Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (33 page)

door was opened with the flexed muscles of Miss Fanny’s fore-

arm coming toward us like Popeye’s.The same lady who ran the

Island’s little store was our sainted chauffeur. She leaned her

head sideways to greet us.

“Good morning! Come on now, let’s hurry up.You kids set-

tle down! Hey, Billy and Teddy! If y’all don’t settle down, I’m

gonna tell Father O’Brien!” She was yelling at the boys in the

back of the bus, who were knocking each other with their

lunch bags.“I swear to Gawd, them boys.”

I was the last to get on.

“Hey, Miss Fanny, how’re you?” I said.

“I’ll tell you how I am! Them crazy Blanchard boys gone

make me an old woman before my time!”

“Don’t let them bug you,” I said,“they’re jerks.”

They were still carrying on and one of the boys screamed.

In the next instant Miss Fanny was pissed off in purple.

“All right, that’s it! Teddy, Billy! Up to the front of the bus,

on the double,” Miss Fanny said. “You boys can lead the bus in

the rosary and if you even so much as twitch, you’re going right

to Father O’Brien when we get to school!”

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Taking the bus to school was an exercise in working off years

in purgatory. Every day, Miss Fanny led us in a decade of the rosary

as soon as we got over the Ben Sawyer Bridge. Every decade of the

rosary said is the equivalent of one hundred years off in purgatory.

If you say the Sorrowful Mysteries with the correct fervor, you get

a thousand years off.At least that’s what we thought.

“Let’s be quiet, y’all! Come on, let’s be quiet!” Miss Fanny

hollered.

We kept laughing and carrying on like a bunch of lunatics,

buoyed by the sugar of our morning dosage of Alphabits and

juice. I thought we prayed enough in school. But she was insis-

tent and she got madder and, like always, she started cussing.

“Y’all children! Dammit! If y’all don’t shut the hell up, I’m

gonna tell Father! Teddy! Billy! Y’all stand right there . . . in the

name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the . . .”

The prayers began at the top of her voice, and instantly we

all got quiet and prayed with her, snickering among ourselves

that prayer began with threats and curses.Today we said the Sor-

rowful Mysteries.

“Think about our dear Lawd, His momma at the foot of

His cross. Hail Mary, the Lawd is with thee, blessed art thou

among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

Miss Fanny led us, and the Blanchard boys stood there look-

ing pious enough to sprout halos.We knew they were trying to

make us all laugh. But we didn’t need them. All we had to do

was hear the word
womb
and it caused a surge of giggling. In her

fervor, she ignored us every time and continued.

“Holy Mary, mother of Gawd, pray for us sinners, now and

at the hour of our death. Amen.”

We said the fifty required Hail Marys, the four Glory Be’s

and were putting the serious hurt on a synchronized Apostles’

Creed when the bus rolled into the dirt parking lot under the

big live oak tree, dripping moss—with red bugs—and we scam-

pered out to go pray and study for the day.

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

Maggie was a big-shot tenth grader at Bishop England High

School and the rest of us were still sniveling runts at Stella Maris

Grammar School in Mount Pleasant. Still, she was forced to ride

the grammar school bus and another bus would take her to the

city. Although she was my best friend at home, on the bus she

sat far away from the rest of us, with other high school students,

and spent the ride silently looking out the window, rolling her

eyes and being serious.

It was my last year at Stella Maris and I couldn’t wait to get

out. At about ten o’clock, I had just begun a math test when

Father O’Brien came quietly into my classroom and whispered

to Sister Martha, my teacher.

“Susan Hamilton?”

“Yes, Sister?”

“You’ll go with Father O’Brien.Take your things with you.”

I fumbled around and gathered up my books. Nothing was

worse than being sent to Father O’Brien. He was all business and

had no tolerance for children.Why somebody like him was the

principal of a grammar school was merely another mystery of

the Catholic Church. The scuttlebutt on him was that he had

once studied with the Jesuits.That alone says it all.

“What about my test?” I asked.

“You can take it later.”

“Come along now,” Father O’Brien said.

“Thank you, Sister,” I said.

Every eye in my class watched me leave. What had I done?

Or was it Henry? Timmy? Did Maggie’s bus get in a wreck? I

worried all the way down the hall and to his office, where

Timmy and Henry were seated on a bench in the outer office,

terrified.They got up and we all went inside.We stood in front

of his desk and he sat in his chair.

“Children, I’m afraid I have some very sad news to tell y’all.

Your grandfather Mr. Asalit passed on this morning.”

“You mean he’s dead?” Henry asked.

“Son, only his body is dead; his soul now radiates with the full

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221

glory of the risen Christ. Surely you remember your catechism.”

Timmy and Henry started to cry and I stood stunned, just

staring at Father O’Brien.Then I put my arms around them and

reached for the tissues on Father’s desk.

“This is no time to indulge yourselves with tears. Pray that

his soul makes a swift journey to the Lord’s bosom and save your

strength to support your mother and grandmother. Remember,

this is your momma who’s lost her daddy and your grandmother

has lost her husband.”

Tears rolled down my face without a sound. I didn’t know

what to do, none of us did.We just stood there, time not passing,

waiting for some comfort. Shaking, scared and crying.

“Can I call my momma?” I asked.

“No, let’s not bother her. Your Aunt Carol is on the way

here to bring y’all home. She’s going to pick up Maggie first.

You may make a visit to the chapel to pray for your grandfather

and then you can wait on the bench outside if you’d like.”

“In the school yard?”

“Yes.”

Permission to wait in the school yard unsupervised was a

monumental event. I grabbed a fistful of tissues and led my little

brothers out.

First we peeked in the chapel and no one was there, except

for the light on the altar indicating the presence of the Eucharist

in the tabernacle.As fast as we could, we scampered to the front,

did a bounce genuflect in front of the altar and hurried to the

statue of the Blessed Mother. Her empty plaster eyes stared at

me and her half smile seemed like a smirk. It gave me chills. As

the oldest, I reached under the tray of candles for the matches

and lit three candles, one for each of us. I made the Sign of the

Cross and knocked Timmy and Henry in the ribs, encouraging

them to do the same.

“Dear God,” I said, “please take Grandpa Tipa straight to

heaven and not anyplace else. He was a good grandpa and a good

man. And he had plenty of reasons to be such a grouch. Also,

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please help Grandma Sophie and our momma not to go crazy

from this.Amen.”

“Amen,” my little brothers said.

We got up and hightailed it out of there. Empty churches

gave me the creeps.

The ride with Aunt Carol was like a disjointed dream. She

yammered on in a nervous monologue about what we should

wear and who would be coming and that we had to be quiet when

we got home.As we passed people on the street, going about their

lives, I wondered if they could tell our lives had just been blown

open by death. Could they see it on our faces? Henry continued to

cry and all Aunt Carol would say was,“There, there now.”

When we reached the Island Gamble, Livvie was standing

on the back steps in the sunshine waiting for us. She took one

look at us and opened her arms.“Come ’eah to Livvie. He gone

be all right. Everything gone be all right.”

Each one of us hugged her with all our might.The strength

of her arms healed me on the spot.When she saw the fear in our

faces transform from fright to calm, she released us, one by one.

“Go on now and kiss your momma and grandmomma and

then y’all come back ’eah to me. Maggie, see about them twins,

all right, chile?”

“Sure,” Maggie said.

We went inside and left Livvie with Aunt Carol on the back

steps. Aunt Carol was still talking, Livvie was shaking her head.

I found Momma in her bed with old Sophie sitting in a

chair beside her. Momma acted drunk but Grandma Sophie, like

the eighth wonder of the world, spoke.

“The doctor gave her a shot for her nerves,” she said.

Under the circumstances, Grandma Sophie seemed fine, bet-

ter than she had in my whole life. “Go and tell your aunt that I

want to speak with her, child, would you please do that for me?”

Timmy ran off for Aunt Carol and Henry and I followed

Sophie, who walked slowly back to her own room and crawled

up on her bed.

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“Come in! Come in! I won’t bite you!”We took baby steps

closer.

“I’m sorry you lost your husband, Grandma Sophie,” Henry

said, still crying.

“Well, somebody had to go first. Do you want a tissue? Go

get yourself one and blow your nose. I’m just sorry I wasn’t with

him in the end, that’s all.”

“What happened, Grandma? Is it okay to ask that?” I asked.

“He dropped dead on the floor of the post office, poor

thing. Had a heart attack and dropped dead. He’d gone to get the

mail, just like he always does. One minute you’re here, and the

next, poof ! Deader than Kelsey’s cow. Somebody pulled his plug.

I expect your father’s gonna throw me out now that I don’t have

Tipa to protect me. Susan, look in the top drawer and see if you

can find a pair of stockings for me.”

“Sure!” I opened the drawer and the stale scent of old per-

fume escaped.“Gosh, Daddy wouldn’t do that! Don’t even think

like that!” I found her stockings and gave them to her.

“Put them on the bed and find my robe. Oh, yes, he would!

Your father’s a hard man! How am I going to manage without

Tipa? He did everything for me! Where’s your aunt? I need to

talk to her about the funeral.Tried to talk to y’all’s momma, but

she’s in her bed, acting like she’s the only one who ever carried

a cross.” She cleared her throat with a terrible noise and spat in

a tissue.“Get me some water too,” she rasped.

“I’ll go find Aunt Carol,” I volunteered, anxious to get away.

“Be quick.We have a lot to do!”

“Yes’m.” I gave Henry a look, he shrugged his shoulders and

I took off to the kitchen.This had the earmarks of an interesting

saga.

In the kitchen, Livvie was talking to Timmy.

“This day we gone be busy as bees!” she said. “Susan! I want

you to come with me and we gone lay out clothes for all y’all

children to wear to the funeral home.Where the masking tape is?”

“What do we need masking tape for?” I asked.

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“You mussy be joking with Livvie now. Don’t you know

you can’t be having no kinda funeral without masking tape?

Come on, girl. Let’s get a move on.”

I asked Timmy to take the water to Sophie and left the

room with her.

“Sophie’s talking,” I said to Livvie.

“It’s shock,” she said.

“Probably,” I said.

“I gots to tell you a little something.”

I opened the door of the boys’ closet and pulled out two shirts.

“What’s up? How about these?”

“I seen something with my own eyes.”

“What do you mean? ’Eah’s two ties.This one has a spot.”

“Sit down ’eah for a minute,” she said, pointing to the bed.

“What?”

Livvie had the most peculiar look on her face.

“This morning when I came to work I was on the way out

to the porch to sweep. Mr. Tipa done gone to the post office.

Anyway, I seen something in the living room. It was a man.”

“Who?”

“I didn’t know at the time, but I’ll tell you this much, you

could pass your hand right through him!”

“What? A ghost?”

“Yes, ma’am. It was a haint as sure as any haint I ever seen in

my whole life.”

“Go on, Livvie, you’re putting me on.”

“No, ma’am, I am not! I was passing in the hall and I seen

this cloud in the big mirror. Cloud grew, took the shape of a

man and stepped out to greet me.”

“Are you serious?”

“As serious as I can be.”

“Tell me exactly what you saw,” I said, not believing a word.

“This man come out the big mirror and he wearing a hat

and a suit. I told him to go back to hell or wherever he came

from and don’t be bothering me or anybody in this family. I tell

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225

him we ain’t throwing no party and what does he want any-

how? Then he point to a picture of your grandparents and I