him that’ll have to pay for the funeral come to that, ’cause Tammy ain’t worked in years and don’t have no money of her own.’
‘If she’s working or not, or if Jesse is or not ain’t the point. Rex Hightower ought to be paying for Joy’s funeral. And giving her eulogy as well. That’s exactly why I wanted to have words with Tammy and tell her to make sure that the man does something for Joy now, ’cause she been doing for him all these years. Running after him. And waiting for him to marry her when she could of done something with her life.’
‘He wasn’t holding no gun at her head, now wife.’
‘But Freddie B it ain’t fair that that Rex with his ooh-boo-coos of money don’t do nothing for Joy.’
‘Well he ain’t never been doing for her that I can see, so it’s late to expect him to start up now. Zebras don’t change stripes. A man born stingy’ll die stingy.’
Sometimes there wasn’t no getting sense out of Freddie B. He saw things like a man, so I decided not to say nothing else to him ’fore he made me mad about Rex. My nerves was too worn out to be disagreeing with anybody about anything. And what really had me on edge was the worry as to how I was gonna get the fare to New York which is why I was ready to fuss with my husband. He’s always nearest at hand for me to pick on when I get niggly, poor man.
So I tried to think of something nice to say, something that would shift some of the money worry off of him, ’cause no doubt it come to Freddie’s mind quick as it come to mine that a funeral meant money. ‘’Member that English kid I told you about? Sebastian Egerton? I’m thinking on calling him to see if he’ll lend us the fare to get us to New York where Tammy told Jesse she wants us all to meet up at Joy’s.’
Freddie B is funny about borrowing and though he’s quick to lend, I ain’t never known him borrow off nobody but his eldest brother Harold who had a chicken farm in Louisiana and did not bad and loaned us the money in ’49 to get to California. So it didn’t surprise me all that much when Freddie give me a funny look over the top of his spectacles like he do when he’s fixing to lay into me about something. But first he stuck a pinch of snuff in his bottom lip and hawked a big spit in that aluminum can I keep for him down by the table leg, since he always takes him a wad of snuff in the morning. My baby sister’s the same.
‘After all these years of paying my dues on time,’ Freddie B said, ‘I figure I can borrow some off the union. Maybe not enough to get us both back East, but sure enough they’ll lend me fare for one, ’cause this is a emergency.’ That was his way of telling me that I wasn’t calling no Sebastian Egerton, and slow as Freddie B is to getting things said most times, the words spill out his mouth quick when he ain’t in the mood to be disagreed with.
With my husband creeping through his whole life like a snail, I used to ponder how he managed to keep up at work. But my brother Caesar once told me that Freddie B had him a fine reputation on a industrial site Freddie’d got Caesar some work at one time. Caesar said Freddie was known not for fast bricklaying but for bricking sure, so’s when he did something, that foreman didn’t never need somebody to follow behind to rebrick a second time.
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