The Waking

by H. M. Mann

  While I’m pushing these two kids, I see a white man and a little brown-skinned boy down by a creek skipping stones. “You know who that is?” I ask one of the little boys I’m pushing.

  “Oh, that’s Tae.”

  “Is that his daddy with him?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The man and the boy seem totally lost in their own little world. He crouches beside Tae and shows him how to toss the rock so it will skip. And when it does, he claps for his boy.

  “They’ll wear you out, Manny,” Jeff says behind me.

  I turn, and he hands me a cold can of soda. “Thanks.” I hold the can up to my forehead.

  “Come on. Show’s startin’. You’re gonna like this cuz these boys can sing.”

  I give the pinwheel to the little boy on the swing, wave goodbye to the kids on the playground, and they pout. Jeff calls for them to follow, and they leap off the swings, tagging along behind us. We join just about everyone else on the basketball court in front of the little soundstage.

  “Are they part of the choir?” I ask Jeff.

  “Nah. They just sing different places, and everybody here is related to them in some way or other.”

  I watch five finely dressed black men doing a sound check, tapping mikes, saying, “Test … test.”

  “If we can just get them out of Roanoke,” Jeff says, “the whole world will know about them. They’re better than most of the groups you hear on the radio.”

  And they are. Blending perfectly-matched voices in five-part harmony, they sing some R&B, some be-bop, even a little old-school rap before breaking into a capella Gospel that has the crowd raising its hands to heaven and singing or humming along.

  One song gets to me, though. It’s like they’re singing my life story:

  Learn to walk on,

  a lot in the way.

  He didn’t know which way to go,

  so he stumbled and fell.

  On his knees he looked above

  and saw the stars shining bright.

  He said, “Oh Father, I need Your Love

  if I’m to see another night.”

  Sometimes I fall short.

  That’s why I need You by my side.

  You see the gift You gave to me,

  I give it back to You.

  If I make it through another day,

  I owe it all to You.

  It once was dark,

  but now the light is shining through.

  The fog is gone,

  the night is there.

  I fall on my knees,

  and I pray.

  If you need a shoulder to cry on,

  I’ll be right by your side.

  I have faith in Him

  because I know He will provide.

  When you feel alone

  just walk inside His steps,

  cuz when you see just one set

  it means you’re not alone.

  That’s some powerful music.

  Yeah.

  If you ain’t crying by now …I don’t see no tears, Manny.

  They’re inside. I’m too happy to let it show.

  I feel you, man. I feel you.

  The song ends with the Lord’s Prayer, and everyone in the crowd whispers it.

  I feel that, too.

  “Having a good time?” Jeff asks.

  “Yeah. I’ve never been to one of these.” Though I plan to reunite with my family in Mobile as soon as I can.

  Jeff hands me a reunion T-shirt. “You’re in the family now. We adopted you.”

  I put it on over my shirt, and it hangs on me a bit. “It’s a little big.”

  “Cuz we is a big family!” Jeff jokes. “Eat you some hot smokes, Manny, fill that shirt up.” He pats my stomach. “Boy, ain’t you had nothin’ to eat today?”

  I want to tell him I’ve been eating life all day, but he already looks funny at me as it is. “Where are them hot smokes?” I ask, and Jeff leads me to them, my new Virginia family parting like waves around me.

  Part V: The Way Home

  22: By truck, Roanoke to Pittsburgh

  I barely sleep at all back at the house once the party winds down well after midnight, and I snooze through the first part of the trip on a gloriously sunny day.

  “Welcome to West by-God Virginia!” wakes me up.

  “Huh?”

  “We’re in West Virginia, cuz,” Jeff says.

  I look out the window and see mountains all around me, some shrouded in fog, others gleaming bright green. “Looks kind of like Virginia.”

  “Yeah, not much difference. The people are different, though.”

  I doubt that. People are people wherever you go.

  Amen to that.

  I pick up Granddaddy’s Dirt and try to block Jeff out, not that what he says isn’t interesting, but that the book takes off in a hurry in the first chapter. And then I get lost in the book while Jeff fusses about more construction, speeders, and his girl, Melanie, who didn’t show up for the reunion.

  I fly through the book, which talks about sins of the past and a big flood in Georgia. So many die, yet folks survive. I become Kyle Scales, who has to deal with so much in such a short time. How can he even function as a man?

  You’re functioning.

  Yeah, but …

  You’re surviving.

  Yeah. I guess I am.

  I re-read one part near the end over and over as we cross the Pennsylvania state line. At a service after the flood, the Reverend says:

  There may be someone here today living in the sins of their ancestors. This can be the day to look back upon history and tell yourself, “That’s the day it ended.” That’s the day I grabbed Satan by the throat and cast him out of my bloodline.

  This is the day it ends. This is the day my life begins again. This is the day I use the strength of my ancestors and grab life by the throat. Today. Today, I get to begin.

  I race through the rest of the book, reading Chapter 35, the last chapter titled “While on the Way Back Home,” before we hit Allegheny County, and I hope to God that the last paragraph is prophetic for me:

  Kyle and his fiancée, Camilla, would learn all too well this road home. And so would their children’s children, who were all destined for prosperity.

  I close the book. “You finished it?” Jeff asks.

  “Yeah. It was … intense.”

  “I don’t read much.” He looks up at a sign. “I usually take Two-seventy-nine into Pittsburgh.”

  The Fort Pitt tunnel might still be closed.

  How do you know?

  Trust me.

  And where were you when I was reading?

  I was reading, too. I can read, you know.

  Sorry.

  “Where do you have to go?” I ask.

  He looks at a clipboard. “The Carnegie Science Center.”

  “Yeah?” I smile. “That’s right next to Heinz Field. What are you hauling?”

  Jeff shrugs. “Got me.”

  “Well, stay on Seventy-nine. I know a back way with less traffic.”

  Jeff nods. “That’s why I brought you.”

  I direct him to get off on Ohio River Boulevard, and we re-trace my route past the McKees Rocks Bridge. When we get to a stoplight at the bridge, I can’t stop blinking. I jumped from there? I could have been killed!

  But you weren’t.

  I had to have been out of my mind.

  Crazy makes sense sometimes, right?

  Right. Um, I know you’re some part of me, right?

  Sort of.

  What do you mean, sort of?

  “Just keep on this?” Jeff asks as the light changes.

  “Uh, yeah. We’ll be getting on North Shore in a little bit, so keep to the right.”

  I’ll ask you again. What do you mean by “sort of”?

  I ain’t exactly you, if that’s what you’re asking.

  But you said something a while ago like “we’re in this together.”

  Right. We are.

  So
you’re not me.

  Right.

  “How much further?” Jeff looks ahead, squinting through the windshield. “Is that Heinz Field?’

  “Yeah.”

  “So we’re there?”

  “Yeah. We’re here.” Despite the heat in the cab, I feel goose bumps sneaking up my back for all sorts of reasons. I’m back home, and I’m excited about that, but the voice in my head, The Voice, who I thought was the old me—

  You’re getting closer.

  I am?

  Think about it.

  I’m trying to.

  You’ll figure it out. You got some work to do now.

  Jeff parks as close to the science center as he can, and we unload boxes of various sizes for two hours as the sun floats lower to the horizon. I still don’t know what’s in the boxes, but since they’re all marked “Fragile,” I take my time, and The Voice doesn’t talk to me at all.

  Finished, I direct Jeff across the Robert Clemente Bridge.

  “This is where I usually get lost,” Jeff says.

  “You aren’t the only one,” I say. “Stay straight and take a left on Liberty.”

  Pittsburgh looks a whole lot cleaner today. It’s not as dark. It looks new. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been away from home for a while.

  Jeff turns left on Liberty. “What’s next?”

  “Right on Seventh Avenue.”

  Does it look new to you, too?

  But I hear no other voice in my head. Maybe he’s gone because I’ve come home. Maybe he’s home, too. I shake my head. Who is he?

  “What’s wrong?” Jeff asks.

  “Just a headache. Take a right on Washington and a left on Centre.”

  “You’re gonna have to write me some directions back to Seventy-nine, Manny. I’m lost already.”

  I’m holding my breath all the way up Centre, St. Benedict the Moor growing taller as we go. “Uh, yeah, it’s pretty easy.” I exhale. St. Benedict isn’t shrugging, he isn’t giving up. He’s welcoming me back. That’s what he’s been doing all these years.

  “Where should I drop you?” Jeff asks.

  I point at Freedom Corner, a few people walking around looking at the shrine. Yeah, it’s a shrine to those who have gone before me. All it needs is a few trees to give folks some shade.

  “Here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This ain’t where you live.” He pulls to the curb.

  This is the beginning of where I live. “I can walk the rest of the way.” I put on my backpack. “Thanks for everything, Jeff.”

  He holds out the clipboard, a scrap of paper tucked under the metal clasp. “Write me some directions, yo.”

  “Just go back the way we came..”

  He hands me a pen and the clipboard. “I wasn’t payin’ attention, yo. I was drivin’.”

  I write out the directions and even draw a little map.

  “What if I get lost?” Jeff asks.

  I open the door. “Follow the river. Just follow the river.”

  “See you later,” Jeff says, and I watch him try to make a U-turn on Centre. He blocks traffic for several minutes until he clears the curb in front of St. Benedict. He waves and shrugs as he rolls away.

  I walk into Freedom Corner, and I know some of the names on this plaque now. I don’t know them all, but I will. At least I know Robert L. Vann and the “double V” now.

  I know I can’t rebuild my life all at once. I mean, what do I really have to offer Mary and our children? I have no diploma, no job, a charge hanging over my head here, maybe a charge from New Orleans. I’m living free on borrowed time.

  Again.

  Yet I have two hands, a bit scarred up, and a new heart, and eyes on the future. I look at the marchers at my feet and look at my own marching feet. I can join the march now. I have a place.

  I glance back at St. Benedict. I always thought you were smiling in the wrong direction, St. Benedict, but now I know you’re bragging on us, like you’re saying, “Hey, look what we have despite what the rest of the world has done to us.”

  Despite … it … all.

  I walk to the center of Freedom Corner, to the Stone of Origin, and I pray in a whisper, “The gift You gave to me, I give it back to You. Thanks for carrying me and for giving me so much help. I’ve never been alone my whole life. Thanks for Luke, and Rose, and Rufus, and Penny, and even Red. Hope he finds his son. Thanks also for Maxi and my new family, and Bobby Hughes, and Moses, and Jeff and my adopted family. Hope he finds his way back to Seventy-nine.” I close my eyes. “Thanks also for teaching me that life doesn’t have to be so fast, that making haste slowly is a good thing, that no matter what, I can get up mighty in the morning.”

  I look back at St. Benedict. I wish it was Thursday night. Mary would be in there right now having choir practice. I would just sit in the back listening, feeling the music. Then I’d walk down that aisle, and I bet she wouldn’t recognize me. Who would? Then she’d look into my eyes, and she would know it was me. She’d have to run down that aisle with her arms out like St. Benedict himself to welcome me home, to welcome me back to life, back to living—

  “Emmanuel Mann?”

  I open my eyes. Three police officers surround me, their hands on their holsters. I close my eyes, and I hear a line from that song. Sometimes I fall short.

  So soon. Too soon. I have to see Mary. I have to hold her. I have so much to do. Jesus, help me.

  I know I can’t run anymore. This was bound to happen. Does it have to happen this soon? I’m trusting You, man. This is so hard.

  “Show us your hands.”

  I open my eyes, fighting tears, and turn to them, palms up. “I am Emmanuel Mann.”

  “Take off the backpack and put it in front of you.”

  All those gifts. I shrug off the backpack and set it in front of me, putting up my hands again. “What am I being charged with?”

  “Violation of probation.”

  That’s all? I smile. The New Orleans charges must have gotten dropped. Either that or they haven’t filed an extradition for my arrest yet. “Anything else?”

  “Just the one charge.”

  I can handle this.

  As they handcuff and take me into custody, I hear Gospel music coming from St. Benedict’s organ. It’s kind of kind of bluesy, kind of jazzy. It’s nice.

  So close.

  Almost home.

  23: Allegheny County Jail

  They take me directly to my temporary home, the Allegheny County Jail, which is only a few blocks south of the Hill. It’s a convenient location for frequent residents like me. I get some strange looks from Wilson, the white intake officer, as he’s doing an inventory of my backpack while Jones, a black female guard, takes down the information.

  Wilson holds up the blanket. “One colorful blanket.”

  “That’s kente cloth,” I tell him.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jones says, her eyes lighting up. Jones and I go way back to my first visit. “Where’d you get it, Manny?”

  If I say “Africatown,” Wilcox will put me in isolation and order a psychiatric evaluation. “Mobile, Alabama.”

  “That would look so good on my sofa,” Jones says. “By the way, you’re looking good, Manny. You look healthy.”

  “I am.” I smile. “This will be my last visit.”

  She frowns. “You said that last time.”

  I nod. “I didn’t mean it last time.”

  “And you mean it—”

  Wilson clears his throat. “Sorry to interrupt your little reunion here, but we got more waiting, Officer Jones.” He holds up the smaller African warrior. “One small statue.”

  “It’s a sculpture,” I say. “Of a warrior. I’m supposed to give it to Thaddeus Mosley.”

  Wilson looks at me. “Uh-huh.” He holds out the larger warrior. “One large statue.” He weighs it in his hand. “It isn’t hollow, is it?”

  “It’s solid wood,” I say.

  “Hmm.” He pulls out the carving
s of my kids, and that hurts the most. “One … Hey, these kids are cute.”

  “They’re my kids.”

  Jones steps closer. “You do these?”

  “No ma’am. Moses Green did. He’s from outside Trimble, Georgia.”

  Wilson stares at me. “You’ve actually been to those places?”

  “Yes.” I don’t want to call him “sir.” He hasn’t earned a “sir” from me yet.

  “No wonder nobody could find you.” He pulls out the bowl. “One bowl.”

  “Wow,” Jones says, smiling. “Who’s that for?”

  “Auntie June.”

  “She’s lucky.” Jones looks at Wilson. “Sorry.”

  They inventory my clothes without comment. When they get to the photographs and my notepads, Wilson flips through the pictures while Jones watches closely. “Thirty-six pictures.”

  “They’re all my relatives,” I say. “I found them in Mobile.”

  “Well, good for you,” Jones says.

  Wilson rolls his eyes. “Six pens and one, two, three notepads.” Wilson stares at the top sheet. “How do you expect anyone to read this scratch?”

  They weren’t for you to read, man. “When can I get them back?”

  “You know the deal,” he says, dropping them in the box. “On your release.”

  But they help me release myself! “I know I can’t have the pens.” Since they’re considered weapons. “But at least let me keep the notepads. What am I gonna do, paper-cut someone?”

  “I’ll ask,” Jones says.

  “Thanks.”

  The last item Wilson examines is the silver lid. “One … Is this for a snuff can?”

  “Yeah.”

  He holds it up to the light, the shine of the reflection crossing my face. “One fancy silver snuff can lid.”