As often as I can, Laika and I hitchhike to the savanna, where we hunt for old coins and other artifacts. Plumes of smoke billow on the horizon, and it’s said that bandits roam the night searching for workers to use in their forced labor camps. We never stay out past sunset.
Still, unrest notwithstanding, this is a beautiful land of swaying grass and pristine watering holes. Giraffes frolic in the distance or nibble on tender high leaves. Some days I lie under the Adansonia, which provide heavenly shade. I jot in my notebook, which I keep on me at all times. Sometimes I sketch. I’m not very good, but something about the movement of my hand across a page tends to lessen the quivering of my fingers.
I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll never see my son again and that he’ll never forgive me for my transgressions. For every practical purpose, I’m dead, by his request, which fits the Oedipal scheme quite nicely. Elsewhere in these scribblings, I believe I apologized. But here at the end of my revels, where you, dear reader, must imagine my presence for me to exist at all, I take it back.
A part of me believes that I wronged Nigel by interfering with his so-called natural development. That I should have left him to his own devices, to play in the killing sun, dally with darkies, and enjoy Nubian culture in all its carcinogenic glory. I should have let my son’s voice merge with the voices of his peers and listened to the harmony from a doting distance. The inference is that I snatched something from the kid. But the truth of the matter is that I was no normal father, Nigel was no normal son, and America was no normal nation.
I sought to arm my boy with magic potions and enchanted swords, or at the very least provide a sturdy wooden shield. I once believed my intent was to never harm him. But that’s not true. I meant to hurt my child from the first day I met him, when I was a giant and he was a papoose. I needed to hurt Nigel the way a physician introduces a junior varsity version of a virus so that the body knows what to do when the all-star team shows up.
In these shabby pages, I’ve obscured and dissembled for Nigel’s sake. I’ve changed names and places. I’ve fiddled with time and space like some punk demigod. Perhaps more than anything, I’ve tried to tell my life as I experienced it at the time, without knowledge of things to come. I couldn’t have known at the beginning of the narrative that I would end up in this state. But it seems inevitable now.
As much as I hate the electronic world gaze that inspects and examines with neither understanding nor empathy, I have placed Jo Jo in possession of this text by sending it to him in the same way that he communicated Nigel’s message to me. Estate lawyers use an old scheme for the distribution of property to heirs. Roughly, for it’s not my specialty, if a person dies, their child inherits the baggage. If the child dies, the grandparents. If dead patriarchs and matriarchs, then distant relations. When all kin have been wiped from the Earth, the People take all. Jo Jo will forward this treatment to my son when I’m dead and gone. But if strangers are reading these words, then neither he nor I remain.
In truth, I have no illusions that these jottings will ever be seen by anyone who would be moved by my ravings, let alone my Nigel. But I can pretend for just a moment, can’t I?
I need you, Nigel, to read this addendum to the foregoing narrative and take some insight. These words are what’s left of my heart, and they’re for your eyes only. Not to save you, because I realized long ago I could never promise such salvation, but to give you access to my fractured psyche to use the information as you will. Perhaps you will know me better than I myself.
I can’t dwell on things over which I have no control. The past is a shipwreck. I can only offer you some fatherly advice from my side of the chasm. Be kind to your Minty. It took me too long to realize what a shining soul she is. Show my granddaughter— Oh! I would give my good foot to know her name, her favorite foods, the color and shape of the monsters under her bed. Show my dear grandbabe how much you love her every day. Shield her from poisonous influences, especially suspect texts. Keep her out of the sun. But above all, teach her to think for herself. Provide the tools she needs to prosper, given the limitations this conventional reality has placed on her.
And if I could ask one small thing of you, Dear One, it would be that you occasionally think of your father—even after my body has returned to stardust, and I am nothing but the ghost of an angel in mossy chains, haunting endless grasslands in search of a spear tip sharp enough to finally cut this knot.
For Tanzanika, I bet you a fat man
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel is synonymous with living a life. I thank those who helped me live a good life and write a good novel.
Tanzanika Ruffin: soulmate, genius, contrarian, North Star.
Ma and Dad—rest in peace: who gave me whimsy and a love of people.
Victory Matsui: editor, whose wisdom and grace brought this book to its best form. Chris Jackson: publisher and editor in chief of One World/Random House, who greenlit my dream. PJ Mark: agent, whose competence, confidence, and optimism aligned planets.
Tad Bartlett, brother-in-arms, who has the soul of a poet, the mind of a supercomputer, and the heart of a lion. Terri Shrum—rest in peace—sister-in-arms, whose incredible kindness and talent continue to inspire me. Emilie Staat, sister-in-arms, a gifted writer who read everything and gave out gold stars.
Che Yuen, whose short stories and humane example inspired me to ignore limitations. Jamey Hatley, who pushed me to tell honest stories and who used tarot cards to predict this very moment. Mat Johnson, first reader, wonderful mentor—a nicer guy could not happen to me. James Nolan, fearless teacher and friend. Ben Morris, early reader and expert technical editor. April Blevins Pejic, early reader and encourager.
Susan Kagan, Bryan Block, Sabrina Canfield, Amy Serrano, Emily Choate, J.Ed. Marston, L. Kasimu Harris, Amy Connor, Cassie Pruyn, Kelly Harris, Denise Moore, Janis Turk, Susan Bennett Vallee, Keri Rachal, Zach Bartlett, Andrew Kooy, Alex Johnson, Larry Wormington, and all the members of my writing group, the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance, for providing safe harbor.
My writing community: Barb Johnson, Neal Walsh, Rick Barton, Amanda Boyden, Joseph Boyden, Randy Bates, Kay Murphy, Joanna Leake, Richard Goodman, Zachary Lazar, Jami Attenberg, Wells Tower, Rodger Kamenetz, Moira Crone, Alexander Chee, Roxane Gay, Laila Lalami, Kiese Laymon, ZZ Packer, Rachel Kushner, Charles Blackstone, David Mura, Nicole Bartlett, Rosemary James, Joseph DeSalvo, Melissa Remark, Cate Root, Chris Lawson, Willemijn Lamp, Joris Lindhout, Maaike Gouwenberg, Loraine Despres, T. Geronimo Johnson, Naomi Jackson, Sarah Broom, Garnette Cadogan, Tom Piazza, Robert McKee, Jim Randels, Kurtis Clements, Danielle Pellegrin, jewel bush, Mary Jane Ryals, and Ms. Pauline of the long-defunct Bookworm Comics in New Orleans East, who encouraged all her young patrons to read as much as possible and go to college.
Thanks to Read My World, Deltaworkers, VONA, and the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference for institutional support.
To my family, who gave me a reason to tell stories: the Ruffins; my brother, James, and the Alexanders; Ms. Claudia, Ernest M. Washington, Jr., and the Washingtons; Auntie Edie and the Brandons; and the Jourdan family.
About the Author
MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN has been a recipient of an Iowa Review Award in fiction and a winner of the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition for Novel-in-Progress. His work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. A native of New Orleans, Ruffin is a graduate of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop and a member of the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance.
loweramericanson.com
Twitter: @MauriceRuffin
Facebook.com/mauricecarlosruffin
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We Cast a Shadow Page 30
