Spooks, Angels and Babies:

Stories & Poems

By Piper Davenport
 Twilight Gods

The damn summertime in Detroit is the worst time to be outside. The

black
folks in raggedy cars fry under the sun and watch pretty white asses
cross the
street or maybe something else. You sit in one particular cab. Your
name is
Hector Valdez and you are an immigrant from Mexico listening to the
sounds of
Mrs. Celia Cruz. The sun that will silently destroy your brown face is
captured by the softness that keeps you calm and will slowly melt
away. Your car
is a faded piss-color that reflects off the sunlight near the crack house
on Watson Street.
You look in the mirror; a black girl is crossing the street, her nappy
curls break from the yank of her pimp’s hand. You turn away, a green
light urging you forward and you are gone. Still stuck under that
streetlight, the black girl reminds you of a stolen book bag, a faded
memory of a bygone era of beat boxes, Adidas shoes and typewriter
bracelets.
You cannot stop for her; the next time is your last but that will not
come for a few minutes. You glance up; you cannot see a thing. Your
eyes twinkle as ghetto children will make wishes upon false stars.
Perhaps you’ll play the lottery. You glance at your watch: It is almost
evening. It is 6:33, a strange time indeed. You turn on the radio but it
is about death. You shoot past another flicking light and pass wilted
bouquets and moldy teddy bears.
A woman is standing on the corner, her thumb stuck out, her dark
sunglasses rotting beneath cakes of makeup beneath a battle-scarred
face but what is pleasure? A romantic twelve-gauge shotgun that lands
with delicate care onto dangerous, fake faces whose eyes will widen
when they realize how strange it is to see the smiling sun in close
range. The shape of hands, the ammunition of a thousand armies and
your visor drops in deluded fright as your car slams on the brakes to
avoid twelve angry pigeons, one of whom is lying lame and dreamy
under the blood-red evening sun.
The woman opens the door and climbs in. Her lips caress words with
ease and You pinch the meter in sight. You close the door and speed
off into the evening night. You side-step the birds and flick a dozen
gray hairs of his in different directions.
“I’m thinking of playing the lottery. Got any numbers you can
suggest, honey?” You ask but it is more of a statement than a
question.
“Yeah, none. Now, I’m going to 1212 Penrod St. and please hurry,”
she says, looking down at her watch, “I haven’t got much time.”
 “All right.” You arrive at another red light. Homeless men are putting
on a late-night play. The streetlights hide their faces but you can see
them carrying one off down the street. Maybe someone is on a cross
and has earned the right to be carried by the other men. You look in
the mirror. Your own cross is hanging from the shadows, which give
you one as well. You realize that you need to shave but then you hear
a noise and your eyes focus on the woman sitting behind you. You
begin to notice some strange things about her. For one, she has black
leather gloves on her hands. They move up the unusually hairy arms.
Two, she has a moustache, struggling not to fall limp, hiding behind a
contempt for kindness that the lovely transvestite prostitutes on the
corner willingly embrace.
“What’s the gun for, man? Are you going to rob me?” You ask.
He is taken aback for a moment but then calmly replies, “No. But I’ll
pay you. To forget that we ever met.” The man throws a ten dollar bill
into the air. It lands on the plush vinyl of the passenger seat. You
realize where you have seen the man before. It is today when you are
at your mother’s house. It is during lunch but before her soap operas
come on. The newscaster speaks for exactly two minutes or one
hundred and twenty seconds. A child is crossing the street and is hit by
a drunk driver. The drunk driver is arrested. The blood alcohol level is .
012, above the legal limit but the jury has mercy on him, compassion
and gives him a year of probation. It is June and this happens last June.

You cannot remember the headline because it reads in the

newspaper like this: EGAPMAR NO SEOG NAM. But you feel the man’s
pain enough to understand the intimacy this man finds with
destruction. You ponder then if you should call someone? But at your
own home, you have a wife, four children, your parents, your three
brothers and their two wives that depend on you, your shared
contribution. Your stomach churns as the two of them sit in silence.
You try to make conversation, to try to understand the man, to change
his mind.
“You’re my last customer, you know? Yep, that’s right. Last one for
the evening. Was thinkin’ about maybe going over to Baker’s on Eight
Mile. I know it’s kind of far away but they’ve got great jazz music.”
“I don’t listen to that shit or anything else. I hate music.” You smell
cigarette smoke coming from the backseat. The man rolls down his
window.
“Bummer. Hey, you know, man. I like to watch a lot of television. It’s
nothing like what I see out here in the streets but its close. Hey, which
do you think is more exciting? The life of a cab driver or the life of a
newscaster?”
"I don’t know,” was the reply.
A cabdriver, you know why?” you say.
“Watch the road, you stupid fuck.”
 You wince at first but then realize that the man is talking to an old,
blind, deaf and dumb black man who almost steps from the curb and
almost runs into your cab. You narrowly miss hitting him and pull onto
a side street. You drive a block and pull in front of a Tudor-style house.
The man thanks you through the window and tips you two single
dollar bills. You listen to the sound of the doorbell. A light comes on in
the house. One life for another. You could call 9-1-1 but then what? Do
you want to be on the news tomorrow? You shake your head no. Then,
you remember that the Coney Island is open all night.
You drive a bit and then see a familiar face. A transvestite named
Dorothy Gale, who is known for her red slippers and rescuing dogs off
the street. But when you examine her, she’s actually wearing brown
shoes and ugly ones but she is still lovely. She is a vision of mercy and
redemption before the twilight evening begins. But then, a stroke of
genius hits you. You’ll ask her for her favorite number and play it
tomorrow in the lottery, after work, after the news and after you buy a
new pair of dark, shaded sunglasses.

The Nightmare of Henry Dudds

I awoke in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep; I was afraid. I had
a terrible dream:
At the exit of the nightclub, a crowd of eager fans surrounded me,
pushing against each other in order to secure my autograph. Most of
the fans were young women; I noticed immediately a little black boy
standing off in the corner alone. The boy had on a dirty yellow shirt,
blue shorts and was barefoot. He was probably homeless, I thought
but shook the image of this little boy walking around with no shoes
from my mind and continued to smile and dazzle the crowd.
The flash of cameras in my eyes blinded me for a few seconds
and I used my hands to reach for the tiny notepads, the programs with
my face on the front and even sometimes arms or shirts for me to sign.
The odors of day-old whiskey mixed together with perfume and
cologne intoxicated me to the point where I thought I might fall over.
Instead, I stepped back a moment, almost falling over on the sidewalk.
My protector was an old face from the streets, someone I had
seen before but didn’t really know too well and he was too busy talking
to a woman to pay attention to him almost falling over. Instead, a
white man with glasses on and a newspaper wrapped under his arms
grabbed my backside and pushed me back up. I turned around, tipped
my cap and smiled at the gentleman.
But for some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off the little boy
with the overgrown belly, the too-skinny legs and big, sad eyes looking
at me from behind the rest of the crowd. The boy was standing in the
shadows behind the doorframe, a ragged stuffed animal in one hand
and a piece of red licorice in the other hand.
 The woman that had been promised to me for a reason I could
not remember at that moment wrapped her arms around my neck and
bit gently on my ear. Her body turned towards me and posed for the
smiling faces. The mink fur around her shoulders almost dropped onto
the soggy red carpet. Her lips planted on pink kisses on my yellow
face much to the chagrin of the other women standing around.
It was lovely for me, the concert, but my body yearned for rest
and the ability to go home and be left alone. I pulled back my sleeve to
look at the time. Tomorrow morning, my next crowd of fans awaited
me in New Orleans but alas, the beloved Circa timepiece watch I
always wore on my right wrist was missing. Perhaps I had left it in my
dressing room. As much as the attention of my fans was exciting and
gratifying, I needed my watch. It let me know when it was time to
move forward. I turned around again. My protector would have to let
me go in through the back of the nightclub to where my dressing room
was to look for my watch. But first, I removed the woman’s arms from
around my neck and my lips kissed her on the cheek. She looked at
me with confusion on her face. The crowd was calling my name from
the street.
“Where you going, boss?” My protector now observed me
heading toward the entrance. I knocked on the door once and it
opened. Everyone stepped aside to not to block the entrance.
“Back inside. I left my gold watch in there,” I replied.
The rain was beginning to fall outside and the crowd was now
beginning to disperse as they watched me wave goodbye to everyone,
including the woman that was
supposed to wait me. The alcohol, mainly whiskey, was beginning to
relax inside of me.

I pointed my fingers pointed at one of my fellow musicians, whom the

woman quickly wrapped her arms around me and forgot about me as
soon as I was no longer in her sight.
The door shut behind me with a thud and my nostrils were
overwhelmed once again with a slight musty odor. My dressing room
had actually been the janitor’s closet. It was on the immediate right
and the door was partially opened. I feared that my watch
was gone when I looked inside. My fears were right and I saw nothing
of mine left in the room. Then, I realized that I had not left the watch in
this room because I had looked at my watch right before I went
outside. The woman that had been promised to me had probably
swiped the watch when she had wrapped her arms around me.
I wondered how she had been able to do that. No matter, she
was gone and I was out of a watch. I opened the door slightly. Only a
few people remained outside. I didn’t feel like being bothered, not
tonight. I decided I didn’t want to go through the back door.
I looked around. I could hear the sounds of a few people in front.
Probably the servers, collecting their tips for the night. I opened the
doors that weren’t locked and looked for windows that I could escape
out of. Finally, I found another room, an office, with an open window.
The room also had that stale musty odor, shag carpet and an old metal
desk. I locked the door behind me so no one could follow behind me. A
chair from the corner was used to give myself a boost out into the
alley. To my immediate right were the street but also my fans, the
other musicians, and my protector that I didn’t want to be bothered
with and to my left was a backdoor leading into an old loft warehouse.
My gut instinct told me not to go inside that warehouse but my
body was ready to collapse. I climbed out of the window and dropped
down onto the street. Smells of garbage, cat urine and sewerage
welcomed me into the alley. My senses were not strong enough to
handle such senses and I gagged onto the ground. I looked back up
and the same boy that I had seen from the doorway was standing at
the corner of the next-door building, looking at me again. I ignored the
little boy and headed towards the warehouse. Neon lights were
blinking from the top of the building, though I doubted if anyone lived
there, if at all. Though it was nighttime, it was cold and winter and
snowing, and smoke from the loft’s chimney reached out to touch the
night sky. A shooting star fell then right before my eyes and I wished I
had caught it in time to make a wish but I shook that notion off as silly
and continued on my journey.
I passed a homeless man, lying on top of a pile of dirty blankets.
Fire breathed from a rusted barrow with firewood. An old tin can near
his boots contained a million pennies and a few nickels. I looked in my
pocket for loose change but I couldn’t find any. The only thing in there
was a box of matches to a place called Paradise Valley.
Tossing the box into the man’s tin can made me feel good about
myself. At least I had acknowledged him. He acknowledged me by
turning over on his side, snoring at a slightly louder pace, revealing a
few rotted teeth and a missing arm with a sling over it. I walked over
to the door. Through the fogged windows, I saw a faint light blinking
on and off. A whistle opened my closed ears for a second. Was it a
code from my protector that he was far and something more sinister
was near? Perhaps a train about to pull away?
A lovely, full-figured woman in a purple sequined dress and
matching peacock hat pushed past me, almost pushing me back
outside as she made her way up the stairs. I
could hear the tinkle of her glass slippers against the metal of the
staircase. I continued to
listen to that wonderful sound until I could hear no more.

I saw frost and snowflakes falling down from the top. Each snowflake
was shaped like a musical note or instrument but I felt heat from down
below. The faint light of neon colors reverberated off the wall. I placed
my hand on the railing and walked slowly down the stairs but then, I
heard a loud, crashing noise up the stairs and a feminine voice
screaming. I immediately thought of the lovely woman that pushed
past me earlier. It was something about that scream that I wanted to
hold onto to. I decided to go back upstairs to help her out but when I
turned around again, there was a cage with bars in front of it, blocking
me from going upstairs. I tried opening the door I came in through but
it was locked, almost as if someone had put a chair against the door.
Then, I heard the sound of laughter. It was a man’s laughter,
bellowing and hearty. So loud in fact that the staircase was shaking.
Sweat was pouring down my eyes and I could barely see in front of me.
Back down the stairs I went, the stairs getting smaller and smaller with
each turn of a corner. I saw a puddle at one corner, a smell of old
urine that I was now stepping in. I continued going down the stairs until
I reached the bottom: a train platform. I was now uncomfortable and
pushed my sleeves up. I took my hat off and wiped my forehead with
my shirt. I looked around. The place was completely deserted. Rows
and rows of benches were covered with some liquid, which I assumed
(and hoped) was water.
I heard a voice deep inside me echo out, “Hello?” The sound
bounced off the walls around me. The lights above me were slowly
dimming. I saw a luggage rack across the tracks, filled with luggage
but no passengers. A brown rat scurried along the tracks; I wanted to
jump over the tracks and go to the other side where I saw an exit sign
and another metal door.
Steam was rising up from the ground but from where exactly it
came, I wasn’t sure. I heard the crash of lightning, which made my
heart almost leap out of my chest. I wanted to jump down on those
tracks and then climb up on the other side, but then I was worried that
another train might come along. Before I could jump down onto the
train tracks, I heard the slam of a door in the ticket booth. A red-
haired, white man with freckles and a conductor’s suit came out. He
had a newspaper in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He walked
over to me and pulled out a round timepiece watch from his pocket
and looked at it. He nodded his head toward me. I started to walk
toward the tracks but he put his hand in front of me to stop me. He
whispered, “Wait!” I stood back. Something small and bony tapped
me on the shoulder. I turned around and there was the little black boy
standing behind me.
He looked a little bit older now with lines under his eyes, like he
had been crying. I bent down to touch him on the shoulder. He was
eating a piece of melon but handed me a golden ticket. I held it up in
my hands. It was too shiny for me to clearly see the gold lettering. I
turned it over and over in my hands. Gold dust from the lettering was
smearing onto my hands. I tried wiping my hands onto my pants but
the gold dust
wouldn’t come off. I realized then that I hadn’t asked the boy where
he came from, where he got the ticket from, and why was he giving
the ticket to me? I turned around and he had vanished.
I asked the train conductor where the little boy was at and he
looked at me strangely. I asked my question again and he pointed
towards the east. Heading in our direction was a train. I heard that
loud whistle again. This time I could see the train headed our way.
The conductor walked up close to the edge with his luggage in his
hand. He motioned for me to
move forward. Instead, I walked back toward the staircase I had come
down from. It now
had a cage across it with bars on front.
I pulled and grabbed onto it but it would not budge. Frustrated, I
looked around to see if there were any other exits. The only thing I
saw were the bathrooms, a waiting room, right in front of that a lost-
and-found box and above that, a departure board with no destinations.
In fact, the only thing on it was: The writing is on the wall. The phrase
repeated itself over and over again in gold neon letters.
I thought perhaps the bathroom might have a window I could
climb out of as some public bathrooms had windows. I didn’t know
what time it was but I knew that I needed to get back to my hotel
room. Though I was tired, I was surprised that I had enough strength
to continue moving around. I walked over to the bathroom door and
pushed against it but it was locked. Pushing with all of my might, I was
still unable to open the door.
I kicked the door with as much disappointment as I could muster
and then I heard the sound of another whistle, a human one. The
conductor was motioning for me to come over to him. Since there was
no other way for me to get out of the train except jump down on the
tracks, which I thought was pointless since all the doors on the
departing side were locked, I walked over to him. Boarding on the
train was the same lovely woman with the purple sequined dress.
I had not seen her appear from anywhere else either but decided
perhaps to board the train. I thought there was a possibility that I
could hop off the train once it arrived at its next destination and then
hitchhike back to town. I ran over to them as I could see that everyone
else was already on there, though I did not know where these people
came from, though I assumed they went on board when I had my
backed turned.
The conductor was twirling his mustache; he had a big grin on
his face. I walked up to him and handed my gold ticket. The little boy
came up behind me and tugged on my suit jacket. He was pointing at
something on the train but the windows were too foggy. I could not
see what he was pointing at.
 It was my mistake to ignore him. He didn’t have pants on
anymore but I was too tired to care. I was tired of this place and ready
to go. I wanted not only out of this train station but I needed to get
away from this town. I boarded the train and noticed that the
immediate cars to both my left and right were full. One thing I noticed
though was that everyone was wearing hats. I could not see any of
their faces. The lovely woman was ahead of me and moving towards
the back of the train. I decided to follow her but before
I could, another conductor blocked my entrance. He told me to have a
seat in a row of
empty seat I had not seen before.
I looked out the window. The little boy was looking up at me
through the open
window. He had a suit on now, with oxford shoes and a felt hat. He
was tap dancing with everything he had. The harder I stared at him,
the harder his feet beat against the ground. Everyone around me
began snapping their fingers. No one was looking at the boy, though
who tapped to the sound, his legs stretching him and making him eight
feet tall.
Another whistle erupted then and then on cue, everything
stopped. The boy walked off the platform, disappearing into the smoke
that was now coming from the train.
Everyone went back to what they were doing and I looked forward. I
could hear the sound of someone weeping around me. I turned around
and around again but I wasn’t able to see
where it was coming from. The sound of it saddened me.

Then there was a loud crash. Glass shattered from above us and
pounded down on the roof of our train and covered the platform.
Lightning was striking all around us. The lights inside of our caboose
went on and off. The sound of the person weeping, which I was sure
now was a woman, I could hear very loudly. It began to rain inside the
train station. The sound of raindrops against the shattered glass
reminded me of the lovely woman’s glass slippers against the metal
staircase. I heard someone shut, “We must get them out of here!”
The lights went off again and stayed off. I heard the woman weeping
move forward until she was sitting across from me.
She had on a black veil covering her face but there was a
familiarity about her.
Once she sat down, her weeping quieted. I was not sure where I was
headed next. I heard another loud scream but this time I did not turn
around. I was focused on reaching my next destination, which I did not
know. Lightning struck again and then I could hear no more. The train
conductor began to speak, his lips were moving but no sound was
coming out. I heard him point in a northern direction. The woman with
the veil began to protest. Everyone around me stood up and they
were protesting too.
My head began to spin and a rock came through the window next
to me. The little boy was rain-soaked in his suit. I guess he had been
trying to get my attention. He was jumping up and down but the train
was slowly moving ahead. He stepped back and began pointing
furiously at something over my shoulder I could not see. The black-
veiled woman removed her head covering and I saw that she was my
mother. She had a picture of me in her hand. It was the same grown
man whose hands I was staring at. I opened my mouth but no sound
came at. One bright light bulb slowly dimmed behind me. I saw a
shadow inching forward. I was fascinated by its shape. I had seen it
somewhere before. I saw an object being pulled from the depths of the
shadows. The little boy was now running along with the train and he
tried to grab onto the now-broken open space but his legs and strength
were too small to lift him up. I tried to grab him but I felt a force that I
could not feel yank me back forcefully into my seat. The train had
reached the tunnel by then. Sweat began to cascade down my
forehead. I panicked and yelled out, “Stop the train!” I wanted to be
away from the darkness that I could not see. I ran into the bathroom. I
splashed cold water on my face. His large shadow was behind me. I
looked in the mirror and was blinded by the sight. It was me, only older
and sadder. Standing next to the boy, young and gullible. They were
both looking at me. Good versus evil. I screamed out but no one
heard me. I pushed past them outside the bathroom and screamed in
the hallway. No one turned around. I was invisible. The last thing I
remember was the man behind me, the feel of his gun against my
head. We were not too far from the tunnel light. He pulled the trigger
then and I was gone.

Spooks, Angels and Babies

Eight Hundred and Ten

She do not know that they were in the city limits until they see a
graffiti-laced sign on the side of a skid row building that reads: We
Ain’t Bullshittin’. I can’t read,” he had breathed between the gin bottle
on his lap covered in paper bag memories. He had asked her to read
the sign to him. He liked the artwork. Artwork? She thought to herself
and slowly shook her head. He said that was appropriate for the all of
the ghosts, ghouls, and witches they pass on the street. She’d watched
him with a slow smile that had become warm and sleepy after he told
her the truth about himself. He told her name and she looked at him
quizzically. That’s an ironic name for a night like tonight she said more
to the car window than him. He said his mother claimed to have seen
one the night she gave birth to him. That the only time in her life that
she ever prayed was the night she found out that she was not giving
birth on the day when all the martyred saints rose from the dead but a
few days earlier. They met when she pulled her car over to offer him a
ride in her leaf-soaked car.
The Watcher
You come and step on the grass. You cannot find yourself. No one is
waiting for you except the trees and then you can only sing lullabies
against whispering leaves. Some snot on the corner of your nose falls
onto your shirt. There is a growing irritation between your legs. A
baby fly you squeeze in between your two fingers died on its way down
to the grass from the swat of your arms. In that space between heaven
and hell your stomach pries loose bowels to make room for supper. A
good meal promises satisfaction, and nothing else. So you take as
many leaves as possible to cover the pain of being soiled, and like the
disappointment of a Christmas morning without snow, the experience
is only half-fulfilling.

The woman moves inside the house, and you pull yourself out. You
open your window; one of the hottest days of the summer and there is
no air conditioning in the home. You look down at yourself and ask,
‘What should you do?’ The woman’s breasts, should you eat them? The
woman’s face should you destroy? The flesh inside you says no, so
you do nothing.
At Noon
Lord, look at the clock. I hope this business is finished. I know that I
have to leave soon to catch the train to up and get here. Just what the
world needs—Another Delight. And they’ll have to drive him because
he’s got that leg problem—Just like his father. What else? He met his
bride through him through the newspaper. She read the story and
wanted to know more about him—That’s where it all started.
Something about Sunday living? Rumor has it that he took the money
from that dollhouse his Mama left him. I didn’t know anyone still did
that. But apparently their community is gettin’ smaller so they feel the
need to look outside the community but not outside the church for
companionship. Lord, does that woman know what she’s gettin’ into?
Does she know that she’s being watched . Of course, when she left
that child here, she died that night. Livin’ out there on that back
country road. This is not Satan’s Kingdom. Hell, she don’t even come
into town anymore. Keepin’ to herself—That’s what this community
has become: saints and sinners. Reverend says we all going to hell. I
told him that it was a shame that nobody don’t warn that gal. He just
looked at me. So, I looked away.
The Watcher Finds a Companion
One little taste of sweet corn could send you straight to heaven. There
is no need for the added pleasure of butter, salt, or even spring water
for flavoring. Besides, the squish-easy insects headed down the dark
tunnel of your throat and straight to your stomach. For not
even the sound of crickets could soothe the emptiness of your stomach
quite like whole sweet corn. The woman’s place in the right part of
your eyes does not ease you; the faint sound of music coming from the
woman’s living room reminds you of a fiddler in a grassroots blues
band that included Bessie Smith, and all the other famous blues
players of that era, who, in your opinion, almost achieved greatness,
but not quite. The breasts of the woman perish in the nighttime
reflection of the fire you built; the tips of the woman’s face roast
themselves beyond recognition. A lot of breathless sighs from the back
of your throat ease your tension from the rain that night. You walk
over to the window; the bed is empty. That night, raindrops oil all
senses out of your brain. You no longer desire to be outside but in.
Your next conquest: to be God, better than you yourself.
The Small-Town Mayor
A letter on crisp, white paper arrived on the Governor of Michigan’s
oak-covered desk. The fatigued mayor had received a telephone call
from the sheriff. The wrong man was in prison. Another man had
confessed to the disappearance of the young woman.
A sneer appeared on the sheriff’s face when he said this. He did not
like the fact that this new evidence became apparent during his
tenure. A rare morning fog disappeared beneath the chill on the
windowpanes that interrupted his coffee break. On a week like this
with the nation holding its breath. He fully intended for the prisoner’s
deliverance and the opportunity for him to start a new life in a new
town. He read in The Detroit Free Press about layoffs but that like
everything else was temporary. They’ll be hiring again. A factory job
was a chance for someone to start again. Benefits, middle-class,
training, an envied trade-in voucher, a thumbs-up from car
enthusiasts, those were words that brought respect to a man. Made
you feel the American Dream was obtainable after all. Hell, he thought
to himself,
what do I need a secretary for besides appearances? That advertising
degree worked for him after all. At first, the Governor upset him—
Despite what the man was known for, the Governor wanted the state
to have a reputation for fairness. The mayor placed a plastic death
mask on his face. He thought about the big city to the north. “God,
help them.” Well if the prisoner does cause destruction, not in his
town. He would personally make sure that would not happen in a few
more days. He is a man of God; a man of his word.
The Black Mayor
You have just received a letter in the mail from the Governor.
Apparently someone passing through Detroit hacked a woman’s body
downriver. That’s what you have been trying to tell black folks for
years. It’s all over. Let the cowards run away. This is your city—You
build this city up. You took those jobs from Ford and gave jobs to the
people and made a way and now you are trying to protect what is
yours from takeover. You are thinking of building a fortress around the
city to protect your investment. What can you do, though? You owe
the Governor a favor. People look in the mirror and all they see are
shades of gray. You see a man with no arms, no legs, no mouth and
least of all, no man. You are a body, a crook, a spirit. No, you are a
spirit inhabiting a body. You just want to be. People don’t really know
who you are. For every soul you save through your rhetoric, there is
another someone out there with a better way, who can do cartwheels
that you cannot. So, you just fly away. You do the best you can but
you are getting old now. Why does the Governor spring this on you
now? This letter doesn’t say this is what you should do; the letter says
this is what you are going to do. A man is coming to your city. You
cannot even alert your city about this strange floating tiger. You still
could not alert your city even if the man was black. You will keep an
eye out for him. You are shooting blanks and your hair is falling out.
The Journey of Henry Ford
You take the sweet bus ride from Jackson all the way to the end. You
are tired. You haven’t been on a bus in a real long time. You had to
take the bus to Motown. You reminiscence about the first glimmer of
sunlight you have seen in a long time. You walk through the pearly
gates, only Saint Peter is no whereto be seen. You splashed your face
with darkening water on your last community shower. The water
tasted like the crumble of rusty pipes tweaking down the faucet. You
look at the prison guard. You decide you will go back to having sex
now strictly with women. The prison guard has given you something,
only you don’t realize this because the prison guard has also been with
other men. You suspect this and even though you have heard rumors
of a cancer striking gay men, you don’t consider yourself to be gay,
therefore you know that those rules don’t quite apply to you. That’s
what got you here in the first place—Making your own rules as you
went along. You only regret that you developed a foot fungus from
always showering next to a politically-motivated prison from some
foreign country whose name you cannot pronounce and that you could
not place on a map. Hell, you could not even place the gown your
mother had on the night of your birth. You stand next to your
politically-motivated man because you have heard of the proud public
shits in the shower and you know no one with the cancer other than
the prison guard is going to come near you as long as you are standing
next to him. You do this for him in exchange for being his boyfriend.
You have no beef with anyone—You just want to be left alone. Your last
breakfast consists of soggy cigarettes hidden in the one sink in the
bathroom that is always broken. Your guard does not care if the sink is
ever fixed. You tell him that someone threw up in there and that your
politically-motivated friend sometimes pees in the sink. Your prison
guard knows that you keep cigarettes in there. Keep your eye
on the prize. Good behavior. You are excited that the Governor is
letting you go. You are surprised though that media does not make
you into a celebrity again. You came to prison recognized and signing
autographs. You felt excited about the attention you received. Your
mother even comes up one time. Your mother is an attractive woman
who smoked too many cigarettes. Through false teeth and high hair,
your mother says that your entire family sat around and watched you
on television like you were a movie star. You always wanted to be the
center of attention. Your mother and you never see her again. You
call her one time after all of your attention has died down and you find
out that your mother has moved again. Your mother is a woman who
refuses to be tied down. You remember one time hiding in a closet as
a small boy, watching a grown man jump up and down on top and your
mother underneath. Something about the man slapping your mother
at the same time excited you. You were six years old. You did not
mean to watch. You were hiding in the closet because you were
playing hide-and-seek with your younger brother. You knew your
mother’s closet as the last place that anyone would look for you. You
pulled your pecker out and started beating off. Your mother was
usually in a bad mood but that day, you saw the hint of a smile. You
wonder how long this is going to last because your mother’s happiness
is only temporary. You asked your mother one time about your father
and your mother tells you that your father was a man without a face.
Your father was a smoker and in the movie you saw last night. Your
father lived inside the city and worshipped himself. Your mother then
tells you to go out on the street and find your face on another man.
Your mother says that’s your father. Your mother says that if you ever
find such a man—Congratulations, you have won the lottery. Your
mother says to call the Army, the Marines, the Air Force, the National
Guard. Says to call the President, the Mayor, your high-school English
teacher or your
favorite babysitter from childhood with the two-toned car named Mrs.
Wright. Your mother slaps you across the face, blows cigarette smoke
in your face and ponders the question of who your daddy really is in a
too-small cotton housedress with bunny house slippers. Your mother
says sorry for the trouble but at the age of seventeen, that life was a
gracious wonder. Your relationship with your mother changes after
this. Your don’t become disrespectful though; you begin to play hide-
and-seek with your younger brother. Every time, you hide in your
mother’s closet. You sometimes try on clothes. You sometimes do
not. You hitchhike a ride. A fellow asks you if you are going that way.
What way? The Detroit way. You are offered a life. What are you
going there for? Silence. You do not like questions. You don’t like to
talk. You don’t even like Detroit. Detroit is a city, a place where
people live in matchbox houses and live silly, little lives. You grew up
there but have been away for so long, not that long but long enough,
that you don’t care about the museums, the bridge to Canada, the talk
of a moving train a black mayor is discussing for Downtown. Where are
you from? Warrendale, a little border community you reply. Oh, so
you’re from Detroit. You look a little suspicious. Where you from
pops? Live near Machus Red Fox. Isn’t that where Jimmy Hoffa
disappeared? Some might say. Gas tank is half-full but pops opens the
door on Eight Mile Road. You are here. Welcome home.
At Dusk
A candle is lit in the center of the country road. A little boy came home
from school only to find out that he will not be going out tomorrow
after dark after all. His mother is a homemaker; a former exotic
dancer with a new name. Her husband does not know her past. She
moved from Detroit to the small town. She passed hundreds of black
people eager to move away from Detroit as she is too. They literary
waved to her as they packed cars, buses, and station wagons for better
jobs. The factories in Detroit are laying off workers—The Downriver
suppliers therefore cannot order as many supplies and start laying
people off too. A snowball effect, a domino effect that leads her laid-
off husband to play chess and pool during the daytime, and a
trombone at night. He dreams of a blues musician but she has been in
the entertainment industry.

She knows the pitfalls:

The scar on her left cheek that her husband believes was the result of
being cut by a machine was actually the result of being cut by a drug
dealer when she refused to allow fifteen of his friends run a train on
her. She had grabbed the drug dealer by to the depth of his existence
and pushed him out the door. She locked the bedroom door. She
considers herself lucky that he asked first but really she knows that it
is because there were leftover nickel rocks on the bedroom table and
he is too selfish to play show-and-tell except with her. While his friends
look for a chair to break the door down, she jumps out of the bedroom
window and lands on her shoulder. It is bruised but she is all right,
thankful that only the sound of gravel can be heard under the
movement of her body.
She realizes that she has left her driver’s license, her car keys,
her clothes upstairs and it is four o’clock in the morning. She runs over
to a bus stop right in front of the motel. The men are looking out the
bedroom window. She remembers that she used to believe in God
once, and starts to pray. She does not have enough clothes on to be
outside on a cold, winter night. They shout and point and she can hear
the bedroom door close, and the sound of feet on stairs closely
following as they head out. She does not believe that she wants to live
in a big city enough. The bus driver pulls up in front of her and opens
the door. His mouth does not drop because he is too tired to care. “I
have no money, and those men are
after me,” she turns around and points. The bus fare is fifty cents. The
men are in front of the motel and running as fast as they can to catch
her. There is no else on the bus. The fastest of the men catches his
hand in the door as the bus driver takes off. She has tears down her
eyes and silently says thank you as the bus driver opens the door
enough for the man’s caught hand to let go and speeds off. She closes
her eyes and goes to sleep. When she wakes up, she is at the bus
depot with a man’s green suede coat covering her body. She decides
in that moment to leave town. She knows that she cannot go back to
her apartment or back to her life. She exits the bus and sees a
Greyhound bus across the street. She is determined to get on that
bus. She walks across the street and the door to the bus is open—No
driver. She hops on the bus and quickly takes a seat in the back. She
presses her face against the window, and hopes that the driver will not
notice her. She falls asleep. Five minutes later, the driver gets back
on the bus with a cheese sandwich and a large coffee. He quickly
moves to the back and taps her on the shoulder. His green eyes are
not pleasant at first but then he looks down at the green suede coat
with the AFL-CIO button on the left side of her breast. “Going down to
Toledo. Where you headed?” He asked. She shook her head no.
“Okay, well, you just sit tight, and we’ll be on our way.” She falls back
asleep; oblivious to the black people getting on the Greyhound bus
except for the one sitting next to her. As the bus exits, she knows she
will never see Detroit again. Even now, when her husband travels over
to Detroit to a job interview at the Jefferson Assembly Plant, she
refuses to go with him. She always finds a legitimate excuse---For
today, her excuse is the sewing project she is making. She is sitting in
front of the television---Just last week, she took her son to see the
movie about four men who live in New York, three of them were
scientists.

She is watching the news, and then she sees a familiar face:

A ghost from her past---One of her customers, a man from the motel
room whose window she jumped out of, whom she was glad to go
away, and killed another woman who fit her description. When that
man gets out of prison, she decides not to leave her home. A trend
that started on that lone country road behind her house—She lives
behind a reverend and his wife. A man that she only knows was
named after his grandfather, another reverend. She had overheard
rumors that the man’s woman was really a former madam, a lady of
the evening, but she didn’t pay attention to those rumors. That woman
whom he killed was also a former exotic dancer, also was living in a
small town, parading as a housewife. But she drove him to distraction,
so he killed her. He is out of prison now; she is so sickened she does
not leave the house for days.

She is paranoid:

Detroit is a small town trapped in a big city. So, when her five-year-old
son picked up the white sheet and placed it over his head, he saw
darkness. Where were the holes? You see the building burning. A lot
of buildings are burning tonight. Life in Michigan is just not safe
anymore but the little boy sneaks out after dinner anyway. He steals
one of his mother’s candles. She prays every morning to some white
lady with a sheet over her head. The boy cannot understand why that
white lady can wear a sheet, but not him? The woman holds her hands
together every time the little boy looks at her but her fingers never
bleed. He presses his fingers together and waits for them to bleed.
An Average Woman’s Story
Her story:

After I found an old record, Sunday strolled through my life free falling,
while the rainy mist

abandoned me until tomorrow morning. Mama's voice was on the

record player, they called her Billie, and I called her Mama because she
was a part of me. Listen, now. Mama sweetly called for her man, whose
eyes I saw in the back of my head. Her breasts sighed as my side
slowly rumbled and shaked; Shakespeare's newest lovers arrived five
hundred years too late. I wanted him to stop looking in my window--I
don't like this. My face turned sour red and I softly cried. My legs were
hurt badly. I hurt very badly. I told Mama, “This don’t feel good.” But
she’s under the table; her voice sweetly called on the record player,
like a butterfly kiss from the sky. The nighttime was a coming out party
for the heathens with their devil music but I like to listen anyway for
my salvation.
Mama whispered words in my ear to make him disappear and
then she died too. I cannot decide between the two. Mama came back;
softly cried as she realized what she always knew, this one was a
keeper. I walked over and pointed at my great-grandmother’s record
player. I thought of Mama and told myself, “She’s staying right there in
the moment. What about you?”
The siege of silent music, an empty note . . .
I looked around the room to imagine what she must have felt all
those years ago. A record is pulled out; it is dusted off gently and her
voice pulls me away from reality. Mama's gasp turns into the sound of
a calling, far away and not from here. She had a saying for what I was
going through: it was called bitter pleasure, and that it will not come
again, that might actually save me. Mama, please don’t leave me. My
voice began to trail off. Over and over again my voice begged her to
stay. I know what you were feeling, Mama. I do. But Mama was a liar.
She said that he was leaving and not coming back. She was wrong. I
looked outside the window. I think there was someone trying to come
in here and he won’t leave me alone.

I would only admit to Mama that I was scared. My hand reached for the
telephone but it was silent. That man appeared above my mirror
through the window, I whispered to the air but no was listening. He
kept coming back to hear me play records. Coming back to an empty
table with Mama and me.

His story:

You followed her around. You had suspicions about this. You told
yourself about a woman who haunted you when she moved into the
abandoned house next door and saw you in the mirror because
someone had forgotten to tell you where to go next. You longed to
escape from the city. There were days when you sat so close to the
windowsill that you could see the hairs on your body. You were
claustrophobic in the outside world. You hated being around others.
You found out these things by reading the newspaper and listening to
the radio and hearing what people said about you but that was at the
end . . .
You come and step on the grass. You could not find yourself. No
one was waiting for you when you left jail except the trees and then
you could only sing lullabies against whispering leaves. Some snot on
the corner of your nose fell onto your shirt. There was a growing
irritation between your legs. A baby fly you squeezed in between your
two fingers died on its way down to the grass from the swat of your
arms. In that space between heaven and hell your stomach pried open
loose bowels to make room for supper. A good meal promised
satisfaction, and nothing else, unlike your mother who left when your
father’s money ran out or unlike another woman who moved away
when you started peeking in through a bedroom window. So you took
as many leaves as possible to cover the pain of being soiled, and like
the disappointment of a Halloween evening without children, the
experience was only half-fulfilling.
The woman moved inside the house; you guess no said anything
about you or didn’t care. Moved toward the broken telephone so that
you pulled yourself away. Now was the time. This one won’t get away
like the others, who found out about you before you could come inside.
You open your window; one of the hottest days of the summer and
there was no air conditioning in the home. You look down at yourself
and ask, ‘What should you do?’ The woman’s breasts, should you eat
them? The woman’s face should you destroy? The flesh inside you said
no, so you did nothing but waited until the terror gripped her face and
then disappeared again.

Their story:

They first met when she had a flat tire and he pulled over to offer
her a ride in his leaf-soaked car. He told her that he would give her a
ride as far as she was comfortable and that made her feel better. But
then again, she trusted his handsome face. She thought she had seen
it somewhere before. She did not know that he had been following her
around. She did not know that they were in the city limits until they
see a graffiti-laced sign on the side of a skid row building. “I can’t
read,” he had breathed between the gin bottle on his lap covered in
paper bag memories.
He had asked her to read the sign to him. He liked the artwork.
Artwork? She thought to herself and slowly shook her head. He said
that it was appropriate for all of the ghosts, ghouls, and witches they
passed on the street. She’d watched him with a slow smile that had
become warm and sleepy after he told her the truth about himself: that
he knew more about her than anyone else. He told the woman her
name, almost like a game, almost

like Rumpelstiltskin and she looked at him quizzically. That was an

ironic guess for a first time encounter between strangers on a rainy
night like tonight she said, more to the car window than him. He said
his mother claimed to have seen one the night she gave birth to him.
Seen what? A leprechaun. She chuckled nervously. What happened to
your mother? She left when his family ran out of money and he’d been
chasing her ever since.
Later that night . . .
He trembled as he touched her breasts, longing for more. He got
out of bed. Her naked body registered feelings of complacency. She
watched him as he put on a hat, no clothes. The hat: black, felt with no
feathers but the man had wanted to sing. A familiar tune played on the
record player about a man and a gun. Breakfast with a silver reflection;
mirrors with a broken spoon looking back at a bloody plate. His nose
was bleeding but he wondered if someone would hear them, would
hear her screams? Would the people driving down the street see them?
Once again he felt overshadowed and a little paranoid.
She wanted to leave; she was not thinking about him. His mind
raced along tree-lined streets looking at black, angry faces walking to
school, waiting for the bus outside the window and then, a car floated
by. She begged him to let her go but he knew what would happen and
he saw in his mind the rage she had for him, the sharp sting of a hand
around his face. And then those words: I know a secret. You were
following me and I’m going to tell. The last thing she felt were his
hands now around her throat. And then, she was quiet.
There were voices far away inside his head when he said that. Telling
him about distance and sorrow. Not one of them was Mama though.
Someone had been violated. That he knew was true. He guessed two
people died that night. Or three. Who knew? Mama, where are you? A
woman, a child, a ghost, a devil, a pair of eyes was looking out, waiting
for you to return.

A Primitive Encounter

Sassie Goolie stood in line at the local movie theater, waiting to see
the Saturday afternoon matinee. Her long hair flowed behind her,
swept up in a bun. She carried on her person: a large black purse filled
with candy bars, a small container of chicken, and a plastic bag of
Hawaiian punch. The line moved slowly, though she was one of a few
patrons, standing in line, waiting to see the movie. She was in town, a
two-hour drive from home, to see the latest picture starring her
favorite actor. The reviews had been dismal, at best, but Sassie
considered herself faithful to the man whom she always looked forward
to seeing up on the big screen. A small tap on her shoulder awakened
her senses.

“You’re not from around here? I can tell by your hairdo and your bag.
Oh, what a lovely combination. You don’t see anything fancy around
these parts like that! I also saw the cab drop you off? Are you visiting
anyone, special?” the older woman asked. Her kind blue eyes hid the
deceit that Sassie wouldn’t recognize.

“No. Just going to the local school,” Sassie replied and wondered if she
had given too much information.

“And the hairdo? Bag?” the woman asked. She moved a little bit
closer. Sassie could smell butter and pancake syrup erupting from the
woman’s flowery sweater. In this part of the world, one could actually
go outside on a November afternoon with just a sweater on.

“The hairdo I did myself. The bag I got from the dollar store. I only
paid five dollars for it.”

“Five dollars at the dollar store? Isn’t that life’s irony?” the woman
asked. Sassie just nodded her head. She was eager to get inside the
movie theater and begin watching her movie.

“You said that you go to the local school? What are you studying? In
my day, I found musical theatre to be the most exciting. I always
planned on running off to New York as a gal to be a Rockette. Course
that was many, many years ago, but now, I just go to the movies. I
enjoy watching the matinee. By the way, my name is Myrna. Like
Myrna Loy. Ever heard of her? Oh, she was so pretty when she was
young, and political too. But that doesn’t bother me. Say, gal, what’s
your name?”

“I came to the matinee. For some alone time,” Sassie replied and
abruptly turned her body away from the woman.

“So rude. Did your mother give you the same amount of money when
she gave you the money for that cheap bag?” the woman retorted.

Sassie shook her head no. She could feel her bun coming loose but
she blinked twice and then she was standing in front of the ticket
counter.

The ticket clerk gave her a once over and repeated the same line she
repeated day in, and day out. “How many tickets will you be
purchasing?” she asked. Her frozen smile along with her crooked teeth
made Sassie cringe at the woman’s fakeness.

“One ticket for the one o’clock,” Sassie said.

“That will be seven dollars and fifty cents please,” the ticket clerk
responded.

Sassie handed the woman her money. The older woman behind her
said to the woman behind her, “That’s more than she paid for that
cheap bag. I don’t understand why she’s buying a ticket. This is a local
theater. Not made for you,” Myrna said.

Sassie went inside the movie theater and realized that she was doing
the owner a favor. Besides the cheap, faded wall-covered plush, the
old, dry carpet and the bruised gold loopings that separated the back
of the movie theater from the front, Sassie saw a small line of people
standing in front of the concession stand. She looked up at the menu
prices, and was not about to spend the last of her school money on
popcorn and a soda. She passed to the right, briefly turning back to the
see the woman called Myrna buying her ticket, and moving toward the
concession stand.

Sassie’s knees felt like foam dumbbells in water, and she breathed
heavily through her mouth as she climbed a set of stairs to hand the
second ticket clerk her ticket. He pointed to the left, tore her ticket in
half and politely stepped aside so she could make her way into the
theatre. Theatre #8 had a plastic sign in big, bold letters that spelled
out the name of the movie. Next to the entrance was a splashy,
encased poster featuring her favorite actor looming over the title of the
movie and the rest of the showcase. She nodded her head in approval
and headed inside.

Of course, the movie had to be showcased inside the room with the
largest set of stairs. She breathed again and hoped no one was
watching as she waddled her way up the stairs and sat down halfway
from the top. Sassie could barely squeeze into the seat, but was
thankful that her behind was cushioned. With her purse next to her,
she reached inside her bag, tore open a candy bar and her container of
chicken. Though the lights were dim, Sassie’s eyes darted around
carefully for any signs of a theatre usher that might ask her to put
away her food. She was on her second piece of chicken when the
woman called Myrna saw her and began waving as though they had
come together to see the movie.

“Well, these stairs. They certainly weren’t thinking of us when they

made them. Know what I mean?” Myrna said and placed her leg on top
of Sassie’s knee. Sassie’s eyes went wide and Myrna cried, “It’s hard!
Your knees. But I expected all fat!”

“Do you mind? I’d really like to be alone,” Sassie replied.

“Oh, I get it. I insulted you? Not yet,” Myrna said.

She left Sassie sitting there eating her food. Myrna returned with the
theater manager. Sassie could hear the woman saying,” Oh, I’ve got a
life. Yes, I realize that, but she’s not eating your food. She couldn’t
even make it up the stairs without falling over into my lap. There she
is.” The theater manager came up to Sassie’s row. “I’m afraid I’m
going to have to ask you for your food. I’m terribly sorry. Theater
policy. She’s a regular, ” the manager whispered, nodding at Myrna.
Sassie handed over her ticket. “This is ridiculous. She put her leg on
my knee and I can’t afford your food! This town is too small for me. I’ll
guess I’ll just have to wait until the movie is on cable.” Sassie got up
and left. The woman called Myrna stuck her tongue out at her. “Can I
get a refund on my ticket?” Sassie asked the theater manager. “I’m
afraid not. Again, theater policy.” Sassie heard Myrna shout to another
woman sitting nearby, “It was good exercise for her.” That was enough
for Sassie. She marched back up the stairs, purse and all, and dumped
the chicken into Myrna’s lap. “Now, you’ll smell like chicken instead of
pancake syrup.” Sassie then bent over and pulled her pants and
underwear down. “Where does she carry it? It’s smaller than I would
have imagined,” Myrna said as Sassie, now red-faced, exited the
theater

Sips of My Coffee

I didn't know at the time that I met her, that she would
change my life forever. When I first met her, all I could
think to myself, was Huh? Where did this person come
from? Why has God forsaken me, and send them in my
life? What could they possibly have to offer me?
I think of all of these things as I sit in the coffeehouse,
sipping on a hot chocolate and watching the big, giant
television that sits there like someone had just sucked in
their guts, took in a huge breath and just spit out this
television.
Where you goin?
I gotta go study, Ma.
Where are you goin', and when will you be back?
I'm goin' to that coffeehouse 'roun the corner. Be back in a few.
Okay, well be careful and make sure you take the cell phone with you,
and make sure you park my car at the end of the parking lot, cause I
don't want any of those damned no-drivin' teenagers to tear up my
precious car!
Okay, Ma! Got it.

Books. Miles and miles, rows and rows of endless books that moves up
and down the library walls like a fisherman moving on a dock to catch
bait. It doesn't seem like it is going to happen, and then it does. There
is nothing greater than the feeling of completion.

I sip my hot chocolate and look at the books on the library walls in the
coffeehouse. I want to throw my glass up against the window just to
get a reaction out of the people there. Everyone is ignoring me, and I
wish I were someplace where I was the center of attention. Since I
know that will never happen I turn my face back in time:
I'm grateful for you everyday; you know that, don't you?
No, I didn't know that.
Well, I do. I love you. Baby, I love you.
Boy, I love you too.
I've never loved a girl like you.
What you mean?
You know the whole black-white thing. Not that it matters. I just love
the way I feel when I'm with you.
Me too, babe, whateva you say.
Her name is Jasmine. I met her at the library.
Oh, yeah, what does she look like? Is she pretty? I know she's a
brunette.
What makes you think she's a brunette?
Because I know you, Harry, man and you love brunettes.
Well, she's definitely a brunette.
Oh, yeah. What color are her eyes. Are her eyes blue, gray?
They're brown, or black I think.
What's wrong with you, man? You're acting funny.
I'm in love with this girl, she's beautiful, but . . .

But what?
She's black.
So?
Yeah, well, you know how my family feels about that.
Damn, your family sucks on that. They can really bite sometimes.can't
even bring her home but to hell with them, you know.

I look out the window. This hot chocolate has a soothing, tranquil effect
on me. It gives me a high that not even a marijuana cigarette can. I
make love to my hot chocolate like only a burnt tongue can. This
movie on the television is really interesting. I see the people in it. I see
Jasmine and another girl. They are speaking about me:
His name is Harry, and I met him at that coffeehouse.
Harry? What kind of name is Harry?
Harry is a name. It's a guy's name, and he has it.
What's wrong with him? He got kids?
No, and why somethin' got to be wrong with him? Why can't we just
kick it?
Cause I know you, and I know somethin' up. I can feel it. Your number
came up today.

I wish life were like a cup of hot chocolate, right when you first taste it
you get your tongue burned the shit out of you. It burns so bad; you
want to jump up, say, What the fuck! and slap the waitress across the
face for talking on the phone while making it, and not paying attention
to it. Nonetheless, it don't matter because it's slowly disappearing.
Your sips of it get bigger and bigger, and the hot chocolate gets
smaller and smaller. Television is like that too, so why can't life be like
that? I don't know much, but nothing could be better than what's going
on right now. My hot chocolate is gone, and I don't have enough
money to get another one. Oh, well. I'll just sit here, put my spoon
inside of my cup, and sip the tiny specks of it.

Morning in Detroit
Go the city of Detroit and watch the drive-bys
of old raggedy cars, coming from the ancient, dilapidated homes
that crumble under the bitter sun of stink of sewer streets
hiding the grey-faced children, their graffiti art
laced with delicate rhymes, expletives, a marvelous shrine
to the ghosts of Rosedale Park taking a heavenly walk.

Yesterday but not today is the best time to take a heavenly walk
to avoid the rat-tat-tat of Cass Corridor's drive-bys
where basketball masters fall under the ghetto shrines
hiding behind the walls of boulder-high dilapidated homes,
their side alleys covered with mini graffiti art,
temporarily until the rain washes the chalk dust into the sewer streets.

But beauty is immortal, where vagrant kings rule on the sewer streets.
They push like mad on their heavenly walks,
remembering their own days of learning graffiti art,
practicing until they are old enough to drive-by
of their own creations, displaying their work in front of the dilapidated
homes, that stand like the blighted fortress of an iron shrine.

These prized little children make their own shrines

once upon a time until the sewer streets
begin hearing the demise of these dilapidated homes,
unable to move, unable to take a heavenly walk
along the blind edges of Belle Isle back to reality, to the drive-by
of nature snobs, oblivious to the decaying graffiti art.

It is easier to find an abandoned house than precious graffiti art

downtown, where casino machines sing with stolen money, a shrine
to slipping-down butterscotch dreams that you have to drive-by
to see, to win, to lose, to forget. See dirty coats but no sewer streets
to proclaim as golden territory, just hands waving, heavenly walks
to the rich folks, Detroit celebrities gone to LA and their lonely homes.

They forget the splendor of an eastbound Detroit with dilapidated

homes, suffering under the weight of chalk-dry graffiti art not found in
a museum. Only the sun runs with the heavenly walk covering up
cracked windows, waist high grass like shrines in a child's picture with
black thumb marks rubbing sewer streets, swaggering with wonder
toward a rapidly grave drive-by.

Sewer streets, dilapidated homes, a shrine to a flame-filled city, struck

by decaying graffiti art. Movers and shakers masking blood sent from
God in a heavenly walk to end this drive-by.
 The Night Waitress

She moves through the restaurant, plates spilling from her arms like
feathers on a bird. Her name is Margarita. She dances to the clink of
the oldies playing on a table-sized jukebox. Her hair is pinned up; each
bobby pin representing a different cycle of her life. One bobby pin
stands for the men in her life: an alcoholic father now disabled and
bare in a nursing home. Another one for a boyfriend, scared of her
pool-playing skills, that ran off. But not even in the middle of the night
does he leave, nor does he leave in the middle of the day, and not
even with a Dear John letter. His choice was simply leaving the front
door wide open. Open just enough for anyone not to care except her.

Days behind their affair, she finds herself stiff as an iron board. A
doctor tells that her boyfriend should have left a Dear John letter:
Margarita is pregnant. At the diner she works at, one of her regular
customers offers his services as a private detective and this is what
leads her to the house on Westland Street. It sits back from the corner,
slanted like a scared game of dominoes, complacent and rickety. There
is a party going on and then she remembers the street so well. This is
the block that she should have moved on. There, in the center of the
block she finds the house that he is moving into. The front driveway
and lawn is littered with cars. A banner over the garage reads
CONGRATULATIONS but her eyes refuse to read his name and hers, the
other woman. Does she know that Margarita is pregnant? That while
they throw a party in the backyard, a child is growing full belly inside
her.
In the backyard, banners of slightly crinkled white decorating
paper cover the
backyard, becoming a scene from a lost paradise. It didn’t take
Margarita long for her to

figure out who she is. The white flowers in her hair, Christ-like, barren
stomach, slightly smeared lipstick. She is a good girl, the kind of
woman you read about in magazines. A slightly frumpy delight that
came along to rescue the bad boy from his mistakes, to steal him from
Margarita. A tear drops from Margarita’s eyes as she realizes that this
should have been her party. Perhaps she should knock on the
neighbors’ doors, introducing herself before she is brushed away as an
afterthought. But what about that other girl? You know, the one who
came to look at the house with him straight from work, with a smock
over her pink-and-white uniform, the one with the gap in between her
two front teeth, who likes to carry straw purses and carry a bottle of
Hennessey and a Pepsi in her purse.
 Margarita wants to knock on the neighbors’ doors and tell them
the truth: I’m the one that he should be marrying. I’m the one carrying
a mixed baby. The thump of rap music vibrates from loudspeakers
sitting on picnic tables, leaning up against wooden barrels of begonias,
flowers that will not return next season. She can see the bumping and
grinding of men against women, somewhere in the middle of this
chaos, she sees him. This isn’t the customer that frequented her diner.
He is a different man. Perhaps a part of her remains hopeful that this is
his way of getting back at her and she fantasizes about going into the
backyard. Perhaps they should fight over him like two women on
television, both pretending that they didn’t know about the other.
But Margarita knew by the neighborhood’s lack of concern over the
loud music, the closed curtains from the houses across the street with
an occasional peeking back, hiding behind
the sun that these people could simply care less about her problems.
She gets back into her
car and drives away. Only having briefly seen the woman that he is
marrying, she drives
down the street in a dream-like stupor, imagining the woman’s hair
catching fire or an

anonymous rock hitting her upside the head, anything to take away
that Christ-like vision of her from Margarita. She imagines herself in the
woman’s place, imagines them dancing the night away like Ginger
Rogers and Fred Astaire. Instead, she peeks through the side of the
house, her fingers making black smudge marks against the house’s
clapboard siding.
A black man comes up on the side of her. He replies,“ I don’t
believe I’ve seen you around.”
“I’m just a visitor passing through, “Margarita replies back.
“Are you sure that you are at the right place? You don’t seem like
anyone’s type.”
“Oh, I was. A long time ago, until one day I didn’t make a
sandwich. I stopped making sandwiches, through no choice of my
own.” The black man looks at her in confusion, but shrugs through his
shoulders, a big smile across his face as he bites into a pulled pork
sandwich. Margarita notices punch on the table, and wonders if the
punch is spiked with Bailey’s Irish Cream, another lactose intolerant
substance. The man offers to bring her a glass of punch, and when she
refuses, Margarita knows that it is time for her to leave.
Moving along Westland Street, she can watch the trees free fall
leaves on top of her car. She thinks of her lack of action choices: the
refusal to acknowledge the woman, the passing phrase of romantic
projections, the music changing, the neighborhood changing, him
changing, just the sort of confusion she needs to realize she didn’t
really belong anywhere.
Where is she needed at that moment? She drives back to her home,
realizing that someone out there, other than him, will need her to make
them a sandwich.

Back in her apartment, Margarita begins to clean up as if she were at

work, smoothing off

imaginary crumbs off the tables, spraying them with cleaning fluid and
wiping sugar droplets into her hands, only to brush them onto the floor.
Then, with her broom and dustpan, she wipes up imaginary food
droppings, recounting conversations the two of them had. He always
came in and ordered the same thing: the peanut butter and jelly
sandwich special. She danced through the kitchen, placing his order.
Looked forward to their conversations about books, about who was a
better writer of vampire stories, Anne Rice or Stephanie Meyer. Looked
forward to the quarters he put in the jukebox, playing songs from the
romantic 50s such as Pat Boone’s cover of Fats Domino’s “Ain’t that a
Shame.” He had been a lousy tipper, often leaving a pencil-covered
drawing of whatever she asked him to draw in lieu of a much-needed
cash tip.

She decides to mail them a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. She

wants to be meticulous about the arrangement of their wedding
present. Margarita wants to wrap them up the best peanut butter and
jelly sandwich that she can possibly make and mail it to them. Just as if
she is at work, she takes her time making that sandwich with as much
love as possible. After all, that is how they meet. He comes into her
diner with just enough money to afford a sandwich and a black cup of
coffee. The lunch special. Margarita prefers ham-and-cheese
but he is lactose intolerant, lacking the stomach to eat a dairy-filled
sandwich.

The steps she takes:

First, the bread is toasted in the oven, slightly crispy and baked at 400
degrees. Margarita is careful not to double-dip her spoon twice inside
the jar and she doesn’t test-taste the creamy spread. It is cold, she
tells herself, having sat in the refrigerator for many days and many
nights, waiting for a special occasion such as this. The lumpy jelly she
smooths over,
pretending to be a construction worker, the lumpy jelly representing
the soft, crafted dirt that she hopes will be used someday to tear the
house down. Instead, her delicate fingers slice the sandwich in half.
She places two little candies on top for presentation, but then decides
that only Martha Stewart would make such a mess, so she eats the
candies and enfolds the sandwich inside a baggy. Margarita then
carefully covers the sandwich in the best wrapping she can find:
newspaper.

She blesses the small gift to the “happy” couple and places the
sandwich in an envelope. Should she put her return address on the
front? Margarita decides not to. The peanut butter and jelly is clue
enough who the sandwich is from. She then debates about whether to
include a card or not and decides against it. On the back of the
envelope, she writes the words: To the man who loves sandwiches,
here is his greatest gift. She pulls out the correct postage on the
envelope and places it on top the mailbox in the hallway for the
mailman when he makes his daily rounds in the morning. Now, the
delivery of her present, that blessing is up to God. After Margarita
mails the sandwich off, she debates if she should make another
sandwich for her baby and begins to draw a bath. She knows that the
baby is a boy, but decides against making herself eat a sandwich. Her
and her son are going to be too good for that.
The Sidewalk
On a hidden cul-de-sac, silent streets hide cold colonials
from the common sway of ringing bells. Springtime with wilted roses,
pouring down death onto ruthless peace. Death tricks struggling babies
into believing its icy dreams but they know better. Their dry, brown
faces
dance to the hand of flames in their bones that bring empty-night
loneliness
bowing down to the Devil's knock, hiding underneath faint dustballs.

They think there is beauty in their yards, less the faint dustballs
fall like silk curtains in a Humpty Dumpty world of cold colonials.
Not even the destruction of April showers can end the empty-night
loneliness
of the sidewalk. And what is worse: the cruel sting of slow-coming
wilted roses
or the climbing snarl of hatred from those dry, brown faces?
Neither drowns in the rain like the melting tears of the struggling
babies.

Fate's slippery hand loosed its grip around the struggling babies
whose parents roam the town's landscape, pushing the faint dustballs
from their artificial lawns and into the eyes of those dry, brown faces
just so their shaky unions could hide behind the cold colonials.
Still, under the watchful eye of chipped trees, intoxicating wilted roses
die with the everlasting grief of empty-night loneliness.

The dread of coming home sours the empty-night loneliness

as fate grieves for the lost, abandoned by the sidewalk. Struggling
babies
stolen too soon, innocence gone, safety shattered. Wilted roses
then scream as bleeding thumbs pluck them, missing the faint
dustballs
that awaken the morning town. Cold newspapers hit cold colonials
but it doesn't change anything, especially on the dry, brown faces.

I guess my hysterical longing for change scares those dry, brown faces
who hide behind the sweeping darkness of empty-night loneliness.
April showers sully the sidewalk but not the cold colonials,
nor the echoing sound of delusional pain, the struggling babies
stifling the tremble of fear passing over the faint dustballs
into the clawing hands of black squirrels eating wilted roses

that didn't make it this year. But as for those wilted roses
they die but not as rapidly as the dry, brown faces
who only come out now to observe the windless grass and faint
dustballs.
They don't even notice the receding cracks of the empty-night
loneliness,
howling under the moonlight along with those struggling babies.
The dullness of their weary lives fading along with the cold colonials.

In time, the sidewalk shrinks into the shadows of the empty-night

loneliness.
In the morning, the street will appear the same to those dry, brown
faces
who do not see the perfect sadness lurking behind those cold, cold
colonials.

Mourning for Moaning

The day Mrs. Stevens became agoraphobic was the day that her dearly
beloved husband, Mr. Stevens died. For twenty-five years, Mrs.
Stevens always had the same dream: that a robber was waiting at the
bottom of the staircase to steal her costly jewels from her wooden
jewelry box. Her nightmare became true on a Sunday evening and her
husband died of a heart attack the very next evening. Here’s how it
happened and then the aftermath of her sad life:

For twenty-five years, the Stevens’ ritual included wine, cheese and
crackers, and Mr. Stevens walking in his silk pajamas to the bottom of
the stairs and calling out, “Is there anyone in this house that doesn’t
belong here?” When no reply came forth, Mr. Stevens called out to Mrs.
Stevens, as if she were his shipmate, “All clear, dear. There’s no one at
the bottom of the stairs.” Still, that didn’t stop Mrs. Stevens from
having the carpeting pulled up so that she could hear the sound of
footfalls on the stairs. This ritual went on year after year until finally
one evening, Mrs. Stevens dream came true.

The doorbell rang. Mrs. Stevens carefully tiptoed over to the

window and looked down. She assumed that it was Publishers’ Clearing
House arrived to announce that the Stevens’ had won ten million
dollars. As she was preparing her makeup: eyebrow liner, a little blush,
pink lipstick on her faint lips, Mr. Stevens made his way downstairs in
his silk pajamas to open the door. She called out as he made his way
down the stairs: “I know it’s Publishers Clearing House. I see a white
van and who else could it be? A door-to-door salesman. Well, tell him
we’re not interested. We’re trying to save money, invest it in
something worth a return on a well-worn dollar.”

Mr. Stevens opened the door and saw no one standing there. He
assumed that the door-to-door salesman had gotten impatient and
decided to move onto the next house. He closed the door, only to turn
around and find the barrel of a gun pointed at his head. A dark voice
called out, “I wanted to surprise you. I came in through the back.
Well, you’ve got company now, but I can’t stay long, so listen to what I
have to say, and listen carefully.” Mr. Stevens nodded his head. He
wasn’t sure whether to wet in his pants at the surprise invitation he
just received or cringe.

“Is there anyone else in this house?” the voice called again.

“I didn’t hear you come in. You would need to throw a rock to
break in. How on Earth did you get in?” Mr. Stevens asked bravely.

“That’s easily. I reached up my hand through your dog door.

Fluffy didn’t give me a hard time. That’s a shame for you.”

“Her name is Sasha and she’s not trained to deal with the likes of
you,” Mr. Stevens cried.

“Look, I’ve no time for banter. Is there anyone else in the house
besides you?” the voice

asked again impatiently.

“Yes, my wife, Martha. She’s upstairs. She’s got a sixth sense

about these things. For years, she always waited for you, and here you
are. Come to rob us. Please don’t hurt us.”
 “Hurt? That’s not my style. Now, move upstairs but turn around
first.” The voice placed a blindfold on Mr. Stevens, and the two of them
headed up the stairs. Mrs. Stevens hadn’t heard the conversation
between the voice and Mr. Stevens. She looked out the window but
didn’t see the door-to-door salesman headed back down the driveway.
She called out, “Harry, what is it? Well, I guess we didn’t win after all.
Perhaps another evening.” She opened the bedroom door with one
hand and with the other hand, she began wiping her wasted makeup
off. Her eyes drooped in surprise as her husband’s slippers grated
softly against the wooden stairs as a man in all white with a surgeon’s
mask came up the stairs.

“A doctor? What is a doctor doing up here?” she asked. The

voice shoved Mr. Stevens into the room, knocking him into Martha. He
didn’t turn on the light. Mr. Stevens whispered, “A gun. He’s got a
gun. Oh, Martha. Your dream has come true. But not the one we quite
imagined,” Mr. Stevens cried as the voice shoved him onto the bed.

“I’ve come for one thing only. I don’t know you. I haven’t
studied your house so please be assured that I haven’t cased your
place. I picked your house because I was at a party and someone made
a joke about you. They said that you’ve feared for over twenty-five
years that someone was going to break into your house. That your
biggest fear was that someone was going to break into your house and
take your valuables. Only thing is that I’m a writer in need of
inspiration. You're writing my next book right now. What happens will
determine if you live or die.”

“Who are you? Why are joking like this? We’re the blunt of
someone’s joke and you need inspiration. Where is Publisher’s
Clearing House? Where is Candid Camera? I’ve heard enough!” Mrs.
Stevens cried. She went over to the top drawer of her Victorian-style
drawer and removed a musical box. She began playing a song from
the Nutcracker.

“It’s not Christmas, dear,” Mr. Stevens said flatly. He sat on the
bed.

“Actually it is Christmas. See, on Sundays, I am a writer. On

Mondays, I’m a painter and on Tuesdays, a researcher. I happen to
know for a fact that Mr. Stevens is a well-respected member of the
community and Mrs. Stevens is a socialite. So, what have I come for?
To start a new party!” He snapped his fingers.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

 “This isn’t funny anymore. Mrs. Stevens and I would like to
know how you found

out about us. This can’t be real. You can’t be real.”

“Oh, but I am. You see, I’ve developed a habit too and you’re
going to pay for it,”

the voice said.

“But how did you find out about us?” Mr. Stevens asked.

“It’s funny about small towns. I read in the newspaper about

how your wife was afraid after that other house was robbed. You see
your mistake now. And the funny part about it was that it wasn’t even
me. It was some other guy that goes by the name of Craig. He’s a
painter. But me, my name is Oliver and I’m a writer. See, the other
house, I needed inspiration so I painted on the walls while the family
was away. But then, I saw your wife on the news, talking about how
she’s been afraid for years that something like this would happen on
her block. Now, I was having a one-man party. Now, we’re having a
three-person party. Now, I was a bit nervous at first because this is the
first party I’ve ever had with other people too. But I want to write a
story and I need your help. See, it’s about this married couple that gets
robbed by a psychopath. How does it end? Maybe it’s a choose your
own adventure story? I’ve heard from you,” the voice said, pointing at
Mr. Steven, “I’d like to hear your input. How should this story end?”
The voice asked, pointing at Mrs. Stevens. “You rob us, we call the
police, and then you go away!” she cried.

“No?” the voice asked.

“Well, then, I guess you’ll have to tell me.”

“See, with that other home, I just painted a picture. The news
said that the place was robbed but they exaggerated for dramatic
effect. I did no such thing. That would be a crime. Instead, I ate in their
refrigerator and told them that I would be back someday. Only I don’t
like them as much as I like you two. See, that family has kids, and kids
have a tendency to get in the way of things. Grown-up things. Fun
things. Are you getting a better understanding of how things operate?”

The Stevens stood there in their master bedroom with shocked

looks on their faces.
 “Apparently not. But you will. I happen to know the human
condition on loneliness is a vicious cycle. One that requires
understanding, obedience and humility. I don’t want your jewels,
honey,” the voice said, reaching over and squeezing one of Mrs.
Stevens’s breasts.

“What do you want?” Mr. Stevens said. His mind was racing; he
immediately thought of sex. He looked around the room for some type
of covering for his wife.

“Sex comes later,” the voice said, almost as if he were reading

Mr. Stevens thoughts.

“What comes first then?” Mrs. Stevens asked.

“Your telephone number. It’s listed in the directory but I

thought this would be more fun. Asking. Our first date.”

“You want our telephone number? For what? To keep in touch,”

Mrs. Stevens said sarcastically.

“God bless her. Ain’t she great? I see why you want to protect
her,” the voice said,

“What do you want from us? Because we’re going to report

you,” Mrs. Stevens said.

“Why? I haven’t done anything wrong. I haven’t stolen

anything. I didn’t break anything. I just wanted to talk. In fact, I’ve got
a monologue in mind. But you sourpusses are too much for me. Still, I
think we should read it. But first, should I tie you sir to a chair and
make you watch while I have sex with your wife?”

“Sex with my wife? Sex with my wife! Why, you bastard!” Mr.
Stevens said, getting excited. He stood up but then a sharp pain in his
chest pulled him back into his bed.

“This is too much for you? Perhaps a rain check is in order?”

the voice said.

“Oh, my god!” screamed Mrs. Steven,” My husband is having a

panic attack or a heart attack. Call 911. Please,” she cried.

“I didn’t mean to overexcite you. I was just kidding. I think I’ll be

leaving now,” the voice said. He skipped over to the stairs and flew
down the banister. Mrs. Stevens called emergency but it was too late
for her husband. He was having a heart attack.

The voice cried out, “Good-bye, Mrs. Stevens. Didn’t mean to

frighten your husband. But we’ll be in touch. I’ve got to go now before I
get in trouble.” Mrs. Stevens was on the phone with the emergency
personnel but it was too late for her husband. The shock of the voice
announcing that he was going to have sex with Mrs. Stevens was too
much. By the time the paramedics arrived, it was too late for the
husband: he died the next evening.

One would think that having someone break into the house, banter
with the Stevens’ and make cruel jokes would be enough for Mrs.
Stevens to want to put her house up for sale. No, instead, the event
had the exact opposite effect on her. She no longer wanted to answer
the door. She stopped looking for Publishers Clearing House. Her
doctor said that she had a panic attack of her own. The news crew
from the local television station came around again to make Mrs.
Stevens a local celebrity but she was paranoid and on edge. After all,
that was how the voice had discovered her.

She began to subscribe to Weekly World News, investing her

time in reading about conspiracy theories and aliens giving out
greeting cards made on other planets. She simply didn’t have time to
go outside of her house to talk to a local reporter or try to guess who
the voice was based on his shape, his voice, his build in the darkened
master bedroom that fateful evening. She began sleeping in the den.
Of course, the telephone rang nonstop. This she actually answered.
There was some anxiety in her belief that it had been a practical joke
gone bad. After all, the man hadn’t taken anything from then. He
hadn’t taken anything from the last house he “broke into.” Life took
ordinary steps.

Two weeks later . . .

It was a Tuesday evening. The funeral for her husband had already
passed. Martha Stevens was getting used to living life without her
beloved. She enjoyed her evenings: watching Wheel of Fortune, frozen
television dinners, a phone call from her sister in Birmingham. She
began to think of it as a dream gone bad, a nightmare that ended with
her husband’s death but she was safe, or so she thought. That
evening, Martha laid in bed, rubbing herself down with cream. She put
on her night mask and kissed the picture of her dearly departed
husband, said her prayers, cried a little, drunk a little champagne (a
mourning ritual), and climbed into the bed in the den and fell asleep.
At three o’clock in the morning, the telephone began to ring. Martha
decided to ignore it at first. After five rings, the telephone stopped
ringing. Martha breathed a sigh of relief but then, one minute later,
the telephone began ringing again. Martha was unsure whether or not
to get the phone. It could be a relative calling to announce that
someone else in the family had died. Middle-of-the-night phone calls
always alarmed her. For a split second, Martha fantasized that it was
her late husband. Calling her to tell her that the whole robbery was a
practical joke, that him dying was a fluke, that he was still alive and
the whole thing had been planned as a part of an upcoming surprise.
After all, Martha hadn’t planned on losing her husband so close to her
birthday. Against her better judgment, Martha answered the
telephone.

“Oh. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, baby. Right there,” the voice said.

“Who is this?” Martha asked.

“You know who this is.”

“I can have this telephone called traced. I can find you once
and for all,” Martha said.

“Sorry about your husband. So sad to read such sad news,” the
voice said and hung up.

That one particular telephone call jolted Martha right out of her
bed. She wasn’t sure whether to start laughing or crying or both. Then,
she came to her senses. She looked at the clock. He had been on the
phone with her for less than a minute. Could the phone call be traced?
Martha began to cry. True to his word, the robber was back into her
life. Martha called the police, who told her that she was being
paranoid but if the telephone caller called again, they would place a
tracer on her phone.

The next day, Martha decided to invest in a gun. Friends told

her to change her telephone number and she did. Weeks passed and
nothing happened. Martha began to fear again that he might break
into her and Harry’s home again as retaliation since he could no longer
moan on the telephone. On a Wednesday evening, this time around
seven o’clock, the telephone rang, She answered the phone, only to
hear the sound of heavy breathing. Martha screamed into the phone,
“Stop harassing me! I’m old enough to be your mother! I don’t leave
my house much because of you. You won, okay, young man. You won.
Now leave me alone!” she said and slammed the phone down.
 That night, she decided that she was going to have an actual
conversation with the young man. Perhaps if she talked with him, he
would eventually go away. Martha had to admit that since Harry died,
she was lonely too. She had enough of the young man’s loneliness.
Again, the telephone began ringing in the middle of the night. Martha
was fed up with the man’s desperate cries for attention.

“I decided to invest in a gun because of you,” she told him.

“Why such violence? I just want to have a little fun on the

telephone. Now, have I touched you?” he asked.

“No, you haven’t,” Martha said. She began to hear moaning

outside the den on the ground floor of the house where she slept now.
She peeked out the window. No white van. Just cats mating below her
window on the ground behind the bushes.

“I heard moaning outside my living room. I looked outside and

two cats were mating. Get a cat!” Martha said and started to hang up.

“Oh, Martha. I just want one opportunity.”

“One opportunity? One opportunity at what? Sex? Well, I’m not

that kind of girl. The only man I slept with is gone. Gone, gone, gone.
I’m just not interested in intimacy.”

“Martha, I’m lonely and I know you are too in that big, old
house by yourself. Just on the telephone. That’s it. Just this once and
then you’ll be free. I’ll be free. Everything that I have to offer is free,”
the voice said.

“Free? Look, I’m tired and I need some peace. What can I do to
make this over?”

“Scream. Moan. Banter with me on the phone. Make my

dreams come true.”

“Okay,” Martha said and began moaning along with him.

The Far Side of the Room

Dullness is
Wisdom breaching, trembling, C R A C K I N G under
the
foundation of
a
woman
scorned by many
tolls bleeding shades of
desolation
over and over again,
popularity that F A D E S away
tranquilized by buttered-down power
that grabs the wickedness of a serpent's spite,
giving life in fragmented reckonings
with vain pleasure.

I know the ballad of a woman you've probably met:

It doesn't end the way you might think
with a fat prince's kiss
with a wicked slipper
with a golden apple
champagne on the wall
and piano-plump behinds scratching in their
seats
and antique, solitary gowns
with smeared-down lipstick
on
her
hands.

That woman, communed with her heart saying,

"Look, what I have attained . . ." (fill in the blank)
with the bread of silence pulling on her chest
without mercy, without privilege
and prick her fingers against thorns
as she escapes into the syrupy-sweet of lost dreams
to the half-deserted, swallowed quiet keeping her
awake thereafter

until she lays her distresses against morning,

to pamper the sacrilege of her tear-flooded bed
and stained-sorrow tissues dashing her floor.
She is clumsy, a medieval, maimed cancelled plan
that crashes surrended affections against a dwindled
gaze
that never cuts the jazzy-flavored paradise like
complex, glowing
scars.
She runs, she walks, she smiles, she freezes
like . . .
a cake splattered on the ground
 and blotted, dreaded, smashed sincerity
covering a blank mind in a state of shock
and screams alone
and praises the illiterate barricades of tomorrow:
the unexpected, imperfect messengers welcome
her
to
the tangled road of uncertainty.

Grayfield South

01.

I received your letter. Tonight, at midnight, I will fulfill your request. Of

course, the fence outside prevents me from ever reaching you. I wrote
a last letter to my parents that won’t be sent. They don’t visit me. They
never understood me quite like you did. I doubt they ever will. We
cannot choose them, our families. I think that was my biggest mistake.
If I had to do it over again, I would have held you and told you
everything would be all right, even if it was the greatest lie of our lives,
I still would have told it.

I say to my mother that I am leaving. She asks me where I am going. I

am going to get away--To my favorite seat in the corner where I can
watch and observe but on this day, it is crowded.

All of the tables are filled except one . . .

So, I ask him if I can sit down next to him. He politely says yes. And
those eyes. Those brown eyes. They beg me not to move away. I turn
away. Books. Miles and miles, rows and rows of endless books that
moves up and down the library walls like a fisherman moving on a
dock to catch bait.

I turn back. It does not seem like it is going to happen, and then it
does. An open table becomes available, and neither one of us moves. I
am stiff and he transforms the image I have of myself. I no longer see
the Medusa in front of me. I no longer see the serpents that are
spitting venom in my cup, swirling around like a pipe player in
paradise.

I turn away again. A painting. In front of me. The serpent’s eyes. Art is
surrounded by an empty universe of coffee drinkers who ignore its
beauty until I bumped into it.

Hi.
Hi.
Isn’t it hideous?
No. It’s art.
I don’t believe art is supposed to be hideous.
Well, I do.
There are no other seats in here. Can I sit here with you?
Sure.
I’m Sterling and you are?
Gray. Grayfield South.
That’s an unusual name.
I’ll bet you’ve never met anyone quite like me.
I don’t know. Time will tell.
What’s in a name, right?
Exactly.

Twelve months later . . .

02.

I got a rough start off in life. I never really knew my father. So, I took all
of that aggression and put it into boxing. I kept hoping that if I could
make it as a boxer, he might come back. I started off in minor boxing
matches, sometimes fighting for my life, other times fighting for
enough money for a motel room, a girl and a chicken dinner with a
bottle of Hennessey. But no matter how many fights I won or lost, he
never came.

The more I expected him, the more I was disappointed and the more I
began to lose more fights than I won. So, I quit. Got disillusioned. Took
a job in a factory. Married Sunny because she was the emergency
room nurse who stitched up my nose after I almost got killed in a
shady Twelfth Street match with a German.

I just didn’t want to be alone but now I am alone again. We are all
alone in some way. My family is full of them—lonely people. We moved
to Detroit from Georgia when I was a little boy. The house we lived in
was perfect. One family lived up, the other family lived down. We were
always surrounded by people but my ma hated it.

She thought our family better than that, above that. She thought her
newness made her different. But there ain’t no camels on our backs, I
overheard one of my uncles say. In other words, we should be so
grateful. It was cheaper to pack us all in the house like a deck of cards,
one on top of the other. But those people drank and smoked
themselves to death before Gray came. By the time she came around,
I wasn’t close enough to the ones that were left and Sunny’s family
hated me so they kept their distance.

And then there was Sunny. I never wanted kids. I raised eight brothers
and sisters, half of whom were dead by the time I was grown and I
wasn’t looking for a family. Sunny and I didn’t date but two months
before she became pregnant and we got married. I wasn’t optimistic in
those days and she knew that Jack had caused me problems.

I couldn’t help it, though. I loved liquor. I even put it in my bathtub like
they used to do in the old days and on my wounds and hell, even in my
food. It aged me but I didn’t care. It made me fight with my wife and
pushed her away from me. After Gray was gone, I saw no need to stay
there anymore. We had nothing in common. I saw then and understood
why my father left. Two fighters don’t belong in the same house.

Besides, there were too many fences that needed repairing. I received
a letter not too long after that from Sunny. She was getting her tubes
tied. Me, I didn’t care. Wherever my sperm landed, I didn’t plan on
being around long enough to find out where it landed.
Jack sent me to jail, where they made me repair the very fences I tried
to break from. They said I could mend fences or write letters to Sunny.
In jail, I mended wire fences but outside, I mended wooden fences. I
liked those better. For one, I could be alone. Two, they didn’t tear up
my hands. I knew they might need repair at some point and I needed
to know that I was going to come back some day to fix them again and
again.
03.

I was born to Claudia “Sunny” and Souder South. As a child, I hated

being named Grayfield. It was so unusual. But my mother and father
were traveling when she was pregnant with me; they were traveling on
the highway, coming back to Michigan from Ohio when the car got a
flat tire on the road. They pulled off the main road.

My mother saw a beautiful lake behind a fence in the field. She wanted
to take a swim and got out of the car. At first, my father thought she
was losing it but he said there was such beauty in that field so the
story goes. She apparently took all of her clothes off and went
swimming in the lake. She swam under the water and when she came
up, I was born between her legs, just under the water on a gray, rainy
day in a field just south of the highway.

When I was eight years old, I was playing downstairs in the basement
of our house. I was having a tea party with my stuffed animals. I could
hear my parents upstairs arguing. My mother came downstairs
screaming. She had my little brother in her arms. I remember her hair
was in a beehive. I remember the Tigers had won the World Series.

Her pink dress was covered with a brown liquor stain. Her red lipstick
was smeared across her face and I could not tell the difference
between her mouth and the blood and mascara caked on her. She held
this brown bundle wrapped in a white blanket. My father was right
behind her.

He had her cornered in the basement. I saw him with a bottle of

bourbon in his hands. She wanted me to call my grandfather, who was
alive at the time but when I headed toward the telephone, my father
stopped me. He slapped me across the face so hard that

I was knocked back into my chest. I think that was the day I developed
asthma.

She kept telling me the numbers but my father told me not to move so
I didn’t. The crying was too much for me so I closed my eyes and
pretended she was singing. The louder she sang, the happier I felt.

The next day, she was in the kitchen like normal. I had just arrived
home from school. The school bus had dropped me off in front of the
house. I was in my snowsuit. I wanted to come in, make myself a snack
and head outdoors to play. She has a beautiful face like an art teacher.
She is making dinner but there are tears running down her face. Then,
I realize she usually is not home so early. I ask what’s wrong. She says
that she is mad at me. Why, I ask her out loud. My mother says
because I did not call my grandfather yesterday. I ask her if I can have
my snack and she says no. It was then that I realized that there was a
part of myself that needed to be free. I walked away from her, hearing
her sing. Her voice was not too bad; the song was not too loud. I
stopped playing with dolls that day. They reminded me of myself: I
screamed at them and they said nothing. I ran off and they didn’t
chase after me. I threw those dolls away, over our back fence where
they laid next to crushed leaves, whose soft dirt slowly decomposed
them.

04.

I wrote a letter to you but I will never mail another one because I never
heard back from you. I receive dozens of letters from people across the
country. I have even received pictures of you, me, Gray, her home and
the backyard where it happened. How did it all happen? That’s what
my friend sitting across from me had asked me. What is her name
again?
Her name is Grayfield South. I met her in the city.
Grayfield? What kind of name is that? Where is she from?
She was named after a place. Where she was born. In a field. It’s weird
but I don’t care.
Oh, yeah. What does she look like? Is she pretty? I know she’s a
brunette, right?
Yeah.
Oh, and what colors are her eyes? Are her eyes blue, gray?
They’re brown, or black.
What’s wrong with you? You’re not acting like yourself.
I’m in love with this girl, she’s beautiful, but . . .
But what?
If my parents find out . . .
So, you won’t tell.
Right.

But that didn’t change things.

I lived in two different worlds. At home, we ate what everyone else ate.
I longed for something other than being like everyone else. Everyone
had school had predictable names and faces. Mine, the most
predictable of them all. Once, I had seen these two people on
television kissing. One of them looked like me and the other looked like
Gray.

My parents were in the kitchen and my mother turned off the television
in disgust. She shook her head but never said anything. In public, she
acted the same way. My entire family did. Lies. We were living the
American Dream. We drove the nicest cars, we always wore the nicest
clothes and yet, we ate dinner in silence.

I told her not to call me. I called her, though. When my mother
received the phone bill, I just told her that one of my friends, from one
of my classes, lived in the city. She assumed this friend was male and I
let her keep that assumption. I moved through my life as restrained
and reserved as I was expected.

I knew when Gray told me what she had done that there was no
turning back. I had blood on my hands and I wasn’t even there. I lived
in a near-perfect world where too much was expected of me and now I
was colliding with her dysfunctional world. I think we both realized then
that we had gone too far. I told one of my buddies, Aaron, a little bit
about Gray. He said to leave it alone but I didn’t listen. I had previously
worked as a camp counselor. I had told my kids that they would never
have to worry about trouble and soon, I was sure, they would see my
face on television and know that I was wrong.
05.

I look out the window. The snow is falling on the ground. I always seem
to reflect the most when there is whiteness in front of me. I am a
wanderer of my mind. The only visitor who is brave enough to swim
through the vultures is the homeless woman I befriended. She warned
me over a cup of tea about all of this but I didn’t listen, not then.

His name is Sterling White, and I met him at a coffeehouse.

Sterling? What kind of name is that? Who are his people?
His name is Sterling like my name is Grayfield. It’s part of him. It’s his
story.
Why are you looking at me like that?
Cause I know you, and I know somethin’s up. I can feel it. Your
number came up today.
What did my number say?
It said you are playing a game you are going to lose.
Where does this boy live?
He lives on the other side of Eight Mile.
Outside the city?
Yes.
That’s not a good sign.
Why?
Because your number came up.
So?
Your number wasn’t eight.
I don’t care.
Well, care about this. I see something else. (Under the tree where the
leaves fall.)
What?

A young woman, she is free, was born in a field. She was born when
every ray of the sun extended its arms to welcome her here. She has
eyes that feel like the wind, burning down fences across fields until
there is nothing left but land.

And?
(More coffee, please. Thank you.)

She thinks her duty as a daughter is to stand behind that fence while
her father holds it up. She dare not cross that fence. She doesn’t want
to know what’s on the other side.
What is on the other side?
She goes on the other side and there is a mirror. She stands in front of
the mirror. The Medusa image is shattered. The snakes fall on the
ground and wither away but she realizes that she will not look at
herself. If she sees her face, she will surely turn to stone.
So, what does she do? That I cannot see. That is up to you, my dear.

I have not told anyone what I am feeling inside. When we are born, we
are alone. There is no else who is naked except us. Our bodies need
the touch of others in order to survive. I should have listened to that
woman. She could see the real me. I wanted out of this body that I am
in. She said that I had to wait and be patient. I thought I was going to
be trapped. I listened to my mother because I didn’t love it and I didn’t
want it.

06.

The other day, my daughter came home and told me that she was
going out with this guy. I had warned her before. I told her that it was
going to cause a lot of problems. She even brought him home. My wife
had all of us take a picture and he looked awkward.

I invited him outside for a beer, my first in many years. The sun was
out. We stood up against the fence in the backyard. Below was the
creek and beyond that, forest, even in a place like Detroit, wilderness. I
invited him to climb over the fence, but he refused . . .

I asked him how often he traveled across Eight Mile. He said not that
often, just to see Grey. I see, I said. I tried to be as patient as possible.
I tried to remind myself that it was 1984. It’s going to be a test, my
daughter said. No one will be able to see them. Everyone’s eyes will be
closed.

You know I could still use help fixing that fence?

No, thanks.
Why not?
Don’t know how?
Well, I could teach you.
That’s all right.
I have a better idea.
Okay.
Wait here.

I go into my house and return with a baby rabbit. I went to the pet
store and bought the animal with the full intention of killing it. I bring
him and my gun out of the house and into the backyard where Sterling
is sipping on a cup of coffee. The baby rabbit is hopping around its tiny
cage but that doesn’t stop me from tossing the cage onto the ground.
He looks down at the animal and then at the gun in my hand. His flush
cheeks turn red with anxiety.

Did you think we only killed each other?

Sir?
When I was your age, I lived down South on a farm.
Interesting.
We hunted all kinds of animals whether we liked them or not but
sometimes, they run off.
I had to go after one animal by myself one time.
Did you catch it?
Yes but I had to hop over several fences and travel into unmarked
territory in order to do it. But when I found it, I also found a dead dog
and I didn’t leave it there. I didn’t know whose it was but even if I
suspected, I wouldn’t have just left it there. I buried him right.
So, I’m asking you, son, what would you have done if you were in my
position?
I don’t think I would have hopped over that fence. I think I would have
been too scared.
I think I would have just let things happen.
Yeah, I know. That’s what worries me.
07.

The hardest part of this whole ordeal was telling the Judge. But I had to
tell them the truth, my truth. I told Gray to bury our secret in her
backyard. I am guilty, I say.

And then my mother slapped me and I turn the other cheek. She calls
me names, I do nothing. He calls Gray names, I say nothing and then
there’s that word. I aim towards him, and everything goes black. I
wake up in the living room and he’s standing over me. Son. The Judge
took her side, I think they might be related or something. You are not
above anything . . . and I can’t listen anymore.

My mother says nothing. But her voice says the same words as my
sister: Those eyes that will bring tears to mine. And to Gray: You are
not welcome here.

I watch the door slam in her face and her eyes lock. Gray looks at me
thereafter strange. She draws a picture of me and mails it to me when
I stop seeing her. I am on a blank canvas and my face has no color.
The only thing you can see about me is the smoke stacks blowing out
of my mouth. I correlate that image with the Medusa image in my mind
and then we disappear.

I am standing in front of the Book. Its gold letters are shining on me. I
open the book and turn to the right page. Even if I swear I find
something to justify what has happened, they can just as easily find
something to convict me but I realize that the Judge was wrong. I have
broken no law, just my mother’s heart. I didn’t know but who really
does? I am being sent away where I cannot plant any seeds anymore.
My father doesn’t really say anything. He never really does. I stand in
front of him and the words just coming pouring out: Why. Do. You.
Allow. This. To. Happen. He looks at me. I look back at him. I am
twenty one years old. I did commit a crime. But let me see her. Let me
go with her to the cemetery. There will be cameras there. Don’t put
that kind of pressure on her. It’s not her fault.
It’s not us. It’s how people are. .
You don’t understand..

No, we don’t understand.

I am leaving.
No, you can’t.
Why not?
Because where will you go? Besides, you knew about it.
I am going away from here. Away from the fence that keeps us apart.
What fence?
The one surrounding us.
We can always tear that down.
Can we?
Yes, we can.
I don’t think so.
Why not?
Because I can’t build a fence by myself. It takes more than two hands
to build one.

08.

We are taught by our children to hate them. I hate my son. I’ve never
said that out loud. I guess I was afraid to admit it but it’s true. I never
liked children, which is why I had three of them. Two boys and a little
girl. I didn’t like my oldest, Sterling, so I had two more. I thought if I
had kept having children, eventually I would like them. I thought after
having my two boys that if I just had a girl, things might change but
they didn’t. After I had our daughter, I told my husband I wasn’t having
anymore children. But it was too late. The damage had already been
done. My children wanted from me things I could not give them. They
wanted hugs. The girl child came to me once for a hug but her fingers
were dirty so I made her wash her hands. Then, she came back and I
asked her what did she have on? She said that she had on a costume. I
told her that costumes for people who didn’t get enough attention. She
still didn’t quite understand. Another time, she came to my bedroom
and my head was hurting. She had on a princess costume and asked
me if she looked pretty. I told her she looked ugly with a smirk on my
face and then she stopped asking me questions after that. I had
children because I was pregnant and I got married because I was
pregnant. I never really thought about anything else. I came from a
long line of women who married into wealthy families so when I found
out who Sterling was sneaking around with, at first, I was glad that he
was not a homosexual but then that was not enough. He had to go and
embarrass us. I tried to talk to him but he would not listen to me but I
knew he would listen to the Judge. I was young too once. As a young
woman living at home with my parents, I was expected not to share
my true feelings but I was normal. He was the son of the butler. I came
onto him. He tried to push me away as he was studying. I ran my
fingers through his coarse, curly hair. I placed his hands on my breasts
and I kissed his soft, pretty lips. I let him rub against me but I never let
him inside of me. It’s like my mother always said: In order to maintain
a girl’s figure, if you must indulge in greasy, fried foods, always chew,
then spit out. I couldn’t understand why I was punished with such an
indulgent child. All of my children were like that but especially Sterling.
I wished he could have come to me so I could have rid of it. I would
have buried her secret in the ocean or beneath an oil ridge or even a
football field. Years later, this could have been a joke, an ink stain on
Sterling’s clean, white record.

But then he had to go and speak on television. He said he was doing it

for them. Now, I have two children left: one boy and one girl. They are
so much younger than him they might not even remember him or this
incident. We are living off of our savings. The public can be so brutal
sometimes. I draw pictures now to help me cope. I read in the
newspaper that the girl’s father builds fences. So, I drew a picture of a
flock of vultures hovering over a forest. There is smoke coming from
the forest and you can see a black man building a fence at the end of
the forest. I showed the picture to my daughter and asked her how she
liked it. She said she didn’t. I hadn’t yet earned the approval of a five-
year-old. I took the canvas outside and dumped it into a garbage can
on the side of the house. I lit a match and watched my vision dissolve
before my eyes. I went around back and took off all of my clothes. I
dived into the pool for a late-night swim. As I swim under water, I see
the flash of a bulb through the water. There is someone watching me. I
decide in the morning to talk to my husband. I believe I read in that
same newspaper that some developers are building a new, gated
community.

09.
I thought we were over. I thought she was out of my life. Then, she
called me and I could it in the background. I asked what that noise was
and she told me. I dropped the phone. I asked when it happened. She
said just a few hours ago. I asked what she was going to do with it. I
told I wasn’t ready. She said that she wasn’t either. I panicked. I didn’t
mean too. It’s just I thought of the Judge. He’s up for reelection. I
thought of the pain I might cause everyone.

So, I drove over there but when I got over there, it was like a bad
dream. I didn’t see anything; I couldn’t hear anything or smell
anything, it was like it was over. Like it never happened and I wanted
to pretend it did. I thought no one would ever find out. Her parents
didn’t know. And they wouldn’t have been happy anymore. Her father
was a former friend of those men in those suits; you know the ones
with the bow ties, and the black spectacles and magic carpets.

We thought it was just us. And we hated our lives. I hated living a lie
but it evaporated like sugar in my coffee. I didn’t ask anything else
from her but we grew apart after that. She became nervous, irritable.
She said that she was becoming like her parents. Sickly, like her
mother and drinking like her father. They seemed normal to me.

Sometimes at night, I’d sneak out of the house. I’d go over to the spot.
I even camped there, right in the forest behind her house. She said
that her father was building a fence. He never really liked the idea of
not having a fence behind the house. She said that I should help him
build it but I never really felt comfortable with that.

I never thought anyone would find out. But the family next door to
Gray, they bought a dog. Actually, they rescued it from a shelter. A
former police dog. Gone blind. But Old Trusty still had his sense of
smell. He was drawn to Gray’s house from the moment he entered that
street.

He kept running into their backyard and digging. They, the neighbors
in their weirdness, thought he was trying to dig to China like that old
game we used to play as kids. He kept digging and digging. I didn’t
know about him because I was here—I mean I am here.

Gray is in a place like this now. That’s why I got sent here in the first
place. She hadn’t even gotten her period yet when we first got
together. She liked to hang out in those type of places and I just
assumed.

The neighbors thought he had run away but he took what he found
back to his old home. And then his old owners followed him all the way
to her backyard and there was our secret buried in the backyard. Gray
had originally intended on throwing it out with the garbage but thought
no one would look in the backyard. She was upstairs in her bedroom
when it happened. She rocked back and forth in her chair. That kind of
secret you should never keep to yourself. But it was our black-and-
white secret. Until now.
10.

I tried to raise my daughter to be a good girl. I guess my problem was

that I raised her to be too independent. See, I believed what those
women’s groups told me about girls. But my daughter was different. I
could tell from the time that she was a little girl. She used to sit on my
lap when she was a little girl and asked me to teach her every word in
every book that she could get her hands on. But I had my own
problems. My eyesight was failing me and I couldn’t steady my hands
without them shaking. One night, my baby boy was crying in his crib
and I tried to carry him downstairs but I couldn’t really see that well.
And there was a toy on the top stair and I didn’t see it and I slipped
and I could feel myself going down and I had a choice: hold onto
myself or drop him. It was a split decision and I shouldn’t have done it.
I let him go. He went flying through the air and landed on his head. She
screamed for me and when the police came, he told them that he had
dropped the baby. We lost that baby permanently when Souder was in
jail. They even took her away from us. They said we were bad people. I
thought God was punishing us, especially me because my left side
began to hurt, especially when it rained. They brought her back to us
but by then, I hated her. I hated her for having me around. I hated her
for calling me Mommy. I hated the way my husband drank and then
hugged her too much. The way he encouraged her to dress up in those
fancy, Disney costumes with the fedora, floppy hats and the feather
boas and dance for his drunken friends on Sunday afternoons and wink
at them until they bought old tapes of his boxing matches so he’d have
extra drinking money, I think maybe I encouraged both of them. I was
sheltered as a child so I did the exact opposite with her. I didn’t want
her to have to think about anything. I think she even told me about it
before it happened. She came to me and asked me what I thought
about secrets. I asked her what she meant. She asked then what are
we supposed to tell and reveal. I told her I then that we hide
everything and reveal nothing. I was scared, you see. I found her the
previous day in the attic. She was going through my private things. I
was worried that she had found out my secret and she did. I don’t think
she could hear me because she was in the attic and when I found her, I
was at the entrance. She had her back to me and I was hidden by the
stairs. I had kept it because it was the only way I could cope. I didn’t
keep all of it, partly because of the smell and partly because I didn’t
need to. Just the foot. I didn’t even keep it in a cooler. Just in a plastic
bag.

It wasn’t even white anymore. It was brown and didn’t even look like it
had once belonged to somebody. I then confronted her. She tried to
put it away but I made her look at it. I knew her secret then. That time
I went to the hospital with the belly ache and came out with no
stomach was the first secret I kept from her. She asked me why?
Because while Souder was out building fences, I learned how to step
outside of my world. She asked me if her dad knew about it. Of course
not. His way of making it in the world was by building fences. I told her
that me keeping that foot was a mistake. It was a vicious cycle. My
mother abandoned me because I was too dark. But this foot is white,
she said. I know, I said to her but you are my one and only. I told her
that I kept the foot in a box. It was my way of protecting myself from a
mistake. The same way her dad built that fence after the neighbors’
dog found it in the backyard. I told her not to have any secret too close
to home but she wouldn’t listen. I knew then that we were more like
enemies, that we would never truly be close.

11.

Sterling White is dead. I don’t think I’ll ever fully appreciate that. I
never really knew that part of him that could love someone or
something else. But once he was gone, there was no way to spin this. I
pretend sometimes that he’s gone on vacation and he just didn’t want
to be a part of our lives anymore, which was true. Thank goodness that
the public has not punished me.

I remember when he was small, we were coming back from his school
on a winter day. It wasn’t even evening and we couldn’t see outside.
The sky was dim and it was raining heavily. Sterling was sitting in the
front seat with me. I had turned my head slightly to look at me.

I didn’t even see the man. His body crashed into the car and crumbled
into a pile on the ground. I had taken a shortcut from the main road.
We lived inside of Detroit then. It was pretty much safe in those days. I
got out of the car and so did Sterling.

We were both almost in tears as the lifeless body in front of us slowly

became more real to us. He took his magic wand and flapped it against
the body, not understanding at the age of five what he couldn’t really
do. I went over to the man and noticed that he was dirtier than he
should be; he was homeless.
I could hear a police siren in the distance and my entire career flashed
before my eyes. I took an old dog blanket from the trunk and I carefully
lifted the man and placed him on by a sidewalk. An old black man in a
tweed suit with a guitar in his hand watched us from a rundown house.

That man said that I needed to take the homeless man to the hospital
but I wouldn’t listen. All I could think about was my desperate need to
go into politics. There was all this pressure on me to follow in my
father’s footsteps. We left that man there.

Sterling kept saying over and over again, we can’t leave him there but
I left him there. My

father was the only person I ever told what happened on that street.
He had to hear about all of this in the newspaper, and his first reaction
was that I could use this to my advantage. I felt sorry for Sterling but I
wasn’t about to give up everything I worked for to save him.

He’s rotting in a jail cell now. Along with the young lady who did it. I
hear her parents are splitting up. I think that’s love to me. Her father
building fences; her mother taking care of other people’s babies. My
wife and I have never talked about it. That’s not what we do.

I bought her a bracelet. I look away when I smell gin and other men on
her breath. I’m sure she’s smelled them on mine. I heard my daughter
crying the other day. I think it was about this whole ordeal. I bought
her a new puppy and she’s over it. She’s better now.
12.

A girl tried to stab me in the shower with a razor. She called me

names. She said that I was a bad person. They say that she is from
Africa and that she was circumcised as a little girl. She came here,
starving and eats and eats but she can never be full. They say that her
stomach will always be empty. I keep to myself. I am a legend, though.
I am Grayfield South.

They still show my face on television. I know now that I have

disappointed my parents. I haven’t seen them once and it’s been a
year. I know that my father is probably out building fences. I know
when he was young, he wanted to be a boxer but I don’t know what
happened with that. For as long as I can remember, he worked in a
factory during the day and came home at night to build fences. On the
weekends, he worked, sometimes even when the football game was
on.
Some people asked me the question of why I did it but never my
parents. I knew in the back of my mind what was wrong with me. I had
friends at school but I was bussed to the suburbs, across Eight Mile and
everyone knew that I was a city kid. They resented me being there like
I was an unwelcome ant at an outdoor food party. I talked to some of
them in school but I mainly kept to myself. Outside of school, there
was Sterling. He never called from the same phone number twice and
for me, I just needed something. Sometimes, it was food, sometimes, it
was him. But then, it stopped being about him.

He violated me. He could go on so carefree and I was being left behind.

My parents had done the same thing to me. As a child, my father
briefly went to jail. He kept being arrested for speeding on the
highway, for running red lights and for not paying his parking tickets
but he was really arrested for having a bad temper. When he went to
jail, it was just me and my mother. I thought there was no mystery to
her until I found a human white baby’s foot. I knew that she worked as
a nurse so I assumed that she had been attached to a child at the
hospital where she worked at. But no, she said it belonged here. I
asked her where it came from and she said nothing. She refused to
answer me.

For quite awhile after that, I woke up sometimes drenched in sweat. I

dreamed of funerals that I would never attend. Here, I thought I knew
my parents. I was wrong. I knew I wasn’t ready when the time came. I
pretended like I was in a fantasy world. I heard movement and

laughter but I pretended it was coming from some other place. My

father would build another backyard fence, this one sturdier and
stronger, and then we would move on with our lives. But then an
animal, a dog, somehow found his way into our backyard before it was
built. Funny, my father always spent his free time building fences for
other people, waiting to build ours. I think he also knew about the foot.

My mother worked in a hospital. She worked long hours in a maternity

ward. She had requested to be placed there after my baby brother
died. It was the only way she could cope. My father told the police that
he dropped the baby. I used to think it was because he didn’t want her
to go to jail but I know now it was because he had found out about that
foot. He had asked if she had an affair. My mother had gotten pregnant
right after my brother died. When asked if that other baby’s father was
white, she denied it. But something locked in my father. He had turned
his back on the boxing ring and turned to alcohol. She refused to give
up that baby’s mementos. I didn’t understand until I saw the picture
taken right after it was born.
The baby’s face was the color of an icy blue storm. My mother blamed
my father because he refused to name it. Said when Jesus wept, he
didn’t ask for names. She didn’t ask of him anything else when he went
to jail.

She said that we were cursed. Even though she had no proof, she
believed that the water she swam in, the lake where I was born was
contaminated with pollutants that caused our agony. After that, she
began to spend less time at home.

By the time my father made it out of jail several years later, they were
both changed. My mother was distant until one day, while looking for
an old photo album, I happened upon my mother’s secret. My father
took turns drinking and building fences. I turned to Sterling but even
that feeling was temporary.

I called him in a panic that one evening. It all seemed so perfect. Just
like his life. I knew he’d know what to do. My father was out mending a
broken fence and my mother had called and decided to stay late to
care for a sickly newborn. I was alone and scared.

The answer seemed so perfect. It was like it didn’t happen. My father

did the same thing when he drank. At the end of the drink, he started
over and when he was halfway through the bottle, he took the rest and
used it as his bathwater.

I thought putting my secret into a trash bag and then digging a hole to
dumping it in the backyard would solve everything. I even prayed that
night. The next day I was starting over. Of course, it was several days
later that I found out that God was a liar.

I began to hunger more. Sometimes for food, sometimes for him. When
there wasn’t food in the house, I began to eat paper. But then, one
night, my mother discovered me eating paper with salt and ketchup. I
read somewhere that your mother draws pictures of everything. That
was okay but when I found out that was being used against us in the
upcoming election, I
was upset because no one really cares about me, not even my daddy.

I originally started going to that coffeehouse because I found that foot,

which made me sad and my mother said that was the perfect place to
meet other depressed people and I met you. Funny, though, that I
should find myself in the same place again. I got your letter when I was
standing on top of my chair, alone. I pushed the chair away. My neck
hurt and I could see my secret in the distance, watching me, waiting
for me. For I will always be remembered in that special, wicked way.
There is darkness surrounding me. I don’t see you and I don’t think I
ever will. I am truly alone.

The Other Side of Me

I die on a Sunday afternoon. It is not in a conventional kind of way but

slowly, over time like marshmallows on top of hot coffee. I listen to my
therapist sometimes but she is a shitty bitch that I don't want to look
up to. Funny, in the end, I become just like her and she becomes less
like me. She moves away from me and I move closer. We meet in the
middle but she is still whole and I am broken. Neither one of us is ever
really sociable but she is able to hide it better. She hides her pain
behind a veiled mask and grins for everyday folk, smiles at their lies
but I know she isn't really interested in hearing the truth. No, the truth
is for fairy tales, adventure stories and soap operas.

I am tired of pretending to be something I am not: normal. If

only I could go back in time and shake myself silly and beg myself not
to make the mistakes that ultimately surprise and destroy me. If only I
could look at my younger self in the mirror. Maybe my twin self might
scare me but I think eventually, I would get over the shock of
becoming someone else. I would tell myself to be more like others: less
emotion but less communication as well.

However, then I would not be true to myself and inevitably, I

would be forced into a corner, placed in a box where hundreds of years
from now, people will walk into museums and look at me through a
glass case like a bad science experiment. They will debate what they
think that I am thinking right now. I am the product of being taken
from one environment to the next in order to see my reaction. Can I
adjust? That question is the story of my life and sometimes the
answers are like opening Pandora's Box and letting all of the secrets
out but then again, I don't believe in that.

Of course, by the time the world really understands how I think

it will be too late for me to respond because I'll be in a pine coffin with
hard dirt and worms running through my ears. Or I'll be moving toward
a better place, playing harp music with a white toga and eating lots of
grapes. But then, I realize that I am back on the couch and her bright
eyes are waking me from my dream. She is asking me all of these
questions, none of them I have the answer to. She says that I am no
better than people on television, that are hypnotized and become
chickens. They do anything that they are paid to do and the audience
claps and reality is suspended for a moment but then, there has to be
an end and that's what I hate the most.
 Those people talk about how their lives change and it makes me
want to gag. My life will not change though because, for one, I won't let
it, and two, I am too stubborn to resist anything that I can't see, touch,
taste or feel. See, I am like a mathematician. I believe in reason but
this philosophy is only hindering me. Maybe if I believe in Santa Claus
or the Tooth Fairy, my life might be a little better but I am scared to
embrace anything that's not physically in front of me.

So I grow up to be the opposite of the kind of woman that I

promise myself to be as a child. You know the kind of women in the
movies that get popcorn thrown at them because they never really
grow up. But I am not big on being around other women. For one, I
can't understand the need for sharing. That is the kind of woman that I
am and that is why I hate everybody but other people's laughter, their
crying, their wanting to push some kind of feeling onto me other than
sadness and anger. Anything else in my life comes through in spades
and tastes like old, churned butter. I approach life like I do a soap
opera and prepare for the twists and surprises, which begin the Sunday
morning of the day that changes my life. I begin my day like any other.
I wash my face, comb my hair and brush my teeth. I have my standard
breakfast of oatmeal, orange juice and fruit.

My food begins to speak with me. It tells me what I am doing

wrong with my life but I only half-heartedly listen. See there is a good
and bad side to me that pulls me in two different directions. One side is
the sweet part of me, the good in me that wants to make the most of
my day and do a little writing. But the bad side of me will contemplate
everything's that wrong in my life and why this day is no different from
any other. I dress and head to my appointment with my therapist. It is
our last together. After today, I am on my own. I try to tell her that I
am hearing voices in my head but I can tell that she doesn't believe
me. I look out the window and see a woman playing tennis in the
courtyard. It is raining and I am shocked that she is so stupid and I tell
my therapist my opinion.

She responds by saying that she is disappointed that I don't live

my life like a free woman, not afraid to do the unexpected. I ask her if
she thinks my behavior is predictable and she says yes, that I allow
myself to be swayed by mathematics and technology, living like a
robot that does the same things day after day. My therapist then asks
me if I would like to take a moment to think about what she has said. I
say yes. She offers to fix me a glass of water and I say yes, only she
takes the water and dumps it on my head. Apparently, it's some kind
of experiment to wake me up but I am upset because I spend all day
Saturday fixing my hair for our appointment. So, I point outside to
some kind of bird in a tree and when she turns to look, I slap her with
the back of my hand.

Her blonde hair flies in one direction and her face in another.
Her nose is bleeding and she begins to cry. She starts cursing at me,
saying that I am hopeless. I respond by knocking her books from her
shelves to the ground. I begin throwing entire rows of books on the
floor. My therapist surprises me then by throwing candy and then dog
biscuits (a wonderful treat for pregnant women) at me. I bark a little
and start laughing. When this doesn't stop me from destroying her
office, my therapist does the unthinkable: She tries to pepper spray me
but I duck my head and she misses. I try to grab her hand but then she
bites me. I scream and retaliate. I push her really hard and she falls
backward into a chair and lands on the floor.

I take her favorite pair of shoes and pull my pants down.

With my back to her, I begin to take a golden shower inside her shoes.
At first, I tinkle a little pee on my pants but then I concentrate, focus,
and aim. It splatters all over her warm, black pumps. She is in shock
and ready to call the police on me. I stop long enough to hop over to
the door where she is quickly running. I tell her that I need attention
and if I don't get it, I'll take a dump inside her shoes and then on her
couch. I really am not afraid of the impending poop stains on the back
of my pants.

A red flag is waved but I know what she is really flashing before my
eyes. I sit back down. I know that I will leave her office and go down
the street or even across town and find someone else to talk to. I can't
bear the thought of being dead for too long. It's too much for a
nonbeliever. My therapist picks herself up off the floor and reaches into
her purse. She lights a cigarette, which she tells me to not to let
anyone know that we are sharing. We sit there and puff. Maybe she
has some marijuana somewhere. Perhaps she has a little champagne
to share before I go or even another story.

Nighttime Babies

"Moral filth is such a problem with this country, and to celebrate on

such a night," said the television evangelist. Josiah shut off the
television and rolled his eyes but then he thought about what the man
said. He hadn't had a night off on Sundays in a very, very long time
and couldn't understand the big deal about a couple of high school
kids. Other than greeting tourists, lost travelers, moving mannequins
and nighttime babies, Josiah sat at his plastic Formica counter,
listening to music such as Brahms' Hungarian Dance No.6, reading
National Geographic and watching everyone else celebrating the local
high school's BIG football win. Something else was bothering Josiah. He
though to himself, 'Why is our town always being singled out?' Detroit
was a two-hour drive up I-75 cutting through I-24 and down toward
Toledo. That was miles away from where he was at and Josiah said to
himself, "Oh, I wish someone would push me away from boredom," he
said. The town folks listening to him would just nod their heads.

With those thoughts tucked loosely on his tongue, waiting for the next
traveler to arrive, Josiah quietly fell asleep. He tried to remember later
if it was the putter of soft gas circles that wafted through the chilled air
and tickled his crusty nostrils or if it was the putrid sound of a car
clunking, the annoying bird-like screaming of a woman's accented
voice and the cursing that followed that jolted Josiah out of his sleep.
Her heels smashed into the crunch of gravel as her head bobbed and
her lithe body darted in his direction. The town was nowhere near this
and Josiah felt his heart racing. She slammed open the door. "My
husband's after me," she said. Yellow eyes beckoned him to respond.
Josiah did what he thought best. He handed her a tissue. Patches of
smeared makeup dripped down onto her black raincoat. "Well, I hope
it's not about money 'cause that's usually what people fight about in
these parts and I don't make enough to move out of this seat unless
you have a key," Josiah replied. She rolled her eyes. "You're a wise
one. Do you come with an instruction manual?" she asked. Josiah
chuckled and shook his head. " No but I should have been a hitchhiker.
Read On the Road eleven times in high school. Didn't do shit for me,"
Josiah said in a whisper. "Oh, don't worry. I won't tell the dry balls in
town that you speak more than the King's English."

"Great, darling. Now all I need is some of those football game baked
beans and a little Pepto Bismo for afterwards.”

"And all I need is a little male protection while I go over to that farm
beyond yonder and get back the bag that my husband took. Lot of
money," she said. With the exception of her two bridged together
eyebrows, and the mouse-looking facial hair on her mouth, cheeks, and
chin, she was an attractive-looking woman. "I don't know. With road
people . . ." his voice trailed off. "I'll make it financially worth your
while, " the woman said. "How much?" Josiah asked. "Oh, about half,"
she said and smiled. "Half? Of what? A dollar," Josiah said. He
straightened out his glasses and returned to his magazine. "No, man.
Half of ten thousand dollars. Won't take you that long and if my
husband shows up, you just hold his arms while I kick him in the balls,"
she said. Josiah straightened up his pants. His slight belly felt smaller.
"I can't leave," he said. "Oh, you really do belong in this town," she
said and continued,
"Look, I'm giving the money to you and once you touch it, it's not dirty
anymore." "Hon, I've eaten dirt sandwiches before. My issue is we
haven't been introduced. I don't go anywhere with strangers, just
mannequins," Josiah said. "Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. By the way, I'm
Tequila." "Spanish or from the South?" He asked. "Neither. >From
Detroit. And you are?" Tequila asked. "Josiah. Josiah Tuttle,” replied.
"That's some name. Biblical aspirations to be the second Jesus?" she
asked. Tequila bent over to straighten her fishnet stockings. "Some
might say," he said. Josiah reached behind him to put a sweater on. "I
like you. Come on," she said.

The shivering chill of a November evening entertained them into the

night. Josiah glanced down at her ragged fishnet stockings and sleepy
eyes. If she was deceiving him, he would take the blame. He clutches
the motel keys and locked the front door. Josiah placed the Be back in
a minute sign that his boss had given him to use in the event of an
emergency in the window. Tequila scurried across the parking lot like a
scavenging squirrel. Josiah commenced to point at the green monster
sitting in the obscure and mostly empty parking lot, among rows and
rows of superior-looking cars. Josiah stowed the keys in his pocket. But
Tequila gripped his arm and pinched him. Josiah appeared to turn
around again. He thought he saw a shadow moving behind him. They
darted in between a car in the middle of the two-lane highway. A white
1980 Chrysler parked on the other side of the road was their safe
haven. It was lying partially in the sewage strewn ditch, and partially
on the side of the road. Josiah was surprised that the car had not fallen
in. Tequila snuck by the passenger door and opened the car. She
insisted on him being on guard for her husband.

"What's his name?" Josiah asked. "Teddy," she replied. She was pulling
an oversized black duffel bag from between the seats. At one point,
the bag seemed to be stuck and Josiah had to come around and yank
the bag out, which caused him to fall feet first into the ditch. "Shoot,"
he said, as he looked down at his almost-ruined penny loafers. "Them
things are ugly. You can get new shoes," Tequila said and when she
saw the crumpled look on his face, "Big baby. Baby need a pacifier.
Waah!" she laughed. "What's so funny?" he asked. Josiah climbed out
of the ditch. Tequila tossed the bag to him and Josiah barely caught it.
She took off her red pumps and went barefoot into the ditch. Josiah
found himself almost lifting her out of the ditch. They bumped into
each other. “Thanks,” she said. She gave him a half-smile and put her
shoes on. “What’s so funny?” Josiah asked again. “I’m going to call you
Baby. Sounds a hell of a lot better than Josiah,” she said. “What will
Teddy say?” he asked. Tequila motioned for him to give her the bag.
She began walking through the bristly grass that tickled his skin. Josiah
stopped. He heard a car horn or no, maybe it was a truck horn, and
then, the bright lights of the truck were staring him down. “That’s Ted.
Gotta go. Been swell, baby,” she said. He heard her voice but when he
departed, he saw nothing in front or behind him. The truck lights were
on him and then off him when the person behind the wheel of the
truck, whom he assumed to be Ted, saw that he was moving back
across the street. He ran, leaping over the ditch, barely able to prevent
himself from being hit by the truck. Across the street, a few motel
patrons were standing outside their rooms. ‘I should go back, right?’
Josiah asked himself. He patted both sides of his pants. “She took my
keys. By golly, I’ve been had by a woman named Tequila. Now, here’s
a story for afternoon tea time,” Josiah said, this time, out loud, even
though he knew no one was really listening.

“Wait!” he called out. The truck stopped. Josiah ran up to the driver’s
door. “What do you want?” the man asked. He had a scruffy-looking
face along with scruffy-looking hair and a snarl for a smile. “Your wife,
sir. She stole my keys and I desperately need them back.” Josiah
coughed as cigarette smoke swirled in the air. “Desperately? Can’t you
just get another pair?” Ted asked. “Those were my keys and they are
very expensive to replace. A master set. Very expensive.” “At that
fleabag?” the man named Ted said. He briefly nodded his head and
continued, “You don’t have squat for money in the desk or anywhere?”
“Your wife has the money. I could report you both,” Josiah said. He
rested his hands on the inside of the passenger side window. “I could
shoot you. Ain’t nuthin’ to me,” Ted said. He sighed. “Was plannin’ on
hangin’ out here couple of days. I kind of like it out here. Reminds me
of a Hallmark movie. Figured with the town celebrating the football
game, we could remain anonymous.” “That’s the exact opposite of
how I feel. I need some adventure, new friends. I was only kidding
about the tattling. I won’t tell,” Josiah said. “All right. Hop in,” Ted
replied.

The two new friends drove across the scattered prairie. The rain had
begun to fall. The field was a maze of wild flowers, elevated grass, and
excessive twilight that carried on with the presage of an ancient map.
Ted lit a cigarette and played country music softly. Glass beer bottles
were thrown all over the dashboard, along with Monopoly and
counterfeit money, strewn in between the seats. As they rode along,
Josiah kept his window partially down. Silence saluted them and Ted
flashed his headlights but the woman they both were looking for was
nowhere to be found. The answer came as Ted’s tire marks crushed
the corn stalks, knocking them down as the truck dragged over the
fields. Tequila was standing on the porch, her rain-soaked hair in a
ponytail. Her makeup was clumped; her face was ashen brown and
Josiah thought that perhaps she had been crying and deliberately
smeared her makeup. He gave her a sympathetic look. Josiah hopped
out of the truck before Ted braked and rushed up onto the porch. One
sole porch light hung dimly from the entryway.

“Where’s the mistletoe and eggnog for the party?” Josiah joked.
Tequila shook her head.

“Ain’t no party here. Money’s too tight.” Her arms were folded across
her scanty chest. “Well, perhaps, I might hire you as my trainer. You
got here very quickly,” Josiah said. He came up on the porch. Tequila
raised her eyebrows. Ted’s truck rattled past them and onto the side of
the house. He got out of the truck, spitting tobacco on the ground.
“Why in the hell you run away like that, girl?” he asked. “You damn
near woke up the whole goddamn town with all that racket?” Ted
asked. “Oh, would you just simmer down, Teddy Bear? I made a
mistake, okay? I thought that by being l-o-u-d, no one would notice us?
And no one ever really has, except your friend here,” she nodded in
Josiah’s direction. “Who, him? That rat don’t play on my team,” Ted
spat. “Well, he’s here now. I picked him,” Tequila said. She came over
and gave me a little tuck on the arm. “We stole your motel keys,” she
said softly. Josiah nodded his head. His eyes beamed widely. “I thought
I saw a shadow behind me,” he said, turning to Ted. “You knew? You
knew, huh? How ‘bout that?” Ted picked up a duck that had flown onto
the railing on the porch and threw it out into the yard. He
contemplated this new discovery in his head and walked back and
forth on the porch.

Tequila reached from off the ground and picked up a glass beer bottle,
took a swig of the sweet, brown liquid and then quickly spat out the
substance. “Tequila, that beer tastes flat. Damn, girl, did you leave it
out on the porch? I’d rather drink fresh milk from a cow’s utters than
that cheap crap.” Ted slinked down to the ground. “Crap? I don’t buy
crap. It’s the town,” Tequila said, glancing sideways at Josiah. Ted held
up a green bug between his two fingers that he had picked up off the
ground. Josiah watched as Ted studied the bug with one eye closed, as
if he were a scientist. “Put that thing down,” Tequila cried.

Ted popped the green bug into his mouth, and then stuck his tongue
out. Tequila began to cough. “Bug killer,” she said. She began to
pound her arms against him until she stumbled into his arms. They fell
into a pile on the ground, laughing and him cursing under his breath.
Ted finally looked up at Josiah. “My apologies, sir. To you and Mother
Nature.” Ted offered Josiah a piece of tobacco from his pocket. Josiah
shook his head no. “I’m sure the other bugs are planning the wake
now,” Tequila muttered. “Hey! Who remembers to buy bread to feed
the birds when we go to the park? I do!” Ted shouted and then gawked
at Josiah. “I ain’t got to justify myself to you. You’re getting paid too. A
motel clerk,” Ted shook his head. “I stumbled upon this job, sir. Yes,
this situation reminds me of a famous quote. I believe it goes,
‘Remorse is memory awake.’ Came here when my car broke down.
Stayed at the very same motel that I work at now. Lived for awhile in
the room right in front of my eyes. The owner had a ‘Help Wanted’ sign
in the window. Long story short, I was young and on the road. My dull
existence had found meaning: Long hair, long road trips, longing for a
drink. Only it was the ‘70s. So, I went into town, this town, got drunk,
and then my wallet was stolen. All on the same night. The job seemed
sane. Kept me from hitchhiking. But the car broke down.”

“What’s wrong with hitchhiking?” Tequila asked. “Yes. But I didn’t want
to leave my things behind. I thought I was ready to go for broke, but I
began to look forward to my weekly check. Was tired, damn tired of
relying on other people’s scraps. Finally, car died and after that, I
stayed. The grieving widow, I am,” Josiah said. “Why?” asked Tequila,
“That seems so dumb.”

“Took it as a sign,” Josiah replied. “Oh, man. Don’t tell me you’re one
of those holyrollers. Here we go with the signs,” Ted said. “You don’t
believe in anything, do you?” Josiah asked. “Nope. Ain’t got time.
Neither does Tee,” Ted said, nodding in Tequila’s direction. The night
air was filled with the breathing sighs of whiskey coming from Ted’s
breath. He was drinking from a flower vase. The three of them stood
there, passing the vase around until their throats were sore. Just when
Josiah was about to faint, Tequila said, “We stole your motel keys. And
now, you’re coming with us.” They both laughed at each other. “ I
followed you out here, boys and girls because you said that you were
having car trouble. How ironic, huh?” Josiah asked.

“Ironic? Don’t believe in that either,” Tequila said.

“I do believe, dear, that you are a natural comedienne. Now, back to

the keys. Why did you take them?” Josiah asked and when she stared
blankly at him said, “Surely, somewhere in town. A restaurant . . .” his
voice trailed off again. “Do we look typical to you? I mean, are we
studying art or making a drawing?” Tequila asked. “Yeah, I thought
reading was your pleasure,” Ted said, with his arms folded. Tequila
tilted her head to the side. She kissed her fingers and then wiped
smeared lipstick on Josiah’s cheek. “Halloween on a Sunday night. You
think God can protect you?” she asked. “Should I start singing? Or
dancing?” Josiah asked. “Not funny, motel clerk. And stop dancing with
no sound, baby,” she replied. “I just want the keys back. I was wrong.
Wrong adventure, wrong lifetime, wrong everything. Took a chance.
Like playing the lottery,” Josiah said. “A gambler? Not smart, baby. I
mean, gambling? Never pays much. This is more fun,” she said. “How?
The register doesn’t have much money,” Josiah said.

“We were not looking for you. We were looking for them,” Tequila said,
shaking the motel keys in her hand. “You see, Josiah,” said Ted,
“people are going to keep their most valuable possessions on or near
them. Plus, one thing I know about travelers. They are not going to
have their guard up at a motel or at a home. But in town, they will.
That’s why we dress up.” Ted unzipped his jacket to reveal a
custodian’s uniform. Tequila unzipped her jacket to reveal a maid’s
uniform. “Uniforms? I don’t understand why would you need them?”
Josiah asked and took another swig of whiskey. “Keys get us into the
rooms. The uniforms are just a front,” Tequila said. “Once we get into
the rooms, we look for valuables. Then, once we’ve gotten enough, we
move onto the next town,” Ted said. “But how did you get into the
house?” Josiah asked. “Which house?” he asked. “This one,” Josiah
said. “We were told to come here. But don’t worry, we won’t be staying
long,” Tequila said. “Yeah, we’re planning on going on. As soon as we
rob your motel. That’s why we needed your keys,” Tequila said. “My
keys? And how were you planning on getting into the rooms?” Josiah
asked. “With our costumes,” Ted said and continued, “Which ones
would you like to see? Daytime or evening?” Tequila asked. “What’s
the difference?” Josiah asked incredulously. “Oh. You’ll see,” she said.
She went into the house and produced two uniforms, covered in
plastic. Through the plastic, Josiah could see a maid and janitor’s
uniform. “These are our daytime outfits,” Tequila said and tossed them
on the swinging porch bench. “And nighttime?” Josiah asked.

She held up one finger, and then her thumb, almost as if she were
motioning to shoot him. Ted ran past Josiah, sticking his thumb out and
tongue at the same time. They opened the door wide, and it banged
shut. Josiah could hear the soft scratching sound of animal feet clawing
at the pebbles on the ground. He could hear them moving around
inside the house. Whistled, folding his arms across his chest, and then
placing them behind him. Kicked the ground as if he were kicking a
man, and walked over by the cornstalks. A scarecrow stood up on a
metal stake, his straw arm pointing in an easterly direction. Josiah
brushed these items aside, the whip of wind tickling his face, urging
him to take a nap. He found a meager pile of old, discarded cornstalks,
their tips were broken, and the outer layer felt rubbery. But he was
sleepy, and strangely, Josiah needed them, Ted and Tequila, to find
them. It was his test for them. “I should get them back,” Josiah said,
yawning, thinking of the master set of keys. However, his body
yearned for rest. “First, though, a nap and then a little sherry or
perhaps bourbon. Anything but tequila.” Josiah closed his eyes.
The mild kick against his head awakened him out of his sleep. Two
peculiar-looking creatures were standing behind him. They both had
bronzed skin, silky, black hair, snaggled, prominent teeth, bird feathers
adorning their wrists, painted-on eyebrows, gold scarves, and brown
shirts with matching pants. The woman blinked her eyes twice and
Josiah realized who she was. “Sleeping like a baby. So sorry to disturb
you,” Tequila said. “Also, dreaming like one. A baby,” Josiah replied.
“We’ve been looking for you. Thought perhaps you decided to slither
like a snake,” Tequila said. “Or dressed up for a party. What’s the
celebration?” Josiah asked. “That’s what we like about you. Your radio
antennae is wired,” Ted teased. Ted tossed Josiah a beer. Josiah, who
had been lying down, leaned into a sloped position on his elbows to
catch the can. He chuckled and sipped half the can. There was an
awkward pause for a few moments. Tequila finished her drink, belched,
and tossed her can in the air behind her. “There, now. That business is
finished,” she said. Josiah looked at her with a questioning gaze, so she
continued, “This is our nighttime business. Devoted to being ourselves,
devoted to our warrior race and each other.”

“Yourselves? So, you both just parade around in costumes, huh? Is this
how you get your kicks?” Josiah asked.

“This isn’t a joke. We’re waiting to be taken home. We read in the

Weekly World News that this town is where our masters will appear
when they come back to Earth,” Ted said, “They’ll beam us up into
their ships and light will appear all over the galaxy.” Josiah began
laughing. Giggling poured out of him as if he had been holding it inside
of him for all of his life. “You dare to laugh at us. You, who works at a
motel. A minimum-wage motel clerk,” Tequila said, her voice spiteful,
and raised with a snarl. “That beats what you’re doing. At least I’m
honest and at least I don’t sneak around and hide behind some
ridiculous costume,” Josiah spat. He was howling with delight. Wanted
to clap his hands, ignore the pained looks on their faces, throw pennies
at them, tell them that the three of them should join the circus. Didn’t
realize that he was on their farm, on their territory. Tears began
streaming down Josiah’s face. “Sounds like someone doesn’t
appreciate our efforts. Probably wants to steal our costumes too. Like
we’d make him wear it. Perhaps a trip to the doghouse should do it,”
Tequila said. “Yeah. It isn’t often that we find someone worthy to be in
our company,” Ted interjected. “Your company? You stole my keys,
could cost me my job, and I can’t leave this stink of a place without it.
Besides, this is my town and you people are just sojourners. That’s
right. Visiting little twerps that quite frankly, are being overly sensitive.
Do you really think that extraterrestrials from another planet are
coming here, to this dumpy little farm to rescue you?” Josiah asked
and when they both nodded their heads, he continued, “I mean, why
you two? Wouldn’t a great king or Jesus’ brother be better?” Josiah
asked.

Her hand pinched his nose. Felt the slap of four pairs of hands against
him. Tequila held onto him as if they were a couple holding hands, and
Josiah were about to stumble. Blood trickled down his meaty arms and
off his backside. What had they wacked him against the head with? A
shovel? A gardening ho? He whispered goodbye to Mr. Scarecrow as
the sky dimmed to a frightening black ray of hope. Hours later, Josiah
awoke with pieces of catfish in his mouth. Garbage was strewn all over
the enclosed space. Only he was lying on top of a pile of discarded
eggshells, brown paper scraps, a half-empty bottle of ketchup, leaves
covered with syrup, an old pair of tennis shoes, and a broken mixer. “A
well? They threw me into a well?” Josiah asked himself. He chuckled a
little and looked up. Scanned the sky, a tiny spot, miles away, and
crushed a fly buzzing past his head. Josiah picked up an eggshell and
threw it up to see if it could make it over the top of the well. It did not
and instead, landed in the space between his legs. “I guess I’m all
alone now,” Josiah said, “Hmm? What shall I do for the rest of the
evening? Digging for trash? Oh, the possibilities . . .” Josiah began
digging through the trash as if he were looking for China. He kept
digging until his arms were waist-deep and then Josiah happened upon
a magnificent find: a crossword puzzle with only a few marked pages.
He yelped with delight. But then, he realized that he had no pen or
pencil. Also, some of the puzzles seemed foreign to him. Particularly,
the entertainment puzzles with their questions about television shows
that he neither watched nor cared for.

The rain began to plunge down in torrents. Josiah snatched a long

piece of brown paper, and covered his head. Raindrops fell like tapping
fingers and Josiah needed something to take his mind off of his
growing hysteria for movement. His legs stiffened; he spit into his
hands, rubbing his legs furiously so he could feel them. Josiah’s eye
then caught a shiny, silvery metal object out of the corner of his eye. A
whistle. His lips were wet and stiff but Josiah believed that if he could
whistle loudly, blow into the whistle’s mouthpiece, Ted and Tequila
might hear him, might forgive him for his unkind words. Neither one
came for him, but the rain stopped. Hours passed. The small, murky
puddles of brown water around him sloshed against his legs. Josiah’s
fortress-home was almost quaint. But he knew that he needed to get
out of there. Knew that by morning, he would need a little food in his
belly. He continued to whistle, and as the sun began to creep up over
the well’s opening, Josiah began to feel hopeless. By noontime, he
cupped the liquid in his chapped hands. Despite its appearance, his
lips tasted a slighty sweet concoction. After all of the water
surrounding him was gone, Josiah began digging through the soggy
piles of garbage. He discovered an old carton of Kool milds, and kept
digging. Still, Josiah found nothing.

Evening came. Josiah blew into his whistle. He laid his head back on
the well’s wall. Blood seeped down from his head. Black blood. “Must
have been from when they threw me in here,” Josiah said and sighed.
He asked himself one important question: Was this the end? Josiah was
snoring when the fire sparkles began dancing over his head. They
moved through the air, and the world seemed to stop, waiting for him
to reappear. He called out, cried, and the shadow of a woman
appeared above him. She looked down at him. “Oh, it’s you. We
figured you went back to that motel, baby.” “Tequila, dear, how was I
supposed to get out of here?” Josiah asked. “Well, let me help you,
Josiah. I’ll throw down some rope, we’ll tie it to the back of Ted’s truck
and yank you out of there. Just hold on now.” This time, both Ted and
Tequila kept their promise. True to their word, they helped him escape
from the well. Josiah’s first inkling of the nighttime sky brought him
face-to-face with Tequila. They were still dressed in their costumes and
when Josiah’s feet finally touched the ground, he cried with the air of a
complacent baby. She wrapped her arms around him. “There, there,
Josiah, we’re here now. We only did it because we love you. You can’t
be loyal, going around saying bad things about us. Remember, we
could have forgotten about you, but we didn’t. You should be so
grateful, okay? Baby,” Tequila said and opened her arms wide. She
gave him a soothing rub on his back. Josiah was so overwhelmed that
he didn’t whether or not to punch and kick the ground as if he were
two years old, or if he should start sucking his thumb.

Instead, Josiah found himself bawling his eyes. He allowed himself to

have a good cry. Blew his nose into her shirt. She continued to whisper
sweet words of kindness into his ears. Ted stood off to the side,
nodding his head. A stray dog ran around their little circle. Tequila
gently coaxed Josiah to follow him over to the porch steps. She
chuckled and said, “That’s all we wanted. Get to know you better and
help you, help us too. Baby, I’ll bet you gotta a lovely gal.” Josiah said,
“No, I’m single.” She replied, “Single? Hmm. What about family? I know
we can’t be the first ones to make you cry.” They were sitting on the
porch, arms linked together. Ted ran into the house, brought out a
blanket, tucked around Josiah’s shoulders, and stood in the
background, swatting at flies.

“Actually, I grew up in an orphanage. But they couldn’t contain me.

Climbed walls but there weren’t enough beds. Ventured around.
Came to a motel, not unlike this one, one night for a high school party
in the banquet room. Fell in love with the atmosphere, you know? I
could finally climb walls and walk freely. Wasn’t about religion. Just
about me,” Josiah said, turning to face her. She took a tissue and
wiped away his tears. “Family? You and Ted have family? Any little
ones?” Josiah asked. “Nope. Just us. Sometimes, Ted gets upset about
that. ‘Cause I don’t want any babies. Least not with him. Hell, we don’t
even have the same last name and it’s lots of things. Mostly Ted’s
temper. I ain’t bringing no baby into this mess. He don’t like me saying
that. But you can’t change a woman’s heart. Just don’t tell him that. He
just goes off . . .” Her voice slightly cracked.

“That’s what I like about my job. Casual clothes, fast-food lunches, get
paid in cash. Simple,” Josiah said. “ I tried that. But I was always too
tired for my real life, this life after. Sometimes, though, I wish things
could be different. This ain’t even our house. None of them ever are,”
Tequila said. A sob escaped from her lips. Now, Josiah wrapped his
arms around her. He thought to himself, ‘You want my sympathies
now, you childless bitch.’ But he said nothing, stared at her, a deer-in-
the-headlight looks. Through the mirror he saw her, broken,
vulnerable, and pretty but not beautiful. She picked up on his
sentiments and replied, “I hated you the other night. Hated what you
said, and yet, even now, I find myself strangely attracted to you.”
Tequila and Josiah kissed.

“If your name wasn’t Tequila, what would it be?” Josiah asked. She was
so fascinating to him, all he could think of was how he was going to
remember the million other questions in his mind. “I don’t know.
Something plain like Jane. I don’t want to talk about that,” she replied
and they kissed again, a long, passionate kiss. Josiah pulled away and
nodded in Ted’s direction. “He’s not a bother but a bore,” Tequila said.
At this statement, Ted burped and ran past them. He gave them the
thumbs-down sign with a jealous look in his eyes. Grabbed a fishing
pole from the nearby tool shed, near a field of trees, and headed
toward the well. “Where’s he going?” Josiah asked. “Oh, just going
fishing for treasure. See, when we’re traveling around, sometimes we’ll
go through other people’s garbage bags, and put their stuff in our own
garbage bags. Since we’re here for awhile, figured we’d dump
everything over there and then look later. Makes it easier for us to
move around.”

She nodded her head and then patted Josiah’s knees. “I’m surprised no
one’s spotted us. What will you do if someone from town sees us?” he
asked. “Oh, we’ll be gone by then. Ain’t nothing here. ‘Sides, we only
squat at night. Life’s simpler that way. Ain’t got to deal with people,
you know? Now, we’ve met some other characters. Lots of people try
to join our club, league. But they’re not like us, get it?” Tequila asked.
Josiah shrugged his shoulders. “This is the adventure I’ve been looking
for and you people took me, so I have an excuse. Can’t rightly blame . .
.” Josiah paused. “Not even the Queen of England,” they said together
in unison. “You want to come along with us. That’s what you are
saying?” Tequila asked. “I’m not saying anything else,” Josiah said.
“Okay, then. I like the way you speak. So proper. And you don’t whine.
But we’re characters with costumes, the way you said. A motel clerk
ain’t a costume.”

The words hung in the air.

“I have an idea. When I was inside the well, I found a neat little whistle.
Must have dropped it when you pulled me up. I could be a banjo player
or a whistleblower,” Josiah said. “That might get you in trouble,”
Tequila said, flatly. “All right, maybe not. Now, there’s a neat little
Scarecrow out in the fields. He could have my wet clothes, and I could
take his dry ones. I don’t think he’ll mind.” Tequila’s mouth dropped
open. “Hank? Mind? Did you ask him? I mean, should we ask him?
Give me a break.” The question floated and danced in the air for a few
minutes. “Never mind. I’ve got an idea. Wait here.” Tequila ran up the
dusty stairs and into the house. She came back to Josiah minutes later
with two items in her hands. “What’s this?” Josiah asked. She shook his
head and motioned for his clothes.

One Hour Later . . .

Ted whistled Josiah’s whistle. Twirled a broken necklace around his

fingers. Continued whistling until he came to the front of the house. He
whistled a hearty, piercing sound through his lips at the sight of them.
Josiah was sitting on Tequila’s lap. He had no clothes on, except an
adult-sized diaper and a matching bonnet. She had him in her lap,
spanking him with a wooden spoon. “Josiah, what on Earth are you
doing?” Ted asked. “Gaga, goo-goo,” came the reply.

The Hotel Window

I.
His hands touched her breasts but they weren’t really there. See, she
believed that the human touch could evaporate without reason and
beyond the possibilities of eternity. But, when she told this to others,
they refused to look at the marks on her breasts. But didn’t want you
want to touch her? Didn’t you want to see inside her head and wonder
how God made naked bodies that hide behind foggy windows? And
believed that if she had pushed herself hard enough, she might have
floated away to Neverland and never had to do anything imagined.

II.
His eyes made her cry but they didn’t speak at all. See, she believed
that if we could make words from not speaking anything at all and she
cried while the world dropped tears from her eyes. If this had not
happened, she might have had nothing to look at when staring outside.
She might not have told their secrets, yes, theirs, without ever having
made a telephone call. Just lied in bed and dared someone, anyone to
knock on the door. That would have brought us to the center of the
stage but the lights were off and she didn’t care to turn them back on.
But not that it would have mattered, she wouldn’t have opened the
door. She wouldn’t have moved past the cheap floral bedspread to the
television. Nor would she have turned on the television to watch old
wrestling shows from the ‘can’t-kill-me-80’s-era.’ No, but she wouldn’t
answer the door if anyone knocked. She’d rather run and hide from
him. She’d rather make him believe that she had flown away. Those
eyes that she imagined about when she sat and waited. She would
rather do anything than watch those eyes over and over again. Didn’t
you want to destroy her? Didn’t you want to not say a word and
wonder how the hell God made bodies that won’t float, eyes that won’t
cry and knees that won’t plead? And you didn’t believe her when she
said that she pushed herself to stay. She suffered. She fell. She bled.
Everyone else had known but you. Everyone else had watched and
waited.

III.
His heart escaped from in between her legs but it was never his to give
in the first place. See, she believed that if she waited, he would allow
her to be a free woman but she was wrong. The window won’t open
and she would have to hurt herself to fly away. She dreamed last night
that you destroyed some other woman and that it was she standing
outside, next to the telephone booth, with a pink scarf and blue lips,
waiting. The ring flew out of the window. The knock on the door came
again but nothing stopped her from putting those big hands around her
throat as you dared her to look away from you. She stood there
smoking a cigarette, laughing as her dreams crumbled before her
eyes. She bleeds, she dies, she rumbles, she shakes and the world
goes on. Didn’t you hear her? She called your name. But no, you want
to watch her watching you and wonder how God made bodies but God
didn’t make minds? And you didn’t believe her, so you pushed her
down, again and again. You could never imagine the possibilities so
she floated away with both of our hearts, yours and hers.

IV.
His lies were the reason she waited. She tuned everything out. Even in
blood, even in death, she kept her promise. She clutched it like a purse
and kept it locked away. It was found again in this room, amidst the
smell of dried sex, Chanel No. 5 and one lit table lamp. The room was
empty. The serving tray in the hallway covered with half-eaten food
and she waited. The telephone rang but she knew it was coming from
across the street. The train not stopping, the best of the worst, the
sound of a man’s voice. All she could hear was the faint sound of glass
breaking. If he made a promise, he didn’t keep it that night. But she
was ready; her lines rehearsed: Didn’t you want to lie? Truth be told,
didn’t you want her to wonder how God made bodies? And he didn’t
believe her. He pushed her away. She fought back but he broke her.
He lied. He killed her. So, she destroyed the one thing he loved. With
the curl of a hand, she welcomed his lies. Two become one and not
three.

V.
He sat by the window and she walked by. He winked at her but she
was not sitting next to him. She watched the eyes, all four of them.
Two pairs of eyes smirked. It was the not first time that had happened.
She was used to being in third place. Ten days later, she saw him
again. It was six blocks away. She had asked for the time; it was all she
could think to say. Seven o’clock on the dot. They stood near a flea
market where a Cambodian woman walked by and offered them eight-
legged spiders, cooked to a crisp.

As the rain dropped, silence engulfed them until he told a joke that
made her blush and five fingers went over her mouth. It took him all of
twelve seconds to apologize. She smiled and he noticed a gap,
separating eleven of her teeth on the left from eleven on the right.
That happened right across the street. She didn’t remember, not until
that night.

By then, she was crying. But no one could tell. The window covered her
sorrow the rain covered her tears. He walked by again. She decided
that she wasn’t going to wait again. She knew what she was going to
say: Didn’t he want to wait for her? She had waited all this time, all
these years to hear from him. Locked away like broken hair follicles,
she needed water to break away. Didn’t he want her to be happy? But
that was in her mind. Still, she believed in happy endings. With that,
she opened the window, called out to him and floated away. To the
land of happy endings. She believed that he would rescue her, that he
would catch her. So she closed her eyes and hoped that he would
catch her.

Brown-Faced Little Girls

Little girl.

Long beautiful jet black

hair. Your Mama say you lucky that

your hair so long and thick. You little

so you don't realize this. Lots of people

like to rake their fingers through your

hair so only your Mama can comb it.

Little girl. You take all these activities

that you really have no heart into. You

in ballet and wear your hair up into a

bun with little curls falling around. Your

Mama put your hair up and pray

that your barrettes don't break.

Rubber bands and ponytails don't break off.

Hair won't look right. Your Mama says that

a woman's best asset is her hair.

Yes, Mama, I know.

You in Girl Scouts, actually you a brownie

and you have to wear an ugly brown uniform

and matching brown hat.

Little girl. I'm glad that my grandmother

don't make don't make me wear nothing

hideous like that. Your Mama let you wear

your hair down so everyone can see how

long and beautiful her hair is and what a

great job she does taking care of it.

Before my momma went to jail, she says

that your Mama is stuck on herself.

Little girl. Your hair don't look so great.

And while you gone to Girl Scouts; I play

with your dolls. Lots of beautiful dolls from

all over the world. I play with them until I

get bored with them, your Mama says to

put them away but I don't listen to her

cause she not my real Mama.

Little girl. If your Barbie's hair itch my

hands, I chop the hair all off. And if

those dolls talk back, I chop off their

hands. And then I throw them away.

Don't cry. What you cryin' for?!

Oh! So you gonna go tell your

Mama like a punk.

Headless Barbies?! What is the world

coming to? Why would you do that?

Stay away from those scissors and

don't cut your hair!

Little girl. Your Mama did a good job

with her hair but she tried to cut

my hair. Said I had dead, split ends.

I told her if she tries to cut my hair,

I was going to come with a pair of

scissors and cut up her hair when she

sleep. So she said that I gotta go back.

She scared of me. Say she wasn't the

one that let that old, blind woman give

me a perm.

Little girl. Your Mama says that I'm

looking on the wrong side of a two-

sided mirror.

Little girl. You got to tell your Mama

to let me stay. If I go back, who am

I going to talk to? Whose uniform am

I going to make fun of? Don't you want

me to stay? No? Well, I don't like you

neither. Dang! You cryin' again? I was

just kiddin'. Wait: one more thing:

Little girl, you cryin' but you lucky.

You lucky cause your Mama never

let anyone burn your hair off and

you lucky cause you have your Mama

around. I envy you Little Girl. You

and your life, cause I wish it were mine,

and I wish your Mama was mine. But

I guess not.

Three Different Ways to tell a Lie

I hear my father, a painter, speaking in the background. My father only

speaks on the telephone when he is making business calls or if there is
trouble. He does not know this, but today is my last day at home. I am
afraid for my parents, but I am more afraid of their reaction.
My mother is talking about leaving, but that is just talk, and my
father believes preachers and church folks don’t tell the truth. I know
that’s not true, but I cannot argue with him. See, he’s from down
South, way down where sometimes my girl cousins molest me against
my will and my grandmother fixes chitterlings and swears it is not pig
meat but something else. Some say it tastes salty, but I am the wrong
person to ask; I am a vegetarian.
I am very excited about my quest. I am painting a portrait of
Factory Worker City. A paintbrush that guides my hands is under my
full-size canopy bed. I plan to pull it out tonight after my parents are
asleep.
I expect that they are going to want to see the portrait of her. I
am prepared for that. My wrong address is going to lead them down
the wrong street. The next time my parents see me, I am on television.
The black woman news anchor with the Spanish name and the red
freckles is interviewing me, and I am famous.
A painter. That is why my father is talking with my mother, telling
her to get home. She is a muse, but especially for my father. My
mother cries when I paint her, and I am proud of myself. I finally did
something to get her attention. I understand my capabilities, even
when others cannot.

II.

She is sitting still while I read her letter. I paint over that image of
my wife with my paintbrush. With the stroke of a bristle, she
disappears, and I am happy. I go into his bedroom a first time the other
day to see what he paints, and all I see are gloves, a ski mask, a crow
bar, and lots of purses. He says that it is a part of his work.
My son claims to be a famous painter. I go into his bedroom to
see his paintings, and I find my missing dames in a corner. His
bedroom reminds others of a treehouse filled with black dolls. They
have painted faces with upside down clay smiles. He models them
after the ones I have seen at Hudson’s. He calls them inspiring; they
represent the familiar side of this city. Their breasts are shaped from
his hands, and I am scared of him.
The purses’ owners were the models, and he was the artist.
Portraits of still life, I like to call them pictures. I am not Picasso, but I
know they were intended for me. I am not upset. These are the words
that I tell you will be my last today.

III.

The very first time the father-husband learned how to paint across his
wife’s face, the son was only two years old. The son wept without tears
and took his anger out on his mother’s breasts. He bit into her purple-
brown chest with his baby-yellow teeth and grabbed tufts of her hair
with his hands, his fists. She responded by giving him sips of red wine.

The son crumpled like paper when she weaned him off her breasts with
sips of red wine. She responded to her son by encouraging the wearing
of long nightgowns; his teeth bit down on leftover, baby dolls. As a
child, he learned to take this allegiance, thus becoming a gatekeeper
of secrets between painters, a muse, and dolls. His first drawing was
twelve dead babies, ten for each Christmas he had been on Earth and
two for those he had not; he had failed his mother.
The father loved to study his son, who loved to study his mother
dressing up in beautiful gowns. The son painted makeup on her cheeks
and listened with her to the vulnerable black diva with the collapsing
singing on the record player. One night he awoke to hearing his father
painting across his mother’s face, and he decided to learn how to
paint. Only his colors were a mix of reds, browns, and yellows.
The mother encouraged her son to smoke cigarettes with him and
was even proud of his interest in her breasts. The hired one, a painter,
liked to play with the son too. The three of them would hop into bed
and pretend to be a family while the father was away. They took turns
painting across her face with a blank canvas.
As a young man, the son believed that he could become a famous
painter. The first portrait was easy. He walked up to a woman waiting
for a taxi in front of a loft building on East Jefferson that reminded him
of a painting he saw once. He told her that he was an artist, and he
would like to sketch her portrait. “How much is this going to cost me?”
she asked. “Nada,” he said.
They walked to the edge of Belle Isle Park and sat down on a
graffiti-sprayed bench. He took a cigarette from his pocket, huffed and
puffed, and began to tell his story: I am not actually an artist, but I am
a magician. A bottle of red wine and two glasses magically appeared.
My father has said not to come back home until I could prove
something. He did not actually say these words, but that is what I am
getting from him.
Will you help me? The young woman said yes and closed her eyes
and parted her lips. With the slip of a tongue, he kissed her, and they
locked fingers. “Your eyes are beautiful,” she said. “Yes, that’s what
people tell me,” he replied, cried, and began to paint.
His father asked him about the young woman, but he said
nothing. His father’s friend asked about her, and he replied that she
was a secret, a woman hidden behind a smile with perfect breasts, but
she was no dame. He winked at his mother when he said this. She
looked at him and knew what he meant. “Just like the painter, I will
always be your muse,” she said and nodded her head. The night after
she took those photographs with the other painter, he mysteriously
followed a bunny out of the house and disappeared.
That was the year her son had been a magician. He simply went
into the wine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Merlot. He poured the
drink into a magical glass. The son stood up and looked at the group. “I
think that it’s time for me to change professions. You know, I’ve always
wanted to be an inventor.” His mother took a sip of wine and his father
looked at his son. The father replied, “Yes, of course, but first, I am
going to paint on your face.”

The Factory Worker’s Daughter

After a lifetime of grease and sweat,

the man wiped his hands, and climbed
out of the car. His eyes were old; they had
seen too many sunrises and sunsets.
His hands were weathered; they had broken
many noses, and smoothed many backs. His
feet were dirty; they had outrun and outlived those
white boys down in Caldwell County, North Carolina.

Hell, that was back in the 50's. They wouldn't sit

by him, they made fun of him, so why should he work
for them? They chased him in that red pick-up truck,
but if he could outrun Mama's belt, he could outrun the
Green boys. His head was sore; those boxing bouts
helped him, Mama and Baby Shirley move from rural
North Carolina to Baltimore's slum ghettos. His nose
twitched; he had smelled blood in the alley, and catfish
from Smokin' Joe's. His ears were ringing; they hadn't
stopped since he had taken the train to New York City.

Hell, that was back in the 60's. New York City had brought
him college, gang life--when gangs took your money, not
your life---and Margaret, a beautiful white girl. His mouth
was dry; he was speechless when her rich daddy told her
it was either the family or her nigger-ass boyfriend. His heart
was broken; how could she break up with him? How could
he ever trust white folks again? His stomach was jittery;
the first time was when his estranged father told him about
these factory jobs in Detroit.

Hell, that was back in the 70's. It was either that or stick around
for the draft. The traveler became the factory worker. The grease
and sweat still fell and became puddles on the dry cement. A
cigarette took its place in between his lips as he looked at the
children. One pretty brown face stood out among them. He walked
forward, watched the children play in front of the school.

The factory worker, who was always so proud of his working-class

life, hesitated. He watched as lawyers and doctors and accountants
made their way over to their children. His eyes were red with tears;
he could have made more of his life. The choices he made: to take
this job; move to Detroit; to settle down with a nice girl: they bought
a house together, and had this sweet little baby girl.
Hell, that was back in the late 70's. It was now 1984. Reagan was
president; Michael Jackson was still a household name; and people
were proud to be Democrats. The children stopped playing as he

slowly moved forward. They held their noses, while parents and
teachers rolled their eyes. She slowly turned around, to see what
her friends were seeing, and watched with disbelief as his hand
waved at her. Everyone watched the little girl as her eyes narrowed
until they became slits. She slowly turned around as if nothing had
happened. Today the little girl was no one's daughter. The factory
worker climbed into his car, and slowly drove away. That was 14
years ago, and he eventually forgave her because Hell, that was
back in the 80's.