When No One Is Watching(53)
Miss Ruth doesn’t look happy about being denied gossip about Sydney’s ex. I’m bummed about it, too.
“You can’t ask your mother?” Fitzroy asks.
“Yolanda is not well, remember?” Gracie chides, and Fitzroy startles. Her glower dissolves into a pitying smile when she turns to Sydney. “Fitzroy is more like Forgets-roy these days. Ignore him. We all do.”
Sydney nods tightly, then blinks a few times and says, “It’s fine. I do have stories from my mother, but do any of you have fun facts about the neighborhood or people who lived here that I can use for my tour?”
“I have stories, but not ones you can use,” Miss Ruth says, and they all laugh.
Fitzroy scratches at his bald head.
“I came here before your mother, I believe. In seventy-two,” Fitzroy says. “I bought my home from a Jamaican man who worked at one of the Black real estate agencies. I think, now, all the white agencies come and push them out, too. And then they sell to the white people. But a few years ago, it was mostly us selling, and mostly us buying. At least on Gifford Place.”
Between this and Kendra Hill’s conversation, I’m realizing that I’d never thought much about Black communities, or Black people, really.
I had, of course, but in the same way I think about the U.S. Postal Service. It exists, and functions, mostly, but I don’t know the nuts and bolts of how things get delivered. When I think of a Black community, the first thing that comes to mind—even if I don’t want it to—is crime. Drugs. Gangs. Welfare. That’s all the news has talked about since I was a kid. Not old people drinking tea. Not complex self-sustaining financial systems that had to be created because racism means being left out to dry.
“You have to own property. You have to,” Gracie says. “My father always told us that. That’s why they don’t like to sell to us, you know? Making up stories about property value dropping like they aren’t the ones who decide the value.” She makes a derisive noise. “Truth is, if you own, you have power. That’s why they always try to strip it away.”
“Listen to all this capitalist talk,” Miss Ruth says with a head toss. “What we need is revolution.”
“Ruth, you own five houses. Don’t even start,” Candace says severely. “Your head would be the first on the block on this block.”
Ruth shrugs. “I play on the game board I’m given, Candace. At least if I sell four of the houses, maybe I’ll be able to pay the property taxes on the fifth. They can pry my house from my cold, dead fingers.”
“Ah, that reminds me of a story, Sydney.” Fitzroy nods. “When the blackout happened, way back when. I had to stand in front of my house with my cricket bat. Said, ‘Booooy, you wanna try it you can try it’ to every knucklehead who tried to take what I had worked for. Not a window was shattered, not a plant pot was overturned.” He laughs deeply and then coughs, and Candace walks over, picks up his cup, and holds it to his mouth so he sips.
“The blackout a few years back?” I ask.
“No, there was one in seventy-seven,” Sydney says. “There was looting and all kinds of wild stuff.”
“Looting.” Gracie snorts delicately.
“Yeah,” Sydney continues. “My mom told me the TV we had when I was a kid was one she ‘found on the street’ in front of an electronics store during the blackout.”
All of the older people around the table chuckle.
“Well, I don’t know how she got that TV, but I do know that someone stepped to your mama while she sat on the porch smoking and watching the madness,” Fitzroy says. “That man ended up dancing away from the end of her revolver. I thought I was doing something with my cricket bat, and she was over there ready to shoot.”
Candace laughs. “Oh, you know Yolanda’s folks were those Virginians.”
“She never told me that,” Sydney says, bittersweet laughter in her voice. “But I can imagine it. She told me she wasn’t raised to take mess but she knew how to clean it up.”
“I can’t believe I don’t know anything about this blackout,” I say, itching to pull out my phone but not wanting to be rude. “What caused it?”
“It was on purpose,” a quiet voice says, and when I look across the table, Paulette is staring at me. Her dark eyes are hard, and her voice doesn’t have a Caribbean lilt, but sounds more like an imitation of a New York accent from an old movie. “They wanted us to destroy everything, so they could come in and fix it. Turned off the lights. Started trouble in the dark. They got a foot back in the door then, a toe, but it wasn’t enough damage. After that the drugs came, all of a sudden, and the violence, and the cops. Breaking everything down, so they could come in and build it up for themselves.”
Candace sighs into the heavy silence after that statement. “When I said Paulette don’t talk much, I meant when she does, it’s illuminati mess from watching too many YouTube videos.”
Paulette’s gaze hasn’t swerved from mine. “He knows. He’s one of them, always sneaking around at night, always watching. Here to break and build, break and build.” Her voice is rising steadily, gaining strength. “Race riots, they call them, but who started them? Why would we? Who profited? He’s one of them!”