Black History Month

The Grounding: Fiction

Paul-C’s granddaughter turned 12 years old on December 21st. At her birthday party, after she blew out all the candles on her cake and opened all the presents her family got her, he pulled her off to the side of the yard underneath the giant oak tree his older sister had planted years ago. And through his slurred speech and unfocused gaze, he told her she could fly.

Just like everybody else in Girard could do on that day. Except they didn’t know it. Either that, or they didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to believe in the fantastical words of a drunkard. The very drunkard they themselves turned to when it was time to supply the purest of shine for their own birthday celebrations and July 4th cookouts.

Funny how they’d believe in the made up fairytales of the founding of this here country, but won’t for a second even bat an eye at the mere possibility of their own superpower.

They dare call it myth — a hallucination he made up in a drunken stupor. Even the folks his age who could confirm or deny the miracle were always eerily quiet when the topic ever came up.

Never wanting to be associated with whatever came out of Paul-C’s mouth because of the pungent smell of fresh liquor on his lips. Even if what he said actually had some truth to it. Because they were, indeed, there on December 21st over 60 years ago — when his older sister climbed up on the roof of Peace Creek Missionary Baptist Church and jumped.

Paul-C was a young boy then, but he remembers clear as day the feeling of his blood turning electric and his feet leaving the ground. How everyone in the churchyard gazed at each other in pure disbelief, followed by jubilation as their own feet began to hover above the dry grass beneath them. The happening only lasted for one day and no one could ever explain what caused it. But it came back exactly one year later. And again one year after that.

Back in those days, you couldn’t keep Negros out the sky. Not when the 21st rolled around. Because when the clock struck 12am and for the 24 hours following, folks were flying over the tops of roofs and all through the tree limbs. Some of them were wobbly gliding through the air while others, like Paul-C and his sister, were shooting off like Superman over the harvested cotton and tobacco fields. This went on for about 5 years or so. Until one day out the blue, one of the well-respected church elders deemed flight to be a form of devil worship. That what seemed to come natural to folks was actually damning them to Hell.

And within a year’s time, Paul-C’s eldest sister planted a tree and flew away. And everyone else who stayed behind did so with their feet planted firmly on the ground. The grounding never seemed to stop Paul-C from sharing the news of Black flight whenever December rolled around. Though, naturally, time and a communal dedication to silence lessened the weight of his words. So much so that it drove him to drinking. Even on his granddaughter’s 12th birthday when he sat her down under his sister’s tree. Unlike the nonbelievers though, Paul-C’s granddaughter listened intently and asked him questions. She told him that she too would feel a tingling in her veins whenever her birthday came around. And how sometimes, she’d take steps and swore she couldn’t feel the ground beneath her feet. Paul-C laughed, then cried, then embraced his granddaughter as if he were finally welcoming his big sister back home. Eventually, the two had to part ways. And Paul-C marveled as his granddaughter glided away from the old oak, leaving not one footprint in her wake. •

Artwork by James Haile