Black Cat Weekly #5

THE PASSING OF BIG MAMA MAYHALL, by Bobbi A. Chukran-2

“Four?” Elsie mumbled. “My goodness.”

All of a sudden, Elsie felt dizzy and swooned against her cousin.

“Y’all, give her some air!” somebody said, and Elsie recognized the voice of Evelyn Goody, Brother Harmon Goody’s wife. “Elsie, honey, how you holdin’ up?” she asked, patting her on the shoulder.

Elsie stared at her and shook her head, tears threatening. “I just won’t know what I’ll do without my mama.”

Evelyn clucked her tongue and put her arm around Elsie’s shoulder. “Of course you don’t, honey! But don’t you worry, we’re all close by, you need anything. Just call, you hear? That’s all you have to do, just call. You know we’re just down the road, wouldn’t take us but a little bit of a minute to get here.”

Brother Goody just stood there, twirling his old black hat round and round in his hands. “Anything at all, you hear? I’ll get the Lady’s Auxiliary right on it. All you need to do is call.”

“Thank you,” Elsie said. “I appreciate it.”

“Your mama put a lot of her heart into the Auxiliary; we’ll do right by her, don’t you worry about that,” he said, nodding, twirling that hat until Elsie thought she’d pass out from the dizziness.

Somebody thrust a plate of food in Elsie’s face. “Here, have somethin’ to eat! You need to keep up your strength. You like ham? This is some of Miz Evans’ homegrown ham. It’s good, you oughta eat some.”

Elsie swooned at the sight of the food, and would have fainted if it hadn’t been for Elmer Worth, who was standing right behind her. Elmer was just a few years older than Elsie and they had gone to school together. He owned Worth Dry Goods in town and sometimes slipped a chocolate bar into the box for her when Elsie bought things there. Big Mama had made a big fuss last time he did it, said it wasn’t appropriate.

“Whoa, there we go!” he said. “Maybe you’d better sit down again. You ain’t lookin’ too good right now.”

Elsie shook her head, but let him steer her towards a chair.

Helen Fuller, a lady in Big Mama’s Sunday School class, peered into her face. “Honey, why don’t you go put a cold rag on your head, fix your hair--it’ll make you feel better. You look a fright! You know your mama wouldn’t put up with that. Why, you look like you got pulled through a bush backwards!”

“No, ma’am,” Elsie mumbled, “she wouldn’t.”

“We’ll take care of everything here, don’t you worry,” Helen said as she gave Elsie a little push.

Elsie slowly walked towards the kitchen, where at least a dozen more women were crowded into the tiny room. Mrs. Norma Fisher, a large heavyset woman wearing a voluminous flour-sack apron, was sitting at the table eating a large slice of chocolate cake and drinking a cup of coffee. When she saw Elsie, she quickly wiped her mouth on the edge of her apron and took a quick gulp of coffee. Chocolate crumbs clung to the edge of her mouth.

“Well, there she is! How you holdin’ up, Elsie? Why don’t you sit down here and eat you a piece of cake. It’ll make you feel better.” She pulled out a chair and nodded at it. “I’m just having a bit of a rest. I was up cookin’ all night,” she said with a smirk.

“We’ve all been up, cooking all night, Norma,” said Mary Evans, a hawk-nosed woman in her seventies. Elsie wasn’t surprised that Mrs. Evans was there; she showed up in everybody’s kitchen after a death like a big ol’ carrion bird. Big Mama had once said that death was Mrs. Evans’ hobby and she excelled at it.

Elsie’s stomach lurched at the sight of the cake. “I could drink a little coffee, I guess,” she said.

“Well, help yourself, sugar! I imagine you know where the pot is,” somebody said and the ladies laughed.

Someone else tried to tempt her with some of the food, and Elsie turned down fried chicken, a ham sandwich, ham and pea salad, roasted turkey and chicken and dumplings before the ladies gave up.

There was a timid knock on the back door and somebody yelled, “Come on in!” It was Elijah, a young barefoot black boy who lived on a tenant farm just down the road. He had a bedraggled hen under his arm. “Mama want you to have this,” he said to Elsie. “She sorry about Big Mama passin’.” He thrust the chicken into her hands, then turned and ran away. She didn’t even get the chance to thank him.

“What in the devil?!” one of the ladies blustered, but Elsie carefully carried the chicken out to the coop and put it in with the other hens.

She came back inside, poured a cup of steaming hot coffee and took it back into the living room. The front screen door slammed and she looked up into the face of Sheriff Dewey Johnson. She joggled the cup of coffee and it splashed over the front of her dress then onto the floor. “Oh, no!” she cried and a scurry of women appeared with rags to clean it up.

“Are you all right?” one of them asked. “You’d better sit down.”

“Didn’t mean to startle you, Elsie,” the sheriff said as he removed his sweat-stained Stetson from his head and fiddled with the brim. “Just wanted to pay my respects. Big Mama was a fine woman. We’ll all miss her.”

“Thank you,” Elsie whispered. “I…I truly appreciate it. Would you excuse me?” she asked, and began to walk away. “I need to wash out this stain before it sets.” She nervously dabbed at the front of her dress.

“Just one other thing,” he added, gently taking her by the arm and peering into her face.

Elsie gulped. “Yes, sir?”

“Mind if we sit down?” he asked. “It’ll only take a minute.”

“Uh, I guess that’ll be all right,” she said, and several people got up off the old sofa, gathering their cups and plates, casting sideways glances at them, grumbling.

He frowned at them then took a seat on the edge, his hands spread on his knees and his hat carefully placed beside him. He took a toothpick out of his pocket and put it in his mouth, moving it from side to side as he spoke.

“Sad the way it happened. To Big Mama, I mean. Her bein’ all alone like that. You were outside, you say?”

“Yessir, I was outside, tending the chickens.”

He nodded, took the toothpick out of his mouth and used it as a pointer, stabbing it in the air for emphasis. “You know, I’ve known Big Mama for almost all my life, and I can’t think of a finer woman. She did so much for this town; I don’t know what we’ll do without her. She will truly be missed.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do, either,” Elsie said. She didn’t comment on the rest of it.

“Aww, you’ll be all right, I expect,” he said. “Lots of good women around here to keep an eye on you.” He smiled sadly, then quickly stood, clapping his hat on his head. “Best be getting back out there now, just wanted to drop by for a minute.”

“Is there anything else?” Elsie asked.

“No, ma’am, that’s it. Just wanted to pay my respects, as I said.”

He turned to leave, and Elsie breathed a sigh of relief. He stopped and turned. “Oh Elsie, one other thing I forgot.”

She stood stone still. Her breathing stopped.

“I have a potted plant out in the car for you. Send one of these youngsters out to get it, will you?”

Just then, Aunt Ruby showed up. “You aren’t harassing my niece, are you, Dewey?”

He smiled and laughed. “Of course not, Ruby. You know better than that. Just came by to pay my respects.”

“You’ll have me to answer to, if you do,” she said. “Thank you for stopping by. It means a lot to us.”

Elsie turned and fled back into the safety of the kitchen. She just had a chance to catch her breath when there was a timid knock on the back door. Somebody got up to answer it.

“Well, lookee there! Look who’s here, Elsie!”

Elsie looked up to see Dorothea Gilmore, a girl she went to school with. Elsie thought Dorothea looked like a glamour model, somebody from a magazine.

Self-consciously, Elsie reached up to smooth her hair.

Dorothea was holding a squirming, squalling baby. “Elsie! Darlin’, how ARE you?” she asked, yanking a hank of her hair out of the baby’s clutches. “It’s been ever so long since we’ve seen each other. When was it, five years ago? At the high school reunion?”

Her friend shook her head. “And here you still are, living with your mama. That must be fine, with not a care in the world!”

Just as Elsie opened her mouth to comment, the baby tuned up and started to bawl. At least six of the women rushed over to soothe it, and before long, Elsie was forgotten.

She wandered back down the short hallway, peeked in the living room and tried to turn around, running into Dorcas Dolittle, President of the Ladies Auxiliary. “We are so sorry about your mama, Elsie,” she said. “Your mama was a fine member of our group, for so many years. The work she did in the community for those poor black children was just heart-warming. And inspiring! Heart-warming and inspiring! When I think about the time she spent so they’d have the creature comforts, well, tears just come to my eyes.”

Elsie thought about that for a moment. She didn’t quite know what to say.

“I just don’t understand how she could fail so fast,” Dorcas said. “She was doin’ so well there for a while, after her last surgery.”

“You just never know with these things, do you? When the Lord says it’s your time, then we just have to go!” Brother Goody appeared behind her, flashing his big white teeth.

The doctor stood right beside him. “That’s right, preacher. You just never know, with this heart disease.”

“It was just her time to go, Elsie,” the preacher said. “The good Lord knew he was gettin’ a good woman in your Big Mama! A good Christian woman!”

“Now what will you do with yourself?” somebody asked.

Elsie stared at the woman. She couldn’t remember ever meeting her. Maybe she was one of her mama’s friends. “Well, I, I don’t really know. I don’t really know how to live without my mama.”

“Well, of course you don’t darlin’! But we’re all here to help you, don’t you worry about that.”

Somebody else said “We’ll be keeping a close eye on you, honey. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Elsie wasn’t sure she wanted to be observed quite so closely, but didn’t say so.

All day long, people came and went, and Elsie watched all the activity with a detachment that surprised herself. She felt like she was a bird floating up at the ceiling, looking down at everybody as they carried on like nothing had happened. She wondered why half of them were there at all.

By the time everybody left about suppertime, Elsie was exhausted.

* * * *

The next morning, Aunt Ruby collected Elsie in her big Buick. Elsie asked that Ruby make the arrangements for her mama’s burial, but her aunt felt that she should have part in making some of the decisions. They drove to town and parked on the street in front of Cunningham’s Funeral Home. The big two-story house had been there for over fifty years and looked a bit shabby. Elsie shivered; she always hated it every time Big Mama drove by there. Even outside, the place had a strange smell to it. Her mother always taunted her about the ghosts that haunted the place, and Elsie had always believed her.