Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [108]
“But that’s all the music Mama would ever play,” she went on as if I hadn’t said a thing. “Howling, yodeling, whining music, trashy music. Get mad every time I played my stations, called it nigger music. Told me it would ruin me. Like she hadn’t told me time and time again I was ruined already.” Deedee had one leg drawn up so that her arm was propped on her knee, the cigarette poised just in front of her mouth. An almost empty pack was in her other hand, and there was a box of kitchen matches on the floor beside a saucer full of ashes.
The radio paused, pulsed, and the music changed. “Elvis Presley and the Jordanaires,” the DJ announced, “at the fairgrounds in Spartanburg this Sunday afternoon. I’m gonna be there, you can bet on it. Now here’s the man himself.” The music that had been playing softly in the background came up loud now. “I got a woman mean as she can be ...”
“I’ve seen Elvis now three times. What you think about that, Bonehead? You like Elvis?” Deedee looked at me almost hatefully.
I shrugged. “Well enough. I an’t never seen him.”
“You an’t never seen anything.”
“No.”
Deedee threw the cigarette butt over the side of the porch and glared at me. “She loved you, you know, hell of a sight more than she did me.”
I said nothing. Aunt Raylene stepped through the door, pulling on her gloves. “Deedee, you better take your hair down and get dressed. You should have been ready to go half an hour ago. Travis is already down at the funeral home.”
“He’s been down there all night.” Deedee tucked her feet up under her on the rocker and put one hand over her eyes. “I sent Grey over with his good suit when I figured out he wasn’t coming home. ”
“Well, I’m not surprised, I suppose.” Aunt Raylene touched Deedee’s cheek lightly, and for the first time I noticed the faint stain of tears. “It was good of you to make sure he had his suit. Now come on, girl. Get up and get dressed. We an’t got no time for you to be moping on this porch.”
Deedee’s hand dropped into her lap, and she shook her head fiercely. “I an’t going.” She licked her lips and cleared her throat. “You understand, Raylene, I an’t gonna do this. An’t gonna go down there and let everybody mope all over me. Mama wouldn’t care, and I can cry well enough here.”
“Deedee, get up.” Aunt Raylene gave the rocker a push, making Deedee overbalance so that she had to drop her feet to the floor to keep from falling. “I’m not kidding around with you. You got five minutes to put on your dress and shoes. You can take your hairpins out in the car.”
“I told you, I an’t going. And I an’t!”
The slap startled me as much as it did Deedee. She put one hand to her face while Raylene raised her arm again. “I said get up.” Aunt Raylene’s voice was soft but perfectly clear. “I just an’t gonna have this. Tonight or tomorrow, I’ll talk to you about your mama. Then you can whine and bitch to your heart’s content, curse and scream and do any damn thing you want. But right now, you’re going to her funeral the way she would want. If you don’t, ten years from now you’re gonna hate yourself for missing it, and I damn sure am not gonna let that go by. So get your butt up out of that chair and wash your face before I slap you silly.”
Deedee hesitated, her mouth hanging open, and Raylene drew her hand back. Immediately, Deedee was up and into the house. We heard the water running briefly and then her feet on the stairs. Aunt Raylene sighed and pushed a few stray hairs back behind her ears. She looked over at me carefully. “Go get in the car,” she said. “We an’t got time for no more nonsense.”
They had let Earle out of the county farm early so he could go to Aunt Ruth’s funeral. He showed up at the funeral home drunk, wearing a brand-new dark suit with his old work boots, and hanging on to the arm of a ridiculously