Atlanta Noir

by Tayari Jones

  My father sits. He puts his cigarette out on the rock. “The heck was that?” he says, but I can see he’s trying not to smile. “You can’t make faces at people, buddy. You know that. Not at grown-ups, anyway. Save your faces for school. And, I don’t know, respect your elders.”

  Sometimes when my father’s parenting, he says things he thinks he’s supposed to say, echoing truths I’m not sure he believes.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Don’t be sorry. Just, you know, be nice.”

  My father stands, and in the lamplight he casts a massive shadow. He is not massive. He used to be bigger, like my uncles, like me. Husky, my mother called it, that word parents use for fat when they’re trying not to hurt your self-esteem. But my father’s no longer husky. He’s thin. He’s, like, really, really thin these past few months.

  “You know,” he says, “I didn’t think to bring binoculars.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. And it is, it’s okay, though this is an exchange we have a lot, my father forgetting something important—essential, even—the kind of thing a normal parent would never forget, and me assuring him that I don’t want a normal parent, I want him.

  Up the mountain, walking, walking. The higher we climb, the steeper the trail gets, and wider too. The people spread out, and there is room enough to stretch my arms, though I keep my hands snug in the pocket of my shirt.

  My father whistles. He’s an expert whistler. He loves music, the radio dial at home frozen to 96 Rock. There’s no song he can’t whistle, but he’ll whistle without music too, making a melody up as he goes. I like when he does this, and he does it now. A few heads turn, but that’s never stopped my father. He fills up the mountainside with song.

  We’re close to the top when he asks to stop again and rest. I know what it is he’s wanting, so I walk far enough away that he can do what he needs to do.

  I stand beside a pine tree. I pull off black shingles of bark. I catch a branch and pull the needles from it, green and whisker-thin. On a rock, my father sprinkles powder on the back of his hand. He lowers his head. When his hand leaves his face, the powder’s gone. I don’t know the name for this, I only know it’s what makes my father thin. And I know enough not to ask. Not my father, and not Miss Gillespie or Aunt Susan, who don’t need another reason to be hard on him.

  My aunt likes to scold my father about money. “That settlement could have lasted you ten years,” Aunt Susan said late one night. She and my father sat at the table in the kitchen she’d just cleaned. They thought I was asleep, but children are never asleep when parents think they are. In this way, from the quiet of our beds, we learn our parents’ lives.

  “Ten years,” Aunt Susan said, “and it’s lasted you two.”

  My father didn’t say a word. He’s grateful to her, for what she does for us, for me.

  “Some people,” he’ll tell me, “you just have to let them talk.”

  I imagine my father would let Aunt Susan say anything to him. The man in the jean jacket too. He gets to say whatever he wants. But that’s something else. My father calls it respect, but I know my father. When the man in the jean jacket speaks, my father is afraid.

  That night, though, the night in the kitchen, the night my aunt went on about the money that came to us after the accident, she said too much. “You know,” she said, “my sister would be ashamed of you, of what you’re doing to her son.” My father didn’t say a word. There was only the squeak of his chair on linoleum, the front door chain pulled free. The door opened and shut. I thought he had walked outside, but then he was there at the foot of my bed. I shut my eyes. Outside, my aunt’s car started. When I opened my eyes, my father had left the room. In the morning, he told me that my uncle had the flu, that she had to get back to Nashville to make him soup and sing to him, the way she had the winter before when I’d been sick. We watched each other, then, across the breakfast table. We both knew I’d been awake, but it was as though we’d agreed, right there, over our bowls of Lucky Charms with too much milk, to pretend otherwise. “The flu,” I said, a Janus word for why my aunt had gone.

  When the limb in my hand is free of its needles, I return to my father. I chew on a single green pine needle. It tastes the way Christmas smells.

  Dad stands. His head tips back. He watches the night awhile, black sky, no moon, white comet, bright stars. “I thought it would be bigger,” he says.

  I nod. I’d thought so too. Then my father is kneeling. His face is close to mine, so close our noses almost touch, and I see he’s been crying. Tears don’t run down his face. It’s more like he’d tipped his head back to keep the tears in. His eyes swim in bright water.

  “You know I love you, right?” my father says. “That I’ll always love you?”

  But before I can answer, he has my hand. He’s pulling me, dragging me, walking fast, too fast, up the mountain. I pick my feet up, and I’m jogging, running, and then I’m flying. My father is big again, and strong. He lifts me onto his shoulders, the way he hasn’t done in years, and my hands leave my pockets, I reach out my arms, and soar.

  But only for a minute. And then we reach the top.

  Hundreds have gathered, women and men and children in the dark. They stand in groups and watch the sky. Telescopes are everywhere on tripods short and tall. Above us, Halley’s Comet is fuzzy, as though no matter how close we get, the comet will remain a thumbprint caught in paint, a cosmic smudge. Miss Gillespie says this is because every comet has a coma, a halo of gas and dust that makes it hard to see.

  My father and I stand beside the mountaintop control tower, a small gray building two people, maybe three, could fit inside. From here, the big blue gondola goes up and down. The box arrives, swaying. Ten people in hats and jackets step off, and ten people take their places. My father pulls back the sleeve of his jacket. He’s wearing a watch I’ve never seen.

  “C’mon,” he says, “we’ve got some time.”

  So we walk into the crowd. And we spend an hour that way. We borrow binoculars and look through other families’ telescopes. We see the woman in the blue jacket and her son, and when my father’s not looking, I stick my tongue out again. My father smokes three cigarettes, and I play tag with a girl in pink gloves.

  And then my father motions for me to join him, and we sit. The rock is cold, and I can feel the granite through my pants.

  “What do you think, buddy?” he says. “Cool asteroid?”

  I nod. I don’t correct him, though I know from school that comets aren’t asteroids. A comet is an iceberg caught in space. Halley’s is ice and rock and dust squeezed in God’s fist and let go, an intergalactic fastball doomed to forever circle our sun. The halo around Halley’s is sixty thousand miles wide and its tail is six million miles long. It travels at speeds of forty miles a second, which Miss Gillespie says is faster than the human mind can comprehend. But I can comprehend it. How some things take less than a second. How a life can go out like a light.

  And I’m thinking how I should maybe be nicer to Miss Gillespie, how on Monday I should take her hand and tell her that I know how she feels, that my mother’s dead too. Maybe she won’t believe me, or maybe the second I say it, she’ll know. Maybe there’s a current that runs between people who share the same vast grief.

  My hands are back in my pockets, and my father pulls me close to keep me warm. He checks his watch again, and then he’s standing.

  “What now?” I say, but he doesn’t have words for what comes next. We walk in the direction of the control tower. In the distance, a glow, and I know the sun will soon be up. Around us, people are collapsing tripods and packing up their things. One family has put down a blanket and eats breakfast on the rock.

  We join the line for the cable car. “We don’t have tickets,” I say, but my father won’t look at me. The box arrives. Ten people step off, ten more step on, and the box rides cables down the mountainside. The line moves forward. I count, and my father and I are nine and ten. I wait for the next ride.

&n
bsp; The cable car returns, and it’s a long time emptying because one of the passengers doesn’t want to get off. I wonder what this means, whether I’ll ride down with my father or wait for the next car. But I don’t have to wonder long. My father hugs me. “Son,” he says, but the rest is lost to wind and sunrise, to the groan of the swaying cable car, and to my father’s eyes, which are wide and wet and hungry and wild, like no eyes I hope to see again.

  He turns me away from the cable car and points. And there is my mother. She holds one hand to her mouth. With her other hand she waves, and I lose my balance. I have to sit. When I turn, my father is in the cable car and the door is closed. His back is to me. And maybe I only imagine it, but I swear, the man in the jean jacket is there beside him, a hand on his shoulder, and they’re all wrapped up, enclosed in a cloud of something like light. Then the car pulls away.

  I stand. I want to cry out, but there is a hand at my back. I turn, and it is not my mother beside me. It is my aunt. She stands very still, and I cry into her coat.

  Then she walks me away from the cables, past the control tower, past children playing and parents shedding coats, to an outcropping of rock where my uncle is setting up a telescope that I will peer through, looking to see what’s been, and what’s to come.

  Come Ye, Disconsolate

  by Daniel Black

  Mechanicsville

  Paused at the corner of McDaniel and Abernathy streets one hot, muggy summer night, I encountered the hypnotizing melody of a songbird. It was a sweet, soothing tune, a child’s lullaby—light and majestic, smooth and easy like a trickling brook. My windows were down because the AC was out. That, plus a grueling day at the post office, left me longing for an amaretto sour and a cold shower. When I heard the voice, I searched desperately, left and right, but saw only a church—the Perfect Church—on one corner and a hoodied young man on the other. He was rail-thin and tall, like a young oak sapling. His hoodie matched the nighttime sky and draped his shoulders like an oversized curtain. I knew he was dealing; I saw the look in his beady eyes. He couldn’t have been more than twenty, but his aura showed older, as if somehow he’d grown tired of living. Every few seconds he glanced about, anxious, it seemed, for something he couldn’t find. When our eyes met, we seemed to study each other’s desperation, wondering what had forced our meeting in the wee hours of the morning. His brows rose suddenly, though slightly, inquiring of my need. I blinked and turned away. He did likewise, but kept his hands in his pouch. That’s where Death lay, I supposed, waiting to devour the last remnants of a dejected people. I shook my head, but didn’t judge the youngster. I’d been lost most of my life too.

  Some had hoped this part of town might evolve into a thriving minimetropolis, being only minutes from downtown, but it never happened. It was a war zone, really. Old, dilapidated shotgun shacks still characterized the neighborhood, and the one new apartment complex, built alongside train tracks on McDaniel, was so gated as to feel militaristic. I lived in one of the newly built town homes farther down Abernathy, which used to be Gordon Road, walking distance from the Braves’ stadium. Months after settling in, I considered flipping the property, but then heard rumor the city meant to demolish the stadium and rebuild it—twenty miles north. Damn.

  My wife, a second grade teacher, was never seen after sundown. She hated our neighborhood, she said, overrun with goons and crackheads, and she hated she’d ever married me. She simply couldn’t believe I’d brought her here, she emphasized, flailing frustrated arms in every direction. If she needed something from the car at night, she either begged me to retrieve it or simply waited until morning. When news broadcasts reported a murder or theft in our area—Mechanicsville—she’d murmur, “I must be the biggest fool in America. Mama warned me against this.”

  Last thing I needed that scorching summer night was her negative belligerence, so I lingered at the light as the distant melody pacified my fatigue. Trying to catch every note, I listened closely, narrowing eyes as if somehow that might intensify my hearing. The voice was so beautiful I almost cried. Straining frantically, I turned my left ear to the wind, hoping to catch more clearly a melody I’d heard only once before. When the light turned green, I didn’t go. No cars lingered behind me, so I sat spellbound, determined to discover the source of the sound. Suddenly, with squinted eyes, I saw her. She sat in an abandoned lot with her back against a deteriorated brick structure that should’ve been demolished. Her face was turned away from me as if she were watching something pass by, so I guessed she didn’t see me. She was nearer than I’d supposed, singing a faint, sweet soprano that reignited something within me. Only by reading her lips did I discern the lyrics: I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free . . .

  Her slender eyes glistened topaz beneath a full moon. She knew something; she understood something; she believed something. Confidence shone all about her. Her head shook like one who finally comprehended a difficult thing. I couldn’t move. A tan SUV approached from the rear, blaring its horn. In a flash, it pulled around me and sped away. I engaged my hazards and continued listening and reading her lips: His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me . . .

  She repeated the final line as her voice tumbled into an alto abyss. I had closed my eyes, but now I opened them and stared out into the night. She was looking at me. It wasn’t a gaze of shame or desperation, but of curiosity, wonder, and hope. She wasn’t despondent as I thought she would be, as I assumed she should be. Rather, her eyes, questioning and wandering, assaulted me. They asked who I was, why I had stopped, what I wanted. I had no answers. I think I was offended. Who was she to question me? I was the privileged one. I lived in a legitimate home, with real, store-bought food and paid utilities. What did she have?

  After turning off my hazards, I crept away. The woman’s stealth and poise had unsettled me, while her voice, like falling rain, drummed steadily in my head. Why should I feel discouraged? she’d asked, as though once guilty of ingratitude. I chuckled. She had every right to be discouraged, it seemed to me. The lot in which she dwelled held trash, broken bottles, discarded tires, and dirty weeds. A scenic foretelling of the apocalypse. A breeding ground for disease and dismay. The fragile shack at her back threatened to collapse at any moment. There were no windows, no doors, no soul. Just a brick shell abandoned like a forlorn lover. But more than that, it bore a painful emptiness I couldn’t forget. The burnt-out structure exuded disgrace and shame, as if naked and on display. Perhaps it would be rebuilt one day and acquire newfound meaning and purpose. One day.

  This seemed the hope of Mechanicsville itself. Poor, silent residents shuffled about, waiting for someone to recognize their humanity. Or for the world to end. Most looked sullen and gloomy, shrouded with grief. Unemployment had done its work, and crack was more accessible than food. The closest grocer, miles down Abernathy, was too far to walk to and yet too close for a cab—if a cab would ever come. Even the mailman sensed danger, slinging letters and notices onto front steps instead of placing them into proper boxes. I’d noticed him looking over his shoulder every few minutes, as if running from something unseen. Still, as with the hoodied boy, I didn’t blame him either.

  Yet the singing woman wasn’t like the others. Streetlight had illuminated a baby-smooth complexion and dark, glowing skin. There were no wrinkles, no crow’s-feet, no signs of aging. Only worn, tired eyes. She looked to be in her forties but she was probably older. Her mouth twisted and trembled as she sang, as though tasting each note on her tongue. She was petite—frail, really—with small breasts that hardly bulged. Yet she reeked of femininity, bearing hoop earrings and a ragged head wrap like rural women of Africa. Something about her demeanor suggested dignity, even nobility, and that’s what disturbed me most. I’d wanted to think of her as impoverished, as pitifully indigent, yet her spirit wouldn’t allow this. It insisted that I see her, that I honor her, that I recognize her survival.

  So did her voice. It wasn’t of this world. It shimmied bold like morning dew and echoed
in my head with the clear, precise pitch of a thrush bird. There was no rasp, no guttural growl, no shrill, harsh tone. Only elegance and grace. It sounded trained and polished, as if she’d studied vocal technique, although I knew she hadn’t. Her runs, unlike those of many singers, were controlled and tempered, rippling through the air like eternal life, dancing in the ether like newborn freedom. I’d never been so taken. Halfway home, I thought to return to the desolate corner and hear more from this poor cherub, but instead I pulled into my driveway, silenced the car, and closed my eyes. There it was again, her voice, tumbling through my consciousness. It evoked tears I hadn’t felt in years. So much pain unspoken, so much hurt ignored. But now her voice massaged my weary soul and unleashed immeasurable anxiety. Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home? I hadn’t cried like that since I was a kid. About anything. My wife said I’d become someone—no, she said something—unrecognizable, unfeeling, uncaring. But it wasn’t true. I simply didn’t share my heart with her because what I felt was no one’s business—including hers.

  Still, I took a chance and told her about the singing woman. She said, “That’s nice!” smiling the smile of tolerance. I escaped to the den and played Nancy Wilson’s “Guess Who I Saw Today?” The song made me pensive, reflective, and that’s what I wanted—to relive the encounter and be consumed, once again, in the homeless woman’s mercy. I poured a cocktail and reclined in the leather rocker. I’d thought I’d wanted a divorce last year, and had even asked for it, but after weeks of tortuous therapy, I acquiesced and stayed. Patricia was a decent woman. She had no drive, though, no ambition outside of me, which of course I despised, but who else would tolerate, without complaint, a middle-aged, half-bald man of moderate income, one who had brought her to hell and decided to stay? It just wasn’t worth the fight, I decided. We knew how to be miserable together. No need learning a new thing.