River, cross my heart (21 page)

Rat couldn't swim. Johnnie Mae didn't want to think about Rat now. But Rat couldn't swim, didn't ever really swim. Rat was scared of the water, but always pretended that she wasn't. Rat never wanted to be left behind. She knew that Johnnie Mae would leave her to go swimming. And Johnnie Mae knew that Rat was truly scared ot water and she hadn't cared, that day, about her whiny little sister.

She wouldn't think about Rat right now! Charlie said she didn't have to think about a thing at the time it flashed across her brain. Charlie said not to look at the girls next to her,

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either. She was not to think about them and what they were going to do. Just listen for the starter's whistle. But don't look! Think about the swimming — think about the swimming— the water. Just tell her arms and legs to wait for the whistle, then go. Tell her arms and legs to be relaxed but ready and bend down and stay loose and let her body go and glide and be strong and glide into the water and don't look back or to the side. Look down at the markers on the bottom and follow them in a straight line and glide and push and breathe and glide and push and breathe and look up and Charlie's face will be there and—maybe Rat's face, too.

When the starting pistol popped in the air above her head, Johnnie Mae launched herself from the side of the pool with her toes. Her body unfurled above the surface of the water like a banner snapping in a sudden wind then relaxing to float on ripples of air. She plunged into the water. The others must have also. She could neither see them nor hear them. It was her lane only, her water before her, and she plowed through it with all the energy she had.

Afterward Charlie said she'd lost it on the turn. She had been ever so slightly slower and wider in the turn than the other girl had been. And her fingers had touched home only a few seconds after the other girl's. But it had been after the girl. There had been a relieved sigh at the judges' table.

The swimmers milled about while the judges had their heads together. They were bumblebeeing furiously. After a bit, one of the judges came forward and said that they were can-celing the diving competition. He said they'd agreed that they had seen enough to make a pick. They didn't need to look at any diving.

Charlie snatched the cap off his head and threw it to the

ground in disgust. They'd got scared. They were scared because they knew. Those judges knew Johnnie Mae could ace the diving competition. They'd seen how close she came to beating the other girl and they were scared.

If none of her competitors had been any good then it would clearly have been a case of race prejudice. But they'd all been good. And the girl they chose to represent Washington was a nearly flawless swimmer. Her performance had been flawless in the swimming. But Johnnie Mae would have beaten her in the diving. And the judges didn't want to see that. The deciders were not big people or risk-takers. They were not bold enough in their prejudice to ban Johnnie Mae outright. They had simply been grateful that their white swimmer was good enough. In fact, she was a little more than good enough. So they chose her and did not feel guilty.

In the past several months, all the energy in the Bynum household had been absorbed in getting ready for the coming baby. Johnnie Mae was alternately happy at the progress her mother's stomach was making and repulsed by its mushroom-ing. Additional household duties had been pushed onto her and she'd accepted them without complaint. Mama and Aunt Ina had planned it out that Mama would work at Miz St. Pierre's as long as she could. Then Aunt Ina would work in her place until Mama was ready to take back her job. Johnnie Mae was to help out with Aunt Ina's work and the household chores. All of this changed with the St. Pierres' financial troubles.

Papa picked up extra work running the elevator at the Alban Towers Hotel in the evening. He was lighthearted, however, and unable to hide the pleasure this coming baby was giving him. As soon as the frost had passed and the ground was warm, he put in his vegetable garden. By the time the boy, Calvin William Bynum, was born, on the sixth of June, the tomato plants were beginning to twine around their stakes.

Aunt Ina took charge of the household as soon as Mama's labor hegan in earnest, around four o'clock in the afternoon. She sent Johnnie Mae up to Georgetown University to say to her papa, "Her time has come." Aunt Ina said it over and over with a solemn, no-nonsense demeanor, not allowing her excitement to change the pitch of her voice. Johnnie Mae knew she was holding her voice steady by dint of great courage because Aunt Ina's voice rose on the slightest provocation. "Her time has come. Go tell your papa. Her time has come."

Johnnie Mae was instructed to get her papa first, then go to Dr. Tyler's office and give him the same message. Willie got Peanut Walter, a tall, slow-moving boy who did pick-up work for anybody, to work in his place at Alban Towers. The boy's name was actually Walter Peanut, and he was the oldest of Horace and Lila Peanut's thirteen children. But he had always been called Peanut Walter around town.

Johnnie Mae was told not to dillydally but to return as soon as she could. She was told to brew the pain-go-away tea that Ella Bromsen had given to them tied in a cheesecloth pouch. And she was told to fix a supper for her papa.

Dr. Marvin Tyler delivered Calvin at the house in the early morning hours of Thursday. Aunt Ina had assisted him throughout the night while Johnnie Mae sat at the top of the stairs outside her parents' bedroom door listening and trying to figure out what was actually going on inside. Mama didn't cry out, only grunted and exclaimed. When Johnnie Mae was awakened by Calvin's first cries at four o'clock in the morning, she sprang to the door and tapped. Roused by Calvin's robust voice, Willie jumped up from his chair in the kitchen, took the stairs two at a time, and crowded in the bedroom doorway. Aunt Ina came and blocked the line of vision into the room.

She sent Johnnie Mae to fix her mother a bowl of cornmeal mush and a cup of coffee half filled with cream and lots of sugar. She pulled Willie into the room while clapping him hard on the back. "You got you a boy, Willie! You got a son!"

Willie, the fifth wheel in the proceedings, had sat by himself in the kitchen the whole long night. He sat thinking about Clara and Big Mama and Merle. And he wondered who this coming baby was. If Clara had been his sister, Merle, come again, then who was this baby come again? If it was a girl it would likely be Big Mama come this time, or his mama. But if it was a boy, he'd be somebody none of them had known. Unless it was his daddy that he hardly could remember. Willie nursed many cups of coffee and pondered. With these coming children we never relinquish the past. We keep seeing somebody gone in each new one.

Willie couldn't say what part of Johnnie Mae was the part she got from someone gone. He didn't know who that could be. He'd never known Alice's mama. He couldn't say if that damnable streak of independence was something she got honestly from her mother's mother or not. Now, Alice was pretty headstrong. But increasingly there was something more intractable in Johnnie Mae. She was daily getting more troublesome.

He didn't know Sam Logan's people at all, except to know they were redskins. Folks in Carolina always said that colored people with Indian blood were sullen and headstrong and clever. Johnnie Mae was, he thought. That was what was in her. Even from a little girl, switching her bottom or the backs of her legs had been pretty much useless as a deterrent. The problem of her disobedience had never been in those places. It was her head—hardheaded, headstrong.

As expected, Miz Fanny Moreen called just after ten o'clock. Miz Fanny, as she was affectionately known by any and all among colored who'd had a new baby or a child with cholera or influenza or rickets, was the licensed baby nurse assigned by the city health department to call on colored families in Georgetown. A fixture at church socials, Miz Fanny always appeared neatly dressed in a sharply tailored black uniform and nurse's cap. Georgetowners admired her, especially for the courage with which she'd assisted Dr. Marshall and Dr. Tyler in the influenza epidemics in '09 and '12.

Upon arriving at the Bynums' home, Miz Fanny drew off her black uniform jacket, undid her white cuffs, and put on the long white apron she pulled from her bag. She handed the jacket to Johnnie Mae and instructed the girl to hang it neatly. Her loud, authoritative voice called Ina from the upstairs bedroom and brought her swiftly down the steps.

"Good morning, Miz Fanny," Ina called out cheerfully but in a tone that gave Miz Fanny absolute jurisdiction in the house.

"Good morning, Miz Carson. We have a healthy big boy I hear." Miz Fanny had by this time marched into the kitchen. Ina was hard on her heels and Johnnie Mae followed. Miz Fanny perused the sink and swept her eyes over all surfaces on the stove, the table, and the cupboards. She judged the diligence o( the household's women in stanching the tide of dirt and disease. Her eyes caught on the bundle o( herbs that Ella Bromsen had brought to be given to the new mother as tea.

"Miz Carson, we do not need backwoods remedies." She pronounced her disdain for Ella Bromsen's herbs with her nose and lips drawn up.

Ina answered, "Yes, ma'am, I'm sure you know the best."

Miz Fanny then reached in her medical bag and pulled out health department pamphlets on baby care and hygiene and instructed Ina to follow the recommendations to the letter. With her breasts high, she proclaimed the motto with which she concluded all her talks at the church programs: "The health of our people is dependent upon the health of our children!"

Johnnie Mae was tickled by Miz Fanny's crusading fervor but knew she'd better not titter. Nobody dared laugh at Miz Fanny Moreen, for fear oi being turned in to the health department for keeping a household that was a menace to public health. Though Miz Fanny had been known to turn in only the worst cases of neglect and slovenliness in the twenty years she'd been working in Georgetown, it was widely known that she had the authority of the health department.

"Have mother and baby been bathed this morning?" Miz Fanny asked as she put on her stethoscope.

"Oh, yes, ma'am," Ina said. She led Miz Fanny upstairs to the bedroom.

"The most important thing, Miz Carson, is to keep mother and baby clean and dry and well fed."

"Oh, yes, ma'am."

"Her hair's always wet or nappy. It's a good grade of hair and it's going to be mined from all that swimming in the pool. She smells funny. She's acting womanish and hardheaded but behaving like a child too. She's not carrying herself like a growing-up young lady. But still and all she's over at that pool in a swimming suit instead of in her clothes. Maybe she's liking it too much." In the kitchen after Johnnie Mae had gone to bed and Ina had gone home, Willie cudgeled Alice with his words.

He was dancin' up to a subject that he'd been trying to set to music for some time now. Alice heard the undercurrent of Willie's comments as clearly as if he'd said it out loud. He was trying to get it said that Johnnie Mae—her daughter—was about to step out of line. He was trying to get it up to say that her daughter was being willful, like she had been. Alice seethed.

Johnnie Mae was completely absorbed with the pool and the competition. Yes, this was getting beyond the two of them. But Willie's intention wasn't pure. He wasn't talking about

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Johnnie Mae's swimming. He was trying to get something said about her behavior. And Alice dared him with her eyes. He was a good man. But she wasn't going to allow him to oppress her with his goodness. Because there was a meekness in his goodness that she had always thought unseemly. He loved her, but he had been too meek about it. He had waited for Alice and had got her with his meekness. She had wanted another man but had settled for Willie. Now he was going to raise up on his hind legs at her? He was going to try to talk about her now? And her daughter?

Alice dug in her heels. Willie could see Alice's determination to take her daughter's part, and he backed off.

u We can shinny that fence in no time. And you can stand lookout while I swim. We can do it any old time. If we pick a night in the dark of the moon, nobody can see us." Johnnie Mae spoke with confidence, convincing Pearl that she was perfectly sure of herself.

Pearl didn't see how the pool on Volta Place could still have a pull on Johnnie Mae. The Francis pool was so much better. And she and anybody's colored child could swim in it whenever they wanted. Why was Johnnie Mae so determined to swim in the pool on Volta Place? Johnnie Mae loved the Francis pool. In fact, nobody could have loved it more than she. But there was a principle in this fever about the pool on Volta Place. There was something about the fact that the colored children were barred from it that inflamed her.

Pearl didn't like the idea of scaling the fence in the dead of night, though. She started right away to run over all the

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dangerous possibilities in the plan, though she knew from the outset that she would go along if Johnnie Mae kept insisting. And what kind of story would she make up to get out oi the house past dark? Johnnie Mae said the best plan was not to make up anything but steal out after everyone had gone to sleep.

On the chosen night, Johnnie Mae lay in her bed and listened for her parents' snores. When finally the two began cadenced, sonorous snoring, Johnnie Mae tiptoed out the back door and hightailed it to Volta Place.

They'd chosen a night when Johnnie Mae said there would be no moonlight. The darkness made it difficult to find a path through the trees to the fence that surrounded the pool, and they had to be careful not to step on and squash any of the stinkballs that had fallen from the trees and littered the ground outside the pool. They hid their clothes a few yards from the fence.

The fence provided excellent toeholds for scaling. John-nie Mae led the way as they climbed monkey fashion up the fence, hooking their hands and feet into the mesh. She left her shoes outside at the base o{ a tree, but Pearl kept hers on. Johnnie Mae thought Pearl was a pampered sort of girl, but she proved herself full of stuffing in the way she scrambled up and over the top of the fence. As soon as they were over the top, Johnnie Mae leapt to the ground. Pearl eased herself down a bit on the other side, then leapt off the fence, skinning her elbow as she landed. Though it stung, she didn't whimper.