Finding My Thunder (9 page)

Finding My Thunder 13

Robert
got between Lonnie and me. I was as surprised as they were that I’d thrown the
bottle. But when I saw the glass shatter, heard it, I felt kind of fascinated.
 

Lonnie
was going
apeshit
,
batshit
,
crapshit
, yelling and gesturing. But I only saw him
on the sidelines, the thing was the window and the Coca-Cola splattered on the
sidewalk, its own kind of art covered with diamonds, its own kind of protest. ‘Hell
no, I won’t go.’

We
had so little and now we were going to destroy what was left. Well…he was
trying to destroy me and I had broken a window.

Morris
came from the shop next door. He thought it was one of the coloreds rising up
throwing a
molotov
cocktail. I heard him say, “Why
would you do such a thing?”

But
before Lonnie burst a vessel, before he went insane there was something else in
his face, in his eyes, just a flash…a knowing. He was afraid. He was afraid of
her in me. My mother.

“I’ll
drive her home,” Robert said over and over.

Officer
Bixby was there and he asked me if I was hurt. He asked me what happened.

“I
threw the bottle,” I said.

“Maybe
a night in jail is what she needs,” Lonnie said.

Robert
protested. He said to cool down, man, I had just lost my mother. Well, that
explained everything they guessed.

And
before I knew it I was in Robert’s truck and we were driving down the road with
the radio blaring.

He
didn’t say anything at first until we got off the square. Then he let out a
big, “
Ooooweee
.”

I
looked at him like he was the crazy one, but I had to laugh, too. Then he
opened the ashtray and took out a joint. I’d seen such at school, a show and
tell in the girl’s john, not around the sink-sitters, God forbid, but in the
back corner, where the girls sat and talked openly about the boys they planned
to screw over the weekend.

He
lit that twisted little stick and the air filled with the pungent smell of
burning plants that had dried and gone rotten.

He
offered it to me and the first time I said, “No thanks,” then he offered it
again and told me how to do it and I did.

I
said, “Can you take me to the cemetery?” And he did.

As
soon as he entered that winding road amongst the tombstones I was looking for
that fresh mound of soil. He took another hit of that and then me, and when I
let it out he said, “You high?”

I
said, “No.” Another big deal that felt like nothing.

He
parked and I got out and walked slow to Mama’s plot.

I
dropped to my knees where Mama rested. I guess I was trying to believe it. She
never liked closed in places, unless she put herself there, closets and corners
and under drapes and beds.

I
stood slowly and dusted my knees. Robert was walking toward me. He was
shirtless and his feet were bare. He was holding a bottle of wine now. Ripple.

He
held it toward me and offered it. I had a flash of communion at Naomi’s church,
The Temple of Healing and Hope. That’s the last time I’d been offered wine and
that was grape juice. The cap was already off of Robert’s bottle. I shook my
head.

“There’s
some old markers in that far corner. Civil War and shit,” he said. He drank
straight from the bottle and a purple drip ran from the corner of his mouth and
dripped onto his chest. He was like, very full grown. Where Danny was just
beautiful, Robert was frightening. His naked just looked more naked.

This
time when he offered, I took it and gagged down a swallow. He laughed at that,
and I did too. I took a couple more swallows just to get back on that horse and
all.

We
walked around then. We noted anyone who died young, especially children. I made
a speech about how unfair it was…death. I thought I was saying profound things.
Well, Robert was impressed enough to keep saying, “Really heavy, Mama. Speak
for the people. Speak.”

We
kept drinking. We found the old markers, chalky and at odd angles. It was some
time before we grew tired of that because I got stuck at one,
Marybell
Williams who died at age thirteen in
nineteen-fifty-two, the same year I was born. There was a picture on her
tombstone and she looked a little bit like Sandra Dee. Well I thought so, but Robert
didn’t. I was crying pretty hard and going on about it.

He
dragged me away from there as I took to lying on the grave and railing at the
Lord. But then we found a grave, still pretty fresh, the ground sunken in. It
was a guy Robert went to school with and he was pretty shocked.

“This
is Jeff Collins,” he said. “I knew him. Yeah…I heard he was wounded. He died,
man. That’s three I know personally, just me, and a dozen more someone else
knows or was related to.”

So
we spent time there and I told him all the reasons why I hated the war and Danny
couldn’t go, and he agreed, he said Danny couldn’t go. I said he had to go to
Canada and he agreed, yeah man he needs to get on the peace train.

We
were quiet for a while, him on Jeff’s grave leaning on the stone while he
killed off the Ripple then poured the last few drops on Jeff’s grave. Then I was
on a mission to find anymore who’d died in Vietnam.

But
after a while Robert got on his feet and called me off that mission. He said it
was a bad scene and he didn’t want to talk about Vietnam anymore. Pretty soon
he pushed me and said I was it. We set
homebase
at a
big tree and the one who wasn’t it had to reach the tree before getting tagged.
So he hid his eyes and I took off running so he couldn’t catch me. I sprinted
toward a crypt with a crying angel on top. It was the fanciest grave in there.

Robert
finished counting but he couldn’t see me other side of that tomb. I watched and
he disappeared, but I figured I’d go for it cause he was pretty wasted and he
probably went toward the road.

So
I took off and I tripped a couple of times but I caught myself and he was nowhere.
I was laughing as I ran toward that tree and I nearly reached it. I was under
it and he dropped down out of the branches and landed right in front of me
growling. I screamed and ran the other way, screaming so loud I couldn’t stop,
screaming to wake the dead.

I
went spilling and he vaulted over me and fell, too. If someone was watching
they’d see two crazy people and I hadn’t laughed like this, not ever even
though I’d scraped my hands.

I
looked up from a vacuum of my own crazy sounds and there was Danny’s purple
car. Danny was sitting in the driver’s side watching us.

I
got on my feet quick and called to him, “Danny…it was so funny.” He got out and
slammed the door.

“Hey
brother,” Robert said, still on the ground.

Danny
didn’t answer but he walked toward us with purpose. “He’s the most beautiful
thing,” I said, and Robert guffawed.

“Where’s
your shirt?” Danny said to Robert.

“In
my truck, man.”

I
was trying to tell Danny how Robert had dropped out of the tree.

“Hilly…I
came to take you home. Why don’t you come with me and get in the car?”

“Well,
I will, but what about Robert?”

“Robert
can get himself home,” Danny said. “He doesn’t want to be late for the
love-in.”

Robert
thought that was funny. “Hey man…Hilly says you’re going to Nam. You can’t do
that, man. That shit is fucked. Guess who is buried right over there,” he
pointed to the north corner, “Jeff Collins, man, All-state nineteen-sixty-one
to the graveyard man via Vietnam. Don’t go there, man.”

“Yeah…thanks
for the enlightenment. You’re like…what? Thirty? And she’s not legal. Hear me?”

“I’m
twenty-five,” Robert said.

“You
got like ten years on her man.”

“I’ll
be sixteen in a week,” I said but they weren’t listening.

“We
were just having fun,” Robert said.

“Don’t
you have a kid back in the commune?” Danny said.

“It’s
all good, brother. Me and the little mama were
groovin
’
around just
hangin
’ out. It’s cool.”

“Hilly,
you coming?”

“I
am,” I said, eager to be with him and also wondering why he was so serious.
Things were better now. Things were good.

I
straightened my clothes, my jeans and my shirt, and threw my braid over my
shoulder.

Robert
didn’t seem inclined to leave yet. He sat up and rubbed his hand through his
thick blond hair. “Hilly…come here I want to tell you something.”

“I’ll
be right there,” I said to Danny. He looked crabby like he wasn’t too happy,
but Robert had been a good friend and I didn’t just want to walk away. Danny
stood there and folded his arms. He wasn’t going to give Robert any privacy. I
went back to hear Robert out.

“Hilly,”
he said, “don’t stay home alone and get sad. I mean…at my house…you can come
and stay as long as you want. There’s always someone there, you know? It’s a
mellow place. You ever need someone, little mama, you call me or just come out,
you know?”

“Thanks,”
I said.
 

“I
lost my mom when I was eighteen. It’s hard at first…but it gets better. There’s
lots of ways to find some comfort, girl. Don’t suffer…you know?”

This
was his effort to console and I was touched, even though it all had a seedy
overtone. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Only this wasn’t joy and
sorrow, this was crazy and sorrow. “Thanks,” I said.

“Hilly…come
on,” Danny said.

Robert
had a nice smile. I wondered how he had survived Lonnie all these years. He was
so laid back and goofy, possibly always high in that he never sobered up enough
before he was “comforting” himself again.

“Don’t
stay in the cemetery by yourself,” I said. “Sun’s going down. We’re the only
ones in here still on the top.”

He
laughed at that. “Damn girl, that’s heavy.”

I
waved to him and followed after Danny. He held my door for me and I got in and
he slammed it shut. Then he walked around the front and got in. I smiled at him
and he looked away.

“Are
you mad or something?” I asked.

“No,”
he said. “Just…I thought you had some sense of caution. You need to forget
everything he just said,” Danny said. “You don’t ever want to go to his pad. Not
ever. Promise me.”

His
hair was already getting longer. It figured that God, being such an artist,
would have a variety of work. There was the waterfall south of Ludicrous, then
there was
Niagra
Falls, for example.

I
lit a cigarette and pulled that smoke into my lungs, letting it out slow. “You
are God’s
Niagra
,” I told Danny.

I
passed him the cigarette I was holding and he took a drag. “You are the
strangest girl. How long you been out here with him?”

I
guessed Robert was leaving cause I heard his truck start up somewhere behind
us.”

“Since
I had to leave the shop. The…window.”

“I
saw that. Lonnie is really pissed. What happened?”

“I
don’t know exactly. He…said some stuff and next I knew…I just threw my
Coca-Cola right through the window.” I had decided to
rebraid
my hair and my fingers were moving fast.

Danny
leaned closer to me looking deep into my eyes as Robert’s truck swung around us
and he honked the horn. “Your pupils…did that asshole get you high?”

I
pulled my face back a little. “I got free will,” I reminded him.
 

“What
was it? He give you pills? That damn hippie. I’m gonna….” He hit the steering
wheel with the heels of his hands. Then he got all determined and started the
car.

I
said, “No pills.”

We
were driving pretty fast and I was moving around on the seat. He stopped before
he pulled onto the two-lane. He looked at me for a minute. “Come here,” he
said.

I
scooted beside him, but I left a gap between us. I just didn’t know what he
expected.

He
put the car into park. “What am I going to do about you?” he said, so serious. Nothing
like Robert. Just…serious.

“I
don’t…what do you want to do?” I whispered.

His
long fingers were moving hair off my face. Then he looked at my lips. “You mean
that…about loving me?”

“Yes,”
I whispered.

“I…don’t
want you
goin
’ off with other guys like you did with
him.”

“I
wasn’t. Not like that.”

“I
mean…
goin
’ off with some old hippie….”

“He’s
nice,” I made the mistake of saying.

“Hilly…he’s
a bum. He would get you drunk or high or pregnant, or all of them if he could. And
he’d be a great guy about it…a big smile and you could hang at his commune with
the rest of the bums and live off of lentils. Promise me you’ll stay away from
him and…I wish I could wrap you in cellophane and just…put you away until I get
back.” He ran his hand over his face and broke out in a laugh then said,
“Shit.”

I
laughed at that. “You just talked about a future. When you get back.”
 

“Look…Hilly…I
was up all night thinking about what you said. I’m going to enlist. I’m going
to take some control. I can’t stand this waiting. I’m going in and getting it
over with. Then…you’ll be graduating by the time it’s over. Even before that. And
maybe…I don’t know…but….”

I
pulled back and sat slow, looking at him.

“Shit,
these tears. I swear I ain’t cried since Mom married Paul. He could beat me and
I don’t cry…shit,” he stared straight ahead, and I put my hand on his chin and
tried to turn his face my way, but he resisted. He wouldn’t look at me. “When I
got back and saw that window…I didn’t know what happened…and you weren’t home
again…just like yesterday I couldn’t find you…and I made myself think…and when
I saw you with him…he wasn’t wearing…and I thought for a minute maybe you and
him…maybe…and…cause what you told me…how you feel…and I swear to God it wasn’t
cause I cared about Naomi…I was protecting you. You got to believe me.” He
grabbed the hand I’d put on his cheek. “I’m…I don’t know what it is…I feel
like…crazy….”