Mat Johnson - Loving Day

The writing, the proofreading, the balancing of directness over noncommittal pleasantry, it all takes an unexpectedly long time. I send it and head to the kitchen to find food scraps to sustain me for the next few hours, when my phone pings and Roslyn’s text comes through.

Come see me, honey .

There’s no way she could have read a word. I check the time stamp on the phone with the one on the laptop still in my hand. Two minutes. So maybe she could have read the whole thing, but there is no way in my understanding of reality that this happened.

Are you free in one hour? I text back to her.

Come to me now, my warrior child , she texts back to me so fast I think at first it’s an automated reply.

I put on a blazer before I go over there, because I am not a child, I am a man, a grown-ass one. A crisp shirt with a tag inside that says, DRY CLEAN ONLY. I take an extra ten minutes to iron my jeans as well, until their starched legs become my armor, for I am a warrior. I look at myself in the mirror. Then I take the whole thing off and put on a suit. And a tie.

—

“Look at you, all cleaned up and some such.”

“You look lovely as well.” She does. Roslyn looks more formal than I do, a full suit with pants, a silk shirt, hair pulled back in an aerodynamic slick perfect for lunging.

“You look like you mean business, Warren. So let’s do business. Come in.”

Her cottage-looking trailer is set off at the farthest end of the Halfie Heights, the Victorian country house of RVs. The roof has wooden octagon shingles, stained so you can still see the grain. The cedar siding of the little box is vertical, in the New England fashion. Past the intricate white latticework of the porch railings, I see she’s painted its ceiling haint blue. I move through her open door. The whole living room is a card table with two seats.

One, a Shaker chair, sits by a ladder leading up to a cubby loft of a bed. The other seat doubles as a windowsill, and when I crawl into it I have to be careful not to lean back and burst through the glass.

“Let us have coffee. Something about the aroma, it reminds me of professional efficiency. Don’t you agree?”

I don’t, but do. I can already smell it, and I don’t feel particularly efficient at the moment. I feel a bit confused. I’ve been largely avoiding this woman since she moved her people here. I’ve seen her, but rarely alone, and now we’re crowded into a room so tightly we’re like twins in a wooden womb.

When she finally sits down Roslyn has, in addition to coffee, two binders in her hands.

“Well, I read your email, and I reviewed your initial asking price. And I found it interesting.” She picks up her coffee with both hands, takes a sip from it, and holds it there. Smiling. I wait for her to say something more. She doesn’t. She just grins at me. I unpack her words for her, because they’re the only ones I have. Initial . She leaned on it too, just enough to get it noticed. And she’s still staring. Still smiling.

“I mean, it could be adjusted. If you’re interested — and I think things have been going very well and people are getting settled in and making a home here. So I’m sure we can come up with something fair for the whole family.”

My emphasized word is family . Because that includes me too.

“I know, and poor Tal — so sorry for her loss. I understand she might be going to a private college in Washington next school year? That’s so soon. I understand what a burden that will be for you.”

She has so much concern that it compels her to take her hand off her coffee mug and grab my fingers, which had been tapping loosely on the table. Roslyn holds my thumb up to the light. “You need to cut your nails,” she says, before I can release myself.

“The thing is,” she tells me, “I’ve been thinking about other options. Not only in this area, but nationally. We can only afford to buy one property. Just one. So we have to ensure it’s absolutely the right one, do you understand? For the betterment of our community.”

The other hand puts down the coffee, pulls over one of her folders, and hands it to me. It’s full of maps. I turn a few of the pages, find Wikipedia articles in there too. Places. Towns, counties. Yellow highlights over “Population Density” and “Racial Makeup.” I know these articles. Because I’ve read them. Because I’ve given them to my students. They’re tri-racial isolate locations.

“I don’t think — I mean, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana?” I say pointing one out.

“Such a beautiful natural landscape. Right on the Cane River, Creole country. So rich in history. And we’d fit in well there. Visually, at least. We could have an amazing Loving Day celebration, out in the fields. Spider’s leaving to scout it as we speak.”

“Yeah, but it’s also in the middle of nowhere. Look: ‘230 miles to New Orleans.’ You’re trying to build something. You want to be in the middle of a vibrant territory. Conveniently located in a major metropolitan area, easily commutable to New York City, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. And for the price I’m talking about—”

“A million dollars to live in a ghetto?”

“I find that term offensive,” I tell her. “A million two for a mansion and seventy acres in the fifth largest city in the country.” I pause. I have dropped $100,000 off the asking price to win an argument. I am amazed and infuriated by my own magnanimity. The sigh, I let it go. Mixed with the CO 2are my dreams. And then I suck it back in, because it’s all a tell, and I must show her nothing.

“I love your passion. Look at you, the fire! I’m so proud that you’ve moved past your, you know, sorrow.” I blush. The reddening of my cheeks is a breach in my defenses, but I’m helpless. “If you ever need a good cry again just know that I’m here for you.”

“Germantown is an up-and-coming neighborhood!” actually comes out of my mouth.

“I agree. For eight hundred thousand, I could make the argument that it’s worth the risk of seeing to the truth of that. It’s not the safest of places, is it, though? The pathology of poverty, of all that’s been done to our fellow black people. The effects of institutional racism. It’s all just past the fence.”

“Not one person has been mugged, robbed, attacked, or otherwise harmed in the months that you guys — that we — we all moved here.” This is actually a true statement. Not once, not one reported assault of any kind. It’s a miracle, really. God protects fools, horses, and mulattoes.

“You’re right. Nothing’s happened. And we are all so thankful for that, and for you giving our clan the opportunity to be here—”

“And I’m happy you’re here, and I want you to stay and thrive forever,” I say with all the earnestness I feel about this statement. I don’t want to be here with them, or for Tal to be — or Sun, I want her with me — but I would love to see them stay here. Except Spider; it’d be cool if he came with us, if he wants.

“But to make it truly fit, it would mean making substantial changes. Significant investment. Turn to the end of the book.”

I do, and I can feel her watching me. I struggle getting the thick sheets over their little rails, curse in the process, but in all that time Roslyn is unmoving, focused on the pages.

“This is here,” I say when I see it. A map. A map of Loudin Estate. I recognize it from the shape of the property, the names of streets to the north and east. But the house placement is all wrong. And there are other structures as well, ones that don’t exist outside this ink. “Why is the mansion over here, in the back?”

“Because that’s where we’d have to move it. It’s the only way we could maximize the site for further construction. That house is hogging all the space, don’t you agree? It’s a simple process, really. Workers cut the building into smaller pieces, then snap them together like LEGOs, apparently.”