Mat Johnson - Loving Day

The crackheads were in the house. Again. I know I am right, I have faith in my original estimation. The outdoor cams caught nothing. The vision was a reflection, no doubt. They were behind us. They were down the hall, their image refracted off the broken glass on the bathroom door. I can show you how they did it. I can draw diagrams. The eerie lighting that still sparks from that fuse box probably helped, I’m sure. I don’t know how they keep getting in and the fact that I haven’t found them doesn’t mean that some other mad explanation must be true. We’re talking angles and reflection here, simple physics.

“Ghosts of the First Interracial Couple” Tal titles it when she puts the clip online, because she’s sticking to her faith. She creates an account called “Mélanged.” It gets ninety-four hits in two weeks. The only other video uploaded to the account is one of Spider awkwardly yanking on one of his Creole accordions, which garners only thirty-seven views, presumably from the man himself. When pressed how she made the leap toward this context for the title, Tal says, “I can feel it. I just have this sense. They are it. They are, like, our Adam and Eve.” I laugh every time she says it. Tal never does.

—

“Great ancestors of dark and light, through time and the veil of life, we beseech you! Your children of Africa and Europe! Show us your love!” Tal exclaims. She’s in the dining room. She’s broken down her tent for this, packed all her things neatly in the hall, out of the way of the stairs because that would be a fire hazard. “Reveal to us once more your glory, give us a sign to guide us toward your truth.”

I’ve got fifteen teenage mulattoes all up in my living room. Tal, Kimet, their little mixie-pixie friends. Crammed in there, all sitting on the floor. All those zits and such. Lot of bumpy beige flesh. Sitting in the damn near dark. Nobody else saying a word. One Drop is the only one over twenty-one in the group, sitting on crossed legs, massive thighs protruding into the space of the crowded room. The kids I recognize as sunflowers, they hang around him, like always. He’s got his eyes closed, along with a few of the others as they start to chant “Om.” I keep looking at him. I wait for him to open his eyes, because I’m fairly sure he’s just here because he still wants to screw my girlfriend. I catch him, every once in a while, checking out Sunita Habersham. I’m watching you, big boy , my eyes say, but his are closed so it’s an optical monologue.

“Your primal pain has blossomed generations of love. Let us praise you for your sacrifice.” Tal’s got the incense going, which I thought was a bit much at first but I appreciate later when several of the older ones show up smelling like weed. The rest of the community must be sane, because although Tal hung fliers all over my lawn, they’re not here. “This is your home. This is your land. We are your people. Blended by love, in your image!”

“I got potato skins with cheddar and bacon!” I answer. “Who wants some?” It’s hard to step through them, all sitting on the floor like this. Especially holding a tray in my hand. “It’s very dark in here,” I point out. “But I guess you need that for a standard séance. I haven’t been to one before, but it’d be odd with all the lights on, probably. Not really the same mood-builder.”

“Reveal yourselves once more! Let us praise you with our belief, bathe in your miracle!” my daughter begs the universe.

“These’re T.G.I. Friday’s. Not the take-out, but the frozen kind. I swear to God though, you can’t tell the difference. They’re delicious.”

“Pops, shut up!” The crowded room, already hushed, becomes quieter. I leave the hors d’oeuvres on a sawhorse and walk back to the kitchen again.

“Get it out of your system! You can’t have séances at Whitman!” I say back to her, because I’m so happy.

Whitman College. It’s got a lovely theater and dance program, a cute little town, and sure the whole area was founded on the massacre of the Indians but where in America wasn’t? It’s in Washington State. Not in Seattle either — out in the boonies, far, far from Germantown. They’ve even offered Tal a little scholarship money; the insurance payment from the house fire should cover the rest. Good things come to those who wait, to burn down their homes.

They all leave, eventually. Even One Drop, who hovers, surely waiting for Sun to appear. “It’s all cool, brother. Just being a supportive community and all. You should come out, hang with us sometimes. We got a domino game going every Thursday,” he offers.

“Yeah, sure. Maybe, sometime,” I brush him off. “Sorry there were no ghosts!” I yell at the last of them, as I see them off at the door, anxious to have it closed once more. A few laugh it off, wave goodnight. They’re not bad kids, they’re just all up in my house.

I walk out with the last of them, onto my porch. “Goodbye,” I tell them, which is fancy talk for It’s midnight Friday, school is out, go the hell home . The accordion, it goes now in the distance, having politely waited until Tal was finished. I go back in, grab my coat and hat. Go out to find Spider.

Mélange is on my goddamn lawn. With their RVs, their single-wide trailers, their rows of those little house-looking things. It turns out the latter are called “park models,” which makes sense because they are parking their asses on my lawn. They’ve put them in rows, and grass alleys already show the wear of foot travel. It’s dark, but the windows light my path. I’ve heard the Mulattopians living here call this stretch Biracial Boulevard. They call the residential area they’ve formed on the east lawn hosting the RVs class A through C, Mixed Mews, although I’m partial to the name Halfie Heights and use this moniker exclusively when mentioning it. Some of the biggest Oreos have parked there, possibly because it’s the end of the property closest to the whiteness of Chestnut Hill. The sunflowers made the southern, North Philly end of the lawn their homestead, in a place they call Little Halfrica . Nobody uses the word segregation , though.

They’ve all been here for months. Swarming in the day after the “sighting” and acting like someone died and left them the place, instead of me. Roslyn offered to pay rent, most likely on Sun’s urgings, though we don’t talk about it. And it’s acceptable, the little sum that Roslyn pays me for the circus she brought to my Germantown. I’d have had a better bargaining position if I wasn’t leveraged by my concern for my daughter and Sunita Habersham, but it’s okay for now. Not a fortune but enough to erase the last of my hesitation.

The grounds of Loudin Mansion have become a village to vagabonds. The long trailers resting behind the garage, used as classrooms during the daytime, comprise the commercial district. Over a hundred people during school hours, reducing to around forty-five at night. People who pee and shit. I pass the porta-potties, hold my breath till I’m on the other side. People who leave piles of trash every day. We have one dumpster by the gate. It’s nearly full. I know from being woken up by the process that it was just cleared at five this morning. People who listen to music and even play music of their own and who sit around and laugh and get drunk sometimes and sing out loud.

“Big dubs!” One of the sunflowers yells to me. One of the fine young mixed men of the new generation. His homeboys, they all wave, go back to shooting craps before the heat of a drum of burning scrap wood. From the paint on the planks, I recognize them as loose pieces that were resting by the garage. They’re burning my father’s house, incrementally. The wood’s moist; it smokes and smells of the chemicals it’s covered in, but it’s old and porous and breathes life into the flames. I notice the propane tanks, just ten feet past the barrel, and all the other ones for many yards in all directions.