“Yessir.”
The birds woke him, as usual.
It’s Sunday, he thought, tingling with a fresh excitement that gripped him immediately. He felt the warm Sunday sun upon his face. Sunday is different.
He looked into the middle room. Viola and Rutherford lay side by side. They slept lightly and peacefully, as though the slightest sound would wake them. Suddenly he heard the clock ticking. It sounded different, too. Nobody paid any attention to it. Viola and Rutherford lay there beside it as though its ticking did not make any difference.
It’s Sunday! he thought.
He lay quietly and tried not to make any noise. It wasn’t time to get up and get ready to go to Sunday school yet. He listened to the birds singing and the clock ticking, noticing that the sky was still too soft, with too much blue in it.
A bell rang from a church tower. The church down below the spaghetti factory. It has a high pointed roof like an ice cream cone. Catholics … where the I-talians go.
As he lay looking out the window he thought about Jesus who was good to little children who did what their mothers and fathers told them in order to send them to heaven. A good place where there is a whole lot a singing like at St. John’s and the streets are made out of gold bricks!
The alley flashed golden before his eyes! Everybody was singing. Some in the windows and some in the streets! The alarm clock rang.
“Unh!” cried Rutherford from the middle room. He looked in and saw his father sitting up in bed with an anxious expression upon his face.
“What’s the matter?” Viola asked sleepily. Rutherford stared at the clock.
“I forgot it was Sund’y! Hey-hey!” he chuckled quietly, lay back down, and turned over on his side.
Once more stillness settled over the middle room.
After a while he stole naked down the steps to the front porch and got the paper. He glanced up and down the alley. It was blue and amber and sort of golden — and quiet, except for the birds. He tiptoed back upstairs and got in bed and neatly separated the funny papers from the rest and gazed at the pictures. He scanned “Popeye” and “Tillie the Toiler” — she was so pretty — and “Tarzan of the Apes.” Tarzan was standing upon the bough of a huge tree with a strong vine in his hand, gazing down upon a lion that was sneaking upon a man in a hard round hat and short pants, with a gun. His eyes raced to the end of the strip, to where Tarzan jumped down on the lion’s back. That was the end. He browsed over “Maggie and Jiggs.” They looked funny, but he did not understand what it was all about because he could not read that much yet. Mickey Mouse is funnier! All you have to do is look at the pictures. He studied “Little Orphan Annie” and “Little Annie Roonie” and “The Two Black Crows” and all the colored pictures on both sides of every page until there were no more, and then he looked at the best ones again.
When he was almost finished Rutherford got up, got dressed in his Sunday clothes, and went to work, and Amerigo slipped into bed beside Viola and snuggled up close to her.
“Now you be still,” she said threateningly. “Taday’s Sund’y an’ I want to git a little rest!”
He lay very still for a minute. Then he tossed and turned and kicked and sighed until she sat up in bed and looked at the clock and said:
“All right, all right! You kin git up. Put the water on an’ call me when it’s hot. An’ put some clothes on! You’ll catch your death a cold, runnin’ through the house like that!”
He slipped happily out of the bed and ran into the kitchen and put the water on. Then he went out onto the back porch. Mrs. Crippa’s light was on. He could see her standing in front of the kitchen table sipping something from a cup — Coffee, I bet — noticing that she was dressed in a long black dress with a shawl over her shoulders. Then the light went out and her kitchen suddenly looked dark and gray inside and he could not see her anymore.
He heard the water boiling in the kitchen. He peeped through the screen and saw that it bubbled out of the spout and from under the lid and onto the blue flames and made them turn yellow. He rushed in and turned off the gas, and then went into the middle room and woke his mother. Her eyes were pink and there were faint welts on the fine dark skin of her face and arms from the wrinkles in the sheet and the pillowcase.
Minutes later he was standing in the No. 3 tub, laughing and giggling, while Viola rubbed him all over with a big washrag. “If you don’t keep still! Fidgetin’ like a jumpin’-Jack!”
“It tickles!”
Then presently Already! it was over, he was dressed in his gray Sunday suit and his black Sunday shoes. She tied a nickel in the corner of a handkerchief and stuffed it into his pocket.
“Do you have to carry that star everywhere?”
“Yes’m.”
“Why don’t you leave that thing here? What you gonna do with a star in church?”
He made a face.
“All right, but at least put it in the other pocket.”
He put it in the other pocket. They went down on to the front porch together. Tommy, William, and Lemuel were coming down the alley.
“He’s ready!” said Viola. “You bring ’im straight home when church’s over!”
“Yes’m,” Tommy said, “I will!”
“You be good, you hear?”
“Yes’m.”
He ran to join the others, strutting a little in his Sunday way, glancing down with satisfaction at his Sunday suit, his greased legs, and his sparkling black shoes.
They made their way up the alley. They passed Aunt Nancy who was standing on her porch all dressed up in her Sunday clothes, too: a long black dress with a white collar. Her hair was done up nice.
She’s on the mother-board, he thought, tipping his cap the way Viola and Rutherford had taught him.
“Well now, ain’ that sweet!” she smiled broadly.
“G’mornin’, Aunt Nancy,” said Tommy.
“G’mornin’,” said William.
“ ’Mornin’,” said Lemuel.
“Bless your little hearts!” said Aunt Nancy, following them with her glance all the way to the top of the alley.
Mr. Whitney was standing in the door of his house, a tall thin honeycolored man with straight silver hair like a white man’s and a white wisp of beard under his chin. He thought of Professor Bowles who looked like a white man, too.
“ ’Mornin’, Mr. Whitney,” he said, and the others joined in. The old man smiled vacantly, dreamily, raising his fine long feeble hand as a greeting.
Earl Lee stood on his porch, next to Mr. Whitney’s. His skin was dark brown, his lips were fleshy, and his face wore a suffering expression, which he now and then converted into a sneer.
“Ain’t you goin’ to Sund’y school?” William asked.
“I don’t have to! That’s for kids!”
“Aw yeah!” Lemuel cried, the smallest and youngest of them all.
“Aw yeah!” Earl Lee retorted, imitating his voice.
“You ain’ no more’n ’leven, niggah!” Turner cried.
“He’s just ignarunt!” said Amerigo.
“Yeah,” said Tommy, looking at him with surprise, adding, “He don’ know better.”
They eyed each other jealously until they were out of sight.
They turned at the boulevard. The traffic lights flickered delicious flavors of green, yellow, and red: all-day suckers. They crossed between “flavors,” hand in hand, south up Campbell Street. At Eighth Street they passed a row of half run-down houses where many children were playing. He tipped his hat to all the women and greeted all the men.
“Now that’s what I call a gen’lmun!” said a big dark lady who was standing on the corner talking to a skinny yellow lady.
“Whose little boy is that?” asked the yellow lady.
“That’s Vi-ols’s boy. They live down in the alley.”
“Look at that sissyfied niggah!” said a boy. Big. He had seen him at school but he did not know his name.
They crossed Eighth Street where Negroes li
ved on both sides of the street, continued south, and were suddenly in a white neighborhood. Farther up on Campbell Street he caught sight of Aunt Lily’s laundry.
Sunday school was held in a large gray room with narrow floorboards separated by thin black cracks. They made him think of Sister Clara James. He could hear her admonishing him to follow the straight and narrow. His eyes had fallen upon the floor and followed the cracks to the wall, and through the wall, and he had resolved to be better.
He stared at the first of three round stained-glass windows just behind her head, while she officially opened the Sunday school and started to make the general announcements. The light flooding through the opaque window decorated with wine-red flowers with beer-bottle-green leaves obscured her round dedicated face and threw her highcrowned wide-brimmed hat with its long turkey feather into full relief.
He set about imagining her face as he had seen it in the light — caramel-colored, with three chins and big dark brown intelligent eyes.
He did not understand everything she said, but he sensed that she spoke with the tired but determined voice of one who longed for a rest from the heavy responsibilities of her position as superintendent of the Sunday school, but who could not rest simply because there was no one else with sufficient zeal and devotion to carry on the Lord’s work.
When she had finished she wearily rang the bell and the children shifted into little groups, and the teachers passed out the books and began to teach their classes.
He listened to Brother Jones with rapt attention. He held the book at arm’s length and squinted in order to read the text. His beautiful bald head picked up the light from the windows, and he immediately thought of Mr. Everett and Unc Dewey.
Brother Jones read the story of Jesus who was the son of God, and how when he was a little boy he answered all the questions of the wise men. “An’ then, children, He asked them questions — wiser questions — that they couldn’t answer!” He concluded with the observation that those who would go to heaven must have the innocence and faith of children.
“What’s in-a-cents?” Brother Jones gave a warm smile of approval.
“That’s right, son, ask questions.” He paused thoughtfully: “Inacence is the ignorance of sin. Sin is what you do — even think! — that’s aginst the Lord’s teachin’s! When we are not obedient, don’t do what our mother and father tell us, or our teachers, or grown folks who’s tryin’ to help us for our own good, we grow up to be bad! Bad men an’ women who do bad things! O-bedience to the word! An’-an’ love is the way of the Lord. Love’ll move mountains! Love thy neighbor as thyself! That’s what Jesus said. An’ if you love ’im, you’ll give ’im food when he’s hungry, an’ somethin’ to wear when he needs clothes for his back an’ shoes for his feet. Share the good things in life with others. Nothin’s no good to you, no how, unless you share it with somebody else!”
“What’s share mean?”
“To give to others some a what you got.”
The first bell rang and the collection was taken. He put his nickel in. Brother Jones passed out little cards with pictures of Jesus talking to the wise men, with writing at the bottom. A circle of light shone over Jesus’ head. Like in the picture over the bed.
The second bell rang and the scattered groups shifted into a solid mass occupying the center section of the hall and spilling over into the sections on either side.
Sister Jennings, the secretary, read the minutes, and Sister Mayfield, the treasurer, read the financial report and reported the attendance, and then reports of the various committee chairmen were made, Sister Williams for the Christmas Program Committee, Sister Kelly for the Young People’s Choir, Sister Watkins for the Baptist Young People’s Union, Brother Harkins for the Wednesday-night Bible Class, and Brother Bridges for the Delegation to the True Vine Baptist Church where the pastor was going to speak on the following Sunday.
After that Sister James said that they had a visitor who had something to say, a Mr. T. Wellington Harps, from the Local Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mr. T. Wellington Harps rose to his feet and addressed the Sunday school assembly with a smooth easy eloquence. Like Mr. Bowles, but different. He looks like Dad — good-looking, too! — but he isn’t as good-looking as Dad! He tried to decide if Mr. Harps was as tall as Rutherford, and came to the conclusion that he was almost as tall. Gradually he noticed that Mr. Harps’s hair was not slicked down like Rutherford’s, but that it looked good just the same.
“We are not yet free citizens of America,” Mr. T. Wellington Harps was saying. “There is still much, much work to be done. We need decent jobs, houses, and we need bright courageous young men and women to fight for them.”
He straightened up in his seat, hearing his mother’s eternal injunction: “Hold up your head, an’ push your shoulders back. Be a man!”
“Men with knowledge and patience to lead us. I don’t have to remind you that there was another lynching last month, for I am sure that you have read it in the Voice! Nor do we have to read the Voice or any other newspaper in order to know that we live every day with racial hatred.”
“A-men!” sighed Sister James.
“Ignorance! intolerance! gangsterism! disease! filth! We are no less innocent of these crimes against humanity than our white oppressors — don’t forget that!”
“Heah! heah!” cried Brother Jones.
“Heah! heah!” he whispered under his breath, looking around self-consciously in order to see if anyone had heard.
“And it’s not going to change overnight! The Lord might help us, but you and I know that the Lord helps those who help themselves!”
“Hee! hee! Lay it on ’um, brother,” cried Sister Watkins, smiling, the light of truth dancing in her eyes, causing the mountain of chocolate-colored flesh that engulfed her to quiver like a pudding.
“For every lynching that we investigate we need a battery of trained personnel to prepare the way. We need lawyers. Lawyers have to go to college — from four to seven years! They have to be paid. We need secretaries to write letters and compile necessary information. We need offices to house them in. We need the professional cooperation of numberless private citizens in all fields of knowledge. It takes money to fight in Washington for better and fairer laws! It takes your nickels and dimes, your pennies. And if we can’t have that, we need your goodwill in order to face the tremendous task that lies ahead of us. You — and you are the N.A.A.C.P. — you are Americans, just as surely as George Washington was.”
George Washington! he thought, suddenly gladdened by the feeling that he had heard that name before, that he had seen it under the pictures in the hall! The stern-looking man with the long white hair like a woman’s.
“Heah! heah!”
“A-men!”
“Praise Je-sus!”
“Now,” Mr. T. Wellington Harps continued, “when the Annual Membership Drive begins next week I urge you to give. Make a pledge and give till it hurts. I know times are bad!”
“You kin say that agin!” cried Brother Wayne.
“But give anyway! Be hungry! Didn’t Jesus teach us by His own example upon this earth that it is better to be hungry and free than to be a full-bellied slave!”
The congregation rose to its feet and clapped its hands. Sister Watkins threw back her head, opened her mouth, and a beautiful sound filled the room:
“I, I shall not I shall not be moved! I, I shall not, I shall not be moved. Just like a tree! That’s planted by tha wa-ah-ter, I shall not be moved! Jesus is my savior!”
“I SHALL NOT BE MOVED!” the congregation answered, and suddenly the deep rich baritone of the reverend burst upon the air.
He thrilled to the vibrations of all the feet booming out the rhythm on the long narrow planks running through and beyond the wall behind the table where Sister James sat with a contemplative smile upon her face. He returned his gaze to Sister Watkins — She sings so pretty! — hardly able to keep his eyes off her quivering bosom. Th
e reverend’s voice soared above the voices of the whole congregation, and a pang of shame singed his heart. He jerked his eyes away and looked at the floor, at “the straight an’ narra way,” at “Jesus’ way” and prayed to be better.
But then at the same time, when he looked at the turkey feather in Sister James’s hat, at the smiling faces and tapping feet and at the quivering bosom of Sister Watkins, he was possessed by a powerful, almost unrestrainable desire to laugh!
The reverend stood behind the table beside Sister James. He raised the pale pink palm of his right hand, and the singing stopped, as though his hand had turned the knob on the radio in the front room.
“Ain’ that a f-i-n-e young man?”
“A-MEN!”
“Yeah! Let’s e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y say A-men agin!”
“A-MEN!”
“Talk to ’im, Jesus!”
“Aunt Nancy …”
“A fine young man,” the reverend was saying, almost to himself. “Smart! Went to college. Eh, that’s what I like! An’ when he got his learnin’ he didn’t turn away from the Lord, neither! Or from his people! Naw! He-he re-in-forced his h-e-a-r-t with his head!”
“A-MEN!”
“I-I-I feel kinda old comin’ behind this, this fine young man. I-I started out so long ago! Things was different then. You, you oldtimers, you know what I mean!”
“Help ’im Lawd!”
“You remember how it was, the little country school at the end of a l-o-n-g country road. An’ then that longest road, the never-endin’ road — up and out of sin!”
“Jesus knows!”
“Jesus knows?”
“In my day, in my day a black man wanted to be a preacher — if the Lord called him — or a schoolteacher, maybe a lawyer or a doctor — an’ that was hard enough!”
“Yes! yes!”
“I’m tellin’ you, it was h-a-r-d! But taday, taday a black man wants to be — insists on bein’ the hardest thing of all, an American citizen! Ain’ that what he said?”
“Sure did, Lord!” exclaimed Sister Robinson.
Such Sweet Thunder Page 16