by Kia Corthron
There are seventeen in the living room, standing in a circle. “Let us hold hands,” the reverend begins, the last thing Eliot wants to do. Luckily Andi is to his right, and one of Liddie’s little girls to his left. The minister has bowed his head in prayer, and everyone but Eliot follows suit. He is at first surprised that Andi goes along with it, then remembers: Oh yes, Mother’s Day—the annual holy supplicant. The preacher reads from Isaiah and Ecclesiastes, the assembly chorusing intermittent “Amen”s, and the session concludes with a quiet 23rd Psalm, surprisingly over as promised just twenty minutes after it had begun. The pastor shakes Lon’s hand firmly and embraces him, gives Dwight the same treatment, and finally Eliot. “Okay, can the pallbearers please come into the kitchen?” calls Coach Dwight.
With the exception of the summoned, no one has left the room, most thanking the pastor. As a pallbearer Eliot is grateful for the out, but before he can leave Andi asks if he has eaten anything today. This time she really is concerned more about his nourishment than her own hollow stomach. He smiles. “You and I’ll get something after the pallbearers’ thing.” He walks out to the kitchen to find the other five bearers: Dwight, Monroe, Uncle Rick, his mother’s brother Uncle Mookie—and Keith. Dwight is already in mid-lecture. “So Eliot and I’ll be holdin up the front—”
“What’s he doing here?”
Dwight stops talking. All in the room stare at Eliot.
“I said, what’s that white boy doing here?”
Keith whispers to Dwight, “I’ll come back later.”
But the whisper is not quite low enough. “Oh no you won’t! We got seven hundred relatives can bear this pall, you are not needed here.”
“Eliot! you don’t jus get to decide—”
“How’s he rate?” The younger’s eyes boring into his brother. By now the chatter in the living room has also fallen to silence. “I mean, all the relations to choose from, how the hell’s he go up, top of the list?”
“Eliot.” One of the uncles, but Eliot does not take his eyes off Dwight.
“I said, how’s he rate?”
Now both uncles jump in. “Eliot, you got to calm down.”
“We know you’re feelin it hard, son, your mother—”
“I’m not talking about that!” Nearly screeching. Are they blind? They don’t see what’s going on here? “I asked a simple question. Can anybody answer a simple goddamn question?”
“Eliot!”
He swings around at the sound of his father’s voice. Standing in the doorway and Andi with him, horror in their faces. Eliot stares at them, then turns back around to see the pallbearers all gaping at him. And he flies out the kitchen door.
Beginning to drizzle again. “Eliot!” Andi’s voice behind him. He walks faster, doesn’t turn around. “Eliot!” He sprints in his suit and dress shoes, eventually removing them to run in his socks. He doesn’t know how far he runs but it’s long past the point of exhaustion. The rain pours.
He must have gone a good fifteen miles because as darkness falls he finds himself on the outskirts of town. He had slowed to a fast walk, but never stopped moving. A lonely highway, houses now appearing only occasionally. The rain letting up. He tries to identify where he is, then realizes he is on Old Mill Road. He remembers the Andersons lived out this way. Richard the firstborn, around Dwight’s age, who Eliot had heard painted something inside the old Messengill house leading to it being torn down. But now everything seems different, the dirt road paved, trees cleared. And he comes upon the trailer park.
**
In the guestroom is a small framed photograph of five-year-old Dwight sitting cross-legged on the floor, giving a bottle to his infant brother in his lap, their mother’s arms visible around the child and baby. Andi holds it, smiling. Little Dwight grins down at Eliot, a wondrous awe.
Dwight had asked if Andi wouldn’t mind staying home while they were at the second viewing and answering the phone in case any out-of-town relatives called needing driving directions. “Sure,” she had said, grateful to be of use, grateful to have an excuse not to go back to the funeral home without Eliot. She knew Dwight was kindly offering her this out, and she also suspected that he wanted someone to be in the house with his brother when Eliot came home, that in reality all visiting relatives were already in town, a notion confirmed when Dwight continued: “I know you came on short notice so if you need to make any calls, go ahead,” which would obviously tie up the line. She graciously thanked him.
Andi pulls a textbook out of her suitcase and sits on the bed, her back against the headboard, preparing for an extended study session when the phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Hello, may I speak with Eliot?”
Andi flinches, recognizing the voice instantly, feeling catapulted back into the role of Eliot’s receptionist. “He’s not here right now. Can I give him a message?”
A momentary silence. “Andi?”
“Hi, Didi.” They have never before addressed each other by first names, and it is at once strange and as if they have done it a thousand times.
“Oh.” A pause. “Oh.”
“Didi, listen. He asked me to come. We’re friends, that’s all. He asked me to come. As a friend.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Please, believe me.”
“I believe you.”
Another silence. Then a sigh. “I’ve tried to call the last two days but either someone picked up and said he wasn’t there, or there was no answer. I guess I should’ve left a message, but I didn’t want to bother anyone.”
“Well. I could—”
“I can’t leave a message with you! Like he doesn’t have enough worries, all he needs is to hear I called and you answered!” Didi laughs heartily, but a cry cracks through.
“Why don’t you call in the morning? Eight our time, seven yours. You can catch him briefly before the funeral.”
“Oh. Oh, that’s a great idea. Thank you, Andi.”
“You’re welcome.”
Andi waits for Didi to say goodbye, but she doesn’t.
“Well.”
“Andi. Andi. Can I ask you something?”
Andi tenses. “Sure.”
“Three weeks ago. That Friday I came to your office. Eliot and I had a very nice weekend but then.” Trying to catch her breath. “I am so regular! I should’ve gotten it two days later. Then three passed. Four.” She begins exhaling. “We weren’t fools! My diaphragm. It’s always worked before.” A little cry. “I didn’t know what to do, I waited to make sure, then I was sure and I didn’t know what to—” She sighs. “I finally decided to tell him, to call and tell him and then you said his mother.” She swallows. “I made an appointment. I made an appointment but I’m scared! I’m so,” a violent trembling in her voice. “Eliot said. Eliot said you were interested in abortion law, I wonder. Maybe. Maybe you know women who know what to expect? What it’s like, what I’m gonna—” She is suddenly bawling. “Sorry, Andi, I just needed to talk to someone!”
“Oh, Didi. Sh. Sh.” Didi sobs for several minutes. When the spasms subside, Andi begins to speak quietly. “A few women from school. One of them has drawn up this checklist. To make sure it’s safe as possible. I’m certain she’d be happy to talk with you. Would you like me to put you two in touch?”
“Yes.” Didi hiccoughs. “Oh yes, Andi. Thank you!”
“Okay.” Several moments pass before Andi speaks again. “Would it be helpful to talk to other women who have gone through it?”
“Yes! That would mean so much to me, Andi!”
“Alright.” Andi gets down to sit on the floor, making herself comfortable. “Listen. When I was young, I was married to a very, very sweet husband. Then the war came.”
**
Eliot had heard the trailer park was out in this direction but had forgotten until now. He hesitates, then walks onto
the grounds.
A couple of homes have lights on and no curtains, putting their business out in the street, which embarrasses Eliot. But the vast majority are discreet enough to have drawn their blinds. He strolls around, confused, hoping he is not spotted and pegged as a prowler. Do colored people live out here? Are they allowed to? He turns a corner and some children are running and playing just before they’re called in for the night. He turns another corner and sees a woman taking laundry down from a line. Sheets and towels and baby clothes. She seems exhausted, a sleepless young mother, and though Eliot knows it’s madness, he has an overpowering desire to tell her to go back inside and rest, he’ll finish the job and bring the basket to her door when he’s done.
“Eliot.”
He swerves around. Keith, taking out the garbage, stares at him. Eliot stares back.
Keith looks around. “Where’s your car?” Though Eliot had stopped running twenty minutes ago, he is panting again.
“You walked out here?”
Eliot wants to reply but the words are locked, the knowledge of speech. Keith sets the rubbish bag into a metal can and replaces the lid. “Come on. You’re soaked, you need to dry off.” He walks over to a nearby trailer and opens the door, stepping in. Eliot has followed him with his eyes, but he cannot move. “Come on.”
Eliot regains the use of his legs and follows Keith inside.
“I’ll get you a towel.” Keith disappears. The first thing that surprises Eliot is that in a trailer there’s enough space to disappear into. The second thing is to find that, besides the bare necessity of furniture pieces, what has filled Keith’s trailer is paintings. They are everywhere, on the walls and one on an easel, in process. This is Keith’s home, and it is also his studio.
He returns with the towel, handing it to Eliot. Then, following his guest’s line of sight, he snorts, embarrassed. “I’m not good. Not like your brother. I think. I think a little more red might help this one.”
Keith is right. He doesn’t have Dwight’s visionary eye. But he clearly has passion and perseverance and humility, and aren’t they the seeds of all greatness? Until this moment, Eliot had only seen Keith and Dwight as two groping bodies having but one thing in common: that they both happened to be homosexual. A frivolous lifestyle with an irresponsible, juvenile interest in only the present carnal instant. He had had that sort of nothingness himself with at least one of his four girls in college, one-night stand, but he always knew eventually he would want more: love, marriage. It had never crossed his mind that a homosexual, that his brother, might want the same. But in the paintings he now glimpses something between Dwight and Keith that had not occurred to him. Something kindred. Tender. Sacred.
Keith hands Eliot a full glass of water. “You’re missin the second viewing,” he says.
Eliot, who wasn’t aware he was thirsty, downs the entire glass in one gulp. Keith refills it and brings it back to Eliot, who swigs it again.
“Listen, lemme drive you.” Eliot cannot take his eyes off the paintings. “They’ll close the casket before you all get there in the mornin. Tonight’s the last time you can see her.”
Eliot looks down. “I’m sorry.” His panting again. “I’m sorry, Keith, I shouldn’t have said. I don’t know why I—”
“Eliot, you just lost your mother.”
Eliot’s right leg spontaneously begins shaking, fast and furious. They both stare at it, Eliot baffled. He expects it will stop momentarily, but instead it quakes increasingly harsher, now his foot stomping a rapid rhythm. Finally Eliot reaches down with his hands, seizes his knee to hold it in place. It stops.
“Whoa,” he says, an embarrassed chuckle, “that was weird.”
Keith grabs his truck keys, opens his door, and stands out on his step, waiting. “Come on.”
Eliot looks at Keith, then down at his own drenched clothes. “I don’t think they’ll let me in looking like this.”
“Don’t worry,” Keith says. “Your mama’s seen you before.”
By the time Keith and Eliot pull up in front of the funeral home it’s 9:30. All the mourners’ cars are gone. The place is dark, except for a light in Mr. Waverly’s office. Keith gets out of the truck, followed by Eliot. The driver raps on the metal knocker. When no response comes, he bangs the knocker hard.
The door opens. Stan Waverly works hard to suppress his irritation. “Yes.”
“Listen, I’m sorry but there were some family circumstances, and Mr. Campbell was not able to come to the evening viewing of his mother. He’d like just a few minutes alone with her now.”
“I’m sorry, the viewing ended at nine.” He turns to Eliot. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Campbell, but it’s impossible at this point. I was just about to close the casket, and—”
“He won’t be longer than ten minutes.”
“Again, I’m very sorry, but—”
“How much did he pay you?”
The large room, the front half of which had neatly contained the rows of white wooden folding chairs for the viewings, is now full to capacity in preparation for the big turnout expected tomorrow. Eliot is impressed that Mr. Waverly managed to put it together so soon after the last guests left at nine. Alone in the silence the room seems cavernous, and Eliot approaches the casket. His mother’s face appears frozen in a frown, as if he and Dwight were still kids and she had just found a window blind on the floor, accidentally torn from its roller, and was trying to figure out which of her knucklehead offspring was the culprit. Eliot’s eyes shine. “Hi Mom.”
Keith drops Eliot off at home close to ten. Eliot knows he should say something to his father but Lon is already asleep, whatever sleep means these days. He should say something to Andi but as he passes her room, he sees she is on the phone, her back to the door. “Well, in the end it’ll be nothing compared to the pain when you get this long-distance bill.” And then she laughs, the kind of laughter that is some sort of release after an endlessly long period of mirthlessness. Eliot is suddenly more exhausted than he has ever been in his life, not able to hold his eyes open, and decides he’ll have to postpone any apologies until the morning.
Dwight sits on his bed, wearing his pajamas. They are the blue plaid that match Eliot’s green, the Christmas gifts from their mother. Usually Eliot sleeps in an undershirt and boxers, and had worn the pj’s only once previously, Christmas night for his mother’s sake, but he felt compelled to pack them for this trip, and he notices the set Dwight wears appears to be equally mint condition. Dwight frowns, staring down at his clipboard. At this point everything should be in place for a smooth go tomorrow, the car passengers assigned, the pallbearers ready, the tribute written. There’s no logical reason to still be poring over the lists except, as it finally dawns on Eliot, his brother’s obsession with order is the only thing keeping Dwight from falling apart.
“Hey,” Eliot says.
Dwight looks up with such a piercing hatred that Eliot nearly trips backward. The younger brother is momentarily confused, then remembers Dwight has no idea that Eliot has already apologized to Keith, which surely would have at least mitigated the glower. Eliot undresses, hanging up his suit to dry. In the morning he’ll have to wash that bit of mud off the leg bottoms and give the whole thing some sort of quick ironing. He gets into his pajamas.
“I was supposed to get to read the tribute, but you weren’t here to show it to me so guess I’ll jus have to wait an be surprised tomorra.”
Eliot pulls the pages out of a drawer and hands them to Dwight.
“I may wanna add a few things.”
“Whatever you want.” Eliot gets under the blankets and turns away from his brother to face the wall.
As Dwight reads what Eliot has written, he softens. “Oh yeah.” After a moment he laughs out loud. Then, wonder: “I forgot about that.” There are sniffs and tears and Dwight finally finishes, wiping his face and looking at his brother’s back. �
�It’s beautiful, Eliot.”
Eliot is silent. Dwight looks down at the pages in his hand. “Beautiful. Jus. There’s jus one thing. It might be dumb but, I was thinkin. What do you think we added somethin, I don’t know, ordinary. Like, remember when Mom would be readin, like the way you hooked her onto Gwendolyn Brooks? And somethin would impress her, or make her sad, and she’d take off her glasses and sigh, an start touchin em, rubbin the frames—”
It is so powerful it comes out like a scream, Eliot’s sudden wailing, sobbing, the torture as if he were being stabbed over and over not catching his breath, his pillow soaked in seconds and the flood won’t stop, Dwight rushing over to lie next to his brother, behind his little brother who shakes so violently the headboard harshly and rapidly bangs the wall, and Andi and Lon rush in but leave quietly, neither of the brothers seeing them, Andi and Lon running into Aunt Beck on the stairs, the entire house lit up with Eliot’s torrential grief, it won’t stop, for two hours it won’t subside and Dwight holding him, and Eliot letting Dwight hold him, and Dwight not letting go.
17
“‘Sweatin like a nigger in court,’ sure you heard that comin up. Big joke till you confronted with it literally. Cracker judges, I’d consider it a resounding success to get a life sentence. Least it’s not the chair. Not a lynching, victory you actually made it to trial. And God don’t let the charge be raping a white woman, when everyone knows damn well the experts on interracial rape are white men, thinking colored women are theirs for the taking. One time this ole judge look like he falling to sleep during the proceedings, a man’s life on the line and—” Beau stops himself, seeming shaken. He looks at Eliot, who wears his glasses for driving. “I’m talking too much. You rather I be quiet, you just concentrate on the road?”
Eliot, a vague smile on his face, shakes his head in the breeze whipping through the windows, rolled down even in late October to provide some relief from the Cotton Belt humidity. Beau had been much more considerate where Eliot was concerned since his mother’s death fifteen days ago. It is late afternoon Saturday, and Eliot has been driving since they departed Indianapolis yesterday morning, waving off Beau’s offers to take the wheel. On Friday, as planned, they had gone as far as Memphis, then started early this morning to make their Deep South destination before sunset. Just inside the border they had briefly stopped by the home of a local man, who hid Eliot’s Falcon out back and loaned them his 1954 Plymouth turquoise two-door station wagon. Thus for their two-night stay, Eliot and Beau have in-state license plates.
