My Monticello(21)
I leaned into my grandma’s body. MaVi, you all right?
Grandbaby, she said. What on earth are we doing here?
To one side, I saw Ira and Carol—whose white house was not technically on First, but across the street on a bisecting road—cornering the guards as if to make an urgent report. They were right outside of my home! Ira was saying, his white hair bristling. At Carol’s feet, the couple’s hens circled, emitting a noise like water burbling. They had torches, I tell you, Ira went on. They had goddamn machine guns!
It’s true, Knox said from where he stood beside me, pacing in long pants and a thin collared shirt, faded stripes ringing his chest. They drove along my girlfriend’s street. I counted maybe two dozen vehicles before I stopped counting.
Madness! Ira said.
Knox dug a water bottle from his messenger bag, took a long sip, and offered it to me. I felt so sick just then—I held it out to MaViolet instead. She liked Knox, I knew. She’d cooked for him when I brought him home in late winter, a roast with chunks of potato arranged around it, lima beans simmering on the stove. Knox cleared his plate and asked for seconds even though he must’ve been full. Looked like Knox cared for me, she’d told me, and she wanted me to have someone in the world when she was gone. Even so, when she took Knox’s water bottle—thick blue plastic patterned with scratches—and drank after him without equivocation, it hit me how much the ground had shifted beneath us, yet again.
Beyond the ticket office, there was a museum, a small theater, a café, a gift shop. There were other spaces on a lower level—a children’s area, a conference room—but we didn’t venture into them that first night. The café had been well rifled through, but the giftshop tables looked pristine, pyramided with books and swanky souvenirs. We telescoped our hands against the glass, peering deep into those dark, unspoiled spaces. We walked the covered perimeter of the courtyard, collapsed onto benches, staring into the centerpiece of shrubs.
The other Black guard—Georgie—kept saying the same thing to Mr. Byrd, tugging on the older man’s shoulder. Turned out Georgie was only midway through his fifties, with light brown skin and a low sack of a belly, his cranberry polo folded neatly beneath it. But they aren’t supposed to be here, Georgie said.
Even so, Mr. Byrd, along with the white guard, Mr. Odem, brought us water and warm root beers and orange sodas for the children, their rifles drooping from duct-tape straps. They brought us bags of chips too, some pricey brand I’d never seen before. They surrendered these items stiffly, as if their hospitality was an old habit, one they hoped to soon be free from. I let a chip dissolve on my tongue, spice peppering my throat. Mr. Byrd opened our glass bottles with a tool that hung from a set on his belt, and offered Devin ointment for his arm.
No one, not even Elijah or Ezra, talked about hiking the half-mile path to the landmark house—not that first night. The Yahya parents arranged a nest of bright fabric near the entrance of the museum for their stunned-looking children, a girl and a boy, six and seven: Imani had on a simple cotton dress, while her brother, Jobari, wore a tiny patterned shirt that mimicked their father’s. The white-house couple let their hens loose in the plantings of the courtyard, with Carol—in her clopping sandals—hovering and listening for their alien coos beneath low leaves. Later, the couple sat side by side, gulping from a bottle of magenta-colored wine lifted from Ira’s leather satchel, with Carol sobbing stridently.
Devin, who wore all black that night except for umber boots, had found a broom and was sweeping chunks of glass out the back door of the bus and into a bed of shrubs. I saw Knox start toward the ticket office—if I’d known where he meant to go, I would have reached for the skin of his polo, to coax him back. Instead I watched helplessly as Knox approached Devin just outside the Jaunt, and offered to help sweep the glass. Devin waved Knox off, hardly looking up from his work.
You’re bleeding—let me do this, Knox was saying.
Devin balanced the broom handle against the Jaunt, looked Knox up and down.
Who are you, man, I heard Devin say, even though he had to know by then who Knox was to me. Why are you even here? Devin said. Still Knox reached out as if to take the broom in his hands. A shudder ran through Devin’s body; his mouth flew open and I caught a second glimpse of his golden crowns, which I’d only ever seen before that day by surprising him into laughter. Knox opened his mouth too, to answer, but Devin squared his body, like he might strike Knox. Don’t, I wanted to say. I wanted to shout something protective between them. Before I could say anything, Devin punched the side of the Jaunt hard enough that the metal rumbled. Knox backed away, his hands slightly raised, and Devin dug a Zippo from his pocket, lit a cigarette. Then Devin began to sweep again, the glass against pavement making a fractured sound.
Thing is, Devin and I used to go together, the summer before I started high school, back when I was like, Go Black Knights! That was a few months after Momma died, leaving a massive hole at my center like something sacred excavated. We were just kids, thirteen and fourteen, and Devin would walk with me to Brown’s corner store, where we’d buy wings and potato wedges out from under the yellow heating lamps. He’d open the red-and-white-checkered box between us, the puff of fragrant steam, everything fried and salty and glistening with oil. Puppy love was all it was, though we played at being grown. We only hooked up once, in his small basement room, at the tail end of summer. I was living with MaViolet, and Devin was staying with Ezra and Elijah and their father. Having sex when we were so young ended us. Later, I understood I was hardly ready. Much later, he admitted he hadn’t been, either.