The Blackbirds (19 page)

Kwanzaa raised her hands as she danced. Sang. Made her hair move
side to side. She sipped. Rocked her ass against the stranger. The thump of the beat, the bump in his pants, the way he moved as she moved, it intensified her growing arousal. Soon she leaned back into him, closed her eyes, took a deep breath. She inhaled him. His aroma was magnetic. His scent was lush herbaceous notes dancing with elegant woods and rosemary. She looked at his lips. She imagined the softness of his lips against the softness of hers as curious tongues crossed borders into unknown lands. His nose was broad, but small, just like hers. His hair was long and natural, not like hers, but like hers had been once upon a time. She envied his mane, its power, its sensuality, its length, and hated she had ever butchered hers to the point of humiliation.

The stranger leaned in closer and it looked like he wanted to kiss her neckline, but instead put his mouth close to her ear, so close she could feel the tickle, the vibrations from his direct words. In a kind and intelligent voice he asked if she wanted to go to his place so they could be alone. It felt as if his full lips had grazed her ear as his provocative words moved to her brain and her breath caught in her throat.

Articulate, confident, maybe arrogant, with a voice that echoed intelligence, maybe postgraduate work. She swept the beautiful hair from her face, scoffed, considered shutting this down before it became a problem. He had gone too far. It was just dirty dancing. She wasn't bartering for drinks. Men would make all women whores, even a barista, if possible.

Kwanzaa was going to go find a spot and dance by herself, but again she stared at the non-talkative, tall, and well-built guy in Hugo Boss. He smelled so damn good. She focused on the handsome mane. His hair was long, pulled back from his face, into a heroic ponytail. She reached and made his mane fall loose. He didn't protest. It cascaded across his shoulders. Samson. Hercules. Maybe the blood of the Chippewa Indians. Over the loud music, she heard a collective sigh, a longing from the three-sheets-to-the-wind and sober women who had a clear view, and men who loved to be with men.

Kwanzaa trembled as tingles erupted and created a magnificent fire.

Letting his powerful mane down had an effect on her, made her lick her lips, then desire for all lips to be licked. Tonight when she had left home she had convinced herself that she had put barbed wire across her
sex. But that barbed wire had been loosened by cosmos and was being tugged away by Hugo Boss, breath by breath.

A man so desirable was enough to turn queens into educated fools, make a churchgoing woman lose her religion from dusk to dawn.

The room was filled with one-nighters. Go home, have sex, be done before sunrise. She wondered if this was the type of existence she was destined to lead, one of those who led a dual, vampire-like lifestyle after the sun had set on Sunset. Nighttime was when they left their pedestrian lives to feed their nocturnal desires, then returned back to their metaphorical coffins to sleep a few moments, or drink energy drinks, before the sun yawned and they headed to work with the rest of the walking dead.

But her engagement had ended. It was time to move on, even if that meant moving into deeper, darker, uncharted waters.

She touched the stranger's magnificent hair again, then extended her exquisite fingernails to the metrosexual man who wore Hugo Boss. Without a word, communicating through affirmative body language, she capitulated to his request. She was a grown woman and knew what grown men desired, and she craved the same salaciousness to quench her neglected carnality. She was tired of making love to herself, imagining a man she needed to forget. What Hugo Boss offered, she wanted as part of her celebration, a present to herself. She would be his and he would be hers for a few moments.

She wondered if this was the way it had been with Marcus Brixton and the Chilean
thot
. She wondered if the Chilean
thot
had felt this way when she went to enjoy someone else's man.

Kwanzaa retrieved her car from valet parking, then pulled to the side and waited while Hugo Boss reclaimed his car. She thought about her parents. The way they behaved now, the way they presented themselves to their children, was not the way they had behaved when they were her age or younger. In their youth, nights like this, what she was doing now, this had been her parents' behavior as well. Clubs. Drinks. The search for companionship, if they had no companion to get them through the night, that was what Friday and Saturday was all about, especially for the college student. She had heard the tales, and had heard her mother in the middle of girl-talk with her friends, so she knew that her mother never had been a saint. Her mother had been just as restless. She had been because that was the design of a woman. That was why many of her friends had rushed to get married, or already had a baby, if not babies. That was why women were unfaithful. That was why there were so many women lined up on Sunset to get into the same places where music throbbed like randy clits. The need for sex, because the body needed what the body needed, and man was better than a hand, and a boy was better than a toy.

This was why she had needed Marcus. To avoid nights like this.

Now she had elected a stranger to be her lover.

Countless frat parties were going on, but she wasn't a frat party girl. Too many frat boys handed out Cosby-tinis and became gangbangers. She didn't want to go through what Destiny had gone through. She couldn't even imagine the horror of waking up after that assault.

If this went wrong, at least his credit card number was on file at Starbucks.

If she needed to find him after tonight, she knew she could.

Without knowing where they were going, she trailed the stranger down Sunset Boulevard, the traffic as thick as oatmeal that had been in the microwave an hour too long. Two lanes of brake lights. Two lanes of headlights. A movie was being filmed, so there were looky-loos. Every person who had a convertible had their top down so they could look like they were the shit.

She followed Hugo Boss through miles of vanity and narcissism, past billboards advertising the latest and hottest television programs, vasectomies, lingerie, lawyers, automobiles, phones, and horrible movies. Then she saw a billboard and slowed down. She saw Marcus Brixton on a billboard, the token Blaxican at a prestigious law firm that was a magnet for minorities.

He hadn't called her. He hadn't saved her from herself. She cursed him in Spanish, damned him in English, gave him the middle finger as she turned on La Cienega, then shadowed Hugo Boss south, away from Hollywood, away from billboards featuring Brixton.

There was something about Hugo Boss. He didn't have porcelain skin, golden eyes, or supernatural gifts, but he was both irresistible and enigmatic.

And other than inviting her to go have sex with him, he hadn't said a word.

But tonight wasn't a night for words.

Daylight was for talking.

Nighttime was about action.

When they were caught at a red light at Cadillac Avenue, across from Kaiser, she took a photo of his silver four-door Elantra. Its license plate's frame announced it had been purchased at Hooman Hyundai of Los Angeles. She contemplated sending a group text to Destiny, Ericka, and Indigo, was going to include the photo of the guy's car and tell the Blackbirds if they didn't hear from her within three hours to send the picture to the LAPD, and to hurry and clear out that bedroom drawer in her apartment where she kept her battery-operated stress-relieving
tools she'd never want her mother and stepfather or her father and stepmother to see. No one would inherit those. She had a bottom drawer filled with things that only a woman would understand, but not things a girl wanted her parents to find. Kwanzaa had her finger on
SEND
, but she didn't want the Blackbirds to know she was finally being slutty. But she was being only as slutty as the good-looking, Hugo Boss–wearing, Starbucks iced coffee–drinking man she followed.

This was her birthday. This was her present. Ericka had Argentina. Indigo had had her two-time girl thing. Even Destiny had a steady boyfriend.

This would be Kwanzaa's story to tell, some wickedness to brag about.

She would have someone to talk about other than Marcus.

As she followed Hugo Boss down the 10 westbound, she hoped he had protection.

She could be done with this iced coffee–drinking customer from Starbucks, could be wayward and celebratory in less time than it takes Domino's to deliver a pizza, rush back home, get showered, change into the amazing outfit she was dying to have on tonight, and spend time laughing and sipping wine with the Blackbirds. She would have fun, live outside the box, and get Marcus Brixton out of her mind.

At least for a few minutes.

She would reel herself back as soon as her initiation into the One-Off Crew was done.

She would go back to being the conservative college student, the barista at Starbucks.

It would be odd seeing Hugo Boss, Mr. Iced Coffee, after whatever happened tonight.

She would have him tonight, would have the man all the Latinas lusted after.

And tomorrow she would request to be put in a different Starbucks, just so she never had to see this stranger again.

On the eve of Kwanzaa's birthday, as I tossed and turned and wondered how and when to tell Hakeem Mitchell that my name wasn't Kismet Kellogg and my real name was Destiny Jones, lies were exposed and my world went to hell.

In the morning, after Kwanzaa had left home, I tied colorful balloons to the rail in front of her door. Kwanzaa had left her crib just before five. She was working what she called the Severe Withdrawal shift at Starbucks. The first cantankerous customers who hurried in for overpriced coffee were addicts who used snarls for words, and most couldn't wait to get online and give the young baristas at her branch bad ratings. They would be outside the doors, or sitting on the patio, frowning, waiting, feenin', checking the time every other second, pulling on the door to make sure Starbucks wasn't open yet. Since Kwanzaa wasn't going to work on her birthday, Ericka, Indigo, and I zoomed by to sing an early happy birthday to her at six thirty in the morning. We wanted to both surprise and embarrass her. Then I zoomed up over to Crenshaw and headed east on Exposition so I could catch my morning classes at USC.

When the classes were done, I studied about two hours before I white-lined my way to job number one. I was already dog tired, was just as cranky and bad-tempered as the first customers, and I had many miles to go before I slept, because I had to be up to celebrate Kwanzaa's birthday moment. I wasn't going to let her down.

The night before, I had spent a few hours updating fourteen Amazon Fire Sticks and doing the same on boxes for six Amazon Fire TVs, all I
had bought online at Gizmodo. I sent out individual text messages to my customers from Kismet Kellogg, told them to hit the ATMs and have legal tender in hand because the devices had been upgraded. I reassured them that it was legal and they could get rid of cable and save at least two hundred a month, plus cancel Hulu and Netflix and pocket those coins as well, and for less than one month's cable bill, have absolutely-positively-free-with-no-strings-attached access to over four thousand channels worldwide, every sport, and porn sites from all around the world so they could see that the same things they do in America they do in the rest of the world as well, only with an accent.

One teenage customer, a magnet-school Westside boy, said, “I'm short on cash.”

“Your issue, not mine.”

He offered two hundred in premium Kush for the eighty-dollar Fire Stick.

I asked, “Are you a police officer or working with any part or aspect of law enforcement?”

The guy laughed, said he wasn't, and then asked me the same thing. We shook hands, then he ran to his momma's car to get the Kush, stole it from her stash. His problem, not mine.

I delivered all I had to sell within thirty minutes by having customers meet me in the parking lot at Home Depot on Slauson and Fairfax. That done, tax-free money lining my pocket, I sped toward Baldwin Hills and Dad's trilevel town home, where he had the AC on and was jamming Marvin Gaye's “I Want You.”

I entered the house dancing, singing with Marvin, being silly, doing a cha-cha with my old man, and that cha-cha changed to us Chicago Steppin'. When the song ended, I realized I'd left the steroids and other meds that I had bought on my last run across the border into Tijuana in my apartment on the kitchen table.

My dad said, “It's no biggie about the extra steroids, baby girl.”

“It is to me, because I need to know this is handled, Old Man Keith Jones.”

“Old?”

“
Keith
, you're kicking fifty. Just because you've turned hipster and
wear slim jeans, 1000 Mile boots, fitted T-shirts, and cool fedoras, just because you look like you're thirty-going-on-twenty-nine, doesn't mean you're thirty-going-on-anything. You are still old. You're dinosaur old. You're so old you were sitting next to Abe Lincoln that night he went to the theater. Jesus' babysitter used to babysit you too. You're older than the seventh day. You're older than racism. You actually heard the Big Bang. Should I keep on going, Old Man Keith Jones?”

He massaged his pepper-with-a-teaspoon-of-salt goatee.
“Destiny Jones,
my one and only child,
ain't ya heard?
Ain't nothing old in my house but money and your lame jokes.”

“Dad. No. Don't ever talk like that. You are so not cool.”

“If there's anyone cooler than me, they must be naked in Iceland.”

“You're older than MTV, BET, and almost older than TV.”

“I'm the same number of years in front of you now as I was the day you were born.”

“Dad, you're older than the Internet, cable, and push-button phones. When you were a child, clothes hadn't been invented and you used two cans and a string to make a phone call.”

“No, we didn't. We clacked dinosaur bones together to send messages.”

“Right. You invented Morse code and Samuel Morse stole your idea and got the credit.”

“You're getting old now.”

“Never.”

“Soon you'll be out of USC and starting your own family.”

“Afraid not. After undergrad comes master's, then PhD.”

“You'll never be smarter than me. You know that, right?”

“Anyway, Poppa Poppa bo bappa. Now let's be serious. You look okay, but I really need you to tell me how we're doing in this fight with cancer. I want you to be comfortable at all times.”

“I am fine at the moment. I only take the steroids when it gets bad.”

“What level of discomfort are you at now?”

“About level three. If it gets to be about a five, I take the meds.”

“I have more for you just in case.”

“I'm good for now.”

“No, you're not. I'll ask one of the Blackbirds to drop the package off like last time.”

“No, I can wait another day.”

“I will have it dropped off. I'll text the Blackbirds and they will make it happen.”

“On to important issues. You bring the books I wanted?”

“I did. But one more thing first.”

I reached into my pocket, took out the two hundred dollars' worth of Kush I had traded a Fire Stick for. I tossed it to him, told him not to ask any questions so I wouldn't have to lie. Then I opened my backpack and took out copies of
33 A.D., 61 A.D.,
and
79 A.D
., a vampire trilogy by David McAfee. My old man smiled like it was his birthday instead of Kwanzaa's.

He said, “You picked up all three?”

“Sure did. Bought copies for Kwanzaa's birthday too.”

Dad said, “Best vampire series on the market.”

“Kwanzaa said it's better than
Twilight
, and she is a hardcore
Twilight
fan.”

“Vampires that sparkle, go to school, dress like a Gap commercial, and date are not vampires. This is the real deal.”

“Dude was over a hundred, dating a girl in high school, and no one called him a perv.”

“Yeah. I guess he would be seen as a perv attracted to a young woman.”

“She was under eighteen and he was over one hundred. That's gross.”

“I guess that would be like George Burns dating Kim Kardashian.”

“Outside of that being a street by the Beverly Center, I have no idea who George Burns is.”

“I'm telling my age.”

“You sure are, old man.”

“I will start these as soon as I finish reading the biography on Phan Châu Trinh.”

“The Vietnamese Martin Luther King Jr.”

“You could call him that, but he had some Garvey and Malcolm X in
his philosophies too. No one leader's plan has ever been the right plan, but it takes a combination of ideologies, and those have to, at times, remain flexible. Trying what we did in the '60s will no longer work.”

“Dad, don't start. Please, don't start. Don't make me slit my wrists. You know I will.”

He laughed.

I borrowed one of his fedoras, pulled it on.

He laced up his 1000 Mile boots and grabbed another stylish fedora.

We climbed into his SUV. He didn't look ill, but he was weak. Cancer lived within his body and hadn't revealed itself fully outside. He looked normal to most, but I knew the truth.

I tried to be the best daughter because I had the best dad ever.

I refused to lose him to any disease.

On the corner of La Brea and Rodeo Road, across from Target, was a large billboard hovering over the epicenter of the black and brown community, an area that existed on the edges of Culver City and its other social strata. The billboard had the image of a brown-skinned boy, the hue that had become the symbol of all things wrong in the United States of America. A line was drawn down the middle of his face, depicting two lives, two choices. On the left side his skin was darker, as if that were both a reality and rigid metaphor, and announced the cost of incarceration was sixty-three thousand dollars. On the right side, the other half of his brown skin looked more white than brown, and it said that the cost of education was ninety-one hundred dollars. When a person of color stood before the court, no matter how she had been wronged, America loved to choose the left side.

My father saw me staring at the billboard.

He said, “All of these areas, Blair Hills, Windsor Hills, View Park, Baldwin Hill, all of them have the name of white developers. We are living where the Europeans tried to build their own world, had laws that kept the black man out, then were angered and left when the black man was allowed to have land. We're all living where the white man had built Whiteville after Whiteville, and I bet every white developer would want his name erased, or moved to some other area.”

“I know. You've said that one thousand kazillion billion trillion times.”

“And now this area, every avenue that touches MLK or Crenshaw, is part of the prison-to-pipeline system. That billboard, the prison side is profitable to the rich man, and the rich man uses the prison system as his way of controlling the population of the black man by no longer having him available to the black woman, or no longer having the black woman available to the black man. The government invented AIDS to control the black population and that backfired, the same way it backfired when they tried to kill the Native Americans by giving them smallpox-infected blankets. They are the coconspirators that have allowed prisons to be built and the court to fill them with modern-day slaves. They didn't see you, Destiny. They didn't hear your case or your cries. The racist system just saw another victim for the system. That's why they tried to try you as an adult, but failed. They wanted you to lose every chance you had to make it in this world. They wanted to use you as an example. Education is not profitable for those who build the industrial prison complexes. That's what we were fighting. The black man has had to have laws made to allow him to do what the white man is naturally able to do. And when we do what they do and they hate it, they make laws that make it illegal for us to have the same right. Laws are not for the rich, because they commit the same wrongs and never see a day in jail, but to control the poor.”

“Dad. Please. Not now. I can't do a conspiracy theory right now.”

“It's not a theory. The government gave black men syphilis. Evil gets pretty evil. Slavery. Black Codes. Jim Crow. Now prisons.”

“Not now, Dad.”

“You okay?”

“Will be. I have no other choice but to be okay.”

In a flash, I remembered when it felt like I had no freedom, when it seemed like I'd never have freedom again, being barked at like an animal, being told when to go to bed, when to get up.

My dad put his hand on mine. His fatherly touch pulled me back to freedom.

I put my eyes back on the road, took three deep breaths, tried to leave Hoosegow in the back of my mind.

“Dad, I love you.”

Without hesitation he responded, “I love you too. I love you more than anything.”

“I know.”

“Then that's what matters.”

“I know.”

“That's what gets us to the other side of every problem.”

“Including this one.”

“Including this one.”

No matter the universe, my dad loved me and I loved him.

That would never change.