Ace of Spades

by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The floorboards above creak once again. Who else is here? My heartbeat grows faster.

  Belle looks up at the ceiling, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t have a choice. It’s been a family tradition for decades. My mom, my dad … my sister. They all went to Niveus. They are all invested in its … traditions, because it’s what my family has always done. We go to camp, we learn more about the past … and about how the future could look just like it if we plan properly. It seemed harmless: get two kids to drop out, move on in life, forget…”

  I’m dizzy.

  Of course she had a choice. People always have a choice.

  “… And it’s not just Niveus; there are places all over the country that … that do this.”

  She still can’t look at me.

  “What is ‘this’ exactly?” I ask, trying to sound as calm as I can.

  Belle is pale, tears flowing down her face. I hate her lies and her fake weeping. She shouldn’t be the one crying here.

  This time the creaking comes from the staircase. I look toward it, body tense as I expect to see a masked figure emerge.

  “They call it social eugenics.” Her voice stutters out.

  The words puncture my chest.

  Social eugenics.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She sniffs. “I … As soon as I got to know you, I regretted everything. I wanted to change it, make things better for you, but the system is so complicated. There are so many people involved.”

  I wipe my eyes. “You’ll be glad to know you didn’t hurt me. I don’t get hurt by people I don’t care about.”

  Belle flinches at that.

  “And you can’t ruin my future either. It’s in my hands—not Niveus’s, not yours or your sick family’s.”

  The doorbell rings. “That must be my ride,” I tell her, moving away. Her chair scrapes against the floor and her hand grips my arm.

  I turn to face her. “Get off me.”

  “Please, just trust me.”

  Her eyes look like crystals dipped in blue poison, her lower lip quivering, lashes blinking, face reddening.

  A white cat is seated in the middle of the stairwell, watching the scene unfold. When it catches me staring, it hops back up the stairs, which creak from its sudden movement.

  I look at Belle again.

  “Trust you?” I’m breathing fast, chest billowing. “I never want to see you again.”

  I yank my arm away, opening the door.

  Richards stands there waiting for me. His eyes move past me and over to Belle.

  I don’t want to be here anymore. I just want to leave and never have to see or think about her again.

  “Let’s go. The smell of bitch-ass liar is nauseating.”

  * * *

  When we get back to my house, I’m expecting it to be empty, like it is at this time most days of the week, but when we walk through the door, Dad is in the kitchen making dinner.

  “Chiamaka?” Dad calls out.

  “Should I wait here?” Devon asks.

  I shake my head. “Just follow me,” I tell him.

  “Coming, Dad!” I shout, walking into the kitchen, where he’s standing in an apron, stirring a pot.

  “Come and taste this,” he says, holding the spoon out at me.

  I make a face. “I’m not hungry.”

  He raises an eyebrow but nods, lifting the spoon to his mouth instead. “It needs more salt,” he mutters, pausing, then looks past me at Devon standing behind me.

  “You brought a new friend over,” he says, sounding surprised. I don’t usually bring over new people. He wipes his hands on his apron before moving toward Devon, who physically tenses up.

  Dad holds his hand out and Devon timidly shakes it.

  “Hi, I’m Chiamaka’s bank account, occasionally known as Dad,” he says with a wide smile. Devon looks even more uncomfortable. Dad’s humor is only funny to him. His glasses are fogged over and he looks a bit like a creepy scientist—what with all the smoke coming from the pots and everything.

  “Anyway … Devon and I need to work on a school project tonight,” I tell him, grabbing Devon’s arm and pulling him toward the stairs.

  “Okay, just keep your door open,” Dad calls out as we leave.

  “I will!” I shout, even though I’m pretty sure Dad has nothing to worry about.

  We go up the stairs into my room, and I close the door behind us, leaving it only slightly ajar.

  “So,” I say, diving right in as Devon sits back on my bed. “When I went to the library, I found this yearbook from 1965. I saw it on Sunday while we were hiding but didn’t get the chance to check it out … There’s this picture in it: ‘Camp Aces.’” I tap onto the photo I took earlier, shoving my phone into Devon’s hands.

  He scans the picture and looks unsurprised.

  I zoom in on a young face. “Doesn’t that look like Ward?” I ask.

  His eyebrows bunch up. “Holy shit…”

  “That’s not all. I found out how the ‘dead’ girl is connected. She’s the sister of a girl I was close with. Belle Robinson, whose house we were just at. Apparently, her family all went to Niveus and are involved in Aces. Somehow, they staged the car accident. Aces was set up to ruin our futures; to invite two Black students who showed exceptional promise to join the school, then to break them down. Stop them from achieving what they should.”

  Devon just stares at my phone, a vacant expression on his face. It’s like he’s not fully here. He’s still shaky; not as much as this morning, but it’s like he’s a human-sized Chihuahua.

  I click my fingers in front of his face. “Hey, Devon?”

  His head snaps up, his eyes glazed over. “Sorry … Yeah, this is fucked up,” he says.

  It’s more than fucked up. These people are evil. But I can tell he’s had to take in a lot in the last twenty-four hours; I can’t expect him to be fully present. I don’t think I’m even really here, or processing it.

  I’m tired.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He shrugs, looking away from me and handing me back my phone.

  I take a seat next to him.

  “Me too. I feel like crap,” I reply to his silence.

  We sit in the quiet for a few minutes. I need to know how to move forward from this, to not feel stuck.

  I grew up in this world.

  One where my hair was petted, tugged, laughed at, pointed out, banned in school rule books. And so I straightened it to comply, to ensure they didn’t probe me or touch me like I’m some pet.

  I got the grades to look smart, because a part of me always feels dumb around them. I got the respect, acted proper, thought I was doing well. Thought I’d get into Yale, no problem.

  Problem.

  No matter what I do, no matter how much I iron down the hair that springs from my scalp, or work as hard as I can, I’m always going to be other to them. Not good enough for this place I’ve tried to call home all my life.

  I can “fix” the kinks in my hair, but not the kinks in this whole system that hates me and Devon and everyone who looks like us.

  A sniff breaks me out of my thoughts and I glance at Devon. He’s trying to hide his face, but I see him wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his alien hoodie.

  He’s crying.

  I pretend not to notice, wait until it’s not so obvious before I speak again.

  “Why don’t we talk more tomorrow, when we’re both well rested. It’s a lot to take in today. We can meet in the morning, think of a strategy to make those people realize we will not be derailed.”

  He looks at me, bleary-eyed. “What do you mean?”

  “We didn’t come this far to just come this far, right? We can’t let them win, so tomorrow morning I’ll meet you and we can think of ways to beat them. Neither of us is in the right headspace tonight,” I say.

  He nods slowly. “Can we meet around twelve? I have to be somewhere in the morning,” he says.

  He can’t be serious.

  “Is it more important than
Aces?” I ask.

  “I have to see a friend tomorrow,” he says, standing up now. I stand with him.

  “Okay, we can meet at twelve … I can come over to your place?”

  “Okay,” he says. I was only asking to be polite; I’ve heard about the neighborhood he’s from. It’s not a place I’ve ever been to, nor do I want to visit. I was hoping he’d say no.

  We walk downstairs and Devon mutters a goodbye before leaving.

  “Was that your friend leaving already?” Dad asks as I walk into the living room. He’s reading a book and eating a bowl of soup, glasses edging toward the tip of his nose.

  I nod. “Yeah, he didn’t feel well, so we’re meeting up tomorrow instead,” I say, thinking about how exhausted Devon looked.

  “Everything okay at school?” Dad asks, flipping the page of the book.

  I wish parents wouldn’t ask that so much. Especially when the truth might hurt them and make them hate you. If I told him “No, school is awful. In fact, I don’t think I can go back, because the whole school is racist and they hate me, Dad,” he wouldn’t get that. He wouldn’t understand anything I told him, because it’s not something he’s ever had to deal with. All he’d register is the fact that I’ve been accused of theft, murder, and fornicating with random boys. And he’d think I was disgusting. I already hate me enough for the both of us.

  Besides, even if I did tell him everything, I know he wouldn’t do anything. Dad couldn’t even defend me when his family would say racist things to me when I was a child. He’d just watch silently as Grandma would mock me and the way I looked. Said nothing when his family no longer wanted Mom and me to visit. Why would he defend me now?

  So I say: “School’s great, Dad.”

  And then I tell him another lie—that I’m tired—and I go to my room, and I try to sleep.

  But all I see is her.

  Images of Martha on the ground after we’d hit her. Dream sequences … or now maybe memories … of me drunk, stumbling into a room, music from the party playing in the background. I start panicking because I see these blond little bloodied dolls everywhere and then I see a figure, which turns toward me, and it’s her.

  I’m screaming but no one can hear me. I’m crying, I can’t stop crying. The music is blasting. I’m shouting, “You’re not real!” and she’s laughing. I can see my reflection in the mirror behind her, my silver dress sparkling in the dark room, the straps hanging off my shoulders. I look like a mess.

  I am a mess.

  I’m screaming but no one can hear me.

  I’m screaming so loud, but no one can help me.

  For a year, my subconscious has tormented me with a traumatic night that wasn’t real. I haven’t been able to sleep properly, and none of it was real. People I knew, people I trusted, made me believe I was losing my mind. I feel angry and lost. How do you undo a fake memory?

  My brain still can’t let go, see it as anything but real.

  At night when the world goes black, despite everything I’ve learned, the hazy dream/memory sequence of that night at Jamie’s house, the party he threw in junior year, begins again.

  33

  DEVON

  Tuesday

  My first time in a prison was when I was ten.

  I remember the exact date too: September 9.

  Even though the place was bleak, dark, and gray, I was excited to be there. I don’t think anyone in the history of life has been excited by a prison. But I was. I missed my pa, and after two years, he finally wanted to speak to me. Before then, he’d denied Ma’s requests to let us see him. Then this time it was Ma, denying his request for her to visit him. She’d followed me all the way to the prison but refused to come inside and see him.

  He looked different from when I last saw him. For one, he was wearing a uniform. It was bright white against his dark skin. He had grown out his beard and hair. His chin was resting on his crossed-over hands, and behind the glass screen, he seemed so distant. I remember staring at him for a while, frozen, not sure why, but scared.

  I eventually gathered the strength to shuffle forward, sneakers way too big for me—Ma always bought them a few sizes up so they’d fit in the years to come. I took a seat in front of him and he finally looked up, like he hadn’t sensed that I had arrived until that moment. His head jolted to the side, and I followed the direction to the gray pay phone, noticing that there was one on my side too.

  He picks his up.

  I pick mine up too.

  “Hello, son.” His raspy voice sends a shiver down my spine. I haven’t heard him speak in two years.

  “Hi, Dad,” I say.

  He smiles, eyes crinkling in the corners the way old people’s do. Dad isn’t even that old, only thirty-two, and he looked his age before. He sure does look old now, though, gray hairs in his cornrows and lines on his forehead.

  “How’s your ma?”

  “She’s good. Working as a lunch woman at school, so I get to see her all the time and she gives me extra servings,” I tell him. When the men took Dad away, I couldn’t eat for days without feeling sick, but my appetite is back, and I’m so happy Ma gives me more pasta than anyone else.

  He rubs his hand across his face and yawns a little.

  “You tired, Dad?” I ask. His eyes are a little red, like Ma’s get when she’s tired too.

  “Yeah, but I’m gonna get some good sleep tonight,” he tells me. He stares at me through the glass. “How are you?”

  I shrug; he’s never asked me that before in my life. “I dunno.”

  Dad smiles. “Yes you do. Tell me what you want to tell me.”

  I’m not sure how to tell him exactly. It’s not something I understand fully.

  “Guys in my class keep talking about all the girls they like. Keep asking them out, keep talking about it,” I start, pausing to see if he’s still with me. Dad nods, and so I continue. “But I don’t think about girls like that. I don’t want to ask them out, or kiss them.”

  Dad nods again, then looks up at the ceiling a little, before returning his gaze to me.

  “I was eleven when I started asking girls out. Takes time, don’t worry; you’ll be a heartbreaker like I was in no time. Did I tell you how your ma and I got together?”

  I shake my head, even though Ma’s already given me her side of the story. I want to hear it from him. Stories are cooler when you hear how everybody else experienced it.

  He ahhs, then says, “We met in high school, senior year. Took me two years to notice her. I was busy working on my music, but when I finally put my sax down, I spotted her, and I knew she was the one for me. We kissed, had you, and got married. So, you see, it wasn’t until I was much older that I settled down with a girl. You don’t worry about that, son. Your perfect girl is waiting for you to spot her too.”

  I nod, feeling a little better. It’s just a matter of time.

  “Dad, when are you coming out of this place? You need to come home. Ma is sad without you.”

  Dad looks down now, silent. I almost think something is wrong with the line, but then I hear him breathing.

  “I uh—” He wipes his face again. “I did something the state didn’t like—something I don’t regret—a real man never regrets, you hear?”

  I nod.

  “Feds don’t agree with that sort of thing, so I’m here. Taking control over what matters is important. But you don’t worry about that, or me being here, okay?”

  I nod slowly, not really sure what he means. Ma refuses to explain it to me. Dad looks at me with this expression that makes me feel like nothing is right and he’s hiding it. I want to tell him about my dreams of him coming home, us being a family again, but I don’t think he’d want to hear that. Besides, we weren’t really much of a family to start with. Dad was never home.

  “Listen, Von, I’m happy you came,” he says. That fills me up like one of those cartoon helium balloons they sell in the mall, all full and bright. I want to say that I’m happy he invited me, but he doesn’t seem
to have finished, and I don’t want to be rude or anything.

  “But I don’t want you coming back here again, ever. I don’t want to see you after today,” he says.

  The balloon bursts, shattering everything.

  What? Why doesn’t he want to see me?

  “Why?” I ask, just as the phone line cuts. A guard pats him on the shoulder, gesturing for him to stand, but my heart is beating so fast. I need to know why; I need to convince him to let me come again.

  “Dad!” I yell, but he’s standing now, looking past me like I’m not there.

  Then he turns and walks away. Through the green door behind him, which slams shut.

  I stay, watching the door, waiting for him to run back and say he was kidding.

  I thought it would be like one of those movies, where at the last minute, there’s a happy ending; people come back to each other and no one is crying. Those movies where the family—two parents, three kids, and a dog—all go to the beach together. Just for the fun of it, splashing about in the water like it hugs them the way their parents do.

  My dad’s never hugged me before.

  Tears rest heavily on my eyelashes, weighing them down, forcing me to blink, let them escape. My heart is racing and I feel a little dizzy.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  I picture the sea. The waves crashing but not in a violent way, in a nice way, like they are loud with purpose. I walk toward the sea, kneeling, touching it, breathing in the salt, then I lie down, let it carry me, hug me.

  My heart stops racing. I’m calm again, but I refuse to open my eyes. I memorized the way from the entrance. I don’t want to see this place again; I’m not excited anymore.

  So I walk on out, eyes closed, running one hand against the wall, as the waves pull me in.

  The sound of a buzzer drags me out of that memory—the last memory I have with my pa. Ma told me she didn’t want me seeing him either, so I never went back. But I get curious sometimes: how he’s doing, whether he’d recognize me still.

  I walk over to the chair in front of the glass screen as a familiar green door opens and Dre appears in an orange uniform. I almost gasp. His face.

  I quickly take a seat, grabbing the phone. Dre stares at me for a bit, eyes drifting down a little to my uniform, then back up to my face. He sits down heavily on the chair and leans back, grabbing the gray phone sluggishly like it’s not got a time limit.