If I shut my eyes tight and breathe in deeply through my nostrils, I can almost pick up a waft from the dogwoods that sat to the left side of Noni’s house. It was a huge, white, colonial with a balcony that stretched across the front of the second story. It sat east to the sun so that standing on the back porch overlooking the bed of dahlias, marigolds, and the honeysuckle that grew up the white fence could paralyze you with sweltering sun rays. It held the feeling of having once been inhabited by Aunt-Jemima-styled housekeepers polishing silver and shining hardwood with pine oil. It almost constantly held the warm, inviting aromas of baking pies or rising bread. A place that once housed the likes of perpetrators who left welted scars on the backs and hearts of nut-brown cotton-pickers. But as a child, I just knew it to be Noni’s home. And so it was mine too.
She called me ‘Jussie’, but she unconsciously turned the‘s’s into ‘z’s so that her deep, southern drawl had her standing on that balcony calling ‘Juhzzzieeeeee!’ I could tell by the intonation of her voice whether she was calling for dinner or calling to scold me for my messy room. I didn’t find out until I was almost six years old that my actual name was Justice Elander Styles. It was a name that came from strong men before me who I would never know, but whose legacies I would strive to match.
I opened my eyes abruptly and adjusted to the sunshine filling the room like a Georgia sunrise. But then I realized that I was not in Savannah, my bedroom was not the small one I lived in across the wide hallway from Noni decades ago, and that sweet scent diffusing in the air was not drifting in from dogwoods and peach trees, but from the slightly ajar bathroom door where a feminine voice hummed softly. It was a delicate sound that trickled through the air like nectar. Once again, I tried adjusting my eyes, squinting in the sun’s rays that only could have reached that level of luster by reflecting off of fresh fallen snow. I gazed around the room for clues to determine whom the soft humming belonged to. An oversized Louis Vuitton bag and chocolate brown leather briefcase lay atop my dresser. A long white fur coat hung in the open armoire on the other side of the room like a live animal, and when I leaned over the edge of my bed, I was staring at a pair of genuine leather pumps. Lola.
She appeared in the bathroom doorway as I sat up. She wore only a pair of lacy emerald green panties. She loved green. Her eyes were green. Even her Jaguar sitting outside my apartment was money green. I learned very early on that every aspect of Lola’s life came from wealth; from money so old that her affluence existed prior to her. I watched as she rubbed moisturizer into her small, perky breasts. She was pale, damned near white, but her nipples were large and dark like imported chocolate.
“I almost called EMS over here for you,” she said, not looking at me, but down at her manicure.
She always had her nails done neat and sophisticated with the top part painted white. She calls it a French manicure. I tell her that if the Koreans are doing it, it ain’t French.
“I thought maybe you drank too much last night,” she continued. “You were in a very deep slumber.”
I smiled at the expensive bottle of wine sitting on my nightstand. It was curved and shapely like a sexy woman carrying child-bearing hips. Lola had it tucked inside that big purse when I opened the door for her the night before. The events of the night must have unfolded rapidly, because there were no champagne flutes to accompany the bottle, and Lola always drank from a glass instead of the bottle. She was properly poised that way.
“It wasn’t the wine. It was you,” I said.
She tsked at me and sauntered across the room to find her bra amongst the disheveled bedding at the footboard of my bed. She threw my clothes aside as if they were rags.
“You must still be intoxicated,” she teased.
She was right. Sweet-talking never really worked on Lola. It always came out awkward and cheesy. She was a straightforward type of woman and preferred to be addressed that way. Our seven-month tryst began that way and has never reached an emotional plateau. Not even once. It was the first and last relationship I’d ever had with no emotional bullshit.
I watched her slip into an ivory cashmere dress. It hung on her regal neck, shoulders and slender frame like Egyptian cotton. Her figure was superior next to any barely-legal college kid, and her angular face did not hold one wrinkle or sign of the inevitable aging process. It was her hands that revealed her to be a woman nearing her forties. I watched the veins and lines in the back of her right hand as she tousled her curly, cropped hair. She had never revealed her actual age. My best guess was that she was about 39 or 40. She once said something about protesting against Jimmy Carter’s handling of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan during her liberal college years. I’m no mathematician, but I can count.
“Headed back to the city?” I asked with a yawn.
“Maybe,” she said vaguely.
She didn’t offer more information. My curiosity died months ago anyhow. I knew there was a life waiting for her back in New York. I was the occasional “business” trip to Jersey. Her voice was deep with morning grogginess, an oxymoron to her fresh, flawless appearance. She made her way to my side of the bed where her lips met mine, and she sucked the stale morning breath from my tongue. Even at seven-thirty in the morning, with crust in my eyes, and my lips chapped enough to crack and bleed, she gave me her sensuality. Then she disappeared out the door accompanied by Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior and the rest of her European entourage. The only one she left behind was Georgio Armani, whose scent lingered in the air.
I washed all remnants of Lola down the drain as if the showerhead was a holy baptism washing my sins away. Looking down at my strong, muscle-toned legs, I could feel Noni’s soft, oily hands massaging salve into my shins. I could even hear her voice, which was always smooth and even-flowing like a Niagara waterfall.
“God made you extra special, Juzzie. Don’t you ever let nobody call you a handicap.”
The water droplets from the shower felt like the warm tears that rained down my face back then as I watched the old woman fasten the braces onto my bony, black legs. Her own eyes had been watery also, like black marbles swimming in sorrow. But she smiled, contradicting the moisture that ran down her shiny, brown cheeks. I put my head under the showerhead now, drowning that flashback down the drain behind Lola. My truck was already on and warm by the time I slipped into a fleece sweat suit and headed out the lobby doors where my breath froze into frosty white puffs. The hustle and bustle of New Brunswick disturbed my equilibrium and made me edgy as I started an inch and stopped another, over and over again in downtown traffic. I quietly cursed the hordes of college kids walking in front of my truck, cradling Styrofoam cups of coffee in their gloved hands. I tapped my horn at the families of Mexicans and Venezuelans on Saturday morning outings to the 99-cent store. George Street was a prison of traffic. And I was a prisoner, doing my time. I almost ran down a couple of joggers who darted in front of me. One had a huge brown afro and freckles sprinkled across her butterscotch skin. The other had long wavy dreadlocks, a tiny silver stud in her nose and wore black tights that hugged her impressive quads and hamstrings. The second one with the masculine legs threw me a dirty look for throwing off her rhythm. I returned an equally annoyed expression and screeched my tires maneuvering around them. Gradually, my nerves calmed and the frustration evaporated as I made it to Route 18. My hard work was a distant view of high rises in the rearview mirror. New Brunswick had once been a sad, broken-down city of bodegas, liquor stores and dilapidated row homes inhabited by unemployed nuisances who my tax dollars threw bread crumbs to from month to month. My vision was giving the city a rebirth; renovating and reupholstering what used to have culture and wealth. But that was Monday through Friday. On weekends, I returned home.
The doorknob was cold and slick under my clammy fingers as I pulled open the first classroom door. Gripped my chest in devastation. Blinked away the droplet of sweat that rolled into my left eye and blended with my tears. Nothing. Just rows of empty school desks. Trudged down the corridor again. Each of my steps were becoming heavier than the last. Like lead. There was nothing behind the second door either, nor the third or fourth. But the wails were growing louder with desperation. When the last door offered no baby but more school desks instead, I gasped for air erratically and yelled out in terror.
I sat up abruptly and scanned the room. I choked for air, and my breathing only slowed to a steady rhythm and my hiccupping subsided once I recognized the jazzy, afrocentric pictures I’d ripped out of a Black History Month Hallmark calendar and framed in oak. A thin wave of smoke billowed from each of the patchouli and sandalwood candles atop the dresser. No long, never-ending corridors. No screaming infants. I climbed out of the bed, throwing the blankets onto the floor and blew out the candles. Peeled off my damp Assata Shakur t-shirt and slowly made my way into the kitchen where a glass of spring water would be my salvation. Goose bumps formed on my sweat-soaked skin as I stood in front of the open refrigerator door. Distant sounds of construction outside the window to my right serenaded me as I drank. There was always construction outside the window; things had to change but ironically stayed the same. The shrill ring of the telephone startled me and forced water down my windpipe. Almost coughed up a lung before I grabbed the receiver off the wall.
“Hello,” I said in a strained voice.
“You stood me up last night,” Lance’s irritated voice said.
He never bothers to say hello back to me. Never announces himself. Automatically assumes he is the one and only.
“Somethin’ came up,” I lied.
There was a few seconds of silence. The time during which I was expected to explain or elaborate. I sipped my water instead; Lance knew better.
“Why didn’t you call?” he asked.
His voice was borderline on whiny.
“Didn’t think ‘bout it,” I said simply.
“Well, what’s your schedule like today?” he asked in a voice now calmer and waving a white flag with low octaves.
Like always, he would take what he could get.
“Runnin’...weekend cleanin’ at Mami’s...the usual.”
He hesitated.
“Is there room for me?”
“Always room on Somerset,” I said.
There was a pause. I invite him every other day. He never joins me. Doesn’t matter, though. My invitations are always offered out of obligation.
“Can I meet you after the run instead? Maybe in the shower?”
I pulled a rye bagel from the pile of bagged breads atop the counter. Didn’t bother with the toaster.
“Maybe,” I said with a full mouth.
We both hung up without saying goodbye.
Soleil was waiting for me at the corner of Somerset Street and Easton Avenue. In the nucleus of university life. College kids hustled up and down the street to local cafes on their break before final exams. We were seven years removed from undergrad, but Soleil and I blended in perfectly in our matching red college sweatshirts. She wore gray sweatpants. My old track and field tights hugged me like pantyhose.
“You’re late,” she said, pulling her hood over her humongous curly afro.
“You’re early,” I said sarcastically.
“Farrah, it’s not funny. I only have an hour.”
“Well, stop talkin’ and start runnin’,” I said.
She rolled her eyes and took off toward the train station. I caught up with her and fought the smirk easing its way onto my face like a Mardi gras mask. We were two alumni back in our old collegiate territory. Stumbling on sidewalks is where our friendship journeyed and bloomed into what it is today. But we had known each other from our old stomping grounds only twenty minutes away. We were from Hubbard Junior High and Plainfield High, dual track stars, awarded simultaneous scholarships to run for Rutgers University. I was running from the bottomless pit of sorrow within the sordid walls of my childhood. Walls that seemed to close in more and more with each passing year, so much that it seemed they would collapse and crumble down on top of me. Not sure what Soleil was running from. Couldn’t stand her back then. My strides were longer, my stamina stronger. But she was quicker and more powerful. And everybody knows sprinters get all the damned attention. Had known her since the days on E. 2nd street in the ‘80’s. Her mama raised her only four houses down from where my mama raised me. Couldn’t stand her. Back when we both sported boxed hair relaxers and gold-plated herringbones and initial rings from the Koreans down on Front Street. We were contrary. She was a loud, extroverted, pint-sized Leo. Suffered from the short-woman’s syndrome. Small body. Big mouth. Can still picture her in the middle of East 2nd, coordinating a game of Double-Dutch or Street Kickball. Dictating. Patronizing. All-knowing. I usually stood at the sidelines. An observant Scorpio. Thinking a billion thoughts and speaking none. Couldn’t escape her. The boys I liked, usually liked her. The cool girls I wanted to hang with eventually initiated her into their popular cliques. Even on the track, the one place I found complete solace and fulfillment….she ruled it. Wanted to scream when she showed up on the Scarlet Knights track.
We turned onto George Street now, running abreast of each other, almost running into a pack of freshmen. We knew they were freshmen because they traveled in groups, like sheep or cattle. Soleil had a look of concentration on her tiny face. Almost looked constipated. Her sweatpants hid the powerful thigh muscles that made her a local star, that carried her over thousands of hurdles, those both literal and metaphorical. I pushed harder, determined to show her who the skilled long-distance runner was. Seven years out of college and that competitiveness still brewed between us. Whereas her legs were powerhouses, my whole body worked when I ran. My stomach was in tight knots, my arms lean and defined, my ass flexing with each stride. Soleil was a cheetah. I was a gazelle. We had to stop at the light on Patterson Street. I used the time to shove my numb hands into my gloves. Soleil made her statement by running in place. When the light changed, she shot off like a rocket. As usual, I caught up. Our faces wore matching expressions of pain. We sucked in cold air and exhaled dry breath and spittle. So engrossed in our competition, we were almost run down by a huge black Escalade. The type of car bought to impress women. The driver, a brotha wearing a hood, hit his horn emphatically. The type of gesture to show off in front of other drivers and pedestrians. Soleil and I didn’t flinch. Instead, I sneered at him and maintained my pace. Another idiot in an expensive car he probably bought with drug money. An hour later, I was back on Somerset, watching the same college kids now leaving the café to return to their dorm rooms. Soleil showed up about thirty seconds later. I didn’t gloat. Watching her struggle to catch her breath was my triumph.
“If…if…I put...your ass…on a track…with some hurdles…I’d...smoke you,” she wheezed.
I laughed. She said that every other day. The cold January air dried the sweat on my face as we hugged goodbye, mixing perspiration on our faces and releasing whiffs of funk from beneath our sweatshirts. I love that girl. When her dream fell apart, I felt the pain, too. She was a Freshmen Phenom, a Sophomore Sensation. Almost joined the Olympians in Sydney. Before that injury to her ACL, of course. When the pseudo-friends faded away, I stayed by her side. When the newspapers no longer printed her name, I became her personal sports section. Embraced her like family. I watched her walk in the opposite direction. Could picture her pained face, fighting those memories.
Lance sat on the top step of the three-family house where I was renting a unit on the second floor. He wore a navy sweat suit and a black skullcap. Frosty gusts of his breath slowly exited his nostrils. He gave a half-smile when he saw me. Enough for me to see the small gap between his front teeth. Was waiting for me to return home like man’s best friend.
“Missed you out there today,” I said.
“Maybe next time,” he responded routinely.
His eyes were dripping with infatuation. I avoided meeting them with my own and made contact with the concrete instead. I started up the steps to the porch, and he grabbed me mid-step, pulling me into his lap gently. We kissed slowly, knowing each other’s lips well. His breath was hot and soothing in the brisk Mid-Atlantic air. I could feel him growing beneath me.
“You’re funky,” he said, running his fingers through my locs.
We headed inside and up the dusty staircase to my apartment. Strong wafts from the candles I blew out earlier greeted us as I unlocked the three bolt locks and pushed the steel door open. We made our way to the shower where our clothes formed a neat pile in the corner of the bathroom. His hands nurtured me. Lovingly lathered me with oatmeal-almond soap. Cleansed me thoroughly. Even my back, my hands, and the soles of my feet. Knew every curve and dip of me. Gathered my hair and piled it to the crown of my head so that he could reach the nape of my neck. Felt him against my ass, first resting his sex comfortably and then searching for that soft spot to nestle himself in the crest between the cheeks. I moved away and turned off the water.
“Not here,” I whispered.
There was no protest when I stuffed the small metallic square in the palm of his hand. My damp body felt cool against the crisp, sage bed sheets. In the dimness of the room, I lay there and watched him carefully as he covered himself with latex. Reached down there and groped around it myself to make sure everything was in place as he awkwardly climbed atop me. I welcomed him inside, knowing every move he’d make. Knew every grunt he’d make before he made it. Even predicted when he’d reach his peak. I waited patiently as he shuddered and moaned. Fought the urge to yawn in boredom and made a mental note to give myself my own orgasm later. Stared at the bamboo ceiling fan propelling above our nude bodies. It made me crave Thai or Japanese for lunch. My stomach growled in anticipation.
The heat from inside the bus blanketed my face and hands as I climbed the filthy steps and dropped my change inside the Plexiglas box.
“Lauryn Hill! Ain’t seen you on this route in weeks,” Leroy exclaimed as I plopped down in the first seat.
Ignored the sign that encouraged passengers to reserve those seats for old folks and handicaps. Always made a point to sit as close to the front as possible. Rosa would be proud. After seven years, Leroy still didn’t know my name. Always compares me to Lauryn Hill because of my hair and my lips. I always take it as a compliment. He pulled out onto the road and steered the bus toward the next intersection.
“I been around,” I said.
Truth was, visiting Mami took incentive. I love her more than anyone else in the whole world. And nobody gets on my nerves half as much. Leroy dropped me off on 3rd Street in Plainfield, only blocks from Muhlenburg hospital where I emerged into the world during a blizzard in ’78. Most people affectionately called the hospice ‘Killenburg’, considering that most of its practitioners were students instead of real doctors. There’s no elaborate, colorful way to describe Plainfield. Another melting pot. Another trap for black and brown inhabitants to tow the land. Another Newark, East Orange, or Jersey City, with liquor stores and Baptist churches on each block. With schools that had brand new, shiny metal detectors and inadequate supplies of tattered, outdated textbooks. I took my time walking the block over to East 2nd, maneuvering around hustlin’ teenagers monopolizing on every second that could lead to a deal. Scooted around Diaspora children who nobody was watching, let alone guiding. Broods of random children who had already seen and heard enough in their short lives to leave their innocence trampled and ground under the soles of some predator’s feet. I could see, hear and smell this atmosphere in a way as nostalgic and familiar as the back of my hand. Felt natural. Felt like home. Already knew every crack in the sidewalk, every pothole in the asphalt.
I was one-half of the Fairmont twins, and the other half, her white BMW sat at the curb like a bright, angelic mistake in a dark, lackluster space. I pulled open the chain-linked gate, anticipating the familiar squeak. Used to climb the gate to avoid that squeak a decade ago after breaking curfew. The wood on the front steps was soft and rotting, slightly swaying with the weight of my body. Mami had already swept the porch and shined the windows with lemon and Windex. The overwhelming scent of pine rushed at me as I stepped inside. I could see where perfect vacuum lines decorated the drab, beige carpet. The same plastic-covered, floral furniture Mami bought from the flea market back in the early eighties still looked like the seventies had regurgitated its lack of style and class in the room. I stood in the dining room, peering into the kitchen where I could see Mami, but where she couldn’t see me. She stood at the stove barefoot, with her back to me. The linoleum floor sparkled like tile. I kicked off my running shoes and let my socked feet sink into the shag carpet. My toes wiggled with familiarity.
“Ya gon’ come in here, or ya just gon’ stand dere lookin’ silly?” Mami asked without turning around.
She didn’t wait for my response. Resumed humming a church hymn as she cooked.
“Whatchew makin’?” I asked, now standing on the linoleum.
“Frijoles negra con arroz.”
She went back to humming. Resurrected memories of back-hurtin’ church pews. Mami’s hair hung down to the middle of her back. A crown of jet-black kinks that frizzled regardless of the forecast. She was only five feet tall, give or take an inch. Round and soft with age. Wide hips. Bowlegs. She turned around finally, and her beautiful, shiny skin was the rich color of fresh-baked gingerbread. Anyone with eyes could see that she had once been an exceptional beauty. Handed me a plate full of yellow rice and diced peppers. I held it in both hands as if I was still a pubescent child at mealtime. Watched as she poured a ladleful of black beans over my rice. My stomach roared with excitement.
“We already pull de weeds an’ turn de soil out back,” Mami said, watching me eat.
My chewing gradually slowed. ‘We’ didn’t include me. Never seemed to include me. Left me feeling a mixture of guilt and resentment.
“Well, I had to wait for the bus. Ain’t got a rich hubby to buy me an over-priced, foreign, luxury car.”
Mami tsked and turned back to the stove, a gesture that let me know she didn’t want to hear excuses. Blanca entered the kitchen on cue, as if she sensed being talked about.
“Hey Farrah,” she said flatly, eyeing my athletic gear up and down with piercing, unblinking eyes.
She was decked out in Banana Republic. Cashmere and tweed. I wondered if she helped Mami clean while wearing that expensive get-up.
“What up,” I responded with just as little excitement.
Was more excited ‘bout my rice and black beans.
Blanca and I shared complexions, the same honey-brown, not-quite hazel eyes, identical full, thick lips, the same high Dominican cheekbones. Shared zodiac signs. Shared Mami’s womb. She was an inch taller, however. My wavy locs hung past my shoulder blades. Her simple, blunt-cut bob was chemically-relaxed and reached slightly below her chin. I was donned with dimples. She wasn’t. She had a Madonna-like beauty mark next to her lip. I didn’t. I was all ass and legs. Her figure was fucking perfect. And the most she’s ever jogged or worked out was jogging her uppity ass to the bank to spend her husband’s money. Some wealthy lawyer she kept books for after she dropped out of college. Saw his salary and white skin and went on a mission to never work again. To one day, bear a horde of beige babies with “good hair”. But after three years of trying, her womb was still as empty as her heart.
She sat across from me, and Mami served her also the way she’d just served me only moments ago. Betrayal and envy pierced my heart and pumped through my veins. We ate in silence. The rusty wind chimes on the back porch created a nostalgic song that blended with the sound of my chewing inside my head. The awkward silence was blaring. Uncomfortable.
“Got somethin’ to drink?” I asked Mami without looking up.
“I bought fruit punch this morning on my way over,” Blanca said.
Nobody was talking to her. I grinded my back teeth together. Bit away an agitated response to her attempt at showing me up.
“I’ll just have water,” I said, standing up and welcoming the soreness from my morning run that crept up my hamstrings and pulsated its way to my ass.
“Do you have something against Minute Maid?” Blanca’s voice asked my back as I filled a plastic New Jersey Nets cup with tap water.
“Can’t help it if I got somethin’ against products made by a corporation that destroys ecological systems in developing countries, or if I got a thing to two against pasteurized drinks and chemically-treated artificial flavors and colors that trigger laziness and low productivity.”
Took a huge gulp of gritty New Jersey water once I came up for air.
“Farrah...please,” Mami said in that warning tone.
Blanca snickered and shook her head back and forth in a patronizing way. Almost like she felt sorry for me. I couldn’t stand that forced pity she always displayed to piss me off. Blew my mind that we were birthed from the same woman. Nursed from the same breast. Disciplined by the same hand. Nurtured and embraced in the same arms.
“You’re so smart, Farrah,” Blanca remarked sarcastically.
“I know more today than you’ll probably learn in your entire lifetime,” I said before gulping more water.
“Oooh, great comeback,” she patronized.
I released and enormous belch in response.
“Muchachas, por favor!” Mami exclaimed.
I headed back into the dining room to avoid the lecture and up the narrow, creaky staircase where my childhood bedroom sat to the left of the bathroom. Coulda sworn I heard girlish laughter as I stepped through the door and stood between the two twin beds. My old bed was on the right. Far away from the door. As far away as possible from the turmoil that had once diffused through the hallway and forced its way into the other bedrooms as well. My Michael Jackson posters still hung on the plastered wall. Pre-pedophiliac days. Al B. Sure and Christopher Williams. When lightskin was in. Walked over to the old dresser Blanca and I once shared. Some of the drawers had no knobs. The ones that did were off track. The ceramic jewelry box Calvin bought for my ninth birthday still sat to the left. Last thing he ever bought for me. I looked up into the mirror at my face. Licked my finger and smoothed it over my eyebrow. Hid the past so that it was no longer visible to the naked eye. Almost like it never happened. Went down the narrow hallway. Right past the next bedroom. That door hadn’t been opened in over a decade. Headed toward Mami’s bedroom. The same ivory curtains decorated the windows. The windows that ain’t been opened since Calvin accidentally painted them shut back in the eighties. The room was immaculately clean. Orderly. Didn’t look lived in. Ran my finger along the chipped and tattered wood of the bureau. The pad of my index finger came back dustless. Didn’t have to lift the comforter to picture the tight hospital corners on the ironed sheets where they hugged the mattress. Knew the brown leather-bound Bible was centered and spotless without opening the drawer to look at it. Where womanly things should have been sprinkled across the top of the dresser, like costume jewelry, Mary Kay and feminine sprays, instead there was an array of framed photographs. Blanca and I with pigtails and missing teeth. Luis wearing a church suit and a frown. My senior prom. My date with a high-top fade that could rival Kid ‘N Play. Me covered in cheap ten-carat gold. Bamboo earrings. Herringbone across my collar bone. Too many photos to count. A photo of a white Jesus with his hands clasped in prayer and a crown of thorns adorning his head. Me on the Plainfield High track. Facing the gravel. Clenching my fists. Waiting for the gunshot. Calvin leaning against the back of an ugly brown Buick cradling Blanca in one arm. Me in the other. His hand holding my infant body securely against him. The same hand that had me fixing my eyebrow again to hide the past.
“Whatchew doin' snoopin' ‘round my room, child?” Mami asked, appearing suddenly in the doorway.
“Not snoopin’,” I said.
Watched her as she slowly made her way to the bed and sat on the edge tiredly. She slipped her feet out of the fuzzy house slippers, and the sight of her bunions made me cringe. I grabbed the jar of olive oil from the bureau and sat down at Mami’s feet. Jesus-style. Had more humility than pride. And just like Christ washing the feet of his disciples, I would serve the very person who had served me for so long. I coated my hands with the oil and kneaded my fingers into Mami’s worn feet. The skin was tough like leather. Toenails brittle and damaged.
“Dis bring back mem’ries,” she said with a slight smile.
I smiled also, remembering the days we all walked miles for public assistance, only to turn around and conquer the same distance a second time with a book of sweaty food stamps stuffed into the depths of Mami’s knock-off pocketbook. I always rubbed away the calluses for her. Always wondered why we couldn’t just ride in a car like everybody else. Twenty years later, comprehension sets in. My own calluses lace my heels with evidence of track gravel and long walks to city bus stops. The fingers of Mami’s right hand gently tousled my hair, and even though I didn’t look up at her, I could sense the frown on her face.
“I wan’ ya t’ bring a man home to meet ya poor Mami.”
My fingers continued their magic, softening the hardened skin and replenishing the colorless nails. I cringed before I even heard the statement I knew was next.
“Back home, we would put girls like you in a place by yaself, all alone, where de community wouldn’t be able t’ frown on ya family in shame.”
“Hello?” I said in a rushed tone.
I was balancing five grocery bags and my car keys, and wanted to make it obvious that the phone call was inconvenient.
“Justice, you sleep or somethin’?” a woman asked.
I bit my lip, trying to figure out who belonged to that voice. The broken grammar sounded like Shawnee, but the tone was too harsh. Shawnee always sounded soft and feminine. What is the point of caller ID if the callers can block their numbers?
“Who is this?” I asked finally, giving up.
“Freda!” she said angrily, as if I should have known.
After all these years, I still didn’t know her voice. It never struck a chord of recognition inside me. But I’d forgotten her face once too, and when she came back for me, I walked past her in Noni’s kitchen like she was the mail lady or one of the local church missionaries or pastor’s aides. My common sense kicked in and told me she wasn’t one of the church ladies; not with that bright red nail polish and that low-cut shirt that hugged her sagging breasts like mosquito netting. I wedged the cordless phone between my ear and my shoulder and lowered the plastic bags atop the granite kitchen counter. The beginning of a monstrous headache was emerging above the bridge of my nose and crawling behind my brow bone. Freda was talking, but I barely heard her until I found a bottle of Excedrin in a drawer and popped two dry.
“So, you ‘gon help me out or what?” she asked with a suck of her teeth.
“The last time I gave you money for bills, Mitch was in Atlantic City shoving my money into slot machines.”
“No, that ain’t ‘gon happen this time ‘cuz we already behind two months on rent and I ain’t ‘bout to get evicted in the dead ‘a winter.”
There was silence while Freda waited for me to make a decision. I could picture her sucking on a Marlboro with swollen busted lips. I could imagine the old school pink sponge rollers in her hair with her feet planted in a pair of old dingy house shoes. I never understood why we went through this conversation every month. It would be easier for her to simply forward the bill to me, considering I pretty much pay it every month. But Freda had pride. She didn’t have much else, but she had enough pride that could convince a fool that he owed her something as opposed to him realizing she was begging for it. I’m no fool.
“I’ll come by later.”
We both hung up without goodbyes.
I turned on the fire in the four-foot long fireplace that divided the kitchen from the dining area and used the remote control to turn on Billie Holiday. Ten minutes later, I was scrambling beaten eggs, crushed red pepper, Canadian bacon and Monterey Jack in a Teflon pan on my flat top. I pulled a pink grapefruit from the shopping bag, sliced it in half and poured a tall glass of pulp-filled orange juice before heading up the stairs. My bedroom was still dark, but I could make out the silhouette of Rachael’s sleeping body. I pulled the heavy drapes open and rotated the Venetian blinds, pouring morning sunlight onto her dark skin.
“ Justice….Give me another hour,” she complained in a groggy voice.
My gold satin sheets were wrapped around her ebony body like royal Egyptian dressing. Rachael was no royalty.
I sat the breakfast tray next to her and rubbed her back where it dipped into her round backside. She rolled over and her double D’s stared at me. Her body was the first thing I noticed about her almost ten years ago. And once I saw that removing her brassiere caused her breasts to drop practically down to her navel, I’ve realized that nothing is as it seems, and I’ve been hoping to see something more.
“You hungry?” I asked her.
She grabbed a fork and tasted the eggs. Then she made one of those faces that translates into, ‘These will do, I suppose’, as if she’s ever lifted a finger to cook for me. A brotha couldn’t even get a grilled cheese sandwich or stovetop stuffing out of her. I watched as she devoured the majority of the food and lay back against my pillows in satisfaction. ‘Thank you’ was not in Rachael deLaCroix’s vocabulary. I moved the breakfast tray and climbed back into bed beside her. She had been waiting outside for me the previous morning when I arrived home from New Brunswick, sitting in her candy-apple-red Audi, ready to catch me with another woman. I hate that Columbo shit.
She was fine as hell, though. I couldn’t deny that as I pulled her close and kissed her face. She didn’t believe in kissing before brushing her teeth, so I avoided her lips and focused on her cheeks, chin and down to her neck. She had one of those dark, exotic faces with dark eyes adorned with long, pretty eyelashes. But those eyes rarely looked at me. We went through the motions of half-ass, obligatory foreplay where I gave and she took; where I provided and she consumed; a perfect indication of the dynamics of our relationship. As usual, she took control, climbing atop me and dictating my movements, bucking herself up and down, searching for that special spot. I held back my orgasm, knowing full well that if I released mine first, she would unleash her fury on me. I wasn’t sure I had the patience for a tongue-lashing today. I watched her theatrics; the rehearsed moans and thrusts. I watched her throw her head around, swinging that fake hair like a white girl in a shampoo commercial. She must have recently gotten it fixed because it almost looked like that mound of black, cascading curls was actually growing from her scalp.
“Oooh...keep it like that…right there...not there, damn!” she ordered.
When she was finished, I grabbed her shapely Haitian hips and moved at a brisk pace until I forced out my own orgasm. She was silent as I finished, watching me with boredom on her pretty face.
“I need a towel,” she said, moving to the spot on the bed beside me.
I headed to the bathroom and returned with a hand towel. For a split second, I thought about smothering her with it. She wiped away our sex like she was cleaning soap scum from a shower stall.
“What are you doing today?” I asked cautiously, choosing my pronoun carefully to make it clear that there was no ‘we’ for the day.
She cut her cat-like eyes at me and dimmed them, fully aware of my attempt to ditch her for the day.
“We are going to the exhibit at Jean Pierre’s art gallery,” she said, challenging me with her own pronoun choice.
I couldn’t imagine anything more torturous than watching her “in the closet” cousin prance around paintings that he called ‘abstract’ but just didn’t make any damned sense.
“I can’t,” I said, trying to sound apologetic. “I told Freda I would stop by today and help her with some things.”
The flicker of anger in Rachael’s eyes made me step back a little. She was known to start swinging her fists without warning. She was an unpredictable, borderline insane woman who operated like a ticking time bomb without the warning of the clock.
“Justice, you work in Jersey all week. The weekends are my goddamn time. You need to stick with the program if you want to be with me. The sooner you learn that shit, the better.”
“Freda might get evicted if I don’t take this money-”
“I don’t wanna hear your bullshit!” she exploded. “You’re full of fuckin’ excuses and it makes you sound ridiculously juvenile.”
I stood there silently as she threw my sheets aside and began looking for her clothes. All the expensive designer shit I bought, because she had champagne taste and beer money. She pulled a pair of red silk panties over her rotund ass, and I had to look away to fight my dick’s desire. When I faced her again, she was fastening her bra, bringing her humongous breasts back up to chest level like magic. This bitch was as good as David Blane. I could see stretch marks and dimples in places where she had none when we first started dating, but she was still fine as hell. A fine as hell, bona-fide bitch. I don’t know what kept us together. She was educated, cultured, respected herself, and looked damn good on my arm. My boy Jessop calls her a trophy girlfriend. The plan was to get married, have babies, live in the Hamptons, and in the Keys during the summer months. She was my number one candidate to share that with, because when she came along, I was a broke nigga in college with no car, no culture, and no connections. And even though I’m not what most would consider faithful, I recognize that she’s put in her time to be Mrs. Styles. But what should I do about barely being able to stand the bitch?
She threw her arms into her leather trench coat and looked at me with contempt.
“Justice, you keep up this bullshit, and you will lose the best bitch that ever gave your country black ass a chance.”
I cringed at her profanity. I couldn’t stand to hear a woman sound like that. Her mouth was filthier than the now crusted hand towel that lay in the middle of the bed like evidence of our six minutes of sexual camaraderie. I let her storm out in anger, cursing me in French.
Freda was lighting up a new unfiltered cigarette when I made my way into her cramped kitchen. She stood leaning against the dirty countertop as if she’d been waiting for me. A mountain of dirty dishes towered in the sink behind her. In her left hand, she held a can of Bud Light. A straw was stuffed into the opening. It was such a dainty habit for a woman so classless. Darkened track marks were sporadically placed all over the skin on her inner arms like a connect-the-dots puzzle.
“Wanna beer?” she asked.
She reached into the refrigerator without waiting for an answer. Then she tossed a can my way without warning. I caught it midair. We stared at each other as I popped it open and drank. I inherited her dark, almost black eyes, the same distrusting facial expression and identical, unsmiling lips. But then there was my nose, which could have come from anywhere and I’ve always wondered about the dip in my chin. But Freda didn’t like a lot of questions, and even if she did answer them, there was no way of knowing if she were telling the truth or just fabricating what she wanted the rest of the world to believe. Years ago, I came to the conclusion that I would never know my other half, because he could be any faceless bed-warmer Freda used and sucked dry almost three decades ago. I slowly reached into the inside pocket of my coat and retrieved the envelope full of money. Freda was damn near salivating like Pavlov’s dog when she saw the package. She pulled the cash out in front of me, counting each bill twice like a damned bank teller. Her left eyebrow was raised when she looked up at me.
“That’s it?” she asked, her eyebrow still arched up into her forehead.
“Your rent is eight hundred,” I said calmly. “Is that not what you’re holding in your hand?”
“Princess needs a prom dress,” she said without hesitation.
She obviously had that excuse ready, pulling it out of her bottomless pit of bullshit like a magician pulling a billion silk scarves from the same old tired, polyester top hat.
“In January?” I challenged.
“They buyin’ ‘em early these days. Das how you get a good deal.”
Her last statement was patronizing as if I were the idiot.
“Tell Princess to get a job,” I said simply.
Freda sighed loudly and sucked on her straw, biding time for a comeback. It was too late. Whatever she was selling, I wasn’t buying. Princess sauntered into the room on cue, horse hair down her back, fake Korean nails on her fingers and brand new Jordans on her feet. All paid for by the bank of Justice. She was an exceptionally pretty girl, just like Freda, but a pretty face was worth as much as a handful of pennies sweating in the palm of a homeless bum’s hand. And she had the intelligence of the limestone rocks in my backyard. She didn’t look surprised to see me. Because I was your regular everyday Black Santa Claus, bearing handouts to lazy-asses who had their palms up more often than a Muslim in prayer.
“I heard my name,” Princess said, snapping her fingers and bopping her head to music only she could hear in the emptiness of her brain.
“Ya’ll talkin’ bout me?” she asked.
I watched her open the refrigerator door and stand there letting the cold air out, the electricity I pay for. I watched her chug down milk from a carton that my money provided. A dual feeling of disgust and satisfaction came over me. I was disgusted with the slothful atmosphere before me, and satisfied that the wheels did not turn without me. I swallowed hard, trying to control my excitement over the power that lay in my hands.
“Freda said you need a prom dress. If you get a job and come up with some of the money, I’ll think about putting out some of my own.”
I took another gulp of Bud Light to swallow down the laugh that threatened to erupt from my throat as Princess looked back and forth between Freda and me in confusion as if I had just spoken a foreign language.
“Justice, the dress I want is three hundred dollars. Dat’s like pocket change to you. It ain’t gon’ hurt you to loan me that little bit.”
This time I laughed openly.
“Loan? How would it be a loan? You don’t have a job.”
They watched me as I laughed and zipped up my coat. I looked at Princess’s bottom lip where she pushed it out in a last attempt to soften my heart. It was unnerving, staring at Freda’s replica. And it was making me sick to my stomach. I looked around at the cockroach-infested apartment, the sticky linoleum floor, the table with the unmatching chairs, and the dirty dishes that decorated the countertop because they couldn’t fit in the sink. Even though we were smack in the middle of January, there were two rolls of sticky tape hanging from the light fixture to lure flies with their sticky sap, making me wonder how long they had been there. I looked back at Princess again, seeing how history was repeating itself. It would be her twenty years from now with the pink rollers and can of Bud Light with a straw.
“You would give it to Malachi,” she said with her lip still protruding.
I shook my head in disappointment.
“Malachi has a job and is on his way to college. He has a future. He’s an investment. Now explain why a businessman like myself would invest in an unemployed, sixteen-year-old flunking out of high school?”
I left while she pondered an answer.
He wouldn’t sleep unless it was atop my scrawny, 13-year-old chest, and I later learned that it was the steadiness of my heartbeat that soothed him. His tiny fingers were always searching, finding comfortable places to grasp handfuls of my t-shirt. And then he would yawn, with his breath smelling like milk and oatmeal, before he slept. We always woke up that way each morning; my t-shirt in his grasp, his drool staining the front, and the milk on his breath sour. When I brushed my teeth, I’d brush his. When I tied my shoelaces, I’d kneel down to tie his. I watched him kneel down now to tie his size thirteen’s. He grew to be taller than me. 6’6” or so. He’s more handsome than me. He’s smarter, and ten times more charming. He nodded to acknowledge me when I pulled my truck up to the curb by the Gallery Mall. Then he slung his backpack over one shoulder and sprinted to the passenger door, eager to find warmth from the frigid, winter air.
“Thought my nuts was gon’ freeze off waitin’ for you,” he said as he rubbed his palms together.
I laughed and turned the corner, headed toward South Street.
“You too cool for a hat and some mu-fuckin’ gloves? It’s two degrees out there.”
“Can’t mess up my waves,” he grinned, running an ashy palm over his closely cropped fade.
“Get that manufactured, Ginuwine shit outta here.”
“Nah, my waves are natural,” he said, shaking his head.
I frowned and turned the heat up a notch.
“Yeah, naturally pressed under a wave cap. I can see the line where the waves end and the real naps begin.”
Malachi laughed out loud, and he sounded like me. I looked over at him and saw my own face a decade ago. I saw Noni’s smile and Freda’s eyes. That family tree always found a way to creep into my consciousness. Malachi flipped the visor down and looked at himself in the mirror, still chuckling.
“C’mon J, you gotta admit. I did my thang cuttin’ my own hair this time. The kid got skill, right?”
I made my best ‘I don’t know, maybe’ face. I couldn’t give him too much props. His general need for approval in life way always nice set-up for me to show him room for improvement. A ‘B´ in chemistry is good, but an ‘A’ is even better. Thirty-five points on the board was nice, but forty or fifty were nicer. He wants to be like me. I want him to be better. So I ride his ass, pushing him harder than anyone ever cared to push me. He came to live with me in Jersey two years ago when my project first took flight, when my pockets tripled in volume and depth, and when I dropped off the rent money one weekend and found my brother with a busted bottom lip where Freda’s so-called man unleashed his inadequacies in a display of momentary authority. The day that the flesh inside the bottom of Malachi’s lip hung exposed and tattered like the meat of a Georgia peach, I lost it. I found myself losing all my perfected polishing; the perfect speech I had practiced for years flowed from my mouth in grammatically incorrect spasms, my hands found ready positions in angry street-style fists, and Malachi slept beside me in the passenger seat the whole way back to Jersey while his few packed belongings filled the space in the backseat. He’s been with me ever since.
“You went by Freda’s today?” he asked, pulling me from my reminiscence.
I made a pained face.
“Of course.”
Malachi raised his eyebrows. I knew what he was thinking. He was remembering all the years of living one bedroom away from his mother and still feeling motherless. He was remembering cold nights with no heat, huddled against me for body warmth, because Freda shot the gas bill up her arm. He was remembering spoonfuls of peanut butter for dinner, or standing outside the back door of Mr. Gaines’ restaurant hoping for the ornery old man to hand us a paper bag full with the burnt scraps that others considered inedible; all because Freda got drunk at the bar down the street and was laid across our bathroom floor vomiting a week’s worth of our grocery money all over the vinyl. He didn’t understand why I bothered with them and spent my money on the indolence that festered inside that apartment.
I don’t even get out of the car once we are back in New Brunswick. I just pull up to the curb by the lobby entrance to our high-rise, letting my tires crunching hardened snow, and let Malachi out. I doubt I even came to a complete stop. I headed toward Plainfield, taking Washington Ave. to 7th, slowing down on Clinton Avenue, knowing she was waiting for me with a warm plate and clean, inviting sheets. I parked my truck on the street, not wanting to block any of her drug-dealing brothers in the driveway. DeMarco answered the door. A warm breeze of a slow-baked roast and marijuana-tinged air rushed at me as I stepped inside. DeMarco and I didn’t speak, but shook hands street-style. He knew the deal. We were one in the same, except my hustle was legal. As usual, the living room was jam-packed with a horde of idle black folks: DeMarco and three of his other brothers playing spades and guzzling 40 oz. bottles of beer from the corner Stop ‘N Shop, children belonging to only God-knows-who sitting around the TV set praising it like holy-rollers at a church alter, cousin whomever braiding another nameless cousin’s gigantic, kinky afro, Grandma Jackson nodding off with a cigarette in her hand and her feet soaking in a plastic tub of water and Epsom salts. I didn’t bother greeting them. It was a home accustomed to heavy two-way traffic, and so I doubt my presence was even noticed. I headed toward the kitchen, stepping onto the cheap, buckling floor. Shawnee stood at the sink, her hands deep in the water as she washed a pile of dirty dishes. She wore a faded apron over her clothes, and her hair was swept up to the back of her neck the way I liked it. She was an attractive woman, by no means breathtaking, but definitely easy on the eyes. Her skin was an even brown, like smoky quartz, her features feminine and simple, and her hair soft and clean. She sensed my presence and looked in my direction. The corners of her mouth turned upward as our eyes met.
“You’re just in time,” she said softly.
I walked in her direction, trampling over the freshly-mopped plastic floor in my $150 sneakers. Her body felt warm in my embrace. My face nestled comfortably in the crook of her neck, and I inhaled the familiar, comforting scent of ivory soap. I briefly thought of Noni and the clean, soft way she smelled whenever she wrapped me in her solid, affectionate arms. I let go of Shawnee to let go of that memory and looked toward the stove.
“What do you have there?” I asked.
She smiled shyly.
“Pot roast, candied yams, butter beans, a lil cornbread dressin’, nothing too special.”
She watched my face intently, waiting for my approval. I leaned in and kissed her, sucking in the clean, sweet breath. Her hygiene was always maintained to perfection. She was always ready for her man. She took my coat and went to hang it while I went to her bedroom to settle in for the night. There was just enough room for the full-size bed and an old, second-hand dresser. I used the bottom of my shoe to kill a cockroach crawling up the wall and cursed when I stubbed my toe maneuvering to the other side of the bed. She was in after me only moments later, undressing me and putting my clothes in with the other dirty laundry. Then she put me in her bed and watched me eat. There wasn’t too much conversation beyond “I left the roast in a little long. I hope it ain’t too dry” or “I made the cornbread real fluffy the way you like it, daddy.” She took great care in satisfying me. I had taught her how I liked things; my shirts starched to a crisp, my food hot and rich like Noni’s, my lover attentive and uncomplicated. And she complied. I made it clear that I needed a clean, respectable woman who knew my role was to be the man. And she complied. Once I consumed everything she prepared for me, she massaged my body until I was relaxed and ready. Her hands were as soft and smooth as silk. And then she fulfilled all of my requests. She was an awkward lover; a grown woman who had never experienced an orgasm before we met. I knew she would take care of me. She had taken care of her grandmother, parents, six or seven siblings and a son on her own. I can still see the smile she fought from spreading across her face when I first called her beautiful. It was naïve and pure. A woman who has never been pined after is like a vulnerable child. It usually doesn’t take much more than a handful of compliments to make her melt down into putty in the palm of a man’s hands. I managed to talk her out of her bra back then, coaxing her arms away from her chest where they had been crossed like a protective shield. She was afraid of being considered a “hoe”, a woman who had been taught to guard her vagina like a winning lottery ticket. She closed her eyes tight back then, almost as if she was ashamed to see what she was allowing herself to do. That was eighteen months ago. She was now the result of my hard work and patience. She didn’t flinch as I pulled the white cotton panties from her body. And she welcomed me inside, holding on tight and whimpering my name. She never let go first. She knew I liked to control the embrace, but I held on until four in the morning when I eased out of bed, kissed her forehead like always, and left a thick wad of cash atop the dresser...like always.
