The Black Kids(56)

CHAPTER 15


MORGAN WAILS LIKE somebody’s died, and I guess maybe she’s kinda got a point, ’cause that store was an important part of all of us. Right now, I feel it a little more like a missing appendage, and she feels it like a ruptured spleen or a punctured lung. My dad walks around dazed, as though something pulsing and vital has been ripped from inside.

“Everyone’s okay,” my dad says, like he’s trying to convince himself.

“Everyone’s not okay!” Morgan screams.

“I’m gonna go pick Ronnie up.” My father searches around for his keys.

“Lemme come with you,” Morgan says.

“No. You stay here,” he says, and heads out the door.

After days of burning, there’s a heavy smoke cover that’s descended upon the city. Outside feels like a heavy comforter I want to kick off. But inside feels oppressive in its own way too, with Morgan’s sad wafting through and filling up every room. Finally, in spite of the news warnings about the shitty air quality, I decide to go for a run, lungs be damned.

For the most part, ours is the kind of neighborhood where teenage girls feel safe running. Just a few weeks ago, I got sprayed by a skunk. My parents were out of town, and when I called her, Jo said to bathe in tomato sauce. It looked like a horror movie when I popped up out of the tub. It didn’t work, though, because after that, instead of skunk, I smelled like SpaghettiOs. Skunks aside, there was a brief period of time before I was born when people were afraid of a band of crazy white people in quiet canyons, but I’m not a famous person, and those murders weren’t in our canyons. Usually, I’m more afraid of the mountain lions or rabid coyotes than people. I don’t expect to run into my mother, who maybe scares me a bit too.

My mother is in her jogging clothes and sweaty, but she’s also having a secret cigarette. She took up smoking when she and my dad were having marital problems a few years back and quit when I guess they decided things weren’t so bad after all. My mom and dad spent the better part of two years yelling nastiness at each other throughout the house, him cornering her, her cornering him, until I grew to hate angles and all the anger they could store. It’s like for years at a time they barely talked to each other, or they talked only enough to fight. Whenever Jo and I would try to stop their fighting, they would tell us it was none of our business. But they were fighting so loud we couldn’t sleep, so it kinda was. Jo said of their fights, “Different monsters, same shadows.” And yet somehow they didn’t give up on each other. Anyway, I didn’t even know my mother still had cigarettes around. That’s how I know she’s really worried about Jo, even if she refuses to do anything about it.

“You’re smoking,” I say.

She takes a last drag and extinguishes it under her road-battered Nikes.

“Nasty habit,” she says. “Don’t let me catch you doing it.”

“I hear it makes your morning shits great, though.”

My mother looks at me quizzically. “What on earth…?”

“Never mind,” I say.

“The Parkers came over early this morning,” she says slowly. “They were very angry. Somebody shot out their tires last night. Do you happen to know anything about that?”

It takes everything in me not to burst out laughing. I shake my head.

“That’s what I thought. I told them my daughter would never do anything like that,” she says, and then we both start to laugh.

We’re almost to the house when we see the straggly coyote and her cubs walking across the street. They amble along, sniffing at trash cans. My neighbor’s Pomeranian barks at them from the window and the mama coyote’s ears perk up, but for the most part she seems unbothered.

My mother splays her arm protectively across my chest, like we’re in a car coming to an abrupt halt. Coyotes don’t bother you, mostly, but anybody with sense knows not to mess with a mother and her babies.

“Stop. Don’t move,” my mother says, and it’s the closest I’ve felt to her in years.



* * *




Uncle Ronnie’s only a little banged up. There’s a cut across his forehead from the glass that shattered as the looters burst inside. As they surged forth, he tumbled backward over the window ledge and sprained his arm, which is in a sling. He rests his back across a giant heating pad but has a big bag of frozen peas folded across his shoulder. Morgan sits next to him on the couch, looking dutiful and forlorn.

My mother gently places her hand on Uncle Ronnie’s shoulder as she walks by. “I’m glad you’re okay, Ronnie.”

“Thanks, Val.” He places his hand on top of hers and pats it. Then my mother disappears into the house to shower.

“You’re covered in sweat.” Morgan crinkles up her nose at me, and I pretend to wring my shirt out on her.

“Come here, babygirl.” Uncle Ronnie reaches out his arms and hugs me so that the bag of peas smashes into my face. “Let me hug my favorite niece.”

“Am I really your favorite?” I say.

“You’re the one who’s here right now.” He belly laughs, then grimaces. “So… yes.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I say.

“Daddy, do you need new peas?” Morgan says, and I laugh ’cause it’s kinda funny, but nobody else seems to think so.