Daughters of Jubilation

by Kara Lee Corthron

  And then something thumps, on the roof of the car.

  “What the hell?” Clay shouts. We scramble to get our clothes on and check the windows, but nobody’s there. I struggle with the buttons on my top cuz my hands are shakin’ so bad, and I think for a split second that if this is R. J. and them, I will cut their throats!

  Clay opens the door and gets out, and I hurry after him.

  “Who’s out here?” he calls with authority. It’s his man’s voice, and it gives me chills. He’s angry. “Show yourself!”

  No one seems to be around anywhere. We only hear the wind. Neither of us says anything; we’re both on high alert. Could it have just been a branch blown by the wind? Sounded harder than that. I’m looking along the ground to find the object we heard when something else hits the car, just missing my head.

  Clay grabs me, pulling me toward him as another rock comes our way but misses the car this time. Then we hear laughing above us. A couple rednecks—I can see them necks glowin’ red from here—are perched up in the maple beside the car.

  Oh Jesus.

  “Why are you causin’ trouble?” Clay asks them, his voice so sharp it could draw blood.

  The two of ’em swing down from the tree like monkeys.

  “Just playin’ around,” the blond one says, gettin’ way too close to Clay for my liking.

  Clay don’t back down, don’t back away. But he don’t step forward, neither. He’s smart, but he’s got pride. I’m worried about his pride.

  “Do not come near my vehicle again,” he says slowly and clearly. He talks differently to them than to me. He’s like a whole other person right now.

  Blondie laughs. A redhead steps up from behind him.

  “Clay, let’s just go,” I say as quietly and firmly as I can.

  Redhead spits a brownish liquid onto the ground, very close to Clay’s oxfords.

  “C’mon, Clay. Donchu got no sense a humor? Donchu know when somebody’s just havin’ some fun with you?” Then Redhead glances at me. “She looks like she knows how to have fun. Am I right?”

  A deep infinite darkness crosses Clay’s eyes. I attempt to pull him away, but it’s like pullin’ on a cement wall. He ain’t movin’.

  “Uh-oh. Looks like somebody’s mad,” Redhead says to Blondie, eyes sparkling. This is honest-to-God fun for them.

  “Sure looks that way. We better watch out. This boy’s liable to run us both over with this nice car a his,” Blondie says back.

  “He just might,” Clay says, menacing. Now I’m pullin’ with all my strength, and he’s finally startin’ to budge. Clay, don’t be stupid!

  The Redhead stops smilin’. “You think you could repeat that, nigger? I’m a li’l hard-a-hearin’.”

  “You gonna run us over? With this here car?” Blondie asks, and then he keys the whole right side, leaving a nasty scar in the baby-blue paint.

  I whip Clay’s face around to look at me.

  “Clay. Clay? Let’s please leave right now. Please,” I beg. He looks from me to the rednecks, the rednecks to me. His anger’s so thick, I can feel it pulsin’ through his skin. But, gradually, he starts to do as I say.

  “Go on and follow your whore,” Blondie calls after us, still laughing. Clay pauses, and I hold on to him like his life depends on it. Because it does.

  “If you so mad, wonchu come back an fight.” Redhead spits more brown juice.

  “That’s enough,” a new voice says. It comes from several feet behind the other two. There’s another one standin’ there. I see him, and terror I can’t describe shoots through me.

  As though they’re trained dogs and him their master, Redhead and Blondie forget about me and Clay and walk right over to the black-haired stranger, flanking him. The Stranger that keeps turnin’ up like a creature in a nightmare. For the first time, I realize that the creepy vibes I’ve been gettin’ from this man up to now are a trifle. His ocean-blue eyes are dull, vast holes, and when I look at them directly, I know he has never felt compassion in his life. He is malevolence in the shape of a human being.

  I push Clay into the car through the passenger’s side and slide in when the Stranger grabs the door handle, preventing me from closing it.

  “Stop it,” I whimper, struggling to rip the door from his grasp. His henchmen appear and hold it open with their weight.

  I have no choice. I focus my energy. I’m scared for Clay to know about the things I can do, but this is an emergency. I breathe deep and envision a wall protecting me and Clay and repelling these beasts like an electric fence.

  But nothing happens. It’s not working.

  Nightmare Man stares down at me for a few seconds, cocking his neck to get a better look. He smiles, and a winter chill rolls down my spine. No trace of a headache. No sense of my talents at all. All I have is my fear, like any other person.

  “Who are you?” I ask him.

  He smiles, brighter. “Evalene Deschamps.” He knows my name. My god, how does he know my name? I’m screaming inside. Wailing for my mama. Paralyzed and helpless.

  He leans down close to my face, and I feel myself shrinking into nothing.

  His eyes. Those vast, blue holes. Dead eyes. Looking into his face is like staring into a corpse. There ain’t nothin’ there.

  “Notre destinée se rencontre fréquemment dans les chemins mêmes que nous prenons pour l’éviter,” he says.

  I can’t move; I can’t think. I can’t do anything. Where is my Jubilation? Why can’t I summon my power the one time I need it?

  Nightmare Man winks at me and closes the door. Clay turns the car around so we can get back down the hill, and as he pulls away, the Stranger waves to me with no expression on his face.

  Clay slams his foot on the gas, and we tear the hell outta there and back toward the main road so fast, I think we’re gonna hit a tree. We don’t, though.

  Finally, he slows down. My thoughts are coming back. My fear is still alive, but frozen for the moment. Overshadowed by relief: We’re alive. They didn’t kill us.

  Clay pulls over. Turns off the engine. Takes a deep breath. And punches the shit outta the steering wheel while loudly cursing. When he’s through, he collapses into it weeping. I pull his head into my lap and stroke him while he cries.

  There ain’t nothin’ I can say. Nothin’ I can do. I’m sixteen. I’m a colored girl. I don’t have the words to help him when a couple of scary crackers can do what they want to him and to me, and there’s not a goddamn thing he can do to stop it.

  8 Visiting Day

  MAMA PULLS RANDOM ITEMS OUT of her pocketbook. Two wrapped peppermints, a skate key, some loose change, and a button that looks like it’s from my old coat. She places them on the table, arranges them, and then methodically puts them back. She pauses before repeating the whole exercise.

  “Don’t worry, Mama. He sounded good last time I talked to him,” I try to reassure her. She nods but keeps fooling with the contents of her purse. She’s always doin’ this when we wait for Daddy to come out to the visitors room. She gets nervous, and her fidgeting just makes me more nervous. I get nervous just bein’ here at all. The difference is I feel better as soon as I see him. She doesn’t.

  A guard looms over us, occasionally looking at Mama’s items to make sure she didn’t somehow smuggle in any contraband after bein’ thoroughly searched. I wanna tell him to back off, but I know better than to start trouble here. They send me away for smart-mouthin’, they liable to never let me come back.

  “My beautiful girls,” Daddy says, comin’ though the door. I notice his blue-gray uniform startin’ to fray at the cuffs, and I hope he can fix ’em. Otherwise the sleeves’ll start unraveling.

  “Daddy!” I smile big. I want to grab him and hug him so badly, but it’s against the rules. I hate the rules.

  “Y’all ain’t been waitin’ long, have ya?” he asks, a little apprehensively.

  “No, just a few minutes,” I tell him. More like fifteen, but I don’t want him to feel bad. Especially cuz i
t’s probably not his fault he’s late. Sometimes guards will mess with inmates. Set ’em up to miss precious time with their families. They can all rot.

  He glances at Mama. She stares down at the table.

  “So tell me the latest.”

  I try to fill him in on everything I think he’d find interesting that’s happened since the last time we talked. It’s funny. I always want to impress him with my maturity, but as soon as I see him, I turn into a little girl. If I let myself think about it, it’s kinda embarrassing.

  “And then she had the nerve to tell her mother I was the one that broke that ugly doll! Right. Cuz when I go over there to watch that kid, I’m really just there to play with the toys. Ridiculous!”

  Daddy laughs so hard, I can see the holes in his mouth where a few rotted teeth had to be pulled. I try to make my stories funny to keep him laughin’. I don’t know how much laughin’ he does when I’m not here. I do whatever I can to keep the smile on his face for as long as possible. Because when it’s time for us to leave, he always looks a little broken. A few times, he’s cried. Not even botherin’ to wipe the tears away.

  It might sound like a small thing, but I haven’t hugged my father in four years. I wish I knew how to put into words what that feels like, but I don’t think those words exist. As much as it kills me, I suspect it’s worse for him.

  “What about you?” Mama asks, surprisin’ us both. “How you doin,’ Jesse?”

  And there goes that smile I worked so hard to maintain.

  “I’m survivin’. Mostly.” He tries to chuckle. “Been readin’ some. Just finished one called As I Lay Dying.”

  “Oh, I know that book! We’re sposeta read that in English this year,” I tell him.

  “You won’t be sorry, pudd’n’. I’m not gonna lie to you: it’s mighty sad, but one a the best books I read in a long time!”

  “What about classes?” Mama interrupts.

  He snorts. “Yeah. Takin’ history right now. Ancient history. We been studyin’ the Macedonian Renaissance.”

  “I meant job trainin’.”

  “I know what you meant,” he snaps. They look at each other for a long moment, and I wish Mama could come here just once with nice things to say to him.

  “Daddy? Did I tell you that Anne Marie’s cookout was on Juneteenth? Do you know what that is?”

  He breaks the shared glare with Mama.

  “I certainly do. I like her. She seems like a smart one.”

  “I’ve noticed there’s somethin’ you ain’t told your daddy,” Mama says to me. I frown at her. She’s actin’ like I did somethin’ and I’m tryna hide it, when I haven’t done a thing.

  “What?”

  She gives me a look and then turns to him.

  “She got a boyfriend now.”

  Oh. That. I feel my cheeks burning.

  “He doesn’t wanna hear about that,” I mumble.

  “Oh, yes he does,” Daddy says. He’s smiling again, his eyes bright and alert. “Who’s the lucky fella?”

  “Clayton Alexander,” I say. I do not want to discuss this with my father. This is just makin’ me feel even more like a little girl.

  “What? He’s older’n I am!”

  “Clayton Junior! Not the one you useta know,” Mama corrects. I hate how she says “useta know.” Like anybody he knew before prison is lost to him now.

  “Well shit, I thought he was only ’bout eleven or twelve.”

  “They grow up, Jesse.” She says this with a grin. Not unfriendly, though.

  “Wow! So he’s— Oh. Okay. He better be treatin’ you right.”

  “He is, Daddy.”

  “I’m serious, cuz…” He pauses and glances up at the guard. He seems to rethink whatever he was planning to say. “Let’s say, for his own good, he better not hurt my baby.”

  I smile and look away, more than ready to talk about anything else.

  “My baby,” he says, and shakes his head, and I see the sadness creepin’ back in again. “You know? I still remember the day you were born?”

  “I know, Daddy.”

  “You came with the hurricane. Made one grand entrance.” He laughs then coughs hard.

  He’s said those two sentences to me I don’t know how many times. I never know how to respond.

  “I’m comin’ back, though. Just gotta keep my eyes open and my head up high. It won’t be much longer now.”

  Outta the corner of my eye, I see Mama sink a little in her chair. I know she loves him, but things were never simple between her and Daddy.

  “I can’t wait,” I tell him. It’s true.

  “You think you can’t wait? Lord, child you have no idea how—”

  “That’s it. Let’s go.” The guard appears without warning. Daddy lingers in the chair, lookin’ at me with so much love in his eyes, I think I might cry.

  “Move it!” The guard kicks my father’s shin, and his jaw tightens; the kick hurt him. I notice for the first time the chain connecting his ankles. They don’t usually bind his ankles. This motherfucker kicked my father, AND he knew he was chained and defenseless? Uh-uh. No.

  I think I hear them giggling. The haints. It could be in my mind. But if they are present, are they daring me? Encouraging me?

  Time is crucial. All you need is a second, a half second, to get your mind right when it’s all wrong. But sometimes you don’t even have that.

  Between the kick, Daddy’s wince, and me seein’ them chains, no time passes at all. And in that no-time-passin’ place, the guard grabs his own throat, cuz he can’t breathe, and his eyes bug out and he starts flailin’ around like a fish on land, tryna get somebody’s attention. Somebody who gives a damn. Mama and Daddy glance at each other, and they both look at me. I hear that giggle again. I’m certain it’s them. They are here, and they’re on my side. I have to hold back a smile. I know this is wrong, but the feelin’ I feel, watchin’ that piece a garbage fight for his life, is so complete, so vibrant, so new. It’s like I’ve touched another orbit of existence, and I feel happy-happy.

  “Evvie!” My mother hisses my name, and her face is all horror. The guard crashes to the floor, chokin’ and sputterin’, and his pink skin turns a sickly purple. I guess somebody went to get help, cuz a nurse, two new guards, three medics, and a guy in a suit bound through the door and drag the sputterin’ man through it.

  Now that they’re gone, a silence has fallen over the visiting room. I expect to feel drained or scared, but I don’t. The happy-happy feeling has passed, but I feel… fine. I feel like he got what he deserved.

  A couple seconds later, excited chatter starts up around us. Families shocked by the drama they just witnessed. My daddy stares at me, but the love on his face is replaced with fear.

  “My baby,” he says, like this time he’s tryna figure out if that’s still who I am.

  Soon another guard appears to take my father away. This is usually the saddest, most painful moment for him and me, but now he just seems bewildered. And I still feel a hint of happy-happy.

  “I love you,” I say.

  “I love you, too, Evalene,” he replies. Just before the guard gives him a shove, he turns to my mother and says, “Indigo? You gotta fix her. Before she gets locked up too.”

  9 Training

  NEITHER OF US HAS TAKEN this path in a long time. At least a year for me. For Mama, it’s been years—emphasis on the s. She is none too happy right now.

  We open the rusty gate and enter the yard. Instantly I feel unwelcome. Is this a mistake? I pause before going any farther.

  “Mama?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Maybe we should forget about it and go back home.”

  She peers up into the tree with shiny blue and green glass bottles covering every branch.

  “We can’t. I wish we could. It’s just too big for us.”

  She walks up the crooked cement path, and I follow, watching the ground to make sure we ain’t about to step on anything that could hurt us. No sharpened ani
mal bones or coyote teeth shrines today. A couple chickens peck at corn kernels, and then they look up and all around. Not a thought between ’em. No clue why they’re here or whose supper table they might wind up on. Poor dumb animals.

  When we get to the back door, Mama looks at me.

  “It’s gotta be you,” she says.

  I swallow and steady my breath. I knock on the door. Three times, take a second, and then two times. We wait. No sounds or footsteps or voices or anything. It’s creepy. Then again, you’d have a hard time findin’ anything on this property that ain’t creepy.

  We wait some more. It’s strange. She’s never out. Even when she is, she somehow manages to be home at the same time. Mama swears that she’s seen her out at the market only to hear from a cousin who was with her at the time that Grammie Atti hadn’t left the house in days. This has happened more than once. She’s just like that. Mama nods at me, and I try again: three knocks, a second, two knocks. Then from inside the house, we finally hear somethin’.

  “Quit all ’at knockin’! I know it’s you. Just come in already.”

  I open the door, and there she sits at her converted card table in this old-timey kitchen. Wrought-iron pans hangin’ from nails so big they look like railroad spikes. A wood stove. All kinda roots and herbs danglin’ from the rafters. It’s so old-timey, there’s a claw-foot tub in here. Who takes a bath in the kitchen?

  “Hi, Grammie Atti,” I say, soundin’ guilty, like I came here to get absolved of all my sins when that’s absolutely not why we’re here. I hope against hope that my grandmother can help me understand Jubilation. I hope she can answer my questions. But for all I know, she could throw us outta here without givin’ it a second thought.

  “Uh-huh,” she replies skeptically. Pointin’ to the jar in Mama’s hands, she asks, “What’s ’at?”

  Mama sets it down on the counter.