The Salt Eaters

by Toni Cade Bambara

  He didn’t realize how close he was to believing it dream, to falling back to sleep in the water’s heat, till he felt a hand on his arm. And he came more fully awake to the white toweled figures moving along the black rubber mat walkway in a pile-up, brothers streaming out of the sauna, the steam room, the alcove where the mirrors and hair dryers and shavers were, exchanging notes and extravagant bravado and flat facts about the dimming or flickering of lights in various parts of the spa.

  “Phone call, Obo.”

  He was disoriented still, trying to turn in the water to take in the moon face looming over him. Ahiro down on his haunches, blue kimono sleeves dipping into the puddles beyond the rim of the pool. Obie was breathing along with the flickering lights, stuttering, stuttering. Longing and fear like the ebb and flow of the water, the intake and outtake of breath, the doo ahh dooahh of a group of singers huddled in the alcove door to sing down the thunder, the ripple of green to and fro across the forehead of the masseur, his friend, the messenger of strange tidings.

  “Phone call.” A smooth brown leg with bunched calves stretching out for balance and an arm extended to pull him up. And now he was turning over and over in the pool, his elbows digging into the tiles, scraped raw and bleeding. Phone call. Was someone calling to say Roland was dead? Had escaped? Had a hostage by the throat demanding to see him?

  “Said to come to the Infirmary. Sounded important.” Lifting out like a weightless fish, his scales, his flesh oozing away from his bones, dropping down into the waters, releasing him. “You okay, Obo?”

  He padded across the tiles tucking his towel, squeezing his hair, popping water from his ears, fighting to come awake. Velma. Ahiro trotting along beside him on the rubber mat, his zoris squishing splat-splat, so Obie breathed along with that, as good a rhythm as any.

  “You okay now?”

  Nodding, going through the doorway to the locker room, a shift in climate, a drop in temperature, a sudden quiet; the brothers had bypassed the clothes locker in favor of the lounge, where phones and light and vending machines and other signs of civilization assured them.

  He was still damp inside his clothes, his shirt smack against his back, when he hit the stoop and met the wind and the downpour. Motorcycles were skidding down the Hill, shredding kites and flyers and brown paper bag masks. Panel trucks were pausing in the traffic while young boys climbed out of the cabs to get to the back, flinging jackets and newspapers over the drums and horns. Trees were littered with leaflets. A young girl in dazzling orange harness directing schoolchildren at the crossing. An old man caught in the middle of traffic, looking for a break to make a dash. Obie was rocking on the top step, dread welling up as the curbs overflowed. Velma. The rain’s music more insistent than the drumming sounding from across the way.

  “Ubi Obie! Hey, my man. What it is?”

  Someone shouting from a van stuck in mid-descent from the Heights. Someone who called to him from a bullhorn of rolled-up newspaper getting limp and soggy then pulled in the window, but the arm remained and the hand gestured upward as if this were a sensible traffic signal to the taxis and bikes behind: taking a turn for the up. And Obie remembered Sonny and Graham were on security, so he looked up, searching the windows of the rooming house where surveillance had been rumored; young Bobby had sworn he’d caught the glint of binoculars on two occasions. The suspect window empty. The tops of buildings lost in the fog, the Regal’s dome faintly gold in the purple-gray patches of clouds smeared across the buildings.

  Several students who’d bunched up behind him on the Academy steps broke past him to jump on the back of trucks painted for carnival, smeared and running red, green, black in the streets. And he wondered what the hell he was waiting for. Someone had called from the Infirmary and there he was watching the kids scramble on board, throwing satin jackets over the drums and each other’s heads, yanking yards of plastic from the cleaners out of a sack and tearing off lengths and passing them around. Rocking on the top step, vestigial wings twitching, the drums sounding from the studios unsmothered and loud, the wind heaving newspapers against his pants legs, the wind blowing plastic into one youth’s face and both becoming odd beings sent to earth at the moment encased and then peeled to walk among the people as kin and bring them through the passage.

  “Obie! Come on, man. Rain or no rain. It’s time.”

  “Later!” His voice like a foghorn. His legs rubbery as he dashed into the streets, his cuffs full of water. And he would remember in the days ahead how the look of a particular Chevy grill, a Ford truck fender, an Alabama license plate, the treads of a Goodrich tire made him pause, stare, forget he was in a hurry. Pause in the middle of the double yellow lines, thinking about the face sucking in plastic, featureless, looking at the old man there in the street hugging a lumpy hankie, rain streaming down his face, featureless. Paused. But not because of the traffic or the rain or the odd notions creeping through his brain about alien beings, or the dim memory in the shoulder blades of wings and the flight long ago and the instructions. But an eye. There was an eye poised on him, an energy focused on him from somewhere, an eye clarifying him, arresting him.

  “I’d run for shelter if I knew which way to run,” the old man shrugged with an apologetic grin.

  “The Academy’s open,” breaking the spell. “Coffee in the lounge.” He pointed. “And hot soup.” He was going to turn, halt the traffic from the Heights and escort the elder by the elbow, safe passage. But he was caught again in the beam of the eye, fixed. And again he looked toward the window young Bobby had pointed out, trying to pierce the fog, water splashing his eyes to a squint. A flock of birds were banking sharply over the rooming house to avoid the Regal’s dome, the rear guard dragging away a cloud of dark purple.

  You’re welcome at the Academy,” he mumbled, the words trailing away; the elder had already found a break in traffic and was broken-field trotting toward the curb. Released again, he made for the side lot, the shortcut to the Infirmary, no longer hunching his shoulders and crowding himself slender through the downpour. He walked stiffly, expectant. He was breathing shallowly, any minute a bullet. And then he was in the safety of the movie house’s shadows, the pavement going earth underfoot, an embrace of tree smells, new leaves, and the Infirmary yard’s odd mix of odors—creosote, mildew, rot, tree mold, and too the fragrance of newly turned earth, the sweet of sap, sap rising to renew, but activating the mold too as if there were no way around it.

  “Brother Obeah, what’s going on?”

  The young brothers who normally posted themselves on the walls that kept the woods out and the yard neat were huddled in the doorway of the generator shed, several girls behind them peeking out over shoulders or between triangles arms made with pockets, peeking out at the rain, out at the oily rainbows in the puddles of dirt, others holding their noses and making beat’m-in-the-head gestures at the backs of two winos pissing against the stage door of the Regal.

  “Looks like everything’s going on,” Obie shrugged, slowing and then moving on. Two girls shared a look and sucked their teeth, clearly disappointed by the dull response from the legendary man of the Academy.

  “The doings rained out or what?” The same two, exchanging looks with lifted brows, their own group’s wordsmith a turkey too.

  There were nods and shrugs and dumb show as everyone looked up at the sky, the two critics leaning out over the shoulders of their boyfriends to spot the birds tearing past the Regal, taking the clouds with them and letting a little gold shine down for a moment. It was an odd silence, this silence before the blanket of gray silver needles that was the rain, its music monotonous and nothing clever being said. And Obie passed the sheds, remarking to himself that silence was not the way. These word wizards, these say-smart-sorcerers, masters of metaphorical coinage that kept the language of the district vibrant and new, mute. No memorable quotes, no nommo notes to remember later, to give shape and punctuation to the tale he would tell in the days ahead, the where-were-you-when-it-began response. And
over his shoulder he followed the trail of their eyes toward the stage door, as if backstage in the Regal was the answer, the word. As a child he’d learned there in the wings how the cards were marked, where the rabbit was stashed, how the swallowed sword collapsed, of what the boldness of the jazz musicians consisted. He’d learned all that in the days when they’d tried to revive the Regal, revive vaudeville, give the local talent a play. And now the young folk stared out through the rain as if getting past the splattered glass, the wine bottles, the smelly ole men, the rusted lock on the stage door—they’d find out where the fingers go in the back of the head, the back of the eyes, to make talk come out.

  “Oh God.” The girls were moaning in chorus, grabbing arms and jackets and pushing their backs against the shed’s door while lightning was panting somewhere on the far side of the woods.

  “Holy shit, the ground’s moving.”

  “Cut it out.”

  “I ain’t playing. Can’t you feel it?”

  “Fucking earthquake.”

  “Quit it, Bo Peep. I mean it now.”

  He almost made it to the back door, slipping on the wet leaves piled high and covering the bottom step. He almost made it, slipping, reaching for the knob, his shoes soaked and sluggish, Velma? Velma? welling up in his throat, stretching toward the door and a pulling in his side, ducking to escape whatever it was thundering toward him, breathing along in gasps with the trees’ roots down to darkness, branches up to light, the building holding its breath, standing against the thunder coming. Then everything went phosphorescent and he fell, stripped by lightning, gold splashing in the granite’s dents before the door. One shoe lost and all the faith and courage that had been holding him up gone, and the challenge of reunion flooded away, and the dread of the moment and moments ago soaked to mush, his pants torn and his knee bleeding. Stripped by lightning, he would say in the days ahead, his flesh fallen away and nothing there on the back step but his soul with the stark impress of all the work done and yet to do, all the changes gone through and yet to come, all the longing and apprehension as he’d watch human beings becoming something else and wondering what it had been like for the ancestors watching the first wheel be rolled down the road. On the back steps fixed, the damp of mildew jamming up his nose, the damp of new earth turned and waiting trying to free his lungs, the knob just out of reach of his hand sliding down the door with the rain.

  “Get on up, Brother.” A command at his back and the giggle of two young girls imitated then hushed. And he couldn’t. His legs shot, his ankle sprained, his knee bleeding, his elbows sore, the breath knocked out of him in the fall, couldn’t get up and so he did get up. Got up as a switch was thrown and the couples jumped from the shed door then returned laughing, the hum of the generator sudden and soothing for no reason any of the wordsmiths could capture in a name. And he saluted them in a daze, the sky opening and the Regal releasing molten gold into the fog, the drums sounding in a playoff with the thunder. Saluted the future, gold splashing in his eyes.

  The Lady in the Chair is rising damp but replenished like the Lady Rising from the Sea. The drums are still calling from the building across the way, answered ragged and indistinct by drums in the distance. Rain is pelting Doc’s windows and the curtains blowing out then folding in damp. Sophie looks out wondering if she’d left the bedroom window at home opened, wondering if her costume hanging from the drapery rod is safe.

  The rush and stampede for shelter from nature created the wind. She watched the wind whipping curtains out of buildings, white and pink and yellow spirit arms signaling. Had Velma found herself?

  Fear and dread at the unspeakable level puts thunder in the air. The zig-zag strike between the clouds crackling down. Would Velma find an old snakeskin on the stool?

  The sky is lit by tomorrow’s memory lamp. Slate rained clean, a blessing. At least a twenty-four-hour delay, respite. A blessing. Twenty-four more hours to try and pull more closely together the two camps of adepts still wary of the other’s way. “Causes and issues. They’re vibrating at the mundane level.” “Spirit this and psychic that. Escapism. Irresponsible, given the objective conditions.” Rain. Delay. New possibilities in formation, a new configuration to move with. A flood one moment in time could drown the earth, the next create fish farms in the deserts. The wind that lifts everything up this minute used to bury it all in the sand last time.

  Children streaming past the window on skateboards, bikes, skates, on foot. Balloons spotted, kites limp, masks dangling from their cords and trailing behind like the kites won’t. With masks it was the same. A plaything or a summons. Be a fool or become a god. Timing was all and everything in time.

  Sophie leaned against the sill and squinted into the streets alive with so much more than she was able to see yet, but in time, she counseled. Once Minnie brought Velma through perhaps the girl at last would be ready for training. She’d waited a long time for the godchild’s gift to unfold. Had had long periods of doubt that what she’d sensed that first meeting, the infant sliding easily into her hands, was actual, read correctly, and not just the product of an overworked imagination of a godmother too serious about her role, her calling. But there’d been signs and times in church, in the attic, in the woods when Velma had started, gone mute, stared, become very still that renewed the notion and Sophie’d thought maybe, maybe. And while the girl had never shared what she was seeing, experiencing, was no doubt rejecting before it could imprint on the mind, Sophie waited, waited now, adjusting her hat and pulling the damp dress away from her legs.

  She’d missed seeing what was happening to Velma the woman, had not been attentive, gotten blocked, sidetracked. But what had driven Velma into the oven, Sophie was certain now, was nothing compared to what awaited her, was to come. Once Minnie opened her up and welcomed her back anew, renewed, Velma would begin to see what she’d been blind to, what Sophie herself was blind to but knew. Of course she would fight it, Velma was a fighter. Of course she would reject what could not be explained in terms of words, notes, numbers or those other systems whose roots had been driven far underground. Sophie vowed to concentrate more fully and stay alert and be at hand, for Velma’s next trial might lead to an act far more devastating than striking out at the body or swallowing gas.

  It was clear the downpour was no spring shower, that she’d been given time to finish fasting and the silence. Sophie pressed her forehead against the cool of the glass and gazed out. Choices were being tossed into the street like dice, like shells, like kola nuts, like jackstones.

  “Each happening for weal or woe can—”

  “I don’t wanna hear that. The Henry gal’s coming through with more than I can handle at the moment. Now, what about that Pentagon message I got which nearly split my head?”

  “Not yet you didn’t.”

  “What you telling me, that my jaws don’t ache, that my teeth ain’t knocking their knees together? Speak plain, woman. This chile is creeping around hunting for pain and when she’s satisfied it ain’t there she’s gonna start bumping into other things that are, and I ain’t ready. Now, am I having a flash forward, or am I getting as batty as you?”

  “Like you always say, Min, everything in time.”

  “Mmm. None of this ain’t happened yet? Some of this is happening now? All of this is going on, but I ain’t here? All of the above? None of the above? Will you at least tell me, is it raining or not?”

  “I’m here to help with the patient, Min.”

  “Don’t hand me no somesuch about division of labor at a time like this.”

  “Gonna be a long night, Min.”

  Minnie Ransom sighing. She knows it’ll be a long afternoon and a longer even night. The kind of night that drives men of the Heights out of doors crazed and into the district on the prowl searching out disaster. “To jerk off like at a lynching,” Doc would say. The kind of night when women of the district check and recheck the covers on the sleeping kids and hope that if the footfalls on the creaky stairs are not their men,
then pray they’re with some other woman safe.

  “Gonna let me wrassle by myself, hunh? You always were a stubborn, weird old smelly witch, ya know it?”

  “But, Min, that’s how I choose to manifest myself this time.”

  Minnie Ransom staring. Her hands sliding off the shoulders of silk. The patient turning smoothly on the stool, head thrown back about to shout, to laugh, to sing. No need of Minnie’s hands now. That is clear. Velma’s glow aglow and two yards wide of clear and unstreaked white and yellow. Her eyes scanning the air surrounding Minnie, then examining her own hands, fingers stretched and radiant. No need of Minnie’s hands now so the healer withdraws them, drops them in her lap just as Velma, rising on steady legs, throws off the shawl that drops down on the stool a burst cocoon.

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