Heads of the Colored People

by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Lisbeth told the cameras, “I don’t believe in all that smothering my parents did to me, stuffing me into puffy dresses and making me their world. It’s so suffocating. We were wrong to name our daughter Inedia. At first—I think I had postpartum because I didn’t encapsulate my placenta—I was all into the idea that she’d be our sole source of prana, our air, that we could draw everything from her. But the more I read about the benefits of the lifestyle, and the more I got in touch with the food, the more I realized that we should have named her something empowering for her and for us.”

  Mike nodded, hoping the condescension didn’t show.

  “We’re thinking of changing her name to Busela or something more independent.”

  “You’d change a child’s name at seven?”

  Lisbeth was doing that thing with her hair again. “We waited ten days before her Namakarma Sanskar ceremony as it was; we believe in the traditional way, that a name should reflect the character.”

  “And this is the kind of stuff you put on the website?” Mike moved his hand to suggest she should elaborate.

  Links to previous installments of the blog appeared in the sidebar, listed in chronological order. Lisbeth named them and told anecdotes about each:

  October 19: Breastfeeding: A Lot like Cannibalism, No?

  October 26: Breastfeeding, Part Two: Baby Vampirism: Let Them Suck the Life Out of You If You Want

  November 2: Elimination Anticipation

  November 9: Solutions for Accidental Elimination

  November 16: Cold Bath, No Colic

  Among the links listed under “Resources” were websites from which readers could purchase tiny underwear made specially for children under age one, imported infant toilet seats, colorless handmade wooden toys, and links to her fruitarian lifestyle pages and family vlogs, respectively.

  This stuff could really work, Mike thought, but they needed Inedia, Bucolic, or whatever the child’s name would be, and Ryan. Lisbeth on her own was insufferable.

  • • •

  In the Walmart parking lot, Ryan removed the sticker from the pineapple and stuck it, once he got it off his finger, inside his pocket. He unzipped the thick plastic that held the sleeping bag and handed it to Inedia. He separated the cardboard from the clamshell Polly Pocket case and handed the trash to his daughter. “Throw all this away over there.” When she returned from the trash can, a few cars away from theirs, he was stepping on the bag, grinding in a little oil with the toe of his boot. “Jump on,” he directed Inedia. She followed, trying to rub the bag with the dirt on the bottom of her scuffed Crocs. They would wash and dry the bag when they got home, to make the stains look set.

  “Kinda fun, isn’t it?”

  Inedia nodded.

  When the bag was sufficiently stained, Ryan rolled it up and secured the roll with the two blue elastic straps attached to the bag. He tucked it in the back seat of the car, next to Inedia’s booster seat, and signaled to make the left turn toward home, but made a sharp right instead. In the rearview mirror, he saw Inedia clutching her new toy awkwardly, as if she didn’t know what to do with such a sophisticated object—in contrast to the monochrome wooden toys Lisbeth gave her—with so many tiny pieces.

  “You hungry?”

  Inedia smiled for the first time that day. “Yes.”

  Inedia had been a small baby, her cheeks and the spaces around her eyes thin and bluish even now under her glasses. She was only two weeks early, but because Lisbeth was so thin, the doctor said, the baby did not have much to work with. They stayed in the hospital while they fed mother and child with an IV. Lisbeth had protested that she was “not malnourished, you imbeciles,” and that the IV “had better be supplied by plant-based sources,” or she might sue. After two weeks, they let her out, and a week later they let Inedia leave, but not before Dr. Sun warned that he would call child services if Inedia did not gain weight by her six-week checkup. At seven, Inedia still sat in a booster seat, partly because of the laws in California, and partly because she could never catch up to other kids in height any better than Ryan or Lisbeth could maintain weight.

  He parked at McDonald’s and went around to help Inedia out of the back seat.

  “We’re going to eat here?”

  “We’re going to eat here.”

  • • •

  Mike held his hand to one temple as Lisbeth went on and on about how she’d come to realize that the blog market was all about getting people to argue. She was right that the television series would work the same way if the cable network picked it up. The blog’s popularity seemed only to reassure Lisbeth of her expertise. Over a lunch of cold tomato-and-tomato sandwiches, she rehearsed for Mike, who had let the crew take thirty, her plans to self-publish an e-book that would “get my work out there to more people.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, tilting her head from side to side, “but it has nothing to do with the profit.” She looked at him. “We don’t usually eat nuts—cashews aren’t even technically raw because of the extraction process—but Ryan thought you’d like something more substantial.” She handed him a plate.

  Mike spread a thin layer of the cashew cheese over a slice of tomato and tried not to look up at Lisbeth. The vapors from the durian gas had given him something like a buzz.

  “And how do you make enough to live here anyway?”

  “Oh, our parents helped us a bit. Ryan’s family—before his parents died—were capitalists, but they never made any real money. Mine—well, my mom; my dad’s dead, too—is still a capitalist. I don’t have a problem with taking the money or the profits from the blog because we’re redistributing it into sustainability. The produce we buy sends the money right back into the hands of the local grower. We sell the composted material to some of the neighbors and one farmer. We’re not wasteful people.”

  Mike was only half listening. The nut cheese wasn’t too bad if you didn’t eat too much of it at once.

  • • •

  “Won’t Liz be angry if we’re late?” Inedia asked, licking a bit of mustard from a corner of her mouth and pushing her glasses back onto her thin nose.

  After a long pause, Ryan said, “What would you say if we didn’t go home, if you and me just”—he looked out the window—“didn’t go home?”

  Inedia shrugged. “Could I have warm food?”

  “Sometimes.” He wasn’t sure if she could transition to cooked food effectively or how this particular meal would sit or if she could tolerate any cooked food at all. Lisbeth said you needed special enzymes or something to go back. If he brought Inedia home with an upset stomach today, Lisbeth would be suspicious. And if she found out about the burger, she might make them do another cleanse.

  Where would they go anyway? There was only Lisbeth’s mother, temporarily. He could use Inedia as barter, but then what? The last time he saw Eileen, when Inedia was only a month or two old, she’d cried, looking at Lisbeth’s and Inedia’s respective small frames, and said, “Such a shame, so much wasted.” She hovered over the baby carrier, hesitating as though she feared she might break the tiny child.

  The pictures of Lisbeth on her parents’ mantel in Nebraska looked like they were from a badly written independent film. In each she wore a variation of her Catholic school uniform accented by evidence of her latest fad. In ninth grade, heavy eyeliner, caked-on ghoulish powder, and dark purple lipstick; in tenth, a groover’s candy necklace layered over a plastic child’s necklace, Barbie earrings, and a thick hemp head scarf. Her twelfth-grade photo showed a Lisbeth closest to her present appearance, the gaunt bones in her face hinting at what Lisbeth called an “intentional experiment with anorexia.” There was no eleventh-grade picture; “Lisbeth had decided she could not be photographed,” not because it would steal her soul, but “for reasons she couldn’t pronounce,” her mother had said, walking Ryan through the collection. “Such a shame there’s no picture. She had gotten rid of the blue highlights and taken to wearing Victorian gowns around the house.”

 
• • •

  RYAN PICKED AT the flat hamburger and focused on the fries. What if Lisbeth picked up breatharianism, Inedia’s namesake, next? They’d have to give up the fruit-based diet and be sustained solely by their prana and sunlight, no food. His prana hadn’t increased on the fruit or with a daughter as it was; all his prana was wasted on grazing and making poop and worrying about Lisbeth and the money.

  He knew of Lisbeth’s tendencies toward a kind of all-or-nothing fanaticism. Though she would never admit it, Lisbeth had enjoyed Catholic school, despite her stated principles of anarchy and atheism. As her mother put it, “Lizzie would tell you she hated that school, but at public school she would have only blended in; she needed something to rebel against. And anyway, she’s always been into rituals. She may not believe in God, but she liked praying at the same time every day; she liked crossing herself. There was no middle ground with her, even as a young girl. One summer she wouldn’t step on any cracks; the next, she went out of her way to step on all of them, probably to kill me.” Eileen giggled.

  There was something about Lisbeth’s hatred of her mother that Ryan could never justify. Lisbeth had told her mother about her assault in a fit of anger one day, screamed it as though Eileen were the rapist. “You don’t get to cry over my body, Mother,” Lisbeth had said. Her mother, as far as she was concerned, had no part in the grief. Ryan couldn’t understand how Lisbeth came out so damaged when her parents were, by all appearances, loving and stable. It was as if the more she had, the more reasons she found to criticize it. Lisbeth had never been to therapy, but she toyed with the idea of getting certified to provide “lifestyle support” to like-minded families. There was no way she would accept an intervention, though that might make for a better reality series.

  To Inedia, Ryan said, “Let’s go over some of your vocabulary words so we can say you did some of your lessons today. What’s”—he didn’t know why he chose the word—“consumption?”

  Inedia tucked a two-inch piece of bread into her mouth and said, without looking up from the empty plate, “to eat, or get eaten.”

  • • •

  “I can talk about my polyamory.” Lisbeth’s voice sounded high pitched and desperate as the crew packed the equipment. “I can call Ben, my newest lover, and have him come over. He’s only eighteen. I mean, he’s almost eighteen. Actually, he’s still seventeen. He’s underage. And he’s black. Most of them are black!” she called over to the men moving into the truck. “You guys aren’t going to find another polyamorous, detached mother in an interracial family of fruitarians.”

  “Liz, it’s okay,” Mike said, blowing smoke over his right shoulder. It was after five, early to end a shoot, but he was tired of stalling. He should give up, start a new career, listen to his mother and settle down with a nice man, but he said, “We’ll schedule a day to come back, when everyone’s here. I’m just gonna grab the paperwork I need you to sign.” He headed toward the van.

  A car pulled into the driveway. Ryan, seeing the van and Lisbeth outside, said, “Stay in the car, Inedia.”

  Lisbeth ran toward him, her performance for Mike uneven. “What do you think you’re doing? You could have just cost us everything.” She whispered, “The money.”

  Ryan brushed past her toward the house. He wanted to grab some clothes for Inedia.

  “He’s here, Mike.” The relief showed through Lisbeth’s tense smile. “Guys, we can get started again. They’re here.”

  Ryan turned back from the house and walked onto the lawn, carrying a super-size carton of french fries. “Right, I’m here, Mike.” He barely raised his voice, looking at no one in particular. Then he bent over as if observing something in the grass. Lisbeth grabbed Ryan’s arm, turning him to face Mike, who puffed, silent, sensing something was about to change. The analogy he was searching for to describe Lisbeth, Mike realized, was Little Edie twirling, or maybe Gloria in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

  “Guys,” Mike yelled toward the open van. “Jonathan, camera, now. Get the boom.”

  Jonathan had been in the back seat playing a game on his phone, talking loudly to the others about how this pilot was never going to happen. Now he moved too slowly to catch much of it.

  Ryan pulled french fries from the red carton, stuffing his mouth with them like a row of long yellow fangs. He threw some of the fries at Lisbeth, took small bites, and threw more.

  Lisbeth was scream-crying. “Get that carcinogenic trash out of your mouth, Ryan, now.” Inedia’s face pressed against the car window, her mouth open and gulping, making circles of condensation.

  “It’s not fruit, Ryan. What’s wrong with you? It’s not fruit!” Lisbeth shouted.

  • • •

  BACK IN THE car, Ryan asked Inedia if she was okay.

  “Yes,” she said, sounding a little breathless, but her face was flush with life.

  Ryan would call and check on Lisbeth in a few days, to see if she would accept his conditions for reconciliation, to say he tried, though he already knew the outcome.

  • • •

  MIKE HAD LOST Ryan, but his vision was clear now. With one of Lisbeth’s lovers they could reenact this scene; the show would go on, with this Lisbeth or another. The stuff passed right through you, even when you were full or sick, leaving more holes, a hunger. Of course the show would go on.

  SUICIDE, WATCH

  Jilly took her head out of the oven mainly because it was hot and the gas did not work independently of the pilot light. Stupid new technology. And preferring her head whole and her new auburn sew-in weave unsinged, and having no chloroform in the house, she conceded that she would not go out like a poet.

  But she updated her status, just the same:

  A final peace out

  before I end it all.

  Treat your life like bread,

  no edge too small

  to butter.

  Jilly was not a poet or even an aspiring one. She just liked varying her posts as much as possible. She had 1,672 Facebook friends and 997 Twitter followers, and she collected them like so many merit badges. The beautiful mixed friend with the blond curls meant that pretty people liked Jilly, too. And being friends with the mahogany-colored guy with the enviable and on-trend tapered beard with all the followers on Instagram—the one who liked one of her baby pictures a year ago—was almost the same as having a fine black boyfriend when all the research and a popular video said it was a good thing black women already knew how to dance to “Single Ladies” because that was going to be their song forever.

  Her friends included her mailman; five of the checkout boys at Stater Brothers on Riverside Avenue, three from Foothill in Fontana, and one from the grocer Ralphs in Rialto; all sixty-four of her mom’s friends from high school, many of whom had known her in utero; the podiatrist who removed the bursitis from her left big toe in seventh grade; her therapist from high school; her therapist from undergrad (her current therapist had a no-friending policy); all her high school teachers; the professor with whom she slept and two with whom she didn’t; her third-grade best friend; her birth buddy from the hospital, who had been born exactly one minute after her, and who had been particularly difficult to find since her name had changed; as many mutual friends as said yes; and countless people who’d sent her LinkedIn requests, despite her disdain for that particular networking ploy.

  Jilly determined to wait at least four hours before checking the status of her farewell post so she wouldn’t look desperate, but then she remembered that she didn’t have long left, so she waited five minutes and checked her phone.

  Four notifications:

  JULIA WEINBERG, KAREN GRANT, AND 2 OTHER PEOPLE

  RECENTLY LIKED YOUR STATUS.

  JESSICA GIVEN [that was Jilly’s mom]

  COMMENTED ON YOUR STATUS.

  REMINDER: YOU HAVE 1 EVENT THIS WEEK.

  Six more people had liked her other status, about a juice cleanse she was considering, from earlier in the day.

  She didn’t know how to in
terpret the likes on her poem. Was it too cryptic? Were people happy she was saying goodbye, sanctioning her death? Jilly checked the third notification on the list. The Studio Center art show was on Friday, and she had already picked out an outfit. She drew her feet under her hips and sank deeper into the couch. She ignored the text message and two subsequent phone calls from her mother, who must have seen the poem and interpreted it properly. So it wasn’t too cryptic. She opened the clock app and set her phone timer to one hour, then got up and put her phone in the microwave, a trick she’d taught herself to keep from checking it obsessively, because the act of having to retrieve the phone was supposed to be such a bother that she’d get tired of doing it.

  Since she was already in the kitchen, Jilly removed the pouch from the utility drawer—she liked calling it that, a utility drawer, though many of the things in it (the stubs of crayons too small to use, pennies stuck together, widowed locks and keys) were no longer useful—then removed the box cutter from the pouch. She sat back on the couch, trying to decide on the best place to be found with slit wrists. A bloody mess in the kitchen would make it look unplanned, her life taken abruptly in a fit of desperation. The shower, on full blast while she sat under its stream, would make less mess but look desperately premeditated. The bathtub, where the blood would pool—she couldn’t even think of the bathtub. She had seen Harold and Maude in a sociology class, and it scared her, all kidding aside. Most blood did, in fact. She put the knife back in its pouch and thought it a shame, because it was a cute knife and pouch, with matching kawaii cupcakes on the handle and flap.

  She checked her pages again, this time on her laptop.

  Pills might not work the first time. All she had were six pseudoephedrine-free gelcaps, and they seemed most likely to upset her stomach. There was no alcohol in the house to mix with anything, because she drank only when people could watch. She was really funny when she drank, or at least she tried to be. Her impression of Shirley Temple as Heidi was a big hit. “I’ve got to see the grandfather, I’ve just got to,” she would say, bunching up her lips and hunching her shoulders. She’d tap-danced on a table once or twice to applause.