Tempest Rising

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  “You are not some flower, Finch, nor am I,” she said as she snatched the bankbook from his hand.

  “But even Solomon in all his splendor was not so richly clothed.” Finch talked right over her.

  Clarise studied the balance page. She was half satisfied that they could make it in the short term anyhow.

  Finch held his breath while she peered at the bankbook. He could almost smell the lilies on her robe they looked so real. He lived for Clarise. Even though he’d gladly lay his life down for his darling daughters, it was for Clarise that his lungs took in air. He saw her dusty grey eyes soften. He wiped his hands against his apron, took her head against his expansive shoulder. “Clarise, you are so wrong,” he said. “You are in fact a flower, my pretty baby flower, more precious to me than a whole field of lilies.” He mashed his chin against her hair, which had gone from straight to fluffy while they argued, meant it was going to rain later. “So what if you kept me up all night grinding your teeth?”

  “Awl, Finch,” she gushed, “you are my dodo bird, the only one who was smart enough to stay alive.”

  They swayed against each other, telling love jokes and laughing softly, the daylight trying to get between them, trying to separate them so they’d have to talk real talk some more. Finch pushed the daylight away, told it to go sit its ass back down at the table. Told himself not to worry.

  Finch was worried, though. A deep-down belly kind of worry that cut his appetite so that he hardly tasted his cooking anymore by dunking his finger in his gravies, and glazes, and juices from his meats. Clarise could taste his worry too: His pot pies were salty; the texture on the skin of his lambs was tough; the brown, crunchy head on his baked macaroni and cheese was thinner now; even the glaze on his yams, which used to shine like liquid crystal, was duller, grayer.

  It was the lure of the catering chains. Lyndon Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act, the last bastions of Jim Crow had buckled everywhere, and black people were flocking to J&A’s, McCloskey’s, Bain’s, to get their catering needs met. They still enlisted Finch for the teenage birthday parties, the Saturday afternoon club meetings, the private tea at somebody’s home. But they answered freedom’s call for the volume events where Finch used to turn a regular and substantial profit: the 200-guest wedding reception, the railroad retirement party to feed 150, the golden anniversary that was covered in the Tribune and would have given some ink to Heavenly Caterers. Those major accounts abandoned Finch, went instead with the display advertisers in the yellow pages that promised, “We’ll cater to all your needs, your place or ours.”

  When someone mentioned the elegant affair they’d attended downtown, Finch would grunt, “Don’t dare talk to me about some established caterer who’s doing nothing but robbing people with god-awful potato salad and inattentive service.”

  “But, Finch,” they’d say, “this is progress for our people.”

  Finch would grunt again and rock back and forth on his heels. “You want to know progress for our people,” he’d boom. “Progress for our people won’t be had until that giant white man that all you silly Negroes run to spend your money with like he’s God on earth starts coming to the likes of me to spend his. Or,” he’d snort, “when that Mayor Tate hires Heavenly Caterers to do his inaugural ball.”

  Finch got increasingly more despondent as he started chipping away at the exterior of their charmed lives. There would be no pony rides at Bliss’s eleventh birthday party, and summer for the girls would be spent at a day camp in the city. Last year’s Easter garb would have to do, and his plan to install one more six-jet stove in his cook’s studio would go on ice for now. It wouldn’t be enough; had to admit it to himself and the daybreak every morning when he started his food preparations and the daylight rushed in and hit him over the head, forced him to see that his passbook savings account was flattening out like a tire with a slow leak.

  He thought about redirecting his business, maybe apply for a small business loan; that was certainly more appealing than accepting money from the aunts and uncles. How much like a speck of dust he’d felt the night before, right after one of his lavish Sunday dinners, an eye roast, pecan string beans, potato salad, and a side of chitterlings because the aunts and Clarise loved them so, and the aunts and uncles cornered him in his kitchen, all four of them, under the guise of checking out his new paring knives. Til told him that they had money; their daddy, who’d been born a free man even though it was before the Emancipation, had left them land. And Clarise had mentioned he wasn’t doing that big fraternity ball that he’d done every year that attracted thousands; they didn’t mean to insult his manhood by implying that he couldn’t carry his family in style, but the Negro has it hard, they’d said. Let them help, they’d insisted, please let them help.

  But of course Finch was insulted, told them as politely as he could that there was no need to accept their offer, even accidentally nicked his thumb as he turned his paring knife over when he said it. Because he did need help, a quick infusion of funds just until he could concoct a plan for redirecting his business.

  And now it hit him as he sat in his cook’s studio sipping coffee and making small talk with the daybreak about his years at sea and how he’d envy the lone fishermen as they’d cast their nets, working for no one but themselves. Crabbing. He could rent his second cousin’s boat and go crabbing. He’d secure a hall for himself this time, call it a crab feast. He’d steam them, mash them, and fry them in batter and oil, bake them, barbecue them, toss them in salads. He’d take out an ad in the Tribune; he’d leave flyers at churches; he’d make it a monthly thing, maybe weekly if it really took off. He got excited the more he imagined the potential for success. He wouldn’t say anything to anybody right now, not even Clarise, especially with the seesaw her moods seemed to be riding on lately. He’d surprise her with the prospect when he was certain of its success; his lungs expanded at the thought of her face going wild with excitement, looking even more exotic when he presented her with his idea, wrapped up in good thorough planning like a diamond in a velvet pouch. Crabbing. He’d go out at least once and see the potential for the catch. Maybe even Tuesday he’d go. He’d watch Clarise’s hair for signs of the weather; then he’d pack his hip boots and head for the Maryland shore.

  Clarise had her own plans. She’d mentioned to her doctor at her yearly physical that her nerves had been affected by the financial fluctuations in Finch’s business. He’d prescribed Elavil, small doses, and advised Clarise to take up knitting, or crocheting, or some similarly calming hobby. She did. Would even hum while she knitted. Used the finest wools and an inventive knit and purl cross-stitch to weave together all kinds of hats and scarves for the girls. She was quickly approaching the point where she was ready to start showing her work to department stores, maybe bring in enough to buy shetland and angoras in bulk, turn enough of a profit to put some black ink onto the pages of Finch’s savings account passbook. Her heart tore a little whenever she’d hear the weight of Finch’s flat feet lumbering into the bedroom, trying not to wake her, whistling, she knew, just in case she was awake. But even his whistling was a lower pitch, the notes sagging in the bedroom air, trying to stay afloat. She was more determined now that she’d buy the wool, work her fingers in fast weaving motions, mix colors, like she’d been taught by the uncles; stay strong, straight-backed, like she’d learned from the aunts. But that Tuesday night happened first.

  The girls were at their seats at the oversized Formica table in the breakfast room. They had just finished watching Petticoat Junction, and Shern, the oldest, thirteen-year-old gorgeous child with the dark, liquid eyes, argued with Bliss, the eleven-year-old baby with the golden hair. Their dispute this time, these two always disagreed, was over who the prettiest daughter on that TV show was. Victoria disinvolved herself in their argument. Victoria, who was twelve, was in the middle not only in order of birth but in all things it seemed: her opinions, her appearance, her height, but not her ability to modulate disagreements between her olde
r and younger sisters; in that, she knew, she excelled. But this Tuesday night she let them go at it. One had just told the other she was a blind bat and looked like a bat too, with beady eyes and leathery skin. Victoria didn’t even know who said it to whom; she was too plugged into her mother right now, feeling Clarise’s extreme edginess as if she were connected to her mother through an electric cord.

  Clarise walked into the breakfast room with the comb and brush and grease and a half dozen sponge rollers nestled in her pink mesh hair care caddie. And Victoria could no longer stand the jolts shooting through her stomach every time she focused on her mother. “Is something the matter, Mommie?” she asked finally as Clarise tilted Victoria’s chin so that she could wind her bang around a hair roller.

  Clarise dipped her finger into the jar of Dixie Peach hair pomade and smoothed it over Victoria’s bang. “Sniff,” Clarise said.

  “Sniff?” Victoria asked, and then breathed in deeply through her nose. “Sniff what?”

  “Exactly my point,” Clarise said. “There’s nothing. Nothing to smell but the sweetness of this Dixie Peach hair grease.” Clarise moved across the table to do Bliss’s bang. Both Bliss and Shern had stopped arguing, and all three were starkly silent, the perplexity of their mother’s words hanging over the breakfast room.

  “Nothing, just nothing,” Clarise continued to mutter.

  “Huh?” Bliss asked.

  “Don’t say ‘Huh,’” Clarise snapped. She yanked on Bliss’s hair when she said it. “Say, ‘Excuse me, please, I didn’t understand you.’”

  “Excuse me, please, I didn’t understand you.” Bliss rubbed her scalp where her mother had just yanked her head and started to cry. “I’m sorry, Mommie.”

  “Okay, okay, don’t cry, my darling.” Clarise rubbed Bliss’s scalp and kissed her forehead. “Mommie didn’t mean to hurt you, but you must speak correct English, and you must learn to read the signs.”

  “Signs?” All three girls looked at their mother and hardly breathed as if she were about to explain to them the meaning of life on earth.

  “Where are the brownies?” Clarise shouted it and banged the table.

  They stared at Clarise with frightened circle eyes and were quiet as deer until Victoria smacked herself on the forehead with the revelation that this was Tuesday night, and their mother was not talking in some kind of code but actually meant brownies.

  “Hey, where are the brownies?” Victoria asked. “It is Tuesday night after all.”

  “And we don’t smell the brownies, right, Mommie? Isn’t that what you meant when you told Tori to sniff?” Bliss asked.

  “You mean, Daddy’s not in his studio making them?” Shern asked. Clarise was rolling Shern’s hair around a curler now, and Shern wished she had a thousand more to do. Her mother’s hands were so warm and hard against her forehead, her fingers dancing on her forehead as she locked the curler in place. She just wanted the feel of her mother’s fingers to dull the sharp breaths of worry catching in her throat. “Does that mean something’s terribly wrong, Mommie?” Shern asked.

  “Is something wrong with Daddy?” Bliss whined.

  “My girls are so bright,” Clarise said. “I’ve been blessed with such smart, geniuslike girls.”

  “What is it, Mommie? We can handle it, whatever it is. Please tell us what’s wrong with Daddy,” Victoria begged. “Where is he anyhow? I was sure he was in his studio.” Victoria let a sob slip through even though she wanted to be strong and mature amid this dark cloud of a revelation that was hanging over the gold-candled chandelier in the kitchen and getting ready to fall on their heads.

  “Please tell us, Mommie.” Bliss got up from her seat and jumped up and down. “Please, Mommie, please. Tell us what’s wrong with Daddy.”

  “Is it really bad?” Victoria cried openly now despite her attempts to act mature.

  “It is something terrible, isn’t it?” Shern neither cried nor begged. She sat up straight as a board and stared at her mother, trying to let her emotions neither out nor in. She just wanted not to feel, as she watched her mother’s face, her beautiful, exotic face, go from pale to flushed to a blankness that looked like grief.

  “Now I smell the sea,” Clarise said as she stared into the darkening breakfast room. “It’s an oily smell tinged with the sweet, sour scent of your father’s breath.”

  At that instant Finch’s breath was mixing with the sea as he clung to the side of the crabbing boat that had just spilled his catch—his brainchildren that were going to redirect his business, his precious crabs—and him into the sea’s demanding arms. He’d stayed out too long, he now realized. “Be back by sunset,” his second cousin had warned. “This sea does a strange thing at sunset, and my boat seen better days.” But the catch had been so substantial: the crabs had just climbed into his net as if they were saying, “Take me, Finch. I’ll be a part of your all-you-can-eat buffet.” He was so excited and laughing and counting the money to be made as he hauled in net after net he didn’t even notice that the yellow was washing to red in the back of the sky. And when he did notice the red in the sky, he still assured himself that he could make it from the shallow waters of the shoreline through the deeper canal to get to the other side of the shore, where even more crabs were waiting to help him redirect his business. But suddenly, right after his cousin’s boat went into a spin midway through the canal like a tub toy headed for the drain, he noticed the sky was hazy purple on its way to a deeper blue, and his crabs were climbing, not spilling from the boat, and he was too. And now he flogged about, trying to wrestle his life from the sea.

  The sea of course was stronger, a bully and a show-off. It wrenched the crabbing boat from Finch like a spoiled child snatching back a favorite toy, chanting, “Mine, mine, mine.”

  “Oh, fuck you then,” Finch hollered out.

  The sea laughed in his face, hit him with waves that were like tufted, braided ropes, over and over until he could feel welts unzipping along his back, his face. He started to curse the sea even more: “cocksucker, prick, son of a motherfucking bitch.” Then he realized he was going to die. He’d never been a religous man, but he didn’t want to die with some profane word curling around his tongue. He started to quote a Scripture, something about faith or possibilities. Then a hymn came to his mind; he’d just heard it the other Sunday at the Children’s Day program where Shern was the MC—something about a tempest and raging billows tossing high. He laughed out loud at the appropriateness of the song as the sea continued to spit in his face. He was drowning, he thought, and laughing. Now he realized he was treading water more slowly because the sea had clamped hundred-pound weights in his hands. Now he begged the sea for his life. “I have a wife who needs me, and my girls, three beautiful, well-behaved, perfect girls. Please, dear sea, wonderful, kind, beautiful, magnificent sea, please let me have my life. Please don’t snatch my life!”

  He tried to remember what he’d learned about drowning all those years he’d spent on ships. Since he was twelve and had run away from home and lied about his age to get passage on that first ship as a sand spreader and worked his way up to pot scrubber until he finally made it to assistant cook, the conversation among the kitchen help often turned to shipwreck stories. They’d say things like “You better pray that the sea is a pretty woman ’cause you sure getting fucked if you find yourself out in it.” But what he remembered right now was the night Deaf-and-Dumb Leaned-Over Johnson cleared his throat and spoke the first words anybody on that ship had heard pass his lips. “I survived the Titanic,” Johnson said, his speech slow, almost slurred. “Wasn’t on no lifeboat either, wasn’t no such thing as a lifeboat for the colored help. But I survived ’cause I just give in to the sea.” Finch remembered how Johnson had turned to look at him, as if he were talking to only him; he was an old man, had to be past seventy, but his skin was the smoothest black he’d ever seen, the whites of his eyes brighter than the North Star, almost a crazed look to his eyes they were shining so. “Boy,” he said to Finch�
�he straightened his back leaned over from the years heaped on it, and suddenly he towered over Finch—“if the sea ever catch you in its belly, just give up the fight. Just give in to the deep. And if you not raised too much hell in your life, if you not filled with too much devilment, the sea might just carry you back to its top, let you rest on its palm whiles you can catch your breath.”

  So Finch let go. The fight was leaving his body anyhow, and he’d never been a strong swimmer, too much weight in his legs. And the wave coming at him now was the kind that would separate a man’s head from his neck. He threw his hands up in surrender; he let his muscles go slack. “Take me deep,” he whispered.

  The wave taking him over now was like velvet: its softness made him cry, made him think of Clarise’s hair, Shern’s chin, Victoria’s manner, Bliss’s laugh, the sherry he’d pour the uncles on Sunday nights, Til’s fox-foot collar, the sound of Ness’s name. He thought he should see his life as he tumbled head over knees toward the center of the sea: the South Carolina lean-to where he was born, his mother, who died birthing him, shouldn’t she appear right now with wings and a halo reaching for him to enter into eternity, his brothers, who’d all left home before he was born, who probably never even knew his name, shouldn’t the faces come to him in death that never did in life? And where was Clarise’s face? Could he just see her face one more time. How cruel that he should die and not see his beautiful bride pass before his eyes, even if he couldn’t see his girls—Clarise. Where was Clarise? He jolted to, grabbed at the water in one final tug, one last try to live. But the water was slick, oily, too soft. It went through his hands like spilled milk, and now he really did let go.

  It had been a month since the closed-casket memorial service for Finch; the casket had to be closed because there was no body to fill it, just his Ferragamo handmade shoes and the gray wool suit that Clarise used to insist he wear when he garnished with pink. She placed his unabridged Websters in the center of the casket because Finch had been a self-made man and relied on that dictionary so that he could approach prospective clients and dazzle them by describing his food with words like “delectable,” “succulent,” “palatable,” “pithy,” “scrumptious.” Plus she wanted the casket to have a little weight to it because Finch had been such a substantial man.