Maya Price

Maya Price is an undergraduate student at Columbus State University.

On Dead Parents

When Granny died, it left a hole in my daddy’s heart the size of a reservoir. Seemed like a man took to digging deep trenches all inside and out, hollowing spaces between places where no spaces needed to be. The way hearts work, the atriums receive the blood the ventricles pump.  Blood, warm with oxygen, circulate throughout the body reaching the very tips of fingers and toes. It is the reason cheeks turn red. 

      In tenth grade, I dissected a cat. He was a fat, black, and ugly carcass, cold as a sting, sat flat on a slab of metal in my school’s science lab. I named him Thomas. Before he came to us, he was lost somewhere in some alley, and it is likely that some rich, white somebody called the catchers on him. When a cat gets caught, they take him to a shelter where he will be caged for twenty three hours of the day. He has access to medical care and food, of course. And if he is well behaved, he may enjoy the privileges of socializing with other cats, through caged doors. Every now and then, visitors arrive and gauk at the helpless critters, sticking their fingers through the holes of their homes and making condescending remarks, “Awe, he is so cute.” And the cat, on these occasions, is either forced to comply or protest. The ones that comply have a chance at salvation. The ones that protest accept death. Thomas protested. 

      I have no knowledge of when he was sentenced to death, or anything of the sort. I just know that it is common practice to euthanize unwanted animals and donate their carcasses to science. Rather than science, Thomas was donated to my school where his body was probed and abused by a dozen sadistic, smart assess who lucked themselves into AP Anatomy. He arrived in a white bodybag which smelled of ammonia and vomit. I hated that thing from the onset. 

      To cut a carcass open, I used a razor blade. It was the kind sold in hair stores, the kind used in DIY tutorials on “How to Distress Denim Jeans,” and also, the kind I used to cut myself. Beginning at Thomas’ collar, I placed the sharp tip up against his fur, dug deep into his chest, and tore him open from the end of his neck to the end of his abdomen. Then, I pried apart each hemisphere of his little body, splitting his skin in half, and observed the amalgamation of bone, muscle, and organ. Naturally, like any curious sadist, I poked at his liver and stomach just to see what would come gushing out. I bent a couple ribs, squeezed at the poor things testicles, and stuck my thumb down his throat, waiting for his ghost to bite. Finally, I smoothed my fingers against his heart and pressed as deep into the muscle as I could without alarming the teacher. Nothing came out. 

      I was informed later that the blood is drained from the cat before arrival. 

      Which explains why, when I opened that bodybag, what laid before me was no cat but death’s imitation of a cat. The life tilled from his eyes, now empty as a drum, like his last look was a stare. Somebody, somewhere, sucked the blood right out of Thomas. My daddy was just as dead—sittin’ up on that church pew. It was like a thousand tiny men began shoveling; a big crater was his heart. Something that looked like my Granny’s body was stowed away in the casket which stretched across the pulpit. My daddy cried. 

      The smartest man to ever walk the face of the earth was Solomon.  

      My mama was a Sunday school teacher, and she told me so. 

      Sitting in that blue, white classroom early Sunday morning, my mama shuffled through pages of lesson plans and coloring activities. I had just finished learning, for the sixth time, how Solomon loved God so much that when he was presented with the option to select from one of many of God’s blessings he chose wisdom. And God gave him that, and more. 

      He was also, possibly, the richest man to ever live according to Mama teacher. So rich he could afford to maintain the lifestyles of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. It would be at this point in the lesson that I would remember all the times my father jokingly dismissed the notion by saying, “I can hardly care for one.” And I would try to keep myself from laughing as mama read from Kings, “He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.” Much like my father, I could hardly believe it. 

      This particular Sunday, we learned about the judgement of Solomon. That day, two baby mamas came before him, asking him to resolve the dispute which was to whom does the baby belong. One mama claimed it was her child; the other mama claimed the same. Solomon decided, to settle the issue, he’d cut the baby and split the halves between each woman. The woman who was satisfied with the proposal would be dismissed. The woman who protested, would be rewarded her child. 

      This is what they called wisdom. 

      And I simply could not understand this image of two women playing tug of war with a baby, while a great big man with a beard looked down upon them pronouncing his decree. The baby, who was more of a black and white, pixelated blob looked like death already, with his eyes exed out and his mouth ajar. 

      When we got home I asked my daddy why Solomon would do that?  

      “Well,” he began, drawing a long sigh, “they say he’s the smartest man to ever live.” 

      But I know he knew that wasn’t true. My daddy was not a church goer or a Bible believer and he could not be convinced that Solomon was anything more than a horny, power-hungry, sometimes right ruler. Afterall, he was a man.  

      “Why?” I asked again. 

      And he said, “You may think it harsh, babygirl, cutting a baby in half. There’s even things in the Bible that I don’t understand.” 

      It’s true, I could not understand God’s fascination with sacrifice or his proclivity towards killing children but, “You see, the way hearts work,” my father continued, “I’d rather have no heart than a heart cut in half.” 

      Which was, it seems, what happened when they rolled my Granny’s body into Friendship Baptist Church and placed her in the center there where the altar was supposed to be. 

      I grew up Pentecostal.  

      The day I received the Holy Ghost, I was eleven years old, and tired of hearing the pastor spitting judgements into my ears. 

      Receiving the Holy Ghost goes like this. After your Mama, Deaconess, and the Pastor done finished guilting you into believing you were going to hell because of your disobedience, you will be invited to the altar to plead before the Lord and beg for forgiveness. While this invitation is framed as a choice, it is not. All suggestions in church are commands. Then, you will sluggishly arise from your seat and trod towards the front where the altar is located. An assembly of people who love you, but who also believe you are a habitual sinner, will meet you there including the pastor who will lead in prayer. The pastor will ask you to kneel and begin calling on Jesus. Understand. This ain’t no white people “Dear Heavenly Father” shit. This that sweating, crying, and moaning “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” for two hours straight no breaks type of shit, and if your knees are weak and your ears are sensitive you will not survive. 

      But, I did. 

      “I got the Holy Ghost.” 

      That’s what I told my mama after I arose from that alter with tears iced over my face. 

      It was partly true. 

      Something about sweating pellets through my favorite pink and white dress while bowed beneath the weight of my pastor whose arms were stretched across mine as I cried—I cried just thinking about the love which was Jesus hanging on a cross, sweating pellets that were warmer than mine and heavier than mine and meant more than mine. It had me crying, having the pastor insist in my ear, “Just call on Him; he loves you.” I called. I called. Jesus Jesus Jesus.  I thought I got the Holy Ghost. 

      Really, it was the alter. 

      The altar is the place where you go to mourn. It is where you leave your sins and lay your burdens. Bad things are supposed to die there. Equally, good things are supposed to be born. It’s where you worship. 

      My Granny laid in its place. 

      My daddy cried. To me, he is the smartest man to ever live. 

      Granny had dementia, and the only thing she knew was the outdoors. 

      I guess it’s an old nigger thing—growing up in the country, using wagons as pickup trucks and shitting in outhouses. I guess, when you come up poor and black, and your parents  are dead, and you are the caretaker for black relatives, and the house cleaner for white racist, you develop certain survival skills. I find, my Granny ain’t no different than the stories I heard coming up about Native Americans who knew how to kill a bison and gather berries, and taught the white folks how to plant corn. Because, my Granny could plant corn, and she had a grove of peach trees located in her backyard, and when it was pecan season in Georgia, there was always a bucket of them sitting around somewhere. And okra, and collards, and squash were ornaments on her dining room table, like it was somehow always harvest season, and I felt I was living in the pilgrim days. She didn’t speak much. She just gardened. 

      She died outside. 

      At her funeral, a man who was really a poet, remembered my Granny. 

      He approached the front, dressed as saved black men dress, in a three piece suit and shiny faux crocodile shoes. He’s the type of man to slap his wife’s butt, eat all the potato salad, and not know when to leave the family function. He is loud, jolly, and one stereotypical tier away from a minstrel show. But he loved my Granny, and he understood how she was as natural as the Earth herself. And there were no better occasions, nor venues to meet Jesus. So when he stood before the congregation, charged with the responsibility of expressing his memories of her before the audience, even my father said “Amen.” 

      His shirt was a dingy beige, and it seemed his suit jacket did not match his dress pants. My daddy did not have a habit of going to church, but even he said “Amen”—looking at that casket which held, not my Granny, but death’s best imitation of my Granny, right there, where the altar should have been. 

      I don’t know much about dead parents, but if my daddy died, it would leave a hole in my heart the size of a reservoir. I think it would be like a man took to digging deep trenches all inside and out, hollowing spaces between places where no spaces need to be. I can see now, broken hearts between myself, my mom, and my brother beating out of step, like a white drummer at a black church. I say this only because when I consider the way hearts work I may be as dead as the thing that breaks it. And if my daddy died, it would surely break. But in any case, we have this tradition in Pentecostal church of celebrating those who pass. And I should hope, when my daddy is stretched out across a sanctuary floor, I, a woman who is really a poet, will remember my father before an audience. And the church will say—Amen