Finding My Thunder (3 page)

Finding My Thunder 4

After
my time smoking in the backyard I fixed Mama some tomato soup and a cheese
sandwich. Naomi hadn’t come home which meant she was at a sick bed somewhere in
Snyder Town where her flock resided.

So
when Mama was quiet in her room I escaped to mine and played my records. I
could do this for hours. I listened to the beautiful voices of Richie Havens,
and Etta James, and Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. And I floated to the
ceiling and out the window and I soared in the summer night sky and reached my
hand to the lightening bugs and watched the stars spin psychedelic patterns all
over heaven. My drug was hope and it was the newest most powerful drug in the
world. That and Pall Malls.

I
was suspended, lying in my room on my floor, my black light on, my poster of
the big neon peace sign lit in the dark, and I was mesmerized.

I
almost didn’t hear the gravel on my window…if that’s what it was. But I was
soon there unhooking the screen, pushing it out and looking down and for the
second time that day…there he was. “Danny,” I said softly.

He
was looking up at me, still the white T-shirt, the jeans, the boots. “Hey…cut
my hair,” he said.

I
did not want him to wake Mama. I did not want that. But it was hard to think
with this big thing happening in me. “Stay there,” I said.

I
made a circle on the carpet like Sooner would. Then I found my scissors and I
started to go downstairs, then I remembered me. I wore a yellow T-shirt with a
smiley face on it, and my cut off shorts. Dressed naked, Naomi would call it. But
I didn’t care now. I was small up top and my hair covered it, I didn’t need a
bra. Not so much and it was dark. My feet were bare, and I was quiet on the
stairs and I slipped out the door and he was there now, on the porch and he was
petting Sooner, but he stood straight when he saw me, and I felt like he did
see me, even in the dark he looked, and he was quiet, and his dark eyes ink,
and his face shaved clean like Lonnie said.

“I…don’t
know what I’m doing,” I said.

“That’s
makes two of us,” he said.

“Oh.
Okay. Sit on the porch stairs I guess.”

“Where’d
you get this old dog? She’s gonna have pups.”

“No
she isn’t.”

“Then
she ate a bag of rocks. And they’re moving.”

Was
I blind? I bent over with him and we felt Sooner all over and she was waiting
for us to quit groping and start scratching, but I had scissors in my hand, and
pretty soon not even the thought of pups I didn’t want or need could block out
the closeness of Danny and I had to straighten up and step away and him too and
his eyes went right there and I guess my hair wasn’t as much of a covering as I
thought.

I
wanted to die. I wasn’t trying to do something, so I folded my arms over the
points, I did that at least. He just kept staring at me. “What are you doing?”
I said, not about the staring…but about everything.

“I
need a haircut.”

“Are
you high or something?”

He
burped quietly. “No. Just had a few beers.”

Then
I noticed he didn’t have a vehicle. “Did you walk here?”

He
burped again. “Yeah. Not like it’s far. Well, I was in a car…but I got out.”

“Where’s
Sukey?” He was Danny’s ride.

“You
don’t know?” he said.

I
shook my head.

“The
boy’s farm,” he said.

The
boy’s farm was over a hundred miles away. It was like a reform school, only on
a farm, of course. I didn’t ask what Sukey did to get there. I could figure it
out. But this was one reason why Danny might be coming around.

“How
long?” I said.

“January.”

He
looked at me and motioned to the stairs, then he shuffled there and sat in the
middle, and I sat behind, careful to keep my legs together and off to the side.
Even this near I was almost frozen. My heart was pounding so loud, and he sat
there waiting for me to touch him. “We could do this in your room where there’s
some light,” he said, and I stared at the back of his thick glossy hair, and I
was about to faint from this whole thing.

“I
can see,” I said, but I was panting so I had to catch myself. Did he really
think I could casually sneak him upstairs? Didn’t he know I would die?

“You’ve
got a lot of hair,” I said, and my voice trembled a little and I was so glad he
was turned away.

“Might
as well get used to getting it cut. I go in the army they’ll shave me bald.” He
stretched his legs out then, groaning like an old man.

“You
have to hold still,” I said.

“Well
do something,” he said.

So
I put my hand up there and took hold of some and held it straight up and it
felt so soft and thick and I let it go but I didn’t mean to so I had to get
another hold and my heart was flopping like a seal on a griddle. I mean I could
not breathe.

“Just
do it, Grunier,” he said.

So
I made my first cut, but I barely took it off.

“I
go in the army they’ll buzz it off,” he said.

“What
are you thinking?” I said. “You can’t go to Vietnam. You have to go to college.
You had a scholarship is what I heard.”

“I’ve
had enough of school,” he said.

“You
can’t work for Lonnie. They’ll pick you off quick. Surely you don’t believe in
this war.” Now I had no trouble facing him for I was desperate to say this. I
moved around him enough that when he turned we were up close.

He
was more beautiful than anyone had a right to be. No wonder I lived in a
perpetual state of heartache for these long years. All at once my concern for
him doubled. “You are not going to Vietnam,” I said.

Well
he looked at me.

“What
do you care?” he said.

I
was shaking my head and taking refuge behind him once again. “Johnson plans a
big push in the next two years. They’re going to draft everyone they can get
their hands on. We don’t belong in that war. They don’t want us over there. We
aren’t going to be able to do any good. The North Vietnamese can disappear over
the border anytime they want. Our soldiers are picked off or blown up and they
can’t see what’s coming. They are shooting villagers…children, too. Someone
might cut your hair in the morning and slit your throat before supper. It’s horrible
over there. And even if you come back you’ll be ruined…like Lonnie was…well is.
You’ll see.”

My
hand was on his shoulder now. I was gripping hard. “You can’t go,” I said. “You
have to get into college. It can’t be anywhere as bad as Vietnam.”

He
turned toward me now, his hand on his knee. “Grunier…you’re not natural.”

“What’s
that mean? Just because I don’t want you to go to Vietnam?”

“You
sound more like some kid in college than a sophomore in high school.”

“I’ll
be a junior,” I reminded him case he forgot since he hadn’t been looking.

“Same
difference.”

“Not
really,” I mumbled. So we stared at one another for a bit.

“You’re
a really pretty girl,” he said. “Hard to believe you were such a little
monkey.”

He
turned back again. “You gonna cut this or what?”

I
swallowed a good sized lump of emotion. He had me stirred.

So
I pulled up another clump and I cut it a little deeper this time. But I didn’t
want to throw that hair away so I laid it by me on the stair. And when I
couldn’t cut anymore in back out of fear of butchering him too badly, I had to
move around him on the stairs, on my knees or bent over, I was crawling all
around him before I was done, his eyes on me, and I was trying to get the hair
in front even and I’d been working on it, and studying it and trying not to get
lost just being by him and having permission to look and touch some, when it
dawned on me he was looking straight down my shirt and me with no bra, and him
sitting so still all that time getting a peep show, and I gasped and stood straight
and held the scissors against my chest. “You big pervert,” I said, truly
feeling violated.

He
laughed, then fell back on the stairs laughing some more, the heels of his
hands digging in his eyes for a minute, “Grunier…I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to…but
there they were…but it’s dark I didn’t see anything…but yeah, I tried a little,
but you’ve got all that long hair.”

I
hit him on the shoulder, first one way then another. And I meant it, but I was
smiling a little, but mortified too.

“You
promise? You promise you didn’t see?”

He
rolled on his side, away from me, laughing all goofy, but too goofy, like
excited and silly or something. Then he sat back up in a minute and was giving
me this smile that was making me so self-conscious I could melt and run to the
gutter, but it was so cute, and horrible. “I didn’t see
nothin
’,”
he said. “I didn’t. So don’t you sic Miss Blue on me.” He was laughing again. “Her
little baby…that woman is scary.”

He
didn’t know a scary woman, is what I thought. But my mama….

“Well
I ain’t her little baby so don’t worry,” I said needing to move away from this
embarrassing notion. “I’m done,” I sighed cause I couldn’t act casual and it
was too dark to do it right. “I hope I didn’t butcher it too bad…but you
deserve it.”

He
took my hand. “Oh come on little Grunier, I didn’t mean it.”

“You
didn’t mean it? That don’t make sense.”

He
kept my hand and held it against his chest. He was grinning. “Hey…if you want
to show them to me though…maybe I will go to college.”

I
pulled my hand away and smacked him and he fell back laughing again.

“It’s
not a joke,” I said.

He
tried to sober up then. “I know,” he said, “I know you’re a good girl, I’m just
having some fun.”

“No…I
mean about the war Danny. It’s not a joke to think you’re setting yourself up to
get drafted. What does Tahlila say?”

It’s
like I knocked all the joy out of him. But she was the one he was slated to
marry. Marry. They got engaged the summer of junior year.

He
had his elbows on his knees. I could see unevenness in the haircut, but with
the hair off his face again his handsomeness was stronger than anything I could
do to him.

He
was pursing his lips, looking at me, then looking away. “She don’t say anything
now. We broke up.”

I
plopped beside him on the stair.

“Yeah,”
he said studying his boots.

“So…the
reserves?” I asked, for the plan was her daddy was trying to get Danny in the
reserves.

“Last
I heard her old man hopes they send me to Nam…like straight up…no boot camp
even.” He looked at me and broke out laughing again, but when I didn’t join in
he stopped and sighed and ran his hand through his short hair, feeling around
then and whispering, “Shit.”

“I’ll
fix it tomorrow at work,” I said confidently.

“Better
save some of that,” he said reaching over me and pointing to the pile of his
hair on the steps, “we might need it.”

I
fluffed it into a pile and kept running my hand through it. And I thought of
the clubhouse…that summer in the woods behind our house…him and Sukey…and me
taking him the little cake I’d made for his birthday…and walking it back there
with care and him not there…but Sukey…and Sukey knocking that cake into the
dirt and pulling me inside and smashing down on me and how I couldn’t
breathe…and Danny coming in and the way they fought, and me against the wall
and trying to stay out of the way and getting out when he told me to run, but
staying there and seeing it fall in from all the crashing and thrashing around
they were doing. And me running home and Danny coming after, his forehead
bleeding, his knuckles scraped and telling me to leave them alone and to stay
away and not to come around ever again, and making me promise not to tell,
making me promise. And me telling Danny I hated him…hated Sukey. And how I ran
home and I held it. Like Mama taught me. Kept it in.

And
then the long years of nothing. The nothing. Until today.

I
loved him. I always had. It had started when I was young and it had been on
pause ready to move forward with the littlest encouragement and as my hand
closed against a fistful of his soft hair, I knew I’d never stop loving him.

Finding My Thunder 5

It
was midnight when Danny left my house with his head of chopped black hair. But
somehow his appeal had grown. Throughout high school being an athlete kept him
in short hair. I guessed he’d had enough of that and had let it grow after
graduation. But this cut I gave him was in between. This was more like the
Beatle’s, shaped to his head with heavy bangs. And it wasn’t just the hair that
had changed. He didn’t look like his old scowling self. He was smiling. For
someone who just broke up with his girl and sent his brother off to
juvie
, he seemed kind of happy.

So
I watched him walk away and he turned and said in a loud whispery voice,
“Thanks for the show…I mean haircut…Grunier.”

And
I pretended to be mad, but in my hand I clutched that hair and I smiled into
the night. In my room I went to sleep listening to Sandy Denny. She sang about
time…who knows where it goes. I remembered the boy, sweaty and brown, shirt in
his back pocket leading me through the woods behind our houses, holding a limb
to let me through, telling me to watch it, taking my hand sometimes. And
tonight, my hand in his hair, on his shoulder, once again finding its way into
his…all that time…all that time gone.

 
Lonnie did not come home that night. Those
nights were always gifts. Him gone meant no fighting. Him gone meant that once
Mama got settled I could move and breathe.

So
I walked to the shop in the morning but I wasn’t far when Danny pulled
alongside driving Sukey’s purple car. “Get in Grunier,” he said, his eyes on my
jeans. His hair combed decent, like a punk so Lonnie would think it was shorter
than it was.

I
hadn’t used my voice yet that morning. Mama had been asleep when I left. So I
went around that car, that streak of purple always stabbed at me as it carried Danny
away, but now I was sitting where he always sat while Sukey drove.

It
felt odd to be in here. I never imagined I would be. Sukey was picky about this
car…and I didn’t go near him…or ever in a
close
space
like this where he was.

“You
look like Elvis,” I said.

Danny
laughed at that. “I had to even it some and use some of Paul’s shit to keep it
out of my face. Hell if I know,” he said pulling down the street. His eyes
looked heavy from sleep. “He don’t come around much does he.” He meant Lonnie
not coming home.

“You
better hope not showing up late for a haircut.”

He
laughed again. “Yeah he’d kick my ass. They say he’s a mean old bugger.”

I
didn’t offer anything. I couldn’t start.

“Hey,”
he said, knuckles lightly touching my chin.

I
looked at him. “What?”

He
pulled the bandana off my hair and held it in his hand, then he tucked it in
the open v of his shirt and I had to reach in there and take it back. We were
laughing and I was tying it over my hair again when he pulled into Mac’s. He
had it in park before I was done tying the knot.

“You
drink coffee?”

“Um…sure,”
I didn’t, but I was about to start.

“You
want an egg sandwich?” He got out.

Well,
I was starving. “I don’t have any money.”

“Grunier,”
he said, standing outside, bent toward me, arm on the top of the door.

“Okay…but
soon as I get money I’ll pay you back.”

He
laughed and shook his head while he slammed the door. I watched him walk in and
I whispered, “God,” and my hand was over my mouth cause here I sat in the purple
car, me, not Tahlila, and I was waiting on Danny to buy me food and I was an
asshole who didn’t know what to say or how to be cool.

Pretty
soon he was back out carrying a grease stained paper-bag under his arm and two
paper-cups of coffee in his hands. I got out and walked to him and took my
coffee.

“I
put lots of cream and sugar in so you can get it down,” he said smirking at me.

“I
drink coffee,” I lied again.

“Sure
you do little Miss Blue baby,” he said, another laugh.

I
wasn’t quite laughing with him but I liked the challenge. We got back in the
car and he decided we’d eat
there
cause he handed me
my sandwich wrapped in wax paper, and he took out his own. “We got five
minutes,” he said, “cause Mac moves like a damn turtle.” He took a huge bite
and his jaw bulged as he chewed but he was smiling at me with his buttery lips.

Lord.
I took off the top bread to take a look then slapped it back on and also took a
bite.

“So
you change the world since I saw you last night?” he asked looking away out his
window, his jaw working. I liked the way his hair
ducktailed
in the back and I felt pretty proud of myself.

And
I had changed the world last night. Well he had changed my world. But I’d had a
good day yesterday with the hope moving in.

“You
think about what I said? About Vietnam?”

He
smirked at me and took another bite. “You think I don’t know I’ll get drafted? You
think I’m happy about it? Don’t answer that just eat. We got two minutes.”

I
took another huge bite and he laughed. I was mimicking him, chewing like a
beaver and making noise.

“Let’s
not be disgusting,” he said. “Miss Blue won’t let you come around me then.”

“Why
you keep talking about her?”

He
shrugged and ate the last. “Don’t know. It’s just funny.”

“What’s
funny about it?”

“You
gonna finish that?” I was holding the last of it. I shook my head and he took
it and wadded the bread and shoved it in. When he’d swallowed it he said, “You
live in my house it’s dog eat dog.”

“Stay
away from my Sooner then,” I said and he laughed.

“You
gonna have some dog meat real soon when those ten pups come.”

I
groaned. “Do not tell Lonnie about that. He don’t even know I got that dog.”

“Why
ain’t he ever around? He take care of you all?”

He
slipped that last one in and I wasn’t ready to answer. We were careful about our
business. I realized folks knew stuff cause Mama and Lonnie fought loud, but I
didn’t want to hear it and with Danny working close to Lonnie…it was best I
just kept it.

“You
gonna drink that?” he said pointing at the coffee sitting on the dash. I shook
my head and he took it cause his was already gone and he drank it half down and
started the car. “Sukey don’t allow food in here,” he said looking at me and
smiling.

Robert
was busy, but Danny didn’t know what to do unless Lonnie showed him, and he was
listening and staring at me and I felt like a fool, but he’d see it now cause I
wasn’t leaving and he was in our mess. I thought of black folks facing fire
hoses and boys being bused onto army bases, and I tried to stand my ground. Doctor
King said it was immoral to receive the mistreatment of the oppressor. Naomi
said the oppressor sought to degrade others but he first degraded himself. I
bit my lip and turned away and continued to sort the piles.

By
lunch time I was developing a system. I didn’t have to worry about Lonnie
making me a fool, he’d done worse to Danny a couple of times so we were equally
made to feel stupid.

I
figured Danny would be ready to quit, but it didn’t seem to
phase
him as he’d been by the desk a couple of times, once to pull off my bandana,
another time to say that rat ran under my desk. He did this when Lonnie was out
back and both times he was still smiling.

Then
I remembered how the coaches would scream at him in the games and I knew his
step-dad Paul wasn’t soft either, not in the stands he wasn’t.

So
I tried not to feel the burning on the side of my face, the one facing the
shop. I didn’t know if he looked at me, but I looked at him when I could.

Robert
was more forth coming. He wanted to get my lunch.

“It’s
okay,” I said.

Danny
stood there wiping his hands on a rag. When Robert went out he said, “Guess you
look hungry.”

I
smiled. He went to his car and came back rattling a bag. He sat on a chair
nearby and pulled out two sandwiches. “Hey, you want one?”

I
shook my head. “You’ll just take it back,” I said and we laughed.

Lonnie
was gone looking at a job. “He drinks all day,” Danny laughed.

“I
know it,” I said. Now Danny did.

“He
sleeps here,” he said.

“I
wondered.” Well, I thought he was at
Loreena’s
. Who
would want to sleep here? Yet he preferred this to coming home.

“On
cardboard in the back.”

“Gross.”

He
shrugged and laughed and chewed. “Come on and take a bite.” He rolled his chair
closer and held his sandwich in front of my mouth. “It’s Spam,” he sang.

I
pushed his hand back and looked at it. “There ain’t no animal called Spam,” I
whispered.

“Go
on,” he said, his eyes on my lips. We could hear Lonnie pull up in back and Danny’s
eyes shot there then back to me. “Hurry up.”

I
took a nibble just to make him happy, and it seemed to. He rolled back to where
he was then and took a bite over mine. He smiled big while he chewed.

“How
come you seem so happy?” I whispered.

He
shrugged and went on eating his gross Spam. “Why not?”

Lonnie
came in then. First thing he noticed was they’d changed his radio. He stalked
over there and set it back. Then he came forward holding a stack of mail. He
walked between our two chairs and threw this on the desk messing up one of my
piles. “You keep your damn hands off my radio,” he said to Danny.

“Wasn’t
me,” Danny said eating, but it was him and Daddy knew.

“Robert
knows better,” Daddy said.

“Yeah
sorry,” Danny said and he winked at me.

“Get
that ate and get back to work.” Lonnie said, then he went out the front door. He
ate at Kenny’s bar down the street most times but more likely he drank his
lunch.

I
started to sort through the mail and Danny finished and got up and pretty soon
I heard the radio back on rock and roll. I looked over my shoulder at him and
he stared back and grinned.

“Shit
will fly,” I said. “I mean it.”

“Let
it fly,” he said, and he put on the goggles and turned on the buffer. The radio
was loud playing “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and Danny’s voice
chimed in with John, George and Paul and maybe
Ringo
.

Much
as I feared for him I had to smile. I didn’t want him to get fired but it was
kind of inspiring.