Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon

“Did Jake have to register at the Freedmen’s Bureau before he left the state?”

“Everybody did. Everybody who had been slaves, that is. Whether they left the state or not. But we were never slaves, so—”

“You told me that. Weren’t any of Jake’s brothers registering too?”

“I couldn’t say. Those must have been some times, back then. Some bad times. It’s a wonder anybody knows who anybody is.”

“You’ve helped me a lot, Miss Byrd. I’m grateful.” He thought then about asking her if she had a photo album. He wanted to see Sing, Crowell, even Heddy. But he decided against it. She might start asking him questions, and he didn’t want to trouble her with a new-found relative who was as black as Jake.

“Now, that’s not the woman you’re looking, is it? Pilate?”

“No,” he said. “Couldn’t be.” He made motions of departure and then remembered his watch.

“By did I leave my watch here? I’d like it back.”

“Watch?”

“Yes. Your friend wanted to see it. Miss Long. I handed it to her but I forgot—” Milkman stopped. Susan Byrd was laughing out loud.

“Well, you can say goodbye to it, Mr. Macon. Grace will go to dinner all over the county telling people about the watch you gave her.”

“What?”

“Well, you know. She doesn’t mean any real harm, but it’s a quiet place. We don’t have many visitors, especially young men who wear gold watches and have northern accents. I’ll get it back for you.”

“Never mind. Never mind.”

“You’ll just have to forgive her otherwise. This is a dull place, Mr. Macon. There’s absolutely nothing in the world going on here. Not a thing.”

Chapter 15

The fan belt didn’t last long enough for him to get to the next gasoline station. It broke on the edge of a little town called Jistann, the needle trembling at H. Milkman sold it to the tow-truck man for twenty dollars and caught the first bus out. It was probably best that way, for over the humming wheels, his legs folded in the little space in front of his seat, he had time to come down from the incredible high that had begun as soon as he slammed the Byrd woman’s door.

He couldn’t get back to Shalimar fast enough, and when he did get there, dusty and dirty from the run, he leaped into the car and drove to Sweet’s house. He almost broke her door down. “I want to swim!” he shouted. “Come on, let’s go swimming. I’m dirty and I want waaaaater!”

Sweet smiled and said she’d give him a bath.

“Bath! You think I’d put myself in that tight little porcelain box? I need the sea! The whole goddam sea!” Laughing, hollering, he ran over to her and picked her up at the knees and ran around the room with her over his shoulder. “The sea! I have to swim in the sea. Don’t give me no itty bitty teeny tiny tub, girl. I need the whole entire complete deep blue sea!”

He stood her on her feet. “Don’t you all swim around here?”

“Over at the quarry is where the kids go sometimes.”

“Quarry? You all don’t have no sea? No ocean?”

“Naw; this hill country.”

“Hill country. Mountain country. Flying country.”

“A man was here to see you.”

“Oh, yeah? That would be Mr. Guitar Bains.”

“He didn’t give his name.”

“He don’t have to! He’s Guitar Bains. Gitar, Gitar, Gitar Bains!” Milkman did a little dance and Sweet covered her mouth, laughing.

“Come on, Sweet, tell me where the sea is.”

“They some water comin down below the ridge on the other side. Real deep; wide too.”

“Then let’s go! Come on!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her out to the car. He sang all the way: “‘Solomon ’n Ryna Belali Shalut…’”

“Where you learn that?” she asked him. “That’s a game we used to play when we was little.”

“Of course you did. Everybody did. Everybody but me. But I can play it now. It’s my game now.”

The river in the valley was wide and green. Milkman took off his clothes, climbed a tree and dived into the water. He surfaced like a bullet, iridescent, grinning, splashing water. “Come on. Take them clothes off and come on in here.”

“Naw. I don’t wanna swim.”

“Come in here, girl!”

“Water moccasins in there.”

“Fuck ’em. Get in here. Hurry up!”

She stepped out of her shoes, pulled her dress over her head and was ready. Milkman reached up for her as she came timidly down the bank, slipping, stumbling, laughing at her own awkwardness, then squealing as the cold river water danced up her legs, her hips, her waist. Milkman pulled her close and kissed her mouth, ending the kiss with a determined effort to pull her under the water. She fought him. “Oh, my hair! My hair’s gonna get wet.”

“No it ain’t,” he said, and poured a handful right in the middle of her scalp. Wiping her eyes, spluttering water, she turned to wade out, shrieking all the way. “Okay, okay,” he bellowed. “Leave me. Leave me in here by myself. I don’t care. I’ll play with the water moccasins.” And he began to whoop and dive and splash and turn. “He could fly! You hear me? My great-granddaddy could fly! Goddam!” He whipped the water with his fists, then jumped straight up as though he too could take off, and landed on his back and sank down, his mouth and eyes full of water. Up again. Still pounding, leaping, diving. “The son of a bitch could fly! You hear me, Sweet? That motherfucker could fly! Could fly! He didn’t need no airplane. Didn’t need no fuckin tee double you ay. He could fly his own self!”

“Who you talkin ‘bout?” Sweet was lying on her side, her cheek cupped in her hand.

“Solomon, that’s who.”

“Oh, him.” She laughed. “You belong to that tribe of niggers?” She thought he was drunk.

“Yeah. That tribe. That flyin motherfuckin tribe. Oh, man! He didn’t need no airplane. He just took off; got fed up. All the way up! No more cotton! No more bales! No more orders! No more shit! He flew, baby. Lifted his beautiful black ass up in the sky and flew on home. Can you dig it? Jesus God, that must have been something to see. And you know what else? He tried to take his baby boy with him. My grandfather. Wow! Woooee! Guitar! You hear that? Guitar, my great-granddaddy could flyyyyyy and the whole damn town is named after him. Tell him, Sweet. Tell him my great-granddaddy could fly.”

“Where’d he go, Macon?”

“Back to Africa. Tell Guitar he went back to Africa.”

“Who’d he leave behind?”

“Everybody! He left everybody down on the ground and he sailed on off like a black eagle. ‘O-o-o-o-o-o Solomon done fly, Solomon done gone /Solomon cut across the sky, Solomon gone home!’”

He could hardly wait to get home. To tell his father, Pilate; and he would love to see Reverend Cooper and his friends. “You think Macon Dead was something? Huh. Let me tell you about his daddy. You ain’t heard nothin yet.”

Milkman turned in his seat and tried to stretch his legs. It was morning. He’d changed buses three times and was now speeding home on the last leg of his trip. He looked out the window. Far away from Virginia, fall had already come. Ohio, Indiana, Michigan were dressed up like the Indian warriors from whom their names came. Blood red and yellow, ocher and ice blue.

He read the road signs with interest now, wondering what lay beneath the names. The Algonquins had named the territory he lived in Great Water, michi gami. How many dead lives and fading memories were buried in and beneath the names of the places in this country. Under the recorded names were other names, just as “Macon Dead,” recorded for all time in some dusty file, hid from view the real names of people, places, and things. Names that had meaning. No wonder Pilate put hers in her ear. When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do. Like the street he lived on, recorded as Mains Avenue, but called Not Doctor Street by the Negroes in memory of his grandfather, who was the first colored man of consequence in that city. Never mind that he probably didn’t deserve their honor–they knew what kind of man he was: arrogant, color-struck, snobbish. They didn’t care about that. They were paying their respect to whatever it was that made him be a doctor in the first place, when the odds were that he’d be a yardman all of his life. So they named a street after him. Pilate had taken a rock from every state she had lived in–because she had lived there. And having lived there, it was hers–and his, and his father’s, his grandfather’s, his grandmother’s. Not Doctor Street, Solomon’s Leap, Ryna’s Gulch, Shalimar, Virginia.