Imani All Mine (24 page)

ELEVEN

I
AIN'T SET OUT
to come to New Light this morning. My feet brung me. They carried me there when I left the house. Like they knew it was where I should be. Like they knew more than my mind. All I was wanting to do was get out the house. We moving today. I don't want to be home for that. To see how me and Imani lives can be carried away in such small boxes.

Mama ask me this morning, Where you think you going with all this work to do?

Mitch say, Let her go, Earlene. We can manage.

Not nam other word came out Mama mouth. She threw her hands up and walked away from me.

Mama disgusted with me, anyway. My name been bitter in her mouth ever since I told her I'm pregnant. She ask me the same thing she ask me when I was pregnant with Imani. You happy now?

I don't know why Mama even ask me that. She not happy now. I hear her some nights before she come to bed with me. She be with Mitch downstairs. Crying. She try to do it soft. To not let me hear. But I hear. Because it's a crying filled with craziness. A crying that take hold of you and don't let go until it's through with you. Until you empty.

I looked once. Just once. They was sitting close up on each other on the couch. And I seen both of they faces in the dark. For the first time I seen in Mama face that she love Mitch. Her face was like a full moon. From where Mitch was sitting, he couldn't see it. I don't know if Mama ever show that face to him. The one I seen. But maybe Mitch know Mama love him. Maybe he can hear it in her when they all alone and he find the secret place in her that is small small small. A place open just for him.

Mama know I ain't happy. There ain't nothing that look like happiness in me. Maybe that's why, when she ask me, she ain't slap me like she did when I told her about Imani. Mama ain't lift a hand to me in love or hate. She be acting like I done slapped her, though. Sent her tumbling into my future, where she don't see no dream she have for me coming true. Mama ain't got no more dreams for me. This baby has took them all away.

I was past tired this morning when I got to church because I had walked and walked. Without thinking about how far I was going. If I knew where I was going, I could've just got on the bus. But I ain't know. My feet was leading me through the streets where folks was washing cars, sitting on they porches, going into corner stores, barbecuing, climbing the steps of churches. I went past dealers. Some of them leaned up against buildings like they was tired, and I seen some of they clients. Them gray zombies looking like they wasn't going in no real direction.

And kids. I passed by so many of them. Little girls ready for church wearing dresses with lace, ribbons flying in they hair. Boys in dress pants and shirts, ties knotted like big fists at they skinny necks. Little girls and boys ready to do nothing but play. They was on almost every block with they jump ropes and they jacks and they hopscotches done in chalk. With they bikes and they balls and skates. With girls singing and clapping they hands to the same songs I used to and boys arguing about what they was arguing about when I was little. Who was out, who was in, who was tagged, who was safe.

I ain't even notice the sun was getting higher and higher in the sky. Pouring heat into my head. I knew I needed to stop because I was seeing spots. Tiny little worlds was spinning around in front of me when I heard music. Soft music rolling up the sidewalk. Just the edges of it. Creeping in on me. Cool on my feet. And my feet followed it. Wanting what was in the middle of the music. Wanting what was on the other side of it.

Eboni and Miss Lovey been trying to get me to come to church with them. They both ask me since the funeral, but I told them I ain't feel like it. Neither one of them could get me to do what my feet did this morning.

As I stepped inside the cool cool church, I was struck blind by the darkness of it. It's darker than I remembered. Thick with bodies blocking out the light. The wholeness of the organ music hit me full in the chest and I felt myself falling back. Falling like I was heading out of time. A flash of white come up alongside of me. A usher. She caught me up under the arm to show me to a seat. I wasn't going to let her lead me. Not one step. Because I wasn't staying. I wasn't dressed to sit with them people. I had on shorts and a T-shirt. But my feet moved on. Past rows of benches. Past the moon overhead and the man in it. All the way to the front, where I could see the preacher clear.

He was dressed in a long black robe trimmed in gold and already wiping sweat from his face like he was hot. Like he been preaching a long time. He waved his hands and the music stopped. Sudden. Taking the church into a quiet place. Taking me there, too, while the preacher started out talking in a soft voice about waiting on the Lord.

He say, I'm not going to keep ya'll here all day. My time is running short. My time is winding up, but I can't let you go just yet. The Lord won't let me let you go just yet. Not until I tell you. Not until I
tell you
. Not until I tell
you
. About waiting. On him. He want you to stay. He want you to wait. I'm not the one who asking you to wait. It's nothing but the Lord.

The preacher say he going to read out the book of Isaiah. Chapter forty. Verse thirty-one. He say turn and find that passage. A old lady who was bald on top of her head shared her Bible with me. She let it rest part on my lap and part on hers. I ain't look in it as the preacher read:

 

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

 

The preacher say, You know, church. We a waiting people. We a people who will wait on anything. He say if we ain't believe him, go past a check-cashing center on a payday. Go by there on the first or fifteenth of the month. He say, Line be out the door. It be raining, snowing, sleeting, hailing. But ya'll wait. Am I lying?

No, say the voices. We wait.

Church, we going to
wait
on some money. Let that Lotto jackpot hit ten million dollars, and watch out, the preacher say, getting loud. He ducked down and jumped back up. I say, watch out now. Ya'll folk forget about the street number. Ya'll forget about the Pick Three, Pick Four. Ya'll ain't thinking about what to play straight. What to box. What to knickknack patty-whack. Ya'll going to wait in that Lotto line. I'm telling you,
Jez-us
could come back, and ya'll wouldn't get out the line to see him. Some of ya'll might slap him if he tried to bogart ahead of you. Am I lying?

The dark answered, You telling the truth. You preaching.

The preacher wiped his face, his neck. Ya'll with me. Stay with me. Stay with me, sisters, because I know some of you out there waiting. On some man. On some half a man. To treat
you
right. And you, brothers, too. Some of ya'll waiting on some trifling woman. To treat
you
right. Ya'll
wait
on somebody to change. Wait your whole life. But you won't spend one second waiting on the Lord. Anybody got a Amen to that?

Amen, Preacher! Amen!

We a people, see. We a people. I tell you about Moses. I tell you about the Israelites. In bondage. In Egypt. In the wilderness. Them folk wandered. Forty years. And I can hear what some of ya'll be thinking. You don't think I do, but I do. Ya'll be thinking, Ha! That couldn't have been me. Them folks. They had to be crazy. Them folks. Well, they must've been white. Them folks. They must've ain't had nothing else to do. Waiting out in the wilderness. You thinking, I wouldn't have waited forty minutes. Because, well, you know. I got some money waiting on me. I got a man waiting on me. I got woman waiting on me. I ain't got time to be waiting on the Lord. The Lord should be waiting on me.

And you want the Lord to
wait
on you. To serve you. To give you what you need. What you want. And if he don't, then watch this. This here what you do, he say.

The preacher turned around. Turned his eyes away. Turned his face away from the church. I was fenna get up to leave then. Without him seeing me. Duck down and walk quick up the aisle. Because I'd heard enough. But before I could move, he spun back around.

I know ya'll sometimes. Lord. More than I know myself. I know your minds. Lord. More than I know my own. I know what you thinking when you think. Lord. My father done let me down. My mama. She done let me down. My children. Done let me down. My husband. He ain't no good. My wife. She ain't no good. My life. It's done let me down. My life. Is not the life I want. This life. Is not the life I asked for. And you say, Lord. Lord, I'm weary. Lord, I'm worn. Lord, I'm tired. And the Lord say, Wait!

Just wait on me. Not on some money. Lord say, Wait! But not on some man. Lord say, Wait! And I
will
lift you up. I will mount you up with wings as eagles. How many of you need to be lifted up this morning?

All around me voices called out. They answered him. Lift me up, Lord. Yes, Jesus. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. The music slipped in under they voice with its own voice. Deep. Worrying.

How many of you this morning need the Lord to renew you? So you can keep on walking through that wilderness?

I need you, Lord. I need you. I need you, Jesus.

How many of you need the strength to run and not get weary? To walk and not faint? To go into the wilderness in these streets? In your neighborhood. Round your block. And have the strength to walk. To run forty years if you have to without doubting how. Without doubting. Why. Them Israelites done it.

They did it because they knew. They knew. I say, they knew. What Paul knew. They knew. What Paul say. They knew. Before he said it. They knew. Before he was born. They knew. What he told the Corinthians. When he say
For we walk by faith, not by sight
.

I'm not talking about the walking you do with your feet, the preacher say. He walked halfway up the aisle and back to the front of the church.

That's ordinary walking. The walking a baby can do. A child can do. I'm talking about the walking you do in yourself. The walking you do all deep down in your soul. By yourself and with yourself. And if you not walking by faith this morning, then maybe you don't know the Lord. You don't know. What he can do for you. You don't know. What he has done for you.

I stood up then. Not caring who seen me. I stood right up in front the preacher. With tears running down my face. I wasn't crying, but tears was coming from me. I ain't care what the preacher say. I ain't care what the music say. The Lord ain't know me, and I ain't want to know him.

I went to turn my back on him. To turn my back on God. But my feet ain't take nam other step. They kept me standing in front of him. While the preacher say right to my face. While he say looking me right in the center of my eyes.
Be still, and know that I am God
. That's all you got to do. Be still.

But I wanted to move, because I could feel that music rising. I could feel it worrying me deep inside. Where there was a stillness in me. Deep in the dark of me. While them tears kept coming.

Somebody started singing, It's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. It's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

Everybody started singing. They voices filling the church. Filling up all the spaces that wasn't filled by the benches. That wasn't filled by they bodies. They wasn't filled by the music.

 

Not my brother, not my sister, not the preacher,

not the deacon, not my father, not my mother,

not a stranger, not my neighbor

But it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

 

They just kept on. Clapping. It's me. Singing. It's me. Clapping. It's me. It's me. It's me. It's me. It's me. It's me. Until they words made they way deep inside me and I started crying. Out loud. My mouth wide open. The old woman standing next to me touched me and I tried to pull away. I ain't see Eboni or Miss Lovey. I wanted them to come to me. To save me from what I was feeling. Like I was being carried off from myself, and I wanted Mama next to me. Because I couldn't pull away from this old lady who ain't know me. From these people who ain't know me. People who I was shame in front of. Crying. Screaming. With my mouth all open. With my tongue saying words I could hear but didn't know.

That old woman ain't let me loose, and I was starting to feel like I ain't want her to. I could smell in her a sweetness. Stronger than any promise before rain. I wanted her there. Wanted her to hold me right where I was. I needed her hands on me. Needed that circle of people that had formed around me. Laying they hands on me. Standing all around me. Thick and dark. Strong like trees. Strong like the dark. Closing me up in they arms. I needed them watching over me.

With no shame in me, I fell down to my knees. And I ain't care who saw me. Who heard me cry. I wanted them to hear me. To listen to all I had to say. Even if my mind was confused. If my tongue was confused. And I couldn't understand myself. The sounds coming from me like cries of a bird. I let them come out of me, and the more they came out, the more I knew what I knew. Somewhere inside me.

I knew Imani wasn't killed because of me. I seen that clear in the stillness inside of me. Black like night as I felt myself being pulled clear out of myself and pulled back in. I seen a bird. White like snow. Rise up out the dark. Fly up in the air and disappear.

And I made up my mind right then. Down on that floor with them people around me. With they hands touching me. With they hands loving me. With the music flowing over me like water. I made up my mind that I want the baby inside me.

The baby calling me. Calling me into the stillness in me. The dark in me. Loving me right then. And I loved it right then.