Mitchell Jackson - The Residue Years

Here’s the story that changed my mind about this love shit. Not by itself, but still. This happened back in high school, so it goes: me and the homies went to see the new black flick (you know how they do us. We had to roll to the outskirts to catch it; not that that matters, but it matters), and while I was in the lobby buying a Slushie and some ransom-priced popcorn, this super lame guy I’d seen in traffic bopped up. He asked me if my girl was my girl and grinned. I told him yeah and asked him, what about it? Bro, I ain’t no snitch, he said, but she’s in there with another dude.

This wouldn’t have been so bad if my girl wasn’t distinguished, if she hadn’t been the only girl in the history of my postpubescent fuck spree — which began in earnest in eighth grade and was full tilt by that point, who had ever inspired me to pass on a shot of ancillary pussy. We (the we being me and my homeboys, whose fatmouthing made a worse situation worser) found her in the theater sitting with this supernaturally pale half-a-nigger who hooped (I told y’all we all hooped) for a private high school in the burbs. So how did a fledgling Don Giovanni handle such trials? I tapped old girl on the shoulder and beamed high-watt and sat behind her and the half-a-nigger the whole flick, making a symphony of sucking down my Slushie and smacking my popcorn with true ambition. The credits rolled and I let them empty into the aisle and followed, trading big-ass guffaws with my boys. For the rest of the day and thereafter, I played like wasn’t shit wrong, that I was cool as the temperature (it was like they double-dutied the joint for storing cadavers) in that theater that day, though the truth was I was an emblem for grief.

Wouldn’t you know, when I got home, Grace was nowhere to be found. MIA until days later, when she slumped in too looped to lend advice of any kind of efficacy. When she finally got right, I told her what happened, expecting the kind of coddling my young self was too old for even then. That’s what I wanted, but this is what I got instead: Son, if you’re going to risk your love, save all the space you can for hurt.

Beth answers barefoot in a silk robe with music playing in the background, a surprise since I called her crib not an hour ago and she didn’t pick up. She lets me in, heads for the fridge, pours a glass of wine. She sways into her room and through her robe, through the silk-something under it, you can see her ass cheeks jump — picture two koala bears wrestling — just like I lust.

Damn, I say.

Damn, what? she says.

The kitchen’s light is lush. I weigh the dope, mix it with soda, and set a pot to boil. Then it’s back and forth from the kitchen to the peephole, my hands no good for anything steady, the sound of my pulse not the sound of a pulse. This happens every time I chef. It happens and I mind it or else. Beth ask me to top off her glass and I pass again by the peephole. This is intervention, no less, which is a priority when you’ve had dreams like mines, sleep wrecked for weeks with visions I can’t even speak on.

I take the pot off the stove and let the work lock.

I dump the water and let the work sit on a paper towel to airdry.

But this is as far as it goes with the play-by-play. This ain’t no how-to guide.

I lie across Beth’s bed. She asks me about school, and I tell her about an essay on happiness that I had to read for class. What would you rather have, a trick knee or a broken leg? I say.

I beg your pardon? she says

Of the two, I say. Which would you rather?

The leg, she says. It’ll heal.

Beth, her big brown nipples pressing through the silk, sits against the headboard with her knees bent and parted, no panties. An invite. And how could I pass on an invite like this? With Kim’s face a foosball knocking around my skull, I strip down to my boxer briefs and tell her she ain’t cool for seducing me.

So this is what you call seduction? she says.

Peoples, pause please before you blister me too tough. Me and Beth, we ain’t all the way reckless. We’ve got rules: no open-mouth kissing, no proclamations of love, a limit on postcoital pillow talk. Before that, though, I make a rhythm that lasts a few songs and part of another. She rests her thigh, warm and twitchy, across my stomach when we finish, while we lay looking at the TV without watching it, a paranormal quiet between us. This goes on till I get up to clean off. Our postsession cool-off is pretty much standard but what happens in the bathroom borders on the semifantastic. What happens in the bathroom is this: it hits me that I couldn’t, for a jackpot, recall Beth’s last name. Oh boy, talk about all bad intimacies. I grab the sink with both hands and look into the mirror. See a face that’s the face of a sucker who could do this on a whim to a good chick. I rub my nuts and smell a finger. To smell another woman on your nuts when you love your girl (I know, I know, I know) is foul. To be stumped on the last name of the girl that’s all over your nuts when you love your girl is no less than lowdown dirty despicable. I mumble the alphabet, hoping a letter will help the name catch hold.

You want to know some funny shit? I say, back in the room, stepping into my boxer briefs. I can’t remember your last name for shit.

Are you serious? she says. Do you think admitting that fact’s a little foolish? she says.

Admitting that fact might be the least of my fool, I say.

It’s Ford, she says. And for the record, you’re the worst.

Beth’s an army girl, a corporal, which in a strange way makes our setup extra-special. I bend to lace my shoes, see a fitted cap under the bed. I should shrug it off, but what can I say, I’m an opportunist. I toss it on the bed and ask if it’s competition for the crown.

Beth smirks. She asks if I can give her the storage fee. It’s early I know but things a little tight this month, she says.

You need it? I say.

Wouldn’t ask if I didn’t, she says.

So check it, I hope you don’t be letting your less special houseguests snoop, I say. Can’t have nobody stumbling on my stash.

If I have a guest you can believe he’s occupied, she says. The last thing he’s worried about is playing a sleuth.

What’s the size of the thing it takes to kill it, whatever it is?

Beth says this and I can hear Half Man in my head (the old jabbering voice of dissent) warning me against hitting Beth raw, reminding my silly ass that she’s in the field in a major way.

If your dad’s a plumber, you learn pipe work, how to dredge a pipe; if he’s a writer, he gives you books, show you how to write a decent sentence; if Pops is a preacher, maybe he teaches you Sunday sermons. My dad (by dad I mean Big Ken, who isn’t my real dad, but stepped up when my biological pops was into sleight of hand) was, Ibullshityounot, on everything I love, right hand to God, a pimp. Some days he’d take me along while he checked his hos: white girls who lived in dank apartments, who wore robes well in the afternoons and who smelled of cigarette smoke. Sometimes he’d have other errands to run, and would leave me with them. They’d occupy me the best they could, and when he swooped in an hour or so later, he’d stuff fives and tens in my pockets and let me lap-drive to the next spot. He never talked about what he was, and when I got older he never held his hustle up as a model, but for the last long while I’ve wondered how much of what he was is what I am.

Beth gets up to take a shower. She leaves her door cracked, tells me that the sergeant pulled her aside and said she might get stationed in another state, that I might have to find another spot to stash my work. She says I’ve got a few months, maybe more, but she wants to give me a heads-up. I lay her cash on her blanket and stroll in the kitchen, where I prep a few oz’s and scrub the pot and utensils clean. Forget the cliché: in this life cleanliness is next to freedom! I leave with a swollen plastic sack stuffed in my sleeve and my eyes stabbing every which way.