The Blackbirds (41 page)

Indigo raised her hand, so everyone in the room could see her ring.

The room became their paparazzi, cell phones flashing and recording.

Indigo and Yaba left the stage holding hands, went through the curtain to the back.

Kwanzaa looked around the room, read the faces of the people.

Tipsy women cried. A few women had sobered up and gave the guys they were with the side eye of unhappiness. It was going to be a good night for some, but a long night for more than a few brothers who had come up short. A public proposal made jump-offs want to upgrade.

Kwanzaa said, “Olamilekan is not going to like this mess; not at all, not at all, not at all.”

Destiny said, “Oh, damn. This is not good.”

Kwanzaa asked, “What?”

Ericka said, “You didn't notice what just happened, Kwanzaa?”

“Notice what? I was checking out the crowd. What did I miss? Did they get married?”

Destiny said, “Indigo wasn't crying. Every woman in the club cried, even the mean waitresses that have been acting like pit bulls. Every woman cried except the girl with the ring.”

Ericka tilted her to the side and made a curious sound. “Not one tear in her brown eyes. Yaba cried. His lip trembled. His voice cracked. He was sincere. Indigo wasn't fazed. She was unemotional and composed the entire time.”

Kwanzaa said, “You're right. When Marcus asked me to marry him, I was crying and bouncing around like a cartoon character. And Indigo did kind of rush him off the stage.”

Ericka spoke up, “I hope he kept the receipt for that obnoxious blood diamond.”

With the excitement at its peak, Dubois told them to give Yaba a round of applause.

The women applauded the ring; the men praised the Laker.

Everyone in the audience who had working legs stood up, gave Dubois a standing ovation. He looked toward Destiny's table as he took his bows, looked at her and nodded.

Then he winked. That wink felt like an insult, and his subtle grin stole part of her sanity.

He had the nerve to wink at her.

She shuddered. Destiny's jaw tightened as she closed her eyes and held her breath for a moment. She tried to make that old fire go away. But the anger didn't subside. The fire bloomed. Destiny Jones stood up, barked out Dubois's name, and hurried toward the stage.

Dubois halted his exit, and the applause gradually died. Destiny walked up the five stairs to the stage, to where Dubois was standing, confused, no longer in comedian mode.

All attitude, she stopped in his face, and asked, “You really want to take me out?”

“Yeah, DJ. I really do.”

“Prove it. Prove it here. Prove it now.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Figure it out. If you're afraid of what your mother will think, stop bugging me. Don't wink at me. Don't call my friends asking for me. Don't give me tickets and buy me drinks.”

“Happy birthday. Thanks for the tickets, Dubois. Why, you're welcome, Miss Jones. Thank you for sending my girls and me eight expensive-ass drinks. Why, you're welcome.”

“And don't tell me happy birthday. I don't want you to remember my stinkin' birthday.”

“Is that what you want?”

“That's what I want. Don't stalk me.”

“DJ.”

“
What
?”

Dubois reached for her. He reached for her and she looked at him like he had lost his mind. Then she gradually gave him her hand. She let him touch her.

She let him pull her closer.

She said, “You didn't call me for ten years, then I run into you in a parking lot and you're smiling and flirting with all of my friends.”

“I'm sorry. And I was not flirting.”

“Liar. I was standing right there.”

“I was being friendly. Sisters are so unaccustomed to a brother having manners that when a brother is just being nice, sisters think they're being hit on. You need to get over yourself.”

“Ten years. That really hurt. I never want to see you again. That's all I have to say.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Let me go.”

“I have missed you.”

“Are you just being friendly now?”

“No, I'm flirting.”

“Whatever.”

“I've thought about you more than you'll ever know.”

“Is that your Morehouse mack? Is that what you use on the hood rats at Greenbriar Mall?”

“I'm going to kiss you now.”

“No, you're not. Mess around and get smacked.”

“If you don't want me to kiss you, now is a good time to walk away.”

“Your girlfriend won't like that.”

“I don't have a girlfriend.”

“All these women in here, you can pick and choose a thot without thinking.”

“What if I choose you because you are in my every thought?”

“I'm not a thot, and if that's what you think, you need to think another thought.”

“But you're all I think about, so I choose you.”

“You un-chose me ten years ago and now I am un-choosing you back.”

She stared at Dubois and the rumbling from the crowd was unheard by her ears.

He put his hands on her waist, pulled her closer.

She did something she swore she would never do again; she capitulated.

She put her arms around his neck, and as he tilted his head, she tilted her head.

They kissed. They kissed for a second before she closed her eyes.

She kissed the first boy she had ever really cared about, in the style of the French.

And she liked it. He hadn't kissed like that ten years ago.

Destiny Jones kissed her first romantic love like she was still in middle school.

Again the room applauded, and she found it hard to pull away from the kiss.

But she did. She looked out at the crowd.

Somewhere in the far reaches of the room, she heard someone say her birth name, heard someone say the name of Destiny Jones, heard a pejorative about crazy Jamaicans, about crazy Jamaican bitches shooting dicks, about bleach, about slashing someone's face, and again a coldness ran up her spine, the memories returned, the bad memories flooded her, and her soul went into fight or flight.

Fight or flight.

She wanted to do like she had always done. She wanted to pull her hair loose, let it become her cocoon, and hide. She wanted to kick off her heels and run out a side door. If she had been alone, she would have hurried through the curtains and found the first exit. Destiny looked toward the Blackbirds, toward her place of friendship and comfort.

They had heard someone call out Destiny Jones as well.

Ericka and Kwanzaa were rising to their feet, ready to protect their warrior. Indigo was behind the stage, ready to rush back out before a riot began.

Destiny looked out at the crowd, then she turned and faced Dubois.

She faced the boy who had been her first heartbreak one more time, eased away from him, then walked to the microphone. She tapped it twice, made sure it was still on. She looked out at this swatch of the world, at this mini universe, the one in which she lived.

With perfect diction, in private school mode, the voice that many on this side of town used to mock and laugh because to their untraveled ears she sounded white, she said, “I heard someone out there ask if I was
Destiny Jones. Well, guess what? My name . . . is Destiny Jones. My name is
Destiny Jones
. I am Destiny Jones.
Destiny Jones
.”

It took a moment.

First there was an acute silence, and for some, profound confusion.

Destiny saw the shock and fear in the faces of Kwanzaa and Ericka.

Destiny repeated, stronger, “My name is Destiny Jones. My name is Destiny Jones.”

Then whispers. Then more recognition and explanations. Then waves of judgment.

Phones appeared and the room became a legion of freelance photographers trying to get shots of a celebrity. They shook up Instagram. Periscope. Twitter. Facebook.

The ignorant, the evil were always the first to speak, the first to text, the first to blog.

She hardened, ready to fight the room.

She said, “If you know me, and you don't like me,
I don't give a damn
. I don't care if you are blessed with melanin or dammed with recessive genes, don't care if you're tall, short, male or female, like the late great Bernie Mac said,
I ain't scared of you muh'fuckers
. That's straight off the muh'fucking press. One at a time or as a collective,
I ain't scared of you muh'fuckers.”

Destiny mocked Bernie Mac, and stared the room down, dared any one to vilipend her like she was a second-class citizen. Boldness. No fear. Unapologetic. That was all it took to make an army of bullies take ten steps in retreat.

Mocking the late great Rick James, she emphasized, “I'm Destiny Jones,
bitch.”

The room erupted in laughter, and many in the crowd repeated that like a mantra.

“You don't understand. Make sure you tell a friend to tell a friend to tell a friend. The real Destiny Jones came to tell everybody who hates her
, I ain't scared of you muh'fucking mitches and bitches.”

To some, Jamaica was the land of guns and corruption, of rebels, of drugs. To others it was the land of music and Bob Marley, a man who wanted peace and fairness.

Which part of her mother's Jamaica they woke up in her, it was up to the crowd. The vulgar
fuck all y'all
speech she had said when she was at Catalina with the Blackbirds, she repeated it word for word, looked down on the room of would-be oppressors, looked down on a room that had people who would give a pass to a murderer, pedophile, or rapist if he could catch a ball, sing, or tell jokes, and instead of running, she stood her ground, and communicated with them on the level she despised, in the language of Hoosegow, used the same unkind vocabulary that had been directed at her since she was fifteen.

No one challenged her. The bullies had retreated back into their caves.

Destiny raised the mic high, paused, let it drop.

Done.

The room once again exploded in applause.

Destiny Jones owned her universe. She felt like she owned her life.

She looked up at the ceiling as if she could see the stars, as if she could see the universe. She heard them. Out there across the galaxy, every version of Destiny applauded her as if she were their leader. That was how she felt at that moment, as she looked at her table and saw Ericka and Kwanzaa on their feet, as she looked behind her and saw Indigo standing next to Yaba the Laker, both of them applauding.

Destiny Jones exhaled what she had held in for so long.

Destiny felt like every version of her ever created across the multiverses had her back.

Dubois said, “Happy birthday, Honey Rider.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“You sho' know how to upstage a brother.”

“Dubois, dude, stop trying to sound hood-rific.”

“What'cha talking 'bout, Honey Rider?”

“First and foremost, Dubois, you're a private school nerd, just like me.”

“
Muh'fucking?
Which one of us is really trying to sound
hood-rific
up in here?”

“Your mother would slap the taste out of your mouth if she heard you talk like that.”

“My mother is here. She came to watch the show.”

“You kissed me in front of your mother?”

“I kissed you in front of my mom, my uncle Tyrone, my aunt Shelby, my cousin Bobby, his wife, Alexandria, ten cousins, and about twenty more of my friends from around L.A.”

“Too late for me to be embarrassed.”

“Yeah. A little too late. You might as well wave at her. She's over there.”

“You cursed in front of your mother?”

“So did you. Your cursing made my cursing sound like a Maya Angelou poem.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“She will spank me later, I'm sure. She'll hit me with a few Bible verses too. I'm sure she will come looking for you too.”

“Well, I guess I need to gather the Blackbirds and exit the building in a hurry.”

“Wait, DJ?”

“What, DJ?”

“So, are you ever going to let me take you out or what?”

“Of course not.”

“Are you serious? After all this?”

Destiny said, “You are my enemy.”

“Serious?”

“You were my first enemy.”

“You were my first.”

“I was your first enemy too?”

“No, my first. I was a virgin. I know I said I had been with other girls, but I had lied.”

“I was your first?”

“I was scared after that. I was too scared to call you. I didn't know what to say. I thought you could tell I didn't know what I was doing and you were going to tell everybody how bad I was in bed.”

“Are you serious?”

“Give me an apology date. So we can talk and put this behind us.”

“That will happen when they start drug-testing members of Congress, or when Mexicans build a wall to keep Americans out of Mexico.”

“For closure. A short meeting.”

Destiny paused. “Sure. To get you off my freakin' jock. So I can tell you how I really feel, how I hate you, and you will wish our paths had
never
crossed again.”

“When are you available for this said meeting so you can verbalize your hate?”

“Right now. I'm available right now.”

Ericka Stockwell showered.

Skin still damp, she sat on her bedroom floor covered in a red housecoat.

She felt exhausted. She had barely made it through the day.

Diving at Catalina had taken too much of her energy, but she had pressed on. She had made it and no one had noticed anything different about her.

She had not disrupted anyone's joy.

Destiny had been bold tonight. She had been so
muh'fucking
bold.

Destiny Jones had confronted her past in front of many hardcore naysayers.

When Ericka had looked around that comedy club, she had seen the faces of men, but had focused on the faces of the women. Many had been assaulted during their short existences on this planet. Many had been assaulted and never said a word. What Destiny had done had been akin to a preacher striking a chord during a sermon, one that brought the shamed to their feet, one that made spirits rise, one that made many do the Holy Ghost dance. Women had shaken off their disgrace, then stood and applauded Destiny Jones like they had found a new leader.

Destiny had taken to the stage and faced the world. She had become, as they said years ago back in the '60s, free, white, and twenty-one. She was beholden to no one. When Destiny had left the stage with Dubois, practically every woman in the club had run to her to try to get a selfie.

It had been quite a night.

Quite a night.

Now back to her reality. Back to her truth.

Ericka looked over papers from Kaiser, messages from her doctor, test results, the request for her to contact her doctor again, and then laid them aside.

She opened a journal. On each page was a list of the things she owned.

Next to each item she had written one of the Blackbirds' names.

Next to a few things she had written Mr. Jones's name.

She picked up the four chapters that had been given to her by Dr. Debra Dubois.

After reading what Dr. Debra Dubois had revealed in her memoirs, after sharing all with the Blackbirds, Ericka had still been unable to confront that part of her past in front of one person.

Ericka's past was Mrs. Stockwell's past as much as it was her own.

Ericka read the four chapters written by Dr. Debra Dubois again and again, read how she and her mother had been perceived two decades earlier, read truth as recalled by someone else. That old pain percolated, rose to the surface, became bubbling magma.

Ericka waxed lachrymose, walked around in the dark, wiped away tears, and then sipped half a glass of wine before she dressed in gray joggers, a green hoodie, and yellow running shoes. Fashion was not on her mind. She stopped, stared at herself in the mirror.

She stared at her short mane, at her fresh baldness. She put moisturizer on her face, and then put on lip gloss and a pair of big silver earrings. She didn't want to look totally busted.

Pages that accurately reflected her life at the age of thirteen at her side, she went down the concrete stairs, passed by the doors to the apartments of the other Blackbirds, and went to her convertible, the car acquired after her divorce, another symbol of part of her life gone wrong.

She sent Destiny a text. Destiny was at a hot club on Sunset, dancing with Dubois.

She told Destiny she was leaving.

Destiny told Ericka to tell her dad hello, and thanked her for the heads-up.

Ericka let the top down; pushed the remote that opened the gate to Little Lagos. She was the only Blackbird in her nest tonight. She was glad. Some things had to be confronted alone.

Ericka Stockwell looked at the apartments, waved as if her best friends were there standing in their windows. This was the start of her good-bye to her sisters by other mommas, her confidants in most things, her gym partners, her motivators. She waved at the vacant nests of the Blackbirds, then turned her phone off and the music up, then drove away, took to Crenshaw Boulevard. Mr. Jones was on Ericka's mind. She had finally found the love of her life.

That had been the most important thing on her bucket list.

She whispered, “This isn't fair. This just isn't fair.”

She wanted to take her issue to him, seek counsel from him. She didn't. She wouldn't. She drove with those chapters on her mind, and scenes pulled her back into her past and left her in anger, in sadness, in a trance, and she didn't become fully aware again until she was halfway to her destination. She came up on the Urban League and Happy's Pizza, where View Park kissed Leimert Park. She was at the section by the beauty college, the streets like the roads in the islands, as uneven and harsh as her thoughts, rugged due to metro construction. A gigantic billboard proclaiming
STRAIGHT OUTTA CONDOMS
spied down on her from overhead. Ericka stared at the billboard and wondered if she was being shamed.

She wondered if after she was gone, she would be allowed to keep her memories.

Soon Ericka slowed. Traffic had halted because people had been injured in a shooting, and that shooting had caused a car crash that ended up on the curb at Krispy Kreme. Ghetto birds flew over Los Angeles in two-hour shifts, and at that moment, like it had been when they protested, it seemed like all the LAPD's helicopters were over her head. The bright light was a sign and it was as if the skies had opened and heaven was calling her home. She wondered if there was life after death.

Maybe it had been calling her all along. Maybe Y-H-W-H was calling.

Maybe she was as strong as she would ever be, as beautiful as she
would ever be, and all the good things that would happen to her, including her health, were now in the past.

Maybe nothing was left but suffering.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Ericka crept by police cars, moved by the flashing lights of several ambulances, moved around the homeless using bus stop benches and storefronts as their overnight bedrooms. After dark, the homeless owned every park.

Ericka whipped around traffic and looky-loos, sped north, broke the speed limit, changed lanes like a race car driver, didn't slow down for two miles, not until she had crossed the Rosa Parks section of the 10 freeway, and the reason she slowed was because she was trapped at the light at Washington Boulevard, a light she had considered running, but cars were in front of her and in both the right lane and the left turning lane. She was going to back up and whip around them, break the light, but someone pulled up behind her. She was boxed in. She grinded her teeth, felt road rage in her blood.

The universe had let her get this close, then blocked her way and laughed.

She felt like she was thirteen again. She felt young, unwise, and defenseless. She had never felt white, free, and twenty-one. She had never lived without burden.

Anxiety grew.

She was but one red light away from the narrow street named St. Charles Place, the unassuming, hidden-in-plain-sight road just beyond Sojourner Truth Industrial Club, one red light away from her own truth, and all she needed to do was let the universe allow her to turn down the avenue that had signs both warning and boasting there were no other entrances or exits.

St. Charles Place offered the only outlet into historic Lafayette Square. With Ericka's thoughts, there was no other outlet either. And tonight there was no other out for Mrs. Stockwell.

Ericka took deep breaths, clenched the steering wheel, her music
loud, but not loud enough to drown her thoughts. The light at Washington changed, then Ericka was caught at the light at St. Charles Place. She beat her steering wheel, then scowled to her right and saw an Asian man looking at her like she had lost her mind. He looked away, then eased his car up a few inches. The last seconds before the big moment were taking forever to arrive.

She wasn't turning around. If the light took two days to change, she would be waiting. After what felt like forever, the universe surrendered, gave her the green light.

Ericka entered the affluent community where W. C. Fields, Fatty Arbuckle, and boxer Joe Louis had once lived. She inhaled, expected the air to smell like private schools and money that could afford summers in Barbados and weekends in the Hamptons, but it was just as stale as the air on her end of Crenshaw Boulevard, only without the noise to spice it up.

Ericka cruised the smooth, pimple-free roads, passed a few homes with the natural desert xeriscaping in the front. She parked on Virginia Road, across from her mother's two-level Mediterranean-style home. Ericka turned her car off, but left her convertible top down, this area blanketed with the illusion of safety. She had arrived. Now she was too scared to leave her car.

She looked at the chapters, her tears dried on the paper, on the power of words.

She stared at her mother's magnificent home. There was a concrete and lighted driveway that led down the side of the property and ended at the rear of the well-maintained mansion. A three-car garage was in the far reaches, and off to its left a smaller home was situated on a large lot. Halfway down the driveway was a car. Ericka shook her head. She guessed that since she had seen her mother last, she'd been blessed tenfold and had bought herself a new luxury ride.

But her thoughts were bigger than new cars and castles hidden off urban tracks.

She eased out and walked down the long driveway, toward her mother's new car.

Ericka did a double take as she passed the luxury car in the driveway, and she paused, then stopped, backed up, evaluated the car, shook her head in disgust, and cursed.

It wasn't her mother's car. Ericka stood in shock, but that only lasted a moment. Ericka went back to her roadster, pulled it into the driveway, parked behind her mother's guest.

Ericka made sure that car wouldn't be able to leave during the bewitching hours.

It felt strange because the three or four times she had been to this home, the place her mother moved after living in Windsor Hills, Ericka had never parked in that driveway.

She had always parked at the curb, on the streets, like an unwanted solicitor.

The last time she had been here, her mother had told her God wanted her to have cancer. Ericka had sworn to never set foot in Mrs. Stockwell's pristine home again.

In the distance, she imagined God was laughing.

She would see Him soon.

She would ask Him to explain the joke.