Roseflower Creek (9 page)

    "Mrs. Thompson, honey," Wanda said, "I never worked on a person gone to the hereafter. You might should get someone with some experience, don't ya' think?" She looked up at Mz. Thompson whilst she was rinsing Lexie's hair and sprayed Lexie right in the face. Then she pushed a towel down on Lexie's face to sop it up and poked her in the eye. Wanda sure was a bundle of nerves that day.

    "I know you want that sweet little girl to look nice," she said, "and I jist don't know if I'd do a good job and all…"

    In truth, Lexie told me later, Wanda was scared to be in a room with a dead person. She only agreed to do it in the end 'cause Mz. Thompson didn't want no strangers touching Carolee that didn't have to and Wanda got a bigger heart than a scared heart and went on down to that funeral home and done it. Made Carolee look like an angel, she did. When we all showed up for the wake, Carolee's blonde hair was spread out all nice on that white satin pillow. Wanda put these cute little ringlets all around Carolee's face as a finishing touch. It looked real special, and I told Wanda so in front of everyone there. And I asked her to do mine like that in case I died 'fore her. She got mad and told me to hush up. Fancy that. Here I was giving her a compliment even. Mama grabbed my arm and had me sit down. Reverend Sims was in North Carolina visiting his sick mama, so this other preacher who wasn't a member of our church started the service with us singing "Shall We Gather at the River." Carolee didn't much like that song. I told that preacher before the service we should sing a marching song, but he wouldn't listen.

    "'When Johnnie Comes Marchin' Home' is her favorite," I told him.

    "Well," he said, "that's not even a church song."

    "Well, it's a song," I said. "I reckon it'll be okay."

    He ordered me to sit down pronto. Fancy that. It's her church. It's her favorite song and it's her funeral! Nasty old man.

We was gonna be nine years old that spring Carolee got killed. Me and her was just playing at the creek days before, throwing small branches from the chinaberry tree into the water, watching them float along, guessing whose would reach the bend in the stream first. We'd gathered up a passel of them fallen twigs, some as long as our arms. We stirred up a batch of mud cookies with one of them when we got tired of tossing 'em in the river.

    We had ourselves a tea party on the grassy bank. Spread everything out nice like. Even invited John Benjamin. He was the only boy we let play with us 'cause he was real nice. Didn't tease us or pull our hair none. He was real polite and brought us flowers even. He was a whole lotta special things to us, he was. Only one thing wrong with John Benjamin. We made him up. But we pretended we hadn't whenever he was around. Treated him just like a regular person, hoping someday he might be. We told him how tall he'd grown and how handsome he was. That always made his cheeks red. I could see him there plain as pie, scraping the toe of his boot on the ground, his hands dug down in the pockets of his overhauls.

    The day of the funeral we all went to the cemetery after the service. I stayed behind when everyone left. I told Mama I'd walk myself back home. She didn't mind none. She knew how sorrowful I was, Carolee being my best friend in the whole world and no one ever gonna be just like her ever again. I went off to find John Benjamin. It helped some being with him. Mostly the loneliness followed me around that summer. It was a root wrapped around my sadness, a stone that lay flat in my belly everywhere I went. It felt cold down there when I swallowed, even when I slurped down the chicken soup MeeMaw always said could warm the devil's innards.

    When a memory of Carolee planted itself in my head, it cut like a knife that slashed clear down to my chest. Nothing really helped it. Crying come easy, though. Seems tears was always spilling out of me like a water can sprung extra leaks.

    "Carolee would be right sad to see you so sick at heart, Lori Jean," Mama said. "She'd want you to go on up to the cemetery and make peace with her, she would."

    That's what I set out to do three long weeks after she left us. I picked a passel of wildflowers for her. I took 'em and scattered 'em all across her grave spot. Carolee loved wildflowers. I'd gone down to the creek earlier that morning and mixed up a batch of them mud cookies she loved so much, too. They was in my pocket. Some of them got broke apart on the way back to the cemetery, but I put 'em all out for her anyway, next to the flowers.

    "Carolee, kin ya' hear me?" I asked. She didn't answer none.

    "Kin ya'?" I kept talking to her, thinking she might still could.

    "I know you're loving me back from heaven isself 'cause you said you would at your party that day. 'Member?" I laid out the mud cookies in a little circle for her. I put a daisy over the top of 'em. It looked right pretty. I hoped real hard she could see it.

    "John Benjamin's here. See?" I held out his hand.

    "My mama said you wouldn't want me to go around sad all the time. She said that'd make your heart cry. I figure she's probably right 'cause you was the kind of friend that always did nice things for me." I sat down next to her grave spot and settled in.

    "I want you to know, Carolee, things won't never be the same now you're gone. But what I'm fixin' to do is not be too sad, okay? Just sorta sad. So when you see me smiling don't think I'm not missing you something awful 'cause I am. It's just I don't want your heart crying as bad as my heart's crying. Okay?" Me and John Benjamin got up to leave.

    "And we're gonna bring you mud cakes and wildflowers every day, hear? 'Less it lightnings real bad, then we can't 'cause I best not chance getting 'lectrocuted." I patted the dirt spot where I figured her head was.

    "Okay, then. We'll see you tomorrow."

    I grabbed a few of them mud cookies. I decided to take them down to the creek in case she showed up like angels do. I knew she'd miss Roseflower Creek. It was our favorite spot. I wanted her folks to bury her there with Rose's flowers all around her, but they got some rule against it. Too bad, 'cause Carolee would of liked that much better. I knowed for a fact she'd of rather been over at the creek than up there in that old cemetery smack in the middle of them dead folks.

On the last day of school we always got out early and the year Carolee wasn't with us no more wasn't any different. I come down the road towards our porch and Carolee's daddy, Mr. Thompson, was pulling up in his truck ahead of me. He jumped down off the floorboard and propped hisself up on the one crutch he was still using for his bad leg got hurt in the accident and called out for Ray.

    "Ray Pruitt!" he yelled. The curtains moved, but Ray didn't answer.

    "You're in there!" Mr. Thompson thundered. "Don't be hidin' like no lily-livered woman."

    "I'll fetch him for ya', Mr. Thompson," I said. I caught him unawares and he spun around.

    "Lori Jean! You ought still be in school. This here's menfolk business."

    "It's the last day, Mr. Thompson," I said. "We always get out early, 'member?"

    "No—I—I don't rightly…"

    Ray come out on the step.

    "Wha's ya' want wi' me?"

    He about fell off the porch. He reeked of liquor. He started back on that stuff the night of Carolee's funeral.

    Mr. Thompson spat some words at Ray I couldn't quite make sense of. Then he grabbed a hold of the porch frame with one hand and swung his crutch wildly at Ray with the other. Ray didn't move fast enough and it caught him on the side of his head. Mr. Thompson was a really big man, bigger than Ray even. He had hisself fists the size of iron skillets. His muscles even bulged through his shirt all by themselves. The crutch knocked Ray to the ground. Blood was pouring out of his ear. Mr. Thompson stood over Ray.

    "You killed my girl."

    "Yer' crazy!" Ray shouted back. He scurried along the ground away from Mr. Thompson's boots. Mr. Thompson stuck his crutch under his arm and hobbled after him. Once he caught up to him he leaned down on his crutch and kicked Ray hard in the stomach with his good foot.

    "Git up!" he said, but Ray curled into a ball like a possum. Mr. Thompson kicked him again. Ray moaned.

    "Mr. Thompson! Mr. Thompson!" I called out. He looked up at me like he'd forgotten I was there.

    "Ray's drunk, Mr. Thompson. It wouldn't be no fair fight now, would it?" Mr. Thompson's eyes was looking at me, but even so they was far away.

    "Mr. Thompson?" I said. "Mr. Thompson?" He didn't answer me none. He just lumbered on back to his truck.

    "He killed my girl. He killed my girl," he muttered. Then he climbed in that truck and drove away.

    That's when I knew in my heart that what I didn't want to believe was possible probably was. Ray used my frame to get to his feet. He pulled on my arm, got up on one knee, placed a hand on my shoulder and pushed hisself upwards onto his feet. He staggered forward and lost his balance. He wobbled back and forth like a china plate spun on a stick. He toppled to the ground and pulled me with him.

    I pretended to wipe the sweat from his face and he let me, but really I just smeared that blood comin' out of his ear all over him. I ground it in real good with the dirt and grime. It belonged on him. It sure did, so I squished that blood round some more on his face. It fit him, all right. You might not could see it, but blood was all over his hands, too. Carolee's blood.

    "Thank ya', Lori Jean, honey," he blubbered. "Thank ya'." If he only knew, but he was too drunk to know anything.

    But I knew. I knew Ray didn't fix that tractor right. And I knew Mr. Thompson was right. Ray killed Carolee. He may not of meant to, but he killed her just the same. When I looked over at Ray staggering to his feet, holding his belly, blubbering like a baby, my heart shoulda went out to him. But it didn't. There was no love left in it for him. There was just a deep sadness. Everything I wanted was gone. Everything. How could we ever be a family now?

After that, Ray mostly did odd jobs and drank whiskey every night when he finished up. Mama kept on working for Mz. Hawkins and did laundry for some of the town folks. It kept us going. Ray managed to stay halfway sober for their wedding anniversary. They went to the May Day dance and he even brought my mama flowers when she was getting ready. She looked real pretty. Did her hair special and wore the ice blue dress she wore when the preacher married them in the church garden two years back. After the barn dance that night Mama went over to help Lexie with the kids. Irl, he was terrible sick and Lexie was a frettin'. Melvin come over to our place to set with Ray. Mama thought maybe that way he wouldn't get too drunk while she was gone. I went to bed, but had a hard time falling asleep. I was thinking back to how everything had changed on me the last two years. MeeMaw dead and gone to heaven. Ray moving in and marrying Mama. Carolee killed dead. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for myself, I was. I heard Melvin and Ray talking through them paper walls.

    "You made darn near ninety days, Ray. You coulda made it."

    "Leave me be," Ray said. I heard the clinking of glass. He was pouring hisself another drink, most likely.

    "It's a fact. You were doin' good!"

    "Hhhmmmmm," Ray mumbled.

    "Thompson's left the mill. Talk is he's takin' to drinkin' himself since the accident. I about got the fella took his place to give you a second chance, Ray."

    "Fat chance a' that happenin'. The whole town's against me," Ray said.

    "What's eating you? You got something to hide?" Sounded like Melvin was goading Ray good and that weren't like him.

    "Who says I'm hidin'?" Ray said. "I'm drinkin'."

    "What's got you drinkin' again? What'd you do, Ray?"

    "Go on," Ray said. "Get on outa here."

    "Talk is, you left parts on that tractor after Thompson give you money to buy new ones with," Melvin said. "That be a fact, now, Ray? Huh?" I didn't hear Ray answer.

    "Talk is, you took that money, kept it for yourself, rigged that tractor. Killed that poor little girl…"

    But Ray weren't listening. He just butted right in and damned Melvin to hell and used God's name to do it. And he said that real bad word rhymes with duck, too! That very one Mama said
ever
come outa my mouth, I'd be blowin' soap bubbles 'til I was dead or ninety, whichever got here first.

    I heard a crash.

    "Now, what you go and do that for, huh?" Melvin called out. "Now all your liquor's gone."

    "You son of a bitch!" Ray yelled. I come flying out of the back room in time to see Ray take a full swing at Melvin. Melvin put up his arm and blocked it. He shoved Ray backwards. Ray tripped over his boots laid out on the floor and fell against the chair used to be my pa's and Ray'd claimed as his a long time back. There was a large splotch on the far wall where the liquor bottle had shattered. Pieces of glass was strewn all along the floor. The brown liquid left tracks on the cracked yellow walls where it made its way to the floor. Another mess for me and Mama to clean up, and no money for paint even.