“Gee. Somebody’s got to be needing this!” Maggie picked it up, got the forgotten items from the car and made her way back to her sons and friend, still puzzling over the tiny card authorities warn must be kept in a safe place.
“Who would be so careless with his Social Security card?! Why would it be laying on the road in such a deserted place?” She decided not to mention it to anyone right away, not to get everybody sidetracked from their celebration, and laid it down beside her bag at the foot of a tree.
“I’ll show it to Virgie when we’re on our way home.”
It was a delightful time. The food so hit the spot . . . the cold drinks. And, Virgie’s patriotic cake went down smooth as silk—red, white and blue . . . blue was the candle she set in the middle accompanied by a lit sparkler. And that, of course, urged the boys on to finish their lunch ASAP and get to their firecrackers. With Meggie’s permission, they intended to fire them off on the road where the car was parked.
“A few firecrackers, another swim and it’ll be time to start for home” Maggie informed her sons.
“. . . and air conditioning.” she, to herself, amended.
The boys ran for the car, matches, firecrackers but were called back by their mother in need of assistance with the ice chest. In great haste, they picked up the container and jogged it through the woods, dodging trees and hurtling low-lying brambles. The ladies gathered up what was left of the picnic taking some seven minutes to bag and carry out to the road. This time Meggie remembered to put her shoes on, making the tramp faster and far more comfortable. However, as the women stepped out of the trees, they noticed the boys standing in
the middle of the road—firecrackers in one hand, matches in the other—gawking . . . standing, staring, looking down the road in the direction from which they had arrived earlier. Then, there was music: a banjo and guitar accompanied by drums, snare and bass, a lot of brass blaring and overpowering . . . all coming slowly, so slowly, yet steadily down the road toward Maggie, her sons and Virgie . . . getting closer and closer, louder and louder usurping the entire width of the way, stopping for nothing and no one. And, as it came, it swayed from side to side in a heavy, belabored, somber beat.
It may as well have been a rattle snake hissing where Margaret was concerned because, as soon as she disentangled herself from the woods and vines, their cool, sheltering boughery where outside worlds are muffled and quiet, as soon as she heard the first note of something so out of place, so unexpected, every hair on her body bristled . . . chill bumps ran up and down her arms and neck, bile rose in her throat like she’d been sucking on an old, copper penny, heat radiated from her body from the inside out. Her heart commenced pounding and skipping beats—a bona fide panic attack which Maggie was predisposed to having from time to time.
Thankfully, her boys were present with customary bravado, their “I Can” spirit and youthful curiosity. When she realized they were not a bit afraid but very much interested and altogether engaged in what was coming down the road at them, she managed to gain courage and get her emotions under control. Mesmerized, her boys were caught spell-bound, so Maggie quickly called them over to the side where they all waited to better understand what was taking place.
Initially, Margaret, her children and friend witnessed the “first line”—a group of black musicians.
{“No, that’s not right.” Mr. Bill corrected.“The first thing they saw was a little black girl about 10 years old dressed in a white shirt, white slacks, white ribbons on both braided pig-tails and black, patent leather shoes playing a small, clear, transparent snaredrum.”}
She was focused and, evidently, good at her instrument for the huge and burly black males had set her front and center. Then, they followed. The beat was slow and deliberate, fecund with emotion. The bass drum held every other instrument in line as its player remained so very steady and methodical and the entire troop weaved back and forth in time, in step. And, as the men played their funeral march, the coronet, tuba and trombone blared out the agony family members were traveling through as they walked their good son to his final resting place . . . a young serviceman who’d died in combat.
Sometimes the instruments pointed up to heaven, sometimes down to the red dirt road they traveled over. And, all but the good son were walking in the heat to the beat of that ponderous, hypnotizing Just a Closer Walk With Thee. Notes were held over-long, then unexpectedly slurred to spill over and into subsequent, adjoining tones. As the line came closer to Margaret, et al, the clarinet appeared, squealing out a bold expression of anguish, and struggle—the struggle to keep going under deep, mental distress.
The musicians, except for the child, were dressed in black—black suits, black shirts, black ties, black dress hats, black leather shoes. The bass drummer’s white gloves flashed briefly as the musician twirled his mallets in the air above and brought them down to hit a glancing blow against the drumheads. The length of time his mallets lingered overhead depended on the rhythm and tempo of his intended melodic motion. Grieving family and friends followed close behind, walking in time, wearing their best in honor of their fallen brother. No one turned a bit to one side or the other as they walked along. Margaret, boys, Virgie may as well have been a vapor. Women were wearing white gloves; each carried a white handkerchief. Some of the men kept umbrellas open over their heads—gaudy designs with rich and vibrant colors. These remained still, however, and quiet, as was fitting the music, the occasion and the dead, young man.
Immediately behind the family came the two-mule-drawn hearse of wood and glass and steel, big iron wheels with wooden spokes. Black and gold, it was, with small white lanterns on either side of the driver, beige satin lining the inside and beige, crocheted curtains, short so onlookers could see the departed laid out in his dress uniform, brilliant ribbons and golden pins embracing his chest. The driver, in black tuxedo, wore a black tie, socks and top hat, black leather shoes, white gloves. He sat erect managing the team that knew quite well their part in the ceremony and never faltered.
Following along side the hearse were a number of military musicians—close friends of the departed—in dress uniform playing their own style of the piece soaring with
masterful skill into diapasons . . . independent, yet, in perfect sync with the lead band . . . an interesting mix pulled off expertly while the mules not once flinched or shied. Those animals had been particularly picked, not for their beauty, being scraggly and massively hoofed, but for their impression toward work—heavy, significant and dangerous work—from which the hero they bore, once most active and courageous, had been forever removed.
And, then, came the second line—anyone, everyone who wanted to join in, listen to the music, show respect to the family who’d lost a son to the nation’s war. This was the line Maggie, boys and Virgie joined—all the way down the long, dirt road to where it forked off—one way led on to who knew where; the other, to a small, family cemetery tucked off in the trees overlooking a wide and open, rolling glade of deep, verdant pasture land. That young man knew well ahead of time where his loved ones would place him should he not return to them alive.
The musicians continued to play. The procession swayed to the polyphonic fugue as they entered through the wrought-iron gates: Amazing Grace . . . slow, each note delivered under heavy, systematic deliberation. Then, the team was pulled to a halt. As the pallbearers dressed entirely in black, bearing wide, colorful banners draped over their shoulders, pinned at the side and hanging down to their knees, opened the rear doors on the hearse and commenced bringing the body out, preparing it, placing it into the coffin, the women began crying and moaning, wailing, waving their handkerchiefs about in the air, crying out to God and Jesus. Men opened and closed their multi-colored umbrellas, pranced and strutted as the
bands struck a hot beginning to the jazzed funeral march, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Other men made a gauntlet between the hearse and grave site and, as
the bearers walked between the opposing rows, they lifted and lowered the casket repeatedly, sometimes making no headway at all toward the grave—two steps forward, several back. And, sometimes the men in the gauntlet took the casket over from the bearers, lifting and lowering it to the music’s beat, seeming to refuse to relinquish it to the pall bearers. This up and down, back and forth seemed to Maggie to go on forever—this “cutting the body loose.” And, the instruments screamed out their melody.
Someone pulled out a piece of ply board at the mouth of the gauntlet and commenced a tapping.
“Oooh! He was good.” Virgie exclaimed later as the group drove homeward, the setting sun casting its pink and orange, gray and baby blue hues over their right shoulders.
His taps seemed to spawn taps. A small, skinny, scrawny black male child joined him on the board, filling in the gaps where the older man’s taps lapsed into a second’s silence. The women danced, waving their handkerchiefs. Umbrellas punctured the air with rhythmic thrusts, spinning and twirling kaleidoscopic images.
Then, the unthinkable happened: the casket was hoisted all the way back to the hearse and the procession began, again. Margaret was not certain she could bear up much longer under the oppressive heat and highly-charged ceremony. She was having difficulty keeping her
anxiety attack at bay, believing another desperate and doomful visitation upon her brain pan to be imminent.
Left behind and almost forgotten were the birds’ sweet songs, the croaking toads and chirping crickets, the clear pool waters and cool, resinous breezes under the majestic pines, the lovely time of picnicking with her friend and boys. Maggie almost wished they’d not joined in, not overshadowed such a lovely, peaceful day with this sadness and despair.
{“But, then, you wouldn’t have wanted to fire off firecrackers while a funeral was taking place down the road, now . . . would you,” Mr. Bill reasoned with her.}
At length, a man wearing a banner, held a white walking cane high in the air to signal the casket to continue its final journey to the grave. A largely overweight, older black woman accompanied by several younger women positioned herself at the gauntlet’s mouth, crying, wailing, waving her kerchief at the pall bearers to the music’s beat, symbolically, silently pleading, signaling for the men to return the coffin to the hearse. She was not ready to let her son go. This time, however, the bearers overruled her and the dead body continued its journey forward to the grave.
“Let him go, let him go. God bless him wherever he may be.” A loud and booming bass voice called out above all clamor as the band dragged through its final, woeful, refrain to St. James Infirmary.
Maggie and company turned away from the procession and began their walk back up the road to their
car.
“It was the least we could do.” Virgie said. “That young man gave his life for our country. Being at his funeral was the least we could do—and an honor.” They all agreed.
When they approached the hearse, Virgie and boys continued walking, unaware that Meg had fallen behind. When Virginia turned around, she saw her dear friend standing by a rear wheel holding . . .
“Margaret and her tissues,” she thought to herself. “Are you ok,” she called back, very much aware of the attacks the woman endured. It was then that Meggie remembered the Social Security card she had placed in her purse when she and Virginia gathered everything up.
“You boys got all the little flags back in the bag, didn’t ya?”
“Sure, Mom, they’re all there.”
They were great sons. So much like Clarence. Margaret was lonesome for him.
“He’ll be coming in tonight. Maybe Hal and boys will come in, too. That’d be nice, all the way around.”
17
“No. No. It’s a good sign. Really.” Doctor Frank was trying to allay the sons’ fears about the recent hiccup in their mother’s unconscious state. They had requested the doctors and staff to keep them informed of all incidences and changes.
“Mrs. Widon the nurse on duty went in to check your mother’s IV and overheard her inviting her—or whomever she was talking to—to go across the street with her and get some bar-b-que sandwiches. It’s good. It indicates she’s still with us mentally on some level. She’s still reacting on a social level and, even, correct . . . there is a drive-in restaurant across the street and they do serve bar-b-que sandwiches. It’s their specialty. It’s good. Not to get our hopes up too much. But, it’s good. It’s the first time since the accident she’s spoken at all. We can be grateful. Maybe she’s getting tired of our liquid diet.”
*
“Help me! Help me! Help me!”
Meggie heard a young man’s voice coming from down the hall. And, then, he was thrust into a terrible spasm of coughing. Over and over and over, the young man coughed. It sounded to Meggie like he was at his end. Like he was strangling or being choked, or something.
“What could be wrong with him?”
She heard someone pass her door on the way down the hallway. But, why was a man on an all-woman’s floor? It didn’t make sense to Meggie, but . . .
“At least someone’s going down.”
And, then . . . he stopped.
“Thank goodness . . . somebody’s checking on him. I’d go, if I could. If I could just get my legs and arms loose. They’re so heavy . . . weighted down. I’d go down there. If I could just get up out of bed, I’d go . . . wheel this IV pole along. I could do it. Sounds like he’s dying. He’s greatly terrified. I could help him; let him know he’ll be ok. Hold him in my arms. If I could just open my eyes.”
Meggie lapsed into deeper slumber. She winced as her body jerked and, then, all was still, quiet.
The only noise was the gentle, languid whirring of the ceiling fan. Since the windows could no longer be opened, the city’s Women’s Club sponsored the purchase of fans in all the rooms for circulation. Maggie had never been invited to join, but she forgave them the oversight; she had more than enough things to do deserving her
time and energy. And, besides, Virgie’d never been asked, either—and Virgie was a very smart, kind lady.
“Oh, well. It’s just one of those things one learns to live with. And, they do do a lot of good stuff for people.”
Clarence said there was really only one main difference between teenagers and adults: “Adults have already tested life. They already know their limits, made some kind of peace with them and settled down to living within them. That’s what makes the teen years so tumultuous: they’re still testing. Testing and trying, getting their feelings hurt, pushing the envelope without the tough skin, rationale, justification necessary to barge on through life . . . and trying to find things that will make the whole ordeal bearable.”
And, Maggie could barge when she felt it worthy of her time and energy. And, if she were pretty certain she’d come away with all her body parts. But, for now, she’d just have to be content with mending. Mending and healing. And, that would take some time. So, she gave herself permission to sleep and hope they were taking care of that young man.
18
Cornus Florida
White flowering Dogwood:
An “aristocrat” among flowering trees because of its breathtakingly beautiful white blossoms
in spring, its bright red berries in fall and winter.
A low-branching tree that spreads horizontally with a semi-rounded top
does best in part shade and well-drained acid soil with sufficient organic matter.
One of the showiest native trees with flowers unfolding from the round, conspicuous, gray winter flower buds before the leaves come out.
The white flower bracts open in May. Fruit appears between September and November, a bright scarlet, berry relished by birds, squirrels and other animals.
Its wood is hard, heavy, strong, very close-grained and brown to red i
n color.
Because of its branches’ layered growth pattern and the absence of leaves in spring, blooms of the
dogwood tree
appear to float in mid-air, a lovely visual effect when the tree is
closely accompanied by the heavier woodland canopy.
Rises 15-30 feet in height.
Reviewer: Caroline
I finally will be putting in my own Cornus Florida this spring and I can’t wait. This tree is one of the most beautiful trees I have ever seen.
Reviewer: Kurt
Will plant one of these in the backyard of my new house in the next month.
*
Meggie’s grandparents took their young granddaughter with them on sojourns down Texas’ highways in early spring to look for the illusive Dogwood tree. Tower was one of the few gardeners able to transplant the tree successfully, to have it survive and thrive. He mostly attributed it to the various steps he took to reduce plant shock. But, that was decades before, when the woodlands were open to city-dwellers, when city-dwellers didn’t leave their trash behind, didn’t violate nature with rampant disrespect. Property-owners were more willing to share, felt no need to erect fences. Often, she and Grandmother Pearl accompanied Grandfather on his business as claims adjuster—someone in east Texas involved in an automobile accident. Tower would ask his wife and granddaughter to accompany him to the red lands in search of clients, get their version of what took place, to assess damage . . . and more opportunities to spy a Dogwood in bloom.
Camp Matigua: The Lost And Forgotten Page 8
