The Blackbirds (26 page)

“Any boys?”

“Boys? You know your baby is an adult, right?”

“I know.”

“I'm teasing you, Mr. Jones.”

He nodded. “She never mentions any boys, or men. Funny, when she was young I wanted to keep her away from men. Now I'm concerned because she doesn't have anyone in her life. She never talks about dating. Girls her age, that's all they talk about. Boys, boys, boys.”

“She's dated a couple of guys.”

“Good.”

“It didn't last.”

“At least she's trying. That's good.”

“She's tried to be Destiny Jones with them, and they can't handle her strength.”

“I want her to be okay, but I have no idea what to do. She didn't make it to Yale or Harvard like we had hoped, but she's at a great university. As long as she's at USC, she can do good in life, no matter what has happened to her. Shit like that happens and some women never recover. I didn't want my daughter to end up becoming a stripper and doing that to get by. That's not what she's doing at night, is it?”

“Of course not, Mr. Jones. Why would you even think that?”

“The hair. The way she dyed it. She always has money in cash.”

Ericka laughed. “She's not a stripper.”

“Well, nowadays it seems to be an honorable occupation.”

“Based on music, one would think. But why would that even cross your mind?”

“I went to a strip club with some friends not long ago. Saw another one of my friend's daughters was working there. She made men create thunderstorms by throwing up wrinkled dollar bills and watching gravity pull them all back to a nasty floor. No matter how high a woman was from her performance, from the adulation, she still had to be on the ground, on the level of the lowest of the low, to collect her offering, as
if she were a homeless or discarded veteran picking up money thrown on the ground. No dignity lives on the ground. When the dance was done, strippers bent over or got down on their haunches and picked up fallen dollars the way slaves picked cotton. The same way a slave smiled at a master, the stripper gave a bogus and insincere grin to her customers, her masters of the moment.”

“Were you at a strip club or a spoken-word event? You're spitting poetry.”

“It was a strip club. I was trying to not sound so damn ghetto about it.”

“No need to try and impress me with your intellect.”

“I know. But I do. I do try and impress you.”

“Do you? You have two degrees and want to impress me?”

“You make me nervous. You make me aware of myself. So, now you know.”

“Destiny would never do that, Mr. Jones. She'd never swing from a pole.”

“No man thinks his daughter would do that, but the club is filled with daughters.”

“Destiny is too cerebral to be a stripper. I know that there are strippers who have degrees, but your child is a rare breed. She'd be a Mensa stripper and if you wanted her to get naked, you'd have to answer Mensa-level questions. She would make them take a twenty-minute IQ test, and they would have to not miss a question for her to take off a sock.”

Mr. Jones laughed. “Thanks. That will make me sleep a little better.”

“You saw a friend's daughter, someone you knew as a little girl?”

“And there she was. She moved her moneymaker and men slapped it with worn and dingy dollar bills. Just made me wonder what my daughter was doing, that's all. A lot of those girls come from bad homes, or have had bad things happen to them in life. A lot of men see those girls as low-hanging fruit.”

“It left you feeling something.”

“A man sees the world differently when he has a daughter.”

“When he loves his daughter. Only when he loves his daughter.”

“Every man should love his daughter.”

“You see the world the way it's always been, Mr. Jones. I'm a teacher. I see the scientists, and poets, and writers in the making, but I also see the next con, the molester, the next thief, the next stripper, and the girl who behaves as if she will grow up to be the next prostitute.”

“Not my daughter. I just sat there wondering how I would've felt if I had walked in and found her working there to get enough money to pay her way through USC.”

Silence returned and brought her friend, awkwardness.

Again crumpling the edges of the bag, the noise again causing Mr. Jones to look at her hands, Ericka said, “Well, here's the medicine Destiny asked me to bring you.”

“It's prednisone.”

“Be careful with the stuff you buy across the border. It's not regulated.”

“Only take it when I have to, when it's impossible to be comfortable or to sleep.”

“The side effects. The least being that I broke out and had skin infections, so I lived on antibiotics, which my stomach didn't like, so then I had to take something for that. I was taking layers of medication. Taking medicines to fight off the side effects of medicines. And my mood was never even. One day I would be sweet, the next I was calling people and cursing them out.”

“We have to poison ourselves with chemicals and radiation to get cured of the poisoned food, the food with steroids and additives and preservatives that have already poisoned us all.”

“The crap we take to cure cancer can cause cancer, just like the food they sell us.”

“Vicious cycle. My feet and hands might swell in a few weeks. Skin will darken.”

Ericka said, “Well, if you need me to drive you to your appointments, or if you're not comfortable with me taking you, let me or one of the other Blackbirds know.”

“Thanks, Ericka. I will ask you.”

“You can ask Indigo or Kwanzaa. Both have cars.”

“I prefer your company. You would understand if my mood went crazy. Prednisone, too much of that shit and I might curse people out too.”

“Anytime, day or night, if you need me, I'll come right over and let you curse me out. Where I grew up, I'm used to being cursed out.”

He chuckled. “Thanks.”

“And if you want, I can take some of your Kush and ask Indigo to make you some brownies so your house won't smell like you're living with Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson.”

“That would be nice. I could cure the munchies as I ate the medicine.”

“Don't eat that much. You'll end up in the emergency room and they'll trace it back to me.
Sixth-grade teacher makes weed brownies on weekends, details at eleven.”

Again they laughed.

She said, “I guess I should get back home and not overstay my welcome. I cooked Kwanzaa's dinner for the crew.”

She stood to leave, trying to shake off the memory of a nirvana gone by, trying to ignore the euphoria a person feels when falling in love. It was time to let go and move on with the rest of her life. She extended the white Kaiser Permanente bag out to him. He reached and took part of the bag, gripped the edges. She didn't let her end of the bag go, hadn't intended to hold on, but couldn't free herself. She stared at Mr. Jones, the bag suspended between both of them.

“I miss you, Mr. Jones. Did you miss me at all?”

“I've been thinking about you, too.”

He tugged the bag like he was trying to pull her to him.

He felt something. Now that scared her.

She resisted. “Jesus, we can't do that again.”

“You're right.”

“No more sofa.”

“No more sofa.”

“I think I just wanted to know that it meant something to you.”

“It did.”

“Did it?”

“It meant a lot.”

“It meant a lot to me.”

“You mean a lot to me.”

“You mean a lot to me too.”

Ericka exhaled, jittery. Being sexually aroused fired up the brain and caused the body to stay awake longer during the night. It was a good thing. She needed to stay awake.

She stepped away, began undressing.

He asked, “What are you doing, Ericka?”

She stood before him, her clothing pooled at her feet.

“You sure you want to pass this up? This is me naked, Mr. Jones. This is what you're afraid of. I'm a grown woman. This is not the body of a
child
. I am tall, slim where it matters, and thick where it counts most. You sure you want to let me walk out of that door right now? Do you?”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because you do this to me.”

Hakeem knew I was Destiny Jones.

He knew.

Doing twenty over the posted limit, I sped past Indian Wood and came up to Raintree Condominium-Apartments. The walled, gated, guarded community where the mechanical engineer I had fallen for lived was built on the land where they had filmed
Gone with the Wind
.

I hesitated, checked my anxiety level before I made a left onto the property.

After I downshifted and cruised my motorcycle over the speed bump, I nervously jammed my key card into the slot and the gate eased up. It felt strange using the passkey.

I didn't want to come here.

Didn't want to be here.

Wanted to be able to hide from this and keep moving.

But lust was physiological, and I was beyond that, and into the philosophical aspects of being in love. This was not about sex. My soul ached like I'd never sleep again.

I was angry with myself for not telling him before he found out on his own. I was angry with myself because I had ended up in this horrible position.

I cruised over the speed bumps, picked up speed, felt my anger surging in waves.

His Ram 3500 was pulled up to the wall.

His sixty-thousand-dollar Big Wheel was here, so he was here.

Nancy's car was in a visitor's space.

That meant Eddie and Nancy were over getting Nancied and Eddied.

Eddie didn't have a car. Nancy had become his Kato and walking ATM.

They were here, together, and I knew Hakeem had told them, so they were talking about me. I would have to face them all. I would have to explain to them all. I felt so damn defensive.

I parked, turned off my CBR, took off my helmet, but kept my motorcycle gloves on. I spied something useful, picked up a piece of steel rebar that was on the ground, left over from construction. It was about fourteen inches of unforgiving metal. I swung it, made it go
whoosh.

Nerves made me bat rocks. My mind told me to be Kismet. Let Kismet handle this.

I dropped the rebar, let it clank onto the asphalt.

I stopped where I was. I called Ericka to tell her what had happened, where I was. She didn't answer. I called Indigo. Her calls went straight to voicemail. I called Kwanzaa. She didn't answer. I called my dad. He didn't answer his cellular or his house phone.

I called my mother in NYC. She didn't answer.

I asked God what to do. There was no answer from above.

I asked every version of me ever created what I should do.

They did not respond.

The universes had abandoned me.

I was alone.

I called Hakeem again. He sent my call straight to voicemail.

His voicemail was still full from me leaving messages all evening.

I just wanted him to hear me out. He was denying me the chance to explain.

I wanted him to hear what was in my heart in my words.

The image of that billboard on La Brea flashed in my mind, only instead of the image of a brown-skinned boy I saw my face over the price of incarceration versus the cost of education.

There was also a cost of relationship for all those incarcerated, a cost of love.

I saw my face with a line down the center, one side with me as I am now, the other side with me as I was at fifteen, when I was young, naïve, and nice to so many undeserving people.

If I could only go back and talk to her, if I could tell her that it wasn't worth it.

I wanted to tell her that one day she would meet a man named Hakeem. I wanted to tell her to be calm, unflappable, and one day love would find her. I wanted to tell her to be honest and she would fall in love one day. I would tell her that here is where she would end up if she wasn't patient. I would tell her that she would end up heartbroken, afraid, angry, and unable to find anyone she loved to tell her what to do, to talk her down from her angst. I would make that hardheaded child listen.

I walked toward the building at an unsure pace. With each step my fear and anxiety swelled in my throat. I took deep breaths, tried to knock away bad thoughts, tried to mentally bat away my fear. But I could bat away demons all night. The fear wasn't going to leave. It had taken root, and it was deeper than the deepest root of a wild fig tree at Echo Caves in South Africa.

I felt different. I felt a change and I knew why.

Tonight I wasn't here as Kismet Kellogg.

Tonight I was Destiny Jones.

And being here as my true self, being here with the shame my name carried, terrified me.

After the second session, after the panting that made her throat dry, after the echo of skin smacking skin like fierce soul-clap after soul-clap, after the vaginal contractions and guttural moans, after so many stages of arousal that had her writhing beneath him, when it no longer felt like she was suffocating, Kwanzaa had freed herself from the heat and rolled her sweaty body to the far side of the bed, needing to get away from that last wave of orgasms in order to survive.

She listened to the man who wore Hugo Boss, a man who was now wearing only his own skin, pant and struggle to breathe, his throat also too dry, exhausted.

No words were spoken as she wheezed, prayed for her spent body to cool down.

She gave into alcohol and exhaustion, and slept for ten minutes, maybe fifteen, until she was jarred awake by another round of sirens heading toward the homeless. It was hard to get comfortable in a foreign bed, in a stranger's apartment, downtown where the sounds of sirens rode on every breeze, where helicopters flew in the distance, where cars were broken into all night long, or even worse, where she felt like another woman might come in at any moment. Drunken sex. It had been drunken sex. She felt the lack of judgment, yielded a sigh, but the intact passion of lovemaking resonated. It still felt surreal.

She put her hand between his legs, amazed, not turned off, actually turned on. Still mesmerized. Still craving.

They didn't kiss. She thought about it. Hoped for it. Didn't happen. It wasn't necessary.

They were strangers who had met and fallen into a strange bed without a second thought. When this ended, they'd still be strangers. Strangers with carnal knowledge, but still ignorant of each other. The shallowness of sex was but a momentary salve.

She took a few breaths, felt clearheaded enough to leave, would be down Fourth Street to the 110 South, then off at Florence in a jiffy, and from there it was a short drive through a land with a mixture of signs in Spanish and in English, where her black world was turning more Latin every day. She was one of the few who both embraced and loved the change. There had never really been a Southern California, only a Baja Norte, and the people were reclaiming their land.

It scared white people because they would lose voting power. Indigo said that it scared black Americans because they had no land to claim as their own. The black man had always been a wanderer on this continent, displaced from his own culture, ignorant of his own true languages, running from the south to flee Black Codes and Jim Crow, running to the north to work in the automobile industry, running west to work in aerospace, only to find Black Codes and Jim Crow lived from coast to coast. Kwanzaa told Indigo the African fled Africa for the same reasons.

Kwanzaa yawned.

It was time to go.

She could be pulling up at her apartment building in twenty minutes, maybe thirty, unless there was an accident or construction. Outside of those factors, there shouldn't be any bumper-to-bumper traffic at that time of the night.

She stared at Hugo Boss for a moment.

This was done.

It was going to be awkward seeing him at Starbucks. She decided she would ask to get transferred immediately.

She kissed Hugo Boss, kissed Mr. Iced Coffee good night, kissed him and knew she would never kiss him again. She walked away as if she didn't need to be escorted to her car, and along the way took out her pepper spray. Kwanzaa did her brazen sashay out into the darkness of
downtown L.A., heels
clip-clopp
ing hours before the arrival of the official hours of the Walk of Shame, the hours of a restless woman's walk of atonement.

The stink of gentrification and the putridness of the homeless were strong, but otherwise the street was empty. She had expected to see many women outside, waiting for Hugo Boss to open the door, waiting to be chosen to be next to experience his blessing. His
blessings
.

When Kwanzaa made it to her car, a dark blue Kia Optima, she made sure no one was following her, then sat in her car a moment, saw her dad had sent her a happy birthday text message, saw her stepdad had sent a message, saw her stepmom had sent a message, saw her mom had sent a video of her singing “Happy Birthday,” and Kwanzaa smiled, felt special.

Then she stopped smiling, started thinking about her ex and an STD that sounded like it should be the name of a Greek goddess, remembered the breakup, the tears, acknowledging the worst feeling in the world was to feel used, but that she still would have met with him tonight if he had called. Good-bye sex could have been her closure.

She would have been with Marcus Brixton at two fifteen, at her birth moment. She had wanted to feel his lips on her neck, on her ears, on her inner thighs, wanted to taste him for the last time. She was hanging in there, trying to reconcile her emotions. If she had seen Marcus, it would have led to talking, to kissing, to being naked. To fondling, to him being inside her, to her coming, and she would have been beyond heaven, and then the sex would have ended, and she would be in bed with him, cooling off, remembering the pain, feeling confused, loving him, and hating herself, crying, arguing, fighting, then going back to her apartment, back to being alone, back to feeling lonely for him.

But instead she had had a one-night stand to protect herself from him.

She double-checked her phone; no messages from Marcus.

For years their thing had been to be in bed on their birthdays; their tradition had been to make love at that middle-of-the-night minute, his voice in her ear telling her happy birthday.

She wiped away a tear and whispered, “Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me.”

She could go home, put on a smile, put on her outfit, kick it with Indigo and Ericka, let them see her glow, wait for Destiny to get in. Then they could all chit-chat for a moment as her girls handed her gifts, more than likely shoes and a vibrator, or gift cards and a vibrator, or a vibrator and a vibrator.

Then sleep alone.

Kwanzaa started the car, but then police sirens jarred her, made her realize how lightheaded she was. She looked back toward the loft, toward a fading memory. Kwanzaa stared at the renovated warehouse, gazed at the graffiti-covered building.

Her phone rang. The caller ID said it was Señora Brixton, Marcus's mother. Señora Brixton had been like Kwanzaa's third mother for the last six years.

Kwanzaa put a smile on her face and answered, “
Buenas noches,
Mama Brixton.”

“Feliz cumpleaños, mija.”

“Gracias. Muchas gracias. Cómo ha estado usted?”

In Spanish Señora Brixton said, “I have been well, thank you. Tonight I tried to stay awake until your birth moment, but I am too old to be awake until that late hour.”

“That's fine, Mama Brixton. It's so nice to hear your voice.”

“I wanted to be the first to call my daughter. You will always be my daughter.”

“You will always be my mother, Señora Brixton.”

“You are a special woman to me. You learned to speak Spanish, and I respect you for that. Mexicans come here hungry for opportunity and the young ones learn English in a year. People here in California are surrounded by Spanish and can barely speak two sentences.”

“Well, many people pick up the xenophobic ways of their oppressors and their nation.”

“This is why you are so different than the others. There is no hate in your heart.”

She told Kwanzaa she had missed her sorely over the last few months, and she would always love her, no matter what had happened to cause her son to break up with her.

Kwanzaa asked, “What do you mean? He told you he broke up with me?”

“I asked Marcus to forgive you,
mija
. I told him you are young and at times young women do foolish things. I do not hate you because of what you did. I was a young woman once upon a time in Mexico. I was young and foolish. I told him to not be so heartbroken and try to forgive.”

“I'm sorry. What did I do to cause Marcus to break up with me?”

“My son told me and his father what you did, how you were with another man.”

“Is that what attorney Marcus Jesús Delgado Muñoz Brixton said to his parents?”

“He said he found you in bed with another man, and for that, he broke the engagement. My son told me you had been seeing a student at UCLA for a very long time behind his back.”

“That's not true, Mama Brixton. I am not that kind of woman. You know that.”

“My son went to Harvard. He is a Christian. He is a man of character.”

Silence fell between them. That silence told her whose side his mother was on.

When she was a teenager, Marcus's mother had paid a coyote to bring her across three deserts so she could work hard in sweat factories and clean filthy toilets in large homes to earn herself the American dream. She had knocked on Marcus's father's door, a funeral home director who would first become her client, then her boyfriend, and eventually her husband.

Wide-eyed, Kwanzaa said, “I love you, Señora Brixton, but your son cannot slander my name.
He
was with another woman.
He
was the one who cheated on me and gave me a disease.”

“He has not said much about what happened at all,
mija
. You gave him a disease?”

“He gave me a disease
. Your son didn't tell you about the Chilean client, the whore he had sex with on his birthday during lunch, then was with me the same evening? His cheating left me bleeding, having a discharge, and in pain each time I urinated.
He did that to me
. Your son
slept with an unclean woman and poisoned my body with the disease the Chilean whore gave to him; did he not tell you? Did he fail to tell you that he risked my health and maybe my damn life and could have given me a million diseases? I kept thinking of all the diseases he could have had after cheating on me. Your son from Harvard, your precious son, he could have given me AIDS or herpes. And he didn't have the nerve to tell me he was nasty. My doctor told me, and
then
your son confessed. He confessed because he had to confess. Now that I think about it, he confessed because he probably didn't know from whom he got it and to whom he had given it. He was walking around with a nasty dick doing only God knows what to whom. I guess your precious son left that part out of the lies he told. I was
never
in bed with any other man, not for the six years I was with him. I never cheated on your son, and the lying bastard knows that.”

“My God.
Mija,
there is no reason for a woman to talk that way.”

“I'm sorry, Mama Brixton, Señora Brixton, but right now my tongue is on fire. Your son was the one who ruined what we had built between our families, not me. If what you are telling me is true, your son is spreading vicious lies about me, the same way he spread a damn disease. He is attacking my character. If I were at fault, I would be at your door begging for forgiveness. Your precious son is a liar and I swear on my dead ancestors' graves I am telling you the truth.”

“My son has no reason to lie to his mother, Kwanzaa.”

“He's an attorney. He is in the business of lying. He is a professional liar.”

“I did not want to upset you like this,
mija
. This was not my intent.”

“Let's be honest. His father was not faithful. You turned your head to all he did. You let him get away with it. Your son will pay for what he has done. He will pay for telling lies on me.”

“Men will be men,
mija
.”

“And a woman will do what a woman has to do, Señora Brixton.”

“I only know what my son has said to me. My son has always been caught between two worlds, has always struggled to figure out where he should be in this world. Do not fault him for being a man and do not fault him for needing to know where he belongs in this world.”

“I'm glad you called me. I am so glad you called me on my birthday.”

“Let's not be angry.
Mija
, I can make you a beautiful pineapple upside-down cake this year too, if you like.”

“No, that will not be necessary. You have already chosen your side in this matter.”

“I did not mean to upset you on your special day.”

Shaking her head, jaw tight, eyes burning, Kwanzaa held the phone as sirens blared down Fourth Street toward downtown, as sirens blared in the opposite direction as well.

“I just wanted to be kind and tell you happy birthday and talk to you in Spanish.”

“Thanks for the call. It was nice to hear your voice, Señora Brixton.”

“Feliz cumpleaños.”

“Gracias
. Have a nice life, Señora Brixton.”

“I hope to hear from you again, my daughter.”

“May you live well and live long, Mama Brixton.”

Kwanzaa ended the call, disillusioned once again, wounded once more, her mind going over six years spent with Marcus, over a time that was only the blink of an eye, tragically brief.

She sat there a moment, infuriated, sober, yanked down from her high.

She shook her head and cried, but she did not cry torrentially.

She had nothing to feel guilty about.

Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

Then she laughed. It was so ridiculous, she laughed.

She wished she were still with Marcus just so she could cheat on him.

She wished she could cheat on him and let him find out about the betrayal. She wanted him to feel all she had felt.

They were to marry two years after she finished grad school, have their first child within four years, and depending on how much they liked the first child, maybe their second within six, and if they all got along, they would adopt an Iraqi war orphan to help them understand young people better. The second child based on how much they liked the first rugrat, and the Franzen-ish line about the Iraqi orphan had been their little joke, as Marcus was a huge fan of Jonathan Franzen, maybe of all successful white men now that Kwanzaa thought about it.