Jackal, page 21
“Jesus.” I see him go away in his mind, off to high school and Keisha. “That’s her. That’s crazy.”
I pull my hand back. “That’s Eco Styler. She always had her edges laid. Why did you stop talking to me? After that party?”
“I was getting my life together. I thought you were mad at me. I was mad at myself. I left you in the middle of the night in the woods. Who does that?”
Mel, I think.
“When I saw you at the wedding, I just wanted to yell I’m sorry. Don’t blame you for being pissed with me.”
Everyone thinks they know what my anger looks like. They think it’s screaming and yelling and fighting. Sometimes anger is a low vibration, the coil before the spring. Sometimes it sinks inside me and paralyzes me.
“We were kids,” I say.
“I’ve missed talking to you,” Chris admits. “You don’t sound like the people who live here. You aren’t interested in the same things they are. You listen. The kids who signed my yearbook, not one of those motherfuckers ever did that. Not even to this day. They come to the bar, but that’s it. This town is still made of two kinds of people. People who get ahead and people who have been left behind. Every year, it seems like I know more and more people who are behind. When she—Keisha—disappeared, I thought about it for…months. I still think about her.”
“So do I.”
The person who is doing this must have a lot of hate to kill an innocent child. Or bitterness.
“I should go,” Chris says, but he doesn’t move. He wants me to tell him to leave.
“Have you ever come across something you can’t explain in the woods?” I ask. I feel him try to make a joke and fail.
“A few times. Never look, just keep moving.” He stands up. I do too. I go to help him close up the gate, but he indicates he doesn’t need me. He lifts the gate and I see something crushed in the joint. It’s soft and greasy. And bright pink. I see a few flecks of paper mixed in with the wax of a crayon. Before I can say anything, Chris shuts the bed of the truck. He heads around to the front and waves. Bye. I barely wave back, my eyes are locked on what I just saw. I know I saw it. That wasn’t deer or dirt. That was a pink crayon. Judging by the greasiness, it’s one of the needlessly fancy ones I bought Caroline for Christmas. The ones Mel had been looking for.
DIANA
June 1996
People in America love to believe in freedom, even though it isn’t free. It never was. Not even for those who emblazon it across their cars, patios, and homes. The history of freedom is much older than plastic flags and banners.
For those who fled north, the color of their skin united them. Some knew only the plantations they’d been born on, others memorized the trails they’d been traded along. A few even claimed to remember the Passage. All who ran did so in search of freedom. They believed they fled their chains. Some brought new ones with them. Shackled to the god of their captors, they praised him with a faith that was once reserved for deities who looked like them and spoke in their mother tongue. Fueled by impossible belief, an unshakable faith was born. Something novel was needed to survive the New World. I should be sensitive.
I miss the 1990s. They were on the verge of something. Everyone knew it. Between the internet and cellphones, something big was coming. None of this mattered to Diana or her parents. They were more concerned about the past. Specifically, a missing piece of it.
Her mother, Renée, especially, was out to prove something: roots. Ever since Diana could remember, her mother had been concerned about where they came from and what Diana was learning in school about the past. Ever a dutiful student, Diana could easily recite lessons she learned about America: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, Separate but Equal, Winners of an Impossible War. Each segment she learned appeared in her mind like billboards on the side of a highway announcing how far we’ve come and how far we have to go.
“And where do you see yourself?” Renée asked. Every time, on all these billboards, Diana never saw herself. She also never questioned this. Her lack of existence in this country didn’t bother her the way it did her mother. Diana was more focused on a place she couldn’t go, but could visit. The past.
The library was one of her favorite places. There Diana discovered a history she saw herself in. Ancient Egypt. Movies cast Egyptians with white protagonists. Diana looked at the drawings herself. Those people were brown and in Africa. Her mother didn’t have the heart to complicate Diana’s love for this past. She didn’t want to point out that most people who were enslaved came from West Africa. North and west were, and still are, very different places. Lumping Africa into a monolith is a side effect of erasure. When your past exists in shadow, you seek your home any way you can. At first, Renée planned to teach Diana about the Iron Age and deities more fitting for her probable origins. But, the more Renée researched, the more she realized, there is no going home for Black Americans, there is only claiming it.
Renée redoubled her efforts to teach her daughter her past. When Diana was in her last year of middle school, Renée founded a small historical society and made Diana her assistant. It was not a job Diana wanted. Oral history was what her mother assigned to her. She had to get the story of a place that lives only in the mouths of people. It was a safe task. In her neighborhood, Diana didn’t need her mother to watch her. She had the community to do so. They were all too eager to keep the girl occupied.
“The windy-blows?” The old man on the corner rhymed the name of a much more sinister creature. “ ’Course they out there. If you hear anything with smarts after dark—whistling, breaking branches, calling your name, don’t trust it. Don’t even acknowledge it.”
One of the ladies who did braids in the summer added, “These old dudes are trying to scare you. Bears are reason enough to stay out of them trees, girl.” In collecting these stories, she learned most folks followed these two courses. They either tried to scare her away from the woods with monsters or they’d appeal to her common sense.
A woman from one of the oldest houses in town had a different take. “Don’t give it any thought or energy. That’s the only way to keep it there.” Diana didn’t know what “there” the old woman meant: there in the woods or there as in alive?
Diana was on the verge of something big.
At twelve years old, she was already deep in her opinions. Her opinion of this town was comforting. She planned to finish school, stay here, and have a family. She wanted to indulge in all the comforts small-town life could offer. Diana wasn’t someone who felt the need to be coastal.
I’ve never seen the coast. I don’t think I’ve ever known how to swim.
Neither did Diana, though that wasn’t why she wanted to stay away from the coast. She heard it was a place where elites went, and if her snotty classmates were any indicator, she’d much rather stay right where she was. There was no wanderlust in her. Even if she traveled, she would eat only foods she recognized or things she could pronounce. She’d be loud and American, and she’d only ever speak English.
Unlike her opinion of the town, her opinion of the woods was unsettled. The woods were both scary and fun. They were a thing to be respected, but breaking off twigs to build cities for ants was one of her favorite things to do. Years ago, something terrible happened to a little girl in the woods. Some people said her parents abused her and dumped her there. Some people said she got shot by accident and someone covered it up. Some people said she had her heart ripped out by a wolf. Diana dismissed these rumors as stories made up to scare her. A quick jaunt between the trees was too tempting to miss out on because of fear. She set out on a path she knew well, moving quickly.
Hunters like dusk. It’s the changeover between creatures of the day and creatures of the night. Diana was wearing the wrong shoes. Her feet, slick with sweat, slipped around in her jelly sandals. She ignorantly assumed she didn’t need sunscreen. Her melanin wasn’t enough protection. Hidden in the brown hues of her skin, her sunburn had started to make the skin on her shoulders sensitive. She felt the drop in temperature before she noticed the sunset. Her bright yellow top popped against the red undertones of her complexion in a way that was enviable. When she wore it, people couldn’t help but stare.
The Fellow easily spotted Diana in her yellow during this shift. And as she made her way along the trail, he tracked her. Halfway down the path, there was a deep bend. That’s where she paused, unsure. The hair on the back of her neck rose as she became of someone watching her. Not being well-versed in the eyes of men, she brushed the feeling off and pushed herself toward her own demise. Maybe if she had worn different shoes.
“Diana!”
When she looked at him, she wasn’t scared, like the others. Instead, she froze in disbelief. To her, he appeared like a monster in a dream. He was a sudden, awful manifestation of the warnings she knew so well. Diana’s mother told her the woods were no place for children to play. To stick to the path. To stay in earshot. The rules of the world didn’t extend to the trees. There was something in there with a hunger that nothing could satisfy. A hollow being that preyed on anyone who strayed from the pack.
Sometimes I think of Diana’s mother, Renée. She didn’t cry like the others. Instead, deep bitter blame rooted in her. She hated her daughter. Renée hated her until she died, years later, from a broken heart. Hating her daughter kept her alive. Hate is active. Hate has drive. But love, like grief, is long and ever-changing. Diana’s mother didn’t dare love again.
Diana’s heart was full of stories. From both the origins she longed for and her home in actuality. She taught me the power of a tale and the purpose in rewriting it.
Ancient Egypt in Education: History’s Role in the Childhood Identity of African Americans
BY RENÉE LEAKS
Abstract: In this essay, I consider the role of Ancient Egypt as it relates to childhood identity in African Americans. First, I present the current grade school world history curriculum, specifically when it comes to the representation of Africa, its history, and cultures. Then, I present my findings on self-perception of African American students in those same classes. Focusing on what histories are told and in what manner, I illustrate the complicated relationship African Americans have to Africa in a historical setting. With certain societies held up as exemplary and others omitted or shunned, African American children are often presented with an uneven and incomplete picture of their past. Seeking meaning and identity in African countries or cultures over American culture is a common desire. In conclusion, my findings advocate for a holistic and comprehensive historical approach as diverse as the many groups that came together to create America.
Keywords: Ancient Egypt, early childhood development, African American history, American history.
TWENTY
Caroline’s Fifth Day Missing
The next morning, the kitchen smells like bleach. It’s so pungent I can’t focus. I hardly slept. Could it have been something else—I know what I saw. A crayon. What I saw and how Chris is behaving don’t align. He feels remorse for leaving me in the woods. This killer would be the exact opposite. If he was trying to hurt me, trap me, why help me? I don’t have anything I can use to bring him in. And he’s one of the few people I have helping me. I don’t know if I can lose any more help in this town. I’ll have to be careful. No more being alone with him. I add Chris to my list of suspects. I’ll bring him up to Doug and start digging.
In the meantime, I search my memory for something, anything. My eyes ache. My temples and the area above my eyebrows throb like I’ve been awake for days. I feel the urge to check my eyes. The ordeal of the deer distracted me from the stars I saw in Farrah’s eyes. And the thing that crawled into mine. What if it is still there, lurking in my sclera, indicating something wrong with me? I head to the bathroom.
In the mirror, my deep brown irises reflect back at me. I take my phone and turn on the flashlight. I check my eyes. The depths of my irises are dark brown, so dark they’re almost black. My pupils shrink and widen. Nothing looks wrong.
My phone rings and I nearly drop it.
“Hello?” I answer.
“I messed up.” It’s Doug. The pain in his voice is heartbreaking. He sounds like a child.
“What do you mean?”
“I got caught.” He sounds smaller than ever. Someone is making him say this. I listen to the other end of the phone. It’s open and airy.
“You outside?”
“I’m outside the station, yeah,” he says, voice cracking.
“Take a minute, okay? Then go back in there with your head high.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. I know you can,” I say, unsure myself, but I’m rallying for him. I need him to be strong for both of us.
“I was running the DNA of one of the officers, Liz. They let me go.”
My heart drops. “But the DNA?” I ask, even though I suspect the answer.
“I can’t—I can’t—” The tremble in Doug’s voice is unnerving. “It was this or prison. This or prison.” He repeats the phrase like it’s what’s been said to him. “Maybe still prison.”
I let the line go silent. This job is everything to him and it’s gone. All because he helped me.
* * *
★ ★ ★
Kirsten greets me from the driveway. She’s already waving at me as I arrive. The smile on her face breaks my heart. She doesn’t know what’s happened and I can’t tell her. I walk up the driveway and she gives me a hug.
“He should be home soon. Doug let me know you were coming by,” she says as we go inside, into the kitchen, and she presents me with a perfect turkey sandwich. She pauses before setting it down. This is a move of hers.
I hear the garage door. Moments later, Doug barrels through the kitchen full of uncharacteristic rage. The way Kirsten shuts down tells me this isn’t the first time she’s seen Doug this angry. She shrinks in front of me and flees to another room of the house. Doug makes a beeline for the basement. I make my way after him down the stairs. Doug is in crisis mode.
“We need to burn it. All of it,” he says through clenched teeth.
“We can’t. It’s all we have.”
“It can’t be here.” He doesn’t sound like he did on the phone just now. He’s angry. He tears through all the boxes, making two piles. One to burn and one to keep. He decides he can keep the map, any documents he’s made, and the few photos that were public record. Everything else: crime scene photos, databases, medical reports, police archives. It all has to go. I try to help him sort.
“Goddamnit, Liz, stop it!” Doug yells. The power of his voice nearly knocks me over. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you’re messing with. I knew it! I shouldn’t have helped you. I should have let you go right back to the city and leave this place for good.”
“And leave Caroline out there?”
“Caroline is gone. Don’t you get it?”
“They haven’t found her yet.”
“Liz, you aren’t her parents. You aren’t even related to her. You don’t need to be deluded like them. Caroline is dead!”
“This is about way more than Caroline now.” Doug doesn’t know about the deer. “He went after my mom, Doug. He’s been going after her, threatening her for years. Caroline is more than enough reason, but don’t test me. I have family on the line too. Not just my family. This is about Keisha and Morgan and Brittany— My mother! This guy threatened my mother. My—” I want to slap some sense into Doug. I grab the box with the map. He lunges to get it, but I’m too fast.
“Give that back,” he demands.
“Why? You don’t need it.”
“What are you going to do with it, Liz?”
“I’m gonna find who’s doing this.”
He shakes his head. “Right. That’s exactly what— The DNA from both scenes came back. There’s a match.”
“Oh my God…” I almost cry. All of this has been worth it. I look at him, waiting for the answer.
He runs his hands through his hair. “It’s not exact, but it’s enough to—”
“What do you mean it’s not exact? It’s DNA! Whose is it?”
“Liz. Please, listen.”
I still myself but don’t calm down.
“DNA isn’t the smoking gun everyone thinks it is,” Doug continues. “It’s— I’d need another opinion; the department would. I ran the cigarette butts. To do that, I had to use part of your sample from the wedding to rule you out and I got a match.”
“Who is it?”
Doug looks me right in the eye. “You.”
“What?”
“Blood from the tarp, blood at the scene. They already have your fingerprints. It’s yours, Liz.”
I twist my wrist to feel my scar’s pull. “That can’t be.” I remember how the wound burned when it healed. “You saw my hands the night of the wedding. I didn’t have any cuts. I was just there.” Mom said the wound itched because of the bacteria. “Someone is setting me up.”
“I always thought it was strange that you wanted to help so bad. I never thought that it could be because—”
“I have nothing to do with this! Think about it. It’s impossible. H—how?” The question feels empty, but I ask it. “How could I have done this? All this. Gotten back here every summer and…and…and—someone made sure I found the tarp. Now my DNA magically appears—”
“It’s not magic, it’s evidence.”
“Is it you?”
Doug freezes. “After everything I’ve done to help you, you think—you think I’d lose my job to frame you?”
I don’t know. Ever since Mel left me in the woods, I’m doubting everything I’ve discovered. Accusing Doug is a shot in the dark.
“Do you know what I think?” he continues. “The girls are just girls. And you had too much to drink at a wedding and lost your best friend’s kid. This is you trying to cover it up. Mel’s life looks pretty damn perfect. Beautiful home. Cute kid. Great husband. You sure you aren’t jealous?”
