After the memorial service, the congregation of mourners filed sadly out of St. George by the Lake. Mr. Raney and a few family members from out of town had left the church first and were standing in the cypress shade to receive expressions of sympathy. Some stopped to speak, in low voices; they asked whether Mr. Raney had any plans, would he still keep the fishcamp open; they said Hydro would be greatly missed.
Mr. Raney said, “I hope you can make it out to the fishshack. Help us eat up some of that food.“
Others went on out to the parking lot and opened the doors of their cars to let out some of the heat, and got ready for the drive over to Roebuck landing to the funeral launches. Some said they had to stop by home first to pick up the covered dishes of food they were taking out to the island. There was always a lot of food at a funeral wake.
The Prince of Darkness had made special preparations for the motorcade. Even though there was no body to be transported—Mr. Raney hadn’t decided yet what to do with Hydro’s ashes; he might bury them in Carroll County next to the boy’s mama, or he might sink them in Roebuck Lake, he couldn’t make up his mind right now—the Prince of Darkness led the parade in the big black Cadillac hearse, fitted out with black crepe streamers; Mr. Raney rode in the second car, another Cadillac, owned and driven by Mr. William Tell himself, who appeared suddenly, out of nowhere it seemed, especially for the funeral. He was always fond of Hydro. He was getting on up in years, and had a broad, open freckle-face like a little boy.
Mr. William tell said, “I didn’t see the sharpshooter at the funeral, Raney, or Aunt Lily neither one.”
Mr. Raney said, “They’re moving, is what I heard. This whole ordeal has been hard on the both of them.”
Mr. William Tell said, “It ain’t been easy on nobody.“
It was taking forever to move the cars out of the lot.
Mr. William Tell said, “I blame myself.”
Mr. Raney looked at him. He said, “You ain’t to blame, Tell. Don’t be silly. You ain’t done nothing but own a store. You ain’t done nothing but be a friend.”
Mr. William Tell said, “I don’t know. Look like I could have predicted something like this happening. Prevented it somehow.”
The hearse pulled out of the parking lot, and Mr. William Tell aimed the nose end of his own Cadillac behind it and eased forward. The others followed behind, car after car, with their headlights on, in the middle of a bright day, beneath the endless blue sky. Webber Chisholm led the motorcade, real slow, away from St. George by the Lake, out onto the highway, in the Arrow Catcher patrol car, with the red light on top going zoop zoop zoop.
Mr. Raney said, “I don’t hold it against you for owning a store that got robbed. Or for not being a fortune teller neither one.“
Mr. William Tell said, “Look like Aunt Lily might have predicted it.” This was a joke, so Mr. Raney looked at his old friend, and they shared a quiet laugh in the car.
Mr. Raney said, “Count on you, Tell. You ain’t never knowed how to leave foolishness alone.“
Mr. William Tell said, “That crystal ball of hers—“
Mr. Raney said, “Don’t get started, Tell, I mean it. I don’t want to arrive at my own son’s wake laughing my big butt off.“
Mr. William Tell said, “It don’t pick up nothing but “As the World Turns” and “Secret Storm.“
Mr. Raney said, “Really, Tell, don’t get started. I’ll end up disgracing myself.“
Mr. William Tell said, “She’s the only colored woman in town who knows what Bob and Lisa’s marriage plans are.“
Mr. Raney was laughing. He said, “Tell—“
Mr. William Tell said, “I run into her at a cock fight a while back, hadn’t seen her in two years, and she said, ‘Ellen Stuart’s done come out of her coma, but she’s got amnesia.’ First words out of her mouth. Hadn’t seen her in two years. Cock fight, out on Phillipston.“
Mr. Raney said, “Tell, you are a mess in this world.“
They didn’t have far to go in the cars. At the landing, down on Roebuck Road, the Prince of Darkness parked the hearse, and Mr. Willliam Tell pulled in behind him, and then the rest of the cars found places to park, up and down the blacktop. The Prince of Darkness got out of the hearse and was the first to walk down to lakeside, to the funeral launches he had moved in the day before. He stomped around in the grass, scaring off any snakes that might have crawled up in there in the morning sun.
The funeral launches were wide, flat-bottomed boats with high gunwales and twenty-five horsepower Evinrudes with electric starters on the back. They were all new boats, aluminum, and were painted black. The Prince of Darkness had made special arrangements with a dealer in Leflore, so mourners could be transported out to the island. The launches were also draped in black crepe.
Mr. Raney said, “The Prince of Darkness outdone hisself this time.“
Mr. William Tell said, “Remember when his mama died?“
Mr. Raney said, “Don’t get started, Tell, I mean it, I don’t want to be laughing when I step in that funeral boat.“
Mr. William Tell said, “He had a line of twenty-five cropdusters, pulling black banners, to fly over the cemetery in formation.“
Mr. Raney said, “Don’t get started, Tell.“
Mr. William Tell said, “He planned to spell out some kind of message in black smoke.“
Mr. Raney said, “I mean it, Tell—“
“Something about the Resurrection, but—“
The Prince of Darkness saw to it that all the motors started up and were idling smoothly; the boys he had hired to pilot the other boats all knew what they were doing. They waited patiently as the launches filled up with mourners. They lent a hand to those stepping in.
The Prince of Darkness directed Mr. Raney and Mr. William Tell and a few old aunts and other family members and close friends to sit in the first launch; this one the Prince of Darkness piloted himself, in his black suit. The other boats filled up as well, helter-skelter. Some brought their own boats—johnboats and ski boats and bass boats and a runabout. Many were carrying food with them, dishes and bowls and baskets, fried chicken and ham, sweet potato pies.
When they pulled away from the landing—the launches with black crepe, the Prince of Darkness himself at the helm of the first, and the lesser vessels as well, in single file, headed out into Roebuck Lake, slow as could be, with lake water lapping at the gunwales—the funeral flotilla was long and dignified and impressive.
Monkeys chattered in the trees overhead, and wild birds, parrots and stranger beasts, with their bright wings and red tails like capes. Alligators sank beneath the surface of the water. Then the launches, with the deep-throated voices of the slow-running Evinrudes, left the shade of the gum trees and the danger of cypress knees and lesser stobs, and pushed their way out into the greater water, black and shimmering, wide, incredible Roebuck Lake. The smaller boats bucked and lurched in the wake of the larger ones. Women held onto their hats. Men gripped the sides of the boats.
Mr. Raney stood alone in the bow of the leader, and might have been the carved wooden figurehead of an ancient sailing vessel, so still he stood, in such beauty, as he regarded the water where his son took his life.
The dolphins swam alongside the lead boats. They dived, surfaced, they blew spume from their blowholes, they wheeled, they showed their oily humps. Mr. Raney called them by name, St. Elmo, Carlos, Django, Boo-kay Jack, My Taliesin, and all the rest. Mr. Raney focused his eyes on the trees rising from deep water, the tree houses, in search of tree people, and saw none, of course. He saw their rotting sofas, their gas stoves and propane tanks, the trapdoors and ladders. But the tree people were gone. He supposed they were never coming back. He thought they had been a happy people. He strained to see the farther shore, the wild buffalo, the looseherds of wild horses, and they too were vanished, of course, as they had been for so long. Still, he heard the drumbeat of their hooves, he saw their dust, smelled the musk of their flesh and hide and rutting, heard the high-pitched whinny of their animal lust and joy. Boatloads of mourners followed behind.
The wake was a good one, it turned out. The fishshack was not small, there were many rooms, and it was crowded on all its levels. Children climbed up and down the rope ladders, in and out the trapdoors. Parents kept saying, “Be careful.” They kept saying, “I don’t think Mr. Raney wants you to be playing on that.”
Mr. Raney and Desiree Chisholm had cleaned the place good—Desiree came out the night before—swept all the floors and knocked down wasp nests from the eaves, scrubbed the linoleum in the kitchen and cleaned the stove, made the two beds, hung the hooked rugs out on a line and beat the dust out of them with a rug beater. A bottle of bonded whiskey and another of white whiskey they had stashed in the linen closet of the bathroom, for anybody who wanted a discreet nip. Mr. William Tell had supplied the whiskey. Mr. Raney pushed the old refrigerator, with the bullet holes in it, off to one side, out of the way, so there would be more room. Desiree had hosed down all the decks and workspaces on the dock, washed fish scales and old slime back into the lake.
The day was hot. Mourners crowded the house and spilled out onto the dock, where they stood and talked. It was so hot, a bird dropped down out of the sky and walked in the shadows of the mourners to cool off. There was lively talk, gossip, sometimes laughter. A typical Southern wake.
Food was plentiful, almost too much of it, on top of the stove, in the oven, along all the counters, on the table in the kitchen and on the dining room table as well, in the refrigerator, the one that had never been shot. People stood around eating off china plates and paper plates and sometimes no plates at all. One man ate an entire apple pie, one slice at a time, right out of the pan.
There were ham and chicken and collards and cold sweet potatoes, there were blackeyed peas and cornbread, potato salad, baked beans, sausage and biscuits. Somebody had even brought chitterlings—chitlins—though this was the only dish that diminished little in supply during the course of the day. A child named Henry Hightower, convinced by an older brother or sister to eat one of the boiled chitlins, found that he could not swallow the morsel and that, instead of diminishing in size, it seemed to increase with chewing, and so he ate the same chitlin all day long, until nightfall, when he had to go home and be convinced to spit it out. Henry’s mama said, “You didn’t get no nourishment to speak of, but you got plenty of exercise.”
Mr. Raney was tired, just dog-tired all of a sudden. He had been talking to folks out on the dock when he realized just how bone-weary he was. He eased away, nodding to old friends, speaking for a moment, here and there, to others, in singles or clumps. He watched the children playing. He made his way inside the fishshack, where he did the same, speaking to folks, hello, oh fine, fine I guess, holding up, well as to be expected, still a little numb, still can’t quite believe it’s true, you know. He took a bite of somebody’s peach cobbler with cream, and set the rest back down on a table.
Mr. Roy and his wife were there, the mailman. Mr. Roy said, “Raney, it ain’t your job to entertain, you know.” Mrs. Roy had thought to close off the sleeping porch for Mr. Raney, in case he needed some time alone, and so that’s what he decided he would do, he went back to lie down for a while, take a load off, maybe close his eyes for a minute or two.
He sat on the edge of Hydro’s bed, the cot where the boy slept in the summertime, in this weather, where there was a good breeze through the windowscreens, and pulled off his good shoes and rubbed his feet for a little while, and then swung his feet up on the bed and stretched out. His head he laid back on Hydro’s pillow and let himself sink back, almost like becoming a part of the bed.
He could hear the sounds of conversation and laughter outside the closed door, his friends, decent people. He lay like this for a while.
He had not changed the linen on Hydro’s bed. His head was resting on the exact spot where Hydro had laid his own big head, where he had lain on the last night of his life. Mr. Raney realized this when he turned his face to one side, to get comfortable. In this position, he could smell the familiar, manly fragrance of his son’s living body on the pillowslip.
He did not open his eyes, not yet; he only lay like this a while longer, breathing. He did not breathe too deeply at first, in fear of breathing up all that remained of his son. He wanted to ration it, make it last.
Outside his door the voices were mostly a blur, conversation with a sound like static in it, or like ocean waves at night, the running surf, soft for a while, and then loud, maybe a laugh or two, like a gull’s cry, then many voices together, sometimes the sweeter sound of a woman’s voice, a woman’s laughter, which made him think of his dead wife, how he missed her.
Now and then there was one voice, or maybe two, that rose above the others, a word, two words, not much more, that he could recognize. He heard his old friend Mr. William Tell. His voice carried better than the others.
Tell always had something going, some joke, some silliness, even at a funeral. Mr. Raney listened from where he lay. Mr. William Tell was doing Red Skelton routines for the other mourners. Raney lay on his back, smiling, picturing his old friend out there. He was doing Freddie the Freeloader, and George Appleby, and Klem Kadiddlehopper.
Tell looked a lot like Red Skelton, tall, his red hair going white, maybe sixty years old. He put his hands up in his armpits, to make pigeon wings. He flapped them a little. He got this silly look on his face. People were already laughing, before he said a word. He said, “Wait, wait—” He said, “Gertrude and Heathcliff—”
Mr. Raney hauled himself up off Hydro’s bed, slow as a cow. He sat on the edge of the bed, looked around. On Hydro’s table were a few things, a crookneck lamp, a little portable travel iron Hydro was learning to use to press his shirts, a flashlight for reading comic books under the covers late at night, a few postage stamps—had his son ever really written a letter?—who did he imagine writing to? Hydro’s favorite wanted posters, a hit-and-run with a scar down one side of his face, and a murder-and-kidnapping wearing a nice suit. Armed and Dangerous. Mr. Raney held the posters in his hands for a while, and then put them back on the table.
Outside the door, laughter broke out. He heard Mr. William Tell say, “Gertrude and Heathcliff, flying over the beach—” Mr. Raney imagined the silly look on Tell’s face, the way he leaned to one side and looked down from the sky at the picnickers on the pretendlike beach.
Mr. Raney got up from the bed now. He walked over to Hydro’s closet and opened the door. In the bottom of the closet sat Hydro’s laundry basket, filled with dirty clothes. Mr. Raney picked up a T-shirt and held it to his face and breathed in a perfect memory of his son.
Laughter, again, outside the door.
Still holding the cotton T-shirt to his face, Mr. Raney bent his knees, slow, slow, and eased down onto the linoleum floor of the sleeping porch. He heard Mr. William Tell, he heard the monkeys and the parrots in the trees. He curled up on the floor and breathed and breathed. He dropped the T-shirt. He promised himself never to do this load of laundry. As long as he had it, he would have Hydro.
Quiet applause from outside the door, the restrained clapping of hands. Mr. William Tell had finished a routine.
The pain that gripped Mr. Raney caused him to writhe on the floor. He wallowed like a hog in a loblolly. He made grunting sounds, he squealed like a pig. He called out for his own daddy, who had been dead a long, long time. He buried his head in the laundry basket. He said, “Daddy!” He thought of the letter he’d gotten when he was a boy and how proud his father had been. He stuck his head in Hydro’s laundry basket and tried to inhale not just the smell but the clothing itself, the fibers, straight into his lungs. He collapsed again, he banged his head twenty times against the floor. He found Hydro’s toothbrush and put it into his mouth and tried to taste Hydro’s dried spit. He tore out his hair with his hands. He punched himself in the face with his fists. He licked the linoleum floor with his tongue and felt the grit between his teeth. He called, “Daddy!” His throat felt like a hot knife had just passed through it. He made puking motions and got only dry heaves. He moved across the floor using the rocking motion of a dolphin in the water; knees up, knees down, slide, again and again; he didn’t even use his hands. He turned on his back and flopped like a fish out of water. He stopped. He lay on the floor, still. He did not move, not even to wipe sweat out of his eyes. He stood apart from his body and looked down upon himself. The physical representation of himself that he saw, beastlike and hideous, he understood to be the image of his inner life for many years to come.
He continued to lie there. Then he got up. He stood in the center of the room for a while. He picked up Hydro’s hairbrush from a deal dresser and saw strands of Hydro’s hair in it. He brushed his hair with the brush and looked at it again and saw his own hair mingled with that of his son. He picked up a couple of loose comic books and looked at their covers. One was The Green Hornet and Speedy, a man-boy team of costumed super-archers, who caught crooks even the G-men couldn’t catch. The other was one Mr. Raney did not expect, called Young Love. On the front was a picture of a man flirting with a woman in an elevator, and another woman standing to the side of the elevator looking dejected. In the balloon above her head, the second woman’s thoughts were, “A week ago he was French-kissing me in the elevator, and now he doesn’t even recognize me.” Mr. Raney imagined Hydro sympathizing with the rejected woman, promising himself that he would never treat anyone in this way.
Outside the door, Mr. William Tell was doing the routine in which Red Skelton pretends to put on a woman’s girdle. It was mostly a silent routine, but Mr. Raney could recognize it by certain clues, the comic grunts, the rustle of clothing, a word or two, the laughter. He saw the funny, scrunched-up face, the rubbery arms reaching around, the pretense of arranging the stays and the garter snaps. He saw Mr. William Tell turn his back to the audience and look back over his shoulder. He heard the laughter. He saw Mr. William Tell bend over and stick his fanny out at the audience as he pretended to try to pull the elastic up over his rear end.
Mr. Raney sat back down on the edge of Hydro’s bed. He had already taken off his shoes. Now he took off all his clothes and slipped between Hydro’s sheets naked. He thought of his son’s body having lain there, his skin having touched these sheets. For a moment he almost believed Hydro was there in the bed beside him, and then that he himself was Hydro. He slept and dreamed of a hacienda in Old Mexico, with señoritas and sombreros and hot sun and treeless ground. He dreamed of clear rivers where deer stood in the shallows and drank. He dreamed of a circus train unloading tents and animals and trapezes. He knew the strange mixture of despair and exhilaration Hydro had felt when he slipped over the side of the boat into the water.
Then he woke up. He lay and listened to the quiet laughter from the other side of the door. He couldn’t tell which routine Mr. William Tell was doing now. Maybe he had worked up a few new sketches.
He got up out of bed and dressed again. He checked himself in the mirror and thought that he would see the writhing, wallowing, grunting, squealing beast, but saw only himself, Mr. Raney, a little rested from his two-minute nap. He combed his hair with his fingers. He thought: This is the way I will look, the other is the way I will feel. All right.
He heard someone just outside the door say, “It looks like Hydro was the sharpshooter instead of Morgan.” For some reason this filled Mr. Raney with strange pride and made it easier to go on.
He opened the door and walked out into the crowded area of the wake. Mr. William Tell was wearing a dress now, over his regular clothes. He had on a tiny pillbox hat with a veil. In anyone else, this would have been disrespectful. In Mr. William Tell it seemed natural, even at a wake. His audience was in hysterics. Where he had come up with this costume, Mr. Raney could not even guess.
Mr. Raney slid quietly into the crowd and got a place to stand, where he could see. People were scrunched in, elbow to elbow, and standing on tiptoes to see Mr. William Tell, who was by far the funniest man Mr. Raney had ever known. He noticed that Mr. William Tell also had a little purse dangling from one arm by the strap, and white gloves on his hands. Mr. William Tell was bringing his knees up in a funny kind of walking motion, walking in place, as if he were wearing high heels that he could not manage. He looked like he might fall over at any minute. The expression on his face—well, Mr. Raney started to laugh, along with everybody else.
Mr. William Tell was walking and adjusting his girdle and putting on lipstick at the same time. All with this earnest expression on his face. Except every now and then Mr. William Tell would step out of character just long enough to cut his eyes out at the audience and laugh his fool head off, and then start into his act again. It made what he was doing seem all that much funnier, to be able to share a laugh with the comedian. There was a loud roaring in Mr. Raney’s head, that he knew was the sound of grief and that it would not go away for a long time, maybe forever, but he also felt his heart fill up with love for his old friend.
Out the window, Mr. Raney could see Louis McNaughton and his father as they were leaving the wake. Dr. McNaughton steadied himself with one hand on one of the creosoted pilings, out on the dock, and stepped down into one of the launches. Dr. McNaughton looked like an old man. It was Louis, though, whom Mr. Raney was really looking at. He thought he would ask Louis out sometime, get to know him better, maybe give him Hydro’s collection of comic books.
He looked at the little boy, getting into the launch, and imagined that Louis, too, was hearing some kind of roaring, maybe the same one as himself, the sound of inexpressible grief and the foreknowledge of lifelong pain that no one else could ever hope to understand or share.
Just at that moment, Louis looked back up towards the fishhouse. He saw Mr. Raney looking at him. He lifted his hand and waved a small wave, only his fingers moved. Mr. Raney waved back, in the same way. Louis turned and sat down in the launch, which was ready to cast off. The deep-throated outboard started up, and in a minute they were gone.
Mr. Raney turned back to the fishhouse, the wake, and saw Mr. William Tell, the purse, the high heels, the lipstick.
Then, just when Mr. Raney thought he might bust out laughing in spite of himself, he saw something he did not expect to see at all. He saw an image, maybe even a vision, of the sharpshooter and his mama, Morgan and old Aunt Lily, barreling on down the road, some road, some highway, in Morgan’s raggedy old truck, with blue smoke blowing out the tailpipe, up under wide blue Western skies. They were singing “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” They were singing “The Eyes of Texas Are upon You.” They were singing every Texas song they knew. They were clapping their hands in the chorus. The stars at night are big and bright, clap clap clap clap. They were singing “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” Morgan was saying, “Are you happy, Mama? Are you glad to be getting out?” Aunt Lily was saying, “Git on down the damn road!”