Mat Johnson - Loving Day

I go to kiss her, right after I buckle. She leans her head away from me.

“We’re just apes,” Sunita Habersham tells me.

“We’re just apes, sure,” I mirror, then go in for the kiss once more. She meets me with her cheek.

“There are no monogamous apes. Humans are like bonobos—”

“Bonobos are famous for screwing everything. I get it. Fine.”

“It’s like a stress-relieving thing. It’s not about ownership. You don’t own me now. I like you, so that’s why I’m saying this. Just know this doesn’t end with us walking up the aisle.”

“Don’t worry. I’m still trying to pay off my last failed marriage.”

“I’m saying this because openness is important. Honesty is important. I’m trying not to lie to you.”

“Look, we went through this. I don’t think just because we had sex, a few times, that I have some kind of exclusive rights to you,” I tell her. This seems to work, because Sun finally buckles up, so I can start pulling out of the driveway. As I’m driving in reverse, contorted to peer through the back window, she pops a kiss on my cheek.

“Shazam!” she says again, mocking her own breathless tone, and starts giggling, putting a hand on my knee to brace herself. “I’m so embarrassed. I should have yelled, ‘Kimota.’ ”

“Yeah. Miracleman is definitely cooler than Captain Marvel. But given that they’re both rooted in the same intellectual property, I forgive you.”

“It makes me really happy when you talk like that,” she tells me, and squeezes my flesh in a way I take as a thank-you. And I look there where Sunita Habersham touches me, past the end of my shorts, and the skin of my thigh and her hand. Our skin. It’s nearly the same color. It’s the same flesh as my flesh, just in feminine. Which I’ve never seen before. The way it blends, the illusion it creates that both leg and fingers could be part of the same body, all this I’ve never seen before. I am naked and exposed, but not alone. Not paler or darker or any kind of other.

—

After dropping her off, I catch myself driving back to my father’s house out of habit, then continue on past reemerging fear out of stubbornness. Once there, I immediately go to my laptop at the dining-room table, opening the security program. It’s my first time scrolling through the CCTV archives, and it takes a minute to navigate the system. The camera aimed at the driveway is labeled CC9. I know it’s named CC9, because I checked cameras 1 through 8 and that was the last one I installed, stuck right on the garage’s rain gutter. But the feed doesn’t have that angle, the footage doesn’t make sense; it’s all black. I go back through the other feeds, every one of them, 1 through 8. They all look good. It has to be CC9 messing up. I pull up a window again for CC9, this time a live feed. Really dark, but you can kind of see something, something there. To get a better look, I turn on the table lamp. And oddly, I can also see the image on the screen better, because it’s also gotten brighter.

The closed-circuit camera I installed by the garage is now the house.

The camera is in the living room.

I didn’t move it there.

I stand, and can see it. Sitting on the fireplace mantel. I look at my screen, and recognize the tent Tal sleeps in most nights.

IN 1958, EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD Mildred Jeter got knocked up by her boyfriend, Richard Loving, a family friend six years older than she, and they decided the best thing to do next was get married. They drove up from Central Point, Virginia, to Washington, D.C., because Richard was a white guy and Virginia had a law called the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 that said white people and black people couldn’t get married. Soon after they got back, the police raided their home in the dark of night, hoping to catch them in the act of fucking, because that was illegal too — which is really ironic when you reflect that the God of Virginia is Thomas Jefferson. They were sentenced to a year in prison, but allowed to have that downgraded to probation as long as they agreed to leave the state and never come back. Six years later, sick of not being able to see their family and broke in D.C., they decided to sue the State of Virginia. It took three years for the Supreme Court to rule in their favor, but it did unanimously, and Loving v. Virginia became the case that decriminalized interracial marriage in America. Sixteen states still had antimiscegenation on the books when it passed. There’s even an unofficial holiday for it in June, Loving Day, which the mixies at Mélange talk about like it’s Mulatto Christmas.

Roslyn wants our class to do a special comic to be handed out at Mélange’s Loving Day event. They’re going to print a thousand copies. All the other mixed-race organizations in the area are coming, and not just the black/white ones either: the Asian/white, the Latino/everything, the all general mixed the hell up. It’s going to be huge. Tosha IMs me while I’m doing the research for all this and I make the mistake of telling her what I’m doing when her message pops up on my screen.

They really need a holiday, to celebrate a white guy having jungle fever? That’s all Virginia white guys live to do: get some strange .

That’s really racist .

No, that’s not, “really racist,” Tosha insists.

The next message takes longer, as the English language struggles to convey her fury.

You could argue that it’s prejudiced, but I’m not racist. Racism requires power to back it up, and I don’t have a goddamn bit of that. George led a police tactics training course in Buchanan County, Virginia. All white, Irish. Do you know what the crime rate is down there? Do you know some of the names they used to call George, that summer?

I can imagine .

Not just “nigger” either. They were creative. And that was from the other cops. They thought it was funny. It’s like 1861 down there. Those Paddy bastards are crazy .

You know my dad was Irish, right? I’m Irish .

You’re fucking Irish? You’re serious, aren’t you? Since when are you Irish? Your black ass is not Irish. You’re losing your mind over in Uncle Tom fairyland .

Nobody gets to define me but me, that’s what I’m learning .

What kind of Kool-Aid do they have you drink? Is it gray?

This text comes with a smiley face emoticon. But I can hear past it to Tosha’s tone. I know her well enough to insert her sneer of condescension.

Get it? Gray? Half white, half black? Or do they make Oreo flavor now?

You know, “Virginia is for lovers,” I finally respond.

I wait a few seconds. The screen flashes Composing for a full minute, but only seven words finally come through when she sends.

I want to tell George we’re dating .

Bad idea. Why would you do that?

I’ve been checking the GPS tracker. He denies it, but he keeps going over there. He’s taking me for granted. At least imply we’re thinking about hooking up .

Bad idea , I write again, then send, barely resisting all caps. Did you contact Sirleaf about your rights?

I’m not ready for that. I need this favor, Warren. He has to come home. Or not. This can’t keep going on like this. I need a catalyst .

Bad idea , I send once more.

We already lying to the kids. This is a smaller lie. It could help things .

Again, I pause, but Tosha doesn’t need me to continue the conversation.

It will free me , comes when I take too long to respond.

And then, He was just here. I’m sorry. I kind of already did it .