How to Escape From a Leper Colony

by Tiphanie Yanique

  When we done I ask Yolanda if it’s okay if I smoke. She says it’s cool. I don’t offer her. I don’t like ladies smoking. It’s a bad habit and it looks even worse on them. But for fun I blow the smoke toward her and she open her mouth to catch it. I think that yes, this is my woman. My woman is home.

  It’s summer so we go out constant. Sometimes we hit the beach before it get dark and the sand flies come out. Sometimes she and her moms want to have family time so I wait until midnight and then roll by. I just sit in the car in the middle of the street. Sometimes I park right there, turn off the car, and wait with the radio on low. Yolanda knows my ride so it don’t take her long to come out. Then we go to my house and watch a flick with action and a love story—something we could both be into. In my bedroom with my mother snoring just on the next side of the wall, I tell Yolanda that I don’t eat pussy but she only laugh as she guide my head.

  I don’t deal in front of Yolanda because I know she won’t like that. If we in traffic and some guy come up to me with his hand open I look at him hard and say, “Partner, you don’t see my woman with me?” I never bring Yolanda to the park and she know she better not show up there looking for me. If she in downtown and she want to find me she only need to text me and I’ll leave my post by the kiddie swings long as I ain in the middle of nothing.

  But once I left Yolanda in the car for almost two hours while I went into Fish house to get a gun put in my mouth. That was his punk ass way of asking why I ain make no profit. And though I could have just told him that I smoke it up myself, so send me to rehab already, there was a gun in my mouth and all I could think about was Yolanda outside in my four-runner, reading her book. I done this before. Gone inside to some nigger’s house and stayed longer than I should. Told her I’d be back in a few minutes but then I gone for a hour. This though was the worse. What Yolanda thinking out there all that time? That I’s a real waste? Or maybe she ain thinking of me at all.

  When I get back she in the seat reclining way back with her feet all up on my dash like she just here in the island vacationing. The thing is Yolanda never complains when I make her wait, but if I’m sweating she look at me all suspicious like she think I been screwing or something … but she know I ain been doing that. She does wear me out. She younger than me, so it’s no big deal. I’m the one who should be worried really. I mean she not even with me half the year but it seem like she want to do it all the time. I have to keep asking her: “Do you love dick or just my dick?” and she laugh with that mampie laugh and tell me “Just yours, Anton, just yours.”

  Yolanda is a good girl. And I done decide that a street man like me need a good sweet thing like her. It’s a balance. She’s not about “keeping it real” and all that fake shit. She’s not going hold my gun for me. And I don’t want her to. I is the thug in this. I don’t want no chick I have to worry might sell me out or turn me in because she know too much. Yolanda know I work for the Sun Shack and that I’s a hard worker even when I been smoking a lot. She the kind of girl don’t want to know everything that goes on in my life.

  That summer she had a job teaching computers. And sometimes I used to bring her lunch. The other girls would look all cut eye at me. Once I see a big bush of roses on the front desk and only for a second do I wonder if they for her. But then I get my stuff together. The next day I bring she flowers. The next day a stuffed bear. Why not? I smoke a little less, add more fronter to my spliff. I save some money because one day I going buy this girl a ring. She start wearing my hand chain around she wrist and it so thick and bulky that everybody must know that it’s a man own. That she mine.

  At the club I buy her friends drinks and they smile at me and tell she I is the cutest guy she ever been with, loud, so I could hear. On the dance floor when she there tongue-kissing me, like the white tourist girls do the Rastitutes, I make sure our hips don’t press cause I know she hate to feel my gun in her waist.

  Some of the guys in the park probably think I is a punk. That I sprung over this girl that’s cheating on me when she off island. That she too young for me. Too educated. Fuck them. She ain cheating cause I’m digging up in her every single night—enough to keep it in her dreams when she away. And yeah she young, but so what. I still hustling and I almost thirty. Plus, she ain had no pops in her life for a long time. She need a older man. I did two years at FAMU but then my pops disappeared and I had to go home to take care of my moms. I can still go to UVI, but I’m old now. You know. When would I have time? Between selling shades to the tourists at the Sun Shack and sitting at the bottom of the park slide with my pockets full of dime bags. I mean, I know things. I read the entire newspaper every day. And sometimes Yolanda and I shout each other down over politics. We teach each other stuff. This is love, son. The real thing.

  One day I up by Fish and as usual Yolanda waiting in the car. This time I have my gun and I open my shirt to show him. “Listen,” I tell him. “I ain smoking it all. It’s that shitty skunk weed come in from Jamaica. It making everybody sick. Even I can’t smoke it. Either I sell it cheap or we go in the hole.” He want me to sell some coke to make up. I tell him I’ll come back for it cause my lady in the car and it’s bad enough I carry my gun around with her. I don’t want her caught up in nothing. He give me a hard time but I remind him that I been his partner for years. I’ll come the fuck back after I drop her off. I hate that Fish nigger, but he my cousin on my mom’s side—so I suppose to know that he won’t really kill me. And he’s suppose to know that I won’t really sell him out.

  I’ve been up in Fish’s house this time for only thirty minutes when I get back to the car. Instead of legs up on the dash, she hunched forward. When I open the car she jump and hide her arms. That messes me up. See, once I dated a girl who started shooting. I saw her arms all scarred and blue and it frig me up so bad I never sold heroin again. I never touched her again either. So now I’m freaking out, thinking I done turned my angel Yolanda bad and we in the car right in Fish’s driveway struggling. She thicker than me but I still stronger and taller than her. She forget that even though I skinny, I could still pick her up and slam her on the bed.

  I get her arms in front and see words written on them. It freaks me out. But it’s just words. “Stop looking,” she says. “Stop reading.” Lord Harry the Judge. I lay back in my seat and I just ask, “This is stupid. You couldn’t find no paper?” She shakes her head, “I left my notebook.” I open the golf and show her the roller paper, like a small notepad. “I didn’t think of that” she say with her voice going all Yankee now. And then she crying like I hit her or something. She sit on her hands the whole drive back. Keep her arms tight by her side. Tonight, I think, I going kiss those arms. I going lick every word if she let me.

  When we at her gate I stop her and say, “Why won’t you let me see what you write?” And she just shrug. I ask if she let anyone see and she look out the window like she talking to somebody in the street. “I got some poems published in the college magazine.” I nod. “Anybody on island read it?” And she look at the roof of my car. She reach up and pick at the felt that’s coming loose. I don’t have a drug dealer’s pimped-out ride. I just have a regular four-runner. She look at the roof like it’s falling in and it is. She say, “I sometimes read at this open mic down in Fredericksted.” I pull her face close to mine. I kiss her hard like I know she like it. She does call it “the I love you kiss.” I say, “Next time, I coming with you.” Only when I on my way back to Fish’s do I wonder when and how she go there without me ever knowing. When I get to her the ink is all washed off.

  For two weeks she forget to tell me about the open mic thing. I act like I don’t care. Instead, I do a little investigation. I hit up my crew in the park. “Like Def Jam on HBO?” they ask. I say yeah, but still they don’t know nothing. I ask my moms. I check the paper. I ask the lady I sell shades with. Nothing. So I do something bazadie. I stake my girl out. I borrow one of Fish’s cars and I park down the street, watching her house in the side mirror. On the fourth
night she come out around nine. She suppose to be hanging with her moms. I suppose to be picking her up later for a movie lime.

  And yet she standing there waiting on the corner like she frigging selling. Only she dressed up like I ain never seen her. She ain wearing makeup and her hair tie up in scarf. Arms bare and clean for everyone to see. And she ain in a tight pants that makes her ass look juicy. She in a dress down to her ankles, the kinda thing my moms wears around the house. I want to get out and scream to her that she look like a sweetheart, because really she does. I want to hear her mampie laugh. But I don’t move. I wait. Like I’m waiting for a hit. Like I’m doing those things we don’t talk about. An old Volvo drive up. She walk around and get in. I turn away when the car drive by.

  I know how to tail a car. I know how to hold back. How to cut into a gas station and let them get way ahead. I know how to take a parallel street and keep an eye on them at the crossroads. I track the Volvo way to the next side of town. I park in the small lot, because we already here. If she see me now it don’t matter. Let she see me.

  The spot is a Rasta restaurant. Ital smelling up the place. Making me wish I had bring a beer or eat some meat before I come. I never sell in this part of the island. These cats grow their own ganja. They say it religious and the cops leave them alone. I think that’s bullshit. So, if I just grow some locks then I’d be legit? I don’t want weed to be legal, anyhow. Then the feds would control it and the profits wouldn’t be made on the streets. You don’t change a good thing, you keep it so.

  It’s a small place but I squeeze in the back. I order a sea moss. I ain had one of these local drinks in years. I don’t use the straw because that look punky. I sip it from the cup itself. Sea moss does strengthen the back, they say. I don’t mind the extra boost because Yolanda does keep me spent.

  I drinking down all the nutmeg and coconut as I stare at the back of Yolanda’s head. I know my girl, she sitting way in the front there like she must do in school. The restaurant has a stage with a mic and even this announcer guy who’s telling crap jokes and singing. A dread is up there now scatting like a fool. There’s a pickup band that keeps repeating that it will do backup for anyone who want.

  They introduce her as Landi. And I cringe cause I never know she go by this name. I always tell her I think her whole name is sexy. She say she love to hear me say it. “Yo-lan-da.” And I say it for as many times as she want. She say that it’s a symbol that I love all of her, but now I don’t know. The crap announcer take her hand to help her onto the stage, even though I can see she don’t need no help.

  The guy next to me point his chin and say something bullshit like “Is she I come for.” When I just watch him hard he suck his teeth and say “Wait and see” then turn away to sip his energy drink from a tiny can. As soon as Yolanda up there she holding the mic like it my dick or something and she whispering into it and shouting into it and everybody pumping up their fists. She controlling the backup band just by moving her wrist or nodding her head, like they know her body and her ways. There’s a spotlight on her and I wondering if she can see me. I the only dude in the place with a ball cap on; without dreads or a nappy fro.

  Then I realize that Yolanda ain wearing my hand chain. Maybe she lost it. Maybe it slipped off somewhere outside. Maybe it home safe in her drawer. I leave my sea moss. I thinking I just going check the small parking lot and see if the hand chain dropped out there. I get into Fish’s car and turn it on so I have a light. But then I don’t look for the hand chain at all. I press the clutch and the gas. I driving away. And I hear Yolanda’s voice in the mic, screaming something messed up like: “Change, nigger, change.”

  THE SAVING WORK

  1.

  A church is burning down. On a Caribbean island, in the countryside, up a road that might lead to a saving beach, but does not—a church is burning down. Everyone who is associated with this church will later think “my church has burned down.” But for now there are only two women there to look at the fire, and blame each other.

  They are both white American women in the middle of their lives. They and their families are members of this church. They are each married to a local black man, both of whom are skinny and frail of body. These women want to be the strong ones. They have always been the strong ones.

  Deirdre Thompson has brought the garlands for the church stairs. She has brought the pew pins and the flowers for the altar. She was the first to arrive and see the bright flames. She is already dressed in her gold silk suit. She saw the smoke from far away in her car, but she imagined some filthy native was burning garbage in his yard. The smoke seemed to disappear as Deirdre drew near the church. This was an illusion.

  Her car had lumbered its way along the narrow cut into the land that is the church road. The men of the church laid the road, and, as a result, it dips erratically. The arms of thin trees scraped at the closed windows of Deirdre’s car. She wondered why no one had cut them back. She thought, with some worry, about how the limousine would make its way. The road opened into the clearing where the church crackled in the center. Through the windshield Deirdre saw what she thought was just a smallish fire, more smoke than anything. Nothing to alert the people in the nearby houses, some two hundred yards beyond the bushes.

  But now Deirdre knows what she’s seeing. She’s seeing the end.

  Deirdre Thompson has always been a negative kind of woman. She has one child because her womb had been stingy. And perhaps also because she left her husband once when their son was two. They did not reunite until the boy was twelve.

  Her son is called Thomas—after the island of his birth.

  Deirdre’s husband is an insurance salesman. He owns the business and has other men do the work of selling by foot. He stays in his office downtown and lets his faithful customers come to him. He does well. And his small family does well. But what Mr. Thompson really wants is to be a preacher. He knows he could lead the common folk. He knows he could get better pews for the main room and better robes for the choir.

  During the week Deirdre Thompson works as a dental assistant. In the office and outside, as she walks on her lunch break, she wears a white coat and allows patients and passersby to call her Doctor.

  On Sundays, when Deirdre teaches the high school religious classes, she does not tell her students that marriage is challenging and a thing to be careful with—like a baby. She tells them instead how much Mr. Thompson loves her and that love saves everything. She tells them that when she met Mr. Thompson she had blond hair down to her ankles and that is why he fell in love with her. She makes them turn the thin Bible pages to Sampson and study the strength that was in his hair. She makes them memorize passages from the Old Testament that demonstrate beauty as a woman’s greatest honor. The girl students are mostly of African descent and native to the island. They could never hope for blond hair to their ankles. They look at their teacher with envy or hate or pity—the last because they suspect Deirdre is lying.

  Deirdre’s son does not attend his mother’s Sunday school classes. He was the crossing guard aide in middle school and the student government president in high school. He has always been a ruler of sorts. Thomas is besotted with a girl named Jasmine, the eldest daughter of Violet de Flaubert. He is a year older than the de Flaubert girl but she was skipped ahead, so she and Thomas Thompson had been in the same grade. The de Flaubert girl is brilliant and shy, and Thomas has been in love with her since he was twelve.

  Deirdre stands a few safe yards in front of the burning church, watching it creak and break. She hears an engine sputter and knows it must be Violet de Flaubert’s car graveling up behind her. Deirdre does not turn to greet her. Now that Violet has arrived she wonders about her own inaction. Wonders about her own ability to simply watch the church crack, and crumble into ashes.

  Violet de Flaubert sees the smoke and thinks it must be a campfire. This makes no sense. There are no campgrounds. Then she thinks maybe it’s a barbecue, but people don’t barbecue much on the island. She thin
ks on anything but a burning church. She is fighting not to think of a burning church.

  Violet has five daughters who are each named after flowers, and with all those girls she somehow still feels virginal. When she teaches middle school religious classes on Sunday, she tells them, truthfully, that she was a virgin when she met Mr. de Flaubert. She makes them turn to passages on the mother of Jesus. She makes them act out the Christmas story. The girl students look at her with respect and adoration, for they are at the age for such things. The boy students look away from her with shame, because they are wishing they were Mister de Flaubert. The students don’t think Violet is white from America. They assume she is Frenchy and native to the islands because she talks with native inflections and because she’s been on the island since before they were born.

  Mr. de Flaubert works for the government in the tax system. He is a cog, but he tells his daughters and his wife that he is an accountant. He makes decent money, but with all those girls the money does not last. He, too, wishes he were a preacher. He knows he could give good sermons. He longs to reach out and put his hands on people and speak in tongues and see flames of Jesus spark on their heads.

  Violet de Flaubert is a teacher in the school where her daughters and Deidre’s son are enrolled. She teaches high school because her daughters are in high school. Before that she taught middle school. And before that she was a teacher’s aide in the elementary school. She is a teacher because she is a mother. To her they are the same thing.

  Two of her daughters are students in her Sunday school class. All five of her girls are strangely beautiful and brilliant. And they all have a saving flaw. One is overly shy, another is overly bookish, another cares only for her violin and practices incessantly, one is prone to fits, and the last is a bit of a tart. But even this last one reads science fiction and is friends with the oily-faced girls.