Finding My Thunder

F
inding
  
m
y

thunder

Diane Munier

The characters
and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real
persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Text copyright © 2015 Diane
Munier

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced,
or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express
written permission of the publisher.

Published by Diane
Munier

Cover design by
Adrijus
Guscia
 
http://www.rockingbookcovers.com

To
my husband--my Danny.

Finding My Thunder 1

1966

Christmas
vacation of my sophomore year. I had finally reached a two week reprieve from
the hallowed halls of
Bondville
High in Tennessee. I was
too cold to drag my feet but as I neared home I could see it laying by the gate
to our front yard, an old dog, a sooner. She rose up seeing me, but there was
no challenge in her, just a sorrowful look, hoping I could decide her fate
quick.

I
set my books on the ground and knelt beside her and introduced myself. “Hey old
girl,” I said. “How you
doin
’? I’m Hilly Grunier. Yeah
that’s a good old girl. Sooner be one thing than another.”

I
gave her some love and she lifted her white muzzle and closed her eyes like her
ears hadn’t been scratched in a long time.

She
had a grateful soul.

But
here came Sukey Boyd. He barreled past in his purple
Fairlane
and Sooner cringed.

I
paid that car no mind, and I told her she shouldn’t either, but I wondered for
a second if Danny was riding shotgun like usual and if he saw me kneeling
there, and I wondered if he’d think about it…about me. And I let his indifference
stab me all over again and I knew I’d let this old dog in.

“Hey,
come on,” I said opening the wobbly gate, not that she couldn’t have come in on
her own beneath this rickety fence. But she was polite, I knew that.

So
I let her wait on the porch and when I entered the hallway Mama was not downstairs,
but I didn’t expect it. So I crossed the hall and went in the kitchen. There
wasn’t much. Naomi lived behind in the carriage house and brought supper like
as not. But we had a pack of hot dogs been in there too long. They smelled
okay. So I put them on a paper plate and took them outside.

Sooner
was grateful. While she ate I got an old blanket from the chest we used as a
coffee table. It had some history, that blanket did, but it hadn’t seen the
light of day in a while, and it smelled like it had died. I took it outside and
shook it and folded it back. I hadn’t crawled under our porch for many a year
and I didn’t want to ruin my one decent pair of bell-bottoms, so I kind of duck
walked through the broken trellis that served as a doorway on the side of the
porch. I smoothed the blanket under there, and Sooner had followed me in and I
patted that cover and she settled down still licking the hot dog taste off her
teeth.

I’d
of liked to do more for her, but around here you only got so much of folk’s
good intentions cause we were pretty used up.

So
I told her goodnight and she did not follow me now, she let me go.

Back
at my front door, I stopped enough to touch the sadness that was our Christmas
Wreath.
 
We’d had it a hundred years
seemed like, well everything. I pushed past it and once I was in for good then
I had to face Mama.

All
day had me a feeling at school, all day Mama on me like a shadow, worse than
usual. So I called her as I took the creaky stairs, my hand dragging on the
wallpaper that held years and years of my family’s stories.

“Mama,”
I said, like I wasn’t gonna take her nonsense, like I was brave.

But
she did not answer.

The
stained glass window on the landing threw color on the boards that creaked
beneath my penny loafers. Up a shorter second flight onto the floor where the
bedrooms were. I listened and it was so quiet. Too quiet.

Then
a thump. Like the house had one heartbeat left in it. And I pushed Mama’s door
wide. I put my books on the piled dresser. The bed was tousled, pillows dented,
covers knotted.

I
went there and dropped to my knees and lifted the bed-skirt. I looked under the
bed across all that dust, and there she was on the other side looking at me. My
breath, my hope all in one long rush. She was deeper in.

I
dropped that ruffle and got up on the bed and crawled across. She laid on her
side, on that crack of carpet between the bed and the wall. Her face hidden by
that bed-skirt.

I
said, “Mama, get up, get up,” the way Jesus said to people so many times. That’s
how Naomi preached it, the ‘Get-up and Walk,’ sermon.

But
Mama held that skirt over her face so she didn’t have to see me. I pulled on
her now until she’d give way and I could get her up and shove her on the bed.

These
were yesterday’s clothes sure enough. And hair from ten years before cause she
didn’t cut it, wouldn’t is what, and it got pretty wild, long and black like
the roots of an unearthed plant. But this time of madness was the longest and
the farthest away cause I almost couldn’t get her back no matter how I shouted.

Naomi
said to come get her if Mama wasn’t better by tonight and the ladies would come
and pray, but sometimes Mama fought that and she would go for Naomi Blue and
then we had to pull her off and I’d sit on her until she was better but Naomi
was too old now, too old for this.

So
I hoped to shake her out of it, but then you never knew how it would go one day
or another so I thought I’d try and get her in the bath and maybe I could get
the knots out of her hair and we’d see then.

“You
have got to try,” I said to her, petting her like I did with that sooner just
minutes before. “Someone is gonna find out and what if they take you?”

She
grabbed me and she had the crazy eyes so bad, “He was so little…and…I had to
save him….”

“Just
calm down. Tonight we’ll watch “
Columbo
,” and we can have
TV dinners…lasagna.”

But
she was gripping me hard, “I did it. I did it….”

She
was gasping and looking all around.

“Just
breathe slow, remember? I’ll run you a bath….”

She
gripped me again, “You can’t tell him.”

“Tell
who? Daddy?” She didn’t need to worry about that. We didn’t tell him anything
if it could be helped and anyway he was over at
Loreena’s
as usual and had been for nearly two weeks now.

“Promise
me…swear it,” she yelled at me.

“Tell
him what?” I thought of leaving her, running downstairs, calling an ambulance
and getting it over with, the shame, for she would fight, Lord she would fight.
And we had no money. And I could fix this like a hundred other times. I could
get her back.

“The
baby…I saved him,” she whispered.

“Then
you should be proud of yourself,” I said.

She
slapped me across the face and I saw something white and heard a ringing.

I
pushed her away and she fell back whimpering and I ran out of there holding my cheek.

Something
popped in me, and I knew I couldn’t bear this anymore. I went in the bathroom
and rummaged through the medicine cabinet and grabbed Daddy’s old razor and
unscrewed it while I made this terrible sound, and I picked that razor blade
out of it with my trembling fingers and I held it up and just stared at it.

I
pictured myself showering this whole place with my blood before I died.

Then
I caught myself in the mirror, holding that blade…and I looked like her…the
eyes…something crazy…and the hair…that for sure.

I
thought of Naomi. She would find me. And after Eugene…after him….
 

I
pitched that blade into the toilet and flushed it down and sunk to my knees on
that cold white tile and I slammed the lid and folded my arms there and put my
head on them and I cried without tears…no tears…just sounds like I didn’t know
I could make. I wanted…I wanted…and I would die pining…like Mama.
 

Mama’s
the one came in sometime later and I was sleeping there on that cold floor in
that dark room. She turned on the bright sickening light and I sat up and
pushed my hair off my face, and she was docile now, standing small and bowed. And
my face throbbed.

“’
Columbo’s
,’ on,” she said, and this was the most she
thought about me in many days…maybe my whole life.

“If
you don’t go to the doctor…I’m gonna get Miss Blue and she’s bringing the
ladies,” I said pulling myself onto my feet, stiff and hurting.

“No,”
she said and she came for me and grabbed on. “No, no. I’ll go. You don’t tell
no one.”

“Tell
them what?” I said.

She
shook her head. “Nothing.”

I
did not pick through her ramblings. But I had heard. The baby. And whatever it
meant…I did not know.

And
I did not care.

I
made that appointment after New Year’s. Naomi Blue drove us to Corning to see
the doctor there. Mama made me sit up front with her, and she lay on the back
seat.

We
did not talk much but Naomi did sing hymns sometimes. And she did tell me a
story or two about folks in the colored neighborhood. But mostly, we were
quiet.

Mama
wouldn’t look at a magazine but she sat in the waiting room, her head down. When
they called I went too and took her in and helped her sit on the table. She was
cleaned up, but she slumped like a rag doll mostly. The nurse said I had to go
out, and I wanted to, wanted them to take over…someone…but it didn’t matter so
much what I wanted and I would die of sin and guilt were I to fail her.

But
she wouldn’t look at me, she was mad, she blamed me for this. She didn’t want
to come. So I left her there and sat in the waiting room my stomach so sick and
anxious I could barely sit still.

Miss
Blue had gone next door to the hospital to see folks cause she had worked there
in housekeeping for thirty years…so over she went, and I waited with Mama. When
it was done she came storming out holding her blouse closed, it not buttoned. I
grabbed our coats and tore after her.

She
took the stairs down, me quick behind her and we hadn’t paid but I had to get
her to stop now before she ran outside and I’d have to run after her and
everyone would see. So I got her at the bottom. She leaned on the wall and she
was moaning, head rolling side to side.

And
I said, “What?” But I didn’t want to hear.

And
she grabbed me and said, “He’s in me…it ain’t good.”

“Stop
it,” I hissed at her filling the stair well with her crazy talk. “Now you tell
me straight or I’ll go see myself.”

She
sobered up some and looked me in the eye. “We ain’t gonna say anything to Miss
Blue…or to your daddy…don’t you ever…don’t you ever…,” and she was little in
size like me but the crazy made her strong as Daddy, and she was trying to
shake me.

I
shook her back for a second. “What did the doctor say?”

“He
ain’t ever gonna change…your daddy…if God wants to do me this way…don’t you
tell your Daddy and don’t you ever…ever tell…Blue.”

“Tell
what?”

She
eased up and let off, and she slumped against the wall. I’d never seen a look
so hopeless. “I got…a lump.”

“Is
it something bad?” I said.

She
looked at me then. “Don’t you ever tell. He’s in me now. He’s in me.”

We
held her secret all that school year…the lump...him being in her. I thought of
it in the dark shadows of my room…at church while I watched the ladies dance in
the aisle and play their tambourines…at school when I stared out the window…when
I looked at Danny across the way…across the great expanse, as they clapped for
him on fields, in gyms, on stage at assemblies, in the lunch room…as they
wanted so much for him…as he feasted on hoorays…as another year ended and
summer stretched long and hot and poor…I thought of Mama and her secrets.

And
I thought of myself. I knew how someone could get inside…and grow. Oh, I knew.

But
Mama…she didn’t love anyone like that.