Gumbo

by E. Lynn Harris

  I let a song go out of my heart

  believe me, darlin, when I say

  I won't know sweet music,

  until you return someday

  The music of open air is waiting. The Blues has done its sliding, the bebop's been straight and never narrow, and still here's that yearning, like the song were so many grapes to be plucked, and rolled around in the mouth like a lover's tongue. Driving from gig to gig, all fixed life loses itself for want of that fresh new groove. Everyone wants the sound we haven't heard yet. Since we were children we wanted that song to fit in somewhere between the first jumble of quarter-note and half-rest and the last few miles before the gig; measure after measure of notes. And that sound is taunting, take me in.

  . . . child, take me in, roll me in your mouth, under your hands; pull me from blank space and empty air and make me beautiful: love me. Begin the Beguine. I am a Love Supreme. I am the song you've always wanted, so love me.

  It is hours before the Rossonian. Night has already covered Missouri. The wind and snow are dropping off, and it's near dusk in Colorado. Sun so low it lays sideways into the frost on the windows. The Rockies are all but gone, last light like a wick on Pike's Peak.

  There is no company but the crackle of prairie air across radio waves and a worry of what Denver holds in store: an old town, maybe a new night; fresh start, worn body; maybe a different crowd or the same women in different dresses, the men in their one good suit. Another night of promises never spoken. To the body: please, no more, no more up and down the road and in and out of the blues; to the people: tonight, on this one night, we truly are glad to be here; to whoever was left last night, you know I'm working all this for you, baby; to the nameless body at the end of this night, you know I'm working all this for you, baby; to the bottle, you know I'm working all this for you; to the smack, the junk, the horse, the krik-krak monkey, five-and-dime-sho'-nuff-right-on-time feeling, you know I'm working all this for you; the horn, the strings, to the drums, those piano keys, and the run that's coming tonight, it's gonna be tonight, it's gotta be tonight, because it needed to be tonight for the past five years, you know I'm working all this for you.

  It takes the heart all day to find its beat for the big night. Soon as the gear is packed out of the Colorado Springs club—even though there's a night to be had in the Springs—the hands start twitching with want for the next night. Where's that song? Waiting on a song to come: For all of the sound in the world, Colorado Springs the night before the Rossonian is a world of too much quiet. Soon it will be provin' time. Hands, be still.

  Heart, be loud.

  Denver will rise out of the plain. The road will soon pull the band down Colorado Boulevard, past homes where maids and yardmen work toward tonight. “Begin the Beguine.”

  The streets will rush toward Five Points, a turn into the alley, the rise of stairs to stage door from the cobblestones. An open door, and a taste of Rossonian air. Breathe once, let out the long road coming. Wait a moment. No breathing, in or out. The quiet room. Step to the empty stand.

  Imagine walls lit from the floor. Imagine arched alcoves vaulting into a dome the color of any night full of lovers. Night in Tunisia. Imagine calls of the ancients, taking their rest above the balcony. Hear the drums, the voices. Somewhere voices call across grasslands. Imagine a room with doors all directions, not just North. Now inhale, take in the thick, dark air of from here to who knows what's next.

  In one of those long-mile hours they wondered, Why this long trip? Why have we gone all this way to have so little? We have come this far, through many beginnings and endings, and rebirths, to this: No more to show than we did before we began. We been down this road, but what of this long life and no voice?

  We wonder as we wander, and maybe we make it big at the end of this moment we've been driving to. If we don't make it, we'll steal away until we do, and if we do, we'll be playing for the money and the name, but someday, somewhere down this road, or the road to L.A. or the road to New York, somebody's going to say boy, you got to use the back door; boy, smile that big-lip grin for the camera; boy, you real lucky to get even ten percent of the take at the door . . .

  Then we remember why the call and response dies a bit each day. When that happens, will we look out to the flat, barren horizon, still voiceless like now, still driving to that next chance and cry, what craziness brought us here?

  But anybody who's played up and down these roads will tell you that something touched sent them flowing, somebody spoke to them, dipped them in call and response.

  It could have been Basie, or Big Joe Turner, shouting the Blues down Vine Street, Kansas City Blues swung in a low key, Black and Tan Fantasy, or havin' it bad and that ain't being good, but it didn't have to be. The sound that says play me came before mouth to mouthpiece or stick to high-hat.

  It was Momma singing “Get Away Jordan” in the backyard or it was a frontroom evening full of her momma's stories.

  It was Daddy's comin' home whistle and Sunday-stroll scrape of wingtips on porch steps.

  It was the late-night laughter of an uncle back home from Up South, on the road, looking for one night's meal and one good year of work.

  It was a grade school teacher, short on smiles, long on the blackboard screech and scratch sharp through the chalk haze and radiator knock.

  It was the wind-heavy sigh before summer storms.

  The early-evening call of the icee-man in mid-July, a joyful echo gone too soon after childhood.

  A reverend at an all-Sunday service full of Tennessee heat. Every spiritual almost forgotten. Every low bellow. Each high wail of every elder come and gone. It was somebody testifyin'. Like a whole tentful of folks bearing witness in the middle of some South Carolina field.

  Getting ready to take the stand, one of these musicians will tingle with a remembrance of childhood and fantasy afternoons. And of long Sundays. The Rossonian audience will remember Sundays, too. Right then, before the blowing begins, something mighty spiritual will happen. Come Sunday. Whether it's song or sermon, or both being the same, the people will come from the offices, the factories, the markets, and the fields, where song and sermon were born. All will remember how that reverend had it together: everybody's story in one Sunday afternoon.

  And that remembrance feels like taking the stand.

  It will be hot like the August of '23, only elders speak of that. The congregation has waited all day for the sermon. Men's Sunday-white collars ringed with sweat; talcum women, dust above their bosoms gone in that first hour, when the organist broke into “Old Landmark.”

  Children have dozed, stirred, and fallen off again to the heat of high summer. Tithe plate's been passed around enough so that everybody's given, even the one deacon who's passed more plates than he ever helped fill. The choir's turned itself out, rising from “In the Upper Room” to “He Saved My Soul,” and now, after the sun has pushed its dust-heavy beams from the back of the church to the front, they are tired. Everybody's tired. Been tired since before last Sunday. Since before the church was built, burnt, and rebuilt. Before runaway prayer-meetings. Before men came with Bible and whip. Been tired.

  The Rossonian audience will be waiting. The band will soon be giving in to that next moment of happening. It's like that for the reverend, too, and as he steps to the stand, afternoon sun angles through the transoms, shafts of light burning on his lectern like a signal fire. He walks with the step of wise griot women. His brow is furrowed, his blood is quick. He smiles at young ones and nods to the elders. And then starts in with my brothers and sisters, we come too far to stop singin now . . .

  This is when stories mix: traveling band from far away taking the stand, hard working people stepping out to be graced with music, and the air of that room, many times graced itself. This could be Zion Baptist or the Minton, back in Kansas City. There's something to be heard. The Word will be played. This is the language many know but few can speak.

  . . . a Love Supreme, a Love Supreme, a Love Supreme, a Love Sup
reme, a Love Supreme, a Love Supreme, a Love Supreme, a Love Supreme . . .

  Soon it will be time for you to take the stand. Time's come to blow, that's the real time, when the lights lose their glare, faces in the crowd spring from smoke-dark into the footlights; the band is in the groove, sho' nuff, but they sound mono while the jam that's buzzing in your head is all stereo. Hi-fi. Good-to-the-wood, down-to-the-wax groove. And you heard it from way off, like back into the bridge of the second song in the first set, when Cherokee was busted out like anybody who's somebody from Kansas City would swing it.

  From way off, you wanted that groove, you heard the jam coming, like before anybody took the stand, before the Lincoln pulled to Rossonian stage door, open like any drumming circle in a Congo square, sanctuary from all roads long and tired, from the long way North and the width of the Midwest.

  By the time you feel it, the jam has been at work from way back, music back to your momma, when hand slap and down beat filled Southern evenings, drums or weary blues cotton-picking song, rising into the heat-faded poplar and pollen heavy pine that divided plantations; still further, on the slow spine of the Blue Ridge or rippling above turtle wake in some South Carolina swamp, where many had run and few masters were greedy enough to follow. Back then and there, you might have heard drums and song drifting from the swamps and thickets, places unlivable, but more livable than living chained with iron, with the bloody knuckle from cotton husk, with a new God and His words, with a hard-handed owner called silence.

  To get here from there remember the songs of elders now gone. Take Duke's hand through the Money Jungle. Steal Away, steal away, follow Harriet Tubman from the swamp, from prayer meetings, from memories of taballo and kalimba chime, follow Sojourner Truth on the railroad that runs only North and West, catch the train, it's Underground, it's straight ahead, the A train, Coltrane's Blue Train, it's the only train, follow the drinking gourd, follow the drinking gourd.

  And from there to here came the groove that fills your head. A sound coming like the answer that knows it needs no reason to be, no story is needed, no event, no particular year. Just the knowledge call that somebody may be out there, just beyond where you begin to hear your song drift past hearing, out to where there's a brother or a sister in the audience, down the block, in the next state, on that next plantation plot; maybe nobody you love, but somebody who came from where your people came from, and with just an utterance there may be an answer back, like any right-on, praise-the-lord-pass-the-peas, I-heard-that, call-and-response, because out there, they know that yes,

  This voice comes from somebody, and it tells the story of who I am, who my people are, day-by-day, and no matter joy or the weary blues, I will lift my sound to the evening air—across tired miles, across rivers I've known, across the sea I never knew could bring so much dark to light, across the bones of my elders—because I know that somebody out there will hear it, nod their head, answer back, knowing the same pain, the same Middle Passage, many other passages from then to now, and can know a great many things, but only need know that this is a voice, it is blowing to the world, it is bold, it is strong, it knows no yoke, no money, no god, but knows a way. It is my language. It is the story. It pushes against the hard morning of yet another day, and it is mine. It is mine.

  Helter Skelter

  BY MARITA GOLDEN

  Miss me?” You issue the blunt question that is also a command each time you see the boy. He nods his head, moving it up and down, up and down. Too fast. Automatic. Like a tic or a reflex. Does he really miss you? It's a simple question. Juwan's response makes you feel like shit. Though it's the end of October, there's still only a hint of fall but Bunny's made him wear a thick parka, a turtleneck sweater and corduroy pants. Strapped into the passenger side front seat, the safety belt holding him in place, the boy is staring at you, deep eyes aglow with an innocence you wonder if you ever knew.

  There's no escape from the wide, round brown eyes, the lashes thick and lush as fur. No escape once the boy turns those eyes on you. You study the shapely head and the frail, almost feminine face that lives behind a veil of something secret and unreachable to you. As if at any moment, with the slightest pressure, the boy will break. Ten years old and no sign yet of the gritty toughness he should have by now. After all he is your son.

  You have picked him up at school as a weekday surprise. You wanted it to be just you and the boy. He has broken your heart. But who and what hasn't? You don't know how you are breathing, how you stand, wake up or sleep, swimming as you do every moment through the wreckage you have wrought. Trying to resist the pull of the undertow.

  He is a quiet boy. This always unnerves you. Infects you with a guilt that is old and punishing and all-purpose. Last weekend you skipped seeing the kids. The undertow got you. Dragged you, no sucked you into a murderous whirlpool. Ate your black ass for breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. You stayed in the house all weekend. At the kitchen table. Smoking. Cleaning your guns.

  On the way to the movies, Juwan asks if he can turn to another radio station. You've got it on smooth jazz. When he asks this, you remember the radio fights in this car with Bunny (“God, I hate that jazz muzak, it's like a drug”). She always wants to listen to people talking, talking, on NPR, and the kids, begging you to turn to a station that plays hip hop or rap. “Sure,” you tell the boy, the sound of those jovial arguments a snarled tape on fast forward behind a locked door in your mind. On those rare Saturday or Sundays, you were all driving together, you solved the sparring by giving everybody ten minutes on their station of choice. The girls sitting in the backseat, their high-pitched, quivering voices singing along with Aaliyah:

  Rock the boat

  Rock the boat

  Work the middle

  Work the middle

  Change Positions

  Change Positions

  snapping their fingers, twisting and squirming in their seats imitating the now-dead singer's video moves.

  DMX blasts through the speakers and the song—profane, apocalyptic, thunderous—is the beat of everything you feel inside. But beside you Juwan is moving his head to the sounds so you let it go. Let it slide.

  When the song ends and the commercials come on Juwan asks, “You feel better, Dad? Mom said last week you were sick.”

  “Yeah, I'm better now,” you lie. The lie opens you up and you ask about the twins. Juwan squinches up his face, takes a deep breath and then launches into a catalogue of the girls' recent offenses and punishments. You don't like this about the boy, the way he savors being a tattle tale. Roslyn was caught playing with matches in the basement.

  Mom told her no video games and no T.V. But she could still do gymnastics because of the competition next week. She couldn't let down the team. And she made her apologize to Gramma for almost burning the house down.

  Juwan is rarely punished. You wonder if he has any imagination at all. You've seen their sibling rivalry. You know kids are cruel, mean little bastards but “Burn down the house,” you yell, almost side swiping a car at the thought.

  Juwan purses his lips, eyes gleaming with a hard, mischievous glow. “Some magazines caught fire. Roslyn threw a lit match on them to see what would happen. That's when Roseanne ran upstairs and Mom came down and stomped on the fire and put it out.”

  He likes to make things up. Always exaggerating. You can hardly trust anything he tells you. It would be okay if he just lied in those stories he writes. That's what storytelling is, a pack of lies. His teacher, Miss Harley, had him transferred to the Gifted and Talented program in part because of his essays and poems and stories. But he's got to learn that you don't lie all the time. And you just told him you were feeling fine.

  At the mall you park close to the theater. It's a new mall, built like a small town with brick sidewalks and old-fashioned streetlights and a nostalgic atmosphere to make it easier for you to open your wallet. At Juwan's insistence, you stop at the bookstore. He rushes through the doors straight back to the children's section, that's designed like a
n indoor playground. You stand in the front of the store, trying to catch your breath. It's one of the chains where they sell coffee, cookies, cards, cups, CD's, calendars, why not condoms too you wonder? It's like a cathedral, and you recall how big churches convince you they got nothing to do with God and how the Smithsonian, the times you went there with Bunny and the kids, made you hate culture, made you glad that you watch the X-Files and had seen A Few Good Men sixteen times.

  You wander to the back of the store and find Juwan and he's got an armful of books. He's just like you in this. If you come into a store, you already know what you want. You find it and get the hell out. He's holding books about dinosaurs and two Harry Potter books and one called Bud, Not Buddy. You'll have to use your plastic.

  “Pleeeeeze?” he whines.

  You're proud that he reads, that he's an honor roll, Gifted and Talented kid. But you also know that nobody likes a kid who's too smart. Because books send another message too. You think you're better. Too good to shoot some hoops with us. Too good to hang out. You heard Bunny tell him one day, “Books are bridges to people and experiences. You're never lonely with a book.” You'd wanted to tell Juwan books can also be walls and to ask him, “What's in those books anyway? What are you hiding from?”

  But you leave the store carrying a bag full of books. You walk across the street to the theater. The movie is Shrek. It's slick, animated, and rated PG, but the inside jokes and smart humor are for you. Although he downed a Coke and shared a tub of buttered popcorn with you, as you leave the theater Juwan announces, “I'm hungry.” It is now dusk and will soon be dark. It's a school night. Bunny will raise hell, you getting him back so late. But he's your kid and he wants to go to McDonald's. As a cop you ate so much of that crap you should own stock in the company, so you take him instead to TGI Friday's, a few steps from the theater. And over dinner as he munches his fries and wolfs down the cheeseburger, Juwan tells you he's thinking about being an animator when he grows up, so he can make movies like Shrek. He wants to work for Disney and already knows how much money animators make, how many hours the cartoonists spent drawing the figures in the film.