Something She Can Feel

by Grace Octavia

  “When your car is broken, you don’t take it to the dry cleaner’s. You don’t take it to the grocery store. No. You take it to the fix-it man. Someone who has experience fixing that particular item.”

  “Yes, pastor,” someone called out, springing to her feet. “Tell it now.”

  “And if you’re really smart, you’ll bypass the fix-it man altogether. Yes, he has experience with that particular item, but he didn’t make it. You realize that if you really want to get that thing fixed the right way—”

  The choir continued to hum and the organist struck another chord to carry my father’s break.

  “If you really want it done right ... you take it to the maker.” He balled his hand into a fist and brought it to his mouth briefly before going on. “And that’s good news. Because if you know that, then you must know that when something is wrong with you. When you’re out searching for help to get back on your feet. When something has come into your life that was so hard that it rocked your very foundation and made you question everything that you thought you were—”

  My eyes filled with tears, I looked up into the section by the door where I’d seen Benji standing the other week. I wanted so hard not to see him there again. Not to find him in a crowd of a million and have him lead me to Dame. I wanted a clean heart. A clean mind. A clean spirit. I prayed and clutched Evan’s hand as I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

  “There’s only one God—your Creator—who can fix that. And, church, I’m so grateful,” he went on as the choir became louder again. “I’m so grateful that our Creator is so merciful. So present. His doors are always open. Mr. Fix-It. The people who made your car. They might all be closed. But God, your Creator, never closes. Never turns away. Never forgets you. God is there in the midst of the storm, waiting to hold your hand and pull you out of the water. And for this, we should forever be grateful.”

  The organist replayed the melody leading to the chorus and we all stood up as one church to sing along. May holding my left hand and Evan holding my right, we sang about how grateful we were to God for life, for stability, for redemption. And I felt every word.

  The air outside was much too cool for it to be a May day in Alabama. While we were in church, the dew was supposed to lift from the grass and the sun was to dry the tips of the trees. But as Evan noted when we got into the car to head to the school for the graduation ceremony, it was nearly chilly. And that was a good thing.

  We let the top on the car down. We wanted to possibly catch the last of good breezes that would surely stop when June came. Riding along, I thought of everything my father said about going to the Maker. About redemption and being grateful for the second chance that God was willing to give. I thought of my father and how many times he’d hurt my mother, and how my brother was now doing the same thing to May and I’d almost done it to Evan. We all seemed so ungrateful for what was standing right in front of us. Like my mother and like May, Evan wasn’t a perfect man. But he loved me. And I had to find a way to love him back. I had to feel for him the way I’d convinced myself I was feeling for Dame.

  “You really think Billie is going to marry Clyde?” Evan asked when we pulled into the parking lot at the school.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I thought if anyone was sure, you’d be sure. You’re always talking about how much they can’t live without each other.”

  “I know,” he agreed. “But sometimes, I think maybe I just want for them what I have with you.”

  I looked at him as we pulled into a spot.

  “What do we have?” I asked, not knowing I’d even had the question in my mind.

  “After twenty-five years you have to ask that?” Evan laughed in disbelief. “Don’t be silly, Journey.”

  “You say twenty-five years like we’re so old. Like this is just it for us. We’re only thirty-three.”

  “This isn’t it?” he said, taking my hand. “Because I thought it was. Just you and me. Growing old on the porch together.” He looked into my eyes playfully.

  “So you don’t ever think that maybe there’s someone else out there for you? Like another life or something.”

  “Damn, girl! Where are these questions coming from?”

  “I don’t know ... I just—Forget it.” I took off my seat belt and got out of the car with Evan.

  “Look,” I went on. “I’m going to the chorus room to get the choir together. I guess I’ll meet you back at the car.”

  Evan walked around the car and took me into his arms.

  “Okay,” he said, kissing me on the forehead and stopping to look into my eyes again.

  “What?” I asked as he just stood there and stared.

  “There’s no one else for me. No other life I want to have. This is it,” he said earnestly.

  “That’s good to know,” I said. “Really good to know.”

  The was no room left in the bleachers on the football field. Not one space. And the grass surrounding the seats that had been set up before the stage for the graduates was covered with people—old and young, in baby strollers and leaning on walkers, men and women, from here and everywhere, waiting to get a glimpse at Black Warrior’s class of 2008. This was how it always was. Homecoming and graduation at Black Warrior pulled people out from all over. Some knew graduates; some didn’t. Some went to Black Warrior; some hadn’t. But they were all there. Packed in like this was the social event of the year. And it had been at one time. And this year, after that million-dollar check, it definitely was. Everyone wanted to claim the alma mater. To finally say how proud they were of Black Warrior. And my kids in the choir, who’d only heard bad things about their school up until all of the attention that came with the check, were beaming as we lined up in the rows to the right of the stage set aside for the choir.

  “All these people here to see the seniors?” Opal asked as she walked past to get to her seat with the sopranos.

  “They sure are,” I said proudly.

  “I hope they come out like this when it’s my turn,” she added.

  When everyone was in position and the graduates had finally marched in to their processional, I led the choir singing “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” and then Mr. Williams gave his opening remarks. Afterward, he invited Evan to the stage to speak on behalf of the school board, and as Evan stood at the podium, I watched and noticed how natural he seemed speaking in front of our community. People listened and bent forward as he thanked—without belittling anyone—the community for working with him to build a better school for our children. He thanked them for supporting him, lifting him up and letting him lead the school. He said he knew this was not easy, as so many others had led them in wrong directions in the past. Listening, I realized I’d forgotten how passionately Evan felt about what he did. This was easy to forget day to day as he tried to climb up the political ladder. Then, he seemed so determined to just be on top of everything that it looked like he didn’t care who was at the bottom. But now, surrounded by our friends and family, I saw a glimpse of the man I knew in my heart he was.

  I looked out into the audience and thought of how lucky I was to have him. How many women out there would be happy to actually have Evan. He was a blessing I was fortunate enough to receive early on in my life and at that moment, I was grateful for it.

  “Now,” Mr. Williams said back up at the podium, “we’ll have the choir sing a song that’s always been sung during the graduation ceremony here at Black Warrior, ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.’ ”

  I got up and turned, raising my hands to signal for the choir to get on their feet. I stood there, looking at them, moving my eyes from face to face, feeling their excitement about what we were about to do. As they must’ve been, I was nervous but equally energized and ready to show everyone our new composition. Smiling at Opal and then Zenobia and then Devin who was leading the tenors and another boy, Trent, whose sister was in the graduating class, I winked to let them know that whether the audience liked it or not, we did and that was all that mattered.<
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  And then, when I was about to gesture for the pianist to begin the music, I lowered my hand. I thought, right then that if I wanted the audience to really hear the beauty of our new arrangement, it should be unaccompanied. Zenobia was right. We should sing it the way we had in the classroom. Just us letting the words vibrate around us.

  I shook my head to the pianist and stepped toward the choir.

  “A cappella,” I whispered. Their eyes widened and then I witnessed smiles curling up on faces sporadically. Zenobia winked back at me and smiled, too.

  “Watch for my hand and then come in just as you did in practice,” I added.

  They straightened up and I could feel the crowd growing restless behind us.

  I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep breath. I opened them, counted to three, and raised my hand in front of my chest to begin conducting the song.

  Nana Jessie used to have this saying. When I came off the altar after singing a solo, she’d pull me to her breasts and whisper in my ear, “Sounds like the flapping of angels’ wings.” And that’s how my students sounded on the first notes. They hit “Swing low, sweet chariot” crisp and clean, so defined and so articulate that I was sure everyone in the whole outdoors could hear them. Standing in front of them, their voices made me quiver through and through and I hardly had to direct. I don’t know if it was the crowd or the occasion, but these young people poked out their chests and stood tall and proud, hitting notes as if they were a professional gospel choir. From stanza to stanza, some looked at me, their eyes alert and clear, as if they too were surprised at how melodious their voices sounded as they met the open air. It was a moment of chance confidence, of reverence to the blood that had no doubt been shed beneath our feet. And suddenly, the reason we sang that song, year after year, for so many years, left me full as they sang:

  If I get there before you do

  Coming for to carry me home

  I’ll cut a hole and pull you through

  Coming for to carry me home

  This wasn’t a song about dying. It was about living. About getting free and starting a new life. Being reborn. Not as a slave to man and his rules. But free of sin and washed clean in the river. They sang:

  If you get there before I do

  Coming for to carry me home

  Tell all my friends I’m coming, too

  Coming for to carry me home

  And I started crying. For our past and the students who’d come through Black Warrior by the river for which the school was named, for which Tuscaloosa was even named—“the Black Warrior” in Choctaw. And out of this place those students, the sons and daughters of slaves, for generations went on to become great. To become what they dared them not to. And then I cried for my students. Who it seemed time had turned its back on. Zenobia and Opal. And the others. Who had endless talent—all of them—but nothing seemed to be tapping into it. They needed a sweet chariot right now. And their voices were calling for it to just swing low to catch them from falling.

  Everyone was silent when the last note was sung and the song had ended. But I wasn’t nervous. I just stood there looking at my children and smiled, not bothering to wipe my tears. I’d performed enough to know what this kind of silence meant. And even with my back turned to the crowd, I knew then that they’d felt what I was feeling. They remembered. And they wanted more. It was like in church when my father signaled for the pianist to keep on going. Play the chorus again. People were fired up and the Spirit was turned loose in the crowd. And if the choir didn’t keep it going, then somebody else, Nana Jessie or one of the other church mothers, would just stand up and start her own song, lead the praise until we were all full.

  And then, as if she was thinking just what I was thinking and had forgotten we were at the high school graduation and not Prophet House, Zenobia just started the song again altogether. Alone. In the sweetest, most peaceful voice I’d ever heard, she sang, with tears in her eyes, “Swing low, sweet chariot.”

  Then I raised my hands and the choir joined in behind her. But what happened next was what moved me the most. I felt sound hit the back of my head, as if it was coming from booming speakers. The audience, I turned to see, was on its feet, singing now, too. The same notes, the same lyrics, the same cadence, as if they’d learned to sing that same song at Black Warrior. Even the graduates and the guests and stakeholders on the stage joined in and we were one choir in praise.

  It was the most touching thing I’d ever experienced at Black Warrior. And when we were done, the crowd cheered the choir on so lovingly that Mr. Williams joked he was putting all of the million dollars the school got into the music department. That would’ve been nice.

  As I walked back to the car to meet Evan to head to my parents’ house for their annual postgraduation barbecue, people stopped me every two steps I took.

  “Great job!”

  “That was amazing!”

  “I hope you get the million dollars for real!”

  “We need more teachers like you!” Everyone had something positive to say in my ear. And I couldn’t help but to remember how nervous I’d been about the new arrangement and singing the song a cappella. If only the one person who’d inspired me to do that could’ve been there.

  “Not too bad, music teacher,” Angie Martin said when I walked past her car. And I insisted I was going to just keep walking as I normally did, but filled with pep, I stopped.

  I tossed my hip to the side and put my hand on my waist like Billie always did when she was about to tell someone off.

  “Well, the way you watch me, you should know,” I said, rolling my eyes and giving her as much cattiness in my one line as I could to make up for the years I’d just walked by. I was tired.

  “Okay,” she said. She dropped her keys and looked completely stunned.

  “And by the way,” I started (I was on a roll), “why don’t you try worrying about your own life—about your own students and what you can do for them—and stop sweating me!” Not bothering to wait for a response. I dropped my hand from my waist and sashayed the rest of the way to the car.

  I was about to drop my purse and hightail it when I saw a certain somebody standing with his back to me between Billie and Evan at the car. It was the silhouette of a body I’d looked at thousands of times as I played babysitter and kept his head from hitting the hard edges of the wooden pews as he toddled around at church.

  “Justin!” I hollered, extending my arms before he could even turn around to see me.

  “Big sister!” He turned and ran toward me, ready to embrace.

  I stood there, locked in my baby brother’s arms for at least a minute before I would let loose. I hadn’t seen him since Christmas when he and my father got into a huge fight after my father asked why he wasn’t married yet and what in the hell was he doing with his life in Atlanta anyway. He was almost accusing Justin of being gay, and for once I just wished he’d come out and say it. Just say it and stop allowing the whispers and secrets to make him lie about who he really was to everyone he knew and loved most. But Justin stormed out, and just as he did almost every holiday, he swore he’d never come back to my father’s house again.

  He looked good. He’d clearly been putting on some weight in his hips, but he looked good. Like a younger and more strikingly handsome version of my father and Jr, Justin had a strong, almost Anglo angle to his jaw line, high cheekbones and a dimple in his chin that made him look like he belonged on a runway in Paris. In fact, when he was a little boy, his features were so pure and almost pretty that everyone thought he was a little girl. My mother, who doted over Justin hopelessly, always connected his handsome genes with her grandfather, a full-blooded Choctaw, who married her white grandmother.

  “Baby brother,” I said, welling up again. “I can’t believe you made it.”

  “You know I had to come home to see the baddest choir in the land!”

  “And they did sound like that today, too,” Billie jumped in, coming over to hug me as well.


  “They were good,” I added. “I was so proud.”

  “You worked hard enough,” Evan said.

  “And then when everyone started singing,” I said, “that was amazing.” I wouldn’t let go of Justin. It was like I was afraid he’d just disappear. I had so much to tell him. So much to share about what had been going on with me.

  “Yeah, Mama was crying,” Justin said.

  “Where are they?” I asked. “Mama and Daddy?”

  “They went back to the house, so they could make sure Ms. Cobb and Fanny had everything laid out like they like it,” Justin answered, referring to the two cooks my mother always hired when we were expecting guests at the house for a barbecue. They knew how to cook, but my mother liked things organized a certain way and my father was pretty particular about his barbecue. He seasoned everything himself the night before and insisted on working the grill. “I told them I’d hitch a ride with you.”

  “I guess we’d better head over there, then,” I said. “I’m starving.”

  “Actually,” Billie said, frowning, “I was coming over to say I wasn’t going to make it over to your parents’. I’m going to Clyde’s family barbecue.”

  “Wait a second, guys.” I excused myself from Evan and Justin and pulled Billie to the side. I couldn’t believe she was obviously still considering marrying Clyde. After the prom, I finally got the nerve to tell her everything Evan said about seeing Ms. Lindsey and Clyde fighting at the mall. This had to matter in her decision.

  “Are you still going to do this?” I asked. “I mean, after everything he’s put you through?”

  “I love him,” she replied.

  “I know you love him, but it’s just not right. He’s not going to change just because he asked you to marry him. He’s still the same Clyde.”

  “And I’m still the same Billie and I don’t know how to love anyone else. So I’m going to take this chance and see what he’s talking about. After all that’s happened, that’s the least I can do.”