Imani All Mine Read online

  Ain’t no other way Imani going to be blessed in a church. Mama don’t believe in it. She ain’t even want me to go to the christening for Eboni two twins last Sunday. Mama say, Them niggers is just looking for gifts for them babies. If you want to take the Christmas money I give to you and waste it on some gifts for them babies, you go right ahead. What the hell kind of church is giving a blessing to bastard children anyway?

  I say, It’s the New Light of the Covenant Church.

  It ain’t no real church, Miss Odetta say.

  And I’m thinking, How you know? You probably ain’t never been there. But I ain’t say that. I ain’t even show that on my face. Miss Odetta was sitting on our couch like it was hers. All slouched down, with her feet all up on top our glass cocktail table. Mama never let me sit like that. And I was getting mad at Miss Odetta, because I know it was me that was going to have to Windex the tabletop when she left. She was drinking some malt liquor and smoking. I can’t say she a drunk or nothing. But Miss Odetta like to drink and then be coming here, talking some trash to me and Mama.

  She be funny sometimes. But sometimes she be getting on my nerves. Miss Odetta say, The preacher run that church a crackhead.

  Mama ask, You know him?

  And she look at me all sly where I was sitting on the floor. I smiled to myself and looked back down at the table, counting the smudges Miss Odetta dirty sneakers was making.

  Miss Odetta know almost any man name you bring up, and not just men from around the way or live in Buffalo. She say she know Bill Cosby, James Brown, Billy Dee, O.J., Teddy Pendergrass, Jesse Jackson, Bob McAdoo—when the Braves was still playing basketball in Buffalo, the O’Jays, Richard Pryor, and Donna Summer—when she was a man. She even say that Rick James tried to pick her up at the Golden Nugget over on Fillmore. Before he had all them braids in his head and wasn’t a freak, she say. She clean rooms at a hotel downtown. So I don’t know. Maybe she done met some of them men. But I don’t even be believing she know the men she say she do. I know Mama don’t neither, and I wonder why they friends. I half think Mama don’t even like her. I know she don’t trust her. Maybe that’s the best kind of friend to have, though. Some bitch you can’t trust behind your back. You never have to worry about her stabbing you in the back, because you ain’t going to let her get that close to you.

  While Miss Odetta sneakers was making more work for me, she say that June Bug sell to the preacher at New Covenant. He try to say he off that crack, but he ain’t. All he is is a hype, Miss Odetta say.

  Me and Mama, we ain’t say nothing. Mama smiled and Miss Odetta ran her tongue over her teeth and blew out a mouthful of smoke up at the ceiling.

  Miss Odetta say, I can tell you don’t believe me. Hey, but even a broke clock right twice a day.

  Mama say, Uh-huh. Now ain’t that the truth. I don’t care nothing about who preaching in there. Ain’t nothing going on in a church got anything to do with God.

  Wait a minute, Mama say. God a man. Odetta, you know him?

  I bust out laughing and cut a fart at the same time. Excuse me, I say. Mama laughed too. You a pig, Tasha, she say.

  Miss Odetta ain’t even laugh. She lit another cigarette even though the other one was still going in the ashtray. Drunk.

  Hey, now. I don’t even joke about no God, Miss Odetta say. She took a drag off her cigarette and put it in the ashtray. Matter of fact, I do know him, she say. He know ya’ll asses too.

  Mama say, He don’t know me.

  Yes, he do, Miss Odetta say. And he know who you sneaking around with.

  Mama say, I ain’t sneaking around with nobody. And even if I am, he ain’t nobody husband.

  Miss Odetta say, Simpkin ain’t nobody husband, neither. Even though he married.

  Mama and Miss Odetta both laughed and Miss Odetta lit another cigarette. Drunk.

  Ain’t that some shit, Miss Odetta say. I’m going to hell over some man. She reached for her malt liquor and knocked the ashtray on the floor. I rushed and got up the two cigarettes that was still burning. One of them had rolled under the couch.

  Damn, Odetta, What you trying to do? Burn my goddamn house down? Mama sent me to get something to clean up the ashes. When I come back to the room with the whiskbroom, a dustpan, a wet rag, and a roll of paper towel, I was hoping Miss Odetta already was gone.

  But she was still sitting there, and Mama was saying to her, You ain’t going to no hell, girl. Nigger hell is right here on earth. We living it right here in these streets. Shit, if God cared anything about us, we wouldn’t even be living in no ghetto. Mama looked up and seen me then and say, God ain’t done nothing for me. He ain’t done nothing for you neither, Tasha.

  I don’t really know what God done for me or ain’t done for me. In the woods that night. In the dark. In the trees and quiet, I don’t know if he was anywhere around. I ain’t feel him inside my heart. I ain’t had his name on my tongue. I ain’t call on him for no help. When Mama say that about him not doing nothing for me, I was thinking she could be right. Maybe she was some broke clock ticking off two truths a day about my life. On that day I was a pig and somebody God ain’t even care about.

  I was thinking about what Mama say about God the morning of the christening, when I got to the New Light of the Covenant Church and seen it used to be a store. Organ music was coming out of it, leaking out from under the door like water. I ain’t know if I want to go into that water with Imani. Can’t neither one of us swim. We had took two buses to get to the church, and was late because we missed one of the buses and had to wait a half hour for the next one. I had Imani all stuffed in her snowsuit. It was so much snow on the ground, I couldn’t take her stroller. So she was in my arms, heavy like a bag of groceries. I wanted to go right straight back home. But it was cold and I was tired. And most of all, I ain’t want to find Mama mouth wide open tick tick ticking and maybe Miss Odetta’s, too. I ain’t even want no static from them, so I made up my mind right then to stay. I made up my mind right then too, before I opened the door of the church, to tell them a lie about how great New Light of the Covenant was. To tell them I seen God where some Arabians used to sell lottery tickets. That I found Jesus in a place that never closed.

  So I go in. The church is real dark, but I can tell it’s already full up with people. They shadows to me. Sitting on benches with high backs. It’s like I’ve come into a movie after it already started and my eyes trying to get used to things. Up front the preacher is already talking into a microphone. He dressed up in a white robe, and a light is shining on him from a stand he behind. I stop and stare at him, because he don’t seem real. Seem like he’s glowing in all that white, not looking nothing like a crackhead. He look like a angel that might have fall out of heaven. While I’m watching him, this woman come up next to me to show me to a seat. She’s all in white, too. She even have on white gloves and a white hat like nurses be wearing in old movies.

  I can’t hardly see nothing. The windows is all painted over. One blue. One red. Yellow. Green. A light look like the moon is in the middle of the ceiling on a chain. It’s yellow and ain’t hardly giving off light. Like the moon through clouds. The whole bottom black like a piece of night. As dark as it is, I can tell a mess of dead bugs is all collected in the bottom like they in a graveyard. Looking up at the light, I trip over somebody foot. That woman catch me by the elbow and take me to a seat halfway up the aisle. I don’t see Eboni nem no place. But they could have been right next to me. The devil could have been right next to me and I wouldn’t have know it.

  The organ music I heard when I was outside come rolling soft to me under the sound of the preacher voice. Like a wave. A old woman is sitting at a organ with a table lamp on top it. She has a wide hat on that look like a plate turned upside down on her head. I can’t see her face at all. Her hat make it into a shadow. Just as soft as her music roll in, it roll back out, leaving the preacher talking and the choir behind him fanning.

  It’s real hot. Not just dry hot like from a heater, but wet
hot like from bodies. It’s like ninety-nine people that’s wearing wool and breathing in a corner store where didn’t used to be nothing but a clerk and a few people playing numbers and buying pop. I take off my coat and get Imani out her snowsuit. I bump elbows with this boy sitting next to me. He look like he probably in high school. I don’t look too hard at him. I do what I think I should be doing. Listen to the preacher.

  I’m thinking he was going to be young if he was doing crack. But he ain’t real young. He ain’t real old neither. He somewhere in the middle, and he’s steady sweating, wiping at his face with a handkerchief as white as his robe. If he on crack, he would have been all skinny. Like them addicts be when you see them out in the cold light in the morning. All dried out. They skin ashy. They lips all cracked. They eyes all flat and empty like they dead. Like somebody stuck a big old straw in them and sucked out all they life and left them walking around like monsters from a scary movie you be scared of even in the daytime. But the preacher is fat. His neck is hanging over his collar, and his face is round, shining and greasy, even though he keep wiping it. And I’m thinking Miss Odetta ain’t even know what time it is. Mama neither. That make me even hotter, and I pick up a fan from a small box stuck to the back of the bench in front of me.

  White Jesus is on it. My eyes used enough to the light to see he have long hair down to his shoulders, and he’s floating up in the middle of the air with light all around him. He got on a white robe, and his heart outside his body, all red and open. On the bottom is an address for Paterson Brothers Funeral Home. Serving the Black Community for 75 Years. Brothers in Christ in Your Time of Need. Imani grab at the fan, and I start fanning so she can’t get at it. Its hardly making a difference, because Imani all on me, making me even hotter. I give her a bottle of cold Kool-Aid I’d made real sweet with sugar. She laid back and is good while the preacher start talking about how Jesus walked on some water of a lake.

  Jesus just walked right on top of it, he say, because his friends was in a ship out there. I ain’t bit more believe that than there’s a real man in the real moon. The preacher say it’s true, and a shot of music come from the organ so loud, I jump and my baby drop her bottle. The boy next to me pick it up. I ain’t look at him. Just say thank you to his hand. The woman at the organ keep playing. Her head’s leaned over so for, all I can see is the top of her head. The preacher say what Jesus did was for real. The truth.

  People was talking back to the preacher. I can see some of they hands. Not like real hands. But shadow hands. Raised up like you raise your hand in school. People telling him to preach it. Voices talking back from faces I can’t see. Faces that’s part of the dark. Hid from me under the yellow light of the moon hanging from the ceiling on a chain. They say the preacher is telling the truth on Jesus. It seem the music saying it too. Seem like it’s creeping into me, the way it roll. The way it come up the aisle shaking me all inside. Shaking at my heart. But I ain’t believe no Jesus walked on no water.

  The preacher say, Now you ain’t got to believe me. His own friends ain’t believe him, and they seen him with they own eyes. They was up in that ship like a ship of fools. Screaming and hollering because they thought they was seeing a ghost. Now ain’t that something when you own friends doubt you? It’s got to make you think, What kind of friends I got? But Jesus ain’t say that. He ain’t think that. He say, Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. Now there was this one man in that ship. Peter. Doubting like the rest. But he had some courage, and let me tell you this, the brother had some nerve. Because he say to Jesus, If you really Jesus, tell me to step on out there with you. Call me on out. If you so bad, Jesus. If you so real, Jesus. If you so powerful, Jesus, let me walk on out on the water with you. And you know Jesus was cool. All he say. All my Lord say was, Come!

  Now, I tell you I wouldn’t have wanted to have been nowhere near Peter. Because you know the brother had to be sweating. You know the brother had to be stinking. Wasn’t no deodorant back then, people. And I can tell you Peter had to be funky with the sweat of doubt. You know he must have been. Stepping out in the water. Out in the dark. Out in the night with doubt in his heart. Now tell me people. If you really ain’t know, would you have stepped out? Walked out to Jesus?

  Yes. Yes, Lord. Say the voices. Yes, Lord, say the dark. Yes, Lord, say the music. Say the music in my heart.

  Now, people, don’t you lie. Would you have stepped out in the dark? In the water. In the water. In the water. In the water. Would you have stepped out on your faith? On your faith in your heart? On your faith in Jesus. On your faith. On your faith. In Jesus. In Jezzz. In Jes-us. In Jezzz. In Jes-us. In Jezzz.

  Yes; Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Say the dark. Say the voices. Yes, Lord in my heart.

  And then they hands turn into voices clapping in the dark. Clapping and clapping and clapping. Until I look down and see my baby hands turn into a voice. She clapping with them. Her bottle hanging in her mouth.

  Faith! the preacher scream, and Imani sit up. Peter stepped out on faith. That’s all he had. And you know what, church? Peter walked on the water, the preacher say. Walking across the front of the church, the wide sleeves of his robes flapping. Peter strode on top the water, he say. Walking back the other way. I tell you, people. It was getting good to Peter. You know how it be when something get good to you, he say, wiping his face with his handkerchief. You know how it be when you got the feeling and you don’t want to come up off it. You don’t want it to stop. That’s how Peter was feeling. Feeling so good, he could have skipped across the water, he say. And the preacher skip across the front of the church like kids be skipping on the playground. His robe flying all up. His robe dancing up around his legs. I bust out with a laugh. The preacher keep right on skipping. I think the boy next to me looked at me. I feel a whole flash of heat hit me like I done opened a door to a oven. I fan even harder, and the preacher step back behind his stand.

  Now you know that feeling ain’t last, say the preacher, breathing hard. Wiping at sweat that’s coming down his face like water. Just because something good to you don’t mean it’s going to last. And it didn’t take much to shake Peter’s faith. All it took was some wind, he say. The wind come up around Peter. It blew all in his face. Whipped all at his clothes, and he fell. He fell down. In the water. In the dark. In the deep. And he say, Lord, save me. Save me. Lord, save me. Save me. Save me. And Jesus, you know our Lord. You know Jes-us. You know Jezzz. He picked him up. He picked up Peter. Jes-us. Picked him up, and then he say, You know what’s wrong with you, Peter. You have little faith! Our Lord said it. To a man. That stepped out on faith. Jes-us then asked Peter. He asked, Why did you doubt me? He asked, Why did you doubt me? He asked, Why did you doubt me? And. what did Pet-er Pet-er Pet-er have to say? How did Peter answer Jesus? Who had just saved his life? Who had picked him up from the deep?

  Nothing, say the voices calling from the dark.

  Nothing, say the preacher standing in the light. Because the Lord spoke the truth. Faith. You need faith. In your life. In your heart.

  When you doubt. As soon as the wind. As soon as the storms that fill this life. Blow your way. You going to fall. Like Peter. Like Pet-er. Like Peter.

  You need faith. In this life. Because we’re like the children of Israel. Living in wilderness. But our wilderness is in the streets.

  The preacher say this and pointed at the yellow window. We lost in a wilderness that ain’t been lost in us. It’s in our hearts. And done turned us into beasts. Using drugs. Selling drugs. Selling our bodies. It’s turned us against each other. Turned us into idolaters, adulterers, liars, thieves, murderers. Left us scared like children in the night.

  Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.

  Left us doubting just like Peter. Wondering who can we trust? And you know the answer. Just like Peter. Jes-us. Jes-us. Jes-us. No matter how far down you fall, Jesus can pick you up, he say. Then he sung them same words. No—matter—how—far—down—you—fall—Jesus—can—pick—you—up. The choir start s
inging too, like it was practiced that way for a show.

  Everybody in the choir stands up at the same time. Somebody starts beating on a tambourine and the choir starts stepping side to side. Rocking side to side. They feet stomping out music. They hands clapping out music. Singing that song about Jesus that ain’t mean nothing to me. Singing with words I ain’t know. Words that mean something to them.

  And in the dark, I see people standing up. One at a time. Two. Three. They popping up like they been under water for a long time and was coming up for air. Like they can’t stand to be under no longer. All around me they getting up. Coming up until I can’t see nothing. Until all I can see is the dark. All I can feel is the heat, and I can’t hardly breathe because it seem like all the air’s over my head. The only way I going to get some is to stand up. So I do.

  I put Imani down next to me in the aisle. She clapping, still holding her bottle with her teeth. Slinging it back and forth across her chin. My baby bouncing the way she do when she be dancing to music on the radio. Even though this isn’t no music on the radio we listening to. This music is about Jesus. Somebody Imani ain’t even know nothing about. But she act like I brung her to the New Light of the Covenant Church every Sunday. Like she one of these people I can’t hardly even see.