Loving Day

by Mat Johnson

  “I saw something. Definitely,” my image tells the world.

  The anchors are laughing. One says, “That’s some story!” Then the other says, “Skeptics can come see for themselves. Loudin Mansion will be open for tours this Friday, June twelfth, for the Loving Day Festival. Loving Day celebrates the anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia verdict that allowed interracial marriage nationally.” It then goes black. Replay, the screen dares.

  I look over at the tent. The flap is down, the zipper is tight. She’s in there.

  “We are not having tours of the house tomorrow,” I say to it.

  “It’s my house. I can do what I want,” comes back to me.

  I scroll down the page, look at the comments. Some Mulattopian, surely, has posted an event listing for Loving Day, under the name CrispusAttacks. Besides that, though, lies the subconscious of ugly America. PatriotGoEagles writes, Ghosts come from trauma. That woman was probably raped by that black guy.

  “Haters gonna hate,” Tal says after I read it to her. The sub-comment discussion for this entry reads like watercooler dialogue at a Klan meeting. One of these replies links to an article already written in reference to the clip, billed as a Must Read Response. I click on it. The article is called, “Mongrel Separatists? Obama’s America Invades Philly.” The first line is: Remember when we warned of Reverse Racism, and the Libertards all laughed—now we know why they were really laughing.

  What comes after that, my daughter doesn’t need to hear, so I stop reading it aloud. Into my pause, Tal says, “That’s so stupid. How can you be racist against ghosts?”

  “Listen, honey. Here’s a news flash from outside the Mélange bubble: Americans know how to be racist against anything. People look at interracial couples through their own, distorting racial lens. It doesn’t matter what form they take.”

  “That’s just one nutjob,” she tells me.

  “That article has eighty-four likes. On Facebook. So those are just the people willing to link their names to it.”

  Tal doesn’t say anything in there for a bit, but I can hear her on her own laptop.

  “Well the First Couple video now has 22,786 page views,” Tal says back triumphantly.

  —

  I only know about Tal’s membership in the Loving Day Planning Committee because Tal, in her insistence on leaving the house for the final meeting before doing the dishes, chooses to reveal this to me. A teenager’s every move is their opportunity for the clandestine and the only way I get in on this is to demand that I come. I have to be there. I have concerns. I have concerns that need to be raised. I have to be there also because Roslyn is not answering my texts or calls directly. Tal gets a response, though, and I’m allowed. “As my guest,” my daughter makes the point of telling me.

  It’s a late-spring day, but we’re inside the administration trailer, encased by its depressed low ceiling and wood-veneer paneling. The room has more than a dozen people shoved into it, the hum of an air conditioner forcing everyone to speak a little too loud for grace. My attempt to grab Roslyn before the meeting begins is foiled by a delegation of half-breeds from other mixed-race organizations and locales. Apparently not just black and white people are sleeping together. “Everyone is loving everyone, always, everywhere, and this room is proof of that,” jokes the hapa dude after his introduction. He flew in all the way from Oakland. For this. It’s going to be huge.

  I sit through forty-five minutes of prattle and minutiae. Also, I sit through the way Roslyn stares at me. Like she’s won, and like she’s happy about it. Staring over at the Amerasian issues therapists, and the multiracial marketing coordinator, all the other lords of their own online and community mixed-race support groups, the Great Mulatto Queen addresses her court of subjects. The regality of her chandelier earrings, the rich draping of scarves over head and breast—none is as majestic as the look of joy in Roslyn’s eyes. Or maybe she’s actually happy. Maybe this is all her dream. Maybe it’s all come true, everything she imagined in her darkest hour would bring her bliss and fulfillment.

  “It’s going to be protested,” I say the second Roslyn asks if there are any questions. “I talked to a friend. She made it clear. There are going to be protests, the whole damn day I’m sure.” Roslyn looks at me as if I’m not even speaking. As if the only reason she’s even facing my way is to read me like a clock on a wall. So I turn, physically, to the rest of the room.

  “This is an existing neighborhood. There is an existing order. Racially, locally, all that. Blowback is going to happen. And with that video circulating online, who knows how many other wackos are going to be drawn out. You need to seriously consider canceling this. This whole place will be on the news for something a lot less silly than ghosts. This could be bad.”

  “Protests mean press. All press is good press, generally.” Roslyn, always pleasant, always smiling just enough to promise not only happiness but the opportunity for more. “We want the world to know we exist. Nobody cares about marches or rallies anymore. They want spectacle. They want ninety-second clips they can peruse on their choice of mobile device. Our guest speakers are already here, the bands and equipment are booked.”

  “My house is a mess. And not ready for a tour,” I point out.

  “Fine. But people are already in cars, trains, planes, coming here. For this. For us. For all of us. This event is happening. Protesters are just the final ingredient to make the day monumental. How many agree?”

  “Agreed!” comes from across the room. Even Tal, she says it. I hear her voice distinctly because she’s the one I love here and also she’s right by my side.

  “Sarah, make sure you resend the press release immediately. Add the part about the expected protesters. Make it a headline. Use the word ‘controversial’ in it too. Also, ‘outrage.’ They’ll see ‘outrage,’ and think page views.”

  I get one voice on my side. One fellow champion of sanity in the whole lot of mutts. I have no idea what ethnic groups she’s mixed with, either. Laotian and Ecuadorian? Pakistani and Italian? Who knows, she’s just another member of the international legion of tan. But the woman is wearing a business suit, and is by far presenting the most professional air in the room, so I take special pleasure in cloaking my agenda in her gravitas.

  “Does this dovetail with the image that you hope to promote, though? If the intent is to create an atmosphere of acceptance to interest the marginalized?”

  Standing to speak to us all, opening her arms high like a bear staking its territory, Roslyn says, “This year, it’s about making our presence known. About thrusting ourselves into the dialogue. Not just locally. As far as we can. Nationally. Internationally, if possible. Next year, our second Loving Day event will be at our new rural location, and then we can focus on message refinement. This year, this year we announce to the world that we are here, this is our time to be heard, our time to be whole. If this is big enough, next year, they will come from all over to find us.”

  “What ‘new rural location’?” And I know Roslyn hears me, because she responds to everyone else.

  “Tomorrow night, we have a major announcement. The Mélange Center for Multiracial Life will be unveiling a new satellite retreat in a setting that combines natural beauty with major historic resonance.”

  “What ‘new rural location’?” I ask again, and keep asking, but no one can hear me over the applause.

  —

  Tal follows me out because she can tell I’m mad and it’s not with her. “We don’t have to do the ghost tour, Pops. I mean, it would be so awesome, but I was thinking, you’re right we would have to clean, which is a pain in the ass. And now there’s all the orange spray paint. And honestly I don’t know if the ghosts would like it, you know?”

  “This isn’t about ghosts.”

  “It’s about Roslyn, isn’t it? You know she’s awesome, right? Look at all she’s done here. It’s going to work out. You have to trust her,” Tal finishes with, which is what gets me to slam the front door behind us.
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  “No I don’t, and you don’t. Or you shouldn’t. I am your family. They are not your family. She’s a liar, Tal. Did you hear that crap about the second location? She told me she only had money to buy one. Just to get the price on the house down. She lied to me. She lied to us. Do you know how much that probably cost us? Thousands. Hundreds of thousands, probably.”

  “She didn’t lie,” Tal tells me.

  “Roslyn lied,” I say. Calmer now. It’s just true. It’s simple. The words don’t need emphasis. I walk up the stairs. I want a shower. I want a drink. I can do both up there.

  “She didn’t lie,” Tal calls after me before I can reach the top. “I’m not selling her the place. Not yet. I’m going to keep renting to Mélange for a little while, so they can buy the other place first. It’s an opportunity we can’t miss, and we can’t afford to do both.”

  I fight the urge to yell by walking down the steps, slowly. I take my time. Because I want to be calm when I get there. When I get to her. There’s an air of menace coming off me, I realize, in the slow and deliberate fall of my feet before I get to Tal. But it works too, because by the time I’m there before her I’m speaking in almost a whisper.

  “Honey? You can’t. Do that. We need that money. You and me, the real ‘we.’ For college. I need that money. To live.”

  “I don’t want to go all the way to Washington State. I want to be here, with them.”

  “You have to go.”

  “I want to be with you, Pops. This is my home.”

  “Trust me,” I tell her. Let the words sit there. “It’s time to grow up. It’s time to get out of this house.”

  Tal turns around, heads to leave out the front door. Then, confused by the metaphor of her actions, turns and goes into her dining room. For a while, the only sound in response is her zipping up the entrance to the Coleman. But I still stand there. Because it’s not over.

  “I’m not selling. It’s my house. Legally, it’s my house! You can’t make me leave here.”

  But I can. I can.

  22

  WHEN THE PROPANE TANKS are stacked cheerleader-pyramid-style behind my father’s house, it only takes the top one, unscrewed, to release enough gas to be ignited by the broken fuse box just two feet above. The fire bursts forth like Satan popping a zit. Within minutes, it engulfs the back of the house. And no one notices, because the festival is going with enough chaos of its own to have all senses engaged. The open window allows the destruction into the kitchen, welcoming it into the house beyond. There it rages, hidden from the party on the lawn, engulfing the staircase and climbing higher, and no one even notices. Not until the windows in front of the house burst from the heat that only minutes before was just cold kinetic potential. Someone runs for the door, but they’re stopped. Because it’s too late. Far too late. And all those other propane tanks? They go boom. Taking with them any evidence. As the explosion goes off, I walk away without looking back, like in muscleman movies. No, better: I turn with everyone else and look surprised. Even more so, because I’m losing my father’s house. Maybe I wail a bit, scream, get near One Drop so he can hold me back from rushing in there and rescuing the hamster. I can see it. I don’t get out of the shower until the entire scene is fully visualized.

  —

  “Anyone need a propane refill?” I ask, and so many say yes that soon the shopping cart I push around the grass is so full I can barely get it back to the Bug. The white metal containers fill up the backseat in a pile three tanks high and I manage to fit four more in the passenger seat as well. In Kabul or Baghdad or any other place we left fighting, the sight of me driving around with so much explosive power would probably result in my arrest or shooting, but in America no ones cares. I’m just someone who really loves barbecue.

  —

  The only resistance I find is from the cashier at the Stop-N-Go, who only seems annoyed when I hand them all in for exchange simultaneously, forcing him to lock up the store so he can open up their little gated cage outside and allow me to clear out his entire stock.

  I am a man who hasn’t slept. I am a man who instead made a list, first on paper and then—having ripped up the paper and set the pieces on fire in a dirty cereal bowl lest evidence remain—in my head. A list of the positive and negative reasons to burn a house down.

  The positives are clear: gain a significant amount of income from the evil corporate underwriting industry, to free myself from Philly’s trap, to free my daughter from Mélange’s trap as well. There are other less tangible, yet still compelling, reasons. To be free of the past in a blaze of glory. To just be done with it all, all of this period, now.

  The negatives are tangible and real, and I understand that fully and they cause me fear and make it so I can’t sleep and yet am so tired. I could be arrested. Arrested, and not given the insurance money. Tal could start to hate me. Sunita Habersham might hate me, permanently. All of these substantial fears, though, hinge on one major one: being caught. This is the primary fear. But I know how not to be caught. And if I’m not caught, all of the other negatives will float away like ghostly ash.

  I stop by the liquor store, purchase a flask of bourbon so flat and curved as to be almost invisible in my pocket. I drive by Tosha’s house on the way back. They’re all there, on her lawn. On the porch. The black folks who aren’t going to take it anymore. Making signs. There have to be at least thirty of them. Kamau’s testing his bullhorn. Someone’s had T-shirts made, nationalist ones, black with green and red lettering. I sit in my car, parked across the street, and it takes a minute to see that the shirts read A people united will never be defeated. I want one. I don’t want to be defeated either. I could go for feeling united as well. I want to open up the door, go in there, see what happens. See if a Negro who looks like a Lithuanian rugby player is allowed to put on the red, black, and green, too. Surely today. Today, I would be welcomed even.

  I pull my door open, see George come out his front door, then close it again. Their youngest daughter is in his arms, sitting on his hip. She’s too big to carry. That same shirt, too big to wear, but a red belt transforming it into a dress on her. That little girl, she’s so happy. She’s seven and she has her father. And she’ll remember this day forever. I pull off after the two of them are around the side of the porch.

  In front of Loudin, on the far side of the street, another crowd is already forming. A bus behind them, parked, with even more people coming out. I haven’t seen a large group of white people in Germantown for so long I think they must be a clan of sunflowers, come to celebrate the cause of biracial love. But they’re real white folks. Old ones. I see an oversized placard of the Constitution leaning on a brick wall, and I know we’re in trouble. I don’t know what the hell the Constitution has to do with any of this, but when old white folks start waving the Constitution like landlords with a lease, it’s trouble. I see this before I see the sign that says REVERSE RACISM IS THE TRUE RACISM. Paused at the light, I look at the guy holding that gem too long, and he comes up to my window.

  “Hey buddy, take some of these, and be careful parking around here, if you know what I mean.” He winks, because he must think I’m white. He hands me a stack of fliers. Not printed, mimeographed—I can still smell the ink. Rest For The Raped, it says, with a crude illustration of a crying white woman, with wings. I get as far as the sentence, In 1954, in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Agnes Goines was raped and murdered by black man Charles Jefferson, yet her spirit may…and then I throw it on the floor of the passenger seat, where hopefully it can later get stepped on.

  When I ride up to my father’s driveway in the Bug, I know this will be the last time. I see that damned house up there on the hill, watching the circus on its lawn. If it had a memory, it would think back to the time Washington’s Continental Army did the same, and how far it had come, just by staying in the same place. It must be tired. It must be ready to go. It has reached the completion of its circle.

  The Bug is barely through the gate when I�
�m stopped by Spider. He comes up to the side of my window and asks, “You got my tank?” and I say yes and start driving till he whoa, whoa, whoas me down again.

  “Yo, let me get it out, right? You’re bugging, dude,” he says, then starts laughing, pointing at my father’s car. “You’re bugging, get it?”

  “You see those crazy white folks across the street?” I ask him. “I mean, you know today’s going to be insane, right?”

  “Ah, man, that’s nothing. Let me tell you what’s crazy: they gots a zonkey, man!” I look across the street. No zonkeys. Just honkies.

  “No, at the petting zoo! There’s going to be zonkey rides! I saw it—I think it might just be a pony they painted but the kids are going to love it.” Spider opens the back of my car before I can, goes to pull a canister out, then looks at me watching him through the back window.

  “You all right?” he asks.

  “Oh I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. Hey, three o’clock, main stage. Don’t miss it,” he tells me, which gets me to turn over in my seat and look back at him. “You don’t remember? The Miss Cegenation Pageant, man. I think Tal could totally win,” Spider says, and starts walking away without closing the back door behind him. I drive off fast enough to close it with the certainty that I really do have to do this thing.

  I try parking the Bug in the garage and carrying the tanks over, but after straining to lug one, adjust my strategy. Slowly down the grass, about ten feet from the house, I park and start rolling them out. Straight to the fuse box. Lining up some bricks as a wedge, I lay four on the bottom, and start building up from there. I can hear the music echoing from the other side, and start dropping the tanks down in beat to cover the sound. But it doesn’t matter. No one can see into my heart, no one knows what I want or what I don’t or what I’m intending. I include myself in that ignorance. My body has its orders. My mind doesn’t even have to do anything beyond continue willing.