Read Online Rhythms of Grace by Marilynn Griffith - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Marilynn Griffith
Ads: Link
him to kiss me now anyway. There was only one man I wanted to do that.
I only had to ask once.
It was beautiful, that kiss and all the ones that came after. We laid there, quiet, knowing there’d probably be no more of this. Perhaps that was best. He got up and went to the door. He even got my purse.
“I don’t want to sin against you, Birdie. Let me take you home.”
That’s when I began to sing.
7
Brian
I wanted to play the djembe when my mother died, to beat it up high and down low: palms, knuckles, the sides of my hands. I wanted to strap it on my belly and go barefoot by the pulpit. I wanted to scream.
They wouldn’t let me.
Not that I could blame them. I’d gone a bit crazy by then, the kind of crazy that I was always scared of. Strange even. Not that it surprised anyone. Ron still came around, gave me our secret handshake, shrugged his shoulders when people raised eyebrows at me, told them, “Oh he’s all right. Don’t be like that.”
But I wasn’t all right. I hadn’t been. Not for a very long time. Not since a Sunday in my junior year when Mama was too tired to come to church and I came alone. For the first time, alone. The deacon gave me a thin smile at the door. The whispers that I’d always thought I’d heard before, the ones that Mama told me were my imagination, echoed in my ears like screams.
“Eva’s down sick, they say. What is that child going to do now?”
“Chile, I don’t know. He’s always been a bit grown, but everybody needs a mama. Now that’s a fact.”
“Mama? Please. Eva ain’t that boy’s mama. Look at him with red hair and those crazy eyes changing all which of ways. He looks more like that white boy they bring than he does Eva. Naw, that boy ain’t none of hers. I remember the Sunday she brought him in, still wrapped up in a blanket from the hospital. I kept waiting for somebody to say something, but nobody never did. Some girl got in a mess with a white boy, most like. You know how that goes . . .”
I don’t remember much else about that Sunday, but I’ll never forget those women’s words. Never forget sitting there and thinking that everything I was, everything I knew, was a lie. Although it cut me deep, the news was almost a comfort since I’d always known that something didn’t fit, that somehow I did not belong.
One of the Africans who taught me the drum—there were four of them, from Ghana, Congo, Senegal, and Mozambique. One of them led a song with the other men, a sad song of a lone warrior who hunted, fought, and died alone. Sometimes at night, I still play it on my belly, still remember what the tallest of them said to me when we were done.
“An African with no land is like a never healing wound. An African with no people is like a ghost.”
At the time, I’d been afraid of his words, but a time came, after Eva’s funeral, when I was all alone with no people, not knowing where I’d come from, that I welcomed those words, that I became an apparition seen only at night, red-eyed and weaving through wisps of smoke.
I met X then. Not the famous Malcolm of the same letter, but an overgrown boy who thought himself a revolutionary. X wasn’t much older than I, but on the street we were decades apart. He led two lives, middle-class days with his mother and street nights with his father, who lived two blocks or so away from me. Two blocks doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was far enough away to be a whole different neighborhood, another world.
The first time I followed him there, I remember how the rosebushes ended and the window bars began. I wasn’t sure at first what that meant, but I learned fast. Since Eva left the house to Ron and me, people thought I had money. Sometimes I had some cash back from a financial aid check or something, but there wasn’t much to speak of. Nobody from the church came by anymore to see if I was all right or if I was coming back to church. They all seemed relieved to be rid of me. The feeling was mutual, I
I only had to ask once.
It was beautiful, that kiss and all the ones that came after. We laid there, quiet, knowing there’d probably be no more of this. Perhaps that was best. He got up and went to the door. He even got my purse.
“I don’t want to sin against you, Birdie. Let me take you home.”
That’s when I began to sing.
7
Brian
I wanted to play the djembe when my mother died, to beat it up high and down low: palms, knuckles, the sides of my hands. I wanted to strap it on my belly and go barefoot by the pulpit. I wanted to scream.
They wouldn’t let me.
Not that I could blame them. I’d gone a bit crazy by then, the kind of crazy that I was always scared of. Strange even. Not that it surprised anyone. Ron still came around, gave me our secret handshake, shrugged his shoulders when people raised eyebrows at me, told them, “Oh he’s all right. Don’t be like that.”
But I wasn’t all right. I hadn’t been. Not for a very long time. Not since a Sunday in my junior year when Mama was too tired to come to church and I came alone. For the first time, alone. The deacon gave me a thin smile at the door. The whispers that I’d always thought I’d heard before, the ones that Mama told me were my imagination, echoed in my ears like screams.
“Eva’s down sick, they say. What is that child going to do now?”
“Chile, I don’t know. He’s always been a bit grown, but everybody needs a mama. Now that’s a fact.”
“Mama? Please. Eva ain’t that boy’s mama. Look at him with red hair and those crazy eyes changing all which of ways. He looks more like that white boy they bring than he does Eva. Naw, that boy ain’t none of hers. I remember the Sunday she brought him in, still wrapped up in a blanket from the hospital. I kept waiting for somebody to say something, but nobody never did. Some girl got in a mess with a white boy, most like. You know how that goes . . .”
I don’t remember much else about that Sunday, but I’ll never forget those women’s words. Never forget sitting there and thinking that everything I was, everything I knew, was a lie. Although it cut me deep, the news was almost a comfort since I’d always known that something didn’t fit, that somehow I did not belong.
One of the Africans who taught me the drum—there were four of them, from Ghana, Congo, Senegal, and Mozambique. One of them led a song with the other men, a sad song of a lone warrior who hunted, fought, and died alone. Sometimes at night, I still play it on my belly, still remember what the tallest of them said to me when we were done.
“An African with no land is like a never healing wound. An African with no people is like a ghost.”
At the time, I’d been afraid of his words, but a time came, after Eva’s funeral, when I was all alone with no people, not knowing where I’d come from, that I welcomed those words, that I became an apparition seen only at night, red-eyed and weaving through wisps of smoke.
I met X then. Not the famous Malcolm of the same letter, but an overgrown boy who thought himself a revolutionary. X wasn’t much older than I, but on the street we were decades apart. He led two lives, middle-class days with his mother and street nights with his father, who lived two blocks or so away from me. Two blocks doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was far enough away to be a whole different neighborhood, another world.
The first time I followed him there, I remember how the rosebushes ended and the window bars began. I wasn’t sure at first what that meant, but I learned fast. Since Eva left the house to Ron and me, people thought I had money. Sometimes I had some cash back from a financial aid check or something, but there wasn’t much to speak of. Nobody from the church came by anymore to see if I was all right or if I was coming back to church. They all seemed relieved to be rid of me. The feeling was mutual, I
Similar Books
