Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights

by Susan Straight

  “How would I know?” Roscoe said evenly. “The newspaper doesn’t write about young black men coming out. Only going in.” He went to the Apache for his coffee.

  Darnell watched his father move his boots around in the tree, step lightly for position, and heard the whine of the chain saw again. He said, “I want to ask you somethin, okay? Don’t get pissed.” Roscoe nodded, his mouth on the cup, his eyes half hidden. Darnell licked his lips. “If you lose somebody, like all the way, is it better if you forget or remember?” Roscoe was silent, and Darnell rushed on. “If I lost Charolette, like I dream about somebody takin her and I’m not watchin, and if she was gone, I wouldn’t take away all her pictures and toys and stuff. I’d want to think about her every day. Like, pass the trees she always talks about, stop at the trains, and keep the soup ladle. Say ‘Mitsubishi’ and ‘Honolulu’ sometimes.”

  Roscoe said, “But you haven’t lost her. And she wasn’t selling something that kills people. So you don’t know. You can’t even pretend to know.” He turned to put the cup on the dashboard, keeping his back to Darnell, and Darnell went toward the tree to drag the long mulberry branches. Him and Louis. My pops and Melvin. Brenda and her daddy. I can’t see it. Gotta be somethin left, somethin still there.

  He bundled the branches tightly while more fell slanted from his father’s hand, high in the tree. When he packed the thick stack into the truckbed, Roscoe said, “He’ll get out early. Maybe in May or June. I had to call the county to find out. I don’t know where he’ll go.” He walked toward the curb.

  Darnell went over the riverbottom on the freeway bridge, seeing a thin, weak column of smoke rise from the wild grapevine covering a bamboo stand. Just cooking smoke—it was cold now, early on Sunday morning, and some homeless guy must have been making breakfast. Another man walked along the bridge, carrying a water jug. Lotta guys tryin to keep warm inside that arundo cane, he thought. He remembered the swaying-round sterns, the smell from the willows rising sharp where the sand was damp, his father’s big hands on the gun.

  The wind had blown all night, was still blowing now. Tumbleweeds tore out of the fields and stacked up against the chain-link freeway fence, sometimes twirling on the asphalt in front of him. He could see almost to LA on the horizon, but the exit sign for Chino was right in front of him now.

  Chino—he’d avoided coming here for longer than Louis had been incarcerated. All the brothas doin time here, workin here, he thought. Not me. He swallowed hard at the light, hearing the noise of the jail that one night he’d been there, for the ticket. The cop in Grayglen, stopping him and Victor and Ronnie—he could have found a violation somewhere, given them a ticket. General principles. Probable cause. Who was it, one of Melvin’s friends that used to say, laughing, “Yeah, man, Probable Cause my middle name.”

  Euclid Avenue. Chino. He drove past two Mexican guys with machetes chopping tumbleweeds near a white-fenced dairy farm, swinging smooth, and he ached for the fire station, for the jobs they’d all complained about. Tumbleweeds, clearing fields and chopping brush, digging the roads out. He let his eyes blur for a moment; he hadn’t gone yet to pick up the application for paid call.

  Shivering, waiting in the line of cars turning into the prison, he looked off into the distance. New housing tracts lined the low hills, moving east of LA. The signs near the avenue directed people to the developments: Collage, Summer Hills, Tango. Arrows pointed toward the red-tile roofs.

  The truck moved forward, and he saw the thin-trunked trees surrounding the high fence, breaking for the entrance. All this time, he thought, I never came out here. Didn’t want to see it. Carceration time. He drove slowly over the speed bumps, approached the guard shack. How many guys I know doin time? Workin out, gettin them big arms, doin road camp. Soledad—where Danny Smith been since I went to junior high. San Q. Folsom—I passed it in the Lincoln.

  He walked toward the glass doors, seeing the new irrigation trenches dug in the long lawn, the petunias and marigolds in the circular flower beds wet with sprinkled water.

  Inside, people were gathered in the big visiting room. Brothas pacin everywhere, Darnell thought, seeing the guards, the prisoners, the visitors. He waited at one of the circular tables, trying not to look around, and a skinny guy with long braids clapped him on the back. “Yo, what up, D.?”

  Darnell looked up into Tommy’s face. “Not much, man. How you doin?”

  “Livin, man, livin medium. Who you come to see?”

  “Birdman,” Darnell said, using Louis’s nickname, the famous one.

  “I seen him once or twice,” Tommy nodded. “Big place. But he what—six-seven? He tower over most of the dudes when we walkin.” Tommy found a face across the room and said, “Later, man. Peace.”

  Louis sat down in the folding chair, his body long and stiff as a two-by-eight slanted across the metal seat. His feet were boats in the black prison shoes. “You didn’t have to come, man. It ain’t like we been tight for a while. I don’t like nobody comin over here.”

  “Donnie told me,” Darnell said. “But Brenda wanted to tell you hey, and see how you doin.”

  Louis’s face was the same, pale brown, and his hair was short-cropped. He smiled slightly. “She still skinny, after the baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Her hair still long?”

  “Yeah. But she got bangs now.” He waited for Louis to ask about Charolette, but Louis was silent then, folding his arms. Now what? Darnell thought. You don’t have a message from his pops. You can’t just bust out and ask about what Leon said.

  “Been diggin fire roads?” Louis said, nodding at Darnell’s callused fingers.

  Darnell bit the inside of his cheek. “Nope. Cuttin grass, trimmin trees. Doin some jobs with Pops and your dad, but mostly this.” He pulled out one of the new flyers, the last version Nacho had printed: ANTUAN’S LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE. He’d left off all references to Asian, keeping only the lantern and bridge, and he figured that was enough. “Cold out there now,” he said casually.

  Louis snorted. “Yeah, how could I forget them freezin windy days on the truck with Pops? And then he expect me to shoot free throws in the driveway all night, so I can keep up my game.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m glad Pops don’t come around here talkin about I threw away my career. That line was tired first time he said it.”

  “Man, you left the county, then I was gone, and now we both back.” Darnell put his hands over the fake-wood grain, smelling the school aroma of wet palms. “My pops just as hard on me. Your pops think about you. They just don’t know how to talk.”

  Louis shrugged. “All I hear in here is talk. Talk all day.” Darnell glanced around at the inmates, laughing, leaning close and serious into visiting faces, black, brown, all their shoulders the same under blue shirts. Louis saw him look at the only white guys, four with brown hair. “Caspers got it serious hard in here.”

  “What about you?” Darnell asked.

  Louis closed his face again. “I got three meals. Ain’t no thang. I’m by myself mostly—cool with me. Stay in the library, read about birds. I’m tired of all that palaver.”

  Darnell knew he was talking about Leon, Vernon, the consultant—the constant talking. The Bronco, the park. Portland. He said, “I seen Rob, man. Went to Portland.”

  Louis leaned forward. “You? What you take?”

  “Jeans.”

  Louis shook his head. “You workin for Leon?”

  Darnell rubbed the table. “I did one job. An odd job. What you take?”

  Louis smiled so slightly that his lips didn’t even move his thin cheeks. “I didn’t take nothin.”

  “You pulled trey,” Darnell said.

  Louis shrugged. “So Leon sent you here, huh? He want to know what happened? Fuck Leon. If you workin for him, make up your own scenario.”

  Darnell shook his head. “No, man, Leon don’t even know I’m here. I ain’t seen him for a while. You see my business.” He pointed to the flyer. “I go to work. I pick
up pecans with my kid. I wanted to bring you one for old times, but I figured that ain’t allowed.”

  Louis flinched. “Yeah.” He sat back in his chair and scratched his wrist. “You go down there to the grove?’ he said, almost whispering.

  “Brenda and I took Charolette,” Darnell said, and then he stopped, not wanting to tell Louis about the shade, the crows shrieking in the distance, where they’d been chased by the girls. He leaned closer. “Louis—last time I saw him, Leon was talkin about nubbin big time with some dudes from LA. Some tall, light brotha is supposed to be doin the Wild Wild West, and Leon think it’s you, lookin for payback.”

  Louis half closed his eyes. “Plenty of tall, light brothas in the world. Ax Pops—they all playin ball except me. Lotta brothas play ball in here, too. Not me.”

  “Come on, man. I’m not askin you about that. I’m askin what happened.”

  Louis finally leaned forward on the table, too, like he was afraid for anyone to hear him. “This ain’t nothin but trey, you know? I just migrate from the yard to the food, wherever they tell me to go. Whole flock of us. Walk in a flock. If I told Leon how I—what happened—he’d go off.”

  Darnell jerked the coldness from his back so he wouldn’t shiver, thinking of what Roscoe had said. “Look. You gon get out soon, right? Leon think you were tryin to move the product to somebody else.”

  Louis shrugged. “When I get out, I might go up north. Way north. They got more wildlife up there, got forests where I went to school. I didn’t have time to check out the trees cause I was always havin to play ball.”

  “Donnie went back up north,” Darnell said. “Where he played ball.”

  “And you ain’t goin back up to the hills,” Louis said, smiling, “cause you doin the daddy thang.”

  “You did it,” Darnell said, thinking of Roscoe and Hollie.

  Louis shook his head. “No, man, Geanie did it to me. She wasn’t even fuckin me—she was fuckin a ballplayer. Everybody else was trippin daily when I got back to town: ‘Why you ain’t playin ball no more, a brotha your size?’” He paused. “Leon never axed.” He smiled slightly. “So she a girl. She look like Brenda?”

  Darnell realized who he was talking about. “No, man, Charolette look dead like me, but lighter.”

  “Oh, man, I feel sorry for the girl. Brenda’s beautiful. You ain’t.”

  Darnell whispered, “But she got all my blood cells, she notice the same things as me.” He smiled. “She like trees, man, and birds.” He leaned forward again. “You ever had somebody know every move you gon make, listen to whatever you say, like you God?” He leaned back again, embarrassed.

  “That’s heavy, brothaman,” Louis said, mocking. “But that’s a lotta weight, cause you could mess up big time. You could make her do things she don’t want to do, cause you think she you, but she really ain’t.” He stared at Darnell, then stood up, looking around at the rest of the heads bobbing close in the big room.

  Darnell drove past the cows, thinking that Charolette would be pointing and naming everything, thinking of basketball and the slapping sounds of Louis practicing free throws into the night while Roscoe watched. Back when Brenda had lived two doors down from Louis, when her back was curved, hid in the pyracantha, waiting for him while Louis stopped looking to watch two crows fight a mockingbird on a telephone pole.

  In Rio Seco, he drove all the way through the city and past the Ville, up the Sugar Ridge to the flat place, empty now because it was late afternoon, too early and too windy for serious drinking. He walked around the powdery-dust lot littered with glass and cigarette butts and rubbers like shed snakeskins. The wind shuddered in the brittlebush.

  José rarely said more than “It’s okay?” He would point at the cut grass, the gas gauge, the receipt for the dump fee. He spoke quietly to Juan, usually had Juan interpret for him. His face was almost always a thin mask; his small slanted eyes, straight-combed hair, and pointed chin bobbed above the mower handle.

  It was hard to tell how old he was. Darnell and Juan could talk about nearly anything now, still in broken phrases, but José looked like the kind of guy who didn’t talk much in Spanish, either.

  Close to Christmas, Juan seemed to watch his brother closely, and Darnell waited until they’d finished, late one evening, and he was dropping them off at their place, to ask.

  “You go home now?” Juan said, and José got out, standing in the yard to stare at the lights.

  “Yeah,” Darnell said. “My brother wants me to pick up two bikes, for his kids. I’ma hide em at my house.” They both watched the blinking lights travel up the wires strung to the palm trees in the yard across from Juan and José’s. This whole block, almost all Mexican, was sparkling with tiny pointed bulbs strung on crosses, bushes, trees, and roofs.

  “What’s wrong with your brother?” Darnell asked, figuring that since he’d brought up his brother he might as well ask. “He looks, I don’t know, like he wants to run away, go back home or somethin.”

  Juan’s face turned color, and his teeth sparkled with the changing lights. “Navidad. José is sad from this time for two years. His wife, she is having a baby, and he doesn’t know. He work on a farm, far away. I am in college. And he come home from the posada in the village, and she die. She have a fever.”

  José didn’t even peer into the truck to see what was taking so long; like always, he stood patiently, dreamily, his face so still only his eyes moved with the rocking Santa on the roof.

  “Why you didn’t take her to a doctor?” Darnell said, gripping the wheel. He thought of Brenda lying in bed silent, the pains strong. He saw the baby candles in GranaLene’s church.

  “We need travel for doctor,” Juan said, slowly. “We have curandero, like, I don’t know.” He stopped. “For pray.”

  Like Mrs. Batiste leaning over him, the smoke and prayers and heat. “It didn’t work?”

  Juan shook his head. “José the oldest. He is twenty-nine. I am only twenty. And he ask me to come away.” Juan moved across the seat now, his face down, embarrassed. Then he stopped at the door frame and said quickly, “But José is not sad to work. I don’t mean… we send the money. He does not change.” He turned and said something low in Spanish to José, who nodded and tried to smile at Darnell.

  Juan said brightly, “We have the big lady tomorrow, yes? You are come?”

  Darnell nodded. “The big property. Yeah.” He drove away, saw Juan pause with José in the dirt yard, pointing at the roof Santa.

  On the way back to the house, drizzle started to collect on the windshield. Must be a teaser, he thought, cause the clouds aren’t even droppin down. But someone had known it would rain, because when he stopped at Pepper Avenue, he saw two figures walking slowly, like they’d been expecting moisture before they started out. Roscoe and Marietta didn’t see him; their heads were close, their shoulders touching.

  He was in a deep sleep when he felt Charolette’s breath in his face. She could climb out of the crib now. “Daddy, what noise?”

  “Me poppin your butt you don’t go back to sleep,” he said.

  “What noise?” she said again, cocking her head, and he heard the dripping from roofs onto the courtyard.

  “Rain,” he said. “Somethin you ain’t seen.” He let her look out the front window, pressing her nose against the glass to see the Water fall in a thin veil off the opposite railing. Finally, he got her back to bed, but instead of being pissed because he was awake, he sat in the dark, looking at the light rain, so sparse a thin beam of dry air stayed under the streetlamp.

  Brenda said near his neck, “You didn’t strangle her, did you? That why she’s so quiet?” She put her arms around his shoulders to see. “I forgot how noisy rain is.”

  Darnell said, “Used to rain hard for five, six days, flood the Hollows.”

  “It never rains like that now, cause of the ozone or whatever,” she said. “Look at the Christmas lights in the street.”

  He stared at the blurred, Jell-O-bright circles waverin
g in the water on the asphalt and cement. “No long rain for six years. No torchin trails again.”

  “You loved that magical torching,” she said, but he didn’t hear any resentment in her voice, only a grin pressed against his shoulder. Yeah, she think I’m done. She rested her cheek on his back, and he watched the glistening lights flash.

  “I went to see Louis,” he said. He felt her chest fill with air, lift against him. “He’s doin okay. He might get out this summer.” Darnell looked toward the corner where Roscoe and Marietta had walked. Brenda stayed still, her wrists under his chin, and he thought, I don’t want to tell her about what Louis said. Birdman. Nature Boy—not me. Not yet. I’ma get the application, but I don’t want a fight. Not right now.

  The moisture only wet up the first two or three inches of dirt, and he slid down the steep bank at Mrs. Shaefer’s, his boots scraping in the still-dry earth under the crust. Charolette sat by the koi pond near the house, watching the gold and white fish slash through the water. She had her apple juice in a sipper bottle like Darnell’s, and Trent thought this was hilarious.

  “She looks so old like that,” Trent said.

  “She’ll be two in a couple months,” Darnell said. He watched her move the three plumes of fountain grass Mrs. Shaefer had given her; she swept the edge of the rocks near the fountain. Mrs. Shaefer came out from her sliding glass door to say, “Are those good brooms? Do you need more juice?”

  “Mrs. Shaefer get props from me,” Darnell said. “She doesn’t trip with that ‘I’m payin you, so I can’t actually converse’ attitude.”

  “Props?” Trent said.

  “Man, you’re old,” Darnell said. “You know, give me my props on that.”

  Trent frowned, looking down at the hole Juan had dug for a gray-leafed bush. “Like the old Aretha song?”

  Now Darnell frowned. His mother used to play Aretha all the time. Give me my propers when you get home.

  “Aretha was talking about sex, baby.” Trent laughed.

  “I’m talkin about respect, man,” Darnell said. “Definitely not sex.” He looked down at Charolette, who was rubbing her eyes. It was almost noon, and she hadn’t slept yet. He went to lay Charolette on her blanket in Mrs. Shaefer’s den, just inside the glass door. Mrs. Shaefer said, “I don’t have any grandchildren, and this just gives me such a thrill.” She bent to listen.