Birth of a Dark Nation (7 page)

I felt like a king. I'd never made anyone
come just by fucking. It typically didn't work like that between
men except in pornos. But hell, if it worked for Dante, it for damn
sure worked for me.

Shortly after it was over, I fell asleep.
Dante crawled next to me and dozed off as well.

Moments later, or maybe even an hour, I
couldn't tell, I was awakened to Dante kissing my neck
passionately, over and over in the same spot. It felt good at
first, then it started to hurt.

"Dante," I said, caressing his hair. He
continued kissing and biting my neck.

"Dante," I said again. He bit harder.

"Dante, stop it," I said, pulling away
sharply.

"Oh… My bad," he said. I looked at him once
more. He looked genuinely sorry and I immediately felt bad.

"It's okay," I said. "Just started to hurt a
little."

"I won't hurt you again," he said. "I'm
sorry."

"I said it's okay," I reiterated. I pulled
him next to me and continued caressing his still damp hair.

He was a weird one, but I liked him. I never
expected to be in this much control of him in the bedroom, but it
was an arrangement I could learn to love.

So, Cissy quit.

We really should have seen it coming,
especially with the slap in the face that was Ernie's absence at
the happy hour. Though it did raise a few hundred dollars—more
money than we would have received without it.

Steve and I were upstairs in my office
bullshitting when it happened. I could hear Cissy raising her
shrill voice first, then Ernie's deep bass rising in volume.
Steve's eyes grew big and we both tiptoed toward the stairs to hear
the argument better.

"Oh, that's rich!" Cissy shouted. "You
expected me to work miracles when you won't even show me the
fucking budget? Why won't you or LaJwanne coming off that
information?"

"That's LaJwanne's domain as the finance
director, not yours."

"The
budget
, Ernie? Really? I can't
see the budget?"

"I don't need to show you the budget for what
I need you to do."

"I am the director of development! I am not
only supposed to know the budget, I'm supposed to be able to tell
you whether or not we can even reach the goals you set. This is a
leadership position and we're supposed to collaborate on these
things. Now how in the hell do you expect me to raise those kinds
of dollars in the next fiscal year?"

"That's not my problem, sweetie. I've already
taken the load off your plate by getting grant writers for the
government grants. You're supposed to be out here making the
relationships."

"How many dossiers have I researched for you?
How many of Washington's richest people have I created profiles
for? You know where these people are. I've given you practically
everything but their social security numbers, but you won't do the
work! You won't follow through! You come to work—sometimes—and just
sit in your office all day doing nothing, expecting the money to
just rain down from heaven. I can't do everything, Ernie."

"Then maybe you need to find another line of
work. You only have one directive in this office and that's to
raise money. And I've given you a lot of freedom to do that, but I
can see that you can't."

"Now wait just a goddamn minute. I've busted
my ass for this organization for the better part of a decade. You
can't tell me I don't know development. If there's one fucking
thing I know about the nonprofit sector, it's development."

"Watch your mouth."

"No, you watch your mouth. I am tired of this
shit, tired of it! I am sick of working for a talentless,
uncreative, unconnected, lazy executive director who won't do the
minimum that the job requires. And I'm tired of you giving away
these contracts to grant writers who are your friends and aren't
nearly qualified to do what's required. Ernie? I quit. I quit this
fucking job so hard."

"Alright then, peace be with you."

"And peace be with you, you lazy bastard. And
by the way? Your breath smells like ass."

I hollered. Steve hollered. Ernie surely
heard us. We hurried down the stairs to see Ernie retreating into
his office and slamming the door. Cissy had an empty cardboard box
and threw her personal effects into it. Tears were streaming down
her face.

"Wait, this is for real?" I asked. Cissy
nodded and Steve immediately went to her. She sobbed while he held
her.

"I just can't do it anymore," she wailed. "He
just…won't let any of us be great. We could be doing so much
here…"

"I know, I know," Steve comforted her. "It's
okay."

He stroked Cissy's hair as she wiped her
eyes.

"But what are you gonna do now?" I asked.
Cissy shrugged.

"I don't know. But anything's got to be
better than this. Justin, promise me that you won't get stuck here.
Steve and I, we're no spring chickens anymore. But you? I know you
have it in you to be more than your job title. Go back to school,
get a master's. Find an executive leadership program. Something.
But don't stay here. This is a dead end."

I nodded vigorously.

Steve and I helped Cissy to her car. I didn't
know what else to say other than goodbye. It all happened so
fast.

"Well champ, that leaves us. The only two
people at Magdalene with any goddamn sense."

"This is crazy," I said. "It's just been us
against the world for so long. I can't believe she's gone."

"Life is more than a paycheck, Justin. You
know that."

I nodded. Steve and I stood on the porch in
silence for a few minutes. A Metrobus stopped in front of the
Masonic hall across the street. Once it pulled off, I saw Dante
walking toward Thayer Street. He glanced over at me, kept walking,
then stopped and glanced again. He raised his hand in the air and
smiled. I forced a smile and a wave back. He beamed.

My life was filled with constants like
paychecks and bills, but I had taken for granted that the sector in
which I worked could change at the drop of a dime. I began this
work because I cared about people. I didn't want to be a cog in a
machine. I wanted to use my expertise to somehow change the sector
for the better. But I was stuck, just like everyone else around me.
The only way out was to get unstuck; to realize that the only
constant could be change itself.

Cissy was gone. Steve and I were left behind
to pretend as though she never existed, still concealing from Ernie
that we held him in little esteem, even while we knew in our hearts
that he was doing his hardest to topple the organization from the
inside. We couldn't prove it, and now his biggest critic had taken
herself out of the game. We couldn't trust the board of the
directors to do the right thing.

It was just me, Steve, and our paychecks
until we found something better.

"You okay, my dude?" Steve asked, as I
watched Dante turn the corner and disappear up the street.

"We gotta do better, man," I said. "All this
is changing around us."

"How we gonna do better?" he asked.

"I dunno. Stop being complacent. Start
fighting."

"Fighting for what? The clients? The best we
can do for them is send them someplace else."

"Fight for something better than what we got.
I don't know. That's all I got…right now."

Steve touched my shoulder and rubbed it,
nodding with understanding.

Something sparked in me that day, the
beginnings of an epiphany. That I was meant for more than the life
I was living. Somehow, I was going to figure out what was next.

I walked to Dante's house after work,
energized and dying to talk to somebody about it. I knocked on the
door and he opened it moments later.

"Hey man!" I said.

"Hey!" He hugged me tightly.

"So, my coworker quit today. Cissy. The white
lady?"

"Yeah, I remember you telling me about her.
What happened?" He closed the door behind me and I put my bag on
the sofa while I paced.

"It's a long story. I mean, it's not that
long a story, but it's not very interesting."

"Oh…okay…"

"Yeah, I just wanted to come talk to somebody
because I was just thinking, you know? Like…I have a college
degree. I have a degree from Syracuse. I should be able to do a lot
with that, right?"

"Seems like it to me," he said.

"Right! And like, I might not be a director,
but I know a little something about a few things. I've made
programs. I've recruited volunteers. I should be able to go out
there and work someplace else, right?"

"Sure," he said. "I always thought you were
pretty smart."

I stopped pacing and smiled.

"Thank you," I said. I began pacing
again.

"So, I don't know, maybe I should stop being
scared and, you know…do something."

"Like what?" he asked, sitting on the
sofa.

"I don't know! All I know is computers and
whatever else needed to be done for Magdalene. But maybe there's
more. Maybe I should go to grad school. Get a certification. Or,
you know, maybe start up my own shit!"

"Why don't you have a seat?" he asked.

"Naw, I'm good," I said.

"I think you need to have several seats,
actually."

"Why?"

"You're pacing a hole in my floor, that's
why."

I smiled and sat down next to him on the
sofa.

"Better?" I asked. He smiled and cuddled up
next to me. He held my hand, kissed it, and calmed me down.

"Now, what is it that you actually want to
do? Generally."

"I want to help people," I said.

"Do you know how?" he asked.

"I'm not sure yet. I want to help the sick,
that's fine. But I really want to help people who don't have
resources. People in poverty. People who left school. I just want
everybody to have a chance, you know? Shit happens, but people
don't need to be punished for it for the rest of their lives."

"Sounds good to me," he said. He kissed me
lightly on the temple.

"Just take a breath, slow down, and think
about what you want to do. I'm here for you."

"I appreciate that," I said, kissing him
back. "I didn't interrupt you when I came over, did I?"

"Well…"

"I can go, it's no problem."

"No. Don't go. I was working out back. But
you can come help. Or watch. Whichever."

"I'll help. No problem."

We walked through his house, through the
kitchen and the back door, and down the rusty iron stairs leading
to the backyard.

The yard was enclosed by a tall wooden fence
on all sides. There was no way you could see from outside just how
large the space was. The vast majority of it was a garden. A gravel
driveway led to the basement garage.

Dante led me through an old, sad looking
trellis with ivy growing up it. The garden was divided into several
lanes. It all looked green to me, but Dante had a ball explaining
what exactly he was growing.

"Okay, over there you got some carrots, you
got some chard. We got a whole row of peppers over on that side.
Some chili peppers, bell peppers. All nice and colorful, right?
Onions and radishes over here. That row there? Berries. Nothing but
berries. And way in the back are a few avocado trees."

"And what's right here?" I asked, pointing
off to my left at a wild looking patch of shrubbery that didn't
even seem like part of the garden.

"Oh, those. They're just herbs."

"Just herbs?" I repeated.

"Yeah, they don't have a name. Anyway, you
like it?"

"Yeah, it's cool," I said. "This keeps you
pretty busy, huh?"

"Yeah man. It's fun, though. Relaxing, too.
You'll see. Hey, grab some extra gloves off the porch, let's get
started."

I grabbed the work gloves and helped my man
weed his garden and harvest some radishes.

"Where did you learn how to do this?" I
asked.

"Family," he said, throwing a radish in the
basket he asked me to hold.

"Oh, okay. Were you raised on a farm or
something?"

"Nah, not quite. You could say I was raised
in the south. Living off the land was normal for us."

"Where in the south?"

"Louisiana. But DC is home now."

"You got brothers and sisters?"

"Brothers. A lot of 'em. All over the
place."

"I have four siblings all together. They all
live in New York, though."

"I see. You the baby, aren't you?"

I smiled and looked away.

"That obvious, huh?"

"Lil' bit," he replied. "But you not spoiled.
Not that I can tell."

"I'm not, really. So did you go to high
school here?"

"Oh, uh, naw. Back in Louisiana."

"When did you graduate?"

"19…"

"19? Dude, how old are you?"

He smiled wide.

"Old enough," he said slyly.

"I see I gotta watch you," I said with a
raised eyebrow.

"I gotta watch you, too, my man." He tossed a
radish at me and laughed.

We worked for a while in his plain little
garden, but it was fun. I never thought in a million years that I'd
actually be doing something like this with a guy I was crazy about.
But I suppose stranger things have happened.

DC was hot. As in, over-a-hundred-degrees
hot, with no end to the heat wave in sight. Not a cloud in the
sky.

The Freemasons across the street from
Magdalene House were hosting their annual Fourth of July block
party despite the oppressive heat. From the Dollar General to the
beauty school down the block, each storefront had a different kiosk
set up with games, merchandise, and snacks.

I walked past the action to Dante's house,
walked up the steps, and knocked on the door. I heard a quick
series of stomps, and then a quick open of the door revealed that
he was already smiling.