The Iowa Review
Volume 14
Issue 1 Winter: One Hundred Years After Huck:
Fiction by Men in America
1984
The Tambourine Lady
John Wideman
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Recommended Citation
Wideman, John. "The Tambourine Lady." The Iowa Review 14.1 (1984): 180-182. Web.
Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol14/iss1/16
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Article 16
The Tambourine
I LAY
NOW
John Wideman
Lady
ME
DOWN
TO
... there would be
SLEEP
could
as new.
in the morning.
New
shoes and an old dress white
as
as
and hair perfect
heat and grease
and starched
angel wings
to
as she rose up
to
it
her
would
be
skull.
There
hands
hold
press
from
the curb
new
shoes
White
which
Avenue,
the one
took you from Homewood
step which
as heaven.
to the door of the church wide
nowhere,
across
to
steady her
to the velvet
cushioned
she'd need
Hands
from
onto
was
cement
the tall, red doors,
the threshold,
wobble
of God's
purple carpet.
to His world.
Like that first step off the
as she
unsteady
passed
'sDepartment
stairs in Kaufmann
Always
moving
Store
downtown
when
you
think you might be falling and the hard cold floor rushing up to crack
hand,
your knees and elbows. At the door of the church her mother's
to
in her soft white
the hands of Miss Goings
her
gloves
help
through.
stutter but she wouldn't
lose her breath, her heart would
She might
fall.
in her starched nurse's uniform.
Her hand was
Old Miss Goings
like
petting
who'd
wide
a rabbit. Miz
like Johnson's
Goings
smelling
Baby Powder
or
or
so the
Bless you, Darling daughter
say, My sweet girl
just Sugar
doors did not swallow you or slam in your face.
shoes pinched your feet sometimes. Too big, too small, too much
too
ladies who
sold them would
money,
ugly for anybody. The white
stick any old thing on your feet and smile. But sometimes when her feet
were
in new shoes she couldn't
feel them at all. She floated, unsure
New
whether
or not
the
shoes were
still
down
if she'd lost them,
wondering
a
time ago because
them
lost
has,
nobody
long
were
to her when
the shoes didn't belong
they
stepped,
she
stepping when
and costing money
that's how they felt. Like
there,
brand new
new and
shiny because
and shiny like them. She was nobody, nowhere,
dream
new shoes she'd never own, shoes that wouldn't
a little
in
about
ing
girl
be down
there if she looked to the end of the white
socks at the ends
she wasn't
new
of her black legs.
New
be trusted. Even
if you polished
them till you
shoes couldn't
saw your face inside. So in the
'd
she
them
morning
again and then
polish
wash
and dry her face and clean her hands and tug the yellow
sash
sure of
in
the
mirror
Make
then
check
the
mirror,
everything
straight.
on the threshold
in the gray sky,
of AMEZ
the mirror
church,
again
in the brick wall,
the mirror
of her mother's
the mirror
hand and the
180
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hand
of Miss
Goings
she would
promising
She said her
reaching
not fall.
prayers
and
for
closed
hers,
her
patting
eyes
her
and heard
ashy
skin
and
tambourines.
Crashing like a pocketful of change in her Daddy's pantswhen he stuck
his hand
in and rattled
round,
teasing
out a
piece
of money
for her. Like
somebody saying dish dish dish dish and every dish piled with
thing good
Dish. Dish.
some
to eat.
...
more
crack
funny because
before I wake. You walked
if I die
on the way home from school. You used the
some
than sidewalk
places
street to get past the real bad busted up parts. You
looked both ways but
die. A thousand times. A thousand times I've told you
you knew you might
And
to stay out the street, girl. But if the sidewalk
looked like a witch's
face
over than step on a crack and break Mama's
runned
rather
get
you'd
back. So you looked both ways up and down the street like Mama
always
said.You looked and listened and hoped you wouldn't get hit like little
fat Angela everybody called Jelly who was playing in CassinaWay and
the car mashed
her up against
the fence where
you
can still see the spot
to this
day.
She'd felt mashed like Jelly when Tommy Bonds pushed her down.
Said you ain't hurt and ran away.
called her crybaby.
laughed and
over no little blood snot on her knee. She
no
she wasn't
crybaby
Pushed her into the spider web of cracks
cried cause he hurt her Mama.
He
But
She'd told him her secret one day
she was playing.
was. He hated
were friends. But he never
she thought
they
really
her and pushed her right dead down in a whole mess of snakes. Crying
on more. He hated her.
cause she couldn't
get out without
stepping
her and called her nasty till she stopped, hands on hips, and
Followed
was
Boy I ain't studying you. Study this you nasty bitch and he
running
her down the street. She was scared or playing or just happy to have him
to do.
his fists, his
after her again no matter what he wanted
Forgetting
as
street
he
flew
down
the
after her.
nasty mouth,
everything
forgetting
see
now.
what
he want
And all he
Then
she stopped. Said to herself,
wanted was to push her down. Kill her Mama.
into the street
her secret. That day he'd detoured
She'd told Tommy
cars
with
her game and the
her. Played
past on Hamilton
whipping
cause he knew what
when
Avenue
when
had never
had she cared
killing
louder, closer, their wind up under her clothes
Face City. And never
the twenty steps past Witch
because who ever heard of a car
less about getting mashed
he ran with
been
her
two at a time.
181
Tommy,
rope would
Bonds. If she didn't duck just in time the
Tommy
Tommy
cut off her neck.
If she didn't bounce high enough
there
down
the street all by they ownselves.
go her cut-off feet hopping
Say
was
when
the rope popped
the ground. Tommy
it, girl. Say it. Bonds
three times while
the loop turned lazy in the air.
it to the east, Shake it to the west. Now
tell the one you love
the best. Say it out loud, girl. We
ain't turning for
nothing.
Bonds.
She is not crying because
it hurts.
Tommy
Tommy
Tommy
on her knee next
A little snotty
blood.
Scab
all.
looking
day. That's
That's not why, Mister
Mister
But
Know-it-all.
she
can't
Smarty-pants.
Shake
say his name, can't
and ears and mouth
say what
she's
come
thinking
because
the tears in her nose
out her
eyes.
might
spilling
and sang in church was a Russell.
lady who beat the tambourine
was church so this was
Tomorrow
Saturday night and her Mama
ironing
The
in the kitchen and her Daddy away so long he mize well be dead and
the new
leather shoes in their box beneath her side of the bed.
patent
Saying her prayers she thought how long it took to get to the end, how
to
the world
be over and gone while
you still saying the words
yourself.
The words her mother
had taught her
taught her and said her mother
so
not
always be saying them. So God would
somebody would
forget
was
his children.
the
words
this
she
lost as she
Saying
Saturday night
was sometimes
in new shoes. Now
I lay me down . . . like the words were
to
doors and she had
she spoke and so much
there,
peek inside everyone
so wide
to see and bad
she could look forever. Good
she
wanted
things
want
to say all scrambled up
things she didn't
together. What
kept her
from falling, what kept the words
the
like
coming
lazy rope snapping
on time at the pavement was the wish
that maybe
that lady be singing
her tambourine
in church.
song tomorrow morning
182