Something Real

by J. J. Murray

  The soloist standing next to me, Mrs. Beverly WilliamsJones, sings, "He healed my body, and He told me to run home," and the congregation clears its throat and repeats "told me to run home" And by the last phrase of the verse, even the children sing, "He's my friend."

  The congregation adds more verses, each sung louder and faster and in a higher key, hoping that speed, volume, and a higher pitch can get this man vertical. As the song reaches a stained-glass-shattering crescendo (if we had any stained glass, that is), Jonas helps the man to his feet. I don't know how. Man could barely lift a finger around the house, and that white man has to outweigh me.

  "He's all right!" roars Otis, fishing for his three-by-five testifying card.

  "He's all right," purrs Winnifred, probably still worried about her damn frosting.

  "He's all right," sings Beverly, staring hard at the man.

  "He's all right, the man is all right," bellows Jonas. That man never could sing.

  And then, everything goes wrong.

  The white man, who has the softest brown eyes set in the most innocent boy's face, turns to Jonas's smiling face and somehow turns whiter. I didn't know that was possible. He faces the Fan Ladies, and his pretty brown eyes bulge out. He glances at the Amen Corner and actually commences to tremble. He whirls and looks up at me and the choir and begins to hyperventilate. "He's going to fall out," I say to myself. Lord Jesus, I pray, please don't let that white man fall out in front of this church. I mean, Lord, I know how he feels. I've been to the place where he is obviously at. You saw me the other day in the street, right? Give him the strength You gave me and please lift him up-

  But instead of falling out, the white man bolts wildly down the aisle and out of the church, the heavy oak doors slamming behind him, their echo jarring us all back into the presence of God. Thank you, Lord. I owe You another one. But Jonas, the prick, actually doubles over laughing at that, and the rest of the congregation joins in. Then Jonas raises his arms to heaven and says, "Jesus musta done healed him and told him to run home!"

  I look out on the congregation, the one I helped create, and feel shame as they laugh and slap hands with each other. A sorrowing soul has just left us in a time of his deepest, darkest need, and they're in here laughing. I also feel shame for me. In the old days, I would assist Jonas at the altar, but my heavy feet stayed on the bass notes. I prayed for that white man, yes, but I really didn't help him.

  Yes, I say to myself, trying not to shake with rage, the people of Antioch Church know that God is in their house.

  I could have left, I could have followed that man out of the church, could have helped him, should have helped him. Instead, I turn on my bench and look out at the folks in the sanctuary, a nice sanctuary that's big enough to swallow brides like me and so many others. Ushers do their jobs, whispering greet nothings to the folks nearest the aisles during the offering. Deacon Rutledge makes a prayer stand on end, and Jonas numbs us with another sermon, saying something like "when you're asleep, you don't know you are till you awake" I bet he had to think all week to come up with that lame line. He's back to being a professor. The choir sings the benediction a cappella, and the folks I was watching while I'm sure they were watching me instead of Jonas the congregation, my congregation, vanishes ... into sin air.

  I think about and pray for that white man the rest of that day. He had to be desperate to stumble down the aisle and weep in a church full of black folks. That man must have been in a heap of trouble. I pray for the Lord to lift him up and keep him there.

  And in doing so, I have the most pleasant Sunday afternoon I have had in years.

  six

  After a month of pleasant Sundays in mid-August just before school starts in Calhoun, I am thirty pounds lighter (Hallelujah!) and sleeping like a baby. I'm under two hundred for the first time since I was in high school and can finally wear anything in my closet. I cry for joy at the silliest things: being able to trim my toenails without grunting, not needing two towels to dry my body, watching a shirt billow out from my stomach because of a breeze and not my fat stomach, seeing wrinkles in my once tight, shiny face. I may look like a forty-year-old woman yet. Even got a little touch of gray goin' on at my temples.

  And all it took was limiting what I've eaten to fruits, vegetables, and skinless chicken. I couldn't do one of those diet plans you gotta pay for. I cannot understand why folks spend so much a week to lose weight. Shit, just buy less and eat less. I only drink water or fresh-squeezed lemonade (without any sugar), don't snack, and keep myself busy cleaning the apartment or walking or working. I've tossed out the television-it only got one channel to come in good anyway so I don't have anything to sit in front of to snack. That's what I used to do. Watch, eat, mess with the antenna, eat some more. I shouldn't blame the TV for my size, but when I don't have anything to watch, just sitting and eating without any entertainment ain't all that fun. I still have dessert since I haven't had my sweet tooth taken out, but I don't have cake, pie, ice cream, brownies, or cookies. I suck on sugarless candies or chew sugarless gum instead.

  I'm also staying away from Dude's. I just loves me some greasy-ass food that goes straight to my ass. I've been walking a different way to work so I can't smell all that ... delicious, satisfying, greasy food. Gives my nose an orgasm just thinkin' about it, but I've been good so far. In my mind, if you're fat, don't eat no fat-be Jack Sprat.

  Yeah, I'm cranky as hell, but my body likes me again. And I think the lady I see in the mirror every morning is gettin' fresh with me. The way she looks at me when I'm naked ... Ooh, child, it's absolutely sinful.

  Today my skinnier self is plaiting Mildred Overstreet's hair at Diana's, the only salon on Vine Street that's usually open on Monday. I untie Mildred's salt-'n'-pepper hair every Monday at eleven o'clock on the spot, finger combing it in the sunlight sneaking through the big front window, steady, sure, listening to what Mildred has to say.

  "It used to be down to my ass," Mildred says, leaning forward in her wheelchair. "Back when I had two good hips."

  "How your hips doin'?"

  "They ain't," she says, and I laugh, continuing to unwind years of hair. Usually, she tells us stories of Vine Street back in the day ("Vine Street used to be the shit till the white folks came!"), or her children (five sons and four daughters long since passed), or her lovers (too many names she always mixes up much longer since passed). "Don't do me like my great-grandmama did!" she warns me with a trembling finger. "She used to pull my hair too tight, make me look Injun. I got Cherokee in me, you know."

  "Is that a fact?" I plait her hair every Monday, and by the next Monday, her plaits are gone. I know she comes just for the attention, probably pulls out the plaits around the corner before rolling in. I'm just amazed that she's still able to live on her own. "Sure you don't want me to trim these ends, Millie?"

  "Winter's comin'," she says. "Got to have my hair to keep me warm"

  I nod, straightening as much as I can, tightening as much as I dare. "All through"

  She rolls toward the door with just one push. "Just put it on my bill."

  "I will."

  I roll my eyes to Diana after Mildred bangs out the door. Mildred never lets us help her with the door. I tried once and got the most vicious stare.

  "That woman owes us at least a thousand dollars," Diana says while working on Mrs. Simpson, who never speaks. Never. Most folks come to Diana's to talk ... and maybe get their hair done. Not Mrs. Simpson. Do her hair, don't engage her in conversation, and maybe you'll get a fifty-cent tip and a half smile.

  "Can't start the week without Mildred," I say, and I see two light-skinned children, a boy of maybe four and a girl of about six, lingering outside the door.

  "Looks like more school cuts," Diana says. "You want one or both?"

  "Both" I love doing children's hair. Really. I don't mind the squirming, the sudden movements, the questions, sometimes the tears, the kicking feet, or the funky smells. I motion them in, and the little girl pushes open the
door, pulling the little boy behind her.

  She marches right up to me and stops. Her hair flies every which way, though someone has attempted two floppy braids held by red ribbons, and his hair ... Lord, what a mess! It's a spider's web four inches high. They both have good hair and a few freckles, and I can tell they are brother and sister. Clean faces, clean but wrinkled clothes, no dirt under their nails, the soft scent of Dial and baby shampoo drifting up to me. They are beautiful children, maybe what I might have had.

  "`Scuse me," the girl says. "My daddy sent us in here" She holds out a crumpled twenty.

  I squat down in front of the boy. "What's your name?"

  "He don't say nothin'," the girl says. "His name Dec. I'm Tee"

  "Tee and Dec," Diana says with a laugh. "Ain't that a touchdown?"

  I ignore Diana and smile at the boy. "Hello, Dee. I'm Ruth, but you can call me Penny if you like."

  Tee pulls Dee closer to her. "My daddy wants us both to have haircuts." She puts the money in my hand. "Dee gotta go first, and I gotta hold his hand."

  "Gonna conk that, girl?" Diana asks.

  "No," I say, lifting Dee into my chair.

  "He lookin' like Malcolm X, Jr."

  "Diana, stop" I run my fingers through his hair. So soft! "Okay, Mr. Dee, I'm going to edge you up, shave the sides, and leave you some curls on top. Is that okay?"

  The boy only blinks.

  "I'll take that as a yes, Mr. Dee" I look at Tee. "Your daddy outside?"

  "Uh-huh," she says, gripping Dee's hand tightly.

  "Why didn't he come in?"

  Tee shrugs. "I dunno"

  I don't like cutting any child's hair without a parent present because, technically, no child owns his or her own hair. Mama and Daddy and Grandma and whoever else have a lock on that child's locks. "Wait here," I say, and I go to the door, stepping out and looking up and down the sidewalk. All I see is a rusty white pickup parked around the corner. "Your daddy have an errand to run?"

  "No," Tee says.

  "Did he just drop you off?"

  "Nuh-uh. He's takin' a nap in the truck"

  I look back at the truck and don't see a head on the driver's side. "A white truck?"

  "Uh-huh"

  I walk toward the truck, feeling strange about creeping up on a man taking a nap. Let sleeping dogs lie, right? I get to the passenger side and look in-

  It's the white man who nearly fell out at Antioch three weeks ago. What the hell is he doing here ... with two mixed kids callin' him "daddy"?

  I want to praise the Lord, but ... Dag, he's taking a nap in a busted-up pick-me-up truck on Vine Street wearing dusty overalls and a white T-shirt at noon on a Monday! Even my people have more pride than that!

  I hold my breath and try to back away quietly, but I step on an empty beer can next to the curb. If Larry were still here, Lord, this street would be clean. Why You had to take away the only man who tried to keep Vine Street clean?

  The man opens one eye, then the other, and sits up, blinking his eyes. "Hello"

  He looks so young with his baby face. What is he, thirty, thirty-five? I can never tell with white folks. "Hello"

  He rubs his eyes. "Musta dozed off." He checks a little black clock taped to the dashboard, and I notice he doesn't wear a wedding ring. "They done already?"

  "Uh, no. Just came out to see what you want done"

  He shrugs. "You see what I done already?" I nod and smile. At least he tried, and, Lord, is his voice country. He definitely from back in the hills. "Do what you gotta do. Is, uh, twenty dollars gonna be enough?"

  "More than enough"

  "Okay." He smiles, and little dimples form in his cheeks. Such a cute baby face!

  "Uh, okay," I say, and I return to Diana's feeling like a giggly school girl who just had a cute boy smile at her for the first time. I breeze over to my station, pick up a hand mirror, and place it in Dee's little hand. "Hold this, Mr. Dee, so you can watch my magic." He takes it but doesn't make faces into it like other children usually do. He just stares at himself with the blankest set of sad eyes. It makes my heart hurt. I blow hairs out of the electric clippers and put on a number three guard instead of the number two, just in case. Don't want to bald him with his daddy lookin' so cute. "Ready?" I say to Dee, but only Tee nods. Talk to one, the other answers.

  When I turn on the clippers near Dee's ear, he tears his hand from Tee, leaps from the chair, and runs out the door. "Not again!" Tee cries, and she follows him out the door. What the hell is going on?

  "You certainly got a way with the boys, Ruth," Diana says.

  I step outside and see both children in the truck, their daddy hugging and holding Dee close. I approach the driver's side, and Dee shrinks away from me. "All I did was turn on the clippers."

  The daddy (I wish I knew his name!) laughs. "Same thing happened when my mama and I tried the other night. Hoped it wouldn't happen here, but .. ." He kisses Dee on the forehead. "It's okay, big guy. I got ya"

  "Uh, Mr...

  "Baxter. Dewey Baxter."

  Dewey? I cannot say that redneck name without laughing. He ain't from the hills-he from back in the holler. "Hi, Mr. Baxter, I'm Ruth, and I can give Dee a haircut with just the scissors." I hold out my hands. "Come to Penny, Dee"

  "Penny?" Dewey says. "I thought you said your name was Ruth"

  "Penny's my nickname." Given to me by a dead man. I reach out to Dee again. If anything, Dee tightens his death grip on Dewey's neck. "I won't use the clippers, promise." No movement. "Just some nice of scissors." That boy ain't movin' for nothin' in this world.

  "I'll bring him in, Daddy," Tee says.

  Dewey holds Dee out from him. "You go with your sister. I'll be right here if you need me"

  "You're more than welcome to come in." Please come in so I can look at your whole body. It ain't every day I see a man my size.

  "Thanks for the offer, uh, Ruth, but I, uh ... I kinda feel out of place." You got that right, Dewey. You might have to walk into Diana's sideways. "I'll, uh, just wait out here"

  "You sure?"

  "I'm sure"

  "Okay."

  I walk back into Diana's. "You scare 'em away?" Diana cracks.

  "No"

  "What's the daddy look like? Is he fine?"

  "He's all right, a little too light-skinned for your tastes" Diana swears by "the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice." If a man don't have a blue shine to his skin, she won't even look at him. She even wants to get a tanning bed for the salon "because black folks around here should be darker than they're gettin' to be." I think she really wants it so she can darken me up, but I'd never get into one of those contraptions. It might only freckle me more.

  Tee leads Dee to the door, Dee's head bowed like he's going to the electric chair. I hold the door, and they walk under my arm to the chair. I hand Dee the mirror, and we begin again. "You both have such pretty hair." I grab a section of Dee's hair and snip. Dee's eyes widen slightly, then return to their dull gaze. I know there's a little boy in there somewhere. "Wish I had me some hair like this."

  "My mama used to say that, too," Tee says.

  Used to? Grab, snip. "She cut y'all's hair?"

  "Uh-huh," Tee says, and even Dee nods.

  I don't want to pry, but ... Hell, I'm in a beauty salon. "She doesn't cut your hair anymore?"

  Tee shakes her head, and so does Dee. Maybe they're twins who share the same thoughts. No, Dee's much shorter.

  "Mama's in heaven," Tee says.

  I stop cutting and let out a long, slow breath. Poor kids! And that's maybe why Dewey visited Antioch that Sunday. I want details, and I see Diana leaning in to hear them; but I don't pry any further. "You must miss her."

  Only Dee nods. Whoa. Tee doesn't miss her own mama?

  "My daddy tried to do our hair like Mama, but he ain't got a clue," Tee says.

  "I don't know," I say, continuing to cut. "He did all right." I smile at Tee. "He pulled your hair back so the world could see your pretty face" They
both have such big eyes and high cheekbones, Lord. You can make Yourself some beautiful people when You want to.

  "Daddy's tryin' real hard, though."

  I even everything as best I can without clippers and put my face next to Dee's as we look in the mirror. "What you think?" Dee shrugs. "You're a handsome little man." I take the mirror and replace it with a sucker, but his eyes don't dance at all. He hops down and sits on a chair in the waiting area, hands together, blinking. He doesn't even open the sucker.

  Tee is already in the chair. "I'm ready, Penny."

  "How short you want it?"

  She reaches a hand to mine. "Short as yours"

  "You like my hair?"

  "I dunno. I like your sprinkles, though"

  My what? "My sprink oh, you like my freckles."

  "Uh-huh. Mama called'em angel kisses. Mama's an angel now, so I hope she kisses me lots." She smiles up at me. "Your mama musta kissed you a lot of times."

  I have to blink a tear back and clear my throat after that. I miss my mama, too. Not as much as I used to. Mama got me through the first ten years, and Grandma saw me through puberty and the next ten; but Mama was so strong, so tough. And the Lord saw fit to give her a weak body. Oh, she was a proud one, though. I remember the day we went into a carpet store to do what Mama called "Dream Shopping." A tall white lady jumped us as soon as we entered and asked, "You here to buy remnants?" My mama went off on her. "Remnants? What, you think cuz we black we only here for remnants? I'm here to carpet a whole damn house!" I had giggled because we were living in the Dixon-Oxford projects then. When the white lady recovered, she led us to the cheapest carpet in the store, but my mama walked over to the Laura Ashley carpet instead. "This what we want," she said, and my mama, to get back at that racist saleslady, ordered a whole house of Laura Ashley carpet ... that we never intended to buy. I wish I was that strong. I mean, I have a strong body. Just wish I had my mama's mind.