Tumbling

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  “Well, why don’t you threaten to kick his ass? You almost did just now when it had to do with me, why don’t you stick up for Liz? She’s the one that really needs it. I can fend for myself.”

  “Fannie, I ain’t saying I don’t care about what happens to Liz. But she would resent the hell outta me, I try something like that. She just never been the daughter to me you have. You can’t force it to be peaches and cream with me and Liz. She never liked me, she acts civil enough, but the feelings just ain’t there. You know, the family-type feelings that she has for you and Noon, it ain’t there for me. I can accept that, Fannie. I just wish you could.”

  “Why ain’t it there, Herbie? She was only a child when she came to stay with us. What she got against you that’s that powerful? What you got against her?”

  Herbie’s jaws sunk in. He held the skin between his teeth. The words were trying to push out, but he couldn’t let them, not even to Fannie. He bit down hard on the skin of his jaw. He wanted to shout, Yes! I know why me and Liz can’t be like family, ’cause every time I look at her, I remember what I lost when Ethel left. Every time my eyes hit her red hair, it reminds me of my shame, fucking Ethel while Liz was asleep in the next room; while Noon was home thinking that the worst I was doing was watching a little ass shaking at Club Royale. Knowing Liz knows it was me on that couch-bed, knowing how scared she must have been when she saw me walk through the door and she burrowed her head in Noon’s bosom, how scared I been all these years that she was going to tell, how I always turned it around, made it seem like Liz was spoiled, selfish.

  Herbie tried to swallow the words, but his throat closed, so he pulled the words between his teeth. He chewed at the inside of his jaw until he was sure the words were ground to a bloody pulp. He tasted his blood; it tasted salty.

  He heard Fannie calling him. “Herbie, you okay? What is it?” Her voice sounded far away, as if suddenly the space between them had obstacles.

  Herbie gulped his gin and swished it around in his mouth. The alcohol burned the rawness and then numbed it. “I’m okay,” he whispered. “Just bit the shit outta my jaw. Don’t worry ’bout me and Liz; like I said, she’s just overly sensitive, spoiled, that’s all.”

  He looked past Fannie through the blue air into the mirrored wall. He could see Willie Mann racking wineglasses, watching Fannie as he worked.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Sunday morning in South Philly was like buttermilk. There was a quiet smoothness to it. The trolley clanged through Lombard Street less often. No chink of glass against concrete mixed with the fast steps of the milkman. Children played quiet games like checkers instead of tag or rope. The smell of frying salt pork floated easy to the tune of “Steal Away to Jesus.”

  Noon hummed in her kitchen as she made quick bread for Fannie and Liz and Herbie to have with their coffee. The Sunday morning kitchen had a quiet smoothness to it too. It was only interrupted by the crunch of coffee beans, as Herbie turned the handle to the grinder, and then the sound of the coffee silt spilling into the tin can. Herbie watched Noon as he ground the beans. Her hands were fast as she beat the lumpy batter with the wooden spoon and then poured the batter into the hot skillet. He tried to grind the coffee quietly. Noon’s humming was so smooth and creamy. The grinding of the coffee beans might remind her how beat down she’d felt lately. Yesterday’s petition drive wasn’t the success she and Jeanie had hoped it would be. That was all she talked about when Herbie got in. Even when he tried to apologize for saying what he said earlier about her having no feelings, she had just waved her hand and went on about how now that the weather broke, people were really starting to waver and considering taking Tom Moore up on his latest offer and how glad she was that they now had Liz’s house as one of the ones that wouldn’t sell, every piece of property helps.

  At least now she wasn’t talking about it. Once the humming stopped, though, he was sure that the next words from her mouth would be about the road: the devil-filled, conniving developers and city planners and politicians, all of them in it together, she would say. Didn’t Fannie warn us? And then she’d go back to Fannie’s vision and how that was proof enough for her. And how reluctant people are to stand up to them. But me and Jeanie, we’re not giving in, she’d say. Right now, though, she was still humming. No song in particular, just a rich, round tune, slow-moving like the morning.

  She reached into her large apron pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. She blew her nose hard. Herbie braced himself and then relaxed when she went back to her rich, round notes.

  She flipped the quick bread. The battered side was cream-colored; the done side was unevenly browned with beige swirls running through it. “Mm,” Noon said, “bread’s looking good. You better start the coffee so both can be hot at the same time.”

  “Getting ready to do just that,” Herbie said to her back.

  He brushed past her to put the percolator on the stove. He sat back down and looked again at Noon’s back. He noticed that she was smaller. The beige dress she was wearing used to show the print of her healthy hips. He had teased her once about the dress and how she better not be switching in front of Reverend Schell in that dress or the devil gonna get her sure nuff. But now all he could see was fabric, even with the apron tied tight around her waist.

  Goddamn highway, he said to himself. Goddamn thing is eating her up. He thought about his argument with Liz last night, how such a thing as Liz selling that house might send her over the edge for real. He rubbed his tongue around in his jaw. It was still tender from the night before. His jaw started to throb. He went over to her as she was turning the cast-iron skillet to tap the quick bread onto a plate. He grabbed her from behind and squeezed her to him. She jumped. The skillet and plate made a crashing sound as they hit the floor. The brown-swirled quick bread was mangled amidst the broken plate.

  “Herbie, look what you made me do,” she said as she wrenched herself hard from his grasp.

  “We’ll have store-bought, it’s no big deal,” he said softly.

  “I had my mouth all set to dunk that in my coffee.”

  “I said we’ll have store-bought, I’ll go around the corner right now, just take me a minute.”

  “Well then, go! The girls will be here directly.”

  Herbie’s response was the front door closing hard.

  “And don’t be sneaking up on me grabbing me from behind no more,” Noon said to the thump of the door. She swept the broken plate and bread into the trash and sat heavily at the kitchen table. Her eyes burned as she fought back tears. “Never did like nobody grabbing me from behind,” she mumbled. She was almost back there, when they’d grabbed her from behind when the sand had held her feet captive and she couldn’t run. She could almost hear their chanting all over again. She banged her fist hard on the kitchen table. Even now, more than twenty-five years later, her body poised for a fight at the very thought. She didn’t even hear Fannie come in.

  When she looked up, Fannie was in front of her smiling, all dressed for church in the mint green suit Noon had made for her with the cream-colored buttons and a matching beige tam pulled to the side. “Morning, Noon,” she said.

  Noon jumped to her feet and wiped at her eyes and pulled Fannie in a tight hug. “How’s my baby this morning?” she said, holding on to Fannie until she could swallow the memory once again.

  “I’m okay, I smell quick bread, but I don’t see it.”

  “Yeah, that bread was so quick it’s gone. Herbie made me drop the skillet. Bread and good plate gone,” Noon said, turning from Fannie to point to where the bread had landed. She wiped at her eyes and fixed her face for smiling.

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean it. He never was the most agile person. He tell you I was with him at Royale last night?”

  “Hasn’t said a word to me. I wish you wouldn’t go in those places, not nice places for good Christian girls like you and Liz.”

  “I mainly went to talk to Herbie; besides, as many devils in church as there.”

  “
Devil’s everywhere, but at least in church you got a good backup.”

  Fannie kissed Noon on the cheek, “God’s got a special place in heaven for you ’cause you are consistent.”

  “That I am.” Noon laughed. “Now where’s my Liz?”

  “Still in bed when I left, said she’ll see us in church, said her stomach was upset, thinks she ate some bad shrimp.”

  “What’s with her, Fannie? She ain’t herself. She don’t look right to me. Like she ready to just jump outta her skin. If she’s not at church, I’m just gonna have to pay Miss Lizzy a visit.”

  “Maybe it’s just the trauma of leaving here. You know that was a big step, Liz been so dependent on you just about all her life, and now here she is this big-time property owner. Takes some getting used to.”

  “Thanks, but no, thanks, Fannie. Now I know you always stuck up for Liz, protected her, but if something’s wrong with her, I need to know.” Noon stared at Fannie, peered at her, squinted her eyes. “You hear me, Fannie, now I’m gonna trust you to tell me if Liz is going through something that she maybe can’t handle by herself, that maybe the two of you can’t even handle.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Fannie said, and then went into the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee.

  Herbie walked back in with a loaf of bread. He had walked slowly, took the long way around, hoping it wouldn’t be just Noon and him when he returned. He was relieved to see Fannie in the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee.

  “Liz didn’t show, huh?” he asked.

  “I was just telling Noon, she has an upset stomach, bad shrimp she thinks.”

  “Tell her I hope she feels better,” Herbie said as he made his way into the kitchen to peck Fannie on the cheek.

  “Or you could tell her yourself. Noon might come by after church, you could come with us.”

  “Don’t think so,” Herbie said curtly. “Went by yesterday and we got to arguing, Fannie, I told you last night, she say anything to you about it yet?”

  “What was you over there fussing with Liz about, Herbie?” Noon asked, shooting her eyes at him with angry flashes.

  “I wasn’t fussing, just went over there to pay the girls a friendly visit. I don’t even know what got her all riled up, you know how damned sensitive she is, can’t say nothing to her.” And then Herbie looked at Fannie, needing confirmation from Fannie’s face that Liz had not told.

  “Well, like I told you,” Fannie said as she heaped sugar into her coffee, “Liz doesn’t feel well, so I haven’t talked to her much this whole week-end.”

  Fannie poured cream into her sugar-laden coffee. She liked it sweet. She liked to have a mass of sugar streaked with coffee at the bottom of her cup. Then she would run her bread through it. Noon used to fix Fannie “children’s coffee” when she was much younger. She’d add a spoon from her own cup into Fannie’s milk. Then she’d add sugar and let Fannie stir it around and dunk her bread in it. Noon and Herbie used to love to watch Fannie drink it. They loved the way her dark eyes shot way open when she got to the bottom of the cup and tasted the sugar. As they both sat watching her now dunk her bread in the bottom of the cup, they beamed and glowed as if she were their baby all over again. Here was the one thing they shared equally, an intense love for Fannie.

  Liz brushed her hair hard. She liked to feel the brush whip at her scalp. It was an old brush, a boar bristle. It was the same brush Ethel had packed in the bag when she’d left Liz on Noon and Herbie’s steps. She quickly smoothed on lipstick and wiped the dust from her gold-framed dresser tray. Already it was eleven. In only two hours Fannie would be back from church, and he’s late again, she thought. She looked out of her bedroom window onto the street below. Three vacant buildings across the street interrupted the beauty of the golden Sunday morning. “Can’t wait till I can get off this block, look how run-down it’s getting, people moving, and no one moving in behind them. Like rats jumping ship. Where the heck is he? He’s only cutting into his time with me, know he got to leave before Fannie gets back.” And then as if he had heard her, Willie Mann’s tall figure quickly turned the corner.

  Liz breathed in deep. The first sight of him always stepped up her heart rate and went straight to her stomach. She ran down the stairs and had the door opened before he reached the steps.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” she said, and then smiled a deep smile lest he think she was angry.

  “I just wanted to make sure the coast was clear, especially after last night.” He walked into the door and kissed her face that she tilted. “Oooh, my pretty redhead,” he said when he pulled his lips from hers and looked at her in her black-on-black negligee, “you don’t know the effect you have on me.” He pulled her toward the steps.

  “No, no,” Liz said. “Let’s come on in the living room and talk first. We used to just talk. Now we rarely do.”

  “That’s ’cause I can’t get enough of you, baby. Now you tell me how I’m supposed to act with you looking like you look. My God!” He spun her around and wet his lips and told himself to settle down. Then he sighed, and looked at his watch, and let Liz pull him into the living room.

  “Now I got to ask you this one more time. For how long did Herbie run around with Ethel before I came into the picture?”

  Willie Mann settled into the couch. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you from the time Ethel settled here until she up and split? Herbie was always hanging around the club like a lapdog with his tongue hanging out of his mouth waiting for her to finish her set. I was a teenager, working stock in the cellar. Soon as she’d leave, he’d leave. After you came to live with Ethel, things got a little cool between them, least as much as I could tell. They were still, you know, getting together, just not as often. Then she left, left you, when I was about eighteen because I had already started working in the main room. I remember you too.”

  Liz grinned and rubbed her hand across her hair. “And what do you remember about me?”

  “That cute crop of red hair,” he said as he ran his fingers up and down her arm. “Everybody would comment on it. Just ain’t common for brown-skinned women like you to have such natural red hair. The prostitutes used to joke about all the money they could save getting hair color touch-ups if they had your hair.”

  Liz laughed and then just stared ahead as images came and went like waves: red silk, white shoe boxes, the smell of new leather, perfumed hugs. Thumping from below as she napped in the room where Ethel would leave her over top of Royale. Ethel’s bedroom, her warmth late at night, and the bed that got too cold and too wide when she could hear Ethel laughing in the living room to the beat of the low-playing record player.

  Willie Mann glanced at his watch. He saw the look on Liz’s face, knew she was way back there, ready for hours-long descriptions about the past. But it was getting late. He needed to get back to the club. His fullness was on him, and it was hard to talk a woman into the cellar on Sundays, especially if Big Carl was playing Mahalia Jackson, and the women were weepy and repentant. He almost hated to, but he began to remind her of how wrong she’d been done, misunderstood by everyone. How Ethel had abandoned her so she could live the free life of a jazz singer. How Noon and Herbie took her in so their favorite, Fannie, could have a playmate, how Noon just gave her the money for the house just to help her win the road war, not for Liz, just for her own victory. How she’d been used by people all her life. Not him, though. He really cared about her. He had even sat across from Fannie last night at a booth at Royale and told her how much he cared. And then Liz cried into his open chest. And after that it was easy to rub her back and work his way around and get her passion stirred.

  They were back at the doorway. He kissed her face. “Perfect timing, baby,” he said. “Church is probably just letting out. So I told you, I want to set up a meeting for you to sign an agreement of sale, and then I got a beauty of a house in West Philly I want you to see. Don’t feel pressured, baby doll, but the sooner you do it, the better price you’ll get on your new house. Pr
operty values in West Philly are going through the ceiling. The ones waiting won’t be able to afford homes much better than the ones they’re leaving.”

  He kissed her again. “Call me at the club later on, baby doll.” He half skipped down the steps and was around the corner before Liz could pull her mind back. What was Fannie doing sharing a booth with him anyhow? she wondered. I thought she hated his guts so much.

  Church was good. They danced and shouted to a frenzy and hollered in sweet release. The women left with eyes shining, lighter footsteps, broader grins. The men were loose, laughing, hoarse, and hungry.

  Noon and Fannie left in a hurry. After the disappointing showing at the petition drive, Noon wasn’t ready for fellowship with those she tagged turncoats. Plus she was anxious to get to Liz. Another Sunday and Liz hadn’t shown up at church. Noon wanted to know why.

  “I’m telling you it was bad shrimp, Noon,” Fannie said as she and Noon walked arm in arm through the golden air to get to Fannie and Liz’s house.

  “You don’t believe that yourself, Fannie. You ought to be ’shamed of yourself even perpetrating such a lie. Now I know people pegged me as half crazy over this road, but I ain’t that far gone to not know when something’s wrong with my children.”

  “Well, we both know Liz has a weak stomach. The least little thing is likely to give her a bout of diarrhea.”

  “I fault that two-bit, call herself a singer, no-count aunt for that,” Noon said as they turned the corner. “The way she left her, just abandoned her the way she did, that’s enough to make anybody’s bowels run for a lifetime.”

  “I don’t think you can totally fault Ethel,” Fannie said, looking at Noon from the corner of her eye. “She at least made sure Liz was well cared for. Look at the money, that’s just an example.”

  Fannie stopped short; she could feel Noon’s arm stiffen against hers. “Okay, Noon, I know you can’t stand to hear a kind word said about the woman, but you got to give her her due.”