“We all have secrets,” I said. “Some are covered on purpose. Most, simply by time passing.”
“There’s that stoic philosophy again,” Rosa said shaking her head. “It’s so elegant, the way you can justify things.”
“I’ve never tried to justify the things I did. If I’ve left out details of my family’s criminal history, it’s because I’m no longer part of it.”
It was a last hope. Maybe Montego had contacted her about the keycard. He didn’t know we were involved. He might have shown her the pictures of the dead bikers and mentioned only their criminal affiliations, not the racial ones.
“Oh, I believe you stopped breaking the law for your family,” she said harshly. “I probably shouldn’t, but I’ll give that to you. But actions are easy to change. Can you change your mind so easy?”
The corner walls focused her fury and hung it like a cloud over my ears. A couple people came in holding trays and gave us nervous looks before sitting on the other side of the room.
“No,” I said. “You can’t.”
She blinked, dimming the sear of her eyes a bit. “So you’re still in agreement with your racist biker friends? The Storm Soldiers or whatever?”
“No. I mean that my ideas have been diverging from theirs for a long time.”
“And what ideas are those, Calix?”
“Violence.” I hung my head. “That’s all the Storm’s Soldiers are about. I can see that clearly now. I joined the army hoping to fix what was broken in them. Instead I came back to find that they’d rebuilt the pieces into something I could not support. I only abandoned them recently, but I left them mentally long ago.”
“We’re not talking about violence,” she said sharply. “You know I meant race. It sounds like your views didn’t change an inch if you came back looking to fix your old club.”
I studied my own hands, the pale of my palms despite the darkness of my tan on the other side. I might be ok living with two different worlds in my head. Of course, Rosa wouldn’t. This day had always been coming.
“They did,” I said. “Of course, they did. The army opened me up the world. The Soldiers and I might have gone our separate ways no matter who they were.”
“What exactly were you hoping to turn them back into? Were they just some sweet, little racist biker gang at some point?”
“They’re not racist,” I said, out of years of saying it.
Then I thought back to the men I knew inside: Homer and Thurgood and all the rest. Most would be fine even with perpetrating genocide. My father and I had laid down principles, but their violence had infected those along with everything else.
Rosa waited, eerily silent. I knew my words mattered.
“They were not meant to be racist,” I said. “The club was founded on white nationalism.”
Those were not the right words. Rosa’s tiny nostrils blared smoke. ”What the hell difference does that make?”
“It wasn’t about putting people down. It was about preserving a way of life.”
“A life of racism. Of exclusion.”
“No.”
“No?”
“It’s about…” I sighed.
All the words I could have used had come straight from my father’s mouth. I had no idea anymore what exact thing we were trying to preserve. I looked at Rosa and saw I had an inch of rope left. I had to find a deeper truth to all this. One that I could still believe in.
“It was about honoring my mother’s death,” I said, glumly.
Her face softened. “What do you mean? How does this have anything to do with your mother’s murder?”
I thought to the image of the gas station, a broken father, red and blue flashes on dark windows.
“She was killed in downtown Atlanta,” I said. “She and my little brother had pulled in to a gas station just as someone robbed the place. The guy killed her trying to take her car, then saw my brother in the backseat, panicked and ran away.”
“That’s awful.”
I shook my head. “She was supposed to me pick me up late after class, but my father got me earlier that day. I would have been in the front if I had been there. The robber would have seen me before shooting. We probably wouldn’t even be in that gas station.”
Rosa’s lips lay shut now, and she shook her head. Her hand edged toward mine on the table, but it didn’t reach it.
“That’s awful,” she said, “But I don’t see how that would lead you to becoming what you are.”
“The guy that killed her was black.”
The words sounded suddenly feeble. Rosa’s face turned and I struggled to get more out. “The part of downtown she was in was dangerous at night. My father had always told her to avoid it. I was with him at home when he got the call from the police. He couldn't even believe she had ventured there.”
Rosa stared at me. Her brow slowly tightened. “That’s it?” she said.
“That’s what?”
“That’s why you became a white nationalist?”
“That’s what landed him down that path, yes. He used to teach geography before. He decided it was more important to create a place where people could be with their own. The place where my mother died was almost entirely black populated. If she hadn’t ended up there by accident she wouldn’t have died.”
My father’s grief had always centered around that fact. I could remember his voice as he took the police call.
Why is she there? His voice had faded in disbelief. I don’t understand officer. Why would my wife be there? Later, in the midst of his grief, he would still speak the words to himself, still not believing.
“Oh, what the hell?” Rosa said, breaking my thought. She sat back arms folded. “You know, I spent all evening imagining all sorts of horrific things about you and what you believed, but this is almost worse. It’s silly.”
I felt myself burn hot at that. “In what way?”
“This is what you and your father took from your mother’s death? He decided he needed to get away from an entire group of people cause of one person’s crime?”
“He wasn’t looking to punish anyone, just set people free from the choices other groups made.”
“Uh huh.” She shook her head. “Do you even hear yourself? You’re so desperate to not look racist that you look silly instead. Who would your father want to keep apart from if your mother had been killed by a white robber?”
“That wouldn’t have happened in that part of town.”
“No? Then why not somewhere in your part of town? Because you guys lived someplace good, where the robbers were all computer hackers?”
I shook my head. This was getting way off message. “You asked me what started all this, and I told you. I was not the one who started the movement. This was his reasoning. What else are you looking for?”
“Uh, a real reason.” She bent in hard over the table. “You think what happened to you justifies what you turned into? My father was killed too, I didn’t become some black panther.”
“Your father was killed by white men?”
Her eyes fluttered a moment, and she dropped her gaze. “You might see them that way, but they were Latino.”
“What happened?” I asked, peering in at her.
It looked like she might refuse, but her head dipped back towards the table. “He was stabbed. We were walking to the corner store and someone robbed him. He didn’t even try to resist. He gave them his wallet and a guy stabbed him anyway. Maybe they just didn’t want him to follow them. He didn’t. He bled out in front of me.”
She looked up and her eyes were glistening. I saw myself in the reflection of her tears. I saw her behind that veil.
“Rosa…” I reached for her hand, but she yanked it away.
“Grief makes people do crazy things, but your whole life shouldn’t be built around it.” She shook her head wildly. “Why are you even dating me if you believe the things you do?”
I wasn’t even sure what I believed anymore, but that had happened becaus
e of her. It hadn’t led me to her. The reason for that was far more simple. “Cause I liked you,” I said. “Inside and out.”
“Like me? I’m black. That’s your enemy. You didn’t even see me as Latino when you first met me.”
“Black is not the enemy.” I wished I could just make her understand, but the more I tried to find the words, the less it made sense. “Separation is just one path to peace.”
“And the other is what?” She laughed dully. “Banging the black out of their kids?”
Kids. My heart swelled at the idea of creating so deep a connection. It was beyond even the crazy thing I’d been imagining on the ride over. But how could I ever keep that secret?
“I didn’t think it that far,” I said.
Her eyes went wide. “I wasn’t thinking that either. It’s just basic sense. I’m pretty damn sure I don’t want a racist dad fucking with their heads.”
“I’m not…I would never do that.”
She waited, but I couldn’t explain this. It was a thing deep in my bones. I would never hurt those I cared for. Kids? My kids? No fucking way.
“Let me ask you something plainly,” she said finally.
I gathered my breath. “Ok.”
“Do you look down on black people or not?”
“No.”
We both startled at the strength of my voice. I had not expected the answer to come down easily. But I wasn’t even seeing Rosa. I was seeing the black men I had fought and served with.
I had nearly died saving one, and I would do it again without question. If I looked down on them, I was looking down on myself.
She nodded once. “So this is all behind you at least? This white nationalism thing.”
That question hung before me. There was no vision in my head of some white world. Even before, that day had seemed so far away. I could only focus on the immediate goals: people, supplies and defense.
Now, the idea only reminded me of my father toiling away in his house.
“I only do minor things for my father now,” I said.
“What?”
I picked my words carefully. “Nothing violent. I just help him gather supplies he needs.”
She pressed in. “That still counts as being involved, Calix.”
“It’s just enough for him to tread water. He doesn’t ask for much. I don’t even attend rallies anymore.”
He hadn’t asked actually, but I knew I could never make any case before a crowd again. I didn’t believe it myself.
“It sounds like you’re doing things just to please him.”
“Not to please him. I just need to take care of him.”
She rolled her eyes. “Great so you’re not racist. But the hypothetical kids get a live-in racist grandpa.”
I tried to solve that, but imagination wasn’t enough. I could see no future with my father not catatonic at the sight of Rosa.
All I wanted was to help the people I cared about without them getting hurt. It shouldn’t have to be this hard.
“My father relies on me,” I said. “I owe it to him to take care of him in some way.”
“Seems like he has people who already do that. What about his white organization?”
“There’s not all that many.” That got her to smile for an instant. “It’s different between us. We’ve always been there for each other after my mother’s death.”
“That’s what it is.” Her mouth hung open. “It always comes back to not dealing with your mother’s death. What happened to the guy who told me to face the pain, so that it could only get better?”
I hung my head. “This is what my father did with his pain.”
“I’m not talking about your father. I’m talking about you. You’re the one who didn’t face it. Now you’re supporting your father out of some misplaced guilt? You’d cast a whole people down just to feel like you’ve got your family’s back?”
I started to protest, but she was bleary-eyed and her face was flushed even through her dark skin. She would not listen.
And the more I tried to find explanations, the hotter my head felt. It became impossible to think.
Rosa gathered her purse and stood. She hustled out of her chair and stopped a few tables away. “I will not date a racist,” she said. “You decide which part of your life is more important to you and maybe I’ll still be here waiting.”
She stormed out of the room. The place had filled up, even around us. They all looked me as she left. Their eyes were wide with wonder at what sort of man would create that response.
It was the same thing I was wondering myself.
CHAPTER FIVE
Rosa
I lay in bed, too lifeless to even roll out from under my sheets. The shades were dimly open and the birds chattered outside with endless energy. I might have left The Varsity full of brimstone, but I was paying the price now. My relationships always seemed to end with me lighting the candle and then burning myself out.
Two weeks. That’s how long this relationship had lasted. Two and a half weeks if I was being generous.
No, I wasn’t going to be generous. I was too generous with myself. That’s how I ended up dating a freaking racist. Oh, he could call himself whatever he wanted, but that’s what he and his family stood for.
I’d thought he was so different. He was a family man. He was loyal. He was protective. Turned out, that all made him more messed up than ever.
How had I missed the signs? All I had seen was a tall, hot man and gone wet. I had even ignored the obvious violence in his history. That said so much about me, none of it good.
God, what a screw-up I was.
I counted the birds croaking outside the open window. These weren’t local birds. They were visitors on their way south, maybe to Florida, some maybe even as far as South America.
Later, they would come right back along their path. Every year, like clockwork, they made that journey. I had only done it once and I had lost something at each stop. First my childhood home, then my father himself. What did I have left to lose here? My future, maybe.
I wiped tears out of my eyes, just thinking about the story I had told Calix last night. The words hadn’t captured an ounce of how it felt. They couldn’t capture a shadow of the memory that still lay fresh in my mind.
It had happened on a bright, cloudless day, just before noon. We were walking past an abandoned parking lot on the cracked sidewalk. Our neighborhood in Miami wasn’t nice, but it should have been safe at the time. My father was dressed in his Sunday striped button-down and tan slacks, mouthing the grocery list in Spanish. I was buried in whatever passed for a cellphone back then, texting friends.
I didn’t even notice a thing until my father roughly shoved me behind him. I peeked out and saw three men sauntering up, filling the whole sidewalk. In Caracas, we would have run if young men approached us so steadily. My father had given up his good government job, and taken us away from my parent’s childhood suburb to escape this sort of stuff.
It found us anyway.
I hadn’t seen what happened, just my father standing like a tall plantain tree, blocking me from the sight of the men huddled around him. There had been a low, almost casual request for money, then my father’s soft murmur of assent. His hand swiped down for his wallet.
Once it was out, the men’s shadows moved away. I had been trembling the whole time. I just wanted my father to wrap my arms around me and tell me it was over.
Instead, he grunted. It was a wrong sound for a good man to die to. A last set of footsteps had scraped away hastily.
My father turned to me. A dark red was spreading rapidly across the lines of his shirt. He had clasped my hand. His always-so-calm mahogany face was twisted in deep sorrow.
It was like he could see what this would do to me.
I ran to the store for help, but by the time we called the police and came back, he was unconscious. By the time we got to the hospital, he was dead.
I could still feel the pulse fading from his grip as I
held it in the cold metal interior of the ambulance. It had been faint, and then it was gone from the world completely.
I blinked backed the tears, but there were only a few. Usually that memory turned my cheeks into waterfalls. Now, what water came was hot and sparse, like a desert creek. I wasn’t sad. I was disappointed.
I’d told Calix the story to show him how it hadn’t broken me. But, it had. It was so clear now. Deep down, I had always been looking for a man who would not have died that day. Who could have faced those men and broken them.
Calix would have survived. He might even enjoy breaking some Latino skulls. Is that what Papá would have wanted for me?
The whole relationship had been a waste. I’d been wallowing in it and others just the same my whole adult life. Enough was enough, starting today.
I shot up and went to the window. I didn’t just open the blinds, I raised them and let the sun sear me. The birds polluting the serenity outside flapped away shrieking.
I got ready and hustled downstairs hoping for a quick bite to eat. I’d already be at least fifteen minutes late, but it was better to not be hungry as I got chewed out by Lilly. At least, thanks to Lem, I wouldn’t be terrified that our shift manager, Rhonda, would find out and use it as an excuse to fire me.
Mamá was stooped over the sink, washing dishes. I pecked her on the cheeks and rushed over to the dining room to find my breakfast gelling. It was perfectly portable: arepa with eggs and pork and avocado filling.
I grabbed it and was about to head out when I saw my sister seated at the far end of the table. She was bent over her phone, her hair dropping down over it like a cloak.
“Shouldn’t you be heading for the bus?” I asked. “It’s almost seven thirty.”
“Elsa, you need to go,” Mama echoed behind me. “It is the first day of your senior year, god willing. I do not want to be here doing this all again next year.”
“Ok,” Elsa said, still texting as she got up.
Annoyed, I came up and snatched her phone.
“Hey!” she yelled.
“Focus on what’s in front of you!”
I waved it out of her reach and saw the last message on her side: Can’t wait to see how you look with it off.
Little Dark Secret (Storm's Soldier Book 2) Page 4
