In the Light of You Page 9

  Without a word spoken we rushed to my room on the back porch, freed each other of any and all burdensome clothing, and fell in a naked heap onto my futon, gobbling each other alive.

  “Wait!” she gasped. “Do y-you … really want to … really t-take me there?”

  “Yes! Of course! Anything you want!”

  “Go g- … get ice.”

  I ran out to the kitchen and yanked an ice tray out of the freezer that had frozen, frost covered, onto the door. Contained therein was exactly one cube. When I got back to the porch she had already started without me, working her fingertips between her thighs, curling her wrist in circles.

  “Round off the edges for me,” she whispered biting her lip, here eyes shut tight. I put the cube in my mouth, twisting it back and forth in my lips, melting it into a workable dome shape. From there I simply did as I was told, following her every instruction to the letter. “Rub it here … Oh yes, that’s it, right there . Slide it back in … deeper . Just like that, in a circle … oh god yes, right like that …” She shuddered and squirmed, her arms locked stiff as she grabbed hold of the sheets with both hands. Her moaning got louder as her breaths shortened, her head jerking back and forth across the cushion. “Oh god, Mikal, I don’t know … if I c-cuh-can taaaaaaake … much more!” All at once she arched her back, bucking hard against my hand. She screamed, thrashing up and down on the mattress as I felt the diminishing ice cube disappear into oblivion. She rolled away from me, curling up into a ball at the top right corner of the futon, shivering and cooing. “Oh fuck … Oh Jesus … that was amaaaaaazing … Ooooooooo my god, it’s shooting all through my body. Little micro-gasms all over. I can feel it in my toes!” I sat back beaming, feeling fifteen feet tall and cast-iron. I don’t know how much I could honestly have taken credit for, but I was proud to be a part of it at any rate. “Oh fuck yeah …” she continued, panting, wiping a tear from her cheek. “That’s it right there. That’s just how HE does it. Yeah. That’s what he does to me. And she’s so jealous. She’s jealous of me.”

  I sat granite still, dumb-struck, my mouth gaping open like a mounted trout. She didn’t even notice.

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “She is so jealous of what we share.”

  And that’s how she opted to tell me.

  But let’s be honest, I kind of already knew, didn’t I?

  11.

  NOT many people know about my brother. Kaleb was his name. Two years my junior. I barely remember him. Died when I was eight. I’ve since met a number of people who have survived leukemia, but when Kaleb was diagnosed I don’t remember death being anything but a forgone conclusion. He fought like a champ, you know. But he was just so goddamn little. My people are slight folk as a rule on both Mom’s and Dad’s side, and he was tiny even by our standards. I don’t even remember going to his funeral. Perhaps I didn’t go.

  We were still living in Louisville, I was ten or eleven, the first time I ever stood up to my father. I don’t recall what set him off, but he was whaling on Mom with a curtain rod. She shrieked and blubbered, curled up on the kitchen floor, and I ran in and jumped between them. Dad didn’t so much as pause, he simply kept whacking—on me instead—as I was in the way.

  “Get the fuck out, Mikal, or I’ll beat yer ass bloody!”

  I didn’t flinch, though it stung like a thousand hornets. I called him a “weak asshole” and told him if he touched my mother again I’d slit his throat while he slept. “Don’t sleep, you weak asshole,” I said, short on words just then. He called me “tough guy” and pulled out his .357. Of course it was loaded. It always was and so was he. My mother crawled up on her knees and threw her arms around me, sobbing, begging him to put it away.

  “Ya heard ‘im threaten me, Tanya!” he yelled, waving the gun back and forth between my mother and I. He stumbled a bit in a deep vodka drunk and cocked the piece. My arms and neck throbbed. The bass drum in my ear needed tuning.

  All at once he fell to the floor in a weeping heap. He dropped the gun under the table and I had a mind to grab it and shoot his face clean off.

  “I love y’all so much,” he cried. “I’m so sorry!” He began cradling his arm, rocking back and forth, snot, tears, and drool spilling down his face. “My baby boy,” he sobbed into the negative space in the crook of his arm where a baby would be. “My baby K … where’s my baby K at … where’s he at …”

  “You let him die,” I said. “He could have lived, but you let him die.”

  “Where’s he at, my tiny little baby boy …”

  I spat on him and called him out for a “queer.” Mom grabbed me and we ran out of the house. Nowhere else to go, we stayed in a gnarly-ass roach motel called The Pit Stop Lodge.

  She called him that night. Of course. He pleaded with her to come home. He promised he’d never hurt her or me again, and he swore he’d never pull the gun on us ever again, and he vowed on his mother’s eternal grave to get rid of the gun once and for all. But he did, and he did, and he didn’t. That’s just the way it is.

  “Suzi, this has to stop right now!”

  I paced about in a frothing rage, flinging my arms aimlessly about as she, cool and calm, got dressed and prepared to leave.

  “You just don’t understand, Mikal. You don’t understand the bond that we have, him and me. The love that’s between us. I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “Hurt ME?! I ain’t the one who’s fucking HURT, Suze! We got to go to the cops! We can’t let that diseased bastard get away with this!”

  “Don’t you talk about Daddy like that!”

  “How can you call that fucking cretin ‘Daddy’?! This is the most morally di—”

  “Oooooooooh morals.” She threw up her hands in a grand display. “That means a FAT lot coming from you, Mikal. Mister Aryan Nation. How many times have I watched you attack people—who never done a thing to you—and beat them half to death? Huh? How many times? How many people have you hurt? Not for your so-called ‘revolution,’ but just because it got your rocks off. And you want to lecture me about morals? You’ve got balls, my love. Big, heavy, metal balls swinging right between your knees. Morals. Ho ho ho. Too funny for words.”

  “You want me to quit, Suzi? Do you? Cuz I will. If it bothers you, then I promise on my life that I won’t never harm another person so long as I live, no matter what. Okay? I’ll give it ALL up if that’s what you want. All of this. Okay?! I would do that for you.” And I meant it.

  “No, I don’t think you will, Mikal. And for the record, I don’t care what you do and I don’t care who you stomp. Some people are sub-human and they get what they deserve. But that’s beside the point. I don’t think you ever would quit, no matter what you say. It’s not because I don’t think you’re sincere. It’s because I know in my heart that I’m not your first love.” She indicated Richard’s bedroom door. My face burned so hot you could have lit kindling off my forehead. I wanted to grab her and slap her hard for crossing that line. I wanted to scream at her and shake some sense into her. But I simply stood rigid, and with all my strength forced a meager smile.

  “Yeah, Suze? Well … I know I ain’t your first love neither.”

  “You’re damn right you’re not.” And she walked out. And that was that.

  I never saw her again.

  I didn’t tell anyone why Suzi and I had broken up. “It just happens, you know. People grow apart.” I figured they would find out on their own someday anyway. I was right. But that next night it was all about Cheer Mikey Up, so we hit the town running, everyone promising to buy me a drink. A promise they all made good on, though I now certainly wish that they hadn’t.

  Yeah, we painted the town red, all right. And we had help. At about 1:30 AM, after hitting every bar that would let us in, we headed across the viaduct to the West Side. See what was shaking at that guy Meat’s place. We never made it that far.

  I still don’t know where exactly we were, but I was the first to spot them.

  “Hey, Sssshurry,” I slurred, pointing out the window as we stopped for a red light, “ain’t that that nigger you wanted us we should stomp up the uth’r night at Lucree … sha’s …?”

  “Yup,” she said. “That’s old Oreo Trey and his white chocolate arm candy Melanie.”

  With that, Joe threw the van in reverse, slammed it in drive, and peeled up to the sidewalk.

  “I think these number ones need a lesson,” Joe announced. “Do I hear a ‘nay’?”

  With that everyone poured out of the van. Upon seeing us, Trey and Melanie froze in terror. I don’t think anyone spoke. There was no pause or hesitation. We all just immediately lunged for the guy. We beat him to the ground and went in for a circle-kick. Melanie ran off screaming and Richard yelled at the girls, “FUCKING GET HER!”

  Sherry said:

  Little girl was quick. Must have been an athlete or something. She kicked off her high heels and was definitely faster barefoot than we were in those big, clompy boots. At some point she was so far ahead of us she was completely out of sight. By the time we caught up to her she had wedged herself L-shape into a phone booth, already talking frantically to someone. It suddenly occurred to me that this chick could identify me. Plus I’d have to see them at school Monday, or eventually anyway. So I stayed back as Anne, Jennie, and Reeba all went flying at the booth.

  “Get out of there, bitch!” one of them screamed at her. The three kicked furiously at the Plexiglas booth, successfully breaking in one side. Melanie cried and wailed, pressing her bare feet against the glass to keep them out.

  “Hurry, please!” I heard her sob into the receiver. The scene was starting to attract attention from the locals, so we darted off.

  “I understand the bind you’re in, fella,” Richard said to Trey McKinley, who was barely conscious. Trey attempted to speak, but only succeeded in creating a low gurgle, and tiny bubbles of blood. His face was beaten so out of shape he barely looked like the same man. The smell of blood collided with the copious amount of alcohol sloshing about in my stomach and I began to feel dizzy and sick. “I mean,” Richard continued, laying on his fake I’m reasonable routine, “black women are some surly, ugly, nasty bitches. I know that. I see ‘em flashing their shit on the street corners downtown. ‘Hoes’ you call ‘em? No doubt. But that simply does not give you the right to pump your filthy seed inside our women. Are you straight hip to my lingo, brutha?”

  “Ha ha, yeah,” Brian snorted. “Are we down, homey?”

  Duty done, we were about to leave him there sleeping on the curb and go find the girls, when suddenly this huge brown Cadillac screeched to a halt right next to us. Out stepped Jack Curry, this young Japanese headbanger I later found out was named Yoshimoto, and six of the biggest, darkest, hardest home-boys who ever lived. These guys had a good ten years on us, probably hard-time, and countless pounds of muscle. Oh fuck fuck fuck … Blackchurch … represent …

  “Just hang tight, lil cuz,” one of them said to Trey, who likely did not hear him. They all began to circle us. My head was spinning and I stumbled, like I had just stepped onto a moving carousel (a feeling to which I have grown quite accustomed).

  “All right then, T,” said Yoshimoto. Some wet mumble burbled from the sidewalk.

  “Don’t worry, Trey,” said Curry. “We’ll have you up on two and voting Republican again in no time.”

  We were completely walled in. No escape, but it did occur to me, even in my drunken state, that in that formation they likely didn’t have guns. I’ll take my pluses where I can get them. I heard a click that I knew was Richard’s switchblade.

  “Okay,” Richard yawned, “let’s get this over with.”

  To this day I don’t know what he was thinking. There was no way we could take these guys and no way out. Did he miscalculate? Had his head gotten too big? They came down on us like collapsing walls. I barely got one swing in when I felt a wrecking ball slam into my stomach from two counties over. I hit the pavement knees first, spilling a river of blood and booze vomit out into the street. I felt a boot heel jam into my kidneys and another crack the back of my skull as I flew cheek-first into a rusty wheel well. A slam to the chest and two pops to the face and that was it for me. There was a lot of “Whatchoo thought, fool!” and “Betta reckonize, punk!” kind of chatter. Feels like home, by gum. I crawled up to the sidewalk to see someone scoop up Trey and carry him to the Caddie, which proceeded to squeal off into the night. My boys held their own, more or less, but it was the most brutal beat-down any of us had ever caught. I appeared to have been deemed either out of commission or no longer present as I lay there watching through blurry, swelling eyes. Closest to me Curry and Phil were doing a number on each other, Phil managing a solid whack to Curry’s shoulder with a thick metal chain. In a flash Curry got the upper hand and slammed Phil’s face into the bumper of the parked car. From there he brought his boots down on Phil’s wrists, one then the other, the second smash even more devastating than the first. Phil shrieked in agony. He continued to howl as Curry dragged him into an adjacent alleyway. From there all I heard was the occasional dull grunt and the moist pounding of beef being tenderized.

  Sirens began to wail in the distance. Rapidly approaching. All present tore off into the night every which way. Except for me, of course, and whatever unspeakable horror was taking place in the alley. I attempted to stand, and fell immediately again onto the sidewalk. I tried to speak and hacked up more blood instead.

  Sherry said:

  The girls and I panicked when we heard the sirens. We freaked when we saw the rollers speed past, heading in the direction of where we had left you boys. We went to hide out at a nearby gas station and screamed at each for a half an hour about what to do. Finally Reeba called her brother Kevin and he came to pick us up. We were too afraid to go back to Richard’s place so we ended up staying at Kevin’s house on the West Side until about five or six AM. I called and left a message for Richard telling him where we were and to please call or come over as soon as he could.

  The rest of the girls fell asleep after a while, but I couldn’t, so I sat in the kitchen all by myself. At some point Kevin came in. He was nice at first, asking me if I was okay and if I needed anything. He handed me a beer from the fridge and asked if I was hungry. Then he asked me if I felt grateful … and in a flash I wanted to run. I didn’t say a word.

  “Don’t look so freaked, pretty girl,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “Yer safe now. “

  “I’m just a little … shook up.”

  “That’ll teach ya not to play where you oughtn’t.”

  He came right out with it that he would really like to butt-fuck me and I should let him because if it hadn’t been for him, “the niggers would be sucking the meat off your bones right now.” He pulled his penis out of his sweat shorts and presented it to me like an offering. It was half-hard and hung crooked. I gave it a few awkward pulls and felt it stiffen in my fingers. I started to cry. He snorted in disgust, stuffed it back into his pants and shuffled off back to bed. I made a mental note to tell Richard about it later and have him settle that piece of shit but good. I never cashed in on it. Call it a lost opportunity.

  Desperate for some shut-eye, I went out to the living room and scooted Anne over so I could grab a bit of couch space. She rested her head on my shoulder and cuddled against me, never waking. I closed my eyes and pretended she was someone else.

  When I heard later how things had gone down and what Jack had done to Phil, I wasn’t surprised. And it was hard to know how to feel.

  I hadn’t felt it at first, but the jagged corner of the wheel well had lacerated my cheek, and it throbbed and pounded as I crawled slowly on my elbows toward the alley. I saw Jack Curry prop Phil into a sitting position and kneel before him face-to-face. Phil tried desperately to punch him, but his crushed wrists made it a futile effort.

  “I am so happy for you, man,” I heard Curry say, his voice hideously giddy. “You must be so excited!” The sirens grew ever closer. I dragged myself up and fell against the brick wall. “You’re gonna love this, dude,” Curry said like a sugared-up ten-year-old. “Scout’s honor.”

  I saw his hand slide into Phil’s front pants pocket. Rooted about for a moment, then pulled out Phil’s brass knuckles. I tried to yell, but I still had no wind in my lungs, and retched up a thin string of blood instead. I lunged forward and hit the pavement once again. Pathetic. Pathetic! Curry did not notice, or didn’t bother to care, but Phil saw me. Our eyes met, and I’d never seen him so terrified. I’d never seen anyone so terrified. Even those two queers we stomped in Candyland weren’t as afraid of us as Phil was of Jack Curry just then. And with good cause. Those queers likely recovered in a couple of weeks. No such luck for Phil.

  “No!” Phil begged “Please! Please don’t!”

  Curry just laughed.

  “Love it! You’ll love it. Trust me. Don’t worry. I’m a man of peace.”

  SMAAAAAASH!!! The sound of a brass-knuckled hook punch square into Phil’s mouth. The echo of his jaw shattering bounced from building to building, reflecting all throughout the streets. Gushes of blood and fragments of broken molars spilled from Phil’s open mouth as he gurgled in incoherent misery.

  “Awwww … fuuuuuuuuuggggggg …”

  Curry proceeded to slam him twice more in his already pulverized jaw. Just then two squad cars barreled in, blocking the street both ways. Curry picked up Phil and tossed him out into the road, then darted the opposite way down the alley. I closed my eyes and they fused shut.

  “Jesus, boy,” I heard a voice say. I didn’t know if it was directed toward me or not. “Can you talk?” Phil’s ability to speak, or lack thereof, should have been obvious, so I proceeded to tell the disembodied cop voice,