Long Division(79)

I watched Baize and Shalaya Crump hug for what felt like ten minutes. Neither of them wanted to let go. But eventually Baize did. “I’ll holler at y’all soon. Wipe away that stank face,” she said. “I understand. I’ll be back.”

I took Baize’s hand and walked toward the hole, away from Shalaya Crump and Evan. I wanted so bad not to turn around and watch them watch us leave.

“Bye,” Shalaya Crump said. “Maybe we’ll see y’all tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

Baize started to turn her head, but I tightened my grip on her hand and pulled her toward the hole.

“Forget tomorrow,” I said loud enough for Shalaya Crump and Evan to hear as we walked off.


When Baize and I got in the hole, I pulled out a book of matches I’d taken from Evan’s brother. There were three matches left in the book. I struck one of the matches and gave it to her. Baize looked at me like we tied for last in the longest uphill three-legged race in the world. We slumped against the sides of the hole and both slid down to the ground. She leaned her head on my right shoulder.

“City?”

“Yeah, Baize.”

Baize buried the left side of her face in my shoulder so I wouldn’t see the tears flooding the gutters of her right eye. All the tears that didn’t fall onto her computer fell into her mouth. “What happens to us now?” she asked. “I’m so tired.”

“Hold your face up.” I looked up toward the top of the hole to keep my tears from falling. “It’s gonna be okay. Open your computer. Let me hear one of your songs.”

Watching Shalaya Crump love Evan smashed my heart, but lying to my daughter about what was about to happen to her made every living thing in my body just quit. I never knew my father, but Mama tried her hardest to be there for me. When we lived in Jackson, being there for me meant leaving me to stay with my grandmother when she couldn’t handle being just a mother. I didn’t hate on Mama or feel bad for myself because at least I had a Mama who cared, unlike Shalaya Crump, who never knew either of her parents. I loved Melahatchie and Shalaya Crump, but every time Mama dropped me off in Melahatchie, a part of me always expected her to never come back.

I wondered if Baize knew what was coming.

The computer made her face glow blue. She played some instrumental and started rapping the lyrics really low. Not your everyday rapper but everyday is haze. Then she stopped and closed the computer and talked to me in the dark. “I guess we can’t go back to 1964 and all just stay together again, huh?”

“Nah,” I told her, “We’re right where we need to be. And your mama, she’s where she needs to be. We’ll come back one day and see her and she can come back and see us.”

“You know I made the high honor roll every quarter since y’all left, right?”

“I figured,” I said. “Hell, I make the honor roll every now and then and I ain’t nearly ’bout sharp as you are.”

Baize fake giggled to herself. “You wanna stay with me for a while when we get home?” she asked and found my hand in the dark. “I just need to take a nap for a few hours. Here,” she went in her backpack and got out Long Division. “I think you should read this while I’m asleep.”

“Why?” I lit a second match.

“It’s just all starting to make sense now.”

“It does?”

“Yep. You’ll see. Read it from the beginning.”

My match started to burn the tips of my swollen fingers too, so I held it with my fingernails and I looked at Baize’s slick face until the match burned all the way down. I tapped Baize on her leg and let her know that I was about to get up.

“City?”

“Yeah, Baize.”

“I love you.”

“Don’t say that. Not now. Please don’t say that.”

“Why? We took care of each other today, like a father and daughter goon squad are supposed to,” she told me with her voice hollowing out. “I’m just keeping it one hundred. I knew y’all wouldn’t disappear forever.”

“I love you, Baize.”

I turned my face from Baize, closed my eyes, counted to ten by twos, and pushed the door open. Then I climbed all the way out of the hole and, slowly, slowly, slowly, I turned back toward the hole in the ground.

Long Division was in the bottom of the hole, but Baize Shephard was gone. Forever. I made my daughter disappear.





OUR MESS.


I jumped off my knees with I made my daughter disappear still ringing and dusted myself off. Then I looked right in Pot Belly’s crossed red eyes. “Is Baize dead?” I asked him. “How come the last chapter of this book is like 20 blank pages? Look.” I showed both of them the empty pages at the end.

LaVander Peeler wouldn’t touch the book and Pot Belly wouldn’t nod yes or no to my question. “Is Baize really gone?” I got close to Pot Belly’s mouth.

“Don’t do it, City,” LaVander Peeler told me.

I ignored him and pulled the rag out anyway. Pot Belly did this spitting thing before saying, “I ain’t do it, man. I ain’t do it.”

I moved down by his legs and started trying to find a little key that looked like it fit the lock. “Is Baize Shephard dead?” I asked him again. “Is that what ‘disappear’ means?”