The Cost of Knowing, page 25
Mrs. Zaccari—Karen—whatever I’m calling her now, pulls another napkin from her pocket and dabs at her eyes.
“Alex, you don’t think this is hard for me?” she squeaks. “My husband and my son were arrested. I lost both of them this weekend. And how can you say that? We love you. We loved Isaiah.”
Aunt Mackie rests both her hands on my shoulders and leans down to whisper to me. “Alex, let’s wait until we have a lawyer, okay?” she asks from behind me, and somehow, I get the feeling her eyes are trained on Karen, because Karen gasps.
“A lawyer?” she asks, her resolve crumbling before me. “MacKayla, surely that’s not necessary. We’ve both lost children this weekend. Surely it would be better to come together and heal from this instead? Do we really have to bring lawyers into this?”
“How dare you say that to me?” snaps Aunt Mackie, completely ignoring her own advice to wait until we have a lawyer. I take a step back as she steps past me and points an accusatory finger, right in Karen’s face. “We’ve both lost children? Please! You lost a child because his own actions landed him in jail, Karen. Isaiah was taken from me, by your husband!” At the word “husband,” her voice cracks, snapping through the air like a whip.
“M-MacKayla,” whimpers Karen as two tears fall from her eyes, “I’m… I’m sorry.” She offers the apology, but Aunt Mackie has already turned to lead these people out of this place. She sniffs and shoves her hands in her pockets and glances over her shoulder at me.
“I’ll be in the car, Alex,” she huffs.
The families of Isaiah’s classmates awkwardly shuffle their children across the grass to follow the herd, and Karen and I are left standing here, facing each other. Her blue eyes are pleading with me.
“Now, Alex,” she manages, reaching out to me. I recoil, like she’s holding out a red-hot coal for me to take.
“Don’t,” I say.
“You have to know he didn’t mean to—” She stops suddenly. I’m not even sure she knows how to finish her sentence.
I’m surprised at how dark my voice sounds when I finally speak.
“Didn’t mean to kill him?” I ask. I swallow the lump in my throat and feel a tear roll down from my eye. “Doesn’t matter. You’re both racists.”
She gasps and looks at me like I’ve just stabbed her in the chest.
“Alex,” she whispers, “how can you call us that… that word? We would never… I told you, we… it was an accident—”
“ ‘Accidental’ racism,” I say, with air quotes, “still gets us killed. And that’s really all I care about.”
My dad’s words come back….
A man’s not a man without his paycheck.
And what I thought when I left Scoop’s…
But a man who doesn’t protect his family is no man either.
And my add-on…
But one man can’t protect everyone.
And a wave of peace comes over me as I bring it full circle.
And a boy shouldn’t have to try.
“Goodbye, Karen,” I say. If a real man would stand up for himself and ask for help when he needs it, I know I’m saying the right thing. Or headed the right direction, anyway. The silence physically hurts. My chest is so tight it’s hard to breathe. Darkness plays at the corners of my eyes, and I wonder if this is what it feels like to pass out. Am I about to faint? Oh shit.
I don’t know what else to do, so I sink to the grass and cross my legs, and wait for her to leave. I shut my eyes and bury my face in my hands and wait. And wait. And wait. I hear footsteps move slowly through the grass and fade away until I can’t hear them anymore. I’m working on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. I count to ten. It helps a little. And finally getting all of that off my chest?
It helps a lot.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, and it startles me. I look up, my eyes dry, the sun blinding against them, and make out Aunt Mackie’s silhouette.
“You ready now?” she asks.
Ready for what?
To let go?
To say goodbye?
To leave this place?
No. No to all three.
“Can I just have another minute?” I ask. “I’ll, uh… I’ll walk home. Or take the bus or something. I’ll be okay. Promise.”
I don’t think Aunt Mackie would’ve gone for that on any other day, but today she takes her hand away, and nods, and walks to the car.
“Take all the time you need. Just call me when you’re ready,” she says, “and I’ll come get you.”
I nod, but I doubt she sees me, as she’s already turned and started walking. Then I hear the footsteps stop behind me.
“I love you, Alex,” she says. I look over my shoulder.
“I love you, too, Aunt Mackie.”
And then I do what I couldn’t do before. I push myself to my feet and run to her, throwing my arms around her waist. She reels back from the impact, but then she holds me tight. She runs her hand along my shoulder and kisses the top of my head.
“Mmm, I love you so much,” she says, choking back tears. “And I’m so proud of you. And I know Isaiah was too.”
She has no idea what that means to me. I squeeze her even tighter and pull away to look up at her.
“I’m proud of you, too,” I say determinedly. And I am. This is a lot for anyone to go through. Losing a sister, inheriting her two children, and then losing one of them, too?
She nods and carefully wipes a tear from under her eye, which has been carefully concealed and highlighted and contoured and traced with eyeliner and whatever else.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you. Call me when you’re ready.”
And she turns to leave. I sit back down in the grass.
Eventually, when my shadow has moved just enough to notice, and my spine feels so stiff that it might break, I muster the strength to stand again.
I look out at the field of plaques in the grass, in the direction of my parents’, which are only a hundred feet away or so. He won’t be too far from them.
I look down at the photo one last time before holding it out over the hole in the ground, and I take another deep breath. The breeze is an invitation. There’s a lift in my chest like what happened when Isaiah and I were singing together in my car the other day, and I chuckle a bit, catching everyone’s attention for a moment. I don’t care.
“Goodbye, Izzy Rufus,” I say.
And I let it go.
When Isaiah’s beautiful red flowers are six feet under a mound of earth, and so is the photo, people continue to leave, one by one. I’m sure they’re all going back to Aunt Mackie’s house to eat something and reflect on Isaiah’s twelve short years, but I’m not hungry, and I’ve no energy left. I’m numb, frozen in time here by his side. The classmates leave. Scoop leaves, but not before clapping me on the back and letting me know I can come back to work for him whenever I like, after I’ve had time.
Time.
What I wouldn’t give to have time. I always seem to be running out of it.
Talia turns to leave with her mother. Her gaze lingers on me as they go past. I can feel it, and I shut my eyes against it. I’m not ready. I’m not ready for anything. I just want to sit here for a while and think.
So I do.
I drop to the grass, and I bow my head. I think, finally, after days of misery, I’ve run out of tears. I fold my arms and prepare to blink away a vision of the navy suit jacket I’m wearing and then realize with relief that those are over. I feel the cold dew soak through my suit pants, which are probably dry-clean only. I don’t care about that, either.
I feel a tiny tickle along my left index finger, and I open my eyes and hold up my hand to look at it. I find a little ladybug crawling there. No spots. All red. And I wonder if this is Isaiah’s way of saying goodbye.
I smile and watch the little Red Dragon take flight, straight toward the sun, in the direction of my parents’ resting place. Then I notice a man walking toward me. He’s wearing a brown suit that looks like it’s made out of some kind of tweed. He looks like a detective from an old movie, with a huge gray mustache and thin little glasses that sit right at the tip of his nose. My heart starts pounding, and I don’t know why. I have the sudden urge to stand up, so I do, careful not to touch the ground. Something about this man, the way he walks, the way he looks at me, seems familiar. He closes the distance between us, shuffling his feet through the grass gingerly, as if every movement causes him pain. When he’s a few feet in front of me, and I think he’ll walk right on past, he stops. He slides his hands into his pockets and looks up at me. I’m sure he used to be as tall as me. Maybe taller. The years have taken a toll on his height. He looks me up and down in silence with warm, smiling eyes, and he reaches his shaky, wrinkled hand out for a handshake.
I glance down at it for a second, and when I look back up at him, he moves his hand closer to me and purses his lips. His face, his movements, his eyes, they all say go on.
I reach forward and take his hand, and a vision crackles to life in my head. At first, panic strikes me. Not again, I think to myself in terror, after all of that, not again. But this vision feels different, etched in gold around the edges, and strangely comforting. To my surprise, I see Isaiah, tiny, toddler Isaiah curled up in a man’s lap, with his oversize head against the man’s chest and his black Power Rangers light-up shoes hanging over the man’s knees. I don’t recognize the man, but something about him feels familiar. Then he looks up at me, and I notice the salt-and-pepper mustache, the slight downward tilt of the eyes on the outside, the strong, wide nose, and I realize it’s the man whose hand I’m shaking. A name comes to me like a whisper, as clearly as if I’d actually heard it.
Harold.
My eyes fly open, and I take a closer look at the old man standing in front of me, still holding my hand.
“G-grandpa?” I ask.
He winks at me, lays his free hand over mine, and shakes it. And then, without a word, he steps past me. I stare after him and blink a few times, wondering if my visions have now gone from movies to hallucinations. My heart is racing. What do I do? I look around the cemetery for another person—anyone else. Just someone to verify that I haven’t lost my damn mind. But I’m alone. I look back to the man, and he’s gone. There’s not a single trace of him. His shuffling walk left none of the grass around me trampled.
Did I just imagine that shit?
I turn back to the open field, and four men are walking toward me. Slowly. Unnaturally slowly. All of them are tall, all lanky. All Black. They’re moving in a straight line in my direction, like an army, eyes trained on me. I glance over my shoulder to check for anyone else who might be able to confirm that I’m not losing my freaking mind. But there’s no one.
Just me and these four men.
One is dressed like one of those old-timey guys who might’ve worked on a railroad. He’s got a railroad hat on anyway, gaunt face, high cheekbones, eyebrows set in a permanent frown of concentration, fists clenched like he’s never not worked a day in his life.
Daniel Alby.
The name rings in my ears as clearly as if someone had spoken it to me. I just know it suddenly, and I wonder if this is what Isaiah meant when he asked me if the world screamed at me. If this is how Isaiah had to live every day of his life, my heart aches even more for him, for a second, and then it lifts as I remember how free he was on that stage. How fearless.
Buddy Lyons, whispers the next name. The shortest of the four, but still taller than me. Striped baseball uniform. Sweat covers his bald head and forehead. A smile is plastered on his face like he’s never not smiled a day in his life. He marches across the grass slightly ahead of the others, right in the middle of them, like he can’t wait to get to me. The man just after him is named John. Just John. No last name. And his pants, which look like linen, are stained and frayed at the bottom, and his forehead is creased even worse than Daniel’s, but his eyes are soft, and tired, and his mouth is pursed like he wants to speak but can’t. His hand is clasped around that of the next man, who is slightly shorter, but looks just like him.
Patience Truman.
Patience? His name is Patience? I look at the grip around his hand and determine that John must be his father. And given the lack of last name, I wonder if John was…
The word rattles around in my head like a marble, hurting more with every letter I sound out.
A slave.
I’m staring into the eyes of my great-great-great-great-etc.-someone, who has his hand around his son, Patience, who’s literally holding on to patience as if his life depended on it.
And I guess it does. Or did. I guess the preservation of our whole genealogy depended on patience.
They’re all so close now, staring down at me. There’s a power that emanates from each of them, as if they’re sure of where they stand. Like they know their place in this world, and they’re inviting me in with them. John reaches his arm out to me, and I shut my eyes and feel the warmth of his hand on my shoulder. And a second. And a third. Soon my whole body feels warm, and a swarm of arms encircles me, holding me close. I feel the tears come on suddenly, and I look up through the mass of arms and chests and heads as they all hold me close. Between losing Isaiah and… this, whatever this is, it’s all too much, and I bury my face in my hands and sob. I wonder if Isaiah were around to see this, what he’d say. What he’d do. And then I hear my name.
“Alex,” says the voice, strong and familiar. I know it immediately, and my breath catches in my throat. My eyes fly open and one by one, my ancestors step back, parting the way so I can see across the grass to the other side of the graveyard again. One man is there, walking through the grass, his feet somehow not disturbing a single blade. His sweatshirt is black, with a Chicago Bulls logo on the chest.
“Dad?” I ask, so unsure of myself it comes out in a whisper.
He’s carrying a small boy in his arms. A small boy in a red sweatshirt with that Shiv Skeptic bandanna around his forehead and that smile I’ve missed so much it hurts.
“Isaiah!” I scream, sprinting to them through the grass. I don’t care that I’m wearing a suit. I care that they’re here. That I get to talk to them again!
Isaiah locks eyes with me and squirms out of Dad’s arms and runs to me. I throw my arms around him, squeezing him, lifting him into the air. I hold him so tight, and I don’t want to let him go.
Then I notice something else. A dark shadow in front of a tree about fifty feet away from me, standing so still it’s lucky I noticed him. He’s shirtless, wearing plain brown linen pants. His hair is tied up in locs at the crown of his head, and his arms are crossed over his chest. He looks like an extra from Black Panther. He looks familiar too, somehow. He moves, uncrosses his arms, and begins walking toward me, staring me down with the most intense eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re dark and determined, and he walks with purpose. When he’s about twenty feet away, I notice he’s not wearing shoes or socks. His bare feet are somehow dry, even with all this dew on the grass. He’s also about six foot five and ripped like an MMA fighter. He reminds me a little of Shiv Skeptic, especially in the way he looks at me. Like he knows me. He stops a foot in front of me, looking down at my skinny five-foot-seven frame, and I suddenly feel overwhelmed in his presence. He’s huge.
I look up at his face, hardened by what appears to be years of worry. So familiar. Where have I seen him? I look at his nose, the way it fans out wide on the sides, and at his high cheekbones underneath his black skin, dark and shiny as a well-loved chestnut. Then I look at his eyes—the way they’re turned down at the outer corners, just like Grandpa Harold’s, and I realize who I’m looking at. When it sinks in, I feel like I can’t breathe. My mouth falls open. He must see the shock in my eyes, because his mouth curves into a smile, and he reaches his huge hands forward to grab one of mine. I’ve seen this vision before. I see Ursa’s face. Her big, round eyes looking over her shoulder at me as I stand as still as possible on that mountain ledge. And beyond her, with nothing but determination in his face, is Takaa, who already knows the terrible fate of his son and his son’s wife, who has already seen the slave ships and knows they’ll be taken from him, who keeps moving anyway.
I reach out for him.
The world collapses into a vortex around me, and it feels like I’m flying through an endless tunnel of light. The blisteringly hot wind swirls so fiercely I have to shield my eyes. Everything aches. Every inch of me is exhausted, like I just ran a whole marathon. Suddenly everything gets sucked up into darkness like a Shop-Vac, and when I’m brave enough to ease my eyes open, I look down to see my hand is still holding Takaa’s. I’m half-surprised I’m still standing after all that. The wind was so strong I thought I’d get blown away. I look up at him for answers. Why is he here with me? How is he here with me?
His eyes are smiling as he gives me an answer in a single word.
“Kunze.”
Somehow, despite it taking me six months to catch onto basic Spanish, I know this word. Somehow, I’ve heard it before. I know all its meanings.
He said freedom.
He said permission.
He said authority.
Tears well in my eyes. I get it. I really think I get what he’s saying. He said joy. I clear my throat and take a deep breath before attempting to reply in my best Akoose.
“Kə̂ŋ,” I say.
His eyebrows knit together, and he stands a little taller, lifting his free hand into the air, commanding me to say it again.
“Kə̂ŋ!” I say again, feeling it thunder through me as it leaves my mouth. He nods, and before I can say anything else, he pulls me against him and wraps his huge arms around me. I’m suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude—for who I am. For who my father was. For who his father was. For having known Isaiah as long as I did. Here I am, in the middle of Elginwood Park Cemetery, where my entire immediate family will lie buried forever, in the arms of Takaa himself. Unafraid. I don’t know how long I stand there before I hear a familiar voice behind me.
