The Dry Grass of August(65)
Just after seven, in broad daylight, I pushed up the door on Mama’s side of our garage. It screeched on the springs. I inched the car forward, afraid I would scrape the side, but I couldn’t leave it in the driveway for anybody to see. I closed the garage door and sat down on the cold floor, arched my back, pulled off my Keds and rubbed my feet. It felt so good not to be in the car with my hands glued to the steering wheel.
The grass in the backyard, still wet with dew, soothed my feet. The cowbell clanked as I opened the kitchen door, startling me, no matter that it had been hanging there since the day we moved in.The house was too quiet. I stepped on something hard and cold—a Coke bottle cap.The house stank of beer and cigarettes. There were dishes piled on the kitchen counter, empty bottles, overflowing ashtrays. I felt like a stranger coming through the back door for the first time, seeing our mess. Daddy’s mess. Mama would have a fit if she saw it this way, and I wondered what had happened to the arrangement she’d made for Young Mary to clean for Daddy.
I wedged the doorstop in place to hold the back door open, went to the hallway, and switched on the attic fan. The fresh air brought in the early morning smell of grass and gardenias. I got the trash can from under the kitchen sink and began to fill it with empties—Coca-Cola, Seven-Up, Kentucky Gentleman, Jim Beam, Budweiser.
I dumped ashtrays, swept the kitchen floor, wiped the counters, filled the dishwasher with crusted plates, rinsed clotted milk from bowls, opened the refrigerator. Daddy’s water bottle sat on the first shelf, full, and I stood in front of the open icebox, worn out, and drank. I turned to look at the kitchen and thought how proud Mary would have been that I’d cleaned it without being asked. I walked through Davie’s room and into Mama and Daddy’s bedroom, feeling strange being there all by myself and able to walk around and look without explaining what I was doing. Their bedroom was worse than the kitchen. I kicked at a pair of Daddy’s undershorts lying on the floor.
I left their room as torn up as I’d found it and went upstairs where everything was the same as when Stell, Puddin, and I had carried our suitcases to the car. Our beds were made, our stuff put away, even the rug looked as if it had been vacuumed and nobody had walked on it since.
Downstairs the mantel clock in the living room chimed ten. I looked up McDowell Street Baptist Church in the phone book, dialed the number and waited, my fingers crossed, hoping someone would be there, hoping I hadn’t missed the funeral, hoping—a woman answered.
“Hello. I’m calling to find out when the funeral is for Mrs. Mary Luther.”
“Hold on.”
The woman hollered away from the phone, “Sister Luther that got murdered in Georgia, she at two, that right?” I heard a man’s deep voice in the background. The woman spoke to me again. “The visiting’s at eleven today at Alexander’s, service and burying here at two.You know where the church be?”
“Oh, I—no, I don’t.”
“On McDowell, couple blocks north of Trade. You won’t miss it; all the cars and people gone be here.”
I got off the phone and looked in my closet for something to wear. As soon as I saw my navy Easter dress, I knew it was the one. Mary had told me I looked so fine in it. I’d wear Stell’s straw hat Mary admired. My short white gloves, my navy flats, and one of Mama’s pocketbooks.
I scrubbed myself in the bathtub and lathered my hair twice, using Stell’s Breck shampoo she’d tried to hide in the linen closet. I loved how it made my hair silky. When I was as clean as I’ve ever been in my life, I sank back in the tub, running more hot water, letting the warmth sink into my bones.
All my underwear was at the beach, so I raided Mama’s dresser, knowing her things would fit me better than Stell’s. I stood at Mama’s full-length mirror and looked at myself in her bra, garter belt, and stockings, before stepping into her panties. The curly blonde hair at the bottom of my belly had filled in, just in the last month or so. I looked like a woman. Mama’s bra was pink, lacy, and feminine compared with the white cotton ones Stell and I wore. My bosoms filled it completely.
I padded into the kitchen in my stocking feet and fixed myself a peanut butter sandwich, wishing I had milk. When I opened the pantry door to get a can of apple juice, I tried not to look at the mouse droppings. I turned on the radio, just for the noise, and sat on a bar stool, drinking apple juice and tapping my foot to a song with a hard beat.
While I was looking up the taxi company, the phone rang. I didn’t answer. It might be Mama or Daddy trying to find out if I was home. A dozen rings, then it stopped. I grabbed it and dialed the cab number fast, before somebody called again and got a busy signal.
At one thirty, I sat on the living room sofa and waited for the taxi, my gloved hands folded on Mama’s navy clutch, Mary’s flowered bag by my feet. I’d see Leesum at the funeral and the thought comforted me.
If the taxi driver thought it was strange to be picking up a teenager on Queens Road West on a Tuesday afternoon, he didn’t show it. “Where to?”
“McDowell Street Baptist Church, two blocks north of Trade.”
“Right you are. Real scorcher this afternoon.” He flipped down a flag on his dashboard and pulled away from the curb. I’d heard that cabbies would take you out of the way to get a bigger fare, but he went straight from Queens Road West to Kings Drive, up Morehead to McDowell, just as I would have. He pulled up beside a parked car and asked, “You going to need a ride home, miss?”