Joy. Marsha Hunt

it would make me feel better when I caught myself passing the hall mirror. So I went and stared into the hall cupboard where I kept my good clothes and wondered what was gonna be right for me to wear to tell Freddie B that Joy was dead.

      Pink ain’t what I call my color, but Joy once surprised me when she said I looked my best in baby pink ’cause dark as I was, it lifted my complexion, and Freddie B sat there with a lump of snuff in his mouth agreeing with her. At the time, I didn’t know they was conniving me and that what was really about to happen was that Joy was planning to buy me a pink silk trouser suit as a Easter present. It was made in France, ’cause she didn’t bother with nothing made in America if she could help it, and Freddie B loved that it had a floppy long buttoned down shirt that hung over the baggy pants to hide my backside.

      I pulled that suit off the hanger and took it in the bathroom to put it on, trying all the while not to let myself get to crying again ’cause it seemed like I’d lost control of them tears and they was starting and stopping when they felt like it. Like I myself didn’t have a bit of say in it.

      While I washed and slipped on my things, I was practicing the best way to tell Freddie B about Joy but however I put them words together they didn’t come out no easier and said the same pitiful thing. Our God-sent child was dead.

      First off I thought I’d say, ‘Listen, Freddie B, why don’t you have you something to eat ’fore I tell you something bad that’s happened.’ But he didn’t like me beating about the bush over nothing important so I thought he’d better have the direct approach. ‘Listen Freddie,’ I said out loud, ‘ain’t no use me mincing words, ’cause Joy is dead and I might as well let you have it straight.’ But that seemed too mean, so I was thinking I’d say something soothing with it, so I said, ‘I can stay home and keep you company watching the wrestling on Sunday night like you like, ’cause Joy’s dead and I won’t be going to Reno.’ But that didn’t sound like I was telling him no more than that he had pork chops for dinner. Then I figured that the nicest way to tell him was by taking him a mug of coffee and setting at the end of the bed to say ‘I got sorriful news Freddie B from Tammy that you ain’t gonna want to hear no more than I did …’

      But all the while I was practicing and dressing, them tears flowed so I couldn’t believe I had fluid in my body for no more, and I was wiping them and blowing my nose when Freddie B popped his head ’round the bathroom door to say, ‘Wife, I done told you about talking to yourself all the time. Next thing you know them men in white’ll be knocking on our door to take you out of here.’ He’s always in a good mood from the minute he gets up and it took me off my guard him sounding so perky, which got me to boo-hooing out loud.

      ‘Hey now, girl, I was only joshing. You keep talking to yourself if’n it makes you happy. Ain’t nobody gonna come in pass me and drag you out of here,’ he said trying to be nice.

      He ain’t one for cuddling but he come and stood by me and took my left hand in his ’fore he slipped off my spectacles and pulled some toilet paper off the roll to wipe my face.

      For all that practicing I did, wouldn’t nothing come out my mouth but a croaky whisper.

      ‘Our God-sent child is on her way to heaven, Freddie B.’

      ‘Well, if that was what was meant to be, Palatine, it’s wrong for you to be crying like you mad about what God done willed. Joy’ll be all right. Least off she ain’t gonna get no rheumatism like I’m getting and no lumbago like you got. So calm yourself and let’s give thanks that you had her for as long as you did.’

      ‘You mean ‘‘we’’ ’cause she was yours too,’ I said reminding him.

      ‘Joy was everybody’s,’ he said steering me by my shoulders into the kitchen. ‘Let me heat you some coffee.’

      Freddie B believes you got to live and let live, die and let die, and whereas I was worried that he would take Joy’s dying as hard as I did, seemed like as if he was expecting it. Which is just what he was like when his mama passed though it was unexpected ’fore we moved West from Louisiana. At the time, I was scared I had married somebody who didn’t have no natural feelings, ’cause he didn’t show none, but he told me standing by him at his mother’s grave, ‘’Cause you don’t see no tears on the outside, don’t mean I ain’t got none flowing in.’

      He ain’t easy to figure, as easy as he is by nature.

      ‘Who’s taking charge of Joy’s funeral?’ Freddie B asked after I watched him fix two mugs of coffee and head back to the kitchen doorway where he stopped and beckoned me to follow with a jerk of his head. I trailed behind him to the living room like his old mutt.

      ‘Tammy’s s’posed to be,’ I said as I set myself down opposite him at the table, ‘but from the sounds of it, she done gone to bed … again!’

      I added that again ’cause when Dagwood left her she took to her bed with nothing but a bitty temperature which she used as her excuse not to get up afterwards for months. And while I didn’t expect for a minute that losing Joy would affect her near as much as losing Dagwood, I didn’t know what to expect from her and was worried about what I could do with no money, if Tammy took a mind to play at being sick ’fore she got Joy buried proper.

      Freddie B asked, ‘You spoke to Tammy?’

      Of course the half truth was yes. But all a’ sudden I didn’t want to tell my husband nothing but the whole truth about that and a lot of other things that I’d kept from him for years ’cause of Joy. They had piled up. And setting there at the table with him, I felt guilty about all that I had kept back. So I tried to answer his question honest as I could though I knew he wasn’t gonna be happy about what I said.

      ‘When Tammy phoned I didn’t want to believe something bad could’a happened to Joy. But then, by the time I was up to hearing about it and phoned her back, Jesse picked up and I didn’t want to get the story off him.’

      Freddie B looked over at me blank. Like I knew he would. Not able to understand why I didn’t cotton to Jesse telling me about how Joy died. And he give me a man’s answer. Like I knew he would. ‘Jesse ain’t no stranger. He married to Tammy and treats her fair too from what we done heard off Joy.’

      ‘Heard from Joy, Freddie B.’ I try to correct him, but it don’t do no good, and sometimes I just have to throw my hands up in the air and give up on him.

      ‘Heard off her or heard from her … it amounts to the same thing which is that the man is married to Joy’s mama and he got just as much right to talk about Joy dead or alive as anybody, I reckon. I betcha it’ll be him that’ll have to pay for the funeral come to that, ’cause Tammy ain’t worked in years and don’t have no money of her own.’

      ‘If she’s working or not, or if Jesse is or not ain’t the point. Rex Hightower ought to be paying for Joy’s funeral. And giving her eulogy as well. That’s exactly why I wanted to have words with Tammy and tell her to make sure that the man does something for Joy now, ’cause she been doing for him all these years. Running after him. And waiting for him to marry her when she could of done something with her life.’

      ‘He wasn’t holding no gun at her head, now wife.’

      ‘But Freddie B it ain’t fair that that Rex with his ooh-boo-coos of money don’t do nothing for Joy.’

      ‘Well he ain’t never been doing for her that I can see, so it’s late to expect him to start up now. Zebras don’t change stripes. A man born stingy’ll die stingy.’

      Sometimes there wasn’t no getting sense out of Freddie B. He saw things like a man, so I decided not to say nothing else to him ’fore he made me mad about Rex. My nerves was too worn out to be disagreeing with anybody about anything. And what really had me on edge was the worry as to how I was gonna get the fare to New York which is why I was ready to fuss with my husband. He’s always nearest at hand for me to pick on when I get niggly, poor man.

      So I tried to think of something nice to say, something that would shift some of the money worry off of him, ’cause