Honeysuckle
Proper etiquette of a funeral dictated that the tenants dress modestly for the sake of remembrance, nonetheless mother wore her pearls and flower stitched gloves with wordless claims that a touch less of modesty would govern us into the new age. Gathered within the perpetual processions of alabaster stones we bowed our heads, my brother Jamie concealed in his pine box lowering into the earth where worms squirmed through the wet dirt below. Proper etiquette of a funeral dictated that I watch Jamie’s pine box sink into the earth, until the soil squished below the sinking weight, until the dirt is piled over and he is committed to the earth forever. I spend but a moment staring at the honeysuckle flower father carved into the lid of his first born’s box.
Jamie loved honeysuckle, unkempt garlands of it grew into his window one day and since then there they stayed. “Harmony was jake with Jamie’s room,” Mother would say. “Even the bumbling bees thought the sunny walls were the berries.” How mortifying it had been for those words to have been the first my mother had used to greet the neighbors who arrived for the service.
Now I look to my mother who ignores the disapproving glances of our neighbors who have gathered to pay their respects. My braid of hair grew heavy when I took in her bobbed hair. The good Christian mother turned flapper before our very eyes. That had been Jamie’s suggestion, or so she had claimed, but father knew better and so did I. She looked down at her flower stitched gloves, honeysuckle flowers crudely stitched to sleeves. She stands far from father, examining her ugly gloves with a sad smile. No one had any idea from where she had produced the ugly things but we all wordlessly agreed they were not welcome.
The service ended and the small congregation dispersed. Father and I waited after everyone had gone though, because we had to wait on mother. She stood at the mound of dirt that separated us from Jamie, still looking down at her hideous gloves.
“That was a swell box, Howard.” She finally said, looking at father. “Jamie would have thought it was the bee’s knees.”
“I would have preferred not to carve a flower for a man’s coffin, but the choice was never mine to make.” Father said, folding his arms across his chest. I stared down at the ground as he said this, not wanting to see my mother’s face. She wouldn’t look at me anyway, knowing that my face would remind her of the son she had murdered.
“Jamie was a bimbo, just not the kind you wanted.” She was defending herself and I hated it. I hated her improper, flapper slang. Father was right about how she wanted to push it on me. She always wanted to push it on me.
“What does that even mean, Nora?” Father challenged, and silently I rooted him on. I wanted him to put Nora in her place. One day, I believed, father could wake mother from the mess she made of herself. He’d failed with Jamie, but not with me. That’s what father always told me, so it had to be true. It was those gloves. Those flapper gloves that father and I hated. Father had told me during the drive here, “Nora tricked your poor brother into that sinful lifestyle. Now look at her.” He had been right. Where did my mother go? She’d been replaced by Nora the flapper.
“It means he was tough, Howard. Any boy who could stand up to a father who didn’t like him was.” Father said she had corrupted him, with her flapper ways, and he was right. Once this argument ended, I’d have to go home with her. Father had to work, to see his gal and I knew I’d get in the way. Nora always got angry when I told her that, when I’d been sent to her. Obviously she had only wanted Jamie around. Poor, sweet Jamie was murdered by Nora’s flapper ways. When I came to Nora’s house, they’d go to the speakeasies in the evenings, or parties Nora would be invited to. Jamie loved the zigfield girls, but not their bodies. He would have if he’d lived with me and Father. I’d groan when Nora would open the invitations to their illegal parties to me. I’d scoff at her offer of “giggle water” when I’d been dropped off at her home. It was like she was trying to cleanse me, when she and Jamie had needed the cleansing.
“Try just once, old girl.” Jamie would tell me. “You can’t just not try.” I wasn’t old and I wouldn’t dare ever try. Prohibition was a very real movement and Father and I stood behind it. It was mortifying to think the two were so wild in comparison to us.
“I’ll pick you up on saturday.” Father told me before walking to where we had parked the car. I watched him go, dreading every step he took. He was leaving me with Nora, and going to his gal. I was in the way though, it made sense that I was.
“Come on, sheba.” Nora said, touching me with that ugly glove. “Let’s go home.”
“My name is Lonnie.” I reminded her before I shrugged off the hideous glove. I didn’t know where to go, but I just wanted to walk away from her, to make it clear I was angry at her and her wild ways. She’d call me naive and claim how I was under Father’s thumb. It wasn’t true but I’d hear about it again soon.
“Lonnie, the breezer's that way.” I had to stop and look at her, to see which way she had been pointing with ugly gloved fingers. Her wearing those horrible things at Jamie’s service disgusted me. I marched in the direction she indicated and I marched. Nora said nothing as we headed for the car. I hated when she pretended to be dumb towards my being rude to her, and that’s exactly what she was about to do. I tried to keep a pace in front of her, but Nora caught up to me anyway. Her arm spread around my shoulders and the ugly honeysuckle gloves touched me again. I held back a groan as her perfume wafted into my nostrils.
“Well,” She began again. “I have a clam. I think it’d be the berries if we got some chocolate, sheba.” She was trying to make me feel better with candy, after killing my brother with her ways. I started to cry when I realized her perfume was honeysuckle, the one Jamie had given her. I felt her stroke my braided hair, but this time she didn’t offer to pay for it to get bobbed. Jamie said I only liked my long hair because father said I should. He’s wrong though. My long hair defined me. It’s what separated me from the harlots and their ugly flower stitched gloves.
“My name is Lonnie.” I told her again. I tore myself from her grasp, seeing her jump while I did. I glared at her hatefully and watched as he jaw set in place. Preparing for whatever I had to say. There were thousands of things I could have said. Thousands. So I began with the main event.
“Why are you wearing those hideous gloves?” Was all I could bring myself to ask. She looked down at them yet again, her painted lips pulling into yet another sad smile that made my stomach churn. She held them out for me to see and I was tempted to tear them from her right there.
“Aren’t they the berries?” A tear skittered down her cheek and her voice cracked. I was ready with a “no” but she continued before I could. “Jamie made them for me. He asked me to wear them today.”
My voice caught in my throat and I watched as she lovingly stroked them, as if they were treasures. Treasures Jamie had given her. Treasures she would never receive from the likes of me.
