The Residue Years

by Mitchell Jackson

  From the room where I keep my computer and books, I watch my neighbor, the one from across the hall, pull up in his dented compact. Dude’s a teacher, which I know because he corners me everywhere he can (in the laundry room, in the elevator, by mailboxes, near the trash) and dupes me into saga-length Q&A’s. I’m so serious, if he catches your ear, it’s the Indefatigable Express, with nonstops till you break, either that or smack (never did it, but believe me it’s crossed my mind more than once) him right in his trap! Guys like him, if I was less prone to fits of guilt and shame, I’d curse them to hell, but since I’m not, I cut him slack cause we know how it is with those college-educated middle-to-ruling-class whiteys: Everybody’s business (how else to keep the rest of us on lock?) is their business.

  Tonight, Mr. Chat-You-to-Sleep lollygags in his ride longer than the norm. He climbs out, finally, holding a clutch of papers and a lunch pail. He loses a few sheets and chases them down. He presses the damp papers and his metal box to his chest and scurries inside. End of show.

  The encore ain’t the chatterer, but a clique in letterman coats slapboxing their way along the block. Every few steps, they drop their bags, square off, start a new round. Nothing special really, but bam, just like that, I got an idea for my personal statement. An anecdote about the time one night I was coming home from a game and a carload of gang members cruised beside me, screamed, What up, blood? and dumped a few shots my way.

  Now, having an idea is one thing, but the real work is turning a blank screen into words, into sentences, into a few fucking paragraphs. My laptop’s fan is whirring, that’s how long it’s been since I last tapped the keys. A slew of starts and stops, starts and stops and deletions then back to ogling the cursor, the glowing white screen. Wasn’t checking in the least for grad school before now and look? I want in on my accord, though. On merit or not at all. No handouts, no punk-ass affirmative actions for me. I get the few first lines tapped out, but after that—nathan. Just me fumbling for a next sentence and losing track of time. Maybe I was wrong: What’s tougher than a blank screen is a sentence or two and nowhere to go from there. I get up and walk again to the window, thinking it worked once, why not? I look far, far down the street and then up at the clouds, always the clouds, where a star or two twink. I slug into the kitchen, grab a two-liter (real pop too, none of that diet crap) out the fridge, and meander back to my laptop, where I take a swill that crawls down my throat. Then it’s me back gazing at the screen and praying for afflatus. A prayer answered when, I’ll be gotdamned, words arrive, begrudged, one word and then the next, and after a while I got a whole page and I’m dancing around the table. What is it? What is it? Kim says, from the front room. I carry my laptop to where she is and peep her doing what she does best besides harangue your boy: laze on the couch and channel-surf. She’s got her feet (bare toes cause the doc said polish could poison the baby) on the table and her shirt hiked above her tumescent belly. She pats the couch for me to sit. It’s the statement, I say. I think I got a start. Let me read it to you two. By the way, this reading to the baby is brand-new.

  Not baby. It’s a girl. It’s a girl. We’re having a baby girl!

  Tell me, what was the sense anymore in fighting it?

  Yes, I was hella-resistant at first, but hearing the heartbeat did a retrograde number on my resolve. These days I’m a baby-book bibliophile: The New Dad’s Survival Guide, Man to Man on Child, Daddy Prep, A Father’s Firstborn… these days, I’m a neophyte baby-supply specialist, packing our closets with all things infant: the stroller, the car seat, the booster seat, the high chair, the potty chair, a swing, a bouncer, a bottle warmer, a breast pump; catch me stocking an oversized toy chest with rattles, dolls, building blocks, touch-and-feel flash cards. I’ve bought cases of diapers, wipes, bottles, washcloths, bought doubles and triples of baby soap and lotion and shampoo and oil, stockpiled bibs, burp clothes, blankets.

  Got to the point where some mornings I stand at the mirror and sing lullabies. Cause between you and me the near birth of my future Princess has vulnerability levels dropped way down, any lower and I’d be on par with dudes like Jude, the proud owners of lifetime weep-for-free passes. But all in all in all it’s for best, right? Who among you would claim different?

  You hear that, Princess? I say, to Kim’s navel. Dad’s going to grad school.

  Say it first and believe it second; that’s my psalm.

  Okay, and what happens after? Kim says. What happens all the while?

  We went over this, I say.

  We did, she says. But what if it doesn’t work out the way you think?

  Don’t let her hear you, I say. You best not ever let her hear you doubt me.

  Champ, she needs to survive, she says. We do.

  I’m supporting us now, ain’t I? I say

  You need a job, Champ, she says. A job. Why don’t you just finish and work?

  You act like you don’t know me by now. You act like you don’t know better than judge me by these local-ass standards. My dreams are bigger than this place, and you nor no one else is going to kill them.

  What’s that supposed to mean? she says.

  You know what the fuck it means, I say, and whip her around by her chin rougher than I should. I refuse to be one of these fools anonymous everywhere but inside their head. Fucking refuse, do you hear?

  Kim falls quiet. She tugs her shirt over her stomach.

  My pager goes off. It’s one of my regulars calling too late for a lick, but I need the dough—and that’s that.

  Who’s that this late? she says.

  It’s business, I say. My business, I’ll be right back.

  Chapter 37

  Funny you should ask.

  —Grace

  This heifer—forgive me, LORD—is wasting too much of my precious time, treating me as though I begged for the world, when all I asked for was change to make a call. At my back, rowdy kids knock over piles of folded clothes and kick overstuffed shivering washers. Metal clinks in multiload dryers. A giant steamer hisses somewhere unseen. I snatch the quarters and head outside to the phone booth.

  I call expecting the line to ring and ring with no answer, for their machine to pick up.

  Oh, so it’s you, Kenny says. Didn’t recognize the number.

  It’s a whole lot that you don’t, I say. Where are my boys?

  Grace, I don’t think I’m feeling your tone of voice, he says.

  Cut the games, I say.

  They’re at the park, he says. Call back.

  I’ll do you one better, I say.

  He lets the phone go quiet.

  A barefoot toddler darts past me into the parking lot with no one giving chase.

  Guess you didn’t hear me? he says.

  Why should I be listening? I say.

  See, that’s it, he says. We got court coming up. We’ll let the judge decide when you will and won’t.

  Judge who? I say. I’m coming to see my boys.

  Grace! he says. In all honesty, you can’t dictate shit, he says. What you need to do is get yourself situated, so when all this is settled, you’ll have a decent place for the boys to visit.

  We shall see, I say.

  Yes, he says. We shall.

  The way I slam the phone knocks a quarter out the coin return. I turn my back to the booth, but don’t know where to go, don’t know what to do, but what I need is someone close who’ll listen, who could help. The nearest one I can think of is Kenny’s older brother Chris, who used to live not too far from here. Chris, who was an ear for me when his brother and I had troubles, whose advice Kenny would mind when no one else could get through. I hike Fremont, too tired to know how tired I am. A car toots at me, but I don’t bother looking up. I make a turn and amble by young girls twirling double-Dutch ropes. A block or so beyond, there’s a young couple carrying groceries into the same house where years and years ago I almost got caught in a drug raid.

  That night the police kicked in the front door, guns drawn and shouting, and I burst ou
t the back barefoot because I couldn’t run in heels. There was a dog chasing me till I hit the first fence, and I could feel the air from its bark at my feet. I sprang one fence and another, cut through black yards, my feet not feeling a thing. All I could think of was being caught, of having to explain what I was doing in the house in the first place. This fear kept me tearing through backstreets until there was nothing behind me but wind, until I reached Dawson Park, where I crouched behind a bush and waited till the sun rose.

  You can hear the girls twirl their ropes and sing a tune. The woman grins at the man from the porch. He climbs the steps with armloads of bags and stops on a landing and a dog bounds out on the front to meet him and nuzzles against his leg. A last turn puts me on what used to be Chris’s block and what in a fair world still is. You can see a man that looks like Chris in a driveway, hovering over a two-seater with a hand sheathed in a fluffy glove. I huff to within a shout.

  That sure is a nice ride, I say.

  Hey, hey, hey. Well, ain’t this somethin. What’s happenin, sis? he says, snatches off his mitt. Ain’t seen you since can’t even call it. He rubs his pants, the hands he shares with his brother, thick and hairless, though his pinky nail is filed to a spike.

  Happened to be in the neighborhood, I say. Thought I’d drop by and make sure you was still alive.

  Now you know us pimps don’t die, he says, and moves closer. His cologne could knock you down.

  Well, I see you ain’t lost your sense of humor, I say.

  Ha! Never that. But on the serious tip, sis, what’s been up? When you last seen my thickhead brother? Me and Blood ain’t got up in a few.

  Funny you should ask, I say. Cause I just got off the phone with him. Can I tell you I’m so finished.

  Chris’s eyes linger on places I’d rather they wouldn’t. Makes me think what’s left to see in me of my last time out, what signs might give it away.

  Yeah, Blood done flip-flopped, but that’s how it be when them white folks put you on payroll. Enough about him, though. How’s my nephews?

  Getting grown too fast, I say. Actually, they been living with your brother this past year.

  Oh, he says. Oh. That’s news to me. That a long-or a short-term deal?

  Supposed to have been short, but your brother trying to see it turn permanent, I say. We go to court coming up here soon.

  Court! As in before a judge? You got to be bullshittin! he says. That yellow nigga really is out his head. Chris throws his mitts on the hood. He swings open the driver’s-side door and plops inside. He thumbs the replica emblem anchoring his gold chain.

  But on a happier note, I say. What’s the latest with you? You still ripping and running the streets?

  Oh, you know how it go with me, he says. Get rich or go to jail trying. He laughs. He checks himself in his car’s tiny side mirror, pats the graying sides of his Jheri curl, pinches his hoop earrings. On the serious tip, though, sis, I got a little business I’m bout to start. Soul food restaurant by them old motels on Interstate.

  That sounds nice, I say.

  Hope so, he says. Got to find a way. But how about you? he says. You back working them corporate gigs?

  Not so much anymore, I say.

  He cocks his head and looks up at me. Well, I tell you what, I ain’t got but a couple weeks till my doors is open, and when they do, you got a job, he says. That’s my word.

  Now, I just might have to take you up on that, I say.

  Cool, cool, he says.

  Chris asks where I’m headed and I tell him Kenny’s place. He asks if I’m driving and I admit that I’m on foot, catching buses, the train. So is Blood still out there in the boonies? he says. I nod and he offers me a ride. He collects his supplies in a bucket and sits the bucket by the garage. He tells me to wait in the car while he runs in to change. He struts out hot seconds later wearing a Hawaiian print shirt open to flash his chain and terry-cloth sweats. His Jheri curl is not of want for sheen.

  We get on the road. The way he drives, you blink and you’re on the freeway, whipping lanes, his engine revving in low gears and whistling at a high speed. Off the bridge, we almost miss our exit for the highway heading east. He keeps the music off, and we end up trading stories. The road trip where Champ locked him out the car while we stopped to get gas. The night I punched his prostitute for cursing in front of the boys, the year we all flew to Canada for the Fourth of July. He and I have always had such an easy time. It reminds me how often between men—between brothers even—that a girl chooses wrong, and how, after a time, the wrong choices become us. Chris whisks the east highway in high gears and nothing else. The wind twirls my hair into a swarm. We get off the exit and catch the light and I tell him how an ex anything brings me down. He lets the car coast down the slope. Sis, you know it wouldn’t hurt for you to try and see the world sunny side up sometimes, he says. We ride the next lights in pinched quiet. He pulls over just inside the subdivision. I’d drop you right out front, he says, but it might be best for you if I don’t.

  This hair, I make to smooth it and thank him for the ride and sling out the car. Hold up, he says, and reaches in his glove box for a napkin, and scribbles his number. He tells me to remind him of the court date: And I’m so serious about the job, he says. He backs out rather than risk a drive by his brother’s.

  Kenny’s neighborhood is a world of its own, a world away from the Piedmonts. Boys shoot baskets at a curbside hoop; a man trims his front hedges; a couple power-walks toward a distant cul-de-sac. I stutter up to Kenny’s house, a sight in this season, a spread of lush grass cut sharp at its edges, bark dust smoothed over blooming weedless flower beds, paint that almost gleams. You can see how tired I am—the wrung eyes, the pillows in my cheeks—in the glass of Kenny’s front door. I take out a tube of gloss and paint my lips and practice a mock smile. Right now I could leave. There’s a feeling in me to leave, to whisk past the boys, beyond these perfect lawns and cheery strolling pairs, to sprint till I reach the other side of the brick walls that cleave this place from what could never equal up. Kenny throws his front door wide and frights me. I didn’t hear him walk up.

  Figured you’d show anyhow, he says. You never was one for listening.

  Where are my sons? I say.

  They gone, he says.

  That’s a lie, I say. Where are they?

  Lie to you for what? he says. Who are you to lie to?

  He looks over my shoulder and I turn to see what he sees. It’s a car coming towards us. Kenny struts down the pathway and waits on the slope while I’m held stillest. Helen pulls up and he helps her out of the car and makes a show of whispering to her. She frowns and tucks a bag that cost my life, all of my life, to her side and waves a ring awesome even in this failing light. KJ climbs out and squints at me as if I’m a thing made of steel and wood, and stands in place with his arms at his sides. It takes him forever to lope over and begrudge me a limp squeeze.

  Aren’t you happy to see me? I say.

  He answers too low for me to make out.

  My youngest climbs out and stands, looking doleful, his eyes on this man, this woman, on his brother, settling on me. We step to meet each other and he presses his head in my chest and pulls me close. His heart knocks against mine and when we break, he takes his time slugging for the house. He gives me a farewell glance before crossing the threshold. Then it’s me and this man and this woman face-to-haughty face. Kenny kisses Helen on the head and cossets her ring. They beam at each other in a way that makes me want—the lucky ones get more of a life than they’ve earned—to do them harm. She huffs and flounces off, and Kenny stands back, arms folded. You’ve never seen a man this smug.

  Yous about a dirty, I say. Plain dirty, I say. What you been telling my boys?

  Grace, you don’t get it, do you? You still don’t get it, do you? he says. The boys got eyes. They can see.

  Chapter 38

  That’s why we do business.

  —Champ

  The come up.

  Tr
y one without them.

  My first regular was this cluck who called himself Showtime who used to rush for me during my second go ’round on the curb. He was as old as one of my unc’s and had a hairline caught in a permanent zeek—a push back to the fulfillity. For a pinch off one of my fatter pills (if you ain’t peeped it yet among othings we call them pills) he’d roam a shout distance off and wouldn’t show his face until he had a buy. He was good for hustling up twenty licks, forty licks, the odd fifty, miniscule end in retrospect but business that popped my profit cherry.

  Then there was this white man across the water in Vancouver who wore black biker leathers and a long-ass ponytail. He ran with a band of methheads turned crackheads or methcrackheads, most of them longshoremen or truckers by trade. Clockwork, he’d hit my line for a few hundred dollars worth of dope (pill for pill too so choice profit!) for him and his seafaring, long-haul buddies. We used to meet in this department store on Mill Plain and do the swap in a vacant aisle. You should have seen him after that, a hirsute blur out the store. But me, more cautious then, made habit of lagging, would drift into a longer line, buy a load of knickknacks, and stroll out proxy-blithe.

  You want to come up? Trust, you ain’t coming up without them.

  Without clientele like this full-time hustler/part-time basehead. Picture this husky dude with skin three times onyx, eyes that shine hepatitic gold, and a flat-backed head swathed yearlong in a linty skull cap. But don’t let aesthetics or the fact that he partakes of the occasional beam-up throw you. Homie is oh so serious about his (our) bread. Orders an ounce every other day and by the day near the first of the month and has never once dickered for a bulk deal, complained the dope’s discolored, nor said a foul word about an aftertaste.

  No bullshit. Where would I be without them?

  Without dude I’ve been dealing with off and on, more steady than not, since I first started getting fronted whole ones. He’s this OG Crip with fat cornrows and a cold-ass effluvium and who, on the low, might be part bigfoot—a size to, with no windup at all, slap a bantamweight non-pugilistic nigger such as me into forever sleep. But rancidness aside, homie orders a minimum of four-and-a-half and most times more with the drawback being a drawback I can bear: he rathers I deliver to one of his spots (boarded shacks where hordes of destitute clucks burn through settlement checks, SSI and state checks, through what’s left of their crippled pride), pop-up dopehouses he runs with crews of young blue-rag deuces.