The Sittin' Up Page 5

  While TJ and LJ closed the doors of the hearse, Mr. Gordon placed a white plastic flower on the door. Ma turned her head. She couldn't stand the sight of “the flower of death.”

  As soon as Mr. Gordon drove off, Ma fell down on her knees. He was taking away the only daddy she had left on earth. The womenfolk got to shouting all over the porch. The menfolk said, “Amen.” Me, Ralph, and Pole ran to the end of the path to watch the hearse head up the road for as long as we could.

  “Bye, Mr. Bro. Wiley,” Pole said.

  “He can’t hear us, girl,” Ralph told her, like he didn’t know she was smarter than both of us put together.

  “I don’t care that he can’t hear anymore. Now tell him good-bye,” Pole insisted.

  “Bye, Mr. Bro. Wiley,” me and Ralph singsonged. We knew better than to argue with Pole.

  “Farewell, Mr. Bro. Wiley.” I could not believe my ears. It was Mr. Thomas’s boy Christian standing at the end of his path. His face was as red as a beet.

  “Hey, Mr. Christian,” Pole said, with me and Ralph echoing.

  “Afternoon,” he said. Then he was gone as fast as he had appeared. I was surprised that he said a word because Mr. Christian never spoke to colored folks except Mr. Bro. Wiley. Folks say he almost drowned down at the river when he was a boy. Mr. Bro. Wiley heard him screaming and grabbed his little prejudice hind part out of the water.

  After Mr. Gordon was out of sight, all the menfolk went off to do their Saturday chores—all except Papa. He went in the house to try to mend Ma’s broken heart. Ralph went with his papa into town on horseback to get Mule Bennett. There was no need to go back to the field because it was almost noon. The women went home to get their pots going as they talked about who would cook what for the sittin’ up that would start after church the next day and last a whole week. Miss Lottie Pearl went inside Mr. Bro. Wiley’s room and took the death sheets off the bed. Me and Pole stood in the hallway and watched.

  “What in the world we gonna do without him?” she said to Ma as they sat on the bare mattress, while Papa fanned his wife.

  “We gonna give Mr. Bro. Wiley the kind of sittin’ up he deserves before we take him down to the riverbank.”

  They cried something awful.

  SEVEN

  Just like Mr. Bro. Wiley, Saturday passed away. We didn’t go to church come Sunday. Papa said it was all right not to go to the Lord’s house ’cause Ma was tore up with grief. Instead we sat around the house and collected food from the neighbors for the sittin’ up. Miss Lottie Pearl was the first to arrive. You could smell her chicken potpie before she opened the door. Mr. Jabo was carrying a wooden box filled with pies that Pole told me her mama stayed up all night baking. I was some kind of glad to see my friend when she came in with her folks, carrying a pitcher of tea. I wanted to see how she was doing.

  She had pulled herself together and managed to smile.

  It wasn’t long before our neighbor Miss Dora Mae, who lived across the road, came with some cabbage and white potatoes. Miss Moszella brought cornbread that she left in the skillet too long. The two women were best friends. Neither one had a husband, so they lived together. Both ladies had to be well into their seventies, but Miss Dora Mae could pick more cotton than the average man. Miss Moszella had 400 pounds on her bones, so she could not work in the fields. Mr. Thomas’s wife, Miss Lilly, liked her sewing, so they let her live in the Low Meadows just like any field hands.

  By three o’clock, you couldn’t see the kitchen or dining room tables. We had a mess of sweet potato pies, peach cobbler, lemon pies, and green beans.

  “I ain’t never seen this much food in all my days,” Pole said.

  “Me neither, Pole. I wonder when we get to eat.”

  “I don’t know, but I sure am hungry.” Then her stomach made a noise like a student rubbing their nails on the chalkboard at school.

  Pole was so ladylike that her belly making a noise embarrassed her. She disappeared into the kitchen with the women. I watched over the food and thought about how much folk loved Mr. Bro. Wiley. Even in hard times they were cooking food to help us pay respect to our friend. I wondered how folk would eat the next week.

  “If there is a heaven and I know there is, Mr. Bro. Wiley is surely there,” Miss Dora Mae told Miss Rose, who lived over on Bryantown Road.

  “Yes, Lord. He is surely in heaven,” Miss Pottie agreed. She’d come over riding her black horse bareback like she was straight out of a cowboy movie. That kind of talk went on all evening. When folk weren’t talking, they were eating. After the grown folk fixed their plates, me and Pole ate.

  In between eating, one of the grown folk would tell a story about Mr. Bro. Wiley.

  Miss Pottie was a happy woman, so she told happy stories.

  “Y’all remember that time Mr. Bro. Wiley got mad at Goat for lying on Bean. Goat knew good and well he ate the pecans that Mr. Bro. Wiley and Bean picked up from Slave Grave. When Goat kept denying it, the old man just slammed the door in Goat’s face. Locked poor Goat out in the rain.”

  “That ain’t so,” Goat said, walking in the door, trying to defend himself.

  “You lying now, Goat!” Miss Pottie said. The whole room burst out in laughter.

  It was nice to hear Low Meadows folk laugh.

  • • •

  When Monday morning came, I had a bellyache. I reckon everybody in the Low Meadows stomach was hurting. I had to drag myself out of bed and get ready to go to the field. I didn’t like it one bit that I had to work during the week of death. If I could stay home from the Lord’s house, it seemed to me I should have been able to stay out of the ’bacco field. But Papa said that Mr. Thomas wanted all that ’bacco picked and over in Rocky Mount before Labor Day. Papa was his own man but he always did what Mr. Thomas said. His goal was to keep a roof over our heads and to send me to college. As long as Mr. Thomas showed him respect, he said he could work for him all his days on earth.

  Even in grief, Papa made sure everybody knew to be at work Monday morning. Everybody except Ma. It was just about time for her to stop working anyway so the baby could come. It was nothing for a Low Meadows woman to work up until the day the baby was born, but I overheard Papa say he was gonna stop that mess and he was gonna start with Ma.

  Wanting to stay home with my mama was not the only reason I was hot under the collar. I was upset because it was the first day of school. Mr. Thomas went out to the schoolhouse and told Mr. Creecy that the Low Meadows children would not be coming to school for another three weeks.

  According to Papa, Mr. Creecy said, “Not this year, Thomas. The children can only stay out for a week. That’s if you don’t want me to report you to the Board of Education up in Jackson.”

  Mr. Creecy was gonna stop the colored children from staying home from school to work in the fields if it was the last thing he did. I wanted to be a fly on the wall at the café when Mr. Creecy broke that news to the white folk. Just the thought tickled me as I prepared for work.

  “Ma, how am I gonna brush my hair if I can’t look in the mirror?” I asked for the second time as she walked down the hall. Knowing I couldn’t see myself for a whole week didn’t make a lick of sense to me. I had been growing some kind of fast over the summer. Pole had been growing too. Heck, I might grow a whole inch before the funeral and I wouldn’t even know it. Suppose my suit britches were too short. I started thinking about how I could sneak over to Stony Hill and look at myself in Pole’s mirror. Or maybe I could just run down to Ole River and look at my reflection in the water.

  “Did you hear my question, Ma?”

  “Yes, Bean. You can feel, can’t you? Brush your hair and go on in the kitchen and eat your breakfast.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I followed her into the kitchen, where Papa was sitting at the table having a cup of coffee. I could hardly bear to sit down without seeing Mr. Bro. Wiley across the table from me. I look
ed at his empty chair.

  “Everything gonna be all right,” Papa said.

  We prayed. Then we ate in silence.

  “Time to go, Bean,” Papa finally said. I stuffed the last biscuit in my mouth. Ma never said a word and she didn’t lift her head when we got up to leave. She just kept blowing into Mr. Bro. Wiley’s favorite tin cup to cool off her tea. I kissed Ma and ran outside.

  Papa wrapped his arm around Mama’s shoulders. “Have a-a good morning, Wife. I’ll be home to eat with you at noon. Don’t touch the-the stove ’cause we got plenty leftovers from yesterday.”

  “That be fine, Husband.” We left her sitting at the table with her heart in the tin cup.

  “Papa, this is the first time I can ever remember going to the field and Mr. Bro. Wiley wasn’t home,” I said as I climbed in the truck.

  “That’s the-the truth, child. That-that is the gospel truth.” Then Papa turned the radio on. That radio was about as raggedy as the truck. He found the weather channel just as the weatherman started talking about the storm coming at the end of the week. Folk was worried that the river was gonna overrun its banks and we’d have to leave our homes.

  “Papa, what we gonna do if the storm comes? How we gonna have the sittin’ up?”

  “Don’t worry-worry about God’s work, child. He will make a way. If it rains, people will still come.”

  My heart felt better after Papa told me not to worry. The two men I trusted the most in the world was Papa and Mr. Bro. Wiley. If he said not to worry, then it was gonna be all right.

  He kept his word to Mr. Thomas Wiley too. By 6:00 a.m., everybody was in the field working. I joined the others while Papa parked the truck. Mr. Jabo was on the red tractor, driving real slow, while the field hands walked behind him cutting the ’bacco off the stalk. He drove slowly so we could throw an armful of ’bacco on the wagon hitched to the tractor. I always had more ’bacco under my arm than Pole. That didn’t bother Pole one bit because she never had her mind on the fields.

  “Stop rushing, Bean. Our pay is the same. A dollar a day no matter how much tobacco we prime. We should be in school anyway,” she said with her lips poked out.

  “I know, Pole. I know. Don’t you worry. Mr. Creecy said we’ll be in school next week.”

  “We sure will. I have no time for the fields.”

  That’s when I noticed her gloves.

  “Girl, do your daddy know you got on his gloves again?”

  “He sho’ do. My hands for surgery, not priming tobacco. Did you know that colored doctors work as close to us as Raleigh?” Pole said with pride and excitement.

  “And lawyers!” I said, to let Pole know that I had dreams too.

  “That’s right! Lawyers too. Stop rushing in this field.”

  Ralph, who was working on the next row, never said a word. He had long given up on school and being anything other than a field hand. Papa was telling the truth about Deacon Ward letting Ralph stop school to work. That wasn’t right at all. Looking around in the field made me sad because most of the sharecroppers had only second- and third-grade educations. This is where they’ll work for the rest of their lives.

  Papa interrupted my thoughts as he walked into the field.

  “Can y’all stop priming for a minute. I want to tell you about the-the plans for Mr. Bro. Wiley. We-we gonna have the sittin’ up all week and view the body on Friday night at seven. The funeral at one o’clock on Saturday,” Papa said as Mr. Jabo stopped the tractor.

  “We will do what we can do to help y’all out,” Mr. Jabo told Papa. The rest of the Low Meadows folk echoed him.

  “We sure will,” Miss Lottie Pearl said. Then something came over her. She got to shouting, “Thank you for the life of Mr. Bro. Wiley!”

  She stomped her feet so hard that mud flew up as high as the ’bacco.

  The other women praised the Lord with her. They carried on for ’bout ten minutes.

  “All right, Stanbury,” she said in between tears, “I’ll go help Magnolia clean up and write the obituary.”

  EIGHT

  I was glad when my pocket watch struck twelve. We usually ate a can of beans and crackers for lunch under the walnut tree. That day we went home.

  When we got there, Ma was doing her washing in the silver washtub on the back porch.

  “Wife, it’s hot out-out here. We got plenty of clean clothes.”

  “I wanted to see if I could get Mr. Bro. Wiley’s shirt a little white for the funeral.”

  Papa grabbed Ma’s wet hand.

  “Let it soak awhile. You need to eat.”

  “Did you tell folk that the funeral gonna be Saturday?” Ma asked.

  “Yes, I-I did.”

  I ate all the neck bones, cabbage, and cornbread that my belly could hold while Ma and Papa talked about the sittin’ up. No one in the Low Meadows was buried without a sittin’ up. Ma thought it was a sin for folk not to be able to come to the house to eat, to sit around and talk about the dead.

  “Bean, your eyes is bigger than your belly. It ain’t gonna be nothing left for company.”

  Ma’s fussing was fine with me. I was full again and it was time to go back to the ’bacco field. Besides, if she was fussing she didn’t have time to think about Mr. Bro. Wiley.

  She stood in the door and rubbed her big belly as she watched us pull off. Me and Papa went back to the field and worked until six. The womenfolk talked about what they were gonna cook and the menfolk fussed over who should be the pallbearers.

  • • •

  The Cofields came to our house soon as they changed clothes that evening. I was sitting in the kitchen, eating peach pie with Pole, while Ma and Miss Lottie Pearl made the funeral arrangements at the dining room table. Papa and Mr. Jabo went on the back porch to smoke their pipes and decide who was gonna carry the casket. The kitchen was the best spot for me and Pole to listen to everybody.

  “Don’t know who-who to pick ’cause every man in the Low Meadows loved Mr. Bro. Wiley. They all feel they got a-a right to carry him to his grave,” Papa told Mr. Jabo.

  “Ain’t that the truth. The best thing to do is let the Masons carry him like we always do. That way the other men wouldn’t think you showing favor.”

  Papa blew smoke out his pipe.

  “That is-is the right way,” he said. He sounded satisfied that Mr. Jabo had made the decision for him. I didn’t know much about the Masons; I just knew they were a group of colored men that had secret meetings once a month. Mr. Bro. Wiley had been the oldest living Mason in the county.

  “Pole,” Ma yelled. “You almost a teenager now. Do you reckon you can be a flower girl at the funeral?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I would be real proud to carry flowers for Mr. Bro. Wiley,” Pole said as we rushed in the dining room. Her face lit up and she pushed me in the side for a reaction.

  “That’s real good, Pole.”

  “Maybe Ma gonna include me too,” I whispered.

  We went back in the kitchen to celebrate. I be doggone if Pole wasn’t walking different. Walking like she had won a teddy bear at the state fair. Nobody in the Low Meadows was as sassy as Pole, and being a flower girl just turned her up a notch or two. From that moment on, I knew it was gonna be a long week around my best friend.

  “Papa said flower girls walk right behind the casket. Are you gonna be scared to walk behind Mr. Bro. Wiley?” I asked Pole.

  “Nope, I would never be scared of Mr. Bro. Wiley. Ma has been a flower girl at a lot of funerals, so she’ll tell me what to do.”

  Sassy she might be, but I was some kind of proud of Pole.

  I laid my fork down so that she could eat the last piece of pie.

  “Thank you, Bean.”

  After we finished our dessert, Pole and me stayed in the kitchen. Papa and Mr. Jabo went for a walk while the womenfolk talked about what songs would be h
eard at the funeral.

  It wasn’t long before there was a knock at the front door.

  “Answer the door, children,” Ma yelled.

  I just couldn’t believe my eyes as I got closer. It was Miss Remie all dressed up in a navy blue suit with matching shoes and bag. Her silver hair was pulled back in a bun and her nose was turned up like our clean front porch did not smell good. Her blue eyes were not kind like Miss Margie’s were. I wanted to take a piece of funeral fabric and wipe some of that makeup off her mean-looking face. She was holding a pretty chocolate cake in a glass-cover plate.

  “Young man, is your mother home?” she asked.

  I was speechless, so Pole answered for me. In all the years Mama had worked for her, she had never stepped foot in our house. Never!

  “Miss Magnolia and my mama here, Miss Remie. I’ll get them.”

  Before Pole could get the womenfolk, they were standing behind us.

  “Evening, Miss Remie,” they said.

  “Would you like to come in?” Ma asked.

  “No, I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am about Mr. Bro. Wiley.”

  Miss Remie had no intentions of coming in because her colored driver, Mr. Jack Faison, never even turned the car off.

  “Well, thank you. I feel some kinda bad that I can’t come to work this week. You know we were all the family Mr. Bro. Wiley had, so the sittin’ up is here. Folk been in and out the house since Saturday.”

  “Magnolia, you come back when you can. You have ironed enough clothes for me to wear for a year.”