Ruby (25 page)

She had never looked once at Celia.

Ephram took the bag from Gubber without saying a word and changed quickly. A pair of dress shoes was missing, so Ephram kept his on. Ruby walked closer. Gubber stood between both of them.

Chauncy called from outside, “That fool coming?”

Gubber hollered back, “Directly.”

As the two men reached the porch, Ephram turned and looked at Ruby. The pain rose to his chest, making his breath shallow. She seemed as small as a child, standing in bare feet.
Questions were written on her face that he did not know how to answer. But his eyes softened and in spite of the fear corded through his belly, he couldn’t help a smile stealing across his face.

He said, “Want me to pick up something on my way back?”

Ruby knew it was his way of telling her he was returning.

When he added, “Ice cream?” it felt like a declaration, an announcement that this was a place where laughter had plenty of water to grow, a bottomland for hope.

Ruby answered, “That would be nice.”

Gubber nudged Ephram. “Come on, man.” There was a general rustling outside.

Ephram then asked, “What flavor?” and something shifted inside of Ruby.

The idea of ice cream was more than she could imagine; choosing a flavor was like eating too much stuffing at Thanksgiving. She felt bloated and slow—suddenly exposed, instantly in danger.

Like a blast of heat burning through her, it was suddenly too much, this constant, unrelenting kindness, the gentle in the center of his eyes that never slipped and fell. His attention had filled the shallow bowl she’d set aside for joy. In that moment it cracked.

She leapt up, went to Ephram and kissed him, full on. Her hand sliding behind his neck, pushing her body against his, tongue down his throat.

Then she said, face inches from his, “Chocolate be nice.”

She did all this before God, her babies and a pack of wolves. Although Ephram was more than a little surprised, Ruby could feel the men in the yard, their hunger rising, as if she were a wounded fawn.

The pack took it in, then, escorting a dazed Ephram, moved
away in unison. They pushed him towards the front. It was Chauncy who trailed behind, his eyes burning like a branding iron over her body. They landed upon her face.

Ruby looked right back at him, not saying a word.

Chauncy paused for another beat, long enough for Ephram to turn around. The men, then, walked down the red road, Chauncy uncharacteristically quiet as Ephram dropped flecks of red dust like bread crumbs along the way.

T
HE BODY
of Junie Rankin was already laid out from the wake. The one person oblivious to the doings across town, Junie rested stiffly, a grin curling about his peachy lips, his wool navy duster and wing tips pressed and buffed to a shine. While everyone at the wake the night before had agreed that the Edwin Shephard’s Mortuary/Ambulance Service always did a fine job, they worried about Junie going to his maker in August wearing wool. Chauncy had said that the Lord might take one look at him sweating and heaving and think to send him where he might fit in better. But as it was Junie’s best suit and duster, everyone finally agreed that the Rankins and the funeral home had come to the right decision. Supra had put a small Bible into the casket with him just to keep on the safe side. This Monday the mortuary was represented by the junior, not the elder, Shephard. A slight, algae brown man with a drawn mustache, Edwin Shephard Junior bent low over Junie’s shrunken form, reapplying a dusting of Max Factor’s Fancy Pink blush. The Shephards were proud to be one of only two all-purpose ailment-to-bereavement transportation services for Negroes in the Liberty, Shankleville and Jasper area, answering police dispatches or personal phone calls when a loved
one was in need of hospitalization, and then, depending upon the critical nature of the emergency, taking them to whichever destination was required, ER or the mortuary.

Several of the Church Sisters were plucking out the wilted flowers from last night’s arrangements and peeking to see who’d spent what and who’d gone and cheated Junie out of his floral due. Righteous Polk and her sister Salvation had had conference with Celia Jennings at the break of day. They had sat in prayer and then helped her bring her pies, figs and cakes to Supra Rankin’s home for the reception, where they had been added to the double-sided mountain of food that would become an avalanche after the burial. Now the two Polk women worked to add the perfect touches for the upcoming service. Righteous scooped a cup of pastel mints and poured them into the plastic crystal dish in the women’s lavatory. Righteous tried on the face she would use when she fell out at the casket. When she had it just right she thought about what Sister Celia had said that very morning and knew that Celia was correct. It was fine to pray and mission folks in times of weak trouble, but when a wave was about to crash down on a person’s head, that person would be a fool to hold out a flimsy umbrella. Serious action was needed, of that Righteous was sure.

It had been seven years since they’d had a case this bad—her own beloved daughter Honey, who had always had a sweet nature, until she rejected the church after getting pregnant by that Reverend Swanson. Righteous had tried to help Honey understand the nature of man and how it’s a woman’s job to hold herself above that nature, and then if she can’t, to find forgiveness, especially for a man of God. But Honey had left the church anyway and the trouble started. She’d abandoned her own little boy, run off far from home and moved in with a female abomination of God,
which had to be due to the drugs she must have been taking to do it. Righteous and her Church Sisters had done their very best by tricking her home with a story that Righteous was in failing health and then had taken Honey into the storm cellar, held her down and prayed over her for fourteen hours straight, not giving her leave to eat or evacuate her body, until she’d cried out for Jesus and spoken in tongues and had been welcomed back into the fold. But just like in Matthew 12:43, the unclean spirit left her, took tea in Hades, then came back with seven of his friends and possessed her again until the poor child drove that female abomination’s car straight into a sixteen-wheeler two days later. No matter that people said the girl couldn’t stop crying and drinking and crying some more, Righteous knew it was her own fault. The whole of the congregation’s fault for not working harder to redeem her soul. Righteous tried her mournful face on again and was surprised to see the wetness of tears shining in her eyes. She quickly wiped them and went to join her sisters.

People started trailing into the church a little after noon, in order to get the good seats. Those closest to the casket and the family went first. Second were those next to Righteous Polk, as she always fell out with such grandeur and delivered dramatic screams and carryings-on both to and from the coffin. Celia arrived only fifteen minutes early with the certainty of one who knows her seat will be held for her. An eager group crowded near her, the clear star of the event until the Rankins arrived. Celia had chosen a simple black crepe skirt and jacket with a shiny teal mandarin collar blouse, pill box hat with a black rhinestone flourish. Her eyes kept flashing to the church door anticipating Ephram’s entrance. The men and women surrounding Celia let their eyes fly after hers like gnats over sugar, eager to alight at the very moment of contact.

She did not have long to wait. Ephram Jennings, who had milled outside as long as possible, stepped into the church that Monday afternoon and stood unguarded at the sanctuary doors. Celia shot tacks at him then made a big show of putting her hand over her eyes and turning away. Ephram, a riot of nerves and pitted fear, felt as if he’d been hit with buckshot. The crowd feasted upon this sweet exchange. Ephram absorbed the stares and walked into the church, tracking the powder from Ruby’s, now wedged like glue into the tread of his shoes.

The Rankins, save Chauncy, who’d volunteered to retrieve Ephram, arrived in two baby blue stretch limousines hired all the way from Leesville. They crowded the doorway so Ephram cleared the way and let them pass. Despite the magnificence of their funereal finery, the black plume feathers in Supra’s hat, the pressed straightness of the women’s hair and the men’s good suits, despite the severity of mourning painted on the faces of his kin, the tears already washing down Verde’s slick cheeks, the genuine beauty of the seven Rankin brothers, and the heaving sobs of Junie’s wife, Bessie, when Ephram sat down in the back and not in the seat next to Celia that he’d shared for two decades, the whole of the parlor turned first to Ephram and then to see how Celia took it. They found her with eyes closed in prayer.

Folks said later that the funeral of Junie Rankin was a good testimony to his life. It wasn’t the best they’d seen, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. The Rankins from out of town did find it a bit strange when the Pastor mentioned how glad he was that Junie had never been vexed by Jezebels or demons or lunacy. Everyone from Liberty had just turned around again and stared at Ephram Jennings for a beat. As the singing commenced, women fell out and had to be helped up. Men clapped and sang “Seraph!” Righteous
Polk did not disappoint and fell out so many times, shaking and weeping with such ferocity, that she had to be tended to in the Pastor’s office by the recently widowed Deacon Charles. At the casket the competition had been fierce over who loved Junie the most, his wife, Bessie, or his sister, Petunia. Wail landed upon wail, followed by the thrashing and beating of flesh. Junie’s framed photograph, the easel it was set upon, and two floral arrangements featuring calla lilies were casualties of the fierce rivalry. The service ended with no clear winner.

Ephram felt faint and his stomach flipped as he rose with the rest of the pallbearers, Chauncy, Percy, Gubber, Charlie and Sim Rankin. He took his place on the back left corner as all six men heaved poor Junie up and onto their capable shoulders. Ephram felt Celia boring into him the whole of the journey down the aisle, but some unnamed will would not let him meet her gaze. He left the church and climbed into the hearse with the rest of the men.

Then his bones began to tingle.

Edwin Shephard Junior drove them the four miles to Liberty Township Cemetery, where they unloaded the casket and carried Junie down to his plot. Edwin fiddled with the burial area while the six pallbearers walked into the heart of the graveyard to wait for folks to arrive. Between the family processional out of the church, the refixing of makeup and rearranging of undergarments, the heaving and sitting and gathering of strength and arranging themselves in limousines, the men had at least an hour of waiting ahead of them.

As soon as they had settled themselves on tombstones for a smoke, Ephram slipped his coat on and began walking down the hill, bound for Bell land.

Percy Rankin spit out, “I wouldn’t go nowheres if I was you
until you get that meeting with Celia done and finished. Don’t want nothing to happen to that gal.” Ephram turned around, a weak terror gripping him, and rejoined the group.

Chauncy Rankin took off his jacket, looked at Ephram and busted out laughing. He laughed so hard he all but fell out on the ground then kept right on laughing. Side-splitting, tears-streaming-down-his-cheeks, ripping belly laughs. Percy and Sim turned away smiling as Chauncy quieted for a second, climbed his way up a tombstone, glanced back at Ephram and fell back to the ground howling.

Caught between shame and fear, battling the tingling in his joints and the flipping of his stomach, Ephram did not ask the question Chauncy’s actions begged him to ask:
What you laughin’ at?

Finally Chauncy caught his breath and between gasps said, “Ooooooh, man! Ooooooooo, man, I ain’t laugh that hard since Gubber passed out and wet hisself at Bloom’s last month.”

Gubber spat out, “Only after y’all fool niggas stuck my hand in warm water whiles I’m asleep.”

“I ain’t saying who stuck what where, but
damn
, that was almost as funny as this here. What in God’s name Ephram Roosevelt Jennings be thanking playing house with that, that—” Then he was off again, spitting out between guffaws, “Oh Lord!” and “Help me, Jesus!” until it became contagious and Percy and Sim let loose as well, followed by Charlie and finally, at long last, Gubber, the men giving one another fraternal handshakes and soldierly pats on the back. The cackling built like a storm brewing. When Chauncy had the pack of them howling and snapping, he grew quiet and glared at Ephram Jennings.

“Man, you should be ’shamed.”

Ephram kicked his feet into the ground and to his great
shame said nothing. His stomach still turning. A little roll of thunder played in the distance.

“You a pitiful thing” was the worst Chauncy could think to say, but his eyes betrayed far more. Chauncy looked at Ephram with the utter disbelief that such a man could exist in their midst.

Then, leave it to Gubber: “Aw he ain’t no different from us; we all looking for a woman just like our mama.”

The crowd paused for a moment, deciding whether or not to draw blood.

Sim looked at Chauncy, then put the edge of a knife in his words, “My mama got straight teeth so I can’t abide a gal with a crooked mouth, likewise Ephram wouldn’t know what to do with no sane gal who keep her clothes on come Easter.”