Mat Johnson - Drop

‘What the hell is wrong with you? All the years he’s been out here, that man’s got enough problems without you applying your own.’ Alex pulled out into the road. Below us, the heat made the asphalt sluggish, soft, and I could feel the Yam-man behind me, still standing there, stinking up his part of the world. Refusing to accept my rejection, willing the tar to slow our wheels and fuse the rubber to the road.

Philly was me, speeding back down 176, looking at the daytime glamour of the crew clubs at Boathouse Row thinking, yeah, they look nice, but they’ve still got to get into that nasty water. It was me sitting in Alex’s car, so damn happy that this was my last victory run.

‘You’re going to miss this,’ Alex said, watching my face as I stared Center City down, passing the violence of South Philadelphia, moving beyond muscle T-shirts and pidgin English, the narrow street parking space fights. Fuck water ice.

‘How long do you really think you’ll be gone?’ Alex asked. She maneuvered her little car amidst the bigger beasts by bobbing her head around like a Rittenhouse Square pigeon as her callused palms tugged at the wheel.

‘This is it.’ Outside, the oil refineries we passed made the air smell like hot dog vendor farts. In the car next to us a white woman with a man’s haircut, sleeveless T-shirt, and GO EAGLES sticker on her passenger side was yelling at a little Barbie doll-chewing girl who ignored her, staring instead at me, at my escape. Sorry, I can’t take you with me. Sorry you’re going to turn into that beast driving.

‘For real, Chris, when do you think? Next year? Two years maybe?’ No more Moonies selling exhaust-fume pretzels on exit ramps for Christopher.

‘This is my terminal. It’s over here.’ Alex moved her wreck of a car to the curb and let it die for a second.

‘So this is it?’ It was me asking, too excited to trust just my eyes.

‘I guess so.’

‘Watch. I’m gonna make you proud.’

‘What the hell are you talking about? I already am proud. You earned this. Be proud of yourself.’

‘I will be,’ I nodded, hopeful.

‘You want me to park, come in with you? I brought extra money, I can cover it. I can’t park here.’

‘Nah, you don’t have to. I’m cool.’

‘You gonna miss me?’

‘Yeah, you I’m going to miss.’

‘You’re going to miss Philly.’

‘F Philly.’

As Alex bent to get something from the back seat of the car, I kissed her on the side of her big butterscotch forehead. Twins: we recognized each other’s wounds, the need for their tending. When Alex turned around she had the white paper bag she’d gotten from Stop ’n’ Go.

‘Don’t forget, I got something for you.’ She pulled it out. I didn’t have to see its slender torpedo shape to know what it was.

‘I told you I wasn’t hungry,’ I lied.

‘A cheesesteak. You can eat it while you wait for the plane.’

‘I don’t want any Philly food.’

‘Then save it for when you get there. I don’t know, put it in the freezer for when you get homesick.’ Yeah, sick and home, but not in that order. Alex placed it in my palm, and it was heavy. Hot, soft and heavy. Weighing down my hand as I hugged her, wanting to carry her with me, praying that she would come to her senses before this city made her its meal.

At my departure gate, as I waited with the other runaways for my plane to arrive, the sandwich sat on my lap like an anchor, thick with greasy Philly nourishment. There would be hot sliced beef inside, melted pale provolone cheese because Alex didn’t like the processed kind. If I unveiled the white wrapping and then the aluminum that held that steak, steam would rise slowly from its salted innards; there would be onions, browned by heat and oil, overflowing from the tan, thick crusted roll that attempted to hold them. When my boarding call finally came I left it on the lobby seat behind me, relieved when they took my ticket and I couldn’t go back for it.

I saw ‘Chris Jones’ written on a white sheet of cardboard, quick black letters from a thick black pen. The woman who held it was tall and light, made up of a group of curving lines (neck, legs, arms, even hair), staring down at a paperback instead of into the current of arriving faces. When I stopped in front of her, she turned up and started aiming the sign at my face like I might forget who I was.

‘Urgent Agency?’

‘Right.’ She dropped the placard and her novel. ‘Is that the whole of your luggage?’

‘Yeah. Is David Crombie here?’

‘No, he’s not here. Couldn’t expect him to get dressed before noon, could you?’

‘Maybe he wanted to get ready,’ I said, already making excuses, and I hadn’t even really met the guy.

I had already decided I liked this woman, who was David’s wife. Maybe it was because I had lost my own mother but, while in the line (because it wouldn’t be a queue yet for me) to buy bottled water at the airport kiosk for the jet lag Margaret was sure I was destined to endure, when she turned back to me, stared at my face for a moment, then licked her thumbs and rubbed my eyebrows straight with her own saliva, I fell in love with her. I knew then that I would love her husband as well. All this slightly older (ten years maybe?) elegant, seemingly sophisticated black woman had to do was rub her spit into my face and my guard, whatever insignificant American perimeter I maintained, was decimated.

In the car, Margaret’s hands held wheel and stick, pulling and winding and yanking. Those hands were long and lanky, slightly wrinkled on the back where the thin skin was, every purposeful bone visible, thick river veins bulbous, soft and meandering. On a full speed right turn Margaret’s book slid across the dashboard and bounced off the glass, onto my lap. Without looking or slowing down, Margaret snatched it from its resting place and threw it in a high arc over her shoulder. I heard the sounds of a dry avalanche behind me and turned around. One paperback had been lost in a mountain of its brethren. Filling the space meant for legs, asses, torsos, the peak of the many hued heap reached all the way up to the back window. Books. Their spines broken, their covers permanently bursting, outstretched, trying desperately to vomit the pages held within.

‘I read mysteries,’ Margaret offered, so I stopped staring and turned around.

Zip-zip-zipping down roads in a tiny red car in a new land. Why would anyone buy a car so small? And why build streets to match it? And getting nervous every time we came to an intersection (Jesus, what fucking lane is she turning into?). My body was out of step, one minute awake and the next moment glazed. Outside everything looked familiar, then not. Like seeing someone you think you know on the street and realizing they’re a stranger when they get closer. So many black folk. Didn’t know I wasn’t expecting to see them till I did.

‘Welcome to Brixton.’ Margaret had been quiet except for her light cursing as she avoided automotive contact on one-lane roads with two-way traffic. So quick, these precise maneuvers, pulling into parking spaces to give room for oncoming cars to pass, pulling out with one hand while lighting her cigarette with the hot metal the auto provided for such purposes.

‘Do you work for Urgent?’ I asked.

‘Used to. Not any more. David and I actually started it together, when he resigned from the Patterson Group, but I’ve gone back to being a solicitor. I suspect that’s why you’re here.’

‘What’s David like?’ I asked, looking at the side of Margaret’s face as she laughed, having forgotten already what this woman looked like and needing to check again.

‘What an odd question. I don’t know if I’m the person to ask such a thing. Maybe you should ask someone a bit more impartial. Someone who isn’t married to him, for instance.’