Where is she? Rhonda say gone to glory, heaven, sitting at the feet of a king. Her crown is bought and paid for! All she gotta do is put it on! Mommy, a crown? I ask her one time why we ain’t had a princess like Diana? We spozed to be a democracy, Abdul! What’s that? What’s that! You ain’t studied democracy and why we vote and all in school? Nuh uh, I shake my head.
“‘Nuh uh’ what?” Rita ask.
“Nuh uh nothin,’” I say.
We cross Lenox Avenue at 134th Street. There’s a tall guy standing in front the laundrymat on the corner of 134th.
“That’s Hamid from Somalia, own the laundrymat. He knew your mami.”
“Sorry to hear she pass.” He nod at a bunch of people standing a couple of doors down on Lenox between 133rd and 132nd.
Rita squeeze my hand. “This her little son, Abdul.”
“You don’t say! How old is he?”
“Abdul?” Rita say, squeezing my hand. I don’t say nothing. “He’s nine,” she say. Somali guy reach in his pocket give me five dollars.
“What do you say, Abdul?”
“Thank you.”
Africans is where we come from, Abdul, remember that. How come they don’t like us? Whatchu mean? The ones in the restaurant and stores and stuff. Well, I didn’t say they liked us. I said it’s where we come from. The funeral home gots a cover over the door out onto the sidewalk, like what McDonald’s got across the street. “Whatchu call that?” “Huh? Oh, the awning. Is that what you’re talking about?” “Yeah, the awning.” My mother’s friend Rhonda is standing by us now. “Honey,” she say, “that’s one thing his mother did teach him, to ask questions!” I don’t like Rhonda all that much even if she is my mother’s friend. God, God, God, that’s all she talk about. Bible this, Bible that! Rhonda go in her handbag and hand me something warm wrapped in foil paper. “Eat this before you go in.” Ummm, beef pattie! “Whatchu say?” “Thank you.” Rhonda not so bad. When I go to put the foil in the trash can, it falls onto the sidewalk ’cause the can is so full. Oh well, I tried. You gotta do more than try! You gotta do it! I pick the foil up and put it on top of the heap of trash in the can.
“I gotta go,” I whisper to Rita.
“Bathroom?”
“Yeah.”
We walk up to the door of the funeral place. Rita tells the guy at the front door, “He gotta use the bathroom.” The guy opens the front door for me and says, “Go straight down the center aisle, at the pulpit go right until you see the green doors, that’s the bathrooms.” I run down the red carpet, then stop. Mommy! There she is! In that black box. Grown-ups lie and lie. Why? My mother is not in heaven. My mother is right here in a box like dead people on TV. She look different. I never seen that dress before, shiny white, silver. I see the moon and the moon sees me. I gotta pee bad! Well, for heaven’s sake go pee! But that’s me. Say it to me, Mommy, talk inside my head. Talk! I turn down the aisle and run to the bathroom. Pee and pee, feels good, shake. Put my penis back in my pants. Your private parts have names. Well, dick is one of ’em, but penis is another. Balls is testicles. I laugh, that’s the funniest thing I ever heard, except for buttocks. Ha, ha! Don’t worry about rememberin’ all those words, just remember your private parts are yours an’ no one is supposed to touch ’em ’less you say so, hear? Hear? I stare up at the ceiling light, squeeze my eyes shut. The light is red-orange through my closed eyelids. I breathe try to smell something, maybe like the smell after Mommy comes out the bathroom sometimes or how her underwears smell. Also that stuff Aunt Rita gots. What’s that, Ma? Oh, cologne, you like it?
“Abdul! Come out of there! Whatchu doin’?” That’s Rita outside the door. I smile. Ha, ha! Don’t move. “Abdul, are you finished? Don’t make me have to come in there.” I laugh. “Stop playing, silly rabbit!” Together we go, “Trix are for kids!” And I run out laughing. Rita’s standing there smiling, her black dress and red lips is pretty. Marks? Oh, that’s acne, probably from when Rita was a teenager. It’s actually the scars, she don’t have it no more, but she must have had it pretty bad once. But Aunt Rita’s still pretty, ain’t she, ’Dule? Rita hold out her hand. I take it, look up at her. “You’re pretty,” I say. She bend over kiss me. “And you’re just a sweet sweet little boy!” Tears from her eyes splash on my cheek. I smell her cologne, smell different from Mommy’s.
“Whatchu say?”
“Nothin’.”
“You said something about your mommy.”
“I can’t smell her no more.”
Rita look over at Mommy in the box. “Did you try?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t. You’re right, Papi, you can’t smell her ’cause it’s over. And if you touch her, it’s going to be different too. Precious is dead, Abdul, you understand what that means?”
“Yes.”
Rita takes my hand and we walk from the bathrooms back to where Mommy is. People coming in the church, down the aisles, sitting down.
“We gonna sit close to the stage?”
“Honey, that’s like a pulpit or altar.”
“And where Mommy’s box—”
“Don’t say ‘box.’ It’s called a casket, or some people say coffin.”
“I don’t understand what a funeral home is. This looks like a church to me.”
“This ain’t no church, it’s the chapel part of the funeral home. And we’re gonna sit right here.” A big old white lady in a green dress moves down so we can sit in the second row. The first row is empty. Who gonna sit there? No one. Rhonda is sitting behind us. I’m glad no one is in front of us, I can see Mommy better. The black box is long and shiny, curlicues on it, inside is a shiny white quilt. A little lamp is over her head. Everybody think she is dead. I mean dead dead. They don’t know she is talking to me all the time even though she is in the casket box not talking, not moving. Behind Mommy is a picture of Jesus. Black with curly hair. What’s lamb’s wool? She go get the comb out the bathroom, try to stick it in my hair. That’s lamb’s wool, silly! she says, pulling the comb through my nappy head. Jesus had hair like us? I don’t know, I’m just showing you what the Bible say. Is the Bible true? I don’t know. It’s kinda cold in the funeral home even if it ain’t cold outside. Flowers is all around Mommy, roses, lilies, flowers I don’t know the name of, maybe a thousand. I wonder what earrings she got on. I always like her earrings. I want earrings. When you’re twelve. I can get earrings? A earring. Huh? One. I want both! Stop screaming like you crazy! I tell you what, you can have one when you twelve, then if you still want two when you sixteen you can have two. How’s that? OK, I guess. Ha! You guess! Listen to you! Mommy, you gonna stay like that? Like what? Like in a box? Abdul, you know what Mommy being here means? No, I don’t know. NO!
“Shhh!” Rita rocks my shoulder.
I look behind Mommy at Jesus hanging on the cross. Thorns is sticking in his head, drops of blood is coming down his face. He was that color? What color? Black like they got him up there? I don’t know, Abdul! Behind Mommy is the stage kinda, podium, like in school, where the preacher gonna stand, I guess, then to one side of the podium is a piano and a bench. I want to hear some music but not church music. My mother don’t like no church music either! A lady in a long black preacher robe get up on the stage.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s Reverend Bellwether who gonna do the service.” A man follows behind Reverend Bellwether and sits down at the piano. Mommy’s casket is in front the stage on wheels like.
“Good morning, friends and family of Precious Jones. We’re gathered here together in sorrow for one who is no longer in sorrow, one whose pain has ended, one who has passed over to the other side.” The guy start playing the piano and singing: The storm is passing ovah, the storm is, the storm is, the storm is passing ovah.
I don’t know that song, I don’t like it. It’s sad and stupid; ain’t no storm.
“Would the family and friends of the family, starting with the last row, one row at a time, please rise and come forward
to view the deceased.” Reverend Bellwether wave her hand for people to get up, then she frown. I turn around to see what she’s looking at.
“Sit down!” Rita whisper, but she’s staring too.
“Is that the mother?” Rhonda ask.
“No, you’d know it if it was the mother. I seen her once, she take up the whole aisle.”
A old lady in a dirty orange dress is coming down the aisle moaning, “Oh Lawd, oh Lawd!” She got on a funny hat and her clothes is like from the olden days. She come up to where me and Rita are and reach over Rita and grab me. “Oh Lawdy Lawd, my baby.” Ugh! She smell terrible.
“Please!” Rita say.
“What the do-diddly!” Rhonda say, and take the lady’s arms from around me. A guy come up behind the old lady, take her elbow, tell her, “Let’s have a seat, ma’am.” She starts crying more crazy and tries to walk up to the casket. I look up at the Reverend look like her eyes gonna fall out her head. Rita looks back. “Speak of the devil!”
“Is that her?” Rhonda ask.
“Uh huh.” Rita nod.
A big big lady is coming down the aisle waving her hands screaming, “My BAABEE, My BAAABEEEE!” She so big she can almost touch both sides of the aisle. She got on a big black raincoat. Her hair is sticking straight up like on the cartoons when they put their fingers in the electric socket. Why is she screaming like that? I start crying. Crying and crying. Snot coming out, my teeth is chattering. She remind me of Channel Thirteen, elephants in Africa. A elephant gets killed, all its friends come out and shake the earth with they screaming.
“MY BAAABEEEEEEEE!”
“You know who that lady is?” Rita ask me.
“No.”
“You should tell him, Rita.”
“Enough already!” Rita tell Rhonda.
The lady stops screaming. She’s wringing her hands like she’s washing’em. Then she turn around mumbling. Her hair is smashed flat in the back, and there’s a bald spot. From the back you can see a big tear in her raincoat, look like she ain’t got nothing on under it, ugh! Her bedroom slippers going schlup-schlup down the aisle.
I look down at my shoes, my “good” shoes. Special occasions. When I was in the play at school, my mother bought ’em. I wore ’em when she took me to see Aretha Franklin at Lincoln Center. Remember what you seeing, Abdul. She’s the greatest. I wore ’em when we went to see Haitian people’s paintings at the Schomburg. At the Schomburg on the first floor there’s a circle made of gold stand for the world with blue lines through it for rivers. I read the poem written on the floor, “I’ve Known Rivers.” Underneath is Langston Hughes’s ashes. I look at Mommy, my shoes. I got these on today ’cause she’s dead. Not because I’m going anyplace. Who gonna buy me shoes now? I lean against Rita, I’m tired, I want to go to sleep.
“Sit up!” Rhonda hiss.
“He’s tired, he’s just a little boy.”
PING! go Rhonda upside my head with her forefinger and thumb like a slingshot. “Dis your mother’s funeral. Sit yourself up!”
“Would you let him be!” Rita’s mad.
“No, Rita, you wrong. He don’t need to sleep through this.”
“Sit up, baby.”
More people is coming down the aisle now. Ladies is crying. One lady is crying so hard she can hardly walk, two guys is helping her. “No, no,” she sobbing, “I don’t believe it.” I stop crying to watch her. Ha, ha.
“Lots of these people is from your mother’s job and from where she went to school. Some of them didn’t know she was sick.”
I knew she was sick, but not sick enough to die. What you do in college, Mommy? She laugh. Work, work real hard. I’m going there when I grow up? Of course. The old lady in the dirty orange dress who was hugging on me is creeping down the aisle now. Weird. Everybody sits back down.
Reverend Bellwether looks at us. “The family may come forward to view the deceased.”
“Deceased?” I whisper.
“Dead,” Rita say.
Reverend Bellwether is still looking at us. “Come on, baby, that’s what we came here for, to say good-bye to Precious. They gonna close the casket after this.” We walk down the aisle to Mommy. I like her dress, white, shiny. Her face looks funny, the way her lips is pressed together make her look like somebody else. Rhonda lean over and kiss Mommy. Then she come behind me. “You want to kiss your mudder good-bye?” Before I can say anything, she pick me up and lean me over the casket. I feel like my lips done bumped up against the water fountain at school, hard, cold. I start crying. Loud. Rita pull me from Rhonda.
“You shouldn’t have done that!”
Rhonda go sit back down without saying nothing.
Reverend Bellwether says, “Good morning.” I wipe my nose on my sleeve. Rita gives me some tissue. I wipe my sleeve with the tissue. She shake her head. “We’re gathered here this morning to say good-bye to someone who has finished with this world,” Reverend Bellwether say.
“Yes we are!” someone shout.
“Umm hm!” someone say.
“‘For now we see through a glass darkly!’ the Bible says.”
“Umm hm, yes it does! Yes it does!”
“In this life we don’t know God! God is revealed to us but still not known. We think we know God, got him labeled, unh huh! done named that file and saved it under Sunday! Sunday morning ten a.m. to one p.m. to be exact. Or, or”—Reverend Bellwether wheels around and points at Jesus hanging on the cross—“God is a statue dripping with blood. Or a book somebody told us was holy. Same somebody put us in chains and brought us here.”
“Uh oh! Tell the truth!”
“Where she going with dis? We ain’t paying her for dis nonsense,” Rhonda grumble. “Dis spozed to be a funeral.”
“Let me tell you, you don’t know God and you ain’t seen God! The glass is dark on this side. The only time you see God, the only time the light shine bright enough to see is when you doing God’s work! We may not know God, but we know what God wants us to do. He has been clear about that. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Love thy neighbor as thyself. As thyself. Love thyself? Yeah, how you gonna love anybody as you love yourself if you don’t love yourself? Jesus was a loving child of God. ‘Forgive them, Daddy,’ he said, ‘for they know not what they do.’ That’s what he said, not an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. But love! And she—unh huh, who we’re gathered here together to wish her well on her journey from this life—she tried to do that, didn’t she?”
“Yes!”
Journey? Heaven? How is she gonna be in heaven if she’s here? How can she go someplace if she’s dead?
“You know she did! You wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t, wouldn’t be people standing here in the aisle for one little ol’ single mother as they call us nowadays, nothing spectacular about that. No, you wouldn’t be standing in the aisle if she hadn’t been filled with love. I know you loved her and I know she loved you. It’s love, then. Then we see, know, and are known. Death takes everything, and into it you can take nothing but the part of you that is like God—spirit! The part that stands face-to-face with your Creator, who don’t care about Gucci, Halston, or Hilfiger! Hair or degrees, color or pedigree—he knows you by the work—not your work, his work that you have done. He knows you by the love in your heart. So she’s at rest here, now. Finally. And we can rest too, even in our sorrow, knowing God will know Precious Jones and she knew him.”
“Yes!”
“Yes he will!”
“We’re saying good-bye to someone who loved and who we loved. Faith! Hope! Charity! Charity meaning love. Jesus said, ‘I give you these three, faith, hope, and love. And of these three love is the greatest’! Without it everything else is as tinkling brass, paper tigers, and three-card monte. Don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got love. Hollow, empty, keep your toys, prizes, hold on to ’em, ’cause without love they all you got! No one ever tell me when I’m up there at Harlem Hospital, ‘Reverend Bellwether, could you contact my BMW, could you see if my Jaguar could
come see me before I go, could you tell my IBM ThinkPad I love her!’ You’re able to laugh even now in this hard hour at the absurdity of that. You know what they tell me? ‘I broke up my brother’s marriage in ’86, tell him I’m sorry.’ ‘I haven’t seen my mother in three years, tell her everything is OK and what’s past is past. She’ll know what I mean.’ ‘My daddy threw me out when he found out I had the HIV, tell Junebug to go by and tell him I love him and ask him would he come see me.’ ‘I had a son I gave up for adoption when I was sixteen, can you write it down somewhere if he ever come looking I loved him and thought about him every day. I couldn’t do nothing for him on heroin. It was the best thing.’ Now, that’s what they tell me, Reverend Bellwether. I don’t know what they tell you. But I ain’t heard ’em mention they Jaguar Apple laptop BlackBerry BlueBerry yet!
“Twenty-seven years is not much time. But it’s all the time God gave our sister, I don’t know why any more than you do. It was all the time she had, and she used it well.” Reverend Bellwether stop talking for a minute and sigh. “Her friends, teachers, clients, and son can all testify that she used her time well. Some of the people here are going to say a few words about our sister who is no longer with us.”
That’s stupid, Mommy’s right here. I’m thinking sometimes all this is just a game we’re playing, ha, ha! Or a story with a surprise ending like at school, they give you a story with no end and you get to write the end, or this is a joke, not that Mommy played a lot of jokes, but she could! She could just jump up laughing and climb out the casket hollering, Psyched you out! Psyched you out! Then grab me by the hand and say, The fun is over. I don’t have time for all this foolishness! What do you think I be doing all day, sitting on my butt? If that bathroom is not clean when we get home—I don’t want to hear no excuses! The bathroom and taking out the trash are your jobs. You hear me, it ain’t no goddamn joke out here. You think it’s a joke? Huh? HUH? No, I don’t think it’s a joke, I say. We’ll go home and I’ll run go turn on the TV and she’ll come turn off the TV and say, Do your homework. I’ll stomp my feet and throw my book bag on the floor when she leaves the room, and she’ll come back in the room and say, If you know what’s good for you, you’ll pick those books up like you got some goddamned sense and do your homework. She’ll go in the kitchen mumbling about I don’t know how lucky I am, and I’ll be in the living room mumbling about I wish I could go live with my father or by myself! But I’ll do my homework, then she’ll come and see me doing it, smile, and say the Asian Student Union showing Return of the Dragon for free at her school Friday night, we can go and go to McDonald’s afterwards if she don’t hear no nonsense from me till Friday. I’ll smile. And she’ll say, So could we have drama-free homework until Friday?