Victor LaValle - Ecstatic

— I need to get used to doing things on my own, my sister said. I want you both to go.

I felt like the appointed manservant of some young caliph, but did as the young girl commanded. Nabisase tied my grandmother to my back with a few sheets. I carried her that way to the parking lot and put her in the passenger seat.

In the wounded Dodge Neon we drove through Lumpkin, Virginia. There was the chance we’d sight Mom from the car, but not likely. So the new method was to travel, park, tie Grandma on my back and walk around a few blocks looking in stores or driveways.

In 1981 Uncle Isaac tracked Mom to a duck farm in Providence.

Grandma had a recent picture that we showed to clerks, people waiting to cross at red lights. Pedestrians and passengers stared at Grandma and me with patterns of bemusement on their faces as I carried her around. Most were nice enough to listen, but none recognized our dear.

Just like Southeast Queens the city of Lumpkin, away from the phalanx of tourist restaurants and hotels, was the Lord’s territory.

Calvary Baptist, Grace Brethren Church, Sacred Heart Catholic, First Church of Christ Scientist, Mountainview Church of Christ, Christ Episcopal Church, Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox, Grace Lutheran, First Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventist, Centenary United Church of Christ, Braddock St. United Methodist, Market St. Methodist, St. Paul the Redeemer, Beth El Congregation Synagogue Reform. In a pretty small town. With twenty-five houses of worship what’s the gamble that, on a Sunday, marriage bloomed.

At an A.M.E. church the jubilant congregation stood outside. Women in pink dresses, men in red suits. The front lawn looked like a taffy shop.

The one-story wooden church was just another white house on a residential block, except for the wheelchair ramp leading to the front door.

Soon as I walked onto the lawn a short, wide man approached. He was one of those small guys with a rib cage large enough to store a car engine. — Hey now, he said.

He put his hand out to me.

— Yes, I said.

— Out strolling.

This sounds like a question, but he wasn’t really asking. With his right hand on my shoulder he turned me away from the church so that Grandma and I faced the street once more.

Grandma said, — We are looking for someone.

— Yes, he agreed, but the face showed his unconcern.

He put one hand in his red vest pocket which matched his red shoes, his red jacket and tusk-colored shirt. I tried to show him Mom’s picture, but there wasn’t time.

— You both have a good day now, he said. You go on from here because we’ve got a whole mess of cars about to come up the road for a wedding. It’s going to get crowded. Go on. Go on.

In a pantomime of friendliness he smiled.

A woman, his wife I bet, walked closer to us and she smiled.

The whole hill of people, hell-yeah fifty-five if I counted, walked closer to us and they smiled, too.

The guy pushed me without making it obvious. Maybe he bounced at bars. With his hand against my right arm he sent Grandma and I going. I had to walk because the momentum would’ve tripped me if I didn’t move. I waved cheerfully until Grandma slapped my face.

— Why would you wave? She asked. They were not friendly. When she scowled her eyebrows covered her eyes, so that her face lost its light.

— They were nice. I was indignant for them because they’d smiled.

— They were disgusted.

— By you?

She pinched my ear.

— By me? I asked. They didn’t like me? How?

— Because you are a stinker. One thin, mottled hand waved not across her own nose, but under mine.

— How could they know just by looking at me?

She hooked her thumb into the sheet where it passed under my armpit. — He smelled you.

— It’s that bad?

— Terrible, she admitted.

I unbuttoned two of the buttons on my shirt and put my nose in. — What do I smell like?

Grandma wasn’t going to detail the offense. I really hadn’t noticed. It was three days by now. That is a while.

— I’m sorry, I said to Grandma.

The car was parked downtown; as I walked she reached over my shoulder, rubbed my cheek. Before we got back in the car we stopped in a little pharmacy with aisles so tight that when I tried to slide into the personal hygiene lane I knocked Grandma into a whole display of brightly tinted coolers. I wanted to find some cologne to spritz myself.

CVS was bigger; a chain store with plenty of floor space. There were perfumes in a glass case, but the case only opened with a key. I could’ve cracked it with my elbow, but who becomes a crook for such a dumb reason.

— I’m going to have to buy one, I told Grandma.

— These are too expensive. Try something else. She pulled my face away, to the right, not gently.

Some perfumes were twenty dollars, but I understood what Grandma really meant. It wasn’t that she thought people shouldn’t spend twenty dollars on cologne, but that they should bathe before it became an issue.

Opposite the perfumes there were bath gels so I went along opening many, putting them to Grandma’s nose until she decided which one she liked. As she sniffed she pursed her lips close to the bottle. If I couldn’t be trusted to soap up I didn’t trust myself to choose.

What a finicky woman. On the twenty-third try, a hand lotion, she said, — This.

It didn’t smell like flowers; not candle wax or ocean water. Worst of the lot. It was dank. It smelled like dirt really. Hearth Scented Body Gel by Mennen.

— If you take one that’s too sweet, people will still smell you underneath. This one is strong, but not perfume. It will hide what you have done.

Flipping the plastic tube I squeezed too much on my hands. Rubbed them together until the green paste covered my palms and fingers. First I reached into my shirt to rub up my stomach. I put it on my neck and face then massaged it in long enough that the green color disappeared; only the scent remained. Man of the soil, that’s me.

There was a small glass case near the lotion end of the store. There was jewelry in it; the pieces were pretty but sure to have brief lives. On a few I could see the glue that had been used to affix red or purple stones to the gold-plated rings.

— How about a necklace? I said to Grandma. There was a fine thin one with an orange stone.

— I don’t wear, she said. She scratched behind one ear, gently.

And I realized she was right. Never bracelets, medallions, rope chain or earrings.

— How about a three-finger ring? I offered.

— Not anything.

— Are you allergic?

— I am not.

— Then let me get you one. You can wear it tonight.

I was about to call the man at the counter over to unlock the case, but she slapped my shoulder. I dropped my hand.

— You don’t trust my taste, I said.

— I don’t wear any, Grandma said firmly.

— Is it an African custom?

— African custom? You fool. I stopped wearing them for Isaac when he died.

— Did he wear a lot of jewelry?

— No.

— Was he allergic to jewelry?

— No.

— Then why jewelry?!

— I cannot be pretty since my dear son died.

We found Mom.

But it took two hours.

Sixty minutes of that wasted because Grandma wouldn’t let me ask after Mom in bars. After Grandma did let me Mom’s path lit right on up. Five of them had met her. Dick’s, Dell’s and the Doughboy. Happy Rabbit. Pretty Sue’s.

We had a snapshot of her taken last month, in a department store. Mom stood beside a mannequin at the Macy’s in Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island. Both wore long coats with fur collars. Both were just trying them on. Mom’s head was back and she looked at the camera with a predatory gaze. Her tongue stuck half-an-inch from one corner of her mouth. My sister had taken the picture.