Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights

by Susan Straight

  She lifted her shoulders and pulled the robe tighter, embarrassed. Darnell got up and put his arm around her. “Louis is gon help me out on a coupla jobs,” he said, and he ran his fingers up the back of her hair, held her head softly.

  “You hungry?” she asked, leaning her head back and breathing out.

  Darnell picked up the first broken bottleneck in the lot downtown, and when Victor said, “Brenda gettin big now. Hope you figured out where babies come from this time,” he didn’t answer. He and Louis worked their way toward the faded brick façade of the next building; he’d called his father for a few days instead of going over there, and Brenda had taken Charolette to his mother’s, then driven to work herself.

  He and Louis rode in the AnTuan truck. Juan and José were probably standing on the same corner where he’d found them, Darnell thought, like they usually did during the first half of the week when he worked clean-up jobs like this without them. A couple of weeks ago, they’d dug ditches for a plumber.

  Victor was waiting near the truck when Darnell and Louis came back toward the sidewalk, bags full. “You see Diante Thomas when you was in?” he asked Louis.

  Darnell could see the tongue move inside Louis’s jaw, just like Roscoe’s did when he didn’t want to talk about something. “No,” Louis said.

  Victor smiled. “You didn’t claim no Rio Seco homeys, huh?” he snapped.

  “If you in a lousy mood cause it’s hot, brothaman, you in for a long summer,” Darnell said, hard. “Come on.” They moved the skeletal remains of a mattress someone had dumped on the lot, and threw the last of the disposable diapers into the truck with the other trash.

  Back at Jackson Park, Louis was slumped down as far as his tall bones would allow, and Darnell said, “We ain’t stayin, Victor.”

  “Yeah,” Victor said, serious now. “It’s the Wild Wild West out here at night, man. When me and Ronnie came off that weekend in County, brothas was out here tryin to kill each other.”

  “Who?” Louis said.

  “Them fools in the alley,” Victor said, nodding toward the crowd of ghost-eyed people.

  Darnell leaned out the window, since he didn’t see Leon’s Bronco, and from the domino table Brother Lobo squinted at him. “Where’s your miniature replica?” Lobo said.

  “Her mama’s gone to get her,” Darnell said.

  Brother Lobo didn’t see Louis in the passenger seat. He told his opponent, “Darnell here has a baby Athena, looking like she sprang from his head fully formed.” The guy only glanced briefly at Darnell and then studied his bones. A serious player, Darnell thought, but his arms were so thin that his elbows stuck out like bracelets, and the ankles above his flip-flops were scaled rough.

  “Domino,” he said, not even grinning at Brother Lobo, and when the men around the table whistled, Louis said, “Come on, D. He’s sprung bad, and he gotta be gettin cane from somebody I don’t want to see.”

  He’d slept on the couch for the first few nights. Darnell came out in the middle of the night after Charolette cried for a drink, and Louis was hunched, legs bent, his hand trailing to the floor. Darnell watched him for a few minutes, thinking of how he’d always slept on his back, dreaming of boats and coffins.

  The July heat pressed onto them all night where he lay next to Brenda, sheets kicked to the floor. Brenda could sleep only on her side now, and her face was always wreathed with moisture. She was carrying all in front, his mother said, and her back hurt, her feet swelled. She breathed shallowly, her back to him, her elbow curled under her head so that her palm dangled over her eyes. “Look like you don’t want to see the sun,” he whispered to her when he heard Charolette’s bare feet whisper in the hallway.

  “Daddy, the yellow sun is here.”

  “I can’t do this,” she mumbled into her arm. “I’m so tired.”

  “I’ll cook somethin,” he said.

  The couch was empty, the sheet folded neatly, and Darnell stood there, feeling Charolette’s fingers at the backs of his knees, thinking that Louis never carried anything. He’d changed clothes once, from jeans to sweats, and the two T-shirts Brenda had washed were still on the clothesline.

  Charolette had stepped on her stool in the darkness and climbed the counter. Darnell scratched his neck and pulled up the kitchen shades to show her the dawn. “That ain’t yellow,” he said, pointing to the pale gray disc. “You shoulda given me and him another hour if you wanted yellow.”

  “I heard your friend, Daddy,” she said. “He shut the door. He’s walking in the dark.”

  Brenda came out in a while, and she was worried. “He must be really scared, if he’s leaving before the sun comes up.”

  Darnell shrugged. “He’s grown, Brenda. Don’t you have enough to worry about?”

  But he knew Louis was avoiding Roscoe, figuring they’d be out on the truck early, before the heat swarmed into the branches. Louis remembered all those still-dark summer mornings because Darnell couldn’t forget them even now—the coffee steam that the boys frowned up into their foreheads, their fathers’ monosyllables, and the deserted streets. Darnell drove to the dump, and when he was finished unloading the truckbed, he stared at the dark green belt of the riverbottom, visible from the hills. Maybe Louis was just wandering around in the grove, looking for birds.

  Darnell wasn’t in the mood for jokes when Trent strolled into the yard the next morning and said, “This isn’t grass, man, it’s a collection of weeds you’ve been cutting short. I see Bermuda, oxalis, and nut grass.”

  Darnell drank his coffee. “Nobody playin golf on it,” he said, short. “Charolette don’t care what she stompin on.”

  Trent sat on the steps. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Somebody jam you up about your Mexican guys?”

  Darnell stared at him. “No.”

  Trent shrugged. “I got Juan to help me plant more perennials at Mrs. Shaefer’s, and he seems like a good worker. Even if he isn’t Asian.”

  Darnell let himself grin. “I still get nervous,” he said. “We got more accounts this summer, all that new sod out there in the tracts. Juan wants to throw more flyers all the time. His English is gettin better, but he still doesn’t talk to the clients. They just mail that check.”

  “Who’s this?” Trent asked, glancing past Darnell. “Didn’t he play ball?”

  Louis walked quickly up the sidewalk and into the yard, his hands in his pockets. “What’s up?” he said to Darnell, as if he’d been gone fifteen minutes.

  “The sun,” Darnell said. Louis looked at Trent, and Darnell nodded. “Trent King.”

  “You went to county finals, right?” Trent asked Louis. “Didn’t they call you Birdman?”

  Louis fanned his fingers over his chin and nodded slightly. Darnell said, “So, Trent, you got somebody for us?”

  “New guy in Grayglen,” Trent said, frowning. “I thought you went to college?”

  Louis moved toward the El Camino impatiently. “Takin a break, man.”

  Darnell started the engine, and Louis fell asleep almost immediately, his knees flung wide under the dashboard, his neck limp. Darnell drove behind the AnTuan truck from Juan and José’s, watching their dark heads, low in the back window, not moving when they concentrated on following Trent. Asian. And like he did every time he drove to Grayglen now, he stopped full at the intersections, staring at the other drivers. Nigger. Oriental. Mexican. What you see is what you get. He looked at the construction crews still going strong on custom houses, on the huge new tract going up past Grayglen, almost to the Sandlands. Soon as you guys are done, I’ma be drivin around with Charolette, he thought. Throwin Baggies. Little rocks. Maybe I’ll get a dollar sign cut into the back of my head this time.

  They followed Trent up through the twisting streets, passing the steep property where the teardown was now a huge frame covered with sheets of plywood, curved bay windows cut out everywhere. Darnell stared past Louis’s sleep-shined chin, thinking of Roscoe watching him cut wood in a shower of lemon dust, wondering if he’d thou
ght Darnell would make it. He knew Roscoe had seen Louis somewhere by now.

  When they’d parked in a small turnout across the street from the huge house, Louis stepped out, eyes small, and Darnell jumped back from the gutter as a rush of bicycles streamed past. Men flashed shiny bike shorts and sunglasses; the thick-tired mountain bikes were equipped with water bottles.

  Trent said, “They have a Saturday bike club. I love to ride, but I don’t make it much.” They crossed the narrow street quickly, Darnell hoping like he always did in Grayglen that no fool was speeding around the curves. Trent pointed to the edge of the property, where the avocado groves were squared off with chain link and barbed wire. “Guy said people are always stealing avocados to sell,” Trent said, pointing, and Darnell saw Juan and José talking, José gesturing to the trees.

  When they started digging the irrigation trenches, Trent said casually, “I was only expecting three guys,” and Louis straightened with his shovel.

  “You don’t want to split the money, tell me now,” he said softly.

  “It’s no problem, right, Darnell?” Trent said, and Darnell shook his head, slicing down through the dirt. He hates palaver, man, Darnell thought, but Trent said, “Man, I can’t believe you aren’t playing. I played jayvee at Fairmount, when I was a freshman, and I kept wishing I’d grow. I used to come to all the games with my dad, before he passed. He was a big fan of yours.”

  Louis worked his way down the trench silently. Darnell heard Juan talking to José, his voice burbling short syllables like trickling water, and Trent walked away to check the piping he’d laid out near the house.

  But when they stopped for a break, in the shade of the gazebo planted in bare, raw ground, Trent said, “So what happened with college? I’da killed for a free ride, man, full scholarship like you got.”

  Darnell opened his mouth, but Louis said easily, “They didn’t have my major up there, you know?” Trent frowned, and Louis narrowed his eyes. “Ornithology, brothaman. Speakin of, D., I got a appointment, I gotta hat up.” He put his hand on Darnell’s shoulder for a moment. “Meet me at my office later on, okay? I’ma be observin down there, you know, where the herons were last sighted. Later.”

  He walked quickly around the side of the house, Juan staring at his elbows bent in wide triangles when he put his hands in his pockets. Darnell said to Trent, “Busy man,” and moved back to his shovel.

  He concentrated on carving the trenches square and exact, the earth shearing off hard behind the blade, but he saw Louis walking through Grayglen, not running because that was suspicious, not loitering because that was worse. Just walking, steady, arms moving, long legs covering the asphalt all the way to the dirt road past Tree-town and into the riverbottom.

  When they were done for the day, waiting for Trent, Darnell leaned against the truck with Juan. José pointed at the tall hedge and the avocado trees. “What?” Darnell said idly. “José like avocados?”

  “No,” Juan said, staring at the dark trees that walled them in on the road. “Some men we have see in church, they live there.”

  “Where?”

  “Under the tree.” Juan gestured up the hill. “They pick the avocado, the lemon. And do works. They sleep under the tree, one tree, one man, and the patrón, he tell him pay.” Juan paused.

  Darnell looked into the impenetrable grove, at the wrought-iron fence with spike-tipped gates farther down the road. “Pay who?”

  José spoke rapidly, and Juan said, “José say one tell him give twenty-five in the week. For one tree.”

  “Damn,” Darnell said. “Don’t they have nowhere to stay? Can’t they find a place like you?”

  Juan shook his head. “They guard the tree, so no steal. Two men, from Oaxaca, by me. They no have money for room.”

  “They can’t stay with you guys?” Darnell asked.

  Juan raised his eyebrows. “Everyone cannot stay.”

  Darnell drove the El Camino down the twisting streets, remembering the smell of the seat under his cheek when he’d slept there, the smell of the ashes in the park when the fire finally died toward daybreak.

  The trash barrel was burning faintly when he walked toward the lot. Two older men looked up from the coals, and Darnell passed them to sit next to Victor and Ronnie on the folding chairs near the domino game. Brother Lobo was gone, but three middle-aged men cradled their bones and glanced at the table.

  Victor nodded when Darnell stretched out his legs, his boots shaggy with mud shards. “Your pops came by here. Said he see me more than he see you lately.”

  Darnell said, “You know why.” He watched three ghost-mouthed men come out of the vacant house across the lot. Louis can’t hide from his pops forever, he thought. Just like I couldn’t. He remembered his father’s face appearing from the willows at the riverbottom, the hard voice calling him.

  Victor said, “Your pops said you gotta do the Thompsons’ land. That time a year.”

  Darnell nodded, leaning his neck on the hard folding seat for a moment and closing his eyes. Every year, they cleared the tumbleweeds and trimmed the trees for the Thompsons, who gave his father towing jobs in return.

  More men began to mill around the dusty lot now; the pepper branches over his head hung limp with heat. Darnell heard them talk louder as the beer and soda cans hissed open.

  “Man, it’s Wild Wild Westside. I heard a shotgun last night over there off Sixth. It was like—boo-yaa, boo-yaa.”

  “That new brotha? He was strapped, homey.”

  “Everybody packin. You see Andretta was carryin that little baby Derringer for a coupla days? She gave it to that loc-wild dude. Vernon. He had the rocks—then she had the rocks.”

  Two of the men at the domino table shouted, “Take that shit elsewhere! I’m tired a hearin it. Go on over there with that.” They nodded toward the alley and the plywood-eyed houses.

  The heat pressed down harder after four, rose up from the ground and radiated from the car roofs. Darnell wiped his forehead with the can of soda Ronnie had brought him, his back already tight from the digging and now aching from the metal chair. He stared at the church across from the park, at the two women with black rebozos pulling open the heavy door. Another woman, smaller, cinnamon face tiny from this distance, came out and paused, staring at the men crowding the lot. Darnell gripped the cool, wet soda can. Could be GranaLene, lightin candles for me now. All the small flames swaying inside when she let the door close and disappeared back into the darkness.

  He breathed in the floating dust. He was waiting for Leon, he knew. Brenda would be cooking a big Saturday meal; she liked to make something she didn’t have time for during the week. Charolette would be sitting on the counter measuring, flour or cloves or pepper flying back into her face when she insisted on dumping the spoonful too hard into the bowl.

  Louis need to get this over with now, he thought. I can’t be hidin from everybody with him. Leon, Roscoe, anyone who stared at Louis with those lifted-in-recognition brows and asked about basketball. He knew where Louis was spending his time. That’s okay for him, Darnell thought, but I ain’t sleepin in the trees anymore.

  Ronnie said, “Leon comin around the corner, man. He said he seen your homey Birdman on a street coupla times. He think the brotha sneakin around, like he guilty and shit.”

  “That’s between them,” Darnell said, standing up. “I’m out here, right here, just tryin to get paid.” He looked at Victor. “I’ll pick you guys up tomorrow for the Thompsons. Early.”

  “Sound like your daddy, boy,” Victor said, half grinning. “Not no leisure hours, right?”

  “I’m somebody else’s daddy, man,” Darnell said, shrugging. “And she always hungry.”

  He walked toward the Bronco, parked far from the lot, near the alley. I’m hungry, too, he thought. I need to get this over with, get home and eat. He saw Vernon’s arm hanging from the passenger side, Vernon’s face close to a woman who bent into the window. Darnell went to Leon’s side.

  Leon sat stiff, wat
ching the alley and glancing into the rearview, turning his head slightly to take in Darnell where he stood by the door, hands in his pockets. “Thought you was out the business,” Darnell said softly. “Thought the consultant was fixin to move you up.”

  “If I remember, man, business ain’t your interest,” Leon said, slanting his face slightly to look at Darnell. “Unless you and Birdman doin somethin besides cuttin grass.” He held his mouth tight, but Darnell could see the pearl-sized dark spot where he’d rubbed his tongue at the corner of his lips.

  “I wasn’t into delivery then, and I ain’t changed my mind,” Darnell said. “You need to talk to Louis, man, cause all this suspicious shit needs to stop. We suspicious enough as it is.” He tried to smile, but Leon didn’t get it. Don’t let me bring up binoculars, Darnell thought. Vernon bent his head now to see him. “I’ma go get Louis and meet you guys at Taco Bell, okay? Twenty minutes.”

  Leon frowned. “You tryin to set me up, Darnell, man? You got somethin goin with Birdman?”

  Darnell looked at Leon’s mink-perfect hairline, at the tongue budding pink by his lips. He couldn’t say anything to defuse it; if he said he was just trying to get Louis some cash so he could leave Rio Seco, that would sound worse. Vernon grinned. “You get my man a job at the zoo and shit?” He laughed.

  “Come on, Leon,” Darnell said. “We ran the streets together for a long time, okay? You could just listen to him. Let’s do this, cause I need to get home before Brenda goes ballistic.” He paused, stopped moving away from the Bronco. “See? Does that sound like I’m doin extra business? I’m pussy-whupped, remember?”

  He saw the flash of a grin from Leon before he turned.

  The sun was dull in the thicker band of smog toward the west. Darnell drove onto Pepper Avenue and headed toward Treetown. The olive groves were faded silvery with dust and heat, and the grayish sky made the whole landscape a single blur when he stopped near the Thompsons’ to peer at the trees and think about tomorrow. Then he saw the Bronco behind him.