“We don’t open until eleven,” the man said. His voice was high and slightly effeminate, with the faint hint of a Baltimore accent. He sounded gay. Linc seized on to those facts. He knew he looked unprofessional and rumpled. He hadn’t had a chance to do laundry, so he was aware of the musty odors wafting from his shirt. (At least he had changed his undergarments.) He was aware that he was a tall black man who exuded an aura of homelessness.
“I am here because of the job ad,” Lincoln said. He made sure to articulate each word.
“Ah,” said the man. “Yes, that. I’ve never had anyone just walk in like that.” He looked ill-at-ease.
Linc gave him his best smile. He knew that some of his teeth were discolored, and that there was some facial wasting evident. But he also knew that he could be charming when he wanted to be. “Well, I’ve never just walked in for a job before. Here’s to firsts.” (This last statement was a boldfaced lie. Most of the jobs he applied for as he drifted about the Eastern Shore were responses to HELP WANTED signs.)
“Do you have a résumé?” The man with the hot pink glasses stepped out from behind the information desk. He also wore hot pink socks.
“No, I do not,” he said. “I just got into town. My name is Lincoln White. I am a dependable worker…”
“I’m sure you are, Lincoln.”
“Call me Linc. For short.” Lincoln extended his hand, and kept eye contact with the man. That’s when he noticed the guy’s eyes. They were the oddest shade of green that he had ever seen. They were almost yellow, the color of key limes. They clashed with his aggressively pink outfit.
“All right. Linc. I’m Howard. Howard Lenski.” He clasped the offered hand. Linc knew that he had large hands. His hand engulfed the delicate hand of Howard. Howard’s hand was soft and dry, like paper. His own hands were rough and callused. At least his nails were cut, so there were no crescent moons of dirt beneath them.
“Howard,” Linc said, slowly letting go of his hand, “I am a hard worker. I’ve done custodial work many, many times. I am happy to send you references.” (He was pretty sure that Jessi at the Lighthouse Hotel would give him a good recommendation.)
“I have a couple of interviews lined up,” Howard said. Linc could tell he was lying because Lenski broke eye contact, and besides, Linc was a seasoned liar himself.
“I’m willing to do anything. Anything. Nothing is beneath me.”
He saw the calculations going on in Howard Lenski’s mind. This was a risky gambit. He hoped that he hadn’t come on too strongly. But he was desperate. He needed the money. Linc would be out on the streets in a week, and it was no longer summer. He could imagine the wet, damp cold sneaking into his clothes, into his bones. A podunk art gallery was more appealing to him than dock work.
“I,” Howard stammered and stalled. He’s a closet case, Linc thought, and he’s unsure if I’m flirting with him. If it came to it, he might give Lenski a hand job. He’d certainly done worse. Middle-aged white guy was something of a staple beneath the boardwalks. “Well, Mr. White. Lincoln. Linc. I’m in a bit of a jam. A pickle. The last custodian here left on bad terms. Suddenly.”
Linc nodded in sympathy. “I grew up around museums. I’m a DC native. The Smithsonian was my playground.”
“I’m from Baltimore, myself.” Good. I’m in, thought Linc. “The Whitby-Grayson Museum is hardly in the same league as the Smithsonian. As you can see.” Howard Lenski waved his arm, indicating the off-white walls, the flickering light tubes. The museum was bare bones.
Howard continued speaking, but the words fell to the background. One of the hanging frames had caught Linc’s eye. What drew him to the wall was the psychedelic wash of color. He’d done a little research about the Whitby-Grayson Museum. Read a Wikipedia article about the quilts and the paintings. The images in the wiki did not do justice to the work. The colors were so vibrant, so bright that they seemed to move. The green and the blue and the brown cloth were slightly worn. But the bright pink-purple blooms practically pulsed.
He thought he was hallucinating. Linc was reminded of three-dimensional postcards, the ones made of heavy card stock, that changed every time you moved them. Jesus or the Virgin, their eyes closed one way, opened another. Those wild, impressionistic smears of color, not the pink of Valentines, nor the purple of Prince in his regalia, but somehow, both, and neither.
“Are you familiar with Hazel Whitby’s work?” Howard interrupted him.
“A little,” he said, absently. His eyes moved across the abstract fabric, trying to make sense of it. “It’s amazing.”
He moved to another tapestry. This one was just flares of magenta, with lightning strikes of dark blue. The third quilt was circular, bright blue in color, and in the center, a single spot of that peculiar hue. It drew Linc’s eye in until he felt that he was swimming in some lagoon. He moved toward the flickering flame through the shallow water.
Lenski’s voice pulled him back from the lagoon, brought him back on land. He reluctantly turned toward the man, knowing that he no longer wanted to work here. He needed to work here. Suddenly, the museums of the Smithsonian seemed like airless mausoleums. This museum, however, seemed alive.
“You know, Gerald, the last custodian, the one who quit, couldn’t stand the artwork. He told me, ‘It’s too loud.’ He also thought the museum was haunted.”
“It’s brilliant,” Linc said, and really meant it. “I mean, it’s like Rothko. Like Sam Gilliam.” The references came tumbling out of his mouth of their own accord. He wasn’t trying impress Lenski with his bougie background. But there are some things that, when you first see them, they seem perfect. Things that can break you, things that call to you. Things that make you see your true self.
These strange quilts, with their odd geometric and bold colors, made Lincoln White feel human. And he hadn’t felt human in a long, long time. He’d been a walking scarecrow, haunting the Eastern Shore where he’d spent many a vacation with his family. The family that now didn’t speak to him, that had cast him out like a rag.
Lenski said, “Hazel has that effect on some people. And to others, her work just looks like a mess.”
“It is a mess,” Linc said. “A beautiful mess.”
Whatever wariness Howard Lenski felt melted away. Linc could see it fall away from his face. The man’s whole body relaxed. “When can you start?” he asked.
8: Iris (1979)
Thirteen was a summer of ghosts.
Gilead Baptist was just around the corner from Pop-Pop’s house, and since her grandfather was a religious man, there was no avoiding services. It was summertime, and she was thirteen, and chafing under Pop-Pop’s rules. By this time, Aunt Earline had moved out of the house in to her own apartment, so it was back to the three of them. Mom and her aunt didn’t get along. They were always fussing at one another. Iris still missed seeing Aunt Earline every day. She always stuck up for her. And she did not believe in the religious indoctrination of children. “Let them come to God on their own time, on their own terms,” she said. Aunt Earline would let her stay home on Sundays.
That was over now. Now she was back in itchy, stiff church clothes. Mom still insisted on her wearing ribbons in her hair, as if she were a little girl. The dress she wore looked like a nightgown, a peach tunic with a lace ruffled collar. She had black patent leather shoes and white stockings. She looked like a little old lady. The other girls wore more modern clothes. Some of them even wore dress pants with nice blouses.
Sunday School was held in the church basement, before services began. The ground-level windows, cinderblocks painted bright yellow and the grimy tile made the place look like a prison. Her fellow inmates slowly shuffled in. Many of them went to school with her, and like in school, they hung together in cliques. The cohort was a mix of ages, from five-year-olds to younger teens. Because Iris was not popular, she sat with the younger kids. Since she was dressed like a little girl, she might as well sit with the little kids. I look like Shirley Temple, she thought.
The desk seats were arranged in a semi-circular pattern, facing the blackboard. A picture of a haloed Jesus, with long blondish-brown hair and holding a lamb, was taped on the left wall. To the right of the blackboard were discarded felt banners. Iris sat in the second to last seat, next to the banners, a fellow outcast.
Miss Beryl was the Sunday School teacher. She was a plump, pretty woman who wore flowered dresses and seemed to change her wigs often. Today’s wig was curly black hair, with reddish highlights. Some of the kids called her Miss Barrel due to her weight.
She walked into the classroom, taking her place at the blackboard.
“Good morning, and God bless you,” she positively sang. “Now let us bow our heads in prayer.”
During the Lord’s Prayer, Iris felt someone come into the room. They took the empty seat next to her. Iris glanced at the new person when the prayer was over.
She gasped.
“Iris?” asked Miss Beryl.
“It’s just… Nothing.”
Someone snickered. Iris knew that people thought she was weird. That some people referred to her as Ritz, like the crackers. As in, Rissy is crackers. Ritz the Ditz. It used to bother her. Now, she could hardly blame them. For the most part, she kept the things she saw under wraps. She tried not to react when she saw the haloes of color radiating from people. Most people’s auras were transparent things that could be ignored, but occasionally there would be someone whose colors demanded attention. Their haloes would warp and tremble, stretch and contract. It was nearly impossible not react to it. They were like silent fireworks. One of her teachers complained that Iris was a good student, but had focus problems. She told no one about this ability. It might have gotten back to Pop-Pop, and who knows what he would have done? Maybe he would banish her, like he did to Aunt Earline.
What she saw sitting next to her, in church of all places, was not a person. It was the shape a girl of about six or so. But it had no features, no hands, or legs. Just the silhouette. The girl-shape was made of an undulating, ever-changing calico-print fabric. Tiny multicolored starburst flowers in tones of pink, blue and red rippled where she would have had a face, or hair. Every now and then, an eye, or a mouth would blur into existence before it unraveled away.
Iris couldn’t pay attention to Miss Beryl’s lesson about the Good Samaritan. She tried her best to ignore the most intrusive vision yet. When the class was over, Miss Beryl marched the class upstairs to worship with their families. Iris was the last to leave before Miss Beryl turned the lights off. She still saw the Calico Girl, sitting patiently in the seat.
***
The neighborhood where Iris lived was full of abandoned row houses. They were like rotten teeth. Every third or fourth house was boarded up or had broken windows. The front yards were full of weeds and the stairs had moss growing in the cracks. She had to pass these houses every day to get to the store, to school, or to the library.
About a week later, her mother sent Iris out to pick up some groceries at Sonya’s Market, a corner store a block away. Iris loved going to Sonya’s because they had a store cat, a friendly orange tabby named Comet. On her way back home, she passed by the once mint green abandoned house in the middle of the same block as Sonya’s. There was a person standing in the front yard. The shape of a man, with an Afro. He was golden, the color of ginkgo tree leaves in bloom. That bright, painful gold that almost seared the retina. The Gingko Man walked around the front yard, a pitiful crop of dirt, broken glass and struggling clover, then turned toward the house.
He walked through the boarded-up door with its bright orange Caution sticker. It was a conflagration of color.
It’s not real, Iris told herself. He’s not real. She walked past him.
***
The Calico Girl wasn’t present the following Sunday, or the next one. It was a shock to see her return almost a month later, in the middle of the repast after services.
The repast was the best part of going to church. Women bought a variety of food to the basement hall. It was served buffet-style, along with cold drinks and punch for the children. Iris loaded up her paper plate with smothered chicken, three bean salad, a couple of rolls and macaroni and cheese. She eyed the dessert table, with its array of cakes and cookies, deciding then and there to at the very least get a slice of Mrs. Wilkins’ coconut cake. She sat down at a random kids’ table. Two of her classmates from Glaser Junior High, Dionne Franklin and Eunice Bissonette, were also seated at the table. Their Sunday Best was fashionable, dresses in solid colors accented by low high heels. Dionne had her ears pierced, and Eunice wore lip gloss. Iris felt frumpy next to them. Her mother would never let her get away with those outfits.
“Hello, Iris,” said Eunice. “You’re looking nice.”
Iris tried to read the expression on the girl’s face. Is she being nice or sarcastic? She gave up. She couldn’t read faces. But she could see auras, and tonal shifts and vibrations usually meant something. Both of them radiated a cherry-red color that was stable.
“Thank you,” Iris said, and smiled. “I like your lip gloss. And I love your earrings, Dionne.”
“These things?” said Dionne. “They’re just starters.”
“I like the color. They’re cute.”
The three of them chatted, small talk about other classmates and teachers, their summer plans. The conversation flowed naturally, and Iris felt a buoyancy in her chest. It was a bubble that floated up to her brain like a helium balloon.
Then she saw the Calico Girl, out of the corner of her eye, a flash of floral motion. She—it—moved through the crowd, weaving between legs and tables. Every now and then, when she had to, the Calico Girl would move through solid objects. When she did so, something happened. A table shuddered, a chair tipped a little, a person zoned out or reflexively scratched something. It was fascinating, really. Better than cartoons. It was also—sinister.
“You should come up some time,” Eunice said.
Iris snapped back to the conversation. Eunice had been talking about her family’s summer place in Cape May.
“I mean, it’s just a condo,” Eunice continued. “But they let us, that is, my brother and me, have guests for a weekend or so.”
“That would be nice,” Iris said.
The Calico Girl had wandered into the kitchen. Maybe she would stay there.
Dionne said, “Cape May is nice for that Ye Olde Fashioned stuff. I like where my folks go: to Atlantic City. All of those fabulous hotels. You ever been?”
“Yes. Once.” She remembered Atlantic City being both seedy and gaudy at once. The whole neon mega-hotels fronted a slum no better than the one she grew up in. The people on the crowded boardwalk all had the same hollowed out look, black or white, male or female. The casinos just sucked their souls dry. The sound of slot machines, the tacky decor, the crush of crowds made her feel dizzy.
“I can’t wait to get back up there,” Dionne said.
“There’s too much white trash up there,” Eunice replied. “They look all greasy.”
“As if there aren’t PWT up in Cape May. Cape May is a bargain basement Martha’s Vineyard.”
Iris couldn’t tell whether they were fighting for real or not. Their cherry-red auras didn’t flicker, not once. She was about to say something, maybe about her own paltry family summer plans when the ghost, or whatever it was, stepped out of the kitchen and continued its invisible rampage of small disturbances. It passed through Pop-Pop’s wheelchair. One wheel spoke moved forward, straining against the brake. It passed through the dessert table. A tiny shower of crumbs fell on the black-and-green linoleum. No one noticed. No one, except Ritz the Ditz.
“What are you looking at?” Eunice said, her voice startling Iris.
“Nothing,” she said, peeling her eyes from the Calico Girl’s antics. She thought, Is she looking for someone? Does she even see the living people around her?
Dionne peered in the direction of the dessert table. “She was looking at that coconut cake.”
She silently thanked Dionne for changing the subject.
***
Walking into Aunt Earline’s apartment was like walking into another world. Earline had rented an efficiency in Center City, a primarily white neighborhood. Most of the buildings there were prim and proper colonials and row houses. There was history beneath the brick sidewalks and cobblestone streets. Every other building had some official plaque. Ben Franklin walked here! George Washington stayed over there! It was also a bustling business district, full of trendy boutiques and restaurants. It had taken Iris an hour to get to the building, both by bus and rickety SEPTA train ride. There was a gingko tree in front of the building. She remembered the eerie golden man she’d seen in her own neighborhood with a shudder.
Earline lived on the fifth floor of the building. Her apartment was tiny, but it was stuffed full of amazing things. The walls, for instance, were hung with wooden masks. Masks with horns and tusks. Masks that looked like animals and masks that looked like people’s faces. In another context, some of the faces would be scary. But the context was Aunt Earline, so these scowling, placid or angry wooden faces were oddly comforting. The window sills were full of potted plants, things in terra-cotta with trailing or coiling leaves.
She was on the phone when the door opened. “Calm down, sis. She’s right here. I just buzzed her in.” Earline rolled her eyes at Iris.
“Hi, Mom,” Iris said loudly as she took in the weird splendor of Earline’s tiny apartment.
“She wants to talk to you.” Earline handed her the receiver.
“You promise to be on your best behavior?” her mother asked her.
“Yes. I’m not three.”
“Don’t give me any attitude, girl. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
When she hung up the phone, Earline said, “She’s overprotective. But only because she loves you.”
A Spectral Hue Page 7
