by Mat Johnson
“But when are we going to do our presentations?” the little fat one says today. It is not right to call “the little fat one” “the little fat one,” so out loud I call him Marcus, which works since it’s his name.
“Well, Marcus,” I say, largely to display my knowledge of his identity. This is important, because it compensates for the fact that for a few seconds I have no idea what he’s talking about. When I see his poster board and the memory kicks in, it doesn’t help me much, because it was Spider’s assignment, and Spider isn’t here. Today is a Non-Spider-Appearance Moment, which usually occurs about once a week without prior warning or later comment. “You get an extra point for diligence. I was going to wait until the end of class, but we can start now. Would you like to go first, then?” I ask, because I really have nothing planned for the class today anyway, and time is for killing.
Marcus doesn’t bother to answer. He gathers his things and comes to the front of the room. His only request is for a plug, to connect his smart phone. And then, pushing PLAY, he stands before us, papers in hand, head down.
The beat comes on. It’s bossa nova.
“Brasil,” Marcus says, lifting his head up. Holding up his poster board, which says the same. Then he drops his head again. Behind him, a recorded woman’s voice sings in Portuguese, and Marcus is respectfully silent until her verse is done, then he lifts his notes, takes a deep breath, and begins.
“O Brasil é uma sociedade mestiça. Foi invadido pelos europeus em 1500, e originalmente…”
It’s clearly not fluent, there’s a hint of phrase-book mimicry in his voice, but he seems to know what he’s saying; there’s rhythm in his sentences. I recognize enough cognates from Spanish to nod along.
I’m not surprised the class politely listens. They’re good kids, for the most part. What catches me off guard is when Marcus ends with “Não acredito que os professores” and they all laugh, comprehending, at his last line.
—
“They take Portuguese, two hours a day, plus lab. Most of the kids. Brazil’s the largest mixed-race population in the Americas. Dude, how did you not know this?” Spider tells me, when he finally shows up, after class has been dismissed. This time, he offers the excuse that a tattoo went long, which could either refer to the time it took to do or the literal length of the image.
“My daughter takes French.”
“No, your daughter takes French Creole, Louisiana style.”
“Papa! Tu ne comprends pas?” says Tal, whose hair is in cornrows today. I refuse to acknowledge this change in appearance, and we’re playing a game to see how long I can keep that up. Tal’s sitting on my desk, bored already, in just the seconds she’s been in the trailer. I don’t know the specifics of what she’s said but I get enough of the gist to tell her to stop being a smart-ass and go meet me at the car.
“Why Portuguese? Nobody in America speaks Portuguese. Spanish is everywhere.”
“Come on, you know how mixies are. Every one of us has some place they heard about, where people look like us, where we could totally fit in. Morocco. Cape Verde. Trinidad. Man, I pretended to be Puerto Rican all through high school. It’s that dream: home. To finally go fit in somewhere. Isn’t that what everyone here wants? To feel what it’s like to be in the majority? To be home?”
—
I think of that word, home, when I stick my own key in the door of my father’s decrepit mansion. It opens, but I don’t belong here. We walk in and Tal immediately drops her bag right on the floor. I tell her to pick it up and lock the door behind us, but I don’t want us to be locked in here forever. The word home, it sticks with me through lunch, as I watch Tal separate the peas and chicken and carrot squares from her fried rice until it almost looks like a healthy, balanced meal instead of bulletproof takeout. She doesn’t even eat the peas; she gives them to the hamster. I know this because he doesn’t like them, and doesn’t eat them either.
“You could learn French, too,” she tells me, after a while. “Creole zydeco is kinda crunk.”
“You say ‘crunk’ now?”
“I am crunk now, Pops,” Tal insists, but the white-girl shrug that follows is the same as it ever was.
Home. I go to my desk, try to draw it without predetermining what the image will be. I find myself starting with a street, and then that street becomes Germantown Avenue. I know its cobblestones better than any surface on earth. I know the story, that they were carried from England as ballast on the first ships, and then used to pave the road that stretches from here to downtown. Yet it offers no comfort in connection. Halfway into the sketch, the basic pencil lines already etched, I realize this image is about leaving this place, not loving it. That road for me is about getting the hell out, which has always been the central dynamic in my relationship to Germantown. So I scrap it, and think of Swansea. You make me feel like I have a home in this world. That if a great hand shook the planet, I wouldn’t fall off. I wrote this at the bottom of an illustration I did of Becks, around the time I asked her to marry me. She hated the picture, but didn’t tell me for years, then did it silently by leaving it behind when she moved out. And then I thought, I can fall off now. I can finally disappear into nothing.
But Tal is here, and now I can’t anymore. And she makes me not want to either. She makes me want to build something, for her.
At car. Got the new issue of The Walking Dead. Bring water. The text comes and I look out the window and Sunita Habersham’s station wagon is on the street. I know she’s not in her car. She’s in mine. Waiting for me. This is how she does it. No forewarning, no arrangement. Just a text, like this one. Bring water is actually a major step forward in our electronic foreplay.
I bring a glass of water, with ice, and think, Tal won’t notice if I don’t rush. I walk from the kitchen to the front door trying not to spill and Tal sees me and says, “You’re not kidding anyone,” and looks back at her homework.
At the Bug, Sun’s sitting in the driver’s seat. She’s got the seat pulled all the way back, and stares up at the tattered ceiling. I don’t get in. I stand next to her door.
“Look, why don’t you come inside? At this point, it’s just weird. We could order some more food, maybe? I had a big lunch but we could just get a coffee or something.”
“Nah, I’m totally stressed out. Just get in here,” Sun tells me. There’s a wink offered, but I don’t want it.
After a few seconds, acknowledging that I am not going to move farther, Sunita deigns to look up at me. Her eyes are passive and bored. Then she looks away again. It’s not until I tap on the window that she sits up and rolls it down, the seat still supine behind her.
“The night is young,” I tell her. I want to get in and read comic books, enjoy the physical aspects of our friendship. But if I get in and we do this she’ll just leave. I need to build a home. This automotive pied-à-terre, what is it constructing? This is no longer new sex. Now it’s just sex. Just sex is good as well, but without the novelty it must meet more stringent requirements. I need more. Tal deserves more, a woman in the house who is actually willing to come inside the house.
“It’ll get cold soon. We could forget the comics and just get to the finale.” There’s Sunita’s smile popping. It doesn’t erupt; she puts on her face like a pair of sunglasses.
“Let’s just go inside. I was about to make dessert. Got a muffin mix. Let’s break bread this time. Tal said there’s supposed to be an amazing new series on Netflix. We could watch it together, when she’s done her homework. Or something by ourselves, something date-like, that would be nice. We could even just go upstairs. But not in the car this time.”
“Upstairs? With Tal home?”
I say, “She knows you’re here already. This isn’t about her,” then sigh. It comes as a completely physical reaction to holding my breath a bit in the moment, yet it works perfectly as an emotional statement. I open the door, hand her the glass of water. Sunita Habersham takes it, sips.
“I need something more,”
I tell her. I almost say we need, which might have scared her even if she realized my “we” is Tal and I. “I don’t know what this is, but I need something more if you and I are going to continue.”
“Want me to dress up like Catwoman?” she asks. She isn’t kidding. From her handbag, she pulls out a black whiskered mask and shakes it at me.
I turn and walk away. I’m at the steps when Sun honks the horn. When I turn around, she’s gotten out.
“Fine. We’ll go on a date then. A proper one.”
“Okay. When? Now?”
“Tomorrow night. There’s an acoustic concert, downtown. At Acousticism. It’s every first Thursday, a lot of us go, from Mélange. Mostly the so-called Oreos, but some of the sunflowers too. Even One Drop’s crew. We’ll get something to eat first. Ethiopian.”
“Yeah. Sure. Fine. Good,” I say, my humorless, declarative tone matching her own. I don’t say, I was just going inside to get condoms. I have no defenses against Catwoman-related seduction. “The restaurant is called Almaz. Elijah will be there too; it’s his favorite place. Then we can see what this is. We all can.”
—
“You know that crazy bitch invited me out on a date with her boyfriend?” I ask Spider. We’re in the back of the faculty meeting the next day. I still can’t believe it. I can’t. I start thinking it’s a test, that I’ll show up and it will just be Sunita, that if I go I prove that I don’t care and I still want to be with her. Or, it’s a test to see if I’m a big enough eunuch to put up with something like this. Then I think of Sun’s face when she said it, the utter lack of humor.
“Don’t use that word. The b-word. Bitch. It’s misogynistic and too easy and loses your argument before you even start. Also, ‘crazy.’ Mental illness is a serious thing. It’s an illness. And it’s also misogynistic: guys are always saying women are crazy. Why not try describing her as a ‘deluded asshole’ instead?”
“Thank you, Spider. Thank you so much. Can you believe what that deluded asshole asked me to do?”
“Yes, I can. It’s foul, but yes. She has a boyfriend, man. She told you that. That means: mess. And this is messy.” Spider sticks his tongue out, twinkles his fingers like everything’s falling to the floor.
“But I thought she would get some of my good stuff and then she’d like it so much that eventually she’d leave him and Tal would have a new mommy and we would all live happily ever after.” I say it, and I start laughing, at myself, because that’s exactly what I believed.
“So Warren, I hear you’re going to join us tonight at Acousticism? That’s wonderful. You’re really engaging in our little community, aren’t you? What about you, Spider? Are you coming this time?” Roslyn is standing there, behind us. Her posture implies no movement, as sturdy as a tree in spring. She may have been standing there the whole time.
“Oh no. This one I might have to sit out.” He looks over at me, his eyes smiling so big the lids should be curved.
My mind slides down a run-on sentence: Roslyn couldn’t have overheard that I was going to this music thing, because I didn’t say the name of the place I was going, because I just said “a date” and that’s all, which means Sun told her about us all going out, which means Sun probably tells her everything, which is why Roslyn smiles at me now like she not only knows everything I’ve been up to but has the pictures to prove it.
“You should come with me! We should go, as a date, together,” I say to Roslyn, to see what will happen. I long to see Roslyn unnerved. And if she comes undone, maybe Sunita Habersham will be off balance because of it. That’s what I want. I want to see someone else uncomfortable. It works. The tree sways a bit. I follow with, “Sun said there’s a great Ethiopian place, we’re going to meet up there first.”
“Almaz,” Roslyn shoots back. And there is no sway there. There is only rigidity. “You know what? I think that’s a fantastic idea.”
As Roslyn walks away, we both stare after her.
“You know what, man? You’re a wild boy,” Spider says when she’s out of range.
“Don’t use that word. That b-word,” I tell him, at which he frowns with a total lack of amusement.
15
ELIJAH. I say his name for hours. I say it and I spit. Literally. Even when I’m indoors. Eel. Lie. Junk. I fucking hate him. I hate him when Roslyn picks me up in the center’s school bus. I hate him enough to fill every empty seat gaping behind us as we drive downtown. I fucking hate him. And I’m sure he’s a nice guy. I’m sure he’s a great guy. I’m sure he had the strongest of college recommendations, that there are old ladies who just think of his horrible name and start to cry because humanity has a hope after all. I forgive Sun for being his captive. For being seduced by his lies. Because they must be lies, because he must actually be a horrible person, because how else could I hate him?
Roslyn knows where the restaurant is, and insists on guiding me from the school bus by my hand. They’re sitting on the floor, on pillows. Elijah’s white. This is fine, I prepared a special hatred program in case he was a white guy, and it’s ready to roll out. I’ll have to delete the black Elijah, Asian Elijah, and mulatto Elijah mental files, but this just gives me more room to focus. He’s probably one of those white guys who think they’re enlightened just because they’ve realized the obvious fact that black women are beautiful. He’s probably one of those white guys who think poking their pink members in black women will somehow cure racism. I don’t trust interracial couples. I don’t even trust the one that made me: I think of who my father was, who my mother was, and I have no idea why they first hooked up, let alone fell in love. I don’t know if I’m the by-product of a racialized eroticism or a romantic rebellion of societal norms. I’m fine with mixed-race unions that just happen, are formed when two people randomly connect. But there are other kinds of interracial couplings with suspect motivation, with connections based on fetishizing of black sexuality, or internalized white supremacy—those kinds exist too. Yes, I was in an interracial relationship myself, but I distrust my own initial motivation.
I can dislike interracial couples while acknowledging I’m the product of one. Every misogynist came out of a woman.
Elijah’s got a ponytail. It’s braided. This is a bonus, because I can hate this more and do. It’s red and he says his last name and I refuse to register it but it’s Scottish so I feel relieved in hating him without too much Celtic overlap. He’s skinny, and he wears two gold chains that shine through his open collar, and this is fantastic for hatred. It’s so good that I look over at Sun and find that my disdain is becoming so voluminous that some of my hatred for Eel-Lie-Jah is spilling over to her. I look at Sun, who looks at the menu as if bored. But I don’t think she can be bored because we’ve been having sex several times a week for months and now we’re having dinner with her boyfriend.
“Do you know what you want?” she asks me. Then she winks. Only I can see it. For the length of the time it takes for her lids to shutter down and up again, we are in the Beetle, and she is naked, on me, facing me, kissing me like she wants my tongue at the bottom of her stomach. And I blush and look down at my menu and say, “I’m just here for the pancakes.”
“Their injera is pure love. A lot of places, they use an electric oven, but they use a traditional clay oven here. You can taste the authenticity.”
Elijah says all this, and he’s very warm about it too, his eyebrows pop up excitedly with the word love, and I look back at him and smile and wonder for the first time, Does he know me and his girlfriend are fucking?
“For Elijah, everything has to be authentic,” Roslyn says. So she knows him well, clearly. Well enough for there to be a slight disapproval in her statement.
“What is something worth if it’s not real? I just prefer truth. Some people choose otherwise,” Elijah says back.
Roslyn does that laugh, as though a child has said something inappropriate, and drinks, and I don’t know what the hell they’re really talking about. I hold the menu. I hold it up to my face,
releasing my facial muscles from the strain of hiding disdain. I don’t read the words. I want to hold it like this all night. I could do that here, and at the concert next. Who’s that? Oh, that’s Warren. He’s very serious about what he’s going to order tonight.
“They let the dough ferment for days, then hand pound it,” Elijah says. “You really can taste the difference. If you’re like me, you’re going to love it too. And it looks like we have the same tastes, right?” and I look up, and he’s smiling at Sun. Whose response is, “You know what, I think I need to powder my nose.” Because Elijah totally knows we’re fucking.
Roslyn makes a motion with her arm like she’s going to get up and go with Sunita and I reach over and grab her hand and say, “Will you help me pick some appetizers?” with my mouth and Please don’t leave me alone with this white boy with every other part of my body. Roslyn gets up anyway, pulls her hand free. Before she leaves, though, I get a kiss, on my forehead, that lasts long enough that I have to be still to not hit her in the nose. And then it’s just me and the white guy who’s smiling at me.
“Let’s get out the weirdness. Let’s just get it out, set it free, send it on the road.” This is his toast, two glasses tink. He brought his own bottle of red wine. The label is boring and not at all hip and I’m sure that that means secretly it is.
“Hit me,” Elijah says. I look up from my glass. “Just hit me.” I put the glass down. “Not, like, in the face, bro. I mean, the ladies are only going to be gone for a minute. Let’s have mano to mano time.”
