Tumbling

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  “No one expected to see Noon over there helping with the preparations tonight. We all thought she’d be too tied up with that new baby that was left on your steps, but she found a way.”

  “She will find a way, thank you, Bow.”

  “You might find the way too, young man. One of these days.”

  “Scuse me?” Herbie put his hands over his head to protect it from the rain.

  “To church, boy. Don’t play dumb with me. I’m old enough to be your father and feel right justified in telling you that your lifestyle ain’t right for a nice Christian lady the likes of Noon.”

  “Look, Bow, you ain’t made it no secret about how you feel about me.”

  “She is after all a preacher’s daughter.” Bow talked right over Herbie.

  “I take care of my family, okay, Bow.”

  “Good upbringing, that girl had. Parents was the pinnacle of that community in Florida. I know ’cause I still got kinfolk there.”

  The rain was falling harder now and landing on Herbie’s thick eyelashes and looked like tears. He wiped at his eyes and said, “If you trying to make a point, can you make it so I can go get an umbrella and see my family home, since you obviously ain’t interested in what I got to say?”

  “Made it, boy.” Bow stood unfazed by the rain and smiled. “Guess you better be getting that umbrella.”

  “You trying to say I ain’t good enough for Noon, that’s what you trying to say, well, let me tell you, she don’t want for nothing, and she sure don’t have to hunt down no day job.”

  “Rain’s really falling, Herbie; you best keep your head dry.” Bow was still smiling. His teeth were long and straight, and Herbie had the urge to knock them out with his bare fist. Instead he turned and walked swiftly away.

  By the time he dashed home to get an umbrella and walked the three and a half blocks to the church, the rain had stopped. He stood across the street, facing the church. Yellow light pulsed out of the church basement. The light was always on and gave a glow to the sidewalk that surrounded the church. The scent of baking sweet potato pies sifted along the damp air and enticed Herbie with a sweet brown nutmeg–tinged aroma. He couldn’t force himself across the street, though. He couldn’t muster up the desire to walk inside the church.

  Inside, they had mostly finished their cooking preparations for tomorrow’s Founders’ Day celebration. Noon and the ladies, and the deacons, who were there to shuffle the huge pans in and out of the oven. Reverend Schell even lent his hand. Pastor of this church since the Depression from a long line of Schells: His uncle had been pastor, his grandfather before him; his grandfather’s oldest brother cofounded the church, oversaw its erection, had the words “A Refuge and a Rock for the Newly Free” etched into the cornerstone of the fine brick structure. Like the Schells before him, this preacher was a working leader, put on his overalls with the rest of them when it was time to paint. Helped with the plumbing, shoveled snow, pitched coal, and on Sunday mornings put on his fancy robe and rocked the congregation, made them shout and clap until it felt like the walls might come tumbling down. Right now he quoted Scriptures to keep the morale of these willing workers lifted high.

  The ladies took a break and passed Fannie from hand to hand. They bounced her, fed her, and chattered on about how the Good Lord meant for Noon and Herbie to have that baby and how it wasn’t nothing but the hand of the Lord that fixed it so the child would be left in a box on their front steps. And as they spoke, they all were struck by the baby’s eyes.

  “That stare,” Sister Maybell said. “I ain’t never seen a baby this young look you in the eye so directly.”

  “Like she trying to look right through you to your soul,” said Pat Saunders.

  “That child might likely have a seeing eye,” Sister Maybell said softly, almost hauntingly.

  “Hope to God she don’t,” Noon answered. “Too much pressure on a child when they can see into the future. Child down home had one and ended up taking her own life. They think she saw her mother’s death a month before it happened, and the knowing of it was more than she could handle.”

  “Usually the Lord gives them a strong constitution when he gives them that gift of extra sight.” Sister Maybell was consoling.

  “Noon, Noon.” Reverend Schell put his hands on her shoulders. “If God is for us, we need not trouble ourselves over parts of the future that might not even come to pass. He has blessed you with this child, seeing eye or not, and he has given you a concerned pastor and a church family for you to lean on, no matter what the future sends.”

  “I’ll say amen to that,” said Sister Maybell. “When my son was killed training for the Negro part of that white man’s army, and I was left with the raising of my pretty grandson, Willie, I think I would’ve surely gone mad with grief if it hadn’t been for my Sunday morning release where I could cry out like I could nowhere else. And the whole church, the whole congregation just held me in their arms, rocked me like you rocking that baby right now. You don’t know true comfort till you been held and rocked by a whole congregation.”

  Reverend Schell gushed with pride, and Noon settled down. And Reverend Schell shifted the conversation to the goodness of the Lord, and they sang a little and laughed about such things like the Bible Bandit, who lived not far from there, who’d rob gas stations and always had a Bible in his hand. Then mostly they were done. The meats all cleaned and seasoned and ready for the ovens come daybreak, the macaroni sitting in butter and cheese, the chicken covered over with flour and paprika, the string beans snapped and soaked and swirling around the neck bones, the cakes iced, the biscuits formed; all that was left was to wait for the pies that needed to bake awhile longer. Noon insisted that the rest head on home; she and the baby would stay and wait for the pies. Reverend Schell said that he would wait with Noon too. And when everyone was gone from the church except for Noon and the baby and Reverend Schell, he asked her where the slant to her eyes had gone.

  “I declare ’fore God, I don’t know what you talking ’bout, Reverend.” She played with the dials on the stove and opened the oven and closed it.

  “You got small eyes, Noon. They show what they show under them. They get puffy along the bottom and lose that nice slant they got to them.”

  “Sinuses acting up. Happens most Aprils.” She moved to the sink tub and dried it out.

  “A good shepherd knows his flock, Noon. You suffering, you need to unburden yourself.”

  She squeezed water from the dishrag and hung it over the spigot. “Just want to do the Lord’s will, Reverend. Gets hard sometimes.” Her voice sounded high-pitched and strained.

  “It’d help if you and Herbie were evenly yoked, you know that, don’t, you?”

  “It ain’t all Herbie, Reverend. He’s better than most actually. Worst he does is go into those clubs.”

  Noon turned then and looked at Reverend Schell. He was leaned against the counter carved out of the wall that separated the kitchen from the auditorium of the church basement. Good preacherly-looking man. Strapping black skin, tall, sturdy frame, expansive shoulders. His rugged features went soft around the eyes that whispered, “Trust me, trust me.” His face was expectant. He was used to the unburdening that Noon was about to do. Even though she was generally a keep-to-herself member, she was after all a preacher’s daughter. She would trust him when she couldn’t trust God. “Trust me, Sister Noon.” Not just his eyes now, but his mouth said it too in a voice that was deep and soothing. “Trust your Reverend Schell.”

  He opened his arms wide as Noon fell into them, saying that it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair. Her insides were scarred. She didn’t have a nature to her, and it wasn’t fair.

  So as Herbie stood on the other side of the street watching the yellow light of the basement against the pavement, Noon and Reverend Schell and the sound-asleep baby were upstairs in the sanctuary. It was dark up there except for two candles hanging over the altar. Reverend Schell had removed the white sheets and communion trays from the alta
r table that stood at the front and center of the sanctuary. Noon was stretched across the table. Her eyes were clenched like her fists. Reverend Schell had covered her from her shoes to the collar of her dress with the thick white sheets that had just covered the silver trays that held thimble-sized glasses for tomorrow’s communion. He stood over her, his hands cupped high in the air. “Touch!” he said into the darkness. The candles flickered as his voice resonated through the sanctuary. “In your holy name, Lord, touch your daughter Noon. Touch, touch, heal, forgive, touch, Lord, touch.”

  His words gushed forth one after the other, rousing the baby, who was in a basket on the floor next to the altar. She shifted in the basket, and twisted, and worked up a cry. Her whining was lost in the gulf of air that Reverend Schell’s voice created.

  Noon echoed Reverend Schell’s commanding voice with her own shallow whispers. “Please, Lord, heal me, Lord, please, Father, touch me, Lord.” Her body moved in a frenzy; she cried out then, begging the Lord for healing.

  Reverend Schell moved his hands down; he inched them down through the air as if he were pushing against iron weights. His hands shook as he called on the Lord to touch and heal. He was sweating, as he held his hands two feet above her body. He spoke in whispered babbles. He moved his fingers in ripples across the air. “Have your way, Lord,” he whispered. “Have your way.”

  She couldn’t feel anything as Reverend Schell tried to render healing. She did hear the baby crying, though. As Reverend Schell’s voice fell to a whisper, the baby had worked up a good strong cry. It pulled Noon to awareness as she writhed along the altar. She was embarrassed, covered over with the communion sheets, convulsing. She had never lost control like that, not even during the most fiery revival. She saw Reverend Schell’s shadow cast in the candlelight. How large he appeared as his arms rose and fell, his outline exaggerated by the candle flame’s random dance.

  She tried to sit up. She needed to get to the baby. Reverend Schell put his hand to her forehead.

  “Reverend,” she gasped, “Reverend, the baby. Reverend.”

  He leaned his face in close to hers. “How bad do you want your healing?”

  She was confused.

  “How bad, Noon? How bad?” His voice was low, tender. His breath was warm as he talked right into her face.

  The baby’s cry was like a siren, now, getting louder and louder in circles. It pulled Noon toward it. “Reverend!” This time she screamed it crisply like a slap.

  He jerked to. He crossed his hands on her face in the center of her forehead. “Sweet Noon,” he whispered. “You got to claim your healing, Noon, you got to claim it.” He unfolded the communion sheets from around her. He helped her to sit. She felt wobbly as she stepped down from the altar table and smoothed at her dress and leaned quickly to pick up the baby. She rocked her and bounced her and hurried to the kitchen to get her milk.

  Herbie couldn’t stand it. He leaned up against the lamppost, scraping the silver tip of his closed umbrella against the concrete. The light from the church basement was so constant illuminating the sidewalk. He couldn’t stand the waiting. And then he thought he heard a baby, his baby crying. He stomped across the street and pulled open the church door with such force that it banged against the jutting silver gray bricks. “Noon,” he called in, “how much cooking you plan on doing here tonight?” He walked down the three steps that led into the church basement. He looked through the carved-out wall and saw Noon holding the baby, feeding her and rocking her as she stood in the middle of the kitchen. She looked so small standing in the center of the large room. She was small, small shoulders and arms, only her hips were broad, and her big, healthy legs. He was just about to scoop her in his arms, tell her how much he loved her, how sorry he was, how he would try to be patient, when Reverend Schell walked up behind him.

  “Evening, Herbie. Came to fetch your lovely wife, I see. Well, I wasn’t going to hold her much longer. She was tending to the pies, and I was gonna poke some coals around since it’s supposed to be chilly come morning, then I was gonna see her home, safely.”

  “Won’t be needing to do that, now, Reverend. In fact, if the pies are near done, maybe you can handle it from here and I can get my family on home.”

  “Actually they’re done,” Noon said quickly. She handed the baby to Herbie through the carved-out kitchen window and went to tend to the pies.

  “Let me give you a hand there, Sister Noon,” Reverend Shell said as he opened the large, heavy oven door. “Careful, don’t burn yourself, now, they’re hot, real hot.”

  Noon lifted the copper-colored pies from the oven one at a time as the preacher held the oven door and fanned the heat away so she wouldn’t get burned. She could feel warmth now deep in her body in the parts that had been numb since she was twelve. She held each pie carefully as she tried to hold on to the slither of warmth thawing her insides like a thin hot line piercing through a block of ice. She didn’t know completely what to make of it, except that maybe her miracle was starting. Maybe the next time Reverend Shell prayed over her the warmth might deepen and spread. “Thank you, Reverend,” she said. “That oven door is heavy sure nuff.”

  “Maybe, for you, but not for me. But that’s why I’m your pastor; it’s my duty to carry the extra weight.” He smiled, and in that instant Noon loved him more than anything.

  Herbie cleared his throat as he watched them bustle about the kitchen conversing. Her soft hair was pulled back in a bun, but it looked tousled by Noon’s standards; she always kept a brush to it. Her simple dress, a smoky blue color like the air under that Lawnside tent, was belted at the waist, but it had far too many wrinkles for her usual taste. That bothered Herbie, seeing Noon disheveled, especially since she was so particular about things like unbrushed hair and wrinkled clothing. He bounced the baby gently in his arms as Reverend Schell thanked Noon and kissed her cheek lightly.

  “I’m ready now,” Noon said to Herbie as she walked toward him, glowing.

  Reverend Schell extended his oversized hand to Herbie. It caught Herbie off guard, and he had to shift the baby to meet the handshake. He felt suddenly diminished, as if he could never measure up. He was inclined to feel this way from time to time when he was in the company of righteous men.

  SIX

  Except that Herbie hadn’t felt diminished when he’d first seen Noon’s preacher daddy. Two years earlier in Florida, where Noon lived the sheltered life of a preacher’s daughter. He’d felt inspired that day, uplifted, in love.

  He was a drummer then and accustomed to the fast-paced, hepcat-talking, late-night life. He was touring in that part of Florida with a band famous for swing and blues and, to him, the prettiest singer ever to hold a microphone. After he had been on the road for a month, tired and homesick, and after he’d seen that pretty singer, Ethel, leave the club the night before with the headwaiter, he felt like having church.

  He ended up at Noon’s daddy’s church. A prosperous country church made of fine white brick and red and yellow windows stained by hand. It was Noon who ushered him to his seat. Her straight walk in her white usher’s uniform stirred him. Her walk was different from the night walk of the club women. Theirs was exaggerated, wide open. Noon had a close walk; there was a stillness to her. He imagined how her thighs must rub together when she walked. He didn’t hear much of her daddy’s sermon that morning, at least not the words. He went with the rhythm of it though, the buildup, until it crescendoed and people were dancing and shouting, “Yes, yes, Lord, yes!” He imagined himself amidst Noon’s closeness, opening her up, calmed by her stillness until the stillness made him shout.

  Noon fixed his plate after service. She heaped it with her own macaroni and cheese. The top of it was baked brown. Just below the surface the cheese and butter oozed through the noodle’s soft blandness. He watched her as he ate. She moved about the small church kitchen efficiently. Her slight shoulders maneuvered around the bustiness of the older women. Her healthy legs took the weight of her wide, bow-shaped hips. H
er legs did all the moving. Her hips stayed remarkably still. He sank into the fluffiness of a yeast roll and imagined that Noon would be like that, soft, buttery-tasting, still.

  “That was a mighty fine meal,” he said when she came to clear his plate. “Did you have a hand in that?”

  “Not only a hand,” she said, smiling broadly, “I was up to my elbows in macaroni and cheese.”

  “Well, some of that softness from those pretty brown arms must of rubbed off into that pan, ’cause that was some sure nuff good eating. Can I ask you your name?”

  “Noon,” she said as she busied her eyes at the table and swept crumbs into the dirty plates.

  “Noon? Now that’s a different name, a mighty different name. Was you born at noon or something like that?”

  She laughed quickly and then blushed through her cheeks and said, “Close, real close. Actually I have a birthmark on my forehead that runs down to almost here.” She pointed to the bottom of her bang, which almost met her eyebrows. “So my brothers named me Noon; they said it looked like a clock stuck at noon.”

  “Can I see?” he asked. His smile was gone, and his stare was penetrating.

  Noon put the dishes on the edge of the table and lifted her bang back and let it fall again against her forehead.

  “Beautiful,” he said. “That’s got to be the prettiest birthmark I’ve ever seen, I’m not jiving you either.”

  Noon’s relaxed smile froze. She said a quick thank-you, grabbed the plates, and retreated to the safety of the church kitchen.

  She immersed a stack of plates into the kitchen tub filled with glistening suds. She thought about Herbie as she moved the dishcloth in wide circles over the plates. She had watched him all morning. His bounciness, the way he crossed and uncrossed his legs, and snatched at his tie, and shifted around in his seat. He was different from the stiffness of the church men. He had a spontaneity about him, an unpredictability that intrigued her. Since that horrific day under the palmetto when she’d gone for huckleberries, she’d not felt anything that came even close to attraction. She had grown up the center of her brothers’ and her father’s affection. She helped her mother cook for them. She starched their shirts so that the clean stiffness in the collars could be seen all the way from the back of the church. She cut their hair. She hand-sewed their Sunday pants and the work clothes they wore in the hot Florida field. She was devoted to them. And they adored her. She was content just to help her mother take care of them. As long as she was at the center of their protective circle, doing for them, she never had to think about the unspeakable things those evil people had made her do. So her feelings for Herbie, as she put the sparkling plates into the rack, terrified her.