by Mat Johnson
I hug Sun from behind. She thinks I am doing it because I desire her, which I do, but I hold her because I’m fucking scared.
I hug Sun’s waist. She moans, or groans, I don’t know which, but she definitely makes a sound before she closes the window. The breeze stops, and I feel warm again.
I saw a moving dark shape, and it felt cold, because of a window. Logic shifts back into position. Reality reseals all its tears. I got spooked. I got scared. By a shadow.
Sun turns around, looks at me, concerned.
“I was cold,” I tell her. She grabs my arm, lightly. This action makes me keenly aware I have not released her midriff.
I kiss her as if this was always my intention. I tell myself that it was, that it always was, that the last five minutes have no meaning. I kiss her but I think about that shadow, which was probably caused by a car riding by outside, something I would have never even noticed before.
I don’t believe in ghosts. I’m scared of being wrong, but I don’t believe in them. Ghosts are what we want to see when our brains have no rational story. I want to tell Sunita Habersham this. Before I can, though, Sun says she has her own confession to make to me, and I grip her hard at her waist to tell her to give it to me.
“I really do have an open relationship, and a boyfriend. I don’t want another one. We do this, it’s just tonight, and then that’s it. Just once. For fun.”
“You’re funny.”
“No really, Warren. I’m serious.” And there’s no humor there. “This is what I told Jessie, and he didn’t believe me. I didn’t mean to hurt him, and I don’t want to hurt you. So if you’re willing, you have to understand that I’m serious.”
“Who’s Jessie?”
“ ‘One Drop,’ ” she says, and my grip loosens.
The “boyfriend” doesn’t bother me; I’ve loved a woman with one of those before. The whole “open relationship” part doesn’t upset me either; it’s just a concept, a dislocated notion. But I know what One Drop looks like. I see him, big, pale, that mockery of locks. I see him with Sunita Habersham. I’m not possessive. I don’t consider myself possessive, but I can see him and her and don’t see myself fitting into that image. As my hands lightly pull away, hers grasps them.
“Come on,” Sunita Habersham says, pulling me even tighter, drawing me into her. “Let’s pretend desire isn’t the first stage of despair.”
—
I lust. I know this. I lust all day and in ways that seem to transcend my otherwise limited imagination. I desire endlessly, and constantly encounter women that fill me with want. If I was bisexual, I’d have wasted away pining for all of humanity. My body is promiscuous in its hunger. But my heart has no such appetite. It wants only one. It understands only the equation of me plus her. Sunita Habersham touches the bare flesh behind my hip and my mind wants only Sunita Habersham, in that moment and every moment that will follow. There’s no more Becks. I don’t believe Sun, that she wants just one night. I don’t because I can’t imagine that to be true. When I kiss her neck, and she moans, I can’t believe that it’s just the physical act of having teeth lightly bite her flesh, the flicker of the tongue between the pain; I have faith the pleasure is solely because it’s my mouth that does this. Already I have a vision of Sun, me, Tal, together going nuclear with family. I am a fool. Even Brer Rabbit gets stuck in the tar baby. I know this, even as I fall into her. There are few kisses. There are just my kisses, then her biting my lips back. Sunita Habersham kisses with her teeth. She turns from me, leans on the windowpane once more, signals me to take her from behind, and I get a flash that this is because she doesn’t want to look at me but when I’m back inside her, my fear is gone. Minutes later, she pulls away, guides me toward the mattress. There she picks up my pillows, drops them on the floor, pulling me down to the floor with her to rest on them. There is less intimacy on the hardwood than on the bed, or less romance, but again I’m in her so it’s a paltry symbol of detachment. Sun’s lips are close enough to kiss once more, and I do, and she’s too distracted to deflect me. Our lips meet in our second actual kiss, and stay there through long seconds of the rhythm.
All this and it’s great and this is what I wanted but another part of me goes: so my genitals are entering Sunita Habersham’s. That’s it? This is the physical act I’ve obsessed over performing with her? This simple contact? Has anything truly changed between us? Because we both allowed our hidden skin to meet? This is just a literal expression of the attraction I already feel for this woman. Nothing more. Except it also feels fucking amazing.
Sun takes the pillow she’s resting on and puts it over her face. She holds it there, with two hands. For the rest of the act. I can’t see her. So she won’t see me. And for a moment I get a glimmer of just how bad she’s going to hurt me.
“Shazam!” Sunita Habersham screams, and throws the pillow across the room. She’s so loud that I expect a thunderbolt to shoot down through the blackened ceiling and turn her into Mary Marvel. There’s no lightning, but her body thunders, shaking for seconds afterward, and that’s the only thing that keeps me from laughing. Then she rolls away like I’m not even there.
Sun falls asleep almost immediately. Or pretends to fall asleep. I lie on my side, staring, waiting for her to open her eyes, to talk to me or something, then fall asleep that way.
—
She said just that night, but it happens again in the morning. I wake up sore on the hard floor, fully engorged, and then we’re at the dance once more. The second time is more of a digestif, sure, with only one position, the side by side spoon we woke up in, yet it’s enough to remind me that the previous night not only happened but was seemingly deemed worth the inevitable trouble.
Sunita won’t look at me, won’t turn her head when my lips slide up her shoulder and neck, kiss until they run out of epidermal real estate. Instead, she thrusts her hips back into mine in several heavy jolts, finally shudders, then pulls suddenly off and away from me. No “Shazam” this time, but she’s clearly finished.
I watch Sun stand up, her knees even less prepared for the change of posture than I am.
“Can I marry you?” I ask. “Like, right now? Let’s run away to Costa Rica together. Tal too. Let’s do this!” I know I shouldn’t say this but I am so blissful in this moment that, though my testicles didn’t, my mouth is ejaculating.
Sunita Habersham gathers her clothes from across the floor in response, holds them to her chest and starts heading out the door. Then she stops, looks back into the room, but not directly at me. “I was engaged once. He jumped in front of an Amtrak train. No note,” Sun says, and then before I can respond she’s gone, down the hall, into the bathroom.
She stays in there for an hour. Which is fine because it takes me that long to stop asking myself, What the fuck just happened?
When the bathroom door opens, I hear her walk back through the hall, then down the stairs. I don’t believe she’s leaving until I hear the front door close behind her.
There are no more sounds. Not in the house. I’m still on the floor. It’s even harder than before. I get up when she honks my horn.
Sunita Habersham is waiting at the car when I get there.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” Sun asks me, refusing to look my way.
I go to kiss her, right after I buckle. She leans her head away from me.
“We’re just apes,” Sunita Habersham tells me.
“We’re just apes, sure,” I mirror, then go in for the kiss once more. She meets me with her cheek.
“There are no monogamous apes. Humans are like bonobos—”
“Bonobos are famous for screwing everything. I get it. Fine.”
“It’s like a stress-relieving thing. It’s not about ownership. You don’t own me now. I like you, so that’s why I’m saying this. Just know this doesn’t end with us walking up the aisle.”
“Don’t worry. I’m still trying to pay off my last failed marriage.”
“I’m saying this because openness is important. Honesty is important. I’m trying not to lie to you.”
“Look, we went through this. I don’t think just because we had sex, a few times, that I have some kind of exclusive rights to you,” I tell her. This seems to work, because Sun finally buckles up, so I can start pulling out of the driveway. As I’m driving in reverse, contorted to peer through the back window, she pops a kiss on my cheek.
“Shazam!” she says again, mocking her own breathless tone, and starts giggling, putting a hand on my knee to brace herself. “I’m so embarrassed. I should have yelled, ‘Kimota.’ ”
“Yeah. Miracleman is definitely cooler than Captain Marvel. But given that they’re both rooted in the same intellectual property, I forgive you.”
“It makes me really happy when you talk like that,” she tells me, and squeezes my flesh in a way I take as a thank-you. And I look there where Sunita Habersham touches me, past the end of my shorts, and the skin of my thigh and her hand. Our skin. It’s nearly the same color. It’s the same flesh as my flesh, just in feminine. Which I’ve never seen before. The way it blends, the illusion it creates that both leg and fingers could be part of the same body, all this I’ve never seen before. I am naked and exposed, but not alone. Not paler or darker or any kind of other.
—
After dropping her off, I catch myself driving back to my father’s house out of habit, then continue on past reemerging fear out of stubbornness. Once there, I immediately go to my laptop at the dining-room table, opening the security program. It’s my first time scrolling through the CCTV archives, and it takes a minute to navigate the system. The camera aimed at the driveway is labeled CC9. I know it’s named CC9, because I checked cameras 1 through 8 and that was the last one I installed, stuck right on the garage’s rain gutter. But the feed doesn’t have that angle, the footage doesn’t make sense; it’s all black. I go back through the other feeds, every one of them, 1 through 8. They all look good. It has to be CC9 messing up. I pull up a window again for CC9, this time a live feed. Really dark, but you can kind of see something, something there. To get a better look, I turn on the table lamp. And oddly, I can also see the image on the screen better, because it’s also gotten brighter.
The closed-circuit camera I installed by the garage is now the house.
The camera is in the living room.
I didn’t move it there.
I stand, and can see it. Sitting on the fireplace mantel. I look at my screen, and recognize the tent Tal sleeps in most nights.
13
IN 1958, EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD Mildred Jeter got knocked up by her boyfriend, Richard Loving, a family friend six years older than she, and they decided the best thing to do next was get married. They drove up from Central Point, Virginia, to Washington, D.C., because Richard was a white guy and Virginia had a law called the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 that said white people and black people couldn’t get married. Soon after they got back, the police raided their home in the dark of night, hoping to catch them in the act of fucking, because that was illegal too—which is really ironic when you reflect that the God of Virginia is Thomas Jefferson. They were sentenced to a year in prison, but allowed to have that downgraded to probation as long as they agreed to leave the state and never come back. Six years later, sick of not being able to see their family and broke in D.C., they decided to sue the State of Virginia. It took three years for the Supreme Court to rule in their favor, but it did unanimously, and Loving v. Virginia became the case that decriminalized interracial marriage in America. Sixteen states still had antimiscegenation on the books when it passed. There’s even an unofficial holiday for it in June, Loving Day, which the mixies at Mélange talk about like it’s Mulatto Christmas.
Roslyn wants our class to do a special comic to be handed out at Mélange’s Loving Day event. They’re going to print a thousand copies. All the other mixed-race organizations in the area are coming, and not just the black/white ones either: the Asian/white, the Latino/everything, the all general mixed the hell up. It’s going to be huge. Tosha IMs me while I’m doing the research for all this and I make the mistake of telling her what I’m doing when her message pops up on my screen.
They really need a holiday, to celebrate a white guy having jungle fever? That’s all Virginia white guys live to do: get some strange.
That’s really racist.
No, that’s not, “really racist,” Tosha insists.
The next message takes longer, as the English language struggles to convey her fury.
You could argue that it’s prejudiced, but I’m not racist. Racism requires power to back it up, and I don’t have a goddamn bit of that. George led a police tactics training course in Buchanan County, Virginia. All white, Irish. Do you know what the crime rate is down there? Do you know some of the names they used to call George, that summer?
I can imagine.
Not just “nigger” either. They were creative. And that was from the other cops. They thought it was funny. It’s like 1861 down there. Those Paddy bastards are crazy.
You know my dad was Irish, right? I’m Irish.
You’re fucking Irish? You’re serious, aren’t you? Since when are you Irish? Your black ass is not Irish. You’re losing your mind over in Uncle Tom fairyland.
Nobody gets to define me but me, that’s what I’m learning.
What kind of Kool-Aid do they have you drink? Is it gray?
This text comes with a smiley face emoticon. But I can hear past it to Tosha’s tone. I know her well enough to insert her sneer of condescension.
Get it? Gray? Half white, half black? Or do they make Oreo flavor now?
You know, “Virginia is for lovers,” I finally respond.
I wait a few seconds. The screen flashes Composing for a full minute, but only seven words finally come through when she sends.
I want to tell George we’re dating.
Bad idea. Why would you do that?
I’ve been checking the GPS tracker. He denies it, but he keeps going over there. He’s taking me for granted. At least imply we’re thinking about hooking up.
Bad idea, I write again, then send, barely resisting all caps. Did you contact Sirleaf about your rights?
I’m not ready for that. I need this favor, Warren. He has to come home. Or not. This can’t keep going on like this. I need a catalyst.
Bad idea, I send once more.
We already lying to the kids. This is a smaller lie. It could help things.
Again, I pause, but Tosha doesn’t need me to continue the conversation.
It will free me, comes when I take too long to respond.
And then, He was just here. I’m sorry. I kind of already did it.
I slam the laptop shut, curse.
Tal looks over at me, sees my face. “What?” she asks.
“My friend. Is acting like a lunatic.” I get up, head to the kitchen. There’s no alcohol in the house because of my daughter, so I settle for putting a pot of coffee on instead.
“That wasn’t Sunita, right? Everything’s cool with her, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. Though I don’t catch the transition.
“I mean, I haven’t even seen you guys talk lately. I thought you were into her?”
“We’re just friends,” I tell her, but at the moment even this sounds like a stretch.
“I’m not a baby. I’m not clueless. You think I’m like some little kid but—”
My phone thankfully rings before we can take the conversation further. Tosha’s face flashes on the screen and then her voice is in my ear.
“I’m sorry. He was here and I know from the GPS that the bitch was at his apartment, and he had the nerve to deny it. I got mad. And, just to see the look on his face, I said you were coming over, later tonight. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” is all I say, because Tal is interested now, trying to look at my screen.
“Thanks for getting my back.”
“I got your
back,” I tell her. George might have my ass, but I have her back.
“Good. So let me get your back: that biracial thing is a bunch of brown-bag divisive bullshit and you know it. That shit is dangerous and it’s brainwashing and you can’t get sucked into that. Or let your daughter get sucked into it either. I know you’re beige, but stay black.”
“I will,” I tell her, because I just want to escape.
“Loving versus the state of my ass,” Tosha says before hanging up.
—
I’m standing in front of a statue of an Indian, big as two men. He kneels down, hand over his eyes to block the sun, staring through the trees, down at the white people jogging across the Wissahickon on Forbidden Drive.
“He’s looking west,” Spider tells the kids, all gathered around with their notepads and charcoals, looking up at him and the statue, trying to figure out which one to pay attention to. “He’s supposed to be looking for the Lenape who once lived here, the ones pushed farther inland when the Europeans invaded.”
“Look at the angles of his arms, legs. Try to capture the angles. Even if it’s just stick figures, focus on the lines. Check out the lines on his headdress, all those straight feathers,” I say, because I’m supposed to be team teaching, and I have to say something. I look up at his massive thighs, and I think of Sun’s thighs shaking as she rose to get away from me that weekend. I think of the dimples of the cellulite that were so much more real and beautiful than this statue’s spotless hard quadriceps. That really happened. Sunita Habersham does speak to me, passes me without saying anything, but it still really happened. Shazam. Those little details, like that red fuzz ball of lint hanging from her hair, bouncing when I was behind her, they tell me that really happened.
“That warbonnet? Completely historically inaccurate. That’s ceremonial headgear for the Plains Indians, like the Cheyenne. The Lenape wore a sort of turban.”
The kids look up at Spider, then at me. I shrug. So the ones who did the headdress start tugging at their pictures with their erasers.