Delilah
Delilah Brown knows she owes somebody something. She felt like she wasn’t worth much her whole life and most people seemed to agree with her, say something nice about her singing but then go on and treat her like nothing so it had to be something wrong in her, some devilment she wasn’t strong enough to wrestle down. Her father was a preacher who wrestled and lost and went back to sin and disappeared out of their lives and her mother too, shouting and crying at the Sunday services but then back to her gin and her men who always left. Delilah was only thirteen when those men started turning toward her when her mother wasn’t around, and it was powerful and scary and who was she to tell a grown man no? Till her mother got jealous and turned her out and the one little thing she could do, sing, only paid if you did it in bars full of more men who would always leave you.
Delilah had two babies before, babies that she lost in their first tiny days, which seemed only righteous since she had given herself over to the men and the gin but didn’t bother with the Sunday services, knew that everyone in the church had her pegged for a hopeless sinner, and then China Doll so little and frail with her rheumatic heart and Delilah tried hard, tried to win her little girl at least a nest to lie down in every night but that kind of solid ground never landed under her feet and she wasn’t strong enough. Men came up to say her singing had made them cry and then they’d be with her just long enough to return the favor. She felt she was sliding down into a pit, clawing at the sides but they were too slippery to hold and somehow one day there was Tyrone, a man whose name she’d seen on a dance poster, a man with hands that could wrap around so much and he looked into her and saw her for what she was and what she could be if she was strong enough and he didn’t leave. He left physically, off on his tours playing piano, but when he said he’d write he wrote and when he said he’d call he called and when he said he’d be back in a month there he was. And China Doll, who usually caused men’s smiles to glaze over when she was introduced into the equation, Ty just wrapped his hands around her skinny hips and picked her up into his face and said “Look what fell out from the Cracker Jacks. Do I get to keep it?”. Now what did Delilah Brown ever do to deserve a man like that?
And she’s been so good to him, steady and true and hard-working, but who wouldn’t be? Brought in what money she could working for the Mayor and Miss Amanda and then sang or helped out at the Honeydripper every night no matter how tired she was. To see China Doll in her same little bed every night and going to school and growing, and Ty treating her, Delilah Brown, like somebody special in front of all those people in the club, a woman would have to be crazy or even weaker than her to mess that up. So she’s given back to Ty. But lately the feeling has changed, his place is near empty every night and he’s worried and moody, he’s scared, which she’s never seen before, and it’s got to be a retribution on her, like when they took her first babies, and maybe, just maybe if she gives herself over, not just going on Sundays and singing along from Sinners’ Row but really gives herself over and is born again in the eyes of the Lord in heaven He will forgive her all that sinful life before and not let anything bad happen to Ty or China Doll. Sometimes, in the heat of the singing and the praying and swaying and tears of penitence it feels so right, the Spirit moving within her, but then again sometimes it feels like the Spirit is carrying her away from Ty, off to some place he can’t or won’t follow and that he needs her now and the Lord can wait. Standing at that crossroads- do you get a sign from above or just feel it in your soul?
