How to Escape From a Leper Colony

by Tiphanie Yanique

  But then he asked me in my bed one night: Why kill the rabbits.

  What do you mean?

  Kill the rabbits. What does it mean? Why rabbits?

  Just something the singer made up.

  Maybe I’m paranoid. Am I?

  I moved my body so that I leaned into his chest. I pulled his arms around me so he could feel protective and strong: You’re fine. It means nothing. It’s a game.

  What kind of game, Xica?

  I lowered my head so he could kiss my brow. I wanted him to call me his little girl. I thought on childish things: It’s from Bugs Bunny. Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny.

  I could feel his arms tighten and then slacken around me. Perhaps he wanted to push me off my bed—to the floor where he’d already pushed the old clothes that I kept on the bed like a teddy bear or security blanket. Perhaps he wanted me gone.

  But Xica, in the cartoon Elmer Fudd never gets Bugs.

  See, it’s a joke. It’s a game.

  Elmer is a joke, Xica. Elmer can never catch Bugs. It’s as bad as Coyote and Road Runner. Elmer gets made a fool of. So killing the rabbits is what foolish people do. The rabbit always wins.

  I pulled myself away from him. And looked into his eyes. They were blue and I wished then that they weren’t. Any other color but vapid, white-only blue. I asked him: What do you mean?

  I mean if the white people are rabbits, then you’re Elmer Fudd.

  That’s not what it means. That’s not what it means at all. Stop trying to figure it out. It’s code. It’s code that you can’t figure out.

  Perhaps he thought I meant you as in anyone. But I meant you as you and not me. Either way, he reached out for me and turned me back into his chest. I felt my back press onto a set of hard buttons on his shirt. I curved my spine into his belly. I let him protect me because this is what parents do: protect because it makes them feel strong.

  6.

  Herman

  Xica was my girlfriend before I even knew I liked her or that she liked me. I saw her eating in a tapas bar in Cruz Bay. She was listening to some jazz guy from St. Thomas playing an upright bass and saying “Oh, oh, oh” over and over again. She was in a yellow dress that was shiny and out of date—out of place in the tapas bar. Everyone was leaning over a tiny plate of mussels or Brie. She sat at the edge of a bar stool, her back so straight that she reminded me of a librarian. It was painful to watch her. Everyone clapped and someone even hooted when the bass guy took his break. I didn’t think of the woman in the yellow dress again. I ate my mussels. I tipped the barman well. I walked out. Outside under a lamppost the bass player had a glass of white wine in one hand and Xica in the other. I stopped. I hadn’t seen this kind of thing with the black people here. They were more discreet than this. More stuck-up in a way. Not a bad way or anything. They just didn’t kiss in public or even hold hands. The white people did that. Hell, I did it. They were the only black people in the street—this little part of St. John being frequented mainly by white locals and tourists. I couldn’t stop watching them. Then the bass player stopped kissing and looked at me. He made a noise that was kinda like his instrument. Then the woman looked at me. I wondered vaguely if she was an African American perhaps. Or a prostitute. Perhaps she was from D.C. She might even have been Ethiopian like so many black girls in the D.C. that had been home to me. She was beautiful in the way they were.

  I went back in to wait for the bass player to start up again. I left half an hour later with Xica. Just like that. We took the ferry back to St. Thomas and I knew I’d be stuck there because the ferry wouldn’t make a return trip until the next morning. We sat on the top in the open air with the night wind whipping around us. We talked about our pasts and I found myself telling her about the first time I’d had sex. It had been with a Cuban prostitute in Miami where I’d gone to visit a cousin over summer vacation in high school. The cousin was older and cooler than me and I wanted badly to be like him. He screwed the woman first while I waited outside the door in a communal living room that led to other doors. I listened to him grunt. When it was my turn I was scared and the woman didn’t comfort me. She didn’t even pretend to like me. I was ashamed of the whole thing. I didn’t believe in pornography. I didn’t believe in using women for sex. Yet, I had done it. And I told Xica this as the ferry pushed through the water. I had never told anyone this before. I’d never even talked to that cousin of mine again. I had made myself believe the thing never even happened. And here I was telling Xica. She cried right there. Her face drying quickly because of the wind. She told me that I was a monster. She told me that God could see me doing that horrible thing and didn’t I know that I was participating in a system that made women slaves? Then she nestled into my arms and told me that she had forgiven me. Then she told me she loved me.

  Xica took me to her home that night and introduced me to her grandfather as her boyfriend. He shook my hand but stayed at the dining table hunched over his sewing machine. And it felt like I really was her boyfriend after all I’d told her. She took me through this house. Everywhere there were glue guns and monstrous jars of gold dust. And up along the hallway walls were Carnival headpieces and pictures, just the pictures, of plaques that read “Best Costume” or “King of the Band.” And there was fluorescent elastic and old sneakers and the sound of the sewing machine going. And I knew that this is what I had come to the islands for. I wanted to be a part of this. I would not be a tourist.

  Xica and I joined the Carnival together. Picked out the same costumes for the parade. We did everything together. I was falling in love with my real island girlfriend. Dutch didn’t tell me to be careful of rabbit killers anymore. We shared a joint with some other Frenchies.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  “Of what?”

  “Is that your bona fide woman, man?”

  “Xica. Yeah, that’s my woman.”

  “Then never mind, man. Never mind.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “She’s already your woman. It doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean, man?”

  “Forget it, Herman. Forget it.”

  By then I loved her. It didn’t matter what anybody said, she was my piece of paradise.

  People said she’d screwed around. People said they’d seen her kissing on another guy the same day they’d seen her with me. They said that she’d slept with a ton of guys back in high school and that she would still do it now if you just talked to her the right way. I asked Dutch if he’d been with her, even though if he’d said he had I would have kicked his ass. I wasn’t afraid of anyone. I mean, I was afraid. I was really afraid of getting beat down by a gang of Frenchies. But I was going to fight for my woman anyway. Dutch squinted his eyes. “I think I kissed her once in like eighth grade or something. But nothing else, man. That’s your woman. Don’t worry yourself about history.” He passed me the spliff like we were family.

  A week or so before the parade the Crusher director called me on my cell phone. He told me he had an emergency at the center. Something about my costume. I didn’t have a car. I liked walking. I wanted to be close to the land. Still, I had to hitch a ride to the docks and then take the ferry over to St. Thomas. When I got there it was only me and the director.

  “Mr. Man,” which was what he called me when he was making fun of me in a way I wasn’t quite sure was funny. “Mr. Man, we need someone to be the rabbit.”

  Immediately, I understood what he meant but I was sure I had misunderstood. “What do you mean?”

  “Our troupe. We’re doing ‘Legal.’ That is our theme. Police officers. Firefighters. Crossing guards. Military. Some people have toy guns, others ticketing pads. Have you seen those?” He laughed so that it was clear the ticketing pads were his idea. “They can give them out along the parade route: ‘In violation of slackness. In violation of having a big backside.’ It’s genius.” He cleared his throat and then laughed again. He touched the sides of his eyes tenderly. Then he cleared his throat and loo
ked serious. “But we need someone to be the target.”

  “I’m already a firefighter. I already put the glitter on my felt hat. I just need my hose finished by the tailor, my girlfriend’s grandfather, and my costume is done. I’m the only male in the firefighter section. You need me there.”

  “Yes, yes. And your girlfriend sure will look good in her bikini fire suit. I mean it’s made for her.”

  I stared at him.

  “But I mean we don’t need men in the firefighter section. The hose is so … what’s the word? Phallic. It’s the kind of thing for a woman to carry around. You don’t think? Something for her to wind up on? No, we need you elsewhere. You’ll be the rabbit. In the stadium you’ll lead everyone in a do-si-do for the judges, but then at the last minute we’ll turn the hoses on you and then the military will shoot you down. Then you can go home.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a metaphor, Mr. Man. Kill the rabbit. We’re just acting out the song.”

  “I thought the Crushers didn’t do routines. I thought you didn’t believe in conforming.”

  “It’s not a routine. You watch. Everyone will want to shoot you down without any rehearsal. You do this, you’re a hero.”

  “But I’m not the hero. I’ll be the villain.”

  “Sure. Yes. But by playing the villain you give us a chance to regain our … how should I say it? Our cultural dignity. Then you you’ll be a hero.”

  “But you’ll kill me.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “Not you, Herman. But what you represent. Come, Mr. Man. Carnival isn’t about real. Carnival is about representation. You do this and it shows that you know no people should put on a pappy show for another set of people.”

  “So you should kill white people?”

  “Only metaphorically. Now listen. This will be our secret. You’ll go to Mr. John’s house to be fitted.”

  “But that’s Xica’s grandfather. He’s down with this?”

  “Yes. He’s one of us, you know. A secret Crusher. That’s how we win every year. Even Xica won’t know about this. And you won’t tell her.”

  I didn’t know how to get to Xica’s house without her knowing. But it turned out to be the easiest thing. I took a dollar van to meet her for a movie. I got there early. While she was in the shower, Mr. John walked me silently to his own crowded storeroom-bedroom and pulled out a white-haired rabbit suit from a shadowy corner. I had imagined it would be like a Disney suit, where all of me would be covered. Instead it was furry long pants with big rabbit feet that I discovered were just snorkeling flippers covered in carpet swatches. It had a puff tail in the ass of the pants made out of cotton balls. The hood had rabbit ears and wire whiskers and big puffy cheeks that felt like stones at the sides of my face. My face would be painted white and I would be given six gray wires to glue right onto my cheeks as whiskers. But my face would be there. Sticking out for everyone to see that it was me.

  Mr. John signaled for me to try it on and quickly he pinned parts and loosened parts while motioning for me to stand straight. At one point he pinched between my legs to make sure my crotch could breathe. Then he made me take it off. He turned while I dressed. I handed him the suit. “Xica is the only constant thing I have,” he said clearly. Then he took the suit from me. I had never really heard his voice before. He sounded like a sad old man.

  On the day of the parade, I could not do it. We had been dancing and drinking for two hours. Xica let the other firewomen in the troupe grind up on me and I didn’t feel too bad when I saw her push up on the other men who were police officers and army guys.

  It was a sudden thing. I was there in my fireman suit, carrying the hose at my crotch like I figured was the manly thing to do. I wasn’t thinking about rabbits. Our troupe had played the song three times already but every time it played Xica came to me and held on to me tight. But “Legal” wasn’t playing when someone I didn’t know tugged me into an alley and pulled out the suit from a garbage bag. Perhaps I was drunk. Perhaps I was afraid. I ran up the alley. Away from the strange suit, away from the parade and away from Xica. It had dawned on me that if they were painting my face then why did it have to be a white man? Why did it have to be me? I do not know who played the rabbit. I never knew.

  I felt smart and brave when I caught the St. John ferry that was going back and forth often because it was Carnival time. I went to my parents’ bar, where I spent most of my time on the island. My father was there and other men were there, drinking and watching the parade on one screen and a basketball game on another. I walked in still in costume and they looked at me as though I was a ghost or at least a dragon with pointy wings come to take something from them, when I was only a firefighter. When my father, behind the bar, let out a big whopping laugh, and all the other men and women allowed themselves a giggle, I knew that I wasn’t really a firefighter. I took off my plastic hat. My father poured me a rum and Coke. I turned to the TV screen that was showing the game.

  7.

  Cooper

  “Hey, Coop. Hey, Coopster. Coopadelic!”

  That was Sexy. I mean that’s his frigging name. No lie. I guess he’s sexy, but I wouldn’t know about that. He was calling me over to his car. He opened the side door and let me in.

  This is how I know Sexy: that Carnival he gave me a gun. That’s how everyone knows Sexy. I didn’t need the gun. I was making more than enough just picking pockets. Sexy was into other stuff. Sexy was into everything. A real hustler. He had a hustler’s job—he worked at the race track organizing the betting. And he had soldiers all over the island. He had found out about me and my quick fingers.

  “I ain needing all of that, Sexy.”

  “So what?”

  “And I ain want it.”

  “You’re small time, Coop. You could be making some real money.”

  “Man, Sexy. I still in high school. Let me graduate, already.”

  “Take it anyway. It’s a gift. A temporary gift. Consider it a loaner but with no interest.”

  I didn’t even know how to use it. He leaned over to me in the passenger seat. “This is the safety. Leave it locked unless you plan on doing something. Too many guys in jail for mistakes. And this is the barrel.”

  I couldn’t tell if it was loaded or not.

  “No bullets,” he said.

  “You know my mother’s a cop, man. She going kill me.”

  “Listen, Coop. Hold it for me. You’s a magician. Make it disappear until I need it again.”

  I took the gun. I hid it in the alley by the church. Behind the stairs. It was so many months later when the cops found it that I’d forgotten about it. As far as I was concerned it really had disappeared. Later, when the cops found it, there were two prints. Mine and someone else’s. They never figured out who else. Someone who hadn’t been printed before. Someone not in the system. It must have been Xica’s, either that or a priest’s.

  The gun was what cinched me. They said I’d stolen diamonds from this tourist couple out East End. The white people pointed and said that yes it was me. That I’d held them up at gunpoint, taken advantage of the wife, then slammed the husband into sleep with my piece.

  I didn’t do it. Really. But it didn’t matter. Because it was like my mother finding the sugar—when they found the gun behind the stairs I was horrified. There were my prints and not Sexy’s. I mean, maybe, just maybe a tourist woman found me roaming the streets that Saturday after the parade, looking for Xica—my clown suit costume zipped down to my waist. And maybe she touched my shoulder and slid her hand under my sweaty undershirt and looked at me like I was licorice. I mean, suppose I went with her back to a time-share and she introduced me to her husband and they both wanted to have sex with me, but I said I would only do the wife because I wasn’t about to be a batty boy for their fetish. And maybe I did or maybe I didn’t let the woman climb on top of me while her husband watched and chanted “Ride that island monkey, ride it.” And maybe I stole the diamond chain around her neck and the diamond te
nnis bracelet off her wrist and the diamond earrings right out of her goddamn ears, and rolled out with it all when the man tried to make a move.

  I’m not a hustler. I’m a magician. But still they got me on rape and assault with a deadly weapon and with illegal use of an unlicensed firearm and with stealing the earrings and the bracelet. But they never found the necklace. I made it disappear.

  I pleaded innocent. I’m telling you, I had never even seen that tourist couple before in my life.

  8.

  Xica

  Flesh is also a kind of costume. It is also a thing to hide behind. A thing to move you and to be moved by. It is a thing to encircle a pain. A thing that is a gate to put up between people who are otherwise the same. Skin. The walls of a gated community. Where the man in the gate booth says: Sorry, you do not know the code. And I have to say: I am here to see Herman. Who is Herman? My boyfriend. Girl, don’t you know that they don’t really love anyone that looks like us? I’ll let you in these gates, ’cause it’s none of my business. But you should know that they don’t normally let black people in here except to clean or fix something and if you were my daughter I wouldn’t be letting you in at all. And the gate opened. I’d brought my grandfather’s car over on the barge from St. Thomas to St. John and now I drove myself up to Herman’s big house a week before Carnival and he was there to greet me at the doors that opened as though to a banquet. And when I walked in the whole place was painted cream and white and I knew that the gate man was right. Perhaps people who were brown in color had built this house. But people who were brown in color would never live in this house. Even though this was my island and I, too, was brown in color.