X. Atkins - Richmond Noir

Ray Harold was now climbing the stairs behind her. “Yes, you always do, you always do. But in return I let you live here in luxury. I paid for this house—”

“And now I’m paying for it.” Velma moved around her bedroom, finally settling at the vanity to wipe off her makeup.

“Don’t start that shit!” barked Ray Harold, stomping into the room.

“Start what? I don’t know how you treat Regina. I only know how you treat me. And sometimes it takes me months to recover from your brand of loving.” She rubbed her jaw as she checked her reflection in the mirror.

“Then why do you stay?” Strolling over to his mistress, he massaged her neck and shoulders with a gentleness that also declared his ownership.

“Good question.”

“Baby, let’s not fight. I’m going to go home soon and get this mess straightened out.”

“Uh-huh.”

Except for the rustle of sheets and some low groans of pleasure, things were quiet now. Tug guessed they had made up, so he tiptoed back to his room. He left the DVD playing and got into bed, holding his hand over Marguerite’s mouth to keep her from screaming out, Go home, Mr. Not! It took awhile before he fell asleep.

In his sleigh bed, Tug flew in living color. He was Mr. Spock looking down at a huge bright planet from his starship in space, a great wizard scanning a shining magic world below. He swooped down and surveyed blue pinetops and green grass that grew into a thick jungle right before his eyes. Then, as he floated in the quiet of dreamtime, clouds started to gather behind and above him, below him, all around him, and the air took on a strange smell with the sweetness of synthesized flowers. Uh oh! Was that a zig-zag? Was the Sandman near? The phone rang. Tug could see Mr. Not’s clown face and smeary smile when he talked. “Regina, I told you to stop calling here. I’ll see you when I get home.” Then Batman sat on Tug’s bed. I see what I have to become to stop men like him .

Tug woke to the feeling of a draft on his bottom. The odor of pee and sweat and sleep stuck in his nose. He got up and stripped the sheets from his bed.

When his mother met him coming out of his room, Tug didn’t bother telling her how the zig-zags had wrapped around his legs and squeezed his stomach until he had to land, and she didn’t ask him why he’d wet the bed again. She took the soggy sheets from him.

“Your breakfast is ready, Tug,” she said as she headed to the washing machine in the basement.

“Can we still go to the cemetery?” he called after her, afraid she might not allow him to go skateboarding in the parking lot anymore.

“I don’t see why not,” she answered, her voice calm and even.

Nearly every weekend in good weather, the two of them, and Marguerite, made the trip to the cemetery parking lot on 15th and Broad. Tug’s mother told him it was a sacred space where the ancestors slept below the streets.

“Will they ever wake up?” he’d asked her once.

“Not till Judgment Day, I expect, but they won’t hurt us. This place is special, because most all the people buried under here lived way back, during slavery. Gabriel the Blacksmith is buried here, and he led a slave revolt two hundred years ago. They caught him and hung him on the gallows, but he was a hero to the people.”

“We’re not slaves, Mommy.”

“No, Tug, we’re free, we’ve been free for over 140 years now.”

“Then why does Mr. Not try to own you?”

His mother opened her mouth, then shut it again. “Your godfather loves us, honey. If he seems a little gruff, that’s just his way. I love your... him, maybe too much,” she finally said.

“Gabriel was a blacksmith? Does that mean he worked in a forge, like the black god you showed me in that big book on Africa?” “Like Ogun,” said Tug’s mother, surprised he remembered their conversation about the Yoruba god.

“Yeah, Ogun was a god and a ninja too.” Tug thought of the comics he read at night in bed with Marguerite by his side.

According to their usual Saturday routine, Tug helped his mother make the beds, dust, restack magazines, place books back on their shelves. He did it not simply because it meant they would get to the parking lot sooner, but also because he liked being in the house with nice furniture, clean linen. He enjoyed the rhythms of domesticity.

Skateboarding was the only outdoor activity Tug enjoyed. He looked forward to sailing over the concrete, arms out, knees bent, with open space and no cars to dodge, while his mother and Marguerite watched him fly. Somehow knowing that the parking lot was also a cemetery comforted him. His mother once told him that ever since he was three years old, he’d always had a special affinity for graveyards, turning to look and point whenever they passed one in a car. Now he imagined the graves as a city below the ground, with Gabriel Ogun presiding.

As they were finally preparing to leave for the parking lot, Tug heard the front door open and close. Mr. Not was back. He didn’t usually come around until nighttime.

“Vee, I have to talk to you. Regina threw my clothes and my good shoes outside this morning, and now she’s threatening to come over here and run you out of this house. Harold, go and play while I talk to your mama. And take your sissy doll with you.” Mr. Not grabbed Marguerite and flung her at the boy.

“Go on, it’s okay,” said Tug’s mother. “When we finish discussing business, I’ll take you to the parking lot. Okay?”

Tug backed out the door with his eyes fixed on Mr. Not.

He went and sat in the swing, humming to Marguerite and rubbing her back the way his mother sometimes affectionately rubbed his.

“Go ahead, Marguerite, you can hum too. I lost you last night when I hit the zig-zags. Next time, hold my hand tight, so the Sandman and the zig-zags won’t get us.” Tug had brought his skateboard and backpack with him, and now he rolled the board underfoot back and forth.

He continued to hum while he listened to the escalating discussion in the kitchen. Suddenly, his song was interrupted by the Raggedy Ann doll sailing out the back door, head first, landing in a heap on the ground. The doll had lost its green cap and lay there with legs splayed, its smiling face kissing the grass. Tug left the swing and walked past Raggedy Ann to see who had thrown it out. At first, he thought it was Glenda the Good Witch, but when she said his name he realized it had been his mother. With her silk dressing gown streaming behind her, she strode over to Tug and grabbed him by the hand. Tendrils of hair had come loose from her long ponytail.

“I’m going to bring you next door to Mrs. Richardson’s house, and you stay there until I come get you.”

“But you said you were going to take me skateboarding.”

“I am, I will, but just wait there until I come get you.”

Mrs. Richardson was accustomed to her friend and neighbor Velma Holloway sometimes arriving unannounced with her son. Tug’s mother told him to sit down in the family room, then walked with Mrs. Richardson into the kitchen. When they returned from their brief conference, his mother said, “You mind Mrs. Richardson. I’ll be back in a few minutes, then we’ll go to the parking lot. Let me go get my business straight. Thanks, Betty.”

Tug folded his arms and looked away when she tried to kiss his cheek. After she left, Mrs. Richardson inserted a DVD of Tug’s favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz . “Call me when it gets to the part with the lollipop kids. That cracks me up,” she said. Then she returned to the kitchen to finish chopping vegetables while listening to Smokey Robinson croon, “ Ooo baby, babeee... I did you wrong ,” on Power 92, oldies-but-goodies radio.

The witch’s feet shriveled up and disappeared under the house, but Tug wasn’t thrilled the way he usually was. “Marguerite, do you think Mr. Not’s going to make Mommy cry again?” He looked around for Marguerite, only to realize he’d left her and the skateboard by the swing.