Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights

by Susan Straight

  Darnell watched her tiny fingers, her shoulders held straight, and he kept his face to the table. When the heavy oval plates were cold and Brenda was silent, her eyes blurred, he said, “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m tired,” she whispered, and he felt a jolt of fear hit him again.

  After he drove to his mother’s house, Brenda lay on the couch, wrists curled close to her nose, and was asleep in minutes.

  “You always fall out like that,” his mother whispered, watching her. “You can’t help it, when you expectin.” She looked at Darnell, then went back to her table. The sewing machine hummed hard; she had an order for curtains.

  Darnell sat on the arm of the couch, seeing the glisten at the corner of Brenda’s lips, her stomach slanted high against her elbows. She looked bigger lying down, and he said to his mother, “How you know if it’s twins?” His breath felt hot under his nose.

  She looked up, startled. “Huh? What you talkin bout twins?”

  “GranaLene said I was a twin, remember?” He walked over to her, and her finger went behind her ear, the red polish sparkling.

  “Granny always want to talk about the sad things,” she said, finally. “You know that.”

  “She said twins run in our blood,” Darnell kept on.

  “Brenda ain’t hardly big enough for no twins,” his mother said, bending over the fabric. “Don’t start rememberin all that again. You better hush, you gon wake her.”

  Darnell stood near the couch again. Brenda always joked that no noise could wake her once she was asleep; he always opened his eyes at any small sound when he lay on this hard-cushioned boat of a couch. He watched her between the shimmery noise of needle and breathing. “She gotta go back to work soon.” The words hurt his chest. “And I gotta stand in line at unemployment, just down the way.” He headed for the door. “You wake her up, Mama. I’m in the car.”

  Darnell got Honoré to make the cake. Honoré made cakes and pies in his tiny apartment and sold them to people for parties, weddings, reunions. “You want all the flower and garland and leaf?” Honoré said in his accent, soft Louisiana like Brenda’s mother.

  “Yeah,” Darnell said. “Those purple ones.” He looked at the cake Honoré had on display at the long shelf near the back wall. Violets and tiny pointed leaves and flourishes of pink everywhere. “Make it pretty.”

  Honoré shook his head impatiently. “How else you see me make em?”

  At George White’s apartment, Darnell waited in line behind two other men for a haircut. Here’s the plan, he thought. Brenda’s daddy gotta see a clean head, if he don’t bust it open straight off. And then I can say I’ma get unemployment, and it ain’t shit, but I might get called back in March. Only three months. And I’ll have another job in the meantime.

  He sat in the chair, looking into the mirror over George’s low metal shelf lined with bottles and hairdress cans, and he watched George’s hands with the clippers. George didn’t talk unless you did. Usually, the other men on the couch kept the living room loud. But the place was empty for long minutes, and Darnell stared at his own face, half sleepy. His ears flat, his forehead square, the reddish tone under his cheeks and neck that Brenda’s mother had teased him about when he was a boy. Not pretty like Melvin or Snooter—not tall like Donnie or Louis. Just a everyday brotha, with a everyday face. Need a everyday job right now.

  George said, “You want cuts?” He held the razor over Darnell’s head, and Darnell hesitated. White people didn’t like the parts etched into scalps, the slanting lines or lightning strikes, especially not letters or numbers. He’d heard Scott and the others make fun of college ballplayers with them. I have to look serious square. L-7 suburban, like Gas says. “Not this time, man,” he said.

  George was brushing the tiny hairs from his neck when Leon, Mortrice, and Louis came in. “Darnell, man, heard you was in town,” Leon said, touching Darnell’s palm. “Baby bruh told me.”

  Louis nodded. “Long time,” he said, hands in his pockets to hunch his wide shoulders. He was so tall the mirror reflected his chest instead of his face.

  Mortrice said, “Two years, right? You was in the hills and shit?”

  “Yeah,” Darnell said. “But wasn’t nobody up there to cut my naps, so George been seen me.” They all laughed, and George pointed Darnell off the chair.

  Darnell watched Leon sit down. Before George got older and began staying in his apartment all the time, he drove a van that said MOBILE STYLE on the side, and all the fathers on Picasso would push their sons inside, where they would twitch while George shaved their heads for summer. He was a former military man, and he wouldn’t let them keep their big naturals.

  “Just trim me up, man,” Leon said, closing his eyes. George started happily on the fade at his temples. He loved the short styles everyone had now.

  “Darnell, man, how’s Brenda?” Louis asked in that soft voice. Darnell dipped his head, shrugged.

  “I guess we gettin married, man,” he said, feeling the word hum on his lips. “She’s havin my baby—what can I say?”

  “So you a daddy?” Leon said, handing George a bill when he got up. “Ain’t no serious hardship, except your dick belong to somebody else if you gettin married too.”

  Darnell turned for the door. “Yeah, well, lemme take my dick and the rest of me where I gotta go.”

  “You stridin, brotha?” Leon said. “I didn’t see the Spider.”

  “You might not see it again,” Darnell said.

  “Come on and ride, man,” Leon said, and Mortrice pushed open the door for him.

  In the Bronco, a head swung around to see who approached. Leon said, “This is Vernon.” Louis got behind the wheel, saying, “So you puttin a ring on your thang, huh?”

  Leon laughed before Darnell could speak. “Shit, this nigga never was into much hoochie. Just Brenda. But, Darnell, you did Marlene once. Tell me you ain’t gon miss that.”

  Darnell looked out the window. He and Donnie had been with Marlene behind the snack bar at the stadium. Her hands on his elbows, pulling hard; her breasts low and wide, pressing his chest in the wrong place. He’d smelled not Brenda’s heated baby powder, the scent he’d always dipped his head near, but a jagged salty smell rising from Marlene’s chest. And when he closed his eyes and pulled her hips harder, he saw Brenda’s high, round breasts, the tiny nipples. Keep a cherry pit in your mouth, that’ll stop your thirst, his father always said, and that was what he felt on the center of his tongue with Brenda, a slippery-hard cherry pit to keep.

  But mostly it was Marlene’s voice. “Do this,” she said. “Do that now.” And she kept talking, getting mad when he stopped. “You ain’t like your brother,” she’d said. “You ain’t about nothin. He could teach you somethin.”

  And somebody’s cousin from LA, in Melvin’s friend’s apartment. Melvin’s girlfriend of the minute had brought her for the party. Darnell only remembered the red velvet spread, the wet heat between their legs, the drops of sweat falling from his forehead onto her hair, and her hand brushing them away. Her name was Lonna; she had smoked a lot of weed.

  Melvin and Victor, Leon and Marlene, all the older kids from the neighborhood, played hide-and-go-get-it, behind fences and hedges and sheds, and you had to do the nasty with whoever you found. Darnell had lain on top of a few girls, moving his jeans against their shorts, but he was only ten, and he didn’t know what to do. And he’d found Brenda behind the bush at Mrs. Dauphine’s, crying because she was afraid to kiss whoever would push his way through the pyracantha branches. She was scratched by the thorns, the blood dark on her pale arm, and he thought about apricots. “Don’t be scared,” he’d told her. “I ain’t gon mess with you.” But she’d kept shaking, head buried in her arms, until he told her a story about how he and Louis had gone to the city lake to fish and Louis fell into the dirty water trying to touch a goose. Her head hadn’t lifted, but she’d turned it sideways to face him, one cheek still resting on her arms and the other shiny with wet.

  “H
e can’t say nothin, see, cause he know his dick ain’t gon stay married.” Leon laughed, throwing his head back. “Dicks don’t get married. Fingers do.”

  Darnell shook his head, and Louis spoke from the front seat. “Brenda’s not no hoochie, man. Leon don’t know.” His eyes were half lidded, faraway, and Darnell remembered all the smoke and birds he and Louis had searched for in the riverbottom. Maybe he is trippin, Darnell thought. He’s one a Leon’s boys, but he don’t act the part right.

  When they passed the Thunderbird Lodge, a man tried frantically to flag down the Bronco, and Leon raised his chin. “Man, I hate sprung niggas. Wantin pharmaceuticals for free. He ain’t got no cash, and he always want me to front him some.”

  “Strawberries are sprung,” the guy named Vernon said. “I love strawberries if they still look good.”

  “Man, you better be careful,” Darnell said. “Strawberries might kill you one day.” He remembered glimpsing the lips shrouded gray on the porches, like the smoking rocks in their pipes had pulled blood ember-like from their bodies.

  “Darnell don’t want to talk about fruit,” Leon said. “Cause he only gon get one kinda taste now. Whatever Brenda want to give him.”

  Darnell smiled. “Man, I ain’t cryin. Do you see me cryin?”

  “Not yet,” Leon said, leaning in the Bronco, the bass booming from the windows, his lips pursed in a big fake kiss.

  The women swerved around him again, their smells of perfume and hairspray and waxy lipstick wafting past. She bit her lip when he took her arm.

  “Can you walk a ways?” he asked.

  “How you think I catch the bus?” she said, staring straight ahead.

  Three blocks to the small side street and the apartment building. Before the courtyard was a strip of dirt at the foundation, and Darnell bent quickly to look at the tiny notch-edged leaves of a few weeds. “Damn,” he said. “Filaree, comin up already. Somebody must throw out wash water or somethin, cause we ain’t had no rain yet.”

  She paused, her face blank, and he led her up the stairs. He wanted to hold her hand, but she kept her fingers on the purse strap, and when she stood in the small living room, looking out the window over the courtyard and street, she said nothing.

  “You could sing in the shower,” he said behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Every day. Cause we can get married.” He felt the cold finger trails of fear again, felt them travel up through his fresh-cut hair. The words, coming off his teeth. Her father would have to hear them.

  And she turned around and laughed at him. He was seeing her father’s face, and she put her hands on her hips. He saw her belly better when she did that, the curve by each knuckle.

  “You so sure I want to marry you, just waiting to hear you ask, “she said. “And you think I’ma be happy to be with you for a couple months, and then you take yourself back up to some mountain and wait for fire.” Her chest swelled with one long breath and she walked past him into the kitchen.

  Darnell heard her heels click on the linoleum. “So what you want to do then?” he said, angry.

  “It ain’t about what I want to do,” she whispered. “I already told you that.”

  “Well, damn, you kinda took me by surprise, you know, when I got that call up at the station and you told me,” he said.

  “Like I did it on purpose,” she said. “All alone.”

  “No, I ain’t…”

  She said, “I had already paid for fall semester at city college, okay?”

  He knew what she meant. “Brenda, we were talkin about movin in together anyway. We been thinkin about it for a while. I been in love with you a long while.” He thought she would smile; he stood in the kitchen, close to her, and she didn’t move. Her eyes reflected in the sunlight and he could see the flecks of gold inside, floating. Then they wavered with a film of tears, and she pushed past him.

  “Nature Boy. Remember everybody called you that? Darnell, I been up to the mountains with you a lot of times, and I’m not a nature girl, okay? You know I’m not into poison oak and bears and all that. But those fires you used to take me to, and I would sit there and watch you…”

  The racing edges on a slope, Brenda’s legs glowing, dangling from the hood… “The wind could shift them,” she said, and stopped. “You always told me about backfires and digging breaks, about the animals and the trees. And all I see is fire. You want to leave me. I got enough ways to lose you daily when you here in Rio Seco. Gang-bangers, police. You want to add fire. You want to go back up there and leave me, so I can wait for a phone call.”

  “Brenda,” he said, holding out his hands. “I asked you to marry me. I didn’t say it just to scare the shit out of myself.”

  But she frowned harder. “See?” she said, and his wrists swelled when he tightened his fists. “That’s what you want. You love to scare yourself. You can’t wait to run off to the next one, hoping it’s big like the one I saw in the paper. But I don’t have time to be scared extra, baby. I have to go eat lunch now. I have somebody else to feed.” She went out the open front door and down the outside stairs slanting below the window.

  He lay on the bare mattress on the floor in the front room. He’d bought it from Roscoe, an extra bed. Least Roscoe didn’t say, “Thanks for my own money, boy,” Darnell thought. He stared at the burn mark on his hand. The scar hadn’t been serious enough to swell and rise; it was a flat black line, like Magic Marker drawn across his hidden bones.

  Fricke had a serious scar on his shoulder, a resetted welt of thick tissue. Darnell had never gotten the nerve to ask him where it came from. He felt the callus ridges on his palms with his thumbs, watched the striped shadows of the wrought-iron railing move across the bare window and onto the floor where he lay after the streetlights came on.

  At ten he walked back through downtown and up Sixth Avenue to the Westside. His father sat alone in the front room, watching TV. “Where you been?” he said to Darnell. “You eat?”

  “Yeah. I left the Spider at the apartment. Clutch won’t hardly move.” He hadn’t told his father about Brenda, just said that he’d gotten the place and the key. “Can I borrow the truck?”

  “You goin to see her now?” his father asked. “I thought Batiste worked swing. He’s comin home now.”

  “I gotta see him sometime,” Darnell said. Yeah, his girl don’t even want me, he can’t stand my ass, and I’ma head on up there right now.

  His father’s truck rumbled hard. He left Pepper Avenue, where the Westside was set off by the few remaining orange groves, passed the fast-food windows and Thunderbird Motel on the edge, and drove through the business buildings in no-man’s land. Then a few fortresslike apartments with thick wooden balconies and swirled-rough plaster. Cost eight hundred a month, he thought. The salmon-stuccoed corner mall, and then the wide-set streets of the Ville.

  He parked to wait for the black New Yorker. Mr. Batiste’s car purred up the driveway, and Darnell knew the man sat there, wondering what the hell Darnell wanted so late. Darnell got out and stood near the arch over the front steps. He leaned against the white stucco.

  “It’s late,” Mr. Batiste said, coming up the stairs. “What you think you lookin for this time a night?”

  “I came to see Brenda,” Darnell said, and he was tired of her father’s thin face always thrown back, the eyes sparkling slits in the yellow porch light. “Who else?”

  “See her at a decent hour,” her father said. “Tomorrow.” His pale face floated near the doorway, and he pulled out his key.

  “She has to go to work,” Darnell said. “I need to see her tonight.”

  “This ain’t a weekend, speakin a work,” Mr. Batiste said. “You lose your job?”

  Darnell smiled. “Yeah. I did.” He stood close to her father’s shirt, smelled the oil and chemicals. “I came to ask her the big question.”

  But her father’s eyebrows didn’t even move. His hand on the doorknob, he puffed air through his nose and said, “Huh! Some question.” He looked at Dar
nell. “She says you don’t drink or smoke. I can see you ain’t got no racin car. So what’s your poison?”

  “What?” Darnell folded his arms.

  “Every nigga got his own poison. Brenda know what yours is, and she still want to marry you, she ain’t got the sense God give a goose. And I ain’t got a damn thang more to say about it.” He left the door open behind him.

  Heat rose around Darnell’s temples, and he stepped inside the dark front room. Brenda’s mother sat in the bright dining room, sewing at the table, like always, and her father took off his watch, slapping it on the counter.

  “Miz Batiste,” Darnell said.

  “Darnell, let me get you some coffee,” she said, taking the pins from her mouth. She poured him a cup, like she did every time he came to the house. He sat down, looking at the dark wood table, and said, “She tell you?”

  Mr. Batiste went into the hallway. Brenda’s mother said, “She ain’t tell me nothin today.” He took a sip of the coffee. It was so much stronger here than anywhere else—Louisiana coffee, tasting of chocolate and wood and mud, that his GranaLene used to let him smell. Mrs. Batiste rolled a pin in her fingers and said, “You ain’t so young, Darnell,” in her soft accent, her smooth forehead filling with lines. “People have children early where I come from, have baby fifteen, sixteen. But it only matter if you grown in the mind, eh?”

  How you tell if your mind is grown? Darnell thought. He sipped the coffee so he wouldn’t have to look up or speak. Man, you out your mind? guys always said. Out your mind—if a zombie pulled you away. He heard his grandmother’s voice in the dark room. The thick sewing needle thrummed harshly, and when he looked up, startled, Mrs. Batiste only said, “Tell you mama I’m workin on the baby things. Go see Brenda.”

  He knocked and said her name before he pushed open the door. He could hear her brother’s radio through the walls. Brenda sat up in bed, holding the sheet in front of her.