Black Like Us

by Devon Carbado

  This time, whether she calls it that or not, there’s a dare involved. She wants the truth, a truth she knows I’ve never been able to share. And I’m not sure I can now. For as soon as I flinch or falter in the text, the game is over and Mary wins. Otherwise, it continues until Mary believes I’ve had enough. But I rarely flinch or falter. The real reason Mary stops is because she’s had enough. She only tops me because she knows I want her to. She’d much rather have it the other way around. She’s never truly understood the numbness that stalks me. Truth is, the levels of pain I endure frighten her. And the thought that I might enjoy the pain is something she doesn’t want to think about.

  Before the game starts, we agree on a safe word. A word, a non sequitur— usually a color—that I can yell if things get out of hand. Tonight the word is “red,” the color of blood, and the spot she has chosen is my arm. It’s not coincidence. The small portion of truth I have already revealed is that when I was fifteen going on sixteen, I developed this thing about my arms and cars. A fear that someday someone would forget I was there, halfway in or out, and close one of my arms in the door, roll it up in the window. And though I still can’t remember what triggered this fear, the lost moment in time when the bullet ran screeching from the chamber, the overwhelming desire to protect my arms surfaced sometime after the night my parents and I became snow angels.

  Everything was spinning. I remember feeling like a flush-faced porcelain doll at holiday time—all hot and bothered and numb— soldered to the plastic floor of one of those miniature snowglobe nativity scenes just after someone has shaken it. Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t move. Instead I stood terrified that all the jostling around would cause the bottoms of my feet to rip and tear.

  I heard my mother’s voice first—wild, out of control. “Goddamn it, Gregory! God-fucking-damn it! I’m not gonna let you do this! I am not going to let you do this!”

  His voice soothed, “Lillian, Lil…Lil, baby…”

  But my father was calm. Even in the midst of my mother’s rabid cries, “What about the kids?” she sobbed, tired and out of breath. “How can you do this to them? How can you do this to me?”

  I run from the house, no coat. No one notices the bottoms of my bare feet burned numb in the cold. There in the front yard they’re making angels in the snow, my mother on his back, begging.

  They are making angels, yelling and screaming and rolling around in the snow. On hot white coals I run from the house, lay my back flat as a board on a flawless patch of snow. Icicle tongues of water drip frigid saliva down the back of my neck, my head crushes its remembrance. Snow white snow. I glue my arms to my ribs, my legs pinch my clit in between, and slowly I breathe. Slowly I begin to move. Ever so slowly I push my legs and my arms out and up until the frozen tips of my fingers touch but do not feel. Then down, arms and legs spread wide; I can touch the sky, I can reach the moon.

  “Look! I’m an angel! I’m an angel, Daddy! I can fly.”

  Ignoring me, my father stands, throws my mother off his back like a fond memory grown indifferent. I remember the hinges on the door of the Falcon squeaking as he pulled it open.

  The rules are simple. Once the spot is chosen, it is set; she can never again veer from it. She can, however, add additional means of torture if my tale reeks of bullshit’s pungent smell, lacking clarity and attention to detail.

  “They were at a party,” I go on, still smiling.

  “What kind of party?” Mary interrupts, as she walks to the bureau. “Details!” she sings. “Were they with friends or did they go alone? Was it winter and snowing, or did it take place outside, warmed by the hot and muggy stale breath of summer?” She reaches for the cane and cackles loud and hearty, then dramatically raises the thin bamboo stick high in the air before swatting it down on my arm.

  “It was a college party,” I answer. Matching Mary’s playful mood, I pretend to wince from the sting. “A Div party, short for Division. Every year during the six-week winter break between semesters the seniors would throw a big party for themselves. And no, it wasn’t snowing. It was cold as a mofo, as my father’s friend MacArthur was fond of saying, but not cold enough for snow.

  “My mother wasn’t supposed to be there. She was a sophomore, just twenty years old. And because it was rumored that other things besides liquor would be on hand, lower-classmen weren’t allowed to attend. But my mother’s girlfriend, Mavis, insisted on sneaking her in. ‘You got to go to the Div party, girl’ Mavis told her. ‘Everybody who’s anybody makes an appearance at the Div party.’”

  While I talk, I watch as Mary rummages in the bureau, the bureau that used to belong to Grandma Margret, my grandmother on my father’s side. Before her, it had been Great-grandma Cora’s. And before Cora, it had been given to my great-great-grandmother Ida. A gift from Bo Jones, the man who owned half the state. And just to prove the power such wealth afforded, in view of his wife and his children, Mr. Bo took to strolling around town, parading my great-great-grandmother on his arm, daring anyone to say word one about it. Now the bureau had been given to me with instructions to give it to my daughter. If, as with Grandma Margret, I happen to be blessed with only boys, I’m to pass it on to one of my granddaughters.

  The brown leather satchel Mary takes from the top drawer is worn, frayed at the bottom, its drawstrings calling for the comfort of retirement. I speak slowly, make certain my words are measured and audible, focusing all my energy on enunciation. But my eyes never leave her hands, whose fingers—long, white, slender, and sheathed in a pair of rubber latex gloves—are beginning to turn me on.

  “My father played vibes and sang in the band,” I go on, staring at the gloved hands. “Jazz. The Gregory Childs Quartet. They were the hot new sensation on campus. And after graduating, all but my father—for reasons that will become clear later—would make the pilgrimage to New York to become the pioneers of a new young scene.

  “The campus was small, the number of black students on it even smaller. So it wasn’t surprising that Lillian and Greg socialized in the same circles even though my father was three years older and a senior. In fact, whether it was passing each other on their way in or out of BSA headquarters or being embroiled in the same five-person debate about a new breed of poets who called themselves Beatniks, Greg and Lillian ran into each other often. But neither ever stopped to take notice until the night my mother’s girlfriend snuck her into the Div party.

  “At least that’s how my father put it. My mother claimed that my father was making passes at her from the beginning, but she didn’t trust him. He was shady, she said. And every time she saw him, every time he winked or smiled at her, he was arm in arm with a different girl.

  “Shady vibe or no, there was no escaping the attraction, and on the night of the Div party, the night my father made the senior class swoon from his rendition of This Little Girl o’ Mine, something magical happened. In just a little over a year, while my mother was dropping out of school pregnant with my sister Onya, my father was running around town, handing out cigars, proclaiming that from now on, Gregory Taylor Childs was a certified one-woman man.”

  From the satchel Mary removes a brand new disposable scalpel, a bottle of iodine, and a package of extra-long cotton swabs, then splays them out across the nightstand. After dipping one of the cotton swabs into the iodine, she begins to paint burnt orange stripes back and forth across the smoothness of my arm. Taking a deep breath I try to relax but as soon as she unwraps the scalpel from its sterilized disposable package every muscle tightens in anticipation. Its blade is rounded, half-moon shaped. As the white gloves close around its plastic green shaft, it sparkles.

  She says she wants the truth this time. But not the whole truth, I’ll bet. Only the part that makes a good story. She can’t comprehend the real truth. My truth. Even I don’t fully understand what’s running through my head as I speak. Thoughts like, what does it feel like when the wounds are carved with a dulled and rusted edge? When the hands are not gloved but cold and calluse
d and calculating, caked with the dirt of two solid months in the field? To have them cleaned with salt after? She doesn’t want to hear about the curse, about Uncle George. We’ve been over it before. She can’t tag along on this quest I’m on, she says. If she does then she’ll be there with me. It’s a trip she’s just not ready to take. So I go on. On with the story, feeding her the mouthful of truth she’s ready to swallow, the morsel with which I’m willing to part.

  “They were married at once, in secret. My mother wanted to wait just a little while so she could tell her people in Cleveland: my great-grandma Shirley and my aunt Florida. Grandma Janie, my mother’s mother, died in a fire when my mother was a little girl; her father was never in the picture. Shirley and Florida would want her to be married proper, she said. In a church, at least, if she couldn’t wear the white dress. But my father insisted, saying that he didn’t want to take a chance on his first child being born outside his name. So they said their vows before a justice of the peace and told no one, except my father’s younger brother Ray who was needed as a witness, until Onya started showing.

  “Although they weren’t exactly thrilled about the veil of secrecy (believing that any man who forces his wife to keep her marriage hidden from her family has to be suspect), Aunt Florida and Great-grandma Shirley welcomed my father into the family with open arms. Grandma Margret, on the other hand, was ecstatic. Her prayers had finally been answered. Destiny had smiled on her and she was going to be a grandmother. And though there was some question about which came first (the marriage or the baby), as the day of delivery drew near, she took out her knitting needles and fashioned two pairs of booties—one pink and one blue—for her eldest son’s firstborn.”

  Scalpel in one hand, bracing my arm with the other, Mary’s eyes catch mine to see if I’m ready. One word from me and the game stops. Did Uncle George have a safe word? What was running through his head as the whip came down? Stories? Songs of freedom? Anticipation of the end? Did the overseer ever check to see if he was ready? Holding fast to the cadence of my words, I close my eyes.

  “The labor was both difficult and long. From the time my mother’s water broke, twenty-three hours would pass with all kinds of false starts and interruptions before Onya poked her head from my mother’s womb and let out a fierce cry—the first of many protests at having been born at all. But all through the process, between wondering if she had what it took to be a good mother and leveling threats against my father’s life, my mother was making plans. Plans to return to school. She would have to wait till the baby was weaned, of course, until Onya was old enough to have a sitter, but as soon as my mother got her strength back, she was going to finish the education she started.

  “Unfortunately for Mama, those plans would have to wait. On the day Grandma Margret had looked forward to, the day she was finally allowed to sit unsupervised with her granddaughter, my mother walked into the admissions building to sign up for classes and fainted. Right there in line, after standing there less than half an hour, her mouth went dry, her knees buckled, her body went limp and she fainted. When she came to, one of the admissions ladies was kneeling over her, extending a cup filled with water, asking, ‘How long have you been expecting, sweetheart?’ Nine months later, my mother gave birth to my brother Bobby.” The first cut sinks deep, creating a hollow that burns. It is long, much longer than anticipated, from the crease in my elbow stopping just short of my wrist. My chest caves and heaves from the pain, like chattel when informed of the existence of free air.

  “Where’s your blood, baby?” Mary whispers to herself, this time not wanting to interrupt. And though the pearl white dermis is pretty, seemingly innocent lying next to the darker outer layer of brown, Mary is right; initially there is no blood. Eventually, though, little red dots do matriculate into the hollow’s walls, and the latex fingers waste no time spreading the incision wide to release the flow.

  All this effort, all this busyness, trying to draw a line, a foothold in the sand, to hold back an enemy I’ve never been able to see. Aunt Florida called it a curse. The curse of Uncle George. Is it futile, Uncle George? That the conclusion you came to?

  Deeper even than the first, the second cut immediately makes the river flow, trickling in forks down the sides of my wrist onto the top of the table.

  “Mmmm,” Mary sings, green eyes glowing in the first morning light, “there it is.” My body starts to tingle. A light swell rises in my head.

  But did you get off on it, Uncle George? Did you feel your knees weaken? Your nipples harden? Your body go to shakin? No longer from the beautiful face of pain alone, but from the sheer pleasure of its cheek rubbing against your bones? Did you? Ever? Get off?

  “Once again, my mother started making plans. This time, she thought, after Bobby was weaned. This time it would happen. But once again, she was foiled. Just fifteen months after Bobby took his first glimpse of the world, while the nation was still recovering from the death of President Kennedy, my mother discovered another heartbeat thumping away in her womb. A beat that, if allowed to mature, would drum out any remaining hope of returning to school. So she panicked and spoke to my father about the possibility of aborting. Completing her education was her ticket to independence. Without it, she was a cripple who would have to rely on my father for the rest of her life. And what if he died suddenly? Who would take care of her then? But my father was emphatic. Wasn’t no way in the world any seed of his was gonna remain unborn.

  “Grandma Margret scolded her. Told her she ought to be thankful. And when my mother confided it was too big a burden to bear, that it seemed like she’d been pregnant since the day they were married, Grandma Margret called her an ingrate. ‘You lucky the Lord blessed you with children at all’ she said. ‘Coulda turned out barren, like Mrs. Felder over in Hamilton. Better learn to look on your burdens as blessins, child. You know it’s not everybody the Lord chooses to burden.’”

  The third cut is sexy. Water flushes my eyes as the tenuous blade glides without interruption, parting my skin. My head is full. I’m certain it will detach itself and fly away. All my juices—begging to come down—splash violently, ready to boil over.

  “Turned out I was a bigger burden than anyone expected.” The truth drives on. “After they brought me home from the hospital, the two-bedroom house my parents were renting became cramped. It never was meant to hold more than four, and even that was pushing it. So even though they couldn’t afford it, they were forced to find something bigger.

  “That’s when things started to fall apart. My father wanted to buy. Why should they keep paying all that money to the man, he said, and never have anything to show for it? But they didn’t have any money saved, my mother argued. And it would be awhile, at best, before she could look for work. What bank in its right mind would give a loan to a family of five with one measly income and no down payment? Even if it did, the new mortgage would be double the rent they paid now. Rent they barely managed to meet as it was. But again my father insisted. He would give up music if he had to. Get a second job. He refused to argue about it any further. If he had to work three jobs, he said, Gregory Taylor Childs’ children were going to grow up on their own land. Six months after I was born, we loaded down a U-Haul with all of our belongings and moved across town into my father’s dream house.”

  I do not see the hunting knife when Mary unsheathes it from its distressed leather casing. Not until it is raised high, poised to rain down, do I catch its gleam refracted in the nervous light of the candles. And not until I see its point spiraling downward do I first consider calling out the safe word. But I’m not quite ready to give in, and as usual, I go on. “The moment we moved into the house, it seemed my parents started arguing and never stopped. And before long, while my mother stayed home to care for the kids, my father took to gambling and drinking and staying out late. Not only did rumors in town have it that he was no longer a one-woman man, but it was whispered that when he was drunk, Gregory Taylor Childs would fuck anything that moved. Even
his brother’s wife, that is, if his brother had a wife to be fucked.”

  The blade stops an inch above my forearm and hovers. I do not move. Slowly it ascends again. This is it. The place in the game I sometimes falter, either by stumbling over the text or by calling out the word. Only it’s not a game this time. It’s the truth. And as Aunt Florida used to say, the truth has a way of forcing its way out even when you try your damnedest to stop it.

  “Eventually, Uncle Ray—my father’s brother—did get married, to a white woman named Jessica. And shortly thereafter, as if to fulfill the prophesy of the rumor mill, she and my father started fooling around.

  The mill couldn’t spit out the news fast enough. He’s fucking his brother’s wife, it said, he’s fucking his brother’s wife. And the poor brother and his own wife don’t even know. What’s that they say? The spouse is always the last to know? But Uncle Ray did know. Deep down, my mother did also. They just pretended not to notice.”

  This time I watch as the jagged blade rises. Again, it comes barrel-ing down, stopping inches from my arm.

  “But they couldn’t play make-believe forever. And it wasn’t long before the truth started to show itself in ways nobody could understand. Out of nowhere, it seemed, Uncle Ray took up trying to kill himself. And my mother just gave up. Like she figured if she couldn’t beat the truth, she might as well let it have its way.”

  The third time, the mesmerizing blade seems to hang, balance awhile at its peak before it starts down. And once in motion it’s as though something or someone is trying to resist it. As though if I squinted long enough I could see its tip embedded in the palm of Aunt Florida’s blistered, wrinkled, and tired old hand pushing upward to slow its decline.

  “Sooner or later, one them was bound to break. Turned out it was Uncle Ray. And when he did, all hell broke loose. When he finally decided to tell my father he knew, he did it with a vengeance. Instead of just trying to take his own life, he tried to take his daughter’s as well.”