Elsewhere, California

by Dana Johnson

  That night, in the train car of the Formosa, he talked about my skin. Lucille Ball, Lauren Bacall, and Doris Day looked down on us as he told me that the color of my skin was perfect. “What colors do you mix together to get that color?” Massimo asked. I laughed. “I don’t know,” I said. “I never have thought about it.” But that was a lie. He leaned back, and the red leather of the booth was a nice contrast to the dark blue cotton of his shirt. He leaned back with his glass of whiskey, and whenever he drank from it, he peered at me over the rim. His eyes moved all over my face and not once did he look at anyone else. At the end of the evening, he walked me to my car. He took a card out of his wallet and pressed it into my palm. He released my hand before the gesture became too insinuating. He said, “I would be lucky if you would call me. Please, Avery,” he said. “Please.”

  6

  MASSIMO CLAIMS THAT he buys white sheets especially for me, because I look like art, like a sculpture, all twisted up in them, my ass barely concealed by bunched-up cotton, a brown thigh protruding from a white shroud. Massimo loves crisp white sheets; he chose the heavy, cool duvet, which has maintained its perfect whiteness and bluish hue. The black dress that I’ve laid on our bed in consideration for tonight looks dramatic against the sheets. It’s expensive because someone’s name is on it. The other outfit is jeans and a black turtleneck. I will be uncomfortable in the jeans because I will know that I am supposed to look like something else. But I will also be uncomfortable in the dress, because I don’t like black dresses; they are too somber and formal, no matter how they cling to the body. It’s always difficult to choose which will be the least crazy making. In the jeans, I won’t look the part, won’t look elegant and sophisticated. But in the dress I will feel as though I am in costume. I want to feel as though I am only wearing my skin.

  Skin.

  Sometimes Massimo pulls me close and runs his fingers all over my skin, and sometimes over my scalp, until he gets drowsy. He likes it when my hair is just a little longer, so that he can feel the kinks and waves of the texture. He likes my hair nappy, he says, and he makes me laugh, the way he says it, stressing the first syllable and holding it much too long. “Nahh-py,” he says slowly, as though he’s making love to the words, and I can feel his hardness against my ass. Hard because of me. My skin. My hair. My ass. My lips. “Nahh-py,” he whispers in my ear and caresses my breasts, and his hot breath makes me shiver.

  Early on, when Massimo and I were first dating, I asked him, “What else do you see in me?” Was he just trying to get me in bed? “Of course,” he had said, “don’t waste my time on the obvious.” But also, he said he saw someone trying to say something and do something, just like him. He saw someone trying to put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, though, he saw that I stood completely still, which he hated. And I moved sideways, back and forth, and diagonally. I had many steps that Massimo had to learn. It was difficult for both of us, but he learned them. And that’s how I grew to love Massimo. He loves my skin, yes, but that is the least of it. He finally stopped trying to tell me who I was. He simply let me show him. For better and for worse, for everyone involved.

  The colors and textures of such basic things—skin, hair, eyes—or even the color of black and the color of white is what I am always trying to get to. There is always something underneath the name. To name something, say, gray, is to name it nothing. The human eye can distinguish nearly five hundred shades of gray. If gray is this complicated, so are all the colors. When Massimo says “black” and he’s talking about me, I hear in his voice all the things he is trying to name for what he sees. Me, though, I painted and painted, but at some point I got tired of color, of trying to define it perfectly. That’s when I started collage and also began to create pieces, messages, from whatever I could modify, interpret, adapt. Found bits of things for the distinctions that are so hard to explain.

  There’s something else I tried to explain to Massimo, something about him that I love. He doesn’t see it in himself, but he has a center that is immovable in the middle of motion. He’s impatient. He can be volatile, emotional, impulsive. Hair-trigger. “You stereotype me!” he always cries. “You are not being PC! Just because I am Italian,” he says, whenever I go on about his temper. But his stillness in the middle of motion is extraordinary. You don’t travel as far as he has without having it. I told him that he reminded me of Fernando Valenzuela, lifting his right leg high and looking up to the sky before he pitches. It looks messy; it looks like he’s not keeping his eye on what he’s supposed to be focused on. But then, at the last minute, he pulls it together and has changed speeds on you, or that screwball he has just thrown, strange like a reverse curve, is already a memory.

  “Don’t you see it?” I had asked, more convinced of my theory the more I thought it through.

  “No,” Massimo had said, running out of patience. He thinks baseball has nothing to do with him. “Avery,” he said. “Enough. Don’t be silly.”

  I WANT THE Dodgers to win for Mama May. Daddys mama. She visiting from Tennessee and she wants to see as many Dodger games as she can. She love Dodger Stadium like I do. The sun so bright and the palm trees on the hills far off look like a picture, like they sitting on top a sheet of blue thats supposed to be sky. I always love the organ playing between innings and at bat. Plus I got to catch a bag of peanuts from the man that sells them and throws them from far away and somehow even though hes far away if you send a five dollar bill down the row of people, you always get your change back. And I got some Carnation ice cream and a Dodger dog, even though Daddy never usually lets me eat that much because he says Im fat.

  We sitting at the third base line and its the top of the ninth. Its their last chance to do something. Its zero/one, Padres. Cey got three hits, Lopes got two hits, but Mama Mays man let her down. She keep pulling on her baseball cap and pushing her glasses up her nose. Dusty Baker had five at bats, but only got one hit. Come on now Dusty Baker, she yell. Dusty now I know you gone do better than what you doing! You call yourself playing baseball! Shit Dusty Baker!

  Im sitting next to her and on her other side is Daddy and Daddys friend. He got a lot of new friends since we moved. Her name Angeline. Angeline is white, has long black hair down her back. She skinny with pale, pale skin and light brown eyes, and she dont say much. She dont scream like me and Mama May. She just sit back and drink her beer. Me and Mama May didnt know she was coming. Daddy just tell us he was gone pick up a friend on the way to the game. He say all this after he drop Mama off at work, at the motel cleaning rooms. Mama May speak to Angeline when she get in the car, but after she dont say much sitting in the back of the car with me. When we got to Angelines house Mama May got out the car and sat in the back seat. Daddy got mad and told her that Angeline would sit in the back with me. You got arthritis, Mama. You need to stretch out your legs up front. But Mama May say, No Darnelle. Me and Avery is right fine back here, aint we Ave? I have a bad feeling, had it since Mama May sat in back with me and pretend not to hear anything Daddy say to her all day. And now the Dodgers done lost the game. Thats the end of that, I guess, Daddy say. He pull on his cap and it look like he looking at me and Mama May but he got on shades so I cant see his eyes. I can only see myself.

  Daddy drives us back home and drop us off. Then he take Angeline home. Later Im in my room playing eight-tracks when Mama get home. I got the K-tel Music Magic one and my favorite songs are Brick House, for sure, then it has Crystal Gayle Dont It Make My Brown Eyes Blue and Bay City Rollers who are just so foxy. I love that song they sing, that Saturday Night song, but I turn it down when I hear Mama and Mama May talking. Mama May say, I thought I raised him better than that but he thought his daddy hung the moon and we dont need to say nothing else about his sorry ass. But anyway. You got to do something about it.

  I can smell cigarette smoke through my door, so I know that Mama is smoking her Kools. Must be the one calling my house and hanging up, Mama say. Cook his shit and wash his draws, motherfucker. Mama May
say, He my son, but. Mama say, Taking Avery around that heifa.

  And then I dont hear anything until later. At night. Mama May is sleeping with me and Owen is in his room. I hear Mama screaming, What the fuck you gone do, huh? What the fuck you gone do? And I know her face is close to Daddys, pointing her finger in his face, like a dare fight at school when somebody says, Cmon, man. Do it. Ill kick your ass.

  Stop it Mama. Stop it. Hes going to hit you.

  You caint treat me like Im the maid. I aint the maid, hear? I aint gone clean this house, other peoples nasty hotel rooms, wash your shit and fix you dinner and you out running the streets taking Avery around just any old kind of tail.

  I get out of bed and walk to the door because I dont want Mama to get hit. She always gets hit. Or maybe it would be better if she get hit and then the fight would be over soon. Or maybe she deserve to get hit because everything was fine until she caused problems with Daddy. She hit Daddy too, but she can never get him good like he gets her. Shut up Mama. Shut up. Shut up stupid. Leave Daddy alone. You gone get another patch on your eye and its gone be all purple and swollen. You gone have to wear your arm in that sling again. I walk to the door because Im gone go out and stop it. Me and Owen, we always go out and stop it. And thats when Mama May sit up and say, Avery come here. Its too late anyway. When I open the door Daddy is hitting Mama and Owen is getting in the middle of it. He pulls Mama away and says, Thats enough. I cry and cry and we all stand around in the kitchen. Finally Mama say, Come here, Avery, its all right. Daddy say, Come here Avery, its over. Avery, Mama May say, and Owen look at me. Stop cryin, he say. Stop it. So I stop. I dont go to anybody. I stare at the blood on the wall from Mamas nose, spots of blood with little tails on the end that make me think of space, of comets, of Mars and Jupiter far, far away. Or tadpoles like the ones I swallowed, the ones we see in the ponds in Tennessee, four days on the Greyhound from here. Or two days if Daddy driving. Tennessee, Mars, Jupiter. Stellar living. Far away from where we are or ever gone be. I walk to the wall and put my finger on the end of one of the tails. I drag my finger so that the color gets light and you can see the light of the wall coming through the color that went purplish red to reddish brown to light red, already turning back to brown. Everybody is talking and saying something but I dont hear. I keep painting with the colors, make up my designs on the wall, and I keep thinking about how one color can turn into so many others. One color is a lot of things.

  Avery! And Daddys voice make me jump. No, he say, and it sounds like when people tell their dogs no. When I look up at him, everybody else staring at me like they dont know who I am. What are you doing? he say, looking at me funny.

  Changing colors, I say. He stare at me for a minute and then look down at his feet. Mama gets a paper towel and holds it to her nose. She say, Quit it. Thats blood, Avery. You dont play with blood.

  7

  I LOVED BASEBALL when I was a child. And I do now. But more than the statistics of baseball, the endless facts, I loved the ceremony of baseball. I loved Vin Scully’s reassuring voice on the radio—calm, matter-of-fact, full of possibility or resigned deference: And the 3/2 pitch? Foul ball. No matter what was going on, I had a place to be in baseball. Then and now, always, Vin Scully. I loved Dodger Stadium because you never met a stranger. The people in our section, wherever we sat, we were happy together when the Dodgers were winning and in steadfast denial when they were losing, but it was always okay because there would always be another game, another year. And anything was possible in baseball. In baseball, everybody was the same because we all bled Dodger blue. Who was this person giving me a high five? There was no way to tell, except we were all on the same team.

  Keith, the older he got, decided that baseball was not the sport for him. Too slow. Too white. “Ain’t nothing happening,” he’d say, whenever I forced him to watch or listen. He was turning toward the money and flash of the Lakers. So glamorous, glittery, and Hollywood. The only Laker I ever liked was Kurt Rambis, which Keith said figured. But sometimes, still, my father would take Keith to games too, since Keith had no father and no other man to do such things with, no other man to show him how to be. My father tried.

  The sun has gotten too hot, and Hank Williams has stopped singing, and so I get out of the pool for a hat and to change my music. My favorite hat to wear is a tattered Dodgers cap. Massimo hates the hat, mainly because it’s tattered and because whenever I wear it, I look like a man. My face, free of dangly earrings and makeup, looks like it couldn’t possibly belong to a woman, couldn’t possibly be the face of the woman that Massimo is fucking. I have heavy eyebrows and a strong chin. And my lips can belong to any gender until they are covered in color. The enormous breasts of my body don’t match what I am told is the masculinity of my face. A delicate and fine-featured masculinity, but still. Once, driving in the car with Massimo, I got pulled over when I ran a red light. The cop looked me squarely in the face and called me sir. Massimo looked at the officer and then at me with wide eyes, as if horrified to suddenly find himself with a black man. “Avie,” Massimo says now whenever we’re out and about and I’m wearing my Dodger blue. “Lipstick at least. I don’t want people to think I’m a fagoni.”

  In the entrance of our hallway, hanging against an otherwise stark white wall, is a portrait of me and Keith. Whenever Massimo stayed the night and was made miserable by the sparseness of my apartment, the thing that made him the most miserable was this portrait. In the portrait, Keith and I are naked from the shoulders up, and we are kissing in what I have always thought to be an innocent way, both of our lips puckered and stuck way out so that our lips are barely touching. We are both wearing Dodger caps, which Keith would no doubt protest. I am looking at Keith and Keith looks out of the corner of his eye with a hint of fear, as though someone or something is about to be upon us. In my apartment, the portrait was positioned so that as I lay in bed, alone or with someone, Keith was watching. I liked that about the painting, but I was also most proud of the colors I managed to get right. I am darker than Keith with yellow undertones and a hint of gold. Keith is light skinned, with a pinkish cinnamon undertone I always used to call red. Keith was not a “black guy,” painted in nondescript brown or literal black, as I had seen time and time again. He was cinnamon and saffron and I was burgundy. The Dodger caps were, of course, the true blue.

  “It’s creepy,” Massimo said one night as we lay in bed in my apartment. He had finally eased up on his relentless charm and allowed me to see him irritated.

  “Why?” I looked at the portrait and smiled. “Don’t you like it?”

  Massimo rubbed his belly, pulled on the coarse black hair. Then he stroked himself absently while he looked at the portrait. He was almost hard again. “I don’t like looking at you kissing some guy. Some black guy,” he said.

  “Aww.” I propped myself up on my elbows and winked at him. “Jealous. It’s not some black guy,” I said. “It’s my cousin.”

  “Oh,” Massimo said. “Okay. That’s normal.”

  Now the portrait hangs in the hallway because Massimo refused to hang it in our bedroom. He finally consented to the entrance hallway after I yelled and yelled that I was bringing nothing to his house that I owned except my clothes, a few books, and my paintings, and couldn’t he see that I had to try to make this place something of my own or else I would disappear?

  When I pass the portrait on the way to the stereo, I lift the bottom left corner to straighten it out, and as I walk away, Keith’s fearful eye follows me down the hall.

  SCHOOL IS OUT in a week and we are all going to Tennessee later this summer to see our people, but for now Aunt Janice said to Mama can you and Darnelle take Keith for the rest of the summer because I am about through with him. She say Keiths daddy came around to see him, aint seen him for five years before this, and Keith is just acting a fool for no reason. Say his daddy took him out to eat and bought him some clothes but then he was gone again. Keith done stole a bike, money from Aunt Janice, and run the streets wh
en he should be at home. His mama is through with him. She tired, she say. That boy aint but eleven. She tell Mama she work two jobs and between making pancakes at the International House of Pancakes and working at her factory, she cant keep up with him running wild. Im tired, she keep saying to Mama. Im just so damn tired.

  He a smart boy and he think he slick, Aunt Janice say. Maybe Darnelle can snatch a knot in his ass, make him act like he got some sense, Aunt Janice say. She say, He running around with that white boy John getting into shit, but he aint like John with a lawyer for a daddy.

  But I know that sometimes Daddy gone too but he always come back and Keith act like he dont care about anybody making him do anything. Only once did Daddy tell Keith to watch himself, and that he wasnt going to tell him again, that he didnt talk back to Daddy. Not ever. But still, Daddy has taken us to three Dodger games, the zoo, and Huntington Beach. Owen came too, except for the zoo because he said he was too old for all that. And the Dodgers. He say hes too old for them too. Plus hes got all his new friends from high school who think hes cool because hes tall and acts like he the king of everything.

  Today Keith and Brenna and me cant find stuff to do. Schools been out for a week but we feel like its boring already. We walk up and down the streets of the neighborhood playing my K-tel Disco Dazzler eight-track. Its hot and the sun is so bright and none of us have sunglasses on. We just squint and hold our hands over our eyes all day. We all like that song Float On. Float float on. Float float float on. We pick the parts of all the guys who sing in the song. Everybody wants to be Larry because his voice sound the best and he gets to say the best lines. We all sing, Cancer and my name is Larry, and I like a woman that loves everything and everybody.