Two Shades of Morning Read online

  Shiny black shoes tapping on the wood floor, two husky young boys marched forward and began lighting the candles, all eighty pink tapers.

  “Whose younguns is that?” whispered some woman behind us.

  “I ain’t never laid eyes on ‘em before.”

  I couldn’t resist turning to see who was hissing, and sure enough there stood Adith Law, and of all people, our preacher’s wife was the hissee.

  When the crude concrete church glowed with candlelight, and the coughs and hisses had scattered like mice, a wholesome-looking young girl—who no one knew either—floated through one of the two doors behind the pulpit. She wore a white flowing robe with egg-yellow epaulets, fringe oozing on the sleeves. Presenting her square unformed face, she let loose with slow arcing melody, sculpting her mouth into a delicate oval. Some new song about a new day in a high soprano that filled my ears and made me feel that the world had ended, that everything began and stopped with Sibyl, whose face radiated from the bed of ivory satin.

  “Looks just like herself, don’t she?” somebody said—sounded like Aunt Birdie.

  Just when you felt there was no end to the song, almost dreading its end, it stopped, and the soloist floated back through the door, closing it soundlessly.

  A strange man, whom no one had seen before either—judging by the volume and scatter of the hissing—breezed through the same door with the same aloof air. He too wore a white robe, and unlike our fervent preachers, sweating out the gospel through their pores, he was as pretty and poised as a girl. Dark locks tumbling on his pale polished brow, he held to the podium and lifted his messianic eyes, laying a hush over the shifting crowd. That slow dark gaze traveling left to right with an imperial air, yet humble and charitable, dispensing his forgiveness for our joint ignorance. His pearly voice rolled the Twenty-third Psalm over us like water sheeting off glass, and we knew Sibyl was on a safe, prepared journey even if we didn’t know to where.

  “Who is he?” whispered somebody.

  “I ain’t got the slightest.”

  “Somebody from down around Orlando, I guess.” Everybody was yawning, itching for the climax.

  In an erudite manner, he enumerated each of Sibyl’s deeds, referring to Little Town only, adding some, taking small tasks and glossing them over into achievements, his qualitative tone ringing it out to a triumphant end. Cancer Drive, Heart Fund, March of Dimes—beyond the projected goals. All presided over by Sibyl. All in one summer. “Who you reckon’s gone get P.T.A. president now?”

  “I imagine Dorthy’ll go back in.” And so the talk passed along the wall on my right and came to rest in the fern shadow stenciled on Sibyl’s face.

  Now and then, the girl who sang before came again with one of her redundant songs that prickled the hair on my arms. The church trembled under her highest notes and swelled with her as she literally rose to her toes. I felt embarrassed for her when she sang Ava Maria in opera, half-hoping that cultured voice would crack, because I could sense, and so could everybody else, that she was uppity (call it little-town paranoia).

  Sibyl smiled through the whole thing, the faint smile arranged by the deft hand of the mortician. I expected it to spread. From where I sat, facing her coffin, my eyes skimmed her face, to the face of the half-Italian minister. (The half-Italian business had just been passed along the wall by the hissers.)

  When he finished, I felt ashamed that we hadn’t appreciated Sibyl more—wry little-town kidding. But couldn’t we all write our own eulogies and pick out somebody clever to deliver them? Sibyl had—I could see it everywhere. I glanced over at Miss Lettie on my right and her mouth was open.

  Somebody at the rear clapped when the minster wrapped it up on the third round between songs. And I could feel the scrunched and sweating bunch getting bolder, and absolutely itched for a wrap-up. Nobody’s funeral should drag out so. Cutting my eyes back, I saw Aunt Birdie, mute and absurd in her navy straw hat with the faded matching feathers layered around the brim. She was wearing her navy polka-dot funeral dress. A lump rose in my throat and I figured if tears came, so would laughter. I swallowed the gout in my throat and set my eyes on Sibyl to battle back the sadness. “Poor lil ole thing,” somebody whispered. Was the remark for me or for Sibyl? For the hundredth time, I wished I hadn’t worn the dress and tugged up my slip strap, which had now worn a tickling groove in my shoulder.

  When I could no longer stand it, I turned again and our Avon lady smiled at me. I’d quit using Avon and wasn’t up on the gossip she peddled door to door with her makeup. I doubted she’d have gossiped to me, about me, if I had answered the door last time she came. I wondered if she knew, if they all knew. Blushing, I faced Sibyl, feeling more comfortable with her because she’d been in on my shame.

  Her face was now dusted with gold-flecked powder and it glinted in the sun diffusing around the silhouettes in the window. Still, I thought she looked surprisingly unattractive, almost vulgar, lying there with her face presented. And death on her smelled mysterious and preserved. Was it the flowers or the embalming fluid or death itself?

  Somebody whispered: “Is that the dress she...?” “I can’t believe she put up with...”

  If they were going to talk, I wished they’d speak up. My neck felt red, my ears distended from trying to catch their endings. My jaw was tight and I wondered if I might have an abscessed tooth.

  When the soloist and the minister failed to return through the ceremonial door again after five minutes, the funeral director strolled forward and coughed into his fist. Standing in front of Sibyl, he caught his hands before his gray pin-striped trousers. “Anyone wishing to view the body can pass by at this time, starting with those standing on the outside and the rear of the church.” His bombed tone leveled the uplifted mood of the service. “Please pass along to the outside afterwards.” Miss Effie began playing the piano again, still the new stuff, but this time with more feeling, as if she was glad the funeral was almost over. All of the churches from the other communities in Monroe County had apparently come together for the funeral, same as they did for revivals each spring and fall. Many of those shuffling in from the outside, mumbling benignly, I recognized from the farming area across the river, where P.W. folks lived. They were stoic and reserved, respectful of the dead, mindful of hiding their curiosity.

  Even the Primitive Baptists—Hardshells and Progessives—passed by the coffin to view the legendary remains. Miss Avie Nell had been Primitive Baptist, and I’d gone with her to Big Meetings, all-day dinners on the ground and preaching once a year. She’d always intrigued me, especially at her church, because she smelled fancier and looked smarter than those simple, hardworking folks. She didn’t fit in and didn’t care. She went because her folks had been members and Robert Dale went because of his mama and I went because of Robert Dale.

  The members of the Church of God came by, the women with long hair and clean faces, the men pious and swilled on the gospel, oddities on the denominational tripod with the weak-lawed legs of Baptists and Methodists. I’d been to their church with Miss Eular once and loved their uninhibited singing, but found I was too self-conscious for the babble of concert prayer and speaking in tongues. Also, to them, vanity was a sin, and let’s face it, I was vain.

  Three lardy, haggard women came up to look at Sibyl, each tugging a line of children with tow hair and faded eyes, children wanting to look also but wrapping themselves in their mama’s wide skirts.

  Poor Sibyl was a spectacle like the middle-aged acrobat in the circus, I thought. But in truth, most of us went to most funerals, especially for a member of an old family like the Sharpes, county born and bred.

  Miss Cleona, who lived just down the dirt road from Miss Eular and Mr. Buck, skirted the coffin in her long buttoned-to-the-throat dress and came straightaway to Robert Dale, whispering in his ear as she gripped his neck. I tried not to listen, but it was only the regular stuff they’d all been saying: “I’m so sorry, bless your heart.” Then she edged into the line trailing across the front an
d stayed with them along the wall to the exit.

  The line approaching the coffin grew disorderly, shuffling up and out in an array of denominations and communities, some lingering along the wall to wait for the family of the deceased to view the body. Miss Effie got tired of playing Sibyl’s new pieces and took it on herself to play common hymns such as, “Love Lifted Me,” “Bringing in the the Sheaves,” and “Blessed Assurance.” Between slubbing the keys, as if she was weaving, she would pause to flip leisurely through our green Broadman for the hymns we’d all teethed on.

  There was a regular frenzy of cardboard fans oscillating the sticky air, fanning body odors, perfume and foul breath, while the candles at Sibyl’s head flickered, throwing a waxy scent over the frenzy of her funeral. By the time those seated got their turns to view, everybody was wiping sweat and mumbling, and all the slick drooling babies were crying. Oddly, it was that hot primal bawling I remember best, beyond the ludicrous pomp, beyond the inexpressible discord of the requiem. There must have been a dozen bawling babies passed from person to person. But they waited anyway, many of them masking disappointment as they finally got to the coffin and stared down at Sibyl. Several people branched off from the line to speak to us.

  Mary Beth hobbled up and vaulted away, while her friends, the cheerleaders, sobbed in a huddle. I’d seen them react just that way when we’d lost a basketball game—when we won one also. But the crying got to me. Again, I felt the gout in my throat and checked it, leaning side to side on the hard varnished pew to un-stick my dress from the backs of my thighs.

  P.W. sat forward with his elbows on his knees, dangling his hands. On the other side, Robert Dale sat straight, useless long arms folded. Miss Lettie was gripping the handle of her brown plastic bag on her lap and gazing around curiously. Somebody behind poked her shoulder, and she turned, hissing behind her hand. “This ole thing!” she said, plucking the sleeve of her brown polyester knit dress. “I made it my ownself.”

  “Several men, rumored to be bootleggers, nodded solemnly in Robert Dale’s direction as they passed, heavy legs rasping toward the coffin. Dressed in black wool suits with their black hair matted, they looked hot and slick. Elec Simms and his daddy and uncles, came the announcement from the hissers along the wall.

  “They say he got drafted,” one said. “Did you hear P.W.’s been called too?”

  “No!” somebody answered, quickly distracted and making another announcement. “Look a-there, poor ole Miss Ima Jean made it. Ain’t missed a funeral in fifty years.”

  Miss Ima Jean, the oldest living school teacher in Little Town, floated up the aisle between two other teachers, short stocky women, who practically lifted her feeble, rangy body clear of the floor. She wore her same old beige linen suit with the dipped hem. Her yellow-gray hair was balled in a skimpy knot on the back of her angular head. Like seed peas, brownish green and moldering, her eyes were embedded in her old-cloth face. She nodded to Sibyl, as in greeting; she nodded to Robert Dale. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” she muttered in a voice phelmey and worn. Even slumped she was taller than the other two teachers, erect and dignified. She’d taught everybody in Monroe County, or at least one from each family, and anybody pledging allegiance to the American flag would recite it in her glorious cadence, whether or not they got the meaning.

  As punishment for throwing spitballs in the fourth grade, she’d made P.W. and Robert Dale pull two hundred tee-weeds each from the patch between the school house and the quarters. Later, I even pulled some, those deep, stringy tap roots a dreadful strain on even a young back. It didn’t hurt us; I don’t know that it helped, but the field was cleared for summer soft ball.

  A group of elementary school children tagged behind their teacher to the front. The little girls were dressed in print poplin and the boys in stiff khaki. They looked as if they’d been rehearsed on how to dress and act for a field trip to view a commemorative plaque about the American-Indian War in Monroe County—unable to relate, not much believing.

  When Principal Edmondson came to pay his respects, I was reminded that school usually turned out for special occasions: anything educational, civic or religious, which called for community attendance—for a showing, as much as anything. For reasons known only to those in seats of authority, funerals came under all those headings. Also, Sibyl’s funeral was of special significance because Sibyl was president of the PTA. They were paying their respects and not because she’d been a boon to education; she’d been a nuisance, had manipulated Dorothy Hanks out of office. Sibyl had worn the title like a badge.

  She hadn’t got elected because the association had been in awe of her, but for immediate relief from her wheedling and flamboyant campaign. As with any trend, she would pass. Sandra Nell Carter had married Duke Dees to keep him from pestering her for dates on Saturday nights. Most of them weren’t that weak-minded though; they’d simply tried the new because they knew that new would wear off. Actually, any connection in Little Town would suffice for a funeral gathering. Robert Dale was a veteran basketball player for good old Monroe High. And the truth was, a funeral was a big event. Maybe because we had too little to do. Then there was always the matter of custom. Sure, they all came, to a degree out of curiosity, but mostly out of respect for Robert Dale, his family, maybe even for P.W. Or to see me!—depending on whether the rumor had spread. And they would remember Sibyl because she was different and because she was in some ways beautiful and because there were so few in our neck of the woods to remember.

  “To my notion, she looks better than Sibyl.”

  When I got wind of that from the wall, I tried not to think about it, I really did. I couldn’t help it. They’d graduated from whispering, spoke boldly in the racket of scudding feet.

  You could tell when the service was coming to an end by the last to pass by the coffin: Punk and Mae, the only blacks. So black in that sea of whiteness, Mae with her overpowering perfume, like pear blossoms in a heated room. She still wore her white maid uniform and dingy white gloves. And Punk, a step behind, skulking whipped-dog style up the aisle with his head down, his hands rammed deep in his pockets. More show, Punk and Mae. Proof of Sibyl’s status. I’d seen it done before, beloved and dutiful servants paraded at a funeral like white limousines, but not much and not without it making me crazy. After Mae and Punk, the row behind us filed past the coffin, and I watched Aunt Birdie fanning and nodding howdy-do. She smelled of talcum and snuff, over-warm and moist. Passing before Sibyl, she simply inclined her head, her freckled face garnering the glow of candles, eighty-strong. Turning to go out, she glowered at those lingering along the wall to watch the family grieve or not grieve, and several of them herded out before her like children driven with a switch.

  Daddy and Mama stepped to the coffin and paused, his scratched hand resting on the back of her blue gabardine suit coat. As they started to walk away, Mama eyed me. One of those shrinking looks. God, Mama, I don’t know why I’m sitting on the front pew and me not kin, I felt like saying. And I don’t know why I’m still saying “God!” when you’ve got on to me a million times, and taught me too about the impropriety of sitting on front pews at strangers’ funerals and wearing things inappropriate—this wild dress. I still remember that word “impropriety,” but it just doesn’t seem to work here, doesn’t matter. All I know is I’m hurting and doing the best I can, and I’m bad, real bad, you can count on it: I didn’t go all the way before I got married but I came close, and I hate this woman, dead here before me. I haven’t turned out the way y’all expected—I haven’t even turned out yet. So there! Maybe I popped up here on the front pew because Robert Dale and P.W. did, or maybe I simply got a front row seat because I have the most at stake.

  Lifting both soft antiseptic hands, the funeral director motioned for us to rise, and I crept behind Robert Dale to the coffin, looking down with him at Sibyl for the last time—the Sibyl at the funeral home. Turning, he started to take my hand, but clasped his own and walked away up the aisle. I followed, he
aring P.W. and Miss Lettie scuffing behind, and then the lid of the coffin closing with a flutter like bird wings. The funeral director had turned Robert Dale around at the door and was whispering as he whisked him back toward the coffin. Drawing level with me, the director reached out and caught my elbow, turning me too, then motioned for P.W. and Miss Lettie to follow.

  “What in the world now!” Miss Lettie said, swinging her bag to her other arm and gazing hungrily at the bunch in the sunlit doorway.

  While the pallbearer-basketball players positioned themselves each side of the coffin, the funeral director handed out lit tapers from the candelabrums, grading us like Vacation Bible School kids, Robert Dale, P.W. and then me, and sent us marching behind the coffin from the church. All except Miss Lettie.

  “I come with them,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “They’ll wait on you.”

  “Well, I be!”

  Aunt Birdie in funeral navy was standing in the midst of matronly ladies by the concrete stoop when I toddled through the door with my pink taper. She reached out and snatched it, puffed at the tiny flame like it was her stove on fire, and hissed, “You don’t owe her nothing!” I walked on with my head high and my ears roaring, smiling as I had in the beauty contest. She was right. And suddenly I didn’t want to play anymore; I didn’t want to help Sibyl build a memory of herself at my own expense.

  The director followed, ushering Miss Lettie to the car, as though he had another funeral scheduled and had used up the time Sibyl had bought.

  P.W.’s candle still burned as we crammed into the T-bird. Miss Lettie bumped her head and swore, placing a hand over her mouth. P.W. snuffed the flame, and smoke feathered out the window to the high blue sky.

  Again, we tailed the hearse, which tailed the sheriff’s car, brattling gravel south along the side road to the rear of the courthouse square and turning west with a string of cars and trucks with headlights on toward the crossing, where Deputy Leif was waving back north and southbound traffic on the main highway with his cap. Like bumper cars at the fair, several cars were jammed in front of the courthouse, blocking the others trying to file into the procession. Between the crossing and the river bridge, west with the sun, cars were parked each side and diagonally in banked yards, with people thronging toward the bleached-sand cemetery on the hill. Puny headlights melting in the sun.