Elsewhere, California

by Dana Johnson

  Hunh, Ms. Joseph says. She points to Morrey. And who’s that?

  Morrey.

  Hunh, Ms. Joseph says again. That house. It’s perfect. So Leave It to Beaver.

  Totally, I say. That’s so cool you see it.

  Please, she says. I grew up on that show.

  She pushes the paper around on my desk. It’s interesting, she says. Subversive.

  I’ve never heard this word before. I stare at my picture. What’s subversive?

  21

  THE PHONE IS ringing again. This will be Dad, double-checking on the time and place. But when I answer, there is nothing but distorted music playing in the background. Some laughing. Somebody says, “Tell that bitch I want a hundred dollars!” and then there is more laughter. Silence. Then Keith’s voice. “What’s up, Ave.”

  This simple question confuses me, as if it’s a trick question. I don’t know what he’s asking me, and so I ask the only thing that seems important in the moment. “Where are you?”

  “Around.”

  “But where? Where are you?”

  “Why? You scared?” The phone is muffled. Keith says to someone, “Hand me another beer, man.”

  “What is it that you want?”

  Noises and other people’s voices come from the phone. High voices and low voices. “I like that painting you had on your wall.”

  “I know. You took it.”

  I should be telling Keith that we’re not going to stand for him coming into our home as if it is his own. Taking things as if he simply forgot them and is coming back to get them out of our way. I am supposed to be saying, “Stay. Away. Don’t come back here. I mean it.” I am supposed to be protecting everything that is ours because it is ours. We have worked for it. Massimo has worked for it.

  “You took it,” I say again.

  “I liked it. It’s worth some money?”

  I have to think about this. I stare at my toenails, thinking. “No. I mean. It’s worth something to me, but if you tried to sell it, I just don’t know who would pay anything for it. Maybe, I don’t know, something like ten dollars.”

  “Ten dollars? Dang.” Keith drinks something after that. “Sheeit,” he says. “That’s it?”

  “If people knew who we are. If I was a well-known artist, then maybe it would be worth something. That’s how it works with art. It only has value if the right people say it has value.”

  “Yeah, well. Don’t nobody know who we are, that’s for damn sure.”

  We both say nothing for a long while. We just trade breath on the phone. I get up and kneel at the edge of the pool just to run my hands in the cool water and am momentarily soothed by the sound of the soft trickle that my fingers make moving back and forth in the blue.

  “You can’t come back here, taking things. Massimo isn’t going to stand for that.”

  “Man,” Keith says. His tone is both slow and impatient. “Fuck Massimo.”

  “Well then, for me. Just because you’re my cousin and this—what do you want me to do?” I stand and wipe my wet hand on my leg.

  “I want you to give me some money. You got money.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You got money,” Keith says again.

  “No I don’t.”

  “You got money.”

  “But it’s not mine. I make some money, but not a lot. If you walk in here, it looks like I have money, but I don’t.”

  “That’s some bullshit, Ave. Niggas always talking about they ain’t got money and then look how they living. Nice house. I mean shit is nice. What Massimo driving now? That BMW? You got that old-ass looking furniture and I know that shit cost something. White folks love that old shit. Expensive for real. Who else we know got that? Name me somebody in the family.”

  Of course, there is nobody. So I say nothing and I think about how Massimo doesn’t quite fit into the group of white folks that Keith is thinking about, even though he is white. But just because somebody looks like something, it doesn’t mean they are something. You might be on the same team, Dad always says. Or you might not. “Yeah,” Keith says when I’m silent. “Yeah.”

  “Listen,” I say. I look around the room, my eyes landing on things that might not be missed and knowing that’s not the way to go, either. “Just let me think. Maybe I can do something. What are you going to do with it anyway?”

  “What. The money?”

  “No. The painting. I know what you’re going to do with the money.”

  “Yeah. You always know everything, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t,” I say. “I don’t.” But he has already hung up on me, and I still don’t know where he is.

  I meant to ask him something about the painting he took. What did he think of it? He thought it was valuable. But did he think it was valuable because I had it? Valuable because I did it? Valuable because it was us? Or valuable because it was a portrait of him, a person hanging up on a wall, someone you have to look at because there he is, right in front of you, staring you in the eyes.

  DAD SAYS I can’t major in art. I have to major in business. He tells me, again: I’m the first woman in our family, ever, to go to college, etc., and blah, blah. And I’m not going to waste it on crayons and whatever else I’m supposed to be doing, he says. An education is invaluable, he says. How are you supposed to get ahead, he asks me. Do it on the side, he says, but not for real. So that’s how I do art. On the side. I sketch and draw and think about what I would say if I could say it through art, write some ideas down. And then I just put it all away.

  But at least I get to go to the school I want. I win that fight. They wanted me to stay home and go to the junior college up the street. But I never ever wanted to do that. I don’t want to stay in the same place all the time.

  I don’t know why you stuck on leaving the house, Mom says. USC ain’t but thirty minutes from here. May as well stay.

  They are only thinking about the money. Me too. I did it all by myself. A gazillion pages of application. Filled out papers for financial aid. I have student loans and a couple of grants and I’m going to get a job on campus. I don’t know what kind of job. Anything. I don’t care. I’m going.

  Mom watches me fold the box flaps over each other. I walked down to Stater Brothers and took them from the back where they throw them away after they’re done. My stuff ’s in a Pampers box, a Gerber baby food box, and a Chef Boyardee box. I only have three boxes because it’s not like I have a ton of stuff. Three pair of shoes. Some clothes. Some sheets and a blanket and a pillow.

  You got everything? Mom says. She stands over my boxes and looks down at them. She’s not looking at me. Dad is here. He doesn’t live with us anymore. He’s got this small apartment with no furniture, in another neighborhood. Never finished school. He had to quit a year after he started because of the money. He honks the horn one time, real short, so he doesn’t make a lot of noise. I can hear the car, though. So loud. Chug, chug, chug. Loud. Like the Beverly Hillbillies’ car. Embarrassing.

  Go on then, Mom says. She pats me on the shoulder. Hard. She puts her hand down, but then pats me again. She says, You got everything?

  I look around the house and I feel like memorizing everything. I didn’t know that I would want to do this. I look at our round glass kitchen table with the white place mats with orange flowers. I look at our green fridge and I see Keith standing next to it, leaning on it. I look at the stove and remember how Mom used to keep a hot comb on it, to straighten my hair. She wanted my hair so straight for school. I remember that. She wanted my hair to be perfect. She dressed me in that yellow baby doll dress. The sliding glass door is open and some warm air is coming through. I can feel it. I’m thinking, Does that warm air feel as good to you Mom like it does to me? I’m thinking, I hope that air feels good to Mom too.

  She says, You crying?

  I shake my head.

  Ain’t no need of you crying, Mom says. You going now.

  I’m not crying, I say. I pick up the Pampers box. I’m not cryi
ng. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. It’s just a half hour away in the car and an hour on the bus. I’ll see you then.

  Mom stacks the two boxes I have left. She bends down and picks them up. I don’t know how she can pick up all that weight. Those boxes are heavy. Mom, I say, put those down. Those are heavy. I’ll come back for them. It’s my stuff anyway. I’ll carry it. But she doesn’t listen to me. She says, Open the door. I got it. It ain’t all that heavy.

  COLLEGE IS GOING to be awesome. If it would just start. Dad is worried about me, I can tell. He’s gearing up for a lecture. He’s worried because I’m seventeen and a freshman, worried about my corrupted youth, but I’m going to turn eighteen in a month anyway. We’re in front of the dorm, sitting in the car. But I want to get out of the car. I don’t want people to see me sitting in this car, even though they don’t know who I am. And there are so many people out there with all of their stuff. All these new people and I can’t wait to just get out of the car and start. Nobody knows anything about me so I can start over. I’m going to be a brand-new person.

  Dad turns off the car. I put my hand on the handle and open the door.

  Wait a minute, Dad says. I want to talk to you for a minute.

  Oh. No.

  Listen, he says. I want you to understand something.

  God! I understand! He always thinks I don’t understand! What am I supposed to understand, exactly? I’m going to college. That’s all I know. I want to get out of the car.

  Dad pulls on his cap and then he rubs his hands together. Listen, he says. There’s going to be a lot of stuff for you to get into if you’re not careful. You need to be careful.

  I stare ahead and want to snap my fingers like Samantha on Bewitched so I can get out of here.

  A lot of drugs. Boys. Stuff you don’t have no business doing.

  He turns his head but not his body and looks at me. Then he turns back to stare in front of him. You need to keep your head in them books and you need to get a job.

  I know, I say. I already know about the job.

  In a week, he says. You need to be working in a week.

  A week?

  Yeah, Dad says. In a week.

  I already have to think about work. I can’t believe it.

  This is really something, Dad says. Do you know that? Do you know where you are? And then he starts talking, again, about how I have this chance and how I should do it right because not everybody gets this kind of chance to go to school. A good school. Do you know that 80th Street just a ways up the road? Just a few minutes away? But this is a different world, Dad says.

  But why should I have to be thinking about all of this now?

  I tell Dad. I shouldn’t have to think about all of this now.

  Dad takes his cap off his head. Scratches his scalp and then puts it back on. He says, You ain’t got to think about it. You right. Until you have to think about it. Mess up and end up like folks we know. Then you gone be thinking about it all of a sudden.

  I should go, I say.

  Who you living with anyway, he says.

  Anika something. That’s all I know.

  She white?

  No. She’s black. They put us together to ease the transition, the letter said. I roll my eyes. But Dad says, No. That’s good. Nothing but white kids here, seem like. Good to be living with a black girl. Y’all got more in common.

  Yeah, I say. That’s true, I guess.

  All right then, Dad says.

  I push open the door. Dad gets out and we stack all my boxes on the street. I pick up one and wait for Dad to pick up the other two. I wait and he leans against the car. Watching me.

  Aren’t you going to get those, Dad?

  He crosses his arms over his chest. No, he says. You can handle it. I’ll wait by the car. I’m not parked right and I don’t need no ticket. It’ll just take you two trips, that’s all.

  It’s like ninety degrees and these boxes are heavy all by myself. I totally need help but he just watches me. I stack two boxes so I can get it done faster, but when I try to lift them, one falls and my pillow drops on the ground.

  Shoot. I say. These are heavy, Dad.

  You good, he says. You got it.

  There are two beds in the room and I don’t know what one to choose. I don’t think it’s fair to just grab something before somebody else gets a chance at it. So I wait.

  Anika bursts into the room. She explodes into it. Her mom’s behind her and they’re like twins. Long black hair and expensive-looking clothes. Anika is wearing Calvins and her mom is wearing heels. Heels. These black pumps with black slacks and a white shirt with pearls and a gold chain, and I don’t even know what to think about the pearls and the gold chain being together. I’m sitting on one of the beds when they come in and my boxes are in the middle of the room because I don’t know where to put them.

  Hey! Anika says. She sticks her hand out hard like she’s going to punch me in the stomach. And then her mom is shaking my hand and asking me where I’m from and what my parents do, but her face is falling the more I keep talking. She says, Is that all you have? She points at my boxes. Yes ma’am I say. Ma’am? she says. How polite. Like I’ve said something that’s surprising. She says, That’s where you want to be? I shrug. I just sat here. I didn’t pick.

  Well, she says. Okay.

  I want that one, Anika says. She points at the bed I’m sitting on. I really don’t care which one she takes. She and her mom pull her luggage over. Real luggage. Leather with gold letters that have Vs with Ls going through them. I like Anika’s shirt. It’s striped, like a sailor’s shirt. And then, just when I’m getting used to them, her father comes in carrying a TV. A television.

  Wow, I say. That’s great. I didn’t think I was going to have a television at school. Man, I’m so happy about the television I can’t wait to plug it in. Can we plug it in? We can plug it in here. I slap my hand down on the desk. It runs across the room, from Anika’s end to mine. We could put it exactly in the middle.

  In a minute, Anika says. We haven’t brought up all my stuff yet.

  Oh, I say. Okay.

  I could be watching TV while they keep bringing up stuff. I don’t see why I have to wait. They take like five trips and the room is full of all her stuff. Her brand-new word processor. All of her clothes. All of her shoes. A bookshelf. A plastic bin full of face and hair stuff. A guitar. A bike. They get it all in the room. The last trip up it’s just her and her dad and he’s got car keys in his hand and an envelope.

  KiKi, he says. He looks at her, smiling. Guess what? You should have been paying better attention. You got a ticket. He makes a tsk, tsk sound and shakes his head. He puts the keys in her hand. It’s locked now but you’re going to have to move it. He leans against the wall with his arms folded and his loafers crossed over each other. Weird. He’s not wearing any socks. Do people with money not wear socks with their shoes?

  Shit, she says. How much?

  Shit, in front of her Dad. Like Brenna would do.

  Twenty-five bucks, her dad says. He waves it in front of her and puts it in his pocket. You should have gotten the pass from parking, he says. Your mother and I did.

  Pass? What pass? Me and Dad didn’t know about the pass. He was waiting outside for nothing.

  They hug her goodbye and tell her to call if she needs anything. Anything at all.

  Bye, Avery, her mother says, smiling. Her father nods at me with a smile on his face, and then they’re gone.

  Anika starts unpacking her stuff. She plugs in and turns on the radio. She starts singing “Raspberry Beret” really loud. I’m thinking, If I had her voice I wouldn’t sing that loud. I’m thinking, If she plugs in the radio, maybe she’ll plug in the TV, but she doesn’t and I’m not going to ask again. You watch. I’m not going to.

  She’s weird anyway. She doesn’t hardly even talk to me. She’s all into her stuff. She acts like she doesn’t want to talk to me. She’s not mean. She’s just ignoring me.

  I try to talk to he
r. I say, Where are you from? I have to practically scream it over Whitney Houston singing that crappy song about saving all her love for some dude. It’s the worst. And the videos. She’s like a black Barbie. How does she keep that up?

  Baldwin Hills! Anika says. She’s got a comforter in her hands and she lifts it high so that it spreads out and lands on her bed big and puffy like a cloud. It looks so soft, I want to just flop onto her bed and roll around in it. I’m sitting on my blue blanket and it’s okay, but I know it doesn’t feel like that comforter looks.

  Where’s that? I say. Baldwin Hills.

  You know, she says, looking at me like I’m trying to be stupid. L.A. It’s in L.A.

  And I guess I’ve heard of it. Or if I’ve heard of it I haven’t thought about it. Where it is and who lives there. But now I know who lives there, who’s been living there while I’ve been living at all these other places. 80th and Vermont, West Covina.

  Later that night I call everybody. I call Brenna first and tell her everything. About all Anika’s stuff. About the car.

  What a bitch, Brenna says.

  No, I say. No. She’s just weird.

  Yeah, Brenna says. Okay. Right.

  Baldwin Hills, Dad says. They got some money over there. That’s the kind of black folks go to USC.

  And me, I say, and he laughs on the other end of the phone.

  That’s right, Ave, Dad says. And you. She might be ahead of the game, but you right behind her. You about to catch up.

  22

  I HAVE ALREADY been to the space that will hold my art this evening. I went this morning. Installed four pieces. I am just one of four artists in the show, Here Is Elsewhere. Massimo is in the kitchen, on his second espresso, listening to Lou Rawls live, singing about Tobacco Road. It’s his favorite Lou Rawls. Listen to how he’s talking to us at the beginning, Massimo always says. He loves the part where Lou Rawls says he left Chicago and then went out West, where it’s the best. Me too. I always listen for the applause and cheers when he says that, wishing I could be in the middle of it all. “Avery,” Massimo calls out now. “Do you want another espresso? It will wake you up.”