Charles Scott
ULYSSES
Ned Duncan arrived at the Cincinnati airport and took a taxi to the church in Madisonville where Darrell’s funeral was being held. In New York, in the years before Darrell got sick, they had lived together in secret from both their families. Ned was now sick too, and trying not to think about his own funeral as he approached Darrell’s grandparents, standing just inside the church door greeting guests.
Darrell’s grandmother was Cady. His grandfather was Ulysses. He pronounced it for Ned as You-luh-see. Never the “s” at the end, Darrell had once told Ned. Ulysses wasn’t named after the poem or the novel, and especially not after the president-general, whose birthplace, Ned had heard, was due east along the Ohio River at Point Pleasant. It was only a grand name, nothing more.
Though Darrell had been Ulysses’s grandson, Ulysses had raised him like a son, Darrell’s own father not having been much in evidence in his life. Ulysses’s hands were as big as shovels. One of them covered Ned’s entirely when they shook. Cady put both of her hands over Ned’s in greeting, as if she knew him.
“I’m a friend of Darrell’s from New York,” Ned said. This was his first time in Cincinnati.
“We’re glad you came,” Cady said.
Ulysses had already turned away.
Standing alone now at the back of the church, Ned thought Ulysses looked out of place in his suit, despite this being his regular church, along with a few white progressives from the nearby community of Indian Hill, where many of the parishioners lived, where Ulysses worked as a laborer on residential construction sites, and where Darrell had gone on scholarship to a private high school.
Although word of Darrell’s illness had spread among some of his closer Cincinnati friends, no one had come east near the end except his brother Theo. Darrell hadn’t wanted anyone to know he was dying. Now Ned felt the strangeness of being among Darrell’s people without Darrell.
As the service was about to start, Ulysses, Cady and their daughter, Karina, Darrell’s mother, moved down the aisle and sat in the front pew. Ned followed at a distance and sat two rows back across the aisle.
Ulysses looked over his shoulder at Ned as he spoke to Cady, so that Ned could not miss hearing. “Doing something he shouldn’t with someone he shouldn’t.”
That was when Ned knew that Ulysses understood who he had been to Darrell.
“Be still, Carter,” Cady whispered, “’bout what you don’t understand. You old.”
“I understand when I don’t understand.”
Ulysses rested his large hands on his knees, two idle tools, and waited for the service to begin. His thin laborer’s frame caught the fabric of his suit and created odd folds and gatherings where there was no bulk to fill it. The suit hung on him as it would on a broken coat hanger.
Cady turned back to look at Ned. She smiled.
“You come to the house after,” she told him.
He nodded a thank you.
“We didn’t know about you,” Cady said.
Ulysses stared down at his unused hands.
As Darrell’s coffin rolled down the aisle behind him, Ned absentmindedly spun the two commitment rings on his left ring finger. He remembered standing for what seemed like an hour with Darrell at the counter at Tiffany’s. It had to be Tiffany’s. Darrell had slipped Ned’s ring onto his finger, and he had not taken it off since that day.
Ned locked his eyes on the coffin as it passed, following the procession and standing at one point, though he was hardly aware he was doing so and that he was the only one. He did not sit so much as collapse back into his pew, tugging his jacket around him. How could it be that Darrell’s body actually lay inside that box? Ulysses looked straight ahead. Cady put a hand on his leg when the coffin passed.
One of the ushers slid into the row in front of Ned. He was dressed much the way Ned was, close-fitting jacket, spread-collar shirt, loafers, flat-front pants, a bit more tailored than the rest of the mourners. Ned guessed it was Darrell’s old friend Miles, who he’d heard so much about, and who was listed in the program as an usher. Before the service, when Ned had tried to catch Miles’ eye to introduce himself, Miles had ducked past him.
Darrell’s younger brother, Theo, also an usher, slipped into the pew next to Miles, nodding to Ned. Theo was wearing a tie he’d bought at Barney’s.
“Darrell Lancelot Carter,” said the minister, “was an uncommon American success story. He graduated with honors from Cincinnati Country Day School. Majored in English at Williams College, then took a master’s in journalism at Columbia, landing a job at Newsweek in New York.”
As the minister went on, Ned imagined Darrell among his family and these old friends. He wished so much now that his parents could have known Darrell, that he had risked telling them. But now it was too late, and he was left to think of his own funeral. The end that was soon coming for him. At that, he stopped himself. It did no good.
*
After the service, Theo introduced Ned to his and Darrell’s mother, Karina, who surprised Ned by greeting him with an embrace. Ned was going to take a taxi to Spring Grove Cemetery, but Theo offered to drive him.
At the simple graveside interment, Karina stood next to Ned as they lowered Darrell’s coffin into the ground. Theo stood with Ulysses and Cady. Miles stood off by himself.
Karina looped her arm through Ned’s and pressed into his upper arm with her other hand for support, as though fearful she might fall into the open grave.
Ned thought of Darrell inside the coffin, dressed in his favorite blue blazer and striped shirt with contrasting white collar and a Brooks Brothers tie, grey slacks and loafers, his signet ring and monogrammed silver belt buckle. Ned had selected the outfit with great care, with some encouragement from Darrell before he was too fatigued to care. They’d had a morbid night with champagne discussing Darrell’s funereal outfit. Ned didn’t know how they managed to get through that.
Afterward, Ulysses and Cady made their way to their car, while the others lingered. She grasped one of Ulysses’s large hands in both of her own.
“It’s a hard finality,” Theo said. Miles put his arm around Theo’s shoulders. They had been neighbors their whole lives.
“Funny seeing Ulysses in anything but that truck,” Miles said.
“It is that,” Theo said.
Ned tried to catch Mile’s eye, wanting to introduce himself, but Miles steadfastly ignored him.
Karina was watching Theo. “You’re all I got left,” she said.
“I know, Mama, I know. I’ll be careful.”
As the others retreated, Ned remained at Darrell’s grave with Karina.
He turned to her and she put her arms around him. He returned the gesture, letting himself feel a great comfort from this woman he hardly knew. They stood there like that in the grass.
“Come on, Ned,” Theo called. “Let’s get you back to the house. We could all use something to eat.”
Ned and Karina parted, and Ned got into Theo’s car.
“What’s wrong with Miles?” Ned asked.
“He just in a mess over this,” Theo said. “Too many memories, growing up, all coming back now. Him and Darrell…”
*
Guests drifted from the church to the Carter home, arriving before the family. They came in pairs and small groups to the three-story white frame structure with the vacant lot next door and Ulysses’s pick-up truck parked in the drive. Two shovels, a flat head and a spade, were mounted inside the truck bed. A barn-like garage sat out back, at the end of the driveway, which was two-wheel paths in poured concrete with a grass strip in between, like an old trail.
Darrell had told Ned the story of how Ulysses came to Ohio from Alabama in the 1940s, on the final wave of migration north to escape Jim Crow. He’d met his wife, Cady, Darrell’s grandmother, at this very church at the edge of Madisonville. Cady was originally from Kennesaw, Georgia.
As Ned approached the house, Darrell’s high school friend Kia took him aside and introduced herself. She was tall with straightened hair cut short, light freckling across her nose. On the inside of her upper left arm, peeking out from the short sleeve of her black dress, Ned saw Darrell’s initials.
“I wish we could have kept in closer touch,” Kia said. “I know Miles does too.”
“He talked about you and Miles, about being kids together, friends in high school.”
Kia looked down, a slight blush. “Did he tell you I was his first girlfriend? Eighth grade. He was at Country Day and I was at Walnut Hills.” She laughed to herself. “I guess,” she said, “his only girlfriend.”
“No, he didn’t tell me that part.” Ned laughed. “I’ve been hoping to meet Miles.”
Someone called to Kia and she put up a finger to Ned. “Hold that thought.”
Inside, Ned sequestered himself in a corner of the living room, where he was attended to by Cady, Karina and Theo. He was gratified by the way they fussed over him, but also embarrassed: Darrell had been theirs long before he’d been Ned’s.
When Miles walked by, Kia swooped in, pulling him toward Ned.
“I don’t think you two have met yet,” she said.
Miles muttered something Ned couldn’t hear, tugged away from Kia and went into the kitchen.
Kia turned to Ned. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ve got to help Mrs. Carter. We’ll talk later.”
Theo remained by Ned’s side. “I imagine funerals in New York aren’t anything like this.”
“No,” Ned said. ”But, there are a lot of them lately, among our circle. They’re usually very small. People are still embarrassed or afraid.”
“You feeling okay?” Theo asked.
During Theo’s visit to New York, Ned had told Theo, in confidence, that he was sick. He never told Darrell. “I’m a little tired is all,” Ned said. “I get warm sometimes, low-grade fever, headache, that sort of thing. It was the same with Darrell.”
Ned was trying not to think about the fact that he would have to organize a similar service for himself, select his own funereal costume. There would be no one to help him with his choices.
“You have family?” Theo said.
“Yes, both parents, divorced, but friendly enough. And I have a sister, younger. They’re all in Connecticut. Say, what is it with Miles?”
“He’s just protective of Darrell. I think it’s what you represent to him, taking Darrell away to New York, even though he was already there.”
“Darrell said he tried to stay close to all of you.”
“It was different, after he got the scholarship. He made different friends, ran with a different crowd, started dressing kind of white, kind of preppy. I did too. At my high school, I stood out, but at Darrell’s school, it just let him blend in.”
“He wasn’t a scholarship kid by the time I knew him,” Ned said.
“No,” Theo said. “Not at all by then. And yeah, maybe never.”
Ned could see Ulysses sitting in the dining room, where the chairs had been pulled out from the table, stationed like soldiers along the wall. His large hands were at rest. Friends and family members took turns in the seat next to him, Ulysses nodding in response to their consolations.
Ulysses had a smile that came and went, as though he were conserving what was left of it. His cheeks had a faint color from the sun, but almost no wrinkles. In Darrell’s photos of him, Ulysses nearly always wore a ballcap, so he looked incomplete with his head bare. What hair remained on his head was tinged gray.
“Have you met Daddy yet?” Theo asked, guiding Ned into the dining room.
“Yes, at the church.”
Returning from the kitchen, Kia handed Ned a lemonade.
“I put a little taste of something in there for you,” she said. “Help you relax. Darrell always liked that little bit of gin with his lemonade. Thought he invented it.”
Ned laughed. “That’s what he was drinking the night we met.”
“That one of Darrell’s lemonades?” Karina smiled. “Mm hmm. That boy just couldn’t never do things the way anyone else did. From the time he was a baby. That right, Theo?”
“It’s a fact,” Theo said.
“She doesn’t mean picking you,” Cady said to Ned.
“Well,” Ned said, “I suppose that wasn’t quite what anyone expected him to do.”
Cady looped her arm through Kia’s. “I’ve always told you, child, no way you could’ve known,” she said to her. “None of us knew.”
Ulysses looked up at Kia from his chair. “He could’ve stayed right here and married you.”
“It different, now,” Cady said. “Problem is, you the same, Carter. She kissed him on his cheek. He stood and put his arm around her.
“I fixed Ned one of Darrell’s lemonades,” Kia said.
Ulysses chuckled. “He say, Daddy, I fix you one of my lemonades after you come home from work.” He looked as though saying this was effort enough and to talk further would be too much.
“Tell Carter what kind of work you do,” Cady said.
“I work in public relations for Time magazine,” Ned said.
Ulysses nodded. He started to reach for a smoke, but Cady gave him a look. Ned caught Ulysses watching him and wondered if he seemed like a white version of Darrell to the old man.
“I’m sorry I surprised you all by coming,” Ned said. “I guess I was worried you wouldn’t want me here. But I had to.”
“Of course you did,” Cady said.
Ulysses snorted, “They ain’t but two things wrong with you. You white and you a boy.”
“Carter!” Cady said, “You watch your mouth.”
“It’s all right,” Ned said. “I understand. It isn’t easy for any of us.”
Miles was talking to a neighbor. Overhearing the conversation, he turned to Ulysses.
“Some of us are more progressive than others.”
“There’s no more to say,” Ulysses said. “Where I come from, people got beat being together like that.”
“People got beat for a lot of things,” Cady said. “You old. You all Alabama this, Alabama that. It’s not Alabama anymore. Darrell may have died, but he didn’t live like Alabama, we seen to that.”
“It’s more Alabama than you know, woman,” Ulysses said. “And he’s still dead from a white sickness he had no business with.”
“It ain’t white,” Miles said.
“What?” Ulysses said without looking up. “What?”
“Anyone can get it, even your old, mean, stuck-in-the-past black ass,” Miles said. “Darrell got out of here. He made it. Isn’t that enough?”
Ulysses fixed upon him. “You were his friend. Why you didn’t stop him, letting him live that way? He would have listened to you.”
Miles started to speak and thought better of it. He headed for the front door, and Theo went after him. Ned followed them out onto the porch. They glanced over and seemed to decide that whatever they had to say, they could say in front of Ned.
“He don’t know about you and Darrell,” Theo said.
“He sure acts like he does,” Miles said.
“Like to kill me if he did. I have a mind to tell him. I was your grandson’s first boyfriend.” Miles looked over at Ned as if to say, Yes, you heard right.
In the awkward silence that followed, Ned cleared his throat. “I just wanted to thank you for what you said.”
“Don’t mention it,” Miles said, not unkindly. And at Theo’s urging, the three of them went back inside and rejoined the group.
“Daddy, I’m going to get you a lemonade,” Karina said.
“You should come to New York for another weekend.” Ned was speaking to Theo, but he looked at Kia and Miles as well. “There’s room at the apartment. Just don’t wait too long.”
“How long?” Theo asked. “How long will it be okay to visit?”
Everyone turned to Ned.
“I’m guessing six good months or so,” he said, “given how Darrell went.” He looked into his lemonade glass. “My doctor says it can be difficult to predict.”
“You boys need to eat food,” Cady announced.
The table was piled with dishes and food. Ulysses stood watching Cady from behind as she made each boy a plate. When she brought the food over, she kissed Miles.
“He’ll be fine in a little while,” she said. “It’s the shock of it.”
“For all of us,” Miles said. “Different shock for him, I know.”
“When you going back home?” Kia asked Ned.
“I have a flight at eight-thirty tonight.”
“We’ll come see you,” Theo said. “Soon.”
“Doctors and scientists are talking about a cocktail,” Ned said.
“No lemonade, I guess,” Kia said.
“No.” Ned laughed and took a bite of string bean casserole.
“You don’t want to ride to the airport alone,” Miles said. “Let me drive you.”
“That would be really nice,” Ned said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Least I can do,” Miles said.
“I’d better say my goodbyes,” Ned said.
“And I guess I have an apology to make,” Miles said,
“We just get to know you and now we won’t see you,” Cady said. She walked with Ned to where Ulysses stood talking with Karina and Kia.
“Mr. Carter, I’m sorry for your loss,” Ned said, shaking Ulysses’s great hand.
“I suppose you did what you could, in the way you could,” Ulysses said. “Maybe more.”
Ned turned to Karina, removed one of the rings from his finger and closed her hand around it.
“Where I’m going I won’t be needing it.”
Karina nodded.
Ulysses said, “What’s that?”
“It’s a ring Darrell wore,” Ned said. “A commitment ring.”
Ulysses shook his head. He opened his mouth, failing to speak. There would be no getting used to it.
Kia and Theo walked Ned outside while Miles apologized to Ulysses. Standing on the front lawn, Ned thanked them for their kindness. “Everyone has been so lovely. I didn’t know what to expect.”
“We’re all so glad you came,” Kia said. “Need a ride to the airport?”
“That’s kind of you. Miles is going to take me.”
Kia looked surprised.
“Miles told him,” Theo said.
Kia brushed her hair from her forehead with the back of her hand and smiled at Ned.
“You got the prize Miles always wanted.”
Theo looked doubtful. “Miles is still mostly hidden around here. And it’s eating him up. He has to be two people.”
*
Ned sat within the silence of the car, occasionally stealing a look at Miles as he maneuvered through the streets. He was thinking of a way to break the ice, but was also enjoying the quiet, after all the activity of the afternoon. He imagined a young Darrell and a young Miles, trying to figure themselves out in secret.
Once settled onto the highway, Miles asked, “When did you find out you were sick too?”
“I knew before Darrell died. But I didn’t tell him.” Ned looked out at the brown river as they approached the bridge to northern Kentucky and the airport.
“At the end, he asked me all the time, like it was more important to him than anything else that I didn’t get it, though he had to know I would. I lied to him right up until the day he died. Was that right?”
“Yeah,” Miles said, “I think it was.”
“One of the last things he said was if I got sick, he’d want me to die first so I wouldn’t be alone. He said that dying alone is to be forgotten. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that.”
As they pulled up to the terminal, it occurred to Ned that Miles was perhaps his closest remaining connection to Darrell, the one person, almost family, who could understand the complications of his life from the beginning.
“Would you come to New York?” Ned asked, climbing from the car. “With Theo?”
“I don’t know if I’m that good or if I could really get that close.”
Then this would be it; Ned wouldn’t see Miles again.
Ned walked around to Miles’s side of the car, and Miles got out to hug him goodbye.
Ned pulled the remaining ring from his finger and pressed it into Miles’s palm. The ring he had planned to be buried with. What little he had to offer.
“I can’t take this,” Miles said.
“Yes, you can.”
Ned touched Miles’s shoulder again.
He caught himself beginning to say what he’d said to Karina, that he would not be needing the ring where he was going. But this was not true at all; he needed it very much. He had simply decided that Miles needed it more.
Charles Scott is a writer and business owner living in the Midwest. He began writing again a few years ago after a post-college hiatus of several decades. He has had stories appears in The Carolina Quarterly, The Broadkill Review, and Orca.
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