He sits with his face bowed in his hands, waiting for his head to clear.
Baby, what’s wrong? Her hand feels out the shape of his back.
Nothing. I get these headaches sometimes. Kickin like a motherfucka. Bars of sunlight edge through the blinds and section the bed. He kicks his feet from beneath the sheets, lifts himself from the bed, and staggers over to the window. He peeps through the blind slats, tinkling like chimes. She watches: The vault of his butt and legs. The wings of his back and sides. And his squarely trimmed hair, a designer trim — not her preference but better than many she’d seen: that soup-bowl shave like the Chinamen in old railroad photos, or the pool-table cut with nappy pool balls and braided sticks — the city’s skyline etched into the back of his head — a round sun miles above skyscrapers and Tar Lake — that mirrors in miniature the view beyond the closed blinds.
What you looking for?
He faces her. His abdominal muscles cobblestones. Yo mamma. He was born in Red Hook. They don’t pull punches. And lately, every word came torn raw and bleeding from his throat.
I don’t play that Mamma stuff.
Alright then. Yo daddy.
Maybe we should stop seeing each other. Never get a boy to do a man’s job.
Who you callin boy?
Yo mamma.
Aw ight.
THEY’D MET, LAST SUMMER, on the bus en route to an assignment. She was looking good that day in her bright green dress that revealed her exact shape — hips flaring out the skirts — and matching pumps, the wide pirate’s belt tightening her already slim waist and sunlight washing her smooth unstockinged legs. She caught many thirsty eyes drinking in every detail of her. The wind blew high, snatching at the dress. Cars pulled over to the curb and drivers signaled or honked their horns. She boarded the bus and found a seat. Across the aisle, her eye-slide caught a fine nigger, smooth, dark, light eyes, good build — every muscle straining to tear through his skin. He saw her watching him. Grinned. Blew her a kiss. Just like that.
Yo, baby. I’m Deathrow and you fly.
Not the best line but better than many she’d heard. Baby, you makin me cry wit that onion between yo thighs … Yo, sugar. Make me a diabetic … I’m the plumber of love, wreckin homes with a foot of pipe … Let’s get butt naked and fuck. But a sin-sweet voice.
No, I’m not fly. My name is Porsha.
Well, Porsha, you got a phone numba?
Maybe. You old enough to count? He was young, but what was that thing about men reaching their sexual peak at nineteen? I’ve been to the mountaintop! (Later, she would discover that he was twenty, older than she had first thought. I always have been bad at math.)
Baby, I can count. Do lotta other things too.
She took him at his word. His eyes were hooded with secrets. Hmmm. I better give it to you then. She produced her business card.
He read it. Body-part model?
Um huh.
What’s that?
I’ll tell you about it.
He put the card in his shirt pocket. Stood and walked into the aisle. She observed his wishbone legs. (Later, whenever he made her angry, she would look at his legs and fuck with him. Hey, cowboy. Forget yo horse?) He stooped over his seat, hauled up a heavy cloth sack, his wares — incense, batteries, socks, scarves, jump ropes, umbrellas, telephone cords, body oils — sticking out the top. Santa Claus, she thought. He faced her. Extended his big hand. Pleasure to meet you.
She took the big hand in her own. A terrible excitement shook her. An old feeling. Ancient. Uncle John would pour popcorn into her girl-small hand—I’m scared, Uncle John—and the pigeons would swoop down and peck and feed. It feel funny, Uncle John. The same, she said.
Deathrow exited the bus, rolling his tight butt.
A PYRAMID OF LIGHT filtered from the projection room, specks of dust dancing in its blinding whiteness, to a wide screen that hemmed in the horizon. Your empty eyes filled up with white moving. Empty ears vesseled words and sounds of black surprise. Deathrow’s face tinged blue and orange by the bright images shifting over it. A perfect first night out. A good-looking man and a low-budget horror movie. Grainy shots of two sisters, a castle, hooded rituals and Latin chants, and a frothing red-fanged witch who drags her victims, pleading, screaming, kicking, and bleeding, into the dark world behind the waxy plane of an oval mirror. Jump to 1940. A woman drives a knife again and again into a second woman prone beneath her on the bed. The mirror watches. Jump to the present. A third woman purchases the mirror at an antique shop. Once home, the mirror menstruates. Masturbates. Moans. Metamorphoses into a cavernous vagina that swallows the pet poodle. A psychic warns the woman not to fuck in front of the mirror. She does so anyway. The mirror swallows her lover. She seeks the psychic’s help. The mirror swallows the psychic. She seeks the help of her best friend. Don’t white folks know when to leave? Jus leave the damn house. The mirror possesses the woman’s best friend, turns her into the red-fanged witch. You worked the popcorn out of your teeth with your tongue. A struggle ensues. The images come together. Form a magical whole. Everything moves. Everything immobile inside you moves. Frame after frame, you watch what your eyes cannot see. The screen gathers in your own image. You feel the electric rush of heat when Deathrow sticks his tongue in the socket of your ear.
THEY HELD HANDS in the late summer light and strolled through Circle Park, forested with a full and secret view of the harbor crowded with visions of amateur sailors and jewel-named ships. Esperanza. María Concepción. Helena Nataría. She walked very close to him, occasionally bumping her hip against his. The sun sank low, from glowing white to dull red, without rays and without heat. They sat close on the grass, Buddha-fashion, beneath low-hanging leaves, sharing bottle after bottle of wine — zinfandel, her favorite, neither sweet nor dry — which they chilled in the river where the last flames of sunlight glided like snakes. She felt the warm wine break a hot path through her stomach, growing hotter and sharper as it moved. Then the sky died down to the color of smoke. Points of light flicked rhythm from the lighthouse. Her breathing reached deep, where no air had ever come.
Damn, I gotta pee, he said. He pushed to his feet, legs heavy with water.
Need some help?
He did not hesitate. Yes.
She stood straight up, managing the wine better than him. Unzipped his pants and took his dick in her hands. What with one thing and another, before she knew it—
IN THE FIRST WEEKS, she discovered his secretive feet. He would keep his socks on during sex; and he would never allow her to see his bare feet. One of life’s greatest pleasures is charting the fine lines on the soles of the feet. She pondered and planned. One day, she asked him to take a bath with her. (She loved baths, would sit in the tub an hour at a time.) They both disrobed. He raised a socked foot, ready to stick it in the water.
Uh oh. Take off your socks.
What?
Who heard of anybody taking a bath with they socks on?
With slow fingers, he removed his socks. And there they were, feet, like badly carved canoes, the sides scarred and rough, the skin mildew brown.
What happened?
Birthmark.
A birthmark?
Yeah. And he never said any more.
AFTER THE FIRST WEEKS, he stopped opening doors for her. Never pulled out a chair to seat her. Walked on the side of the sidewalk farthest away from the street. The man should be near the street. Pappa Simmons had told her that this custom dated back to the days of horse and buggies and unpaved roads. If the wooden wheels of a buggy should spray an angle of mud onto the sidewalk, the gentleman’s body would shield his lady.