Finding My Thunder

by Diane Munier

  And I said, “There,” meaning around back, towards Mama’s as the back of this house faced the back of Mama’s and it was most private from the alley. So we walked back there, and he looked at me and we were close and I laughed and so did he. “Got my hands under your dress,” he said. “You know you’re showing everything, and that little pervert Lonnie moved in will probably be back here lookin’ in your windows now.”

  “Not with my Sooner around,” I said, and we reached a good place beside the back porch and I bent my knees and kept my legs spread like the biggest whore ever and we lowered those puppies all the way down and moved them off my dress.

  Well he was laughing at all of them, and he said, “This dog is such a get around. There’s something looks like a beagle, but I swear this is a German Shepherd.”

  “What would Annie think of these?” I said.

  He was squatted next to me. “Oh man if she saw these we’d have the biggest beg-fest goin’ on. Paul would never say yes. Poor kid,” he held a yellow looking bulldog, up close to his face. “Hey buddy. You’re just one in a pack, just like me.” He laughed.

  “But she can come and see them, I hope. Wouldn’t she like to hold one of these? She’d die,” I said, sitting on the ground, my legs out straight while I held a red one. Sooner was wheedling between us trying to get to her puppies. I moved so she could. She was sniffing over them and rearranging them too.

  Danny plopped to the ground beside me and ran his hand over my leg, “I’m about to die.”

  I laughed at him. “You know what? We could name these for your whole family. How many are there?”

  “Seven kids and two parents. That’s nine. Guess number ten could be Hilly,” he said squeezing my leg right above my knee.

  We were laughing. Then someone pulled up but we couldn’t see the drive-way from where we were. It had to be Naomi. Sooner took off round the front of the house. I handed Danny the puppy I’d been holding and ran after Sooner. Naomi was afraid of dogs.

  It was Naomi and Sister Debra. Sister Debra, big as she was, was already out of the car. She was whooping and sitting on the hood of the car with her legs straight out. Naomi was inside the vehicle laying on the horn and yelling, “Get out of here,” at the dog who was barking fierce.

  I grabbed Sooner by the scruff of her neck. “Quiet,” I yelled.

  Danny wasn’t far behind me. He stomped his boots and Sooner backed off and ran back to the pups.

  One of the neighbor men came to see what went on. Then another. Danny went to talk to them. I helped Debra off the car. She’d lost one of her shoes so I helped her get it back on. Naomi was asking where that hound from hell had come from, that she had fought the devil in all his forms and now this.

  I said, “It’s my dog. She’s got pups too, but she’s really nice once she gets to know you…she’s just upset.”

  When Danny was finished talking to the neighbors he said his helloes to the ladies then walked to me. “Nosey bastards,” he said. “They got nothing better to do. We need to get your stuff off that porch before the other crazy man gets home. If he ain’t there already.”

  “You don’t have to do that too!” I said.

  “I’m going to ride back around and load the car. You stay here and keep the dog quiet and make it up to Miss Blue,” he said. Then he kissed me.

  So that’s what he did. I kissed him good-bye around five times and went in the house. Sister Debra had her shoes off and her belt slung over the back of a kitchen chair. Naomi was in the bathroom but she talked loud, carrying on a conversation with Sister while she did her business. They were trading dog stories, the kind that helped them remember how much they hated dogs.

  “Girl,” Debra said, “you all ain’t gonna keep that dog up in here. She don’t want no dog.”

  I went out back and got a puppy and went in to the bathroom door. “Naomi?”

  She yanked the door. She was wearing her robe. “Don’t be bringing those animals into this house,” she said.

  “But look at it, Naomi. Ain’t it the cutest ever?” I kissed its little head.

  “Don’t be putting your mouth on that nastiness,” she rebuked me. “Let me see that thing…that’s just like a rat. That’s all that is.”

  “You know that ain’t so,” I whined following her into the kitchen. “Look at his little paws.”

  “What about that big one attacked us?” Debra said filling the kettle.

  “Just defending her pups,” I said. “She just has to figure out you ain’t going to hurt her.”

  “But I am going to hurt her she comes at me like that. She’s got to go, Hilly. I can’t have a vicious dog in the yard. The neighbors are already complaining. You know I can’t afford that kind of notice, especially now.” She was trying to be stern, but I knew she didn’t want to be stern with me. Not after the day we’d had.

  “You got that fine boy just waitin’ on you and you in here carryin’ on over a dog? Girl…what’s the matter with you?” Debra pointed to her head.

  “Oh…hold this,” I said handing the puppy to Naomi.

  She was saying, “No,” as I handed the little mite off. I ran out of the house and across the yard then, across Mama’s yard, too and around her house. Danny was putting a load of my clothes into his trunk. The boy was helping him load up. I could see Mama’s records and clothes there too. Lonnie had gotten right on it.

  I really didn’t want to see him again tonight. So I was loading things really quickly. My books and records, my clothes. My bedspread and curtains. Shoes. My stuff from the bathroom packed in the same toilet tissue box I’d seen their things in that morning.

  Last thing was the dog food. Danny put it in the front where my feet went. I got in on his side and sat in the middle with my feet on the seat.

  We went around the block then down the alley. Danny pulled close to the gate. “I don’t know why I feel so happy all of a sudden when I just got kicked out of my home.”

  “Yeah me too. I lost my job.”

  “I guess I lost my job too, but I’m not sure I ever had it so….”

  Back at Naomi’s house we put everything on the porch. I wouldn’t let Danny do any more than that. It was enough. It was a lot of stuff, but not when I thought about it being everything I owned.

  Debra and Naomi came out right away and Naomi handed me the pup. “Cute little rat,” she said. Then they started to bring things inside right away. Naomi was setting me up in the back room, the one that had belonged to Eugene.

  Danny went back to the pups and I followed and put the one back in the nest. Sooner was nursing them now and I helped this one get near a teat. Then I got Danny a glass of iced tea. “I’m gonna finish helping them with my stuff and I’ll be right back,” I said watching his throat work. He about drained that glass. “You want some more?” He nodded and I went in and refilled.

  After I helped them carry it in, I went back to Danny and the pups. We sat there on the steps but we ended lying on the grass, and we each had one lying on our stomachs. “What you gonna do for a job now?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Go back in the morning and see if he means it. If he don’t…I’ll be fine. I can only go up.”

  “That boy he moved in seems okay,” I said.

  “The girl too. They…what are they gonna do, you know? That mother has a screw loose.”

  “Yeah. The only hard thing is…my room. That’s it.”

  I looked at him and he looked at me and his hand came to gently touch my face.

  “You like to touch my cheek or something?” I asked him smiling.

  “I think of touching you…all the time,” he whispered.

  Then we heard it, the rapping on the kitchen window. He sat up and looked, but I just sighed and looked at the sky. It would be so different now.

  Finding My Thunder 25

  An hour after we were lying with the puppies we had eaten dinner at Naomi’s table. Sister Debra had brought over ham hocks and greens and cornbread and she sliced tomatoes
from her garden. Danny ate so much he said he could barely breathe. Debra asked if she could play one of Mama’s records and I said sure. I’d stacked them all in the living room by the record player so we could all enjoy them now.

  Pretty soon Nina Simone was singing. Oh my God in heaven, Naomi and me flew from the table. I went back for Danny. “Come on,” I said, pulling on him. He was slow to get up so I ran after Debra and Naomi.

  They were moving to the music. Naomi just a little, but I joined them quickly and our eyes closed we swayed. They had taught me to do this since I was little. Just sway, eyes closed. I peeked at Danny. He stood in the doorway. “Come on,” I said, but he shook his head, so I closed my eyes and lifted my arms and turned in a slow circle.

  Well philosophically, Naomi had her differences with Nina. Nina did not hold so much with Dr. King’s non-violent platform for Civil Rights. She was, in Naomi’s opinion, a militant. But when it came to her music, philosophies went out the door.

  We laughed and clapped and spoke the words along…yes Lord, Mmm-hmmm. We sang the words and Danny siddled past us and half fell onto the couch. He was sprawled there looking interested.

  He was happy to watch, comfortable with it. I was up and down as they sang and clapped, sometimes sitting by him holding his hands, then back up dancing with them. They could go on forever and they did, we did, song after song. Naomi’s moves were small but when there was soul there was power. Nothing made me feel the history of women like Nina’s songs. Nothing. Like a richness to be worn with a shining understanding.

  I pulled Danny up when one particular song came on. A song about a black-haired lover. Danny was saying, “What?” but he let me pull him close by then, and I put my arms around his shoulders and he humored me and swayed a little.

  Naomi and Debra left the room and I moved closer to Danny. I had my hands on the back of his head now, in his hair and I was smiling and tears filling and streaming, and looking at him, I knew my face was unguarded and he looked at me, reflecting what I know I felt.

  There was hardly any beat to move to, but Nina’s voice rippling up and down. Singing in her quavering voice. Our bodies were together as she played so sparsely so richly.

  I stepped onto Danny’s boots with my bare toes and reached his warm lips for a kiss. Then I laid my head on his shoulder and his hands, the strongest hands, were open against my back. And her words, her voice…I could not feel more as she sang about love.

  It was over soon, and I knew Naomi had left the room because for her the song was Eugene. For Debra it was her husband in Vietnam.

  But for me…it was this beating heart, this beautiful face and strong brown body against me, it was these eyes I fell into every time I looked, it was this heart beating, this black hair where I’d buried my fingers.

  My true love.

  Finding My Thunder 26

  Sooner’s barking awakened me. I knew it probably also awakened Naomi, and perhaps the rest of the neighborhood. I was up quick and to the door. There stood Danny in his clean work clothes, Sooner dancing around him like she’d never seen him before.

  He held two twenty dollar bills in his hand. I had on my pink nightgown, short and shear, but I didn’t care around him, and he seemed happy about it, his eyes sweeping down then back to mine like they’d been turned to high heat. He kind of gulped.

  “This is for Sooner. I don’t know if Lonnie expects me to work so I don’t think I can take you to the vet and all. So you’re going to have to find a way…unless I am fired, then I’ll be back. I won’t be able to call if I still have a job cause of Lonnie, but if he goes out I’ll call then if I can’t….”

  I jumped a little and kissed him and he bowed over me as I lowered keeping it going, then I stepped up on his boots with my bare feet and it straightened him a little and the kiss went on and I couldn’t get enough. There was nothing more to say time that kiss ended and we just stood there against each other on the porch, his arms around me, joined at the curve of my lower back, his mouth against my neck and his breath in my ear so warm, him tall and strong and love in his arms.

  I finally noticed that Sooner had quieted. It was such a peaceful, beautiful moment.

  “I don’t know if she’s gonna work out here, Hilly. I know you can’t bear to hear it, honey, but she don’t like Naomi,” he said.

  “I know,” I said quiet.

  “What are we gonna do with her?”

  “She’s…,” I felt tears welling.

  “Maybe we can take her to the commune,” he said quickly.

  I pulled back. “You think?”

  “I’ll ask Robert. They live in the country. Maybe they’d take her and the pups. Time they can get weaned we can maybe find them homes…or you can. They’ll have a chance at least, even if we took them to the shelter. People might adopt a young dog.

  I nodded. I didn’t miss the fact he didn’t think he’d be here by the time they were weaned. “And maybe once her pups are gone I can bring her back here,” I said spinning a hopeful happy ending like Walt Disney or something.

  He smiled. “Maybe,” he said, much the same tone he used on Annie.

  “Another reason to love you,” I said trying not to let the sadness the idea of him being gone always brought.

  We parted slow. He looked back a few times as he walked to the car, shook his head smiling. I was hanging on the porch post watching him, his black hair long and spilling onto his forehead, his white t-shirt visible in the neck of his denim work shirt, his jeans fitting him straight and manly and his brown leather belt and the buckle, his boots brown too. He made me want to cheer, he just did.

  Sooner ran back and forth from the puppies to the front gate to watch Danny as he got in his car. He looked at me a few more times and made kiss lips at me before pulling into the alley and I nearly died as he pulled away.

  Sooner wasn’t barking, but she was frantic and I was kind of stuck there looking after Danny, feeling those kisses—the one he’d gave me, the one he’d sent me. My heart ached.

  Noise at the door behind me snapped me to. Naomi was awake, hair in rollers, scarf tied over, quilted house coat buttoned to the neck, scuffies on, her holding the screen wide for me. Sooner started to bark, but over this she said clear, “We got to talk baby girl.”

  I followed her inside, Danny’s money clutched in my hand.

  “Danny gave me the money for Sooner. I’m going to walk her to the vets, then take her over to the police station and get a license.”

  “Sit down Hilly,” she said and I didn’t like it, the serious tone. I didn’t know if he still had a job, I didn’t know if Lonnie would be hideous to him.

  “That young man…has a fine character,” she was putting coffee together in the electric percolator.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “A young man gives you money…it is a cord that binds you.”

  “What? It’s for the dog.”

  “I don’t doubt he is sincere.”

  “We have to get a license and that means shots. It’s required for a dog that lives in town.”

  “That dog is drawing too much attention…causing disturbance. It’s not fair to the neighbors. Word gets out you moved here…I own this land. It stirs trouble. We got to live low to the ground. I always have. That dog…honey it can’t stay here. I got people come here…sometimes children. Sister Debra can’t pull up here and get attacked. I can’t get attacked.”

  “I think if she could just have a few days she would calm down. She needs a chance at least.”

  She pulled out a chair and sat across from me while the coffee got ready. “What about today? What about someone comes and we’re not here? How am I gonna get to my car if you’re not here? And the noise. Honey you have got to face what is.”

  I breathed out and put my face in my hands. Then I looked at her. “Danny says we could maybe take her to the country. He’s finding out.”

  “That might work, then.” She got up and poured coffee then came back to the table. “I sur
e don’t want to be the one to take one more thing from you.”

  I couldn’t look at her. Such a wave of self-pity hit I thought I might break. “No girl I know has a crazy life like mine. My own mother…and Lonnie Grunier? What did he ever do for me? To me…there’s a list…but for me? Moving me out? Her not leaving me anything but some rags and some songs…humiliated in front of everyone…Danny even…my stuff on the porch…them touching my things…my underwear even? I can’t even have a dog? You talk to me about God…and I been praying like you always say…asking God…. But if He’s in the mood…He’ll take Danny, too. He’ll let me know this…love…and yes I love him before you ask, and I know you will…I love him, but if God takes him…I….” I was so frustrated these words were never going to be enough.

  She reached over and captured one of my hands, but I didn’t want her touching me.

  “I see you love him. I’d like to make it something different for you…but I can’t. I don’t have power over the universe. But…you can’t try to hold him here with your body.”

  “I’m not,” I whispered. Was I?

  “I was wonderin’ when things would catch up to you. It’s been a rough patch,” she said smiling at me with all this sympathy.

  She said, “In Snyder Town… I have to go around tellin’ folks…expect something good. God loves you and he wants you to have something good. They think it’s supposed to be hard. They don’t expect nothin’ else.

  “But here in Ludicrous with the white folks…in Corning at the hospital…I got to say…expect something bad once in a while. It will happen. Sometimes a lot of bad at once. It don’t mean God’s gone away.

  “And you’re in one of those seasons where it has just kept comin’. But seasons change.”

  “I just want it to stop,” I said.

  “This is life. We don’t ask God to stop life…do we?”