The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder (28 page)

Then Sweet’s young nephew, who was a fiddler, said, “This is for my Uncle Sweet, who we’ll sure miss.” He took a deep breath and then began to play a soft, mournful waltz on the fiddle. It seemed like all of our tears went into those strings, and into that song. And, for a moment, the tightness around my heart eased, and I felt a kind of communion, as if my soul was uniting with so many souls standing there with me. And I felt not so alone.

After the cemetery, we all gathered at Sweet’s parents’ home, a small wooden house up off the ground. In the back, extra bedrooms were built out from the back porch, and they had opened up the living room and dining room into one big space. Still, there wasn’t really enough room for everybody.

Sweet’s best friend and best man, Antoine, had come. Oh, he broke my heart. Tears were just streaming down his cheeks. “I’m all torn up, Calla,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t control it. If only I could’ve been on that boat. If Sweet had been carrying me, maybe I could have saved my buddy.”

“Antoine,” I said, squeezing his hand, “you know how beautiful and strong Sweet was. I feel just the same way. I wish I could have saved him, too. But neither of us could. All we can do is love and remember him.” Then I could not breathe, I could not stand. Antoine caught me, and the next thing I knew, Sukey was at my side.

“You can make it, Calla Lily.”

For days after we lowered Sweet’s casket into mother earth, I was so angry that I swore sometimes as I lay in bed that I would tear the mattress apart, just yank out all the batting and fling it against the wall. I could take a glass of water and just throw it against the door until it crashed into a million pieces. The most that I did to get my anger out, though, was hit my pillows so hard that the feathers exploded like snow all over the bed. I felt my own anger come loose in the feathers that floated down onto me.
Amazing how anger can turn into feathers. If that’s possible, then grief can turn into something else, can’t it? Can’t it?

What rough God has ridden through my life, like some wild, mean horse—taking away my mother and Tuck, taking my tender teenage trust and bashing it. And now Sweet, my husband. Dear husband who could not give enough, who was always one to make me laugh and to give everything to me. “Calla,” he used to say, “you give so much all day long. Let me take care of you. Let me just take care of you.” And so finally, after a while, I did sink down and let him take care of me, let his love just flow all over me. And now my Sweet was dead.

I was afraid to open the door of the small closet that Sweet and I shared. You don’t get a lot of room in these old shotgun Irish Channel houses. As pretty as we had the house fixed up, we hadn’t got around to building another closet, so the rest of our clothes, mainly mine, were out in the hall. I even kept some of my blouses folded up in a drawer in the kitchen.

I’d been taking Sweet’s T-shirts out of the drawer in the bedroom, but I hadn’t yet opened the closet. The closet and I had been staring each other down. But one day, I realized that I just had to do it.

I put my hand on the old handle, which had turned brown over the years. I looked at my hands on the handle, took a deep breath, and opened the door. And there they were. My husband’s shirts, the long-sleeved cotton ones that he always wore with the sleeves rolled up—plaid ones, light blue cotton ones. And his pants, all folded over hangers. But it was the sight of his shoes that did me in. Sweet was a man with small feet, size nine. I could see the way his feet had filled out his shoes, and how wrinkled they were from use, from the pressure of his feet in them. The feet of my beloved, feet that would never again walk the earth.

After that, I fell into a pit. All of my friends and my family tried their best, with all their love, to pull me out of that deep, dark hole. But the gifts they had to give were not the ones I needed. I felt that everything that had protected me had been blown apart. I felt like I did when M’Dear died—alone. Again.

I just lay there in bed—for how many days or weeks, I couldn’t say. It didn’t matter who came and went. I kept my bedroom door shut. I could hear the sounds of their voices, the smell of food they brought as gifts to feed me. That food they brought! “Take it away, please,” I said. It made me ill just to smell it.

One time I thought I heard Renée’s voice, thanking someone for their kindness. Another time, it was Nelle. “Set it down on the counter. Oh, Calla has some good friends here in New Orleans.” My La Luna friends were here, staying where? Most likely in our little guest room that I’d planned to be a nursery.

I wouldn’t let anyone near me except Sukey. Sukey, who knew what it was like to fall into the pit. “Sukey,” I’d beg, “hold my hand and squeeze it. Tell me that Sweet and I will get our life back. We’ll get it back, right?”

Then we’ll sit in the kitchen, and Sweet will be cooking. I’ll eat because I’ll be so hungry, hungry for everything at the sight of my Sweet. He’ll be home with three pounds of shrimp, and we’ll boil them with some Zatarain’s powder, while I make the cocktail sauce in the blue bowl that M’Dear used for little dips. I’ll put the ketchup in and add as many dashes of Tabasco as it tells me it needs, plus a teaspoon of horseradish—got to be careful not to overload it with horseradish. And the Brothers will be playing on the tape deck, and Sweet and I will do a little made-up dance step here and there. We’ll dance in the kitchen, like my mother taught me to do. Sweet will pretend to be a shrimp. “Sweet,” I’ll say, “stop making me laugh so hard—I’ll ruin this cocktail sauce.”

Oh, my Sweet! With that Cajun skin and dark blue eyes. While we were making love, we never closed our eyes. How could I imagine closing my eyes when he was above me, in me, smiling. “You, Calla,” he would say, “sweet Calla, darling Calla, sweet Calla.” And then I would feel part of his essence come into me.

Nighttime was the worst. Once I could get out of bed, I walked the city like a zombie. One night I found myself in Audubon Park in the rain. I went from one big oak to the other, feeling the bark, trying to fit my body against the trees. We used to walk under the big live oaks, Sweet and me. But the trees had lost their roots now that my Sweet was dead. I was trying to press my being into the little cracks in the wet bark. Soaked, at 3:00 a.m. in New Orleans, where a woman wandering around is not considered strange unless she’s in the Garden District. Unsafe, yes, perhaps, but not strange. I’d thrown on a 1940s house-dress from JoAnn’s over my baggy T-shirt, but it was not nearly warm enough. The rainwater ran off my face and down my body. I was surrounded by darkness and shadows.
Take it away
, I prayed.
“
Please just take it away!” I screamed into the wind-driven sheets of rain. “Take this pain away. Take this anger, loss, longing—take it all away! M’Dear, I miss you, I want you, I need you!” I howled. “Please come back.”
Oh, my sweet, sweet Sweet. Come to me, Sweet! Don’t leave me here.

The next day Sukey brought me a long white cotton gown, all crisp and clean. “Sweetie,” she said, “come on, let’s wash your hair. Then we’ll put on the gown.”

I didn’t understand. I kept saying, “Why? Why, Sukey?”

She turned her head away for a moment, then turned it back and put her hand on her hip, the way she’s done since we were little girls. “Why? Because I said so, Calla.”

She pulled the covers down slowly, but I didn’t get up. Sukey more or less pulled me up, and I sat on the edge of the bed, sobbing. Sukey put an arm around my shoulders. “Come on,” she said, “let’s stand up and go to the bathroom. I’ve got it warm in there for you.”

Sukey had everything laid out—my razor, shampoo, and conditioner. “Okay,” she said, “let me unbraid your hair. We’ve got to wash your hair.”

“No,” I said, “I don’t want you to take my braid apart.”

“Calla, babe, your hair is all dirty, and it’s gonna stay dirty if we wash it with that braid keeping your hair so tightly bound.”

I sat down in the little chair that Sweet and I kept in the bathroom so that one of us could sit while the other took a bath in the old claw-foot tub. I put my head in my hands.

“Here goes,” Sukey said, and she started to unbraid my hair.

“NO!” I screamed. “Sukey, leave my hair alone.”

“Come on, Calla. You can’t go on like this. You at least have to bathe. You’re just so filthy.”

“I want to be filthy!” I cried. “Don’t touch me.”

“Okay, Calla. How about we just shower with your braid like it is, okay?”

“That would be just fine, just fine. With my braid like it is, just fine,” I repeated after her, numbly. I looked at the tub but didn’t know what to do. Sukey reached over and took off my socks and panties.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s get your T-shirt off so you can get clean.”

“No! Don’t you dare touch this T-shirt! This is Sweet’s T-shirt.”

“Oh, babe,” she said, “you’ve cried all over this T-shirt. It’s so dirty.”

I raised my hand, just itching to hit Sukey. She grabbed it and held it tight.

“Okay, Calla Lily, let me turn the shower on. We’ll shower with Sweet’s T-shirt on. He’d get a kick out of that, right?”

“Right,” I said. “He would.” Then I would not budge.

“Calla, are you getting into the shower or not?”

“No. But I will if you will,” I said to Sukey, whose hair and makeup were done perfectly. I just couldn’t imagine doing it alone.

Then she started to strip off her clothes. “Okay, we’re gonna shower together. Let’s go.”

Sukey helped me into the shower and sat me on a little bath stool. She poured shampoo onto my head and began to rub it lightly. I could feel the suds running down my braid as Sukey massaged my head on each side of the braid, being careful not to undo it.

“I will not take it apart,” Sukey promised. “I’m just going to get some suds into your braid.”

“I believe you,” I told her. And I realized that I really did believe her, because I knew she loved me. The warm water running over my head and flowing down my body gave me a physical comfort I realized that I had missed.

When I finally let Sukey take off Sweet’s T-shirt, I started crying again at the touch of her hands as she washed my back, under my arms, under my breasts, down into my belly button. It didn’t feel strange anymore that she was bathing me.

My tears were flowing down the drain to the Mississippi. It felt so good to have my cold tears mix with the hot water. “Oh, I will do this more often,” I said to Sukey.

“We’ll do this as often as you need,” Sukey said. “We’ll do this until you can do it yourself.”

“All right,” I croaked, like a frog, and laughed.

“All right,” Sukey croaked back, laughing. “Now, you just stay there till I get a towel.”

She dried me as I sat on the stool, starting with my braid, squeezing the water out, then wiping down my shoulders, my back, and my front.

“Okay, girlfriend, let’s get you out of the tub and dressed.” Sukey wrapped a towel tightly around me, dried my hair, and rubbed my body with lotion.

“All right! ‘Spa Sukey’s’ debut is successful. Now, into your bedroom.”

Back on the bed, where the linens had been tidied, lay the gown.

“Do you want to wear the white nightgown I brought you?”

“It’s so pretty,” I said. “All that lace. Where did you buy that?”

“I didn’t buy it. Your aunt Helen made it. Took her a while to get that lace done just like she wanted it.”

“Oh, please, I do want to put on Aunt Helen’s nightgown.”

“That’s a girl,” she said.

She slipped the nightgown over me. “You know, this is kind of like a gift from your mama, since Aunt Helen is her sister.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I can see that. I can feel that.”

A couple of months after Sweet’s funeral, Steve came over. I was lying on the couch, writing notes, when the doorbell rang. I had some coffee already made, and we sat down at the kitchen table where I had sat so many times with Sweet, talking about nothing and everything a million times.

“Calla,” he said, “I’ve looked into Sweet’s accident and talked it over at my firm. We think you have a strong personal injury lawsuit. The oil company that owned that oil rig was also responsible for maintaining it, which it did not. To save money, it pulled back on safety measures, in violation of the law. So Sweet’s death was what you call a ‘wrongful death.’” He took my hands in his. “If you’d like for me to file suit against the company, I will. I can only imagine how hard this must be, Calla. But I suggest that we sue for a really high figure. It might prevent someone else from getting killed.”

“I don’t want to think about anyone else getting killed,” I said. “Go on ahead and file it if you want to.”

“In order to file suit, I just need you to sign these papers, sweetie.”

“Okay.” I signed them and then I said, “Thank you, dear Steve.”

“Calla—”

“Sweetie, would you mind leaving me alone now?”

“Absolutely.”

I gave him a weak smile.

“You take care now,” Steve told me. “Ricky is going to drop by later.”

“Fine,” I said, lying back down on the couch. “Fine.”

My head was spinning. I knew nothing about lawsuits. I only knew that I was lying here, sobbing, and glad that those greedy bastards who killed my husband might at least have to let go of some of their filthy money. I saw Sweet’s face, and the faces of the riggers who came to our home for supper, missing their wives and children. I opened my eyes, picked up my pen, and continued writing notes to the families of the other men who had been killed by greed for oil money.

I
didn’t feel ready to get out of bed, but one night I just couldn’t take being in the house anymore. So I got up and threw on a coat over my nightgown. It was an overcast night, but through the cloud cover, I could see the glow of the moon, like a child holding a flashlight under the sheets.

Ahhhh
, I thought,
you’re here.

For a while, just staring at that light, I began to feel—I don’t know how to put it—some kind of call.

I said to the Moon Lady, “Okay, I can’t really see you. But I believe you’re up there, behind the clouds. And that you’re looking after me as M’Dear said.”

I thought of asking her to show herself. But before I got up the nerve, the clouds began to move and the light of the moon grew stronger, until I could just make out her outline: not quite fingernail and not quite half full.

The Moon Lady was revealing herself to me, and she sent a thought into my mind.
I will not give you unnecessary grief.

That was her gift. That was M’Dear’s promise, that suffering would happen in my life, but that even when things seemed their darkest, the suffering would have some kind of meaning.

Then M’Dear’s death and Sweet’s death began to come together. And I could see that M’Dear, and her death, had taught me to love—and that it had prepared me for loving Sweet.

I whispered, “Calla Lily Ponder, your heart was open, but now it is hinged shut. What will it take to open your heart again?”

It was April in New Orleans again. The azaleas had come and gone, and the Jazz and Louisiana Heritage Festival had begun. Ricky, Steve, and Sukey were going, and they dragged me out with them. I wasn’t up for companionship, so once we arrived, I walked around on my own.

I wandered into the gospel tent on the grounds. Though it was a Friday morning, the tent was packed, not with tourists but with God-filled people singing, testifying, and praying.

I sat myself down at the back of the tent next to a black woman. She was wearing a navy blue shirtwaist dress with large white polka dots. The dress was strained over her belly and her huge sagging breasts. On her feet were a pair of tennis shoes that she wore like mules, with the backs of the shoes broken down and her heels hanging out. I knew the
shush
sound those shoes would make when she walked.

It was a sticky-hot morning, and my skin itched because of a rash I had almost all over my body. I wore a light cotton blouse with long, full sleeves to let the air in but hide my rash, and a soft old faded blue skirt. I had no idea what was causing the rashes, and neither did the doctor. All I knew was that I was feeling crazy these days.

I was down to a hundred and ten pounds, which looks pretty scary when you’re five-feet-nine. I lived on diet Dr Pepper. I still cried most of the time that I was awake, and in my dreams I screamed. I spent my days napping some and waking up confused.
Call Sukey, call Sukey
, I’d tell myself. Then Sukey would come and help me because I was still having visions of Sweet blown up into so many pieces that we couldn’t even tell what was in his casket. She would rub my head and gently massage my neck and shoulders, softly, until I calmed down.

But that day, I stayed in the gospel tent and let the music wash over me—the music and the singing, the testifying and praying. So many voices raised in song. One choir called the Savation Light Choir paraded onto the bleachers. Little children sang with grown-ups. A short black woman with a voice that could curl the clouds sang a verse of “Amazing Grace,” which was then taken over by the choir that she led. As I sweated, I could smell my body odor like it had never smelled before, as if something was being leached out of me, leaving me cleaner somehow.

When I went back to the tent on Saturday, I saw the same black woman, wearing a different dress. This one was homemade, white with yellow seersucker stripes and yellow buttons. That homemade dress made me feel calmer. I’d brought a shoulder bag this time, and in it I’d packed a thermos of ice tea, a box of Kleenex, and a bottle of prescription Valium. No food—I still didn’t want it, not yet, but I was thirsty.

Again, I took a seat next to the woman. As the music swept over me, I cried—the piano, the snare drum, the bass guitar; the singing voices, the call-and-response of people testifying. These people didn’t find it strange for a skinny white girl to sit there all day with a box of Kleenex and an endless flow of tears. When the music was right, when the spirit filled them, a lot of people cried. They rocked their bodies back and forth. They shot their hands up in the air and waved. Sometimes they simply rose to their feet, calling out, “Well, yes!” or “Talk it to me!” or “Amen! Amen, sister!” Certain older women who were feeling the spirit would jump up and wave their hands.

There was room in that tent for my sorrow.

That day, the woman in the yellow-and-white dress sat very close to me—so close that her large brown arm touched mine, and her generous hips crowded my narrow ones. I didn’t mind. I just kept losing myself in the music, listening, crying, blowing my nose, sipping a bit of ice tea, and occasionally biting off a small piece of Valium.

Sometime during that afternoon, when the sun was falling in slants on the grass at the side of the tent and the hot air was filled with the smell of sausage jambalaya floating over from the food booths, I started to feel a little dizzy but somehow comforted.

Sunday morning, I took my place in the tent first, and before long, the woman appeared again. As she sat down, her body spread out like a cushion against mine. Normally, I would have edged away to give her a bit more room, but this time, I didn’t. I wanted her near me. She sat next to me like a big, soft pillow. There were all those voices singing of pain and sorrow, of faith and longing, of salvation. I continued to cry all day. During the few times when I had to leave to stand in line for the portable toilets, my friend—for I was starting to think of her as a friend—laid her pocketbook on my seat to save it till I got back. I tried to thank her, but when I started to speak, all that came out were tears.

Jazz Fest lasts for two weekends. By the time the next Friday rolled around, I knew where I wanted to be. I returned to the tent, this time with an apple in my daypack, along with the tea and Valium. My friend came as usual, too, and when she nodded to me, I nodded back. What a relief it was to acknowledge and be acknowledged, without having to talk.

This was a big day, when the first gospel choir of children filed in and climbed up the risers, their heads held high, their clothes ironed and starched. The bows on the multiple pigtails of the little girls danced, their colors moving like flags of a young nation. I could not stop a small smile from coming to my lips—the first smile I remembered since that morning Sweet left for work and I kissed him, not knowing it would be for the last time.

The power of the children’s singing reached toward the heavens. The tapping of my friend’s feet, her head bobbing to the music, and her hands clapping to the rhythm stopped me from going down to that dark place of loss that I’d grown so used to. Sometimes she raised her hands in the air, calling out, “Say yes! Uh-huh, hallelujah!”

She pulled me back from the pit of burying sadness. Without even turning to me, she pulled me from the edge of grief and despair. Seeing the pink flesh on the back of her heels, the gentle reverberation of her ample hips and fleshy arms as they jiggled in jubilation, I thought,
You used to dance like that, Calla. You can come alive again.

Finally, it was Saturday, the next-to-last day of the festival. That day, I shocked myself by falling asleep in public. When I woke, I was startled to see that it was already dark and that a whole different crowd was now inside the tent. I remember awakening to the scent of hair pomade. That confused me, and at first I thought I was back in La Luna, sitting next to Olivia and M’Dear in the kitchen. Then I realized that, all the time I’d been asleep, my head was leaning against the black woman’s shoulder, close enough to smell her hair product.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “It’s kind of warm in here, and I—”

“You tired, that’s all,” she said.

“Yeah, I am,” I replied. “Yeah, I think I am.”

Those words were the first we exchanged.

Each day that I’d spent in the gospel tent had left me feeling a little stronger. Each day, I had moved a little further into the land of the living.

That night, I brushed my teeth, I loosened my braid, tried to brush out at least some of the wild tangles, and I washed my hair. I cleaned myself well and let my hair dry freely.

When I woke the next day, I realized that it was Sunday, the last day of the festival. I could feel something in the air, some rare sensation almost touching on magic, the way I imagine birds must feel around certain flowers. Back in the gospel tent, a choir came in, all in blue robes, led by a tall slim black man in his late teens. The children who came in first were some of the youngest I had seen in my days in the gospel tent. Some of those little boys and girls were just five and six years old, not even in first grade, and they behaved better than any child that age I had ever witnessed. Soon four black women in blue skirts and white shirts were buzzing around, helping the little ones, shushing them, hugging the ones who were nervous or crying, helping them get in their right singing places. I couldn’t take my eyes off one little girl who smiled from the moment she came in. Just being there was enough to make her happy.

That is how I want to live
, I thought,
I can be like that
.
I have that little girl somewhere inside my skinny, weeping self
.

I’d read about this particular choir. Pastor Tanisse Jackson of the First Evening Star Church held Sunday services in an old filling station where the tanks had been removed. Pastor Tanisse and the First Evening Star Gospel Choir had opened their doors to children, teenagers, and adults—black and white—who needed something to hold them off the streets, and had given them a discipline that came from learning to sing together as a choir as best they could. Sunday mornings, she dished out donated meals of fried chicken, string beans, cornbread, and slices of coconut cake. During these dinners, Pastor Tanisse moved among the tables, greeting family members who had been convinced by their children to come to church. In a city filled with gospel choirs, the
Times-Picayune
wrote, the First Evening Star Gospel Choir rocked the roof like nobody else.

They sure did.

While all the singing I’d heard in that tent had been good, the First Evening Star Gospel Choir took jubilation to new heights. I thought the whole tent would explode, just be blown apart by all that energy and joy. My eyes were as tuned in as my ears, watching the little ones sing with their mouths wide open, totally focused on every movement of Pastor Tanisse’s hands. If one of the young ones began to lose focus, the pastor would give her an eye. If one of the teenagers began to slouch, I could see her head nod toward him. My friend sitting next to me began to sway and call out, and I joined her, unable to stop myself. How could my life be unbearable when there was singing like this in the world?

When the First Evening Star Gospel Choir reached its thundering finale, I realized that I would most likely never see, let alone sit next to, my new friend again. While the choir lifted me up, the thought of losing another person in my life brought my tears back. I couldn’t bear the thought that I would never again feel her soft wide flesh, her heavy arm, her huge bottom that spread out and touched my hips, just as I would never again feel Sweet’s body beside me. I felt naked, terrified, at the thought of being separated from her. Without thinking, I grabbed her hand.

“Oh, don’t go, please,” I said. “You don’t have to leave right away, do you?”

She sat back down, and I felt a wave of relief.

“I do got to be going home soon,” she said. “This meetin’ just about over.”

“But—” I sat next to her, trying to think of what to say.

She took my hand and held it for a moment, looking into my eyes.

“You doin’ much better, baby. I think you gonna make it now. We was worried ’bout you at first, but now you okay. You might not know it, but you gone be just fine.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You don’t need to thank me, baby. Just go on with your praying.”

I watched her large chest expand as she took a deep breath. As she exhaled, she reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a flattened cigarette pack that looked empty. It was a green-and-white package of Kools with a book of matches slipped under the cellophane. She pressed it into my hand, and gave me a smile. Then she stood up and walked out of the tent.

I held up the pack to look inside. There was only one cigarette left. Her last smoke.

I was not a smoker, but I fished that crumpled cigarette out of the pack and lit it. I took a long, slow drag, which made me cough. Then I took a deep breath without the help of the cigarette, let it out, and felt my shoulders drop. It was the deepest breath I had taken in ages that did not end up in a sob.

I breathed in and out slowly and fully for the first time since I learned Sweet died. I breathed, watching the smoke from the cigarette in my hand curl up into the air. I watched it burn all the way down, then stubbed it out against the sole of my sandals. It was as though my friend had absorbed my sadness into her large body, shot it up to the Moon Lady, then let it fall back into herself fully cleansed. So the cigarette she gave was an invitation to breathe again, and a temporary memento of the days she sat by my side in a hot gospel tent filled with suffering turned into song and sent to God.

She was doing what M’Dear taught me to do with my hands—absorb the sadness, the grief of others into my own body, send it up to the Moon Lady, then breathe out a fresh breath.

On the way home, I looked up at the sky. “I need you tonight. I need to see you, La Luna,” I whispered.