Erasure

by Percival Everett

  “Really? I suppose I have one of those faces.”

  “Yes that must be it.”

  The doors open.

  medio tutissimus ibis

  Stagg takes the subway, the underground, to the studio, realizing as the train rumbles that so does his stomach. He is starving. Other stomachs rumble. He is encased with other black men. Though it is a golden day outside, they cruise below the world to their destinations.

  At the studio, Stagg is met by a man named Tod Weiß, a young man, dressed nicely, his hands soft when they shake. But Weiß is sure of himself. He is the producer and when he snaps his fingers, somebody jumps. He wears a large smile and runs his fingers through his hair.

  “We’re so glad you’re here,” Weiß says. “If you hadn’t made it I don’t know what we would have done. We were told that maybe you wouldn’t show up, but here you are. It’s wonderful. Love the book. Come on, I’ll take you to makeup.”

  “No makeup,” Stagg says, his voice flat, black.

  “But this is television.”

  “I’ll be behind the screen anyway.”

  “That is very true. You know I hadn’t considered that fact.” Weiß grabs a passing assistant, “Go find a screen, pronto.” Then to Stagg, “I’ve got a thousand and one things to take care of. Dana will take care of you.”

  Dana has been invisible up until now. She is younger than Weiß, black, slight. She appears, ready to take Stagg to the holding room. Weiß walks away. Dana leads Stagg down a corridor, her heels clicking against the wooden floor. She does not mention the book, but opens the door, then closes it when Stagg is inside. Stagg sits.

  The door opens.

  “Monk?” It was Yul. “Is that really you?”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  Yul sat beside me on the sofa and stared at my beard. “It’s not a very good disguise.”

  “It’s good enough. I’ll be off camera.”

  Yul shook his head. “You’re walking the thin line, buddy.”

  I held my bearded face in my hands. I wanted to cry. I felt so lost, so alone. I looked at Yul. “You’re still the only one who knows?”

  “No one in the office even knows. Well, Isabela, the accountant knows, but she hardly speaks any English anyway. She hasn’t put anything together.”

  “All this for money,” I said.

  Yul nodded, laughing.

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  He paused and looked at my eyes.

  “Meaning?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Mr. Leigh, ten minutes,” Dana says from the other side of the door.

  I turned to Yul and asked, “Is it too late to jump into my hole and hide?”

  “It appears so. Later, when it’s all out, you’ll look back at this stuff and laugh. The irony, and I know it will kill you to hear this, is that this will probably help the sales of your other books.”

  “When it’s all out?” I shook my head. “No one is ever going to know that I wrote that piece of shit. Do you understand?”

  “Okay, okay, calm down. You’d better get into character.”

  And he was right, Stagg Leigh had slipped away from me in my concern about discovery. I closed my eyes and conjured him again. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my dark glasses and put them on.

  “Fuck!” I said.

  “I want order!” someone shouts.

  Dana leads Stagg to a chair behind a screen. Kenya Dunston approaches. She looks just as she does on televison, no more real than that. She is perhaps heavier.

  “Stagg Leigh, chile, I’d know you anywhere,” Kenya says. She hugs Stagg like she knows him, loves him as a friend. “That’s some book, some book.”

  “Time, Ms. Dunston,” a young woman says.

  “It’s time,” Kenya says. “It’s time.” And she walks to the other side of the screen.

  Had I by annihilating my own presence actually asserted the individuality of Stagg Leigh? Or was it the book itself that had given him life? There he was for public scrutiny and the public was loving him. What would happen if I tired of holding my breath, if I had to come up for air? Would I have to kill Stagg to silence him? And what did it mean that I was even thinking of Stagg as having agency? What did it mean that I could put those questions to myself? Of course, it meant nothing and so, it meant everything.

  Theme music blares. The audience sings along. Kenya Dunston is introduced. The audience roars. Kenya is excited, so excited. She is smiling broadly, beaming. “I am pleased to have on the show today Stagg Leigh, author of a novel that is just about to be released. It will be a bestseller and I understand that the movie rights have already been sold. Can you believe it? This is Stagg’s first novel. But I must tell you that our guest is rather shy and that he agreed to be with us only if he could remain behind a screen. So, please join me in welcoming the silhouette of Stagg Leigh, author of—” She stopped. “What am I supposed to say? I’ll go ahead and say the title and let the chips fall where they may. Stagg Leigh, author of Fuck.”

  Applause.

  “How are you, Stagg?”

  “Fine.”

  “That’s some book.”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like to tell us how this story came to you?”

  “No.”

  “Come on. Is it a true story? Share with us what in your life prompted you to write such a gripping and truly realistic tale?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, the language is certainly vivid. I felt like I was right there. And exciting? I thought I was going to bust several times while reading.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is Go Jenkins based on anyone in particular?”

  “No.”

  “It’s not easy to get you talking, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, perhaps when we come back from this commercial break, you’ll take some questions from the audience.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Kenya says. “That son of a bitch won’t say a goddamn thing. What the hell kind of interview is that?”

  Weiß is kneeling beside Stagg. “Please, you’ve got to try to open up a little. Tell us anything. Tell them to buy the book for crying out loud. Anything.”

  5

  4

  3

  2

  1

  “We’re back. Our guest today is the writer Stagg Leigh. He’s here to discuss with us his first novel, Fuck. Stagg, are you feeling a little more like talking now?”

  “Not really.”

  General panic. Awkward silence. Restless audience noises. Dana giggles into her fist. Camera pans audience and comes back to Kenya.

  “Well, we were warned that our guest is extremely shy and so he is. This would be a good time for me to read a passage from this brilliant novel.” Kenya opens Fuck and reads:

  I love Cleona and I hate Cleona. There be two lil’ niggers in my head. Nigger A and Nigger B. Nigger A say, Be cool, bro, you know you ain’t gots no money, so just let this girl go on back to school and through maf class and English class and socle studies so she can get out and be sumpin. Just let her have a chance, one chance to be that nurse she always talkin bout bein. But Nigger B be laughin, say, Shit, take this bitch home to her house and hit it one times, two times. She got the nerve to be talkin to Jeep-nigger in front of you. Beep that shit. If she gone dis you like that, nail her ass. Later you can go out and find that Jeep-muthaBeep and Beep him up. Right now, take this Beep home and get a taste. You remember how good that Beep was, the way she whimpered, like she be crying, like it hurt. Nigger be hurtin a Beep. Beep school. She ain’t gone be no nurse. She ain’t gone be nuffin.

  When we walk to her house I see some guys playin ball. I ain’t played no ball in a long long time, I thinks to myself. At one time I was real good I could dunk from the top of the key and all like that. I had me a nice jumper too, but Beep, how you gone get into college and get all that big money when you ain’t nuffin to begin wif and wh
en the muthaBeep make it so you cain’t stay in school. And I wasn’t bout to suck no coach’s Beep for a chance to play. I shoulda gone over there when I was good and tried out for the Lakers. I woulda fit right in. Showtime. Me and Magic. I didn’t even need no practice, that how good I was.

  Cleona unlocks the door and we goes inside and she turn to me and say, “Now give me the money.”

  “Slow down, baby,” I say in my smooth voice. “Why don’t you show me where the baby sleep.”

  “You know where the baby sleep. The baby sleep in my room and we ain’t goin in there. Now, give me the money.”

  “Well, could you get me some ice water?” I ax.

  She sigh real heavy and stomp them big feet off in the direction of the kitchen.

  I sits down on the sofa and I see that the thing be new. I run my hand along the cushion beside me and I’m thinkin, shit, where this mutha come from. Brand new.

  Cleona come back into the room with the glass of water and hand it to me and then just stand there.

  “You got a new couch,” I say.

  “So?”

  “Where you and yo mama get the money for this here?”

  “That ain’t none o’ yo business,” she say.

  “I think it is,” I say. “If my baby’s mama gone out sellin her ass fo money to buy furniture, that be my business. Maybe you don’t need no money.”

  “You s’posed to give me money every monf for Rexall.”

  “S’posed to ain’t the same as got to,” I say. I looks around the room. “Beep, y’all got a lot of nice Beep.” I sips my water and it be warm. “I said ice, bitch.”

  She just stare at me.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” I say. “That just come out all wrong. C’mon here and sit down beside me.”

  She still just lookin at me.

  “Sit down,” I say again.

  She plop her big ass down heavy next to me and I put my arm round her and she get all stiff.

  “C’mon, Cleona, loosen up some. Ain’t nobody home.” I touch one of them big Beep with my finger and say, “That’s where my baby be havin dinner.”

  Cleona don’t want to but she let out a giggle.

  I touch her Beep some more. “That’s a big ol’ Beep,“ I say. “I wanna taste what my baby be drinkin. You want me to taste what my baby taste?”

  Her eyelids be flutterin closed now and I think she say yes and I pull her shirt and look at that big-ass bra she be wearin. I try to undo the muthaBeep in the back, but Beep, I cain’t get it loose and I say, “Hep me out, damnit.”

  Cleona reach her hands back, one from over her head and through her collar and the other up the back of her shirt and she open it up. Those giant jugs just flop there like big pillows, like bags of sand. I grabs on to them and sucks ‘em real hard till she moans and I whispers a lil’ sumpin, I don’t even know what the Beep I be sayin, but I squeeze and suck and squeeze and suck. The clock cross the room says one o’clock and I remember that I’m s’posed to meet Yellow and Tito over at the pool hall, so I gotta pop it quick. I push her back and undoes her pants, all the while I’m suckin on them Beep and she’s moanin. It’s hard to get her pants over her big ass, but I do it and then I puts it in her, all of it. Wham! Just like that and she cry out and man I feel so powerful. I bang it, man, I bang it and she start cryin, openin her eyes and seein me and she be cryin, sayin for me to get off her. But I be hittin it now and I smile at her.

  “God, I just love that,” Kenya says, shaking her head. “Now, I know some of you at home are thinking that some of the language is kinda rough, but let me tell you, it doesn’t get any more real than this. With this kinda talent, chile, don’t you think we ought to forgive our guest’s intense bashfulness?”

  Audience applause, approval, endorsement, blessing.

  I looked out from the house that was my disguise and saw Yul standing backstage. He applauded lightly, nodding to me, shrugging slightly, then he gave me a thumb-up that caused me to sink. I looked down at my feet, imagined my reflection in the leather of my shoes. Kenya Dunston was jabbering on the other side of the screen. What she was saying mattered none. I got up and walked away.

  Hard luck Poppa standing in the rain

  If the world was corn, he couldn’t buy grain,

  Lord, Lord, got them Brown’s Ferry blues.

  I returned to Washington defeated and feeling as near suicide as I had ever felt. I considered putting my head in the oven, but as Mother had always exercised a preference for electricity over gas, I could only hope to cook myself to death. I contemplated putting my father’s pistol to some use, but years of reading led me to understand that there were just too many not-quite-fatal places a piece of metal might lodge itself, leaving me where? Just as I was. And there was the nagging fear that upon waking from a three-year coma I would find the identification bracelet on my wrist reading Stagg R. Leigh. I shuddered at the notion and the woman beside me thought that I was responding to her offer of a mint. She was Australian, I believe, and she said, “You only need to say no, mate.”

  I apologized. “I was somewhere else,” I said.

  “I don’t like flying either,” she said. “You look low.”

  I nodded, not wanting to chat, but I had already been rude once.

  “Yeah, you look low, all right. You seem like you wanna put your head in a croc’s mouth.”

  “Is that an efficient method?”

  She laughed. “Clean off,” she said, then leaned back to regard me. “You’re all right, mate.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, I like you. Course if you go off and kill yourself, then I’ll say I liked you. Past tense, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You should come to Australia,” she said. She was not a large woman, but she sounded big. “There are some places in the desert that you’d think are just hell. Then you could come back here and everything would be right as rain by comparison.”

  “You think so?”

  “My daddy used to say, There isn’t anything so bad that seeing something worse won’t make better.”

  “A poet, your father.”

  “A bit of a bastard, he was. Made me love life though. Just by being there, if you catch my meaning.”

  “I do.”

  She again offered me a mint and this time I took it and thanked her. She said, “These are just god-awful,” as I put the thing in my mouth.

  “Not so bad,” I said.

  The phone discussions with the judges turned out to be disheartening, infuriating and stultifying. To a person, they had all fallen in love with Stagg Leigh’s Fuck.

  “The best novel by an African American in years.”

  “A true, raw, gritty work.”

  “So vivid, so life-like.”

  “The energy and savagery of the common black is so refreshing in the story.”

  “I believe it will be taught in schools, despite its rough language. It’s that strong.”

  “An important book.”

  Of all them black-faced crew

  The finest man I knew

  Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.

  The house was cold. Mother was the same. Life was the same. I had a new book out, but no one, thank god, knew it was mine. And the damn thing was doing well, very well, enormously well. I read many books that I thought were fine, but my fellow judges would hear none of it. Because we had to, we came to five finalists.

  They were:

  (1) Traditions, by Zeena Lisner.

  (2) Monte Cristo, by J. Thinman.

  (3) Exit the Moon, by Jorge Jarretto.

  (4) Warrior’s Happiness, by Chic Dong.

  (5) Fuck, by Stagg R. Leigh.

  We would sift through the finalists and shake out a winner at a final meeting right before the awards ceremony in New York in February.

  Das Seitengewehr pflanzt auf! The scream came to me in a dream, but as much as it frightened me, I did not wake, but instead continued dreaming, understanding in
fact that I was dreaming. The idea that Nazi soldiers were after me was scary enough, but my fear was compounded by my knowledge that I was aware of it all being a dream and my inability to actually awake. I was hiding in dense brush at dusk. There was a French farmhouse in the distance, across a pasture, and beyond that was an orchard of some kind. The Germans were coming through the orchard, bayonets fixed as ordered. They burned the house and came across the meadow, poking their weapons into mounds of hay. A woman ran from the burning house, falling, crying. I could not see her face, but she was carrying a canvas. I could see the picture well in spite of the distance and the failing light. It was Starry Night. The soldiers took the painting from the woman and lanced it. I felt a sharp pain in my middle, grabbed my stomach and when I looked down at my hand I found it covered with blood. But I kept telling myself, “This is a dream. This is a dream.” Behind the soldiers a male chorus sang “The Horst Wessel Song.” Then the painting was aflame and the heat I felt made me scream out and the soldiers heard me, reckoned my position and came toward me. I then realized that I was sitting in a foxhole with a .50 calibre machine gun. I forgot my bleeding and my burns and started shooting, mowing down the soldiers like so many cans. One soldier, though shot, crawled bleeding all the way to my foxhole while “Horst Wessel” was replaced by “Stars Fell on Alabama.” The wounded man looked at me, at my own blood on my shirt, and said, “Wie heißen Sie?” And I didn’t know.

  I called Bill, but Bill was not home. Bill was never home, never at his office, never anywhere. He never called back, never left a message, never wrote. I wondered if Bill was dead. I wondered if it mattered.

  One Tuesday, Mother seemed herself for a couple of minutes near the end of my visit. She gazed up at me from her darkness and said, “Monksie, we are all such vain creatures. The hard part is seeing myself, what I’ve become. I see for a couple of seconds and then I don’t know where I am. I wish I could tell you I’m in here looking out. Thursday I plan to have a good day. Be sure to be here on Thursday.” The nurse told me as I was leaving that a couple of Mother’s old friends had come by to see her.