Gumbo

by E. Lynn Harris

  Cars fill the parking lot of the liquor store across the street like the lot at nearby Fed Ex Field on a home-game Sunday. In that same lot with only a month on the force, you were called to break up a fight. Young. Inexperienced. Scared of fucking up. Making a bad arrest. Adrenaline pumping you up, pushing you, making you feel crazy, invincible and yeah, you're still scared. Right off the bat you violate rule number one. Wait for backup. But you want to prove yourself. And surely you can handle this. There's a crowd but they're just watching the two men go at it. A big, burly Incredible Hulk mutha and a wiry, short guy who's bloody, but won't stop fighting. You radio for backup. But you don't wait. Can't wait. Hell, the guy could get killed. So you jump out of the car and swing into the crowd. Your night stick breaks when you slam it on the back of the bruiser, who turns around, not even flinching at the sight of you in uniform, shouting into your radio for backup. He doesn't even stop in his tracks. You try to body slam him, but it's like scaling a mountain. You're on the ground and the monster is astride you, choking you. The crowd's voices are a lurid, wild, jeering chant. Some are rooting for you. Some are shouting “Kick the cop's ass.” Straining to remove the mutha's greasy huge hands from your neck, you hear your radio slide, cold and slick, across the parking lot into the crowd. The bastard starts banging your head against the cement. Once. Twice. Pain numbs and reverberates, blasts across your temples, and for a moment you can't see. Then two men from the crowd jump in, wrestle the guy off you just as two police cruisers arrive. The lights and the sirens, loud, disorienting, disperses the crowd. You suffer a concussion. That's not the only ass-whipping you get. You've been shot in the arm at the scene of a bank robbery, suffered whiplash when your cruiser crashed into another patrol car chasing a stolen SUV. But you gave as good as you got. Got even. Got even and then some.

  You top off the tank and pull out of the station. You're driving. Headed nowhere. You just don't want to go home. No longer are you guardian of these streets. Driving you feel like a nomad. One with no destination.

  It's 1988 when you join the force. Your first partner is a white guy named Deek Rehnquist. He's been on the force twenty years and is a go-along to get-along granny goose. He figures he ain't been shot yet so he's not putting his ass anywhere near the line of fire. But you joined the force to make a difference, to catch the bad guys, to see some action And this fuck is your partner. You have missed the worst of the eighties crack wars, but there's still plenty to do. Deek talks about the early eighties like it was Korea, or Vietnam. “Hell, sometimes we'd take fifteen, sixteen service calls a shift,” he tells you, shaking his head and letting out a long, smooth whistle of disbelief at the memory. “We were patrolling all the hell holes. The crack dens, the open-air markets. And for all that work, we got the minimum mandatory sentences, it was just a revolving door.” You realize quick that a partner is like another wife. On Bunny's birthday, yours and the kids, on Christmas, on your wedding anniversary, you're with Deek. Your shift is 95 percent boredom, 5 percent terror. Half your shift is just talking, talking to your partner, as you cruise the beat, keeping your eyes on the street and everybody on the street.

  Deek grew up in the county like you, but out in Crofton, where his old man was the sheriff. He talks guns and hockey, deer hunting, and how great a President Ronald Reagan was. On bad days Deek grumbles about his seventeen-year-old granddaughter getting pregnant by a “colored” boy at her high school and deciding to keep the baby and what the hell is the family supposed to do? You remind him that you're not Oprah and that nobody says “colored” anymore.

  “I'm not a racist. I want you to know that, Carson,” he tells you as you pull into the lot of a 7 Eleven to get your third cup of coffee of the shift. Deek's got a slow, country, long-legged gait, and the beginnings of a paunch. His buzz crew cut shows more of his scalp than ought to be legal. “My daddy hired the first colored deputy in Crofton and took heat for it, too.”

  “Am I sposed to say thank you?”

  “I just want you to know I ain't no redneck.”

  Deek may not be a redneck, but you know that he's scared shitless of black perps. When you pick up a young Blood, you can smell Deek's fear. How quick he is to pull his gun, how he goes overboard with the black suspects even when they offer little resistance. You're the rookie, so you don't say anything. You go along to get along. Like Deek. Your beat samples a bit of the whole county—the just-made-it middle-class white section, the boogie-black haven called Heaven's Gate, and the streets of Dodge City. You see Deek put on the kid gloves, or just ignore shit in his neighborhood. But you don't say a word. Back then you can't imagine that one day they'll all just be perps to you.

  After a while you start listening to Deek and he's got all sorts of stories about the department, the chief, the politics of the department, who's getting promoted, who's not. And all of it you need to know. He's not interested in you much at all and that suits you fine. You can't imagine yourself telling Deek about Bunny. But what galls you is that Deek's lazy. You damn near have to twist his arm to get him to stop for a traffic violation or to park in a strategic spot in a crime-ridden area to make a point, or some arrests. He wants to drive and talk the whole shift.

  Then one afternoon the day after Easter Monday, two dealers erupt into a shoot-out over a drug deal gone bad along one of the quietest, loveliest streets nearly hidden in the backside of Dodge City. A twelve-year-old girl riding her bike is killed, caught in the crossfire. Within an hour the department knows who they're looking for. There's an APB out and everybody is working overtime, questioning witnesses and cruising, looking for the suspect.

  You and Deek have been given a description of the shooter and his car. It's seven o'clock and you can't believe it when you and Deek pass a Popeyes and you spot the car and the suspect. He's leaning against the hood of the car, laughing and talking trash. You wonder if he's laughing about the girl he killed earlier that day. As you and Deek pull into the parking lot he breaks into a run. Deek radios for back up and you bolt out of the car and chase him. He runs behind the stores to the back of the mall. You're running faster than you knew you could. You hear Deek behind you. Not close enough. And you also hear another squad car, its siren closing in. The suspect trips and falls in front of a trash Dumpster. On the ground, he's holding his ankle, squealing like a pig in pain. Your flashlight speckles the darkness with light that lands on his face and you figure he's maybe sixteen at the most. His dark-skinned, childish face is mangled, twisted by belligerence and rage. He wears a bandanna tied around his head like he's a Blood or a Crip. Deek finally catches up and is all over the kid, searching him and cuffing him, raising from the ground with a gun and a palm full of tiny cellophane packets of crack.

  You hear more footsteps and you turn to see Vincent Proctor nearing you. He's a light-skinned blue-veined brother. You thought he was white when you first saw him. Even in the darkness you see the tiny pencil-thin mustache, the small eyes that are as hard as metal flints. Some cops love him. Some cops hate his guts. You don't know why. To your eyes Vincent Proctor walks like a man who's got everything he needs—with him, on him. All the time. He's a kick-ass who prefers the uniform to undercover and who saved the life of another cop trapped in a burning car and another with a gun pointed at his head in a hostage situation. On the ground, the kid is yelling about the cuffs being too tight and his ankle being broken.

  “Nigga, if you don't shut up I'll give you a real reason to scream,” Proctor tells him.

  “Fuck you muthafucka,” the kid shouts.

  “This ain't no rap video you stupid-ass,” Proctor yells as he begins kicking the kid in the head, the ribs, in the groin, in the back, his thick muscular arms outstretched almost as if he is balancing himself or performing a dance movement with each kick. You can't believe how loud is the sound of Proctor's shoes against the kid's clothing and his flesh. The kid's moans strangle the chilly April air. Deek is holding the gun and the crack, watching Proctor, his eyes huge and still.

  �
��Fuck you muthafucka,” Proctor taunts. A dim halogen bulb hangs from the roof of the back of the pizza parlor above the trash Dumpster. And so you see everything. The boy's face, blood soaked and unrecognizable, Proctor's foot on the kid's stomach as though to hold him in place. The hands cuffed in front of him. Proctor, his pencil-thin mustache the only color on his ghost-white face, and his presence making you feel smaller and the moment bigger than anything you've been a part of before. You hear Proctor asking “Blake, you want a piece a this?”

  The kid's moans sicken you. But Proctor is watching and if any questions are asked, it's three men and one story. You've known that since the first day. The first kick is half-hearted, the second and the third, you just close your eyes so you don't see the kid. The fourth and fifth, it's like you're a machine. And then you feel Proctor's hand on your shoulder. You know it's Proctor, not Deek, and he's saying, “I think he's got the point.” You open your eyes and Proctor winks at you and you know the lesson is through. You and Proctor and Deek haul the kid off the ground and lead him out of the alley. You've left something back there on the ground where the kid had lain beneath the light, something mixed in with the trash and dirt overflowing from the Dumpster. Walking out of the alley into the rows of police cruisers that had blocked off the alley, that night isn't the last night you don't look back to see what it is.

  Here

  BY AUDREY PETTY

  There's no way to not pass The Pita Hut and the men who come early to wait. Today, it makes me laugh, the way they lose language at the sight of live women. From thirty feet, they begin preparing. Shifting like ants, their circle opens in formation. They slouch at attention—narrowed eyes, mouths panted open. But Deanna says what she knows and hates is that they'd never look at one of their own women like that. And she's right. And I'm mad before I know it, fumbling to do something I mean: stop and stare, spit and curse, scream the world out of place. They are still looking when I turn back for their eyes. Aproned fools. I can live without their fucking hummus. Deanna catches me before I keep going. “Slow down, girl. We're here.”

  The air in the cooler dries the sweat to my face. I watch my biceps settle under the weight of trays of poached salmon, going up and up and up the bruised stairs to the narrow kitchen in the back of the store. Deanna sighs over coffee, eyes closed and rubbing her brows like she's reading her mind, thumb and forefinger meeting, parting at the bridge of her nose. She leans into the steam before closing the cambro. “That's all I need,” she says.

  We'll let Howard be the man and heave all this coffee up and out. He'll be running late and have some Howard stories to make laughter, even once the mosquitoes hum hungry into us, and folks start getting wine-rowdy. I gather my braids in a knot and change into white shirt and apron.

  We are traying asparagus when Ben walks in without footsteps, complaining that the cake won't be ours. “This is a corner man and wife have chosen to cut.” He smirks and winks at no one in particular. Sometimes, I get tired of puns. “It's coming from Leona's,” he adds. Leona uses mix and bright, heavy frosting. With a cake like that, these won't be big tippers. Ben sets down the folder with a half smile and heads out, grabbing the van keys and mumbling about booze and ice.

  And so we wait. The food's unpacked. Howard's stocked the bar. Deanna's folded napkins, set out china and candles on all the tables, inside and outside. She twists in a stuffed chair in the sitting room, reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. If she leaves it visible, it will make someone nervous. Deanna acts like she doesn't know this. Howard and Allison lean and bend, uncorking fat bottles of vino verde. The harpist is carting around, looking for the spot to play without an amp. Summer heat has filled this big old house. The ice will not last the night. The florist came too soon.

  The bride's sister introduces herself as the bride's sister. Tracy. I see the resemblance. Severe cheekbones. Orphan Annie hair. She asks me if I am who I am. It happens like this. “Yes, I'm in charge,” I tell her. “Yes, we're ready for the guests.” I glance sideways to remind Deanna not to set any tablecloths on fire. Tracy should be going by now, but she remains in place, smiling a sniffing smile. I turn back to the house to make myself useful.

  We eat while we can, while the house creaks, while the tent is full of quiet people, all except the man up front, talking with his hands. Bride and groom kiss, and the applause sounds like rain from this distance. I roll up my sleeves and straighten my collar. It's time go outside and disappear.

  “Scallops wrapped in bacon . . . Scallops wrapped in bacon.” “Scallops wrapped in bacon?” “Scallops wrapped in bacon.”

  Some say “here” for me to stop. Others “please.” Most wait silently, glancing to be understood.

  I cut more lemons for ice water and look forward to the scent they will leave on my palms. Deanna edges past, her tray full with toothpicks, balled napkins, the shards of a plate. She dumps them and Handiwipes her hands and neck. There's not much left to size up in the fridge. Deanna moves in closer, bending and humming. She smiles at the last tray of stuffed mushrooms.

  “Notice the brother out there?”

  “Hard to miss.” I saw him on my way past the bar. Howard was opening his bottle of beer. Pale-green linen suit. Looked a little like my cousin Ray. Broad-chested and peacefully serious.

  “Tell you now, he's the kind that looks away. We remind him.”

  “Black bean spirals? . . . Black bean spirals? . . . Black bean spirals . . . Black bean spirals?”

  Guests are spread across the lawn. They buzz in polite circles, happy with their beverages. Some open as I approach. Reaching for a spiral, a man with a handlebar mustache talks about the films of Kieslowski. “Genius of our lifetime,” he declares. The circle waits for him to chew. I look ahead to the next, waiting for the silence of full hands.

  It is time to relieve Howard and Allison at the bar. They're grateful and a bit sluggish. Howard is hungover today, quieter than he really is. “Take fifteen,” I tell them. “Rest. Standing in one place can make a person tired.” Finally still, I realize the day is almost over. I will serve women impatient for wine. I will serve children who rattle their cups for Coca-Cola. I will serve beer to men who really want eye contact. But for now, I am alone in this corner of the porch, my face cupped in my lemoned palms, my elbows cooling where ice has melted. I watch the horizon dusking ripe and remember the darkness of that one Kieslowski film—the scene, that scene, when Veronika collapses.

  Veronika is blushing and singing, losing her heart as her voice swells and thickens. And when she falls, the camera sees the sky of that concert hall ten different ways before the noise of her body meeting the stage and the leap and zoom overhead in a brief, straight line—before someone finally holds her wrist, limp as a promised fish.

  Tracy's sister approaches. Her dress has a righteous train. She beams. “Call me Liz,” she insists, holding herself. They are finished with pictures.

  “Come in,” I tell her. “Come in for the buffet.”

  Deanna's pouring out the last of the fruit salad. “Old boy on the harp is just sad.” She laughs to herself and tops the platter with mint. “Out there playing the theme from ‘Cheers.' And trying to get funky before . . . Lionel Richie, Bee Gees, somebody.” I haven't heard the harpist for hours. I want to remember that song from the movie.

  I carry full bags of trash to the big metal cans outside, empty and sour from all this happiness. Only hours to go. Back in the kitchen, I soap my hands and forearms and rinse them with fast, warm water.

  There are those sighs and gasps and someone flashing a camera when I wheel out the cake. Deanna will follow with the engraved knife. I watch for darting children and feel my breath caught and my arms stiffening a tremble.

  I rinse and stack things that can already be put away. The groom thinks I can help him.

  “What was in that fucking chicken?” he asks, slamming his Pilsen, rubbing the top of his neck through his bowtie.

  “Excuse me, sir?” He moves closer until I
can see that his mouth is a bit greasy and his face is strange—red, expectant. The door is still snapping behind him in short, frantic arcs.

  “One of you girls drop a fingernail in my food?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Listen. I swallowed something wrong.” His voice breaks like a child's and his stare begins to twitch.

  I dry my hands, considering. “The chicken was garnished with rosemary,” I say. He stops and leans forward, his knee bent and atop the folded stepladder. “You swallowed a sprig, maybe.”

  I hold his gaze until he starts looking past me, over my shoulder, clearing his throat over and over, jerking his head, becoming the bird he has eaten.

  Something soft to chew may help make him right again. I pull the final baguette from the tote and turn to find him draining the beer from his glass. I will not cut my hand slicing for this groom. I take my time and hand him three rounds.

  “Thank you,” he confesses.

  Veronika never sings in the film. She lives sadly in Paris, waiting until things begin to happen.

  People with children have already left. It is beginning, the last hour of this party. The tent is empty now, all but for an armful of plates and bottles. A few guests come to tell me that the food was exquisite. Someone is howling near the bar.

  Somebody's momma is always wearing sequins at their child's wedding. This one reaches to touch my hair before she even speaks. I hold the empties close to my chest and I wonder. “Aaah”—her fingers work their way up and down a braid—“beautiful. Feels like rope.” I wonder who she thinks I am. She wants to know does it take long.