What We Can’t Live Without (inspired by true events)

(Warning: A dead body is described in a non-graphic manner in this story.)

I was fishin’ with Rip at the lake near our house, catchin’ nothin’, and into my second pimento cheese sandwich, when Rip decided we were movin’ to a better spot. Me bein’ 9, him bein’ 12, I pretty much didn’t get a say when Mama and Daddy weren’t around.

He grabbed the thermos, but left me to carry the pail of worms and lunchbox. He was outta sight behind some bushes when I heard him yell, “Eugie, get over here, there’s a dead man!" Rip was always pullin' my leg, but when he yelled again his voice sounded kinda ragged in a way I’d never heard, so I knew it wasn’t a joke.

I’d never seen a dead person and I never want to again.

The man was face down on the edge of the lake where the water was shallow. He had grey hair and wore a flannel shirt. His right arm was tucked under him, the left was stretched out above his head. He was tall and skinny, except for his left hand, which was bloated and fat, so the skin rose up around the gold ring he was wearin’. He was colored.

I waited for Rip to say somethin’, but he didn’t. We stood there frozen, just starin’. Finally, Rip grabbed my hand and we took off runnin’ as fast as we could home.

Rip hollered when we burst through the screen door. “Mama, there’s a dead man in the lake!”

I realized I didn’t have the worm bucket, or the lunchbox, and hoped I wouldn’t get in trouble, because I couldn’t remember where I dropped 'em.

Before Mama had really heard what Rip said, and out of habit mainly, she started to yell, “You better get those muddy shoes—!”

Then it hit her, what he’d said, and she stopped. Her face was real still and looked like the moment before she cried at Grandma Pearl’s funeral. (My first funeral, where Rip looked at Grandma’s dead body in the casket, but I didn’t.)

Rip was breathin’ hard, tryin’ to get out the details. “He’s colored and I think he’s been there awhile cuz—“

Mama put her hand up and said, “Don’t need to hear more, Rip.” He opened his mouth to say somethin’ else, but thought better of it and shut it.

Mama let out a slow breath. “Y’all take those shoes off and get that mud off my floor.”

She walked over to the phone and called the police. Her voice was so quiet it was like she was tellin’ a secret, kinda the way she sounded when she prayed.

Rip was doin’ such a bad job helpin’ on the floor, cuz he was so focused on tryin’ to hear her, I pretty much had to do it all myself.

She told us to wash up and change, that the police would meet us at the lake so we could, as she put it, “show ‘em where the gentleman had passed.”

When we were in the car Rip asked could we ride home in the police car. Mama slammed her door hard and got her face real close to Rip’s, who was sittin’ beside her. She said, “Richard James Bakeman, a man has died. This is not a trip to the fair. You’re not gettin’ a ribbon here for a pie-eatin’ contest!”

Seein’ the man again, I felt tears come up in my eyes, but I pushed ‘em back in.

The two policemen that came seemed bored when they saw the body. They weren’t interested in Rip’s play by play either, but the one that kinda looked like a black-haired Dobie Gillis asked me, “Did ya touch it?”

I couldn’t imagine why I would touch a dead body. I told him no.

The other policeman, who was holdin’ a pad of paper and a pen but hadn’t written anything turned to Mama and said, “Ma’am, you didn't tell us he was colored.”

Mama gave that man such a look. I feared for him in that moment.

She asked him, ”Why in the world would I need to do that?"

The officer looked confused.

The Dobie-lookin’ policeman said, “Ma’am, the coroner that’s been called out don’t take..." well, I’m not repeatin’ the word he used for the man who had died, but I’m not lyin’ when I tell you that hearin’ it made pimento cheese come up in my throat. I swallowed hard, forcin’ it back down.

Mama’s voice went real low, like a growl almost. The only thing scarier than the look she had, was how her voice sounded when it went like that. Daddy said when Mama talked that way, she didn’t need air to make the words come out, cuz she was bein’ powered by rage and the Almighty God.

She leaned close to the Dobie officer’s face, like she had to Rip’s in the car and said, ”That is an ugly word and you should be ashamed of yourself for sayin’ it at all, but even more so standin’ a foot from that unfortunate man."

He stepped back.

The paper-holdin' policeman said, “Ma'am, we can't guarantee—… we don’t know if the colored people’s—… I mean, how soon they’ll—"

“I’m in no hurry.” She picked up the thermos layin’ there near the bushes. “Got some homemade lemonade here. You fellas thirsty?”

“No, Ma’am. We’ll just go call and—”

“Okay, then.” Mama handed me the thermos, keepin’ her eyes on the policemen who headed back to their car, movin’ pretty fast.

The pail and lunchbox were near the dead man’s feet. Mama told Rip to pick ‘em up and for us to run on home, then she turned away, bowed her head over the man, and folded her hands together.

Mama came back about three hours later. Daddy still wasn’t home, even though it was late. She called us to the kitchen. We never wanted to be called to the kitchen, unless it was for a meal. Any other time meant "a talkin’-to.”

"You boys listen to me. What that policeman called that man is a filthy word, and if I EVER hear either of you say it I will make you EAT a bar of soap, do you hear me?"

Somethin' in my body had already known that word was evil and felt it as soon as I heard it, but we both nodded. We heard Daddy’s car and Rip headed for the door, but Mama grabbed him. “There will be no detailed narration of today’s events, Richard. I’ll tell your Daddy what happened. And you are not to go tellin’ anyone who will listen about this like you’re some mystery-solvin’ Hardy Boy, either.”

Rip didn’t say anything, but he huffed down the hall toward the bedroom. That had definitely been his plan.

She yelled, “Do you understand me, Rip?!”

“Yeah!” he hollered, then slammed the door just as Daddy walked in.

“What’s goin’ on in here?” Daddy said.

“I’ll fill ya in later.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re home, though."

We had leftovers that night.

About a week later Daddy and Rip were on a campin’ trip with the Boy Scouts. It was just me and Mama for the weekend. I’d been out ridin’ my bike and came home to Mama puttin’ the crumb toppin’ on a potato and cheese casserole.

“Wow, it’s just you and me and yer makin’ a casserole, Mama?"

"It's not for us, Eugie, I'm takin' a casserole to somebody that’s not feelin' well."

Darn, I thought, about every third casserole, dessert, or pineapple ham (my favorite meat) was for somebody who was sick, for somebody else’s birthday, or for a church social. And I sure didn’t want to go with Mama again to sit with a sick person. I went with her once. The house smelled like mayonnaise and I just had to sit there and listen to this old man cough like mad from another room while Mama talked real soft and patted this woman's hand who cried buckets for hours.

“Shucks, Mama do we have to—“

“You’re stayin’ here, Eugie.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Put the travelin' box in the back of the car for me, please."

I’d never stayed by myself before. “You’re leavin’ me alone, Mama?”

“Any reason, I shouldn’t? You’re not scared, are ya?”

I wasn’t. I felt excited, proud Mama trusted me in the house by myself.

“No, Ma’am. I’ll be fine.”

I was grabbin’ the key to the garage from out of the phone table drawer when I saw a note that said “Service 2pm, Sat, Mt. Cyrene Baptist.” Mt. Cyrene was a colored people's church.

Mama came up behind me, picked up the note and put it in her purse.

“Go on now. I need to get goin’.”

I watched as Mama put the casserole in the travelin' box and stuffed towels around it, wrappin' it tight so it wouldn’t spill. I wanted to ask if I could go, knowin’ she was goin’ to the dead man’s funeral to give his family a casserole.

But if she was lettin’ me stay home by myself, younger than Rip had ever stayed on his own, I knew she didn’t want me to go.

When Mama left I laid down on my bed and stared at the ceilin', tryin' to imagine who exactly she was gonna give the casserole to, what she was gonna say to ‘em, and if they would think she was crazy for even bein’ there. What if colored people didn’t get together and eat casserole after a funeral like us?

I fell asleep hopin' they'd appreciate Mama’s casserole as much as I did.

When I woke up it was to Mama hollerin’ to come into the kitchen. For a minute I thought I was gettin’ "a talkin-to,” but since I had been asleep the whole time she was gone I knew I couldn’t be in trouble.

I walked into the kitchen. On the table was a big piece of chocolate cake on a paper plate covered in Saran Wrap. I was confused cuz I knew she didn’t have time to bake anything and the house didn’t smell like cake.

She said, “The person who… is ailin’ had been brought quite a lot of food, and insisted I take somethin’, asked me what you might want.”

“Me?”

“Yep.”

“When ya get done eatin’ I want to run down to Baldwin’s and get a new casserole dish.”

My eyes went wide. Mama left her favorite casserole dish with the family of the dead man, permanently?

That dish had been Grandma Pearl’s. Mama had made her very first casserole in it when she was 13, which she burnt, but her own Daddy ate it anyway. We heard that story anytime somebody new came to dinner and we had a casserole.

“But Mama you always said you couldn’t live without your best casserole dish!”

She let out a slow breath.

“Well, Eugie, there are some things we think we can’t live without, but then the Lord proves us wrong by showin’ us what it’s like to lose somethin’ truly irreplaceable.”

She handed me a fork. “Now go on and eat your cake.”

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It is important the reader know it was not the intention of the author to use a Black body for the purpose of shock value, nor to represent White people as saviors in this story. Her views regarding these matters are similar to those expressed in the article below:

Further, given the Black people in this story are unseen or silent, the author offers below a collaboration of both Black and White artists that speaks to the theme of the piece, a problem that still exists today, in hopes that this imbalance is at least somewhat offset: