Ibby remained in the kitchen, waiting to see if Fannie was going to come out of her room, when she smelled something burning. Queenie had been in such a state earlier that she’d left the burner on under the pot on the stove. As Ibby turned the burner off and put the spoon in the sink, it dawned on her that she couldn’t remember being in the kitchen when Queenie wasn’t there.
“Ibby darling, are you in the kitchen? Come on out here,” Fannie called from the dining room.
Fannie was sitting at the table. “Listen, honey, Queenie and Doll won’t be around for a few days, so we’ll just have to make do. Purnell was”—she paused—“such a nice kid before he got mixed up with that crowd. He used to come around here when he was a teenager, do odd jobs, tend the lawn.”
“How’d he get shot?” Ibby asked.
“They didn’t say—I’m sure Kennedy will fill me in later. But I expect it had something to do with his Black Panther friends. Such a tragedy.” She tapped her finger on the table thoughtfully. “Kids get in trouble sometimes—no matter how much you love them.”
“Purnell . . . is he dead?” Ibby asked.
“Crow said Purnell was shot in the head, something about a scuffle downtown with the police. I’m not holding out much hope for his survival, dear. I expect there’ll be a wake as soon as the body is released to the funeral home.”
“What’s a wake?” Ibby asked.
“Oh, sometimes I forget you’re not from around here. It’s an old custom—they lay the body out so people can come and pay their last respects.”
“Where everybody can see it?” Ibby was aghast.
“Out in the open on full display, dressed in their Sunday finest.” Fannie pointed a finger at Ibby. “Listen to me. When I die, promise me you won’t let them do that to me, put me in an open casket to be gawked at. I want a closed-coffin funeral—remember that.” She paused to light a cigarette. “The one thing the Negroes really know how to do is throw a funeral. Goes on for days, with lots of food and drinking and carrying on. Then they have another party, where there’s dancing and singing. And then they throw yet another party after the funeral, to give the departed a good send-off.”
“I’ve never been to a funeral,” Ibby replied. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”
“That’s right. Your mama saw to that, didn’t she? Saw to it that your daddy was cremated. Never was a funeral. Which reminds me”—she pointed at Ibby again—“don’t let them go cremating me when I die. The departed should have proper burials. Otherwise their souls wander around the earth all agitated. And do you know why else they have funerals?”
Ibby shook her head, afraid to interrupt her tirade.
“They have funerals so the living can say goodbye for the last time, so every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the street doesn’t stop to say ‘I’m so sorry about so-and-so’ for the umpteenth time. It’s worse when you go and cremate somebody, because there’s not even a grave to visit. Then suppose the worker at the crematorium got the dead bodies all out of order—then what? How do you know you have the right ashes? You know what I mean? How would you know?”
Ibby twirled her hair, upset by what Fannie was saying. She still thought of her daddy as her daddy, not as just some ashes in a jar.
Fannie said, “I’m sorry. I got a little carried away—funerals always do that to me.”
Ibby sat up in her chair. “Are we going to the funeral?”
“Of course! They’re family.” Fannie got up from the table. “You can wear the Indian-looking dress Doll made for you.”
After Fannie left, Ibby went into her father’s room to find the urn. When she opened the armoire, it wasn’t in its usual spot between the sneakers and the loafers. Ibby searched under the neatly stacked shirts and pushed the hanging clothes aside. After a while, she sat back on her heels. The urn was nowhere to be found.
Ibby took one last look around the room. She hadn’t realized how much comfort the urn had given her, just knowing it was safe in the armoire. Now that her father was missing, she felt a part of her was missing, too. Why would someone move it?
The house was noticeably quiet except for the sound of the oak tree in the front yard scraping against the house. It was an eerie sound, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Ibby listened. She felt sure that the old tree was trying to tell her something.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The screened door creaked as Doll held it open for Crow, T-Bone, and two neighbors who were carrying Purnell’s body into the house. All the furniture in the front room had been removed, save for the heavy Naugahyde sofa, to make room for the makeshift waking table, consisting of two sawhorses topped with a piece of plywood draped with a cloth.
“If you don’t mind, we be taking our leave now,” one of the men said after they’d settled Purnell onto the waking table.
“We got a houseful of food,” Crow said, “thanks to all of you, and Miss Fannie was kind enough to send over three whole cases of Old Crow. Come by later, take a drink.”