I take the beer and everyone but Twig cheers. They talk and I drink until my head and my stomach warm. The beer loses its sour. I keep drinking and my body keeps loosening and I don’t notice the time passing until Twig says it’s late. We stumble into the parking lot. Twig takes my keys and drives us both home. He says his parents are sleeping and we whisper and stifle laughter as we ascend the stairs. He tells me good night as I enter his brother’s room. The twin bed is hard and the sheets are scratchy, but I’m grateful it isn’t a couch. I have spent many nights in sleeping bags on floors and in the fetal position on small couches.
When I was young, sleeping at my father’s house on the weekends, I hated nighttime. That began one evening when my father and I watched Jamaica play in the World Cup. After all the excitement at the Reggae Boyz finally qualifying, they lost their first games. The one we watched, their final, was against Japan. After my father finished his Heineken, he told me to go to bed. I didn’t want to. If the Reggae Boyz lost, we might finish in last place. I told my father I’d go to bed after the game ended. I was watching a midfielder run at one of Japan’s forwards when my father grabbed my chin and turned me to him. He said he would not tell me a second time.
I went upstairs to my room. The white walls and hardwood floors were bare. One dresser drawer lay open with my clothes for the weekend. The rest were empty. I looked out the window. My father sat on the hood of his car and smoked a cigarette.
The room was hot and the air smelled stale. I opened the window. It squeaked long and loud, and my father turned around. I rushed to bed and closed my eyes. When he threw the door open, it crashed against the wall. I pretended to be asleep. He hit me open-handed from my shoulders to my hips. Minutes after he left, my skin still stung. That night, the pain, the sheets sticking to my body, and the lumpy mattress kept me awake.
The next day, when my father dressed me, he inspected my chest. It bruised purple and red. He told me to keep my shirt on in front of my mother.
The next weekend I was with him, about twenty minutes after he sent me to bed, he opened the door. Sometime later, I heard it open again. Every time the house creaked, I worried that he was coming, that he would see me pretend to sleep, and that he would hit me.
My father told me he loved me every night before he put me to bed, and then I lay awake afraid of him. I didn’t know the border between love and fear. Perhaps I still don’t.
My college classes and friends taught me that Southern conservatives would kill me. But here I am once more, back with the Floridians I loved when I was in high school, lying in the bed of Twig’s younger brother, who, Twig told me, joined the military and become a self-professed redneck. I don’t know how I ever felt so safe here.
Before I know I’m asleep, I surface in a nightmare. I’m trying to close the door to a bathroom. On the other side, someone tries to push it open. I scream for help when I hear something like a voice at the end of a tunnel. Everything darkens. I half realize I am asleep, but I do not know if I am the dreamer or the being-dreamt. The sound again. I’m underwater and the voice is above. I swim upward, surface, and gasp for air as light teems through my now-open eyes. Twig stands over me, his eyes pale blue.
You okay? he asks.
What time is it?
Nine.
Let me sleep, I say.
Twig reaches over me. The gray-ink anchor on the back of his hand is close enough to kiss. He pulls the pillow from under me, my head hits the mattress, and the fake floral scent of detergent fills my nose.
Get up, Twig says. Got things to do.
His voice sounds like he has picked up smoking. I roll over.
Surprised you could sleep that long on my brother’s tiny bed, he says.
I’m used to it.
Mom says all Jamaicans spend some of their childhood in someone else’s home. During Michael Manley’s first term as prime minister, she shared a bed with her sister, Auntie B, in her stepfather’s home. A few months after Grandma moved to the States, she sent money to move them to Spanish Town to live with a family friend whom Mom calls That Woman.
That Woman cleaned houses for a living. After she returned from work, That Woman made Mom and Auntie B scrub their school uniforms with bleach in the sink. The smell made Mom nauseous. Once, Mom refused. That Woman called her a boar-faced Coolie. Mom called her a dutty old Nega. That Woman unplugged her iron and whipped Mom’s back with the cord’s end. Mom cried, and her tears fell into the sink and stirred the marbleized soap film.
After, Mom went to her room, where Auntie B sat in front of the mirror, fixing her hair. She was going somewhere. Mom asked if she could come. Auntie B said she was too young. Then Auntie B put on a shirt Mom washed earlier that day. Mom told her she was going to get it dirty. Auntie B didn’t respond. Mom told Auntie B she couldn’t wear it. Auntie B grabbed her comb, jabbed it into Mom’s forehead, and carved a cut to her brow. Blood dripped into her eye, stinging it shut.
By the time Mom got a rag from the bathroom to press against the wound, Auntie B had left. Mom got into bed, turned onto her side to keep her weight off the welts, and put the cloth between her forehead and the pillow to keep her blood off the sheets. Hours later, she heard the window shake. Auntie B climbed through the window and into bed next to her.
After Grandma saved up enough money to buy them tickets, Mom and Auntie B joined her in the States. There, they became Black because Coolies didn’t exist, not in the same way. Mom says she never used the N-word derogatorily again, but every time she tells the story about That Woman, she repeats the slur and I don’t know if I should feel embarrassed or angry. Then I recall my silence through the slurs dropped last night and think that I am no better. In some ways, I am worse.
I exhale and my shoulders drop. I look around the room. Science-fiction novels fill the bookshelf. Red-inked posters for bands like Killswitch Engage and Avenged Sevenfold cover the walls. At the center of each are drawings of bats and skulls. Twig’s younger brother’s drum set sits in the corner: two high-hats, two snares, and a bass with a gray towel in it. Behind them, Twig sits on the black stool, resting a cup of coffee on his knee. He’s wearing a camouflage-patterned Jaguars hat.
You a good-ol’ boy now? I ask.
Something like that.
Wasn’t too long ago you were a Boston boy, I say. Never thought I would’ve seen the day you’d wear camo.
You been gone a long time.
I sit up and liquid sloshes in my stomach. I balance my forehead on my palms, though it’s almost too heavy for them. The blinds are drawn, but it’s still too bright. I rub my eyes and breathe deep. My lungs struggle to fill.
What you want to do today? Twig asks. Figure we could hit up Captains. Get some barbecue.
Got to shower first, I say. And I need to visit my grandmother.
I told Mom I would visit Grandma at the old-folks’ home. After that, I want to talk to someone who spent time with Aubrey, someone who can tell me about her life. If anyone would know, it’d be Desmond. During track season, he was a sprinter, like me. In high school, he talked a lot of shit and got into a lot of fights. After we became friends, he stood up for me when other people tried to punk me; once, he swung on a runner for cutting me off in the 4×400 and got kicked out of the meet. If he’s anywhere near as impulsive as he was back when he tried to start brawls with other teams because someone took the wrong tone with him, I don’t know what trouble we might get into.
I crack my knuckles, walk to the bathroom, and shower. When the hot water runs through my scalp, I exhale deeply and bow my head. The water warms like the ocean at Flagler Beach on a late August day. The door creaks. On the other side of the curtain, Twig’s bulky shadow moves. The faucet runs and the shower turns cold.
What’re you doing? I ask.
Brushing my teeth.
What if I was naked?
I waited till the shower turned on, he says.
I’m saying though.
You got a curtain.
I
pick up a bar of soap covered in small curly hairs and put it down. Then I squeeze the bodywash’s blue liquid into my hand. As I lather, it smells like a teenage boy’s spray deodorant. When I’m done, I run my hands through my hair, which still feels oily.
Ain’t nobody trying to look at you, Twig says.
Ain’t that private, I say. Just wasn’t expecting you.
Twig finishes brushing his teeth and leaves the bathroom, and I shut off the water. Then I dry myself with a towel softer and thicker than the ones I’m used to. It smells fresh, the touch of Mama Twig, who does all the housework, even though she works full-time.
Your parents at work? I yell to Twig.
Yeah, he says from outside the bathroom. How’s your mom?
She’s good. Moved back to Jamaica a few years ago.
Tell her I say hello. After a pause, he adds, What happened to your house?
Foreclosed.
Sorry to hear that.
I put on my clothes but avoid the mirror. My hair will look unkempt, my face unshaven, and my eyes sagged down. Instead, I stare at the sink as I try to brush away the syrupy remnants of whiskey and beer on my teeth. When I finish, the film they left is gone, but my burps still taste of both.
Baby D, what’re you really doing in Palm Coast?
Damn, I say, ain’t nobody called me Baby D in a minute.
Don’t change the subject.
Seeing friends.
You ain’t come home once in about eight years, Twig says, but all of a sudden you just wanted to show your face and see the town?
I live in New York now, but I haven’t returned to Flatbush, where we lived when we first moved to the States. The first time I set foot there was my first night in America, after Uncle Winston picked us up at the airport. He was a jet-black man with a square jaw and a thick mustache that Mom said he had not cut since he was a teen. He wore dark-brown Clarks, the same boots men wore on the island, a love affair I later heard began when the British sent Jamaican soldiers home from World War II with Desert Trek boots. Wearing those shoes, Uncle Winston looked like he had never left the island.
He drove us to Flatbush. As we rode on Nostrand with the windows rolled down, I heard so many familiar accents that it felt like we had not left Jamaica so much as found a town on the island with much taller buildings. After he parked, we entered a building whose lighting tinted the chipped walls yellow and then walked into his cramped, dark first-floor apartment. In their living room, Auntie B hugged me. She was brown-skinned and wore close-cropped red hair. As she pulled away, I saw a mole sprouting hair where laugh lines creased her mouth. I stood by Mom as they spoke, while Junior sat on the couch next to our cousins. Their hair was nappier, their shirts larger, and their sneakers more colorful than ours. Mom told me to join them.
As we sat on the floor, the older boys took turns on a video-game and I watched. The adults sat on the couches and talked to each other. At some point, I heard a loud popping noise outside. Mom asked what it was. Without taking his eyes off the TV, my oldest cousin said, Gunshots.
That night, everyone but Mom slept in the same bedroom. Auntie B and Uncle Winston shared the queen-size bed by the window. Against the opposite wall, my cousins slept in the bottom bunk and my brother and I in the top bunk. The snores and still bodies suggested everyone fell asleep quickly. The heat and smell kept me up.
Hours later, angry mumbling woke me. I didn’t know if it was in the bedroom or outside. I crawled down the ladder and rushed to the living room, where Mom slept on the plastic-wrapped couch. I stepped on a creaky floorboard and her eyes sprang open. Blood-red spiderwebbed around her black pupils.
What time is it? she asked.
I don’t know.
Mom turned onto her side and pulled me onto the couch. My body was inches from its edge, but her arm held me in place.
After we moved out of Flatbush, I thought of it as the nights on the couch with Mom, the people I didn’t recognize on the streets, and the gunshots. I’m sure we had good times—days at the park learning how to play basketball and American football buying bootleg movies on Flatbush Ave, and so many meals—but I mostly remember the fear.
This ain’t got nothing to do with Aubrey?
I turn the faucet on and pretend I don’t hear Twig as I wash my face. When I finish, I run my fingers against the rough stubble collecting under my chin, which feels like sandpaper, and step out of the bathroom. Twig stands by an open window. He holds a lit cigarette and tries his best to blow smoke out the window, but fails and turns the room hazy. On the TV behind him, two heads scream about Obamacare’s death panels.
Thought we said no politics, I say.
You said no politics.
I ain’t going to make it through the weekend with this on.
You don’t watch the news?
This ain’t news.
I walk into his brother’s room and pile my dirty clothes on the floor. I consider asking for a plastic bag to contain the scent but don’t bother. Even after the shower, I can still smell the sweat in my armpits. The TV in the next room quiets. When Twig walks in, I rummage through my backpack, though I’m not looking for anything.
Left Florida and got all sensitive?
Something like that.
I give up the ruse that I’m looking for something, and sit on the bed. Twig leans against the wall.
Why you miss Aubrey’s funeral? Twig asks. I ain’t hear from you in, like, five years. Then all of a sudden, you text me out the blue talking about how you want to fly down and you need a ride.
I was drunk.
I texted about your flight. You ain’t hit me back.
I was busy.
Then I ain’t hear from you for a minute.
What you want me to do? I say. Shit, man, it’s embarrassing. Couldn’t afford to fly down for the funeral, so I ain’t hit you back. Then I try to talk to folks about it up north but they ain’t get it. So I come down here thinking that’d make me feel better, and y’all ain’t get it.
Twig lets out a big exhale, his cheeks puffing out as he does, and lets his head hang limp-necked. He’s looking at the ground when he asks, So what you want to do?
Past the beard and Twig’s new weight, I still see that bony-faced boy whom I depended on to fill the silence in his car with jokes. I felt safe here once, I think to myself. He walks back to the living room and I follow. He picks up the remote. I shoot him a look. He puts it down and turns to the window.
Can’t go to no grave, Twig says. She was cremated. They scattered her. You say you want to feel better, so come out with me and the boys. We’ll get some beers, go fishing.
I ain’t here for old times.
Far as I can tell, says Twig, you ain’t got nothing else around here.
When I first got to Palm Coast, everyone already had their crew of friends because they went to middle school together, but I didn’t know anyone. Twig was one of the first people I befriended.
We moved to Palm Coast because Mom was having a hard time paying New York rent and food prices. She had started working as a temp at a skyscraper in midtown and we moved out of Auntie B’s to an apartment west of the park, where the block was safer, the schools were better, and my classmates asked how a Jamaican got a Spanish last name but looked like me.
In our new apartment, Junior slept on a futon. Mom and I shared her bed. When the company she worked for extended her contract, Mom bought me my own. A year later, they told her they didn’t need her anymore. Mom returned to the temp agency, which sent her to work as a receptionist in skyscrapers all over midtown, never for more than three months at a time, for years. Then the agency went bankrupt. Mom tried to find work through others, but they all said they couldn’t place an uneducated older woman. Mom started getting unemployment, but eventually that ran out. Some months later, our landlord evicted us.
We flew to Jacksonville, where Aunt Shirley picked us up. We drove south to Palm Coast and stopped at what I would later learn was the town’s first sto
plight. We passed the McDonald’s and the Cracker Barrel and turned into a housing community named the Woodlands. There, we parked at a red-roofed, one floor, white box of a house, where Mom said Grandma watched my great-grandmother live the last years of her life. When we opened the front door, Mom complained about the smell of cigarettes, the smoke of which stained the carpets and the walls yellow. We walked to the sliding-glass door and stepped out onto a screened-in back porch. From there, I looked down at the sandy soil that extended back to a small decline into the nature preserve, a forest encroaching on our home.
In the fall, while Junior was at college, I began my freshman year at the local high school. Aside from Aubrey, nobody really talked to me. After a semester with few friends and little to do after school, I decided to do a sport. My science teacher, who was also the distance-running coach for the track team, encouraged me to join. Because Mom was a top sprinter at St. Jago, I figured I would be good at it too. Besides, it was cheaper than the other sports—all I needed were shoes—so I figured we could afford it.
At the first practice, we separated into sprinters and distance runners. The distance runners, including Twig, were lanky and white and wore short shorts. The sprinters, including Desmond, were stocky and Black and wore basketball shorts. Our coach, a light-skinned Black man who had been a top sprinter at the University of Florida, lined us up at the starting line.
For our workout, we did a step-down: 350 meters, then 300, and so on. The most experienced sprinters went first. I waited until the last heat. When Coach said go, I ran at top speed and struggled to stay in my lane. The wind whistled as I entered the straightaway, leading my heat. I was fast, I thought, faster than everyone else. I surged ahead again, hips switching faster, wanting to prove that I was the team’s best. Before I reached the second curve, my legs slowed. My knees sank. My chest burned. Trying to pull in enough air was like shoveling water out of a sinking ship. My teammates passed me. By the time I entered the final stretch, I was barely jogging. I walked across the finish line. Coach said I died. Then he turned away and focused on the faster runners.
All the Water I've Seen Is Running Page 4