Hold Love Strong

by Matthew Aaron Goodman

  I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know what to do, whom to align myself with. And then one October evening my grandma and I argued about nothing important, something as insignificant as whether or not it had rained on a Monday weeks before, and then Mr. Goines inserted himself into the argument, so I argued with him. Then I argued with my aunt and my grandma and Mr. Goines at the same time and punched the wall in my room, goring a six-inch wound in the drywall. Then I stormed out of the apartment, stomping down the stairs, each step echoing through the stairwell, my hand throbbing, my knuckles bloodied.

  So I had been out since the evening, walking up and down blocks without stopping. And it was near midnight, drizzling after raining all day. I was tired and my feet hurt. The small of my back was tight and sore. But, as if the sound were the Morse code of me, I was still pounding my feet. I was on Columbus Avenue, my hands jammed in the pockets of my coat, my hat pulled low over my eyes. I kept my eyes on the concrete in front of me. I believed I would never stop. I would walk forever. I would follow the streets until they reached a sea that I would storm across too.

  Then I heard the drumming of a ball and I stopped. I looked up. I was a half block from the basketball court. I walked to it. There, two little brothers played one-on-one at the far side. The rain made the concrete court gleam. The little brothers dribbled the ball. The sound was wet slaps. They shouted at each other. They laughed and shot at a rusted rim they could barely see. The cuffs of their too-long jeans and coat sleeves were soaked. They pushed their sleeves up their arms, past their elbows. Moments later, the cuffs gave in, slipped down over their hands again.

  I crossed the street, walked around the fence, and sat on top of the back of the bench farthest from them. Water soaked through my jeans and sent a shiver along my spine. I hadn’t been to school in a week. It was coming up on a year since my mother had died. My ability to rise from bed and shower was intact. But walking to school and sitting in classrooms were gone. I spent my days in the library, at the park, and when my grandma and my Aunt Rhonda were at work, in our apartment. I wondered what did a year since my mother died mean. Titty, Precious, and Yusef tried to talk to me. And Ms. Hakim called and made me promise to be in school on Monday. I hadn’t made the decision to drop out. I thought I would eventually go back. So it was not my absence from school, nor the argument I had with my grandma, nor the throbbing of my fist that consumed me. It was thinking about my mother and one question: What about Donnel? What about him? Was he next?—the question caused me to drift about in a state of incendiary disarray and ignorance. That is, I had come to a mortal decision, a crossroads, the end of a plank. I was fifteen, at the start of my sophomore year. Was I thinking about Donnel because I was to follow him? Or was I thinking about Donnel the way I thought about my mother? Was his absence causing me to hate him? And was it all making me feel helpless and abandoned?

  I watched the young brothers playing basketball, leaping and twisting about each other like tails of fighting kites, their sneakers slapping and skidding against the wet concrete. The larger boy stopped dribbling the ball and told the smaller one to tie his shoelaces. Suddenly, a particular variation of staggering longing landed in my head and a new question engulfed me. Could my mother see me? Right then, right there; suddenly that was all I wanted to know. Since her death, had she been watching me from above? Did she know what type of young man I’d become?

  “Abraham,” came a woman’s voice from behind me. “Abraham, that you?”

  I turned to see a silhouette, but I could make out nothing more. Not even the voice gave me a clue. The woman walked from the darkness and when she came near enough, I saw that it was Luscious, her arms folded across her chest, holding a waist-length black leather coat closed.

  “Abraham,” she said, her face inches from the fence that separated the basketball court from the sidewalk, she from me. “What’re you doing out here all by yourself?”

  I shrugged. Then I tipped my head toward the young brothers playing basketball and said: “Just watching.”

  Luscious brought with her the smell of menthol cigarettes and perfume of a seductive yet humble nature, lavender with kick and heat. She lifted her eyes from me and watched the young brothers play for a moment.

  “No matter the time, life don’t change,” she sighed.

  “What you mean?” I asked.

  As beautiful as she had always been, but with her lips parted in a sad halfhearted smile, Luscious shook her head slowly, then softly said: “I got a letter from your uncle.”

  I was paused with the thought. My uncle? Never once had my family heard from him since he was stripped from Ever and locked away. Luscious’s eyes welled and she whipped them away from me, from the young brothers on the basketball court, from Ever, and she aimed them as high as she could, looking into the sky without lifting her chin. A tear slipped down her face, dripped from her chin. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and laughed gently, one tumble of breath when what she clearly wanted to do was weep. The rumors about Luscious had been true. She had been with Qadisha and when they broke up, she was with other women. She held their hands. She made love to them. But what did he write? What could she possibly say? And who was she to him now? I couldn’t believe he had written to her. He had never once written to us, never even a note or card for Christmas or birthdays.

  Luscious lowered her gaze, lay her sodden sight on the young brothers playing basketball again. “Seven years,” she said, her tense tone blurring the distinctions between anger, longing, and defeat. “I ain’t heard from that man in seven years. And even after all this, after all that’s happened: I still love him.”

  II

  For weeks, my grandma and my Aunt Rhonda talked about it. For weeks, they woke up and went to bed with the fact hot on their lips. For weeks, they planned a celebration so celebratory it was not a celebration but the birth of fireworks born from a Big Bang; a universe had come to the end of its infinite patience. They discussed DJs and songs that had to be played. They argued over where the furniture should be moved so there would be room for everyone to whirl and grind and dance the way they really wished to, with their eyes closed, as if they were alone in the dark and they had sadness and evilness to whip from their limbs. Who would cook what dish? What color should the plastic forks, cups, and plates be? These were major debates and decisions. And the napkins? The tablecloths? The streamers? How about what they would wear? They argued about the colors late into the night. What about red? White would show stains. What about blue? No. This was not Valentine’s Day, a wedding, or the Fourth of July. This was greater; a holier celebration of love and independence. They had to match. It all had to match; the entire festival was to be color coordinated. For weeks, there was no news on TV; no weather outside; no America, Ever, or Queens. No world beyond the joy of our home existed. Old family stories were recalled, old family photographs passed around. My grandma and my Aunt Rhonda predicted what would happen; how joyous the occasion would be; this man would certainly dance with this woman and then this other woman would certainly guzzle all of the punch and eat all of the cake and dance with all of the other men, rub her sweaty body against each and every one. And what about him and her? She and he? Thousands; that’s how many would attend. Like teenage girls high on cotton candy, Coca Cola, and coffee, they couldn’t contain themselves. There was no pause or slowdown. They didn’t speak. They didn’t enunciate. They didn’t talk or discuss. They scatted; like be-de-be-bo-bo rin-tin-tin hi-d-hi-d-ho. They swung their hips, arms, and eyes when they moved. They cooked and washed dishes and scrubbed and mopped and dusted and wiped and cleaned the apartment from crack to crevice back to crack. They did everything, multitasked multitasking awake and asleep, simultaneously. Finally, my grandma’s son, my aunt’s brother, finally my uncle, lord have mercy, Nice was coming home.

  Nothing could hurt us. Nothing could touch us. Nothing could take. And nothing was owed. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s passed. Then it was the spring
and no bills were paid. And rent was skipped. Mr. Goines fixed the showerhead. He spackled the cracks in the walls and ceilings. He bought the lovebirds a new cage. And he gave me money so I could go to the hardware store and buy as many gallons of white paint, paintbrushes, and rollers as I could carry. Then when I came back with it all, straining to carry the gallons and plastic bags up the stairs, Mr. Goines, Donnel, Eric, and I painted the apartment. The walls, the ceilings, the doorframes; the bathroom, the bedrooms, the front room, the kitchen, he made everything shine with white.

  “You see how we didn’t go dripping nothing on the floor,” he said pushing a firm gaze and countenance upon us and pointing at the carpet when he was done. “You all got to learn how to live like that. Responsible. Respectful. Your grandma don’t got to be living with no stains no more.”

  That was a Thursday, and the next day Donnel vanished. He was nowhere to be found. No one, not any of his friends nor anyone else in Ever knew where he went. He was just gone. On Saturday, my grandma and my aunt asked me if I had seen him, and because I so hoped he was somewhere near and because I didn’t want to disturb the incredible bliss of my uncle’s pending homecoming, I said I saw him on Friday walking with some girl.

  “What chick?” said my Aunt Rhonda, saying chick with a severity meant to emphasize that whomever he was with was not worthy of her son. “He ain’t never said nothing about having no girl.”

  “I never seen her before,” I said.

  My Aunt Rhonda screwed her face. She didn’t believe me. “She ain’t from Ever?”

  “He’ll turn up,” my grandma decided. “Don’t worry. Sooner or later he’s gonna have to change his drawers.”

  Compared to the incredible bliss of my uncle’s pending homecoming, Donnel’s absence seemed minor. In fact, after I told them that I saw him they seemed not to care. After all, Donnel was twenty, old enough to vote and fight in a war. So it was as if Donnel were some trivial, lost trinket that would turn up when and where they least expected. Maybe on Sunday, or maybe Monday. But if not on Monday, then Tuesday, and if not Tuesday then Wednesday. But if not by Wednesday then they’d call the police precinct to see if any black twenty-year-old male named Donnel Singleton had been apprehended or admitted to a nearby hospital because he had to be home by Thursday. Because Friday was the day my uncle was coming home.

  But it didn’t get that far. In the middle of Sunday night, Donnel shook me awake and demanded that I go to the roof with him.

  “D,” I said, my voice loud, my eyes blinking like he was a cloudy apparition. “Where you been?”

  “Shh,” he scolded. “Shut up. Just meet me on the roof.”

  Donnel turned and walked out of our room, leaving the door open behind himself. My heart pounded. As fast and as quietly as I could, I put on my jeans and grabbed my sweatshirt. Then I jammed my feet into my sneakers and hurried out of the room. But when I walked out of the room, he was already gone. Something made me stop before running. My keys. What if we got locked out? I couldn’t let that happen. I slapped my hands on the front of my jeans to make sure my keys were in my pocket. They were. So I left too, making sure to close the door as quietly as I could.

  I went to the elevator. The faint green L in the black circle by the buttons indicated that the elevator was at the lobby. I pushed the button. A second passed. I heard the elevator begin to move. But it was always too slow. And I had no patience. I could not stand there and wait to begin my ascent. And I thought that Donnel must have taken the stairs because the elevator was already below us and it never traveled that fast. So I ran to the stairwell, opened the door, and began to climb. The stairwell was so dark I might as well have been sinking in ink. My mind was electric, awake, but my body was still half asleep so I misstepped, tripped, and smashed my shins on the edge of the stairs. At another time, I would have paid attention to the pain. I would have lifted my jeans and checked for bleeding or how big the bumps had already bloomed. But nothing would stop me from catching up with Donnel. So I rushed to my feet and hurried faster up the stairs. I went all the way up without stopping. I never once put my hand on a railing. And when there were no stairs left to climb, I pushed open the roof ’s steel door.

  Donnel stood at the edge of the roof. His back to me, his hands planted on the ledge, he looked down at the street. The first thing I thought was that he was going to jump.

  “D,” I shouted. “What’re you doing?”

  Donnel didn’t move. So I ran to him. But after three strides, he turned around and laughed, and the sound of his laughter stopped me in my tracks.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “You,” he said.

  “Me? Nigga, where you been?”

  Donnel smiled the wide, all encompassing, and limitless smile of a child. Then he turned around and pointed at the night sky. “There,” he said.

  I looked over his shoulder, traced my eyes along his arm to the tip of his finger, and then followed his finger to what he pointed at. In the distance were the moon and the stars, and the lights from a few planes moseying across the black sky.

  “Outer space?” I said. “Nigga, I’m serious.”

  He dropped his arm, turned around, and set his eyes on me. “Me too,” he said. “I flew.”

  I shifted my eyes from him back to the sky.

  “In a plane,” he added. “First class too. Niggas thought I was some sort of rap star and everything. Gave me free drinks. Leather seats damn near big as our bed.”

  “Get the fuck out of here,” I said.

  I didn’t believe him. I looked at him hard. In one of those steel birds that went silent and smooth thousands of feet above Ever? No way. Impossible.

  He put his right hand over his heart and raised his left hand in the air. “Swear on Jelly,” he said. “Swear on Grans, on my moms, on Eric, on any unborn kids that I might one day make.”

  I still didn’t believe him. “Then where’d you go?”

  Suddenly, he was sick of my incredulity. He made a face like he was going to eat me. He sucked his teeth and shook his head no. Then, in a rush, he reached behind himself, lifted up his shirt, and pulled out a crumpled gold-colored folder that had been rolled, folded, and crammed between the top of his jeans and the small of his back.

  He unfolded the folder. He walked across the roof to me.

  “Atlanta,” he said. He jammed the folder in my hands. “Century Twenty-one. We getting out of this motherfucker. We ain’t staying in Ever forever.”

  I looked at the front of the folder. He huffed a gust of irritation, snatched the folder from my hands, opened it, and handed it back to me. Then he stabbed his finger at a picture of some big white house.

  “Nigga,” he said. “I got half that easy.”

  It was too dark for me to see how much the house cost, but I stared at the picture of the house, refined white columns, front porch, seemingly palatial.

  “What was it like?” I asked.

  “Real nice,” he said. “And hot too. And the girls, nigga…Even the real skinny ones is sexy, bodies like melting Fudgsicles, Pudding Pops, chocolate all curvy and dripping down my hands. God damn it was beautiful!”

  “No,” I said. I pointed at the sky. “The plane. Flying.”

  Donnel dropped his eyes and thought for a few moments. Then he looked up at me. “You a virgin still?”

  “What?” I said.

  “You a virgin?”

  “Nigga,” I scolded. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Cause if you wasn’t then you’d know what flying was like,” he said. “Weightless. And the only reason you know you’re alive is cause your dick is half hard and your heart is bumping in your throat.”

  There was a moment of silence that Donnel seemed to deem dangerous, and he grabbed the folder from me, jammed it back into the back of his jeans, and put his face an inch from mine.

  “Say some shit,” he whispered. “Tell anyone, and I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

  III

/>   Eric made the invitation for the party. I wrote what needed to be said. It was a welcome home Ever Park party. My uncle was coming home; another man was going to be released. I photocopied the invitations and delivered them, slipped them under doors, passed them out on Columbus Avenue, at the basketball court, on any bus, any corner, any street I put my feet on.

  “Give them to anyone you see fit,” said my grandma. “And don’t be too choosy. The more people the better.”

  I gave the invitations to Titty, Yusef, and Precious, extended members of our crew and every fine girl regardless of her religion, social ability, and whether or not I knew her name or if she already had a man. I left a stack of them in all the barbershops, the recreation center, all the liquor stores, the Chinese food hole-in-the-wall, and all churches, corner stores, and hair salons.

  Then there were four days left. Then three days. Then two. I wondered who Nice would be. Certainly not the same brother who’d left. Certainly he didn’t have the same wants and needs. And what did he look like? He’d left on the cusp of adulthood. What sort of man was he now? Did he and could he know? What had the seven years done to him? What were his habits, his idiosyncrasies? Would anything he’d do, anything he was be familiar? What developments, emotionally, physically, intellectually, and socially; what state of affairs, what of the world, and what of his perspectives and convictions, and what conditions; whose death; whose life; whose maturity would surprise, possibly overwhelm him? And what about Luscious? How would they take to each other? Would they tell each other who they were while absent from each other’s lives, how they lived, and what pains and joys they’d had? And whom she longed for, whispered to, and loved? And me and Donnel and Eric; how would my uncle deal with us? Would he see us as men or children?

  Finally, the morning of his return came. Mr. Goines arrived with the cake and flowers for my grandma. Then Luscious knocked on our door, came in, and declared her baby was coming home. Although it was not yet summer she wore a white dress and a thin white shirt that exposed her shoulders and white open-toed shoes and through the windows the sky was blue and the sun was a cymbal, crashing its golden shine off the new white of our apartment and Luscious’s freshly lotioned, lustrous skin.