All the Things We Never Knew

by Liara Tamani

  “Rex, give me a chance to explain,” I beg.

  “I’m sorry, Carli. I gotta go.”

  Dial tone.

  I call him back.

  One ring, voice mail.

  Again.

  One ring, voice mail.

  Again.

  One ring, voice mail.

  Again and again and again with the rain pouring down outside my window.

  Again and again and again until I’m coughing on my tears.

  Again and again and again until I feel too stupid to keep calling.

  He didn’t even give me a chance to explain. I missed his game, yeah. But is that all it takes for him to throw me away? He’s such a liar! He never loved me. He couldn’t possibly have. If he loved me, he would’ve at least listened to me. He would at least pick up the phone. He wouldn’t make me suffer like this. I swear I hate him.

  I yank down the picture of us above my pillow. The forest of sunflowers. The Kahlil Gibran poem. Underneath it, there’s a picture of our family in Kusama’s At the End of the Universe exhibit. We’re standing with our arms wrapped around one another in a small dark room at the center of tiny yellow lights that seem to stretch out infinitely. But ain’t no more family! My walls are such a fucking lie!

  I yank it down.

  And the sketch of a silver flute I drew beside it.

  And the handwritten Rihanna lyrics beside that.

  I don’t know who you think I am

  I don’t know who you think I am

  I don’t know who you think I am

  I don’t know who you think I am

  And the trail of black stars drawn with various black marker tips underneath that.

  And the picture of the Egyptian winged goddess, Isis.

  All of the photos and quotes and ticket stubs and random written words and poems and facts and maps and magazine images and sketches and swatches of fabric and paper birds and birthday cards.

  Every memory.

  Oh, now the Mesopotamia fact wants to pop up. Written with purple crayon in perfect cursive. I hold it with two hands until sweat, pretending to be a tear, splashes on the curl of the capital M and reminds me of how all of this pain began. Fuck the first kisses fact! Off it goes to the floor with everything else.

  Every love.

  Every hope.

  Every possible sign.

  Until there’s nothing left but scraps still holding on to tacks.

  “Why are you still holding on? There’s nothing left!” I scream, out of breath, and furiously start going after the last bits, ripping the tacks off the wall.

  “Oh, Carli,” Mom says behind me.

  I didn’t even realize she’d come in. She’s looking around in disbelief. I’ve been putting things up on my walls since I was four, since first watching her tack up things on her design boards. And I haven’t taken anything down since, just added layer over layer.

  Until now.

  And it’s like I’m seeing my walls blank for the first time. Like they’re closing in on me on all four sides, wanting answers about what I’ve just done. Whenever I used to look at my walls, it was like bits of my possible future staring back at me . . . but now there’s nothing. What am I supposed to do with nothing? What is nothing supposed to tell me about everything?

  REX

  Sitting in the middle of my hard, wooden floor, with the rain still pouring outside my windows, I search my name in YouTube. First new thing that pops up is a clip of the ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith saying, “Since y’all wanna talk about Rex Carrington, when are you going to acknowledge that he just doesn’t deserve the title you’ve given him. No. 1 high-school basketball player of the year? Puh-lease! And he’s talking about what Carli Alexander doesn’t deserve, who’s a hell of a player, by the way. But can we get back to what he doesn’t deserve?”

  I swear I hate that dude. That smug look on his stupid, pointy face. He stays talking shit about somebody. Made a career out of it. Can somebody please tell me why people love to watch other people getting ripped to shreds?

  I click on the clip below it: somebody’s homemade video of me going off on Carli. It already has over 300,000 views. You can hear whoever’s videoing in the background saying, “Oh shit! It’s going down.”

  The video only plays for a few seconds before I press pause.

  That’s not me, I think. That dude whose eyes have no tenderness. Whose mouth has no mercy. Where did I go?

  I can’t bring myself to watch anymore. Instead, I look through the comments.

  mrmball

  Rex is a fool. Definitely not top recruit material

  Amara Queen

  He just mad cuz he played terribly. Boy is so overrated

  Lil Flacco

  Has anyone else watched this 10+ times. Bruh, I swear I can’t stop. Lol

  Kasey C

  That poor girl

  Tarantula Girl

  Her name is Carli Alexander. Put some RESPEK on her name

  Wassup B

  Dude is clearly off his pills

  365BasketballTV

  Check out my channel. BasicsofBallin

  Trapgirl

  Now this is good entertainment! Better than the Housewives of Atlanta

  lifeonthecourt

  Rex Carrington is still the truth. He does look like he needs therapy though

  LisaLee529

  It’s obvious he’s been hurt. You all need to leave him alone!

  Blissfully Joi

  Somebody needs to put a foot in his ass. Carli Alexander did not deserve that. If you don’t know who she is, then look her up

  Daquan

  That was cold

  That’s not me! I throw my phone across the room, and it crashes into the glass box of beetles on my bookshelf. Don’t they get it? I’m not capable of that much cruelty! It came out of nowhere, unfolding its brutal body inside of me. I couldn’t stop it! And now I’m the one stuck with the mess. With people judging me, like they know me.

  Nobody knows who I am!

  Oh, but they’ve got their drama. They’ve got their views. And now coaches and scouts will have their reasons. And nobody will want me on their team! Is that what everybody wants? To see me lose everything? Well, they’re in luck ’cuz it’s gone. I can hang up going to the league after my first year of college. That dream is dead along with everything else.

  Exhausted, I sit for long time, looking at the broken glass on my floor and the scattered beetles in between. When I was little, I used to stand on the ottoman to get them down from the top shelf in the living room. Then I’d hold them close to my chest while taking baby steps to the sofa, where I’d look at them for hours. I’d imagine Mom looking at them with me, telling me which ones were her favorites.

  I look at a crack in the iridescent one’s blue shell (her favorite). At the bright green beetle (her second favorite) and its thin, broken wing. At the purple-and-orange striped one who’s now missing its antenna. At the black beetle on its back with only half of its jointed legs in the air.

  Damn, after all these years, I can’t believe I just messed up Mom’s beetles, all because I got mad. Me. Not some kind of body snatcher who appeared out of thin air. Not the homie from way back when. I did this.

  Never Would’ve Imagined

  REX

  After school I get back in bed. I’m rereading one of Mom’s books about this dope landscape architect named Water Hood and listening to her Otis Redding album (trying to keep Carli, basketball, and the beetles out of my head), when I hear a knock at my door.

  “Rex?” My father’s soft voice slips under the door into my room. Just like it slipped in Sunday after he got home from the hospital, yesterday after school, last night before I went to bed, and this morning before school.

  But my father isn’t the only one who can ignore somebody. Who can stay in his room and pretend the person they live with isn’t actually there. Who could care less.

  “Rex?”

  I don’t answer.

&nb
sp; “Rex?” My door opens slightly. Widens. My father takes a step into my room in his green scrubs. And another one. And another one until he’s standing in the middle of my room looking around at all of Mom’s things.

  As if on cue, the record finishes and the needle lifts.

  He looks over at me.

  I look back at my book like he’s not even there.

  “What are you reading?” he asks.

  I hold up my book so he can see for himself.

  “Oh yeah. Walter Hood is something special, isn’t he? The Street Trees he’s doing in Detroit and the W.E.B. DuBois Double Garden installation he did with Carrie Mae Weems are amazing,” he says, and walks over toward my bookshelf.

  Why is this man trying to act like he knows about Walter Hood?

  “Your mom and I saw his installation at the Project Row House here in Houston when she was pregnant with you.” He grabs the next record off the top of the stack—“What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye. Slides it out of its sleeve. “Do you mind?” he asks, his long fingers already lifting the needle to switch out the records.

  Is he serious? This man is in my room, acting like he’s been in here a thousand times. Over there casually mentioning Mom like we’ve had a million conversations about her. He never once talked about Mom! Never shared any stories about her. About what she was like. What they did. Where they went. Or what happened back when. Never! “Yes, I mind!” I shout.

  “I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry,” he says, gently places the needle back down, and slides “What’s Going On” back into its sleeve.

  “Sorry for what exactly?” I yell, standing to my feet with my fists balled up.

  He turns to face me. “Sorry for—”

  “For what?” I walk toward him, anger spewing out of me. It feels like a pipe—rusted, corroded, and under the pressure of being clogged for sixteen years—finally broke deep inside me. “Coming up in here acting all familiar? Or sorry for ignoring me all these years? For never being here?”

  He looks up at me. He’s tall, but I still have him by a couple inches. “Yes, for everything I—”

  “Sixteen years! Sixteen years of leaving me on my own,” I interrupt, screaming three inches from his face. “You know, I lost Mom, too. Actually, I never even had her. And I didn’t have a father, either.” Specks of spit fly out of my mouth, but I don’t give a damn. “No, even worse. I had a father who didn’t want me. Who hated me. Didn’t you know how much I already hated myself! I killed my own fucking mom! I’ve had to live with that!” Hot tears are streaming down my face and I don’t try to hold them back.

  “Oh no. Is that what you think?” he says, and reaches out to me.

  I block his arms and step back. “Man, get off me.”

  “Rex,” he says. “You have to know, it’s not your fault,” his voice soft and calm.

  It’s how he always talks, but right now it’s on my goddamn nerves. “You can lose the bedside manner. I’m not one of your patients.”

  “You were only a baby. It’s not your fault.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can save all that.”

  “Rex, listen to me. I think your mom had some kind of undiagnosed heart condition. I don’t know for sure because there were no further investigations done at the time. But we know a lot more about the dangers of undiagnosed heart problems in pregnancy these days.”

  The words undiagnosed heart condition stretches out inside me beside my guilt. And my guilt eyes it, sizing it up like I do when a new dude rolls up on the basketball court with the same build as me or the same height as me or the same shoes as me (basically with anything like me).

  “Did I do this? Do you think it’s your fault because of me? I’m so sorry. I’ve been such an awful father,” he continues. “Your mother would’ve been so disappointed in me.” He looks down briefly and then right back up, eyes full of tears. “Look, I’ve done a terrible job loving you, but you need to know it’s not your fault. You were only a baby. It’s a miracle you’ve turned out as amazing as you have. I just didn’t know how,” he says, his voice cracking. His tears start to fall.

  “Nah, you don’t get to cry. You were the adult! I was the child!” I scream, feeling It’s not your fault trying to find its way deeper inside of me.

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I checked out. And after being checked out for so long, I didn’t know how to get back to you. How to talk to you. I was so depressed. Every time I saw you, I saw her. Even right now, looking at you, I see her. Her cheekbones. Her moles. The way she always slightly held her head to the side. The same pure look in her big eyes.”

  My father’s words stun me. Me look like Mom? Nah. When I was a little boy, I used to be obsessed with looking at Mom’s pictures. At her face, her outfits, her hair, her poses, her surroundings—anything that would clue me in about who she was. But after I realized her pictures ran out the day she gave birth to me, I stopped looking at them. And shortly thereafter, I stopped looking at myself. And now standing here, I can’t really picture either one of us.

  I back away from my father, walk over to my file cabinet, open my bottom drawer, and take out the white wooden box that houses Mom’s old photos.

  On top of the stack, there’s a picture of her posing in front of a brick wall painted like pixels. She’s sporting an afro with her arms on her hips and her head tilted to the side. She’s a lot lighter than I am. And shorter. I can’t see it.

  “You got everything from your mom,” my father continues. “The only thing you got from me was height and a little color. None of my personality, thankfully. Your mom was super passionate, like you. About life, about art . . . all kinds of art. And she loved trees. I mean, she really loved trees.”

  I always knew Mom loved trees. Well, I didn’t know-know. It was the version of her I made up from this one picture I used to love. I start sliding photo off of photo, trying to find it. Here it is: Mom sitting crisscross in the grass in a grove of live oaks. Looking at her, looking up at the trees, I get the same feeling as when I’m lying in the woods behind the house, looking up at the crowns of the tall pines. It’s the closest I ever get to peace.

  “That’s why I moved us out here to live among all these trees,” my father says, walking closer to the sliding glass door. He interlaces his fingers behind his back and stares out at the hazy forest. “I thought waking up surrounded by trees every day would make you happy.”

  The subject of moving takes me right back to being pissed. “I was happy around Mom’s old things. In the house she used to live in,” I yell, stepping toward him. “I used to imagine her walking through the rooms. I used to imagine her sitting on our old sofa and cooking in our old pots and pans. That made me happy. This house is empty and sad. You didn’t keep anything of hers. It’s like you wanted to get rid of her,” I say.

  He turns around to face me. “No, no, no. I would never want to get rid of your mom. I love her. Always. My therapist thought it was critical that I move out.”

  “Your therapist?”

  “Yes, he’s been imploring me to move for years and years, and then something happened that made me listen.”

  “But you didn’t even ask me first,” I say, wondering what happened.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I was in a really bad place. And I needed to get out quickly. Every second in that house brought back memories. Trust me, I would’ve stayed with those memories forever. But,” he says, looking at me, “I had to keep living. I had to keep living for you.”

  Keep living? For a second my insides go black. Everything disappears, and I imagine being all alone in this world. Was he thinking about killing himself? Is that what happened? Even though he hasn’t been there for me, the thought of losing another parent is unbearable.

  “But I’m here. And I’m much, much better. And I promise to do better from here on out,” he says, and reaches for me.

  Part of me wants to fling my arms open and run to him, yelling Daddy like I’m five years old. But the anger, still seeping out beneath
my skin, won’t let me.

  He walks toward me and wraps his arms around me. And now he’s holding me for the first time I can remember. It’s weird, I know he’s trying to give me love. Love that I need. Shit, love that I’ve been wanting my whole life. But I can’t feel anything.

  CARLI

  Judge Reed’s chambers are creeping me out with all the dead animals. Beside her desk there’s some kind of wild cat with a bird stuffed in its mouth. On the floor, in front of a wall of legal books, there’s a ram’s skull and horns surrounded by large bones. By the window there are two wolves on posts, heads up, like they’re howling at the moon. And on the opposite wall—above the giant map of Texas—there’s a duck with its wings spread, trying to fly away from it all.

  Maybe a sign that I should try to get the hell out of here, too. But how?

  The judge is leaning on her large mahogany desk, short legs stretched to the floor, holding a pen and legal pad. On almost every finger, she has some kind of expensive-looking ring. She’s wearing dark jeans, cowboy boots, a light pink blouse, and a string of pearls underneath her black robe.

  She’s staring at me, wanting to know why I want to stay with Mom. I’m sitting in the leather armchair across from her trying to think of what to say. I’m not about to tell this judge about Shannon. Nuh-uh. I already know what she would write on her legal pad: Black man had a baby by his sidepiece. I mean, she probably wouldn’t use sidepiece, but you know what I mean. Even though I hate him, I’m not about to let this little white lady reduce him to that.

  “I’m just closer to my mom. She gets me,” I finally answer.

  “Can you elaborate, sweetie?” she asks, in her country (and when I say country, I mean country) voice.

  I tell her about basketball and explain Mom is the only one I can talk to.