Some Wildflower In My Heart

by Jamie Langston Turner

  As I passed Shepherd’s Valley Cemetery and turned into the narrow driveway leading to Birdie’s house, I glanced toward the rows of headstones to my left, thinking as I did so of the blessed serenity afforded by burial plots: no obligations of communal festivity, certainly, but even more enticing, no futile regrets, no corrosive memories. At this very moment Birdie’s voice came to mind, for scarcely a week earlier she herself had gazed toward the cemetery and had said in soft, lubricated tones, “It sure is peaceful around here.” Though it seemed to me that such a remark was an invitation to jest, I did not reply. Had Thomas heard her, he would have retorted with a clever, though outworn, quip, “Yessiree, I betcha folks are just dyin’ to buy a lot next door to you!”

  I parked my car behind Francine’s maroon Pontiac, the muffler of which I noted appeared to be not only insecurely affixed but also riddled with ragged perforations. Girding myself for the trial of sociability before me, I approached Birdie’s front door, which was standing open as if awaiting my arrival. I heard from within a harmonic chord of combined laughter, followed by an exclamation of delight from Birdie.

  “Oh, good, here’s Margaret! Now we can start!”

  She appeared at the screen door, beaming euphorically, and as I entered she crooked her elbow through mine as if we were partners in a square dance and escorted me to the royal blue recliner. Her action must have given rise to the same comparison in Francine’s mind, for Francine, who was sitting next to Algeria on the yellow sofa, began to clap her hands and chant, “Swing your lady round and round, do-si-do and promenade!” Though I ignored her, or possibly because I ignored her, Francine continued clapping after I was seated and even attempted singing a snatch of “Turkey in the Straw,” off key, of course. Algeria sat stiffly, I noted, glaring at the Nehi Soda sign on the wall above the bookcase. From all appearances she was as ill at ease as I at the thought of a tea party.

  Birdie took a small, framed picture from Algeria’s lap and brought it over to me. “We were just having ourselves a laugh over my wedding picture,” she said. “See what Mickey did?” The youthful bride in the picture was unmistakably Birdie; though there were notable differences—a slightly fuller face, for instance, and loose, midlength hair in a tumble of curls—the pronounced malocclusion of the front teeth set to rest any question concerning her identity. A similarity struck me upon studying the photo. In her homeliness Birdie resembled a diminutive Eleanor Roosevelt.

  In the picture Birdie wore a floor-length white gown as befitting a bride but with no adornment of lace, seed pearls, or the like. It appeared to be made of plain cotton, for it had no sheen. Upon her head was a laurel of entwined ivy and flowers, and in her left hand she clasped what looked to be a small white Bible. The expression upon her face was one of exquisite triumph at having won a prize of great worth. Her prize in this case—the man wearing a black suit and standing next to her in the photo, whose dark hair rose above his forehead in a slick crest, whose countenance betokened the same victorious attainment as her own—was holding his right hand aloft in the pose of one taking an oath. Very clearly imprinted across his palm was the message Help! She Snagged Me!

  I made no comment, and Birdie took the picture from me again and set it upon the coffee table. “My husband’s a real cutup sometimes,” she said, sitting down on the edge of the other recliner and looking directly at me. “I never know what he’s got up his sleeve. I was telling Francine and Algeria that on our honeymoon he just insisted that I order the lobster at this seafood restaurant in Mobile. Then he got up to go to the lavatory—I thought—but really he went back to the kitchen and talked them into putting a live lobster on a plate with one of those fancy silver covers on it. A little later, here came the waiter bringing it out.”

  She looked up at the ceiling and laughed with abandon, laying her hands upon her cheeks. “I don’t think he expected me to react like I did!” she said at last. “I screamed right out loud and threw that lid straight back over my shoulder and pushed my chair back so hard I lost my balance and landed on the floor! The waiter felt just awful, and Mickey did, too, really, except when he jumped up to help me off the floor, he stepped on the lobster, which I had knocked clean off the plate, and you could hear its shell crack!”

  She began fanning her face with both hands, adding, “It was sure a circus there for a while! The lid I had slung landed on somebody else’s table and knocked some lady’s plate of spaghetti right in her lap. When we finally got settled down again and everything was cleaned up and set straight, Mickey looked at me across the table, and we just burst out laughing. I’m surprised the manager of that restaurant didn’t throw us out! There’s no telling what all those other people thought about us. And Mickey didn’t help any when he stood up and said, ‘You’ll have to excuse my wife, folks. This is the first time she’s been out in public since they let her out of the asylum.’”

  Francine hooted and slapped her knee. “Now that’s the funniest part of the whole thing! Didn’t you just want to choke him?”

  Birdie smiled and shook her head. “No, not really. I knew for sure I’d never have to complain about life being boring with Mickey around. And it sure hasn’t been one bit boring, not in the whole twenty-eight years.” As if recalling the purpose of our gathering, she stood up. “Well, I better quit talking or we’re going to run out of time. Now, does anybody want coffee?”

  When Birdie left the room, the three of us sat silently for several moments before Francine said, “She’s something else, isn’t she?”

  “She crazy,” Algeria said. “Any man do that to me, I’d kill ’im.” They both glanced at me as if it were my turn to advance the conversation, but I said nothing. By means of a swift mathematical calculation, it had suddenly struck me that while Birdie Freeman had been good-naturedly contending with the adolescent pranks of her new husband twenty-eight years ago, I had been moving through my days joylessly benumbed, having locked away the blue book in which I had stored the written treasures of Tyndall’s short life and having sealed my heart from communion with others.

  This line of thought brought to mind an observation recorded in William Styron’s lengthy novel Sophie’s Choice, during which Stingo, the young narrator, pauses to reflect upon the cruel absurdity of time, that incomprehensible dimension that can simultaneously accommodate both the sublime and the sordid, the divine and the damnable.

  I, too, have pondered this same mystery many times, the most memorable of which occurred in 1966 on the day I returned to my apartment after having left the newly dug grave of my son. By some monstrous coincidence, as I approached the entrance of the building, there exited a woman whom I had never seen and in whose arms was cradled an infant. Behind her, holding the door open for me to enter, a man, her husband presumably, called to her, “Hadn’t you better cover up his head, Brenda? Wouldn’t want him to catch his death, you know. He’s the only one we’ve got.” Indeed, the same millisecond of time can give birth to acts both poisonous and regenerative, both craven and noble, both trivial and momentous, as well as all gradations between.

  Incidentally, although Styron’s novel was marred with what I judged to be gratuitous vulgarity and unrealistic excesses of behavior, I felt a powerful kinship with Sophie, especially so when she pointed to her heart and declared, “It has been hurt so much, it has turned to stone.” Furthermore, like myself, Sophie had given up on the idea of God.

  A few minutes later Birdie reentered the living room, slowly pushing a serving cart. We all watched her as if stupefied. Perhaps none of us had seen such a cart put to its intended use. I admit that I had not. When she encountered the raised edge of the blue braided rug positioned in front of the recliner in which I sat, causing the tea in the glass pitcher to slosh wildly, Algeria rose to her feet and said, “Wheel’s caught. Here, push it back.” When the cart had come to rest in the middle of the room, Birdie laid her hands together, patted them lightly in a series of small circular motions as if flattening a round of dough, and smiled at us all
. “All right, ladies,” she said, “I think I have it all here, and if nobody minds, I’ll say a blessing on our refreshments and our time together.”

  I did not close my eyes but only lowered my gaze. Though I did not look at Birdie, I heard her words clearly and have retained them in my memory since they were uttered, with perhaps minor alterations in phrasing. “My Father, you see us gathered here and you know what’s in our hearts and minds. Thank you for this food and thank you for my friends. Thank you for Francine and her sweet, happy way and for Algeria and her big, kind heart and for Margaret—she’s such a good, strong leader, Father, and so smart and talented. Please give us all a nice time today and help us to grow closer to each other as we work together this year and to learn to love each other more and more.”

  At this point in my text, I must interpolate that Birdie’s method of evangelization—it was no secret to me that such was her life’s objective—was seductive, whether by design or timidity I knew not. She spun a silvery web of crafty, ingratiating kindnesses in which to catch her prey unawares. No sermons by way of speech, not in the early stages of beguilement, at least, but only strand after sticky strand of ensnaring good works, beautiful and shining, especially to those whose lives were sullied and worn with defeat. I was wary, however, and saw her tricks for what they were. Though gradually and ineluctably she began in the early days of our acquaintance to bore an aperture into my “box,” as she later termed it, I was nevertheless most vigilant. I believe I sensed from the beginning that she would stop at nothing, that roadblocks would only spur her to search for back alleys by which to insinuate herself into the lives of others.

  The menu of refreshments on the serving cart was meager, though appealing in both appearance and taste. Birdie first offered to each of us a small crystal plate, a dessert fork, and a white linen luncheon napkin embroidered with clusters of lavender grapes. We all sat mutely, as if the formality of her actions and the accouterments of the tea service had deposited us in a foreign land. She moved about with a sacramental air.

  We served ourselves as Birdie circulated among us, proffering each platter of refreshments and keeping up a steady patter of polite talk. First she said, “These little cookies are called cream wafers, and Mickey said to tell you that you ought to at least try one because even if they look a little washed out and underdone, they’ll just melt in your mouth. But if you don’t like them after just one, he said not to worry because he’ll eat your share after he gets home from work. They’re his favorite cookie of all the ones I’ve ever made.”

  Then, “This is praline candy. I sure hope you all like pecans. That’s fine, Francine, take as many as you like, honey. Mickey got the pecans from somebody at church who has trees in his yard but doesn’t like to fool with them. Mickey cracks them all for me and shells them so I can put them in the freezer and use them all year. He just got these and shelled them last week, though, so they’re not the frozen ones.”

  And finally, “These are little squares of raspberry jam cake, and I’ve got some Cool Whip for the top if anybody wants it. Here, Margaret, take a bigger one than that. You don’t have enough on your plate to even taste. One of our neighbors behind us started trying to grow some raspberries in his yard a few summers ago, and he had a real nice little crop this past summer and gave us several pints. You might know who he is—Mervin Lackey, the owner of the plant nursery. That man can make anything grow! Mickey keeps telling him he needs to work on developing a money tree so we can all quit work.”

  Algeria was the only one who drank coffee, and we all watched as Birdie poured it from a green ceramic teapot into a pale pink china cup. Birdie, Francine, and I drank iced tea poured into small cobalt blue glasses from a clear glass pitcher. In spite of the fact that few of Birdie’s dishes seemed to match, the appearance of the tea cart and Birdie’s dainty ministrations had created an ambiance of elegance far removed from the lunchroom kitchen at Emma Weldy. Even Francine, the only guest who appeared to be capable of speech, had now shed her jester’s guise and was behaving somewhat decorously.

  “I’d sure like to hear you play something for us on your piano before we have to go,” Francine said to Birdie. “I took lessons when I was a little girl but hated ’em like everything. Never could keep the notes straight and about made my teacher pull her hair out. I think she must’ve begged my mother to let me quit.” Francine opened her mouth and inserted an entire cream wafer as if it were a large coin in a wide slot.

  “Well, I guess I can play something in a little bit,” Birdie said. She took a small bite of the praline candy and chewed quietly for a moment, as if lost in speculation. “But maybe somebody else would like to play, too,” she suggested, smiling innocently at all three of us. “Or sing?”

  “Not me!” stated Francine. “Not on your life! I already told you how bad I was. I don’t want to make a fool out of myself!” Francine looked over at Algeria, who was staring into her cup of coffee. “You don’t play the piano, do you, Algeria?”

  Algeria jerked her head sideways and said, “Nuh-uh!”

  “How ’bout you, Margaret?” asked Francine, addressing me. “You play the piano any?”

  I spoke with even tones, looking straight at Birdie. “I am certain that Birdie is the only proficient recitalist among us,” I said.

  “We could all sing something,” Birdie said brightly. “I have a little book of favorite songs that’s a lot of fun. Mickey and I sing straight through it sometimes.”

  Francine forgot her manners and laughed in a braying sort of way, her mouth full of jam cake. “Now that would be a sight, for all four of us to sing something together!” How characteristic of Francine to confuse the senses; though I feel confident in asserting that she had never heard the term synesthesia, she often inadvertently put the poetic technique to use in her speech with such ejaculations as “That color of orange stinks to high heaven!” or “Mr. Solomon was yellin’ like a hot pepper!” or, as just mentioned, describing the singing of a song as a “sight.”

  “Do you sing, Algeria?” Birdie asked. “I imagine you have one of those real low, smooth singing voices. I don’t know what it is about women like Ella Fitzgerald and Mahalia Jackson and that woman who used to sing ‘When the Moon Comes over the Mountain,’ but they’re just so rich and full of feeling. White people can’t usually hold a candle to them.”

  No one responded immediately, for I believe we were stunned, living as we do in an era in which racial differences are minimized. Algeria took a long sip of coffee and then said, “Lots of ways white people can’t hold a candle to us.”

  Though Algeria’s face was empty of expression, somehow Birdie knew that the remark was undergirded with humor, and she boldly picked up the challenge and shot back a playful rejoinder. “Well, now, just listen to you cutting down white people, and here all this time I thought you were so nice and fair minded.” She laughed and shook her finger at Algeria. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Algeria. I sure wouldn’t want to get into any contests with you. You could show me up in almost everything!”

  Turning to me, she said, “Margaret, I don’t think we ever told you, did we, about that day last week when everything just stopped all of a sudden. I was using the meat slicer, and Francine was heating up soup, I believe, and we had rolls in the warmer, and all kinds of things going. You were standing out back talking to one of the deliverymen about that late order, and Algeria went to run something through the dishwasher when all of a sudden…pop! Everything shut down. And without so much as an uh-oh, Algeria walks over to the fuse box just as calm as if she was strolling to the park and opens it up and takes care of the problem like it was one plus one equals two.” Francine was nodding in agreement as she bit into a praline candy and then examined it appreciatively.

  Birdie exhaled a sigh of admiration and looked at Francine. “Remember how we just froze in our tracks when everything stopped working? I thought it was some big catastrophe and was wondering how we’d ever get lunch ready on time. I never ev
en thought of it being just a fuse! But Algeria had it fixed before we even had time to say, ‘Oh, my goodness.’”

  Though Algeria grunted and said, “Wadn’t nothin’,” it was plain to me that Birdie had won yet another crumb of Algeria’s hoarded affections.

  An odd assortment we were in our white uniforms that day, seated around Birdie’s tea cart in her living room, partaking of her cream wafers, praline candy, and jam cake, all of us but Birdie feeling removed from our element while she labored with felicity toward her self-appointed goal, not only of drawing us one by one to her heart but also of fusing the four of us into a unit, like the leaves of a lucky clover.

  Before we left, Birdie seated herself at the piano, first adjusting the height of the stool, for I suppose she had not sat upon it since my lesson the previous afternoon, and Francine, Algeria, and I stood behind her as she played for us Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” a piece so common that I was at first disappointed at her selection. Because it is not a technically advanced piece (I myself have begun playing it this summer with some success), it is often played sloppily or with a glib facility that renders it trite, as if trilled out by the mechanical gears of a music box.

  Birdie, however, performed the piece for us that day with a simple grace that evidenced her respect for both the art and form of the piece itself and for music as a whole. I shall never again hear “Für Elise” without imagining the small, agile fingers of Birdie Freeman upon the keyboard. And I shall never hear its final chord without remembering Francine’s vapid exclamation, accompanied by an awkward parody of a ballroom waltz, during which she bumped against the serving cart and nearly upset it, thus shattering the mood of silent beauty. “Man alive, that makes me want to dance!” she cried. “You can really tear it up to beat the band, Birdie!”