The Undertaker's Daughter (14 page)

Thomas would take me trick-or-treating later. He had his driver’s license now, though how he lived through our father’s driving lessons, I did not know. One day my father insisted that Thomas learn how to back the hearse into the garage. Thomas had a headache and told him he didn’t feel like it. But my father wouldn’t hear of it, so, bang, Thomas hit the wooden post inside the garage and peeled the chrome strip off the hearse. My father hit the roof, but Thomas just looked at him and said, “I told you I didn’t feel like doing it.”

My brother didn’t mind taking me places and doing things like making Chef Boyardee pizzas on Saturdays. I was impressed with the things Thomas could do. He studied all the time and read books about history and things I couldn’t pronounce. I was sorry he wasn’t coming with us. I knew that if he were to meet this
important lady, he would know exactly what to say to her—he was a born diplomat—and when we arrived home, some keen observation would spill effortlessly from him.

But I was relieved that Evelyn wasn’t coming. I’d never seen Evelyn with a book in her hand. She’d probably throw it at me, anyway. Once I stood at the doorway of her room while she practiced dancing to Motown records. When she saw me, she picked up a stack of 45s and threw them straight at me, then slammed the door in my face. Evelyn never missed a dance at Teen Town, a place that sounded exciting, but disappointingly was nothing more than a large room in a building where dances were held. It was the highlight of the weekend—for those who were allowed to dance. Whether dancing was evil was still debated with intensity in many homes.

My elder sister argued a lot and was never where she was supposed to be. The rule of being quiet seemed to be the only rule Evelyn was made to follow. She had to stop playing her records and dancing whenever we had a body, and I was secretly content that the house rule made her cross at something other than me.

“What about Jemma?” I held on to the kitchen counter while Belle tugged at my dress.

No, he said, and my mother wasn’t going either. She had just arrived home with a small, red package under her arm, which she quickly handed over to my father.

“You be good tonight and mind your daddy,” she said to me. Well, this was indeed strange. My father bit his nails and she straightened the bow on the back of my dress once more. They exchanged glances, and it seemed to me that an awful lot of fuss was being made over meeting this friend. I had no idea why, but I was certain that both my father and my mother wanted the meeting to go well.

Belle sat up front in the station wagon and I sat in the back, where I pretended to be chauffeured. Belle lived in the Bottom,
often referred to as Black Bottom. I thought it was an ugly name and I told her so. Well, she said, it’s the lowest point of Jubilee and that’s a fact. She was speaking geographically, but she also refused to think derogatorily of the Bottom. The Bottom was only a few blocks from Main Street. Everything in Jubilee was close to everything else, but invisible lines separated good neighborhoods from bad ones, black from white, doctors from nurses.

My father drove slowly down Fifth Street. Some of the houses looked like shacks with odd pieces of furniture such as beat-up sofas and chifforobes piled up on the front porches. Big, fancy cars hugged the curbs in front of most of the dilapidated houses. Belle complained about them.

“Humph. They all gots them big cars and big TVs, but they sho don’t paint they’s houses.”

Belle had no car, owned a small TV, and made sure her house always had a respectable coat of white paint.

We pulled up to her small clapboard house, neat and precise in its dimensions. The front yard smelled of freshly cut grass, and black iron pots of red geraniums flanked her front door. Belle wouldn’t let us walk her to the door. She was funny that way.

As she prepared to step out of the car, she asked, “You gettin’ up front wit yer daddy?”

“No, Belle, I’m staying in the backseat. He’s gonna chauffeur me.”

We waited for her to wave and disappear into her home.

We continued our drive through the Bottom and past the Lambert Funeral Home.

Tennessee Lambert was Jubilee’s sole funeral director to the black community. He did things his way, and families put their complete trust in him. The mourning period for one death could occupy an entire week at Tennessee’s funeral parlor. Three or four
days passed before arrangements were made, then visitation lasted for another three or four days. As caring as my father was, I don’t think he would ever have had the patience to support such extended mournings.

On the day of a typical funeral in the Bottom, Tennessee drove up to the front door of the bereaved in his big, pink Cadillac. Friends and relatives would gather outside the house and form a procession behind the car; most would be on foot. He drove slowly through the streets of the Bottom to his funeral home, pulling the congregation along with him. Singing, shouting, and arm waving dominated the scene as he paraded the family to their seats in the small parlor. No one was uncomfortable with passionate displays of emotion. The service carried a heightened sense of drama; color splashed from ladies’ large hats and men’s suave three-piece suits. Many people would pass out before the day was over, overwhelmed as they were with emotion and grief.

People assumed that Tennessee was loaded; the hoi polloi were certain that he lived the high life. After all, he owned the funeral business of the entire black community. People were wrong. Tennessee was always scrambling for money, trying to find a way to keep his business going. His community was poor, full of men and women who cut tobacco and cleaned buildings and homes, and most had no insurance or savings. Money trickled down through the years, but often he would not be paid. Tennessee never refused to bury anyone.

It was a secret to most people that sometimes my father drove over to Tennessee’s place and embalmed black people. When Tennessee was low on casket stock or was missing a particular color, he visited our funeral home to select one for his client. Many times when the delivery of a supply of some sort was late, my father would drive down to the Bottom and borrow what he needed from
Tennessee. The public did not know of this goodwill and sharing pact because both blacks and whites would have been appalled.

As we emerged from the Bottom, a short drive took us to the opposite realm of the residential spectrum and to the biggest, whitest house I’d ever seen. It made me feel like I didn’t know my neighborhood well because this house occupied half a block on Seventh and Winter Streets and I’d never noticed it. My father pulled right up into a small driveway on the side of the house as if he’d been there many times before. A black Batmobile was in the driveway.

“Whose car is that?” I asked.

“It belongs to Miss Agnes.”

“You know it looks like the Batmobile, don’t you?”

“It’s a 1960 Buick Electra 225. The interior is in perfect condition.”

“It has wings. It’s the Batmobile.”

“It’s a beauty.”

“It’s the Bat—”

“Hush.”

The blacktopped drive was nestled between immense evergreen trees and a tall, white stone statue of a demure-looking female stood on a lawn enclosed by cast-iron fencing.

“Before we go in, I want you to remember that Miss Agnes is half-deaf. She can’t hear thunder, so you’ve really got to speak up. Don’t touch anything unless she asks you to or puts something in your hands. And I’ve got something for you to give to her,” my father told me.

“What is it?”

He showed me the box my mother had brought home wrapped in fine red paper, even though it was Halloween and I thought it should have been orange paper.

“Red handkerchiefs. You’re to give them to Miss Agnes. Now we’re going inside to her kitchen. On Halloween she
decorates her kitchen and invites her farmers’ children to come and see it.”

“So there’ll be other children here?” I was trying to keep up.

“Well, no. Not while you’re here. They’ll come later and line up outside.”

I didn’t grasp why I was allowed this private audience with the Queen of Halloween. It made me a sweaty-palms kind of nervous. “Why aren’t Thomas and Evelyn with us? Don’t they want to see the decorations?”

“She just asked for you. Maybe they’re a little too old.”

Somewhat uncomfortably I followed my father to the back entrance of the mansion. The autumn light had faded and Halloween was to begin here, in a place unknown to me. There was no moon at all, and only the shrill sound of the katydids serenaded us to the door. The stiff dress and the fussing and perfecting of bows and hair left me feeling like a turkey at Christmas, trussed and ready for the big day.

When my father opened the back door, it jangled with so much racket that I covered my ears. I looked up to see several old bells hanging from the top of the door. They clanged again when my father closed it. I thought of Marley’s ghostly chains.

I looked for Miss Agnes. She didn’t come immediately.

We walked through a short hallway with white brick walls on either side. Plastic skeletons hung from the low ceiling; we moved through cobwebs as authentic carriage lanterns lit the way forward. Antique ceramic jugs lined both sides of the floor in the hallway like little soldiers guarding the path. Old horse bits and bridles, horseshoes, and blackened iron farming implements jutted out from the white brick walls as we made our way along the passage. We trod upon a worn Oriental runner under which I could feel the hard brick floor. The hallway was frigid. It was a
short, endless walk. I sure hoped my father knew what he was doing bringing me here.

She stood in the kitchen doorway in all of her red glory, clashing with the orange glow of the room behind her. My father had told me there was no one in Jubilee who could remember when Miss Agnes began to wear red and only red. I quickly drank her in. Even her stockings were red, and they fell around her skinny ankles like loose nylon bands. Her neck was wrapped in strands of red beads that fell to her ample but fallen bosom. Red bangles hung from her wrists, and her fists were planted firmly on her square hips. The sharp points of her flat leather shoes were aimed straight at me. Her shoes were . . . well, yes, red. She was smiling, but she was scary. I hoped that would change. Deafness was almost upon her now, and as she’d lost more and more of the sound of her own voice, the years seemed to have layered it with coarseness.

“Why, honey child, just look at you! Why, you just come right over here and see Miss Agnes.” She spoke so loudly I felt the vibration resonating in the room. She sounded like she’d been hitting the sauce—her voice was slurred and gravelly.

My father leaned over to me. “This is Miss Agnes Davis. Say hello to her.”

“Hello,” I said quite meekly. I knew exactly how Dorothy felt upon meeting the great Wizard.

“She can’t hear you, speak up.”

“Hi, Miss Agnes. Happy Halloween!” I screamed at her.

My father gently nudged me to approach her. As I stepped slowly with one foot in front of the other, she shuffled toward me, leading with her portly belly. How like a man she looked, a man with a penchant for women’s clothing. Her face was handsome in its features: dark, arched brows, a strong, straight nose, her lips and cheeks devoid of color. Her manner was supremely confident.
She had not a whisper of delicacy about her. Her eyelids drooped a little and turned down at the corners like a bloodhound’s, so that even though she smiled, and her eyes sparkled, I thought they looked a little sad. A crown of yellow hair, which some say was washed too infrequently, was piled around her head. She certainly did not join the beauty-parlor set who gossiped under the dryers. That wasn’t her style. She attended to her hair herself, and it seemed that she aimed for the top of her head when she fixed and fooled with it, but instead it fell around her ears in a wavy mass. Her hair was similar to the texture of a bird’s nest, with stray locks like twigs sticking out here and there.

“You’d think Miss Agnes would have plenty of bathrooms in that big ole house. My God, does she ever take a bath?” whispered the people of Jubilee. From that rumor that took hold easily as rumors usually did, the subject of Miss Agnes’s toilette hung in the air. Some people mistook different for dirty.

Miss Agnes was clean. I know this because when she bent down and squeezed me to her and gave me a peck on the cheek, I felt her soft face against mine and she smelled faintly of talc. I had developed a highly acute sense of smell—embalming fluid, refrigerated roses, Old Spice, and lavender water surrounded me daily. I knew what the earth smelled like six feet deep, so I was pretty sure I could pigeonhole an unbathed woman.

All of my preconceived notions vanished. Her face was warm and the saggy skin on her cheek was soft against my own. Her hair, when it brushed against the side of my face, felt cottony. It didn’t reek of hairspray and she wore no cheap perfume. The jacquard fabric of her dress, which initially looked coarse and stiff, was actually smooth and comforting when it folded around me in her embrace. She allowed a modicum of femininity to ooze out of her, perhaps carefully doled out for lack of a bigger supply.

Well, I thought. Since I had survived being so close to her, surely I could survive the rest of the evening.

“Come in. Come on in here, child. I want to show you all my things.”

I hesitantly followed her into the kitchen. I kept an eye on my father and hoped he would remember to instruct me should I violate some kind of protocol.

In the middle of the kitchen floor stood a harvest table heavily laden with so many items that it looked in danger of buckling from the weight. Windup toys noisily marched across the table while others stood silently waiting to be noticed. A pale-colored monkey wearing a square, red hat played a set of drums that were strapped to its chest. Tap, tap, tap, he drummed as his head moved from side to side. Several jack-o’-lanterns cast their rich, orange light over the room. Miss Agnes’s brown-spotted hand picked up a noisemaker from the table, the old tin kind with black cats and witches painted on it, and she twirled its wooden handle. It made a smaller noise than it should have and my father laughed. I laughed because he did and in relief that something horrid didn’t come from the strong shake she gave it.