The Kindest Lie(4)
“Just breathe,” Dr. Joshi said. “I’m looking for the strings.” The cold instrument pulled and stretched her vaginal walls. “Okay, got them.”
With her eyes closed, Ruth balled her fists as the IUD slid through the opening of her cervix. She sighed loudly, not realizing she’d been holding her breath. When her eyes fluttered open, she saw Xavier’s smile hovering over her and then felt Dr. Joshi prying her fingers open to press ibuprofen into her hand.
“You did just fine.” Xavier brushed her twists off her forehead so he could kiss her. A look passed between her husband and her doctor, one of satisfaction, as if they were in cahoots and some long-ago-conceived plan had finally come together.
On the train ride home, Ruth wrapped her arms around her stomach. The el careened around a sharp turn, its roar and rumble vibrating inside her, aggravating her cramps.
Xavier said, “You know we’d kill the parenting game, right?” He nudged her with his thigh. “Our first son should be Xavier Jr. Carry on my name.”
Ruth swallowed her unease and played along. “Mmm. And if it’s a girl, how about Xena?”
Xavier frowned. “What kind of name is Xena?”
“Xena, the Warrior Princess? Hello? Any girl of mine will be a fighter. She needs a fierce name.”
“Okay, if we’re going the cinematic route, let’s go real old school. When we have our second and third daughters, every one of them will just be Madame X. Kind of like George Foreman naming all his kids George.”
Ruth punched his arm lightly. “First of all, what makes you think I’m birthing all these babies? And if I’m doing nine months of hard labor, the baby will have some variation of my name.”
“As long as none of the boys is named Rufus, I’m cool,” he said.
Up until now, their discussions about children resembled the way they talked about taking a trip to Antarctica. It made for good dinner table conversation, but they never called a travel agent or booked a flight. But this time, when Xavier slung his strong arm around her shoulders, she pictured those arms guiding their child’s swing of a baseball bat or pushing a little one off on a two-wheel bike for the first time.
“We can do this, babe,” he said. “It’s time.”
She closed her eyes and rested her head against the window, letting those fantasies marinate, when a commotion at the front of the train forced them both to sit up in their seats.
A Black boy sat cross-legged on the train floor beating a five-gallon yellow bucket. He lowered his head until his long locs swung in a furious rhythm, thick ropes slapping the sides of the bucket, loose and free and defiant.
When he turned his face, Ruth recognized him as one of the drummer boys who often tapped out beats for tips on the el platform. Never on the train, though, like this. Usually, the bucket boys were older, not boys with baby faces, but men in their early twenties. This boy couldn’t have been more than fifteen.
Instinctively, Ruth glanced at the other passengers to gauge their reactions. A few white folks smiled appreciatively or simply stared, mildly curious at this oddity. Others jammed earbuds into their ears, pretending they didn’t hear the drumming or see the boy.
A middle-aged Black woman pumped her fists in the air and swiveled her hips in her seat. “All right now. Do that thing. Yes, we can,” she said, echoing the familiar Obama campaign slogan, the high from that night still sweetening the air.
The door to the train car in front of them swung open. A white police officer in uniform walked down the aisle. Xavier stiffened in the seat beside her.
Many of the bucket boys came from housing projects near Bronzeville, and they were in and out of jail, often simply for drumming in the wrong places in front of people who didn’t embrace their entrepreneurial spirit.
Ruth felt the tension in Xavier tightly coiled, as if he might spring into action. She put her hand on his arm and he flinched. Burying her nails in his skin, she tried to silently telegraph to him not to move.
Her eyes stayed on the gun in the cop’s holster.
She thought about her brother and how, when he was nineteen, a cop had stopped him for speeding and found a dime bag of weed in his car. Not a lot of weed. But enough to send Eli to jail for three weeks. A stupid kid move on his part, but not criminal enough to do time. Since that day, just the sight of a cop made her skin itch.
No one on the train moved. They stayed quiet, whatever they had to say pushed down inside them by fear or shock or something else.
The only sounds: the clatter of the train swerving along the tracks and the loud, insistent drumming.
The boy, so carried away by the music he was making, hadn’t noticed the cop.
Or the toe of his black boot almost touching the rim of the bucket. Not until the cop stomped. Hard, loud.
The sticks went still and fell to the floor. The boy’s eyes, brown and wide with fear, slowly traveled upward and stopped at the officer’s gun in its holster.
“Hey, kid. Get up! What the hell do you think this is?” The officer’s hands rested on his waist, inches from his baton and gun. Ruth heard Xavier mutter under his breath, “Don’t fight. Just do what he says,” and she squeezed his arm.
Frozen, the boy sat there for a few seconds without moving. The officer stomped his boot again. “Are you deaf and dumb? I said get up, or I’ll haul your ass to jail.” This time the boy scrambled to his feet, tucking the bucket under his arm. He didn’t make eye contact with anybody. When the train lurched to a stop, he scurried off, the cop right behind him.