A Song Flung Up to Heaven - Maya Angelou [43]
“Maya?” It was Dolly.
“Yes?”
“Have you listened to the radio or television?”
I said no.
“Maya, please don’t turn either of them on. And don’t answer the phone. Give me your word.”
“I give you my word.”
“I’m on my way.”
I made a drink and sat down, trying to guess what could have happened that could cause her such alarm.
Dolly stood at my door, her face ghastly with news.
I said, “Come in. Nothing could be that bad.”
It was that bad and worse.
She said, “Martin Luther King was shot. Maya, he’s dead.”
Some words are spoken and not heard. Because the ears cannot accept them, the eye seems to see them. I saw the letters D E A D. Who was dead? Who was dead now? Not Malcolm again. Not my grandmother again. Not my favorite uncle Tommy. Not again.
I didn’t realize I was talking, but Dolly grabbed me and held me.
“Maya, it’s Martin King. Reverend King.”
“Stop talking nonsense. Stop it.” When I really heard her, the world capsized. If King was dead, who was alive? Where would we go? What was next? Suddenly I had to get out.
I didn’t take my purse or keys or turn off the stove or the lights or tell Dolly where I was going.
John was locking his door. We looked at each other.
He asked, “Where are you going?”
I said, “Harlem.”
He said, “Me, too.”
He didn’t speak as we walked to Harlem. I turned my thoughts over as one turns pages in a book. In the silence I spoke to myself, using the time to comprehend the emptiness.
That great mind, which considered adversity and said, This too shall pass away, had itself passed away.
That mellifluous voice, which sang out of radios and televisions and over altars and pulpits, which intoned from picket lines and marches and through prison bars, was stilled. Forever stilled.
That strong heart which did beat with the insistence of a kettle drum was silent. Silenced.
Waves of noise of every kind flooded down 125th Street. There was an undulation of raw screams, followed by thuds like the sound of buffaloes running into each other at rutting time. I never discovered what or who caused that particular dissonance, but the sheer jangle of glass breaking was obvious.
When John ran into friends and they fell into a sobbing embrace, I walked on alone.
There were noticeable differences between this current turmoil and the Watts uprising. In Los Angeles, rage had ruled. There, the people acted out of a pent-up anger over past slights and historic cruelties. On the evening of April 4, 1968, a lamentation would rise and hold tremulously in the air, then slowly fall out of hearing range just as another would ascend.
Strangers stopped in front of strangers and asked, “Why? Why?”
“You know? You know.”
Then strangers hugged strangers and cried.
A television in the window of an appliance store played tapes of Martin King speaking. No sound accompanied the pictures, but people stood silent, five deep in front of the shop window, as the uproar swirled unnoticed around them. I joined the watchers for a few moments and heard the moan behind me.
Rosa Guy emerged from the crowd. We stood looking at each other. We embraced and said nothing. When we released each other, we continued our separate ways.
A man, naked to the waist, walked out of a building with a conga drum strapped to his body. He waddled toward me, the head of the drum protruding from under his arm. He passed me shouting, not singing, unintelligible words.
I went into a lighted diner and sat at the far end of the counter. Only one other customer was in the place. He was leaning over so far his head was on the counter.
I waited for a few minutes for a waitress, and when none appeared, I called out, “Can I get some service?”
The man raised his head. “If all you want is coffee, you can get it yourself.”
I went behind the counter and lifted the coffeepot and looked at the man. “May I help you?”
“No, baby, nobody can help me. Nobody can help nobody. You know this is all about Malcolm.”
“What?”
I expected to hear the awful despair at Martin Luther King’s death. Malcolm’s name shocked me.
“Malcolm?”
“See,