The Final Inning

And whether or not Duane had really made a beautiful or no fly corpse or not with all of his fingernails and fierce teeth intact beneath the lid of that closed coffin, and why the fuck his mother had just had to wear that shitcolored crushed-velvet or whatever it was tacky suit (to match her just-as-tacky crushed-velvet also shitcolored hat with that old cheap-looking Saint Patrick’s-green fake daffodil on it), and if it was true that Uncle Brandon McCoy had made a goddamned fool out of himself again by crying like a big old droopingass baby in front of all those people instead of acting like a grown (old broken-down) man should even in the midst of all that grief for the fallen brother, and what it was exactly somebody had said to the minister (Reverend Dr. Smalls, old pompous fire-and-brimstone drunkass) about going on and eating up all the (greasy-nasty, Cee-Cee had said) fried chicken so that there wasn’t even a decent leg left for nobody, not for nobody, honey—when it was all over and they were all over it and just dying to get home and take off heels and pantyhose and loosen up bra straps and what not, those things, they all agreed, weren’t even really the issues: by then they just wanted to leave it all behind (especially what had happened in the church) and get back to where they were now, which was back in Tamara’s house in that most northeastern (and inaccessible, the black people who lived there cursed and praised) Bronx neighborhood, Sound Hill; in her living room, with the heat on because it had gotten even colder, hadn’t it, she said, and the television on too because it always was and like always now was showing some dumbass sitcom about two high-yellow girls as usual who couldn’t even keep their trashy-looking hair straight, do you believe the shit they were putting on TV these days, Jacquie said, but it couldn’t get no worse than that other show about that black family that was all doctors and what not, Cee-Cee said, cause I ain’t never seen nobody like that acting like all we got is fly furniture and no problems, did you?—Nicky said; and all of them, even Jacquie’s husband Gregory sitting off real quiet in the corner with two-year-old Gregory Jr. asleep on his knee and the Sports Illustrated open on the side table in front of him, said they hadn’t, and laughed. Laughter out of and into sound and pulse as sharp or strained as anything else they might be feeling or making out and maybe even that one-half of one percent better.

The sad occasion had been over, more or less, for a few hours—ever since they’d all laid Duane away in the hard late-autumn earth of Saint Raymond’s out by Whitestone, beneath the watchful distrusting eyes of the fastidious-when-it- came-to-Negroes groundskeeping Italians (most of whom felt they themselves had pushed this far and even farther into the merciful hands of the Virgin in order to escape those colored hands stretched out today in grief and unbelieving fury to the hardedged sky—would the colored people even want heaven, too, now that they’d taken over everything else?). The main after-burial get-together was still going on at Miss Geneva Mack’s—in the Valley, near the church used by some Sound Hill people, where the service had taken place—but after a few too many minutes of gossip that didn’t interest anybody, kids who weren’t cute, if only you knew, Ma’am, and just about enough senior citizen smalltalk of Mylanta and bloodclots and how it would come to us all someday and Lord, what a tragedy it was that such a fine young man had met the Savior so early but he sure had gone on up to Him with a beautiful-looking coffin, praise Jesus!—the five of them plus Gregory Jr. had piled easily enough again into Gregory Sr.’s car the same way they had on the way to the church. A little respite was in order now that they had done with the Saint Raymond’s part of it that everybody hated but for decency’s sake couldn’t miss, since all present had wanted to appear duly respectful, you know, the way you should for someone like Duane whom almost everyone had loved in spite of that (yes, that, but still, you had to have some feeling for the dead, didn’t you?). Last regards had been paid at the cemetery to Duane’s mother and stepfather (still in a severe state of shock after what had happened); Cee-Cee and Nicky and Tamara had finally been pulled away from chatting with the Reverend, who had proved inconsolable despite his drunkenness: It wasn’t none of it his fault, what had happened in church, he shouldn’t even worry about it, they’d said, although everyone knew that if the old alcoholic nigger had put the whiskey behind his shelf instead of all out front on it for a change none of the disgraceful shit today would have happened. Now, back in Sound Hill, they were all tired and cold and disgusted and just flat out, that was all. Tamara had put on the lima beans, Cee-Cee was helping with the rice and Jacquie was trying to season the meat in that kitchen that was looking more nasty to her today than ever before because (yes, Tamara was her friend, but, well, speak the truth before God, girl, she thought) she had seen not one but two roaches about which she would be sure to tell Gregory later. But then petty shit like that didn’t matter so much now after such a sad occasion, with everybody talking and the TV blaring and the 40s of Olde English out on the living-room table and Tamara looking for her house shoes and her husband Kevin still not back with their kids Jaycee and Cassandra from Mrs. Shirley’s: watching football with Mrs. Shirley’s Harry after the funeral, now wasn’t that some shit? she said; all the others except Gregory sucked their teeth and shook their heads. The house was still too damn cold, right down there on the Sound, after all, but the principal shit was Duane and those others too, still on everybody’s mind after what had happened.