Mat Johnson - Loving Day

I roll my eyes, but take her hand. Sun lets me. Soft, sweating palm. I pull toward the door.

“Not in the house.”

“What? You just want to sit on the porch?”

“Tal’s in there,” Sun tells me. “It’s too weird.” The only thing I find weird is that statement.

We go, back to my dad’s little Volkswagen Beetle. We don’t read comics at first, optioning to begin our meeting with fondling instead. It’s almost roomy, with the seats pushed all the way down.

As we progress toward fornication, I look at my father’s house when the angle permits it, waiting to stop if a curtain moves. One never does. Even as our sounds starts building.

“Don’t yell ‘Shazam!’ this time.”

“Right, this time you yell a catchphrase when you come.”

“Which one?”

“Surprise me!” We stop talking.

I don’t come. And I don’t want her too either. I go as slowly as I can. Because when she comes, Sunita Habersham will leave me again. So I don’t let her. I break rhythm, keep pausing. I look out on the vacant lot of the lawn, the grass long and unkempt and dead from the winter’s first frost. It’s so bare. I focus on anything but the pleasure. But eventually the car windows are steamed and I can’t see out anymore.

Afterwards, we do read comics, with the windows cracked. She only stays until the glass has gone transparent once more, and then, per her request, I drive her home.

—

The times Sun visits me following this one, she still won’t go in the house. So in my driveway we meet. She shows up every Wednesday evening, for new comic-book release day. Sometimes she even comes Thursdays as well, if we haven’t read all the issues, sitting in the car postcoital the day before. Sun never mentions the “boyfriend” again. I don’t ask about her “boyfriend.” I ask her to come in the house, I ask her to have dinner with me and my daughter, but I stop doing that eventually since she keeps saying “No.”

THE WOMAN WHO breaks into my house breaks into my dream. She sits at the end of the mattress, facing away, but I know it’s her. I know the bones popping through the back of that wet paper flesh could only be hers. And she’s crying. I hear her crying, want to tell her to stop. But if I do she’ll turn around and look at me, and I’ll remember her face and I don’t want that memory.

I put all my energy into lifting one arm, nothing. I put all my energy into kicking one leg, get the same. She leans backward to look at me, like she will fall once more into the bed, and then we will all be doomed. Doesn’t turn around, just leans back. Arches her spine, throws her head far enough that I see her nose and know her eyes will be next. I try to close mine, my eyelids do work, but I can’t close my ears. I hear the whimpers. I hear the sniffs of mucus loosened by tears. I hear the whine.

My eyes open, real eyes, and see the real waking room. Darker than the one of dream. Messier. Pants strewn on the floor, discarded comic books, sentinels of empty Diet Dr Pepper cans. My arms can move, and I gather the covers to me, giving myself another layer of fabric to protect against the universe. The loudest thing is my breathing, and I settle it down. Force it to slow, allow one heavy sigh before normalcy. The next sound is not from me. It’s from the side of my bed. I still hear the sobbing.

I will scream. I’ve decided. If she’s in this house again, I will make a sound like no man has ever been proud to utter. It will be loud. It will be the entirety of my defense against the world. It will be all of me converted into vibration.

She’s in the corner, the hair is over her face. It’s dark, full, hangs all the way past her neck. But it is curly, too. It ripples and bounces as she cries. It’s my daughter.

“Tal? What’s wrong?” I ask, but specifics don’t yet matter so I swing my legs over and go to her, kneel and wrap her in both arms. Tal’s in the chair, my knees are on the floor. She’s been acting like everything is fine in the time since she got back from Irv’s, since his news, and yet here she is, in the dark, undone. I hug her like she’s broken and I can squeeze her tight enough to mend.

“I can’t breathe, Pops,” is the only thing that gets me to loosen.

I try again, the whole list: what’s wrong, whatever it is we can talk about it, nothing can be that bad. Tal says nothing more. I’m still holding her. I try a little rocking motion, but she resists. After two minutes, it gets awkward.

“Everyone I ever love will leave,” Tal says finally.

“But new people come. Sometimes. Sometimes, when we make room for them.” I think this sounds deep. I was just thinking of her, in my life, but it sounds like something someone would put in nice font over a pretty stock photo, so I’m proud of it. Tal is less impressed, though.

“Irv’s going to die. I couldn’t sleep. I was lying there, and I realized everyone I love disappears. They either die, or they leave. It’s that’s simple. I’m stupid, I only just figured it out.”

“That’s not stupid. That’s the single hardest thing to accept in the world. That everything changes. Sometimes it changes for the better, though.” I try again, and again I’m thinking about her, the fact that she came into my life, and now it is better. No question. And after this moment in time, she’ll also go.

“That’s the best advice you’ve ever given me,” Tal says with so little enthusiasm that it tells me competition was nominal.

“That wasn’t advice.”

“Whatever.” Tal pulls out of my arms. Standing, she snorts all the liquid she can with her nose, wipes the rest off with her forearm. “Disgusting,” she says to no one, then walks out of my room.

I stay sitting on the floor long after she leaves. I will not go back to sleep. In the gloom, I can see the bed. I can see the foot of it. There’s an indentation in the fabric of the fitted sheet I want to believe I’m just imagining is in the shape of a boney ass.

—

“Mouths shut, pencils sharp, let’s get ready to scribble,” I say, because that’s what I’ve been saying to start for a while now and, perhaps because of its slogan-like nature, they tend to obey. Then I walk around and offer guidance and criticism one on one, which helps them to learn and me to avoid panicking that I don’t actually know how to be a teacher. This works, on average, for about thirty minutes. I stroll through the room, check on the status of their projects. After the first few days resulted only in pictures of superheroes punching each other, Spider made sure they had visual references for their tri-racial isolate projects.

“But when are we going to do our presentations?” the little fat one says today. It is not right to call “the little fat one” “the little fat one,” so out loud I call him Marcus, which works since it’s his name.

“Well, Marcus,” I say, largely to display my knowledge of his identity. This is important, because it compensates for the fact that for a few seconds I have no idea what he’s talking about. When I see his poster board and the memory kicks in, it doesn’t help me much, because it was Spider’s assignment, and Spider isn’t here. Today is a Non-Spider-Appearance Moment, which usually occurs about once a week without prior warning or later comment. “You get an extra point for diligence. I was going to wait until the end of class, but we can start now. Would you like to go first, then?” I ask, because I really have nothing planned for the class today anyway, and time is for killing.

Marcus doesn’t bother to answer. He gathers his things and comes to the front of the room. His only request is for a plug, to connect his smart phone. And then, pushing PLAY, he stands before us, papers in hand, head down.