Finding My Thunder

by Diane Munier

  “Okay,” I conceded. “I’ve just…I’m pretty much alone, and I haven’t really had friends.”

  He grew sober quickly. “It’s okay. I…like that you’re so innocent.”

  “Not so innocent. I am laying here without a shirt.”

  He laughed again. “You’ve got me now. And I ain’t going anywhere. Especially if you stop time you powerful girl.”

  I wished I could. I wished I had my hand on the big time-clock that only God could operate. If I had my hand there it would always be the summer of nineteen-sixty-seven and Judy would be singing about rainbows forever while I laid in Danny’s arms and learned about the birds and bees.

  Finding My Thunder 20

  Danny and me awoke when my alarm clock went off like Satan ringing a bell right out of the fiery place. Naomi always said the Lord’s Day started on the Saturday night before when church folk needed to be laying out their clothes and taking a bath and getting a good night’s rest to be ready come morning for worship.

  Danny and me had slept on my floor. And we hadn’t slept much, but just enough so we could feel the lack when it was time to rise.

  Well, I had failed to stop time. I was trying to hide my chest while I ran about telling him it was almost time for church and he had to go home. “You don’t have to come to Temple,” I said. “I’ll just go. I don’t expect you to. I don’t want you to go,” I said.

  “Why don’t you want me to go?” he said buckling his belt and looking for his shirt.

  “You won’t be used to it. She doesn’t have any right to say you have to come to church.” His eyes weren’t missing much as I found my robe and stuck my arms in it, wrapping it around me.

  “I said I would go.”

  I grabbed clean clothes for my shower and turned and he was right there.

  “Hey, hey.” He kissed me. “I’m goin’.”

  So after a few more kisses he went downstairs and left and I began to hurry to make myself presentable.

  In the shower as I scrubbed my hair I was humming “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” As I put on my white bra and my bikini underwear I belted out, “…why oh why can’t I?”

  Then I pulled on a long dress I’d sewn myself. It was white with little blue cornflowers all over it. I wore my sandals with it. As for my hair, I brushed through it so it could dry by the time we got to Temple. I wore some lipstick. Pink. I was afraid of the white I’d bought. I didn’t think it worked on me with my skin. I put some blue eye shadow on. Not thick, just a little and rubbed it over my eyelids with my finger hoping I could somehow favor Petula Clark just a little. I sprayed some Heaven Sent on a tissue and wiped both my wrists. That was it.

  I grabbed my bag and ran back to Naomi’s. She was singing hymns while she filled a basket with the millions of things she had to take all the time. I plowed right through, “When the Role is Called Up Yonder,” which reminded me of a big jelly doughnut for some reason, and I said, “I’m gonna wait outside for Danny,” and as I said that he was pulling up.

  I blushed to see him standing outside the car in the light of day looking so handsome I nearly choked and had to cough but I cleared my throat instead and caught myself running to him. So I stopped and just walked. “Hey,” I said. “She’s comin’.”

  He wore a white shirt against his dark neck and wrists and hands, those hands, Lord. The church ladies would die and rise again when they saw him.

  “I don’t get my good mornin’ ?” he said.

  “You already had it,” I sang, then I noticed life in the car and I looked and there was a little dark haired sprite looking back, just the prettiest little thing.

  “I’m Annie,” she said.

  “She…wanted to come,” he said, such a soft look in his very tired eyes.

  “Oh…that’s…I’m glad to meet you, Annie,” I said.

  “You’re Hilly,” she said when I reached my hand to grasp hers, the gentle grip and the chipped pink polish on her nails. “I’m nine,” she told me.

  “Good to know,” I said.

  So we got in the car and I sat on my side in the front seat and smiled at the little girl gone shy now. I hoped she was up for Temple cause it could get pretty wild. “I like your dress,” I told her.

  She smoothed over it a little. Pink cotton with no sleeves and a full skirt. Small embroidered flowers around the neck. “Mama made it,” she said.

  That almost brought tears to my eyes. I didn’t know why. “I like your headband too.”

  It was pink plastic. She made a project of pulling it forward and scraping her glossy short hair back. “You’re pretty,” she whispered.

  Danny laughed and I looked at him and smiled. “Did your brother pay you to say that?”

  She giggled. “No. But he did give me a quarter so I’d be good.”

  We all laughed now and Danny flushed dark.

  Naomi came out then and Danny got out and took her basket and helped her get settled in her car. She finally pulled out and we followed her big blue hat and her shiny bumper all the way to Temple.

  Across the street from Temple was the gas station where the men gathered on a Sunday morning, bottles wrapped in brown paper and passed as they told their stories and laughed. Their hero stood in green uniform, home from basic training hurrying toward the war.

  In Temple, the women spread out amongst the fourteen pews, seven each side of the aisle with the pulpit up front, the old piano and the steps for the choir of nine strong voices. Like Nina Simone. Like Judy. Like Sandy and Grace. Like Aretha and Joni and Janis.

  We filed in the pew and I kept introducing Annie and Danny and Sister Arnet said, “Oh girl he is fine.”

  Well he was fine. So fine. And Annie giggled and she stood between Danny and me and Sister Beatrice was at the piano and she hit all the keys to get it fired, and us fired and the ladies stood and the tambourines came out, and Annie’s eyes were big and wide. And Danny watched until he clapped along with them, with me. And Annie, the chipped pink fingers so sweet, so gentle.

  And the singing…and the harmony…and the feeling…and the soulful wail and praise. I could not be embarrassed. This was my life. They were my world. I was not them. But they were me. I could not explain. I was always alone with them around me, with Naomi, with Mama. Until Danny I had not felt someone of my own someone who plowed through…me.

  And they raised their arms in their flowered dresses in their deep colors and they praised and they danced and the sounds went out the open widows and mixed with the cars and the men and the streets baking in the sun and the hair and the heads and the laughter and the tears.

  Naomi said the best things we ever do are those done with the intention of serving others.

  And I put my arm along the back of the pew behind Annie’s dark head, and I touched Danny’s shoulder and he looked at me, but I did not look at him, not directly, I just touched, I quietly blessed, for that is what he would do when he went to Vietnam he would lay down his life for his country. He would serve. And I was proud. I was so proud. I was so proud.

  But I kept my hand on him, I gripped his shirt, and he looked at me again, but in my mind…in my heart I said to God…I said…spare him and you have me.

  They were all singing surrender. They were all saying, anything, anytime, anywhere.

  But I was not singing that, I was setting terms. They were simple and profound. Leave him alone. Do not touch him and I will be yours, no more resistance, no more hiding. I will serve. I will paint the Temple, I will weed the yard, I will go door to door and work for the Democrats. I will do fund raisers. I will walk in the protest marches. I will babysit more. I will stop smoking. I will stop cursing. I will stop missing Temple. I will get baptized. I will sing in the choir. I will hand out flyers that advertise our services. I will read Scripture. I will not think hateful things about other girls. I will not be sarcastic in my mind. I will have sex with Danny and for that, with all else I’m going to stop doing, you will have to look the other way. But I won’t drink or do
drugs.

  Just don’t touch him. Protect him and bring him home to me. After the parents you gave me I think it’s fair trade. Just let me have Danny. Amen.

  Finding My Thunder 21

  We stayed at Temple after service and helped set up lunch. Annie put salt and pepper shakers on the five tables. She made a friend with one of Sister Beatrice’s daughters. They were soon running around playing tag and getting underfoot. Danny sliced the ham as our only other man was in Vietnam.

  We ate an ample lunch and he told them, when asked, about his number, that it was low and he planned to enlist and they didn’t judge that at all, they were proud right off and they let him know and pretty soon they were giving him an envelope, and he asked me, what’s this? And I knew it was money, a collection they’d taken quiet to show him their support. I knew it was rarely over fourteen dollars because they would give what they had, the widow’s mite, they would give until it hurt because it hurt them more not to give. And I thanked them, made sure I kissed each one, not because he needed it, their kindness, but I did, I always had.

  And they took their time hugging me, patting me, asking me if I was alright and with them I was even as I held back…and in…but today, right now, I was hugging them back, I was taking a step. It was a new day.

  We were soon driving home. We all three sat in front. Annie in between. Danny and me smiled at one another over her head. He tried to resist the envelope but he caught on quick once he looked at me and I told him with my eyes to take it and say thank you.

  When I could reach him I’d whispered what Naomi had often said, “Sometimes you are the one God picks to be helped so others can feel the blessing of giving.”

  And he’d surrendered and put the envelope in his shirt pocket, white on white over his heart but inside, the color, the green and silver. The soul.

  I ran my hand through Annie’s silky hair. She examined the blue on my eyelids, and smelled my wrists and asked to try on my sandals, my bangle bracelet, my birthstone ring.

  She wanted to know how long it had taken me to grow my hair so long, and she told me she would never cut her hair again, until it was long as mine. She wanted to know if she could go back to Temple. And was I in love with Danny?

  “Annie,” Danny said.

  “I know. I won’t tell. But are you getting married?” She asked either one of us. She just wanted information. At first we were silent, then we laughed.

  “We’re too young,” he told her and he smiled at me.

  “Yeah,” I said slowly.

  “I want you for my sister,” Annie said fast and self-consciously to me wearing a silly grin.

  “Well, we can be friends. That might be better since you already have so many siblings. Me, I’m an only child,” I said.

  “Do you have books?” she asked one ear all the way on her shoulder.

  I cleared my throat and said quickly, “Nancy Drew.”

  “Really?” she squealed, a desperate look on her face. “I’ve read eleven and sixteen and I want to go back and start at the beginning but I have to babysit and Mama won’t let me walk to the library.”

  “She will too,” Danny said.

  “Nu-uh,” Annie said.

  “I have one through seventeen, but after that it’s to the library,” I said sheepishly, not used to being the girl who had anything anyone wanted…not until Danny and now his little sister.

  Annie was squealing again and grabbing onto my arm as she bounced between us.

  “That’s it. You’re going home first.”

  “But I want to borrow a book,” she pled.

  “I’ll bring it home. I promise,” he said.

  She clung to me now, her bottom lip jutting out.

  “If you want to come again you have to be good,” he said softly.

  She reluctantly complied when we dropped her off. He let her out on his side not wishing to flaunt me in the neighborhood, especially at his house with so many eyes. She kissed my cheek and got out quick. I felt the imprint of her soft little lips and put my fingers there.

  After Danny got in we pulled down the street some. We were holding hands on the seat where no one could see. It was warm there from Annie. I had just thanked him for being so patient and kind at Temple and he told me he liked it. And we were laughing over something Beatrice said when I saw it, Lonnie’s truck in front of my house piled high with gypsy wares. I could barely grasp it but I knew what it was. He was moving them in.

  “Stop, stop, stop,” I said.

  He stopped in the street and looked at me then where I’m focused.

  “What is that?” he said, meaning the piled truck.

  “His…new family,” I said.

  “You mean it?” he asked, ready to be told I joked.

  I nodded but I didn’t look at him. I stared at Lonnie buzzing around his truck as he untied the rope that bound the prize. His eagerness showed in his step, in his laugh with the teenaged boy who waited to help.

  “So you knew about this?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “This is why you threw the bottle.”

  I nodded but I couldn’t look away. Lonnie had the rope off and he hopped onto the tailgate. Hopped, he was that eager and newly young. He grabbed one of the mattresses and pulled it toward him and the boy grabbed on and you could tell they were laughing together now, no cursing, no screaming.

  Danny tightened his grip on my hand.

  “Can we just sit here a minute and watch?”

  “Sure, baby,” he said low, “but…are you sure? You don’t want to go up there and stop him?”

  I smiled as I watched the two work together to get the mattress off. Then they were hauling it through the gate and up the steps.

  “Where’s Sooner?” Danny said now watching as avidly as me.

  “She’ll stay under the porch. She’s smart that way.”

  “Is the dogfood on the porch? The kids will see it. They’ll say, oh you’ve got a dog,” he warned cause he was like Dr. Spock or something.

  “Yeah.” I barely moved my lips to answer him. I saw the woman now, wearing short-shorts, hotpants, dressed naked, looking into the bed, reaching in and lifting a pressure cooker out. Lonnie came out now. He touched her waist, he kissed her and they laughed.

  She was Loreena. I’d seen her before but I hadn’t looked like I did now. He’d said there was a woman who could help him.

  A little girl…upset about something, stomped her foot. About Dickens’ age. Loreena listened and soothed and went back in the house with her. The boy was out now…he was helping Lonnie with the next mattress.

  “It’s Ozzie and fucking Harriet,” I whispered, then I remembered I was giving up cursing and I’d just said the big one. I told God I was sorry real quick, but then I thought that I was mad at him for this and I wondered if him and me could ever really be friends.

  “Hilly…what are you going to do? Fuck him. Go live with Naomi.”

  I cleared my throat. “That’s a…what he wants. He asked me to move in with her.”

  Danny took his hand away from mine and punched it into his palm. “I swear just say the word and I’m going to rip his damn head off.”

  “No you’re not. You have to work for him. So just calm down.”

  He was grinding his fist into his palm, working his jaw and staring at the scene with me.

  “He’s the biggest asshole in the world. He doesn’t deserve you. You’re so much better than him. He’s trash. He’s trash to the bone.”

  “Naomi says we first dehumanize those we chose to oppress.”

  “What? Speak English.”

  “You’re dehumanizing him. It’s dangerous. He’s my father and your boss. Looks like he’s about to tie the knot again because the neighbors won’t tolerate someone living in sin. Guess he thinks he’s Richard Burton and she’s Liz.”

  “Will you stop talking like that? You sound dead.”

  “No such luck,” I said.

  “Oh that’s great. You wish you we
re dead now?”

  I sighed. His dark eyes were too much. “No.”

  “Well don’t talk like that.”

  “I was joking. Using humor to deflect the awkwardness of watching my father adopt a new family after knowing years of his rejection.”

  “I swear you scare me,” he said pulling me over to him even though we were on the street in broad daylight.

  I was so tired I could barely respond. I knew he was, too. We’d barely slept for days now. Well, the whole time in the hospital. I was tired beyond belief.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked me, his arm around me tight.

  “Just…take a nap. On Naomi’s couch. I can just walk.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  He took me to Naomi’s. She wasn’t home yet. “I’m going to sleep. I guess I’ll talk to you later?”

  “Where will you be later?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

  “Well…I’ll find you,” he said.

  “Danny…everything I own is in my room. And all of Mama’s stuff. I haven’t even had a chance to go through her things.”

  “I know baby. You just go in Naomi’s and go to sleep.”

  “I want to. But…I don’t know if I can. But I will.” I got out then.

  “You want me to come sit with you?”

  “No. Go on home. We’ll talk later?”

  “We will,” he said.

  I slowly walked onto Naomi’s porch and he was waiting for me to go in and I was waiting for him to leave. “Bye,” I called and waved. He took the hint but I could see he was perplexed. He backed out and went slowly down the alley.

  And I picked up my long dress and ran for Mama’s house.

  I went in the back door. Boxes cluttered the kitchen. The pressure cooker sat on the floor and I nearly tripped on it. The woman, Loreena, was coming in the front door laughing, her arms filled with bedding.

  I was standing there in the entry hall.

  “Hello,” she said. I kept looking at her.

  Then over her shoulder she called, “Lonnie,” but she kept her eyes on me.