Thunderbird was afraid!
"Does she know?"
"She knows!!!"
"How could she have found out?"
Thunderbird wanted to rant and rave! To shout-out-loud in the forgotten tongues of the ancestors who had flown before her. To dance and stomp in the fading imprints of Glory's bible induced tap-dance on the soft blue wall to wall carpeting of Carol Jean's living-room. She felt like she was suspended between revealing and revelation, between self-destruction and self-preservation. Between telling and sworn silence - her faithful pledge to all those in the line behind her.
The Woman of the Book Woman Club had resumed their discussion on The Color Purple; subdued and barely audible chatter over-shadowed by Glory "Amen" Johnson's drama and by Erica's passing out on the floor. Lenora's long dissertation on the relationship between Celie and Shug, the implied homosexuality and the longing need for intimacy that Celie starved for, became mouthed words without sound as Thunderbird found that she was unable to hold onto the present. The past plucked at her. Childhood whisperings and grown folks talk. Hot heavy breath and suffocating altitudes. Memories flowing over memory, remembrance trampling remembering. Glory's raised black-bound Holy Bible and Thunderbird's innocent-brown hands raised pleading in prayer. "Oh, Lord in Heaven! Deliver me from this evil! Deliver us all from this Dark Angel of Hell!" A chain reaction of childhood memories began to race inside of Thunderbird's skull; growing and then exploding, rising like a deadly mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. The air became foul, heavy like a haunting. Heavy like piss soaked bedsheets wrapped around the struggling limbs of innocent children trapped in midnight nightmares. "Deliver us all from this Dark Angel of Hell!" Glory standing in the middle of the room, again and again. Innocent hands raised pleading in prayer. "Please, Lord in Heaven! Deliver me...!" Again and again, the plea...again and again! "Deliver me....!"
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep! If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." And still I woke every day. The Lord ignored me every night, and every day I rose up anyway. New day, after new day, after new day - life stood in the way! "If I should die..." never came. At least not in body. My soul died in small pieces, night after night. With no mercy from heaven! No mercy from God! Night after night he came into my room, his breath stinking of alcohol! And monstrous threats! "If you tell...". He pulled back the sheets. Night after night, after night, after night! Until one night, in the absence of God, any God!, the ancestors answered my prayer. They whispered their secret, taught me who I was. Passed down the knowledge that had become legend by generations that had forgotten. The legend of the Thunderbirds! Those ancestors who joined with human flesh, and held onto the power of flight in the memory of each and every cell. The ancestors circled me, laid hands on me, and woke up memory. He came into my room, his breath stinking of alcohol. And monstrous threats..."if you tell....!" I saw him pull back the sheets, pull the sheets off the bed in disbelieve. Because...I wasn't there! I watched him from the corner of the room. And he must have felt my eyes, on the back of his throat, because he turned around and looked up to where I hovered in the corner of the room near the ceiling. In disbelieve! And I shouted, "Believe!" And I flew away! I flew out the window, not the door. I flew like my ancestors taught on wings damaged, but not torn. I soared. And I knew I would be a victim, NO MORE! I flew the night, I flew the sky, I flew to heaven! I faced God and said, "Behold, what you have withheld - the Ancestors have given!" God threw a lightning bolt of fury at me, and fleeing through heaven's gates, I threw it back at him! (I know each thunder storm is a chastisement!) When I came back home, no one said a word. No one acknowledged what had happened. My father wouldn't look at me. Never spoke a word to me again. My mother was as silent about my flight as she was about his visits. As silent as I was in keeping the secret of flight that the ancestors had bequeathed to me. I have never told, "Who?" I have never answered, "How?" She's never asked my father, "Why?" The lady next door said she saw me that first night, flying above my back yard. At least that's what she thinks she witnessed. My mother denied it, like she had denied the truth of my night realities before I could fly. So we moved. And kept moving each time someone said they saw. I keep moving, every time someone sees me. But, let me tell you something...my daddy never touched me again. He never came back into my room. And I know why. He couldn't fly!
"Now I lay me down to sleep....and I pray for each new day's flight to keep!"
"How could she have found out?" Thunderbird thought.
"I know she knows!"
Thunderbird was afraid!
