An American Marriage(62)

“But I don’t really know,” Andre said, thinking aloud. “He feels like everything was taken from him—his job, his house, his wife—and he wants all his shit back. He can’t get his job back; corporate America waits for no man, let alone a black man. But he’s going to want his marriage back, like you have been in cold storage all these years. So now it’s my job to snatch the fantasy away.” He motioned to take in our houses, our bodies, maybe even our city. “I feel guilty as hell. I can’t lie.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“For what?” he asked, slipping his arms around my waist.

“Since I could remember, my father has told me how lucky I was. How I never had to struggle. How I eat every day. How nobody has ever called me ‘nigger’ to my face. He used to say, ‘Accident of birth is the number one predictor of happiness.’ Once Daddy took me to the emergency room at Grady, so I could see how poor black folks are treated when they got sick. Gloria was mad when I came home, eight years old, shook to the bone. But he said, ‘I don’t mind living in Cascade Heights, but she needs to know the whole picture.’ Gloria was furious. ‘She is not a sociological test case. She is our daughter.’ Daddy said, ‘Our daughter needs to know things, she needs to know how fortunate she is. When I was her age . . .’ My mother cut him off. ‘Stop it, Franklin. This is how progress works. You have it better than your daddy and I have it better than mine. Don’t treat her like she stole something.’ To which my daddy said, ‘I’m not saying that she stole it. I just want her to know what she has.’ ”

Dre shook his head as though my memories were his own. “You deserve your life. There are no accidents—of birth or anything else.”

Then I kissed him hard and sent him on his way to Louisiana, like I was sending him off to war.





Roy PO Box 973


Eloe, LA 98562

Dear Walter, Hello from the other side. Ignore the return address on this letter because I don’t know where I’ll be by the time you get this. Right now, I’m in a rest stop outside of Gulfport, Mississippi, where I’m going to get a room for tonight. Tomorrow morning, I’ll head to Atlanta to find Celestial and see if I have any life left there. It could go either way. I don’t think I’m making too much of the fact that she didn’t divorce me, and this time tomorrow I will know.

I have money in my pocket, and I’m grateful for that. When I was a boy, I had a little savings account. I went to the branch this past Tuesday to clean it out, and there I experienced a minor miracle. Olive stopped adding to my commissary after it was clear that Celestial was handling that, so she started saving for my future. The money she made from selling cakes on Saturdays, she put away for me, so I have nearly $3,500. This means I don’t have to show up on Celestial’s doorstep like a homeless person. But that’s what I am, I guess. But at least I don’t have to be a broke homeless person.

Celestial doesn’t know that I’m coming and I’m glad that I don’t have to hear your wisdom on that! It’s complicated, but she sent Andre to Eloe to come and collect me. By my calculations, he should be hitting the highway first thing tomorrow morning. This is why I didn’t tell her I was coming. I need to see her by herself, not with Dre hanging around. I’m not saying that there is anything between them, but I’m saying that there has always been something between them. You know what I mean? Or am I the one being a Junior Yoda? But the point is that I need to talk to her without anyone blocking. So if he drives way out to Louisiana, it will take him another day to get back. So that gives me two days to get done what I need to do.

Admit it. It’s a smart plan.

Maybe I am your kid after all.

Anyway, I’m going to put some of this money on your books. Don’t spend it all in one place (ha!). And take care of yourself. And if you can, pray for your boy.

Roy O.





Three

Generosity





Andre


We were not abandoning him. We were not telling him that he was unwelcome. I was to go to Eloe, and we were going to sit down, alone, and talk. I would explain that Celestial and I had been seeing each other for the last two years, that we were engaged. But this didn’t mean he didn’t have a home to go to. If he wanted to settle in Atlanta, we would set him up with an apartment, whatever he needed to get on his feet. I was to stress how glad we were that he was out and how grateful we are to finally see justice done. Celestial suggested the word forgive, but I couldn’t give her that. I could ask for understanding. I could ask for temperance, but I wouldn’t ask him to forgive me. Celestial and I were not wrong. It was a complex situation, but we were not on our knees before him.

Right before we drifted off to sleep, Celestial murmured, “Maybe I need to go, be the one to tell him.”

“You got to let me do this,” I said.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all I had, that and a Styrofoam cup leaching chemicals into my truck-stop coffee.

Once I exited the interstate, I handled my vehicle like I was taking my driver’s exam. The last thing I needed was to attract police attention, especially on the back roads of Louisiana. If it could happen to Roy, it could happen to me. Besides my conspicuous skin, my car was a stunner. I’m a humble man about most things; I care nothing for kicks, and Celestial sometimes throws away my favorite old shirts when I’m not looking. But I do like myself a fine vehicle. The truck—Mercedes M-Class—had gotten me pulled over a half-dozen times in the last three years, and once I was even slammed against the hood. Apparently, make plus model plus race equaled drug dealer, even in Atlanta. But this was mostly when I drove through neighborhoods that were all-out hood, or hood-ish, although tony suburbs like Buckhead weren’t safe either. You know what they say: if you go five miles outside of Atlanta proper, you end up in Georgia. You know what else they say? What do you call a black man with a PhD? The same thing you call one driving a high-end SUV.