Friday Black

by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

  “Dang,” he says. “Maybe I can fly, too, though.” Fuckton jumps in the air. He kicks his legs back, and points his palms to the ground, but falls back to the tiled floor. He lands in the newly formed puddle of Deirdra’s blood. He does not disturb the puddle, which grows and grows.

  “Nope,” he says.

  “Sucks,” Deirdra says, rolling her eyes.

  “Okay, so now what?”

  “Why are you asking me? I hate you. You just ruined my everything.”

  “Are angels allowed to hate?” asks Fuckton.

  “I guess so, since if I could, I’d bring you back to life just to watch you die over and over.”

  “Okay.” Fuckton points to Deirdra’s head. “Angels have horns?”

  Deirdra frowns and brings one of her hands to the horns on her head. She touches one of the horns for a moment, then quickly drops her hand away, as if they burn to touch. “It’s a style,” she says. “I had a family, you know. Dreams, too.”

  “So did I,” says Fuckton.

  “Well.” Deirdra shrugs.

  “It sure feels like that was a long time ago,” says Fuckton.

  “It wasn’t. You’re not even all the way dead yet.”

  “I’m not?”

  “Nah,” Deirdra says. “For now, you’re a cipher. A corrupted one. Like a ghost but not all the way, I think.”

  “You don’t know the rules yet?”

  “No, not everything. Not yet. It’s coming to me slowly. Like downloading. But it doesn’t matter; you’ll be gone soon and I don’t know what will happen to you next, but I hope it’s bad.”

  “Dang, I beefed it.” Fuckton reaches into his pocket for his trusty Bluntnose. He finds nothing, then he runs his hand through his greasy hair. It isn’t greasy anymore. There is nothing on his forehead.

  “Yeah, you did,” Deirdra says. “I have to go now.”

  Fuckton looks around. “What about me?”

  “Don’t you get it? I don’t know. I don’t care. You’re nothing.”

  “Why do you have to go?”

  “I have stuff to do. I can feel it.”

  “Can I come with you?” Fuckton asks while staring at the body.

  “I never want to see you again.”

  “Please.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “I’m hoping you die,” Deirdra says, her body beginning to glow.

  “Wait!” Fuckton reaches out to grab at her. There’s a flash and a shift.

  Deirdra and Fuckton are in a living room with a green carpet and a brown couch with singe marks on the arms. On the television screen there’s a helicopter view of Ridgemore University. Fuckton is drawn to the television. A news anchor appears on the screen, and says, “More on the Ridgemore shooting. The shooter has been identified as freshman William Cropper, who is believed to be in custody and in critical condition. Early reports describe him as, quote, ‘an off-putting loner.’ Right now there is one confirmed casualty.” The newscaster shakes her head. Then she tosses to Vince Vice, sports anchor. “That’s just terrible, terrible,” he says. “On a lighter note, the Twittawa Typhoons absolutely thrashed the Kiliam Hound Dogs in last night’s season opener.”

  “What? That’s it?” Fuckton says. He turns to look at Deirdra, then at the television, then back at Deirdra.

  “How are you here?” asks Deirdra.

  “I guess I can follow you.” Fuckton opens his fist to show Deirdra that he is holding one of her feathers. It glows in his hand.

  “I’m trying to be nice because I’m transcending, but I really don’t fuck with you. Get it? So give me that.” Deirdra floats down to take the feather away from him.

  “I’ll give it back later. And transcending?” Fuckton tightens his fist around the feather and turns his back to the angel.

  “Just die already!” Deirdra says, the tips of her horns igniting into fire. She takes a few careful, calm breaths. The flames shrink, then whisper to smoke. “Transcending is like a tryout. I’m trying out for a job—no, a position? I guess, like a station? I had a choice, and I chose to stay and help.”

  “I’d like to stay and help,” Fuckton says, standing up, keeping his eyes down.

  “I don’t think you get the same choices,” Deirdra says.

  “But you aren’t sure?”

  “No.”

  “But I can stay for now?” Fuckton looks at her as his hand moves behind his body. Deirdra can see him pinching his upper left arm with his right hand through the hole in his chest.

  “Whatever,” Deirdra says.

  “Thanks, I don’t know where else to go,” says Fuckton. Deirdra stares at him, and as she does, the front door opens. In comes a boy who is just then returning from Wetmoss High School. His name is Porter Lanks. Fuckton immediately recognizes the boy as a fellow member of the bleak-black-by-yourself. Porter’s thin body and slight hunchback make him look like a question mark. No matter how he moves or stands, you can’t help but notice the pinkness of his elbows, the dirtiness of his sneakers, the blotchiness of his face. His eyes are wide and blue. Porter’s mother is home. “Hi, honey. School okay today?” she asks. She is cooking something, but she stops to look closely at her son as he enters the home.

  “It was fine, Mom,” Porter says, meeting her eyes just enough. His voice is low and heavy. Mismatched to his body. Porter runs up the stairs into his room. Deirdra follows Porter, and Fuckton follows Deirdra. Porter closes his door, then locks it with a gentle hand. Deirdra and Fuckton slide through the painted wood. Porter takes a pillow from his bed, brings it to his face, and screams into it. Deirdra and Fuckton watch. Fuckton from the ground, Deirdra near the ceiling fan. Porter screams until the sides of his face shade blue. Then, while maintaining a kind of messy silence, he makes as if to tear the pillow in half. He cannot, so instead he straddles it on the bed and punches it several times. His fists fly awkwardly, chaotically.

  In a flash the angel and Fuckton are back at Ridgemore University in the bathroom above Fuckton’s body, which is limp and pale in the fluorescent light. There’s smeared lipstick on his forehead, a hole in his cheek, a gun in his motionless hand. Bluntnose is in the toilet. Paramedics and police surround him. Loose wisps of toilet paper drink the blood on the floor. A man, a woman, and another man look over the body. One of the medics says, “Maybe he should die.”

  “Dang,” Fuckton says, clawing at his scalp with his fingers.

  “You brought us back?” Deirdra asks. “I told you, I have work to do. This doesn’t concern me anymore.”

  “Why aren’t they helping?”

  “It’s ’cause they know what you are.” Deirdra looks at Fuckton, and her horns begin to smolder.

  “I feel like I could almost . . . ” Fuckton reaches out to touch one of the medics, and as he does, he disappears into the man’s mind. He sees the man’s life. He is a saver of the hurt. He’s seen so much brutality. Every day is brutal. Once he saved a man who later killed himself and his entire family. He is repulsed by Fuckton. But still he is a saver of life.

  A moment passes, then Fuckton reappears. “I was in his head!” Fuckton says. “I was in his head. I think. Maybe I almost made him help me.”

  “Nobody wants to help you,” Deirdra says. “You don’t deserve it. And you didn’t do anything but make yourself into more nothing.” Deirdra points to the hole in Fuckton’s chest that is now the size of a watermelon. She laughs. Her horns erupt into flame again. She stops laughing and closes her eyes.

  There’s a burst of light.

  Back in Porter’s room, Deirdra’s horns glow like hot steel, then slowly cool to black. “Dang,” Fuckton says. He sits cross-legged on a rug. He traces small circles in the ground using Deirdra’s feather. Deirdra floats back and forth above. Porter is on the computer, muttering to himself. “I guess a lot of people are pretty scared,” Fuckton says.

  “Of course. Somebody killed somebody,” Deirdra says.

  “You mean I killed you.” Deirdra stares at Fu
ckton as he continues. “People called me Fuckton for a long time. Fuckton the blimp, Fuckton the hippo, Fuckton the fuckton. Every day for a long time.”

  “So?”

  “I’m just saying, I’m remembering some stuff. Even after I lost the weight. My name’s Billy, but I remember Fuckton more than I remember anything else.”

  “Sometimes I got bullied, too. I figured it out, though,” Deirdra says. “I think, being this way, I’m forgetting some of it. I can’t remember everything. But I know I never killed anybody. And I know I hate you.”

  “Yeah,” Fuckton says.

  “Yup.”

  “I guess you didn’t really have anything to do with it. It would have been better to get someone I actually knew.”

  Porter slams his fist on the top of his desk.

  “They noticed him today,” Fuckton says quietly.

  “Who?”

  “Them. Everybody. He hates them. They never ever give him one single freaking break.” Deirdra floats down and looks past Porter to the computer screen. “He’s reading about you now,” she says. There’s a long block of transcribed text on the computer screen. Fuckton’s picture is at the top with a caption that says, William Cropper, eighteen.

  Fuckton moves to see it. After a few seconds of reading along with Porter, he turns away from the screen. “Yeah, it’s me. I guess I’m, like, really famous.”

  “Not really. But whatever. I’m gonna do my job. I’m gonna help him to not be like you.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I’m gonna try.”

  “Okay. What should I do?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”

  Fuckton looks down at the carpet. He slides his hand through his hair.

  Deirdra closes her eyes and reaches out. Then she disappears into Porter. Fuckton paces back and forth. He touches the feather in his hand to the rim of the massive hole in his chest. Then he lies down on Porter’s bed, clutching the feather. He closes his eyes. When he does, he sees himself crying. That, he remembers, was truly a long time ago. The day he got his gun, Fuckton stopped crying. Instead of crying, he put names on a list and imagined.

  Porter cries no tears.

  “Are you gonna martyr like me?” Fuckton asks while looking at Porter. “Are you gonna do it?” Porter stares at the screen. Then he crashes his fist onto the desk again. Deirdra tumbles back from nowhere onto the floor.

  “Dammit,” Deirdra says. Her horns glow hot, and her wings flap erratically.

  “What happened?”

  “I might have made it worse.” Her wings move faster, fluttering behind her. “I pushed up good things. I showed him how happy he used to be. How happy other people are.”

  “Why would you do that?” Fuckton asks. Porter gets up from the desk and goes into the closet. He digs precisely through some things and pulls out a black handgun.

  “A Sig,” Fuckton says.

  “No! I thought reminding him might help.”

  “That makes it worse. You’re not super good at this.”

  Deirdra stares at Fuckton. “I didn’t know.”

  Porter looks at the gun in his hands. He cradles it in his palms. Then he grips it and points it at Fuckton, the wall behind him, then at his computer. A warm smile pulls his lips apart. “The Order of the Stingray. Guardians of a great truth,” Porter says to himself.

  “That’s one of my lines, from my note,” Fuckton says, jumping up. He moves close to Porter. “It’s a call for the people like us. To remind the rest of the world that people like us deserve to have what they have. We deserve to have more.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry your life was that way. But be quiet now,” Deirdra says.

  “I’m saying I understand him. I used to kind of have this imaginary friend.” Fuckton squints as though he is trying to concentrate.

  “What?”

  “I had this imaginary friend, and he was, like, messed up. More messed up than I was. He had no arms, and he also had, like, Tourette’s, so he said random things like ‘butt cheeks’ or ‘lasagna’ a lot.”

  “I don’t—”

  “He was really nice to me, and he’d try to wave at me, and say, ‘Hi,’ and I’d say, ‘You stupid bitch, you don’t even got any arms, get outta here.’ But he’d always hang around even though I was only ever mean to him. His name was Lucas. I liked him. I taught him about Stingrays. I know a lot about them. He helped me feel better, I guess. Having someone lower than I was. Somebody who would never leave.”

  “You’re—” Deirdra shakes her head.

  “I’d say, ‘Hey, catch,’ and an imaginary ball would hit him in the face, and he’d say, ‘Fuck, cunt, buttersquash,’ and I’d say, ‘Stingrays are basically sleeker sharks with venom.’ And he’d say, ‘Almonds!’ Or I’d be up in a tree and tell him to come join me. But he couldn’t ’cause he had no arms and all. Basically, he’d just smash his face into the bark over and over. It was funny.”

  “So I should be mean?” asks Deirdra.

  There’s a knock on Porter’s door. Porter freezes. “Ports,” his mother says. Porter steps to the door, holding the gun in his hands.

  “No!” Deirdra says. Her wings dance and shake. She moves in the air like a bat. The room is silent except for Porter’s low breathing.

  Porter points the gun toward his mother’s voice. “Ports, are you hungry? I can make something quick before dinner. Want a cucumber sandwich?” The pistol’s dark mouth hovers inches from the white door. Deirdra floats through the door to look at Porter’s mother, then returns. She spins around looking for something to do. Fuckton looks up at her, then at Porter.

  “Calm down. Can you help him?” Fuckton says.

  Deirdra looks at Fuckton and shakes her head and breathes. For the second time she disappears into Porter’s mind. Fuckton waits, watching without moving at all.

  “Hey, Ports,” the mother says, knocking hard with the knuckle of her middle finger.

  “I’m all right, Mom,” Porter says while leaning his cheek against the door.

  “All right, I’ll be downstairs,” she says. Porter moves away from the door. Deirdra reappears, smiling.

  “Yes,” she says with a shimmy of her shoulders. A ring of light floats above her horns. Deirdra reaches up to the left horn, which is now ivory, and tugs down at it. She pulls the horn until it snaps off her head. It turns to sand in her hands and floats to the floor. She tries to grab the other horn, but it hisses with heat when she touches it. Fuckton looks up at her. An angel with a black horn and a new halo. “It means I’m more legit now,” Deirdra says, pointing up proudly.

  “Oh, all right. Good.” Fuckton smiles. Deirdra smiles back, then frowns at herself.

  “What’s he doing now?” Fuckton asks.

  Porter points the gun at a few more invisible people. Then he wraps the gun up in a T-shirt. He puts the gun and shirt in his book bag and zips it up. “No, no, no!” Deirdra says.

  “He wants them,” Fuckton says. “They deserve to feel bad just once. He feels bad every day. They deserve one bad thing!”

  “You don’t know anything,” Deirdra says.

  “I do,” Fuckton says quietly. He looks up at the angel. “You did it, though. With his mom. How’d you do that?”

  “I showed him something he was forgetting. I used to have a mother,” Deirdra says.

  The two of them shift through light and time.

  They’re in a room with hardwood floors. There are posters with athletes and news clippings pinned to the walls. A middle-aged woman is thrashing and crying in a small bed covered in a thick purple comforter. Deirdra looks at the woman, and her black horn explodes entirely into blue flame as she floats down to the bed. Fuckton steps back to a far corner of the room. There’s a prescription bottle in the woman’s clenched fist.

  “Hey, lady, hey,” Deirdra says at the woman’s side. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Why’s she—”

  “You don’t speak,” Deirdra roars, God in her voice.
“She lost her daughter. That’s why.”

  Fuckton touches his hair, then his hole. The woman on the bed sits upright, then pulls a pillow from the bed and brings it to her face. She breathes deeply into the pillow, then opens up the bottle and pours a mountain of pills into her palm.

  “Uh-oh,” says Fuckton.

  “Hey. Easy. Mom, you’re going to be okay.” Deirdra cries along with the woman in the bed. “Easy, easy,” she whispers.

  “Help her. Please,” Fuckton shouts.

  “I know. I will. I am,” says Deirdra, then she disappears into her mother. Deirdra reminds her that in life her daughter was a perpetual force, one that needed to be remembered, loved, even now. That her daughter would never forgive her for ending things this way, and with all the focus she can muster, Deirdra shows her mother her self: her life as this woman’s daughter and her new angel life in the background. Before Deirdra even reappears in the room, her mother throws the handful of pills to the floor. They sound like falling hail when they scatter across the floor. Then Deirdra returns and looks at her mother once more.

  “You did it,” Fuckton says.

  “I helped. That was light work. She’s strong. I have more to do, but she’s gonna be fine.”

  With another shift, they leave Deirdra’s room.

  They are with Porter. It is the morning of the next day. Porter looks as if he hasn’t slept. While staring into a mirror on his wall, he says, “I am Godlike wrath. I am the Law. Today will be a good day.” He leaves his room. He kisses his mother, then hugs her. She receives his hug warmly. Porter goes to wait for his bus. Deirdra and Fuckton follow.

  “This one is different. I can’t help him. I don’t know how,” Deirdra says.

  “Show him bad stuff. He’s like me. Try to show him something like Lucas. Show him maybe it could be worse.” The bus comes. Fuckton sits in the first row in the empty seat next to Porter. Porter smiles at each student who passes him as they board.

  “Fucking tweak,” a tall girl says as she passes. Porter grins greedily at her.