Misisipi

by Michael Reilly

  “I love you, Papa.” I had to know if he still loved me. If he didn’t say so now, then he knew.

  He kissed me. “I love you too, Muffalana.” It was the last time he ever got to say it.

  That night, Papa told me about Le Fils Jean. He said the baby had been found dead in his crib and he told me to pray for his soul. When he said God had been merciful, I pressed him to explain but he wouldn’t.

  On the day of the funeral, I took out the black dress that hung unused since Mama and readied myself. My visits to the church had always been magical to me but not now. All eyes were on the tiny white coffin at the altar, so why did I imagine that everyone was looking at me? I knew Lucy was. I could feel her, seated two pews behind with her father. Monica was absent. The whole family had fled, I was sure of it. I was left to endure this alone. I resolved that my hurt at her abandonment would see me through.

  BG was buried at Greenwood Cemetery. Henry carried the coffin into the crypt himself. I couldn’t see but I clearly heard his anguished cries coming out of the open tomb. Someone had to go in and coax him out. When he emerged, the swagger was gone, the sharp suit now crumpled by the broken man within it.

  I noticed Frank Hinds moving through the crowd, talking with several men as he went. He beckoned my father over and they spoke privately. I’m sure his eyes darted my way several times. When it was all done, my father said that Henry’s house was open after the service and that Henry insisted we come over. I didn’t object. I wanted to but I had to be strong.

  When we got to Iona Street, Lucy and her father were already there. Mister Bettencourt was flicking through the TV. “I’m looking for the Rangers game. I got five Benjies riding on them bozos.”

  “You oughta leave that thing off, Bob,” my father said. “It’s the done thing after a death.”

  “I’m from Filmore, Joe,” he blew back. “That’s his hokum, not mine.”

  “Try Channel 8, Daddy,” Lucy piped in.

  The green of a baseball diamond flashed onto the giant screen. “There ya go,” Bob Bettencourt crowed. “Nice one, squirt.”

  The French doors swung in and Henry entered from the back garden. The men stiffened. Lucy and I froze. Her dad reached for the off-switch.

  “No, leave it be, Bob,” Henry said. “House been too quiet the last few days. You boys kick back.”

  My father nodded respectfully. “Thanks, Henry. We’re awful sorry bout your loss. Appreciate you having us over.”

  “My pleasure, Joe.” Henry shrugged. “It’s nothing fancy, just you folk that always stood by me. You all’s like family to me and Lirienne.” He tussled my hair, and at that, every pore on my person constricted. “You boys see Frank on the way over?” he asked the men. Our fathers shook their heads. Henry puffed. “No matter. He know where we at.” When he stooped to address Lucy and me, Lucy snatched my hand like her life depended on it. No one else noticed except me. And Henry. “So, Princesses, what say we get these hard-working dads some cold ones?”

  He held his hands out. I took one, faking as sincere a smile as I could, as I pulled my other hand free from Lucy’s.

  “You too, Goldilocks?” Henry smirked. “You coming on a beer run for your daddy?” With no refusal permitted, Lucy slipped her hand into his.

  “Boys, take the weight off. This is your home.” Henry tugged at our arms by his side. “Got Nawlin’s best waiting team here and we be right back.”

  In the kitchen, Henry pulled six bottles from the refrigerator and slipped their necks between his bony fingers. “Gonna be a long game. Best they tank up,” he winked at us as he kicked the refrigerator door shut. “Why don’t you two gals go wait at the table there? I got something special I need your expert help with, kind of a ‘Thank You’ for all the kindness you showed Jean. Ok?”

  The instant he skipped out of the kitchen, Lucy started to hyperventilate. She made to follow Henry back into the living room but I held her back.

  “Lemme go Juliana! He’s gonna kill us. He’s gonna cut our heads off and drink our blood and—”

  I slapped her hard on the face. “Settle down. Gosh, Monica was right. He don’t know nothing. You go and get all jittry, you’ll spoil all. Sit over there!”

  I dragged her to the table and parked her in a chair on the far side, all the better to pen her in. She was seriously pissing me off. “Don’t you dare cry,” I warned as I took the seat opposite.

  Henry danced back into the kitchen and shut the door behind him. “All’s good. Your Papas say it ok we leave them be. Told em I got a special project I need your help on.” He produced a large paper bag and stood it on the table between us. “Fi-iiiiirst,” he teased, reaching in and slowly extracting a mystery item from within. “Who-ooooo wants-sssss… Cola!”

  Lucy near jumped out of her dress as Henry slammed a large plastic bottle of Big Shot soda on the table and cackled boyishly. My heart was thumping and fat tears began rolling down Lucy’s face.

  “Hey. Why the boo faisez?” he asked her.

  “She just sad over BG—I mean Baby Jean, Mister Henry,” I explained.

  “This is ok. Death just a part of life, child. Anyways, we gonna do something for Jean. I got all the gear here. First, we make the toast. Pineapple… is ok?”

  I nodded. Lucy was fast becoming a wreck.

  Henry got three tumblers and poured brimmed servings. He raised his own. “Ok. We toast. Mon fille. Le petit ange. Jean.”

  We lifted ours—two-handed each—and he gently chinked us. He drained his own and let out a shameless belch, making a jokey-faced apology after. It broke the tension and even Lucy laughed so I began to feel easier.

  “Ok. Bon, we work,” he announced. “Watch your glasses. Make a space. Juliana, take all things from the bag.” He took the bottle to the sink and emptied the remaining soda.

  “Bomp! Bomp!” he joked, gently tapping the empty plastic bottle on our heads after. “We need this for what we gonna make,” he explained. “Plastic. No good for soda no how. Gimme glass any day.” He sighed. “Old ways get no respect these days. Everything gotta be new, space age. Like that new shuttle. You see that, girls, on the TV?” We both nodded. “Look like a big old fat seagull,” he snorted. “Naw, we gonna make a proper rocket, like the old ones. Whoosh! Shoot it up in the sky. For Jean. Shoot it all the way to Heaven. So, you help me?”

  We both uh-huh’d. It was ok. This was what grown-ups did. They made sense of stuff this way, with ritual and remembrance. I was moved, to be included. I understood his need, felt relieved that he somehow sensed mine.

  I rubbed his arm. “We’ll make the best one ever,” I promised him.

  Henry spread the other materials on the table: a huge roll of cotton wool, a dozen long thin wooden skewers, a roll of duct tape, the rubber teat from a baby bottle. He lit a candle in the center of the table.

  “Ah, J’ai oublié,” he announced, returning to the refrigerator and removing a small capped syringe.

  “You gals know I gotta take the insulin?” he explained. “Keeps me peppy.”

  “Does it hurt?” Lucy asked, as Henry rolled up a sleeve and carefully worked the needle in his arm.

  “Non,” he shrugged. “Y’all look after your health, mind. When it gone, it gone.” He set the spent syringe on the table. “There. Happens we gonna need this anyways. I’ll show you how.”

  Henry sat beside me and began to direct our industry. While Lucy tore the cotton wool into smaller clumps, he showed me how to perform the delicate task of burning holes into the bottle. Over and over, I brought the tip of the used needle to a glowing point on the candle flame and melted dozens of pinpricks all around the clear plastic cylinder. When I was done, the bottle was pockmarked from top-to-toe with them.

  “Bon. Enough. And no burns. Phew.” Henry laughed. “Ok, I do the next bit. Dangerous.”

  He produced a flick knife and sprang it. Our eyes widened at the sight of the long narrow blade. “Oh,” he said, “I use for the whittling, when I need to think good.�
�� He tapped his temple with the blade to make the point.

  He took the bottle and deftly cut a small circular hole into its base. Happy with the opening, he speared the knife into the expensive mahogany top of the table and let it stand there.

  “Hand me that baby teat,” he said.

  As he worked the wide rubber base of the teat inside the smaller hole he’d cut in the bottle, Papa came into the kitchen.

  “Game over, Joe?” Henry asked, not looking up from his task.

  Papa spotted the knife. “No. Top of the third. Just wanted to get some… chips.”

  “We’s outta them, I think,” Henry grunted. “Juliana, go find your Papa something else.”

  I hopped off the chair and found a large bag of Rold Gold pretzels. Papa glanced at the knife again. “You ok in here, honey?” he whispered.

  “Yeah. We’re making a rocket for BG. Wanna see?”

  “Naw.” Papa squeezed my neck on his way out. “Just come in soon as you’re done, give the old man some smart conversin.”

  Using the standing blade of the knife, Henry then had Lucy cut lengths of duct tape from the roll and slice them into even thinner strips. He plastered them around the base of the teat, adjusting until he was satisfied the rubber point was straight and true on the end of the bottle. He added a few extra strips to better secure the arrangement and showed us the result.

  “It does look like the tank on the rocket ship,” I gasped.

  “Oh,” Henry said, “could be lotsa things.” He blew into the open bottle mouth and tooted skatty jazz, his cheeks puffing and his eyes crossed. Lucy and I giggled as he hummed a bad rendition of When the Saints go marching in. “They won’t want me on the Second Line no time soon,” he laughed. “Ok. Rocket fuel now.”

  Lucy began stuffing the cotton clumps into the bottle neck and forcing them down with a wooden skewer. “Fill that sucker good,” he commanded. “We got plenty so don’t spare none, Goldi.”

  When Lucy was finished, a dense cotton core blossomed the length of the bottle. Henry shook it. Happy with the result, he stood it upside-down and held it steady.

  “Now we put stabilizers in. Watch how I do.” He took a wooden skewer and pushed it into one of the holes I’d burned. Carefully, he ran it through the cotton mass, guiding it to one of the holes on the opposite side, and forced it through. The skewer ends poked out from each side of the bottle, like a magician’s sword in a woman-in-a-box illusion. “Now, you two do the rest. Spread em out.”

  As we inserted the other skewers through the bottle, Henry started asking about BG. It was measured and it was smooth, like a vulture to its carrion, circling, closing.

  “You don’t think none bad bout Jean when you remember him, Juliana?” he began. “I mean, you think good things when you call him to mind?”

  At this, we paused in our labor. “You keep right on at that, Goldi,” he snapped at Lucy. “I wanna launch this fucker sometime this century.”

  “It makes me sad, Mister Henry,” I replied. I started toying with my soda where it sat on the table, twisting it between my shaking hands, suddenly very fixated on the gentle swell of the liquid against the sides of the glass.

  “Why child? Why you sad?”

  “Cause we loved BG. We loved taking care of him.” I could see the bottle-rocket, full of cotton, white and sickly now like the worst kinds of medicine my mother force-fed me during my bout of gastro. As Lucy pushed another skewer into it, my stomach began to turn at the memory.

  “That’s good,” Henry said. “You think of how you last saw him, when he was happy. It a good memory to keep.”

  “Miss Lirienne,” Lucy butted in. “She was so angry.”

  Henry leaned across the table. “My little Lir? Why that? Why she be angry with you?”

  Lucy stammered, “I… dunno. She wanted to scare us off.”

  Henry pursed his lips. “She didn’t want to have you see what she bout to do?”

  Lucy nodded. “Yeah. Cause we woulda stopped her. I woulda. Promise, Mister Henry.”

  Henry looked at me. “Where your friend? Gertie’s girl, with the fat tongue. Where she get to?”

  “Monica?” I shrugged. “I dunno. They go vacation, I guess.”

  He lowered his voice. “Y’all wanna know a secret? You can’t tell no one, mind.”

  “What?” Lucy gasped.

  Henry looked to the garden beyond the French doors. “Jean. He come to me. Other night, after the wake. Everyone gone. Just me and my boy, sitting in the living room. That beautiful white casket, so peaceful. Suddenly, I hear this sound, so soft I think I’m imagining it.”

  Henry tapped his knuckle on the table, the knocks barely audible. “I got up and listened. Where the hell could it be coming from?” Henry raised his hands before him, as though negotiating some fog in his memory. “Then I knew,” he whispered. He resuming tapping on the table, louder now. “I walked to Jean. The sound was coming… inside the casket.”

  Henry lowered his head, still tapping, and pressed his ear to the table. His face was turned my way but his eyes were seeing something beyond the moment. He stopped knocking. I saw Lucy, entranced, her hand holding a skewer midway to the bottle. “What?” Henry whispered, as if talking into the table. “I can’t hear you boy. He’s whispering to me, girls. His voice is strong. Man’s voice. Telling me something. It’s important. I gotta listen. I hardly dare breath.”

  Henry grew silent. His eyes drifted from nothing to figmentary nothing. The only sound in the kitchen was the clawing of his nails on the table now, as Henry began to clench and unclench his fist. Suddenly he exhaled, loudly, slowly, and drew himself up.

  “Give me your hands, girls.”

  Lucy extended her hand across the table and Henry grabbed it. He plucked mine up and swallowed it in his own, grimly clenched, the bones in my fingers squeezed within his grip.

  “Hold hands you’selves,” he ordered. “Both y’all. Close the circle. So’s what I say stays between us only.”

  I grabbed Lucy’s hand across the wide table. Henry leaned into our circle but didn’t look at us when he spoke. If he had, I believe my heart would have stopped at what he said next.

  “I know what happen Jean, what happen him for sure,” he whispered.

  Had I not been in Henry’s vice-like hold, I might have snatched my hand and run right then. I could no longer feel my tiny fingers in his. The blood seemed to flee my extremities. I could sense it crawling back into my chest and congealing. My heart hammered, trying to send it back. It fluttered, on the edge of failing, and diamond dots studded my vision. With a strange measure of relief, I decided that God was finally going to give me my out and kill me where I sat now.

  Henry’s voice became low, funereal. “He tell me. He tell me how. He tell me… who.”

  Did Henry squeeze my hand then? Or did my own involuntary convulsion betray me?

  “He say… he say it ok. He know weren’t no bad meant by it. He give me a message though. I gotta give it word-for. He say… No good come of silence. Got to make it right. He won’t go on til it made right.”

  Henry turned his scrutiny on Lucy, then me.

  “How… how can we make it right?” I panted.

  “Gotta confess. Whoever carrying that cross of silence, it’s so heavy. Cast that burden on the good Lord. Where that from, Juliana?”

  “The Book of Psalms, Mister Henry.”

  “Damn right! When you hide a sin, it own you, eat you up, til you nothing but sin and bone. When you set it down, it can never get up again. So, in this… sacred circle, who under that cross now? Which little child suffers?”

  My eyes found Lucy’s. In each other’s grasp, our hands felt fiercely hot and sweaty. I tried to make a minute shake of my head at her, unseen to Henry. It was so faint, I doubt she caught it. She broke eye contact and looked at Henry. When I saw her lips part, I closed my eyes, as my first tear escaped.

  “Monica,” Lucy blurted. “She told us not to tell on her.”

&nbs
p; I snapped my eyes open. I wanted to speak up. Cowardice won my silence.

  “She kilt him!” Lucy exclaimed. “Ain’t that right, Juliana? She got mad after and said we was to blame Lirienne. Juliana? Tell im.”

  Henry looked down at me. There was no solace in his scathing gaze. “That true, Juliana?”

  I felt heavy in my heart. The weight of all the angels pressed down on me. The breath would not come out of my body.

  “Juliana?” he repeated.

  “I wanna… go see… Papa,” was all I could manage. The very air I needed was choking me. The kitchen swam before my vision.

  Henry released our hands. “Bon! Very good, Juliana. Your Papa be very proud of you.” He regarded the rocket on the table. Skewers bristled from it at all angles, like some crazy cactus. “Excellent. Parfait,” he declared. “Now we launch. First, treats for the builders.”

  He went to the refrigerator and fetched three popsicles from the icebox.

  “Ok, pick whatcha want,” he said, spreading the three tall ices in his hand, two strawberry and one orange.

  I shook my head.

  “No?” he hummed. “What bout you, Goldi?”

  Lucy snatched the orange stick and began sucking on it. “Looks like we got the berry,” he said, handing me one of the other two and stuffing his into his mouth. “Mmm! Mmm!”

  I clenched the ice stick in my hands, the chill oddly comforting. I still thought my heart was going to come apart at the stitches. Henry bit hard on his and tossed it into his empty glass.

  “Ooo-eee!” Lucy squealed. “You’ll get tingly-head.”

  Henry smiled as he chewed the popsicle. It sounded like glass cracking under his teeth. As he chomped with comic fervor, the red ice pulped until the space behind his lips looked like his own bloody shredded flesh. He produced a gun from inside his jacket. “Oh,” he bleated when he saw our drop-jaw reaction. “Don’t fret none. How you suppose we gonna shoot this sucker? This gonna be the engine.”

  He stood the bottle between his knees and inserted the gun barrel into the bottle mouth. “Tape, Goldilocks, quick as you can. Juliana, gimme the countdown. Nice‘n slow.”