When Mockingbirds Sing (9781401688233)

by Coffey, Billy

  He didn’t have to be afraid anymore; everyone else did.

  His boots made loud thunks on the floor that veered the old woman beside him to her right. He gave her no thought. It was the girl who had his attention now, the one watching as he approached with eyes as big as moons and a mouth that looked like it was about to scream.

  Her space would be his space in five steps. Four steps. Three. She did not move. Two.

  “Get outta my way,” he told her.

  She looked up at him and then down. The top of her head shook No.

  “What’d you say?”

  She shook her head again. The man smiled—that was what he did when he got riled in public, what Daddy did too, just before he whupped you—and said, “You’re supposed to give way when an adult’s coming. Didn’t your daddy teach you manners?”

  The girl looked up again. The dread was gone from her eyes. What had replaced it was a fire that burned white, one so bright hot that he winced despite himself.

  She said, “You hated him . . . but now you’re . . . him. You don’t . . . have to be him.”

  She reached out her arm—She’s in my space, he thought. Daddy don’t like nobody in his space—and touched him on the chest. Her fingers shook as she did. People continued past as if they neither saw nor cared. It was as if the world had slowed and time had become stuck within the small bubble around him. His mind felt coated with molasses. His grip on the Sears bag loosened from all four fingers to the tip of only one. It dangled cockeyed by his leg.

  The girl smiled, and there was a tired heaviness on her face. She lowered her head again and moved from the bubble. He stood there, staring ahead, letting her words wash over him like a cool rain, feeling that touch on his chest

  (She put something in me, he thought, and then he thought, No, she took something out)

  like a poker fresh from a waning fire. He turned, not knowing if he would call out for her or simply watch her leave, but there were too many people.

  The girl was gone.

  5

  “Muh-Mommy found me,” Leah whispered. “She w-was crying when she duh-did. It was the kuh-kind of crying that’s huh-happy on one side and muh-mad on the other. Puh-Pops was just muh-mostly mad. He kept asking me why I d-did that, and I kuh-kept telling him, but he w-wanted to yell more than luh-listen. Sometimes when you luh-love too much, it c-comes out angry.”

  Allie blew a bubble with her gum, shook her head, sucked the bubble back in. On her other side, Mary reached out and tapped her on the leg. One more time, that tap said, and the gum would be hers.

  “Why’d you run off like that anyhow?” Allie whispered.

  “I juh-just needed to b-be by myself with the R-rainbow M-man.”

  “Is that what you told Mr. Doctor?”

  “Yuh-yes.”

  Allie shook her head. “Sheesh, Leah, you don’t know nothin’.”

  Miss Ellen shushed them and put a hand on Leah’s leg. There was a squeeze along with the touch, like she wanted to make sure her daughter was really there and hadn’t wandered away again. Mr. Doctor sat on Miss Ellen’s other side. To Allie, it looked as though he’d aged ten years in the last ten hours. She figured he’d never been in a church before—probably not Miss Ellen or Leah either, for that matter—which was why he sat so stiff, like he was afraid the whole place was germy and he’d get sick.

  Miss Lila sat up front at her organ. She gently pushed down on the keys so that what tolled out was soft and respectful rather than loud and full of praise. The chatter behind them ended at the door, where a steady stream of mourners flowed into the sanctuary.

  “I had to guh-get by myself with the R-rainbow M-man,” Leah said again, quieter. “Puh-Pops has to buh-lieve in the Muh-Maybe.”

  “Yeah,” Allie whispered, “like Maybe he’ll tan your hide if you ever do that again.”

  Her tongue worked up another bubble that her mouth swallowed before Mary could see. The gum had been Marshall’s idea. He thought it might help take Allie’s mind off the open casket that sat in front of the pulpit, where a dead person lay with her arms folded atop a white dress. Allie remembered Miss Mabel reaching up in her hospital bed with that teary smile. Preacher Goggins liked to say that bodies were like houses, and sometimes people get so big that their houses don’t fit anymore and that was when they went to heaven.

  That notion helped more than the gum. So did the fact that her parents and Leah were so near, and that practically the whole town had turned out for the occasion. Allie had never seen the church so full. They crowded the pews and stood in the back, spilling out into the outer aisles—men in suits and women in dresses and children awed to silence—all to say Good-bye for now to Miss Mabel and I’m sorry to Mr. Barney before doing it again for good the next day when she went underground.

  Mr. Barney sat in the first pew in front of the casket. He wore the same blue suit he’d worn last Sunday when he stood up to say God loved him again. Mr. Barney had been happy then, Allie remembered. But now his shoulders were stooped and what little hair he had left was frazzled and uncombed. Preacher Goggins sat beside him and put a hand on Mr. Barney’s shoulder as if to say, That’s just an empty house there, Barn, ’cause Mabel’s up in heaven havin’ some apple pie with Jesus.

  “Why ain’t you got a dress on?” she whispered to Leah. “You wear a dress all the time.”

  “I juh-just couldn’t,” Leah said, and Miss Ellen tapped her knee again. When Leah leaned over to hear her momma shush her, Allie heard a sharp crinkle from Leah’s bulging back pocket.

  “You got your picture? The one you were drawin’ this morning?”

  “Hush,” Leah said. “N-nobody’s suh-posed to know that.”

  “What are you plannin’, Leah Norcross? You tell me now.”

  “I guh-gotta s-speak. When Ruh-Reverend Goggins suh-says anybody who w-wants c-can come up, I guh-gotta go up there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the R-rainbow M-man wuh-wants me to. I guh-gotta show everyone my puh-painting.”

  “You can’t do that,” Allie said. Her voice was loud—almost a shout. Heads turned in their direction. Marshall leaned past Mary and asked if Allie wanted to go outside. She said nosir and turned back to Leah. “This here’s a remembrance, Leah. It ain’t no art show.”

  “I huh-have to,” Leah whispered. “I huh-have to do what he suh-says. And you huh-have to come with me, because I can’t tuh-talk to all those puh-people on my own. I’ll never guh-get it all out. Not even with huh-him standing there w-with me.”

  “My folks’ll skin me,” Allie said.

  “Muh-mine too, but we s-still have to.”

  Allie thought that over. “What’s on that picture in your pocket? If you want me to help, then you gotta say.”

  “It’s important. T-to everyone. That’s all I wuh-want to say, Allie. Saying more w-will just hurt.”

  The whispers from the crowd quieted as Preacher Goggins rose from his pew

  (“Puh-please?” Leah asked again)

  and took to the pulpit above where Miss Mabel lay. He smiled as best he could, opened up his leather Bible, and cleared his throat. Leah began sawing on her thumbnail. Allie began to pray.

  6

  Reggie did not see Leah as much as he felt her, much like the day at the Treasure Chest when he’d turned to see her staring from the door. Looking at him. Into him. His eyes moved among the congregants to spot her, but the crowd was too big. Even in Mabel’s feeble state and amidst the failure that had gripped her husband, she had been loved. Would that everyone in this dark world be so fortunate.

  “The Book says the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” Reggie paused not so much for the amens—amens were rare on such occasions, though Deacon Spicer offered one from the front row—as for the sigh in his throat. He raised a closed fist to his mouth and added, “Though I suppose of late the Lord’s rented out the night birds to the devil.”

  Chuckles rippled through the sanctuary. Half of those in atte
ndance either lowered their heads or blew into their fists, victims of suggestion. The levity was brief but needed. This was a solemn time, yes, but not a hopeless one. Mabel was in

  (a place where there’s just now)

  heaven, and that was cause for celebration even in the midst of mourning. Still, Barney sat unfazed and stared at the empty house that was his wife’s body.

  “We are not here to say good-bye, but to celebrate a life well lived. We are here to ponder the shortness of this world and the eternity of the next. We shall all meet Mabel Moore again on those fairer shores.”

  Still the eyes. Bearing down on Reggie, quickening his heart such that sweat began to build beneath his suit and pool between his shoulders. He looked out and could not find her.

  “Let us pray.”

  Heads bowed, eyes closed. As Reggie spoke he opened his eyes and scanned the crowd, searching for those whose heads would remain upright. In the back pew on the left, Tom Norcross sat stone-faced and chin high, refusing to admit God was larger than himself. Beside him was Ellen. Her head, at least, was lowered. In fact, the entire upper part of her body leaned forward so that her forehead nearly touched the pew in front of her. And to Ellen’s right was Leah, who neither bowed her head nor closed her eyes but stared at Reggie as if he were an animal in a cage. The little girl smiled at him.

  “Amen,” Reggie said. His eyes remained on Leah. Her smile regressed. She looked away to a spot on Reggie’s right, slowly cocking her head in contemplation.

  “I’ve known Mabel Moore all my life,” he said. “I remember her as a kind soul and a God-fearing woman. She loved her music. Sat right where Lila’s sitting now for almost forty years and played that organ, praising God. I like to think she’s playing that music right now.”

  Leah looked to him as if to say, That’s right, Reggie, I know she is, just like I know that music doesn’t have a beat. Her eyes returned again to Reggie’s right in a stare so focused that Reggie had to fight the urge to look himself.

  “If there is anyone here who’d like to come and say a few words, I’ll invite you now.”

  Lila began the soft organ music, “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder,” one of Mabel’s favorites. Reggie stepped aside. His eyes went first to Barney (who seemed not Barney at all but more an empty house himself) and then to where Leah looked. Nothing was there but the side door and a framed picture of Christ. Reggie realized Leah had likely never seen that face.

  Mayor Wallis was first. He stood at the microphone and spoke long of Mabel and Barney’s commitment to the town and the joy they’d brought to generations of children, as if Barney lay in a casket beside his wife. He said nothing of the lottery ticket. Reggie nodded in all the right places and looked at Leah. Leah looked at Jesus. Tom, either sensing his daughter’s strangeness or seeing Reggie’s stare, looked past Ellen to his daughter. He too followed the little girl’s eyes to the painting. Reggie wondered what the man was thinking.

  Sheriff Barnett was next; his wife, Kate, afterward. Lila McKinney cycled through all those old hymns. In an act Reggie could only describe as Spirit led, even Brent Spicer took the stage. Mary Granderson moved the crowd, as she often did. There was Boone Logan and Allison Summers and Andy Sommerville, on and on, one person after another, until more than an hour had passed and the people began to look as heavy and sullen as Barney himself.

  “Is there anyone else?” Reggie asked, thinking there would not be and he could pray and get everyone home. But then came a rustling in the back of the sanctuary. Leah Norcross rose from her place, as did Allie. Both Tom and Ellen stretched out to try and stop their daughter but then pulled back, as though believing that scene would be worse than whatever Leah had in mind. A low buzz moved over the crowd as the two girls stepped into the aisle and made their way forward hand in hand. Lila continued her playing, though now the notes came clumsily and out of rhythm. Reggie thought that was because of the length of time she’d had to play, but then realized it was because she was looking at Leah rather than her own fingers.

  Mayor Wallis straightened his back and leaned forward. As did Brent Spicer, though Reggie thought that was so the deacon could kick Leah and her family out if the situation so evolved. Tom waited in the back. He still had that mocking air to him, like he was the only adult in a roomful of children. He watched Reggie and watched the painting by the door that had captured his daughter’s fancy. Ellen’s hands went to her head. Barney, as if sensing a change in the air, looked up for the first time as the girls reached the stage.

  “What will you say, Leah Norcross?” Reggie asked. That he was nowhere near the microphone did not matter. He used his preaching voice. “Will you stand in front of this assembly and mock our ways?”

  “Nuh-no,” Leah said. Her voice was a whisper that somehow still carried. “I juh-just want to say m-my words.”

  The congregation waited. Some eyes asked Reggie yes, let her speak. Most told him no. But it was his church and his town and his decision, and in the end he knew that Leah had loved Mabel and Mabel had loved her back.

  “Say your words, child,” he said. “Just be mindful of them and do not mock God’s truth.”

  Leah stepped to the microphone. Allie followed her as if conjoined. Their hands were so tight upon one another that they glowed white beneath the lights. Leah looked over the crowd and began to shake.

  “I duh-don’t know what God’s t-truth is, I guh-guess,” she said, “s-so I’m s-sorry if I s-say something you don’t luh-like. Puh-Pops says the chuh-church is f-full of huh-hypocrites, and that m-means puh-people who s-say one thing and duh-do another. Like suh-some of you, I g-guess.”

  Tom’s stare softened into a smile. Reggie bit his tongue.

  “I nuh-know some of you are m-mad. Not b-because you think I’m a luh-liar, b-but because the lah-lotto n-numbers you pluh-layed off my painting didn’t wuh-win you anything.”

  “Leah,” Reggie said.

  “Suh-sorry. I just wuh-wanted to say I l-loved Muh-Miss Mabel. She was kuh-kind to me.” The microphone picked up a sniffle. Allie’s arm went around Leah’s back, holding her steady. When Leah rocked, Reggie saw her look at Mabel’s body. “Wuh-we were alike, I guh-guess. Wuh-we were both truh-trapped inside ourselves. Now shuh-she’s free. Shuh-she’s in heaven nuh-now. I nuh-know that, and I expect you nuh-know how I nuh-know it.” Her face was taut, the muscles in her neck bulged. Leah’s words came harder now as she struggled against whatever she was about to say. Spittle flew from her lips. “It duh-doesn’t matter if you suh-say the R-rainbow M-man duh-doesn’t exist. Thuh-that w-won’t muh-make him guh-go away. He’s ruh-right here, wuh-watching all of you. He wuh-wants muh-me to shuh-show you thuh-this.”

  Leah reached over Allie’s shoulder and pulled a piece of paper from her back pocket. Reggie’s feet wanted to move but couldn’t. Time slowed in the way it did just before a car wreck, when you knew what was coming and you knew it would be bad but you also knew there wasn’t anything you could do about it. Leah unfolded her paper and held it over her head.

  Audible gasps like air leaking from a tire spread through the gathering. From the front Brent Spicer called out, “What fresh hell is this?”

  The page was covered with the burnt remnants of downtown buildings that a black sky had reached down and dismembered. Wailing faces called out into the darkness, perfectly painted hands grasping perfectly painted cheeks in looks of horror and anguish. Amber fires lit the corners of the page. Cars were overturned. Bodies lay in the streets. Blood flowed almost like a river. It was a horrible sight made strangely worse by the deep creases in the paper from being folded into Leah’s back pocket. It looked like the town itself had been rent by a giant hand.

  Reggie’s stomach churned. He forced his eyes away. “Stop this,” he said. “You put that away, Leah.”

  “I cuh-can’t, Ruh-Reverend,” Leah said. “He suh-says not t-to. There’s a stuh-storm coming. There’s no stuh-stopping it, because I’ve already truh-tried that. And everyone’s going t
o duh-die unless you luh-listen to the R-rainbow M-man.”

  Someone screamed, and that fuse lit the powder keg that had walked into Reggie’s church the moment Leah Norcross and her parents had arrived. Shouts rang out. Thunder rolled as people rose, their hips thumping the pews. Barney regarded the scene as though removed from it.

  Allie’s face grew as white as the hand that had held Leah’s. She let go of her friend and whispered, “No, Leah, you can’t be doin’ this on Miss Mabel’s day.”

  “Enough,” Reggie called, and then louder, in his preaching voice, “Stop.” He looked to Deacon Spicer and said, “Get them out of here,” then he looked to the back and yelled, “Get out of here, Tom Norcross. Don’t you come back. You leave us all alone.”

  Brent leaped from his pew, but there was no need for force. Tom and Ellen were already at the pulpit, pulling Leah toward them. Ellen bumped Mabel’s casket and shrank back in terror. The family ran the gauntlet of shouts to the front of the church. Reggie watched as several in attendance rose to leave, either in protest of his order or in support of Leah’s devil. Allie ran, not for Leah, but for her parents.

  Reggie and Sheriff Barnett managed to restore enough calm twenty minutes later that the service could finally end in prayer.

  There was no closing hymn. Lila McKinney had left as well, her side chosen.

  7

  The birds rang out that night, a cacophony of shrills and chirps, of justice sought or understanding craved or mourning released, depending upon the hearer. Yet each melody of every mockingbird carried the same truth, and it was a truth that crept upon them all and would not be chased away either by prayer or common sense. It was a truth that neither clenched teeth nor whispered doubts could deny.

  A reckoning was near.

  Friday

  One Day Until the Carnival