Tumbling

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  Noon was in the bedroom, where a cedar chest squatted at the foot of the bed and the bedspread was delicate and white like the lacy doilies that adorned the center of the bureau and chest of drawers. The bottom drawer lined with fresh cotton diapers sat along the night table, and the baby snuggled inside.

  Noon sat on the cedar chest and stroked her bare foot along the naps in the throw rug and wrote the word “healing” on off-white parchment paper. She pressed it between the gold-edged pages of her take-to-church Bible. She would touch her Bible to the altar tomorrow when Reverend Schell called for special prayer. Between her and God. That’s the only way her healing would come. Herbie must never know; her mother had cautioned her over and over. “Man know you tainted, dragged through the woods by those devils, he’ll put you down quicker than lightning striking. Plus his anger will get in the way, block the blessings before they even take hold.” Noon believed that now more than ever. For the past year she’d been writing the word “baby,” then folding the fancy paper into a perfect square, pressing it between her Bible’s thin pages, and lightly touching it to the altar Sunday after Sunday. Even though she’d gone through the motions earlier and had her heart prepared for giving the baby up come Monday had Reverend Schell not convinced her otherwise, she’d known. As soon as she’d seen Herbie standing under the chandelier with the baby in his arms, she’d known that that was her “miracle” taking hold. She hoped her healing miracle would take hold as swiftly.

  Herbie walked into the bedroom just as Noon placed her Bible on the cedar chest. “Doing a little Scripture reading on a Saturday night, huh?” He asked it softly and then walked straight to the head of the bed and peered into the dresser drawer of a cradle. The baby was sound asleep, and Herbie watched her breathe and wished that the eyes were open so he could see that penetrating stare again.

  “She ain’t waking no time soon, Herbie; she’s exhausted from being passed from hand to hand like she was today.”

  Herbie was usually irritated when Noon talked as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. But tonight her voice had a whisper to it like the rest of the house that stirred him and made him want Noon’s closeness.

  “That was sure some get-together, wasn’t it?” He moved quickly to the cedar chest and waited for Noon to lift her Bible so he could sit beside her. He sat stiffly at first. Never knew when his closeness would offend her. “I wouldn’t have guessed so many colored people could cram into this little house. Reminded me of Mississippi. If something big happened to one of us, everyone showed out just like they did today.”

  “I love it here, Herbie, I really do.” Noon let her head rest upon his shoulder. “Never thought I’d get used to any place after you talked me away from Florida. But this is home now. Whole area is nice. Nice place to raise Fannie up in.”

  Herbie smiled when Noon talked about raising Fannie. He was glad then that he had plucked Noon from a church congregation instead of from a nightclub. She would do right by this baby that had stared at him and melted his heart. “Yeah, well, I love it here too,” he mused. “Always knew I would. My daddy’s stories from his years as a Pullman porter got me excited about here. He used to tell us how once the train hissed through Washington, and then Maryland and Delaware, the colored man would start to sit a little straighter, stretch a little wider, jaw muscles would slacken. And then, when the conductor would sing out, ‘Phil-a-del-phia’”—Herbie threw his back and crooned the word out in his finest baritone—“the colored man could leave the Jim Crow car and sit anywhere he damned well pleased. Even the hiss of the train would start sounding like joy bells, my daddy used to say. Always knew I’d settle here someday. Even when I was deep in the South touring, I’d be thinking about Philly, those joy bells, and raising a family here someday.” He rubbed his chin against Noon’s hair. Her hair was thin and soft, and even though it was Saturday night, she hadn’t yet set it in rollers of twisted pieces of brown paper bag.

  “Raising a family.” Noon sighed and leaned in closer to him. “Imagine that. Yesterday this time it was just you and me. Now in the twinkling of an eye we got us a precious little baby. God is good, I tell you. Can’t wait to get to church in the morning and praise His name. You might even think of joining me.”

  Herbie was quiet; then he chuckled and whispered, “My sweet baby with the silky hair, you know your hair is so soft, how you keep it so soft and silky, baby?”

  “Don’t change the conversation, Herbie.” She pushed her head against his shoulder for emphasis. “You went to church long enough to catch my eye, now you act like it’s a sin to go. Why you act like that?”

  “They say church fulfills your needs.” Herbie squeezed Noon’s shoulder as he talked. “I went in, saw what I needed was you, and been careful not to wear out my welcome since.”

  “Well, all I know is it’d be good for that little baby’s benefit if both her parents were in church.”

  “Now, Noon, my daddy rarely went, and he did okay by my brother and me.”

  “Could have done better.”

  “And then you know what would have happened.” He slapped the cedar chest to punctuate his words. “I would have hurried up and married one of those what you all call worldly women. But seeing as I had a wild streak with that hard-living club life and all, I knew I would need the calming down of a big-legged church girl like you.”

  Noon blushed when he talked about her legs. And then she got up quickly from the cedar chest and went to the dresser to lay her Bible down.

  “Now why you go getting up?” Herbie teased. “I was enjoying that nice soft hair rubbing up against my shoulder.”

  Noon put her Bible in the center of her dresser just in front of her hand-etched wooden jewelry box. She was used to avoiding his closeness. Early in the morning before the sun even rose, before he had a chance to reach for her the way her mother told her that men did, always pulling on you first thing in the morning, she’d ease out of bed and fix him a big country breakfast instead. At night she’d pretend to be asleep, unmovable. But times like these were the hardest.

  “I just wish you would give some more thought to coming to church.” She had her back to him now. “Reverend Schell says we’re unevenly yoked and it’s not good for a marriage.”

  “The only thing uneven about our ‘yoke’”—he made his voice boom like Reverend Schell’s as he got up and walked to the dresser and put his arms around her back—“is that I like to do it”—he leaned in and smooched at her neck—“and you don’t.”

  He felt her shoulders stiffen. He had hoped tonight would be different with her so happy over the baby. Maybe she’d relax, let him give her pleasure for once. He started to apologize for bringing it up again. But right now his nature was rising, and he didn’t feel like getting dressed and going out and hunting down a woman for his physical release.

  He moved his hand across her back in circles; he felt her back stiffen too. “Don’t tense up on me, Noon. Not again. Please don’t. I need you so bad. It ain’t right to deny me of your pleasure like you been doing.”

  She wanted to open up for him. She wanted to smother him with her body until it made him cry out. But she was afraid of falling into that place where her passions died when she was just twelve. That place that had already claimed her insides. She pressed her hands hard into the dresser.

  Herbie’s throbbing urged him on. He kissed at the back of her neck. He moved his lips down toward the front around her throat. Her blouse was cotton, and the collar tickled his nose as he tried to get under it with his lips. He wanted her to wrap her arms around him, but he couldn’t pull her hands from the dresser.

  She could feel him snatching at her elbows, trying to make them bend. I’ll fall, she thought. Doesn’t he understand if I’m not holding on to something, I’ll fall? “Stop it!” she said. “You’re gonna make me fall.”

  “Go ahead and fall, baby, I got you.” Herbie was breathing harder and trying to unpry her hands from the dresser. “Hold me,” he almost commande
d. “Put your arms around me and hold me.”

  “I can’t,” she said as she tried to wrestle herself free.

  “You got to.” His head was buried in the space between her neck and shoulder. His throbbing was rhythmic and painful. “You got to; please, don’t do this to me, Noon, not again, don’t.”

  “Get off my hands,” she screamed, and then she pushed against him and yanked and pulled and twisted until she felt him relent.

  “The hell with this,” he shouted. He jabbed the air so hard that Noon backed up until her calves touched the cedar chest. “You supposed to be my damn wife. I ain’t supposed to have to fight for this.”

  “You should have let my hands be.” Her arms were now folded tightly across her chest.

  “Bullshit. It’s always something with you. This shit is crazy. It’s crazy, I tell you. And I can’t even get a decent explanation out of you about what the hell the problem is.”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” she whispered. “And keep your voice down, you gonna wake Fannie.”

  “Make me understand,” he shouted even louder. “We been man and wife for damn near a year. Now the adjustment time is supposed to be over with by now. So you better make me understand or I don’t know what’s gonna happen here, but something’s gotta happen. I got needs, and I gotta feel like I’m giving pleasure to my own damn wife, so you gotta make me understand or something.”

  “I told you I hurt myself when I was younger, and it left me with female problems, but I’ll be all right by and by,” she stammered, and then forced the words out. “It’s just gonna take me some more time to heal.”

  “Time? That’s all you been saying for the past year. What am I supposed to do while you doing all this damn healing?”

  “If you would come to church and hear about the Lord’s plan for salvation, that he takes you through trials to test your faith—”

  “Bullshit, Noon, the Lord says a man and wife got an obligation to satisfy each other. Don’t your reverend preach about that, huh? Why don’t you quote him when he say, ‘Ladies, y’all know the Lord means for marriage to bring pleasure to you and your mate,’ huh, why don’t you tell me he says something like that, huh, instead of all that uneven yoke bullshit?”

  “Keep your voice down. You want Jeanie next door to hear you?”

  “She don’t hear our bed rocking against the wall on a regular basis, that’s for damn sure, she might as well know that one of us is normal. You hear that, Jeanie?” He pounded at his chest. “I’m normal, this bedroom is mighty quiet night after night, but I’m normal.”

  Noon sat heavily on the cedar chest and looked at the ceiling, at the three lit bulbs jutting out of the gold-toned sockets until dark spots danced in front of her. She could feel the tears hot behind her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall this time. She couldn’t tell him why she didn’t have a nature to her. Couldn’t endure the suspicion that would certainly follow her accounting of what those evil people did to her. She heard her mother’s voice again: “He’ll say you asked for it. Treat you like a street whore, or worse yet, like a devil or a witch, is what he’ll do. Block your blessings too, you admit to something like that.”

  She looked at Herbie standing in front of her, at his fists clenched like his jaw, eyes gone to slits in anger. She could see the hurt through the anger. She at least wished she could make him understand that this was her cross—their cross to bear. Humph! He wouldn’t even step foot in the church she had come to love, how could she ever explain that they just had to be patient? Hadn’t they just been blessed with a brand-new baby girl? In God’s time. She closed her eyes tightly and said that to herself. She got angry then that she couldn’t make him understand. Bet if Big Carl from that dub told him so, he’d listen, or one of those big butt women that smiled at him from the barstools, bet he’d listen to one of them. She yanked her body from the cedar chest and stomped out of the room, muttering that she had to mix more formula since his old loud mouth was sure to make the baby stir.

  Herbie breathed in and out so that it sounded like moans. He sat back down on the cedar chest. He let his back, usually straight and square as the letter H, slump. Then he fell back onto the bed and dragged his hands down his face. “Damn,” he said into his palms. “Damn, damn, damn.” He really didn’t understand what the obstruction was all about. Why Noon would go cold on him, like death. He thought at first that it was a prenuptial thing, that Noon being a good Christian-raised girl was saving herself for marriage. Her body was so soft and quiet that he thought surely it was worth waiting for. But they had been legally bound for a year. In the meantime he had been patient, helped along by taking up with one willing woman or the other so his essence wouldn’t back up into his brain and make him go crazy. He thought about Ethel, the one he hadn’t seen in several months, the only one outside of Noon he had feelings for. He thought he would go out tonight after all, try to find Ethel. He got up to change.

  When Noon came back into the bedroom with Fannie’s bottle wrapped in a warm towel, Herbie was already dressed for going out. She didn’t look directly at him as she brushed past him to get to the dresser drawer of a cradle. She did cut her eye at him, though, long enough to see that he had on his good navy pants, the ones she took extra time pressing because she’d hoped he’d wear them to church. His white shirt was perfectly starched; it confused her with feelings of pride in her handiwork and rage that the fruits of her talent should be wasted in a devil-filled nightclub. His sleeves were rolled up in neat folds. She had never noticed how hairy his arms were before. He sat on the side of the bed away from Noon and slapped at the black leather of his shoes until the shine came up. The scent of Kiwi polish was thick in the room and almost overpowered the intermittent whiffs of Old Spice aftershave. Noon’s eyes started to tear.

  She busied herself over the sleeping infant, folding and unfolding the blanket under her chin, smoothing the blanket out, then folding it, then smoothing it again. “That stuff is too strong to be using around the baby,” she said through her teeth. “Maybe you should polish your shoes in the cellar from now on till we put her in her own room.”

  “Maybe I should sleep in the cellar too.” Herbie stood as he talked so that his voice got louder.

  “Fiery furnace down there, just like hell, you should feel right at home.”

  “At least the fire moves,” he said on his way out of the bedroom. “And it’s red hot.”

  The front door closed with a thump that Noon felt deep in her chest. The door closing woke Fannie. Noon picked her right up, and rocked her, and unwrapped the warm towel from the bottle.

  FOUR

  Herbie spotted the club immediately as he walked up the Lawnside, New Jersey, hill, mashing the grass hard under his feet. Big Carl had been right earlier when he’d said he’d heard through the grapevine that Ethel was back and singing just across the river. The whole town of Lawnside was celebrating its first hundred years as the oldest Negro town, and the poster board that said “Gert’s Tent-Top Nightclub” shouted Ethel’s name in exaggerated block letters followed by the slogan “The voice of the century.” He wanted to shout too. For six months she had disappeared. No forwarding address, no explanations, just that she had to go down home to take care of some things.

  Thick blue-gray smoke billowed from huge barbecue pits that were cooking up ribs and chicken for the hand-clapping, feet-twisting party makers under the tent. The smoke vibrated to the beat of the drums and reminded Herbie of his Mississippi home. The smoke sifting under the tent gave the club a foggy haze, like a foggy dawn. Herbie crowded in and found a seat along a wide bench. He watched big-hipped women in bold-colored dresses of emerald and orange sashaying like bushy-tailed squirrels on an acorn hunt. Tan straw hats and polka-dot ties were nodding and flapping everywhere. Laughter spilled like the gold-colored liquid falling into short glasses. Conversations were loud and light, filled with jive and merriment and to the beat.

  This was Herbie’s set. He loved to talk to the women, d
rink gin, and listen to the music. But not tonight. He was on edge about his earlier argument with Noon. Her shutting down when it came time for them to mix pleasures was going to mean the end of their marriage yet. But now they had this new baby, now it was complicated. Plus his stomach was jumpy over seeing Ethel. And there was something about this place: the way the new April grass felt soft and wilted under his feet as he walked up the hill; the southern-style tent sporting red and white balloons; even the smell of fresh-killed pig sizzling over red-hearted chunks of charcoal; this could have been Mississippi instead of New Jersey. Just as he started to drift back there, to the Mississippi cotton, and his mother and baby brother, a lilting voice pulled him back.