Skye Falling

by Mia Mckenzie

  “I wouldn’t know about it,” I tell her. “All I have is a really obnoxious brother. I don’t even like him sometimes.”

  “Well,” she says. “Let’s save acrimonious kinship as a topic for another day.”

  Acrimonious kinship? Who even is this woman?

  “For now, I apologize for just walking off the way I did. It was rude.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I mean, I guess.”

  She frowns, ever so slightly. “You sound hesitant.”

  “Well, you did call me crazy and chase me down the street.”

  She purses her lips. “You don’t accept my apology, then?”

  “Well, technically, you didn’t apologize for any of that.”

  The fire pops and little red embers explode inside the stove.

  “I was trying to protect my niece,” she says. “I had no idea she’d contacted you. How was I supposed to know you weren’t just some crazy person?”

  I shrug. “Maybe ask?”

  She laughs, but less in a this is funny way and more in a no this bitch did not way. Maybe I shouldn’t be giving her a hard time. It’s true she didn’t know who I was when she chased me down the street. But it’s also true that SHE CHASED ME DOWN THE STREET. I toddle-ran for like three entire blocks! I could have died somehow! I just feel like we should all be on the same page about what exactly went down and who traumatized who by calling 911 on whom. Knowing what she knows now, she should apologize, regardless of what she did or did not know then. But she’s looking at me like there’s no way in hell she’s going to do that.

  “So, you came all the way over here to half-apologize?” I ask her. “You could’ve just left a voicemail.”

  “It’s not that far. And, like I said, I felt bad.”

  Not bad enough, apparently.

  “How did you know where to find me?” I ask, realizing she’s the third person to track me down this week, a fact that low-key concerns me, considering

  I pride myself on being hard to catch up with;

  unexpected guests fill me with anxiety; and

  I’ve given roughly three percent of the male population of Philly a fake number at some point and one or more of their ugly asses might show up on my doorstep at any moment looking for an explanation.

  “I asked around,” she says.

  “ ‘Asked around’? What does that even mean?”

  “Vicky told me you were staying at a bed-and-breakfast around here. There aren’t many. Most of them are more like rooming houses.”

  So, she came to see how I live. The whole “apology” thing was just a ruse. Mkay.

  “It turns out, I have a neighbor whose aunt lives right across the street,” she says, gesturing toward the front window. “She knows everyone who lives on this block, including you.”

  “Miss Newsome?”

  Faye nods. “The very same.”

  No wonder Viva calls her Miss Meddlesome.

  “Although, according to her,” Faye says, “you don’t actually live on this block, you just—how’d she put it?—‘show up every few months looking lost.’ ”

  “How could I get lost going to a place I show up at every few months?”

  “I don’t think that’s the kind of ‘lost’ she means.”

  “Ah, okay. I didn’t realize Miss Nosy had a psych degree. But good for her. Are you done apologizing or is there more?”

  She purses her lips again. I think she does this when she’s holding her tongue. “If you’d like to see Vicky,” she finally says, “you can.”

  “Oh. She’s not grounded or something?”

  “Why should she be?”

  “She shouldn’t. But you strike me as someone who likes to ground people. No offense. Also, you and your homie Miss Newsome don’t seem to approve of me.”

  “Well,” she says, “Vicky’s been having a hard time and I don’t want to be overly strict with her right now.”

  “Hard time with what?”

  “With everything that’s happened since her mother died,” she says, taking out her phone. “So, if you give me your number, I’ll pass it on to her.” She taps the screen a few times, then looks at me, waiting.

  I give her my number.

  She thanks me, quite curtly, and bounces, leaving the fire to crackle in her stead.

  8

  That weekend, on Sunday, I walk from the B and B to the kid’s house, six blocks away. It’s crazy that she lives so close to Viva’s and I wonder if we’ve crossed paths before, without knowing it. At the corner of Viva’s block, I turn right so I can take Fifty-third down to Cedar Ave. It’s another nice day, warmish and super sunny. The weather has brought everybody and their mom out of doors, and the neighborhood is vibrating with activity. People are turning over soil in their front yards or sweeping their sidewalks. Kids are popping wheelies in the middle of the street. Lots of folks are hanging out on their porches, blasting music from Bluetooth speakers and old-school boom boxes. It’s all so familiar, so loaded with the heavy scent of nostalgia. And the occasional waft from a sewer.

  Vicky lives on a narrow street tucked between two wider ones, quieter and quainter than many of the blocks surrounding it. As I start looking for house number nineteen, I hear yelling from up near the next corner, and when I look, I can see a group of people gathered on the sidewalk. There are nine or ten of them, mostly older folks, from what I can make out, all Black except for the white man who is doing the yelling. I spot Faye in the mix. She and an older Black woman are standing closest to the white man. Their body language suggests something may be about to pop off. When I get closer, I can see they’re both frowning, the older woman shaking her head, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Faye keeps sighing and looking heavenward as the white man continues to yell.

  “We’ve been through this, what? Half a dozen times already? How much plainer can I make it? My. Baby. Is. Trying. To. Sleep.” He says the last part super slow, as if Faye and the older woman are small children or just really stupid adults. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to call the police.”

  “I’ve been living on this block forty-odd years,” the older woman says. “I’ve been leading church service in the basement for the last ten. How long have you been here? Six months? And been complaining since you got here.”

  The white man looks like he’s getting angrier; his reddening face is pinched. “You’re just not going to listen, are you? You’re determined not to listen. Fine.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his phone. “I didn’t want to have to—”

  Faye gently places a hand on the man’s wrist. “Calling the police is only going to make all of this worse.”

  “I’m not making it worse!” the white man says. “I’m not making it anything. She’s the one breaking the rules!”

  “Rules?” the older woman asks. “What rules? The ones you just made up when you moved here?”

  “Go back to Roxborough or wherever!” someone yells. When I look, I see it’s Vicky. She’s standing next to a tall teenage girl in an Assata Taught Me T-shirt. They’re the only young ones in the crowd.

  Faye throws Vicky a look like, You’re not helping. Then she turns back to the white man. “Sunday service is over, Ethan,” she says, glancing at the elderly woman for confirmation. “Isn’t that right, Reverend Seymour?”

  Reverend Seymour nods. “That’s right.”

  “So, why don’t we all just go home, enjoy what’s left of the weekend, and discuss the matter when emotions are a little less high?”

  Reverend Seymour nods again. “Fine with me.”

  Faye smiles at her and then looks at Ethan.

  “I’m not obligated to ‘discuss’ it at all,” he says. “I’m in the right. Next time, I’m calling the police.” He tucks the cellphone back into his pocket. “Now I have to go
and help my wife, who is probably still trying to get my baby back to sleep.” He turns on his hiking-sandaled heels and stomps off to a house a few doors down, up the front steps, disappearing inside.

  Everyone who was hanging back is now encircling Faye and the reverend, shaking their heads and grumbling about that disrespectful-ass white fool. Vicky moves to stand at Faye’s side. This is when she notices me and smiles a little bit and waves. Faye sees me, and I think she frowns the tiniest bit before turning back to the group.

  “This is the second time he’s threatened to call the police,” she says. “Next time, he’s probably going to do it. I think we—those of us who live on the block—should keep an eye out. Get over here quick if that happens.”

  “And bring your phones,” the teenager in the cool T-shirt says. “To record the cops.”

  “That’s smart thinking, Keisha,” the reverend says.

  “Thanks, Grandma.”

  An elderly woman in dark glasses and a circa 1998 Mary J. Blige pixie wig nods. “I can do that.”

  “Me, too!” Vicky says, shooting her hand up in the air like Hermione in potions class. The reverend smiles at her.

  “I don’t know how to work the camera on my phone,” says an old man with a cane, stepping forward. “But I can get my grandson to show me again. I can also holler for the rest of y’all if I see anything going down.”

  “Thank you, Brother Mitch,” says the reverend, putting her hand on his. She smiles at Mary J. Blige. “And you, Sister Vena. And all of you.”

  “If Ethan does anything crazy,” Faye says, “call me. I don’t want you getting into anything with him. You hear me, Reverend?”

  “I hear you, Faye. And I know you’re right. It just makes me mad as heck.”

  “I know. Me, too. But I want you to promise.”

  “I promise to call you.”

  Faye gives her hand a squeeze and the reverend turns and walks up onto her porch.

  Vicky bounces over to me. She’s wearing her Grace Jones T-shirt again; I can see it peeking out from under her jacket. Her hair’s different today, her cornrows replaced by two large Afro puffs separated by a part down the middle of her head. Her pecan-colored skin looks shiny in the sunlight. She seems cooler than I was at her age and I wonder if she’s one of those kids who doesn’t get teased, one of those girls who belongs. “White dudes are cray,” she says, shaking her head.

  Faye comes over and gives me a strained smile. “Hello, Skye.”

  “Hey.”

  Then we just stand there like that. It’s awkward, y’all.

  “Um…so…what was all that?” I ask, even though I got the gist of it from listening in.

  “This house belongs to Reverend Seymour,” Faye says. “She’s been here since 1977. She raised six sons here. She used to be a preacher in a big church, but after she retired about ten years ago, she started running a little church service out of the basement. I guess she still wants to be able to connect with the people, you know?”

  “Sure,” I say. “If that’s your thing.”

  “It’s just an hour service Sunday morning, and another on Wednesday evenings. A few dozen people show up.”

  “Much to the dismay of this Ethan person?”

  Faye nods. “He started complaining about the services as soon as his family moved in. He says it’s too loud. He shouts about zoning ordinances and noise violations and all of that. The last time, he threatened to call the police, and now again. It’s infuriating.”

  As Faye talks, I look around, trying to get a sense of the level of gentrification on this block. Most of the people out and about are Black, but there are a couple of white faces and another couple of faces that could be Middle Eastern or maybe South Asian. A few blocks down, closer to the University of Pennsylvania, there are white people everywhere, but they mostly haven’t stretched out this far west yet.

  Faye sighs. “Anyway,” she says, looking from me to Vicky. “I have work. So, I’ll leave you to it.” She waves, crosses the street, and disappears into house number nineteen.

  “You live with your aunt?”

  “Yup.”

  I don’t ask why she doesn’t live with her father. Partly because I don’t want to accidentally bring up a touchy subject and partly because living with one’s father isn’t something I value, considering mine was a dick.

  “So, what should we do?” I ask the kid, realizing I probably should’ve already made a plan. But Philly’s a big city, so there must be lots of kid-friendly shit to do here, right? There’s definitely a zoo. “How about the zoo?”

  “I don’t like the zoo. The animals always look so mad. Like if they could get past the barrier, they’d totally kill you for letting them suffer. I don’t like it when animals look at me like that, it gives me bad dreams.”

  I think about the peacock that chased me around the zoo that time. It did seem kinda pissed. “Have you eaten lunch?” I ask her.

  “Nope.”

  “Wanna go get a pizza?”

  * * *

  —

  One of my fave pizza spots is only a couple of blocks away. We walk back the way I came, back down Cedar Avenue, toward Fifty-second.

  “How long have you lived around here?” I ask Vicky.

  “Since the middle of sixth grade.”

  “Is that when your mom…” I hesitate. Maybe she doesn’t like to be reminded.

  “I lived with my dad and my step-monster for a while at first,” she says. “They live in Bala Cynwyd. But I didn’t like it there. I hate my step-monster. And Bala Cynwyd is the worst. It’s all rich white people. I hated my school.”

  “You like the Montessori better?”

  She thinks about it. “I like the kids better. I have a new bestie. Her name’s Jasmine.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “It’s still wack, though.”

  “What’s wack about it?”

  “The teachers. The principal. The vice principal. The guidance counselor. The nurse.”

  I laugh. “Even the nurse is wack?”

  “Yup. Like, one time I was waiting to see the principal and I heard the nurse talking about me to the secretary. This was right after I cut off all my hair. ‘Trying to look like a boy.’ That’s what she said.”

  “Hmm.”

  “It’s anti-feminist or whatever, right?”

  “Sure. Why were you in the principal’s office?”

  She thinks about it a second, then shrugs. “I don’t r-e-m-e-m-b-e-r.”

  Well, shit. Now I want to ask how often she’s in the principal’s office, but I don’t want to sound like the feds, so instead, I say, “You cut off all your hair? When was this?”

  “Last January. On my birthday. I cut my relaxer out. It was like my present to myself.”

  “That’s pretty bold,” I tell her. “I was a senior in college before I got the nerve.”

  “Everybody went cray about it,” she says.

  I bet.

  “I thought my step-monster was going to poop her pants. White people get nervous around kinky hair. My dad almost cried. Isn’t that stupid?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Jaz was like, ‘it’s your hair.’ I was like, ‘word.’ ”

  I’m impressed. Both because she chopped her hair at eleven and because kids still say “word.”

  “So, your birthday is in January?” I ask. “What day?”

  “The twenty-seventh.”

  This makes her an Aquarius. I like Aquarians. They’re visionaries. They always want to change the world. I’m a Gemini. We’re too inconsistent for world-changing. But I still admire that quality in others.

  “When’s yours?” she asks.

  “June eighth.”

  Her eyes widen. “That’s the same day as Jaz! That’s crazy!”

/>   It’s not crazy for two people to have the same birthday. But I guess things like that seem cosmic when you’re twelve.

  We’re stopped at the corner, waiting for the light to change.

  “Who’s your bestie?” the kid asks me.

  I think about it for a second, which I guess is too long, because she decides I need her to be more specific. “Like, who’s the person you hang with the most? Tell stuff to?”

  “I know what a bestie is. I’m not a fourth-grader.”

  She smiles.

  “I guess I don’t really have one.”

  She stares at me like I just grew a titty out of the middle of my forehead. “You don’t have a best friend?”

  “Not really. Not in the way you have best friends when you’re twelve, anyway. I just have regular friends.”

  She gives me a look like she feels bad for me. “Me and Jaz talk like a hundred times a day. If I didn’t have her to talk to, I would probably just, like, die or something.”

  I remember this level of emotional dependence on another girl. “But it’s different when you’re a kid.”

  “My aunt Faye talks to her best friend every day and they’re like fifty.”

  I sort of want to ask who her aunt’s best friend is, but I don’t want to seem too interested, so instead I say, “Perhaps your aunt has more social needs than I do.”

  “What’s that mean? Like, you don’t need people?”

  “Everyone needs people. I guess I just need them less. Or maybe I just like to tell myself I do.”

  “How come?”

  The question catches me off guard. While most adults shy away from potentially awkward inquiries, children will take any opportunity to get up in your business, and I don’t spend enough time around them to remember that until it’s too late. In lieu of the emotional maturity required to answer such a question, I just chuckle and shrug and say, “I don’t know, kid.” But for a second, before I can push her image back out of my brain the way it came, I think about Tasha and the emotional dependence we shared at twelve, light-years before I stopped needing people.