The Old Neighborhood (35 page)

I knocked on her front door. The sound echoed through the house, followed by a hollow silence. I walked around to her bedroom window, then reached up and grabbed the baseboard of the frame and pulled myself up. It took a second for my eyes to adjust and peer through my strained reflection in the glass. Inside, the covers of her bed were rumpled into a mound that slowly swelled and descended as she napped. Her face was turned away—just the twisted strands of hair in the soft light. I dug the tips of my sneakers into the wood siding and pulled myself so my forearms rested on the ledge. I tapped on the glass with my fingertips. She turned, blinking, and looked at me. Her face was a blur, and I almost blurted out, It's not true! Then, she smiled. Her cheeks bloomed as she sat up, then she lifted the window open and laid her head back down. Her big brown eyes on me, steady.

“Taking a nap, baby?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, yawning into her palm.

“Is anybody home?”

She sat up and brought her thick purple lips to my forehead. They were warm and damp. She put her arms around me and pulled me into her window. I dug my shoe tips into the siding and climbed through, falling onto the bed with her.

I kicked my shoes off as she opened the covers. She was the warm one now. Her waking breath was hot in my face but smooth like coconut milk. I kissed her neck and cheeks and both eyes. She pulled at my belt, undoing it. Then, my pants, and I felt her smooth thighs through the thick hair on mine. She was so hot I thought she might have a fever. I stopped and looked her in the eyes—hers flickering, dark, watering. Then, she leaned up and kissed me firmly. I kissed her hard back, and I realized she was just in panties. I softly touched her there, and her hips thrust upward against my hand. I was instantly erect. I slid my finger inside the nylon fabric and touched her wetness. She gasped out, then moaned long and low. I slid my finger in, and she grasped at the waistband of my cloth boxers. I suddenly knew that I had her—all of her. I ripped my boxers off, and she grasped my dick in her palm. Warmth radiated into it as it pulsed, and the head nearly exploded. I howled and gently pulled at the hem of her panties. She gripped my wrist. Her breath heaved, and our eyes met. Then, she nodded and helped me slide them down and off. And suddenly, I was there, and I began to push.

“Wait… wait, stop,” she said, then brought her palm over her mouth. Her eyes were frightened.

And I did. I propped myself up on my elbows and hung my head down.

“Baby…” I said in a growing whine. Then, I lifted my eyes to her, pleading.

“Tell me you love me…” She said, her eyes watering. “Tell me we'll always be together.”

“I love you,” I said as I leaned down to kiss her thick lips. “We'll always be together.”

Her thighs spread, and I pushed into her strong. The pressure built until there was a snap. She screeched and dug her nails into my shoulder blades. I slid into her, and her voice careened and rose. A splash of hot liquid gushed over my pelvis as I met the hilt. Her cry turned into a light moan as I pumped into her a few times. Then, I froze in orgasm and cried out myself. She undulated beneath me, gasping. Her arms flung around me tightly. My face was against hers. Hot tears streaked across her cheeks and slid down my neck. We both shuttered, breathing simultaneously. I felt her heart beat there.

Slowly, I propped up on my forearms and pulled out. She let out a sharp sigh and clung to me. I still pulsed and strained. I looked down at the red mess of blood and cum, shocked by the gore of it. She tried to sit up to look, but I kissed her and rolled to my side. She rolled on top of me, and we lay there. Her head rested on my chest, lifting and descending until our breathing slowed. I dressed and climbed back out the window. The firm concrete of the sidewalk shocked my jellied, unsteady legs. Then, I pulled myself up on the ledge and kissed her one more time. The silence, not a silence amongst the music of scent and heat, swirled in our faces. I loved her—almost forgetting what I'd done. Almost forgetting everything that I'd done.

CHAPTER 23

NUCLEUS

THANKSGIVING WAS ALWAYS FUN
—everybody together watching the game; a huge baked turkey jammed full of stuffing; yams, cheesy veggies, and sparkling grape juice; little Johnny running around playing. But inevitably, we got to talking politics around the dinner table after the meal.

And if it wasn't enough with Blake being a cop and Rich a degenerate racist, Jan had gotten into black Studies at Northern Illinois, and some race-nutty ex-Panther professor took her under his wing. Jan had always been in search of her identity. It was there in her short temper, her prideful stubbornness. She just knew she wasn't white. And in her search for what she was, she'd found a history that set her people against Anglos. Funny, though, how so many of us forget the Spanish were white imperialists and that Spaniards' white blood traced its way through all of the Caribbean and Latin America. How the Spanish language has nothing to do with the Caribbean people, or the Mayans and Aztecs, either. I guess almost all of us have some white in them, and at the root, some black, too. But, to be honest, it was nice to see Rich's and Blake's crazy shit challenged. It didn't take much to spark it up, and then they were off to the races, full-tilt.

“A racist system?” Blake said, squinting his eyes across the dining room table at Jan. “Where's the racism? What, in Affirmative Action? Yeah, that's definitely racist.”

“If it's not a racist system, then why is it that 80 percent of Cook County Jail inmates are African American?” Jan's eyes stretched wide-open, and she raised her short, pudgy hands, fingers spread.

“Well, I don't know, probably because blacks commit 80 percent of the crime in the city?” Blake said, then glanced over to Rich, who burst out laughing. “I'm just taking a guess here, though.”

“It's a racist system!” Jan yelled, then slapped her hands down hard on the white lace tablecloth. “How about racial profiling? That is a nationwide problem.”

“Listen, when I pull over a car with a young black guy driving it,” Blake said, placing his elbows on the table and leaning in toward Jan, “90 percent of the time, he doesn't have insurance, he doesn't have a license, he doesn't have registration for the car, and when I run the VIN number, it comes up stolen.” He rocked back in his seat and shot his chin upward. “All a those are jailable offenses, and he's whining about,” Blake sneered and cocked his head to the side, “'How you finna profilin' me like dat, bra?'”

“That's a load of bull-crap,” Jan replied, dismissing him with a wave.

“No. It's fact, and it's my daily life. And when I pull over a white person, not that there are all that many whites driving around in the hood…”

“Unless they're there to buy drugs!” Jan added.

“That's right. They're there buying drugs, but when I pull 'em over, I got nothing on them. They got a driver's license, proof of insurance, registration, and guess what? They're polite when I walk up on 'em.”

“And you let 'em go,” Jan said, rocking back and raising her chin, satisfied. “Ahuh.”

“That's right. I say, 'Have a nice day, and stay out of the hood. This is a dangerous place.'”

“And that's fair? That's law and order?”

“It's this simple: locking up some suburban business man down there buying a bag of weed is a waste of my time.”

“It's your job, Blake,” Jan retorted.

“No,” he said, shooting his index finger at her. “It's not my job; my job is to get guns off the street, to get drugs off the street, and to get shit-bags off the street.” He shot his thumb southwest.

“And that's gonna stop the problem? They're impoverished people. They've got no other way of making money other than the drug trade,” Jan argued.

“Get a job at Mickey D's! There's plenty a warehouses on the Wes' Side. They don't want to earn a honest buck—it's too hard.”

“No one will even hire you if you're a felon!”

“Well, I don't know about you,” Blake said, grinning at Rich, “but that sounds like a pretty good reason not to commit a felony, don't ya think?” Rich choked on his sparkling grape juice.

“That's just asinine,” Jan said, pushing away from the table. She grabbed her cloth napkin and threw it on her plate. “You're an asshole, Blake.” She stomped out of the room.

“All I'm telling you is the truth, Janet,” Blake said, sitting back with a pompous smirk strung on his lips. “You just don't want to hear it.”

I stayed out of it when I was still that young, but later I wouldn't. It's amazing—all the crazy debates we've had at the dinner table. Sometimes I don't know how we all stuck together as long as we did.

•

THAT NIGHT,
Jan and I were sitting at the dinner table having some chocolate cream pie. She was still steaming about the argument at dinner.

“Do you even know the history of civilization in Africa?” she asked me.

“What? Sure I do,” I said, smiling. “The Africans were running around in little tribes in the jungle until the whites came down and took it all over.”

“Oh, sure. That's what you read in those Catholic school history books. See, they teach you what they want you to know, but not the truth. Did you know there was a civilization in Africa that had written language and one hundred percent literacy throughout its entire people? You didn't know that, did you?”

“Naw,” I replied. “Well, are you talking about the Egyptians?”

“No,” she sighed. “See, that's what every textbook says. 'The Egyptians, the Egyptians.' Did you know there was an ancient civilization south of Egypt more advanced than the Egyptians, and the Egyptians came down and massacred them? Massacred them! You never heard that, did you?” She gobbled some chocolate pie with whipped cream.

“Nope,” I said. “Never heard that once.”

“And did you ever hear of the Moors?”

“Nope.”

“Of course you didn't. Did you know that they built all of Spain? They brought technology, they brought everything there. They civilized that whole region.”

“So what happened to them?” I ate a forkful of the pie that'd melted some and turned to a creamy-brown, not far from Jan's skin tone.

“They got massacred and pushed out of the country back to Africa. And the Greeks, too; they stole all their philosophy from Africa.” She waved her fork around like an instructor's wand.

“Come on, Jan.” I gave her a sideways look.

“No, Joe, I'm telling you the truth. I mean, read a real history book for once—not that crap you get in American schools.”

“I never heard any of this shit,” I said, shrugging.

“Sure you didn't. Did you know that, at the beginning of humanity, there were two peoples in Africa? Way back at the very beginning of mankind. One of those peoples became whites—they had straight hair and light skin; the other was the blacks. The whites were violent and evil, and the blacks went to war with them and ran them all the way out of the continent. The whites were the people who went to Europe and became Europeans and Germanics.”

The way she was talking was strange, but I sort of believed her. No one else but Blake went to college, and Blake never really talked with me much. For a minute, I actually believed her.

“Damn, I never heard any of this,” I said, shrugging.

“Yeah, you won't either, 'til you get to college,” Jan said proudly.

“All they ever teach in high school is the Greeks, the Romans. Hmmm, they're nothing compared to the civilizations in Africa, or the Mayans. Oh yeah, and Christopher Columbus—puhh, he didn't discover America. The Africans were going there for centuries. Just look at the Mayan temples—they're pyramids! I mean, it's just common sense.”

I couldn't really argue with her. She just had too many arguments, and they all seemed right, and she was so sure of them. I figured she must have got them from somewhere.

“I don't know. I guess I gotta read some of your history books if I'm gonna be able to talk with you about this shit.”

It was funny; with Lil Pat and Blake gone, there wasn't anyone around to ask about it. Dad wouldn't really talk about stuff like that, so I was sort of stuck. But I didn't really give a crap about any of that shit, anyway. I was too busy trying to keep from getting my neck stretched on the street. Plus, it was all messy. It seemed to me that history wasn't really fact; it was all about how you saw it and who wrote the history books. Like, if I told a story about a fight I was in, I'd see it my way, whereas, whoever I was fighting with'd see it their way. The truth was probably somewhere in the middle.

It was still strange the way she was talking, and it weighed on me into the night. I stayed up thinking about it, wondering if Jan really believed all that stuff. If she thought all white people were evil—just born evil—and if she hated them. And if she hated me, too, just because I was white. I thought about it a lot and got angry—thought maybe blacks and whites were pitted against each other. But then, I thought of Monteff and Monica and how they were my friends. Then, I thought of Jan'n'Rose, and I knew he couldn't hate any of them. I thought about the word 'nigger,' and I knew Martin Luther King Jr. was a good man. I wondered what the word even meant. I didn't know, and all the worrying about it just seemed stupid.

“Nigger, nigger, nigger,” I said quietly into the dark of my room. A grin stretched across my face. “Spick, chink, honky, sand nigger, dago, mick, polock, flake, pig, fag, dyke, whore, cocksucker, fat ass, bug eyes, big head.”

I kept thinking of different words until I couldn't come up with anymore and just started laughing. That's all they were—words. Stupid words that could never describe real people. I laughed so loud, I knew everyone could hear me, and I tried to stop, but it only made it worse. I bit my hand to stop until I was crying real tears and still giggling. Slowly, I drifted off to sleep and dreamt in color—bold and glowing color—all night.