Holding Pattern

by Jeffery Renard Allen

  They follow Mamma into the church, her white ruffled dress billowing about her legs, waves. They glide down the red thickly carpeted aisle. Hatch steps carefully, afraid his feet will sink into the raging floor. He stumbles. Recovers his balance. A classic delinquent, Cosmo whispers to Hatch: Satan fell. The greatest disaster in the history of world aviation.

  They seat themselves on a hard wooden pew, brightly polished, like a canoe. Hatch’s feet dangle above the carpet’s red bloody waters. Cosmo sits beside him, jaw rigid, face flattened, as if pressing into glass. Words cascade from the preacher’s wine-aged lips. Hatch searches for something firm to grab on to.

  Sit up straight!

  That bitter and poisonous apple, that hot coal of lust in Adam’s belly.

  Cosmo’s fingers twitch, the urgent pulse of awakening life. Cosmo whispers into Hatch’s ear, I drank from a jawbone.

  Hatch takes him immediately for what he seems.

  The collection plate comes around for the third time—Hatch doesn’t remember sitting on the pew for so long, but he has—coins like sparkling eyes, fish scales. A repetition of images, mechanical proliferation.

  Out of the eater come forth meat, and out of the strong come forth sweetness.

  Cosmo jerks as if to sneeze and spills his half-digested breakfast into the collection plate.

  X

  We discussed it. Mamma holds Cosmo in her gaze. Don’t use the car no mo on Saturday nights.

  What? Cheek black.

  Cosmo has devised a new trick: he can hoard air inside his lungs, then blow it toward tight lips, causing one cheek to expand while the other remains flat. That paradox matched by his gait, neither a walk nor a run but a clumsy advance, leaning forward a little with his chin thrust out, straining to see something in the distance, the inflated cheek black with the heat of the straining engine inside his jaw.

  Hatch watches Cosmo through the garage window. Cosmo circles about from corner to corner, crashes into the walls, bug to glowing lamp.

  XI

  Hatch entered through the kitchen, trying not to make any noise. He raised the water pistol and moved on. What he hoped to avoid awaited him. Cosmo was standing to one side of the chandelier, facing Hatch but staring through Hatch at some vision that Cosmo alone could see. His physical appearance confirmed what Hatch had long suspected, that a strange new life was flowering inside him. One hand jerked as if shaking dice, while the other squeezed and relaxed like tweezers opening and closing or castanets snapping.

  Hatch spun and rushed back in the direction from which he had come. He bounded down the back-porch steps, almost crashed into the corner of the house as he turned, stumbled through the lawn area, cut sharply again, and leaped onto the front-porch steps. The porch light made the darkness strangely comfortable. The water pistol warm in his hand.

  XII

  He could feel something cold rising up in him and thought to turn back. The house taking shape as he watched from his command post in a tangle of bushes and hedges on a low hill. The darkness his shelter. Then he realized he was actually seeing an expanding architecture: the house, the garage, the street, the church, the neighborhood, the jagged-leaved trees that ate the horizon. With this small but significant finding, he felt a new confidence. In time he would face his brother.

  You think you grown? What time was you sposed to be in the house?

  But Cosmo been aggravatin me.

  You a tattletale now?

  XIII

  The sun is a silver penny pasted onto the sky. A slow rain descends indifferently. Cosmo and Hatch race down the street, their speed a challenge that the sky accepts. A steady downpour. Hatch catches water on his tongue and drinks it. Cosmo hops off the curb into puddles, splashing his pointed old-man shoes, frenzied sharks.

  The rain comes in gray swaths. Hatch and Cosmo cut into a doorway where others have also sought refuge. Hatch’s soggy sneakers fart whenever he wiggles his toes. Cosmo turns, faces the crowd from under his fedora. Spreads his arms wide, greeting the rain. We are gathered here today …

  Rain transforms the streets into angry rivers, swirling eddies. Hard wind slaps hats off heads. Hair flattened into a flying wave, Cosmo ducks under an awning, shoves others aside to squeeze in, create his own little bit of space, elbow room. Together they stare out silently into the street at a curtain of performing rain and a swollen gutter. Police officers wrapped in plastic direct almost stationary traffic. Cosmo shivers, building up energy for an illumination, which does not come. A full hour before the rain eases. A mocking peck of blue sky.

  Morning light fell slant upon the couch, where Cosmo lay under several layers of blankets, feverish—throat clogged, eyes shut in pain—and holding his stomach like a pregnant woman.

  You may be sick, but you better keep an eye on yo brother when he get home from school, Mamma said.

  Sure.

  Make sure he eats his dinner.

  Sure.

  And don’t aggravate him.

  Sure.

  The moment the door shut, he rose from the couch, red robe and slippers flaming about him, and stood rigidly in place, the sole of one foot clamped behind his knee, and the palm of his hand masking his eyes. One cheek black and puffy, the other, colorless and tent taut. The morning opened around him and he stood erect in its center, a stamen.

  A ripe day. The sky so near that Hatch drew back from its heat. The sun blinked a drunk’s red eye. Red clouds stumbled. He withdrew into shadow, band upon band, bar upon bar. His hands crimson wings.

  Constellations as pale as milk. Stars banged against roofs. Hatch passed the lit windows of houses, perhaps a face or two looking out from them. Then home. The porch glowed with light and softened the darkness. He moved cautiously upon the black stairs. Opened the door. Fire shot through the back of his neck.

  The hard wooden floor sagged under his waterlogged spine. He squeezed back burning tears. His legs stiff. His neck stiff, caught in some unseen bear’s honed teeth. How long had he been here? He turned his head and the bear bit harder. Two spotlights gawked down at him from the ceiling. A third fixture cast a cone of light on a large white sheet draped along the long window like a sail and flapping freely. The room was completely bare, all furniture gone.

  Punk, get on up. I ain’t got all day.

  He could not see Cosmo, only hear him. He explored the back of his neck with cautious fingers, trying to pinpoint teeth, triage physical damage.

  Forget yo neck.

  My neck is fine!

  The unseen bear teeth clamped down.

  Then get up.

  I ain’t.

  Get up.

  No. You play too much.

  I ain’t playin. Cosmo moved somewhere in the room. He stepped into the cone of light wearing a robe and slippers, the same red robe and slippers from earlier. Eyes wide. Skin taut like burns freshly healed. And the swollen cheek, an unwanted growth. His shadow shimmered against the sheet.

  Wait till Mamma see what you done. The furniture.

  Cosmo stood there, eyes wide spotlights. He spread a slow grin.

  I’m tellin. You gon get a whupping when Mamma get home.

  Cosmo watched him for a moment. Then he tightened the cord of his robe. We got some business to take care of.

  I ain’t doing no business with you.

  Shut up.

  You can’t make me.

  Cosmo moved across the room with his new walk. Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up? Bones creaking, Hatch raised himself to hands and knees. The bear matched his resistance, lodging its teeth into the bone, asserting claim. He tried to rise but found that his legs too had come under new allegiance, chained and posted traps around his ankles. He dragged himself backward into the corner, the most he could do. Cosmo reached him, slapped him upside the head.

  Hatch collapsed. I’m gon tell Dad too. He covered his head with his hands.

  What! Cosmo flashed a look of pure hatred. His puffy cheek expanded, ready to explode. He leaned forward and sl
apped repeatedly at Hatch’s wrists.

  You retarded—peeping up. You really are.

  Cosmo smacked him again, short and sharp. He seemed to calm. And he leaned away from Hatch, slowly, and righted himself, his eyes minus their fierce light, and withdrew back into his empty fixed look. You shut up, or I’ll give you some trouble.

  Hatch lowered his hands. And if you do—

  Cosmo readied his hand. Look out now.

  Hatch guarded his head. He breathed like someone who had been running. He remembered the water pistol. Maybe if he had it now …

  Cosmo lowered his hand. Touched the cord of his robe. Let’s get this business outta the way.

  Hatch could no longer feel the bear’s teeth in his neck, but he knew it was there, still found it hard to move his legs, impossible to take his feet.

  Cosmo moved back to the other side of the room, slippers clapping, and leaning so far forward that he might have fallen flat on his face. He entered the cone of light, turned, and faced Hatch. Spread his arms wide. Welcome brother—speaking with his new impenetrable expression.

  Hatch rolled his hands over his chest, searching, certain that the bear was tired out from all of the struggle and activity and had gone into hibernation.

  Cosmo squatted on his haunches, the low position propelling more air up into his rising black cheek. He fingered the sheet. Come over here behind this sheet.

  I see you, Hatch said. Don’t think I don’t. But the bear had settled into a deep slumber, and his brother watched him, a fading glow, even dull radiance, some unclaimed and impatient skin shape summoned by dim regret—a singular desire to look deed and aftermath stonily in the face and move on.

  Same

  Boards don’t hit back.

  — BRUCE LEE

  I

  His mother’s name was Glory Hope Lincoln. His father had a wandering eye. On a bright summer day, she cut his daddy’s dick off and threw it out the window.

  You dead, bitch, Daddy said.

  The Lord giveth and he also taketh away, Glory said.

  Daddy put his hands over his crotch and went searching for his member. Later, Glory and the cops found him slumped against a mailbox five blocks away.

  The officers were all white men, Glory said, but they didn’t arrest me. They knew that it was the Lord himself who had guided my hand. Oh, Jesus is a mighty man!

  Glory always told the story to him, her son, Lincoln Roosevelt Lincoln, in the kitchen, a large room, hot and bright inside with sunlight from the big window behind the sink. She sat stiff in her chair—akin in structure and appearance to an infant’s high chair, it was specially built to compensate for her height—her eyes closed, her head back, and her thick gray hair pulled tight into a ponytail, as if someone were trying to snatch her out the window. She was the darkest shade of black, and Lincoln wondered how she could be his mother, since he himself was so light that even a touch of sun made him tan. Her cheeks glowed red, two small furnaces—this woman round and fat from good living.

  Lincoln sat in his own chair, tears hot on his cheeks.

  Glory opened her eyes and looked him full in the face. Man, she said, don’t lose your head over a piece of tail!

  Lincoln could no longer remember when she had first told him the story, but when he was eight, she said, Set your tail down over there, where I can see you. He sat down in his chair.

  In her black dress suit, she was small and motionless. Sunlight draped a shawl over her shoulders. She had closed her eyes, eased her head back, and told the story. Concluded thus:

  Men should sow their oats, she said.

  Yes, ma’am.

  Then marry at thirty.

  Yes, ma’am.

  But men are heathens.

  Lincoln had thought for a moment, sincere. Jesus was a man, he said.

  Glory shot her eyes open. Brought her head forward and looked at Lincoln for a full minute, her face as still as a rock. Then she slapped him, hard. Water cascaded from his eyes. (Until the day before his death, he never cried again, not even in jest.) Glory went over to the sink and washed her hands, as if she had been dealing with something unclean. You don’t fuck with Jesus.

  Glory loved Jesus, the only man she ever cooked for, in a greasy ritual she performed once a year, on his birthday. Turkey and dressing, ham, fried gizzards, chitlins, hog head cheese, black-eyed peas, butter beans, neck bones, corn bread, buttermilk and side meats, candied yams, smothered chicken, collard greens, eggnog, and pecan pie. They would sit down to a table overgrown with a smoky jungle of plates.

  Taste and see, Glory would say. Jesus is good.

  They would eat their supper and afterward spend the evening before the fireplace in the living room, Glory singing: Come by here Lord, come by here.

  Lincoln grew, so that by the time he was ten, Glory barely reached his shoulder. Whenever some thought thickened his mind, he would walk around the house wide-eyed like a baby. He could never do right for doing wrong, and Glory always found something suspicious in his look, so Lincoln began to develop the habit of beaming a golden smile at her, a ritual meant to comfort and ease but that over time altered the muscles in his face to such a degree that the corners of his mouth hurt. One day, as she sat tall in her high chair in the kitchen, and he in his chair, giving her his aching smile, he decided to question her about the central mystery in her life.

  Mamma?

  Yes?

  Where my daddy?

  I done told you a thousand times where your daddy at.

  I know, but—

  She jerked him up by the collar. You ain’t been listen?

  No, ma’am. He looked down into her face but avoided her eyes.

  You must just be hardheaded?

  His heart tightened at the hard threat of her question. No, ma’am.

  What yo problem, then?

  He framed his words. Where is my daddy Jesus?

  The fire in Glory’s cheeks cooled, but Lincoln could feel the heat from her smoldering eyes. Boy.

  Yes, ma’am.

  Listen carefully.

  Yes, ma’am.

  Jesus can see into the heart.

  Yes, ma’am.

  God gave me children as a token of his own suffering and love, and for my devotion to him.

  Yes, ma’am.

  His son saw into my heart.

  Yes, ma’am.

  Never close your heart to Jesus.

  Yes, ma’am.

  Glory was a woman of mean understanding. Burns covered her forearms, the blackest part of her body, and her fingernails were so black and her fingers so flat (old pone-pan hands, Lincoln called them in the full force of his anger) that she always wore gloves in public (and sometimes even when she ate) and long full dresses—even the sleeves long—that revealed no flesh. She walked slowly and carefully, like one just learning. Lincoln studied her through the keyhole of her bedroom door, observed that she slept with her eyes open, her body trembling at scenes of destruction and devastation, projected onto the ceiling and walls, that her eyes alone could see. Eyes that saw in clouds the shapes of disaster. Saw spirits wrestling in the sky and swift-winged angels zooming over the world. For her, ordinary language was an undecipherable hieroglyphics, and Lincoln had to sit before the warmth of the fireplace, where she knitted the same quilt she would finish only moments before her death, and read her the mail, or her favorite black newspaper, the Black Star, and magazine, Mirror of Liberty, or the printed labels on foodstuffs, tin cans, and cardboard boxes.

  She would spend most of the day in the kitchen, reading the only written words she understood: those of the Bible. Then she would summon Lincoln to her company for conversation. Lincoln forever on hand at the pointed moment of memory and reflection, for how can progress be measured unless we reconstruct and reanimate the past? She said her say, Lincoln hearing but not always listening, until she circled back to the present, depleted, it would seem, from the telling. She would spend the remainder of the day knitting and humming before the firepl
ace.

  One day, she called Lincoln into the kitchen. Boy.

  Yes, ma’am.

  Yellow niggers darken with age.

  Ma’am?

  But she left him with that piece of fact-threat-advice and went to bed singing:

  Jesus loves me

  Yes I know

  Cause the Bible

  Tells me so.

  The baby was hunched into a heap, legs crooked, head touching knees. It’s too damn hot in here, he thought. These days, you can’t find peace anywhere.

  Lincoln always rose at dawn, had done so for as long as he could remember. So too this day. It was warm and black and close under the covers. He raised himself slowly out of bed, fingered his penis (limp), moved over to the black drapes fronting the windows, and drew them open to a flood of light. Blinking, he stood looking out onto the city’s skyline, a view he took pride in, his thirty-six-story-high penthouse perch scanning across the very heart of the city. Sunlight flamed about the roofs of buildings—tall brick and steel boxes blaring many-glassed reflections. He looked down onto the Eisenhower Expressway and saw cars moving on a sea of blacktop, wheels and engines silent. He could hear nothing of the outside. Somewhere behind him wood popped and hissed; he turned to see his bed, as high and thick as a mausoleum, glowing as if on fire, black sheets bright under the light, like the moonlit surface of water, spotted with two drops of semen, fallen stars on the rippling satin. His sight looped back to the window and skyline, and he gazed on in silence and kept looking, sunlight stroking his back in anxious anticipation. Blind fingers sought his penis and examined it. Erect.

  Moving on, the next juncture of his morning routine required preparation of his bath—foam and bubbles, plenty of bubbles and foam. He lowered his body into the tub, enjoying the warm water and the clean soap smell. Some thirty minutes later—time formed and held in foam, time bouncing and echoing in every bubble—he stepped free of the tub and toweled his body dry, then made his way to the full-length mirror, leaving behind a soapy trail. He was tall, but of average build, since he never exercised. He believed that independence and hard work should be rewarded. If he sweated, he wanted to be paid.