Such Sweet Thunder

by Vincent O. Carter

  “My soul has grown deep, like the rivers.…”

  “Why — you read that beautifully!” declared Miss Jennings.

  Giggles resounded throughout the sunlit room.

  “Lillie … Bryant!…” she was saying. “I’d like you to tell the class what you think the poem means in your own words.”

  A pretty little light-brown-skinned girl with thick black hair, heavy eyebrows, and strongly accented cheekbones began to speak:

  “I’ve known rivers, Eh, I think that he’s tracing the history of the Negro and …”

  He was gazing at Miss Jennings’s beautiful brown neck. Ann Jennings … Ann Jones. When I’m twenty-five she’ll be … too tall.

  There was a mole on the right side of her neck, almost under her chin, near her, Eve’s apple! He stared at it, while Lillie explained the meaning, and then Ruth Brashears, a tall skinny girl with a longish oval face, large greenish brown eyes, and a pleasant friendly smile. After she had explained, Carrol Tolbert, a round-headed, fat-cheeked, dark-brown-skinned boy with sensuous lips and a full set of big strong white teeth and sparkling mischievous eyes, raised his hand:

  “— all he means is that a river ain’ nothin’ but a hair of the ocean’s nappy head — that needs combin’!”

  General laughter. Miss Jennings smiled.

  “See Carrol T. before you pee!” he muttered under his breath.

  More laughter. Miss Jennings looked confusedly at the class while he continued to stare at her neck.

  Miss Jennings unconsciously rubbed the spot on her neck, glancing at him with a subtle expression of curious agitation. She played with the gold chain she wore, pinched the hem of the neck of her dress together, and finally folded her arms upon her bosom and allowed her head to sink a little forward.

  The bell rang. He rose and marched triumphantly into the hall, his eyes and all the outlets and inlets of his sensibility filled with the sound and the fury of Miss Jennings’s beautiful neck!

  “Our love … if a dream, but in my re-va-rie.…” he sang at the top of his voice along the way home. “I can see that this love was meant — for me.…” He became his voice. He became the song. He floated along the glistening streetcar tracks, was run over by a southbound streetcar. “… My dreams … are as worthless as tin to me!”

  Zoom! the northbound streetcar stirred the breeze that wafted his face.

  “Without you — life would never begin to beeee! — Soooooo — love me! — as I love you in my re-va-rie.… Make my dreams a real-i-tee.… Let’s dispense with for-mal-i-tee.… Come to me!… In my rev-a — reeeeee!”

  “Sing it boy!” shouted an old man just as he was reaching the corner of Eleventh and Troost.

  He looked vacantly at the man, and then past him, at the little church on the other side of the street, near the garage on the northeast corner. She goes there … Episcopalian.

  He peeped through the crack of the double door and gazed at the empty seats and at the altar, which was different from the pulpit at St. John’s. Sort of like a Catholic church, but not as fancy.

  Suddenly the seats filled with quiet serious-looking dignified people. Big shots. Sunlight filled the altar. The choir stand flushed with singers dressed in white half-length robes. He could hear her voice singing, funny, but real dignified, without a whole lot a shouting and stuff. And then the music filtering through the crack in the door died down, and the preacher talked, lectured, like in a classroom. Real educated!

  I’m gonna be a Episcopalian and sing in the choir. I’m gonna … But when I’m … she’ll be …

  He eased away from the door and stepped quietly into the street where the noise of his fears was absorbed by the sound of traffic.

  “Hi, Amerigo!”

  William, a pretty little black boy with wavy black hair, stood on his front porch, smiling at him.

  “Hi.”

  Sort of like Toodle-lum, but his hair’s curly in a different way. More wavy-like, like an Italian’s! Toodle-lum’s was — Was?

  He thought about the alley and all the old faces that had lived down there, and the new.

  I oughtta go down and see Aunt Lily. I oughtta go down next week. Next week.

  Suppertime came and went. Crickets sang in the grass. The city lights sparkled like diamonds.

  In bed in the dark the stars gave off a sad blue burning light. When I’m twenty-five she’ll be too tall. Realleh! Mr. Dillahd will have her. He wants her. He closed his eyes upon the sunny red classroom. The door opened and Mr. Dillard entered, a tallish, slightly round, clean-cut young man of thirty with glistening pomaded hair. He strode across the room, his face contorted into a self-conscious smile, as he tried to ignore the whispered remarks of the students:

  “Oh!” sighed all the girls.

  “Ain’ he ka-ute?” exclaimed Ruth Regal.

  “Look at that mellah moss!” Clista whispered, “tee! hee!” with a little squeal that made everyone laugh.

  Her name is Jones, too. Amerigo laughed at her funny turned-up nose and the dimples on either side of her mouth that gave her face a doll-like expression.

  Meanwhile a faint smile played around the corners of Miss Jennings’s eyes and mouth as she accepted the soft-spoken information that Mr. Dillard’s nervous lips imparted. He tried to catch the word as it fell:

  Now?

  Now? echoed throughout the red room, causing sharp pangs of regret to force him deeper into the red room, bloodred, turning black, shimmering in the moonlight. Tirelessly he swam through the freezing waters, until he finally reached the island, where he dragged Miss Jennings safely to shore. He lay her head upon a soft volume of poems by Langston Hughes. She opened her eyes and stretched out her arms in gratitude. Now? she whispered.

  The next afternoon at school La Verne, who was tall and oval-faced with big pretty eyes spaced far apart, said:

  “Mister Walker’s the cutest!”

  “That ain’ no lie!” said Ruth Regal.

  “Ol’ Ruth is black,” Carrol whispered to Tracy who sat beside him, “but she’s tacked. I’ll take ’er — an’ won’ give ’er back! Ha! ha! ha!”

  “I’ll take ’er, too!” Tracy said, a wheezing laughter shaking his skinny frame.

  “With that fine curly hair,” La Verne continued. “An’ he knows how tog, too!”

  Mr. Walker, the English teacher, walked down the hall in a soft white linen summer suit like he knew what time it was.

  “You’ll never be a movie star,” he sadly heard Viola say, “but you got a good heart and a good head — develop those. Anyway — beauty is as beauty does.”

  When the last bell rang Mr. Walker stood before the main entrance of the building, immaculate in the three o’clock sun. His dark glasses gave an air of mystery to his dark handsome face, while his heavy but neatly trimmed mustache proved that he was a man. It was red. On top of that, he was tall, and his legs were long and straight, creases sharp. His lips parted suddenly and his face broke into a healthy smile. Miss Jennings rushed out of the building dressed for tennis. He opened the door of his dark blue convertible, she got in, and he entered from the other side. He said something to her:

  Now!

  She said something to him:

  Now?

  And they were off!

  His heart sank with grief as he watched the car’s fluid motion down the street to the corner — and away! — through the hateful street, under the hateful sun. The two-faced sky was fair for them, the flowers bloomed for them. The sudden breeze that chilled him wafted their faces, kissed their lips!

  Amerigo stared at her neck.

  She said something to him. He said something to her.

  Amerigo stared at her neck.

  As she threw her head back to laugh, eyes flashing, teeth sparkling, breast heaving — somewhere along the fair hot way — she touched her neck. He knew it, because suddenly the air rushed quietly from his lungs and the beat of his heart faded from his ears. He heard the old folks singing at church in a deep myster
ious way a wordless song that had no melody, but yet a melody, though you couldn’t just learn it, you simply opened your mouth that wasn’t your mouth anymore, and sang the song that you couldn’t even hear, because you had become the ear, that wasn’t an ear anymore, but the song. He simply became the song.…

  That evening after supper he stood motionless before the kitchen sink staring vacantly into the dishpan.

  “What’s the matter with you, boy?” Viola asked.

  From the corner of his eye he perceived another figure approaching from the depths of the middle room. Closer, closer still, until it stopped beside the first figure that stood in the door. They were staring at him.

  “Your son’s blowin’ his top!” said the taller figure. A heavy bearded voice.

  Tears trickled down his face.

  “You sick?” Viola asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Somebody do somethin’ to you?”

  Silence.

  “Well — what’s the matter, then?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Come on, Babe,” said Rutherford, “leave ’im alone.”

  The two figures receded into the darkness.

  His lips trembled, his tears fell into the dishpan.

  They don’t care! They don’t know. Don’ nobody know. He stared at the rainbow bubble. He picked up the glass. The bubble burst.

  An instant later, a month later, as he climbed the steps of the R. T. Bowles Junior High School and entered the busy hall:

  “You heard the latest?” asked a voice.

  “Naw — what, honey?” asked the second voice: girls.

  “They say that Principal Thompkins is beatin’ old Mister Dillard’s and Mister Walker’s time with Miss Jennings, and that he’s just waitin’ till he gets his divorce so he kin marry ’er!”

  “Ain’ that a killer!”

  Someone else?

  He shuddered within the cool recesses of an early Monday morning when he was on his way to school.

  The bell rang. He stepped blindly into the room.

  “Ssssssh!” whispered Carrol T., pointing to a little tortoise that he had placed upon Miss Jennings’s desk. The class settled down in secretive silence and waited for her to enter the room.

  She entered.

  Giggles.

  “Ssssssh!” Carrol hissed.

  Her eyes swept curiously over the class. She subtly straightened her dress and touched her hair. She stood before the desk. She looked down, and then up, and then a smile lit up her face. Her eyes shone. Her teeth sparkled. The class burst into a gale of laughter. The tortoise drew its head into its shell. She tried to coax it out but it wouldn’t come.

  “Come on!” she whispered seductively. Crooking her right forefinger and pursing her lips, she beckoned to him. A sensuous smile inflamed her eyes and worked itself around the contours of her mouth. When she winked at the tortoise her lips quivered.

  It’s true! he thought.

  Suddenly the room was filled with the blinding whiteness of the huge white bed. Miss Jennings lay upon it with her leg drawn toward her chest. She smiled up at Mr. Thompkins who stood above her. Trembling: Now? she whispered, temptingly beckoning to him with her crooked forefinger and winking at him: Now?

  “I sure wish I was that turtle!” said Carrol T. out loud, “I bet you I’d come out!”

  He sat choking in the sun-filled room amid the sound of laughter that, shimmering upon the rims of her eyes, was about to fall, when suddenly, head thrown back, teeth bared, her eyes met his, and the laughter froze upon her face, congealed in her throat, as her fingers groped nervously behind her ears and along the quivering flesh of her neck in search of her lost composure.

  It’s true! her glance admitted, in a helpless, barely perceptible shade of apologetic brilliance.

  Someone else!

  “He’s a fine man!” he heard Viola say. “At least that’s what ever’body says. They say his wife sure gave him a hard time. An’ I hear he’s got a little girl, too.”

  She should have a principal, he thought. Not just a teacher. And he’ll be good to her too. She’ll be a big shot in society — a prominent social figure and all. He’s a terribleh luckeh chap! Man.

  He entered the office the following afternoon just after the last bell had rung. “May I speak to Mister Thompkins, please?”

  “A student to see you, sir,” said the secretary, a brown-skinned young lady with rimless glasses.

  He stepped into the office. It was like Principal Powell’s, only bigger. He looks like Principal Powell, too! Edu-cated!

  “What can I do for you?” Mr. Thompkins was asking with a friendly smile. Amerigo studied his handsome dark brown suit.

  With a vest, Jack!

  He admired the little golden key that dangled from the third button, and the YMCA membership pen in the buttonhole of his coat. There was a pencil in his manicured hand, which he tapped gently against the ink blotter on his desk, where papers were neatly arranged. Moving toward the desk, he observed that Mr. Thompkins’s skin was about the same shade of brown as that of Miss Jennings and that his hair, though not as good as Mr. Walker’s, was neatly cut. He was a tall man, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eye, though his general expression was one of thoughtful sadness.

  His wife gave him a hard time.

  “What can I do for you?” he was saying. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Amerigo sat down.

  “Eh — I-I’ve been thinking about what I want to be when I, about what profession I would like to take up, when I get to be a — when I finish high school. I just wondered if you had a minute … minute … to spare … ta … to … kind a tell me what you think about it.”

  Mr. Thompkins leveled his gaze upon him.

  “If you catch a joker starin’ at you,” he heard Rutherford say, “stare back at him, an’ hold it!”

  He stared back at him — and held it. Mr. Thompkins reared back in his swivel chair, took a deep breath, and looked at the ceiling, as though he were searching his past, a thoughtful, sad past, for the right word, for the right beginning, as though he were reaccessing the way through his own Forty-Three Year Siege.

  “Well, son, I don’t really know if there is a right way to know — so — so early. I’ve wanted to be so many things since I’ve been old enough to think about it.”

  He’s the one for her, he thought, scrutinizing his man carefully, hardly conscious of the warm serious words that now fell in the background of his mind. He should have her. He can give her more than I can, but if she ever needs me I’ll love her forever. I’ll love him, too. When I get to be a man. When I finish college I’m going to be a poet like Langston Hughes, and she’ll read my poems and … and be sorry, and I’ll forgive her. She’ll see. They’ll all see.

  “Well,” Mr. Thompkins was saying, “that’s about all I know to say, son.”

  He thanked him and left the office.

  “W-e-l-l, it won’ be long now, Babe!” Viola exclaimed, “just a little while longer an’ you got it made!”

  He looked up at her from the depths of his despair. Her bright warm smile bore down upon him with the cruelty of the hot summer sun. She had been away then, Miss Jennings had been away, in Denver, for three whole months! His letters had stretched out under the bridge and under the bridge and under the bridge to:

  Dear Miss Jennings … Dear Miss Jennings … Dear Miss Jennings … Dear Miss Jen …

  “What?” Viola had exclaimed, “you writin’ that woman agin! She ain’ had time to answer the last one yet! Did you tell ’er about all the books you been readin’?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “What did you git from the library this time?”

  “I got the poems of Omar Khayyám an’ … and —”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s an old poet. And The Big Sea by Langston Hughes. He’s colored! A Ne-gro! and the Republic of Plato and —”

  “Who’s that?”

  “There’s a picture, a mura
l of him on the wall at the art gallery.”

  “That’s deep stuff, there, boy! You gonna read your letter to me when it’s finished?”

  “Yes’m.”

  Viola’s laughing voice scratched the grooves along the surface of his mind like a phonograph needle scratching the empty grooves of a record. Nobody understands! His black skin tightened around his awareness of himself until his eyes bulged grotesquely and his ears protruded into the hostile air about him like antennae registering the intensity of the cruel laughter directed at him.

  If I’d have been tall! he thought bitterly, and old, light, half white with curly hair! If — if I had lived out south in a house with bushes and a lawn and trees. If spring would only wait till I get ready! How long?

  I’ll love her always, he thought with a heavy feeling of futility that was agitated by a feverish anticipation of raw green grasses springing up through the snow, of buds swelling on the branches of the trees, along the perilous way from Aunt Rose’s up to Twenty-Third Street. He passed the white house on the corner, her house with the fresh white curtains and the polished windows, with the bright green lawn shaded by the pretty trees — under fair skies and foul — just before he dashed around the corner and down the hill and up to Troost to catch the streetcar, south, to the art gallery, where they have to take you in, even if you’re ugly and black … and weren’t baptized until the new reverend had stood up in church and said:

  “Well, sir! — Ain’ this a glorious day!”

  “A-MEN!”

  “Eh, now! eh … Ah … eh …”

  “Help ’im, Je-sus!”

  “Aaaaaaw-nooow! Praise the Lord! I feel at h-o-m-e! In God’s house! You know. when you been saved — after a long hard struggle with the devil — with yourself!”

  “Tee! hee! hee!”

  “You jumpy as a child at Christmastime! You look up into the starry sky an’ you see God!”

  “YEAH!”

  “Aaaaan’ you look at the trees an’ you see God! You look into your neighbor’s face an’ you see God’s holy work!”