Pomegranates

Once Uncle Wardell was gone, the house stalled like the motor on Daddy’s car before it catches and then starts right up. After a few days, the house rolled right on.

“Clarice, get up and let me get to this room now. Why you in bed? You sick?”

“No ma’am.”

“Well, get up, then. Wardell being funeralized today. Got a lot to do.”

I sat in my chair as Momma pulled her cleaning rags from her housecleaning bucket. She cleaned the windows, scrubbed the woodwork where the floors met the walls, dusted the blinds and windowsills, vacuumed the carpet, stripped the linen from my bed, and wiped down the mattress and box spring. She lifted her cleaning bucket and stopped at the door for a backward glance. She pulled my door to, just a bit, as she left the room.

Uncle Wardell died last Wednesday. We were sitting on the front porch steps eating pomegranates, just the two of us, like every Wednesday, and he lay back on the porch and closed his eyes. I thought he was taking one of his famous catnaps. He could fall asleep anywhere. Momma said he once fell asleep standing up against the brick wall of a department store while waiting for a bus. And, she said, his legs were crossed at the ankles and his hands were in his pockets. Uncle Wardell’s pomegranate rolled down the porch steps. For a moment, it seemed all the air was sucked from my chest.

In my mind, I could see Uncle Wardell walking up our street. His long legs snapped at the knee when he walked, His feet pointed east and west. When he reached the porch, each time, he came to a dead stop and reared back on his heels. “Good God almighty!” he said. “You look just like your momma sitting there!”

I slid into the kitchen and sat down as Momma placed oatmeal and toast in front of me. I let the steam from the bowl touch my face. Sitting there, I saw Uncle Wardell in my head. He was sitting on the front steps. I had just finished the fourth grade. I sat next to Uncle Wardell, and he gave me a shiny red almost-round thing. I twirled it in my hand so I could examine it real close. I tried to bite into the thing. I could not break the surface with my teeth. It was like a plastic apple.

Uncle Wardell laughed. “Lucille!” he hollered. “How the hell this girl done made it through fourth grade and still don’t know how to eat a pomegranate?”

He took the thing from me and held it in front of my eyes. “Look now,” he said, eyeing me with his serious face. “Pay attention and you’ll learn something.

“Now, a pomegranate can fool you. Ain’t that a funny-looking piece of fruit? Not really round. Skin like cheap leather. Hold it,” he commanded as he shoved it at me. “Feel cool and substantial, don’t it?”

I screwed up my face at “substantial.”

He took the fruit from me. “That mean it feel like something,” he said, tossing the fruit up and down in one hand.

He took a small knife from his pants pocket and sliced the fruit in half. “You got to get through that tough skin to get to the good part.”

He held the two halves out to me. I leaned over to look and pulled back. Inside was a mass of slimy red seeds in separate light-green cubbies.

“Aha!” Uncle Wardell said, with one finger in the air. “Now we getting to it. Scoot over.” The screen door slammed, and Momma stood over Uncle Wardell with her hands on her hips.

“Wardell,” she said, “you so full of it.” She placed one half of the fruit in my hand. “Clarice, suck the meat off the seeds and spit them out. Throw the rest away.” The door slammed as Momma went back inside.

Uncle Wardell laughed and spit seeds out on the front walk. Daddy came out and drove off in his car, leaving behind the smell of his cologne.

“Now, some people,” Uncle Wardell said, “just can’t see past the surface. Take that pomegranate.” He nodded his head at the messy fruit in my open palm, still held at arm’s length. “On the outside, it ain’t real inviting. See, it’s the inside that’s the good part. Once you get through the tough skin.”

By fall, I could spit pomegranate seeds farther than Uncle Wardell. Each Wednesday, Daddy walked past me and Uncle Wardell and said, “Later.” Uncle Wardell always looked up at Daddy through the tops of his eyes and nodded his head once. The smell of cologne lingered in the air after Daddy drove off. Momma always said, “Y’all stop eating those things on my front, you hear?” Uncle Wardell nudged me with his elbow and whispered, “Don’t let your momma fool you. She can spit seeds farther than anyone I know.”

At Uncle Wardell’s funeral, I sat in front with Momma and Daddy and stared at my hands. The swish, swish of handheld fans moved the hot air around the church. Momma looked like a mountain. Daddy sat next to Momma, pulling on his tie and checking his watch. At the burial, I stared down at my hands until I saw Momma’s shoes moving away.

The house was quiet as the streetlights flickered on. The sound of Daddy’s shoes had long ago echoed down the front walk. I found Momma in the kitchen, scrubbing the sink. When she turned around, I wrapped my arms around her waist and held on. She gripped my shoulders and pushed me back. She held my chin in her hand, locked onto my eyes and ran her fingers through my hair. ”You need your edges clipped. Get up early tomorrow so I can clip your edges.”