Song of Solomon

He stood her on her feet. “Don’t you all swim around here?”

“Over at the quarry is where the kids go sometimes.”

“Quarry? You all don’t have no sea? No ocean?”

“Naw; this hill country.”

“Hill country. Mountain country. Flying country.”

“A man was here to see you.”

“Oh, yeah? That would be Mr. Guitar Bains.”

“He didn’t give his name.”

“He don’t have to! He’s Guitar Bains. Gitar, Gitar, Gitar Bains!” Milkman did a little dance and Sweet covered her mouth, laughing.

“Come on, Sweet, tell me where the sea is.”

“They some water comin down below the ridge on the other side. Real deep; wide too.”

“Then let’s go! Come on!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her out to the car. He sang all the way: “‘Solomon ’n Ryna Belali Shalut…’”

“Where you learn that?” she asked him. “That’s a game we used to play when we was little.”

“Of course you did. Everybody did. Everybody but me. But I can play it now. It’s my game now.”

The river in the valley was wide and green. Milkman took off his clothes, climbed a tree and dived into the water. He surfaced like a bullet, iridescent, grinning, splashing water. “Come on. Take them clothes off and come on in here.”

“Naw. I don’t wanna swim.”

“Come in here, girl!”

“Water moccasins in there.”

“Fuck ’em. Get in here. Hurry up!”

She stepped out of her shoes, pulled her dress over her head and was ready. Milkman reached up for her as she came timidly down the bank, slipping, stumbling, laughing at her own awkwardness, then squealing as the cold river water danced up her legs, her hips, her waist. Milkman pulled her close and kissed her mouth, ending the kiss with a determined effort to pull her under the water. She fought him. “Oh, my hair! My hair’s gonna get wet.”

“No it ain’t,” he said, and poured a handful right in the middle of her scalp. Wiping her eyes, spluttering water, she turned to wade out, shrieking all the way. “Okay, okay,” he bellowed. “Leave me. Leave me in here by myself. I don’t care. I’ll play with the water moccasins.” And he began to whoop and dive and splash and turn. “He could fly! You hear me? My great-granddaddy could fly! Goddam!” He whipped the water with his fists, then jumped straight up as though he too could take off, and landed on his back and sank down, his mouth and eyes full of water. Up again. Still pounding, leaping, diving. “The son of a bitch could fly! You hear me, Sweet? That motherfucker could fly! Could fly! He didn’t need no airplane. Didn’t need no fuckin tee double you ay. He could fly his own self!”

“Who you talkin ‘bout?” Sweet was lying on her side, her cheek cupped in her hand.

“Solomon, that’s who.”

“Oh, him.” She laughed. “You belong to that tribe of niggers?” She thought he was drunk.

“Yeah. That tribe. That flyin motherfuckin tribe. Oh, man! He didn’t need no airplane. He just took off; got fed up. All the way up! No more cotton! No more bales! No more orders! No more shit! He flew, baby. Lifted his beautiful black ass up in the sky and flew on home. Can you dig it? Jesus God, that must have been something to see. And you know what else? He tried to take his baby boy with him. My grandfather. Wow! Woooee! Guitar! You hear that? Guitar, my great-granddaddy could flyyyyyy and the whole damn town is named after him. Tell him, Sweet. Tell him my great-granddaddy could fly.”

“Where’d he go, Macon?”

“Back to Africa. Tell Guitar he went back to Africa.”

“Who’d he leave behind?”

“Everybody! He left everybody down on the ground and he sailed on off like a black eagle. ‘O-o-o-o-o-o Solomon done fly, Solomon done gone /Solomon cut across the sky, Solomon gone home!’”

He could hardly wait to get home. To tell his father, Pilate; and he would love to see Reverend Cooper and his friends. “You think Macon Dead was something? Huh. Let me tell you about his daddy. You ain’t heard nothin yet.”

Milkman turned in his seat and tried to stretch his legs. It was morning. He’d changed buses three times and was now speeding home on the last leg of his trip. He looked out the window. Far away from Virginia, fall had already come. Ohio, Indiana, Michigan were dressed up like the Indian warriors from whom their names came. Blood red and yellow, ocher and ice blue.

He read the road signs with interest now, wondering what lay beneath the names. The Algonquins had named the territory he lived in Great Water, michi gami. How many dead lives and fading memories were buried in and beneath the names of the places in this country. Under the recorded names were other names, just as “Macon Dead,” recorded for all time in some dusty file, hid from view the real names of people, places, and things. Names that had meaning. No wonder Pilate put hers in her ear. When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do. Like the street he lived on, recorded as Mains Avenue, but called Not Doctor Street by the Negroes in memory of his grandfather, who was the first colored man of consequence in that city. Never mind that he probably didn’t deserve their honor– they knew what kind of man he was: arrogant, color-struck, snobbish. They didn’t care about that. They were paying their respect to whatever it was that made him be a doctor in the first place, when the odds were that he’d be a yardman all of his life. So they named a street after him. Pilate had taken a rock from every state she had lived in–because she had lived there. And having lived there, it