Tumbling

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  “Lugging extrahard for that penny tip, huh?”

  “Lugging so I don’t go into a rage.” He pulled her hand from his head and pressed it between both of his. “You know, once the train gets through Maryland, and Delaware, colored folks think they up North, think they got rights now, they free and not confined to the colored car and can sit wherever they damn well please.” He stood and walked to the stacks of phonograph records and rifled through them. “I see the thrill in their faces, and I just want to tell them, ‘Wait till you ready to go in the movie house and can’t sit where you want, or one of those fine stores along Chestnut Street, see how they treat you there; and you might not be breaking your back in a hot field, but you ain’t really worked till you froze your ass off pulling guts from pigs all day long.’ And then all the soldiers coming home, ’specially the ones who were stationed down South like I was; the German prisoners of war got better treatment than we did. Truman better do something with this situation in this country or there’s gonna be riots jumping out all over the place.”

  “Damn straight,” Ethel said, moving from her perch on the arm of the couch to sit in its center.

  “Then I help little brown-skinned ladies old as my grandmother, if I had a grandmother living, with all her worldly possessions, and I take her to a seat and tell her that this seat is the best because she won’t feel the jerks and bumps in the tracks from this seat. And Mr. Charlie’s getting mad, ’cause he been waiting for a train too, since they using most of the trains to get the soldiers home, and he feel like I ain’t got no business helping this little old colored lady before I help him. So I go back and lug his shit extrahard or I might tell him to go to hell if he thinks I’m gonna deny my-could-be-grandmother for his penny tip. Like earlier today, I took Fannie with me when I went to get my pay—”

  “Fannie!” Ethel sat straight up as if called to attention when he mentioned Fannie’s name. “What that little Fannie do this time?”

  “Well, we walking through the train station.” Herbie put the records down and walked to the center of the room. “Just like I’m walking now. I’m in my street clothes, no redcap nowhere near the top of my head, and this regular Charlie, stops me and says, ‘Herbie, get on over here and get my bag, boy.’ So I tell him that I’m not on duty at the present moment. So he looks at me like he don’t believe I’m telling him no when Fannie runs to his bag and lifts it and says, ‘This bag ain’t even heavy, mister. You could carry this bag your own self.’”

  “No, she didn’t.” Ethel was listening so intently she almost jumped out of her seat in the center of the couch.

  “I swear. Then I pull her away ’cause I know anything’s liable to come out of her mouth, and I don’t want him to be in earshot when it does. Good thing too, ’cause she stops and tugs my arm and proclaims, ‘Herbie, that man’s a motherfucker, isn’t he?’”

  By now Ethel’s mouth was wide open, and she had to steady herself she was laughing so hard. “She said what?”

  “I’m telling you,” Herbie said, all of him totally into the story now with Ethel enjoying it so. “So I stopped and stooped and looked right in her eyes that were serious, and I said, ‘Fannie, you must never use words like that, do you understand? Where you hear words like that anyhow?’ ’Cause I know Noon don’t curse not one bit, and I’m very careful with my language ’round her.”

  “And what she say, Herbie, huh, what she say?”

  “She said, ‘Lots of places. On South Street, on Ninth Street, in the back of the fish market where the men cut off the fishes’ heads and they don’t see me back there.’ And I told her, ‘It’s wrong for a little lady like you to use that kind of language, that’s for stevedores and sailors.’”

  “So did she agree with you or what?” Ethel was talking with her hands as she choked back laughs so she could ask her question.

  “She agreed with me all right.” Herbie chuckled. “She said in her sweetest voice, ‘Okay, Herbie, next time’—and then she whispered—‘next time we’ll just call him a son of a bitch.’”

  Ethel doubled over and clutched at her stomach she laughed so hard. “Stop, stop, Herbie, you gonna make me pee. Oh, God, that little girl is too much.”

  Herbie stopped laughing then; he just stood in the center of the room, and his face got angular, serious. Ethel looked at him, and her laughter just hung in the air unfinished when she looked at him. “What? What’s the matter, Herbie?”

  “No, I was just thinking about how she kept staring at me all the way home after that. And right when we turned the corner of Lombard Street, she asked me if the man was my boss. I told her, ‘No. That was hardly none of my boss.’ So she said that he seemed like my boss. I told her that the city is filled with people that think they my boss, but that don’t mean I got to buckle for them.”

  Ethel got up slowly from the arm of the couch. She hugged him and said, “Well, you with Ethel now. You don’t have to buckle for me, baby, unless, of course, you got something different in mind for tonight.” They both laughed as the music stopped, and she went to the record player and started looking through the records.

  “That’s what got me through the day,” Herbie said as he walked to her back and put his arms around her. “I knew tonight was my night to be with you, don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have my nights with you to look forward to.”

  Ethel stopped short as she rifled through the stacks of records. She had planned not to say anything to Herbie about moving away to New York. She’d thought it would be easier that way, for Herbie, certainly for her. She just wanted to make tonight special so that he could remember her generosity. But now she had a heaviness in her chest that she hadn’t planned on. She pressed the black shiny record on the center of the Victrola and watched the needle find the groove. A trumpet bleated a long note, and she felt sad for Herbie.

  “Do you talk to your wife the way you talk to me?” She turned to him and put one arm around his back, and he instinctively took the other arm and they fell right into their two-step of a slow drag.

  “I talk to her. Not the way I talk to you, but yeah, I talk to her.”

  “You care for her, right?”

  “Course I care for her. Care a lot for her, a whole lot.”

  “Then why can’t you talk to her the way you do me?”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Just can’t. She’d just deny me if I tried.”

  “I ain’t talking about sex, Herbie.”

  “I ain’t either. I’m talking ’bout her denying my feelings. She’d just tell me if I prayed, I wouldn’t have so much hate in my heart, how I got to go to church, you know, plus she depends on my paycheck, she’d get nervous if she thought I was likely to do something to disrupt that. But mostly her faith would get in the way.”

  Ethel stopped moving then, right in the middle of their two-step. She pulled her head back from his shoulder, forcing him to look at her. “There’s a lot to be said for believing in something the way Noon does, don’t ever underestimate the power of her faith, that’s probably what brings her joy.”

  “Well, that’s her joy. She ain’t trying so hard to make it my joy, that’s for sure. And why you defending her anyhow?”

  “I ain’t defending nobody.” Ethel starting moving again. “I just feel for her.”

  “Well, I feel for you. And as for my joy, I get it from you.” Herbie fell into the lead and moved Ethel around the room. Back and up, he spun her and danced her in a circle and then a square, from the table where he liked his gin to the scrape marks on the floor. He leaned her backward in a dip, way back in the arch that was her trademark. “You give me joy. My joy, my joy.” He crooned. “I couldn’t go on without my joy.”

  Ethel pushed her body close to his as he danced her under the blue and yellow lights of the chandelier. “Herbie,” she whispered his name. “Dear Herbie.” She almost told him she was leaving, New York bound come morning. Instead she spoke creamy words in his ear. She a
lmost sang them. Their steps slowed to one-two. Then their feet were still and they just swayed.

  The music pulsing from the record player filled the room with long, sultry notes. Herbie and Ethel matched each other’s rhythms well. Herbie wished he could stay right there in the middle of Ethel’s living room. The blue and red lights in the chandelier traded off shadows of warm and cool that swayed with them. He was calm there. Even though the guilt would roll around in him, like a pebble caught inside him between his shoulder blades, irritating, life-threatening if it got to his lungs, all that mattered was that he was here now, in Ethel’s living room, a phonograph record spinning, he was holding her, settled into her presence; nothing else mattered.

  Another light flooded the room. The cozy effect of the chandelier was interrupted. The bedroom door was wide open. Liz stood there staring at the swaying bodies. “Aunt Ethel,” she whispered, “I’m scared.”

  Ethel pushed Herbie away. She ran to Liz and knelt in front of her and grabbed her in a close, urgent hug. “What are you afraid of, baby? Tell Aunt Ethel and I’ll beat it up.”

  “That man,” Liz said, pointing beyond Ethel to Herbie.

  Herbie was still standing in the center of the room, offended by the rush of light and then Ethel’s abrupt shove. All he could see of Liz was her pointing finger and her head of bright red hair.

  “Make him go,” Liz said, her voice picking up strength.

  “Come on back into the bedroom, sweet pea; he’s not here to hurt you.” She motioned to Herbie that she would be a minute, and then she and Liz took the bright light back in the bedroom, leaving the chandelier all to Herbie.

  “Little brat,” Herbie said out loud to the sound of the bedroom door closing. She spoils that child rotten. He wondered how Noon would have handled a similar incident. He couldn’t guess. Fannie never had nightmares. Nothing seemed to scare her. He chuckled to himself at the thought of Fannie wanting someone to leave. He imagined that Fannie would have walked straight past Noon, right to the person, yanked his hand, and said, “You, get the hell out.” He laughed out loud at the thought of a five-year-old throwing someone out. He kept the thought going, amusing himself. It was better than the anger the red-haired child was bringing out in him. He had deep resentments for that child. Always calling for Ethel, needing her in the middle of the night, cutting in on his time, which was already too short. Since he’d gotten out of the service, that child had been the great interrupter. He’d come over ready to put on some music, and grab Ethel in a close, grinding slow drag, and she’d meet him at the door and whisper that he had to come back later, Liz was still up. Sometimes he’d get there, and by the time he had poured his gin, Ethel’s head would be on her shoulder, half-closed eyes closed for real, exhausted from where she had spent the day doing motherly-type things instead of getting the day rest that a night singer like Ethel required.

  The needle on the record slid over a rough spot and kept coming back to the same few notes. Herbie lifted the needle and let the room go quiet. He sat back on the couch. He could hear Ethel humming a lullaby. He watched the bright light sifting under the door and prayed that Ethel wouldn’t ask him to leave.

  She didn’t. She came back in the living room and stood under the blue and red light of the chandelier. She let the belt to her silky robe fall open. Her face was intense. She didn’t say anything as she moved all over him. Usually she moaned, “Poor Herbie, Ethel gonna make him feel better.” Usually Herbie sensed that it was all for him. But tonight she was feeling something for herself, something she was trying to shake that wouldn’t let go. And then she did moan. Not Herbie’s name, though, not even “baby, baby, baby.” Just “My.” Just long and deep. And then filled with air as she gasped, “My,” over and over.

  Herbie was falling into the sound mixed with the air sweetened with cocoa butter and fine French perfume. She was all over him with the sound, breathing it all in his ear. “Your what, baby? Tell me, baby, tell me, Ethel, what? Tell me what? Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me what?” And then he couldn’t even talk as he tried to keep up with her moans, which came faster and faster. They covered him. He was immersed. He splashed around like a drowning man. And then the pinpoint that started the climax that spread over him in waves, and the confused fulfillment as she pulled the life from his body.

  She touched his hand as she walked him to the door.

  “What?” he asked as if she had just called his name.

  “Be patient with her.”

  “What you talking about? Be patient with who?”

  “Your wife. She’ll give you joy. Just take it slow and easy with her.”

  “You all right? Why you stuck on the topic of my wife?”

  “Just want you to be content, Herbie.”

  They were at the front door, and Herbie leaned in and kissed Ethel and said, “Just tell me I can see you tomorrow, I’ll be content as a tree root pushing deep in the earth.”

  “Not tomorrow, baby. Not tomorrow.”

  “Well, when?”

  “It’s late.” She lowered her half-closed eyes and pursed her mouth.

  Herbie knew the look. It meant his time was up for this night. Ethel was leaving center stage. She closed the door, and the spotlight faded.

  TEN

  The next morning came quickly, and Ethel had much to do to prepare for her leave-taking. She was bustling about the small apartment, packing, and sweeping, and folding, and opening and closing drawers and closets.

  “Where are we going?” Liz asked, eyes searching her aunt’s face.

  “I told you, baby.” Ethel took the child’s hands in her own, “You’re going to visit the little girl around the corner; she’s been asking Noon if you can come play with her.”

  “Who’s Noon?” Liz persisted.

  “That’s the lady that’s raising her, baby, just like I’m raising you.” Ethel stopped short, suddenly remembering what she was about to do. She pulled Liz close and held her head to her chest and rocked from side to side. She kissed the top of Liz’s red-like-the-setting-sun hair. She squeezed her tighter. She whispered with a whisper that came from somewhere deep, “You know I love you, precious Liz, you know I love you more than anything living, right?”

  She felt Liz’s head nodding against her chest. “If anyone ever tries to tell you your aunt Ethel don’t love you, you tell them they a liar. You tell them if you don’t know anything else, you know your aunt Ethel loves you.”

  Liz pushed her head back. Strained her neck so she could see her aunt. Searched for something in Ethel’s face that would take away the circles going around in her stomach. At least if her aunt would cry, then Liz felt like she could too, even if she didn’t know what she was crying about. But right now, with her aunt holding her so close, Liz thought that it must be worse than something to cry about. The circles in her stomach got bigger and spun faster.

  “My stomach, I have to make a poop.” She wriggled from Ethel’s grasp, across the small bedroom into the bathroom.

  “Don’t strain,” Ethel called behind her.

  Ethel went back to folding Liz’s clothes. She placed each item neatly into a brown paper shopping bag: her red and white gingham short set with the matching red lacy socks, her yellow sunbonnet, her white mesh gloves, her pink jumper with the pinch pleats, her black-and-white polka-dot Sunday dress, the one with the long sash that would make a healthy bow. Ethel stroked her cheek with the sash.

  And then she noticed the hole in the wall. She pushed the bed slightly to see beyond the bedpost. It was a curious hole. Just the size of a silver dollar. Sandy chunks of plaster peaked and dived and gave the hole a ridged effect. It almost glistened. Ethel rubbed her hand against the roughness of the hole as if that would give her some indication of how the hole had gotten there. She was relieved that this was her last day in the small apartment, especially if there was a strange rodent making holes in the wall right over Liz’s side of the bed.

  Liz came back into the bedroom and noticed all at once
that it had been emptied, swept clean. The dresser was bare. All of Ethel’s fancy gold-tone atomizers packed, her stage dresses, her pointy-toe shoes, the silver-framed picture of her and Liz’s mother arm in arm, packed.

  “Where’s everything at?” she asked, rubbing her eyes hard, and then, looking around the room again: “All your perfumes, your makeups, our clothes, where’s all our stuff?”

  “It’s in the front hallway, baby.” Ethel controlled the impulse to turn her face away, not wanting Liz’s trust in her to fade, not yet.

  “Where’s it going?”

  “With me and with you, baby.”

  “Where we going?”

  “I told you, you’re going to play with the little girl around the corner. You’ll have so much fun. You can play dress-up, and play jacks, and soon you’ll be able to jump double Dutch.”

  “You gonna play with us too.”

  “Aunt Ethel won’t be there. I’ll be away for a while.”

  Liz stared up at her aunt. They were too many circles in her stomach now. They were spinning too fast, colliding into one another, exploding one by one, turning mushy, pushing through her stomach, running down her legs, spoiling the ruffle around her sock.

  “Oh, my God, you’re messing all over yourself, Liz. Are you sick? Get into the bathroom,” Ethel screamed.

  Liz didn’t move. Ethel pushed her into the bathroom, saying over and over, “What’s the matter? Are you okay? Tell me what’s the matter.” Saying it over and over again to drown out the clamoring in her own head that might just convince her to pack Liz up and take her with her. She couldn’t. She knew of too many horror stories, little girls messed up forever thrust into their parents’ fast-driving entertainer’s lifestyle. Handled by the men when they were left alone late at night or even during the day while their mothers slept. Not her Liz. Not in New York City, where Ethel had to go for her career finally to take off. “It’ll be okay. You’ll love Noon, you’ll see. Noon and Fannie. It’ll be okay. I promise you, precious baby.” Her voice was quiet, desperate, pleading, as she tried to console Liz.