Carrying Mason

by Joyce Magnin

  Mama, who was standing near the stove, clicked her tongue. “Don’t talk like that, Luna. And Delores, Luna is right—don’t make fun of Ruby Day. She can’t help the way she is.”

  “Sorry, Mama,” we said together, but glared at each other.

  Mama wet the corner of her dish towel and wiped stuck egg from Jasper’s cheek. “Go on outside and play until I call you.”

  “You mean I gotta go?” Jasper dropped his fork in his plate. “I don’t want to see no dead boy.”

  Mama put her hands on his shoulders. “Mason was everyone’s friend. Remember how he always tossed a football with you? And fixed your bike chain?”

  Jasper looked up at her. “Yeah, but, but—”

  “Dying is part of living. Nothing to be afraid of and you can’t avoid it. Just walk up to the casket and say good-bye to Mason.”

  That was when Delores started to cry, but they were fake Delores tears. She had a power to turn them on and off like hose water. “Me too? You mean I gotta look at him? I … I don’t want to see no dead boy in a box, Mama. I don’t.”

  “We’re all going.” She looked at the kitchen clock. “Look at the time. Now you and Jasper go get dressed in Sunday clothes.”

  “Yes, Mama,” they said, and off they went.

  “What do you suppose a dead boy looks like?” I heard Delores say.

  “Probably squishy,” Jasper said. “Like a fish with bulging eyes.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I searched through my closet until I finally decided on a dark blue dress with tiny white polka dots that reminded me of stars in a night sky. Mama was right; it was already getting hot. The humidity was building, and my open bedroom windows did nothing to cool things off. There wasn’t a breath of breeze outside.

  My father nailed a long mirror on the back of our closet door after Delores cried and complained that she needed to be able to see her full self. I had one of my favorite poems written out in nice, neat cursive writing tacked to the door, and he just ripped it down like the words were meaningless and crumpled the sheet.

  Sometimes Delores acted like she’d been crowned Queen for a Day, every day, and it made me sick to think about, because I didn’t understand all that girl stuff. Still, I stood there gazing at myself, wondering why I couldn’t be as pretty as Delores. Delores had developed some shape to her hips, and also blossomed through two bra-size changes while I seemed stuck at one. My breasts just didn’t seem to grow any, but hers were like mountains. Then I felt my half-slip ride down and hang about an inch below my dress. I hiked it up and used two safety pins to stick it in place.

  By quarter after ten we were all assembled in the living room like it was a Sunday morning. Mama looked nice in her black dress. She wore a black hat with a tiny black veil that covered her eyes and part of her nose. She carried a black, shiny purse and stuffed it with Kleenex tissues. Then she handed each of us girls a fistful of tissues as well.

  “Tuck them in your sleeve or your purse, if you’ve got one.”

  Only Delores carried a purse. “Ah, I don’t wanna carry all these,” she said as the twins and I shoved our tissues at her.

  Mama gave Delores a swift mama glare as she tucked a Kleenex into my brother’s pocket. “Just in case.”

  Jasper yanked his out and dropped it onto the coffee table like it had cooties. “Boys don’t cry over dead bodies.”

  Daddy draped his arm around Jasper’s shoulders and pointed him toward the front door. “Time to go, big man.”

  “Everybody in the backseats today,” Mama said. “We have to pick up Ruby Day. She’ll sit up front with me.”

  The twins got into the middle row of our Country Squire station wagon with Delores, while Jasper rolled over the seat onto the third seat in the very back. I sat with Mama until we got to Ruby Day’s house. It was only a block away. We pulled up out front, and I started to cry again. Grief was tricky that way. Mama patted me on the knee. “You wanna go get her or should I?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll go.”

  One of the things I liked best about Mason’s house was all the flowers they had growing on nearly every inch of ground. Nobody else grew as many varieties as Ruby Day. She had an uncanny knack for making flowers and trees grow. Not like Mama, who didn’t have the time or the inclination to plant flowers. Their house was a small cottage complete with a white picket fence that Mason had to paint every summer—I wondered how it would get painted this year. Besides mums and irises, pansies and roses, Ruby Day had a love for purple lupines and other wildflowers. She loved them and grew them like they were really something special. There were lupines everywhere you looked.

  I knocked and waited only a second before Ruby pulled the door open.

  “Morning, Luna.” She motioned for me to come inside.

  “You ready, Ruby Day? We’ve got to get to the funeral home before eleven.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Ruby Day dragged her feet to the mantel. “Mr. McCullers said I could bring a picture of Mason if I wanted. Said he’d set it up on a table so … so folks could see him as he”—she sniffed back tears—”like my boy really was.”

  “That’s a fine idea.”

  Ruby Day reached up and had two pictures in her hand. “I … I can’t make my mind up on which one. You decide, will ya, Luna?”

  My eyes switched from one picture to the other about nine times. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. “We’ll take both.”

  Ruby might have smiled, but it quickly faded back into sadness. “That’s right. Why not?”

  “Ain’t no rule,” I said.

  That morning I noticed a sour smell waft around Ruby Day, like she had forgotten to shower. “Ruby Day,” I said, “where’s that sweet Jean Nate cologne Mason gave you for your last birthday?”

  “Bathroom.”

  “You wait here,” I said. I went into the bathroom and couldn’t help but notice that same sour smell. There was a sopping wet towel on the floor, which I picked up and hung over the tub side. I found the Jean Nate cologne in the small linen closet. It had never been opened. I opened the box as I carried the perfume back to the living room.

  “Spin around,” I said, and I spritzed her a few times, hoping the humidity wouldn’t make quick work of the better of the two aromas.

  “Can I bring flowers, Luna? Can I bring some purple lupines?”

  “Have you got any picked?”

  She nodded toward the kitchen. I peeked inside and saw that the kitchen table overflowed with the long-stemmed flowers. “Sure, you can bring the lupines. Mason liked them too, you know.”

  Once we had everything together, I helped Ruby Day into the front seat. She clung to her flowers like she was holding an infant. Mama had to squeeze real close to Daddy on account of Ruby Day being sort of a wide woman. I got in the back with the other girls and made June sit on April’s lap. Then I noticed Mama discreetly pull the price tag off Ruby Day’s new dress—a pretty, pale blue cotton thing with pearly white buttons down the front and a frilly white collar.

  “Very nice flowers, Ruby Day,” Mama said.

  “Thank you, Louise. Mason likes them, too.” She scratched her nose. “Hope it’s okay to bring them.”

  “Ain’t no rule,” Mama said.

  Daddy pulled away from the curb, and we started down Highland Avenue. The town felt eerie that morning. Not a soul outside. It was like everyone, and I mean everyone, was inside getting ready to go to Mason’s funeral, or at least that’s what I wanted to believe.

  We drove along. I watched out the window and noticed the leaves on the trees were starting to take on that end-of-summer tired look they got come the start of school. The houses all looked pretty much the same as they always had, with porches and wide walkways leading to the front door. Some had manicured green yards protected by fences, and others were overgrown or had blotches of dirt peeking through where even dandelions couldn’t bloom. All the everyday, normal stuff around me started to blur after a minute or two, and I was
suddenly filled with an almost irresistible urge to scream, because a terrible mistake had been made. Mason was not dead. He couldn’t be. I never saw his dead body.

  I wanted to tell Daddy to stop driving and take us all home, because Mason was playing a terrible joke, like Tom Sawyer, and we’d find him sitting on our porch, just like always, tossing a football into the air. The air, suddenly there wasn’t a molecule of oxygen left, like some ugly giant stood over our town and sucked all the breath right out of it. I pulled at my dress collar as sweat dripped down my face.

  “Gimme one of those tissues,” I said to Delores.

  She opened her purse with a snap. “Here. You’re sweatin’ like a pig, Luna.”

  I saw Daddy glance at me in the rearview. His eyes crinkled and I noticed tiny wrinkles. “The funeral home has air conditioning, Luna Fish. You’ll be all right.” I stared out the window, debating whether to scream or not, and thought better of it once Daddy pulled into the Hazleton Funeral Home parking lot and a short, stubby man slapped a magnetic orange flag on the fender. Because at that moment I knew with all my heart and all my soul that a hole had been ripped in the Milky Way.

  CHAPTER 4

  Ruby Day shifted the lupines into the crook of her right arm and linked her left arm with mine as we entered the funeral home. We were both shaking from head to toe like two quaking aspens in a storm. My knees had turned to jelly somewhere between Highland and Colton Street. Ruby Day squeezed my arm. “It’s gonna be okay, Luna.”

  “Thank you, Ruby Day. We’re both gonna do just fine. Fine as a gentle spring rain.”

  The funeral was scheduled to begin at eleven, and we got there about ten minutes before—time enough to set Mason’s pictures on the guestbook table and take a few minutes to be alone with Mason. Mama kept our family in an outer room while Ruby Day and I said good-bye.

  If anyone would have told me that I would be standing there in front of Mason’s dead body, I would have laughed and said they were crazy. If anyone had told me that Mason would get hit by a truck and be killed, I would have laughed even harder. Mason was like the safety monitor of the whole world. It seemed like he was born wearing one of them yellow safety-monitor belts, always telling me to be careful and reaching out his hand to help me off a log or over rocks when we went exploring down at Clay Creek. But none of his safety monitor skills did any good when it mattered. It was raining and Mason decided to head down to the music store and buy a new record album. He saved quarters for months to buy it. Mason especially loved piano jazz and was head-over-feet for Oscar Peterson.

  The night Mason died was eerie and foggy. The few streetlights in town were shrouded in low clouds and illuminated nothing more than a few feet of air and sky. Mason had ridden his bike down to the five-and-dime, and, as far as the sheriff could reason, he hit a bump or a rock or something and skidded on the slippery road into the path of an oncoming livestock truck. Doc LaSalle said Mason died instantly—never knew what hit him. Except, standing there in front of him in the funeral parlor that morning, I believed with all my heart that Mason saw the truck and just couldn’t stop himself. Imagine that, the last thing you see in life being the headlights and grill of a truck full of chickens headed for market.

  I thought the sight of him in a casket would be a whole lot more upsetting. But, at that moment, it was like he was reaching out to me from heaven and telling me he was doing good, and that God had more jazz albums than the five-and-dime store.

  They’d dressed him in a blue suit that looked big on him, with a white shirt and dark blue tie. If Mason had known he would have given them what for—for sure. He would have said, “Mr. Undertaker, I ain’t wore a suit in my whole life, and I ain’t wearing one to my grave. You put me back in my blue jeans and my flannel shirt and I’ll be just fine.”

  “They got that suit from the back storeroom,” Ruby Day said, reading my mind. She reached into the casket and touched his face. “They got loaners.”

  My eyebrows lurched when she said that. “Loaners? But, but—” I stopped talking. I didn’t want to conjecture at that point, knowing how Ruby Day got facts mixed up.

  People, including kids from school, started to file past and then greet Ruby Day and me and tell us how sorry they were for our loss.

  “Is my dress okay?” Ruby Day whispered to me. She still clutched the lupines. “I … chose it on account of Mason likes blue.”

  “It’s a fine dress, Ruby Day.” And I kissed her cheek.

  The high school football team showed up in suits and ties. I’m sure Coach Trawler made them dress up. They stood at the back of the room the whole time like some kind of honor guard. They all had black armbands with Mason’s football number painted on them—number ten. They must have been sweltering inside them neckties.

  I ached for the service to start, just so I could get it over with for them and for me.

  Sad organ music drifted out of a record player in the corner of the room. I should have brought one of Mason’s record albums with me. I held Ruby Day’s hand while Pastor Davis gave a short sermon and then signaled for me to give my eulogy.

  I really didn’t have much to say. I stood there for a few nervous, silent moments looking out over the faces of nearly the whole town, waiting for inspiration or for someone to put me out of my misery. Then I remembered what Mama said, and I just started to tell the people why I loved Mason.

  “Mason was my best friend. He taught me about music. Jazz, mostly. He especially liked this fella named Charlie Parker, and Oscar Peterson. He loved that piano playing. That’s what he was going for that night, the night he”—I swiped at tears—”died.” I swallowed. “Mason taught me how to thread a proper worm on my fish hook, and he was fixin’ to teach me to drive.” I looked at Daddy. He smiled a little.

  “Mason was good to his mama. He helped her all the time. He never said nasty words about anyone and always wiped his feet on the mat. Not many of you know this about Mason ‘cuz he liked to keep it secret, but Mason liked to write songs—poems, about the sun and the stars and his mama.”

  I looked at Ruby Day. She was bawling her eyes out as Mama held her hand.

  “But mostly,” I said at the end, my eyes looking at my feet and tears dripping down, “Mason listened to me and never made me feel like I didn’t matter. Mason never made anyone feel like they didn’t matter, especially his mama, Ruby Day.”

  I looked up in time to see, and hear, one of the football players, Clovis Hunkle, cough the word retard into his fist. Of all the folks there that day, Clovis was the one that stood out. He and Mason hated each other, and more times than not wound up in a fight, with Clovis trying to beat the snot out of Mason until someone came along to break it up. He only went to Mason’s funeral because the coach forced him to; I was certain of that.

  Coach Trawler, the gym teacher, hauled Clovis out of the room by his ear.

  That was that.

  Mr. McCullers stood at the front of the room looking very grim and serious. More serious than I wanted him to.

  “Thank you, Luna,” he said. And then he motioned for me to return to my seat.

  The organist began to play another sad-sounding hymn. I think it was called “In the Garden.” I recognized it from church. We were supposed to sing along, but I couldn’t get a note to come out.

  After the song, Mr. McCullers said, “At this time I would like to ask the pallbearers to come forward.”

  The six of us—Daddy, three members of the football team, and Coach Trawler—stood and moved in a horizontal line like a small tide toward the casket. My stomach went wobbly. Mr. McCullers indicated with a sweep of his hand that we should stand like a wall in front of Mason. Next, he slowly lowered the lid. I swallowed and had to close my eyes. They opened just as the last touch of sunlight rested on Mason’s face.

  “Good-bye,” I whispered. And then it was done. The coffin was closed up tight. But I liked to think that the little bit of sunshine stayed inside.

  Even with my back turned I knew
I heard Ruby Day crying hard. I was doing all right, hanging tough. No sobby tears.

  “This is it, Daddy,” I said. “Time to carry Mason.”

  Daddy nodded. “Come on, Luna Fish. You’re gonna do great. Just make sure you get a good grip.”

  Mama took Ruby Day’s arm. “We’ll just wait in the car.”

  I held on tight to the casket exactly how Daddy told me and prayed to God that my palms wouldn’t go all sweaty. Us six pallbearers carried the coffin to the hearse first and then clear across the cemetery field to a little section called the Lamb’s Garden. I sat with Ruby Day and held her hand until Pastor told us to leave a flower on the casket. Ruby Day dropped her bouquet of lupines into the hole and then stared down after them like she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. I gave her a little tug on the shoulder.

  “You did right, Ruby Day. Let them go.”

  “It was a good year for lupines, Luna,” she said. “A real good year.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Daddy pulled up in front of Ruby Day’s house. Mama kissed her cheek. “You be sure and call if you need anything, anything at all.”

  Ruby Day could barely nod.

  “Mama, could I sit awhile with Ruby Day? I can walk home later.”

  Mama and Daddy swapped glances that made me think they had some deep concerns about me spending time with her alone, but I shrugged it off. They didn’t really know her the way I did. There had been talk about having a luncheon, but Ruby Day didn’t want that. She said it would be better if everyone went home right after the service. If you ask me, I’d say Ruby Day just didn’t want the fuss.

  “Well, okay, you go on,” Daddy said. “But be home in time for supper.”

  Ruby Day stepped out of the car and was waiting on the curb, clutching her pictures of Mason like babies.

  “And Luna,” Mama grabbed my arm before I could get out of the car. “If she gets to be too much, you give me a call, okay?”

  “Okay, Mama.”

  I followed Ruby Day into the empty house and watched her gently place the pictures of Mason back on the mantle. She let her fingers linger a second or two on each picture, lightly touching Mason’s cheek. That was when it struck me—Ruby Day would be alone in that house for the rest of her life. Without Mason around to take care of things, Ruby Day could be in a frightful bit of danger. She wasn’t very good at remembering to turn off the flame under a pot or close the windows during a storm. She’d forget to go to sleep at night and would sit up watching television unless Mason stopped her, and she was forever losing her house key. Mason distributed six keys under six rocks in the garden and marked each one with a little white dot. Three of them had been turned over already.