It had been seven years since they’d had a case this bad — her own beloved daughter Honey, who had always had a sweet nature, until she rejected the church after getting pregnant by that Reverend Swanson. Righteous had tried to help Honey understand the nature of man and how it’s a woman’s job to hold herself above that nature, and then if she can’t, to find forgiveness, especially for a man of God. But Honey had left the church anyway and the trouble started. She’d abandoned her own little boy, run off far from home and moved in with a female abomination of God, which had to be due to the drugs she must have been taking to do it. Righteous and her Church Sisters had done their very best by tricking her home with a story that Righteous was in failing health and then had taken Honey into the storm cellar, held her down and prayed over her for fourteen hours straight, not giving her leave to eat or evacuate her body, until she’d cried out for Jesus and spoken in tongues and had been welcomed back into the fold. But just like in Matthew 12:43, the unclean spirit left her, took tea in Hades, then came back with seven of his friends and possessed her again until the poor child drove that female abomination’s car straight into a sixteen-wheeler two days later. No matter that people said the girl couldn’t stop crying and drinking and crying some more, Righteous knew it was her own fault. The whole of the congregation’s fault for not working harder to redeem her soul. Righteous tried her mournful face on again and was surprised to see the wetness of tears shining in her eyes. She quickly wiped them and went to join her sisters.
People started trailing into the church a little after noon, in order to get the good seats. Those closest to the casket and the family went first. Second were those next to Righteous Polk, as she always fell out with such grandeur and delivered dramatic screams and carryings-on both to and from the coffin. Celia arrived only fifteen minutes early with the certainty of one who knows her seat will be held for her. An eager group crowded near her, the clear star of the event until the Rankins arrived. Celia had chosen a simple black crepe skirt and jacket with a shiny teal mandarin collar blouse, pill box hat with a black rhinestone flourish. Her eyes kept flashing to the church door anticipating Ephram’s entrance. The men and women surrounding Celia let their eyes fly after hers like gnats over sugar, eager to alight at the very moment of contact.
She did not have long to wait. Ephram Jennings, who had milled outside as long as possible, stepped into the church that Monday afternoon and stood unguarded at the sanctuary doors. Celia shot tacks at him then made a big show of putting her hand over her eyes and turning away. Ephram, a riot of nerves and pitted fear, felt as if he’d been hit with buckshot. The crowd feasted upon this sweet exchange. Ephram absorbed the stares and walked into the church, tracking the powder from Ruby’s, now wedged like glue into the tread of his shoes.
The Rankins, save Chauncy, who’d volunteered to retrieve Ephram, arrived in two baby blue stretch limousines hired all the way from Leesville. They crowded the doorway so Ephram cleared the way and let them pass. Despite the magnificence of their funereal finery, the black plume feathers in Supra’s hat, the pressed straightness of the women’s hair and the men’s good suits, despite the severity of mourning painted on the faces of his kin, the tears already washing down Verde’s slick cheeks, the genuine beauty of the seven Rankin brothers, and the heaving sobs of Junie’s wife, Bessie, when Ephram sat down in the back and not in the seat next to Celia that he’d shared for two decades, the whole of the parlor turned first to Ephram and then to see how Celia took it. They found her with eyes closed in prayer.
Folks said later that the funeral of Junie Rankin was a good testimony to his life. It wasn’t the best they’d seen, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. The Rankins from out of town did find it a bit strange when the Pastor mentioned how glad he was that Junie had never been vexed by Jezebels or demons or lunacy. Everyone from Liberty had just turned around again and stared at Ephram Jennings for a beat. As the singing commenced, women fell out and had to be helped up. Men clapped and sang “Seraph!” Righteous Polk did not disappoint and fell out so many times, shaking and weeping with such ferocity, that she had to be tended to in the Pastor’s office by the recently widowed Deacon Charles. At the casket the competition had been fierce over who loved Junie the most, his wife, Bessie, or his sister, Petunia. Wail landed upon wail, followed by the thrashing and beating of flesh. Junie’s framed photograph, the easel it was set upon, and two floral arrangements featuring calla lilies were casualties of the fierce rivalry. The service ended with no clear winner.
Ephram felt faint and his stomach flipped as he rose with the rest of the pallbearers, Chauncy, Percy, Gubber, Charlie and Sim Rankin. He took his place on the back left corner as all six men heaved poor Junie up and onto their capable shoulders. Ephram felt Celia boring into him the whole of the journey down the aisle, but some unnamed will would not let him meet her gaze. He left the church and climbed into the hearse with the rest of the men.
Then his bones began to tingle.
Edwin Shephard Junior drove them the four miles to Liberty Township Cemetery, where they unloaded the casket and carried Junie down to his plot. Edwin fiddled with the burial area while the six pallbearers walked into the heart of the graveyard to wait for folks to arrive. Between the family processional out of the church, the refixing of makeup and rearranging of undergarments, the heaving and sitting and gathering of strength and arranging themselves in limousines, the men had at least an hour of waiting ahead of them.
As soon as they had settled themselves on tombstones for a smoke, Ephram slipped his coat on and began walking down the hill, bound for Bell land.
Percy Rankin spit out, “I wouldn’t go nowheres if I was you until you get that meeting with Celia done and finished. Don’t want nothing to happen to that gal.” Ephram turned around, a weak terror gripping him, and rejoined the group.
Chauncy Rankin took off his jacket, looked at Ephram and busted out laughing. He laughed so hard he all but fell out on the ground then kept right on laughing. Side-splitting, tears-streaming-down-his-cheeks, ripping belly laughs. Percy and Sim turned away smiling as Chauncy quieted for a second, climbed his way up a tombstone, glanced back at Ephram and fell back to the ground howling.
Caught between shame and fear, battling the tingling in his joints and the flipping of his stomach, Ephram did not ask the question Chauncy’s actions begged him to ask: What you laughin’ at?
Finally Chauncy caught his breath and between gasps said, “Ooooooh, man! Ooooooooo, man, I ain’t laugh that hard since Gubber passed out and wet hisself at Bloom’s last month.”
Gubber spat out, “Only after y’all fool niggas stuck my hand in warm water whiles I’m asleep.”