Finding My Thunder (2 page)

Finding My Thunder 2

Mama
looked Italian with her dark coloring and Roman nose. Or Irish, or French, or
like an Arab. She looked Jewish, for I had heard her called all of those things
by the prayer ladies, or door-to-door salesmen, or even neighbors as they
worked to explain her.

It
was not her darkness that confounded them, not the outside dark anyway. That’s
what I knew.

She
was from her own kind of mixed up place, white-trash mother ran off with first
one low man then another. My great-grandmother finally rescued Mama and brought
her to our house. And she inherited it…and the one in back that came with Naomi
and her family.

Naomi
and Grandma went way back. They’d had an understanding, is how Naomi put it. And
here’s the thing rubbed Daddy’s brain into a boil, Grandma had it fixed so
Naomi owned her house. Not the land it sat upon, that was still Mama’s. But the
house was hers. So she paid rent every month on the land. Well, it was six
dollars and that drove Daddy crazy too, but it’s all me and Mama had to live on
sometimes.

All
summer they fought and it was the same old songs crashing up against one
another. His were like a rusty old barrel rolling down a hill crushing
everything in its path, “Bitch, whore, crazy. I should a…I wished I’d never….”

Hers
were like a hysteria rising, falling, never ending, “We’re broke, you’re drunk,
worthless. You should a….I wished you’d never….”

And
I went to church on Sundays with Naomi, and she read, “The tongue, who can tame
it…it is a restless evil…it can bring the words of life…or be the harbinger of
death…it is such a little thing…like the rudder of a ship…determining where the
whole thing goes.”

“Amen,”
the sisters said around me. “
Mmmm
-hmmm,” they said.

And
I picked at my nails and did not argue.

By
the Fourth of July Mama was deep in the crazy. She was quiet for days, and he liked
it that way, then he took off and we didn’t see him much of the time cause
there was no one to fight with.

So
we were out of money again. We had taken back the soda bottles and rolled the
pennies many times over. Naomi had given us nickels and dimes and her prayer
ladies have given us quarters.

I
wore my old jeans and one of Daddy’s old shirts rolled up at the sleeves and I
wore a bandana on my head and braided my long hair to keep it out of the way
and after he left for work I walked to the shop.

His
shop was located along a row of storefronts on Main Street. It sat next to an
alley, and he drove down that to park in the back. His front door was propped
open all summer long cause it was hot in there. I could hear the talk station
he liked cause he always played the radio.

So
I went in and that smell hit me, that iron and oil smell that hung on every
piece of his clothing and everything he sat on or touched…that smell tamped
into his skin.

The
shop was one big, long, narrow room with a desk in front, and that piled, a
filing cabinet beside it. He had a cork board on the wall and a hundred
business cards tacked there and measurements on scraps of paper. Calendars were
hung around, too, with slutty girls holding various tools they wrapped
themselves around. Made me groan to look at them, so I didn’t. Then on back
were tables and tools and vices and his welder and a vat of some kind looked
like he was working on, it was hard to tell for it meant nothing to me.

He
came out of the back then where the toilet was and I was standing there. He
held a folded newspaper and he smacked this against his empty palm and he came
forward a bit, and he said, “What you doing here, Hilly?” And it was strange to
hear him use my name for he hardly ever did.

He
wasn’t one to wait for an answer I didn’t have anyway, so he went to one of the
tables and picked up his tools and got busy like I wasn’t standing. So I
grabbed a broom and started to sweep and it had been a while is what.

He
ignored me and I pretended to ignore him, and it took me most of the morning to
get that floor some clean and to kill a dozen roaches long as my finger.

When
I was done, he was banging away on something, about splitting my ears, and I
looked at him several times to make sure I’d dropped out of his mind, and I
went to the desk and looked back at him again for I was about to touch the
sacred altar and I might lose a hand for it.

I
was just reaching out when I felt a tap on my shoulder and I gasped and turned
quick cause the guilt and the fear were that big.

It
wasn’t Daddy. It was Danny Boyd. Mary was no less surprised when the Angel
Gabriel appeared to announce the pregnancy that changed everything.

My
heart took off under the hand I’d splayed on my chest. I couldn’t have my
senses more assaulted. It wasn’t possible. He stood there, a head taller, his
black hair long, longer than I’d ever seen it, and long sideburns. His eyes,
green in that tanned face. He had a thin moustache that met these carefully
sculpted patches around his beautiful mouth. Rock and roll star. But muscular…I
felt faint. Faint from his nearness. My shoulder where he’d tapped me, it
throbbed. God, he was a man.

“Hey
Hilly,” he said, like all those years of him ignoring me hadn’t transpired. His
eyes on me…it wasn’t an easy thing. I tried to push it away so I wouldn’t
whimper or do something more embarrassing.

It
was Daddy saved me. First time ever. He walked up wiping his hands on a rag. “Hey
there,” Daddy was saying with his fake company voice, all jovial like he knew Danny.

Danny
turned from me and was shaking Daddy’s extended hand. “Reporting for duty,” Danny
said and it was the longest handshake in the world.

“Yeah,
Paul said you’d be by. Well, okay…you got to get a haircut…guess he told you
that. I don’t need that long hair getting caught in a machine.”

“Okay…yes
sir,” Danny said.

“And
clean shave. And…we’ll get you lined out…I pay cash…four dollars an hour.”

“Yeah,
Paul said.”

“That’s
good then. Yeah you can start in the morning. None of this late
shit
. You’re late you’re out.”

“Seven
Paul said?”

“That’s
right,” Daddy said, less friendly now. “And you’re starting at the bottom. I
know you’re used to being the big deal…but around here you will do the dirty
stuff. It’ll get you ready for the army,” Daddy grinned.

No.
No. Danny had to go to college. What about college? He couldn’t hang around and
work a job. That was the rumor with Tahlila…that her dad would get him in the
pipe fitters union. It was all set. And that would mean the army because he had
a low number. I feared she was setting him up for Vietnam. But her dad was
working on getting him in the reserves. That’s what they said. And that was
nearly impossible cause everyone who could had already filled the reserves to
bursting, anything to delay going to Vietnam. So I was worried for him, even if
he did belong to the prom queen.

Daddy
was looking at Danny’s feet. He wore those scuffed up boots. Daddy said they’d
do and he would wear jeans, those jeans cause they looked on their last leg,
Daddy said, and a shirt with long sleeves to keep the burn off his arms.

So
Danny listened and they shook again and he looked from Daddy to me, and I know
my eyes were burning into him cause I was worried about Vietnam and he looked
like he wanted to say something but he nodded at me and out he went.

Daddy
went back to work, not a word to me. And I hurried after Danny, but Daddy’s
other unfortunate employee, Robert, was coming in and I crashed into him and he
put his hand out to steady me, the other hand holding his lunch and he laughed
and said, “Damn girl,” and he squeezed too hard cause he always let me know…and
I pushed off of him and saw Danny further down the street already and I took
off.

“Danny,”
I called, not believing I had a right. But he stopped and turned toward me. He
had on a white T-shirt with a neck made a V. I stopped a few feet away. “I…,” I
was trying to catch my breath. “Why with Lonnie? Do you know him?”

I
didn’t want to drive him away. Lord I didn’t. But to allow him into the middle
of my family’s shame….

He
shrugged. “I need a job.”

“But…,”
I didn’t have a right to speak about his life. “He can be….”

He
grinned. “It’s okay, Grunier.” He winked at me and laughed a little. Then he
looked down to my shoes and he laughed again and shook his head. “You’re all
grown up, ain’t you,” he said.

And
before I could answer he turned away and went down the street and I watched
him…so many words following…his beauty pulling from me like the tail of a comet
stretching between us.

“Danny,”
I whispered.

Finding My Thunder 3

Once
I went back in the shop I knew I had to take a stand there. I had been at the
mercy of…Lonnie, and I would always call him that now, but I been at his mercy
for too long. We couldn’t all go down with this ship. I felt so mad and present
I couldn’t believe it. It was like I’d been asleep and suddenly I was jarred
right out of my shoes.

I
couldn’t let Danny know how it was. Bad enough Robert did though he was out of
high school long time ago, but he had a high draft number and seemed too old
for me to even think about. It was creepy the way he tried to stand too close
and I couldn’t imagine what he’d want with me anyway. He was not bad to look at
and got lots of older girls and believed in free love he’d told me, but he made
me want to run cause he was way down a road I had never been on.

And
he didn’t work all the time and he didn’t care so much about money cause he
lived with a dozen people out in the country and it was a come and go and there
was parties all the time so he worked out great here cause this was a going nowhere
place for sure, but not a place for Danny, not nearly.

So
I went back in the shop and Robert was sitting on a chair near the desk eating
his lunch. It was a fried chicken dinner from Mac’s down the street, sitting in
a nest of aluminum foil. He balanced it on his knees and he smoked while he
ate.

“Want
some?” he asked licking his fingers.

“No
thank-you,” I said, but I had to admit it looked kind of good, but thinking of
those roaches…no way I was eating in this place.

Then
I walked to the desk, but Robert was closer than I liked and he was watching
me. I didn’t know where to start on Lonnie’s piles and I only picked up one
piece of paper before Lonnie was there.

“What
do you think you are doing?” Lonnie said.

“I’m
organizing this. I got all that secretarial training at school,” well typing
and shorthand and that had nothing to do with this, but he didn’t need all the
details, “and if I don’t get experience somewhere I’ll never get a job come
graduation,” cause he already told me to not even think he was paying for
college and I had wondered that he thought I expected blood from a turnip.

“I
don’t need you around here crawling up my ass like her,” he said pushing me
away from the desk.

“I’m
not here for her. I’m here for you.”

Well,
that did throw him some. He’d never thought of me for him, I could see that. Well,
I never had been. How could I choose? I was too busy taking care of Mama, and
truth to tell I wouldn’t have chosen either one of them if given a vote. But I
was here for one thing all of a sudden…me. And if Lonnie was the means to
helping myself, finally, then I said to myself he can put his old ass up close
and I’ll kiss it.

“Let
me straighten this. I promise I won’t throw anything away,” I said sounding
different even to me. I had not looked at Lonnie like this, up close…not ever.

“Let
her do it, Lonnie,” Robert said wiping his hands. “She can’t make it worse than
it is.”

“Shut
your mouth,” Lonnie told Robert. “Get done with that mess and see if you can’t
get some work done sometime today. I got me that boy
comin
’
in and we’re gonna see how it is now. He’s gonna put your ass to shame, that’s
what.”

And
so Lonnie went back to what he was doing and Robert winked at me and pitched
his trash in the disgusting trash can and he followed Lonnie to the back.

I
couldn’t believe it. Why didn’t I stand up for myself before? If Danny wouldn’t
have come in here…I’d be walking home in defeat about now. But Robert…even he
took the heat for me. If he could do it…stand up to Lonnie Grunier…why had I waited
so long?

I
was smiling as I picked up the first pile. I had underestimated myself. Worse
yet, I had not even considered myself at all.

So,
all that long, hot afternoon I worked and I tried to get my mind around the
change. Here I was, just that morning a hopeless girl, nothing much going on,
treading water, just that, and now I’d gone up against the man and I had a
job…and I had spoken to Danny. He had come into my life again. Of course, it
didn’t mean anything…I couldn’t afford to get my hopes up about things…but it
was something and I wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t.

I
was so busy going over the piles that around four o’clock I nearly jumped out
of my skin when someone tapped my shoulder again, but it was Robert.

“Hilly?”
he asked.

“Yeah?”
I could feel the sweat rolling down my back.

“Um…I’m
fixing to leave. Let me give you a ride.” He motioned to the back of the shop
and a couple of Lonnie’s cronies had assembled for their nightly love-in with
those long-neck bottles. Lonnie had been sipping one beer after another since
morning but it was official beer sipping time now.

“Oh…no,
I’m walking.”

“Come
on, girl. I drive fine.” Well, his eyes were all over me like usual and me
looking filthy in my baggy shirt and smelling like the iron now.

“No
thanks,” I said pretending like I was reading something pretty damn
fascinating.

“You’re
a funny girl,” he said. “Why don’t you come over tonight and smoke some reefer
with us? It’ll be all mellow and we’ll be hanging out.”

This
was never going to happen in a million years. Didn’t he know I was just a kid?

“Oh…no
thanks.”

He
wiped over his face with a big handkerchief. “Okay. Well, you ever want to hang
around with someone like me you let me know.” He put a cigarette in his mouth
and lit it kind of smooth like he was used to smoking things. He was cute, but
so old…almost twenty-five about. I wasn’t going to hang around an old man. He
looked a little like a movie star I liked though. Not as good, but not bad
either. He made me feel weird, repelled and drawn in the same stroke. I knew he
was a sink hole, and I wasn’t going down it, but it wasn’t so bad him noticing
me. Boys at school didn’t so much. Not that I wanted that. They repelled me. I
don’t know why. I wondered if something was wrong with me.

Well…guess
my mind had been on Danny…and maybe that was the problem. But Danny had the
prom queen and I couldn’t forget that even as I was dying with excitement to
suddenly have him in my life again.

“Ever
I need someone like you…I’ll let you know…,” I said trying to laugh and be
carefree which sounded embarrassing because I wasn’t used to such a thing.

So
after he left I took off for home. I left everything careful where I could pick
it up next morning because I planned on coming back. My mind was already
spinning from what I’d found so far. Lonnie had bills due he hadn’t even
opened, just like at home, and receipts for things and jobs he’d done scribbled
on little pieces of paper and I had no way of knowing yet if he’d billed those
jobs or even been paid.

So
I had plenty to think about on the walk home, that’s for sure. I waited until I
was off Main to light a smoke. It felt so good to draw it in and it was my damn
last. I had to dole them out cause I was so broke. Well broke was a way of life
for us but I was going to do something about that now.

The
closer to home I got the more my thoughts shifted to worry for Mama. She had
been alone all day, even longer than when I went to school and it was always a
crap shoot coming home. I finished my cigarette and got closer and my sooner
was there waiting and I patted her on the head and ran up the stairs to find
her something to eat. Mama scared me sitting in the living room, just sitting
in a chair, her hair undone wild, but she was dressed in a sleeveless shirt
buttoned wrong and a skirt. “Hey Mama.”

She
looked at me but she did not speak. I hurried to the
Coldspot
and got a wedge of baloney and took that out to Sooner. Then I went back
inside.

“You
bring us something?” she said like I was Mother Goose and I could just pick and
gather all the way home.

“Not
yet…but you won’t believe. I been at Lonnie’s shop all day.”

“Lonnie?”
she said. “He ain’t no good.”

“I
been helping him and…well maybe I can do something…something good for us.”

Her
eyes were dull and she didn’t look happy at all. She picked on the arm of the
chair and it so threadbare she was pulling at the cotton.

“What
about me?” she said. “I got to be all alone. But it don’t matter. None of it….”

“Well,
you got your stories on,” I said. “Did you watch today?”

Her
bottom lip jutted out and the skin was dry. She shook her head no and she
wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t want to turn it on…they gonna shoot us in our
beds…the Negroes. They gonna rise up all over sounds like. I…I heard him…that
one I saved…that dark one. But…she tells ‘
em
they
gonna come for me.” And her hand went to her breast, always there and she
rubbed.

Not
today and not now. “Mama please,” I said.

“Eugene…Eugene
Blue,” she said.

“What
you saying?”

“The
Cannas…every year he would put them in so fine….those Cannas…when they come
up….”

“Mama…I’m
gonna…I’ll be back and make you some soup.” I went in Lonnie’s room. It was
dark and had that smell, but I went to his chest of drawers and pulled the last
one wide and moved the papers, his marriage license and the papers from the
army. What a solid member of the establishment Lonnie was. How President
Johnson would love him.

There
was a carton of Pall Mall’s and they were harsh, but they were better than
nothing and I stole a pack and put them under my shirt. Then I reached in the
back corner and grabbed those two silver dollars from 1921. That would get us
food for tomorrow. When I came out I walked quick past Mama and went to the
backyard.

“He’ll
kill you he sees you in there!” she yelled. “He’ll kill you like the Negroes! Like
the Communists!” she yelled. “You
goin
’ with him now.
You’ll get yours. You’ll see.”

It
was relief to get outside. “Crazy,” I whispered fumbling to get the pack open.

Naomi
wouldn’t be home yet cause this was calling night, so I sat on the back porch
steps and leaned on the backdoor so Mama couldn’t sneak up on me. I lit up one
of those lung
shrivelers
and took a deep draught and
I was hooked on nicotine for sure, cause it tasted pretty much like shit but it
was relief. I noticed that circular garden then, the one gone to ruin in the
middle of the yard, halfway between our house and Naomi’s.

Eugene
Blue used to put the Cannas in there, that’s what I knew, Naomi said it when
she talked about him in short sentences, broken off like dreams gone you’re
trying to call back and put together.

And
I could see him there…I tried to. First time I brought him out of that picture
frame Naomi kept over the fireplace, him grinning, holding a stringer of fish,
young and handsome, shirt off, jeans hanging around his hips, standing
straight, eyes alive…he’d live forever. He’d live….

He
died in Memphis, in the street run over and they got the call…and William,
Naomi’s husband died soon after…his heart…his breath…he died in his chair.

And
I saw him there, that Eugene, six foot two and the sun coming out of his
smile…and the garden was empty, just debris, just empty and his hands…and his
hope…and in the earth the bulbs gone dry…gone.

And
I thought of Danny…and the escalation of troops in Vietnam. Five hundred and
twenty-five thousand human beings they wanted in the next two years. They
wanted Danny to step into the great long line…that big green machine for the
red, white and blue.

And
the death toll running up like a wheel spinning, climbing. Seventeen thousand Americans…dead…like
Eugene…all the young men…and all the fathers broken…and all the mothers
carrying on with sad, sad eyes.

And
one hundred cities with black folks protesting for civil rights…in the
street…cutting into Mama’s stories…and her own sins…whatever they
were…screaming in her soul.

And
I set that tip aglow as I sucked down that smoke and blew it back and the
breeze took it, and I thought of all of it passing like grass in the oven so
quick…so quick…and leaving its mark upon the hearts…upon the lives of those who
waited for news.

Then
I thought of Lonnie saying that to Danny, “…until the army gets you.” He’d been
in himself but he wasn’t going to help. He’d made it home after World War II. A
miracle, he said. They’d put him in the hospital for nearly a year, longer,
before they shipped him home. And she never went to see him, never did.

But
what I knew now that I’d woken up, what I knew as I stood and put out that
smoke, as I gasped and put my hand over my mouth…it was coming together if I’d
listen…a story…all of them walking toward one another…in me.

Mama…I
wasn’t crazy and I wouldn’t let crazy in. Naomi…hard to look in her eyes. Eugene…traveling
the gray between two houses. Lonnie…I’d stood up to him. Robert…waking up the
girl in me. Danny…blind to what was meant. And me…blind to myself…until now.

This
was my Vietnam. They were the frontline for my civil rights. And I was
demanding. They just didn’t know it yet. They didn’t know me. I’d only met her
myself.