“I don’t care what you say. Man has gone too far.” Big Ma whomped her black Bible against the arm of her easy chair and pulled herself up from its comfy cushions. “He should know his place.”
“Amen, daughter!” Ma Charles raised her tambourine and gave it a good shake.
“Forgive man his arrogance, Lord God.”
“Forgive, Lord.”
“Man pushes his arrogant self out, poking holes through the sky; God will sling His arrows back down on man through those holes in a mighty rain.”
“Send your arrows, smite him down, Lord.”
“But the Lord is merciful. Oh yes! He can surely grant man a mercy.”
“A mercy, daughter!” Ma Charles shouted, happy that church was going on in her living room on Wednesday morning. “A mercy.”
“A spacecraft is a man-made thing.”
“Speak, daughter.”
“It may go far, but it cannot reach heaven.”
The tambourine shook and its metal disks rang out.
“It cannot reach the Lord though it will trespass on his holy place!”
Tambourine!
Big Ma and Ma Charles asked all to repenteth: the astronauts, mission control in Houston for thinking they had control, and the TV station for cutting off the morning gospel hour to broadcast the space launch. And yet we all gathered in Ma Charles’s living room while I angled for a better picture of the crowds gathered outside the launch pad down in Florida. Pastor Curtis, who had on Sunday proclaimed the Apollo mission an ungodly endeavor, said he’d be taking Wednesday morning prayer service off so he wouldn’t miss the liftoff. Even golden-framed Jesus’s eyes were on the launch.
“To the right. Yeah, Cousin Del. Now angle it toward the window. Yeah. Keep angling.”
JimmyTrotter wouldn’t let us nickname him, but he called me “cuz,” “Del,” and “Brooklyn” every chance he got. I pulled out the left antenna rod as far as it could go and aimed it from one corner of the window to the other. I pointed the metal rod and froze as JimmyTrotter, my sisters, Uncle D, and Mr. Lucas hollered out, “Hot,” “Hotter,” “To the right,” “More,” “A little left,” and then “Aww!” Watching television in Autauga County, Alabama, wasn’t like watching TV in our house on Herkimer Street. At home in Brooklyn, you turned the dial six or seven times to see what was on the other channels. Then you fixed the antenna when you settled on a show. Down in this part of Alabama, one turn to the left and one turn back to the right were our only choices. And if there was an electrical storm, there was no television to watch, period. No radio. No lights. No nothing. During electrical storms Big Ma and Ma Charles allowed only the dark, a candle, and prayer, although my sisters and I played Old Maid and Go Fish.
Finally, a glimpse of the giant rocket, JimmyTrotter’s precious Saturn V, materialized out of snow, fuzz, and horizontal lines. We all cheered. The second I stepped away the picture snowed up and the sound crackled.
“I’m not standing here holding this antenna,” I said.
Vonetta seized her opportunity. “I will!” I stood aside and let Vonetta do what she did naturally: cause all attention to be pulled her way. She raised the antenna rods together to start over and arranged the rods in a leaning V.
“That’s it! Bravo, cuz!” JimmyTrotter shouted to Vonetta. “We have a perfect picture!”
Vonetta froze, then backed away from the antenna, carefully and dramatically, her arms outstretched in the leaning V shape of the left and right antennae until she sat down. I hated to admit it, but it worked. Furthermore, the picture stayed sharp.
“See, Delphine? I can do things better than you.” She stuck her tongue out and I socked her in the arm. Not hard. Just enough to let her know I was still older.
“Cut it out,” JimmyTrotter said firmly, like he was Pa or something. I rolled my eyes and Vonetta grinned. I’d get her later. JimmyTrotter considered the matter settled. He turned to Uncle Darnell. “Cousin, did you fly in any planes in the army?”
“Don’t ask him any of that war business,” Big Ma said. “That’s over and done with.”
“Yeah,” Vonetta said, “because he just might—”
“Shut up, Vonetta.”
“Now both of you, stop it,” Uncle Darnell said. “Y’hear?” Now that was Pa’s voice. Sharp and short. When we piped down he smiled at JimmyTrotter as if he hadn’t raised his voice at all. “I rode in ’em. Got evac’d by helo.”
Jimmy thought that was cool although it sounded like spy code to me.
“We flew in a big silver plane,” Fern said. “The ride was too bumpy.”
JimmyTrotter patted her head until she wriggled away. “I don’t want to be a passenger in a plane,” he said. “I want to fly them. I’m saving for lessons.”
“With Old Man Crump?” Mr. Lucas asked. He almost coughed.
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy Trotter said. I mimicked, “Yes, sir,” just hating the South in him. I didn’t care if he caught me or not.
Both Mr. Lucas and Uncle Darnell shared a laugh about Old Man Crump. “Son,” Mr. Lucas said, “I know some World War Two cats who can show you a thing or two if you really want to fly. Leave Crump and his crop duster alone.”
“You know that’s right,” Uncle Darnell said.
“I wouldn’t mind getting into an aviation program,” JimmyTrotter said. “I just want to fly.”
Fern piped, “Like a bird in the sky.”
Ma Charles laughed. “Scratch your back for feathers, son. Can’t feel a one? I guess God told you.” There was a twinkle in her eyes so I knew she meant him no harm. Of course not. She just loved JimmyTrotter.
“Oh, son,” Big Ma said. “They don’t let coloreds fly planes.” Uncle D said, “Ma,” but Big Ma wouldn’t stop. “And I don’t blame them. Say what you want, but a colored man’s mind isn’t made for flying an airplane. Too many dials and levers. Too many decisions to make. The colored man can be a good many things. A preacher. An insurance salesman. A mayor of a colored town. Educated, respectable things, but he can’t go thinking he can do everything and anything. He can’t go above himself. Suppose he makes a mistake up in the air with all the people watching?”
Mr. Lucas said in a low, sad voice, “Ophelia . . .” but JimmyTrotter said nothing. Nothing. And if I weren’t a little steamed at him for always taking Vonetta’s side I would have said black people have the power to be whatever they wanted. I would have said don’t let the Man keep you down, even though this time the Man was my grandmother. But JimmyTrotter was happy to be oppressed and that was fine with me.
Uncle D, Mr. Lucas, JimmyTrotter, Ma Charles, Big Ma, Fern, and I all looked toward the TV screen. Our excitement grew as the picture and sound came in clearer and clearer. The camera switched from the Saturn V rocket in Florida to mission control in Houston, a roomful of men in mostly white short-sleeve shirts, and then to the crowd, where our former president and his wife, LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson, stood squinting, smiling, and looking up. We cheered when we saw a black person in the crowd. At last!
Clouds of white smoke seemed to float out of the tall rocket, held up by the hugging arms of a kind of straight Eiffel Tower. JimmyTrotter said the white clouds were there to keep the rocket cool, but I doubted anything could keep that rocket cool.
Every ten or fifteen seconds or so, the mission control person counted down by “T-minus” and threw in “We are a go,” while clouds of smoke billowed and they showed the rocket from close up and then from far away.
The countdown clock showing on the screen was now closing in on two minutes and counting. I doubted they could stop the launch if they wanted to. The Saturn V rocket seemed too monstrous to be made to heel by the control room in Houston.
I hoped my parents were also tuned in to the launch and counting along with us—Pa and Mrs. by TV and Cecile by radio. I knew my father and stepmother would be thoroughly amazed, and my mother would see the act of man landing on the moon as cause to write an oppressed woman’s poem. There was nothing Cecile couldn’t turn into a poem. Even so, it was nice to picture all of us watching or listening to the same thing at the same time. But if Miss Trotter showed up on Ma Charles’s porch, now that would be something to see.
Everyone was exited but Fern, who folded her arms. “Is this it? Is this the blastoff?”
I knew that “Phooey” look on Fern’s face. She probably felt gypped about the event that the news kept promising would be the most exciting thing for mankind to ever witness. As far as she could see, there wasn’t any magic. Just a roomful of men sitting at control panels, crowds of people waiting for something to happen, and a tall space rocket with a lot of white smoke surrounding it.
“Hang on,” JimmyTrotter told Fern. “It’s coming. Just don’t blink.”
Fern moved away from JimmyTrotter and sat closer to me. Vonetta mouthed, Baby, and Fern kicked her. I moved Fern to my left side to keep them separated. At least someone kicked Vonetta. That was good enough for me.
The mission control man reported that one of the astronauts said, “It feels good,” although I doubted sitting on a million tons of rocket fuel could feel good at all. JimmyTrotter’s precious Saturn V rocket stood ready and Ma Charles shook her tambourine. Before we knew it, the Eiffel Tower’s arms were letting go of the rocket and we were all counting down with mission control. Even Big Ma and Ma Charles. All of us.
Five
Four
Three
Two . . .