Suzan-Lori Parks - Getting Mother’s Body

“You said I wouldn’t get bigged the first time we did it,” I says.

“Was our first time your first time?” he says.

“You gonna marry me or what?” I says. The words come out too loud.

He don’t speak. He cuts on the radio but it don’t work when the car ain’t running. He gets out, closing the back two doors, leaving mines open and getting back behind the wheel.

“Sure I’m gonna marry you,” he says at last. “You my treasure. You think I don’t wanna marry my treasure?”

“People are talking,” I says.

“They just jealous,” he says and we both laugh. “Billy Beede got herself a good-looking man and they all jealous.”

When we quit laughing we sit there quiet.

“You my treasure, girl,” he says. “You my treasure, capital T, make no mistake.”

“I’m five months gone,” I says. Too loud again.

He wraps his fingers tight around the wheel. I want him to look at me but he don’t.

Someone comes up, stopping a foot or two from the car to stare at us openmouthed. It’s Laz. He got his wool cap down around his ears and his plaid shirt buttoned to the chin.

“You want yr ass kicked?” Snipes asks him.

“Not today,” Laz says.

“You don’t stop looking at me and my woman, I’ma kick yr black ass,” Snipes says.

Laz looks at the ground.

“You don’t get the hell outa here, I’ma kill you,” Snipes says.

“Being dead don’t bother me none,” Laz says. He got a bold voice but he ain’t looking up from the ground.

Snipes jumps out the car and they stand there toe to toe. Everything Snipes got is better than everything Laz got.

“Go the hell home, Laz,” I says and he turns and goes. Snipes throws a rock and Laz runs.

“Goddamn boot-black-wool-hat-wearing-four-eyed nigger probably wanted to see us doing it,” Snipes goes, getting back in the car and laughing and holding my hand. “Peeping and creeping boot-black-winter-hat nigger.”

“Laz is just Laz,” I says.

“His daddy runs the funeral home but Laz ain’t never gonna be running shit,” Snipes says, laughing hard and squeezing my hand to get me to laugh too and I laugh till his squeezing hurts and I make him let go.

“Today’s Wednesday, ain’t it?” Snipes says. He looks down the road, seeing his upcoming appointments in his head. “I’m free towards the end of the week. Let’s get married on Friday.”

“Really?”

“Friday’s the day,” he says, taking out his billfold. He peeks the money part open with his pointer and thumb, then he feathers the bills, counting. His one eyebrow lifts up, surprised.

“That’s what you call significant,” he says.

“Significant?”

“What year is it?”

“ ‘Sixty-three.”

“And here I got sixty-three dollars in my billfold,” he says smiling.

He pinches the bills out, folding them single-handed. He reaches over to me, lifting my housedress away from my brassiere and tucking the sixty-three dollars down between my breasts.

“Get yrself a wedding dress and some shoes and a one-way bus ticket.”

“I’ma go to Jackson’s Formal.”

“Get something pretty. Come up to Texhoma tomorrow. We can do it Friday.”

“You gonna get down on yr knee and ask me?”

“You come up tomorrow and I’ll get down on my knee in front of my sister and her kids and ask you to marry me. Hell, I’ll get down on both knees. Then we can do it Friday.”

“How bout today you meet Aunt June and Uncle Teddy?” I says.

“Today I gotta go to Midland,” he says.

“It’ll only take a minute.”

“I don’t got a minute,” he says. He looks at me. He got lips like pillows. “Have em come to Texhoma Friday. They can watch us get married. I’ll meet em then.”

“When they come up you gotta ask me to marry you on yr knees in front of them too,” I says. “They’d feel left out if they didn’t see it since you’ll be asking me in front of yr sister and her kids and yr mother and dad—”

“My mother and dad won’t be making it,” Snipes says.

“How come?”

“They’s passed,” he says. He starts up the car, turning it around neatly and pulling it into the road, heading back towards Lincoln. On Friday my new name will be Mrs. Clifton Snipes.

“I was ten when Willa Mae passed,” I says.

“Willa Mae who?”

“Willa Mae Beede. My mother,” I says.

Snipes takes his hand off the wheel to scratch his crotch. His foot is light on the gas pedal. There’s a story about my mother. All these months I been seeing Snipes, I didn’t know whether or not he’d heard it. Now I can tell he has.

“They say yr mamma went into the ground with gold in her pockets,” Snipes says.

“You believe that?” I says.

“I’m just telling you what they say.”

“And I say Willa Mae Beede was a liar and a cheat. Getting locked up in jail every time she turned around. Always talking big and never amounting to nothing.”

He takes his foot all the way off the gas to look me full in the face. We coast along. “She was your mamma, girl,” Snipes says.

“Willa Mae passed and it didn’t bother me none. I was glad to see her go,” I says.

“How come you call her Willa Mae?”

“Willa Mae is her name,” I says.

He turns his eyes back to the road and we pick up speed. We go fast. The hot air swishes through the car with all the windows down. I put my hands on the sides of my head, keeping my hair in some kind of shape.

“Willa Mae’s pockets of gold ain’t nothing to sneeze at,” Snipes says. He sorta yells it over the loud whoosh of the air.

“Shoot, Snipes,” I says. “Willa Mae Beede was the biggest liar in Texas. She didn’t go into the ground with shit.” I feel mad then I laugh. After a minute Snipes laughs too.

“Any jewels she had was fake,” I tell him.

“It makes a good story,” he says.

“A good story’s all it makes.”

He checks his wristwatch. We come up on the road that leads to the Crater and he pulls over.

“I gotta let you out here.”

“Can’t you take me all the way home?”

“I gotta get to Midland.”

Sanderson’s is only a mile away. I can walk.

“Penny for your thoughts,” I says.

“Nothing on my mind but coffins,” he says smiling, looking down the road, hands easy now, two fingers of each balanced on the wheel. “Doctor Wells is dying. I’ma talk him into getting buried in a black doctor’s bag made outa oak.”

“That sounds nice,” I says.

His arm grazes my belly as he reaches over to open my door for me. I get out then lean through the window so he can give me some sugar. My dress gaps open. He looks quick at his sixty-three dollars.

“We getting married on Friday, Billy Beede!” Snipes hollers, taking off, driving north, waving at me as he goes.

I walk home the other way.

I don’t know how the hell I get into these messes.

This mess I’m in now started with me needing three dollars’ worth of gas and a Coke. Just goes to show.

“That’s a nice car you got,” she said. “What’s it called?”

“It’s a Galaxie.”

“Like the stars and stuff?”

“It’s just a Ford, girl,” I said. I was on my way home. It was getting late. The man who’d sold me the gas had gone inside through the filling station and into what looked like a trailer out back. The girl was lingering.

“You like cars dontcha?” I said.

“Not really,” she said.

“You wanna go for a ride?” I ast her.

“It’s late,” she said.

“Maybe some other time then,” I said. And I went on.

But I came back the next day. Don’t ask me why cause I don’t know. Billy Beede got a good head of hair and a nice smile tho there’s plenty of gals with that. I heard folks say her mamma died rich, but I didn’t have no designs or nothing on her money. I was just headed back to see her.