Death of a Friend Scene
May 5, 1969
Bridgette jumped down from the bench in the kitchen nook. “I want to play now.”
“Sweet Pea, don’t you want to finish your lunch?”
“No Mommy, I’m not hungry anymore” Bridgette twirled around on the faded black and white tile. “Besides ballerinas don’t each much.”
“Well, ballerinas who are only four years old have to eat if they want to grow up to be famous dancers.”
Bridgette laughed. “But I’m almost five. And then I’ll go to school and be a big kid.”
Mommy took a sponge from the kitchen counter and wiped off the wooden table. The sun peaked in through the purple curtains. She sighed, “It’s hot today.”
“I’m going to play with JoJo.” Bridgette skipped out of the kitchen and down the hallway. She stopped in the arched doorway facing the living room. She loved the blue and gold sunflowers that Daddy and Mary Moss painted on the ceiling. None of her friends had sunflowers on their ceilings. Mary Moss was fun. She danced and sang and always had eyes that were blue and really big eyelashes. She was the most pretty lady Bridgette knew. Not many grownups liked JoJo but Mary Moss helped Bridgette sing to JoJo.
Bridgette did her best pirouette and danced through the archway. She could see JoJo in his glass box. She pressed her nose against the glass. “Hi JoJo. Do you want to play?” She stood there for a few minutes watching him. He was the best turtle in the whole world. Daddy gave her JoJo when she had her birthday party and was four years old. That was a long time ago when she was just a little kid. She dragged the step stool from the side of the wooden chest that JoJo lived on and put it right in front of his window.
JoJo looked sleepy. His head was lying on a rock. Usually when she came to see him, he watched her. She brought food for him sometimes and if she dangled it above his box, he would crawl to her. It meant he loved her. JoJo loved her like she loved Mommy and Daddy. She tapped on the glass. He didn’t move. “JoJo, do you want to play ‘lost in the woods’?”
JoJo didn’t move. Bridgette climbed down off the stool and opened the door where his food was. She grabbed the jar and took out a big dry shrimp. Then she climbed back up the steps until she reached the top one. She reached over the side of his glass box and dangled the shrimp in front of him. JoJo didn’t move. She dropped it on his head. JoJo didn’t move. She took her finger and gently rapped on his back. “JoJo, wake up. Don’t you want to play?”
JoJo didn’t move. She pushed him with her finger. His body moved slightly and his head slid off the rock. “Mommy!” she cried, “Mommy, JoJo won’t move. Mommy!”
“Bridgette, do you need to yell?”
“But Mommy, JoJo won’t move. Not even for shrimp!”
Mommy peered into the tank. She gently wiggled JoJo’s shell.
“See.” Bridgette said.
Mommy sighed. “I have some bad news for you Sweet Pea.”
Bridgette looked at Mommy and then at JoJo. “But I want to play with him now.”
“Well you can’t.”
“Why not?” she whined.
“Bridgette, JoJo is dead. That’s why he can’t move anymore.”
Bridgette pressed her face against the glass. She looked at the little hut in the corner. When JoJo was little, he used to sit under the hut. But then he got big and couldn’t fit anymore. “When will he not be dead Mommy?”
Mommy leaned down and picked up Bridgette. She pushed the hair out of Bridgette’s eyes and kissed her cheek. “Being dead is forever.”
“But how long is forever?”
“A very, very long time.”
“Will he be undead when I start school? Jeremy said I could bring JoJo to school for show and tell.”
Mommy looked at JoJo. “We’ll have to find something else for you to bring to show and tell. Besides, school doesn’t start for three months.”
“But I don’t want JoJo to be dead. I love JoJo.” Bridgette started to cry.
“I know you do.”
Bridgette cried louder. Mommy rubbed her back as she cried and pushed her face into Mommy’s yellow and green shirt. She yelled. “I don’t like dead. I don’t want JoJo to be dead.”
“Remember when Grandma Lilly died when you were two?”
“No.”
“Well, you were only a baby then. But you went to her funeral in the brick church. The sanctuary was filled with flowers and we said prayers for her.”
“Did I say prayers?” Bridgette rubbed her eyes.
“You sure did. You sang with us and everyone said you looked just like me when I was a baby.”
“But you’re my Mommy. How can you be a baby?”
Mommy said. “Well that was a long, long time ago. But now we never see Grandma Lilly anymore expect when we go the cemetery and leave flowers for her.”
“I like putting flowers on Grandma Lilly”
“If we had a funeral for JoJo, then we could put flowers on his grave.” Mommy said, “Would you like to do that?”
“How do we make a funeral?”
Mommy was quiet for a minute. Then she said “We’ll need to make JoJo a coffin and then…”
“Could it be a lavender box?” Bridgette interrupted.
“It sure could. Why don’t you find a box and tell your Dad we’re having a funeral and I’ll cut some flowers.”
Bridgette stared at JoJo. “Can Mary Moss come to JoJo’s funeral?”
“Of course Sweet Pea.”
Bridgette yelled “yeah” as she ran to her room. She looked at herself in the mirror. Did she look like a girl going to a funeral? She wasn’t quite sure how one was supposed to look. She knew it was a special occasion. She pulled off her blue and yellow polka dot dress and dropped it on the floor. Then she opened the closet door. She pulled out her white party dress and stared at it. No, she thought, that’s a dress for little girls. She pushed dress after dress aside. And then she saw what she would wear. It wasn’t a dress at all. It was the yellow pair of baggy pants that Mary Moss gave her. Baggy pants made her feel like an Arabian princess. And she could wear the top that showed her belly button. Mary Moss said the women in the harem wore them. Bridgette didn’t know what a harem was but she knew they had them in Arabia a long time ago.
She put the pants on her bed so the legs hung down. Now she needed a box for the coffin. She looked around her room. The walls were full of posters of horses and rock stars and flowers and one whole wall had prints of her hands and Mommy’s and Daddy’s and everyone else’s. The hands were in all different colors. She could see the little lines of her fingerprints. In the middle of the handprint wall was the window.
Mr. Bee was sitting on a box on the pink table under the window. She said, “Mr. Bee, I’m taking your box to make a coffin for JoJo.”
Mr. Bee said nothing and smiled as he always did.
“I’m going to put pretty things in the coffin and then we’re going to have a funeral for JoJo.”
She carefully set the box on the floor and opened it. It was full of stickers. She took them out and put them on the floor that was painted gray.
She opened the package of gold stars. She licked one and carefully pressed it against the side of the box. She took another and put it on the top. She liked making things pretty. She was busy decorating the box when she smelled her dad.
He always smelled sweet and warm. “Hey baby, Mommy told me about JoJo.” He sat down on the wood floor cross-legged. He picked at the pieces of pealing paint on the floor.
“I’m making a coffin,” Bridgette said.
“I can see that baby.” Daddy lit his cigarette.
The soles of his feet were dark and his hair frizzed out over his beard. Bridgette thought he looked like the Jesus in Mary Beth’s living room. “Will you help Mommy and me make a funeral for JoJo? Do you remember when we did it for Grandma Lily?”
Daddy smoked his cigarette. “Instead of a funeral for JoJo, why don’t we have a celebration?”
“Can we bring a coffin to the cela thing?”
Daddy smiled. “Of course we can baby girl. We need a beautiful coffin for a beautiful celebration. We can make a parade and take JoJo to the cliffs.”
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