Kaya and her friends didn’t see me coming, or at least it didn’t seem like they did, although they might have known I was coming all along. Either way, they didn’t look up or stop talking when I came near.
“You go to war,” Kaya said, making eye contact with everyone at the table, “for love.”
They might have been discussing something from the news or a movie, a book, or TV show. They might have been discussing a song, a ballad, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the creation of Islam, the spread of Christianity, patriotism, or the lyrics of a collaboration between a gruff-voiced rapper and a velvet-throated soulstress who clenched her fists and stomped her feet every time she reached deep into her chest for a high note. Or maybe they were discussing two people we knew.
“Abraham,” Kaya said, suddenly looking at me and speaking with the same level of passion she’d just spoken with. “What you doing?”
I smiled, tried to play cool. “What you mean what am I doing?” I asked.
“After school,” Kaya stressed. “You gonna go look up Timbuktu?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You?”
“I already know it. Besides I got to read for English.”
“You gonna go to the library?” I asked.
Kaya screwed her eyes at me. “What you think?”
Kaya was always at the library. She sat in the farthest cubicle from the front door and stayed there, hunched over, headphones pulsing music into her ears until all of her homework was not only finished, but written without smudge marks, crossouts, or crinkles in the page. How could I have forgotten such a thing? Suddenly, I froze. I was off balance. I stuttered. I shrugged. I feared someone, maybe Taquanna, would demand to know why I wanted to know if Kaya was going to be at the library. What did I care? And what was I doing there anyway?
Behind me, my friends exploded. They slapped the table with their hands, threw their chins in the air, laughed so hard some fell out of their chairs.
“A damn shame,” Yusef called out.
“I told you nigga’s scared,” added Titty.
Scared? I thought. I ain’t scared of nothing.
V
Keep your eyes closed,” said our science teacher, Ms. Hakim, a young, exuberant clay color woman originally from California who once brought in her college diploma to prove to us that she graduated from Harvard. “OK. Open them.”
Except for the slivers of white light cutting past the edges of the drawn window shades, everything in the class was black.
“Nightfall,” said Ms. Hakim. “Now look up.”
Nothing had prepared us for the sight. Some students laughed. Some giggled. Others gasped and sighed things like damn and shit. On the black ceiling there was a galaxy of glow-in-the-dark star stickers.
“Abraham,” said Ms. Hakim. “Tell us. What do you see?”
I was fascinated by the sky, with stars, moons, and planets, and the far away. “To tell you the truth,” I said, “I don’t know what I see.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” she scolded, refusing to let me off easy. “You quitting on yourself just like that? I thought you were somebody. And every somebody has an opinion! Try again.”
I loved Ms. Hakim. “I mean,” I said, “I don’t know nothing about astronomy.”
“But what do you see?” she urged. “Use your imagination! You’re standing in the middle of outer space!”
“Well,” I said. “If I’m in the middle of outer space then I’m a star too.”
“Good,” said Ms. Hakim. “Good. I hadn’t thought of that. That’s good. So we’re all stars. Taquanna, what about you?”
“Well, first of all it’s astrology, not astronomy,” said Taquanna.
“OK,” said Ms. Hakim. “Is it astronomy or astrology?”
“Which one is the one with the signs?” asked Yusef.
“You tell me,” said Ms. Hakim.
“Astronomy is what we’re looking at,” decided Precious. “And astrology is the shit girls read in the paper to find out if a nigga loves them.”
“Choose another word,” scolded Ms. Hakim.
“Shit,” Precious said. “I mean, sorry. Astrology is what girls read in the paper to find out if their nigga loves them.”
“Shit ain’t the word I was talking about,” said Ms. Hakim. “Try again.”
“Oh,” said Precious. “My bad. Astrology is what girls read in the paper to find out if their man loves them or not.”
“Thank you,” said Ms. Hakim. Then she raised her voice and spoke slowly and clearly, as if she were reading the accomplishments of an award recipient. “For the next two weeks, we’re going to surf celestial bodies and ethereal drift. How’s that sound? Deep, right? Well it’s outer space, the universe. Who thinks life is out there?”
“Definitely,” said Titty. “You seen that movie ET?”
“If you do,” continued Ms. Hakim, “then what kind of life? Is it life that we know? Or is it an alternative, extraordinary form? If yes, what do these beings endure to survive? What do they breathe? Hydrogen? Carbon monoxide? Oxygen, like us? Are there trees in outer space? And how about if there is life on other planets, what is their capacity when it comes to love? Will they hate or love us if and when we meet? Do they even have the capacity to hate? Or are humans the only ones in this vast universe who do? And do you know that some stars, some of the biggest and brightest we see, actually died thousands of years ago? Almost like they are burning on the hope that they might be seen. Look up. Think. Tell me about the stars. Tell me. What do you see?”
VI
In front of my building, a brigade of brothers stood against the exhausted red bricks with hours to kill and breath smoking from their noses and mouths. It was late in the afternoon. The sun was just about to set. The coming evening soaked Ever in a fresh bruise. Some stood with a foot cocked behind them, the soles of their shoes pressed flat against the brick. Others stood with their arms folded across their chests. Alton Johnson stood with one foot on an old orange milk crate. Elijah had his hands jammed in his pockets. Heads were cocked to the right, tilted to the left. Ennui was postures, dispositions, faces, and fact. I said hello, slapped hands, and was teased a bit, then I hung around, eavesdropped. Talk spanned from women and no woman to jobs and no job, the government and the basketball games on TV the previous night. What happened to who? And what couldn’t be believed. And what was going to be done about it. Nearly every time and no matter what the initial conversation had been about, talk always shifted into a relationship with revolution, personal revolution, familial revolution, community revolution; city; state; revolutions in other countries; monumental comebacks and reversals; last-second shots and touchdown passes; Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 1968 Olympics; Watts riots; Rodney King riots; the riots that should be happening in Detroit, St. Louis, New Orleans, Kings County, and Queens.
“Imagine,” Elijah announced. “If a nigga became president.”
“They’d kill him,” said Alton. “Before a nigga even steps foot in the Oval Office, they’d shoot him in the head.”
So the topic of discussion shifted to the notion that a brother might one day be president, a fantastical social leap our minds could not make without having to silence self-doubt, and the facts of our history, both as brothers in Ever and brothers in greater America.
“Shit,” said Mo, a tall, slender brother in his late twenties with smooth russet skin who said everything as an exclamation. “All I know is one day rap music is gonna boom from the White House stereo! And whether or not it’s a nigga or some white boy from the suburbs shit is gonna happen! America has got a hard-on for niggas! We’re like the apple in Eden! First niggas hang us in trees! Then Eve plucks us. And all Adam wants is to be just like us!”
“One day Ever is gonna be historic,” Elijah announced.
“Is that what you call this?” asked a short, fat, jovial brother who went by the name Moochie. “Is that what niggas are? History? Like we just standing around waiting to jo
in the dinosaurs? Like one day some Indiana Jones is gonna come and dig up our bones and say Wow, so this is how niggas lived?”
Suddenly, someone came from behind and snatched me in a headlock, then wrenched and squeezed and bent me over. Brothers stopped talking. They laughed and called for me to fight back and fight back more. I fought with all of my might to get out of the clutch. I was yanked up. I was pushed down. I was a dinghy lost amidst a violent sea. I was being drowned then saved by the same force. I flailed. I kicked. The arm around my neck tightened.
“C’mon Abraham!” shouted Alton. “Free yourself! Get out of that grip!”
I was turning blue. My lips were cold and wet and my tongue was bone dry. The strangler’s wrist dug into my windpipe. I wheezed. My eyes throbbed, then swelled and sizzled. Snot leaked from my nose. The world was crusty purple and red. Brothers’ faces melted into burgundy puddles during each sporadic moment I could see. I owned nothing, not even a sliver of my five senses. I smelled nothing. I tasted it. Then I felt it and saw it and heard nothing and all at once I stopped fighting and my entire body, from my eyelashes to my toes went limp.
“Who’s your daddy?” the assailant asked.
I knew the voice as if it were my own. Donnel. Why was he choking me? He eased his grip. Then he shook me and squeezed his grip again.
“Nigga,” he said, “I’m talking to you.”
Digging deep, I uncovered a pocket of oxygen in my chest and gasped.
“I,” I said.
“Nigga, what?” Donnel exploded. “Huh? Tell me. Shout it to the world! Who loves you?”
Who loved me? My grandma. My Aunt Rhonda. My Uncle Nice. Eric, I supposed. But him, Donnel? I thought so. But at that moment I wasn’t sure. And the doubt caused my body to burst with rage. So I tore at Donnel’s grip. I clawed at his arm. I wanted to breathe and I wanted to breathe now. I had to. Because I had to turn around and look Donnel in the eyes to see whether or not he loved me. I was desperate for that holy confirmation. But Donnel didn’t give in. He didn’t relax his grip or release me. He fought back and squeezed tighter. Then he leaned all of his weight on my shoulders. He was trying to buckle me, to make me succumb and crumble. I refused. I fought to remain on my feet. My legs burned. My knees quivered. I could stand. I would stand. Then I couldn’t. I collapsed to the concrete. Only then did Donnel let go.
“Nigga, what you got?” he asked, bouncing back on his toes like a boxer, his fists up. “Huh? Get up. Stand and fight. Let’s go.”
I had nothing. He was relentless. I was too exhausted, too hurt to even look up. I remained on my hands and knees, burning and aching. My throat ablaze, crushed. I breathed deeply, filling my body with air. But I didn’t rub my neck or let myself grimace. I wouldn’t allow anyone the satisfaction of witnessing pain as a part of me. I looked down at the concrete and considered all of the ways I could respond; the things I could but shouldn’t say, how I could charge at Donnel and swing. I could have cried if I were someone else, someone not Abraham from Ever. I cleared my throat and spit a wad of bloody phlegm on the ground. Somewhere I was bleeding. Slowly, I lifted my eyes and laid them on Donnel, hoping that it had not been him who attacked me. But it was. Why? I wondered.
I took one great deep breath and pushed myself up to my feet. Then I stared at Donnel blankly, my hands hanging at my sides, the sound of brothers teasing me a washed-out drone. Donnel wore a black hooded sweatshirt, a black winter coat, and a black baseball hat. I was hot, sweating. He bounced forward and snapped a jab that came within an inch of my face. Then he bounced back on his toes. What had he come for? Why had he chosen to arrive in the manner he did?
“Throw your hands,” he demanded. “Didn’t I teach you to fight?”
Donnel stood still and waited for me, his fists up. A mischievous grin creased his face. Then he dropped his hands and his smile unfolded into a soft tumble of laughter.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
He reached his hand out and waited for me to slap it. I stared at Donnel’s hand and thought about leaving it there, hovering between us until it rotted and stank, or dried and turned to dust, or he ran out of the strength it took to keep it aloft. But Donnel didn’t give me the time to make a decision. He looked at brothers. Then he snatched his hand away. I thought about punching him with all of my might, blasting his head open with one ferocious blow. How could he do what he’d done? How could he attack, offer peace, then leave me with nothing?
He breathed, smirked, and shook his head no. “Where you coming from?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” I said.
Quickly, Donnel swung at me and his open hand clapped off the top of my head.
“Nigga,” he scolded. “Be specific.”
I wanted to swing back. “The library,” I said.
“The library? What you doing there?”
“Reading,” I said.
“Reading?” he said, smugly glancing at the others as if to prove or at least question whether or not reading was a valid answer. “About what?”
“Timbuktu,” I said.
He laughed. “Timbuk-what?”
I glared at Donnel.
“Timbuktu,” I said. “Where everything, everyone, even salt was precious.”
BAR 7
Reconstruction
I
The older I got the more difficult it became to navigate my feelings about love and loss. From one moment to the next, I never knew what I might long for or hurt inside about. My mother or Donnel. My grandma. My uncle. And then there was Kaya. All through the spring I found ways to coincidentally meet her in the library. Then I would walk her home in the evening, sometimes in silence, sometimes dribbling my basketball around her as we walked, and sometimes pouring forth a succession of bad jokes and anecdotes to make her laugh as much as to keep the subject of our conversation far from what I was thinking and feeling. But then I never knew what I needed to express. I had suppressed my core, and in response, what was most imperative went without an identity. So my emotions were colorless and weightless. They had no scent or relationship to nature. I could not describe them in concrete terms, embodied by a metaphor or simile. My emotions were arrivals and departures, nonstop insignificances speeding through a station. In other words, I felt just some things because I didn’t know nor did I have the capacity to verbalize and thus understand what I most lacked. So my emotions rose inexplicably, then split and fell in separate ways. I might be enraged. I might be solemn. Then I might be thankful. I might be sincere, honest with myself when thinking about potentials and predicaments. Then I might lie; say something was unbelievable although I believed. I might blaspheme and then suddenly be righteous. I might doubt and then know everything. I was like a plastic bag caught in the air, suspended by the battering of opposing winds. My grandma said it was my hormones, that they were making me real impossible; a motherfucker, a son of a bitch, just like one of those lunatics they lock up. “Abraham,” she said. “What’s gotten into you?”
The same question was applicable to her. That is, if I had lost my mind then so had she. Because Mr. Goines had become a sudden fixture in our apartment. He sat on the couch and talked at the TV during sitcoms and Knicks games. He ate at the kitchen table with a newspaper open before him and criticized the news to anyone who was near. He wrote ideas out on legal pads, page after page, his faux tortoiseshell glasses crooked. Everything, all of their seemingly heavenly and holy love affair, all of the perfect excitement my grandma swelled with over Mr. Goines’s visits and overnight stays, how he slept in her bed and he and she would kiss, gently, like fish, made my stomach twist. Because I feared for my grandma but I also wanted her to be loved and happy. So I watched Mr. Goines’s every move. And when she and he were near each other, I made sure to see if he loved her enough. It seemed he did. Even when they argued, he was respectful, calling her Honey, Sweet lady, Baby when he addressed her accusations.
But that didn’t mean I trusted Mr. Goines, or, for that matter, wanted him in our home.
Because I didn’t. And because more than my mistrust of him, his presence poked holes in and deflated Donnel. I saw it in his face and all over his body. Of course, he said nothing about it. He didn’t tell me or Eric or my Aunt Rhonda that he didn’t want Mr. Goines coming around. He didn’t talk to Mr. Goines more than a mumbled yes or no. Sometimes when Mr. Goines was there before Donnel came home, Donnel kept his head down and left within an hour. And when he disappeared, his absences were longer. And so no longer was it only that I rarely saw Donnel, but when I did see him, he didn’t look me in the face nor let his eyes rest on anything too long. He was nineteen and he had considered himself to be the man of our home for a long time. But now it seemed a man had come to take his place. So he must have felt as if he was being pushed out. So he responded by acting as if he was running away. But not running to something; running as if he was chased, hunted and hounded, preyed upon by everything from the sun to the night, from the air he breathed to everyone, even me.
Hold Love Strong Page 18
