The Perishing, page 11
The man tried to help, pressed on Mr. Lawrence’s chest, sat him up, then down, but his aid was useless. Mr. Lawrence was having a heart attack, and he died before he reached the hospital. A terrible thing for a stranger to witness and worse for me to know. But I’m glad Mr. Lawrence didn’t die alone.
By the time I got home, Mrs. Miriam had already returned from the morgue. She was in the kitchen washing dishes with her back turned to me. I took a step forward, opened my mouth to speak, but when I heard her sniffling, I just turned around and went to my room.
I’m sorry. He was good to me too.
I’ve learned that death for heart attack victims doesn’t have to be inevitable. So I’ve decided to write my first article for the Times on the first successful open-heart surgery in America, which was performed in 1893 by a Black surgeon, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. Maybe it’ll foster hope for people. It’s what Mr. Lawrence would have wanted for his students. It’s the least I can do for him and Miriam.
Three weeks we prepared for his memorial service. Before we left the house, Mrs. Miriam looked over all her children—me, the foster—as we darkened the doorway—Black—and were all dressed in black. She rubbed her son’s collar to straighten it, then rubbed and straightened it like she was automated even after it was fixed.
When she finally got a hold of herself, she wouldn’t look at us. She told us we shouldn’t mourn Mr. Lawrence the way other people would. “His children should celebrate his life like he would’ve wanted.” And now, we stand side by side in the church, my brothers and sister between me and Mrs. Miriam—honoring her wishes, tearlessly, like dry statues. His children pocket their tears and let them overflow back inside themselves, drowning while standing.
The pastor is already at the front of the church, a beautiful young man, newly married, maybe twenty-five. He’s sitting in a throne of a seat at the back of the riser, a church stage, and below him in front of the stage is Mr. Lawrence.
His casket is like a narrow black piano with the top open and a body inside. It’s him. Bunches of blue flowers line the casket where piano keys would be. I can see his face from here—the tip of his nose.
People are walking up to the casket, some gazing on him lovingly, for too long in my opinion, holding on to the side of the coffin, mumbling words to his painted face. Why would anyone want to touch a coffin with a dead person inside unless they were paid to?
A line has formed now, five deep. A mother and father are holding the hands of two children, maybe eight and nine, their eyes widening as they get closer to the front of the line. I bow my head and pretend to be praying when Esther joins the line.
I don’t dare to turn around to see if the church is full or to take attendance—who came and who didn’t—it’s not my business to know. But a woman has rushed to the front, holding Mrs. Miriam’s black-gloved hands. I don’t look at her face.
I close my eyes and pretend to be praying again. The woman holding Mrs. Miriam tells her she was Mr. Lawrence’s student eight years ago. She’s going to law school now.
My hand is pressed by someone standing next me, uninvited. It’s too moist to be Esther’s so I don’t open my eyes.
A man’s voice—a white man’s voice in a room of Black low tones—says, “I’m sorry about what happened to your father.” I wish I wore gloves.
By the time I opened my eyes, he was gone, and a song began on the organ and the whole church stood at once, their feet together, a whoosh of one hundred single steps at once.
Goldie sits on the organ bench playing. “Nothing sad,” Mrs. Miriam had told her, and they decided on “It Is Well.”
The pastor on the stage closes his eyes and begins singing along.
I like him. But I think he’s too young to hold his role at church without sinning. The mourning single women here in our front row are proof, myself included. We watch him closely as he mouths words to the song, his suit jacket open to the dents of his chest, his shirt snuggly fitted. He buttons his coat’s middle—we don’t need the hymn book cause we’re reading him. And what is sin anyway? A finger-wagging, holier-than-thou killjoy, nitpicking small personal misdemeanors while ignoring major injustices?
I’ve thought about this.
Well, him. And my prepared excuse for our future moral failing. I shut my eyes to help me quit my honest thinking.
As the song closes and the pastor takes his place at the podium, all of us ladies smile at him, almost forget it’s a funeral. I can’t tell you what he’s saying about Mr. Lawrence or the ever after. He punctuates his lips and his last sentence with Mrs. Miriam’s name, pulling me from enchantment. It’s her turn to deliver a few words about her husband.
She looks out over the church and, judging from her wide gaze from left to right, there are many people behind us. “Thank you for attending,” she says. “My husband would have been pleased.”
She tells us she’ll read a poem, one written by an English priest, Henry Scott Holland, because “This is Lawrence’s homegoing celebration. Death is just a transition to a better place. We transition twice. Once when we’re born, something we have no memory of, and again when we die. Both should happen with excitement and not mourning.”
She unfolds a sheet of paper that had been tucked inside the wrist of her glove. She reads:
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed. Play, smile, think of me. Pray.
I don’t know how Mrs. Miriam let go of him so easily.
I know how I did.
I let him go of Mr. Lawrence by beginning to forget him already.
FOURTEEN
LOU, 1931
This is what it must be like to be a Black woman and lose. To not be able to grieve publicly when tears are called for. To not be comforted by someone who’d hold us as if we were as fragile as a white woman. We’re expected to be strong, denied of gentleness. She can take it. Just leave her alone.
Maybe it would worry people to see a Black woman crumble. Would be the most pitiful thing. I haven’t seen Mrs. Miriam cry yet.
I’ve only seen her anger.
She told me I can’t do another drive-along with Officer Adams. Can’t bake him cookies with her money anymore. “He harasses Black people. He doesn’t deserve what you give him,” she said, claiming I give him more attention than I do my own family. But Officer Adams said I’m like a daughter to him. He said I’m like family no matter my race or my past. Not Mrs. Miriam. Before Mr. Lawrence passed, she was still following up on leads about who I belong to, talking respectfully to somebody over the phone, “Well, if you hear anything else,” she said, “you can reach me here,” like she was trying to get rid of me. Mr. Lawrence never would.
This morning, she invited me to sit at the table with her even though she says I’ve been sitting around the house too much since school ended. “Find something to do,” she’s been saying.
I cleared the breakfast plates this morning and walked the children to school before eight. I have been doing.
But since I’ve been home for an hour she’s been sitting where she is, at the table in Mr. Lawrence’s chair. She just called me in here, too, so I’m in my same seat to the left of her, where two stacks of newspapers are nose-height on the table before us.
“You need a pencil?” she says.
“No, ma’am, I got a pencil,” and lift the one from my dress pocket. The one she gave me the first day I came.
“You have your scissors?”
“Yes, ma’am.” We’re clipping coupons, and the Los Angeles Times is on top. I’ll start work there next week.
I place my first two clippings between us—a dozen eggs on sale for ten cents, potatoes fifteen cents. She picks up the last coupon I cut for cookies on sale—a box for ten cents—and she crumbles it into trash. For the boys, I’d thought.
“We don’t need store-bought cakes,” she says. “Just circle the ones you think we need.”
I find oranges on sale, twenty cents. That’s five cents off. I draw a square around it. Cross it off because branches of the neighbor’s persimmon tree reach over into our yard. That’s citrus enough.
I run the lead softly down the left side of the gray page of advertisements, leaving a faint line down its center. I circle cantaloupe. We don’t have melons. Circle raisins and cheese but cheese is cheaper at the dairy. We can always use flour.
“You’re a grown woman now,” Mrs. Miriam says just as the snipping of her scissors stops. “Got your high school diploma. Educated.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She starts snipping again.
The right side of the page is selling cars. Buick, Ford, the Plymouth Model 30U. They are a marvel. Can’t live in the sprawl of Los Angeles without one. Henry Ford was a genius, you ask me. First to mass-produce cars on an assembly line, creating something affordable for most Americans. I trace his new model shown on the page: FORD V8 CABRIOLET, 65 HORSEPOWER. CAN OUTPERFORM EVERY COMPETITOR. COMING SOON!
I put a whole circle around it, and again and again, because I’ve heard if you want something you should circle it seven times, the way Joshua walked around Jericho in the Bible before the walls came tumbling down and the city was his.
Mrs. Miriam reaches into her left pocket and pulls back a barrel of dollars, wrapped round themselves. I only glance at it. She says, “This equals a fraction of Mr. Lawrence’s pension.”
I circle bread.
“It’s six months’ rent for the apartment on the corner. Mrs. Devore says the tenant’s moving back east and it’ll be available by week’s end. It’ll help you get started. Start saving for your own property. Women need property of their own. Even if it’s a parking lot.” She keeps the money out in front of me, wags it in front of me. I know what she’s trying to do now Lawrence is gone. I don’t reach for it.
She drops it on the table.
She starts clipping again, harder and faster than she needs to.
My sinuses throb like they’re fighting a cold. My nose runs and I don’t give it the dignity of tissue. I wipe it with the back of my hand. It’s blood. And it’s left a shiny red streak across my skin. I wipe again.
“You should take care of your nosebleed.”
“It’s fine.” I put down my pencil, rub my hands over the blood till it’s gone. I say, “You and Mr. Lawrence promised to adopt me.”
“He can’t keep that promise now, can he?”
“You wanted to adopt me.”
“And you didn’t decide, did you? You didn’t say yes to us. Just wanted to play a game with us.”
“I just asked for more time is all.”
“To do what? Did you even look for your family?”
“Mr. Lawrence wanted to help me. You said—”
“We said we wanted to adopt you. Together. He’s gone!”
I’ve never heard her yell before.
“I can’t afford you on my own,” she says, “and you need to make a life. Your own family. Can’t have two mothers here.”
She pushes the money toward me. “There’s your fresh start.”
I look down at my paper and circle the car a fourth and fifth time. Six and seventh. I don’t want my car to get away from me. I circle it again. Harder than before. Restart my count.
“You want all his money, is that it? You want what you haven’t worked for? What’s for his children? I’m helping you.”
“I can help bring in more income. Help with the children while I work my new job.”
“What are you doing to that paper!” she says.
I look down at the table. Paper’s shredded—words and car and all—crumbled into a gray and black pile. I drop my pencil, the graphite is done, its wood splintered into my writing fingers, a ragged hole torn down to the dinner table, my place setting ashes. I didn’t realize. I brush it away.
“I’m not leaving,” I say.
Her breath shudders.
“I have a job coming at the L.A. Times and I’m not leaving.”
I go back to the coupon for oranges. Circle it.
She rests back in her seat, reaches in her left pocket again, returns with another fiver, and lays it on the pile of money. Tears are already streaming down my face and I don’t look up to beg, “This is the only family I’ve got.”
“I’m not your mother, Lou,” she says, hurting me. “And by law, Lawrence wasn’t your father. And now that he’s gone, I got to pick up the pieces and count what’s left.”
I’m on my own.
Again.
FIFTEEN
LOU, 1931
Esther drove me to an apartment with Miriam’s bundle of money in my purse. She told me not to look yet when she took my hand and walked me up the cobbled stairs to a wood landing.
I heard the front door before I opened my eyes. “Don’t open ’em yet,” she said, so I balled my fists, stood jittery there, and for a moment wondered if the landing or if something might surprise me with a knock to my big forehead. Maybe I’m always worried about my head. My mind.
Esther draws open the curtains, running them along the rail. “Now!” she says, “Come in,” and takes my hands, pulls me toward her. “Look outside,” she says. “Take in all of Boyle Heights.”
My breath catches.
The blue skies are like water, washing its tint over the city and smells of Sunday stew.
The empty field across the street is green and fenced. Young boys are kicking a ball. Street cars below run in both directions, the streets wide enough for drivers to make grievous errors and survive. Each black car is shaped like a duck’s bill with four wheels, each holding one man only, occasionally two, inside. There—a woman in the passenger seat stares straight forward. “I love it,” I say.
“Isn’t it to die for?” she says.
Four miles from South L.A., from Mrs. Miriam and her sons who aren’t my brothers.
“Take your coat off, this place is yours,” she says.
“Mine? But how?”
“You’re prepaid for the year,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind. Mrs. Miriam asked me to help.”
Heat flashes across my chest and rests there, spreads over my body and dissipates with her excitement. She wanted to help.
“Come see,” she says, waving me over to my kitchen. “You can bake all you want and for whoever you want.”
“How did you get the landlord to lease to you?”
“Who said he leased to me? Having a man’s name helped you. I was merely the agent for my client Lou. Here are your keys, Mr. Lou Carter.”
“Carter?”
“You didn’t want to go by Mrs. Miriam’s name anymore, did you? And I liked Carter.”
I can’t believe it.
“Close your mouth, sissy. Here are your keys.”
I don’t know what to say.
“Open this cabinet. Go ahead. Open it.”
She disappears to another part of the apartment when I open the blue-painted door. Inside is a single plate and cup and bowl. She opens the bottom door—a baking pan, kettle, and pot. In the drawer are utensils.
“Furnished,” Esther says from another room. “What are you going to do for protection? We both know you can’t fight.”
“I’ve got my cap gun.”
“Still?” she says.
I follow her voice into the bedroom, where she’s opened a curtain.
“My good luck,” I say. “In the right light, my gun looks like a .22. I’ll keep it under my pillow!”
“You know what they say about pointing a gun at somebody in L.A. You should be ready to kill ’em. And sleeping on it is worse. You’ll shoot yourself in the face.”
Esther sits on a small table in front of the window, posed with her ankles crossed, her short blue heels like gumdrops.
“Who said I’d want to kill anybody?”
“Well, you can’t now, can you? With a cap gun, you can only threaten ’em to death.” She taps the wood tabletop. “You like it?” She spins round and puts her feet on the back of a bench seat. “Well, come on,” she says. “My family’s housewarming gift to you.”
I’ve never had a writing desk of my own. Its legs are iron.
“My mother thought it was perfect. My father said it’s true.” She stands to the side to let me through. “One of a kind. An antique from Georgia. 1850s.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“Go ahead and sit down.” My hesitation is my delight. One of a kind.
I pull out the bench and scoot in, run my hand along the oak top. It’s smooth. This bench is pine. Its fragrance rises with my movement. Even dead wood lives.
I tuck my hand in the compartment under the desktop where papers and pencils would go—plenty of room. I don’t have any pencils. “And this is from me,” Esther says, holding a small box out in front of her smile. I take it, and she leans back against the wall. “I didn’t have time to wrap it.”
When I lift the lid, the sweet water smell of new pencils rises and shades the pine. “Yellow pencils,” I say, touching every one with the tip of my finger. Mine have never been painted like royalty.
“Legend has it that the color yellow used on pencils represents wealth in China where the best graphite is from,” she smiles. “But those are from Jersey City. A close second.”
Light from the window strikes the razor sharpener, drizzling white lines inside the box.
“The paper’s acid-free,” she says. “The clerk from the art store promised this stationery will last a lifetime.”
I get up and hug her, run into her with my arms and body. “I don’t want you to go.”
