Mina circled the climbing tunnel for a week until she came to the reluctant conclusion that Octavian wasn’t going anywhere. No matter how fast she got outside, he was always huddled there, his face hidden between his knees, or leaned back, eyes closed—sometimes looking like he’d fallen asleep. She gave up hoping that he would leave and did her best to join the fray, but after one particularly long recess, in which she was somehow convinced to join an unfortunate game of dodge ball, she determined she had no other choice, and scooted in next to him.
Right away she knew something was wrong. When he looked at her, his eyes showed too much white, his irises black dots of terror. His breath came in and out of his open mouth in dry, short bursts and he grabbed hold of her hand when she tried to get up and go.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice pitched high with fear.
“I’m going to get help,” she said. “You need help.”
Octavian closed his eyes and swallowed so hard Mina saw the skin of his neck fold in and out around his throat.
“Wait,” he said. “It goes away.”
“What does?” Mina asked and turned her hand around in his so that he was no longer hurting her fingers, but so she still held his hand.
“My heart,” he said. Now his voice was barely audible.
“Your heart doesn’t go away,” she said.
“The beating does,” he said. “I just got to hold on.”
Mina waited a few minutes. “Should I read my comic to you while we wait?” Mina said. She was still holding his hand. Octavian shrugged.
Mina pulled the rolled-up comic out of her coat pocket, spread it across her thin knees, and started to read aloud. Over the banging in his chest, Octavian listened. There was something hushed and warm in her voice that made his heart slow down enough that it felt safe to look at her. He had seen her before. There had once been a lot of white kids at Delmar Harvard, but most of them had moved away, so he recognized the ones who were left. Mina was the one in his grade with the long hair and holes in her sneakers. Her pants were always flooding. Octavian remembered she used to hang out with Makeba before Makeba got sent to a foster home. Her hand in his was dry and cold.
“Who’s your favorite?” he managed to say. “I mean, of the characters.”
She was relieved to hear his voice sound more normal. “I like the X-Men,” she said. “And Daredevil is one of my favorites, and the Amazing Spiderman. Oh, and I like Powerman and Ironfist and Firestar.” She also loved Rogue and Wonder Woman but, she said, “Superman is stupid.”
Octavian nodded. “I can’t stand Superman either.”
Now recess meant Octavian and Mina sitting side by side in the tunnel with their feet up on one wall, their backs against the other, and comics open across their laps. Neither said much to the other, but when Octavian’s heart began to act up, he would reach over and grip Mina’s hand and she would start reading aloud from wherever she was.
On a day when winter finally began to carry the smell of spring, Mina brought a new X-Men comic with Wolverine on the cover. Octavian examined the beast’s angry face, his razor claws, the torment in his eyes and said, “I could draw that.”
Mina moved her hair aside to get a closer look and said, “Probably.” She motioned for him to trade her for his copy of Fantastic Four.
The next day, Octavian brought a pencil, a piece of paper and a hardcover book to lean on and carefully copied the picture of Wolverine. When the bell rang, he showed it to Mina. She studied it and smiled big enough that Octavian saw her crooked bottom teeth for the first time.
“It looks just like him,” she said, and handed it back. “You should sign it, like a real artist.”
Wolverine’s pointed fangs were honed and sharp, the menacing saliva on his lips dripped down into a puddle at the bottom of the page. Octavian turned the paper over and wrote, For Mina Rose From Octavian Munroe. He handed her the drawing and abruptly tucked the book under his arm, the pencil behind his ear and scrambled out of the tunnel. He walked fast toward the building without looking back.
That night, Octavian went home and drew the Hulk saving the Scarlett Witch from an alien who had legs like a praying mantis, a mouth like a great white shark and a long serpent’s tail. He was especially pleased with the alien because he hadn’t copied him, but had made it up himself. Octavian took the drawing in to show his mother.
Cordelia sat up a little on her pillows when he walked in and handed her the drawing. “Did you do this?” she asked, her glassy eyes brightening. Octavian noticed how her wedding ring slid down and caught on the dark knot of her knuckle when she held up the drawing. Octavian nodded and sat down on the bed. She pointed at the alien and said, “I like him the best.”
“I got the idea from a Doctor Who episode I watched last week.”
“Is your father still letting you watch that show? Doesn’t it come on at midnight on Sunday or something?”
“Not midnight, Mama. It comes on at ten. Pop said it’s okay since I don’t want to watch nothing else.”
“Anything else. You don’t want to watch anything else.”
“Right. Sorry, Mama.”
Cordelia pointed to the Scarlett Witch. “I thought there were black girls in comic books,” she said.
“There are.”
“Then why’d you draw her?” Her voice sounded crisp with anger.
Octavian shrugged.
“You know what Malcolm X said about white women?”
Octavian shook his head.
“He said they were the black man’s poison.” She widened her eyes and Octavian saw that the yellow went way back behind her eyelids.
“Yes, Mama,” he said. He felt the bird fluttering in his chest.
“Don’t hate who you are, Octavian,” she said.
“I don’t, Mama,” he said.
“Ever,” she said and handed him the drawing.
“I won’t. I promise.” He stood up and brushed his lips against the fine gauze of her cheek.
“Is your brother home?” she asked.
“No, Mama, I think he’s with Ivy at the library, but he’ll be home soon,” Octavian said. He worried she would know he was lying, but her eyes were already getting heavy and he closed the door quietly behind him.
In the living room, his father sat reading in his orange chair and listening to Ella Fitzgerald. He looked up when Octavian walked in. “Hey son,” he said.
“Hey Pop.”
“You alright?”
Octavian nodded.
“What you got there?” Cyrus asked and pointed to the drawing Octavian forgot he held in his hand. Octavian walked over and handed it to him.
Cyrus pushed his reading glasses back up and said, “This is really cool. You got an eye for this, Octavian. I didn’t know that. Did you show your mother?”
“I showed her.”
Cyrus looked at him over his glasses. “What she’d say?”
“That Malcolm X said white women were poison.”
Cyrus moved his slippered feet off the ottoman and motioned for Octavian to sit down. He reached into his pocket for one of his soft, white handkerchiefs and cleaned his lenses. “Life hasn’t been easy for your mother,” he said.
“I know.”
“Death isn’t going to be any easier.”
Octavian felt the thick promise of tears that would come if he looked at his father, so he stared instead at the knotty ochre of the ottoman.
“You know, Tave,” Cyrus said trying to reach his son’s eyes, “your mother was, is, one of the most loving and accepting people you’ll ever meet. But she spent most of her life working hard not to hate, working hard to find love and compassion, many times for people who never once thought to give it to her. Trying to continue doing that? When you’re dying? It’s a tall order for any of us.” Cyrus stopped and waited for Octavian to look up, but he didn’t. “Seems to me,” Cyrus said, “that a lot of the things she didn’t want to think,
didn’t want to say, because she was working so hard not to be hateful, are coming out now. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“She’s just worried about the decisions you’re going to make since she’s not going to be here to help you make them.”
Octavian nodded. He hated when his father talked about his mother’s furiously approaching death like it was real.
Cyrus reached over and rubbed the back of Octavian’s neck. He handed him the drawing and said, “It’s really good, son, really. Keep it up.”
TRACK 4
Planet Rock
WITH THE END OF winter came the day when school photo packages were distributed. Few days conveyed the disparity of fifth grade families’ available finances as profoundly. You could quickly measure wealth by how much of a child’s face showed from under the cellophane square of the white envelopes placed on each desk. The middle portion of that child’s face meant their parents had enough funds to purchase the biggest package, the one that included the eight-by-ten—maybe even with the additional silhouette in the corner. Those with cellophane squares that showed the full face of the simple five-by-seven—or worse still, the sad solitary sheet of wallet photos—were quick to flip their envelopes over. And the kids who only had the free class photo that was given to every child, never seemed to care.
At recess, Octavian met Mina in the tunnel and worked hard on a picture of Lt. Monica Rambeau. He brought along a dark brown pencil for her skin, blue for her giant afro and silver for her body-tight suit. The wind had begun to blow, and it was colder in the afternoon than it had been in the morning, but his face got hot has he sat next to Mina and tried to draw Monica Rambeau’s long, curvy legs, her cleavage, her hips, and he was relieved when the bell rang and he could shove the drawing inside his hardcover book without showing it to Mina.
Mina called to him as he hurried toward the building.
He stopped and turned around.
“I have to say goodbye.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re moving. I have to go to a school in Clayton. My mom got a new house.”
Octavian didn’t know what to say, so he said, “My mom is dying.”
“Right now?”
“She has cancer. She’s been dying since last summer. The doctor says she’s going to die soon.”
Mina’s eyes filled with tears, and Octavian wished he hadn’t told her.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said.
Mina wiped her eyes. “How can I not cry? That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Octavian was about to tell her how he wanted to cry all the time, but that even when he tried, really tried, it was like his tears had dried up or something, but Mrs. Korchoran screamed at them from the door to get their butts inside.
“I guess this is goodbye then,” he said.
“Goodbye, Octavian,” she said. He saw that her eyes still shimmered with tears and he felt her shove something into his hand as she quickly kissed him on the cheek. Her hair against his ear was soft, not like straw the way he imagined it would be. She turned and ran and Octavian watched her skinny legs in too short jeans dash across the playground and through the double blue doors of the building.
He looked down. In his palm was one of Mina’s wallet-sized photos, her knotty hair hastily tucked behind her ears. She was smiling, but not enough to reveal those crooked bottom teeth. He wondered why no one had bothered to brush her hair—at least for picture day. Cordelia exhausted him on picture day—washing behind his ears and smoothing down his eyebrows. He wondered whether she would still be there next picture day and, if not, whether Cyrus would know to slick his eyebrows down with spit or if he’d have to do it himself. The late bell rang, and Octavian shoved the picture in his coat pocket and ran inside.
After school, Octavian looked for Mina thinking he could give her one of his pictures, but instead he found Francis with his friends Michael Ivy and Brendon Graves. Sometimes they took the bus from Brittany Middle School to Delmar Harvard, to buy candy at U. City Grille and wait for Octavian.
As they walked towards home, a car drove by blasting Afrika Bambaataa, and Ivy started popping until Brendon flicked him on the ear. It was getting colder, and Octavian took his gloves out of his pocket. Mina’s picture fell out and onto the ground and Francis snatched it with a crooked grin before Octavian could pick it up.
“Aw shit, look at this,” he said, his eyes taunting and alive. “Tave got hisself a girrllfriend.”
“Ooooh, for real?” said Ivy. He gave Francis a high five. Ivy had been Francis’s best friend since the first day of kindergarten when they got in a fist fight. No one ever called him Michael or Mike anymore. For a while, he was White Mike or White Mikey, but these days he was just Ivy. Ivy lived down the street from Octavian and Francis, but Ivy spent more time at the Munroe’s than he did at home—mostly because his mother was the kind of crazy that went for months without doing the laundry or cooking any type of food, but bought Ivy hundred-dollar pairs of sneakers. Ivy was small and clever and hopped around Francis and Brendon in his shell-toe Adidas like a fugitive Jack Russell Terrier.
Brendon, also known as Big Brendon or B-Boogie or just plain B, was dark skinned and massive. He wore thick glasses that were often foggy or smudged and he had a habit of licking his lips. Brendon had at least two inches and fifty pounds on Francis and he grabbed the photo out of Francis’s hand. He held it up high over his head as Octavian jumped about frantically trying to get to the photograph.
“Oh, look,” Brendon said, “she wrote on it.”
Octavian stopped jumping. “She did?”
“Give it here,” Francis said, snatching it back. “To Octavian the artist,” Francis read. “Love Mina. Ooohh,” he said, slanting his eyes towards Octavian. “Love.”
“Frankie,” Octavian said, “can I have it back, please?”
Francis ignored him and studied the photograph carefully, moving from side to side when Octavian tried to take it. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Tave got him a white girl.”
Octavian kicked a rock down the street with a curse.
“She’s white?” Ivy asked.
Francis held up the picture and said, “Yeah, but she’s wullaford. Anyone can get a white girl like this here. It’s motherfuckas like me that get the pretty ones.”
“Don’t say motherfucker,” Octavian said under his breath.
“Since when you mess with white girls?” Brendon said.
“I been messed with them,” Francis said, ignoring Octavian. “Especially the ones at the pool in Clayton in the summertime. They say, ‘Ooh Frankie, you got such pretty brown skin and such pretty, light eyes,’ and then they let me put my tongue in they mouths, let me feel on their little pink titties.”
Octavian watched his feet. Don’t step on the crack or you’ll break your mama’s back, he said to himself.
“You ain’t never gonna get the kind of white girls I get, Tave,” Francis said. “You’re too dark and your nose is as wide as all outside.” Ivy laughed and gave Francis another high five.
They had reached the corner of Waterman where Ivy lived. Brendon turned to Francis and said, “What’re you up to, Frankie?”
Francis shrugged. “Prolly going over to see Dante and them,” he said. “You want to come?”
Octavian saw a shadow cross over Brendon’s face. “Nah,” he said. “I think Ima go play Galaga with this white boy. Why don’t you come?”
“Maybe,” Francis said. “Gonna take Tave home first.”
Brendon smiled at Octavian and laid a massive hand on Octavian’s shoulder. “You okay, Tave? How’s your mom doing?”
Octavian shrugged and looked away from Brendon. He didn’t feel like hearing Francis’s mouth if he started to cry.
Brendon tried to snatch the photo of Mina out of Francis’s hand, but Francis was too quick. “Don’t worry,” Brendon said. “Ain’t nothing special
about white girls. Your brother is just color-struck. It happens to light-skinned cats sometimes.”
“Whatever, B,” Francis said. They gave each other pounds and Ivy and Brendon walked up the steps to Ivy’s apartment building.
When they were down the block, Francis turned to Octavian and said, “Mama’s going to be mad, you know?”
“About what?”
“You know what Malcolm X said about white women?” he said, imitating Cordelia’s voice. “She’s gonna give you a whoopin’ for sure.”
Octavian knew his mother wasn’t going to whoop him, she could barely stand up, but still, he didn’t want Francis to upset her. And this was the new Francis. The mean one who left Octavian alone in Eastgate, the one who talked back to the cops and maybe even the one who would tell on him to his mother, even if she was sick. “Okay, Frankie,” he said. “What do I have to do so that you won’t tell Mama?”
Francis stopped walking. “I won’t say nothing if, from now on, when Mama sends you out to find me, you don’t. You hear?”
Octavian pictured his mother, her pillows wilting behind her head as she waited for Francis to come home. He thought his heart might start up, but it was quiet.
“I’m waiting,” Francis said.
The dirty white sky made Octavian tighten the collar of his blue-and-black lumberjack coat against the gathering wind. He looked at Francis’s refined face, his sharp cheekbones, his full lips. It would be easy to draw Francis. “Okay, Frankie,” he said.
Francis smiled his lazy, handsome smile and started to walk away throwing the picture of Mina over his shoulder. It caught the wind and flew into the air. Mina’s sad smile, her stringy hair, fluttered about like a butterfly lost and left over to find its way in the cold. The picture landed face down on the sidewalk and Octavian picked it up, saw her neat, clear handwriting. To Octavian the artist.
There You Are Page 6