Lot

by Bryan Washington

  In the mornings, she brewed coffee and read. It was the only time that she glowed. She’d start with my father’s Business Affairs, and my mother’s outdated Oprahs; after lunch, she’d slip into Nikki’s shelves, with the Bolaño and the Woolf and the Calvino and the Foucault. She flipped through Chekhov. She nosed through Tanikawa. She threw a long-lost copy of Huck Finn at the wall.

  Gloria asked me for highlighters and underlined everything. She read beautifully, deeply. I don’t know how else to describe it.

  Eventually, I finally asked her what she got out of reading these books by old dead men, what the words on the page had to do with her. The kind of question an idiot asks. But she took it seriously, she pursed her lips.

  It’s just another way to talk to the dead, she said.

  It’s another way to make a way, she said.

  * * *

  • • •

  She finally brought up Dylan on a walk. Okri had skittered away on his bike, down the road and into the skyline, because Anwar and Jeff had made it past the porch, but not us. We hadn’t seen much of them lately. Gloria asked me who Okri was, and I called him a friend, my friend, and Gloria smiled, nodding, and in a tone of voice that I will never forget she insisted that she understood, even if I didn’t yet, and then she squeezed my knuckles.

  Dylan was underweight, she explained, but the doctor told me he’d grow.

  Light like you (and here she prodded my stomach), or maybe more like your father.

  Like his dad, I asked, and she agreed, but more like me.

  His fingers were this big, she said.

  I pushed my thumb through the circle she’d made, pointing toward the road and the city it led to.

  The nurse said he cried too much, she said, but really he was laughing. That’s it. All he ever did was laugh.

  I told her she could have another baby, and she frowned—the first one I’d ever actually seen on her face. She said it probably wouldn’t happen. She said her body couldn’t take it (or maybe that she couldn’t take it, I thought).

  I knew I’d lost her, so I tried to backtrack: I said her son would’ve been a real man, the kind I would’ve looked up to, and Gloria said, Yes, he would’ve been, and I knew that I’d done something Good.

  * * *

  • • •

  July was on its way out when my father got the second raise. The mogul had struck gold, again, and his profits trickled down to the lowest rung. We braced ourselves for another move but my father said no, what we ought to do was wait; the neighborhood was nice, or at least nice enough. Besides, we had a houseguest, supposedly on bed rest, and what were we as a family if not considerate of others? My mother made vague noises of taking a trip, swooping through Jamaica for the first time in years, but these were just words. We knew that they wouldn’t actually go. She hadn’t touched its soil since she’d taken off from the tarmac.

  * * *

  • • •

  One day, Okri and I spent an afternoon in the bayou. We walked the length of the neighborhood to reach it, until we crossed the freeway, where we had to wade through the muck in our sneakers. He suggested we take our shoes off, because of course they were getting filthy, the water was full of shit, and then we were stepping through it, soaking the rest of our clothes. We were sopping, really; so slowly, categorically, we began to strip: first our pants, as we stepped through the stream, then our shirts, once we’d found ourselves tangled in vines, until we were wading through the water in our shorts, with the highway above us, where we reached a clearing beneath an overpass. And Okri and I laughed, just at the sight of each other. Our clothes were irreparable. We smelled like shit. And we decided, or we came to the conclusion, that we should grope one another, tenderly, and then furiously; and we did this, wordlessly, touching without kissing; and when he’d finished, and I’d finished, he made a joke about the cars going by above us, something banal, but necessary if we were to survive the walk back.

  And that’s what we did. We picked up our shit and we walked back.

  We made it home to the neighborhood, and we slipped into sneakers, and we never talked about it then, or since.

  * * *

  • • •

  I spent the next few days in a funk. My mood was indistinguishable to my parents (I was already pretty quiet most days; compounding that silence meant nothing whatsoever) and Nikki didn’t care much one way or the other. One morning, eating an egg sandwich at the table, I began to shake, my toes first, my legs, until the chills made their way to my fingers, and Nikki watched me from the counter, said I’d never get any ass if I stayed so fucking weird.

  Gloria noticed. She was starting to get better. She’d mentioned buying her return ticket soon. She’d make a go of it back on the island, she said, it was time to start planning ahead; but my mother told her not to think anything of it—she really wasn’t a burden. When Gloria asked me what was wrong, I told her nothing, nothing at all, but in a way that implied that everything was, in fact, very wrong, that the most wrong thing had occurred, that wrong had become my reality.

  * * *

  • • •

  A few evenings later, I knew what I had to do. Gloria and I slept in the guest room, on the other side of the house from my parents. She slept late and she read, and sometimes she told stories, and other times she just cried herself to sleep, but on this particular night I asked her to tell me about her work. She looked at me as if I were joking, or maybe it was because she hoped I was joking, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I told her I wanted to know.

  She said she wasn’t sure if she knew what I was asking. I really should go back to bed.

  I said that my mother had called her a whore. A prostitute. A soursop woman.

  That if what my mother said was true, then the least she could do was prove it.

  We wore the same look on our faces, one of disbelief; that these words were even forming in my mind, that they were leaving my mouth, that they were in the air between us, the air we’d come to think of as our own, shared.

  But it wasn’t, and they were, and I kept talking. I said terrible things.

  I said the books and the trinkets and the family—my family—that she thought were her escape were no escape at all.

  I said she felt like she had to escape because she had no escape.

  I said her son was better off without her, that she was better off without a son.

  When I’d finished Gloria asked me if that was all. If it was, she said, then she was tired. She’d like to go to sleep. She said I should go to my room, my real room, and when I stood up to leave she said to shut the door behind me.

  * * *

  • • •

  From that evening on, I was ashamed.

  I no longer slept on the floor. I left every room that Gloria entered, sat silently at our table. My mother slapped me, once, for ignoring my cousin at dinner, and my father asked, twice, if anything was wrong (I don’t remember my response). Nikki didn’t broach my behavior, because I wasn’t Nikki’s problem, and even when I’d considered clueing her in I ended up changing my mind.

  And then, one evening, Gloria slipped into my room. I wasn’t sure what time it was, it could’ve been one or four, one of those hours when it no longer makes a difference. She asked me what was wrong, and I didn’t reply. She asked me again what was wrong, and I pretended to snore. She asked me what was wrong, and she touched my shoulder, and I told her I was broken. She asked me what that meant, and I didn’t say a word, I opened my eyes and looked right at her, or I looked right past her, because I couldn’t see anything at all.

  We sat there in silence; as Gloria held my shoulder and I looked past her, and then she told me that she understood. Or that she didn’t understand, not really, but she understood enough.

  She placed her hand on my knee, and I watched it sit there, not moving, until it began to rise, until it reached
my thigh, and then it rose higher, until Gloria was touching my cheek, and she was looking at my face, and then we were kissing, and then it was both of her hands, and we looked through each other, deeply, because she was no longer on the edge of the mattress, she’d maneuvered herself on top of me, she’d slipped some of me inside of her, and Gloria told me to look up, to look into her eyes, and I couldn’t do it, it wouldn’t work, I started crying, my god, until she finally set her ear on my shoulder and told me everything would be fine, everything would be okay, it would all turn out okay.

  * * *

  • • •

  About a month later, Gloria flew back to Kingston. Nikki didn’t see her off this time either. My sister was packing for her own return, and she gave Gloria the roughest of nods, and my cousin wished her well in all of her future endeavors. I didn’t show my face—I told everyone I was sick. My mother told me this didn’t matter, I didn’t know when I’d see Gloria again and I needed to come out right now and say goodbye, but my father said to leave me alone, it wouldn’t make anything better, and besides, I only felt that way because I loved her. This, he said, was obvious.

  I remember watching Gloria step into the van from the driveway, and she waved from inside the car, and eventually I waved back. She’d left a book for me on her bed; she’d written something in it, she told me I’d know when to read it. But I didn’t read it then. And then the book was lost. And I left home, and I came back, and when it was finally time or when I thought it was finally time, it wasn’t there to open, and whatever she’d written had disappeared. I asked my mother where she’d put that book, where the fuck it could’ve gone, and she said there were so many books in the house she had no way of knowing for sure. She told me to calm down. It couldn’t have been that important.

  WAYSIDE

  1.

  Javi and his boy Rick sold smoke on the court. This was after our father left, and our sister moved out, but before my brother enlisted. They usually pulled just enough to make it worth their while, and their clientele were the usual suspects—güeros toking up after class, suits stocking up for the weekend. But every once in a while their plug would spot them extra weight, whatever kush he hadn’t already passed off, and it was just enough for Javi to bring back to Ma’s kitchen.

  Our patrons knew the score. They knew Ma ran the place on fumes. We were always short on rent, always out of everything on the menu. Even if the patrons were my father’s friends, they knew he’d bailed on them too.

  They paid Javi the street price. It got us from month to month. And it worked until Ma finally caught him dealing at the register.

  She kept cool in the moment. She let him get his money. But that night she popped him, spitting all of her Spanish at once.

  Javi countered that it was all for a higher cause—we’d start a little savings, enough to fix the place up. Maybe coat some paint on the walls, buy her a couple of dresses, kick a little extra pay to the cooks that still showed up. But Ma only said if he kept fucking around he could pack his shit and follow his dad.

  Idiota, said Ma. Dumber than a dog.

  If you need money, said Ma, you ask me.

  Right, said Javi, and you’ll just grab it from the bank.

  We’ll stay open a little longer. We’ll figure it out. I’ll talk to Jan.

  Do that, said Javi. Let me know when you find her.

  Rick laughed when I told him a few days later. He ruffled my hair, said life really wasn’t that hard.

  He was cool with Ma. He looked her in the eye. Rick was taller than Javi, the most light-skinned out of all of us, and he carried himself like all of kindness in a bottle.

  He told Javi it didn’t matter—he’d spot us some cash on his own. No reason to have the señora strung out over bullshit.

  But Javi told him to chill. He said Rick wasn’t family.

  That’s what it is to be a man, said Javi. Entiendes? You do what the fuck you have to for your own.

  And Rick just put his hand on my shoulder, shaking his head like, Whatever.

  He wasn’t really a hood but people still saw him around. Rick lived a block off Wayside, with his aunts and this girl he was fucking. He was always on the verge of getting out of the drug thing—someday a door would open and he’d swoop right out of that life—but Javi told me how, once, someone’d gotten too familiar, and Rick broke the dude’s jaw with his own ten fingers.

  Except it’s one of those stories I can never believe. Rick scored me shakes off the dollar menu. Brought me tamales wrapped by his tías. He taught me how to whistle, cut my splinters out with his switchblade, and he never got on me about being a dumbass.

  Once, on a slow day, Javi called him a pato. A know-nothing faggot. We were watching business from a park bench. Sometimes they hit that square with the playground on Palmer and Sherman, for the moms, and Rick was waving his hands at some whitelady like he’d just finished trimming her shrubs.

  I told Javi to take it back. I told him to shut his mouth.

  My brother got all wide-eyed like he was about to beat my ass. But he didn’t. He just said I didn’t know anything at all.

  Pero yo sé un maricón cuando lo veo, he said. Yo sé.

  And you will too, he said. Just watch.

  2.

  Meanwhile—back at home, cash at the restaurant was still tight. Ma even laid off a little about the pot.

  Then one of Javi’s deals went wrong and some boys knocked him up with a bat. He was mouthing off, doing his Javi thing, and they simply hadn’t felt like hearing it. He was off the court for a month. Had everyone on the block calling him Creed.

  Which put us in a bind. He and Rick had a good thing going, but no way could one handle their weight without the other. And Rick said not to worry, he told Javi he’d ask around for a sub, but my brother called that unacceptable. He told Rick it wasn’t his place.

  I’ll manage, said Javi.

  Bullshit, said Rick.

  Watch me.

  So you’d really rather run your brother out of a house on some pride shit?

  Watch your mouth, cabrón. You don’t even fucking know.

  I know you’re being a fool, said Rick.

  And Javi opened his mouth, but then he closed it right back up.

  I don’t actually remember how I suggested I should deal—just the silence between them when I brought it up, and Javi’s laughter afterwards. Rick had this look like a bulb about to burst. I said it’d be easier that way.

  Their buyers knew my face. I’d watched them score for years. Rick and Javi’s only other option was to bring someone else in, someone off the court, which wasn’t about to happen.

  We were sprawled on the stoop lining Rick’s front porch. My brother’s cheeks had popped, swollen, blushing like a pair of bruised peaches. He chewed on his lip, frowning out at the road, and when a voice called for Rick from inside the house, he nudged the door shut with his toe.

  Javi called it plausible. He’d heard shittier ideas. Rick called it fucked that we were considering it at all.

  If he wants to drop his huevitos, I say we let him, said Javi. He’s been mooching long enough. It’s about fucking time.

  Rick told him he was bugging, he said it wasn’t right, and Javi sat up and he spat and said the only one tripping was Rick.

  3.

  So the next week I was out there. The afternoon was chilly. Rick loaned me a hoodie, this red thing torn at the elbows. The court wasn’t packed, just the usual still life in motion: grownass niggas macking on girls, stiffs hooping on the rims. Rick got most of the traffic, he touched all of the hands, but every now and again someone shuffled over to me.

  I was Javi for the day. Spoke with my hands unless I was spoken to. One guy just shook his head when he saw me, like wasn’t I still a baby, and I said if he wanted to get his fix it was none of his fucking business.

  By the end of the day w
e’d pulled the money for rent, and a little for the next month too. That night, the two of them stole me a 40, carrying me drunk across Leeland, weaving through the cars parked by the stadium. I wasn’t the kid who drank, that was the one vice I’d dodged, but with Rick’s hands on my waist I couldn’t help but wonder why it’d taken me so long.

  Javi said I had huevos. A fucking man’s huevos now. Rick just laughed at that, swinging me higher.

  My legs wouldn’t work. I couldn’t tell right from down. But none of that shit mattered. I couldn’t stop smiling.

  It’s the baby face, said Javi. It brought all the bitches in.

  He’s a natural, said Rick, but not like it was a good thing.

  When my brother slipped inside the CVS for a six-pack, Rick and I stooped by the dumpsters facing Polk. Traffic had started its descent downtown. Between the catcalls on the road, and the bass thumping from I-45, Rick gave me a squeeze before he spat on the concrete.

  Nice job today.

  Thanks, I said.

  You needed this, he said. Now you know what it’s like.

  I already knew.

  But now you really know.

  I didn’t see what that meant. I was too fucked to care. I smiled at Rick, chipped a fist across his shoulder.

  But he shrugged it off. He spat again.

  I asked him what was up, what the hell was his problem, and when Rick bent down I felt his breath on my earlobes.

  It felt like electricity. Like somebody’d gone and woken me up.