Finding My Thunder Read Online Free

wrong and a skirt. “Hey Mama.”
    She
looked at me but she did not speak. I hurried to the Coldspot and got a wedge of baloney and took that out to Sooner. Then I went back
inside.
    “You
bring us something?” she said like I was Mother Goose and I could just pick and
gather all the way home.
    “Not
yet…but you won’t believe. I been at Lonnie’s shop all day.”
    “Lonnie?”
she said. “He ain’t no good.”
    “I
been helping him and…well maybe I can do something…something good for us.”
    Her
eyes were dull and she didn’t look happy at all. She picked on the arm of the
chair and it so threadbare she was pulling at the cotton.
    “What
about me?” she said. “I got to be all alone. But it don’t matter. None of it….”
    “Well,
you got your stories on,” I said. “Did you watch today?”
    Her
bottom lip jutted out and the skin was dry. She shook her head no and she
wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t want to turn it on…they gonna shoot us in our
beds…the Negroes. They gonna rise up all over sounds like. I…I heard him…that
one I saved…that dark one. But…she tells ‘ em they
gonna come for me.” And her hand went to her breast, always there and she
rubbed.
    Not
today and not now. “Mama please,” I said.
    “Eugene…Eugene
Blue,” she said.
    “What
you saying?”
    “The
Cannas…every year he would put them in so fine….those Cannas…when they come
up….”
    “Mama…I’m
gonna…I’ll be back and make you some soup.” I went in Lonnie’s room. It was
dark and had that smell, but I went to his chest of drawers and pulled the last
one wide and moved the papers, his marriage license and the papers from the
army. What a solid member of the establishment Lonnie was. How President
Johnson would love him.
    There
was a carton of Pall Mall’s and they were harsh, but they were better than
nothing and I stole a pack and put them under my shirt. Then I reached in the
back corner and grabbed those two silver dollars from 1921. That would get us
food for tomorrow. When I came out I walked quick past Mama and went to the
backyard.
    “He’ll
kill you he sees you in there!” she yelled. “He’ll kill you like the Negroes! Like
the Communists!” she yelled. “You goin ’ with him now.
You’ll get yours. You’ll see.”
    It
was relief to get outside. “Crazy,” I whispered fumbling to get the pack open.
    Naomi
wouldn’t be home yet cause this was calling night, so I sat on the back porch
steps and leaned on the backdoor so Mama couldn’t sneak up on me. I lit up one
of those lung shrivelers and took a deep draught and
I was hooked on nicotine for sure, cause it tasted pretty much like shit but it
was relief. I noticed that circular garden then, the one gone to ruin in the
middle of the yard, halfway between our house and Naomi’s.
    Eugene
Blue used to put the Cannas in there, that’s what I knew, Naomi said it when
she talked about him in short sentences, broken off like dreams gone you’re
trying to call back and put together.
    And
I could see him there…I tried to. First time I brought him out of that picture
frame Naomi kept over the fireplace, him grinning, holding a stringer of fish,
young and handsome, shirt off, jeans hanging around his hips, standing
straight, eyes alive…he’d live forever. He’d live….
    He
died in Memphis, in the street run over and they got the call…and William,
Naomi’s husband died soon after…his heart…his breath…he died in his chair.
    And
I saw him there, that Eugene, six foot two and the sun coming out of his
smile…and the garden was empty, just debris, just empty and his hands…and his
hope…and in the earth the bulbs gone dry…gone.
    And
I thought of Danny…and the escalation of troops in Vietnam. Five hundred and
twenty-five thousand human beings they wanted in the next two years. They
wanted Danny to step into the great long line…that big green machine for the
red, white and blue.
    And
the death toll running up