The Blackbirds (33 page)

The rest was in court records, seventy-four pages of my life in black and white.

Being arrested was only the tip of the iceberg. That was the kindest thing that had happened during that twenty-four-hour period of my life. Hakeem had gotten off easy. This season, I had been nice, the Kismet that lived inside of me had ruled.

He wasn't a prize, but Kismet had loved him, and love was powerful.

Love made you give an unworthy fool an undeserved break.

I whispered, “Bye-bye, Kismet. Bye-bye.”

Three weeks later, Ericka Stockwell was back at Kaiser on Cadillac.

She was in the basement, in a chair, giving enough blood to fill twelve vials. Tests had to be run. The next day she was back, in the Alliance Imaging trailer that came twice a week, for a positron emission tomography scan. It wasn't her first time having her body injected with a radioactive substance so they could look for disease in her body. After the injection, she had to sit in a cold room alone, wait an hour, thinking, anxious, and then lie on a narrow table that slid into a tunnel-shaped scanner. Ericka closed her eyes, struggled with mild claustrophobia.

She thought about life. She thought about death. Hospitals made people think of both. The same places where babies were born and cried also had freezers in the basements, those rooms quiet. Everyone with the horrific disease was forced to think about the inevitable.

The doctor told her the PET scan would detect signals from the tracer in her blood stream, and a computer would convert the signals into 3-D pictures. The images would be displayed on a monitor for her oncologist to read. She had done this before so she already knew, but she listened anyway. She had to lie still during the test. Too much movement would blur images, cause errors. She wondered why this, of all journeys, was her designated journey.

Kwanzaa's grandparents had both died from cancer; her grandmother had had colon cancer and her grandfather had had throat cancer. Both died long before she was born.

It frightened Ericka. Knowing so many people whose bodies had all but eaten themselves alive, it terrified her like nothing else.

When Ericka left the trailer, she was surprised to see Mr. Jones seated on the patio between the main building on Cadillac and the building on Venice. She had told him she had an appointment, but hadn't expected him to be outside waiting for her. He looked handsome. Tan jeans. His 1000 Mile boots. He rocked a tee that read
PUT DOWN THE GUNS AN
D PICK UP GLOVES
. The image of a gun and boxing gloves in the ring was across his chest.

He gave her a hug.

He touched her and all her emotions rose to the surface.

She didn't want him to let her go. She wanted to cry, but didn't.

She asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I missed you.”

“For real? You missed me?”

He said, “I know you had to fast before your PET scan. Thought you might want to go over on Pico for some chicken and waffles, or go around the corner and eat at Sabores de Oaxaca. If you have time, we could go to the Mad Carrot. Sweet spot I found right off the beach in Playa del Rey. We can walk around after.”

“I would love to kick it with you and add fat to my butt and thighs, Mr. Jones.”

“Scared?”

“Yeah. I don't want to go through this cancer shit again. I can't handle this again.”

“I meant scared of being seen in public with me.”

“Oh. I feel silly now.”

“We're going to be okay, Ericka.”

“I'm trying to not act like I'm concerned, but I am.”

“We're going to be okay.”

“And to answer your question, I'm not scared to be seen with you.”

He said, “I don't want you to be uncomfortable.”

“It's not like we're cheating on anyone.”

“If we're going to kiss, we'd better kiss before we're in public.”

Ericka grinned. “Oh, you want a kiss too?”

“I will at some point. If that's okay with you. Been thinking about kissing you all morning.”

“Can we negotiate the terms?”

“Like it or not, I'm going to kiss you when we get in the garage.”

“If you're going to get a kiss, you have to get a kiss right here.”

“Right here?”

“Right here.”

“You think I won't?”

“Right now.”

“Are you daring me, Miss Stockwell?”

“I'm ordering you. I need you to kiss me. I'm scared.”

Mr. Jones held Ericka Stockwell's face in his hands. As people passed, walking from building to building, as people were pushed in wheelchairs, as ambulances arrived, as people limped toward Urgent Care, as people exited the parking garage, on a clear day, he kissed her.

She asked him, “Do you think we ever get to a point in life where we are as healthy as we will ever be? Where we are as beautiful as we will ever be? When we are as strong as we will ever be? Where anything good that is going to happen to you has already come and gone?”

“You're kissing me. So that means good things are still coming my way.”

Mr. Jones wiped away the tears raining from Ericka's eyes, then kissed her
again.

Ericka escaped her nest, was spending the day with Mr. Jones.

It was three weeks before Destiny Jones's birthday.

That Friday morning, as they rode I-15 through San Bernardino County toward the sunrise, when they were six miles southwest of Baker, California, and one hundred miles from Las Vegas, Nevada, Ericka stopped singing, peeped over her shades toward the Mojave, and saw an exit sign that led to an unincorporated community in the unofficial middle of nowhere.

Excited, she pointed at the sign and shouted, “Z for Zzyzzx.
Z for Zzyzzx
.
Boo-yow
.”

Dressed in jeans and an Iron Man T-shirt, Mr. Jones laughed, rubbed his shaven head, and said, “Damn. I was hoping you missed that
stupid
exit sign. Thought I was going to catch up.”

“You know why the man who lived that way named his street Zzyzzx?”

“To make people spit when they asked for directions?”

“No, but that's probably a better reason than the truth.”

“No idea why anyone would pick that unusual name for an exit to nowhere.”

“So it could be the last word in the English language.”

“The things we do for attention and to feel immortal and smart.”

“I've beat you at the word game four times in a row. I'm bad; I'm bad; who bad? I'm bad.”

“Remind me to bow at your feet.”

“Suck my toes while you're down there.”

“You know I will.”

“That's why I got a pedicure. That foot fetish of yours.”

“I'll stop sucking your toes.”

“You better not. You stop sucking, I stop sucking.”

They were in Ericka's roadster, riding I-15 north toward Sin City to add a little more sin to the city. As Ericka relaxed in the passenger seat, they listened to Babyface and Toni Braxton sing about marriage and divorce. Ericka sang off and on, and at the same time they had played the alphabet game, where they had to find the letters of the alphabet sequentially on objects, buses, cars, billboards, exit signs.
A
is for Arby's.
B
is for Burger King.
C
is for Cudahy.

It was silly, but it was simple and idiot-proof.

Ericka had taken a day off work, had planned the day off two weeks ago, but hadn't told the Blackbirds. She and Mr. Jones had left his condo for Las Vegas at five in the morning.

They had planned to spend the day, eat at the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace, play Blackjack, maybe take in a show, eat at the Bellagio, walk the Strip holding hands, and spend the night kissing, nude, in each other's arms. Ericka smiled. It was their first real date. They were taking a trip together. It would be their first time spending the day and the night together and not worrying about being seen.

They would shower together. They would share a bed.

She asked, “How is your energy?”

“It's not too bad.”

“I can drive. I don't mind driving.”

“I want you to relax, Ericka.”

“I'm fine.”

“How is your energy?”

“The Blackbirds keep me busy, in a good way. Last Saturday morning we did the stairs at Santa Monica, and after that we were on Venice Beach playing two-against-two volleyball in the sand for about an hour and a half, then we drove to Santa Barbara and ate at the Honor Bar. Sunday we went to Racer's Edge and rode the go-karts. The Blackbirds are so competitive.”

“You overdid it.”

“Maybe. I felt a bit exhausted.”

“How's your sleeping?”

“My sleep has been off. Well, not off. Just been giving you all of my extra energy.”

“Don't blame me.”

“The Blackbirds had so much fun last weekend. Two weeks before that, Indigo, Kwanzaa, Destiny, and I were all part of the solidarity walkouts at the Southern California universities.”

“West Coast is emulating the black student movement on the other side of the country.”

“The Blackbirds are supporting positive change, protesting the system.”

“Stand for something, or fall for anything. Many leaders have cried that out to the people.”

“Next week we're going to Loyola Marymount University to listen to professors, lawyers, all types of scholars and activists talk on the caging of the black woman in America. Love my Blackbirds, and I want the world to change, but I need some private time with you. I need to get away from protesting, grading papers, lesson plans, and give you my full attention. Today, I just want to chill out and be a woman with a man doing things a woman does with a man.”

Ericka had been sneaking away from the Blackbirds and spending time with Mr. Jones, as much time as she could. Midnight movies at the Nuart, eating popcorn, chicken empanadas, veggie dogs, and curly fries, while sipping red wine from Argentina and drinking West Coast IPA, then leaving the movie hand in hand. They had gone to a Sunday matinee to see
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,
then sat in Starbucks and critiqued the portrayal of Huey Newton as a borderline psychopath. They had gone to the Hollywood Horror Museum, to see Sonia Sanchez at the American Film Institute, to cafés along the beaches, and to concerts.

She had spent many evenings with Mr. Jones, and not always at his condo.

One evening they had met at Deano's Motel on Sepulveda off the
405 at Venice, where they had cable television and telephones, and the worn signs on the building looked like they had been up since the '70s. Having sexy time in a trashy motel had been on Ericka's bucket list. People at the motel probably thought Mr. Jones was a perverted client because she had dressed up like she was a student from Gryffindor. They had visited three other local motels. She was a hooker from Hufflepuff when they had gone to the Jet Inn on Slauson near Overhill. At the Sea Way Motel on Venice next to Kaiser, sixth-grade schoolteacher Ericka Stockwell was dressed in her provocative Ravenclaw attire. At another motel near LAX she was a sexy student from Slytherin. She was enjoying life. For once she was enjoying the sensual aspect of living.

Great loving and good laughs with a partner in crime who was capable of epic conversations, and gave her friendship, was more than she had ever expected from Mr. Jones.

It wasn't fair that it had arrived this late in her life. She hung on to her denial, refused to let her heart accept what her mind already knew. She would not ruin anyone's birthday. She would pretend until the end.

She looked at the sky, fell into nephelococcygia, the term that meant one looked for and saw shapes in the clouds. She saw hearts. She saw beautiful hearts.

Ericka wore jean shorts and double wifebeaters. She wanted to be sexy for Mr. Jones. Her tennis shoes were off and her right foot was on the dash, seat all the way back, as Mr. Jones drove her toward what felt like a honeymoon retreat. Her legs spread just enough to give her lover a glimpse of the makings of the Promised Land. Ericka had been smiling and laughing and flirting since she had arrived at Mr. Jones's home early in the morning. She had had sex with him to start the day, a nice ten-minute groove, showered, and headed to the car so they could beat as much traffic as possible. She used to be quiet around Mr. Jones, timid, but now she felt like she was full of words, had so many things to say to him, wanted him to know everything about her.

A little nervous, she asked, “Where did you tell Destiny you were going?”

“I told her I had to go out to Palm Springs for an engineering conference. You?”

“I haven't told the Blackbirds anything. I packed my bag three days ago and left it in my car, so when I left this morning, all they saw me carrying was the usual stuff I take to work.”

“So, I guess you're being bad and metaphorically sneaking out of the window.”

“I guess I am. I guess at some point everyone needs to get away from everyone.”

“You need to tell them something.”

“Jesus. We act like we're plotting against the government.”

“Overthrowing the government might be easier.”

“I'll group text and say I met a handsome man and I'm going to screw his brains out.”

Mr. Jones laughed. “I think you did that a while ago, Miss Stockwell.”

Ericka said, “They are so busy studying, they won't miss me.”

They rode a few miles, music playing, and for a while Ericka talked about work, the inner-city children, the problem children with problem parents, the incompetent teachers, the stress management that received little to no accolades, explained to Mr. Jones how she was a counselor and a mother to not only her classroom, but also to almost every black child on the campus. She had become a mother to many. At times she felt she was the sage Blackbird.

They were on a tract of two-lane freeway where everyone was doing at least ninety miles per hour in the slow lane, a stretch where rest stops were at least fifty years apart, gas stations two galaxies apart, and signs said
BEWARE
because
TRAFFIC
was being
MO
NITORED BY AIRCRAFT
. It was so hot that Ericka bet the devil himself was inside a CVS drugstore, under an air conditioner, resting in a hammock, eating a double-dip praline pecan ice cream cone, and reading a book.

Being in a car, riding through the 110-degree heat with nothing to see but freeway, dirt, and mountains, nothing to look at but each other, no one to talk to except each other, for close to five hours, in a tight roadster, the world could become cramped, claustrophobic.

It definitely let a person know if they got along with whomever was riding in the car with them. Ericka and her ex-husband had made this trip once. It had been a five-hour drive from hell. They had argued the
whole way. They never had been able to get along when there was silence, when there was truth. Ericka and her ex-husband had gone crazy and cursed each other out and ended up breaking up on the road, only to get back together, only to end up getting married. But she wished she had hit him in the head with a shovel and buried him in the middle of the desert, in one of those dirt mounds on either side of the highway, like they did in that Vegas movie Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone had been in once upon a time.

With Mr. Jones, time was flying.

She wished her car were smaller so they could be closer.

Ericka said, “Mr. Jones?”

“Yeah?'

“Is it okay if I tell you something at the risk of offending you?”

“You can tell me anything.”

“I love you, Mr. Jones. Don't say anything back. I wanted to say that I love you. I want to put that in the air, let the universe absorb those words as I say them out loud. I love you. I expect nothing. Nothing at all. Just wanted to tell you how I feel about you at this moment. I love you.”

Mr. Jones smiled. “May I say something?”

“Don't say what I said. You can't say what I said, not even using a synonym.”

“It's not the same thing.”

“Okay. As long as it's not the opposite.”

“I remember when I saw you at your wedding. I had known you forever, but when I saw you at your wedding, I didn't see you as a child anymore. That wedding dress, and your body, the way it fit and made you look like a princess, I will never forget how it made me feel, how I stared at you, and on your wedding day I wanted to be your prince. You'd become a woman, and I had no idea when that had happened. You were a woman under the rules of the law, no longer walking the rim of adulthood. I saw you at your wedding and lust filled my heart. Maybe it should have bothered me, and it did, but it never bothered me enough. I looked at you at your wedding, when you were smiling, when you looked happy, and you captured something in my heart, and in that moment I felt powerless, because I wanted you to smile for me like that,
but I had felt that I was asking for the wrong kind of love. I had known you since you were a child living under your parents' roof, since I was a married man myself, and when I saw you at your wedding I did the math, the age difference. I was already having sex when you were born. When your mother screamed in pain as she gave birth to you, I was probably somewhere trying to make some girl scream with pleasure. But when I saw you at your wedding, all of that went away. I just saw a woman. That's what I see now, Ericka, and that's how I see you, as a woman. I talk a lot, imagine other worlds, and maybe in one we were born closer to the same age, and in that world we found each other too.”

“You should've pushed my ex-husband aside and demanded I marry you instead.”

“That would have gone smoothly.”

“Maybe in one world I am Destiny's mother. Or at least her stepmother.”

“I hope so. But I'm trying not to get too used to you being around in this world.”

“Don't bury me yet.”

“That's not what I am saying. Don't be morbid.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying that I'm glad you're in my world. I don't want to lose what we share. And at the same time, I am glad that you are my daughter's friend. I don't want her to lose you.”

“I've found you, Mr. Jones. I've found love. I don't want to lose you.”

He asked, “Does it scare you? This secret thing we have, does it scare you?”

“It does. It took me years to find friends, good friends, and now I'm the one not worthy.”

“You're worthy. If there is anyone to blame, I take the blame.”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“Let's enjoy our road trip, Mr. Jones.”

“Seize the day, Miss Stockwell.”

“YOLO.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“It means carpe diem, only in a very irresponsible way.”

“Be impulsive, thoughtless, reckless, and pray you don't live to regret it.”

“Bingo.”

“Are you ever going to call me Keith?”

“Never.”

“Why not?”

“Calling you Mr. Jones makes me feel so damn naughty.”