Passage

by Khary Lazarre-White

  It was not until morning came that he knew that his son was in the house.

  He woke, sat up from the couch, and with a sigh, placed the materials that had served him in his struggle the night before back in their resting place, to be kept safe until another time. Inside the drawers of the metal files he placed the family diaries with their dates of birth, marriages, and deaths, scribbled carefully in the margins. Inside the drawers he placed the registration papers that had been pulled from the records of the Freedmen’s Bureau decades ago. There too were the old deeds to lands that since their issue had passed through many hands, and by many means; in deals brought about by grand dreams of a better life, in bets lost in late night card games played by the light of kerosene lamps, at tables filled with too much moonshine and too little sense, and in agreements signed by the force of burning crosses and creaking ropes. Into these metal drawers, along with these documents, was the town census dated from just before the beginning of the war, and the manumission papers from the days when blood was owned. He returned these things to their place, a few more names added to the legacy, having been rediscovered from their dry pages of faded ink.

  It was when Warrior’s father walked downstairs to make breakfast that he saw, past his own room, that Warrior’s childhood bedroom door was closed. He walked down the long hallway and pushed opened the door. During the coldest months of winter, the heat of the house expanded the wood and the swelling caused the door to stick. As he pushed the door open he felt the hot air on his face. The room was dark, and the air was damp with sweat. Warrior was in his bed, under the covers, curled up, as if he had not yet come into this world.

  He didn’t think it was strange that his son was there. Warrior often dropped by without notice. In fact, that was the way he had raised him. Family doesn’t need to call, they just come by and make themselves at home. What bothered him was that Warrior hadn’t woken him when he had come in, hadn’t even let him know that he was in the house. He walked over to the bed to wake Warrior in order to ask if he wanted breakfast. School had once again been canceled, the snow having been too much to clear in a day. When he placed his hand on Warrior’s arm he felt the heat of his son’s blood. Having raised two children, Warrior’s father knew a fever when he felt one. He shook Warrior, his concern showing in the force he used, and when Warrior only responded with incoherent moans, his father became more concerned.

  Warrior was sick, and if he had come to Brooklyn without telling his mother and then slept through the night, she would be frantic. Warrior’s father recalled what he had been doing throughout the day and into the evening, during the hours before he had become involved with piecing together the family history. He had been playing his bass and composing new pieces on the piano and had been in that creative space that artists can sometimes enter, and not wanting to be disturbed, he had unplugged the phone. He tried to wake Warrior again, and getting no response, he went into the living room to search for the phone. He pulled it from underneath one of the piles of books that were stacked near the piano, plugged in the cord and called Warrior’s mother.

  She had been awake all night. She had called hospitals and the blue soldiers’ headquarters, but after a long and painful debate with herself she had refrained from calling the morgue.

  Earlier she had spent most of the day in the park with her daughter, laughing, and even crying once or twice, having to reassure her worried child that the tears were due to the cold, knowing in truth, that they were from the joy of watching her child’s spirit at play. They had ice skated and when they had gotten cold, had gone for a warm lunch. After eating they had walked through the park to the museum just outside of the park’s walls. They had spent hours walking the halls, viewing the exhibits, her daughter full of questions, she full of answers that she enjoyed sharing. After her daughter had become tired, they took the train back Uptown.

  It was when they had walked up from the station and come out into the cold streets, that she had felt the tension in the air. Moving through the neighborhood, she observed that the streets were too quiet, too empty, and realized that there had been trouble. She gripped her daughter’s hand tightly and pulled her along as they quickly walked home. When they neared their building, she had seen that blue soldiers were roaming, buildings were burning, and broken glass was everywhere. While they were gone, the neighborhood had exploded. Someone, somewhere, had been pushed too far, and now people were pushing back. As she walked down her street, the voice in her mind told her that Warrior had been involved in the explosion, and feeling dread all around her, she had rushed through the front door and up the stairs to her apartment. When she opened the door, she had immediately called out Warrior’s name. Only to be met by silence.

  After a few hours of concealing her worry from her daughter and telling herself that Warrior would be back soon, she had put her daughter to bed, closed the door tightly, and walked into the kitchen. She filled the teakettle with water and waited for it to boil. After putting a filter in the coffeepot and carefully measuring the scoops of ground coffee beans, adding one more than usual, she sat down. As she sat at the kitchen table, staring through the living room and to the window, she had placed her hands together and tried to massage away the ache in her palms. After a few minutes that brought no relief, she stopped and began to gently stroke her fingers, while continuing to stare into the darkness.

  The whistle of the teakettle interrupted her thoughts and she walked to the stove, to brew the coffee. While lost in her thoughts, she slowly removed the morning newspaper from the table, stacked the mail, neatly, on the counter, and wiped down the wood of the table with a damp sponge, restoring its perfectly kept finish. She poured a cup of the steaming coffee and sat back down. As she carefully wiped a spot on the table with her finger, a spot the sponge had missed, the phone had rung, and she had answered it on the first ring. It wasn’t Warrior.

  It was some hours later, after calling the house in Brooklyn yet again and still getting no answer, that she called the local headquarters of the blue soldiers. After countless rings, a man had answered the phone who spoke in rushed words and shortened sentences. He had told her that Warrior was not there, but after a day like today, there was no telling where her son might be. Then he had added quickly that she might want to try the hospital, or the morgue. Before she had time to release her rage, he had knowingly hung up the phone, and she was left to scream at a dial tone.

  Then she had begun to call the hospitals. After hours of being put on hold or being transferred, she was repeatedly told by each hospital that Warrior was not there. Finally she had heard a voice which sounded like it wanted to help, a voice that though it had no answers wished that it did. The nurse sounded like she was in her fifties, and the rhythm of her speech told of a Caribbean birth, her tone revealed the shared experiences of motherhood. She told Warrior’s mother that it was a horrible night, that most of those who had been hurt had come to her hospital, and that none were Warrior. She said that many of those who had been admitted were just young boys who arrived with bruised bodies and beaten faces and still others, even worse, riddled with bullets. It was still early, she said, and already it had been one of the worst nights in her twenty-nine years as a nurse. She repeated the word, cha-os, telling Warrior’s mother once again that most of the injured and the dead had already been brought in, and that Warrior was not among them, she swore that she would call, immediately, if anyone fitting Warrior’s description arrived. Warrior’s mother sat by the phone until dawn.

  When the phone finally rang, it rang once. Then twice. Then three times. She slowly picked up the receiver and brought it to her ear, closed her eyes, and bit her lower lip until it bled. The voice on the other end of the line was Warrior’s father, who said that Warrior was with him in Brooklyn and was very sick. She hung up, rushed into her daughter’s room, wrapped her sleeping child in her blankets and carried her out the door. She walked outside and hailed a livery cab whose company sticker bore the name Malcolm, and tol
d the driver to drive to Brooklyn, quick. The driver was about to object to the trip from a neighborhood so many outsiders feared to yet another, but when he looked in his rearview mirror and saw how rigid her face was set as she anticipated his words, he decided to drive on.

  When Warrior’s father opened the heavy, oak wood door, she searched his eyes and saw the worry and the pain that he tried to hide. They embraced, their daughter’s sleeping body pressed between them, as they both leaned on each other, trying to absorb some of the other’s strength. After removing her coat and shoes, they walked up the stairs together and down the hallway to the room that had once been theirs. She placed their daughter on the bed and then he pulled the covers up around her small shoulders, molding the quilt to their daughter’s body so that she would be warm. They walked down the hallway, and when they reached the door to Warrior’s room, he rested his hand on her shoulder and pushed the door open for her.

  Warrior was dripping with sweat now, lying on his stomach, absolutely still. His mother walked over to him, reached down and placed her hand on the back of his neck. His skin felt like it was on fire. She pulled the covers back and felt his undershirt. It was soaked. Warrior’s father held up his son’s body as she removed Warrior’s underclothes, leaving him naked. Then she stripped the bed of its sheets, pillowcases, and blanket, bundled them up and placed them on the floor. She walked over to the closet in the room, and from its shelves took down some clean bedding. She made the bed with soft, tight-fitting sheets, and thin cotton pillowcases that smelled of lemon. Warrior’s father placed his son on the bed, gently placing his head on the pil-lows. Warrior didn’t make a sound as he was moved, but once he was back on the bed, his body curled up again, as if it was the only position that brought him any comfort.

  Warrior’s mother went to the bathroom and returned with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. She rolled up her sleeves, cupped one hand, and filling it with alcohol, she began to rub Warrior’s body, trying to get her fingers under his burning skin. Warrior’s father leaned in the doorway, watching. He remembered that she had always massaged Warrior like this when he was young, when he had fevers or childhood pains. She would spend hours leaning over his body, armed only with alcohol and her hands. She would rub his legs, his shoulders, his neck, his arms, never stopping until she was convinced that she had rubbed away all the pain. Warrior always fell asleep as she performed her task, and when he woke, whether he had a fever or just been sore, he would always smile and say, “All better, Mommy.” As she repeated this familiar healing ritual, Warrior’s father watched, knowing that as always, she would not rest until her son’s pain was gone.

  He walked to the closet, took down a thick flannel cover from the top shelf and placed it at the foot of the bed. He knew that when she was done, she would want to cover Warrior with something to sweat out the fever. He looked at his son once more, and as he turned to leave the room he smiled through his pain, knowing that the fever would no longer be allowed to run its course unchallenged. The alcohol was fighting the sweat that poured from Warrior’s body, and his mother’s hands were battling whatever it was that raged inside of him.

  He walked into the living room, and not knowing what else to do, he picked up his bass that leaned against the bookshelf, sat down on his favorite stool, brought his hands up to the strings, and freed the voices.

  The bass moaned. At first it was slow and sorrowful, the kind of deep moan heard at Southern funerals, cried out by grieving mothers dressed in black, the moan of women who have seen their children buried times before, placed in the ground and covered with soil. Women who know this ritual like they know their name, women to whom black dresses are a second skin. Women who cry out in an endless wail, a sound heard long after their mouths have closed. A sound that has no beginning, and no end.

  But then the moan picked up speed. Warrior’s father’s hands made the bass scream, and scream. It became a wail of one who had lost his mind. It became a wail voiced in a language of another kind. Like a Jazz scatter gone mad. The words made no sense when they stood alone. They flowed together, one on top of the next, the speaker never pausing, not even breaking to take a breath, but then, when his words finally ended, when the last note was said, the speaker exhaled deeply and laughed, for as he had uttered his last word, it had been like the completion of a circle, and it had all made sense, and the listener had smiled, nodding, finally understanding his word.

  Warrior’s father found comfort in this world. He held conversations with the voices, speaking with his bass, calling out to them for answers. He played furiously, sliding his hands up and down the wood of the bass, slapping it with force like a drum when he felt the need, making the metal strings screech with each riff, playing until his fingers bled. The blood feeling good, and hearing the echo of the notes he had driven from the bass calling out that he had played the way it was meant to be played, he had placed his fingers back on the strings and continued the conversation.

  Warrior’s mother sat looking down at her son, gently stroking his face with the back of her hand. The sounds of the bass had poured into the room for hours, and as she had listened she had continued to drive the fever from her son’s body. When his skin began to feel cooler after her hands had grown too tired to continue, she stood up from the bed and spread the flannel cover over his still sweating body. After tucking the blanket under him to seal in the heat, she sat back down on the bed to watch over her son. As she looked down at his sleeping face, she noticed that his eyes were completely closed. She would watch him for two days.

  I stand in a graveyard, thinking of the thousands of Black children who have died in the war of my generation. I think of those who have passed away too young. I stand in their new home.

  It is an old country cemetery that extends out from an overgrown forest, about a quarter of a mile back from the meeting of two dusty dirt roads. Where the roads lead to, I don’t know, I can’t see that from where I stand. All I know is that they cross, and then continue, for as far as my eyes can see. I face the forest, at the edge of the graveyard. In each of the other directions there is nothing but barren land and the endless roads.

  The cemetery is overrun by flowers, and by life. Gnarled trees rise from the earth, their dense branches casting great shadows. It is the only graveyard I have ever been in where I feel the presence of light, of warmth. It is not cold and gray. It does not serve as the keeper of the distant dead. It is the resting place of worn bodies, and the playground of souls. I can feel a pulsating spirit of life. The ground is alive, and the children are singing.

  The gravestones though, reveal otherwise. Out of the forest they appear like a wave; from how deep within I don’t know. The forest cannot hold them. They have broken through the trees and extend to the road. They stand in perfect rows, stiff, like proud soldiers. The first lines have just been planted, and are marked by names and dates, recently carved into stone. As I walk along the path from the road to the forest, passing each row I feel the eyes of those named watching me, wondering why I walk among them. As they watch, the drums keep time, counting the souls as they arrive. From the forest’s depths, emerging from the shadows three figures appear. A man. A woman. A boy.

  The man is tall, slightly taller than I am, and thin as sugarcane. His skin is blue-black, and the way it tightly covers his long muscles makes his stark white beard and matted gray hair seem out of place. He moves like a wolf, as if he can pounce at will. The red and black tattoo on his neck announces such a deadly man. As he sits down among the graves, I see the scars that reach up from his back, clawing at his bare shoulders. Dead skin that tells the tale of another time. He watches me as I walk toward him, searching, judging. His eyes are the color of ebony, and filled with the pain of a man who has seen, and now passes the word. I remember eyes that brought a midnight so dark that they erased a man’s mind. Eyes that looked into souls. Eyes that screamed of pain and warned of retribution. I can feel them inside me, drawing me near.

  The boy runs up to me, h
is face covered in a smile. I know the smile . . . but not the boy. He has a big, bullet-shaped head that seems too large for his neck, like it belongs to a boy twice his age. As he grabs my hand, he laughs as only children laugh, filled with absolute joy. He pulls me toward the man, insistently; as if it is a game I must play. As he runs in front of me, tugging on my arm, he looks back and smiles even more, seeing that now I am smiling too. I look into his huge, brown, deeply set eyes and realize why he is so familiar, and why I could not recognize him. I had forgotten what he looked like with eyes.

  The woman walks slowly from the forest and sits on a tree stump that rises up from the ground, among the graves. She walks with a strong and powerful stride. As she sits down, she unwinds the long white cloth that is wrapped around her body, releasing her sleeping child from her back. As she moves the infant boy from his resting place, the baby opens his eyes and looks at his mother. She holds the child against her breast, and he quickly falls back asleep, and the sound of his breathing fills the air of the cemetery. As she looks up from her sleeping son and into my face, there is something that is said in the way she lifts her chin. My ears fill with Kila’s song.

  Now other voices come. The demons?

  “No. There are no demons here. They do not have the power to show their face in this place. They took us in life Warrior, not here. We can’t fight them in your world, but we can serve as the blood of your testimony. You are the witness, Warrior, pass the word. If for no other reason than for us . . . Memory is somethin’ powerful, it has served us before, it’ll serve us again. Listen now, hear, he speaks of the power of remembering . . .”