Black Cake(76)

Byron hears a sharp breath on the other end of the line. He thinks of Lynette, sitting there, right next to Jackson. Anything could have happened. He tries not to think about it, everything that might have gone wrong. But trying to undo the worry is like trying to undo his blackness.

“I know, Lynette. I know. Are you going to be okay?”

“I think so, thanks, Byron,” Lynette says, but he hears her voice breaking again.

“I’m coming over,” he says. “Can I come over?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she says. She’s crying again.

After he hangs up with Lynette, Byron checks the news on his laptop. Jackson has gone viral. There’s a video online.

What was the kid supposed to do if he was asked to show his driver’s license?

How is a person supposed to reach for their wallet?

Are black people in America not allowed to have hands?

Byron wants to believe that this epidemic of mistreatment, this bullying of unarmed black men is just that, an outbreak, though prolonged, that can be brought under control. He wants to keep believing in law enforcement officers, to respect the risky work that they do, knowing that every day they step into unknown territory. He wants to know that he can still pick up the phone and call the cops if he ever needs to. There’s a lot of anger out there. A lot of hurt. Where are they all gonna end up—black, white, whoever—if things don’t get any better? What would his father say, if he knew that things were still this way in America in 2018? He has a fleeting thought, a blasphemous thought, that maybe it’s just as well his dad isn’t around anymore to see the way things are.

Byron turns to Mr. Mitch and Benny.

“Look,” he says, holding out his cellphone for them to see the images. “That’s my…,” Byron says. He doesn’t want to say girlfriend but he doesn’t want to say ex, either. “That’s my friend’s nephew in the car.”

Benny takes his phone, looks at it for a moment, then starts swiping away at her own phone.

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” Byron says. “I have to go right now.”





Protest





Most people around Byron are holding their smartphones above their heads, one arm stretched high and waving softly, as if in worship. Others have small candle holders in their hands, the light glowing under their chins, the cloying smell of melting wax turning Byron’s stomach. Byron is just standing there in the crowd, hands at his sides. Byron doesn’t do street protests and Lynette knows this.

Byron believes the best path to activism is to gain status, accumulate wealth, exert your influence in the centers of power. But Lynette says this is not so much a protest as a vigil, for all those people who weren’t as fortunate as Jackson. For all those people who didn’t survive a traffic stop gone wrong. For all those people who are still in mourning. Including us, Lynette says. We need to allow ourselves to grieve, clear our heads, she says, so that we can go back into the city halls and courtrooms and boardrooms and classrooms and work for change.

Jackson is up in front with his attorney and parents. Mr. Mitch is up there too. He knows the organizers of the vigil. Mr. Mitch seems to know everyone, like Byron’s dad did. There are people speaking into the microphone, politicians and activists and even that famous actor. Finally, a group walks up front to sing. Lynette says Jackson didn’t want all this attention, but he does want police to set the record straight, he wants the police to acknowledge that he was wronged. Byron looks over at Benny. Her eyes are closed and she’s singing with the crowd.

Byron is trying to think about Jackson but he keeps looking down at Lynette’s stomach, pushing out against her coat. Lynette hasn’t said anything to him but it’s evident she’s pregnant and she’s been that way for a good while now. She hasn’t mentioned another man. There hasn’t been time to talk about anything but what happened to Jackson. What happened to Lynette, too. Lynette was still shaking when Byron got to her house, hours after the police incident.

I need to talk to you about something, Lynette said on the phone before his mother’s memorial service. Was this what she wanted to talk about? So much else is happening right now, Byron will have to wait to find out.

All he can do, for now, is try his best not to stare.





Expecting





They are sitting across from each other in a back room at Lynette’s house as Lynette tells Byron about her pregnancy. Lynette says she’s due in three months. She says Byron can ask for a DNA test if he wants, but she has no doubt the baby is his. Still, she insists, the baby will always be hers first. Byron needn’t feel obligated. She says they can meet again to talk, if he’s really and truly interested in being part of the boy’s life.

He needn’t feel obligated? What kind of comment is that?

Byron doesn’t mean to leave things the way he does. He doesn’t intend to raise his voice at Lynette that way. He doesn’t mean to slam the door on the way out of her house. But why is she treating him this way? The baby is hers? More than his? She was the one who left Byron. She was the one who didn’t tell him about the pregnancy back then. She was the one who didn’t give him a chance to participate from the get-go.

If Byron’s mother were here right now, she’d probably say Lynette is right, she’s the one giving birth to the baby. Byron’s father, on the other hand, would surely agree with Byron, would say that Lynette should have told Byron that she was pregnant. But this doesn’t change the fact that Byron is standing alone at his kitchen counter, tonight, wondering if the boy that Lynette is expecting will look anything like him. Wondering at what moment, exactly, Lynette decided that she could live her life without Byron. Wishing he could go back to that moment and somehow change it.