So Many Chances

SO MANY CHANCES by Susan Buffum (Copyright Susan Buffum 2018)

When no one was looking I spit into my brother’s casket because I was mad at him. My scratching his wrist with my ragged fingernail earlier had drawn no blood, just sort of scuffed up his flesh a bit. I really wanted to punch him with my balled up fist, just lay into him like I’d seen Henry do a hundred times and raise a big bruise along the sharp ridge of his jaw but my Aunt Nancy had come up on my blindside, startling me so badly I’d nearly toppled off the prie dieu I’d been standing on to reach him. She’d told me it was for kneeling on, not standing on with dirty shoes. My shoes weren’t dirty, but she’d lifted me off anyway, setting me on the carpet, shooing me away to stand with my brothers and sisters, telling me to behave myself because funerals were solemn occasions.

My mama was sitting in a wingchair dabbing her swollen eyes with a plain white handkerchief someone had given her when she’d run out of tissues. Her face was all distorted as if she was made of pallid dough that someone had kneaded with careless hands, giving her a new face with red eyes and a jack-o-lantern mouth. She hadn’t put her partial in as she was just so distraught. Her hair, blonde shot through with white, was pulled severely back into a taut bun at the nape of her neck. I didn’t know  her like this so was avoiding her every time she reached toward me trying to draw me close. She smelled of gardenias. It was giving me a headache.

My papa was standing beside her chair. He looked like a mannequin from the department store, a grim look molded on his face, his eyes like painted plaster of Paris they were so flat and lifeless. There was a little scab on his chin where he’d nicked himself shaving with the straight razor this morning. He had one hand on the back of the chair. His hands were huge for a man his size, his fingers like fat sausages. There was still some dirt underneath his nails. He could never get it all out. His suit hung on him as if sewn for a bigger man two sizes larger. The collar of his shirt gaped away from the cords of his thin neck even though he’d drawn the knot of his tie as tight as he could. The toe of his left shoe was scuffed. He’d stumbled climbing the three stairs into the funeral home. My brother Johnny had caught him by the elbow, helped him regain his balance. Neither one of them had said anything about me walking backwards up the cement ramp meant for the handicapped. I hadn’t wanted to come inside so I was pretending to be leaving.

Johnny was standing on the other side of our mother and he looked like a TV commercial for shampoo or something with his pale-blonde hair shining and blow-dried, not a single hair out of place. He was a handsome devil according to everyone in town but none of his three exe wives were here. There was a girl around my sister Anita’s age standing beside him. I gave her a look and she gave me one right back, gripping his hand more firmly as if I might have cast the evil eye upon her and she was a little scared of what curse I’d summoned from the depths of my dark little soul. “Get in line, already, will you,” Johnny hissed at me. “And wipe that look off your face. Nobody wants to see that monkey puss at a funeral.”

“I was born looking like this,” I replied.

“More’s the pity,” he retorted.

 “Why’s she got that eye patch on?” the girl’s voice murmured to Johnny, but I had two perfectly good ears and heard her just the same.

“Poked her damn eye out with a stick when she was two years old,” he replied.

I stomped on Anita’s right foot in passing her and she retaliated by cuffing me upside the head. I hated her and she hated me. I hated that she was fifteen and pretty. She hated that I was seven and didn’t listen to anyone anymore. She hadn’t set herself free from the switch and the backhand when she was my age, having had no vision of a brighter future, I guess. I stopped in front of my brother Joe, looking up at him. He ignored me for a long moment then lowered just his eyes to look down into my left eye. “I’d rather be fishing,” I said, watching the corner of his mouth twitch.

“Hush,” he said softly.

“It’s the truth.”

“The truth won’t set you free here and now. Now be quiet and get in line. The mourners are filing in. You behave yourself. Try to be a little lady.”

“They don’t teach you nothin’ like that in school. But I can guestimate the number of mourners for you.”

“Guestimate how many lashes Pa will give you if you don’t shush up.”

“I hate Jimmy,” I said and was surprised when he suddenly grabbed me above the elbow and shook me as if I was a ragdoll. “Hey!” I cried.

“You take that back!” he flared.

“Joseph!” It was mother’s voice wedging itself between us like a physical force. He glanced at her then gave my arm a last shake and let go. I shot him a sullen glare then went to stand beside my eleven-year old brother Jesse, taking my place at the end of the line of my immediate family members. My Grandmama Agnes was sitting in a straight chair, her hands clutching her black purse on her lap. Beside her Grandpa James, whom Jimmy had been named after, rocked a bit in his chair, humming to himself. His eyes looked sort of glassy, like my father’s did when he’d been down to Bobby’s Bar and Grill on a Saturday night and came back stumbling and mumbling, ready to lash out at anyone who got in between him and his bed. Beyond them was Grandmama Frances who was widowed, then my various aunts, uncles and cousins who kind of kept their distance from us.

I stared at the ugly patterned carpet for several long minutes, then looked over at the people in the long line who’d come to gawk at Jimmy in his casket. You’d never know he had a big hole in his chest from the shotgun he’d used. I’d heard Anita talking on the phone to a friend two nights after he’d killed himself saying that of course he wouldn’t have blown his head off because he was vain of his good looks and wouldn’t want people gaping at a monster with broken teeth and shattered cheekbones. I’d had a nightmare that same night, Jimmy coming out of his room all bloody with his jaw hanging loose, one eye dangling from its socket, his teeth all jagged as he  reached for me with bloodstained hands, trying to say my name with a torn tongue flopping around in his messed up mouth. I’d screamed bloody murder, waking the whole house. Mama had come in and slapped my face hard, the pain startling me into silence. She’d said, “That’s enough out of you!” then turned and walked out without offering a comforting gesture or word. It had been Joey who’d climbed into my bed and held me, rocking me because when the shock of being struck had worn off I’d found myself crying and shaking like a leaf, still afraid Jimmy was out in the hallway waiting to grab me when I left my room and drag me to Hell, which was where people who killed themselves went directly.

I stood there squirming a little, barely tolerating being patted and petted, hugged and kissed by a bunch of people I barely knew and many I had never seen before in my life. One younger woman not much older than Johnny, who was twenty-one, had crouched down to fix a bow at the end of one of my strawberry-blonde braids, getting herself eye level with me. I stared at her and she stared at me until finally she said, “Well, there you are,” as if I had been absent from my body and had stepped back inside just that moment. She stood up and moved away, my head turning to follow her black suit. She had long red hair. I wanted to follow her, ask her what her name was and why she had come. How had she known my brother? I frowned. She was the only person in the room moving in my field of vision. Everyone around me seemed frozen in a tableau and even the sound had been stilled in the room. The young woman had turned her head to look back at me over her shoulder. Her shiny lips formed an enigmatic smile before she turned away again just as the sound and motion in the room resumed with a slightly jarring effect on my nerves. I drew a breath, having realized that I had been holding it since she’d tied my bow.

“Who’s she?” I asked Jesse.

“Who’s she who?” he answered, looking disinterested, bored, if truth be told.

“The redhead.”

“Dunno,” he said with a shrug.

“Bet she’s a witch,” I murmured. He gave me a skeptical look then turned his head away. “She just cast a spell on me.”

“Ha,” he said shortly. “Waste of time, you ask me.”

“You two shut up,” Joey hissed, scowling at me in particular.

“I’ve gotta pee,” I said. Joey narrowed his eyes, his mouth going flat before he pointed to the door. Freed by his signal I stitched a meandering path through the gathered mourners, dodging elbows and knees but bumping into a few people I couldn’t see on my right.

In the wide hallway there were groups of people milling about, talking quietly. I caught bits and pieces of their conversations, gathering the words ‘shame’, ‘disgrace’, ‘suicide’, ‘beatings’ and ‘angry man’ in my ears before a man in a black suit called me by name saying, “Jennie, can I help you?”

“I’ve got to pee,” I told him bluntly.

“I’ll show you to the ladies room. Come with me.” I followed him into a side hall, then right into another corridor. “Here you are. Can you find your way back or would you like me to wait here for you?”

I frowned. Did he think I was an idiot, too stupid to find my way back to the big noisy room where my brother lay in his casket like a statue with his heart all blown to smithereens? “I can find my own way,” I said. Then I added, “Thank you kindly,” because the walls have ears everywhere.

“Very good.” He turned and walked away. I twisted the knob and let myself into the bathroom to do what I had to do.

I’d finished what I’d come to do but was still sitting there, craning my neck, looking at the pictures hung on the walls of the little bathroom when the door opened and the redhead in the black suit walked in. She looked at me then said, “So sorry, the door wasn’t locked.”

“You can come in. I’m done.” For some reason the toilet paper was farther away than I could reach. She noticed me stretching forward and closed the door, locking it, then came and spun the roll, tearing off a half dozen or so sheets, folding them then handing the tissue to me. “Don’t watch,” I said. She seemed almost amused by my sudden shyness but turned and looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink, opening her small black purse, taking out a tube of lipstick and applying a little to her lips. It was, I realized, colorless. “What’s that stuff?” I asked as I slid off the toilet and pulled my panties up.

“This? It’s lip gloss. Want some?” She turned back to me. I was tugging down the skirt of my dress but it was being stubborn, caught in the elastic of my underpants behind me. “Here, hold this a second. Let me help you with that.” She handed me the tube, set her purse on the edge of the sink then crouched down, reaching around me to ease my skirt out of the elastic and smooth it down. “There you go!” she said cheerfully. “Now, push your lips out. Make a face like a fish.”

“Like this?” I puckered up like a fish.

“Perfect!” She took the tube of lip gloss back, opened it then cupped my chin in one hand while rubbing the glossy stick over my lips. “Now, fold your lips in and move them side to side a bit to smooth it out, like this.” She demonstrated and I copied her, feeling suddenly grown up. Anita wore lipstick sometimes but she’d never let me try any on and probably couldn’t be bothered showing me what to do. “Very nice.”

“Do you need to pee before I flush? It saves water.”

“No, thank you, suagr. Go ahead. I just ducked in to comb my hair and check my lips.”

I flushed. She moved aside after turning on the water so I could wash my hands. “Are you a witch?” I blurted out figuring I might as well ask while I had the opportunity.

“A witch? No! What a strange question.”

“My papa saw a woman with red hair like yours once once and said she was a witch. A bad one.”

“Well, maybe she was. But I’m not.”

“Oh.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I was hoping you rode here on a broom and might be inclined to take me for a ride.”

She laughed. “Sorry. I rode over in a Honda Civic.”

“My mistake,” I murmured. “Pardon me.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “People mistake me for a witch all the time, if truth be told.” I looked up at her. Her eyes had mischief in them. “Maybe there’re a lot of witches with red hair. What do you think?”

“Red hair and green skin,” I said, nodding.

“And warts. Witches have warts, don’t they?”

“Big ugly ones on their chins or noses.”

“Well, are we all done in here?” she asked. There were voices in the corridor outside the door, other women needing to use the bathroom. I nodded. She unlocked the door and we stepped out. “Excuse us please. Pardon us, ladies!” she said, wending a path through the half dozen or so women filling the narrow corridor. “Why don’t we sneak outside for a breath of fresh air,” the redhead said. That sounded enticing to me, so I followed her.

We exited into a garden at the side of the funeral home. She walked down a brick path and I trailed behind her like an obedient puppy. When we reached a bench she sat down, patted the place beside her. I pulled myself up, feet dangling to sit beside her. She opened her purse, took out a pack of cigarettes and a slim lighter. “Bad me,” she said, shaking one slender white cigarette from the pack, putting it between her freshly glossed lips, then flicking a flame to life and applying it to the blunt end. Little puffs of smoke drifted upward. She inhaled deeply then blew the smoke out through her nose like a dragon. I sat watching her smoke for nearly a full minute. Finally she said, “That’s better,” then crushed the butt out on the edge of the bench, looked around, and shrugged before tucking the extinguished cigarette back into her bag. “I’m not a litterer,” she said.

“Good.” I was suddenly at a loss for words, which was unusual for me to say the least. I wracked my brains then asked, “What’d you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say. My name is Stephanie,” she replied. “And you’re Jennie. I recognized you because of the patch.” She pointed to her own eye. “Jim told me all about your accident when you were little.”

“You know my brother?”

“I knew him,” she said, correcting my verb tense. “We met at Renny’s.” My eyebrows rose at the mention of Renny’s Roadhouse. Even my father didn’t go there. I didn’t know my brother had ever gone there! “He’d come and shoot pool with the bikers. He was pretty good with a cue. Sometimes he won a little money, sometimes he lost some. He played a little Keno and won more than he lost. He was lucky like that.” She smiled wistfully. “Sometimes we’d dance a little and sometimes we’d just sit at a table and talk over a beer or two.” A window had just been thrown open in my mind. My oldest brother went to bars and talked to girls, drank beer, played pool and danced. It was like he’d led a secret life I’d just been made privy to. On the farm he’d milked the cows, drove the tractor out into the fields, sheered the few sheep we had left, picked tomatoes and corn, or whatever crop had come in, mended fences and ran irrigation lines. He’d never said much, not even at dinner, but I’d heard him and Papa, and especially Henry, one of the hired hands, yelling at one another in the barn quite often when I’d been chasing chickens or running from the mean goose that was always wanting to bite me. “He gave me the money he won to hold for him. He said your father would just take it and piss it away on beer and whisky.” Her eyes met my eye, giving me a long look before she said, “I mean, he would just spend it like water.” I nodded. “I was going to give it to your family this evening, or tomorrow after the funeral.”

“What for?”

“It was Jimmy’s money. I really ought to give it to your folks.” I was shaking my head. “No? Well, why not?”

“He gave it to you.”

“Only to keep it safe.”

“Well, how much money is it?”

“Oh, around five thousand dollars, I’d say.” That seemed like an awful lot of money to me. I was lucky if I saw a few dollars in a month’s time. I mostly earned my pocket money selling vegetables at the farm stand. People told me to keep the change, or slipped a dollar into my hand as they were leaving. I liked it when I got money like that. I was like a squirrel hiding acorns with the change and dollar bills, hiding the money in an old Smucker’s jelly jar under a loose floorboard underneath my bed, where I also had my mama’s clip on earrings she’d left on her dresser after Grampapa’s funeral two years ago, my papa’s old comb with the missing teeth he’d left on the edge of the bathtub one night, a matchbook belonging to Henry he’d dropped in the yard. I had Jimmy’s baby teeth in an envelope under my bed, having found them in the desk drawer yesterday when looking for a stamp for a note my Mama had written. “Your folks could probably use the money.”

“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “You can keep it.”

“You’re a little on the young side to be giving me permission to keep your big brother’s pool earnings.”

I made a face, kicking my legs faster so I was in imminent danger of launching myself right off the bench. “Papa’d only spend it like you said.  It wouldn’t really do none of us no good.”

“So what do you think I should do with the money then?” she asked.

I stared at the flower bed across from the bench until the flowers all blurred together in pools of bright colors. What should she do with the money? I didn’t know. I didn’t have a lot of experience managing money. I only bought a box of Cracker Jack at the grocery store once in a while. “Just put it in the bank,” I finally concluded. “For a rainy day.” I’d heard my Mama say that from time to time, that she was settin’ a few dollars aside for a rainy day. I jumped off the bench and nearly fell but she bent forward, grabbing me by the sash of my dress.

“Be careful!”

I regained my balance then turned back toward her. She was watching me. I thought she was the prettiest girl I’d ever laid eyes on. No wonder Jimmy’d liked dancing with her. “Were you his girlfriend?” I asked, little dots finally connecting in my head to form a picture.

“I suppose you could say that. He trusted me more than he trusted anyone else. We were good friends.”

“Did he kiss you?”

“That’s a rather personal question, honey.” She tilted her head back, looking up at a mockingbird sitting above us running through his repertoire of songs. Her eyes shimmered in the dying light of the day. “Yeah, we kissed. It was so nice. He always treated me like a real lady.” She blinked rapidly then looked down, opening her purse. “You want a stick of gum?” I nodded and she dug one out for me, then one for herself. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Miss Jennie,” she said, snapping her purse shut. “I’ll put Jimmy’s money in a separate bank account where it’ll be safe and earn a teeny bit of interest every month. Pennies, that’s all the bank gives you nowadays for saving money. But pennies add up over time slow but surely.” She gave me a long solemn look. “You sure have grown up to be a pretty little girl. Breaks my heart, it does, about your poor eye.”

“Accidents happen,” I said with a one-shouldered shrug.

She reached out, grabbed my wrist and pulled me so that I was standing right in front of her. Her eyes held mine. “I’ll save Jimmy’s money for you. When you’re all grown up you come and find me and I’ll give it to you. It’ll be all yours. But don’t you tell a soul about it, okay? It’ll be our secret. Promise?” I nodded although I must have looked confused because she pulled me close and hugged me. “It’s going to be all right, sugar,” she said softly. “He never should have left us like this.”

“No,” I agreed. He never should have.

“He had so many chances to make everything right, the way it should have been. We’d talked about it often enough but my father was so angry with him still. He still won’t speak to me. Such a long time to hold a grudge!” She shook her head. “But that’s not your worry, is it? Of course not,” she said, answering her own question.

“Jennie.” It was Johnny. He’d come up the path just now, startling us both. “My sister should be inside,” he said to Stephanie.

“Your sister wanted a breath of fresh air,” she replied.

“Well she’s had it and now she needs to come back inside with me. And you should go.”

“I have a right to be here,” she said, giving me one last quick hug before letting go. “But I’m ready to go. So, you go on now, Jennie. I have to get home, but you remember what I said.”

Johnny took my hand and led me back along the path. “You stay away from her,” he warned me.

“She’s not a witch. I asked her.”

“There are all kinds of bad people in the world, not just witches.”

“Is she a bad person?” I asked, jogging to keep up with his long stride. He didn’t answer me. “Well, is she?” I asked again as we reached the side door of the funeral home.

He stopped and looked down at me and I could see he didn’t really know how to answer my question. “Look what happened to Jimmy,” he said.

“He shot himself.”

“Well, he had to have had some reason to, right?”

“Was he sad about Stephanie?” I asked, and he stiffened, looked at me then looked away. “Did she say she wouldn’t dance with him and he got sad because he thought she’d never dance with him again so he shot his wounded heart so it wouldn’t hurt him no more?”

He suddenly bent down, picked me up and held me close. “There were a lot of things that were making him sad, not just any one thing in particular. But you know what? You never made him sad. You always made him happy, didn’t you? You always made Jimmy smile. You were his little sunshine girl.”

Jimmy always sang You Are my Sunshine when we were alone together, taking a walk down the road to see the ducks on the fire pond at Chapman’s farm, or when he let me ride on his lap on the tractor putting his John Deere cap on my head so that it covered my eye, or when he’d come and tuck me in at night, smelling of hay, cows and sweat. “I’m gonna miss him something fierce,” I said, my eyes flooding with hot tears. “I’m sure gonna miss him bad!”

And I finally let go of my anger and cried for James Alan Lacroix, my heart broken at the loss of him and the loss of all the love he’d shown me every day of my life.