River, cross my heart

by Clarke, Breena

  "God doesn't think about what you deserve. He's got a plan," Ina answered, sucking a strand of cotton thread. She bent toward the lamp and drew the thread through a needle.

  "Oh, hush up, Ina!" Alice snapped.

  "What am I doing but telling the truth?" Ina countered with wounded sensibilities.

  "I don't want to hear about God's plan now, Ina. I'm talking about that man walking out on his wife like she was a common whore. That's what I'm talking about. He left her with only the clothes on her back practically."

  "She's got a big house in Philadelphia to sit up in."

  "Ina Mae, what plans has God got for you, I wonder." Alice laughed wryly at her funny, contrary little cousin. She always thought of Ina Mae as younger, though she was fully eight years older than Alice. Ina was the plump little girl who'd stood back on her heels and extended her arms to Alice when she'd toddled her first steps. Ina was the one who'd stayed behind gladly watching the smaller children when others went to dances. Ina had been the one who'd always dreamed of a houseful of children and had never had a single one.

  "Well, the Lord made me colored. And on account o{ that, I'm not sitting up in a house in Philadelphia licking myself like a cat. I got to work for a living whether my husband is alive or dead or playing possum — and you the same," Ina countered.

  "Ina, you're being kind of coldhearted. Don't you have any sympathy for that poor woman?" Alice said, only half teasingly.

  "I save my sympathy for you. What you gonna do about your job? Instead of worrying about her, you ought to be wor-

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  rying about yourself. What're you gonna do with those cups and saucers and that brooch? You can sell 'em and when the money's gone, it'll he gone."

  Electricity came through Georgetown like a wave the same spring that the swimming pool was finished. Block by block, every house — big or small, palatial or pitiful — was wired to accommodate the incandescent bulbs. The gas street lamps were changed to the new electric lightbulbs and everybody in Georgetown, except the big-thighed Fontarellis, was glad about it.

  Electric light came through the same year that George-town got a swimming pool for colored and a colored lifeguard. The water in the pool and the lifeguard who was studying to be a doctor and the thrill of little round glowing globes of light to cut on and off gave Georgetown many things to look forward to.

  That same spring, the District of Columbia recreation department announced it was assembling teams of young swimmers to compete with teams from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Neighborhood groups throughout town were grooming their best swimmers to compete to be on the city-wide team.

  Charles Edward Hughes, a medical student at Howard University and the head lifeguard at the Francis pool, organized swimming classes for the Georgetown children who came to the pool as soon as it opened. With a view to putting together a team, he gave each youngster a test to gauge his or her swimming abilities. Nobody was surprised that Johnnie Mae Bynum emerged as the best o( the girls. Charles Hughes —

  Charlie, they called him—praised her and made her the captain of the girls' team.

  Johnnie Mae was, without doubt, the best female swimmer that Charlie Hughes had at the Francis pool. In fact, she was the best swimmer, male or female, at the Francis pool. Her mastery of the strokes was uniformly competent. He was surprised that she'd never had formal lessons. She was as close to a natural swimmer as Charlie had ever seen.

  Pearl Miller, Mabel Dockery, Sarey Tyler, Dumpling Mason, Tiny Sham, Lula Lavery, and Johnnie Mae Bynum came to the pool each day for lessons with Charlie Hughes. They all wanted to be as close to Charlie as possible. They had all been swept up in the newness and the adventure and the beauty of Charlie Edward Hughes and the swimming pool.

  Pearl was especially determined to learn the rudiments of swimming. But it was more as a means of preserving her friendship with Johnnie Mae than from a passion for water. The water itself exerted no pull on her. It was the pull of the other girls—especially Johnnie Mae. Sarey Tyler, afraid of spoiling her pressed hair, spent most of the swimming lesson shielding her hair from the water. But she, too, basked in the glow of Charlie Hughes.

  Johnnie Mae's swimming was fluid, graceful, all that it should be. Why, she could likely win against any but the absolute best swimmers. But it was in the diving that you saw the best of the girl. It was her absolute, flawless ascent to the top of the diving tower full of confidence that made Charlie know she could compete and win. Only occasionally did she not connect well and falter enough to throw off the dive. These times were rare, and with practice were becoming even more so.

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  Johnnie Mae's innate moxie was what took her off the board and sent her swirling gracefully through the air and into the water. She handled all the dives competently, but it was her utter willingness to jump that was so thrilling. Some who eventually jumped off the diving board would hesitate, sometimes for long moments, before deciding to take the plunge. But Johnnie Mae was never unsure if she would jump. She would always jump. She would jump and descend to the surface of the water with a speed and force that belied the delicacy with which the water's surface parted to let her in. She seemed to break the surface with no more effort than the will to do it—breaking downward, then upward again, passing like a knife through butter.

  The first time Pearl saw Johnnie Mae on the diving board, her form was silhouetted against a late afternoon sun slipping down into Rock Creek. Pearl climbed toward the playground up the hill from Rock Creek, coming to the pool for her lesson and for the camaraderie. Johnnie Mae stood on the diving board at the Francis pool with an energy in her limbs that appeared to Pearl to emanate from the sun. She was struck by the sight of Johnnie Mae. She didn't recognize her friend at first, but saw a tall, slim form standing higher than she'd ever seen a body stand. From where Pearl stood watching, trees obscured the platform on which the figure stood. Before the figure raised her arms, Pearl thought that it must be a statue she was seeing. When the figure left the end of the board in a perfect dive, Pearl drew in her breath and ran toward where she thought the figure must land, not realizing that there was water below her.

  Pearl stood back and watched Johnnie Mae for a full hour that day. At times she squinted and threw her head back.

  Johnnie Mae, completely absorbed in Charlie's assessment of each dive, didn't notice Pearl standing watching her from the fence. Pearl thought to herself that Johnnie Mae didn't look like a graceful little swan when you saw her up close, but atop that diving board it seemed as if she could jump off into the clouds.

  She became a part of the water when she entered it, and so her moving through it was effortless and completely without fear. Charlie knew about fear in the water. A river swimmer will know about fear because a river is not a captive. It moves and changes. It can fool you and take you down in a minute if you are not always paying it mind. And it is fear that seals the swimmer's fate. Flailing about to stay afloat is what sinks the swimmer. The not knowing how far to the land again and how far to the bottom. Fear of it makes water fathomless.

  Johnnie Mae hopped on one leg to let the water run out of her ear. She changed legs and hopped, letting water run out of the other ear. There was a feeling like ants running up her back. She slapped at her shoulders and scratched her neck. It was like when you disturb an anthill and all the ants come run-ning out. They think it's a fire. That's what Rat said. Rat said they looked like they were running away from a house on fire. And that afternoon — some summer afternoon that was like so many she and Clara had shared—Johnnie Mae told Clara that they could really give the ants a taste of fire if they lit a match and stuck it down the anthill. The two girls looked all over the yard until they found an anthill. Johnnie Mae struck a match that she scraped on the bottom of her shoe. It flared

  up. Rat got so excited that she humped Johnnie Mae's elhow. Johnnie Mae told her she'd swat her upside the head it she didn't keep still. And Jo
hnnie Mae held the match steady and watched the flame eat up the matchstick, inching down toward her ringers. Then she jahhed the lighted match down the hole in the top of the anthill. Ants came running out like their house was on tire. Rat yelled because one or two climbed up her silly arm, and she jumped around to knock them off when she could just have slapped them off.

  Johnnie Mae wanted to scratch and pull her swimming suit away from her skin, but Charlie had said she must stand still and think only about the water and how wonderful it would be to glide through it. He said to think about how proud every' body would be—especially him. He didn't say especially him. He only said that everybody would be proud. She figured he meant to say he'd be especially proud of her too. If she won. She wanted Charlie to be proud of her—and Mama—and Daddy and Aunt Ina and Pearl and Rat—Rat too. Rat must be proud, but Rat must be jealous as well. She wanted Rat to be a little jealous. She wanted Rat to look down on her from wherever she was and wish she herself was getting ready to swim.

  Rat couldn't swim. Johnnie Mae didn't want to think about Rat now. But Rat couldn't swim, didn't ever really swim. Rat was scared of the water, but always pretended that she wasn't. Rat never wanted to be left behind. She knew that Johnnie Mae would leave her to go swimming. And Johnnie Mae knew that Rat was truly scared ot water and she hadn't cared, that day, about her whiny little sister.

  She wouldn't think about Rat right now! Charlie said she didn't have to think about a thing at the time it flashed across her brain. Charlie said not to look at the girls next to her,

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  either. She was not to think about them and what they were going to do. Just listen for the starter's whistle. But don't look! Think about the swimming — think about the swimming— the water. Just tell her arms and legs to wait for the whistle, then go. Tell her arms and legs to be relaxed but ready and bend down and stay loose and let her body go and glide and be strong and glide into the water and don't look back or to the side. Look down at the markers on the bottom and follow them in a straight line and glide and push and breathe and glide and push and breathe and look up and Charlie's face will be there and—maybe Rat's face, too.

  When the starting pistol popped in the air above her head, Johnnie Mae launched herself from the side of the pool with her toes. Her body unfurled above the surface of the water like a banner snapping in a sudden wind then relaxing to float on ripples of air. She plunged into the water. The others must have also. She could neither see them nor hear them. It was her lane only, her water before her, and she plowed through it with all the energy she had.

  Afterward Charlie said she'd lost it on the turn. She had been ever so slightly slower and wider in the turn than the other girl had been. And her fingers had touched home only a few seconds after the other girl's. But it had been after the girl. There had been a relieved sigh at the judges' table.

  The swimmers milled about while the judges had their heads together. They were bumblebeeing furiously. After a bit, one of the judges came forward and said that they were can-celing the diving competition. He said they'd agreed that they had seen enough to make a pick. They didn't need to look at any diving.

  Charlie snatched the cap off his head and threw it to the

  ground in disgust. They'd got scared. They were scared because they knew. Those judges knew Johnnie Mae could ace the diving competition. They'd seen how close she came to beating the other girl and they were scared.

  If none of her competitors had been any good then it would clearly have been a case of race prejudice. But they'd all been good. And the girl they chose to represent Washington was a nearly flawless swimmer. Her performance had been flawless in the swimming. But Johnnie Mae would have beaten her in the diving. And the judges didn't want to see that. The deciders were not big people or risk-takers. They were not bold enough in their prejudice to ban Johnnie Mae outright. They had simply been grateful that their white swimmer was good enough. In fact, she was a little more than good enough. So they chose her and did not feel guilty.

  In the past several months, all the energy in the Bynum household had been absorbed in getting ready for the coming baby. Johnnie Mae was alternately happy at the progress her mother's stomach was making and repulsed by its mushroom-ing. Additional household duties had been pushed onto her and she'd accepted them without complaint. Mama and Aunt Ina had planned it out that Mama would work at Miz St. Pierre's as long as she could. Then Aunt Ina would work in her place until Mama was ready to take back her job. Johnnie Mae was to help out with Aunt Ina's work and the household chores. All of this changed with the St. Pierres' financial troubles.

  Papa picked up extra work running the elevator at the Alban Towers Hotel in the evening. He was lighthearted, however, and unable to hide the pleasure this coming baby was giving him. As soon as the frost had passed and the ground was warm, he put in his vegetable garden. By the time the boy, Calvin William Bynum, was born, on the sixth of June, the tomato plants were beginning to twine around their stakes.

  Aunt Ina took charge of the household as soon as Mama's labor hegan in earnest, around four o'clock in the afternoon. She sent Johnnie Mae up to Georgetown University to say to her papa, "Her time has come." Aunt Ina said it over and over with a solemn, no-nonsense demeanor, not allowing her excitement to change the pitch of her voice. Johnnie Mae knew she was holding her voice steady by dint of great courage because Aunt Ina's voice rose on the slightest provocation. "Her time has come. Go tell your papa. Her time has come."

  Johnnie Mae was instructed to get her papa first, then go to Dr. Tyler's office and give him the same message. Willie got Peanut Walter, a tall, slow-moving boy who did pick-up work for anybody, to work in his place at Alban Towers. The boy's name was actually Walter Peanut, and he was the oldest of Horace and Lila Peanut's thirteen children. But he had always been called Peanut Walter around town.

  Johnnie Mae was told not to dillydally but to return as soon as she could. She was told to brew the pain-go-away tea that Ella Bromsen had given to them tied in a cheesecloth pouch. And she was told to fix a supper for her papa.

  Dr. Marvin Tyler delivered Calvin at the house in the early morning hours of Thursday. Aunt Ina had assisted him throughout the night while Johnnie Mae sat at the top of the stairs outside her parents' bedroom door listening and trying to figure out what was actually going on inside. Mama didn't cry out, only grunted and exclaimed. When Johnnie Mae was awakened by Calvin's first cries at four o'clock in the morning, she sprang to the door and tapped. Roused by Calvin's robust voice, Willie jumped up from his chair in the kitchen, took the stairs two at a time, and crowded in the bedroom doorway. Aunt Ina came and blocked the line of vision into the room.

  She sent Johnnie Mae to fix her mother a bowl of cornmeal mush and a cup of coffee half filled with cream and lots of sugar. She pulled Willie into the room while clapping him hard on the back. "You got you a boy, Willie! You got a son!"

  Willie, the fifth wheel in the proceedings, had sat by himself in the kitchen the whole long night. He sat thinking about Clara and Big Mama and Merle. And he wondered who this coming baby was. If Clara had been his sister, Merle, come again, then who was this baby come again? If it was a girl it would likely be Big Mama come this time, or his mama. But if it was a boy, he'd be somebody none of them had known. Unless it was his daddy that he hardly could remember. Willie nursed many cups of coffee and pondered. With these coming children we never relinquish the past. We keep seeing somebody gone in each new one.

  Willie couldn't say what part of Johnnie Mae was the part she got from someone gone. He didn't know who that could be. He'd never known Alice's mama. He couldn't say if that damnable streak of independence was something she got honestly from her mother's mother or not. Now, Alice was pretty headstrong. But increasingly there was something more intractable in Johnnie Mae. She was daily getting more troublesome.

  He didn't know Sam Logan's people at all, except to know they were redskins. Folks in Carolina always said that co
lored people with Indian blood were sullen and headstrong and clever. Johnnie Mae was, he thought. That was what was in her. Even from a little girl, switching her bottom or the backs of her legs had been pretty much useless as a deterrent. The problem of her disobedience had never been in those places. It was her head—hardheaded, headstrong.

  As expected, Miz Fanny Moreen called just after ten o'clock. Miz Fanny, as she was affectionately known by any and all among colored who'd had a new baby or a child with cholera or influenza or rickets, was the licensed baby nurse assigned by the city health department to call on colored families in Georgetown. A fixture at church socials, Miz Fanny always appeared neatly dressed in a sharply tailored black uniform and nurse's cap. Georgetowners admired her, especially for the courage with which she'd assisted Dr. Marshall and Dr. Tyler in the influenza epidemics in '09 and '12.

  Upon arriving at the Bynums' home, Miz Fanny drew off her black uniform jacket, undid her white cuffs, and put on the long white apron she pulled from her bag. She handed the jacket to Johnnie Mae and instructed the girl to hang it neatly. Her loud, authoritative voice called Ina from the upstairs bedroom and brought her swiftly down the steps.

  "Good morning, Miz Fanny," Ina called out cheerfully but in a tone that gave Miz Fanny absolute jurisdiction in the house.

  "Good morning, Miz Carson. We have a healthy big boy I hear." Miz Fanny had by this time marched into the kitchen. Ina was hard on her heels and Johnnie Mae followed. Miz Fanny perused the sink and swept her eyes over all surfaces on the stove, the table, and the cupboards. She judged the diligence o( the household's women in stanching the tide of dirt and disease. Her eyes caught on the bundle o( herbs that Ella Bromsen had brought to be given to the new mother as tea.