybe they were right about me. Maybe I was different, different in a weird way.

Chris was waiting for an answer though, so I said, “Cool.” That was dumb. I caught myself. “Well, not really. But you know what I mean. I went to a funeral and had to carry a casket.”

“What?”

“Yeah, man, I was one of the guys who had to carry the casket. A pallbearer. Crazy.”

“Sounds like it.”

“And the wild part was, the funeral was for a girl only a little bit older than us.”

Chris looked over at me. His eyes were wondering why she died.

I explained. “Died of asthma. She didn't even know she had it.”

Chris shook his head. I could tell he was thinking something, but just didn't know how to say it.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just don't know how you can just . . . go to funerals every day? Like it's nothing?”

I thought for a moment.

“They won't be every day, man. Plus, you don't make money like this at Cluck Bucket,” I joked, pulling the wad of cash from my pocket again.

Of course, I couldn't tell him the truth. The truth that I was having a hard time telling myself. I
liked
the funerals. And in thinking about how I couldn't tell Chris that, I started thinking about why I was actually so into them in the first place. I wasn't just being a creep. Well, I sorta was, but it wasn't for no reason. I know that now. I liked watching other people deal with the loss of someone, not because I enjoyed seeing them in pain, but because, somehow, it made me feel better knowing that my pain isn't only mine. That my life isn't the only one that's missing something it will never have back. See? Reasons. I couldn't explain that to Chris. I mean, he didn't have a father, but he never had one. It's not like having one and then losing him. At least I don't think it is. And his mom was fine, so he wouldn't understand. But Ms. Jameson . . . she understood. And Ms. Knight did too.

“Yeah, and you won't keep money like that if you keep treating
me to food!” Chris popped me back into reality. And the guy was right. At Cluck Bucket he ordered a Cluck Deluxe, which was basically a huge chicken sandwich on a hero, with mayo, lettuce, tomato, onion rings, some kind of special sauce, and pickles on it, with a large fry and a large chocolate shake. Then he asked me if he could get a banana pudding, too. All I got was a three-piece, dark, and a biscuit. His: $8.50. Mine: $3.35.

And guess who took our order?

“Your total is eleven eighty-five,” Renee said, turning around to scoop the fries. She looked just like she had the first time I saw her, wearing that ridiculous net on her head, and that greasy purple shirt. She looked funny, but she probably thought I did too, with the suit on. At least she looked silly in a cute way. I thought about saying something to her. Maybe mentioning how the way she embarrassed that dude that day was hilarious. I don't know, just something to spark conversation. But now that I was right in front of her, that seemed like a stupid idea. My mother used to say to simply start with “Hello, how are you?” but my mom ain't grow up in this neighborhood. She grew up in the South where everybody's nice. But, who knows? Maybe it would work.

Just say it. Hello, how are you? Say it.
It was on the tip of my tongue.
Just. Say. It.

Nothing.

“Eleven eighty-five,” she repeated, now holding her hand out.

I didn't say a word. I just pulled out my wad of money, like I was some kind of hustler—not a good look—and paid.

We walked back to our block, stuffed. Chris looked ridiculous
as he tried to get the last bit of chocolate shake up through the straw. His face was all sucked in and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. He made drinking a milkshake look painful. I saved some chicken for my father—the breast, and half the biscuit. I didn't have much of an appetite anyway, and figured that he would need to put some food in his stomach whenever he got in. I was pissed at him, but what can I say, he's my dad.

In front of my house I asked Chris what he thought of Renee.

“Who?”

“Renee, man. The girl who took our order.”

“You know her?”

“No, not yet. But I want to know her.”

“So you stalking her.” He grinned.

“No, man,” I said, frustrated. “Look, I just wanna know what you think of her.”

“Oh.” He thought it over for a second. “She a'ight.”

“A'ight?” I asked, shocked. To me she was way better than a'ight.

Chris replied with a shrug. Damn.

I wanted to ask what he thought I should do to get her, but the conversation pretty much ended because the sudden sound of sirens on another block drowned out everything we were saying. Plus, the rain that started the day off came back to end it, dripping softly at first but picking up speed. And to top it all off, the street lights started to glow, so Chris popped his gigantic umbrella open—like a parachute—and called it a night.

Inside, I dropped my backpack at the door. Then, I picked it
back up and plopped it down on one of the kitchen chairs, worried that if I left it by the door, Dad would come stumbling in, trip over it, and we'd have a repeat of the night before. I set the Cluck Bucket box on the counter, the grease seeping through, making the bottom of the box soggy. I washed my hands. Then, as carefully as possible, I took my suit coat off and inspected it. It was the only one I had and I was wearing it a lot now because of this new job, which, come to think of it, was really more like a weird new hobby. Working funerals, crashing funerals. Same thing.

No dirt on the collar. No stains. No snags. And only a few wrinkles up on the shoulders. I took the jacket into the living room and laid it lightly across the arm of the couch, a big burgundy thing my mother used to call “the spaceship” when I was kid. I slipped off my slacks, which was much easier than pulling off jeans, and laid them on the other arm of the couch. Then, just like when I was a kid, I flopped down on the spaceship, except now I was really hoping it would take me away. I sunk into the cushions, took a deep breath, and listened to my empty house, wearing nothing but underwear and socks. It was noisier than you'd think an empty house would be. The sink was dripping. The fridge was buzzing. Things cracking and creaking as, like my mother used to say, the house settled. The rain came down hard, sounded like tele­vision static. And the sirens still wailed. So annoying. But the noise I wanted to hear—the sound of someone else—wasn't there.