Homegoing(90)

When Angela had given birth to their daughter, Etta, Sonny was only fifteen years old. Angela was only fourteen. They’d said they were gonna get married and do things the right way, but when Angela’s parents found out she was pregnant and that the baby was Sonny’s, they’d sent her down to Alabama to stay with her family there until the baby was born, and then they wouldn’t let him see either girl when Angela came back up.

Sonny really had wanted to do right by Angela, by his daughter, but he was young and unemployed, and he figured Angela’s parents were probably right when they said he was basically good for nothing. It nearly broke his heart the day Angela married a young pastor who worked the revival circuits down south. The pastor would leave Angela in Harlem for months at a time, and Sonny thought if he could have her, he would never leave her.



But then he’d look at himself in the mirror sometimes, and he’d see features he didn’t recognize from his mother’s face. His nose wasn’t hers. Nor were his ears. He used to ask his mother about these features when he was young. He used to ask her where his nose, his ears, his lighter skin came from. He used to ask her about his father, and all she would say was that he didn’t have a father. He didn’t have a father, but he had turned out all right. “Right?” he would tease the man in the mirror. “Right?”

“She ain’t even a baby no more, Lucille. Look at her.”

The girl was hobbling around the apartment on her little sea legs. Lucille shot Sonny a killing look, snatched the child up, and left.

“And don’t go calling my mama for money now neither!” he shouted after her. He could hear her stomping all the way down the stairs and out into the street.

—

Two days later, Sonny was back at Jazzmine. He had asked the other folks who worked there when Amani would be back, but none of them knew.

“She go where the wind blow,” Blind Louis said, wiping down the bar. Sonny must have sighed a little, because soon Louis said, “I know that sound.”

“What sound?”

“You don’t want none, Sonny.”

“Why not?” Sonny asked. What could an old blind man possibly know about wanting a woman just from the sight of her?

“Ain’t just about the way a woman look, you gotta think about what’s in ’em too,” Louis answered, reading his mind. “Ain’t nothin’ in that woman worth wanting.”

Sonny didn’t listen. It took three more months for him to see Amani again. By that time he’d gone looking for her, dropping in at club after club, waiting to see some slow stroll make its way up to the stage.

When he found her, she was sitting at a table in the back of the club, sleeping. He had to get close to know this, so close he could hear the inhale and exhale of her breath as she snored. He looked around the room, but Amani was in a dark corner of the bar, and no one seemed to be looking for her. He pushed her arm. Nothing. He pushed her arm again, harder this time. Still nothing. On the third push, she rolled her head to one side so slowly, it was like a boulder moving. She blinked a couple of times, a slow, deliberate movement that brought her heavy lids and thick eyelashes together.



When she looked at him finally, Sonny could see why she might need to blink. Her eyes were bloodshot, the pupils dilated. She blinked twice more, this time quickly, and watching her, it suddenly occurred to Sonny that he hadn’t considered what he would do once he’d found her.

“You singing tonight?” he asked meekly.

“Do it look like I’m singing?”

Sonny didn’t answer. Amani started to stretch her neck and shoulders. She shook her whole body out. “What do you want, man?” she asked, seeing him again. “What do you want?”

“You,” Sonny admitted. He had wanted her since the day he saw her sing. It wasn’t her slow gait or the fact that her voice had reminded him of his favorite memory of his mother. It was that he had felt something in himself open up when she started singing that night, and he wanted to capture just a little bit more of that feeling, keep it for himself.

She shook her head at him and smiled a little. “Well, come on.”

They went out into the street. Sonny’s stepfather, Eli, liked to walk, and when he was around he used to take Sonny and Willie and Josephine all around town. Maybe that was how his mother had grown to like walking too, Sonny thought. He still remembered the day that she had walked with him all the way down into the white part of the city. He’d thought they would keep on going forever and ever, but she had stopped suddenly, and Sonny found himself disappointed, though he hadn’t been able to figure out why.

With Amani, Sonny passed by places he knew from his days on the housing team, jazz joints for the down-and-out, cheap food stands, barbershops, all with junkies on the street holding hats outstretched in their hands.



“You ain’t told me ’bout your name yet,” Sonny said as they stepped over a man lying in the middle of the street.

“Whatchu want to know?”

“You Muslim?”

Amani laughed at him a little. “Naw, I ain’t Muslim.” Sonny waited for her to speak. He had already said enough. He didn’t want to keep pressing her, showing her his desire, his weaknesses. He waited for her to speak. “Amani means ‘harmony’ in Swahili. When I started singing, I felt like I needed a new name. My mama named me Mary, and ain’t nobody gonna hit it big with a name like Mary. And I ain’t into all that Nation of Islam and Back to Africa business, but I saw Amani and I felt like it was mine. So I took it.”