Boys Life

exotic hats had bloomed. Other people were trying to find seats, and one of the ushers-Mr. Horace Kaylor, who had a white mustache and a cocked left eye that gave you the creeps when you stared at it-came up the aisle to help us.
    “Tom! Over here! For God’s sake, are you blind?”
    In the whole wide world there was only one person who would holler like a bull moose in church.
    He was standing up, waving his arms over the milling hats. I could feel my mother cringe, and my dad put his arm around her as if to steady her from falling down of shame. Granddaddy Jaybird always did something to, as Dad said when he thought I wasn’t listening, “show his butt,” and today would be no exception.
    “We saved you seats!” my grandfather bellowed, and he caused the Glasses to falter, one to go sharp and the other flat. “ Come on before somebody steals ’em!”
    Grand Austin and Nana Alice were in the same row, too. Grand Austin was wearing a seersucker suit that looked as if the rain had drawn it up two sizes, his wrinkled neck clenched by a starched white collar and a blue bow tie, his thin white hair slicked back and his eyes full of misery as he sat with his wooden leg stuck out straight below the pew in front of him. He was sitting beside Granddaddy Jaybird, which had compounded his agitation: the two got along like mud and biscuits. Nana Alice, however, was a vision of happiness. She was wearing a hat covered with small white flowers, her gloves white and her dress the glossy green of a sunlit sea. Her lovely oval face was radiant; she was sitting beside Grandmomma Sarah, and they got along like daisies in the same bouquet. Right now, though, Grandmomma Sarah was tugging at Granddaddy Jaybird’s suit jacket-the same black suit he wore rain or shine, Easter or funeral-to try to get him to sit down and stop directing traffic. He was telling people in the rows to move in tighter and then he would holler, “Room for two more over here!”
    “Sit down, Jay! Sit down!” She had to resort to pinching his bony butt, and then he scowled at her and took his seat.
    My parents and I squenched in. Grand Austin said to Dad, “Good to see you, Tom,” and they shook hands. “That is, if I could see you.” His spectacles were fogged up, and he took them off and cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief. “I’d say this is the biggest crowd in a half-dozen Eas-”
    “Place is packed as the whorehouse on payday, ain’t it, Tom?” Granddaddy Jaybird interrupted, and Grandmomma Sarah elbowed him in the ribs so hard his false teeth clicked.
    “I sure wish you’d let me finish a single sentence,” Grand Austin told him, the red rising in his cheeks. “Ever since I’ve been sittin’ here, I’ve yet to get a word in edgewi-”
    “Boy, you’re lookin’ good!” Granddaddy Jaybird plowed on, and he reached across Grand Austin to slap my knee. “Rebecca, you feedin’ this boy his meat, ain’t you? You know, a growin’ boy’s got to have meat for his muscles!”
    “Can’t you hear?” Grand Austin asked him, the red now pulsing in his cheeks.
    “Hear what?” Granddaddy Jaybird retorted.
    “Turn up your hearin’ aid, Jay,” Grandmomma Sarah said.
    “What?” he asked her.
    “Hearin’ aid!” she shouted, at her rope’s end. “ Turn it up!”
    It was going to be an Easter to remember.
    Everybody said hello to everybody, and still wet people were coming into the church as rain started to hammer on the roof. Granddaddy Jaybird, his face long and gaunt and his hair a white bristle-brush, wanted to talk to Dad about the murder, but Dad shook his head and wouldn’t go into it. Grandmomma Sarah asked me if I was playing baseball this year, and I said I was. She had a fat-cheeked, kind face and pale blue eyes in nests of wrinkles, but I knew that oftentimes Granddaddy Jaybird’s ways made her spit with anger.
    Because of the rain, the windows were shut tight and the air was really getting muggy. The floorboards were wet, the walls leaked, and the fans groaned as they turned. The church smelled of a hundred different kinds of perfume, shaving lotion, and hair tonic, plus the sweet aromas of blossoms adorning lapels and hats. The choir filed in, wearing their purple robes. Before the first song was finished, I was sweating under my shirt. We stood up, sang a hymn, and sat down. Two overstuffed women-Mrs. Garrison and Mrs. Prathmore-came up to the front to talk about the donation fund for the poverty-stricken