June Bug stubbed out his cigarette and began the obstacle course by taking the first step on toe tips. He moved with the sobering dexterity of a tightrope walker. He hopped over the two sagging steps onto the seventh. His legs, accustomed to the movements and timing, sprang just as his brain registered the new salt line. He tried to correct but overcorrected. He tried to turn but didn’t arc. He flinched. He landed wrong, teetering on the edge of the seventh step at a forty-five-degree angle, tilted with his back toward the stairs. He was frozen in time long enough to grasp at the wooden banister and miss. Long enough to grasp at a prayer but not to await its answer.
June Bug tumbled backward into the night. His nose was broken on the second-floor neighbor’s landing. His neck was broken on the first.
The five-year-old on the first floor would find blood outside his back door the next day and once again believe in monsters.
The second-floor neighbor would add the incident to her list of why she was no longer jealous of Janette.
And Janette would awaken refreshed, “Two Steps from the Blues” lodged deep within her subconscious mind.
Nine
revolutionary remains
the Revolution ain’t dead
its tired,
and jest resting.
—Carolyn M. Rodgers, “The Revolution Is Resting”
Chicago burned the 1960s down while civil rights leaders, social justice advocates, and agitators absconded in its rapture. The remnants were scattered attempts among survivors of political parties—not so much ushering in the seventies as clinging to the shipwrecked remains of the revolution.
The remains of the revolution lay next to Eve in bed. Ash was tall, dark, and not very handsome. He would’ve been at the Monroe headquarters when Fred Hampton was assassinated by the “pigs” if only he had completed the six-week political education classes. He was habitually absent, but good-natured. To Ash, there was the revolution but there was also the world. He could not reconcile his racial obligations and worldly aspirations. “Must we all be revolutionaries? Can’t some of us be explorers?”
The party kept him around because of his idealism—a symbol that although the answer to his query was no, they believed in a future where it could be yes. Eve kept him around because his inspiration was contagious. He was always off somewhere. The spiritual mounts of Machu Picchu. The Egyptian pyramids. Table Mountain. If not in person, then in mind.
He was a nomad driving a Chicago cab and sleeping in his parents’ basement until he had enough money for his latest adventure. She enjoyed the freedom of not being pressured into marriage and making babies for the revolution. Ash looked at Eve like she was one of the few souvenirs brought back from an excursion. Not so much as a prize, but a memory that he enjoyed revisiting. Eve looked at Ash as she did when rereading a favorite novel: with familiarity and appreciation.
Currently he was unwittingly inspiring her to travel to Macon County, Georgia, without so much as a word goodbye. She would take a page from his book. Eve’s naked body was wrapped snugly in the floral sheets from his parent’s linen closet, leaving his own nudity on full display to her. Eve’s thoughts meandered to when she met him after returning to Chicago from Tuskegee. Womanly curves teach girls to keep walking through the barrage of daily catcalls and calloused hands that reach for them from neighborhood corners. Yet Ash had a way of looking at Eve that made her linger. His look held more interest than lust. He had a quiet manner about him, and when he said his name, she found herself leaning closer to catch it.
“Nobody names their kid Ash.” Eve smirked.
“Oh, you wanna know my gubment name?” he responded. “It’s Ashford.”
“Like Ashford and Simpson? You’re joking!” Eve clapped her hands over her mouth and tried unsuccessfully to stifle the laughter.
“Go ahead. You aren’t the first. Although I gotta say that I had the name before anyone knew who Nick Ashford was. I mean, yeah, he’s older, but think about it. When I was born, nobody knew him.”
“Alright. You’re right.”
“And everybody can’t have such a beautiful name like Eve.”
Eve’s smile quickly faded. Ash’s abbreviated nomenclature mirrored her own name journey. Eve mostly liked when her name rolled off his lips in a whisper or was belted out in a postcoital shout. Eve felt truly to be her own woman, self-named and self-made. No mother. No father. Just the moment of now next to a man whom she had lain with for two years and could leave in a moment’s notice. She caressed the thought in her mind.
That spring, she had listened to an interview of Fred Hampton’s fiancée recounting his murder by Chicago police officers as they, too, had lain in bed. Eve wondered if their sheets had been as tangled as the ones in which she currently snuggled. She imagined police storming into the basement, disturbing her partner’s sleep. Would he jump out of bed, action-ready? Or was that part of the training he had missed?
Eve believed in fighting for a cause and dying for a cause, but she could not fathom that a cause could be contained in one person. But so often that was the case. The lifting up of one leader at a time in the easiest manner only for them to be knocked down. Eve blamed religion. Jesus, Muhammad—the faith didn’t matter if the practice remained the same.
Ash’s eyes were upon her, crusted sleep still present in their corners. “What are you thinking?” It was his most repeated question. He always wanted to know what was on her mind.
“Our first conversation.” Eve smiled.
A slow grin spread across his face. “The religion one or the sex one?”
Eve playfully slapped his thigh. The clap echoed through the basement. “The religion one.”
“Ah, yes. The exaltation and subsequent destruction of men. That’s what you called it. But why now?” He traced her thigh with his index finger. “Did you have a come-to-Jesus moment?” He gasped and dramatically clutched his chest. “Or was it Muhammad?”
She slapped his thigh again. “Neither. Did you ever meet Hampton?”
The playfulness left his face, and he slowly nodded. “Just briefly. He wasn’t no Jesus or Muhammad. The chairman was just an intense brother with a message, dig?”
“I just don’t know how his fiancée could risk her own life and that of her unborn child to try to shield him from bullets.” Eve was certain that she would not have rolled on top of Fred Hampton as a shield. Of all the horrors of that event and the news program interviews with Hampton’s fiancée, what Eve could not get out of her mind was the haunted look and deadpan stare, the words “I jumped on top of the chairman . . .” She believed in maternal instinct. Her spirit told her that she lived because her mother, Mercy, had sacrificed her own life. Eve rolled her eyes toward her companion and thought one simple word: no.
As if reading her mind, he chuckled. “Not a lot of brothers out there with intense messages.”
“That beat maternal instinct?” Eve asked incredulously.
“But, Eve,” he slowly dragged out her name. “That was maternal instinct.”
“Bullshit.”
“Who are the mothers of the movement? Its nurturers,” he intoned.
“Don’t go there,” Eve warned. “You mean its nursemaids. Its domestic laborers. Its prostitutes . . .”
“Now you don’t go there,” he fired back.
“Its shields,” Eve challenged.
He nodded. “Fair enough.” The grin returned, and his hand shifted up her thigh. “Why don’t you show me how it feels to be used for your gender?” He laid back on the bed and clasped his hands behind his head.
“Be serious.” She frowned.
“I am serious. I’m not trying to make light. I’m trying to make love, but I dig it. On your terms, Ms. Eve. I’ll wait.”
In that moment, as she slid her body onto his, Eve knew two things: she could love him, but she would not. She saw it so clearly—t
he path to marriage that seemed to elude the ones who wanted it most. Eve veered decidedly away from it, and Macon County seemed a most appropriate detour.
Eve would miss his bed, but she realized that part of its appeal was that it was not her own bed in her aunt’s house. She enjoyed freedom from the familiar creaks of Ann’s floorboards as her aunt paced, busied with housework, or adjusted in bed. His basement had granted sanctuary from Ann’s late-night coughing, bathroom breaks, and muttered commentary on her romance novels.
Her only other respite had been with Nelle, who returned to Janette’s apartment after graduation. Nelle had repeatedly tried to convince Eve to share an apartment with her. Eve had been tempted, but every time she considered it, she thought of the things that occurred between her and Ash in this basement apartment. The sounds. The smells. The acts. She vehemently shook her head to Nelle. “I just can’t do it.”
Nelle sighed. “I’m not asking to share a bed, Eve.”
Eve clinched her eyes as she thought of the countless times when they had shared a bed. It was standard sleepover practice during their youth. They’d sleep, pinkies entwined. Sister from another mother. Only Eve had secretly wished to discover an actual blood connection with her friend. Somewhere in her unknown lineage, she hoped that their lines linked together like their pinky fingers looped in slumber. She knew that it should not matter who Nelle slept with, but it did change things for her, especially when Nelle tied her sexuality to her feminism.
“Women loving each other, Black women especially, is the most radically revolutionary act we can do,” Nelle had tried to explain.
“So, sleeping with women is feminist action?” Eve rolled her eyes. “I gotta sleep with a woman to be feminist?”
Nelle sighed. “This would be a lot easier if you’d just get over yourself, Every.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means ain’t nobody trying to get into them granny drawls of yours. It means that there are many ways to love a woman, and you just focusing on the sexual is some real mannish shit.” Nelle stared at Eve and braced for a response.
Eve had not responded, and the conversation remained at an impasse, with Nelle insisting that their friendship remain unchanged and Eve demanding that they excise talks of relationships and romance from it. They were the best of friends within continually narrowing parameters. Sometimes Nelle would forget this in her excitement and mention a positive dating experience, eliciting a silent glare from Eve. Similarly, when Eve mentioned Ash, Nelle’s “I don’t wanna hear that straight shit” response cut quick and to the core.
Now that Eve had made the decision to go to Macon County without telling Ash, the person she most wanted to share it with was Nelle. She lay next to Ash and imagined the conversation where Nelle would ask, What’s the big deal? Why won’t you tell him? To which Eve would shrug her shoulders at first until Nelle gave a probing look, prompting a truthful reply. This familiar practice became the substitute for actual conversation, and it left Eve with the important information she needed: the realization that she was afraid that telling Ash she was leaving would prompt a change in their dynamic. That one or both of them would cling to the comfort of the other in the face of a new unfamiliarity. Eve was mostly afraid that it would be her clinging to him as she waded through the unknown terrain of family lineage.
Later, as Eve scurried toward the bar where she was to meet Nelle, she resolved to break the code of silence that plagued their friendship. She would talk to Nelle, and yes, she would listen too. Eve shuddered at the thought but trudged even more determinedly. Her loafers slapped the pavement as if high-fiving in support, and Eve sighed her first sigh of relief since uncovering the photograph of her family.
As she counted down the addresses toward her destination, Eve did not notice the shift in atmosphere. The Pub carved a smooth oasis within the concrete hustle and bustle of storefront shops and busy boulevard traffic. Entering the establishment, Eve was drenched in darkness and the light from outside quickly faded with the closing door. It took a few seconds to make out Nelle seated at the bar. Eve plopped onto the stool next to Nelle, who wordlessly held up two fingers to the bartender signaling their order.
“Look,” Eve began. “I just wanna say that I’ve got something to discuss with you, and it involves a man . . .”
Nelle’s mouth opened to speak, but Eve held up a hand to ward off any impending protest.
“I know. I know. We have boundaries, but—”
“Eve—” Nelle tried to interject. But was once again rebuffed by her friend’s hand.
“Yes, I know that I was the one who established those boundaries.” Eve lowered her hand and wrapped it around the cold beer placed before her. Nodding her gratitude toward the bartender, she continued, “But I just want to say that perhaps we should revisit things.” She sipped her beer and gazed around. Eve’s eyes captured images she had missed when she first entered the bar oblivious to its décor of rainbow flags and its ambiguously gendered clientele.
Three men laughed together at a table. Their rough jawlines rouged into softness. Toothy grins displayed none of the reservation they’d exercise once they left the temporary shelter of the Pub. A beautiful woman in a business skirt suit sat against the wall glancing nervously from her watch to the door. She reapplied already flawless lipstick before returning to the universal activity of waiting for another.
Nelle was speaking, but Eve hadn’t heard a word. Her mouth did not leave the glass as her eyes scanned her surroundings, trying to make sense of what she was experiencing.
“I can’t be here.” Eve quickly rose and rushed outside, nearly bumping into what she first registered as a man but then realized was a masculine woman in a suit and tie. Eve stammered an apology, but the woman was already halfway across the floor toward her companion, the waiting woman.
Nelle signaled for the bartender, indicating that she’d return, and slowly followed Eve’s path. She found her leaning against the wall, watching the cars pass on the boulevard. “You know this is not how it works, Every.”
Eve’s focus remained on the cars as she spoke. “Can’t we just talk out here?”
“Not if you really meant what you said in there.” Nelle’s unwavering stare warmed the side of Eve’s face as she continued to avoid eye contact. “Anyway,” Nelle sighed as she opened the door. “I got a beer to finish.” She left Eve leaning against the wall in perplexity.
Eve pressed a hand to her forehead in a motion reminiscent of her aunt. She couldn’t shout the expletive banging through her head, so she mouthed it to the heavens.
A passing drag queen caught her silent protest and chimed, “Well, you’re certainly in the right place, hot stuff.”
Eve watched them enter and moments later followed. The unassuming door closed behind her, sealing out the light and traffic of the boulevard.
Nelle and Eve were two peas who had outgrown their shared pod and no amount of reconfiguration would see them returned to it. Nelle wasn’t necessarily proud when Eve reluctantly followed her back into the Pub for drinks. No one should be applauded for finally doing what they should have been doing in the first place. But she was sympathetic to Eve’s journey, so different from her own. Nelle didn’t have a journey of self-discovery.
It seemed comical that Eve was just saying, “. . . to really find myself in this world.”
Nelle nodded but muttered, “Such a straight luxury.”
“What?” Eve paused.
“That you get to find yourself like some board game or TV show.”
Eve scanned the bar; her outspread hands demonstrated her gaze. “Your bar. My topic. Isn’t that the deal?”
Nelle nodded and dutifully lent her ears to Eve’s talk about the man she’d been sleeping with and her decision to travel to Georgia.
“I just feel like I’ve spent my whole life in this back-and-forth of questionin
g and trying to move past what I don’t know.” Eve paused and sipped her beer. “Asking Mama Ann about our family, not getting any answers, and then trying to live without those answers.”
“I understand,” Nelle murmured absently while her attention drifted to a figure in the far corner. As the bar door opened, allowing in two more patrons, light illuminated a slender dark-skinned build, generous afro, and burgundy-painted lips. Nelle was intrigued.
“I don’t think you do,” Eve frowned. “I don’t think you can. I know it sounds so trivial. I had a good life. Mama Ann raised me well. Why rock the boat?”
“Because you didn’t place yourself in it to begin with,” Nelle brought her attention fully back to her friend.
Eve nodded. “And not that it’s your fault or anyone’s for knowing their kinfolks, but—” She took another gulp of her beer. “—it’s really hard when everyone around me casually throws around spending time with relatives. Dinner at parents’ homes. Drinks with cousins. Visits to grandparents. Shit, I don’t even know my daddy’s name.”
Eve finished her beer and glanced around the bar. “This wasn’t half bad.”
Nelle stood and placed her hands on Eve’s shoulders. “You should go . . . to Georgia, I mean.”
Eve’s eyes flashed large. “Will you come with me?” The query tumbled from her lips without much thought, a holdover from their past effortless closeness. But once they were said, Eve did not regret the words. Her face reflected the struggle of their friendship—mouth set in stubborn firmness and eyes pleading for familiar connection.
“This is your journey, Every,” Nelle’s voice softened. “I got my own too, you know.” Her focus drifted to an individual seated in the shadows of a small table in the corner.
“I wonder whether I’m quest-ready,” Eve said.
Nelle smiled. “You’ve been asking questions all your wonky-ass life, Every. This is probably the only quest you’re ready for.”
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