A Song Flung Up to Heaven (10 page)

Twenty-seven

It was 1968, and the site was Carnegie Hall. Ossie Davis was to be master of ceremonies, Pete Seeger would sing, James Baldwin would spear up the audience and Martin Luther King, Jr., would conclude the evening. The concert was planned to recognize the hundredth anniversary of the birth of W. E. B. DuBois. The historian had died in Ghana five years earlier at the age of ninety-five.

Jimmy had taken a box for family and friends, so Sam Floyd and Dolly and I joined the Baldwins and the baritone Brock Peters and his wife, Deedee.

The occasion was serious, but the people were lighthearted as they glittered in the lobby of Carnegie Hall.

When Ossie Davis appeared onstage in a sleek tuxedo that fitted him everywhere, the audience was eager for him. Ossie glowed with grace and pleased the patrons with his easy wit. Next, Pete Seeger, the well-known folk-singer, arched his long, lean body around his guitar and sang:

“Where have all the flowers gone?

Long time passing...”

The crowd showed their appreciation by asking for an encore.

James Baldwin flew onto the stage, talking before he even reached the microphone. The audience expected his machine-gun ack-ack way of speaking. There were shouts of approval at the end of each sentence. He flailed at this country that he loved, explaining that it could do better and had better do better or he could prophesy with a sign, water now but fire next time. He spoke to and for the people as if they were his family and they loved him. His rashness tickled them and his eloquence stroked them.

Everyone in the hall waited out a long moment before Ossie reappeared. As if by an agreed-upon signal, we all held our breath.

Ossie’s voice was filled with joy and respect. He said simply, “Ladies and gentlemen, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.”

And he was there, smiling, nodding, waving a hand, an average-size, average-looking, average black man upon whom hung the dreams of millions.

He waited a while as the throng quieted, and then his voice filled the hall, filled our ears, filled our hearts.

When he began, his passion slowly wound his audience into a nearly unbearable tautness. A dramatic orator, King lured us back to the nineteenth century and into the mind of a young man who had been born black only a few years after the abolition of the slave trade, yet whose exquisite intelligence and courage allowed him to become the first African-American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University in 1895.

Martin King could have been describing a contemporary, or a relative, he spoke so knowingly of W. E. B. DuBois. We listeners bonded resolutely, because King showed us how we were all related to one another and that we shared the same demons and the same divines. He cemented the bonding by telling us that DuBois had included all of us, no matter our color, status or age, into his dream of a fair and workable future.

The melody in Martin King’s speech changed subtly. Those familiar with the oratorical style of black preachers knew he had began his finale.

Mother Baldwin stretched out her legs, feeling for her shoes. Brock got up, as did Jimmy Baldwin and his brother David. I looked down on the main floor and was reminded of a black Baptist church on a Sunday morning when the preacher has told the parishioners the old story in a new way. Each time I looked, more people had risen, so that by the time Reverend King said his last word, everyone was standing.

The spontaneous response was tumultuous and the mood even more joyous than it had been in the early evening. Martin Luther King, Jr., never disappointed. The people had enjoyed the grace of Ossie Davis, the music of Pete Seeger, the excitement of James Baldwin. Then Martin King had held high his rainbow of good wishes for all the people, everywhere.

The Baldwin party was walking down the corridor from the box when Reverend King appeared.

Everyone complimented him. Mother Baldwin received a hug and praise for her son.

“I know you’re proud of this fellow, aren’t you, Mother?”

Berdis Baldwin blushed as if we were at Jimmy’s christening and the preacher had declared her son to be the most wonderful child he had ever seen.

Martin King said to me, “And you, Maya. I wanted to talk to you. What are you doing now?”

I said I was writing a play.

“Can you put a bookmark on a page and give me one month of your time? This poor people’s march we are girding up for is not a black march or a white march. This is the poor people’s march. I want us to stay in Washington, D.C., until legislation is passed that will reduce the poverty in our rich country. We may have to build tent cities, and if so, I want to be able to do that.”

“But what can I...”

More people had joined our group of Baldwins and friends.

“I need someone to travel this country and talk to black preachers. I’d like each big church to donate one Sunday’s collection to the poor people’s march. I need you, Maya. Not too many black preachers can resist a good-looking woman with a good idea.”

Mother Baldwin said, “That’s the truth.”

Martin went on, “Also, when anyone accuses me of just being nonviolent, I can say, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ve got Maya Angelou back with me.’”

Jimmy said, “Yes. Of course she will do it.”

I saw, or thought I saw, how Reverend King was planning to expand the reach and influence of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

He asked for only one month. I said, “Yes, but only after my birthday. I have to give a party to explain to these hard-nosed New Yorkers why I’m going back to the SCLC. They think I’m much more of an activist, a real radical.”

“What I’m planning is really radical. When is your birthday?”

I said, “April fourth.”

We both nodded.

Twenty-eight

Guy had been Western Airlines’ first black junior executive. He had declared he would keep the job for a specified time then go to Europe. His eighteen-month stay in the U.S. was up. He had bought a used Land Rover and was headed to London to pick it up. He had set aside one day to visit me in New York.

I decided to give a party and invite all the men who had advised and/or cautioned me when Guy was a rambunctious teenager. Since I was a single woman raising a black boy in the United States, I had asked a group of male friends to tell me when they thought I was treating Guy in a way that might endanger his sense of himself.

Many times after gatherings, I would receive phone calls. “Hey, Maya, Guy was playing chess and you made him leave the game. That wasn’t hip.”

“But it was just a game, and we had someplace to go.”

“When a boy is playing a man, it’s never just a game. It is about his manhood. He’s always testing it.”

Or: “You made Guy get up and give his seat to a woman. That wasn’t hip.”

“But it was courteous. I have to teach him courtesy.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t give him a chance to do the right thing on his own. You have to trust his upbringing.”

I had listened and learned, and despite the past three or four rocky years, Guy had grown into a very nice young man. I wanted to show him off to my friends.

Coming from the supermarket I met Hercules, a freedom fighter from Rhodesia whom Guy and I had known in Cairo.

My mind was so filled with Guy’s arrival that I didn’t remember that in Cairo Hercules had tried to be Guy’s buddy, and although I was married, he had attempted to seduce me.

Hercules asked how I was and how Guy was.

I told him Guy was in New York for just one day and that I was giving a party for him that night. I gave Hercules the address and told him he would be welcome.

When I entered the apartment, Guy had a wall-size map spread on the floor.

“Here, Mom, here’s where I want to go.”

It was the Sahara Desert.

I thought he was going back to Ghana, where we had friends.

“No, I’m going to have a photographic safari service from Mauritania back to Morocco.”

My only child? My beloved son with whom I was now well pleased? My heart fell in my chest, but I said nothing. The red and green lines on the map seemed to be moving.

“I’ve planned it out with friends. We’re going to meet up in Spain so we can run with the bulls in Pamplona, then we’ll take this road to the Mediterranean and ferry over to Morocco.”

He looked at me very quickly, as if he had been thinking aloud and suddenly remembered that I was present.

“Mom, you’re afraid.” It was not a question, he had read fear on my face.

“Yes. I am.”

He said, “I understand, but you needn’t be. I am free, and I have you to thank for that.”

I didn’t dare question; nor did I dare let him see my fear again. I asked him to help me put away the groceries and to second my cooking.

We fell into a rhythm that we had begun to develop when he was ten, except now he was adept. No onions went scooting across the floor, no fingers had to be washed, kissed and bandaged.

I admired the man, but I did miss the boy.

The party was merrily rolling along. Friends who hadn’t seen one another in too long a time were having a reunion. I didn’t know any young girls to invite as company for Guy, but Dolly asked over a new teacher who was on her first job. Guy came to the kitchen. “Mom.” He was displeased. “Mom, Hercules is here.”

The look on his face shook my memory loose. Of course, all the hosts in and around Cairo had stopped inviting Hercules. Housekeepers’ young daughters were claiming they had been raped or impregnated by him, and since he had taken up drink, his language was often foul.

I shook my head and said to Guy, “I forgot. I was thinking about you and forgot.”

He wagged his head and pitied his old doddering mother. I was thirty-nine.

I listened to the discussion between Jimmy Baldwin and Max Roach. They were talking about South Africa.

Hercules came up to me. “Sister Maya, thank you for inviting me.”

I said “Yes” coolly.

He said, “I brought my girlfriend. Let me introduce her.”

He introduced me to a woman standing at his side. I admit that my displeasure with myself, and the memory of Hercules’s behavior in Egypt, kept me from acknowledging the guest warmly. I said a perfunctory hello and went to join another small group.

I was looking for a way to get into the heated discussion among John Killens and Julian Mayfield and Rosa Guy when Hercules’s woman tugged my sleeve.

“Is it my whiteness that makes you uncomfortable?” She could not have startled me more if she had poured her drink on the rug.

I collected myself sufficiently. “Of course not. Look around, there are Sam and Connie Sutton, and Roger and Jean Genoud. You are no more white than they, and they are at home here. Please, help yourself to a drink.”

I moved to a less troublesome area and caught up on the laughter that was loud in the room.

Later, Dolly, Guy and I laid out the food on the buffet and the dining table. I stood with serving spoons in hand and said in a loud voice, “Grub est servi.”

The line was taut and furiously fast at first, then, when it slackened, some people who had eaten jumped back in line for seconds.

I said, “Please, let everybody get served once before seconds are handed out.”

Hercules’s lady friend, who was back in line, said, “This is not the democratic way. First come, first served. Can you really hold a place in line for someone who is not here?”

I said, “Yes, I can. Because this is my house. I wouldn’t tell you how to run it at your house.”

Hercules said, in support of his lady, “She is right. This is not the democratic way.”

My patience with them and with myself was as brittle as melba toast. I said, “You, who have needed a passbook to move from one district in Johannesburg to another, are to tell me about democracy?”

She said, “You people, you kill me. You don’t realize that English is not his first language.”

I was ready to evict her at “you people,” but I was serving a plate. When I finished dishing up food, I said to Hercules, “Take her out of my house. She may be indulged and famous as a rude guest in other people’s home, but she gets put out of mine.”

Suddenly the laughter had stopped, and all was quiet. I had not raised my voice, but I knew everyone present had heard me.

I couldn’t take back a single word, and in that moment I hated myself and the woman. I sounded like a bully, and I truly abhorred bullies.

“Out.” It was too late. “Out.”

The woman’s departing statement cut me more deeply than she could have ever imagined. “People think you’re so kind. They should see you as you are. A great bully.”

I said nothing, and in a few minutes, noise returned and the party pitch reestablished itself.

Guy left early to see the teacher home. Some friends said, “You showed wonderful restraint. She came out to be trouble.”

Others didn’t mention the incident. When I was totally alone, I sat down and wondered how else I could have handled that awful situation. I found no answer, so I started to clean the apartment. I emptied ashtrays and washed glasses. I took trash to the garbage chute. Little by little, I cleaned and polished my house till it glistened.

As I finished, Guy rang the bell. He entered and stood at the door, observing the clean apartment.

“I meant to be back in time to help you.”

“Oh no, as you see...”

“Mom, I’m going to make us both a drink.” I sat down to await the service.

He brought two filled glasses into the living room. He lifted his to me, I lifted mine to him.

“Mom, if you ever speak to a woman I bring to your house as you spoke to that woman, I will sever our relationship.”

I looked at my son sitting aloof like a high-ranking judge on a lofty seat. His words alone constituted a body blow, and his posture added weight to the statement. I thought of carrying him on my hip all over the world, of sleeping in hotel rooms separated by a sheet hanging across the middle of the room to give each of us privacy. I thought of how I had raised him and saw that he was right.

I said, “Of course, you are absolutely correct. You are obliged to protect anyone you bring out anywhere. If the person is under your umbrella, you are supposed to defend her or him. It would kill me if you severed our relationship. But let me tell you this. If you bring someone to my house that stupid, it is likely that I will speak to her as I spoke to that woman. And severing our relationship will be your next job.”

He looked at me for a long minute, then got up and came to the sofa to sit beside me.

He opened his long arms. “I love you, Mom, you’re a gas. I truly love you.”