An American Marriage(42)

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he marveled. “What if I had a gun?”

I honestly stopped a second to think about it, and in that second, he jerked his foot free and kicked me in the face. To his credit, I will say that he didn’t kick me as harshly as he could have. He didn’t stomp my head into the sidewalk. As kicks go, it was more like a love tap, delivered straight to my mouth, knocking loose one of my bottom teeth.

Behind me, I could hear Celestial’s rubber-soled footfalls. I was scared that she was going to play me like a hurdle and continue this crazy chase, but she stopped and knelt beside me.

“I didn’t get your stuff back,” I said, gasping for breath.

“I don’t care. You’re my hero,” she said. I thought she was being funny, but her hands on the side of my face said that she wasn’t.

The dentist who fitted me for a bridge told me that he could have saved my tooth if I had gone to the hospital. Celestial even suggested it at the time, but I waved it away as we headed back to her small apartment that she shared with three people and a dozen baby dolls. She gave me a cold compress and called the police. The officer didn’t arrive for another two hours, and by then my nose was wide open. I was giddy like the Jackson 5. Do re mi. ABC. On the police report, she signed her full name and I would have tattooed it on my forehead: Celestial Gloriana Davenport.





Andre


The whole truth wasn’t anybody’s business but mine and Celestial’s.

On the Sunday before we laid Olive to rest, I visited the prison while Celestial stayed with Roy’s father. I say visit for lack of a better term. Maybe it’s best to say that I went to see him. As we shared three bags of chips from the vending machine, Roy asked me to take his place on Monday morning and carry his mother’s casket from the hearse to the altar. I agreed but not gladly; this wasn’t a task you take on with pleasure. Big Roy had drafted an extra deacon to carry the right-hand corner load, but I was to explain to him that Roy sent me and the deacon would step aside. We shook on it, like we were finishing a business deal. When we let go, I stood up to leave, but Roy didn’t move.

“I got to stay here until visiting hours are over.”

“You’ll just sit?”

He curled up one side of his mouth. “It’s better than going back in there. I don’t mind it.”

“I can wait another minute,” I said, returning to the plastic chair.

“You see that dude?” He pointed to a skinny man with a flat-top fade and Malcolm X glasses. “That’s my father. My Biological. I met him in here.”

I stole a glance at the older man who was speaking to a chubby brunette wearing a flowered dress.

“He met her from the classifieds,” Roy explained.

“I wasn’t looking at his lady,” I said. “I’m tripping. Your actual father?”

“Apparently so.” He went over my face, slowly, like he was searching a grid. “You didn’t know,” he said. “You didn’t know.”

“How would I know?”

“Celestial didn’t tell you. If she didn’t tell you, she didn’t tell anybody.” As he was pleased, I felt a little sting somewhere between a mosquito and a yellow jacket.

“You look like your pops,” I said, pointing with my chin.

“Big Roy is my pops. Him over there, we’re cool now, but back in the day, nigger went for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. Now I see him every day.” He shook his head. “I feel like it’s supposed to mean something—like in the whole scheme of things—but I don’t know what.”

I sat there silent, uncomfortable in the gray suit I would wear to the wake later in the day. I had no idea what it could mean. Fathers were complicated beings. I was seven when my father met a woman at a trade show and defected, creating a new family. My dad had pulled this sort of trick before, falling stupid in love with a stranger and threatening to set up house with her. His business—running an icehouse—required that he travel to conventions, where he got caught up in the excitement. He was a passionate man, clearly. When I was three, he fell for a woman who hailed from the world of dry ice and shipping, but she decided not to leave her husband, and he returned to Evie and me. After that, there were other zealous flirtations, but nothing stuck. He met the Ice Sculptress at an overnight trade show in Denver. After just under thirty-six hours in her marvelous company, he came home, packed up all his shit and was gone for good. For whatever it’s worth, they have a son and a daughter together and he hung tight and watched them grow up.

I spread my hands. “The Lord works in mysterious ways?”

“Something like that,” he said. “My mama is gone.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, and contemplated his palms. “I appreciate you,” he said. “Carrying her for me.”

“You know I got you,” I said.

“Tell Celestial I miss her. Tell her I said thank you for singing.”

“No problem,” I said again, pushing up from my chair.

“Dre,” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But she’s my wife. Remember that.” Then he smiled, big and broad, revealing a dark gap. “I’m just kidding, man. Tell her I asked after her.”