Such Sweet Thunder

by Vincent O. Carter

  “Feel that little joker’s arm, Vi! Got a build like a prizefighter!” He rained blows on T. C.’s stomach and tried to jump up and catch him by the neck.

  “Hi, T.,” said Viola. “Amerigo! Cool down an’ let T. C. catch his breath. Don’ be so bothersome!”

  “Aw Mom, I was just —”

  “He don’ hurt me none, Vi. Let ’im play. Put-up-yo’-dukes, Jack Johnson!”

  He fell into a fighting stance, but Viola gave him a look that made him drop his guard.

  “You oughtta try that bad left hook on some a them little boys that run you home every day!”

  “What?” said T. C. with surprise. “You mean they runnin’ my boy home?”

  “Yeah! —” said Viola, “— they knockin’ knots on his head an’ tearin’ his clothes half off a him. Somebody better show him how to take care of hisself.”

  “Unh!” said T. C. “We got to put a stop to this! B-o-y — me an’ your daddy was the battlin’est little niggahs on the whole North End! By the way, where is that joker?”

  “He’s down on the front porch shootin’ the bull with Lucille. They at each other’s throats like cats an’ dogs! That woman couldn’ resist a crack if she was dyin’! Come on down. Had your supper?”

  “Aw, I ain’ hungry!”

  “Boy,” Viola grinned, “I ain’ never seen you in my whole life when you wasn’ hungry! It’s a dirty shame the way this man kin eat, Amerigo! Here, pull up a chair, T., an’ I’ll see what I kin find.”

  Viola took the remains of the corn bread from the oven and a bowl of boiled cabbage from the icebox. She emptied the cabbage into a pan and put it on the stove and lit the gas. Presently the strong pleasant smell of cabbage filled the kitchen. Meanwhile she put the remaining piece of fish in the skillet, warmed it, and when the cabbage was hot, loaded his plate and set it before him.

  “Look at what old Vi’s puttin’ down!” he exclaimed, laying to the food as though it were his first meal in years.

  Viola peeled an onion, washed it, diced it, and scattered it over his cabbage.

  “You knowed it, didn’t you!” he exclaimed, looking up at her with childish affection while she admiringly watched him devour the food.

  Viola set the bottle of beer before him and started for the glass.

  “Ummmm-umh!” he grunted, waving her back. He raised the sweaty bottle to his lips, and the foamy contents disappeared into his massive throat to the rhythmic shuttling of his gurgle-pipe.

  After a while a soft mound swelled the white belly of his shirt, he heaved a contented sigh, belched, wiped his mouth with the back of his huge hand, and scooted his chair away from the table.

  “That’ll git it every time!” he said.

  “WHAT!”

  Rutherford stood in the kitchen door. “I thought somethin’ was wrong! Me settin’ down on the porch — all innocent an’ ever’thin’ — an’ this joker’s up here eatin’ me out a house an’ home!”

  “Too late now, Jackson!” said T. C. with a beautiful grin: “You shoulda locked the barn door before the mule got away! Ah-ha! ha! What you say there, man!”

  “What you say! I thought the law must a had you or somethin’, ain’ seen you in so long!”

  “Aaaaaw, you know how it is, Rutherford.”

  “Yeah, I know, you been runnin’ around with those low-lifers on Twelfth Street. Lettin’ ’um drink you up an —”

  Viola shot a significant glance at Rutherford, who immediately ceased to speak, and they both watched Amerigo staring at T. C. with such absorbed attention that he failed to notice that they were looking at him.

  “Ain’t you through yet?” said Rutherford.

  He continued to stare at T. C., absentmindedly drying the dishpan with the dishrag.

  “Ain’t you through yet?” he repeated.

  “That little joker’s out a this world!” said T. C.

  “Amerigo!”

  He looked at Rutherford dumbly, as though he did not recognize him: “Yessir.”

  “Naw — he ain’ finished yet,” said Viola: “Looka here!” pointing to two pans filled with water on the back burners of the gas range.

  “Them’s soakin’!” he exclaimed.

  “That cat’s always soakin’ somethin’!” said Rutherford.

  “An’ what about these?” said Viola, pointing to the dishes T. C. had used.

  “Aw Mom! That ain’ no fair! Them don’ count till tamarra!”

  “Git me a bottle a brew, boy!” said Rutherford, “before I lose my temper an’ kill you!”

  “An’ I know you ain’ gonna forgit your Uncle T.!” said T. C.

  “Git me one, too, babe,” said Viola.

  “Come on. Ever’body, let’s go down on the porch,” said Rutherford.

  “Wait a minute!” said Viola, suddenly dashing into the middle room. They all looked expectantly after her.

  “She’s gonna kill me like that one a these days,” said Rutherford’s voice.

  Why’s she doing it? he wondered.

  “Hey! hey!” T. C. shouted. His handsome face broke into a smile. Viola was whirling about the kitchen in her silver fox furs.

  “Ain’ that somethin’, T.?” she said.

  “G-i-r-l — them’s a killer! You sharp as two tacks! You kin balieve me!”

  The frown upon Rutherford’s face deepened.

  “You know, Rutherford,” said T. C., “you’re a lucky joker to have a wife like Viola. A woman that’ll stick by you, Jack! An’ be a good mother an’ all that. An’ on top a that, she’s proud. Yeah! Always did want to be somebody. That gal’s one a the dressin’est women on the whole North End. Yessir! An’ she don’ only know what to wear, but how an’ when to wear it! Class, Jackson. That’s what I like! Boy,” he turned to Amerigo, “you got a good-lookin’ momma!”

  “Yeah,” said Rutherford, “that’s true, all right.” His frown had faded now, and a slightly confused, slightly embarrassed smile worked its way into his expression. “Ol’ Vi sure likes fine togs, all right. You know one thing? She got more clothes then ol’ man Mac’s wife. No kiddin’! I’m scaired to open up the closet half a time — afraid a new pair a shoes’ll fall out an’ bust my brains out! No crap! An’ me a porter in a cheap hotel! An’ in the depression to boot!”

  “Turn around there, Vi,” said T. C., “an’ let’s have another look at you!”

  She walked and whirled and turned and smiled, and charmed the smiles deeper into their faces, until a bright tension shimmered in the air and created an atmosphere that was like the Fourth of July. A great lump of affectionate feeling for his mother rose to this throat, and he thought: She’s the prettiest woman in the w-h-o-l-e w-o-r-l-d!

  “Let’s go down on the porch,” Rutherford was saying. He, Viola, and T. C. moved toward the front room. “Douse that glim,” said Rutherford to him over his shoulder, and he, glancing at the dishes that T. C. had used and the pots soaking on the stove, thrilled to a dizzying sense of escape, which caused him to knock his knee against the chair as he rushed for the light switch too eagerly. A sharp pain shot through his body, and tears rushed into his eyes. He gasped in an effort to suppress the pain, as he stumbled through the house in the dark and down the dark stairs to the front porch where a little group of barely visible people sat huddled around the lamp-ringed tranquility of the evening.

  The air was alive with cricket-song! Moths and gnats flitted in and out of the lamplight and crashed against its shade with a faint tinny din. Fireflies darted in and out of magic globules of phosphorescent light, against the massive darkness of the big cottonwood tree that towered above Sammy Sales’s house, which stood opposite Toodle-lum’s house on the Charlotte Street side, west.

  Like a Christmas tree, he thought, fascinated by the light, oblivious to the voices that droned about his ears. But Christmas won’t come for a long time. After summer goes away … and all the leaves on the trees fall off and school starts, and geography and history and l-o-n-g di-vision!

  “I
wouldn’ be surprised if they wouldn’ be at it agin!” a voice was saying.

  “Naw, I wouldn’ either,” said another voice. “All you kin read in the papers these days is pictures of generals an’ armies! An’ those Germans is smart! They know all about war. Makin’ all ’em high-powered machines an’ things: submarines, poison gas! A — they got more ways a warrin’ than I got blues!”

  Someone sighed within the shadows of the porch.

  “People’s starvin’ over there. Things ain’ gonna go on like that much longer.”

  “Things seem to be breakin’ a little better over here, though. Maybe that’ll help. An’ I’ll tell you one thing, you watch this new joker, a Democrat they gonna git to run for governor of New York, maybe. Maybe not next year, but you just wait. Roosevelt! Franklin Delanor Roosevelt. Aristocrat, Jack! Tough man! He’s comin’ up. Goin’ places. You wait an’ see if I’m lyin’. If anybody kin keep us out a war, he kin.”

  T. C., he thought.

  “Well, maybe he kin,” said Rutherford, “but I don’ believe that no one man kin keep nobody out a nothin’! It’s capital that rules the world! Them big shots on Wall Street. The ones that make the guns an’ airplanes an’ submarines an’ all that jive! Us scufflin’ for a livin’ — ain’ got nothin’ — got to do what the man says. An’ I mean the paddies just the same as you an’ me. War ain’ nothin’ but a business.”

  “We missed the last ’un,” said T. C. thoughtfully, “but I think they’ll git us all if we have to go agin!”

  “Where?” Amerigo asked.

  “To the war,” said Rutherford.

  Amerigo looked into the corrugated shadows that cut the houses into segments of light and dark up and down the alley. He looked at the sky and tried to penetrate the mystery of war. He looked at the trees that glistened with the light of the fireflies. A heavy oppressive feeling filled his heart.

  “How kin you stop it?” he asked the company aloud.

  “What?” asked Rutherford.

  “War!”

  Cricket-song filled the silence, which gradually receded into a vague sea-sound accented by occasional bursts of laughter issuing from the shadows of neighboring porches. The streetcar rumbled down the alley and slowly faded out of hearing into the sea-sound charged with cricket-song, which suddenly ceased, overwhelming his mind with a terrific silence echoing the loud boom of war!

  “Pray,” said a voice. Miss Jenny. He could see her silhouette against the streetlight.

  Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to …

  “He’s got the whole world in his hands!…” sang a great booming voice.

  “How you like your new principal?” T. C. was asking. He listened with detachment to the woman’s voice that answered:

  “He don’ come till next year.”

  “Ol’ man Grey’s leavin’. That’s what you said it said in the Voice, didn’ it, Rutherford?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, Pr’fessor John D. Powell from Atlanta, Georgia! Hey! hey! A real distinguished-lookin’ cat! Looks like a whitie. There was a picture of ’im in the papers. An’ a young ’un, too!”

  “It’s about time some of them old diehards got out a the way,” said Miss Lucille, “an’ let some a the young ’uns have a chance!”

  “He must be a hell of a educator,” said Rutherford, “with all them degrees he got behind his name!”

  “An’ old Amerigo’s in the fifth grade!” T. C. exclaimed. “M-a-n, don’ seem like no time since that little joker was born. I usta throw ’im up in the air like a rubber ball! First thing we know we’ll look up an’ he’ll be comin’ out a one a these high-powered colleges! A big shot! An’ gittin’ married to one a them pretty little society gals!”

  “Yeah!” said Rutherford.

  “Won’ even speak to us no more!” T. C. grinned.

  “We’ll have to come around to the side door then!” said Rutherford.

  “Don’ start that stuff!” said Viola.

  “Old Vi’d be s-a-l-t-a-y!” said Miss Lucille.

  “Hey! hey!” T. C. exclaimed. “He’s got the makin’s of a great man, too! He got a head on his shoulders! Rutherford, he don’ think like you an’ me, man!” He slapped Rutherford on the back. “He don’ think like none a these jokers ’round here. He wants what the white man wants — already! You know? Ain’ nobody in the whole North End that don’ know that little joker! An’ I mean, respect him, too! Momma said she heard him teachin’ Sund’y school last Sund’y. He didn’ know she was listenin’ an’ he was bringin’ that jive home to them little jokers! An’ when the gen’ral assembly time came, he stood up an’ spoke before the whole Sund’y school! Had old rev. grinnin’ an’ scratchin’ his head! Yes sir! Momma goes to church e-v-e-r-y Sund’y an’ she said she ain’ never heard nothin’ like that!”

  “Unh!” Viola exclaimed, “he didn’ tell me nothin’ ’bout that!”

  “If you’d go to church sometimes yourself,” Rutherford grinned, “you’d see what your son’s doin’! Ha!”

  “Now don’ start that stuff, Rutherford Jones! I believe in the church as much as anybody!”

  “Why don’t you join up, then?”

  “Ain’ no sense in joinin’ the church till you ready to do right, an’ know you ready, an’ kin live like the Good Book says! Just joinin’ the church to be joinin’ don’ cut no ice.”

  “You ain’ fixin’ to start givin’ up dancin’ an’ beer an’ havin’ fun, are you, Vi?” said Miss Lucille. “You know you don’ have to lie to me!”

  “Naw, girl!”

  “That woman,” said Rutherford, “kin drink more beer — unh-unh! — more beer’n the breweries in Milwaukee kin brew!”

  “Oooooooo,” Viola cried, her laughter infecting the others.

  “You ain’ exactly no amateur yourself there, brother!” said T. C. “Don’ do as I do, do as I say do!” said Rutherford. “That’s what Momma usta tell us!”

  “Well,” said Viola, “when the time comes to join the church, an —”

  “When she gits old an’ fat an’ evil!” said Miss Lucille. “Tee! hee! An’ then she’ll sit around an’ give the young ’uns hell, like all them old sancty sisters up at Saint Johns!”

  “At least I try to see that Amerigo goes an’ learns what’s right!”

  “Yeah,” said Rutherford, “when old Vi gits old, see, with one foot in the grave and the other’n on a banana peel an’ can’t party down to the bricks no more an’ done spent all my money on clothes —”

  “What you got, Vi?” said Miss Lucille, but Viola pretended not to hear.

  “She’s gonna git eeeee-vil!”

  “Aw, Rutherford!” said T. C.

  “An’ righteous, Jack!”

  “What you talkin’ about, Rutherford Jones,” said Viola. “I don’ see you breakin’ your neck to join no church!”

  “Don’ need to, I’m good enough already.”

  “Ain’ that a killer!” Viola said.

  “Rutherford Jones!” said Miss Lucille, “if they didn’ already have a president in hell, I’d sure vote for you!”

  When he threw his head back to laugh, he caught sight of Miss Jenny’s silhouette, rocking quietly, calmly, to and fro.

  “Naw, but seriously!” Rutherford was saying: “I try to treat ever’body right! Like I like to be treated. I believe in the sense of the Bible … in the meanin’ underneath. An’ I don’ need nobody to read it for me!”

  “Look out, there, Jack!” said T. C.

  “That’s right!” Rutherford insisted, “an’ goin’ to church ever’ Sund’y — givin’ all my money that I done slaved for all week to some jackleg preacher to ride around in a Cadillac an’ wearin’ twenty-dollar ’dos an’ di’mond rings an’ all that crap! That ain’ gonna make me git to heaven— if it is a heaven — no faster! An’ you, neither!”

  Mrs. Derby shook her head with a serious air and said:

  “I agree, Mister Jones, they’s a powerful lot a sinnin’ goin’ on
in the world. Always have been. But the way I heard it is that the people ain’ the church!”

  “Tell ’im, Mrs. Derby!” said Viola.

  “Tell ’im what!” Rutherford exclaimed.

  “Let ’er talk!” said Miss Lucille. Mrs. Derby cleared her throat:

  “If all the peoples was good they wouldn’a had to build no church. Our Lord an’ Savior, Jesus Christ, wouldn’a had to die on no cross. They is —”

  “But —” Rutherford tried to interrupt, but the others shushed him down.

  “They is sinners! The world was born in sin. Some a the biggest sinners is sittin’ right up there in the church. But that’s — that’s why we need a church!”

  “A-men!” said Miss Jenny.

  “That’s all well an’ good, Mrs. Derby,” said Rutherford, “I ain’ disputin’ that. An’ I believe that every man — e-v-e-r-y man — got the right to worship like he believes. But let me ask you somethin’: What do you think was happenin’ before there ever was a church?”

  “You gittin’ deep now, Jack!” said T. C.

  “That’s dangerous talk, Rutherford,” said Viola seriously.

  “Life is dangerous! An’ the truth is dangerous! That’s why ever’body’s sayin’ one thing an’ doin’ somethin’ else!”

  “How does he know?”

  “But they is a church!” Mrs. Derby was saying: “Man is born in darkness, an’ the Good Book brought the light!”

  “There was people before there was a Bible!”

  “But there wasn’ nobody before the Lord!” said Miss Jenny.

  “Goddamn! She got you there, Rutherford!” T. C. shouted. “Aw … excuse me, Miss Jenny.”

  “Got who?” Rutherford retaliated: “What about all them Cath’lics an’-an’ Jews! People in Africa — an’ China an’ them. They goin’ to hell just ’cause they ain’ Baptists? Now, I don’ care what other people think. The church is a good thing — if a man believe in it — an’ try hard to do the right thing. But I don’ believe that no man kin be saved by just goin’ to church! An’-an’ if God is God, He gotta be God for ever’body! E-v-e-r’-b-o-d-y! An’ to tell you the honest truth, I don’ know — don’ nobody actually know — what really happened before man came to the earth. You know they got people — scientists an’ stuff like that — that don’ do nothin’ but dig up old bones an’ rocks an’ things tryin’ to find out what happened. An’ they say that man comes from a monkey!”