Finding My Thunder (19 page)

Finding My Thunder 29

Don’t be your mother
.

That’s
all I could hear Danny say. Not I love you, I need you. Just…don’t be your mother.
I was wearing her skirt when he said it. Her skirt!

What
did that mean anyway? I knew what it meant. How did he know? He’d heard it,
seen it that night we took her to the hospital. What I said. What I didn’t have
to say those two long weeks she was dying.

He’d
been in my life, deep in. He didn’t want me to die over him. To stop living.
 

Well,
I had news for him, you don’t barge into someone’s life then rip yourself back
out and tell them how to feel about it!

Oh,
the anger made me so tired.

Naomi
let me lie around for three days. After that she said Jesus had set the example
of resurrection. I heard them whispering out in the hall, not that either one
could whisper. I heard the errant jingle. They had their tambourines. Oh Lord,
not those
voo
-doo curse rattling instruments of
auditory torture.

Sister
Debra started, around the door of my room, “Praise Jesus, twenty-three times
Jesus did say, get up, get up, take up your bed and walk child.”

Oh
Lord, it wasn’t even going to be real singing, just their own made up songs,
like bad Motown opera. I put my pillow over my head and screamed into the
mattress, but it didn’t stop them. They were shaking the tambourines and Naomi
sang now, “You got to get on your feet…you got to pick up that sick bed…that
bed of suffering and tell the devil no more, no more.”

“Yes,
Lord…,” the other one sang, Mary Wilson to Naomi’s bad Diana Ross.

The
tambourines were shaking and chiming and one would sing the convoluted words
and the other would amen and they’d switch off that way and I was hunkered
down, pillow over me, and cursing now, just for my own ears, long strings of
the worst words even though I’d made that deal, but this was…just….

The
pillow was whipped off my head, then used as a weapon. It hit me on the
backside a few times so I think they must have heard a few of my expressions.

The
bed dipped, really dipped. A hand on my back. I had my toes curled so tightly
one of them made a cracking sound.

“Now
you can’t stay in this bed,” Sister Debra said. “You got to get up and carry
on.” She was digging through my greasy hair trying to uncover my face. I turned
my head away from her.

I
wished I could sink into this ticking, into the batting and live like a spring
in the middle, just be a mattress spring until it was over…my life…this
world…the war…high school…this moment.

“Ain’t
no one I know hasn’t had some hard things. But where would we all be if we
didn’t try to keep going? The Lord will meet you, but he won’t reach down and
pick you up. You got to get up first. You got to want to get better.”

Debra
was speaking but these were Naomi’s words. But I was only half-listening cause
in my head I was still arguing with Danny.

So
I was her…my Mama. Well who else would I be? I wasn’t Lonnie! How about Danny? Who
was he? What if I told him, don’t you be your daddy! Don’t you be your mama! What
else? Who else? We didn’t come from more than two people!

“I
get up for myself. I stay up for the Lord.” Debra said.

I
lifted my head like a shot. If I stayed in this bed and became a mattress spring…I
would be Mama. If I got out and tried to…live…I’d be someone different. Not Lonnie
cause I wasn’t going to use and abuse. I’d be me.

Much
as I hated to, I swallowed my pride and sat up. “I…need to take a shower,” I
said, cause the movement had caused a certain ripeness to swirl.

“Naomi
is already running you a bath. You need to get baptized into a whole new day,”
she said.

So
I got up, just to get away, to get to the water and the privacy of the bathroom
where I didn’t think they would follow, but I didn’t know either. Once I got in
there and stripped off…body like a goddess, he’d said, oh Lord…then I got in
that warm water. All I could think of was running my hands through his black
hair and that song…Nina…and the way he’d bent toward me.

All
of my troubles seemed to get worse…it was always like this for me with a bath,
the heat just brought them out and I was submerged in them, and I went under in
the silence. I could hear Naomi talking through the door, but I didn’t know
what…I just stayed under…and he held me on the water at the quarry that day…I
could feel it, feel him…but then I had to breathe so up I came to that pink
ceramic tile and those gold fish on the wall burping up those gold bubbles.

“Okay,”
I yelled cause Naomi was still talking. I was gasping a little and I pushed my
hair back out of my face and thought of Danny in the water again, dark slick
hair, and his face, his eyes, love was there, right there…oh God my heart…my
heart, and I sat up straight and water splashed and I gripped the sides of the
tub and it broke free then, this deep sound and I had to put my two hands over
my mouth, then I reached over to where Naomi had folded a pink towel on the
closed seat of the stool and I grabbed that towel and shoved it over my mouth
and I cried into this, if you could call it crying cause it was something so
deep and strange and it came from the center of me…this sound.

The
water was cold, cold by the time I found a way to rise. Naomi had knocked so
many times, but I told her I’m fine, fine, fine, fine. Over and over again it
was all I could get out but I was letting her know I hadn’t killed myself or
something.

When
I did come out, tugging the tie on the pink robe that was hers but left in
there for me, it was quiet in the house. I saw it then, the pink birthday cake
sitting on the kitchen table and the special plates and
Kool
-aid
in a pitcher, red of course cause there wasn’t another flavor worthy of
swallowing.

She
was sitting in the living room. “It’s my birthday,” I said to her. She had been
reading the bible, but she put that down now, and her glasses atop.

“Happy
Birthday. You are sixteen years old today.”

“Yeah.”

“You
have not eaten for nearly three days. Sister Debra had to leave. She tried to
wait but….”

“I…didn’t
know.”

“I
told you through the door.”

“Yeah…I
didn’t understand.”

“Let’s
go have cake and celebrate your life,” she said rising up.

So
we sat around the table and she prayed. She thanked God for me and asked Him to
give me the strength to carry on so this old world would be blessed by me and
my gifts.

Then
she lit the candles on that cake and she sang “Happy Birthday,” to me. And I
said thanks and she cut me a wedge of that cake, cherry like I liked. She set
it before me and I did not have the will to eat it, didn’t think my body could
take it, I felt so sad. But I did take a bite and it sat in my mouth on my
tongue and I closed my eyes and thought of Danny…a hundred pictures of him at
once…kissing me so many times…his mouth so sweet…the way he said my name…the
feel of his face his jaw his neck.

I
nearly spit it out, but I swallowed it down and opened my eyes and she was
looking at me.

“Well?”
she said.

“It’s…good,”
I said and I coughed a little and my eyes watered some more. And I picked up
the crisp birthday napkin and wiped my face.

Then
she gave me a card and it was from her and the ladies. Sixteen dollars. “One
for each year,” she said.

“It’s
too much,” I said.

But
she shook her head.

She
beamed some, like I was on the road to recovery and I knew then, how it was
Mama looked at me all those times when I made her a cheese sandwich or a bowl
of soup, the hopeful way I stood there or when I brushed her hair and got her
to put on clean clothes and I thought we were getting somewhere but she just
looked at me…and I knew what she knew now…she wasn’t getting better. Not ever.

And
I chose against that, against a quiet path of suicide, a secret path, a power
gone wrong. I would live and maybe he’d come back to me.

I
told him I’d been strong in my life. That’s who I was already. A girl who had
been strong but felt weak. For now…I’d work on eating something. And maybe
getting dressed. That would be enough for one day.

A
week later Naomi asked me, for the tenth time I’ll admit, to paint the Temple,
the sanctuary, that big, dirty white room, that cavern of worship and humanity.

I
didn’t know. Did she not understand how hard it was to tie my own shoes right
now? It felt like my eyebrows were made out of cement or something. And my
arms? Like lift them and move them around? Kill me now.

She
said I needed to think of others. That was the cure for everything, she said. So
with my knotted hair hidden under my bandana and clothes fit for the rag bin,
she loaded the painting equipment in the car…and she loaded me and to Snyder
Town we did go.

Well,
I had that bargain with God about Danny. It had included painting the Temple. Danny
needed God’s protection more than ever. Dickens gave me a note, him scratching
on my window like Danny did…not so long ago, only at the other house, the one
I’d been thrown out of by my own father. The note said Danny would leave in two
weeks for California, the day before school started. He had to be at the
airport in Memphis and there was the time of his flight.

So
that very day he planned to enlist he got his draft notice. It was like he had
known, Danny had. He had known the very day. I realized the pull in him was
deeper than I imagined. He was right about his fate. He knew it was coming and
it did. He even knew when.

The
way I’d been raised, at Temple, hearing Naomi, knowing what that pulpit meant
to her, how serious she took it…I believed in folks knowing things. Danny had a
word about himself. He was burdened with it. I had fought him on it, but it was
so strong in him he knew it was his path. And I respected that. The ladies at
Temple would have respected that. A word of knowledge was a big deal.

I
realized he hadn’t pushed me away because he didn’t care, much as it felt that
way to me if I looked at it all through the haze of my poor-me. He pushed me
away because it made sense to him no matter how he felt. I was drowning in
feelings and he was trying to ignore his and do the right thing…as he saw it. If
it were possible to love him anymore…I did. The kind of love I had for him grew
a big shoot off to the side. It was a selfless love, the kind I’d heard Naomi
preach about. I just plain loved him even if he wouldn’t allow himself to
return it in the way I craved.

For
now, I wouldn’t shove it down like I’d done when he rejected me before. I’d let
it be there. I would let it be true. My truth. I would love him still. I would
love him as much as I ever had in a way that made sense to me. And that meant I
had a deal with God for Danny’s safety. And I needed to stop feeling sorry for
myself—Mama—and throw Lonnie in there too—and I needed to start to keep my side
of the bargain.

I’d
like to say this gave me some new energy. But it didn’t. I still felt like
dying. Difference was…I refused to.

California
was on the other side of the world. No, that was Vietnam, but California was as
far away as he could get without falling straight into the ocean.

I
understood Mama more now. Saw how the black hole opened and said, “Come on in.”

So
we were different cause I wasn’t going.

So
Naomi dropped me off at Temple while she visited at the hospital in Corning and
her flock all around Snyder Town.

I
knew the ropes. We were looked out for here, and I got a pass pretty much for I
was known as Naomi’s girl, and she was the recipient of much good will in this
part of town. So I got by on that mostly. I was going to paint and Sister
Lavinia
was going to send my lunch. She also wanted to send
Derrick to help me as he was pretty much hanging around the house all summer
since graduating and waiting for his scholarship to kick in. He was driving her
crazy, she said, but I didn’t believe it because she spoiled him to death. But
I said, can he paint? Cause he planned to be a doctor and his usual response to
doing physical labor of any kind was, “With these hands?” like he needed to
keep them on ice for when he became the great healer.

Well,
he never had painted, except for pictures about the black man’s struggle, she
said, but he was a big strong boy, she said. Oh Lord, I was too depressed to
want company and he was such a talker.

I
said okay but I didn’t want it sloppy cause that would just be more work in the
long run but she sent him over.

He
still was the most annoying boy in the world, him and me thrown together a lot
over our lives being some of the Temple children. He was off Temple now. He
thought it too old fashioned. He was rethinking Jesus, he said, and he wore
African dress now and read lots of books. Eldridge Cleaver was a favorite
author.

Well,
he was glad to be out of the house and he brought a portable radio. I’d been
off music for a few days, was actually afraid of it now. But he set it to the
local soul station so I’d be sure and collapse with emotion before I got
through one wall. Every song really was about love, betrayal, joy, pain,
cheating, breaking apart, coming together, all about love, every song. In
general…about Danny.

Derrick
had on old clothes. They were ironed…but they were old. That was good. I told
him to use the drop cloth cause I didn’t want a mess and he said he wasn’t
gonna be the one to walk white all over, and I said ha-ha. So we got to it.

We
were painting the part behind the pulpit, the part everyone could see. Well Derrick
Jones hated white, the blandness, he said. Why didn’t we do a mural, big wings,
big white bird and the cross and blood and the heart wrapped in thorns and
maybe some people playing harps and others with their flesh all burned off in
the flames?