My Monticello(12)
One of us balled and flung our fist, striking Richard in the mouth so hard we saw a flash of yellow. Richard staggered back, eyes wide like Why, one hand holding his bloodied face. Then all of us were on Richard. Our fists. Our elbows. Our knees. Our teeth. We hadn’t realized how hungry we were: We’d never once felt skin so prized beneath our own.
Moses rocked on his heels, keening with laughter. His eyes darting into the hall and back to make sure no one was coming. Richard Lordly was down, and still we kept at it, like we were trying to prepare him for something. We only stopped when Moses called us by our names. Breathing hard, we studied the wrecked boy at our feet. His salt-streaked face. His glassy eyes. A bitter taste rose up in us. Then, one by one, we hurried out to catch up with the line.
BUYING A HOUSE AHEAD OF THE APOCALYPSE
Scour online listings daily.
Find a house ahead of your fortieth, ahead of your imminent doom.
Never mind that a house is an investment, a belief that things, on the whole, will get better.
Find a house on a hill, set back from the road, a sturdy brick rancher or a quaint bungalow that needs work.
Search outside of Richmond, not too far from the city, since Baby Girl’s still finishing art school here. Keep up your commute, rising before dawn to burn up the road to Williamsburg. Never mind the long drive, the lights you’ve left on, the busted toilet your landlord won’t fix, which is always, always running.
Put a thumb on the scale for any location named for (but not in truth near) a broad body of water. Appomattox Drive. James River Road. Chesapeake Way. Try again for that gated subdivision, the one with the outlier security booth, its zebra-ed boom barrier blocking the entrance. That flimsy arm of protection that could shield you (and Baby Girl) from the flaring world. Never mind the dark-skinned guard who wouldn’t even let you in after you failed to produce the flier for the so-called open house.
Catch the older lady at the credit union, the one with the smoldering accent, the one who makes the loans. The one who reminds you of your own mother, if your mom had been brown and Latina, instead of Black with an Uhura-do, hailing from Carolina. Wear your hair bone straight, a fresh weave with the tight itch of cornrows beneath, like something true but hidden. Tell the older bank lady you’re earning more than ever—no need to mention it’s a third as much as anyone else in your office, which you know because you manage their books. Confide that there’s a blazing-cake birthday close on your horizon. Ask her, for real, what can she do for you.
Check your credit score with that app on your phone when you bolt awake in the middle of the night. Scroll to see how swiftly the Amazon burns. Scroll to see how many hundreds of species have been lost or consumed within the last twenty-four hours. Scroll to see which items you’ve saved in your cart, primed to ship at your beck and call. Check to see if Baby Girl has written back and make sure your long-ago ex—her father—remains out west, with all those states like a bulwark between you. Scroll through his newly posted pics, a fresh twenty-two-year-old under his arm. Her cherry pout. Her mocking lashes. Her wet doe eyes. Her gaze veers like yours used to, betraying that same ember of dread. Flip the phone on the bedsheets to dampen its glare and stare up at the blackened ceiling. Lift the phone again, refresh, refresh, to see what might have changed.
Watch Terminator 2 for the umpteenth time, at the gym, on the treadmill, on your cell phone in your palm. Marvel at the heroine, Sarah Connor, a hell-bent single mother voice-overing the end of mankind. Jog faster, noting how buff she’s become, working out in the sanatorium in tie pants and a tissue-white tank. The men with the keys smirk like, That bitch is crazy, but you know she’s just facing the truth of what’s barreling home. Imagine yourself like a Black Sarah Connor, eyes open at least, core strong and ready. Turn up the slope, the bleating speed, and run.
Find a house on a hill, with a wide drainage ditch, set safely back from the road. Look for leaks in the unfinished basement. Look for a master bedroom that floods with light. Look for wide windows that butterfly open onto a clear view of the driveway. Picture yourself framed by plate glass, a doomed goddess in yoga pants, a faux-fur vest, and Birkenstock sandals. A shotgun’s smooth stock balanced on your shoulder, angled out to shoo a gang of hungry men past your property line.
Ask your Realtor, in her carmine suit, about the crack snaking through an edge of kitchen tile. Ask her about the peeling paint shutters—could they contain lead? Considering these and other defects, would the sellers lower their asking price? Would the sellers throw in that generator shining in cobwebs in the corner of their unfinished basement? Explain: You’re looking for something eclectic, a house with a wood stove, a gravity-fed spring. Don’t confess that your current landlord has blocked your number as your basement rental slowly fills with water. Rivulets run like beads down your easternmost wall, and a bloom like mold invades your nostrils. Some nights you wake floating, your nose grazing the ceiling.
Stockpile reading glasses, and dental floss, and royal-blue-topped jars of petroleum jelly—no need to be text-blind, or toothless, or ashy, even as you tumble toward annihilation. Stockpile toilet paper, and ammunition, and that sweet pastel cereal Baby Girl used to love when she was nine. Stockpile Plan B (while you still can) and plant slippery elm in the kitchen garden, along with nightshade and white oleander. Be ready for the emergency inside the emergency, for when the hordes bang against your door and you find you’ve grown so lonesome too, so ravenous, really, that you rush to let them in.