In the Light of You Page 12

  “It’s an ugly world, Lees.” I had to agree.

  “That’s quite a teenage attitude,” she said to both of us. Even though I didn’t exist.

  “I just called Philips back. He’s coming by.”

  “Oh. Wonderful. It’ll be like a Blackchurch family reunion up in here.”

  “Yeah. Gats out, posse up.”

  “But see, I KNOW nobody’s tryin’ to act a fool up in MY house.”

  “It’ll be a’ight.”

  I stood there playing out this whole ridiculous scenario in my head wherein it was me on that step with her and not him. I’d tell her that I’d protect her and I’d never let anyone hurt her. I’d keep all the evil spirits away. I am a gargoyle. I can be your gargoyle. I imagined my crew skulking around, bad talking her and threatening her and I’d fight each of them one by one. I’ll keep you safe. In my mind I hadn’t yet gotten to fighting Richard when I heard that voice:

  “You’re jealous, aren’t you.”

  I turned my head and Sherry stood with her face inches from mine holding up an accusatory index finger.

  “Is that loaded?” I asked.

  “You just had to follow me,” she continued. “You can’t ever leave me alone. It’s cuz you’re jealous.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because I fell in love and I can’t help that. How about you?”

  “Nope.”

  We looked out through the screen door at the two of them sitting there. If they felt our eyes they made no show of it. The party seemed miles in the background and I stood there feeling like a stalker. At least I ain’t the only one.

  “Fuck,” Sherry muttered as she watched them, her eyes welling with tears. “Fuck fuck fuck.” She punched the wall with her left fist and yelped in pain, but reared back to punch again. I grabbed her wrist mid-air. “Let go of me, Mudhoney.”

  “Stop it. So what, you don’t want to be with Richard no more?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. Well, I know what I want … but I don’t know what to do.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “No.”

  “Cuz you don’t just break up with Richard Lovecraft, you know. I hope you understand that.”

  “I know.”

  “Especially … well, it don’t make no difference. You just don’t break up with him.”

  “I’m not anybody’s property.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong.”

  “You want a beer, Mikal? I’m going to go get us some beers.”

  And off she went. My entire body buzzed, and I felt my fingertips pricked with tiny plastic pins. I felt watched, and decided it was time for me to leave. Oriental Greg with the joker’s hat came stumbling into the room saying,

  “Anybody know a Mike Shannon? Mike Shannon.” He turned to me and asked, “Dude, you know a cat named Mike Shannon?”

  “Never heard of him. Why?”

  “He’s got a phone call.”

  Whatthefuck …

  I headed for the front door just in time to see D’antre Philips walking in. One hundred and eighty degrees and off I went in the other direction.

  Back to the kitchen, out the screen-door, to the deck and ready to break into a sprint and there she was sitting alone on the top step.

  “Hi Mikal Fanon,” Niani said. “It’s wild that you came here.” I hurried past her down the steps, out into the yard and the near-pitch dark. Run! RUN! “Hold up for just a minute,” she said. And, dutifully, I froze in my tracks.

  “You … can’t see me,” I said. “I’m invisible.”

  “Well, I thought ya knew I’m wearing my magic glasses today.”

  “Curses. Foiled again.”

  My head was strapped tight in on a tilt-o-whirl. I wanted to run away. Into the night. Into the nothing. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to hit her for making me want to kiss her.

  “I saw your folks not long ago,” she said. “I usually see them in Blackchurch when I’m down visiting mine’s. They’re always really kind to me when I see them.”

  “Don’t be fooled,” I said. “It’s just fake-friendly, mid-western ‘howdy neighbor’ bullshit. I promise you, they think you’re an animal.”

  A streak of hurt flashed across her eyes and I wanted to pull out my knife and slash my own wrists open right then and there for making that happen.

  “Well,” she smiled, “They do a good job covering it up.”

  “Lee … Niani, I’m sorry I … I didn’t wanna have nothing to do with hurting your friend, but … it’s like …”

  “He’s fine. He’s here in fact. You want to meet him?”

  “No, I sure don’t. And he ain’t fine. I know it. That’s the thing. He ain’t never gonna be fine. It ain’t just about damaging the body. You know that. If it was then there’d be a lot more racially motivated murders than there are. It’s about terror. It’s about scarring the insides all up. Setting up and maintaining the dividing lines. Perpetuating the fear and the hate. Keep it alive. Keep it burning on all fronts. The racialist’s biggest fear is …”

  “Obsolescence.”

  “If that means what I think it means, then yeah.”

  Why was I telling her this? She’s the enemy. She was everything I had to hate. Everything … in one dark and beautiful package.

  “You don’t need those guys, Mikal.”

  “It’s just a thing, you know. Whatever.”

  “You don’t need them.”

  “You gotta … believe in something.”

  “Why?”

  “Because …”

  “Oh, you little boys and your plastic armies.”

  “It ain’t … about that at all.”

  “You don’t need those guys, Mikal.”

  I thought about Phil. I thought about myself in his place.

  “I …” I saw myself smashed up, destroyed, and alone. “Yes … I … do.”

  “You high right now?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Me too. Getting high makes me happy. So why are you so sad?”

  I held up my hands to my face and was shocked to feel that it was damp. What the fuck? I examined the moisture on my fingertips as if I had no idea from whence it came.

  “You don’t need those guys, Mikal,” she repeated. She’s manipulating you.

  “You ought to go stay with, with, with your parents,” I stuttered. “You ain’t safe here. She’s gonna bring bad things to this house.”

  “She who?”

  “Crossfire … you know …”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She stood up and walked slowly toward me. My chest locked shut.

  “They’re gonna hurt you,” I whispered.

  “You won’t let them hurt me, will you?”

  Acid tears burned rivulets down my cheeks. She slid the cap off my head like revealing a secret. I could only breathe in syncopated jags, and I was so goddamned furious at her right then. I’d spent a long time building up a good solid wall, and she burned through it like tissue paper.

  “You like this music, Mikal?” I hadn’t even heard it until she pointed it out.

  “Yeah. It’s Burning Spear, ain’t it?”

  “They and them does hate I …”

  “Yeah.”

  And Spear sang, “They and them does fight against I / You should see them rejoice / And tell I to run to run to run / I will never run away …”

  And I knew that it was just the drugs that had me shaking like a lost, cold pup … and she used that against me. She cradled my face in her hands and stared right into my cloudy, scarlet, salt-singed eyes.

  “I … I …”

  “I see you,” she said.

  “… Weeping and wailing / gnashing of teeth / you got yourself to blame …”

  “Don’t touch me, you fucking NIGGER!” I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her as hard as I could. She tumbled backward, landing in the grass. “Fucking slut.” I growled. “Don’t trick me, you fucking dyke nigger SLUT!”

  “Which is it, Mikal? Am I a dyke or a slut? You gotta pick one.”

  “Oh, whatever it takes. Whatever makes that money. Niggers are the fucking termites of society. Cockroaches! Feeding on filth and spreading disease. Take, take, take, breeding like sewer rats—”

  “Do you even know what you’re talking about? Do you understand the words you’re saying?”

  “Spitting out litter after litter of little niglet pickaninnies to gobble up all the fucking welfare. All the tax money! LEECHES!”

  I came completely unglued. My vision was a blur. I paced around, venom dripping from my lips as tears poured out of my eyes.

  “Why is it so hard for you to say that, Mikal? Why does it hurt you so bad to say it?” And she didn’t break in the slightest. “Seems like you’ve got a job to do then. Come on. Kick me. Right here. As hard as you can.”

  I couldn’t have stomped her even if I wanted to.

  “The Jews and the socialists use the niggers as cheap labor and grunt soldiers on the front line to undermine White Christian America—”

  “Here’s your chance to be a hero for your race, Mikal. Stop me before I have a chance to breed like a sewer rat.”

  “To exhaust resources and dilute the purity of the white race through perversion miscegenation mongrelization—”

  “Come on! Kick me! Kick me as hard as you can!!!”

  I couldn’t touch her …

  You’re hurting her! YOU’RE HURTING HER!!!

  “Every new generation of a completely dependent criminal class further advances the elite Zionist agenda—” You’re hurting her! Kill yourself, you maggot!!!

  I truly did not follow my own logic at that point. The words coming from my mouth were not mine. I was a pre-recorded broadcast.

  “Kick me, goddamn it!”

  Pull out the knife and jab it into your throat! You don’t deserve to live! KILL YOURSELF!

  “To usurp power from the rightful stewards of the homeland!”

  “Stop me before any pickaninnies of mine can wreck your precious White America!”

  I couldn’t even hear myself anymore. It was all just jabbering, babbling static vibrating from my lips and buzzing in my ears. WHITE NOISE. Chattering, blathering meaningless words and concepts like vomiting bile, I paced and shuddered, crying and shaking like a five-foot-ten newborn. I must have stopped at some point, because after a while all I could hear were my own sobbing breaths. (And maybe a bit of Funkadelic way off in the distance.) I was broken.

  “Well,” she said finally, standing and brushing herself off, “I’m really glad we had a chance to have this little chat.” She turned around and headed back into the house. She turned back one last time to say, “If you ever need me, Mikal Fanon, you know where to find me.” And she was gone. And she won. I stumbled off through the yard to the back road. She’s still got your hat, I thought. Gotta get that hat back.

  I staggered down the gravel alley behind the house toward Fourth Street. I felt like I had been walking for an hour at least, but it couldn’t have been but a minute. I could still see the house when I turned around. I heard a voice say, “Yeah that’s one uh them that fucked Trey all up.”

  Out of the darkness, lurching, came two young black gentleman of moderate build, and one gigantic Magilla-looking sumbitch. The first two I recognized from the hood, the third I must have met one fateful drunken evening on the West Side. I gave an exaggerated wave.

  “Hey! I guess y’all are wearing your special glasses too, huh?”

  “Psssh. Damn, Shabazz, this boy trippin’.”

  “What up, Arnold?” I slurred. “What up, Don? Hey Don, I just softed two hoes up for you, man. No charge.”

  “I don’t know you, punk.”

  “Yeah … that’s just the way it is.”

  “So,” Gigantor grunted, “why you gotta go messin’ up my cousin Trey, huh? Lil cracka-ass cracka.”

  “Misunderstanding, my man. We was thinkin’ he’s Jewish.”

  I barely remember the tornado of fists. I really only felt the first blow, which opened up my cheek wound like the South Fork Dam, and turned the collar of my flannel into Johnstown, PA. After that it was just a series of dull thuds landing somewhere near me. It was painful, but only in the abstract. I was well anesthetized. Thank god for that Yid hippie and his drug butter. God bless that pork-dosing heeb.

  Once they got bored with pounding on my lifeless shell, they headed off to the party and likely had a swell time. I spent the rest of the morning stumbling home, bloody and dazed. By the time I got to my front porch, the sun was just starting to rise, and I thought, She’s still got my hat. She’s still got my hat …

  15.

  WALKING in, I wasn’t sure if I had the skill or balance just then to negotiate the obstacle course of bodies. And exactly as I had to just now to reach my den to write this, I had to creep carefully and silently over and around sleeping friends and random ne’er-do-wells (I suppose some things never change).

  I was just about to my room when I heard Richard’s voice.

  “We missed you at Meat’s last night.”

  “Yeah,” I said turning slowly so as not to wrench my already damaged neck. “Shit came up.”

  “What happened?”

  “You remember them niggers that jumped us? Well, see, I went to go settle up.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Made sense at the time.”

  “Did you bring a gun?”

  “Meant to. But I forgot it.”

  “Yeah, I know. You left it cocked in my drawer.”

  Fuck.

  “Well … live and learn.”

  “Get some sleep, Mikal. We’ve got a lot to discuss tomorrow. Or rather today.”

  “Rich, I gotta tell you something about Sherry.”

  “Yeah? What about her?”

  Just then Sherry popped her head out of the bedroom right under Richard’s arm.

  “Jesus, Mikal!” she gasped. “What happened?”

  Speedy little bunny ain’tya …

  “You should see the other guy.”

  “What about her?” Richard asked again.

  “Well … she wanted me to tell you that she ain’t coming to Meat’s party because she’s got a big test Monday, but apparently you already knew that, so message delivered and I’m going to bed.”

  Richard chuckled, rolled his eyes, and disappeared back into the bedroom. I looked down at the floor and watched the wood panels ripple like water. I could really only see out of my left eye, and even that was hazy. My right ear rang so loudly, it would likely have been audible to someone standing nearby. Sherry emerged from Richard’s bedroom holding a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

  “You. Me. Kitchen. Now.”

  I followed as well as my busted equilibrium would allow.

  She dabbed a cotton ball filled with searing hot lava against the cuts on my face. I didn’t flinch.

  “You look like shit, Mikal.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Aw, whatsamatter? No joy in Mudville? Hold that ice on. It’ll keep the swelling down.”

  “Some hot party, eh Sher?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Did it sound like a threat?”

  She opened the freezer and removed a piece of steak. I watched her try not to gag as she pulled open the plastic wrap.

  “I don’t know if this even works or if it’s an old wives’ tale, but that eye is nasty, so here we go.” She held the frozen steak to my eye, swallowing hard to keep the puke at bay.

  “Is the steak supposed to be frozen?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I can hold it.”

  “You mind the ice pack.”

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry.” Pause. “Mikal, I said some things last night that I didn’t mean to say.”

  “Did you do anything you didn’t mean to do?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Hell yes. Well … There was shit I meant to do that I neglected to. I meant to case the house. Didn’t. Meant to bring a gun. Whoops. Meant to gut Jack Curry like a wild boar. Maybe next time.” She drew a hard shudder-breath on that last bit, and shut her eyes tight. “So you done fell in love with that nigger, huh?”

  “What?!”

  “I mean that figuratively, of course. It ain’t even a race thing to me no more. Nigger is a state of mind.”

  “Well, you should know. Good night, Mikal. Bob’s your uncle.”

  And she padded off to bed.

  “Yeah, I guess he is.”

  16.

  SOME party …

  “Wait a second. I just want to talk, Jack. Please. Can we talk?”

  “Sherry … relax, all right? I’m not going to fuckin’ hurt you.”

  “Don’t scream at me either.”

  “Okay.”

  “And don’t send me away.”

  “You got a lot of nerve coming around here, girl. I can see that goddamn scar on your tit from here. Sickening. Shameful.”

  “I’m not ashamed.”

  “You should be. Lot of nerve coming around here.”

  “Jack, I can’t help who I fall in love with. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re just … confused.”

  “I’m in love. Madly. Blindly. It’s the only thing I’m sure of, and it’s fatal.”

  “That’s fucking crazy! You’re with whatsisname. Dickie-boy.”

  “Can’t I be in love with two people?”

  “No. Well … I don’t know. Can you? I can’t. But we’re different.”

  “No, that’s the thing. We’re not different. I know you feel exactly the same way I do. Exactly.”

  “I’m not in love with … anybody.”

  “Yes, you are! I know you are! And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to see you hurt! But you can’t help the way you feel any more than I can.”

  “You’re really fuckin’ bold, you know it?”

  “I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore. Do you know who you are, Jack?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Maybe I’ve never known. But I know how I feel right now. I’ve never felt so sure of anything in my life.”

  “Too crazy …”

  “It ripped me apart seeing you with her tonight. It tore me up into little tiny pieces. She had her arms around you so tight and I told myself, It’s nothing. They’re just like … brother and sister. Right? Just old friends. Right? But I felt like I was dying inside. I can’t help that I was jealous. I can’t pretend I don’t feel the way I do.”