Just Above My Head Page 12

  It looked like you, Arthur said shyly, and our mother, saying nothing, carefully placed it in her thick, black hair. Then she put her hand in my hand again and reached out with her other hand and pulled her baby to her, and held us both close against her, looking up at Paul.

  Well! old man, she said, and laughed with tears standing in her eyes, what you got to say? Paul growled, Hell, I guess you don’t even want to look at that raggedy old fur coat I got you, and Mama said, You better not be asking me about where you left your kidskin fur-lined gloves!

  And he had found her a fur coat, aided a little, no doubt, by the skill of his friends on Sugar Hill, and she had found for him a beautiful pair of fur-lined gloves, with the help, no doubt, of her family in The Bronx. Mama lifted the coat out of the box, and he helped her put it on. He wore his gloves and his scarf, and he had the cigarette lighter which Arthur had given him in his pocket. I wore my acorn—ah! the shape of things to come!—Mama wore her comb, and no hat; Arthur wore everything that Christmas had brought him, and we walked down the stairs, into the streets, to church.

  Everybody was there, the children—who were, really, no longer children—in the front row. Peanut, Crunch, and Red were not children but aching, anxious, peculiarities, awkwardly shaped, itching to be released onto the playing field. Arthur joined them, carrying the three boxes which contained their ties. Then, the four of them sat there, calmly arrogant—this was for the benefit of the other quartets, who formed a solid wall at the back of the church. Julia was already in her royal seat in the pulpit, but, now, her thin face and her burning eyes could be seen all over the church. Her neck faintly throbbed, making me suddenly aware of the small, beginning breasts beneath the long white robe: this child was now able to bring a child into the world.

  Jimmy also sat in the front row, but on the other side of the aisle, with his shoulder pressed against the wall as though he hoped to make a hole in it. His face was a marvel of sullen resignation, brightening, briefly, when Arthur entered. But by the time Arthur noticed him, Jimmy was, once again, pressing his shoulder against that wall.

  He sat directly in front of his mother and father, and Paul and Florence and I joined Amy and Joel. I cuffed Jimmy lightly on the head, and squeezed that determined shoulder, and was rewarded with a bright, shy grin, like a light, which made me feel how rarely anybody touched him.

  We had entered at the very beginning of the service, and the choir, in purple robes, was singing “Mary’s on the Road.” I listened to the choir. From time to time, I glanced at the back of my mother’s head and the milky white comb which glowed there: she and Amy were whispering together. Then the sound of the choir ceased, and the choir sat down, the pastor rose and came to the pulpit, silence fell: and my mother turned from Amy, seeming to look straight at the pulpit, but looking, really, at something else; I saw her face in profile, and it frightened me. She had seen something, something so dreadful that she could not believe it, and I seemed to hear her catch her breath as we rose and bowed our heads and the pastor blessed the congregation.

  The first offering was taken up. The pastor—all of those pastors are faceless now, for me, all wearing the same gleaming, going-to-heaven toothpast—announced the guests who had come to be with us on Christmas morning. Until that moment, I hadn’t wondered why Julia had consented to come and preach in this church, which was considered, by the sanctified, to be a worldly church. Now I wondered, and I didn’t wonder, watching the first offering being carried back up the aisle, in those wicker baskets, to be blessed by the pastor and then to disappear behind the pulpit. Offerings would also be taken up for each of the quartets—freewill offerings—and the baskets were to be seen on the table, placed just below the pulpit, covered with a purple doth, holding two hymnbooks, and a Bible, and a vase of red-and-white carnations. The congregation was yet more vivid and far more opulent, and their Cadillacs and Buicks were double-parked on the avenue and in the side streets which led, steeply, to this eminence and, as steeply, dropped away.

  The quartets came, said the pastor (as though they had issued from his loins that morning) from Philadelphia, Newark, and Brooklyn, and—with a particularly vivid smile, aimed at the boys in the front row—”from just down the street.” The congregation made approving sounds, and all of this was considered by Philadelphia, Newark, and Brooklyn to be dirty pool, a below-the-belt blow at their honor and genius, and they leaned back, smiling smug smiles of rage, and straightened their shoulders. The Trumpets of Zion were going on first, and Philadelphia, Newark, and Brooklyn would use what was left of their ass to wipe up the stage, and carry it home. Of course, The Trumpets of Zion had intentions equally crippling, and, if they succeeded, their rivals would be left trying to make themselves heard from the deep hole where the stage had been.

  Yet it must be said—and this is very difficult to convey—this passionate rivalry contained very little hostility; I am not sure that it contained any real hostility at all. Philadelphia, Newark, and Brooklyn were, at bottom, exceedingly curious about their snot-nosed, ignorant little brothers and not at all sorry that they had come along. On the contrary; and something might happen to make them all smile; they all had a lot to team, and some of that, perhaps, indeed, most of that, they could learn only from each other. It was cold out there, where they hoped to go.

  Our boys were announced, along with Paul Montana— “the celebrated pianist, who is a member of this church, and the father of one of the singers of the quartet—the father, in truth, of the quartet you are about to hear.” Philadelphia, Newark, and Brooklyn took a black view indeed of this species of dirty pool, though they also seemed to feel that Paul was their father, too: they had heard the name, and some of them had heard him play. Okay, their rigid shoulders seemed to say, come on with it now.

  Paul rose and winked at me, and edged out and up to the piano. The boys waited for him, and followed him, with an indescribable respect. Paul had told them that this was the last time he would play for them. Peanut’s your piano player now. And he’s good—you think I been wasting my time with Peanut? But Peanut was terrified of letting down the quartet. He was far more terrified than the others of singing in public, and Paul understood Peanut, and respected this.

  So he looked at the boys, and smiled, and sat down at the piano. The boys took their places, bowed, Crunch a little outside, with the guitar—how young they looked up there—looked at each other, began.

  Oh, come all ye faithful.

  They got through. Peanut’s terror was so great that he became impeccable; his voice carried the wonder which must have been present the very first time this song came into the world; that wonder, which is, after all, the anonymous author of the song. They got through. They grinned and bowed, the congregation moaned and shouted, Paul’s hair began to stand up, Crunch and Paul opened “When Was Jesus Born?” and Arthur’s voice led, and paced, the song. Philadelphia, Newark, and Brooklyn were now enthralled and grinning and clapping their hands, and our boys, after a brief piano-guitar exchange between Paul and Crunch, dropped into a lower key for “No Room at the Inn.” Crunch led this song, in his down-home, country boy’s voice.

  Niggers can sing gospel as no other people can because they aren’t singing gospel—if you see what I mean. When a nigger quotes the Gospel, he is not quoting: he is telling you what happened to him today, and what is certainly going to happen to you tomorrow: it may be that it has already happened to you, and that you, poor soul, don’t know it. In which case, Lord, have mercy! Our suffering is our bridge to one another. Everyone must cross this bridge, or die while he still lives—but this is not a political, still less, a popular apprehension. Oh, there wasn’t no room, sang Crunch, no room! at the inn! He was not singing about a road in Egypt two thousand years ago, but about his mama and his daddy and himself, and those streets just outside, brother, just outside of every door, those streets which you and I both walk and which we are going to walk until we meet.

  Now, when Jesus

  was passin
g by

  He heard

  a woman cry.

  Arthur’s voice, alone, then his witnesses arriving:

  She said,

  Savior! don’t you pass me by!

  I looked at my mother, who was watching her son, but who was seeing something else. There was a smile on her lips and there was a darkness in her eyes. She held Amy’s hand tightly in hers.

  If I could but touch

  the hem of His garment

  I would go,

  and prophesy.

  Joel was still. The two women nodded their heads; I heard Amy breathe Amen! and Amen! breathed my mother, and the song slowly lifted:

  Savior!

  don’t you pass

  me by!

  Our boys bowed, and Paul bowed with them, and they came on down from there. Philadelphia, Newark, and Brooklyn were jubilant, and dying to outdo them—and each other—and anxious to engage in Battles of Song all up and down the nation, and all over the world, until Christmas came again.

  Yet in my memory, it was a strange Christmas, with something hard in it, as hard as the earth and sky of that long day. It was a long service, testimonies, offerings—the testimonies short, the offerings long—the pastor’s hands and teeth orchestrating each other, the other quartets being brought out at intervals, Paul beside me, sighing, and the heat rising and somewhat submerging Julia’s sermon: which, perhaps because of the heat, was short. Men kept ducking into the toilet at the back of the church to pee, or simply, perhaps, to stand up for a moment: and Julia, in my memory, very strange and gaunt that day, blazing with weariness. Why did I think of weariness? I heard it in her voice, and I heard it because I knew she was only thirteen.

  Her parents had moved into an apartment not far from the church, and, after a while, we walked there, down a hill—to Edgecombe Avenue, perhaps. Julia walked between her mother and father, as straight as a sorceress, wearing a heavy black coat but with her holy cap still on her head. Arthur and the other boys were behind us, with Philadelphia, Newark, and Brooklyn exchanging battle strategies; sometimes, to illustrate a point, one or more of them would sing a bar or two. I still remember how clear and free their voices sounded, floating over our heads as we descended that hilly street. Paul and Florence walked together, that comb in my mother’s hair seeming to soften and dominate the hard silver light. Little Jimmy walked with me, or, to tell the truth, appeared to be willing to let me walk with him.

  They had moved into a brownstone, of which there are very few left these days, and Julia and her mother climbed the steps together. Julia was taller than her mother now, especially in her long black coat, and her mother, whose coat was a fashionable, belted dark green, seemed lightly to be leaning on her daughter. Joel stepped ahead of them, into the vestibule, and opened the vestibule’s glass-and-wooden door, glass curiously painted, and curtains behind the glass.

  I remained below, on the sidewalk, waiting for Arthur and the others to catch up. The other three quartets had left them: Red, Peanut, Crunch, and Arthur came on down the street.

  It was not going to be too bad. Red and Peanut and Crunch were really only being polite and keeping Arthur company for a few minutes before going off to have Christmas dinner elsewhere. Arthur and I were trapped, for the Millers had invited the Montanas for Christmas dinner, and Florence had not been able to refuse. But then, after all, it was only between three and four in the afternoon. I was going to pick up Martha, later, at her aunt’s house, and Arthur and his men were also going to hook up later. The trick was to get through Christmas dinner without tangling with the holy Christmas bitch.

  For none of us liked Julia; we couldn’t stand her. We gave the child her due, she could certainly rock a church, but so could Arthur: and, in our world, a world which included the Apollo Theatre, that was not nearly as big a thing as Sister Julia seemed to want to make it. We had seen too many manifestations of the Holy Ghost to be afraid of any of them—the Holy Ghost is a matter of the privacy of the midnight hour—and, in short, we didn’t need her, we knew other preachers who were much more fun. Red and Peanut and Crunch would never have accepted an invitation to have “refreshments” at her house had it not been for Arthur.

  And Florence had said, “Amy’s that woman’s daughter. And I got sons. I don’t know where they might find themselves some cold Christmas Day.”

  So we entered their apartment, which was on the first floor, and, as I remember, ran the length of the floor; and it may have been two floors, for my memory has Julia disappearing almost as soon as we entered, and disappearing, it seemed to me, upstairs. She disappeared, anyway, for a very long time.

  Amy and my mother also disappeared into a room, closing the door behind them—but, unlike Julia, they excused themselves—leaving Joel to do the honors.

  So, on this Christmas Day, I looked at Brother Miller. Since it was the first time I had ever seen him in his house, and since I was still, after all, very young, it was almost as though I were looking at him for the first time. I may have felt this because he seemed—somehow—so uneasy in his own house. He seemed more like a guide. But it may also be that the house was so cluttered with such incredible shit that it needed a guide. Paintings of people drowning in sunsets, playing harps; some blue thing on a table which looked like an octopus frozen in orgasm or giving birth-giving birth, as it turned out, to candy, candy being what the writhing tentacles held. Lace covering this, velvet covering that; glass-enclosed cupboards holding I don’t know what; lamps like statues; bulbs in the shape of flowers; holy books; hymnbooks; a Bible; a merciless photographic record of the family tree, from toothless smiles to toothless scowls; a Christmas tree which explained why little Jimmy had turned his back on Santa Claus so soon; photographs of Julia everywhere; and posters announcing her appearance. A piano. A pulpit covered with gold cloth, perhaps the same pulpit Brother Miller had carried for so long. I don’t believe that all of this could have been in one room, for there were other things, like chairs and tables, and a big dining-room table, and mirrors. There were plants growing in boxes on the windowsills: it was not so much a cluttered as a buried, a secret house. Even the clothes that Brother Joel Miller wore contributed to this airless, hothouse climate, for—they covered him: one did not wish to speculate on his nakedness, or find oneself, in any way whatever, obliged to be a witness to it.

  “Well, we’ll just make ourselves at home,” he said, “until the ladies come back.”

  He led us through the dining room, where the table was all set, to the big living room which faced the backyard. This room was relatively clear—it was as though someone had simply run out of patience and decided to sit down. Which the boys did at once, side by side, on the sofa. Jimmy sat in a corner by the window.

  There was a large table in the center of the room, holding a punch bowl and glasses and dreadful little sweet cakes.

  Brother Miller started ladling out the punch, and the boys, politely, sort of stood on line, with their glasses held out. They were in their Christmas best, and they were on their best behavior. Their excessive politeness hid a mocking judgment, but Brother Miller could not have been expected to notice this.

  Crunch sipped his punch, delicately, and asked, “Won’t Sister Julia be joining us?”

  I doubt that Brother Miller knew anything at all about Julia’s relationship to her peers, but he looked surprised. “Oh, yes,” he said, “she’ll be along in just a minute—soon. She likes to meditate right after service.” Then, as though he had been reminded of something, he turned toward Jimmy. “Here, boy, don’t you want some of this punch?”

  Jimmy turned from the window, and I could almost see him trying to decide which course of action would be the least painful—to say no (which was what he wanted to say), and risk a public and humiliating reprimand, or to say yes, and then be trapped in a company in which he was out of place. But Crunch resolved the problem by taking the punch from Brother Miller’s hand and carrying it Over to Jimmy.

  “Merry Christmas, little fell
ow,” Crunch said, and Jimmy said, “Merry Christmas to you,” and then, surprisingly, “Merry Christmas, everybody.”

  I was very grateful for his gravity. It made everybody laugh, and we all wished him a merry Christmas, too.

  Then I suddenly wondered if Arthur had thought to buy him a present, or if his present was part of Paul and Florence’s present. I had put all of our presents under the tree when we came in, but we wouldn’t open them until the women reappeared. But I felt that Jimmy would really have dug having a small ceremony all his own.

  “This punch is for the young folks,” Brother Miller now said—not noticing how wryly The Trumpets of Zion agreed with this, nor how little they appreciated being called “young”— “but if you gentlemen will just follow me—”

  Which we did, of course, having no choice—into the kitchen, which was just beyond this room, to the left.

  We could hear the boys’ voices, conspiratorial and harsh with humor. They paid no attention to Jimmy, who still stood by the window, holding his glass of punch.

  Brother Miller opened the refrigerator—refrigerators were still fairly rare in Harlem then—and took out a bottle and began opening it. “We’ll stay in here for a minute,” he said, “because little Julia has just never approved of sipping wine.” He laughed and got the bottle open and began to pour. “I tell her the Bible says, ‘take a little wine for the stomach’s sake,’ but she says, ‘ain’t nothing wrong with your stomach!’ ” He laughed again, and we all wished each other a merry Christmas. Paul and Joel sat down at the kitchen table, and I leaned against the refrigerator, feeling as out of place as Jimmy.

  The kitchen smelled, of course, of cooking, but not like our kitchen, which smelled of spice and sweat. Here the odor was heavy and sweet, coming at you in waves, and I was suddenly aware of Brother Joel Miller’s odor, which was both sharp and funky sweet.

  I heard the boys’ voices from the other room: