The Rosewood Casket

ll is ready. The sanctuary of the Ebenezer Baptist Church is filled, whites to the right, blacks to the left. Down in front on the raised level the pastors of the two white churches sit together on the right side of the altar and the black pastor sits on the left. Behind them on yet a higher level the choir awaits. The early afternoon August sun streams through the windows on either side, its glare blinding rather than illuminating. In front of the altar on black-draped trestles rests the open casket, its polished wood gleaming from the shadows. Outside, one of the horses that draw the hearse, snorts and stomps impatiently. It's all waiting on me. I nod to the black minister, he nods to the choir and Mister Ogg's funeral service begins.

"Ogg, if you please, Ma'am. O-G-G, Ogg! And I'd appreciate it if you'd try and remember that."

And if it was a man he might not be so polite.

Mister Ogg had big ears and was as bald as a door knob. He had a fringe of hair that hooked over his ears and went around the back of his head, and with his hat on you couldn't tell it didn't grow all the way over the top, so he wore his hat most of the time. The hat was worn shiny and went with the black vested suit he always wore and the white shirt and tie. Sometimes on a hot day he might take off his coat and go in just his vest and shirt sleeves, but he always kept his hat on if he could.

Mister Ogg's place of business, which was his residence, too, was in Littleville, right next to the drainage ditch, which everybody called simply the Ditch. The Ditch was some ten feet wide and maybe eight feet deep and stood open except in the business section of town where it was covered over and channeled through a large concrete culvert. Littleville had been built on an old slough, and the Ditch served to carry off excess water. It also separated the white section from the black section.

Littleville itself was on the wrong side of the tracks from Paducah, which was a good-size city just below the point where the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland rivers joined together. The financial center of Paducah was located within a few blocks of the mile-wide river, and to the North and West were nice residential areas but to the South the farther you got from the waterfront the more ramshackled and rundown things became until finally you reached the triple set of tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad that led on in to the train station, and across the tracks lay Littleville. So if you lived in Littleville, you were looked down on by people of Paducah, and if you lived across the Ditch you had no standing at all to speak of.

Mister Ogg was Littleville's undertaker and was even-handed. Whatever your color he would handle you. Red, yellow, black, white, spotted or striped, it didn't matter to him. And to anybody who objected, and some of the white residents did, he'd say, "A dollar is green makes no difference what color the hand it comes from." He buried just about everybody in Littleville that needed burying.

Poor as they were, most of the people in Littleville had burial insurance of one kind or another. White people had the kind that paid off directly to the family. An agent of the company would come around every week and collect your twenty cents or quarter or however much it was and mark it down in your book and his. If you fell more than six weeks behind, by company policy he'd have to drop you, but he tried not ever to let that happen, because then he'd have to go out and sell another policy to make up for it or the company would drop him. It wasn't unheard of for an agent to pay out of his own pocket until people could get back on their feet.

Black people generally favored a contract with a burial society, which was something like an insurance company except it wasn't regulated by the government. Anybody could start a burial society. You didn't have to prove you could pay up when the time came.

The burial society would enter into an agreement with you about what kind of a funeral you wanted and when you died they would be obligated to deliver it, provided you had kept up your payments. Most payments ran twenty cents or so like a regular policy, but if you wanted a really big funeral, it could be double that or even more.

The burial contract spelled out in detail what all would be furnished for your funeral. For example, for a first class funeral it might specify that long black coats would be supplied for the pall bearers or that the casket would be a certain kind of wood with brass handles. You could even say that an automobile would be in the procession, and even the make, a Buick, maybe.

The society the Littleville folks dealt with was called The Sweet Chariot Burial Society with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, and they would print up the contracts in fancy lettering like a certificate suitable for framing and people would hang them on their living room walls so visitors would know where they stood. It was like a Victrola or a Singer sewing machine; if you had one, you put it out where folks could see it.

Mister Ogg had an arrangement with the insurance people. When somebody they had a policy on died, he could call and find out how much it was worth, and then he would know the maximum price of the funeral to offer the family. Mister Ogg didn't believe in selling people something they couldn't afford, but at the same time, he wanted to deliver quality service.

When somebody with a burial contract died, it was a different story. Buck Burnett, the local representative for the Sweet Chariot people, would come and try to shave all he could off the contract.

"It say here a satin lining for the casket," Buck might say. "It don't need to be satin. Just something shiny. Rayon will do. And who knows what mahogany looks like, anyhow? Whatever you got with a dark cast to it will be all right. I'll use my car to follow the hearse. It ain't no Buick, but it's near about brand new."

Buck Burnett drove a late model Ford sedan and dressed in sporty clothes and was much admired across the Ditch, but not by Mister Ogg. "Steal the money off a dead man's eyes," was the way he put it, and then had to explain to me that it was once common practice to place coins on the eyelids of the dead to keep them closed. It must have been about the worst thing he could think of to say about anybody.

It was Buck not living up to the contract that bothered Mister Ogg the most. Mister Ogg was a man of his word and expected everybody else to be.

Mister Ogg's low opinion of Buck didn't keep him from doing business with him, but it made him extra careful. Even so, he had no suspicions when Buck came and told him that he had been called to Memphis for two weeks of training.

"I don't think I need it and I don't want to go, but they says I got to. Everything ought to be all right because ain't nobody real sick, but if something do happen, make them bring in they contract and do the best you can, and soon as I get back we'll settle up. And it'll be a little something extra because I don't expect you to do my job for me for nothing."

"Very well," Mister Ogg told him. "But I want it understood that whatever the contract calls for, that's exactly what I'm going to try to furnish. I'll not be a party to any short-changing."

"Oh, yes suh, Mister Ogg, I knows that, I expects that. You jess do whatever you think is right and we won't quile bout it."

Two days after Buck left, Roonie Staples, turned up in an alley in Paducah with his throat cut.

Roonie was the youngest of Mrs. Staples' three sons and the only one still at home. The oldest had long ago moved to Chicago and the middle one, Cecil, had a good job with the Illinois Central Railroad Shops and owned his own home in Paducah. Nobody knew exactly what Roonie did except he was out most of the night and slept most of the day. Rumor had it he was mixed up in with a bad bunch, maybe running numbers or worse. Anyway he wore flashy clothes and always seemed to have money to spend.

It was Cecil who got in touch with Mister Ogg and asked would he go and fetch Roonie. "Po-leece say we can have him now, so if you could go get him, when I get off from work, I'll bring Mama."

Mister Ogg told him to be sure and bring the contract, too, and when they came he was amazed at what it specified. "It says here a rosewood casket," he said. "Think of that. Rosewood!

"Wif a silk lining," Mrs. Staples said, leaning forward in her chair and twisting herself around, trying to read the paper, grunting because she was, as people used to say, right fleshy. "Don't it say silk?"

"And black tail coats and top hats and gloves for the pall bearers."

"Top hats, hee, hee," Mrs. Staples said. "Now, ain't that sump'n!"

"And a Cadillac car to follow the hearse and carry the family."

"I ain't never rid in no Cadillac car befo'."

"Neither have I," Mister Ogg said and read on. "Now, this last part is really unusual. A five piece jazz band with a piano to ride along and play in the procession."

"Need a wagon to haul that," Cecil said.

"How much did this thing cost, anyway?" Mister Ogg asked, waving the contract.

"A whole dollah and a half, " Mrs. Staples told him. "Roonie, he had it now mos' three year, and he always keep up the payments. Ever single week, a dollah and a half. And if he wun't goan be home, he left the money with me to give Mistah Burnett when he come."

Mister Ogg read over the contract again. "I'll need to keep this for awhile, Ma'am," he said. He must have been thinking, as I was, that when Buck Burnett got back, regardless of what he had said, he was going to question every penny, so it would be best have something in black and white to back up his bill.

"Well, I don't know …." Cecil said.

"Cose you can keep it," Mrs. Staples said, getting to her feet with difficulty. "I knows what's in it, jot an' tiddle, and even if I didn't, hee, hee, I know you goan do me right, Mistah Ogg. Come on, Cecil, get me home."

"Before you go, we need to talk about a time for the funeral."

"Hot as it is, I'd say sooner the better."

"And I'd be inclined to agree, Ma'am, but it's going to take time to get everything together. I'm going to have see about renting that Cadillac car and hiring a band. And I'm going to have to order that rosewood casket, and Lord knows how long that's going to take."

"And make sho it got a silk lining."

"Yes, I'll do that, Ma'am, but the point is, it's going to be a few days, so I'll have to embalm."

"Little Roonie embalmed! Hee, hee, he sho like that."

"It's not in the contract, so I'm afraid it'll be extra."

"Wait just a damn minute!" Cecil said. "How much extra?"

Mrs. Staples's fat arm flew out and struck him in the chest. "Shut yo' mouf, boy!" Turning back to Mister Ogg, she asked, "Ain't Roonie's fault you ain't got the stuff , is it, Mistah Ogg?"

"Well, no, but …."

"Then I know you goan do what's right and jess pass that embalm straight on to Mistah Burnett. Now Cecil, you 'pologize for speaking sharp and then get me home. It's done past my suppah."

The rosewood casket had to come by train from North Carolina and took five days. The funeral was held on the sixth day and nobody in Littleville and maybe Paducah either had ever seen anything to match the procession.

First came the hearse, which Mister Ogg held in reserve for only the most expensive funerals. It was varnished black and the sides were glass so you could see the casket inside. At the corners of the top were fixed huge drooping plumes made of ostrich feathers dyed black. It was drawn by a matched pair of black horses with plumes fixed on their foreheads. And on the driver's seat handling them was Mister Ogg in his shiny black suit and wearing a top hat.

Then came the Cadillac, black, too, and polished like a jewel. The driver furnished by the Cadillac people was dressed in a gray chauffeur's uniform and so fit right in. Cecil was sitting in front beside him, and in the back seat were Mrs. Staples and two friends she had honored by inviting them to ride in the family car. Cecil's wife and children were farther back in the procession on foot.

Next came Mister Ogg's Ford touring car with the top laid back and the pall bearers squeezed together, top hats and arms sticking out in all directions. I had expected to be driving that myself, but Mister Ogg decided I wasn't quite old enough, though at fourteen I could manage it as well as he could.

Instead I was right behind handling the pair of almost matched grays pulling the flatbed wagon which carried the piano and the band, seated on folding chairs. Besides the piano, there were a clarinet, a saxophone, a trumpet and a set of drums. They had started off playing "When The Saints Go Marching In," but with first one instrument taking the lead and then another, they had wandered off into something nobody including they themselves could put a name to. It didn't matter because the drummer was laying down a slow, solid beat that kept that procession of mourners that followed on foot stepping together in time.

And so the procession made its stately way from the Staples house where it began to the Ebenezer Baptist Church half a mile away -- that matched pair of blacks, stepping high, nodded their heads and waving their plumes; that long black Cadillac whispering to itself as it glided along; that Ford clucking quietly as the engine turned over in a slow idle; then the band blaring away to that steady drum; and finally that long line of marchers, beginning to sway now, because the drum was starting to work its spell.

In some places they toll bells for the dead. Bells are all right, I guess, but a bell can only speak to the ear. A drum, now, it speaks to the bones and to the muscles. You don't hear a drum, you feel it, and sometimes it stirs up a kind of memory deep down inside you that's maybe as old as time itself, and I guess that's what was starting to happen to the marchers, that rattle-rattle-Thump- pause- rattle-rattle-Thump began to work its way in and take over their muscles and bones. First one and then another would turn loose and do a double-step, zig-zagging a little to the side so as not to clip the heels of the one in front. And then more and more were doing it. And it wasn't long before somebody began to hum. And soon the humming was so strong it overcame the band and they stopped playing. But not the drum. Even if you didn't catch the rattle-rattle of the snare, you could still feel the solid Thump of the bass. And then somebody started a jump-up song.

Nobody knows the words or the melody to a jump-up song because they don't pre-exist. A jump-up song just happens. It usually happens during a church service when somebody gets so full of the spirit they have to let it out, so they just jump up and begin to holler out a whatever is in their heart. And the congregation, sensing something wonderful is happening, follows along, echoing the words, working out their own rhythm and melody, hoping to share in the ecstasy.

The jump-up song started as a long drawn out lonesome wail lifting out of that humming and giving voice to the rattle-rattle-Thump of the drums, "O-oh, Lawd." And the crowd chanted, "Oh Lawd." The voice sang, "Hold my hand," and the crowd repeated, "Hold my hand. "

"While I walk" ( While I walk )
"This way" ( Walk this way )
"Cause I don't" ( No, no )
"Want to go" ( No, no )
"By myself." ( All by myself ).

And so it went all the way to the church. The lead voice changed several times but the theme stayed the same -- Lord, lead me, support me, protect me, comfort me, take care of me, and in the end, take me home. The band soon found they could join in because the music wasn't that far away from what they were used to playing. I heard one of them remark later that jazz was nothing more than a jump up song moved uptown.

At the church, the pallbearers shook out and smoothed down the tails of their long black coats, squared up their top hats, slid that rosewood casket out of the back of the hearse, carried it down the center aisle to the front and set it on two trestles draped in black cloth. The preacher stood up and spoke at length about life and death and found many good things to say about Roonie. The choir sang. Mrs. Staples made her show of public grief, the two friends who had been with her in the Cadillac carrying her from the casket where she collapsed back to her seat, with Cecil hovering around looking helpless.

Then the congregation filed by and paid their last respects, the casket was closed and reloaded into the hearse and the procession moved on the graveyard, which was situated on knoll a little outside of Littleville, because in any but the driest weather a hole dug in Littleville would soon fill with water. At the graveside the preacher spoke a few words about the promise of eternal bliss and led a prayer, and I handed Mrs. Staples a little silver colored spade so she could throw the first dirt into the grave.

"Wait," Mister Ogg said. He was standing at one end of the grave. He sent me to fetch the tarpaulin we kept under the driver's seat of the hearse for use in rainy weather. I helped unroll it and together we dropped it into the grave so that it covered the shiny top of that rosewood casket. Then he stepped back and nodded to Mrs. Staples.

After the funeral, Mister Ogg itemized and totaled up the cost of the funeral and made out his bill and waited for the day of Buck Burnett's return. It came and went without a sign of him. A week passed and still there was no word, and Mister Ogg began to worry. He sent me across the Ditch to Mrs. Mabry's house where Buck rented a couple of rooms, one for sleeping and one he called his office, to see what I could find, warning me to be careful, because he didn't want to start any rumors. Mrs. Mabry was anxious, too, because Buck hadn't paid his rent before he left and she needed the money. We went into the office room and looked around. There was nothing in the filing cabinet or the desk drawers. We went on back to the sleeping room. All his clothes were gone. I told Mrs. Mabry it was probably nothing to worry about, that he'd just had to stay in Memphis longer than he figured.

But Mister Ogg was very much concerned when I told him. He tried to place a call to the Sweet Chariot Burial Society in Memphis, but was told the number had been disconnected. Then he went to see the sheriff, who said it was too early for anything official, but he would make inquiries. Then he talked to the bank in Paducah where Buck had his account, which was the same bank where Mister Ogg had his, and was told that Buck had closed the account almost three weeks before.

Later on that afternoon the sheriff came by. "Well, " he told Mister Ogg, "you ain't the only one, if that's any consolation to you. The Law in Memphis say they got calls from all over Tennessee and even some from Mississippi and Georgia. That Sweet Chariot bunch has shut down and flew the coop. They can't even find out who owned the thing so they have no idea where to start looking. The man I talked to advised me not to waste my time on it. And I'd advise you to do the same."

"It's not only me. What about all the burial contracts people have?"

"Twist one up good and tight and you might be able to light a fire with it. It sure ain't no good for much else."

The old and the sick lost the most because no regular insurance company would cover them. The rest were able to take out life insurance policies and go on paying much as they had been.

Mister Ogg was out of pocket over five hundred dollars, four hundred on that rosewood casket alone. "I don't see any way in the world of getting any of it back," he said. "The band, that Cadillac car and the clothes for the pallbearers, those were provided just as I ordered them and even if I hadn't already paid for them, I be morally bound to do so. The embalming, I'm just out the cost of the fluid there, if I don't count my time as anything. The big thing is that rosewood casket. That was a special order and I had to pay for it in advance.'

"Looks like to me the Staples ought to have to pay for that," I said. "They're the ones using it."

"Not a chance. The oldest one, whose name I no longer remember, hasn't been heard of in years. They couldn't even find him to tell him about Roonie. Mrs. Staples doesn't have a dime. And I don't see Cecil paying, even if he could. You saw the way he acted about the embalming charge. But you're right about one thing. Everything else may be over and done with, but that casket is still here. And since it belongs to me, I would be well within my rights to repossess it."

"You mean, go out there and dig it up?"

"Why not?"

"But what about Roonie?"

"He wouldn't mind."

"But what about Mrs. Staples?

"She's already got what she wanted, the biggest show Littleville has ever seen or is likely to for some time to come."

"But what would you do with it? You can't send it back to North Carolina, can you?"

"No, but maybe I can resell it. It's such a beautiful thing, and with that tarpaulin over it, it oughtn't to be scratched."

"Is that what was in your mind when you put down that tarpaulin?"

"No, I just couldn't stand the thought of marring that beautiful surface. It was a silly thing to do, I admit."

"What about the inside. Won't that be messed up?"

"I doubt it. Anyway, it can be cleaned or if need be replaced. It's the casket itself that matters."

And that's what we did, repossessed that casket. But first, Mister Ogg called in Mrs. Staples and Cecil and told them what he intended to do. Cecil pitched a fit and threatened to call the Law, but Mister Ogg reminded him who the rightful owner of that casket was and that if Cecil insisted on keeping it he would be obligated to pay for it.

"Just what do you plan to do then," Cecil asked, "dump pore old Roonie out on the ground?"

"No," Mister Ogg said. "That's the reason I called you in, so we could settle on another casket. Now, I've got a nice pine one that normally goes for fifty dollars. Under the circumstances I'm willing to cut that to twenty-five, which is what it cost me."

"Pay the man," Mrs. Staples ordered Cecil. "Can't you see he trying to help us out?"

Mister Ogg and I took the wagon and went out to the graveyard in the early morning and made the switch. No one was around to see us, but everybody knew it had been done.

It didn't take much to bring that rosewood casket back to mint condition. When it was restored to suit him, Mister Ogg placed it in the room where he kept his stock of caskets so it was the first thing you saw when you came in the door and put a sign on it which said in big letters, "25% OFF." He studied the sign for awhile and then added the words "Slightly Used."

Afterward, any family in need of a casket, he drew their attention to the rosewood one, running his hand gently over the wood as if it might have the back of a fine horse, lifting the lid and showing off the snowy white silk lining, demonstrating the softness of the padding. Nobody asked how it had come to be used because everybody already knew and most had been there. They would show a polite interest but choose something else. He dropped the price to 50% off and then to 75% off. There were still no takers.

After a couple of years without even a nibble, Mister Ogg replaced the sign offering a discount with one that said simply, "USED," and moved the casket to the back of the room and quit showing it to people. But I don't think it was because he despaired of ever selling it. I think it was because he was afraid somebody might want to buy it and he no longer wanted to part with it.

That was around 1924, the year I graduated from high school, which was very unusual for anybody from Littleville, and almost unheard of for anybody who was black. But Mister Ogg made sure when I finished the eighth grade at the Littleville school that I went on to high school in Paducah. He arranged for me to attend St. Frances de Sales, which was run by the Catholics, and paid my tuition all four years. After I graduated he let me help him for a year, and then he sent me to embalming school in Chicago.

You might wonder why Mister Ogg would concern himself with me. To the people of Littleville it was no mystery. They were satisfied, white and black alike, that I was his son.

Mama started cooking and cleaning for Mister Ogg before I was born. Mister Ogg was married then and his wife was sickly and he brought Mama in to help out. When Mrs. Ogg died, Mama stayed on. Mama was married, too, but to a man who never was around, was off and gone for months at a time and finally gone for good. And when I came along everybody took one look at this skin of mine and nodded their heads and said, "Unh hunh."

I asked Mama about it twice. Once when I was six or seven and she nearly tore my head off, and then again after I was grown.

"I just don't know. Yo' daddy was back for a few days about the right time, and he was light, too."

"As light as me?"

"No."

So Littleville may have got it all wrong, or maybe not. But whether he was or he wasn't, Mister Ogg was as good as a father to me. He brought me up to be fair and honest and to have regard for others and always to be a man of my word. He taught me everything he knew about the undertaking business, and when he was brought down by a stroke, I was able to step in and take over the running of it.

After the stroke Mister Ogg was never able to speak again or do anything except move his eyes a little. The doctor said it was only a matter of time and all we could do was to try to keep him comfortable. Mama set up a cot in his room so she could check on him throughout the night. Every evening I would come in and sit at his bedside and tell him all that had happened during the day, though I never knew if he understood me.

Mister Ogg's lawyer came by to see him and told us what to expect. Five thousand dollars would be coming to Mama and all the rest to me.

One evening close to the end I spoke to Mister Ogg about something that had been growing in my mind for some time, his funeral. I told him I wanted it to be even better than Roonie's, I wanted it to be the best Littleville had ever seen.

"I went down to the barn the other day and took a look at the old hearse," I told him. "All it needs is a new coat of varnish and new plumes for the top and I'm having that taken care of. And I've located a matched pair of black horses to draw it. I intend to drive them. And I'll be wearing a black tailed coat and a top hat. We can use our regular hearse as a flower car. And then I want at least two limousines, one for Mama and whoever she wants to ride with her and one for the pall bearers.'

Mister Ogg's eyes were fixed on me. I couldn't tell whether he understood me or not. But I went on.

"Instead of a jazz band like Roonie, I think we'll have a band with just drums, and we'll have them marching instead of riding. Then behind them we'll have a big marching choir. And they will be followed by all the mourners on foot. And finally will come the people in cars."

Mister Ogg's eyes hadn't moved . They were still fixed on me.

"We'll have the funeral service at the black church, because it's the biggest, and we'll reserve half of it for the white people. We can set up chairs outside close to the windows for the overflow. And the pastors of all the churches will take part in the service."

Mister Ogg was still looking at me, and it seemed to me his eyes were opened a little wider than they had been.

"Oh, I almost forgot," I said. "I thought I'd put you in that rosewood casket."

Mister Ogg's eyes closed slowly. And maybe I just imagined that faint smile on his face.