We Cast a Shadow

by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

  36

  It was Dr. King Day, and the Tiko never looked so good as it did that morning. The main promenade had been cleared of cars and vagrants, all trash swept away and concealed, every brick or siding—and the streets themselves!—pressure-washed of grimy smudges, the bushes and shrubs trimmed and pruned, fresh winter flowers planted, petunias and baby’s breath, each streetlight bulb replaced, fire hydrants replugged and securely fastened, overhead power cables reinstalled, broken windows fixed, trim work touched up, eaves and gutters straightened, potholes filled, fences mended, grass resodded, gutters unclogged, swarming and hive-minded insects obliterated, lemon trees planted.

  Banners as well as huge tethered balloons hung all around the quad grounds, each one emblazoned with the Visions of Blackness Festival icon, a black eye with the PHH and BEG symbols in the silver and bronze positions.

  Of course, the Tiko was close enough to home that I walked over in full finery: my best brogues, a heavy velveteen coat that I’d only worn once, and an ascot. My job would be easy. Just blend in but be seen. The professionals had handled the main preparations. I was an ambassador or, as Mama called me, a figurehead.

  People, my people, walked toward the grounds and were in their finest too: a sister in a slinky purple dress with her matching hat and matching man, a brother in head-to-toe zebra skin, his woman likewise, pregnant women carrying the unborn in their zeppelin-bellies, old women in boxy floral dresses and old men in Kangols and gold rings, both groups swaying to an old beat only they heard, a group of brothers in bejeweled football jerseys and flat-billed caps, a flock of small children dressed in rainbow-colored jumpers, a trio of teenage girls in feathers, a family reunion in all white wearing shirts that prayed for a loved one to rest in peace, a woman with hair styled to look like a fruit basket, another with braids that fell to her ankles, a basketball team in black sweats cutting across the grounds and towering over the rest of us, as if they were the only adults in an endless rumpus room, politicians with primped hair and party pendants on their lapels, a gaggle of cosplayers appearing as Japanese warriors with humongous swords, fairies, human-animal hybrids, steampunks, comic book super-types, and imaginary creatures I’d never imagined, sorors and fraternities sporting windbreakers glowing with Greek letters, bodybuilders, virtually naked in tank tops and short shorts despite the cold, and a woman absolutely naked except for her piercings and body paint. And yes, even a few white people.

  I felt as one for a change. Not different. Not set off to one side. It was as if a brother from another planet asked for samples of every kind of black person the City could offer up before the world exploded, and the Tiko was the site of our disembarkation.

  I used the staff entrance to avoid the line, flashed my badge, and slipped into the central quad. I passed a 444 field news truck. To my delight, I noted representation from the national media all around. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with their presence, as the media tended to focus on the community’s negatives. But what could they detect here in the belly of positivity? In the distance, the group Fate’s Rainbow performed. They were too far away to see clearly, but I knew from the preparations that they were the singing group Crown originally sang backup for. They swayed back and forth in their skintight gray outfits belting a vaguely familiar song from my college years. The lineup was posted on stakes here and there. First Rainbow, then the rap duo the Chucks. Then Crown herself, appearing for the first time in ages without her monitoring collar.

  The open area near the stage was already crowded with those who wanted a prime spot to see Crown. Nearer to me, tents were arranged in lines that ran on for blocks. Every manner of art, craft, and penetralia was being sold in these tents: ancient grains from the Motherland, perfumes and gimcrack potions, colorful textiles, handcrafted comics, rings, necklaces, and bracelets. One man offered to sell me a handful of “soul beans.” I declined.

  I followed the smells. There were as many food stands as craft tents. Nigel had stayed with Mama overnight—I wondered whether the Booker T. incident was my imagination running away because I found Nigel in his bed asleep and snoring when I returned—and I knew that I could find them somewhere around here. There they were. The booth matched the other stands, white boards with blue lettering, but I couldn’t help but grin like a monkey. In a coup, I’d pulled some strings with Octavia to get Mama a prime position near a major pedestrian intersection. I couldn’t reopen the Chicken Coop, but I could do this. It was a small thing but necessary. The City had expanded the Tiko boundary lines to include the Chicken Coop, Mama’s home. Since technically the City owned all property in the Tiko, this put Mama at risk for being evicted. My string pulling was the opening salvo in Operation Mama Protection.

  They didn’t see me, so I hung back for a moment as festivalgoers flowed around me. You can’t go back. I understood that. But for a moment, I felt lucky enough to have been tossed back on a wave of time to when lowercase Nigel worked Mama’s kitchen for the first time, smudged across his small face with batter, but handling his end of the bargain.

  Now they worked efficiently. That much hadn’t changed. But he was taller than her, taller than Penny had been, streaking up like a bottle rocket to meet me. Still scrawny of limb and awkwardly small around the shoulders, but no one’s baby by any means. He prepped bundles of chicken, and Mama dunked a basket into the fryer. Aunt Shirls and Araminta handled the money. They all wore matching long-sleeved shirts with CHICKEN COOP emblazoned across the front.

  My mind had been playing the usual tricks on me. I knew what day of the week it was (Saturday) and what the festival was all about (encouraging pride in a community not allowed much). But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember basic details, such as where I worked or who my son really was. No, I wasn’t panicked, because I knew these were temporary effects. I would regain my senses when I needed them. But there was something about Araminta that I couldn’t place. The Pest seemed happy and smiley, but I noticed an edge to her, like she was waiting for bad news.

  “O, Lord, it’s gone rain.” Aunt Shirls lifted her glasses and squinted at me. She took money from a customer and gave it to Araminta. “Look who done showed up.”

  I stepped behind the counter and hugged Aunt Shirls.

  “You’re early for tomorrow,” Mama said.

  “Early for next year,” Nigel said.

  “Oh,” I said. “You two have yolks. Yuk.” I turned to Araminta. “Minty, back me up here. I’m outnumbered.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  “You look tired, son,” Mama said. “Did you sleep?”

  The question was whether I ever woke up, but I wasn’t going to raise that query with her. “What do you need me to do?” I asked. “Prep all this?” I gestured to the folding table, which held various foodstuffs. “I came to get down and fry some chicken.” I grabbed the pepper mill.

  “Uh-uh,” she said. “Nigel and me got a good system going. You’re on stocking.”

  “You do appreciate that I’m not dressed for stocking.”

  “I appreciate you better get to work, boy. Make sure we’re good to go on serving plates and napkins. Then fetch me some ice for the cooler. Plus, get those…”

  Like that, I was in the fold of Mama’s restaurant again, displaced and only built to last for a few hours on a not-too-chilly-to-enjoy February day. Working with my hands. Carrying boxes. Sweating and loving every moment of it.

  I was some distance away from the booth, disposing of cardboard boxes, when Nigel and Araminta ran by me wearing knapsacks. What were they up to? I followed them through the crowded fairground, which had suddenly become an obstacle course. I dodged festivalgoers, produce carts, and garbage cans. They ran into an area behind the stage, near the fences.

  I should have simply called my son’s name. Made my presence known. But I couldn’t. I was fascinated.

  They placed their knapsacks on the ground and removed scu
lptures. No—masks. Wooden abstract masks like the ones I’d seen in Booker T. They were ADZE masks. My son was a terrorist.

  Nigel looked right at me as he raised the mask. He stopped, the mask just above him. There was no flash of recognition, no sign of surprise. He lowered the mask onto his head.

  His mask was mostly white with dark indentations to represent features, eyes, ears, hair. Araminta was already wearing her mask. Hers was oblong and pointed with something like a smile carved into it. She tugged Nigel’s arm.

  “Wait,” I said. But the children ignored me.

  They jimmied open the locked fence. ADZE came in through the opened gate. Dozens of them, all in wooden masks. They rushed past me toward the front of the stage. Crown ran off stage, even as her band and dancers continued to perform.

  One of the ADZE men threw a smoke grenade at the stage. The crowd near the stage screamed.

  I couldn’t find Nigel and Araminta, but I spotted a familiar figure standing on the ground to the side of the stage. A man dressed in an all-white suit wearing an all-black mask with magnificent dreads coming off the back. There was an athleticism to the way he shifted from leg to leg and flipped his cudgel from one hand to the other, like a tennis player might. His muscularity. That hair. The police had shorn my cousin’s hair as if he were a sheep. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t missing something.

  He glanced at me, then followed the others into the open spaces. What I saw next was hard to fathom. Hordes of terrified people running in different directions. Closest to me, a scrum. Festivalgoers and ADZE fighting with fists, flag posts, and clubs. The security personnel were mostly average people in neon T-shirts hired to keep fans from the stage. They were as terrified as everyone else. A couple of hundred yards away, a news helicopter listed down sideways and slammed into the ground, unleashing a plume of dirt and smoke. The helicopter didn’t explode, but there was a squealing noise as the tail broke free and bounced across the ground.

  My family, Araminta and Nigel, were in the middle of this hell. And Supercargo was responsible for it all. I found him by the stage, beating the face of a security staffer with his cudgel.

  I came at him from an angle, shouting. He didn’t acknowledge me. I would rip off that mask and shove it down his—

  “Supercargo!” I said.

  I grabbed a handful of dreads. He whirled toward me. But the mask, with attached dreads, stayed in my hand. He wore a ski mask underneath. If I pulled off the ski mask, would he have another mask beneath?

  He watched me with what could have been bemusement. I didn’t need to get the mask off to know that he wasn’t Supercargo. The eyes were all wrong.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  He drew back his cudgel.

  “Dad,” Nigel yelled. I turned.

  “Son?”

  The Plums kept me conscious after the first blow. But others came.

  37

  The Punu mask on Octavia’s hope chest was turned facedown and filled with candy corn. She was on her phone finalizing plans for some deal that I wasn’t involved in. I waited on the orange couch, my knees together. The lump on the back of my head throbbed. I watched the City through her high window. The river was low that day, exposing muddy banks and detritus for miles upstream.

  My Nigel was somewhere down there, he and Araminta. Perhaps holed up in a safe house. Perhaps wandering the streets and begging for change to buy clean drinking water. I had dedicated my life to protecting him from the myriad dangers of black boyhood, only to watch him succumb to the worst dangers of black boyhood. Now my son was a suspect, a label that would haunt him as long as he breathed. It was perfectly kosher to charge a thirteen-year-old as an adult, and any adult who was accused of doing what Nigel would be accused of would face death.

  Octavia said a frustrated goodbye to the person on the phone and flopped down into her chair. She pointed to the door, which I got up and closed before returning to my seat.

  “Sometimes I feel I’m talking to a rock with that one.” Octavia went to the mini wet bar, poured two fingers’ worth of whiskey, and gave me a glass. I could tell from the color and smell of the stuff that a bottle of it could purchase a wedding dress or cover a semester of tuition at one of the better City universities. She toasted, but I didn’t drink. “Listen, I’m sorry your boy is missing. I’m sorry he was mixed up in all that crazy, too. But know two things. One, he’s a smart kid and he’ll turn up. It’s just a matter of time. He’ll realize he can’t survive underground, and he’ll give you a call because he wants the new Crown album or a good slice of pizza.

  “Two, you have my word that the firm will support your family with any legal issues that may arise. We have an arrangement with the Bienville Firm, who’ll do any criminal defense gratis. At that age, who knows what’s right or wrong anyway?” She eyed my glass. “Not thirsty?” She tossed back the rest of her drink. “Suit yourself,” she said. “Let’s make this official.”

  She placed my glass on the edge of her desk and gestured to the abacus.

  “This is a difficult time. I get it. But I can’t let the moment pass without acknowledging the good work you’ve done for me, for this firm, and for the whole town, really.” Reaching across, with thumb and forefinger, she slid the final bead into position. “Everyone came through. Dinah, Pavor, even you. The best team won!”

  Octavia crossed to me and handed over a stack of stapled papers.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “PHH is delighted.”

  I knew they were. Despite the debacle, PHH had gotten great press for volunteering to treat the casualties at no cost, including the victims’ busted noses and lips, which they would slim down if asked.

  “This is the representation agreement between Seasons and PHH.” She flipped a couple of pages into it. “Look at these rates! This is hands down the biggest deal I’ve ever been lead on. Armbruster’s contingent—what’s left of them—is eating crow.”

  Armbruster’s right-hand man had been arrested by the feds for embezzlement. I had the vague notion that somehow he had been set up, but greedy lawyers weren’t unheard of. Either way, Armbruster’s entire team was under federal investigation and an internal administrative review.

  “The committee is going to bump me up to shareholder in charge next quarter. But I’m interim SIC effective immediately. And you know this means you’re with me. Everyone on my team gets a bump. Bumps for all of us. An outbreak of bumps. But—” Octavia stared at the door and laughed. “Jack, what are you doing here?”

  Armbruster stepped into the room. His suit was wrinkled, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

  “No games, Whitmore,” Armbruster said. “You called me.”

  “Sugar, what possible use could I have for you?”

  Armbruster tried to close the space between them, but I blocked him. He was lighter—frailer—than he looked.

  “My, my, Jack. Do calm down. A man your age has to be careful of his blood pressure.” Octavia strolled back to her desk. “I remember why I had them send you up.” She pulled her purse from one of the big lower drawers and produced one of her sun pendants, which she placed on the desk. “Since your group was dissolved, that means you’re one of mine now.”

  Armbruster huffed and stomped out.

  “I’ll have Strummer send it down to you!” Octavia called out.

  She opened a checkbook and wrote. “As for you, I don’t want you to have to wait another second for what you earned.” She pinched the check out of the book and pressed it into my hand. “That’s your full bonus and then some, right out of my personal business account. When the official firm money comes down, you can just write that one over to me.”

  My palm was numb. I glanced at the check, more to make sure I hadn’t dropped it than to read it. But I did read it, and it was more than I could have dreamed. Was this the value of my soul?
I wouldn’t even have to use the meager savings I’d set aside. I recognized that Octavia could have always done this. She could have done it months ago, even on Elevation Night. I’d fought so hard—for what? Nigel was gone. I would never see him again. There would be no procedure. No conciliation to a better future. I didn’t deserve the money. I never deserved it.

  “Why are you doing this now?”

  “You’re a good man,” she said. “Don’t ever think otherwise.”

  “I quit,” I said.

  Without missing a beat, she laughed. “You can check out, but you can’t leave.”

  I repeated myself. “I need to do something—anything. I can’t do this anymore.”

  She said my name and chuckled. “Sugar, I understand you’ve had a tough time. But if you think I’m letting you do something stupid, you’re stupid. And you and me both know you’re not stupid, genius.” She pointed at me. “Go find your boy. Take some time off, as much as you can stand. Recharge. You’re benched.”

  38

  Time passed. Every now and then I got a message through my device that literally stopped me in my tracks. Was it every twenty-third message or every thirty-second? It could have been every other. I’d get a text or email, and something in the sender or subject line would trick my eye into thinking it was a communiqué from Nigel. The message might say “Greetings, Dad,” to my initial glance. But on closer inspection the letters would perform a fire drill in which they rearranged themselves into an advertisement for the City Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I was invited to “Come Say Goodbye to the Dadaists.” Or maybe I’d get a social media note from “Your Son” that resolved into an unsolicited holiday hello from a forgotten someone named “Burson” I sat next to in third-grade typing.

  Nigel disappeared years ago. I sold the house three years ago. The house was too big for me alone, and suddenly, the market got red hot. I would have been a fool to sleep on the opportunity, so I bought an overpriced but tiny condo a three-minute walk from my office.