He’d hated the secrecy of it all when everyone knew the need and the deed. In Haiti he’d run a brothel out in the open, where everyone knew that the bar was just a front, a prop, and a necessity to keep the girls loose, willing, forgiving, and grateful for the handful of cash. Everyone who passed, and certainly those who came in, knew. There had been no dungeon at Bar Caimite. He’d spoken to the women face-to-face at will. There had been no intercom. If he’d wanted one of them to sing, she’d done it right in front of him. If he’d wanted more, she’d start before he’d even asked. He’d never had to ask at his old place. Why did he have to do so at KAM? At home? In the safe room? It was safe for him. He had always hated the women who’d made him feel like he had to ask, who’d waited for his request when they’d known full well what he wanted, what they owed him. He had not been a formal creditor. They’d damn well known that. He wasn’t going to send a letter in the mail half reminding, half begging for payment. They’d known that they’d owed him, what he’d done for them when and what it should cost.
If I saved your life from the Tonton Makout who disappeared your father, of course you owed me enough sex to make three babies and then some more till death do us part. If I got you to America, got you a job, scalded myself in a steel mill, bought you a house, showed you who to go to for extra money when my paycheck wasn’t enough, of course you owed me a blind eye while others paid their debts on all fours, two knees, a slit backside, an open hole. Why did I have to sneak and then ask for what was mine, what I was owed?
The whole concept of permission had always infuriated him, made him want to throw and break things. He never did. He was a docile, civilized, and kind man. Only children asked for permission to touch glass curio cases, fragile figurines, lace doilies. But why ask when the answer was always no followed by a short, superfluous explanation of how these things might break. That was the whole point! To shatter the breakable. An earthquake does not ask for permission to wreak havoc. It simply does what’s in its nature. This was in his. He was being himself. Why hide? Why pretend? When everyone knew, saw; when some whispered about it, confronted him in crooked ways?
Lucien railed in his mind, all the while surveying the hospital room for an exit. He was angry enough to hurl himself out the window, onto the landing, into the melting snow down below. He was angry enough to spit. He hated every person he had ever encountered. He knew that they had known. Everybody who’d come to KAM and even before he’d bought the house, they’d all known who he was, what he was. He had visited their small apartments where it had been impossible to walk and stalk. So he’d just gawked. Everyone had had a cousin, a sister, even a mother who’d been cornered in a cramped kitchen, backed into a closet so narrow and shallow it was merely an indentation in the wall with a sheet for a curtain. In SOP, even the neighbors who were not Haitian had known how he rolled, especially if they’d ever known someone to whom he’d rendered a favor. And everybody had seen him watching. They hadn’t known about the holes in his walls, but they had seen the slickness with which he’d managed to always be alone with some new prey. They’d been afraid to say it, afraid to name it. It was none of their business. Even his wife knows, so who are we to say? It was just a little touch, a little piece. He’s harmless, friendly, welcoming, helpful, kind. Let his little quirks slide. He hadn’t hurt anybody, had he? All men cheat and at least he wasn’t doing it all in her face, taking mistresses out and buying them things or keeping them in the house. Until Asante. He’d given them so much to talk about.
Why is he always in the salon? He’d better be careful ’cause the cops are watching that place. Since when does she do house calls? Even if Marie-Ange is sick and bald, she still needs to get her nails done. But she’s real mad now. He done moved the hairdresser into the basement. What about the ceremonies? In the boiler room. When you’re desperate you go to the storefront church instead of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Why’s he always in the basement? Where did she disappear to? DEA got her or she’s dead. Her baby daddy did not play. What about the salon? She left it all behind, probably all of her things in the basement too. Her daughter? Gone. Grandbaby? Gone too. Woman of the house, my ass. He’s all up under his wife now. He got somebody taking care of her properly. She still asks for homegirl, the hairdresser. She’s still suspicious. The only one left for him to fuck is the nurse. She’s all right. She’ll be good enough once his wife dies. She isn’t going to die anytime soon. He did the right thing, getting rid of the hairdresser.
He’s been in the hospital. Second stroke. My, my! What goes around…We don’t see him much anymore. Where has he been? He stays in the house mostly, and then, somehow, he comes back with so much junk. As long as he keeps it inside his house. He must be lonely. Wife, kids, gone. No grandkids visiting. Except that little boy. He has his girlfriend, the nurse. Wonder how long that had been going on. Shut up. Don’t make me laugh. He’s not a bad guy. Life just didn’t turn out the way he wanted it. Sometimes you love a woman or a man so much you get a little messed up over them. Before you know it…Bad choices. He’s quiet and lonely. Does his own grocery shopping. You ever see the hairdresser again? Never.
They’ve already started tearing down the house. So much junk. It’s going to take a long, long time to get that work done. No, they’re doing it fast. It’s a hazard. It could fall over onto either side. I never liked those people to the left. He’s in the hospital again for the third time. Not sure he’s gonna make it. He’ll end up in there for a fourth when he sees his house. Gone.
Lucien’s hatred kept him awake, so he could continue planning his escape. He gave up on saving his girls. He would take only My. He would fight the others and draw blood if he had to. He would find his gun. He would execute them all and take the boy, drive south to somewhere warm like he and Marie-Ange and then he and Leona had planned. The boy was all he wanted. They could start over somewhere new. My was still at the age where he would forget the back room and his mother entirely. He was well trained and didn’t speak at all. He already knew how to watch, stalk, hunt. He was adorable and would be excellent bait. He was a collector too—twigs, stones, and leaves were only the beginning. He even knew how to retain enough ice cream on his sticky little hands to feed the others. He already had women eating out of his hands. My was the son he had always wanted. And Lucien wanted to be his father as much as he’d wanted a father of his own.
Lucien’s anger flung him upward in his hospital bed. He willed his heavy limbs into motion. He had to get moving. My was his. He reasoned that the little boy was the only captive worth keeping. He hoped that he hadn’t gotten sick from being closeted with Sol. Even if My was ill, Lucien was prepared to risk one more emergency room visit where the boy might be posed questions about his home life by a concerned nurse or a trained social worker. He would chance being exposed to have his son all to himself, to make a man out of him. A man in his own image. I am nothing.
Having settled on how he would eliminate them, Lucien pushed the other four captives out of his mind altogether. He didn’t care if they’d survived several days without food and water, as long as they’d fed My, which he knew they would. Surely they’d had reserves. He couldn’t help counting again and mumbled the inventory of rations. He knew that Sol would have planned for a crisis. She’d been sick, so if any of them would be dead by the time he arrived to rescue My, she would be. Maybe Asante too, because she was weak, having been down there the longest. Chiqui and Cocoa were younger, so they were more likely to be alive and combative. But if My was dead from being in the sickroom for so long, he would not know what to do or how to be. For now, he chose to believe that he could get My out and leave behind the women’s remains to be buried in his trash, scooped up and dumped with the remnants of all he’d collected—the furniture, TVs, and stereos—and the new debris—the collapsed steel walls, the crumbled cinder blocks, and the floorboards. If he could have My, it would be enough. Just enough feeling to make him into something. He c
ould stop counting. He could stop taking.
Tears fell into his mouth as he whispered to himself.
My fingers are one, two, three, and more than I am. There are too many, too many pieces to count. Too many things in the way to get to My. There is enough food. How many? How many jars, gallons, loaves? There are four of them who would slit my throat with the edge of a sardine can. This always scared me. I liked the taste of my own fear as much as theirs. I dared them, once, twice, three, and four times. But they held back in case they failed. In case I lived through the bleeding. Then I would have to do the things I had never done. Never counted the pounding of a hand, my hand, the cracking of my fingers, one, two, three, and five and then ten against unbruised bodies. I would have to count the hits of my fists and hear the numbers repeated in My’s whispered echo. He is one, two, three, four, five years mine. He is the only one who hurts me when I am gone from home. He builds me up, counting the pieces of me into existence. Without him I am nothing except these tears falling into my mouth. I have no eyes for them to fall from. They flow so there are no single drops to count. I let them fall into my hands, between my one, two, three, and five fingers. Between the ten that I can see through, but they are nothing as I am nothing. I swallow and know that I could and must stand on legs that do not exist. Two of them with ten toes like my hands and fingers with nothing in or between them. I have to use them to wipe my face. I have to take the nothing with me. With My I could be more.
I could stop crying. I could be more than hollow. Something more than my weapon. I don’t remember where it came from. But My is mine in my memory until I can get him out. He will be enough. I will cry for them because they are mine like my house. They are nearly gone. And so, for now, I am nothing. Until I hold my My.
SOL
I am not Four. Four dead. I am here. Still. But I am dying. I am knowing. No more smoke. No fire. I am seeing rain. Gray day. I am hearing. Driving back, forth. Walking back, forth. I am hearing “stop,” “stay.” I am knowing. I do not see him. He is gone. He is dead. I hope. When I hear rain and then back, forth, “stop,” “stay,” I am knowing time. I count since Four gone. Ninety-eight days. Then My come. Two and Three make My.
Three say, “If it’s a boy, I will name him Marley.” Two say, “If it’s a boy, I will name him Prince.” Three say, “If it’s a girl, I will name her Zoe.” Two say, “If it’s a girl, I will name her Marisol.”
I am hearing Zero. Cry. Retch. I am hearing Three. Cry. Retch. I am hearing Two, my gift.
“Push! Stand up! Stand up!”
We push, stand. Push, crawl. Rest. Breathe.
“My is ours,” Two say. She give me My.
And now My. One cry. I hear. Two squeeze. Suck, cut. My is our all. We cry. We all wet with water, blood. My come early. Not chance, destiny. My born easy. Not chance. My not big. My li’l, li’l. Cut, suck, kiss, sing. My born facing west. I scared. I want east. But, at least, My born summer. I am knowing. My is a boy. My American boy. I ask why My born. My sick. My need doctor. My born brown. My sick twenty-one days. I am counting.
I remember Cara. We are walking. Cara big with Two. Three thousand miles. We walk. No ocean. Two born three thousand miles from where we start. I am counting steps. Cara not knowing. I am counting. Every step. No ocean. Big hill. I get high. Cara, “Push. Stand up! Crawl. Cry, Cara, breathe.” Cara stop. She walk three thousand fifty miles in place. Back, forth, stop, stay. Give me Two. Two born weekend. Two born fifty miles from where Cara want. Three thousand fifty we walk to get there. Cara sad. Two born early. Not when Cara want. Two born quiet. Summer, like My, later. Two born li’l like My.
My sick. My need a doctor. Two tell him three times. Three scream, “My need a doctor, doctor, doctor.” My hot like me. My need ice. Not cream like what Zero bring us before. My need cold. I am knowing. He take My. Three scream. Zero beg, beg, beg. “Don’t take My!” Zero scared. Zero say, “Massa, Massa. Take me.” Zero pray. Leave My. He say, “Easy. Take it eeee-zzz-eeee.” I am knowing. My come back. Again, My sick. Three times he take My and always east. I am knowing. My future. Three thousand miles. Plus fifty. I count. He take My again.
After My, he hungry. He take Zero. He take Two. He take Three. He take One. He take and take and take. We scream when he take My. Too many times. My is not dead. My is not Four. My is Five.
Sol shivered from the cold coming in full force into the back room. Despite the freezing temperature, the smell of the outside air consoled her. They would all be frostbitten even if they were found in time. She might not make it. But that was okay, she thought. As long as they got themselves out. She pulled the damp covers closer. Her fever had gotten worse and she still could not cough. She could barely think, but that too was all right. They’d find a way without her. She wasn’t sure if she was hallucinating or remembering, but she felt like she knew everything that had happened to them before and since they’d been taken, stolen, borrowed, bowed, and broken by Lucien. She wanted to help them get out. She thought that her death would motivate them to summon their collective strength. She didn’t mind. She didn’t want to be taken out, burned, or buried, or even healed. She didn’t want a life on this earth after all of this. She didn’t even exist in America. There were no traces of her anywhere. No documentation to prove that she’d ever been born or existed before and certainly not after this, now. The same with My, except whatever identity Lucien had created for him.
Sol remembered the three times Lucien had taken My to the hospital. Lucien had clearly gotten a high from his trips with the ailing infant. Sol imagined the story he must have told at the hospital to explain how he’d brought in a newborn with no documentation. He must have enjoyed the attention he’d received at the hospital as the doting grandpa who’d brought his ailing grandson to the hospital instead of his crack-head daughter who’d dumped the baby on him. Sol had observed his fiending to make the second and third trips.
Against Cocoa’s, Chiqui’s, and Asante’s tearful protests, he’d continued to steal My out of the back room regularly. Sol had not wasted her breath pleading. She would not give Lucien the pleasure of hearing her beg. Not even for My. He wouldn’t have listened anyway.
Sol could tell that something was different every time Lucien brought My back. He had taken My outside a total of fourteen times in four years. Six times in the first year alone until he’d realized his own imprudence. Then four times in the second year. He hadn’t been able to help himself in the third and fourth years when he’d taken My out twice each year, despite the boy’s ability to speak.
My would bring back scratched toys from Lucien’s garbage graveyard. Having been permitted a whiff of outside air, a crawl on raw ground and rough grass, My would bring back souvenirs every time. Sol had counted the mementos from each outing, separating them from the junk from the trips upstairs.
* * *
—
MY BRING things from outside. He take him to the park. I am knowing. He take him to swings, dirt, flowers. Outside summer. My birthday. My bring park inside. My bring leaf, earth, and rock. My bring ice cream on his fingers. One, Two, Three lick. We miss outside. Each time Zero, Two, and Three beg, “Take me!” They want outside more than My. He want My to be like him. He want My take. Count. Take. Count. My hold leaf in two not one hand. Gentle. Leaf break. Rock fall. Stick crack. He break My. My come back. My shake. My cry. My whisper, “No go! No go!” He take My again. Crunch, crack, purr. Cocoa stand by sweet box. My hear Cocoa sing “You’ll be my American boy…” My stop cry. He make My spy. He whisper, “Count one to one hundred.” He want My learn. Sing, read, write. Stalk, count, hunt, take.
She’d taken her turn caring for My, sharing the burden with Cocoa and Chiqui. She’d already known that, although Asante was the only one with any experience taking care of an infant, there was no use asking her. Sol had taken care of Chiqui when she was a baby. But she’d been uncomfortable with infants. Her sweet sp
ots had been Chiqui’s toddler and early-childhood years, when Cara had relinquished mothering entirely.
Sol hadn’t tried to force Asante back into motherhood but allowed her to join in when My’s hair grew long and thick, so untamed that she and the others had not known what to do with it. Sol had held him in her lap while Asante combed his hair. My had also sat in Cocoa’s and Chiqui’s laps. Concerned about the filth in the back room, they’d held him all the time. They had not carried him because there was nowhere to carry him to. None of them had wanted any part of him to touch the nasty ground. They’d finally put him down when he started kicking to use his legs.
Four years later, dying in the cold of the safe room in the middle of January, Sol was still trying to reconcile My’s birth and life in a hell he had not asked for. She thought now, like she had then, that children are not meant to be born in the dark, never to see natural light for more than minutes at a time, never to know who is who except by their scent until they are passed into the arms of the one they recognize by touch and sound as mother. Babies are not meant to be carried until age three, never touching ground, then walking off-kilter, falling down more than moving. Babies are not meant to walk in single square rooms, never to run until they have all of their teeth, are speaking in full sentences, and know whom to call mother. Babies are not meant to be born in back rooms or basements, jail cells, the pits of ships. Maybe some babies are not meant to be born at all.
She had often watched My and questioned whether life was worth living regardless of the circumstances. Weren’t there conditions under which it was okay not to allow a life? Weren’t there some lives that needed snuffing out, out of mercy or punishment? What kinds of killings were permissible? At what stage in the developmental sequence or the cycle of evil was it okay to end it all, stop it from growing, from hurting? At what point could a person decide and not wait for some higher power to execute its divine plan? When and why? What were the conditions, possibilities, and permutations? Was it too much to ask for a fixed number of choices defined on the preset wedges of a spinning wheel?
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