Precious Bones (24 page)

Monday morning I was up and ready to go. On the bus ride to school, Little Man brought me up to date on everything I had missed for nearly the past two weeks. And from the sounds of it, I had not missed much.

When I walked into the classroom and handed Miss Watts all my schoolwork, she said, “Why, Bones, I am so proud of you. Not everyone could catch up on this much missed work. I’m glad you are back with us. Everyone missed you.” She looked out over the classroom. “Isn’t that right, class?”

Everyone answered in unison, “Yes, ma’am, Miss Watts.”

I looked down at my shoes and mumbled, “Thank you, ma’am, I’m glad to be back, too.”

I turned and walked to my desk, and my eyes bumped straight into Betty Jean Davis. I was almost glad to see her until she stuck her pointed pink tongue out at me.

When I got home that afternoon, Nolay and Mama were sitting on the living room couch. Mama told me, “Bones, go
change out of your school clothes. Then come in here. We have something to talk to you about.”

I was curious but quickly ran to my room, took off my dress, and slipped into my dungarees. I went into the living room and sat in Mama’s childhood rocking chair. There was a mistiness floating around Mama’s face. When Nolay looked at me, his eyes were the dull blue of a rain cloud.

He took a deep breath. “Bones, I got something to tell you. And I wish I didn’t, but I gotta tell you. This morning Mr. Speed passed away. He died.”

I cocked my head. “Nolay, are you lying to me?”

“No, Bones, I ain’t lying.”

“Are you telling me a tale, then?”

“Bones, I ain’t lying. I ain’t telling you a tale. I sure wish I was. But I ain’t. His mama and daddy sent word this morning.”

I slowly stood up and looked at both of them. Nolay’s blue eyes stared down at the floor, but Mama’s green ones looked straight at me, all soft and shimmering, like the surface of a lake.

“Well, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a word you’re saying. Mr. Speed is coming home. You promised. You promised he would be back home soon. I should have known better. All you do is lie to me.”

Nolay raised his head and looked at me. I could see that my words had cut into him like little daggers.

I walked to my room. Nippy was asleep in Pearl’s old box in the corner. Now that autumn was on us, she slept most of the day and prowled most of the night. I picked her up and lay
down on my bed. I hugged her warm furry body close to me. She looked at me with glassy black eyes and placed her little humanlike hands on my face. Safe in my arms, she began to purr like a contented kitten.

A crushing feeling wrapped around me like a snake, till I could hardly breathe. Right then and there, I decided to build a protective cocoon. I would build it just like I had watched the caterpillars do. I would start at my feet, spinning and twisting, strand by strand, right up over my head. It would be so strong that nothing could get inside. Not sadness, not memories, nothing painful. It would be invisible, and it would keep me safe.

The next afternoon, Mama was taking a platter of food over to Mr. Speed’s house. “Bones, would you like to come with me?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t want to go over there.”

“You know, it might be good if you visited with Mr. and Mrs. Ball. Sometimes it helps being with people who feel the same as you do.”

“I don’t want to go. I don’t want go over there.”

“I know your heart is broken, Bones. I wish I could make it all go away, but I can’t.”

The rest of the week, Little Man and I sat on the school bus together, not saying a word. Our grief and unspoken words piled up like two ragged mountains with a deep valley running between them. Before I got off the bus on Friday, he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow at the funeral, Bones.”

Saturday morning Mama came in my room. “You can wear your dungarees if you want.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Bones, I know you are suffering. We all are. I wish you would talk about it.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

When we drove up to Bethany Baptist Church, we could hardly find parking. At the front door we were bathed in the rich sounds of church hymns. Before I entered I took a deep breath and squeezed my arms around my chest to make sure nothing could seep through my cocoon. I walked in between Nolay and Mama. Little Man sat with his family in one of the pews. We glanced at each other. His face was flushed, like he had been at the beach all day, and his big brown eyes were rimmed with red.

Sitting at the end of that same pew was the huge body of Sheriff LeRoy. He had his uniform on, but his Stetson sat in his lap.

The morning sun peeked through the small stained-glass windows, scattering broken rainbows across the room. A bronze-colored coffin surrounded by big bouquets of flowers stretched out in front of Preacher Jenkins’s podium. Like a giant pried-open clam, the coffin stood half open.

As we walked down the aisle, Mama slipped her hand in mine. I stood beside the coffin and poked my head up through my cocoon and looked inside. The top half of Mr. Speed rested on a puffy white cloud of cloth; he looked like he was taking a nap. His head was turned in such a way that it didn’t look lopsided anymore.

He was dressed in a fancy green army uniform. Brass buttons ran down the front, and two bright medals were pinned on the left pocket. A hat with a rim as shiny as a black mirror rested on his chest.

My eyes swept over his face, but I didn’t recognize him. It wasn’t Mr. Speed. It didn’t even look like him. The body laying in all that whiteness looked like a little girl’s doll. The skin was dull and waxy. It wasn’t real, wasn’t alive. This was nobody I knew.

I felt Mama squeeze my hand. Nolay placed his arm around my shoulders and gently turned me around. As we walked away, I saw Mr. Speed’s mama and daddy sitting in the front pew. I looked at their faces and saw that they had built cocoons, too.

I looked to the back of the church, where the beautiful music was coming from. One side of the church was filled with colored people. Dressed in their Sunday finest, they sat in chairs and stood along the walls. Like reeds blowing in a gentle breeze, their bodies swayed together as they sang and hummed hymns. Their voices floated out and filled the room with an unbearable sadness.

Nolay led us to a pew and I sat between him and Mama. Before long, Preacher Jenkins took his place at the podium and started to speak. “Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today to remember our beloved son.…”

That was all I heard. I closed my eyes and pulled deep inside myself. My mind wandered back to the Last Chance, to a time when me and Mr. Speed sat together on the bench. His lopsided head wobbled back and forth as he told me, “They
done made a camera that can take a picture without film; it’s called a Po-lee-roid. Yes, sir, a Po-lee-roid.”

“How can that be?” I said. “Where does the picture come from?”

“Pops right out the front on a little piece of paper, a little piece of paper.”

I laughed. “Now, that sure does sound interesting. I wish I could see one of those.”

A woman began to wail and I jolted back into my body sitting on the hard wooden pew at the funeral service. The sound, like that of a wounded animal, ripped through my cocoon. It grew and groaned up from a deep, dark place. A bottomless black pond filled with memories, a place where I did not want to go.

The wailing continued. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the hymns the colored people were singing fill my ears. Colored people didn’t attend white churches—they had their own—but I reckon Preacher Jenkins allowed them here today to honor Mr. Speed, and I sure was glad. Their voices blended and moved through the room like a soothing current of water.

I felt Nolay’s hand squeeze mine. When I looked up, the coffin, draped in an American flag, was being carried down the aisle by four men in green Army uniforms. Everyone got up and walked outside. We stood and silently watched as they slid the coffin into the back of a black hearse.

Sheriff LeRoy’s car was parked in front of the hearse. He opened the door, squeezed inside, put his flashing red light on, and led the way. We all got in our cars and snaked along behind
the hearse. I couldn’t stop my mind from thinking about why Sheriff LeRoy was here and not out doing his po-lease work. Why was no one in his rightful place? LeRoy should have been out hunting murderers, and Mr. Speed should have been sitting on his bench, not lying in a box.

Two chairs were in front of the grave site so Mr. Speed’s mama and daddy had a place to sit. We walked up and stood behind them.

The coffin was placed over a dark gaping mouth dug in the earth. Two soldiers lifted the flag off the coffin and carefully folded it into a perfect triangle.

One of the soldiers walked up to Mr. Speed’s mama and handed it to her, as gentle as though it were a newborn baby. She held it in both hands and clutched it to her heart. Mr. Speed’s daddy put his arms around her and the two of them curled into each other’s grief.

As I watched them, I realized something. That flag, folded in a triangle, was all that was left of their only child and one of my best friends.

The sound of a bugle broke the quietness. Its sad, beautiful notes felt like the fluttering of angel wings. The wings brushed and beat against the sides of my cocoon, trying to find a way inside. I threw my arms around Nolay and buried my face in his side.

On the ride back home, Mama wrapped her arm around me and kept saying, “It will be okay, Bones, it will be okay.”

But it wasn’t okay; my body felt like I had swallowed a rock and it was stuck in my heart.

When we reached home, I went to my room, strapped on my Roy Roger pistols, grabbed my .22, and tucked a sleepy Nippy under my arm. Nolay and Mama were in the kitchen. Nolay looked at me and asked, “Goin’ someplace?”

“Yes, sir, I’m leavin’, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Mama said, “Bones, you can’t run away from your feelings. Just sit down and we can talk about it.”

“Mama, I don’t want to talk about anything. I just want to go away and never come back.”

Nolay looked at Mama, then back at me. “Got anyplace in mind?”

“I don’t know. A secret place. I’m taking Nippy and Pearl with me. And Harry can come along if he wants.”

“How long you reckon you’ll be gone?”

“I don’t know. But I know one thing: I ain’t never goin’ to the Last Chance again. Never.”

“Well, I hope you won’t be gone too long, ’cause me and Mama sure would be lonesome without you.”

“I don’t care. I might never be back again.”

Outside I found Pearl resting under her favorite tree. Nippy finally woke up enough so I could put her on the ground. Harry pranced alongside Pearl as we walked toward the opposite side of the swamp. At the edge of the scrub pines lived a majestic old cedar tree. Nolay told me that his daddy had planted it when Nolay was just a little boy.

Like a green mountain, the top of the tree stretched toward the sky. Its heavy limbs cascaded down, almost touching
the ground. Under its fragrant branches, a smooth carpet of soft gray moss covered the earth. It was my secret place.

I crawled in and curled up against the huge solid trunk. Pearl grunted her little pig sounds and plopped down beside me. Nippy and Harry scrambled around, looking for something to eat. The soft shade folded around me and I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up to the wet noses of Paddlefoot, Silver, and Mr. Jones against my face. They wagged their tails and tripped over my legs. Mr. Jones stepped on Pearl. She let out a squeal, stood up, and head-butted him in the side. Through all the commotion, I thought I heard Mama’s voice outside.

“Bones, are you in there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is it all right if I come inside?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mama crawled under the branches and leaned up against the trunk beside me.

“How did you know where I was?” I said.

“The dogs always know where you are. I just followed them.” She looked around and took a deep breath. “This is a magical place, isn’t it?”

She reached over, wrapped both arms around me, and pulled me close to her, and just like that, the thin walls of my cocoon unraveled and spilled around me like useless threads. My body began to shake as the tears poured out. Mama squeezed me tight as I sobbed, “It ain’t fair. It just ain’t fair.
God is so mean; I’m so mad at him. And I’m so mad at Nolay. He lied to me; he told me nothing would happen to Mr. Speed. He promised he would be back home soon. He promised and now Mr. Speed’s dead and buried in a hole in the ground. And I won’t ever see him again.”

Mama gently rocked me back and forth. “Bones, I know you are hurt and angry. I know you want to blame someone. But you can’t blame your daddy. He didn’t cause anything to happen to Mr. Speed. You can’t blame God; you can’t blame anybody.”

“But why did God take Mr. Speed away? He never hurt anybody. He was my friend.”

Mama reached inside her pants pocket, pulled out a small white handkerchief, and gently wiped the tears from my face.

“And Mama, if God took Mr. Speed away, is he going to take Nolay away, too? Is he going to let him be put in the electric chair?”