One Good Mama Bone

by McClain, Bren; Monroe, Mary Alice;

…..

  At home, Sarah put the sausage biscuit in the food warmer on the woodstove and the newspaper in the basket. She removed her shoes. She had worn blisters on her feet. They burned.

  She stood by the kitchen table and faced across the hall to the closed door of her bedroom.

  A chill moved through her. What if she’d gotten it wrong? What if he had just passed out again or was sleeping hard, worn out from the last seven years?

  She went to stand outside the door and placed her hand on the doorknob. It rattled like cold teeth on a day that’s too cold to bear. She turned it.

  The sheet she had pulled over him remained. She leaned forward, and, in the light freely cast through the window beside the bed, she strained to see the rise and fall of his chest. But the only thing moving that early afternoon was the red flowers on the curtains. They were spinning. The sun was out full. Life had carried on. But Sarah wanted everything to stop, just for one minute stop.

  She rushed to the window and grabbed the curtains with both hands and yanked them until they were free. And then she threw them in the floor and kicked them out of the way.

  She looked back at the window. There was no spinning now. All was still. A kind of reverence for Harold and his passing and his son, who was hers now.

  Hers alone.

  …..

  Just before four o’clock, Sarah cut half of the sausage biscuit and put it on Emerson Bridge’s plate. He would be getting off the school bus in another ten minutes or so. The other half she returned to the food warmer.

  She stood at the window and watched. He would see the automobile gone from the yard and think his papa was at work. He would come into the house, tell her hello and then go outside and wait for his papa to come home about 5:30.

  The bus stopped at the driveway’s edge, and Sarah gripped the sides of the sink and waited for the porch door to open.

  But it did not.

  She looked outside, and there he was in the yard, running, not from the road, but from his papa’s barn.

  The porch door opened.

  “I got you something to eat, hon,” she called out.

  “Where’s Papa?” he asked, his eyes casting about the room.

  Did he not notice the automobile missing? She made herself keep her eyes on him and not look at the closed door. “You hungry, hon?” She pushed the plate towards him. “I got you some meat. Look.”

  But he did not. He touched his chin where the longer cut was. “Where’s Papa?” he said, louder this time. “And why is his automobile way out there on the road? We passed it in the bus just then. Is he here? Did he run out of gasoline again? Where is he, Mama?” He was screaming now.

  Sarah felt her face go hot.

  He looked at the closed door.

  Sarah opened her mouth to tell him, but no words came aloud, only words inside her, I’m all he’s got, I’m all he’s got, I’m all he’s got. She stretched her arms his way and moved towards him.

  But he said, “I want my papa!” and turned and ran out the door, the screened porch door slapping big, then little, then nothing.

  …..

  Doc Clinkscales came as promised, arrived in an ambulance with the undertaker, a Mr. McDougald.

  Sarah stood in the yard near the long automobile, while the two men went inside to pronounce Harold Creamer dead.

  Emerson Bridge had not returned.

  The two men came from the house carrying Harold’s body on a stretcher. A white sheet covered him. They slid Harold into the back of the ambulance.

  Sarah walked over to Mr. McDougald. “Can he be buried up there at New Prospect in that part they got on the back?” she asked.

  “Come see me tomorrow, and we’ll talk about the details, Mrs. Creamer.”

  He had not mentioned money yet. She asked him, “I wonder if you can tell me how much it’s going to cost me to bury him, so I can know how much I need to set by?”

  “We don’t have to talk about this now. Come see me tomorrow.”

  “Yes sir, but if I could just set my sights now.”

  The man cleared his throat and looked to the ground. “I believe we could do something real nice for two hundred dollars, ma’am.”

  Sarah swallowed.

  They closed the door.

  The men got inside the automobile and drove Harold away.

  In the dust they left behind, she imagined each speck of dirt a one-dollar bill and wondered how high they would be, if stacked on top of each other. She looked above her and saw a sky of gray blue and clouds, she saw clouds, thin and stretching, as if being pulled.

  …..

  Nightfall returned, but Emerson Bridge did not. Sarah kept watch for him from the bottom porch step. To soothe her blisters, she poured water in the dirt, made a batter of mud and soaked her feet.

  The moon did not show itself that night. Pitch black fell, an extra blanket of darkness.

  Every few minutes, she called his name, she called, “Emerson Bridge,” each time, more piercing.

  She heard crickets and dogs howling, but she did not hear what she waited for, “Mama.”

  MARCH 14, 1951

  When the sun came up, Sarah rose from the steps and went inside the house, wet a rag, and washed her face, under her arms, and feet. From the kitchen counter, she took her empty lard can and ran her fingers around its insides, hoping to coat them with any remnant of the white grease. She brought her fingers to her blisters and dabbed. Then, from a drawer, she took two dish towels and went to her bedroom, wrapped one towel around each foot and stepped into Harold’s boots, still by the bed. On her body, she put a fresh housedress, green and yellow checks. The stray hair that had fallen from her bun she tucked back in with bobby pins.

  In the kitchen, she took one of the sausage biscuit halves from the food warmer and placed it on Emerson Bridge’s plate. She had rather wait for him to return home, show him that she remained for him, but she needed to sell the dress.

  She picked up the shoes she had worn the day before and the blanket that still held the blue dress, and Sarah walked out the door and into the yard and headed towards Mrs. Dobbins’s house. She would remove the towels from her feet and put on her shoes when she started down the Dobbins’s driveway. She would hide the towels and Harold’s boots among the greeting shrubbery and then retrieve them on her way back home.

  She had walked a little more than a mile when an automobile coming towards her passed by and stopped. Sarah had never seen such a pretty vehicle, nor one in that color combination, baby blue and white.

  “Why, Mrs. Creamer, is that you?” the driver said. It was Mrs. Dobbins.

  Sarah tucked one foot behind the other. “I know I look a sight,” her voice hoarse from calling for Emerson Bridge all night. She held the blanket towards the woman. “I was on my way out to see you.”

  “Why, I was on my way out to see you, too, dear,” Mrs. Dobbins said and motioned Sarah inside the automobile.

  She had come to take the biscuit back. “I was going to tell you, ma’am, I was,” Sarah told her and got inside the vehicle. She would give her the food and ask for forgiveness and hope she still wanted the dress. Sarah did not smell peppermints.

  The seats were a dark blue leather. Sarah tried not to touch the clean floorboard with her boots. They were caked in dirt. Mrs. Dobbins’s shoes were shiny and a pretty shade of jade green.

  Emerson Bridge might be home now. She had kept watch for him as she’d walked.

  But Mrs. Dobbins didn’t take Sarah home. She pulled in behind New Prospect Baptist Church and inched all the way up to the church wall. “Can’t have Big LC catching me, you know,” she said.

  Sarah put her hand on the door handle and squeezed. “Afraid Jesus don’t know me, ma’am.” She had never been inside a church.

  “I’m supposed to be going to town to the beauty parlor,” Mrs. Dobbins whispered, but Sarah thought she looked like she’d just stepped out of one with hair dark, medium in length and curled under the way Scarlett O’Hara w
ore hers in that one movie Sarah had seen, Gone with the Wind.

  “He was hungry,” Sarah said and looked across to the cemetery where Mattie was buried and where she hoped Mr. McDougald would allow Harold.

  “I’m afraid I owe you an apology, dear.” The woman was speaking in her full voice now.

  Sarah looked back towards her.

  “You made me a dress special and came all the way to deliver it to me yesterday, and I failed to give it the proper attention it deserves. Where were my manners?”

  Sarah felt her hand relax.

  “Can we start over? I’ve come to ask you that. And pay you handsomely for the dress.” Mrs. Dobbins held out an envelope, a white one, the cleanest white Sarah had ever seen. She imagined it as a table cloth and on it plates, heaped, of scrambled eggs and sausage and bowls brimming with grits and hot biscuits.

  Sarah reached for the envelope and handed the woman the blanket. Mrs. Dobbins brought it to her chest and held it like it was worth something. Sarah did the same with the envelope and tried not to press on it, but it felt thick. Not as thick as a biscuit but more like a sausage patty. She set the envelope in her lap and took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I owe you an apology, too, Mrs. Dobbins. Afraid I took from you yesterday. A biscuit and a piece of sausage. For my boy. I mean our boy. I mean … mine.” A heat moved through Sarah and settled in her feet, where she felt the empty space in Harold’s boots. “He was hungry.” She looked out her window again. She wondered if would ever return home.

  Mrs. Dobbins placed her hand on Sarah’s shoulder.

  “I’ll pay you for it, ma’am—a whole dollar and come cook and clean for you, do your ironing, empty out your slop jars and dust y’all’s awards. Please forgive me.” Sarah waited for the woman to take her hand back and all of her money and throw her out of the vehicle.

  But Mrs. Dobbins’s hand remained. “Why, Mrs. Creamer, there’s no need for any of that. That food was just thrown into the pig trough. They’ll eat anything.”

  Sarah wanted to thank her, but she didn’t think she could talk. She was afraid if she opened her mouth, water would flood her eyes and not stop.

  …..

  Mrs. Dobbins drove Sarah to her automobile. Sarah did not tell her she had run out of gasoline, only that she had to leave the vehicle by the side of the road the day before. When they passed Drake’s store, Sarah noted she would walk back there, buy gasoline and flour, lard and buttermilk for biscuits and a hunk of fatback for some good meat, and then return to her automobile and drive home. She let herself dream that she would find Emerson Bridge in bed, and she would go to the kitchen, cook for him, and fill every empty space inside his belly.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Mrs. Dobbins, I can’t,” Sarah said and got out of the pretty blue-and-white and watched it go out of sight. It crossed her mind that they could be friends if circumstances were different, if Sarah had the same kind of life this woman did, one of church and money.

  She told herself to start walking to Drake’s, and there she would see how much money the envelope contained. But she couldn’t wait for that. She opened the door to her automobile, slid in behind the steering wheel, and peeked inside the brilliant white. There, a stack of green greeted her, each bill fanning out like it could breathe.

  She lifted them towards her and counted. They were all ones, twenty-eight of them. Twenty-eight whole dollars. In her head, she divided all that money by the price of the dress, $4.25. Mrs. Dobbins had paid her six times over with $2.50 to spare.

  Sarah shook. She had never felt such kindness, such outright, unbridled kindness.

  “Mama,” she heard behind her. It was Emerson Bridge’s voice.

  She was hallucinating. Lack of sleep and food.

  “Mama?” This time louder.

  She turned back towards the sound. There was Emerson Bridge, lying in the back seat, his body curled in like a baby’s.

  She threw open her door and pulled his free.

  He was crying now in little sobs, but they grew to big ones, his little body heaving more than a little body should. The sun caught the top of his hair, lit it like a match, the red of him and his papa catching fire and glowing.

  She leaned in towards him. “I’m so sorry, hon. I know you and him was tight.”

  Her hands hovered over him like a bird wanting to land. She didn’t know if he would let her touch him, and, if he did, where she should put her hands. She pictured Harold’s face the night he died and saw again the cuts on Emerson Bridge. She wished she could have seen that lesson being taught, not been around where they could see her, but be in the shadows the way she liked to be and watched.

  And learned.

  …..

  Emerson Bridge saw his mother’s hands above him. They were small and not as rough as his papa’s. If they were his papa’s, they would bring him in close, hold him against his chest that smelled like straw and not let him go.

  He imagined his mother would smell like biscuits.

  He imagined her holding him.

  And not letting go.

  MARCH 16, 1951

  The earth lay ready to receive Harold Creamer’s body.

  A mound of dirt, as red as it was brown, lay heaped up on one side of a hole and on the other, a pine box, the cheapest Sarah could buy. She and Emerson Bridge stood at the foot of the hole, while the preacher from New Prospect Baptist stood at the head. They were in the church cemetery, after having moved through and past plots filled with a century’s worth of dead to an area in the back, where the hill crested and began a gentle slope downwards. There, people whose church membership was elsewhere or nowhere, those called “the unchurched,” could be laid to eternal rest.

  A few men from the telephone company stood off to the side. Harold had no family. He was an only child born to elderly parents.

  Emerson Bridge stood in front of Sarah. He smelled of Harold’s hair tonic, which, on his own, he had combed through that morning. The scent was musky and filled the space between the two of them. Sarah breathed it in.

  He had spoken very little since she found him in the automobile. She had thought he might run away again, but he’d stayed at home, eating very little, only one biscuit, even though she had made a dozen.

  Harold’s plot lay to the immediate right of Mattie Louise Pender Parnell, a metal marker carrying her name. Sarah had asked that he be buried beside her. She had visited Mattie’s grave enough to know that the spot beside her was free. Sarah felt the urge to lean forward towards Emerson Bridge and tell him, There they are, your mama and papa. But what if he shoved her in that hole and wished she was the one who was dead?

  “Lord Jesus Almighty,” the preacher said, “I did not know this man’s heart.”

  Mattie did. And she knew it at its weakest and put a cushion around it, something Sarah failed to do. The Sunday night Sarah had fussed at him for catching less and less fish for their catfish suppers and telling him, “You trying to starve us?” Harold staying quiet but Mattie jumping in and saying, “He don’t like to kill.”

  “I did,” Emerson Bridge called out, his hand made into a fist and shooting into the air. “I knew my papa’s heart.”

  The preacher cleared his throat.

  Winds whipped about around them like they didn’t know where they wanted to go. Or how.

  “It is my fervent prayer,” the preacher prayed, “and I am sure his family’s before me, that Harold Blevins Creamer did, in fact, know the Lord God Almighty as his personal savior, so he can gain entrance into eternity in your sweet presence and not burn in the unholy fires of hell. We lay this urgent plea for the assurance of salvation at your dusty feet because surely, Lord Jesus, you have traveled many miles in your unfathomable love for us this day. Amen.”

  Sarah’s mother told her if you don’t go to church, you can’t be saved, and if you aren’t saved, you’re going to burn in the eternal fires of hell. Sarah knew that what Harold had done was wrong, but, for the boy’s sake, she prayed, Please Lord Jesus Alm
ighty, don’t let Harold Creamer burn in hell. Let him be in heaven. With Mattie. Amen.

  She watched Emerson Bridge’s little shoulders quiver. I am all he’s got now, and that ain’t his fault. She called up in her mind Mattie’s and Harold’s faces and held them in her sight. And then she imagined her hands as Harold’s and moved them towards his shoulders.

  But her hands were not Harold’s. They were hers.

  …..

  Ike Thrasher stood in his room at the McDuffie Street Boarding House and dressed himself in dark slacks, his finest, and a white shirt in the smallest men’s size Gallant-Belks sold, a fourteen-inch neck with thirty-two-inch sleeves. An upper-end boy’s size would better fit him, but Ike was too embarrassed to purchase such. He had ironed the shirt the night before with extra starch, repeatedly shaking the liquid onto the garment from a sprinkler atop a Pepsi-Cola bottle that held the solution and then ironing it smooth. That way, he hoped, the material would look thicker, and, therefore, Ike Thrasher thicker, even sporting muscles beneath it.

  He looked in the mirror on his chifforobe and flexed his arms now, pulling the cloth tight against his skin. He thought he saw the beginning of a muscle just up from his right elbow.

  He took a tie from his tie rack, one that carried the dark of his pants and just enough red to give him a spark. On his feet, he slid his just-shined wingtips, his laces new and crisp. It was just after breakfast, and out of the ordinary for him to wear these shoes in the daytime, preferring the night, when it was dark enough for the neon signs to light the world. His favorite was the one above the Greasy Spoon café two blocks over on North Main Street. Some nights Ike would wear these shoes and walk there and watch the spoon, all lit in white and appearing to dance, as specks of red grease flickered around it. There was no music, but Ike always heard music and always the Bennie Goodman Orchestra. From time to time, he would find his feet moving to the rhythm.

  Today he needed to move his feet out the door and head west of town to a stretch of land he had not frequented in sixteen years. He applied extra deodorant and hoped it wouldn’t leave a ring.