Malachi thought of his father as a mountain – cavernous and comforting – especially when his father echoed those deep church songs like “No Hiding Place Down Here” or “I Shall Not Be Moved.” It was only when his father stood near white folks that he seemed to shrink back into a man, into a boy, into a dark space between people. Once, Malachi asked his father why Negro folk seem so dark around white folk, and he stated without hesitation, “dat’s ‘cause black skin soak up all dat beautiful light that shine down from da face o’ God.” Then, he leaned over to him and whispered the rest, “white skin jus’ repel all dat goodness, hardly a drop of it makes it to they insides.” His father then smiled like he had just been kissed by “the prettiest girl in Garlene County” which is how he often referred to Malachi’s mama, especially when she was close enough to hear. Malachi had a father, and he had a mama. Father and mama. That’s what he called them. Father was the bones of them, and mama was the skin, and that’s how they were, and Malachi was the blood of them both.
Malachi’s father, Obadiah Wilkins, loved to sing, and when that baritone would quake from inside his chest and rumble out through his mouth, Malachi would stop what he was doing and wait on the song to pass like he was waiting for a cool breeze to blow on by. He sang like no one else Malachi had ever heard. The ladies at Sorrow’s Bench Baptist Church sang from their face. They writhed and wriggled like their face needed singing or setting free, but Malachi’s father sang from some holler, some valley deep inside his chest. His songs started silently like a sound seed from inside long before anyone could hear anything on the outside. His eyes would grin, and he would grimace a little like he felt an ache, and then his throat would shake a little, and then a note would become a melody, then a song, and Malachi would hold his breath to make quiet so he could hear it as deeply as it was being born.
“Does it ever hurt when you sing, Father?”
“It always hurts, son, that’s why I sing. If it didn’t hurt, then it wouldn’t be singing.” Then, he smiled, smiled further, and stared at some memory passing like a shadow in front of him.
Malachi’s mama would hum and groan, but she never sang. She’d hum beautifully in church or when father would sing in the kitchen, but soon she’d break the song into a comment about somebody needing prayer or someone else needing a visit.
“Mama?” Malachi said one day while he was helping her snap peas in the kitchen. “Father says he hurts when he sings, did you know that?”
“Yes, Malachi.”
At seven years old, Malachi was finding himself more confused by his father as he understood him more every day.
“Why does he sing if it hurts?”
“Malachi, do you like peas?”
“No, Mama.”
“But you have to eat them because they end up on your plate when it’s time for peas, right?”
“Yes, Mama, but I put that gravy all over them so I can hardly taste ‘em at all.”
“Well, ya see, singin’ is like gravy, Malachi, but the peas your father is covering up don’t just taste bad, they hurt. That’s why he covers them up with songs like those his father sang, songs his father’s father taught him…songs they say even Jesus hisself sang as he walked that dusty road to Calvary.”
Malachi thought a long time on that. One more thing made sense. Now he understood why his father sang when it hurt, and he also understood why his mama didn’t sing. His gravy covered the peas on her plate, too, and she was strong for being married to a good man who loved her properly. She hummed in order to be with him, to accompany him a little bit and underneath, but she didn’t sing.
The State Fair was opening on Friday in nearby Erving, Tennessee. Mr. Jennings, while visiting one afternoon, asked Obadiah if he’d like to take his family, and when he didn’t answer right away, Mr. Jennings pushed three tickets into his shirt pocket and said, “Good. That’ll d’ it, then. I’ll expec’ cha there.” Mr. Jennings always spoke loudly. As a politician, his own ego had trained him to speak loudly enough to wake the disinterested and paint the important words with extra Southern drawl so he could sound connected, in touch, of the people, a regular one of them. “I’ll b’ singing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ ope’nin night, so you come with yer wife and boy and hep cheer me on, okay? And if I make a mess of that “of the free” line, then you’ll hep me cover it up, won’cha?”
Obadiah nodded, “thank ya, sir.” Malachi overheard the news like he’d just seen Santa himself carrying a big red box under his arm. He ran across the front field and pushed through the porch door like it was a bed sheet drying on the line and hollered, “Mama, Mama, we’s going to the Fair! We’s going to the Fair, Mama!” She didn’t even look up from the bread bowl as Malachi went right on by through the other side of the kitchen and back out to where his father was waving goodbye to Mr. Jennings’ shiny white car.
Between that day and the Fair, there were two work days and church. The State Fair was a fun thing for all kids, but for black folks it was still a matter of careful appeal. There were places that black folks weren’t welcome, and in Erving, Tennessee, there were still trees known by the “strange fruit” that used to decorate their old, twisted limbs.
And Malachi’s mama couldn’t see how the lights and noise made up for the stress of not looking too long in the wrong way or at the wrong white person, of seeming too rude or too nice or too loud or too black. To be too noticed was all it took to start a raucous especially when liquor had already started pickling the brains of old men whose brains were long soaked in fantastic angers and stored in dark cupboards.
When Malachi took a glass of lemonade out to his father on that first work day in between Mr. Jennings’ visit and the Fair, he noticed his father coughing as he came near.
“Good timing, son.”
“Are you okay, Father?”
“Got too much to do to not be okay, son. Sometimes being busy is all a man needs to not be sick.”
Malachi walked back to the house with the empty glass not entirely sure what his father meant by that but happy that his father must have needed a drink. His father’s coughing continued as he walked back into the house. That night Malachi noticed that his father, sitting in his reading chair, dozing, resembled the fireplace, both barely burning, gently sputtering, slowly settling into the quiet cold of the house at night. Malachi’s mama lifted him by gently cupping the back of his tired arm, leading him with a wife’s understanding and the strength of tended love, to bed while she hummed “Sweet Jesus” through the chorus nine or ten times. His father slept in his work clothes with a blanket that night.
The next work day, Malachi took three or four glasses of lemonade out to his father during the day. The lemonade smelled less like lemonade each time.
“Mama, why the lemonade smell so funny?”
“Oh, don’t you worry ‘bout it, Malachi, they’s just a few extra goodens in there to keep your father from coughing so much. I think he’s gonna cough himself inside out if he ain’t careful.”
At church the next morning, Malachi watched his father as Pastor Susser led the congregation in every stanza of his father’s favorite hymn, but his father didn’t sing or hum at all. He kept a handkerchief over his mouth through the whole song. When the preacher told everyone to sit down, Malachi noticed the cloth had a few reddish-brown stains on it. He looked over to his mama and watched her pat his father’s leg lightly like she understood, like he was doing just fine, like blood was coming up instead of singing and that was okay because they both come from the soul and life and love and how we breathe.
On their way to the Fair, Malachi’s father didn’t speak much, but he seemed happy to be taking his family out. Malachi’s mother was less relaxed and, at times, seemed anxious. Malachi, however, was like a dog getting table scraps. He was sliding back and forth across the back seat looking for the Ferris Wheel to poke through the treetops. The only break in his wagging from side to side was when he’d stop to watch his father shake with a muffled cough, coughing with his whole body into that small rag that never left his hand.
The lights, the music, the chatter of excited children, and the smell of peanut brittle and hot dogs seemed to make the world spin opposite to its normal rotation. There was smoke in the air and large white men shouting about weird things to see and strange rides to ride if you dared. Malachi’s mother said, “We better hurry over to the tent where Mr. Jennings is goin’ to sing.” So, they walked past and through the dizzying smells and sounds and into the tent with its orderly benches and older folks. They took a seat in the back even though there were two empty rows of benches closer.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a peculiarly dressed old white man shouted from the stage. “I am happy to kick off this year’s State Fair with the ceremonial singing of our beloved ‘Star Spangled Banner’ by none other than Erving’s own mayor, Mr. Randolph A. Jennings!” The crowd erupted in applause, whistles, and catcalls as Mr. Jennings came out dressed like an Uncle Sam poster. He wore long red and white striped pants with a blue jacket full of sequins and buttons and a top hat like a steeple. He walked up to the microphone, but instead of clearing his throat to sing, he asked the whooping crowd to settle down, be quiet a moment.
“Excuse me, folks, excuse me…just a minute. I am here tonight to sing this most revered of all American songs. I even agreed to Mrs. Jennings’ insistence that I wear this ridiculous get-up.” The crowd mostly sitting down now laughed heartily. “However, I would like to take this ceremonial moment and ask a dear friend to join me on stage for this song. You see, ladies and gentlemen, we as an American people have come far since the days of slavery and social oppression and to mark our progress, especially during my tenure as mayor, I would like to ask…”
Malachi’s mama turned away from the spectacle on stage and looked down and sideways to her husband who was about to be asked to be the next spectacle, the next parade in Erving’s long history of spectacles that didn’t fare well for its Negro citizens. She looked scared, and she hated Mr. Jennings. She hated his loudness, his shiny teeth like piano keys, his high pants, his red, his blue, and especially his white.
“…my friend, Obadiah Wilkins, to join me for this song.” The crowd clapped, slowly at first, gathering into a reluctant applause, surprised by the change in tradition and not altogether thrilled by the smiling mayor’s gesture. Malachi moved his legs so his father could step by. He coughed under the noise of the crowd, and Malachi noticed how painful he looked as his chest racked with each muted hack. He closed his eyes as if to close away the pain, the spectacle, the kindness that seem to scare his wife. Among the crowd, there were certainly Klansmen dressed like regular people, but whose minds were always robed.
Malachi watched his father sing. He watched the song billow from somewhere deep inside, somehow pass his cough, and take flight through the tent, a beautiful song of survival against all odds, a song that made everyone’s chest swell with pride for outlasting an enemy that seemed certain to win. Malachi watched his father sing in pain, wanting to cough but pouring melody over his pain like gravy, more and more gravy as he finished. Malachi watched his father sing. He watched Mr. Jennings dressed in his dangerous idealism. His mother watched the motionless third row sitting closely together with their arms crossed and their hatred stiffening. She would look back to her husband, hide her fear under her humming, think about being home, and marvel at her most handsome man who was braver than Moses.
When the two men squeezed out that final, chilling line – “and the home of the…” – such an odd pairing – “…brave.” – elation erupted in applause, shouts, two-fingered whistles. The entire tent went up in a sudden clap of thunderous joy. Even without the third row and parts of several other rows, the adulation was loud and seemed to echo into the guilty days of years past. Malachi’s father held his rag to his mouth. Mr. Jennings beamed like a proud politician who had just given birth to a great moment that would become many votes. The crowd began to lurch forward as a few slithered against the grain and out into the familiar Tennessee air. The atmosphere inside the tent was celebratory as if a gamble had been taken, assumed lost, then won.
Malachi and his mother left the tent and waited outside. Several quiet, alone minutes passed.
“Mama? Why is father coughing so much?”
“Well, Malachi, your father has been mighty sick for a long time.”
“Is he gonna die?”
“Now, Malachi, when God is done with your father, he’ll take him on home, and not a moment sooner. So, you don’t be worrying about when your father’s gonna die.”
Just then, Obadiah Wilkins, the newest celebrity in Erving, Tennessee, came walking hurriedly around the corner, coughing.
“I’m sorry, son, but we’re going to have to get going early. Come on, now. Don’t look back, just come on, keep walking.”
Malachi’s father had his hands in the small of his wife’s and Malachi’s back pressing them forward, coughing as quietly inside himself as he could. They made it to the car and quickly drove back to their house. Once back and inside, Malachi asked his mama why they had to leave so quickly and why they couldn’t stay and go on at least one ride. She explained that some folks just weren’t ready for a Negro to be singing the “Star Spangled Banner” on stage with the mayor. “And singing it soooo good,” she added like seasoning.
Malachi woke up to the sound of his mama and a tall man talking in the kitchen. From his bed he could see them both. The tall man had a bag with doctor tools hanging out, and he was giving a bottle to his mama who held a tissue close to her face. Malachi tried to listen as much with his eyes as his ears, but they whispered and hardly moved. Once the tall man left, and his mama pressed the door closed behind him, Malachi jumped out of bed and ran to his mama, closing himself around her like he was trying to hug them both with the same stretch. She was crying, so Malachi started crying too.
They walked over to the bed where his father was sleeping and sat down on the side where his mama slept.
“Is he dyin’, Mama?”
“Now, I told you about that. We just gotta tell God that we need him and that he’s still necessary to us down here.”
“I’m gonna pray, Mama. I’m gonna pray. I’m gonna pray.”
“Well, you pray, son. I know you will. I’m gonna sleep some now. I’m just gonna sleep some a little now, okay son?” His mother lay down like a horse settling into the cool of the grass. “You can sleep here a while too, if you wa…” she drifted away on a sigh.
Malachi sat in his father’s chair where he put on his shoes every morning. He stared at his folks, sleeping together, deeply together. They were one person. One person who was half sick and half tired. Malachi prayed. And when he had finished thanking God for his father and mama and then getting mad at Him for not being fair all in the same prayer, he started humming one of his father’s favorite songs. He hummed it for awhile, but it made him cry, and trying not to cry made his throat hurt. So, he stopped humming, and he took down the gravy, and he poured it all over those peas that tasted like dying, and he sang. With all his heart, he sang. With all the love his mother and father had given him, he sang. From somewhere deep inside him, the words rumbled and rolled, billowed until they found their way up through his chest, around the sore spot in his throat, out through his trembling mouth, and he sang.
“No hiding place down here. There’s no hiding place down here. Oh, I’ve been to the rock to hide my face, the rock cried out ‘No hiding place’, No hiding place down here.”