There You Are

by Morais, Mathea

  “Shit,” Bones said, “You got me confused, Professor. I want ’em up in here. I’m proud of ’em. Cops forever been killing kids, but now errybody in the hood got an iPhone and you best believe they filming that shit, sharing it on Facebook or whatever. Bet you that cat in the turtleneck from Apple and that ugly Facebook kid never thought they was making tools for the revolution. Please. I want them over here. Let them burn Rahsaan’s down. It would be a much more honorable death than the one it’s currently dying.”

  Cyrus laughed. “Jimmy, man, you are always so damn dramatic. Is this why you’re telling Octavian you’re going to close the store?”

  Bones took a sip of his coffee. “Nah,” he said. “It ain’t cause of Ferguson or the fact that they killed that poor boy. Though that would be a better reason than the real one.”

  “Why then?”

  Bones picked up the CD case and shook it at Cyrus like an accusing finger. “You know, for a second, these looked like they was fixin’ to be the death of me? I mean, after that didn’t no one want to buy no vinyl and those dang Strawberry stores or Peaches, or whatever the fuck they was called, you remember those, started opening up in malls and shit?” Bones leaned across his desk towards Cyrus. “I tell you, things started lookin’ real bad for your boy Bones. But back then I was young, I was adaptable, you know what I’m sayin’? I just reconfigured, started buyin’ up used CDs for next to nothing and sellin’ them shits for a whole lot cheaper than anybody and made my way through.”

  Bones tossed the CD case on the desk and picked up his smart phone. “But these motherfuckers?” He said, turning it over in his hands. “These are my god damn demise. And that’s my word.”

  “You were singing Steve Jobs’s praise a second ago,” Cyrus said.

  “I know,” Bones said. “I’m conflicted.” His eyes pleaded with Cyrus. “But it don’t matter how I feel. I can’t make it work. Not even for another year.”

  “Have you gone to city hall? Seen about getting a grant or some kind of loan?”

  “It’s more than the bread. I don’t have what it takes anymore. Things have changed too much. Back in the day, I had all them kids—from the neighborhood, shit from alla St. Louis up in here. Had them white kids from out in Ladue coming in looking for Coltrane, and black kids from the North Side wanting to get their hands on some Steely Dan. People where here…just to be here, you know? This was the place to be. It’s not like that no more.”

  Cyrus nodded.

  “Shit, “ Bones said. “When I opened this place in ’78, black folks and white folks in U. City were trying to come together, trying to figure it out. But you seen what it looks like out there now. U. City don’t care about keeping Rahsaan’s open. Seems like these days people be doing whatever they can to make money and get as far apart from each other as possible.”

  “You forget, Bones, that 1978 was only ten years after King was killed. We were still hopeful then.”

  “And now?”

  Cyrus didn’t answer.

  “See?” Bones shook his head. “Tell you what though, it wasn’t cause those kids were looking to break down racial barriers or some shit that they was up in here. It was because of the music. And that’s how shit got broken down. Nowadays, I don’t know.” Bones stopped and looked at Cyrus. “I used to have my finger on their pulse, on every single one of those kids—Octavian and Mina, Brendon, Evan, Ivy—even Francis. I knew what they needed to hear, knew what song would heal whatever wound they were nursing. And then, when they started talking to each other—sharing songs, trading albums? That was God’s work right there. But today? Nah.” Bones shook his head. “All they need is one of these damn phones and a thumb. And, I tell you what, the thought of them, up in they rooms listening to music alone and shit, it nearly kills me.”

  Cyrus took a sip of the whiskey and coffee out of the mug his son had made and nodded. He settled a little deeper into his chair, thinking about the memories of his children stashed about the store. Stuck between the LPs and hiding in the back room. Memories of Octavian and, like Bones said, Octavian’s friends, too: Evan, who showed how much he loved Octavian by getting him in trouble; and militant Brendon, hung up hard on putting it to the man. And Francis’s best friend Ivy, and Mina with her solemn face as she watched Octavian recede into the distance. Even Francis, the good part of Francis, the part that loved Octavian enough to let Rahsaan’s be Octavian’s alone. All of that was here. The thought of it disappearing, of this place becoming a Banana Republic or some overpriced gourmet grocery store, pulled down on Cyrus’s heart. “You sure you thought this through, Jimmy?”

  “Believe me, I done thought it through.” He let his voice trail off. “I usta think music could save St. Louis’s soul, could save the country’s soul, but looks like it’s put me in the poorhouse instead. So Ima throw a big-ass party and it’s a wrap. The days of Rahsaan’s Records are over.”

  “That’s too bad. It is the end of an era.”

  “I gots to do it. Even thinkin’ a goin back down south or something. Didn’t used to need anyone before, store’s always been my girl. But in the words of the great Al Green, I’m so tired of being alone.”

  Cyrus glanced at the closed office door that led back into the store, and at the coming night, where his apartment sat shrouded and empty. “Seems like loneliness is the disease old folks are the most prone to.”

  “I heard that.”

  Cyrus thought of Adam. And his angry adolescent voice as it blew through the walls. And the shiny lip gloss. Chess. That’s what he had forgotten. “You know that boy you got out there, Adam?”

  “You mean the one with all that sugar in his pants?”

  Cyrus chuckled and shook his head at Bones. “He’s my next-door neighbor.”

  “For real?”

  “You know he doesn’t look like that at home.”

  “Oh I know it. His ass comes up in here erry dang day, even if he ain’t working, and changes his clothes. Spends damn near an hour in my bathroom, comes out made up, his hair slicked back and shit. Leaves out of here with his slacks and his yarmulke in a plastic bag.”

  “Octavian thinks I should invite him over to play chess.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think his mama knows he looks like that, just so you know.”

  Cyrus nodded and finished his coffee. He tucked the empty mug under his arm. “I’m keeping this,” he said.

  “Take it, my friend. Just get that son of yours home for my party.”

  There were a few customers. Cyrus scanned the store and saw Adam standing by the cash register next to a dark-skinned boy with wire-rimmed glasses. Cyrus started in his direction, but then the boy leaned over and planted a quick, delicate kiss on Adam’s cheek and Adam’s face burst into a sloping smile. Cyrus forgot again about the chess and walked directly out the automatic door that swung open into the night.

  Cyrus walked home and wondered what the Loop would look like busted open and burning down, the way the streets of Ferguson were when he’d gone there the other day. He’d seen the crowds that gathered in Michael Brown’s name, felt their collective human pulse, like some giant animal. It sped up, slowed down, and pushed against the barricades of officers who stood like Roman soldiers with their shields in front of them.

  They were different from those he’d seen at the March on Washington in ’63 or the Nuclear Freeze Rally in Central Park in ’82, the Million Man March in ’95. These officers were like those he’d encountered during his time as a Freedom Rider. Too angry and too afraid. One look at their stony faces took away Cyrus’s nostalgic desire to join in. This was not a place for an old man with bones you could feel through the skin, he thought. Instead, he turned and walked into a nearby church, whose unwilling aging felt akin to his own.

  Inside, small children sat in hushed groups on stiff wooden benches. The tops of their heads were lit softly by cracked, crystal sconces set into painted pillars decades ago, and they looked more like angels than t
he figures watching from the faded stained glass above.

  Evelyn Morris, the plump woman who met Cyrus at the door, introduced herself and nodded toward the children. “Their schools have been shut down to protect them from the unrest,” she said, adjusting the sparkling scarf, which Cyrus imagined she’d put on that morning to lift the children’s spirits. “But no one’s paying their parents to stay home from work and watch them, so here they are, sequestered in the church. More of them over in the library.”

  Circling around were young teachers with blouses tucked in and ties tied. They shared a look of redoubled fear in their eyes as they attempted to teach long division, the arc of plot, and why the letters P and H made the same sound as F. A child, who couldn’t have been much older than five, moved carefully and quietly to where a young white man with a dark-brown ponytail sat in the corner reading Curious George to a semicircle of children.

  “Are all of these folks teachers?”

  “Some,” said Evelyn. “Others are”—she cleared her throat—”volunteers. Most of them have never once traveled this far into Ferguson, even when they missed the exit to the airport.” She smiled at Cyrus. Cyrus knew volunteers was code for white folks. He had seen them outside. Their hearts beating with the rest, spit flying from their mouths as they shouted at the cops, as they were dragged by handcuffed wrists into waiting paddy wagons.

  “I sure hope some good comes of this,” Evelyn said, and Cyrus saw the heavy rise and fall of her large bosom as she sighed.

  “Me too.” Cyrus didn’t say he’d seen it before, or that there had been volunteers back then too, and some of those had even died. But it had made no difference. If it had, Cyrus thought, he and this nice lady wouldn’t be standing there, and another innocent child wouldn’t be dead.

  As Cyrus rounded the corner towards home, there at the front door was Adam’s mother, with her hands full of grocery bags. Cyrus was far enough away that if he slowed down, there would be no obligation for him to hold the door for her, to help her inside, but instead, he sped up and reached her as she began to search for her keys. “I’ve got that for you.” He unlocked the door and held it open for her.

  She startled a little and Cyrus smiled. “I’m Cyrus Munroe,” he said. “I live next door to you, in apartment five.”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She met Cyrus’s eyes only briefly before she let her gaze rest on his chin. “Marcia Cohen,” she said, and she tucked her keys in her pocket so she could extend her hand.

  Cyrus shook it. It was small and dry. The door closed behind them and they stood alone in the lobby. “Let me help you.”

  Marcia Cohen looked as if she wanted to object, but she also looked tired. She shrugged and let him take a handful of the plastic bags. Cyrus felt the white woman’s fear walking next to him on the wide marble staircase. At this point in his life, he was accustomed to it. Regardless of how courteous, how lovely, how intelligent, how many degrees he might have, women like Marcia Cohen would always choose to stay bolted up on the inside of their fear, never doing more than peeking out at him through a crack in the curtains.

  “You’ve got a boy, yes?” Cyrus said as they reached their floor.

  “Yes,” she smiled. “Adam.” In front of her door, she put her bags down and offered Cyrus her hand again, her gaze still resting on his chin. “Thank you, Mr.…”

  “Dr. Munroe,” he said. “But please call me Cyrus.”

  “You’re a doctor?”

  “Well, a professor. I teach philosophy at Wash U.”

  “Really?” Now she met Cyrus’s eyes. “Adam loves philosophy. He’s brilliant, that kid is, though you wouldn’t know it from his grades these days.”

  “Does he play chess?”

  “He does,” she said. “He’s actually quite good.”

  “Well tell him to stop by sometime. We can play chess and discuss philosophy.”

  Marcia Cohen nodded unconvincingly. “I’ll tell him.”

  Cyrus started to walk down the hall towards his door and then turned back. “Please also tell your son to stop screaming at you in the middle of the night,” he said. “I’m an old man and it really doesn’t do for me to be woken up in such a way. I’m sure it’s not good for you either.”

  Marcia Cohen’s mouth fell open and Cyrus wished he were wearing a hat so that he might tip it in her direction. Instead, he turned on his heel and walked the ten feet down the hall to his own door without looking back.

  MINA ROSE WORKED FOR a small children’s publishing company in Boston. She’d been hired ten years before as a temp secretary, and slowly worked her way toward her own desk in the corner of the editorial department. On that particular bright August morning, she was unable to read a word of the manuscript she was supposed to finish by the afternoon. Instead, she obsessively refreshed the CNN website and prayed for a different image of St. Louis to emerge.

  Her co-worker John Robert jumped when she cursed at the screen. “I don’t know why you’re so upset about shit going on in a place you haven’t lived in since you were eighteen,” he said. Mina muttered something about him not being able to understand, but John Robert ignored her and watched over her shoulder as she refreshed a photo of protesters who’d been blinded by tear gas. “Looks to me like it’s a good thing you left.”

  By noon, Michael Brown’s graduation photo had drifted midway down the page and Mina decided she needed to leave the office. A walk would turn her right side out, she thought, but out on Huntington Avenue the wet heat of August met her intention with a laugh. Determined, she put on her sunglasses and thought of the days to come where the same street would greet her with slanting snowfalls and cold that crawled inside her bones.

  At the end of her marriage to Rubio, Boston had seemed like a good idea. A sort of neutral, effortless place. Not St. Louis and not New York either. She’d arrived rattled and lost, her daughter Riley almost five and Chloe just three. They moved into their dark apartment with windows only on one side, and which smelled of whatever the neighbors had cooked the night before. But it was in walking distance to a small park, an Irish pub and one of the finest public schools in the Boston. And since Riley had been reading since she was three and had already mastered addition, Mina chose to bury her single mother anxieties under the task of her starting school. She hadn’t known that Boston wasn’t like St. Louis. That living by a school didn’t mean you got to go to that school. A well-meaning neighbor who she met in the park informed her that she should have put her name on the list the year before, when she put Riley in preschool. However, she told Mina, there was a group of families who were coming together to try to “change” another nearby school and offered to put Mina in touch with them.

  Mina went to the next meeting. Five sets of parents introduced themselves. They were all white and, except for one couple of two moms, a perfect mom and dad set. The kids weren’t invited, which Mina thought was a strange way to start, but she’d went with it, leaving her girls with their neighbor Mama Nora. The other parents were at least ten years older than Mina and worked at places like Northeastern University and the Boston Public Health Commission. But, they had sons and daughters the same age as Riley and lived within walking distance of each other. This is what Mina had wanted when she left New York. A neighborhood where her girls could run down the street to the park and walk home from school with their friends.

  Richard and Marsha Weinberg, the couple who owned the apartment, invited everyone into their living room that was nothing like Mina’s living room, constantly scattered with toys. The Weinberg living room had bookshelves lining the walls and soft little lamps. A fern hung quietly in the window and the hardwood floor was covered in an ornate Oriental rug. The parents took their generous cups of tea and sat down around a rosewood coffee table that displayed books of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs and Basquiat prints.

  Richard outlined the plan. They would each put down the school to be “changed” as their first choice, and sin
ce it was not currently considered one of the more desirable schools, this would insure that their children would enter kindergarten together. “And,” Richard announced, “that way we know they will at least have a cohort of well-adjusted, intelligent peers in their class.”

  Mina glanced around the room. “Who would be in their class otherwise?”

  The parents’ happy nodding faces pinched into frowns and the two moms looked down into their teacups. “Most of the kids at the school now come from…broken homes,” Richard said.

  “And they’re mostly inner-city kids,” Marsha added.

  “That is one thing I’m concerned about,” said Brian. He sat on the floor across from Marsha. He and his wife Hannah had a daughter named Juliet. “I don’t know how Juju will feel being one of the only white students in the whole school. Not to be racist, but I don’t know if she’ll be scared.”

  Richard gave him an understanding nod. “That’s why it’s so important that we go in together.”

  Mina’s throat felt like it might close. She looked toward the door. Her kids were from the Bronx and their home was certainly broken. And while Chloe could probably pass for Juju’s cousin, Riley’s brown skin might make Brian and Hannah’s Juliet feel uncomfortable. She knew these people. They were the ones who did a double take when they heard Riley call Mina mom in the store, the ones who looked concerned when they saw Rubio walking down the street with Chloe in his arms. She stood up so quickly that she spilled her tea. “I forgot,” she said, “I told my husband I’d be back to take the girls to ballet class.” It was a string of bad lies, but she didn’t care. She was out the door before Marsha could finish inquiring about what dance school the girls went to.

  Mina went back to the other well-meaning neighbor, whose daughter went to a private school she described as having a healthy scholarship program. Mina applied and breathed a heavy sigh of relief when Riley was given a diversity scholarship. But Mina’s acquired Bronx toughness had no place in a private school on Beacon Hill, and her midwestern good manners were just as suspicious. The black mothers glanced at her with indifference when she tried to start a conversation, or they gave her advice on how to comb Riley’s hair. And the white mothers regarded Mina with wary eyes when she told them that even though Riley’s skin was the color of strong coffee with cream, and Chloe’s was more like a vanilla latte, they weren’t half-sisters. Their father, Mina explained, lived far away and no, he wouldn’t be able to make it to open house or the holiday concert.