Getting Mother's Body

by Suzan-Lori Parks

  “It sure was good of her to let you come,” I says.

  “I enjoy knowing that I can help my family,” he says. He turns around in his seat, watching the road again.

  “She don’t like you far from home,” I says.

  Homer makes a face. “She figures this is the lesser of two evils,” he says.

  “Nothing evil about what we doing,” I says. I’m glad he’s coming to help but I don’t exactly approve of all the lies Billy told to his mother.

  I lean back, getting comfortable in the bright white leather seat. Star said the NAACP of Pecos got together and bought the car for him. When he went away to college they gived him a big send-off, even though Harper’s just ten miles to the south.

  We turn onto the highway. I look behind and see June and Billy following us in the truck.

  “This model’s called a Park Lane,” he says. “You can tell by the chroming on the sides.”

  “All right,” I says reminding myself to look at the chrome once we’ve stopped.

  “Now I’ll show you what this baby can do,” Homer says, stepping on the gas pedal. We got the top down so the wind whips at us pretty good. I hold my hat on with one hand and hold on to the middle armrest with the other. We go fast. Then faster. Homer looks at me and smiles. I smile back.

  “I sure do like a fast ride,” I says. I got to yell so he can hear me.

  “Mamma hates me going over forty,” he says. He looks at my hand on the armrest. I move it to touch the paneling, pretending like I’m feeling the quality of the dashboard materials.

  “A man’s got to open it up once and awhile, else he ain’t a man,” I yell. Homer nods in agreement. I sneak a look at the speedometer. We’re going seventy-five. I take my hat off, before it flies off. If it flies off I’ll want to stop for it and Homer ain’t stopping. I crunch it down between my legs. Young men go fast. When I was Homer’s age I went fast. I didn’t have no car but I had a cart that we used to tote wood and groceries and what-have-you. There was this hill out by where we stayed at and on Sunday afternoons me and Willa Mae would go up there and ride down in the cart. Both us together, screaming all the way down the hill. Once we got this barrel, it smelled like pickles. Willa got inside it and rolled down the hill. No one else had ever rolled down the hill in no barrel. Kids, boys mostly, would come and watch her do it. She was braver than any of us. Boys would watch her and girls would watch her. Girls with admiration that became jealousy. Boys with admiration that became lust. She got the idea to have folks pay. And kids would bring they pennies or they favorite things, playing cards, odd-colored marbles, chewing gum and peppermint candy, as payment for her performance. Then one day she announced her retirement. She said the rolling made her stomach feel funny. She asked three older boys to drive the barrel down to the South Concho Draw and we all watched it float away. I thought that was the end of fast Willa Mae.

  “We left them in the dust,” Homer says. I turn to look. The road points out behind us, tight and straight, the hot tar of it almost singing in the heat. Sure enough, we have left the truck far behind.

  “Blood and Precious stay in El Paso. June and Billy don’t got the address,” I says. I got the trip pretty well planned-out. Breakfast with Star in Pecos, dinner with Blood and stay the night there. Get up early and hit LaJunta in the morning. Maybe Star’ll put us up for the night when we return, dripping with the pearls and diamonds and whatnot.

  “We’ll stop at a filling station in a little bit,” Homer says, “the ladies can catch us then.”

  We whip down the road. Everything standing still looks like it’s moving. A steer raises its head, big long horns pointing east and west, looking at us.

  “You studying to be a doctor, then?”

  “I’m studying law,” Homer says. “Mamma wants me to follow in Daddy’s footsteps but my professor at school, Professor Clarke, he says I got a natural talent for public speaking and such.”

  “Gonna be a lawyer?”

  “Professor Clarke says I could be a congressman or senator one day.” Homer smiles and sits up straighter thinking of himself behind a big desk. Congressman or Senator Homer Beede Rochfoucault. Then he adds, “I would like to be placed in a position where I can do the most good for my constituents.”

  “Your constituents,” I says, repeating, and nodding my head. But I’m not sure what the word means.

  “The people need good men,” Homer says smiling at me. And I know then that he will make a good politician, not a preacher, cause he ain’t been called, but a politician, one who ain’t been called but, through the force of his own personality, calls others to him. That’s largely the difference. A man of God is called by God. A man of the people calls the people. Some men are called by God to lead the people. But that’s rare. A man of the people thinks the people are calling him but it’s just his own voice, overly loud, shouting his own name and hearing it echo back to him through the open mouths of the people, mouths open in awe and wonder watching a man shout his own name loud. A man of God has his mouth shut until God opens it, forces it open sometimes. And sometimes forces it closed. When I took June from her family the first night she cried. So I promised her that we would go to California too. We got in a borrowed car and went. But after a day of riding I got brittle. It was her happiness or mines and when we reached the Texas border, I told her I was as far west as I could go. So I turned around. We headed back eastward, passed through Tryler, seen that piece of land for rent, stopped right there and built the church, and things, for a while anyway, was going pretty good.

  Homer looks at me. I look at the speedometer. We’re doing eighty.

  “How much you think the jewels are worth?” he asks.

  “Hundreds,” I say. I see the disappointment working into his face, like a drought coming, but not there yet. “Thousands,” I says, correcting myself. “Several thousand dollars.”

  He smiles then hefts up his lower lip, considering. “Cousin Billy isn’t married is she?” he asks carefully.

  “Sure she is,” I says quick. Too quick.

  “We’re two men riding in a car,” Homer says. “We can be honest with each other. Maybe Billy could be my wife.”

  “That would be a good thing,” I says. How he knew Billy weren’t married I don’t know. He goes to college so I guess he’s pretty smart.

  “Billy’s situation will just stay entre nous. That’s French for secret,” he says smiling. Billy’s business will stay secret. A secret shared between two men going eighty miles per hour with the top down.

  A siren comes up out of nowheres. The police with they single red turning light and they thin wailing siren charging down the road behind us. Homer looks in the rearview mirror but doesn’t slow down.

  “We can outrun them,” he says. His voice is flat and hard.

  “I ain’t packing for no shoot-out,” I says, trying to make my voice sound like a cowboy.

  “I don’t got no gun either,” he says and, slowing down, pulls over to the side of the road.

  LAZ JACKSON

  I comed over to look at Dill’s new piglets. Last time there was a runt, Dill culled it. This time I’m ready to take the runt home. I got a pasteboard box with me. Dill is sitting on her porch. I come up through the gate and just stand there watching her. She’s looking at me but not looking at me.

  “How you doing, Dill?”

  “Whatchu want?”

  “Jez had any runts?”

  “Nope.”

  “None smaller than the rest?”

  “Nope.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she says.

  I stand there looking into the empty space of my box. There was gonna be a runt in there and I was gonna carry it home. It woulda lived in the box. It woulda growd out the box. Got big and bigger and bigger. And I woulda rode my pig around in my hearse and maybe even won a ribbon, at least third place, in the Butler County Fair. Least that was my plan. Shit. I asked Billy to marry me and she said no. Now there ain
’t no runts. Double Shit. I let go the box and kick it. It flies a few feet then scuttles along the ground. Dill turns from looking at me to look at the box. She looks at it like it’s something worth looking at, so I look at it too.

  “You can have it if you want it,” I says.

  She don’t say nothing.

  Then I notice the box is in a place where Dill’s truck’s usually parked. And the truck ain’t there no more. It ain’t where it usually is and it ain’t nowheres else. Well, it must be somewhere but it ain’t in Dill’s yard.

  “Where’s your truck?”

  “Stolen.”

  “Tripple Shit,” I says.

  “Billy Beede stole it,” Dill says. “She stole it and she’s gone to LaJunta in it.”

  “Shit Shit Shit Shit,” I says.

  Dill turns from looking at the box to looking at me. I turn my head away. The feeling I got for Billy is strong but, with Dill looking at me, it shrinks.

  “I gotta go get my truck,” she says.

  “You getting North to take you?”

  “I ain’t mixing North up in this,” Dill says.

  “Billy shouldn’t be stealing from you,” I says.

  “I’ma kill the bitch,” Dill says, “I’ma be on the morning bus tomorrow and get out there and I’ma kill the bitch.”

  I know she don’t mean it. She do want her truck back, though, that’s sure. It’d be nice to go to LaJunta. Billy’ll be there.

  “How bout I take you?” I says.

  “No thanks.”

  “We could leave today. Hell, we could leave right now.”

  “I ain’t riding no place in no hearse.”

  Mother and Dad don’t let me drive the sedan we got.

  “The hearse rides good,” I says. “Plus I just cleaned the vents so the air oughta come in nice.”

  Dill spits hard at the box and hits it dead on.

  “What the hell you standing in my yard for?” she says. “Go get yr goddamn hearse.”

  I run down the road all the way home. I got the keys in my pocket and I tell my folks I’m going on an errand with Dill and that I’ll be back in a couple of days. I tell them she’s paying me for my time. Then I’m gone.

  I don’t bring nothing but the clothes on my back. Dill brings a cloth bag with brass closures. Something in it looks heavy. She don’t bring nothing else. No food or water. I hope she’s got money for gas.

  The hearse is dove-gray inside, outside it’s black-faded-to-green. My father’s second-best hearse. His new one, a 1962 Cadillac, is white on white in white. We got the fly windows open plus the vents so the air’s coming in good.

  We drive slow.

  Outside of Fort Stockton we pass a chain gang.

  “Look, there’s your brother,” Dill says joking, but I don’t look cause I done already looked, a quick glance into the faces and profiles of each man. None of them’s Siam-Iz, and besides, he’s in Huntsville and that’s way east of here.

  We ride for a whole three hours in silence.

  “I remember Willa Mae,” I says.

  “She’s hard to forget,” Dill says.

  I think I’m talking in my head but when Dill answers I realize that I’m talking out loud.

  “When folks talk about her all they tell is stories about her flash and whatnot,” I says. Dill’s face frowns up and she looks at her cloth bag. “But I don’t think of Willa Mae like that atall,” I add quickly.

  “She was something,” Dill says.

  “She was always singing,” I says. “Always making up songs and singing them.” Dill nods. We ride in silence. Town signs pass.

  Something else comes into my head. I wait for a lot of miles before I say it, then I figure what the hell. “What’s it like, being a man?” I ask Dill.

  She looks at me, her eyes like two slow snakes. Dill is more of a man than I am. She’s had Willa Mae and she’s had herself. That’s two women more than I’ve had.

  “Don’t you know what it’s like?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How old are you?” she wants to know. I tell her.

  “Yr twenty years old and you still ain’t had no woman?” she says.

  “Not for lack of trying,” I says.

  “You should talk to Poochie Daniels,” Dill says. “She’s friendly enough and I could put in a good word for you.”

  “I already done talked to Poochie,” I says. “Goddamn Poochie turned me down.”

  WILLA MAE BEEDE

  Ain’t the long road long

  Ain’t the big load heavy

  Ain’t my old soul weary

  Ain’t that so.

  Ain’t the way you treat me

  Just a mistreat-treating

  Ain’t I out that door

  Ain’t I gone.

  Ain’t I gone

  Ain’t I gone

  Long gone longer than yr arms is long

  Ain’t I gone

  Ain’t I gone

  Long gone longer than yr legs is long

  Ain’t the way you treat me

  Just a mistreat-treating

  All that’s left is this here song.

  BILLY BEEDE

  Mother said that the stretch of highway from Pecos to El Paso was probably the most boring road in the world, and she had been on a lot of roads. She said there was more interesting country but it was someplace else. When me and her would drive, if the scenery weren’t much, she’d liven up the view by telling me about the better places she’d seen. When we came out this way that last time she was talking about how we was gonna drive all the way to California. She’d meet Mr. Right in Hollywood and she was gonna get married again, this time for good, and we was gonna drive up California, from Hollywood all the way to Oakland where she knew some people. There’s a road running right up the coast and you can see the ocean the whole way. That’s a road worth driving, she said. We was gonna get her new husband to get us a brand-new convertible and she would drive, and I would ride shotgun like I liked to and we’d let the new husband sit in the back. We would drive along the water and have picnics whenever we wanted.

  Aunt June looks up from her map. “Where’s Teddy and Homer?” she asks.

  “I guess they took off,” I says.

  “Teddy’ll make Homer slow down. He knows we ain’t sure where Blood stays at,” Aunt June says. She looks out the window, watching the grass clumps and red dirt go by. We’re only going forty. There’s a bush of a white puffy flower every ten feet. “That’s Queen Anne’s lace,” Aunt June says.

  “Who’s Queen Anne?”

  “Dunno. It’d go nice next to my rosebush. How bout we stop, I’d like to pull some up.”

  I press the gas pedal down a little harder. We go forty-five. “If we stop we ain’t never gonna get there,” I says.

  “It’d only be for a minute. You could jump out for me, rip a clump up by the roots, and then we’d get back on the road.” Her voice is pleading, like a child.

  “We’ll stop on the way back,” I says. She pats the flat part of her dress where her leg used to be. She looks let down but I ain’t stopping right now.

  “Devil’s claw, wild weed, Holy Ghost, Rosy Everlasting,” she says, pointing out and naming the flowers as we pass.

  “They got nice names,” I says. “On the way back we’ll stop lots, you’ll see.”

  We ride in silence.

  Mother and me would go for these long drives but always come back. We was living at Dill’s house then. Some days, usually when the weather was hot and Mother said she could smell the pigs, we would get in the car and drive. She would tell Dill we was just going around the block. We would stay out all day, heading for someplace she thought sounded good. Lampasas, Zephyr, Crystal City, Navasota. She drove fast like we was running late, the sky just whipping by and her taking little sips from a bottle that she held between her legs. Sipping as she drove. Sometimes getting drunk. She had a ritual before she turned on the engine. She would take her diamond ring and her pearls off and thread
them into the lining of her skirt. For safekeeping. Her “real stuff” as she called it would be kept safe and she wore the fakes while she drove. Just in case, she would mention, but just in case of what she never did say. Once she forgot where she put her pearls and cussed me out for stealing em, then remembering, she pulled em from the hem of her skirt like a magic trick. Once we was in a jail in Galveston and she got the sheriff to bring her some Lucky Strikes. Mostly we’d just drive. We’d get to one of them good-sounding places, creeping down the dirt road main street, the folks on porches desperate from the heat, the kids and dogs all lolling in the shade. Nobody doing nothing.

  “I heard this town was where the Happenings was at,” she would say. There’d be anger in her voice. The town’s bright name had let her down.

  We’d stop and I’d sit in the car or near it while she went to talk to people. Various people. In juke joints if there was a piano, she would let me come in and she would sing. Mostly I’d just sit in the car and wait for her to come back.

  We hardly never stayed out late. Just sometimes. It’d always get cooler in the evening and Mother would feel the cold air and say she could stand the place now, and I knew she meant the pig smell and we would head back. A few times we was out late though. We’d come home in the middle of the next afternoon.

  “Where you been?” Dill wanted to know one time. Her face was all twisted from no sleep and too much worry.

  “I been to London to see the Queen,” Mother said.

  Dill hit her, knocking her to the floor, then went outside to do the chores. I watched her laying there thinking she was dead. She lay on the floor for the rest of the day and I started thinking I guess I was gonna be a pig farmer for sure now, and maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, and then I heard her snoring, laying there snoring. She’d fallen asleep.