HE ARRIVED IN Portland about six months ago with a bad case of the shakes. Five days into his own personal detox that he rode through on a bus. In Portland he wandered around Union Station trying to get someone to help him. It wasn’t easy to get people even to look at him: a tall man, shaking, unshaven, three days past his last shower.
Drew happened to be in the bus station that day — his weekly effort to round up more folks, get the men and women off the street. He brought a bag of literature about the Salvation Army’s rehab program and a bag of fresh sandwiches.
“I can help maybe,” Drew said when he saw Brick. “Here, have a sandwich.”
“Thanks. No. I need real help.”
“Tell me, son.”
He hadn’t been a son for so long. “I gotta get this — I gotta get through this. I can’t do it any more.”
“Come with me down to the Harbor Lights Center. We can talk about how you can do this one day at a time.”
Brick knew he was too young to go to the center, so when they asked he said he was twenty-five. Brick wanted to get a fresh start — go where he could beat this thing.
He’d been at the center ever since. First as a patient — ninety days of rehab — and now as a janitor.
It was a hot summer day, and he couldn’t cool down from his steamy shower. He went to the window and opened it. The air was still, and the summer air entered the apartment in a fresh spray. Brick’s apartment window looked out onto a courtyard as it did when he was a child. Below his window was a grilling area. To the far right he could see a swing and a sandbox. He could hear the children playing tag. He wanted to be closer to their laughter. He liked having the outside sounds in.
HE’D BEEN OUT of breath all day since he met her at the center earlier. The fuzzy-haired girl with the blue blue eyes was now a young woman. He shouldn’t be surprised that he’d found her. After all the years he imagined meeting her, he had not imagined this. When did he know it was her? He couldn’t be sure. He should have known as soon as he looked in her eyes, or when she mentioned Chicago. No. It was when he took her hand in his, held it to his lips, pressed his lips against her hand, and she squeezed back.
Rachel
The whole summer, the whole look of my life is starting to change.
Jesse and I go to lunch together every day. Sometimes after work we walk down the street to the bookstore and hang out at the cafe. Jesse has me reading books and writers I never thought about reading: Carlos Castaneda, Amiri Baraka, and two books on capitalism. Jesse reads on both sides of every issue.
It’s strange doing these kinds of things with a boy. I never really thought of boys as people to talk to. Jesse asks me questions about what I like and what I want in my life. And it’s like I don’t have to worry about being a girl around him.
Sometimes Brick hangs out with us too. Jesse is tutoring him for his GED. Brick never finished school but wants to start at the community college in the fall.
When Jesse and Brick talk, I can forget that Jesse’s white, and I can forget that Brick’s black. Or Brick’s something like that. I don’t ask Brick what he is. Brick is light-skinned with golden colors in his brown eyes. He could be black or Mexican or mixed like me. He’s twenty-five and maybe at that age it doesn’t matter.
When I hang out with Jesse and Brick at lunch and sometimes after work, we talk about the people who walk through Pioneer Courthouse Square or real things: like what’s happening in the world, or books, or things like that. I forget that what you are — being black or being white — matters. Jesse makes me see there’s a different way to be white. And Brick makes me see there’s a different way to be black.
But I do tease Jesse about being Norwegian. Sometimes I think he just made it up.
“My middle name’s Gustav — shouldn’t that be proof enough?” Jesse says.
“Not really,” I say.
“Okay, wait until you meet my mom. You’ll see how Norwegian I am. Just because I can’t speak it …” His voice trails off.
“How do you say be careful?” he says finally.
“In Norwegian? I don’t know.”
“I think something like, Ha det bra,” Jesse says. “My mom would always say that. Like if we were about to touch something that would burn, or we’d be running in the house and she was afraid we’d trip and fall. It was like that was the one thing she couldn’t say fast enough in English when we were little.”
“In Danish, you’d say pas på. My mom used to say that all the time too.”
“HEJ,” JESSE’S MOTHER says when she greets me at the door. She’s slightly shorter than Jesse. She has curly blond hair that goes to her shoulders. She has lines that crinkle at the edges of her green eyes.
“Rachel speaks Danish, mom,” Jesse says, and gives me a poke in the side as my cue.
“Det er godt — ” I stammer but don’t know how to finish the sentence. I was never pleased to meet someone as a kid. How do I say: “I am pleased to meet you”?
Jesse’s mom looks at Jesse and then says in English with not even a little bit of an accent, “How glad I am you brought her. Welcome and come in.”
She steers me to the dining room where the table is decorated something like Mor would decorate for a special occasion: white tea lights burning, cloth napkins, and the special blue and white china. “I’ve made a traditional Scandinavian dinner. I hope you’ll like it. It’s good to make it for someone who appreciates it.”
“Mom, you know I’m a vegetarian now. I can’t eat that meatball stuff,” Jesse says.
“I can’t wait,” I say.
The smell of familiar food fills the house. It smells like frikadeller or flæskesteg? Kartofler or ris? I don’t know whether I’m imagining those things, but Jesse’s mom promises she’s made a real apple cake for dessert. “Of course, it’s not like my mom’s,” she says.
“But we have lots of food. I hope you’re hungry,” she says and points at the dishes that are already on the table. “There’s red cabbage.”
“Rødkål,” I say translating; it’s a Danish food too.
“And potatoes.”
“Kartofler.”
And then it becomes a game. Jesse’s mom points at the beans. “Bønner.” Beets. “Rødbeder.” Cucumber salad. “Agurkesalat.”
If only I could turn the corner and find Mor right there in the kitchen. Smiling, happy. Robbie would be at the table reading his Anders And comic books for at least the third time. I’d sit there with him, reading my book too. Pop getting home from work would be the day’s celebration. And we’d eat.
JESSE GIVES ME a tour of his house. There are five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a deck with a grill that you plug in, and a swimming pool. All the furniture looks new even though there is no plastic on it. This is what it feels like to be rich, I think. You have nice things, but you don’t worry about them.
Jesse’s dad comes home about twenty minutes later. Jesse’s sister’s going to stay at a friend’s. She doesn’t like Scandinavian food.
“Shall we sit?” Jesse’s father says, and we do.
He pours wine into the glasses already set on the table. For his wife, first; then for me and Jesse he pours more than just a taste; and then he pours a full glass for himself. “Skål!” he says raising his glass.
“Skål!” And even though I’ve never done it before, I sip my wine after I raise my glass. Just a sip. I don’t want heredity to start working on me.
“DOESN’T SHE SPEAK Danish so well?” Jesse’s mom says even though I’ve been quiet most of the meal.
“I wouldn’t know, honey. I don’t speak the language. And as I recall, neither do you,” his father says.
“I wish that I had taught the kids Norwegian. It’s impressive that she can remember a language she hardly uses. Rachel,” she says turning to me, “what’s that?” She’s pointing at a bookshelf. “Do you remember how to say that?”
“Boghylde.”
“And this?” She’s pointing to the table.
&nb
sp; “Bord.” The faster I answer the better.
“And that?”
“Vindue.” Window. She doesn’t want me to speak in complete sentences.
“Amazing,” she says.
“Ma’am,” I say. “You speak really well too.”
Jesse laughs.
“I mean, you don’t seem to have an accent,” I say. “My mom did. I mean I didn’t really hear it, but other people said she did.”
“Well, in truth, I was a baby when I came to the United States, right after the war. I’m more American than Norwegian. Sometimes it feels like being Norwegian was just a part of my childhood — like my favorite overalls or buckteeth or skinned knees,” she says.
I don’t want being Danish to be something that I can put on and take off. I don’t want the Danish in me to be something time makes me leave behind.
JESSE DRIVES ME home, and I try to say good night in the car. But he’s a gentleman and insists on walking me to the door. Grandma shouldn’t see me come home with a boy. I hope she’s in bed, but I can see the lights are on.
“Okay, bye,” I say to Jesse at the door.
“Bye,” he says.
“Rachel?” Grandma’s calling me. “Who’s that with you?”
“Nobody.”
“Tell him to come in.”
It’s embarrassing to say what happens next. Jesse follows me in, and we both see a tangle of naked bodies on the screen — men and women on a scratchy videotape Grandma is playing.
“You understand this?” she says addressing Jesse and pointing to the screen. Not hello. Or tell me your name. Or anything polite and regular. “All them folks have mamas. How come they get raised up like that?” A full bottle of contribution stands empty beside her. It’s the second in two days.
“Ma’am?” Jesse says. But he can’t help but laugh.
“I’m serious, now. Don’t it matter what your mama do?”
The tape keeps playing and Grandma turns up the volume. “Ain’t this something though,” she says. “Glad to know what the fuss is all about.”
“Where’d you get that tape, Mrs. Morse?” He’s still laughing.
“Miss Verle gave it to me with Mr. Donahue on it. Now all of a sudden this come up.”
“Miss Verle is a nasty lady,” Jesse says.
Grandma looks at him close for a moment. And then starts to laugh. “She sho is. She is.” They laugh together.
It’s late and finally I say good-bye to Jesse. He tells Grandma how his mother has invited me over again — Grandma’s welcome to come next time too.
“Well, that’d be nice. Haven’t had a white woman cook for me in years.” And they both start to laugh again.
“It would be a pleasure to have you come next time, ma’am.”
“Now, that’s a young man with manners,” Grandma says as she closes the door behind him.
WE’RE HAVING A welcome back dinner for Lakeisha. Grandma’s not feeling well. She had promised to make dinner, but when I got home she was a full bottle of contributions into the day. I told Drew she had a cold, so instead he’s taken us to his favorite restaurant downtown.
Lakeisha wears contacts now. She’s grown a little bit taller and a little bit fatter. But she’s not fat. Lakeisha is not much of a talker unless you’re talking about hair and makeup (she’s going to cosmetology school) or boys. So Lakeisha doesn’t say much as we eat, because Drew wants to talk about the day’s news (an antiapartheid demonstration the other day), the book about affirmative action he just read, and tennis. I have been reading the newspaper, the New York Times, since Jesse started bringing it to me from home. I know about everything that Drew is talking about. It’s on my mind too.
“You’re so quiet tonight, Lakeisha,” Drew says as we eat the restaurant’s special pie, not cobbler but a good pecan kind.
“Why you have to talk about things that are so boring?” Lakeisha says.
“What’s not boring?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“I’ll tell you what’s not boring. Seeing somebody get on the right track. There’s a new kid at the center,” Drew says. “A good kid. It’s been exciting to see him turn it all around.” Drew calls everyone a kid. Even someone like me.
Lakeisha is not interested in what Drew does. She yawns when he talks about how important it is to give back. When she met us at the center, she said to me, “You like working with a bunch of bums too?” She tells people her dad works at a hospital. She says it’s nasty thinking about her dad being around bums all the time.
“You mean Brick,” I say.
“We hired him on. He’s a hard worker. I’d love to see him do something more. Stay clean. He’s talented. A musician too. A nice young man.”
“Ooo, he that tall one. He fine,” Lakeisha says. Now she’s interested. We’re talking about boys. “I saw him when I was coming in.”
“He’s too old for you. Plus, he’s one of those bums,” I say teasing her. I don’t mean that. Brick is a nice guy. And he is very nice-looking, but I don’t think of him that way. I don’t know why.
“They’re not bums. They’re recovering alcoholics and addicts,” Drew says.
“It’s all creepy up in there. I don’t like it. It smells.”
“Then it’s good you don’t work there,” I say. “Then it’s good you don’t work there,” Lakeisha says with a high voice and her best white people accent.
LAKEISHA AND I wait for Drew in the car while he goes back to get the jacket he left in the restaurant booth. Lakeisha turns around to say, “You like the white boy, huh? The one sit by you?”
I don’t say anything.
“I saw you all up close and talking when I walked in. You can have him. I don’t know nothing about no white boys. But I don’t know why you’d want that when that fine tall boy’s there.”
“Jesse’s just a friend. And we work together.”
I haven’t really thought about Jesse this way. It’s like I’ve been feeling that the part of me that is a girl is invisible to him. White guys don’t notice black girls, and black girls don’t look at white guys that way. But when I think about it again, maybe Jesse does like me. Maybe I like him.
“Girl, he ain’t thinkin friend when he looks at them titties. Me, I want that fine tall one,” Lakeisha says, ignoring me. “I don’t usually like them light-skinned-ed but he look good.”
“He’s twenty-five. He’s too old for you,” I say again.
“No he not. I need a real man.”
“I thought you wanted a man with a job?”
“He got a job. But he gonna have to get one better to take care of the things I like. You say something to him okay? And I promise not to say anything to the white boy.”
“Why should I care if you say anything to Jesse? It isn’t true.”
“You like a white boy. You like a white boy,” she says in singsong until Drew opens the car door.
Brick
For weeks Brick wondered how to approach Rachel — how to tell the story he’d promised to tell. He often joined her for lunch with Jesse. They would each get a slice of pizza or a sandwich at the deli and then eat in Pioneer Courthouse Square watching people go by.
Rachel never talked about herself. When Brick asked her where she lived in Chicago, she said she couldn’t remember. The way she shut off — her eyes went blank; her voice went low — he knew Chicago wasn’t a memory she visited often. He would have to find the right moment to tell her the story he’d promised Roger he’d share.
Today he had promised Drew to deliver a box to Rachel’s grandmother. He hoped Rachel would be home.
Brick took a shower that was extra long this morning. He didn’t mind when the water started to run cold — he was still shaping his thoughts.
My name’s Brick. But it used to be something else. I used to live downstairs from you. In Chicago. I met your dad and he said tell you this.
Brick felt lucky. He was going to tell her a story. It was a story that would help her make
sense of things that maybe didn’t make sense, of those Chicago memories.
The water was running very cold. He was still smiling. He was a shiny coin in fountain water. He was going to make wishes come true.
RACHEL LOOKED SLIGHTLY scared when she opened the door, he thought, or maybe it was just a look of surprise. Her bright blue eyes seemed a little wet. She hid her body behind the front door.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Drew asked me to drop this off for your grandmother.” He made the box, which was filled with papers and letters, look heavier than it was. “Where can I put it?”
She ushered him in. “Over there,” she said, pointing to the table.
“You scared me. I didn’t really expect a person—,” she said. “I was feeding the birds earlier, and they sometimes come looking for more.”
“And they knock on the door?”
“No they ring the bell. Duh!” she said, but she was smiling and Brick didn’t feel so stupid for his question. He was just so nervous. He didn’t really know what to say.
“They peck at the window. It can sound like a knock,” she said.
“Oh,” he said and tried to laugh along with her.
Rachel looked beautiful. She was wearing a pale blue summer dress he’d seen her wear at the center before. Her eyes in the summer light were bright as headlights.
Brick set the box down on the table and then suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands. He was too tall, too clumsy, too awkward, too tongue-tied to manage words. He’d never been alone with her before.
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Page 14