Finding My Thunder (30 page)

“Then
to the base, barbed wire around a compound. We live in tents. The food is shit.
The guy who cooks, he's stoned. It's fucked, but who can eat? They said I'd get
over it. I don't know.

“Hey,
I don't know if I'll mail this. The guys I came in with, they're okay guys, whatever,
you meet about the same four over and over. But these guys are fucked up but
they know how to survive so I'm staying quiet and figuring it out. We do long
boring-ass guard duty but they put you with someone who knows. I fired at something
my first night. The guy with me, same thing. In the morning a body.

“That's
it. That's all. But these people are serious. They'll use anyone.

“I
think of you, but part of me wants to keep you away from it. If this was too rough,
I'm sorry. Tear it up so no one sees it. Let me know you're alright. Your hands
on me, I lay at night and think of that, and I can remember it so sharp, I can feel
it still. I don't want to lose it. I love you. When you write…well I still got
that letter with all the love you wrote me and gave me at the airport that
time. But it's pretty worn but it's lucky. Just write me now that you know.
Tell me stuff. Tell me everything, you're my word girl, you've got the words,
all the words I need. I got my arms around you right now and more, yeah you
know what I'd be
doin
' if I had you with me. Let me
know what's going on. I don't want to worry about you. I need to know. Write
me.

“The
country here is so different. God bless the USA.

“I
love you,

“Danny.”

I
read my first letter five times. Then I refolded it and held it tight against
my

forehead so it
would get into my brain. He was already changing. Life and death

were like the
potter's hands.

When
they called that night, the hospital…they said Lonnie died. I wanted to think
he saw that doorway and went on up, new legs, strong feet, mind healed. One way
or another, I was on the quarry cliff in my mind, no one before me. But Naomi,
she was with me in the kitchen, her hand on my arm.

"That
last time, I forgave him," I said. "Maybe I set him free."

"No,"
she said to me, "…you set yourself free."

Then
she patted me. Well, I wasn't alone.

Finding My Thunder 49

The
world was a whole lot bigger than my problems. I did not hear much from Danny,
only once in fact. What I was seeing on the news was a thing called the Tet Offensive.
Danny had arrived just in time for the biggest military push by the Communist
troops against South Vietnam. Up until now there had been these smaller
battles, but this was a big campaign and the Americans were caught off-guard
but they were fighting back hard.

The
war took all of my attention, more than Lonnie's lonely burial at Memphis National
Cemetery, more than my troubles at school, my troubles with Naomi when she
found out about my troubles at school, my troubles with Tahlila and her gang when
my black grandmother came to school to see to my troubles, making me more troubles.

I
was above it all. Now that was the thing. My grandmother had been trying to
tell me such for a long time, that Jesus called us to a life above the melee,
that just because someone called you into the quicksand of their hatred, you
didn't have to jump in and drown.

Well
what they said to me became more about their own hatred, their perpetuation of
what they'd been taught to fear. There was a growing number of those vocal
against prejudice and oppression. At least ten or so, and they were some of the
school's brightest. Hannah was a part of it until she got pregnant and they gladly
bid her adieu as she got skirted away to a relative's house in New Jersey of
all places, but the movement did not die in her absence. Penny and Derrick
stepped boldly into her vacated space. Well we all had to find a way to make a
difference.

Briefly,
as in once, we had a student panel to discuss some of the issues and it got
heated and it was disbanded.

But
with the presidential election brewing, more discussion broke out in other classes,
and there were days where school was almost interesting and something like real
learning raised its head the way a mole might, but it was careful discussion, limited
discussion, and the teachers could only take so much and a lot of kids, maybe
all of them were just regurgitating what they heard at home, but wasn't school
supposed to be a place where you brought that crap and threw it on the table and
it got challenged by a teacher who maybe knew something and then you had to think
about it some?

 
 
Seemed
like we had to mostly worry about order and language and dress codes and
preserving what was already set in stone.

But
in February we got two new Republican candidates for president, Richard Nixon
and George Wallace. Well I knew all about Wallace. If ever the wall of oppression
had a face it was that man. Naomi prayed for him many a time and the sisters
would wail while she prayed so I pretty well had him figured. But Nixon, I didn't
know him.

And
President Johnson abandoned his escalation plans in Vietnam. We'd won
Tet
overall, but we were kind of on our asses seeing the
size of the opposition. I wondered who was making these calls up in Washington.
I was just a kid but I wanted to believe our leaders had some intelligence. On
TV about everything got solved, someone was right on it, there were all kinds
of heroes who knew better than anyone else and they were usually Americans.
Surely we had some brilliant minds weighing in on this thing in Vietnam. Surely
college kids didn't know more than our leaders, our military.

I
wrote faithfully to Danny. Nearly a month and still no word. I finally got a period
and I was feeling pretty emotional so I marched over to Sukey's table in the lunchroom.
He wasn't eating, I noticed, just sitting there, legs spread wide, chair on its
back two legs, him staring out. Two others sat with him, two punks. They did a
lot of drugs, these three. Sukey was like a leper here now since he'd gone to
the farm and without Danny's sun he had no light to reflect, none anybody was
interested in. And he didn't seem to care. It's like he was his own evil twin,
his Mr. Hyde in control, well it always was, but the mask of 'normal' was
pretty much ripped away, ripped to shreds. I'd known this side of him young.

"Has
your family heard from Danny?"

He
stared at me and his friends snickered, one saying something to the other. "Black
Hilly," Sukey said and grinned. That's what they called me around here, just
loud enough I could hear when I passed. But he just said it to my face.

"Why
would I tell you?" he asked, turning his head to the side and spitting
right there on the cafeteria floor.

I
turned away and started to walk out of there, the brown bag holding my lunch crinkling
as I smashed it into my shoulder bag.

When
I got outside I kept going, far as we were allowed, over by the gym where no
one sat cause it was too cold with the wind off the field.

He
had followed me and it took me aback though I tried not to act like it. I
looked up at him and he had his hands in his jeans and he was studying me with
his always mad eyes.

"You
stop to think he don't want to talk with you no more? You were just some ass he
got before he went?"

I
dug in my purse for my lunch, no thought behind it, just needing something to
do so I didn't leap up and claw his face. I found that baloney sandwich and
took an angry bite.

I
chewed and swallowed and he stood there, eyes on me like cancer or something, and
I said, "You think you're the first one in line to say mean things? I
don't care about that…what you got to say. I just want to know if Danny is
okay."

"He
told me to stay clear and I have." He spat again.

"I
haven't heard from him and I worry," I said louder. "And it's stupid
I can't ask his own brother anything when he's at war and none of the other
shit matters."

He
stood glaring some more, but his body curved toward me. "We ain't
heard," he said. "But don't ask me again. I ain't good enough to talk
to you…his black-assed Betty. If he ain't writin', he don't want to."

He
left then. He walked away, his head down, his hand at his mouth. I'd poked a stick,
like Danny did that day with the radio and Lonnie. I hadn't meant to, that was
not my intention, but I had just the same. Sukey Boyd hated my guts.

They
had not heard. But if something happened to Danny the army would come, that I
knew. I'd heard the process in an essay someone read whose brother had been killed
in the war.

I
couldn't let this fear take over, but it wanted to. So I went to see Allie. I
needed something to do that was real and difficult and absorbing and about the
present and future.

Allie
lived forty miles beyond in a sizeable town called Redfern. This was my second
time there. Her shop sat on a busy avenue, the building at an angle behind a cyclone
fence. Jackson's Welding. I went in the open garage door, and there were the
sounds of machines and whooping. I caused that it seemed, strange eyes on me, heads
of hair I did not know.

She
had the very kind of shop that would be my life if I did this so I had to let
the whooping go over my head. I couldn't be afraid of it. "Is Allie
around?" I said to the guy with the raised welding hood who approached me
like I'd offered my sex.

“Upstairs,"
he said, eyes up and down, and I went up and the whooping continued and it
reminded me of the monkey house that time Naomi took me to the zoo.

Upstairs
were the offices, two of them. She'd said before that her husband Bobby couldn't
get up here in his wheelchair but he didn't get around so much now, hardly ever
came here, and she looked sad. But she carried on, that was the thing. So she was
on the phone, nails long and lacquered red like usual and the whole place smelling
like an ashtray and Lord I wanted a smoke, but no.

She
had two gray metal desks in here, and she sat at one, the other chair was empty,
catalogues with fittings and all types of equipment everywhere. She was going
back and forth on the phone, laughing this crusty laugh filled with nicotine, you
could hear it. She scratched the red nails carefully through the yellow
lacquered set in her hair. I twirled around in that chair and brought myself to
stop just as she got off.

"Hey,"
I said.

"Hey
yourself Hilly Grunier," she said. "No school today?"

I
shrugged. I'd gone nine days in a row. "Not for me," I said. "I
was hoping you and me could talk about some work."

Well
that took guts, but I was trying to get some…guts.

"Oh.
It's like that?"

Well
I told her I had Lonnie's accounts and his former employee and a truck, well two
trucks counting Robert's. She did not know the quality of his work, so she
wanted him to come in for a test. "What if you hire him?" I said.

She
hooted and laughed. "Well I guess you got a problem then. But I ain't out
to rob the cradle," she said. She leaned forward. "What are you
trying to do?"

I
told her about Lonnie. She listened, her face sagging now. I didn't want her
pity, or to make her think about Bobby…shortness of time…reaper's hook and all.
I just wanted her to know.

"Are
you grieving hard?"

I
shook my head. "I'm sorry some…but…I had my whole life to grieve him…you know?
It's just…like a door shut."

I
wanted to tell her more…Lottie and Mama…Naomi and Temple…a house…a dog…Eugene
Blue covering my life like a mist…and me out of parents…how we had not heard
from Danny…and inside…I was screaming. How Hannah was pregnant and Derrick had
grown up seeing me as a symbol of hypocrisy…or something…and Sukey couldn't
tell me the simplest thing even when we shared worry for the only thing we had
in common, the biggest thing in our lives…and I was bleeding…and the world was
bleeding…and cutting itself to let out some of the pain and everyday God heard
the stories that killed us…and put his son to death. And I wanted to sell
fittings. That's the reason I came. I wanted…I needed to build.

And
the day after that Dickens came and got me after school. The man from the army
was sitting in their living room. His mom said to come and get me.

I
ran down the alley after his bicycle. I had not asked him if Danny lived or
died.

It
was like I got the call I knew was coming the whole of my life. I did not carry
on, I did not feel. If I was not in my socks and half-slip I would almost seem
normal.

Once
there his mother said, "Oh child." She meant my attire. I held on to
her, children about, the mister sitting in a recliner, the officer on the sofa,
Sukey pacing like a frame around a picture, and inside I was shriveling,
vanishing, pulling into the center, leaving myself to cringe…to small down to
the size of a bean.

I
was told to sit on a dining room chair. Annie held my hand. Danny had been wounded
is what they knew. He was in a German hospital. Wounded in his leg but they'd
had trouble locating the bullet and it had traveled upward, and his leg was removed
above the knee.

"The
right or left," I heard my voice.

Left.
Left. Left. Left. The strong…the beautiful…and my hand had glided…I had loved…loved…his
leg…his foot…my heart…my soul.

After
that a fundamental cord…cut…and the balloon…lifted…me. God…you had not
listened. Why?

I
did not know. Voices and worries. Whose idea was it to include the Grunier
girl? someone asked…Paul…the father. Then the mother, "Danny wanted her to
know, he made me promise," she said.

I
thanked him, I said it out loud, "Thank you, Danny." For letting me
know. But I wasn't there anymore. I was in a German hospital. I was telling Danny
to hang on…to live…to hope. I saw him…I felt him, the sick and fever the pain
and drugs.

They
had been trapped and they had died, and he had pretended to be dead and he was
the only one who made it.

It
was Sukey who brought me home, Sukey who helped me into my room when I didn't
know I needed help, didn't feel him helping or know where I was. It was Sukey who
helped me into my bed.

Sukey
who fell on top of me and crushed the air out of my lungs and straddled me and
knelt on my arms. It was Sukey who told me to shut up while he undid his pants and
then gripped my wrists with his bruising weight and pried open my legs with his
and shoved…shoved…shoved into me with his rage and his hate.

And
I fought…and I screamed…and when I could feel it even though I came back into
myself, the penetration and violation, I fought and screamed and stopped and stilled
and held and…the balloon burst. I had finally given up.