by Kia Corthron
You mean thank God you were a day late. You were supposed to be born on the 4th. It isn’t until I leave them and notice a flyer for a prayer service in commemoration of the third anniversary of Martin Luther King’s April 4th assassination that I realize what they were talking about.
On Monday when I arrive at her Village townhouse, I’m the only guest. April May June admits that she knew I’d show up right on time before anyone else, having no concept of fashionably late, and Ramona, apprised of my punctuality habit, had discreetly waited until 7:50 to slip out and buy decorative flowers.
I miss you, April May June says, and for a while we kiss. Then I give her the presents, both art books, which she loves, and the card that I agonized over. I tell her she can wait until later to read it, and by this I mean Please wait until later to read it and she knows this and opens it anyway.
She stares at the words, and I can tell something doesn’t sit well with her, but she forces a smile and says Thank you. This is exactly why I wanted her to open it later! It would put her on the spot for me to ask what’s wrong. Happiest. Was that going overboard? Does she think I’m exaggerating? I’m not! Or does she believe me and that’s what’s making her uncomfortable? Or does she wonder, if I’m so happy then why didn’t I sign the card with love? But isn’t it too early for that? I don’t know the rules!
Ramona, who’s gone so long I think she must have planted and cultivated those chrysanthemums, finally returns to find April May June and me awkward and relieved by the interruption. At quarter to nine a few guests arrive, and by ten the place is packed by people of various races, most in their late twenties or thirties, the apartment smoke-filled which April May June apparently tolerates for the sake of the occasion. Most of the crowd are deaf but there are a handful of hearers talking in a corner. Many of the invited make a point of greeting me, and their smiles imply whatever April May June told them about me must have been good. I’m grateful for their sociability because otherwise my impulse would be to take my champagne glass and sit alone in a corner, my shyness possibly mistaken for snobbery. April May June has guests flocking her all evening, in addition to the deaf the good hostess taking time to speak verbally with her hearing friends while periodically sending glancing smiles in my direction.
She has insisted on all thirty-four candles, claiming if she blows out any less she won’t get her wish. We sign the birthday song while the hearers sing, and afterward, eating my chocolate cake, I realize how sleepy I am. Ten forty-five, and I’m ordinarily in bed by ten, so here’s the next dilemma: If I’m April May June’s “steady,” is it improper for me to leave earlier than everyone else? As if in answer to my prayer I feel someone coming from behind, slipping her arm in mine.
Tired?
I smile, so grateful for this touch.
Go home, go to bed. Would you like to come to the movies with us tomorrow?
Yes.
An American movie! With familiar New York scenes! Ramona sits between us again, interpreting. The film is called Shaft, and though I’m not partial to the action genre, it’s thrilling to enjoy a contemporary film from my own country, even this somewhat outlandish representation. The sisters appreciate the racial truths, find the drama intermittently silly, and love it beginning to end.
After the movie we sit in a diner, Ramona and I saying our goodbyes. Tomorrow morning she and April May June will take the train upstate to see an aunt, and Thursday, Ramona’s last full day before catching the bus early Friday morning, the girls plan to visit a few tourist sites. April May June has clarified to me in no uncertain terms that it is no longer proper to refer to grown women as “girls,” and I agree with her, but I must admit, in observing them, this is the word that keeps popping into my mind: the way they smile and hold secrets like teenagers. In the booth they are side by side across the table from me.
And I wanna get a picture of the skyline, Ramona tells her sister, who is detailing their upcoming sightseeing agenda on a napkin.
You came right as it’s changing, April May June remarks. Construction’s just finishing on the second of the two World Trade Center towers, supposed to be done in the summer. They surpassed the Empire State Building. World’s tallest.
Ramona turns to me now. I’m so happy we met, B.J. The warmth in her eyes tells me she’s sincere.
I hope you come back again soon, Ramona.
The Brooklyn Promenade’s probably the best view of Manhattan, right? April May June asks me. How do we get there again?
As I jot directions on another napkin, Ramona unexpectedly turns around and speaks to the table behind us, four young white men, probably college students. They smile and respond. When she turns back to us, she says there’s a song on the restaurant speaker, Thank You (For Letting Me Be Myself Again) but the singer cleverly titled it as he pronounces it, and she takes my pencil and flips over the napkin: Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). She had overheard the young men referring to the recording artist as James Brown when it is Sly and the Family Stone, and she’d felt the need to correct them. She rolls her eyes and says with a smile to her sister: White boys.
Because Ramona means the last remark as a joke, April May June smiles back at her, then at me so I won’t feel left out. But her smile is confused because neither she nor I wholly get jokes about music, about slang pronunciation. The moment had clearly been more about flirtation than anything else, Ramona being just as pretty as her sister, which is to say very pretty, and this teasing exchange was coordinated through their common knowledge of the aural art. I wonder if it’s a relief to Ramona, after a week speaking with her hands, to chance upon this occasion to communicate verbally, and I’m momentarily envious of her ability to smoothly segue between our world and theirs.
**
Friday night after Ramona’s departure, I stop by April May June’s as she and I had planned. We make love, and everything seems alright, but it still nags me, whatever it was that bothered her on her birthday.
What?
I swallow. Did you. Were you upset by my card?
She looks at the ceiling.
Was I too forward? Not forward enough?
Yes. Yes.
I frown. She smiles and pulls the blanket up over her shoulders.
I don’t know how I felt. Just because I’ve had lovers and you haven’t doesn’t mean I have all the answers. I can be confused too.
I’m not confused.
She looks at me, smiles again, and doesn’t respond.
I fixed the door.
The outside door? To your building?
Lloyd was never going to do it. I finally bought the parts and did it myself. And billed him.
For your labor as well as the parts, I hope.
Better. I told him I would not charge him for the labor, but he’ll owe me a favor.
Like what?
When the time comes, he’ll be the first to know.
I sit up, my lower body still covered, knees bent.
I thought about rigging my place like yours. Your door light. But it’s complicated.
She nods. I was fortunate to get this place when I did: deaf-ready. Toni my friend, the former tenant? Took her four years of cajoling to get her landlord to comply. I’m paying rent like all the other tenants, she told him, I need to know when I have guests too.
You’re the only guest who would need to get in my door. So I thought.
I take a breath, then reach over to my pants on the chair and pull out of the pocket two shiny new keys. I eye her carefully, searching for any more signs of “confusion.”
She stares at them. And, after a moment, gently takes them.
This is good, she remarks. I was just about to inaugurate my career as a stalker.
**
I hope I was not being miserly in choosing the double. April May June’s is, and we fit quite nicely. King-size would crowd my bedroom,
and even the queen seemed greedy. Well it’s certainly a comfort-level step up from my previous single.
But I’m irritated. It’s twenty past five, and when the store manager wrote on the note that my new bed would arrive sometime between ten and six, I didn’t really think it would take all day. With no light fixture summons connected to my apartment I’ve had to wait here, sitting on the steps facing my building entrance for over seven hours, leaving my post only twice to race to the bathroom.
The door cracks open. I can never stay angry about anything when I see her smile. Warm this late April day, and over her pale blue blouse and denim miniskirt she wears only a light yellow sweater.
So what’s the big surprise? She kisses me.
I’m still waiting for it.
She notices I’m reading Crazy Horse, Mari Sandoz’s biography, and she becomes excited, telling me she loved the book, then extolling the virtues of the American Indian Movement. I nod and intermittently respond while wondering what to do should the bed men not show. If there was a problem they obviously couldn’t call, nor can I call them now. In my mind I make various complicated plans, feeling a headache coming on, when at 5:40 a truck pulls up. With her first glimpse of what the two Trinidadian men are carrying into my building, April May June’s broad grin and sparkling eyes make the long wait since this morning more than worthwhile.
I’ve bought new linens, and we tuck the sheets and spread the blankets together. Before we replace the pillows, she takes off her shoes and sits on the bed, clutching her knees, back against the headboard.
Perfect.
I take off my shoes and sit where the other pillow will be, and though we don’t know it yet, we have just established that she will always sleep to my left. Her thoughts have gone far away.
What?
My father’s had a lot of trouble with his vision lately. He finally went to the doctor. She caresses her necklace, something African, leather. Sugar. His sister died of it, I told you. He’s not obese but. Too many seconds, he never could say no to cherry pie. She sighs. Your parents still living?
She’s starting a conversation we’ve never had. Since her family is a frequent topic, my lack of likewise contribution has been conspicuous, but she has not addressed the subject directly until now. In reply to her question, I shake my head.
When did they die?
My father. Almost thirty years ago.
Your mother?
I don’t know.
She stares.
I’ve not been in touch with them since I moved to New York. I only recently found out she passed.
Why have you been out of touch?
I swallow.
I did something.
I massage the fingers of my right hand with my left.
I betrayed my brother.
I sigh. I go to the bathroom, wash my face, my underarms. When I return she has not budged, her eyes still fixed on me.
You don’t want to talk about it?
I don’t want to talk about it.
A housefly enters through my cracked window, doing a figure 8 between us before disappearing into the other rooms.
Do you have a picture?
Of my mother?
I go to my desk and pull out the drawer, reaching in the back where I keep the old billfold. I can’t remember the last time I looked at the photos. I show her the only image I have of Ma, standing in front of our house.
She has a nice smile. April May June gently strokes the plastic slipcover.
And she begins flipping to the few other pictures. I suppress an impulse to snatch the thing back.
Your sister?
Her senior picture.
Your father and brother?
Yes. His eighth-grade graduation picnic, not long before my father died.
The brother who taught you to sign. To read.
I say nothing. She ignores my grave face and continues, getting to the last portrait. Who’s that?
Incredibly, as I’d handed the wallet to her I’d forgotten about it. A newspaper clipping photo of the young Negro man.
I gently take the billfold back, walk over to my desk and shut it in the drawer, then turn to her.
There’s a new egg roll place on the corner.
Walking back from the eatery, we lament the immediate succession of dictator Papa Doc by son Baby Doc in Haiti, applaud the Supreme Court decision endorsing school busing, consider the gas chamber sentencing of the Manson family, but beneath it all we’re both giddy in our eagerness to initiate my latest furniture addition. I stop to go through the motions of checking my mail and thus sweetening the anticipation, and am surprised to find a letter.
What is it?
Nothing. I slip it into my inside jacket pocket, and though she clearly wants to press the subject she doesn’t.
There’s something reinvigorating in our relationship, still quite young anyway, in making love on a new bed. I wait until she’s in a sound sleep before I slip out from under the sheets, closing the bedroom door behind me. I turn on the kitchen light and sit at the table.
April 19, 1971
Dear B.J.,
Sorry it took me awhile to write you. I had to get over the shock of getting a letter from you first. After ten years, we didn’t even know if you were still alive, and if you were, well, I guess I assumed you’d just forgotten all about us.
We lost Ma seven years ago. It was colorectal cancer. I guess you don’t know but the symptoms started six months after that thing with you and Randall. Over the next couple of years she would have little improvements and we would be hopeful, but they’d eventually always be followed by some kind of relapse, one step forward two steps back. Funny even when we knew they’d sent her home to die how you’re never prepared, when she really left us it still hit like a bombshell.
Randall has been gone about as long as you have. After everything, he was made to feel like some kind of pariah in his own hometown. He went to Texas, and moved around the state before settling, but has stayed in touch, a Christmas card at least. It was hard to be at Ma’s funeral when two of her three offspring didn’t show up. Randall did send flowers. You asked me where to send them but you should know she’s buried right next to Pa out off of Swamp Road.
B.J., I was so angry with you for such a long time. I blamed you for everything bad that ever happened to our family after what you did. But four years ago I got sick myself and that gave me a new outlook on everything. It was very hard so soon after Ma, and because there are certain body parts you think you need or you’re not really a woman anymore. But I’m doing okay without them, and it has put the sickness in remission. I also lost all my hair but it has grown back.
Yes, Leslie Jo and Todd graduated. Leslie Jo has two little girls. I didn’t much like the boy she married at first but he did right by her, giving the baby a name.
I’m reading this letter and wondering if it comes off madder than I feel. I guess I did get upset when I got your letter, out the blue you suddenly wanting to act like the caring son. And I guess I had a lot of stuff stored up that I had to get out of my system. But you get close to death, you really do see things differently. I would like us to act like a proper brother and sister again, but forgive me if I need a little time to get used to it.
Here is a picture of the whole gang we took last Thanksgiving. Leslie Jo named her oldest Estelle Roberta (Roberta after Ma, of course) and the other Caroline. It’s still hard to believe I’m a grandmother! And you’re a great-uncle.
Your sister,
Benja
**
On an unseasonably warm Saturday near the end of May, April May June and I go to a demonstration in Harlem in response to the shooting death by police of a ten-year-old boy, a case of mistaken identity. Afterward we grab a bite at a nearby cafeteria-style restaurant on East 125th. I’m delighted with the Southe
rn cooking, the chicken and collards, vegetables generously spiced with ham, when I look up to see she is picking at her macaroni and cheese, sullen.
What?
I need to move to Harlem. What am I doing in the Village? How many black people are in Greenwich Village? I only moved there because that rent-controlled place fell into my lap. She twirls the pasta around. I waited too long to come to New York. I missed Malcolm. You ever read his autobiography?
Of course.
He worshiped Elijah Muhammad. Yeah, some Messenger of God, Muhammad in his fat mansion, well guess how he got so famous? The flock was about three sheep before Malcolm! And the FBI and NYPD all infiltrating, no protection for Malcolm’s family, and the press dismissing his assassination like some black gangland war, the Powers That Be were fine when they could call him a hatemonger, but after he went to Mecca, after he started preaching brotherhood for all. That’s when he became dangerous.
I watch her. I’m not sure whether she wants me to agree. Then her hands are moving furiously. He was a kid! Ten years old, they just kill us! Cops shoot, one black looks just like the other.
We have had similar conversations regarding police killings of deaf men, mistaken identity complicated by the officers rapidly jumping to wrong conclusions when the alleged perpetrator fails to respond to the cops’ verbal orders, but April May June is making clear that the “us” to which she now refers does not include me. I don’t believe such brutal misconduct is the practice of every police officer, but it’s true for too many of them. I know, however, this is not the time to make that distinction. Her anger is unwieldy, she needs to place it somewhere and right now I’m very convenient.
She smashes her macaroni with her fork. It’s like we never left the South.
No it’s not.
What’s the difference? That boy’s just as dead.
I pick up my cornbread, tear off a piece to chew. Now I am angry.
What’s the difference?
The difference is there weren’t police out at the demonstration today with vicious dogs attacking us, white people spitting on us. The difference is you drink from the same water fountain as I, sit in the movies with me, go to the same bathroom as white women and this is not something very recently imposed upon the white population which they bitterly and violently resent. The difference is you and I go to museums together, walk in the park in public, sometimes holding hands, and while we may get the occasional dirty look we are not playing Russian roulette with five bullets in the cylinder, we are not about to be lynched and by that I mean a slow, brutal, torturous death.