Jarrett Fontenot: A Life After Death

After A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines

It was one year after it happened, that dreadful moment, the day I lost my best friend. It wasn’t long after it began to be too hard for me to stay. I couldn’t keep living there when everywhere I looked I saw him. There in the streets, in the fields, walking out of the ice cream parlor with one little scoop of vanilla ice cream, and there… in his desk in the back of the class where he once sat. Vivian finally took her husband to court and gained custody of her children. Now nothing was keeping us here, in this small town where nothing ever changes, so I quit my job at the school, packed up everything of mine and Vivian’s, and headed off to California where my parents were waiting for us.

Tante Lou kept writing me; she told me what was happening in the quarter, who got married, who died, kept me updated on the children, and asked me how I was doing, and I was glad she did, but I just didn’t have the stomach to tell her the truth. I couldn’t tell her I missed her and the children, I couldn’t tell her I couldn’t get hired, and that we were struggling to survive off of Vivian’s paycheck because all she'd do is say “I told you so.”

But the latest letter she wrote me was different. It still had all the same questions as her letters usually did, but that wasn’t it. She was rambling on about a one year anniversary memorial service the church was putting together to remember Jefferson. I told Vivian I didn’t want to go, that it would be too hard, but Vivian knew something was wrong. Things hadn’t been too good for us in bed ever since I received that letter and she noticed. Next thing I know we’re in the car driving down the old road I used to live on, all the sugar cane rows on my right and the old familiar houses on my left, but we were coming up on the one with the tiny porch light that brightens up the whole yard. The screen door wide open and I couldn’t help but tear up a little. We walked in the house where Miss Emma and Tante Lou were waiting along with some of her church friends. They both got up from their table to hug me.

“Where the children at?” asked Tante Lou.

“We left them with Dora while were in town,” Vivian replied.

After two long and dreadful days the day had finally come. We began walking up the quarter to church about 20 minutes before the service started. When we entered Reverend Ambrose was there to greet us, but he didn’t have any words for me. The service started when more people started showing up, but I had to step out to get some air because I couldn’t look at the big picture of Jefferson sitting next to the reverend anymore. When I walked outside I was greeted by two other men chatting and smoking with each other, but they paid me no attention, so I started on a stroll, when suddenly something caught my eye.

No! I thought it couldn’t be. It was… a butterfly, and it was moving fast into the field, and I started after it. Running through the rows as fast as I could, ignoring the stocks of cane hitting my face; I just know that's him. I was hot on his tail until I took a hard hit right to the head by something and suddenly I lost it; he was no longer there. After a couple of minutes of searching there was no luck, so I decided to head back to the church to see if they'd finished yet. I stepped between two stalks of cane and ended up on the street right in front of the church. I didn’t see those two guys there anymore. I guess they went inside. I thought nothing of it, so I went inside, but something was wrong. Vivian was crying. I thought I was gone too long and she got worried, so I went to calm her. I went up behind her and grabbed her hips to pull her close to me, but she didn’t budge.

“Baby,” I said, “is everything okay?”

But still no response. Something was off; everything seemed the same but at the same time different. I looked around and Jefferson’s picture was gone—it was replaced with mine.