Getting Mother’s Body. Suzan-Lori Parks
it has not run you ragged neither. I hope you have the time to read this because I have taken the time to write to you and it would be a shame to skip this good times letter after all the hard times letters I have sent your way.
Like so many things that come into your life, our present good luck came when we were just going about our daily business. We had not had any visitors in several days except an official from the bank in Tucson who came to inquire if we were interested in selling our land and motel. He left pretty fast when we told him no. But the banker from Tucson is hardly what I would call a visitor. The motel has been in a run-down condition for several years which is why I kept writing you all for payment. The payment would of helped. There were plenty of times that I thought I should write to my own flesh and blood, Dill Smiles, but you know as well as I do that Dill and her money are on a till death do us part basis.
On the day that turned out to be our lucky one, I was in the back working with Even who is becoming quite a horsewoman in her own right and if you ever manage to get out this way she and I will put on a show for you if Buster, that’s Even’s horse, is willing. We were out back working on her routines and up walks another white man in a dark suit. I thought he was another banker but, no, he was from The Rising Bird Development Corporation. They’ve got headquarters in Phoenix. They were hoping to build one of those big new shopping centers in the rear of our motel. It would give folks in that new housing development somewhere closer to shop. They wondered if I wanted to sell the land. There were several benefits to this. One was that our Pink Flamingo Motel would be in walking distance to a supermarket and that would be good for business. That is what came into my mind at first, the nearness of the supermarket, and then of course I thought of the money of the sale. I will not trouble you with the details of the sale but only say that we agreed to sell right away and the deal has gone through with very little trouble and I have received a fair amount of money for the sale of the five acres that was, before I sold it, the rear of our property. We still have enough yard for Buster and of course the Motel and swimming pool are untouched.
There is a matter that you might want to know about. The Rising Bird Corporation has plans to plow up and pave over what used to be my land. That is to say that they will be disturbing the place where Willa Mae is buried. It doesn’t sit right with me and Even that this should happen. The little I know of Willa Mae, she was a nice person. We dare not rescue the body ourselves because of the threats against my person made by Dill Smiles. I have never wanted to mention this, but Dill Smiles told me at the time of Willa Mae’s burial that if I so much as thought about disturbing Willa Mae and “stealing,” as Dill put it, the jewels, that Dill would drive all the way out here and be very pleased to gun me down, her own mother.
I suggest that if you want to save Willa’s remains from the fate I have mentioned above, please come out here and move her body. Even has made a lovely grave site here in the backyard, but it’s time for Willa Mae to move on. Perhaps she would want to be reburied in Lincoln. If not, we have a nice cemetery in LaJunta that has welcomed John Henry Napoleon and would welcome Willa Mae Beede too.
I hope, June, that you and Roosevelt and Billy (and I am saying it like this because I know from your letters back that you, June, are reading this to the others), and so I hope, June, that you and Roosevelt and Billy do not think I have gone back on my promise by selling my land and thereby putting you all in this inconvenient situation. I hope instead that you all will be happy that I am no longer writing you asking you for upkeep money. I would send some of our recently acquired money your way but Even is still living at home and Buster, as you can imagine, is a very large mouth to keep fed.
I think you should consider resurrecting Willa Mae but of course the final decision is up to you. Again, they will begin plowing the first of the month. I hope that, because of the plowing up of the gravesite and my improved finances, that this won’t be the end of our letter writing. I enjoy getting letters, especially from you all cause June uses such pretty words.
Very Truly Yours,
Candy and Even Napoleon
I get through reading the letter and, for a minute, nobody says nothing. Billy’s standing there with her new dress held up and wanting us all to look.
“You was gonna shoot your mother?” Billy asks Dill.
“I never said nothing about shooting no one,” Dill says.
Roosevelt and me are both looking at the letter. “Construction company’s gonna go to work starting the first of the month and pave over her land and make a supermarket,” Roosevelt says, repeating what I just read.
“We all heard the news,” Dill says. “Nobody here’s deaf.”
I look to Billy, to see what she thinks. She’s holding her dress up against herself with one hand and passing the other hand slow down over the fabric, like she’s ironing out the wrinkles even though there ain’t none.
“If we ever was thinking we should go get Willa Mae’s body, we better go and get her now,” I says. I make sure I say “body” and not “treasure.”
“She’s buried clear in LaJunta,” Dill says.
“I know where LaJunta is,” I says.
“It ain’t like she’s over in Fort Worth,” Dill says. “LaJunta, Arizona, ain’t no walking distance, now.” Dill enjoys reminding us we don’t got nothing but the eleven-bus, our own two feet, to get us around and she got that new-looking truck. The eleven-bus would, in my case, be the number one bus. Two feet make what looks like an eleven. One foot makes a one. When Dill came back from burying Willa Mae I went and got a map so I could see where LaJunta was.
“I know good and well where LaJunta is,” I says.
“It’s far,” Dill says.
“We can’t let Willa Mae get buried underneath some supermarket,” I says.
“Arizona’s near California,” Roosevelt says, helping. “It may not be close like Forth Worth but LaJunta ain’t the moon neither.”
Dill stretches out her long legs, pushes her hat back on her head, then folds her arms across her front. “You start walking today you might get there by next year,” Miss He-She-It says.
“I’ma put up my dress before it gets dirty,” Billy says. She goes inside holding it up so it won’t touch the floor, then places it gingerly back inside the box and slides the box underneath the counter with the rest of her things. When she comes back outside, she still got her new shoes on. They’re too white to look at.
“What color are those shoes, girl?” Roosevelt asks squinting.
“White,” Billy says.
“They so white they make my eyes hurt,” Roosevelt says. Billy styles the shoes some, walking to and fro on the porch, holding her hand on her hip like she finally done joined the ranks of the Happenings. She sits up on the porch rail and swings her legs.
“Roosevelt’s right,” I says. “LaJunta ain’t on the moon.”
Dill stands up like she is ready to head home. “Traveling’s high. It was high six years ago and it’s more high now.”
“We can pull some money together, can’t we, Teddy?” I ask. I wait for him to tell me yes but he don’t. He takes snuff and, standing, offers Dill some. Dill shakes her head and steps down a step. With Dill on the low step and Teddy on the porch they’re standing eye to eye.
I want to stand up too, to make my point, but instead just plant the tip of my crutch on the porch, holding it upright with one hand, letting it help me speak the same way standing up would. “It’s wrong to let Willa Mae’s grave get paved over. Being in the ground is bad enough, now she gotta have a Piggly Wiggly or who knows what with all them people walking around and they shopping carts rolling around on top of her. It ain’t fair is all I’m saying.” I stomp my crutch, giving myself some emphasis.
“June’s got a point,” Teddy says.
Dill turns away from us to look at Billy. “You getting married Friday?” she