by Diane Munier
“I wasn’t ignoring you. You said ignore. I had my reasons. It was just easier.”
“Not for me.”
“You holding it against me?”
“No.” I tried to really be honest and I wasn’t holding it against him. “No.”
He shook his head. “Friends?”
He had always been my friend. My only friend. My best friend. The only one I’d wanted.
“I just,” he said, “I need you right now. Is that okay?”
I wanted him to need me. I needed him. I didn’t like the, ‘right now,’ part, but that was honest. He was too big for Ludicrous, Tennessee. Even if there wasn’t a war, he was too big. I nodded.
He stepped forward, hand on the back of my neck. He pulled me forward to kiss my forehead, but I kept my face up and I was close and we were looking at each other and I smelled the iron but on him it was new.
“All day,” he said, “I thought about the quarry. I don’t know what this is…and there’s no future…absolutely none. But for now…whatever this is…I have to be with you.”
I continued to stare.
“Say it’s okay. Say it’s okay,” he whispered.
It wasn’t okay. It was not okay. But there was no way on this earth I would deny him anything he asked.
“It’s okay,” I said.
He touched his forehead to mine and it was settled.
As my mother lay dying in a nearby room…I plunged all over again into the blue bowl…the cold rush of Danny Boyd.
Finding My Thunder 11
It took Mama two weeks to pass from this life. To be swallowed by life, is how Naomi put it, for that is how the scriptures spoke of death, she said.
Hardest thing I’d ever done, besides holding Mama’s hand while she passed, hardest thing was picking out her casket. I don’t know why it was the worst cause there were several things contending for that place, but it was the worst finding a box for Mama, one that could hold her and her secrets.
Lonnie said there was money for it and then he bolted from the room at the undertakers and left me to decide. Well, I smelled the alcohol. The room had filled with it. I pointed to the cheapest box they had. It didn’t matter now.
Lonnie did not come to see her until that last day and then he was too late and she was already passed but they let us sit with her, me and Naomi, until he came. He went in there and when he saw her he bent over and put his hands on the bed to hold himself up. “Oh God,” he said.
Naomi stayed in her chair. She did not speak or go to him. He wouldn’t have wanted that.
“She had it so hard,” he said, “never could get goin’.”
And I wondered he didn’t try to make it easier then. I wondered so many things but there was no talking amongst the three of us.
The only other ones who came were the ladies from Naomi’s church, coming in a couple of times to pray around Mama, circling the bed, hats and dresses, a flower garden they were around her holding hands while they took turns saying the words and Mama, her eyes closed, a tube running in her now to drain the fluid from her lungs, fluid she needed, the doctor said, and I watched her life run into the vial even while they prayed.
And in the evenings, Danny picking me up outside to take me home so I could shower and change. He didn’t say he would come at five o’clock after that first time. He was always there.
We didn’t talk so much. I sat by him and he sang to me with his arm around and I put my hand over his heart and sometimes my ear. I ran into the house, Lonnie was never there. I fed my sooner and cleaned up and got clothes and before he dropped me off I said, “Thank you, Danny.”
And he said, “You’re welcome,” in such a final way I knew for sure he wasn’t coming back. All night I was with Mama and I said, well why would he come back? I wouldn’t. But the next evening… there he was.
So the day we buried Mama, we stood at the grave, Lonnie and me, Naomi and a group of folks from her flock. They were mine too, my family. Though Lonnie did not look into this, not ever, the life I led…he did not look.
Some back standing off by themselves were Danny and Robert. They came separate but they stood together cause like it or don’t, we were categorized.
So after words from the funeral director we walked away from that box and the ladies did come to me clucking and smoothing over my hair and patting my back and pressing their lips against my cheek and dollars into my hand, too. And Lonnie went off stumbling over the graves, just off so he wouldn’t have to see it.
Naomi said they were going to her house and they would lay out the food in our kitchen and they would go and I should tell Lonnie. So I did tell him, and he nodded, but he didn’t look at her, and she didn’t need it cause I already knew how it was and so did she.
Robert was first to cross over to me. He hugged me and I thanked him for coming and we joked how he’d cleaned up and even wore a tie around his neck. He went up to Lonnie and they shook hands and they talked. Danny came to me then, but Lonnie looked on. I didn’t want him to see how it was so I tried to let the light stay out of my face.
“Thank you for coming, Danny,” I said.
He nodded and he smiled, but his eyes held sorrow for me.
He followed Robert’s lead and shook Lonnie’s hand and Lonnie said there was food at the house and they could eat, then he guessed they’d take the day off but the next day, Friday, they’d try to get something done.
Robert said, “Lonnie…take the weekend at least.”
But Lonnie said, “It don’t make no difference now. Might as well work.”
I looked at Lonnie and I let myself see it, his relief.
“You can ride with me,” Lonnie said to me.
I did not look at Danny, but I wanted him. Just him. I followed Lonnie, for he had not beckoned me his way. Not ever. And I did not know how it would be. But I would shortly.
So I got in his truck and he took off driving but not toward home. It was some miles before he spoke and when he did my ears were listening hard.
“I tried to do right by her,” he said.
My breath pulled in.
“She wasn’t ever right. That one lives behind…you believe her. But Renata was crazy from the get out.”
I felt the hot lead of my disagreement, but I wasn’t about to stop him.
“Her and that one…that old Negro granma you love so much…they been plottin’ day one. Behind my back whisperin’ all the time. She’s afraid of me and she better be that old heifer.”
If I defended her I wouldn’t know what else he was fixing to say, so I stayed quiet. But I felt hate for him and nothing else.
“Truth is she gonna find herself in a fix now. She has no idea. We get home they better be cleared out. You kids can eat…but I ain’t eatin’ their food. It’s a new damn day.”
“What…what are you going to do?” I asked.
“Time I’m through she’ll be runnin’ her black ass out of there. I own the land goes right to her door.”
He reached across me then and flipped open the glove box. He reached in for the bottle there. He pulled the cork out with his teeth and spit that from the window. Then he took a hefty drink, then another and the smell of whiskey fought with the iron.
“Stop the truck,” I said.
“I ain’t stoppin’ out here. You got no say in what happens so you best go along and finish your school. You can work at the shop and be a white girl first time in your life. ”
“Stop the truck,” I said a little louder.
“You hear what I say? ‘Bout actin’ white? Folks ask me about you. You and her always holed up, but I got to be in this community and they ask what you are. You go around all the time with her…with those others…you become that in people’s eyes. It ain’t natural how you and her are…her always touchin’ you. It ain’t right. You gonna work for me you gotta behave like a white girl.”
I did not know rage could close my throat. But he had never come for me before, always for Mama. So this is what she�
�d done…for me. I hadn’t understood. But now I did. Mama was gone and he stepped right up to me.
“You best get used to listenin’. You’re too much like her.”
“She was my mother. But you…I ain’t so sure.”
He slammed the brakes then. “Why you say that?”
I stared at him, at the thick moustache and the lips and the words that came from the lips. I couldn’t get up to his eyes.
“I’m gonna walk,” I said.
Then I reached over and grabbed that flat bottle out of his hand and he yelled, “Hey.”
After I was out I started to walk the way we had come from, back toward town. He still yelled, “Bring my bottle back you little bitch.” But I kept walking and he took off, leaving rubber behind.
I tipped my head back and took a swig of that alcohol and my head about blew off. I coughed, but I liked the burn and the tears it brought, and the coughing, and I did spit, I spat him out. I spat him into the road.
And I walked and walked. My feet hurt and at some point I kicked off my shoes and kept going. The ground was hot so I stayed to the grass where I could and I drained that bottle and threw it away, too.
I ended up at the high school on the edge of our civilization on the football field. “Rah, Rah Danny,” I called out before I fell and rolled onto my back. I looked at the sky, a faded blue canopy shimmering with heat and the sun beat on me and my heart answered. I lifted my hand so I would appear in all that expanse. And it was like magic. I existed.
Some time later I came too, and I was on the ground at the high school, on the field cause I could see the wooden bleachers in the distance. I stared up at the evening sky and I felt the earth under me, against my back. “Mama,” I whispered.
Her spirit was set free, Naomi said.
At the last she breathed so shallow. Sometimes I thought she’d stopped but she’d start again.
I remembered looking over the edge of the cliff at the quarry and seeing Danny in the water. When I leapt, I went to him.
I wondered if death was like that…a big scary leap into something grand, so grand, something like love with Jesus waiting in the center. I wanted to believe that kind of love held her forever...and ever.
Naomi said so. Naomi said it was all love, everything…just love.
And I was holding that thought…when Danny suddenly appeared, standing over me. He still wore his dress pants and his white shirt. He was looking down at me, hands in his pockets.
“Hey,” I tried to whisper but my throat felt sore.
He looked me up and down for a while and looked some more at my face and I didn’t have any pride about it.
He dropped on his knees. I wanted to tell him he’d get grass stains on his pants, but my pink dress was probably ruined already and I wouldn’t ever wear it again anyway. And I felt for where that dress was on my legs and what I was showing for he was still looking the length of me, and it was twisted some and my legs showed naked, and when I reached to right it, he pulled it with me, and straightened it, then seemed to study that he had it right. And he said, “You lost your shoes. Your feet are all dirty.”
So he was on his knees and he dropped to his butt then he lay beside me and let out a big sigh. We were looking up at the sky and it was pretty quiet and dark gray blue and the sound of traffic was far off and the night bugs singing.
“I ain’t ever been alive when she wasn’t,” I said.
He reached some and took my hand and we laid there and held hands between us.
“I been lookin’ for you for hours,” he said.
I counted twenty-one lightening bugs, just there, right above us.
“We have to kill him. Would you help me? Kill Lonnie?” I asked. Odd, when I’d been thinking so hard about love. “He’s such a hateful racist bastard,” I said, and that rage was breaking free some.
Danny laughed like I’d been joking.
“How old were you when your daddy died?” I asked him.
“Two.”
“You remember it?”
“No. Just one thing…tall people saying I was cute and wearing this blue coat.”
“I wish I was too little to know. How’d he die?”
“On the job. Tractor turned over.”
“I’m sorry.”
He laughed again. “Not your fault Grunier.”
“Did she remarry quick?”
“Too quick. Right away. Paul was widowed too. He had Sukey.”
“I didn’t know. So Sukey lost his mother.”
“Yeah. She died having him.”
“Wow,” I whispered.
“Yeah. Wow.” He lifted my hand and played with my fingers. “You know what my Dad’s name was before they changed it?”
I just looked at him.
“Italiano.”
“Danny Italiano,” I whispered. “You look like some dark Italian.”
He laughed again. “You reek of alcohol and you talk like you’re still drunk.”
“I am.”
“You ever been drunk before?”
“No.”
“Hilly, Hilly” he said.
“I took it from Lonnie. He was mad and I got out of the truck and he was yelling for me to bring it back. He didn’t care if I had to walk back from the bottoms…he just wanted his whiskey.”
“Lonnie’s a dick, Hilly. Here you walked all that way. Damn. That’s why I pushed him with the radio. I did it with coaches too. After Paul…I want to see what’s there. So I push a little and…it’s like jarring the table and if the glass is too full…it spills. Then you see the mess…then you know.”
I studied him a bit. He had just let me see the inside of himself. He was more like me than I realized. And our dads…“Paul…is like Lonnie?”
“Similar.”
“I never knew….”
“I was the reminder…you know? If you see the picture, the one Mom kept and gave to me…my real dad is this really dark guy…I mean as dark as Naomi.”
“You’re like him.”
“Paul would go crazy over me keeping my shirt on.”
“You and Sukey lived on those bicycles all summer and you never wore a shirt, it was always in your back pocket.”
He laughed. “It drove him crazy.”
We were quiet for a while.
“She dropped him a kid every year to make up for it. For me.”
I looked at him. “He’s very proud of you. I mean…how could he not be? He was always at your games. What more could he want than…you?”
“You think he was proud? He wanted to be seen. He wanted to make sure everyone knew he hadn’t made a mistake marrying a woman with a kid as dark as me. He’s never been proud of me. Fuck him.”
More quiet and it grew darker.
“He used to hit Mom. I’d get in the way and he’d throw me around. Sukey would join in, he’d try to get Paul off and Paul would smack him, too. Sukey…wasn’t good at anything…and Paul rode him. So I took over…I took over with Sukey…protecting him.”
He looked at me. “Maybe I shouldn’t talk about Sukey?”
“I want to hear,” I said. I took my hand away from him and rolled onto my side and he took my other hand and pulled it onto his chest.
“He had two sons…one too different…one who was just like him…a screw up. I knew what he wanted and I knew it wasn’t going to be Sukey. So I became his son. It was easy for me. All of it. I’d say…I’ll go this far…I’ll do this…and I did it. I was good at it. All of it. And he backed off of Mom…and Sukey…and me. If he got out of line…I was stronger than him. I just got bigger. I dated the girl he wanted…I was lined up for the job he wanted…I even had a scholarship if I wanted it…or a place in the reserves if I didn’t. I saw how it goes. And then I wadded it up and threw it in his face. And he’s ready to bust a vein…or maybe have a heart attack…I can hope.”
More quiet, and I switched hands again, weaving my fingers with his as I rolled on to my back. I pictured him walking a tightrope over the
crowd. They were looking up, waiting for him to slip.
“Were you happy? Working so hard to keep them all…pleased?”
He laughed. “I told you…there was nothing hard about it. Nothing particularly challenging. I’m just dark enough to make them feel like they’re not prejudiced if they accept me, but I’m just white enough to make me somewhat acceptable. I’m the token black guy who’s kind of white. And being good at stuff helped a lot.” He grinned.
“You wouldn’t believe the moms who have come on to me. Teachers. It’s pretty sick.”
He pulled his hand from mine and dug around in his pocket. I heard him strike a match. He passed me a lit cigarette and I took a puff but it heightened the nausea I already felt from the whisky.
“Because you’re dark, or because you’re such a stud, or what? Why would these adults come on to you?” It made me so mad.
“Because I’m still the plantation buck, you know?”
“You really think that’s it?”
“When the same thing keeps happening…you figure it.”
“So…did you take them up on….”
“No. I’ve never done it.”
“You’re…a virgin?”
He laughed. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“I just thought….”
“Thought I was some whore,” he laughed.
“Well you and Tahlila….”
“Go on,” he grinned.
I didn’t have a right to feel so happy. But he’d just made a shitty day better.
“…I just thought…you gave her a promise ring.”
“Yeah. It was that pushing thing…doing the next thing…I kept letting things happen…letting myself go deeper.”
“Didn’t you…love her?”
“Whoa,” he laughed. “Let’s just get personal, Grunier.”
I put my hand over my mouth.
“You’re turning red…so red,” he laughed. He took a last drag of the cigarette then pitched it away and turned to me. “Come ‘ere,” he said, and he pulled me against him.
I was wrapped in his arms. My arms were crossed over my chest. My head rested on his bicep.
“I don’t even like her,” he whispered against my ear. Then he laughed some more and I had to laugh with him.
