by Chris Abani
thirty-four
denny’s?”
“I swear to God, there’s this Denny’s,” he pressed on. “Downtown, near Union Station. They make the most amazing steak.”
“Denny’s? You sure know how to excite a girl,” Sweet Girl said.
Black grimaced into the receiver, partly from the shame of it and partly because he could hear the loud music of Charlie’s in the background. Denny’s was all he could afford. And even for that he’d boosted money off of Bomboy. But there was also the knowledge that he didn’t really want to meet Sweet Girl. He had to. There was no part of this that was desire anymore. What little there had been died somewhere between the night she jerked him off in the club and the night she gave him head at his place. What drew him still was an overwhelming sense that he had to burn this obsession out.
“What do you say?” he asked.
“If I’m not too tired when I get off, we’ll talk.”
“So I should call back?”
“Yeah, baby, why don’t you.”
Voices in the background, a man’s demanding a lap dance. Sweet Girl’s, conciliatory. She came back to Black.
“Listen, honey, I’ve got to go. Call me later.”
He slammed the receiver home, but it was an impotent gesture. She’d already hung up. He pushed his fingers into the coin return slot. There was never anything there and he didn’t know why he bothered but he did. He was in the cathedral of Union Station, one of the few places that still had working phone booths. He loved it here, but didn’t come often enough. The station house was truly like an old Spanish mission, with its high vaulted ceilings that made him yearn to paint. He could turn it into his own Sistine. The old wood of the ceiling beams, the cracked and aged leather of the seats, the polished Mexican tiles on the floor and the high windows and white speckled paint all gave it a heightened sense of the sacred. Even at its busiest there was a hush here. There were some advantages to a town with little use for public transport, he thought.
“Nice, isn’t it? I like coming here, reminds me of the quiet back home,” Gabriel said from the vaulted ceiling. He was a pigeon again, and Black let out a sigh of relief.
“Fuck off, culero!” It wasn’t a shout, it was a whisper, but harsh, like the grind of a train’s brakes on the track. Black was sure not to look up.
“So, taking Sweet Girl to dinner then?”
“You shouldn’t eavesdrop.”
“Well, you know. I’m bored. Usually when I appear I get to dictate a holy book or two, but you are boring. Fatima, the one interesting thing you had going, is gone.”
Black grabbed hold of his left arm. It ached like a broken wing.
“Cheapskate, though. I mean, Denny’s? You’re right next to Chinatown. Everything is better in Chinatown even if it is cheap,” Gabriel said.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up! I don’t know why you don’t shut up!” Black yelled.
A couple of people turned to look at him. Nobody seemed particularly bothered though. It was downtown LA, the haunt of the crazy homeless.
Gabriel laughed.
Black ran out of the station. He stood outside huffing for a while. It might be a good idea to return to The Ugly Store. Hang out with Iggy. He glanced at his watch. It was ten p.m. and a strong wind had picked up.
thirty-five
sacrifice.
That was all he had to look forward to. Bartering something precious for something that may not be worth anything, a game for fools and the pious.
Entering The Ugly Store, he instinctively looked to the bar to see Ray-Ray. Remembering he was dead, he walked to Iggy’s office. She looked up as he came in. She was sitting with her back to the door while a Korean woman Black had never seen before cleaned the metal rings on her back. From the smell he guessed the woman was using surgical alcohol.
“Hey, Black.”
“Hi, Iggy. Couldn’t help looking for Ray-Ray just now,” he said.
“I know. I miss him too.”
He sat down.
“Hey, Black, do you mind? I’m kind of having a personal moment here,” Iggy said, grabbing a T-shirt and holding it against her bare chest.
“I’m sorry,” Black said, not moving.
Iggy turned to the woman and spoke to her softly. She nodded and packed up her bag and stepped out, closing the door behind her.
“Okay, Black, what’s so important?” Iggy asked. “And don’t tell me you’ve come to cry about Fatima.”
“I went by there earlier. She’s all gone.”
“I know.”
“Who was that woman?”
“None of your business. Now tell me what it is.”
“I wish I knew. I have this feeling that I am inside myself and yet outside myself at the same time.”
Iggy shook her head.
“Black, I don’t have time for your bullshit.”
“I thought you loved me?”
“I do love you, but I don’t have time for your bullshit.”
“But, Iggy, I am suicidal here.”
Iggy laughed.
“I don’t mean to be harsh, Black, but you’re not suicidal. If you were, you would have killed yourself by now. No, I think you’re too much of a coward to kill yourself, but what’s worse is that you’re also too much of a coward to live.”
“I thought you were the psychic? Can’t you tell me? Read my aura or something?”
“Aren’t you an artist? I thought Fatima was the vision to save you?”
“I thought so too. Maybe she just reminded me of my mother.”
“You always blame your mother for your life. What about your father?”
“I never knew him, I only dream about him. It’s hard to blame a dream.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. In the dream we were always in a living room. The same living room, only it was no living room I knew. Anyway, we would be there, him, me and my mother. My mother and I are always drowning in that living room, but my father has his back turned to us, looking out of the window. No words are ever spoken. Just him, looking out the window.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because although I want to feel compassion for you—no, that’s wrong, I do feel compassion for you. But I don’t believe you know what it means to be sorry.”
Black looked away.
“I need you to save me, Iggy.”
“Why? Why should I save you? How come you can never save anyone?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what is the cost of saving you?”
“I don’t know.”
Iggy touched his face.
“I wish I knew what it took to make you happy, Black. But even you don’t know that. For what it’s worth, though, I think that the answer lies with Fatima and what she means to you. But I suspect you know that already.”
“And Sweet Girl,” he said.
She said nothing.
“I’m sorry, Iggy. I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Turn around for a second.”
He spun around in the chair. Iggy stood up and pulled her T-shirt on.
“Can I turn around yet?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said.
He turned around.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?” she said.
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“Look at me, Black.”
But he couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Sometimes I think you’ve lost your soul. Ask me how I feel about Ray-Ray’s death. Ask me how I feel about the stuff in my life. Just ask me about me.”
He raised his eyes hesitantly.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said.
“I know. But your apology is still about you. About your wanting me to make you feel better.”
“So what do you want?”
“I want you to leave, Black, to leave. Forget the rent, forget the past, just move on.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“But I
want you to. Don’t you get it?”
He said nothing. Looked away again.
“Look, things are complicated right now.”
“It’s always complicated with you,” she said.
“I know. I don’t know,” he said, his voice a whisper. “I’m afraid, I guess.”
“What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch.
“Ten-thirty p.m.”
“Damian’s band is playing here tonight. It’s a late gig, starts about midnight and goes on all night.”
“Sounds good,” he said, voice flat.
“I think you should come tonight, for the band. One last bash, eh? Then move on,” she said.
“Whatever,” he said.
“Send Suji in on your way out,” she said. Even though her tone sounded final, there was a note of kindness in it.
“Sure,” he said, opening the door.
“Black?”
“Yeah?”
She threw a goodoo doll at him.
“For love, for protection, for success, for healing,” she said.
He rubbed the goodoo’s clay body with a thumb. It felt cool to the touch.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Maybe somewhere, sometime down the road, you know?” she said.
He closed the door behind him.
thirty-six
fingers on skin.
That was the sound and Black followed it downstairs to the café of The Ugly Store. He wasn’t expecting Damian Thrace’s band to be set up yet and he was right. Walter Henry, the percussionist, was tightening the skins on his djembe and congas with a small metal hammer, eyes closed. The entire operation, done by touch, by feel, made Black think of ritual, of sacrifice, as though Walter were speaking to the gazelles—if indeed they were gazelles—who had given their hides for this sound, for this sacred communion. A couple of other band members, whom Black recognized as the saxophonist and flautist Rakim and drummer Jo-Jo stood drinking tea and waiting for the room to fill up. Black walked over to them, thinking, Why is it that I can remember details about people and things that have nothing to do with my life and yet remember nothing about my life?
“Hey,” he said, putting out his hand.
“Hey, brother,” Rakim said, shaking his hand.
“Hey, black,” Jo-Jo said, pulling Black into a half hug.
“Glad you guys could come out,” Black said. He didn’t know either of the musicians personally and now that he was here talking to them he felt slightly foolish, but they were both easy and friendly. He stood next to them for a minute then sauntered over to smoke by the door. There was a guy he didn’t know standing next to a small table behind which Iggy sat with a cashbox. She was doing brisk business selling tickets, and the room was filling up.
“Black,” she said as he stopped beside her.
“Iggy,” he said, passing the cigarette she was reaching for. “Drew a big crowd.”
“Told you it was a good idea.”
“You did. Who is this?” he said, indicating the guy standing next to her.
“Oh, this is Leland. He’s with the band. Protecting their interests, I guess,” Iggy said, indicating the cashbox. Black nodded and she went back to selling tickets. Ten minutes and two cigarettes later, the music began.
At first it was a whisper. Just Damian: Joooooooooohnnn Coooooolllltrane. Just like that, like breath teasing skin. Everything in the café stopped, everyone leaning forward to hear. There it was again, that whisper, warm, lush like warm wet tropical rain, and Black relaxed into it. There was seduction to it and it felt like Damian’s calls were fogging up the windows, fogging the air thick enough to trace a message like, Help, I am drowning here but I love it, help. And as the lushness of Damian’s voice backwashed, like a tide returning to the band, Walter’s finger began to mark the beat on the rim of the djembe, the sound like a knife chopping through onions and tomatoes and ginger and garlic to the wooden board beneath, chopping; and behind him Jo-Jo spread oil over his snare’s face with the sizzle of brushes and the high snap of hot cymbals and spreading, and Walter, licking his fingers and holding down the skin of the djembe with the heel of one hand, peeled the notes off with the wet finger, each one as sharp as a paper cut. And flowing back on the sound of Rakim’s tenor, and Damian singing, the notes mixing until there was no Rakim, no horn, no Damian, no voice, just this spreading ripple of sound, not this note or that one or this instrument or that, not even this player or that singer, there was just sound, like an umbrella over it all and something else, the soft erasure of chalk on blackboard and Black was disappearing into it, diminishing and turning to smoke and the call and the fall and the all of it and he wanted to push against this thing but there wasn’t anything, no provocation, just this poised vital ocean and the tactile feeling, this sweet decline and thoughts that were all slurred and blurred like the lights on a freeway disappearing from view as a spaceship rose into the open arms of sky, into the dark sky of memory, and there was forgetting here, everything you wanted to be and were and still Damian’s crying, hollering and there was a shape, maybe remembrance, and the desire, oh, the desire, and Black was pulling back and even this was jazz and even now he was falling and there was the smell of fresh bread which is a lie ’cause no one he knew baked and the smell of bread, fresh bread turning to toast, and across the table the heaped hope of pancakes and butter waiting and waiting and then as Taylor caressed and teased notes down the spine of the bass, fingers weaving strings like an old African griot singing his lineage as he wove it all into a tapestry and when this was not enough, he picked up the bow, he sawed through the peg leg, cutting to another place and Black felt tears on his face and wondered what and why and shit, shit, shit, but Damian had latched on and he wouldn’t let go and Black wanted to testify, to let it all out, let it come and a choked sob broke from him and he turned and fled, out of the door, out of The Ugly Store.
thirty-seven
saffron sky.
The floating blue-black mirror of it reflecting fires burning for miles and miles. And smoke like an offering, rising, and then falling, like the breath of a continent, or penitents showering humiliation on themselves in the face of the sacred.
Black stood on the street in front of The Ugly Store and took a deep breath. Fear is only a limitation, he told himself. In the busy artery of the street, he felt there was no way to hide, and no need. The city had swallowed him up. It would shelter him from harm. Just then a police car passed and he stepped back into the shadow of The Ugly Store’s door. The tall grass covers the antelope, he thought (remembering an old proverb that Bomboy had told him), but the hunter’s bullet still finds it.
“Black!”
JUST HANGING.
The white T-shirt wore the slogan and a facsimile of an actual photograph of a lynched black man. Black couldn’t believe Bomboy was wearing it. He was across the street at Pedro’s taco stand. In his hand was a large burrito dripping sauce onto his arm. Black’s eyes followed the thin trail as it disappeared behind Bomboy’s elbow, thinking that his face looked uncannily like that of the half deflated raptor on the roof of the stand.
“Hey, culero! What the fuck is the idea with that shirt?” he said.
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?” Bomboy said.
“Even you have to know how offensive that shirt is,” Black said.
“This?” Bomboy said, stretching the shirt with both hands and glancing down at it. “This is just a joke.”
“How can that be a joke?” Black demanded.
“You’re right, Black. You are the joke,” Bomboy said. “Go hang with that.”
Black shook his head.
“Now who’s the loser?” he asked.
Bomboy took a bite of his burrito and spitting detritus at Black, said:
“Whatever. See me? When I came here I had nothing. Now I have a Lexus, an apartment and I can send money to my people. What of you?”
“You seem lost in this country. Like this is where your jour
ney ends,” Black said.
“But you have nothing,” Bomboy said, spitting at Black’s feet. “You don’t even have shame. Without your shame you have no people, without people you have no lineage, without a lineage you have no ancestors, without ancestors you have no dead and without the dead you can never know anything about life. All you have is ash. And you know what happens to ash when the wind blows. It is I who pity you. I may be many things that can be despised, but I am still better than you because I know my shame. My journey will probably end here, but your journey hasn’t even begun.”
Black lit a Marlboro and blew smoke into the already smoky air. He had no response. Instead he looked at his watch. It was nearly one in the morning. He should call Sweet Girl. Smiling at Bomboy, Black walked to his van and disappeared into the night.
She was laughing when she answered the phone.
“Hey, Baby,” Sweet Girl said.
“Hey,” Black said.
“What’s up?”
“I wondered if you were done?”
“Yes, you still want to meet at Denny’s?”
“Yes,” Black said, his voice taut.
Sweet Girl picked up on it immediately.
“Just tell me where it is and I’ll meet you there in about half an hour or forty-five minutes.”
Black gave her directions. He’d called from the phone box outside the prison, about three minutes from the Denny’s. He figured he would kill some time before going there, so he headed for the river. As he sat on the concrete lip smoking, he thought it was strange how he was always chasing this River in some way. Its flow, its line, its energy, its alchemy. Soon, though, his mind turned to Sweet Girl and their conversations.
“You have cute eyes,” she’d said to him.
“You’re one of the few men who has seen me. Who has looked me in the eye while I danced naked,” she’d said.
“Your eyes,” she’d said.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Gabriel said, “but have you noticed that you use red a lot in your work?”
Black couldn’t see him at first, but when he strained he could just make out Gabriel’s fifteen-foot silhouette across the river. He was smoking a cigarette. Black wondered why he could hear the angel so clearly from so far away.