Lily stares at him, stone-faced.
“It wasn’t what you thought. Seriously. There’s nothing going on between me and your mom. We’re just sort of . . . friends. I promise you.”
“I know what I saw.” Ice in her voice. Ice in her eyes.
“How long have you been out here? You must be freezing.” Dari moves toward her to give her his jacket, but she pushes him away.
“Don’t touch me.”
Dari looks deeply into Lily’s eyes. She’s no longer seeing him. She’s seeing someone else.
“You’re being really unreasonable,” Dari scolds.
Lily slowly walks toward the stairs and heads down to the street level. Dari follows her easily this time.
“You might hate me right now, but I’m not the guy. I’m not the grown man who screwed you up. No matter what you may think of me, I’m not him!”
“YOU’RE WORSE!”
Dari is instantly silenced. He’s never seen Lily so angry.
“You are worse because you knew I was broken and I trusted you!”
“You are not broken—”
“Oh, just shut up! I’m not somebody to play around with. I do not go around screwing guys in public! I have never done that in my life and it meant everything to me and it didn’t mean SHIT to you!”
“That is not true!”
“Then why are we here right now? Why are we shouting at each other on a school night in Chelsea?!”
“You’re kinda just shouting at me.”
Lily starts to walk away in a huff, muttering more nonsense under her breath, when Dari grabs her.
“At least forgive Savannah. She didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Lily slaps Dari across the face, and it’s a weak, messy slap. It’s a slap that makes a thud sound because of her glove and how cold Dari’s cheek is, but the intention is quite clear.
“What is wrong with you?” he sputters.
“All that time. All that time we spent together. All the fun we had. All the—all of it—you have never, NEVER, once looked at me the way you were looking at her in that one second. I KNOW WHAT I SAW!” Lily attacks Dari, hands flying all over the place. He tries to defend himself while containing her, which is a lot to handle, and in the midst of it—sirens.
Goddammit.
“Step away from her,” the cop says on a bullhorn.
“Officer? I’m not—” Dari begins, confused.
“Step away from her now.” The cop pushes Dari up against a wall harder than necessary, considering the fact that Dari is no criminal. He searches him.
“Is this man bothering you?” the cop asks Lily.
“Oh my God,” she mumbles.
“Did you hear me?”
She heard him.
“Lily,” Dari calls as Officer Dipshit pushes him back against the wall.
“Nobody’s talking to you. What the hell is this?” The officer pulls something from Dari’s back pocket.
Dari tries to turn to look at it, but the cop prevents him. Meanwhile, his partner has gotten out of the car.
“It’s a palette scraper.”
“A what?”
“Palette. Scraper. For paintings,” he says slowly enough for a squirrel to understand.
“Oooh. Are you an artist?”
“Yes.”
“You gettin’ smart with me?”
“No, you asked a question, and I answered it.”
“Shut up!” Tired of Dari and his direct answering of questions, the other cop turns back to Lily.
“Miss? Do you know this man?”
Lily looks at Dari.
See me, Lily. Please see me.
“No. I don’t know him.”
She turns away as he screams her name, and she doesn’t turn back. She just keeps walking. She doesn’t turn back when she hears the scuffle. Doesn’t turn back when she hears more shouting. Doesn’t turn back when he cries, “I didn’t do anything.” She just keeps walking and walking.
One of them kicks him, but he can still see Lily up ahead in the near distance. If only he could get her to forgive him! If only she would just acknowledge him! He reaches for her and for one glorious instant he tears himself free and breaks into a run.
* * *
Lily doesn’t turn back. But she stops dead in her tracks when she hears the gunshot.
FROZEN
I want to turn around now. I have to turn around now. But I can’t feel my feet. I hear commotion behind me. I bend my leg and do all I can to lift it from its planted position, and I pivot. I get myself turned back downtown again. I can’t see what’s happening.
“I know him,” I cry, but it sounds like it’s coming from someone else. Someone far, far away. “No! I didn’t mean it! I know him! I do know him!” I’m moving as fast as I can, but my feet are bricks and my tongue is a swollen mass. What’s happening to me?
An ambulance comes and I really make myself run now. I run like never before. My mind comes back, my body comes back, my heart comes back.
“Please,” I scream.
They gently lift him onto a stretcher and get him inside.
“I know him! I do,” I yell. The EMT workers don’t notice me.
“Miss, you need to leave now,” a younger cop warns me. He stops me before I can get any closer. Where are the other ones? They’d recognize me.
“The guy in the ambulance,” I begin, and as I try to catch my breath, it pulls away, its lights flashing and sirens blaring. “No!”
“Do you have information about . . .” The cop’s asking me something, but I can’t hear him as I race after the ambulance. I can only run for a few blocks before my legs stop carrying me.
I mentally note the name on the rear doors. Beth Israel. Beth Israel. Beth Israel. Shaking, I reach for my phone and dial a number. A number Dari added to my phone. In case of an emergency. She picks up on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Izzy, it’s Lily. Get to Beth Israel hospital right now. Your brother’s been shot.”
* * *
Though it’s long gone, I follow the path of the ambulance for a while not knowing what else to do. It makes more sense than doing nothing or sleeping on a park bench, which is still a real possibility. I’m cold in a way that makes the world seem large and slow. I want to stay cold. I don’t want my mind to thaw out. I don’t want to think about what I just did.
I hear a phone ringing. I know it’s mine, but I cannot imagine why I should bother answering it now. What difference could it make? It stops ringing. It starts ringing again. Someone is relentless.
“Hello?” I manage to answer.
“Lily? Where are you, honey?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Uncle Ray. Your mom is really worried about you.”
My brain is in no condition to decipher what’s happening on the other end of this call.
“But you’re in Uganda,” I say, throaty and confused.
“No, I’ve been back for a week. I sent an e-blast about it. Don’t you read—never mind. Where are you?”
I don’t answer. I try with all my might to imagine the world of kindness that Uncle Raymond inhabits and I try to picture myself in that world. I can’t.
“Lily, please tell me where you are. I can come and get you. Things are gonna be all right. I promise.”
Promise. A promise. I promise too. I promise that if I ever find a time machine I will undo everything. As if tonight were just a horrible nightmare. I will go back and undo the events of last year and I’ll still be BFFs with Tracy and Jackie and happy to be a curious virgin. I will go back and walk right by Dari’s lunch table without disturbing him. I’ll go back even further and make sure Dari’s mom gets to live a long life and that he gets to visit museums with her in Paris. But if I am only allowed to make one short trip with my time machine, I will go back and I will not deny him.
“LILY!”
“Seventeenth Street and Sixth Avenue,” I wail and hang up. Hoping that I just freeze to d
eath.
A Time Before
L: You taste good.
D: Oh, man.
L: Seriously. Like Jolly Ranchers.
D: Thank you. That’s weird.
L: This is the best night ever.
D: I think you’re right.
L: You are the polar opposite of what I thought I wanted.
D: Thanks?
L: Yeah. You’re so much better.
D: Happy Halloween.
L: What?
D: It’s after midnight. So. Happy Halloween. Wanna go trick-or-treating?
L: Kinda.
D: What should we dress as?
I gave it a little thought. Precious little. I pinned my hair back on each side symmetrically, buttoned my sweater up to my larynx, and wrapped my scarf around my waist like a skirt. As a finishing touch, I pulled out my Maalouf notebook and held it innocently in front of my chest with a number two pencil.
L: Guess who I am.
D: Sylvia Plath?
L: No! I’m Anne Frank.
D: Ah. Yeah. I see it now.
L: Who are you gonna be?
All he did was pull his hoodie up over his head.
D: The boogeyman.
* * *
Uncle Ray pulls his car up to me slowly. Flurries blow in the wind. Mom’s in the backseat.
He gets out and comes over to me.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“Hurt?”
“Did you . . . did you hurt yourself?”
“No.”
I glance over and see that she’s buried her head in her hands. If she has nothing to be ashamed of, why is she crying? If she has nothing to be ashamed of, why is she sitting in the backseat?
Snow blows into my hair and gets trapped there. I’m snotty and I need a tissue, but I’m not about to ask for one. The last thing I want to do right now is get into a car with my mother. But Dari. Oh my God. Dari. I follow Uncle Raymond and I get into the front seat without saying anything to her.
As soon as I slam the door, she tries, “Baby—”
“Stop. Take me to Beth Israel hospital.”
“What’s wrong?” they both ask at the same time.
“It’s Dari. It’s serious.”
DARIOMAURITIUS RAPHAEL GRAY, AGE 161/4
The human body has 206 bones. I remember this from second-grade science. There is no way that number is exact and fixed. The human body is too mysterious.
Am I in my body anymore? Am I in a body anymore? Here and there. Gone and not gone.
Pain. My neck. My head. Bullets cause pain. Bullets cause death. Bullets cause paralysis. Bullets stop your conversation.
I do not want to keep remembering. Remembering. I am powerless to stop it from coming back. The sound, the cold, the hands, the shouting. I don’t understand what I did wrong. I did something wrong. Something I did wrong. I talked. I got angry. I got angry. I got angry. I got angry. That was the crime. Remember: Don’t get angry. It is illegal to be a black man and be angry. Right. Got it. I will remember this next time.
Next time.
Don’t get angry.
The people who work in this hospital care. They think I matter. They want to save my body and everything it holds within. They rush around my body like little busy birds trying to put me back together. That means I’m broken. Lily says she’s broken. She is not. She is going through a hard time. That is what the experts say on television. A hard time. A rough patch. A painful period. But it will pass. She is not broken; she’s wounded. She will heal. She can be fixed. Savannah can be fixed. Not me. I will always be a broken toy. A walking scar. The scary one. To the blue men. To the people who cross the street. To the guards who stop me at the airport to check my hair for weapons of mass destruction.
Weapons. Mass. Destruction. Mass destruction is a positive thing if you have cancer. Mass destruction is not a positive thing if you are minding your business. Mass destruction is.
Safe things. See them. Neutral things. Don’t look down at the table. Don’t look down at the blood puddles on the floor. Look up at the fluorescent light flickering. Don’t look at the monitor. Look up at the clock ticking the seconds away slowly. Don’t look at the beads of sweat on the young resident’s forehead.
I am angry. It is illegal for me to be angry. Remember: Don’t get angry. It is illegal to be a black man and be angry. Right. Got it. I will remember this next time.
Next time.
I will be angry in this place I am in. I will stay angry to push out the sadness.
I can see my name at the Whitney. Galerie Richard. Here, or in Paris. König. Berlin. Dariomauritius Raphael Gray. I will only use my full name in print. If someone addresses me as Dariomauritius, I’ll say, “Call me Dari or Mr. Gray or nothing.” I’ll distinguish myself as a painter by eschewing the color gray.
* * *
I wonder if my father will miss me.
MISTAKES
We’ve been waiting. No one at triage will tell us anything because we’re not family. I don’t want to call Izzy again. I don’t want to drive her crazy. I don’t know what to do.
Uncle Ray has gone to the cafeteria to get us all coffee. Mom sits on the ugly orange-cushioned bench. I stand several feet away from her. There’s room next to her, but I’m not sitting there.
“I made a mistake,” she says. I pretend I can’t hear her. “A mistake,” she repeats, raising her voice. “And I’m sorry.”
I edge closer, but I don’t sit.
“Lily? Can you answer me? Please?”
“That’s not important right now,” I tell her.
“I know. You don’t have to forgive me. I just need you to know that I’m sorry.”
I turn and look at my mother for the first time since opening the door to her office earlier today.
“What am I supposed to do with your ‘sorry’?”
She visibly shrinks, but doesn’t answer my question.
“Please don’t shut me out, Lily. You’re my whole life. If you shut me out . . .” She can’t complete this sentence.
“You’re no better than Mr. Wright.” That. That may be the meanest thing I’ve ever said to my mother.
She crosses her arms, but in a strange way. Like she’s trying to hold herself up. She locks her jaw, as if preparing for a fight, but her eyes remain glassy and she shivers. I feel awful. Like I just socked her in the face. That makes me hate her all over again, for making me feel bad for feeling how I feel.
“Mr. Wright was a teacher who . . . fucked his naïve fifteen-year-old student and then lied about it like a textbook psychopath. I don’t think a small, stupid, closed-mouth kiss quite puts me in the same category.” Now her glassy eyes sparkle because on top of being hurt, she’s furious. I don’t respond because I don’t know how to and because I’m tired and because I’m scared and because I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t think I used to be a cruel bitch.
“No. You’re right. It’s my fault. All this. You. Your misery. It’s me. I fucked up.” She sighs and collapses into herself.
But it isn’t true.
“Not this,” I say quietly. “Tonight . . . I fucked up. Just me.” I say it and it lands at the pit of my gut like a tumor. My tumor. I earned it.
She slowly turns and gazes at me. “Lily? What exactly happened tonight?”
I stare into my mother’s blue eyes. I tell myself: We’ve been through worse. But have we?
I get a text with a floor and a room number. Nothing else. No clue as to how he’s doing. Nothing. I look up at Mom and she knows without me saying anything. We both head for the elevator bank.
Eighth floor. A room number. This has to be a good sign. He’s been moved to a room. That’s always a good sign, right? I look at the numbers on the doors, but quickly see that they’re totally different from the one Izzy gave me.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asks.
“Excuse me?” I ask the receptionist. “Can you tell me where I can find this room?”
She glances at
my phone and then says we’re in the wrong wing; we need eighth floor west. She directs us to go back downstairs and walk to the other side of triage and take those elevators. This is nuts. We’re trying to decode crazy directions while God only knows what’s happening with Dari.
As we race toward the west side of the building, we catch sight of Uncle Ray talking on the phone. He looks up and hands us our coffees—still hot—and mouths the word sorry, but Mom waves him off and silently says thanks.
We look out for our number on Eight West, and as we come toward it, I slow down and I stop. It’s not a patient’s room at all. It’s a waiting room. As we get closer, we look through the glass window separating the room and the hallway. It’s a smallish room, but there are a number of people here. Frightened-looking people. Close to the wall, I spot Izzy and a tiny, black woman in a red knit hat talking to a police officer. Izzy’s hands move around wildly, hysterically. The police officer nods, but doesn’t seem to say much in response.
When she sees us, she walks away from the cop and instinctively hugs my mother without saying a word, and Mom hugs back. Red hat joins her and scowls at me. She hates me. Does she know?
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Izzy says, still in Mom’s embrace.
She finally lets go and wipes her eyes.
The officer appears and touches Izzy’s shoulder delicately.
“Oh. This is his friend,” Izzy sniffs, referring to me.
My legs become Jell-O.
“Can you tell me what happened earlier?” he asks me.
“Is this really necessary now?” Mom interrupts.
“I’m sorry, but unfortunately it is.” He wasn’t one of the ones involved. He’s a little older and seems tired and sad.
“Me and Dari were arguing and these cops came over to ask what the problem was, but there wasn’t a problem. Not a serious one. And I was mad at him, so I walked away and I heard a struggle and then a gunshot,” I’m crying again. They all just stare at me.
“Did you see how the struggle began?”
“No, I only heard it. I was walking away, so my back was turned.”
“Did anything else happen?”
I shake my head. I’m lying. Lying and crying. It’s not only for my sake, I think. The last thing I want to do is upset Izzy any more at this moment.
The Truth of Right Now Page 24