Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Part 68

The faces staring at each other in the heat.

Then the older face is gone. Become Daddy Malcolm again, same as before.

-Lou Jay! Renee!- Mr. Malcolm, shouting. -Y'all come on over here now.

The two of them running over, sweat-faced. Lou Jay not looking at Ricky.

-I know y'all gone get to the church on time. Mind, now.

With one sharp movement, Ricky turned away to face Renee. And she ain't even nowhere near ugly, he thought, I wish I could say I did like girl-p.u.s.s.y.

-I got to tell you something.- Looking her straight in the face.

His father raising the gun. Lou Jay's eyes opening wide.

-What, Ricky?- The birds gone from her eyes, now reflecting back only the stone certainties of the future.

Daddy Malcolm's gun pointed directly at his son's back. A click from the trigger.

Ricky turning. Gazing at his father.

-You really would, wouldn't you.

The face emerges once more, but by the time the skin has finished its s.h.i.+fting and melting the scream strangled in Ricky's throat has risen up into his head, to remain there.

-He would what?- Only Ricky's body preventing her from seeing where the gun is aimed.

-I would love to see my son get married tomorrow. Y'all know Ricky's my baby son. Seven boys, six married, tomorrow the last one. And it's gone happen, too. So nice to see young people loving each other, living a normal life. Lou Jay!

-Sir?- Lou Jay's voice thick through the cl.u.s.tered reeds in his chest. In that moment looking exactly like what he had never been known to be in that town: completely stupid.

-We will miss you, boy.- The gun lowered. The look on Ricky's face unchanged. Renee looking off into the distance with what none of them can yet know-a memory of dark birds from another country dying at her feet. Nice-looking girl, the older man reflects, and a shame, only seventeen in two months, she coulda saved it for a real man.

-Yes, sir. Thank you.- Backing away as the car slowly begins to move off. As it runs right over where he'd been standing.

-I'll be with your mama and daddy for a while, Renee. Y'all don't forget-later at the church.

-We won't! she screams, but the car has gone. -What's wrong, Ricky?

No answer. Trembling in spite of the intense heat, he turns to Lou Jay, says: -You coming?

Lou Jay also shaking. Hands stuck in pockets. The shoulders stiff.

-Nope. I need to get back. I got things to- -Wait a minute. Am I gone see you after the wedding?

-You gone see him later, Ricky! What you- -Don't say nothing, Renee, fore we get into a fuss. Am I gone see you after?

-Ricky, your daddy-you saw- -I asked you something.

-Well, sure, you gone see me. I live here, don't I?

-That's right.- Her voice still low. -And Lou Jay, if you- -Renee, shut up.- I'll knock you down in a second, he thinks, but only Lou Jay can see how she is staring now at the face none of them had ever glimpsed in the man who must soon be her husband.

-I asked you, am I gone see you? I mean see you.-Hands folded into tight purple fists.

-Ricky- -I got to see you, Lou Jay! You don't know- -Ricky, now- -Tell me!

-I got to go, y'all. I'll see y'all in the church.

-Lou Jay!

-Bye.

-Lou!

-Bye, Ricky.-Walking off quickly up the road in the direction from which they'd all walked earlier. The air becoming cooler as he mounted the hill-and strange, he would think later, because there wasn't hardly no shade up there, after all.

Feeling Ricky's stare burning into him all the way up the hill, until he rounded the curve near the higher meadow that bordered the farm-fields where there should have been a gentle breeze and wasn't. Recalling the horrible burn, like the feeling, he'd received only once in his young life, when he'd put the wrong finger at the wrong time into a beaker of hydrochloric acid in high school biology lab. The finger hadn't ever been the same, not really. One of the fingers he would need to write postcards from Birmingham, like those pasted on his bedroom wall, if he could find them on that campus seen only once. But Birmingham was far enough away . . .

When, just as he finished rounding the curve, he heard the screams far below and behind him, he ran all the way back to the part of the road where there was a view right down the steep slope into the Meadow valley. He saw Renee. Down in the dirt on the side of the road. And saw Ricky, pulling her hair and kicking her all around, especially in her stomach. Saw her bleeding, spitting up blood. Saw how she tried to get up, and how Ricky punched her hard, right in the mouth, then kicked her in the side of her head. Again. And again. Even from that distance, perhaps because of the day's still heat, the sounds seemed audible for miles. Soft, wet noises. Thinking, before his mind began to scream along with Renee, that to some people there was no better proof of love than that.

-Ricky! he screamed, running as fast as he could down the hill,-Ricky, stop! You want your daddy to kill me? You fittin' to get you and me killed! I got to go to college! You gone kill your own child, Ricky! You gone be a daddy! That's Renee you beating on! We all friends! Ricky! You hear me? You can't go beating up on no girl like that! Stop that now fore you kill Renee!-Then feeling his heart chugging up inside him in the way of the heart attack that had been predicted for him before he reached forty, just like his daddy. But still he couldn't stop, not even when one dark bird and then another and then still another flew out of nowhere right into his face and he fell flat on his behind in the road, tumbling over and over on those sharp little stones until he raised himself in the dust to see the blood and dirt on his hands and forearms as he tasted it in his mouth and felt it warm and sticky and dirt-smeared all over his face. Thinking that it was, yes, Mama, like he couldn't even taste or feel Ricky in that private place inside him anymore, Then take me now, Lord, or the water and the reeds, and wash me, Jesus, or the sand and the soft soft gra.s.ses, and O shall come on a cloud descending, but could only sense that big new bitter taste, that one, inside every part of him that he knew he shared with the one who knew it all and had been all up inside it and back around, cause thou art the light, cause I ain't never wanted n.o.body else not n.o.body but you, cause I feel a fire in me, Lord, when I see you riding up this way, but O your daddy learned you good and you ain't know til now how good did you, he thought, flying: knowing that it was that terror and all before it back to the time of the holy rider and his blazing flight unto the fiery angels and their swords and light that were lifting him now, exploding in sharp fragments inside him as he ran and felt the sun and the sweat on his back and the familiar blood on his face, as just then and for the rest of his descent a million dark birds released from dreams charged blindly up into the sky turned a deeper red with the heat of the day, as each eye of that face came out to look at them and score into them the curling marks once recognized in blistered skin-right there, where the prophets spoke in flaming tongues, the flier knew, and where the first words of their lasting flame were always, before anything anyone could call truth or love, just plain old hurting sorrow.

Black and Boo.

BY MICHAEL KAYODE.

Sandwiched between undulating and chaotic vehemence to his left, stiff machismo to his right and the swirl of voices off of the TV screen Black sat his mind churning.

Sergio was the vehemence. He'd an att.i.tude all day, refusing to share with anyone what was bothering him. He was funny like that sometimes, just let it things burn him up until a channel for release came along, like a tarantula still and observant waiting for the perfect prey. He'd spent the better part of the day wiping stains off of his brand new red and white Jordan's with his hand. A long plain white s.h.i.+rt exposed the contours of his gangly frame and blue jean shorts stopped at the base of his calf. They hung over three pairs of fresh slouch socks.

The stiff machismo was Sam. Sam was a twenty-two-year-old neighborhood dude. He was dark skinned and wore a plain black baseball cap over his closely tapered fade. He rarely smiled or showed any emotion for that matter. He always acted like he was being watched. Although his movements were sudden and mechanical, his hands always stayed in a defined position. Either one was clenched in a fist and sat in the palm of the other or it stroked his chin hairs as he supported his elbow in his palm.

d.i.n.k was the 4th member of the gang He & d.i.n.k had known each other for a long time but they just started hanging tough in the last couple of months.

They were pa.s.sing around a blunt, which d.i.n.k had taken into the kitchen with him. Although it was very hot outside, the temperature was cool in d.i.n.k's three-bedroom apartment at the bottom of Maryland Avenue. His building sat in a lowland about one hundred feet away from Langston Hughes golf course. Under the dim ceiling lights the television provided most of the rooms' illumination, as well as serving as the center of attention. The group had gravitated towards the black, hard plastic, twenty-five-inch monitor that was rounded on the corners, behaving like giant gnats with the TV as an equally large porch light. It sat like a monument to procrastination under a thick cloud of marijuana and boat smoke.

Earlier in the day they smoked a blunt of boat: mint leaves wet down with embalming fluid. Sitting sat around the kitchen table, the sun casting a bright rectangular ray on the flowery table cloth, d.i.n.k had asked Black if he'd ever smoked boat.

Black had looked across the table at the stony expression on Sam's face and unflinchingly told d.i.n.k a bold faced lie which he'd instantly regretted. He wasn't a liar. He might lie to his mother to avoid chastis.e.m.e.nt, but he didn't lie to his friends. Well, there was that one time a couple of years back before he lost his virginity when he told them he'd had s.e.x. This time he'd concluded it had either been an attempt to impress Sam or to have one up on Sergio. Sergio However, knew he hadn't smoked boat, unless he'd done so in the two weeks since their conversation where he said that he hadn't.

Regardless, Black had wrinkled his face and disdainfully spat, "Yeah man, come on," his voice morphing from his usual ba.s.s laden tone to a high pitched whine as he spoke.

d.i.n.k had looked in Black's eyes, inhaled what seemed like all of the oxygen in the room and said, "Aiight," then heavily exhaled.

He'd then exchanged a meaningful eye contact with Sam, who he sometimes referred to as Sam-Sam, and continued rolling the blunt. Sergio, facing the wall with his fingers interlocked and his forearms resting on the corner of the table, he nodded his head in a rhythmical motion to the sound of Tupac's "Come with Me." During the brief silence that followed d.i.n.k's statement, he'd restlessly squirmed in his seat, his feet unconsciously s.h.i.+fting towards the front door.

"I know you smoked boat before," d.i.n.k had blurted as he looked at Sergio.

He was licking the blunt and his head was bowed so his eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled to the top of his sockets. Sergio looked straight at d.i.n.k.

"Yeah, young. Why don't you hurry up and light that s.h.i.+t," said Sergio.

This was his way. To recklessly attack a situation when he felt threatened or challenged. d.i.n.k heeded his words and lit the blunt, then pa.s.sed it across the table to Sergio, breaking the rotation. The rotation was the rule that the blunt was to travel either clockwise or counter clockwise. Sergio placed it in the small opening between his lips and vacuumed in the smoke, then immediately coughed the smoke back out stirring up riotous laughter amongst the group. Black' made sure his laugh was the softest. In fact he smiled more than laughed. Surprisingly Sergio didn't try to save face, just gathered himself as the laughter simmered down to chuckles and took another pull. This time it was a baby pull. Still the fumes irritated his throat. He caught his cough in his mouth but his body jerked as a cause of it. This was also funny to the guys. He looked like a young Dizzy Gillespie.

Black also knew that if he inhaled deeply he would cough, because he occasionally coughed when smoking good weed. Taking the blunt, he asked it into an simply soda can to his right while he devised a way to make it appear that he wasn't the novice Sergio revealed himself to be. Then He inhaled the smoke into his mouth but used his tongue to cut off the channel to his esophagus. After swallowing the smoke like a sip of fluid he hastily expelled it through his nostrils. Then ashed it again, giving himself time to absorb the dry chemically saturated taste. It didn't taste like weed. It tasted like wrapping your lips around the exhaust pipes of a Metro bus as it pulled away from the curb. He put the blunt in his mouth and cautiously inhaled at an even slower rate. The entire time he kept his eyes fixed on the cherry. Once it flared up and burned the blunt he stopped, then opened his eyes wide as he held the smoke in the pit of his mouth before blowing it out like a kiss. He pa.s.sed the blunt across the table to Sam. The movement made his head feel woozy. His arm felt like it was moving in slow motion. Tupac sounded like he was defending him as he berated his enemies with verbal taunts. He sat back flushed with the feeling of accomplishment. Mission accomplished, he thought they laughed when Sergio smoked but didn't when I did.

Now, hours later, he was close to sleep, but just as he was about to doze off he was awakened by Boo's whiney voice. His eyes met hers as soon as they opened. She was smiling and standing over him with her left hand on her hip. He could tell she'd been getting some sun because her skin was a nice dark, smooth syrupy color. Her hair was tied in a ponytail with a black rubber band She was looking very s.e.xy in some skin tight sky blue jeans that hugged her from black belt with square silver ornaments to ankles. She wore an equally tight tank top tucked into her jeans. Her round b.r.e.a.s.t.s poking out created an erotic fervor in Black's heart. The tank top was so tight it revealed the contours of her bra from the shoulder straps to the lining. Her nipples pointed straight at him.

"One of y'all gotta walk with me to take Shontay home," she demanded.

Shontay hovered near the door. She wore some tight black jeans and a red s.h.i.+rt with a leather coat. She was a honey-complexioned girl with short frizzy hair, sodden with gel. Because she had a little weight on her she stood with her back to the wall hiding her wide b.u.t.t. Black figured Boo befriended the girl because she wouldn't compete with her for any boys.

Black looked around. Sergio was seated to the left of Black eyeing Boo hungrily.

"I'll go wit y'all," Sergio offered enthusiastically.

"Nah, you aiight, you was watching the movie," said Boo. "Go head and watch your movie. Come on, Black, go with us. You ain't doin' nothin'," she whined as she gently kicked his foot.

"Go 'head, young," exclaimed Black as he kicked her back. Every time he and Boo were in each other's presence they bickered like first graders trying to hide the fact that they liked one another.

I mean she cute and all but she too silly. She definitely gettin' phat, I'll give her that, but I don't wanna f.u.c.k wit her. I'll find a reason not to f.u.c.k with her. Sometimes it's because she's d.i.n.k's peoples, then because she too f.u.c.kin' annoyin'. Both my brother and d.i.n.k be tellin' me I should go head and f.u.c.k her. It's like when somethin' be real easy I don't be wantin' to do it. I don't know, that's just me. I like hard s.h.i.+t. If n.o.body think I can do it, then that's what I'm a do. With her, if I give her what she want all she gonna do is want more and more. She asked me for a dollar one day and I slipped up and gave it to her. Now every time she sees me she ask me for a dollar. I don't hardly got it like that. Now if I don't go walk wif her to her friends house then she gonna try to make me feel bad. She good at makin' somethin' out of nothin'. She'll probably come back sayin' some strange man looked at her funny or some n.i.g.g.a grabbed her just to make me feel bad. Then she gonna hype it up like I'm being mean to her. For real, for real that's why I ain't got no time for her cause she too hype.

"Come on, Black, you not gonna do that for me?" moaned Boo.

When she got desperate her neck limply tilted to the side, her eyebrows arched inward and her lips poked out Black looked at Sam, then Sergio and let out a loud sigh. Boo reached down, grabbed his left arm and tugged on it. Black let his body go limp to provide the maximum resistance. He was only sixteen but at 5' 11", 186 pounds he was solid. Boo was grimacing her body in a tug of war stance as she pulled on his arm. Still he barely budged. d.i.n.k reentered the room & their eyes met and they simultaneously shook their heads.

"Please, Black", whined Boo in a phony innocent tone.

"Leave my company alone Boo," d.i.n.k said jokingly.

The only reason d.i.n.k was still standing was because he antic.i.p.ated sitting on the cus.h.i.+on soon to be vacated by Black. He injected his comment with the intention of stirring things up. He knew how to manipulate Boo and vice versa. He'd been doing it all his life.

Boo turned to d.i.n.k while still tugging on Black's arm and said, "Ill, mind your business d.i.n.k. Ain't n.o.body worried about you."

"Aiight, aiight. Let me go first," reluctantly said Black.

"Nah, 'cause if I let go of your arm. All you gonna do is sit right back down," said Boo.

"No, I ain't," said Black.

"What's the difference? If you goin', you might as well get up now," said Boo.

Black knew Boo had no shame and she would go to any lengths to have her way. He began wondering whether his resistance was even worth it. After all, she had successfully disturbed his frame of mind.

"For real, let me go, young," Black shouted in a tone that made Boo's heart skip a beat.

"You comin', right?" said Boo.

Black responded with a stone-faced glare. Boo released his arm warily. Black nestled his rear end deep into the cus.h.i.+on and straightened his pants out with his hands. Then he gestured for Boo to move out of the way by waving his right hand to left, horizontally to the ground. Sergio covered his mouth with his left hand and chuckled. d.i.n.k shook his head. Black felt relieved when he heard the laughter. He didn't want to show any signs of succ.u.mbing to Boo even though he was. Boo's eyes tensed as if she'd been bitterly betrayed.

"f.u.c.k you Black", said Boo As she marched toward the door all eyes, including d.i.n.k's, were on her b.u.t.t cheeks as they swung back and forth. Her b.u.t.t wasn't big-the cheeks were about the size of volleyb.a.l.l.s-it was just right and she had great legs to go with it. In those tight jeans she was almost irresistible to the average man.

Black sighed heavily. Then slowly rose from the couch and walked behind her. Boo felt his presence. Turning her head to the side she gave him an over the shoulder evil eye. Black heard a chorus of "Aws," "Suckers" and various other jibes as he walked out the door behind the two girls.

The sun was setting in front of them as they walked up the hill toward Shontay's house. It left its heat behind as a parting gift. The sky was a three layered mesh of dark blue at the top, sky blue in the middle and fiery orange at the bottom. The evening crawled with life. The streetlights had just come on, voices of children and adults filled the air and sirens sounded faintly in the distance. Cars drove past blasting an a.s.sortment of urban tunes. Kids rolled by on bikes. Bands of children darted in the streets and through the courtyards between the buildings. There were small groups of teenage boys on almost every corner and in front of most buildings. Groups of females paced up and down the sidewalks wearing revealing, bright-colored clothes.

Boo was making a concerted effort to ignore Black. She walked along the wire fences with Shontay between them, milking the moment for all it was worth. Black could tell she wanted a formal apology from him for embarra.s.sing her, but Black's take on the situation was that she had embarra.s.sed herself.

Black began to lag a few feet behind wondering why he was walking with them. Boo peeked at him out of the corner of her eye. She didn't think he saw it, but he did. Then she steadily chirped in Shontay's ear about boys who liked her, and how she didn't know what to do. Many thoughts enter Black's mind. The dominating one was of Boo's a.s.s. As much as he tried to look away, his eyes kept finding their way back. Pa.s.sion invaded his body. He fought it off valiantly with thoughts of old experiences and images of other girls he viewed on the avenue.

His mind and body were in agreement that they wanted to have s.e.x with Boo, but his spirit was still undecided. He could already envision having to talk on the phone with her every day or come over to visit her. And he didn't want to dog her because as much as she p.i.s.sed him off, he genuinely liked her. Boo didn't have a boyfriend and in an unexplainable way he thought she was waiting for him. He was sure that if he came on to her she would melt like b.u.t.ter in a bowl of cream of wheat. He was confident that she would get hooked on the s.e.x. He'd seen other guy's d.i.c.ks in p.o.r.no movies and in the showers at school. From this he'd concluded he had a bigger-than-average p.e.n.i.s.

"Ill, why you walking back there?" Boo asked.

"Y'all talkin'. I ain't wanna interrupt. I thought you was mad at me or somethin'."

"Why? 'Cause you was showin' off for your friends?" said Boo. "I wasn't mad at you. You was just gettin' on my d.a.m.n nerves."

"Psst. Man, I'm sorry," Black said in a staged somber tone. "I ain't know you thought I was showing off. Ill, what I'ma show off for them for, come on now. I was just smacked. For real for real."

"Nah, that's alright. You ain't gotta apologize. I know how you go now," said Boo.

"Whatever, young," said Black. "Go head."

They came to a busy intersection at the bottom of the hill, a divider marking the middle of the street. Cars zoomed past in six different directions. Buses moaned as they stopped and then started again. Across the street was another apartment complex. To the left and behind them was a shopping plaza. To the right was an imposing apartment building and a convenience store on an island. The signs lit up the night.

Standing at the corner they waited for the light to turn red or or for a break in the traffic, whichever came first. Black took a couple of steps into the street then stepped back on to the curb as a minivan rolled over the spot he'd just been standing in. Finally the light turned red and a caravan of cars came to a halt behind each other. They drift wove their wall through the thicket of vehicles, over the divider, and sprinted across the other side of the street as cars from the crossing streets turned onto the road. Boo gripped the back of Black's s.h.i.+rt, screaming jovially while Shontay waddled behind.

They hit the corner and walked down an eerily dark, desolate street. There were no streetlights. Fans and air conditioners hummed ominously. Large oak trees exploded out of plots on the sidewalk, their leaves twice as abundant on this street side because they naturally sought the illumination of the sun. The apartment buildings blocked the sun and on the left side of the street tall row houses did the same. The bases of some of the trees were as wide as twelve feet around. Mushroomed at the top they looked like green and brown pom-poms. Other than the lights that shone through the blinds of the windows of the apartment buildings and houses. it looked like the residents of the block had been tipped off about an impending apocalypse.

They pa.s.sed an alleyway that led behind the apartment complex. It took them three seconds to pa.s.s yet Black still saw a sight he'd never seen before. Time stood still as he beheld a dingy mutt with a brown coat and a black snout cornering a woolly gray cat against a fence and a power line pole. The cat's eyes glowed as he defended his ground. The dog prodded the cat with its nose, exposing surprisingly sharp teeth. The cat rested on three legs holding the front right one up like a tired boxer trying to conserve energy by doing everything with one arm. He let out a savage meow. The dog viciously barked back. Then the cat retracted his paw and violently swung it across the face of the dog. Blood trickled down the dog's face as he staggered backward, fl.u.s.tered and deeply lacerated. The cat ran through an opening in the fence.

I'm glad d.i.n.k ain't here. If he would've seen that, trust me he would've been like "Man I wish I had my pistol with me. I'm bout to let y'all walk home by y'all selves." Or he would probably get real cold and be looking at everybody funny. That's my n.i.g.g.a but he be lunchin' sometimes. I be wit him on that s.h.i.+t sometimes but then he'll come up with some crazy s.h.i.+t that'll make you be like "What the f.u.c.k is you smokin'?."

"Daaaaaaamn," said Black.

"What?" said Boo.

"Nothin'," said Black after he paused. "I just seen some vicious s.h.i.+t."

As they approached the corner they noticed a group of five boys huddled in front of a house near the middle of the next block laughing loudly and acting out. They were a rag-tag looking bunch. Black took notice of them. He knew how the boys around his neighborhood treated strangers.