Works and Days

The Gift of True Light

Russell Lewis was making his last preparations for the party when he heard the car honk outside. His bowels turned to ice water then, thank God, to ice. He trumped downstairs, turned around, said, “I’m leaving,” and in thick, bell bottomed corduroys, a Bert&Ernie sweater not seen this side of Sesame Street since 1975, barf colored scarf wrapped twice about his neck and a green parka, Russell opened the huge oaken door of 1735 Breckinridge, hailed the crowded station wagon and then, steadily, sauntered to the partymobile.

“Damn!” Aaron marveled. “Breckinridge! So this is how the white folks live!”

“Shut up, fool!” D.L. knocked Aaron upside his head. “What’s up, Russell?”

“Not much, D.L.”

“Cool,” D.L. pronounced.

“Where’s Gilead?”

“Present and accounted for,” Russell heard to his immediate right, and turned to behold Gilead Story’s spectacles.

“Um, now that’s my kind of house,” Aaron started as they drove up the avenue. “Um hum, that’s my house. I know some white girl who lives over here.”

“Shut up, Aaron.” Now it was Chuck Murray’s turn to say it calmly, negligently. Then he went on, “Them white bitches right around here? They’ll put out for some good nigga dick. There was that one bitch goes to Rosary. I had her legs twisted all the way over her ears and she kept going, ‘Harder, Chuckee, Harder! Deeper!’ Shit all that was left was the top of my head hanging out of her pussy, and my foot hanging out her mouth, and I said, ‘I can’t get no deeper, bitch!’”

“Why you lying?” D.L. demanded in a voice low with amazement. “You lie!”

Chuck gave a laugh and said, “I swear I’m serious, from the tip of my dick, I swear it, Nigga.”

After a while, when they had turned off of Breckinridge, onto Morrison and hit Main, Chuck leaned to Gilead and Russell and said, “It’s not all the way true. But she did suck my dick. White folks love that shit.”

Strogue Mominee, who was driving, was the only person not talking. He was a big, ugly Arab with a crew cut who had become an honorary Negro. He was Bobby Reyes’ roommate, and they were driving back to River Lodge Apartments where he and Bobby lived. They took Key Street, and headed all the way out of town to Route 22. They drove through the labyrinth of beige apartment blocks until they got to the right building and piled out onto the parking lot. Gilead and Russell were the last to head up the stairs to the second story apartment, and when they entered, D.L. demanded, “Where’s the party, Nigga?”

The place was quieter than Gilead and Russell had expected, and now they saw, to Russell’s dread and disappointment, Jason Lorry and Ralph Balusik among the other attendants who were all sitting around doing nothing. Ralph looked up with a raised eyebrow like he was about to say something, and Jason looked up at Russell and smacked his gum, eyeing him until Russell looked away.

Jason Lorry, insolent, gum smacking, dusky skinned was one of the most beautiful guys Russell had ever seen, and he hated that he knew that. When they had those miserable basketball games in gym class with shirts on shirts off teams, he cringed at his white bony chest being exposed and Jason just smacked his gum and looked fantastic.

 

“You know what it is,” Gilead steered Russell away. “They talk about Jason and so he talks about you because he thinks that will steer attention away from him.”

“Talk about him?”

“You know,” Gilead said, revealing casually what changed Russell’s whole world view, “everyone thinks Jason’s gay.”

Bobby Reyes leaned in the window of the kitchen that looked onto the living room. The phone was in the crook of his shoulder and he was saying:

“Yeah, un hunh. Yeah. Oh, you all are having a party? No, Shawn. What? Whatever. Yeah, love you too, Sis.”

Bobby hung up. The first thing he said was, “Russell and Gilead, welcome.”

The second he said was, “Time to pack up.”

“What?” D.L. started.

“Party at my sister’s place.”

“Well, shit. All right, then!” Chuck approved, and Bobby set to organizing how everyone would travel. It was three carloads of people. Bobby insisted on Russell and Gilead traveling with him, D.L., Chuck, Treshon. They took Aaron, who occupied in their circle roughly the same position Jack Keegan occupied in his own.

They all went in Mominee’s rumbled old van. Aaron tried to relegate Gilead and Russell to the back of the van where he informed them, “A lot of nut had been busted,” and now it was Gilead’s turn to say, “Shut up, Aaron.”

“So what inspired yawl to finally leave your holes?” Bobby demanded.

It was agreed that Bobby was Black, but he was a walnut color with round cheeks, curly off-black hair, and the touch of a Spanish accent.

Russell turned to Gilead, and seeing that no answer was forthcoming from the other young man said, “Well, I guess cause I got invited and... I don’t know.”

“Well,” Bobby, driving, shrugged, and seemed to find something funny in the answer. “How you all like my crib?”

“Your crib?” Mominee looked at him askance from the passenger’s seat. Bobby ignored it.

“It’s straight,” and Russell was surprised to hear this slang out of Gilead’s mouth.

“You all live there by yourselves?” Russell sounded extremely Caucasian in his own ears.

“I left home. Couldn’t take my moms. Most parents try to pretend they want you to be happy. My stepfather, he didn’t give a fuck, didn’t even pretend. My older sister left to get married. Then the other one, the one we’re going to see, left to live with my sister before she went on and did’er own shit. And I left to be Strogue’s roommate.”

“I got thrown out of my house,” Strogue volunteered his personal history.

“I’d throw yo ass out too, boy,” D.L. chided. “Damn fool gettin’ caught fuckin’ on the edge of his mama’s bed not just once, but three times. Was it three times?”

“Um hum,” Strogue admitted, and sank in his seat while D.L. went on.

“And—gettin caught messing with drugs. She should have sent your ass to the detention center.”

“I always wondered who threw who out,” said Bobby, interjecting an almost non-sequitor. “My mother or my father.”

“Once my mother threw my father out,” Russell offered. “But he came back. He didn’t take her seriously until she started throwing lamps—”

“And that’s why I like the bitch!” Gilead insisted.

“—at his head,” finished Russell.

“For real?” Bobby was amazed.

“Did she really throw your father out of the house like that?” Chuck demanded.

“Scouts honor,” Russell lifted two fingers, then added, “If I’d ever been a Scout.”

 “Where are we going?” said Gilead, who realized they were not only on Route 103, but had long since left town.

“To his sister’s house. Did you not hear, Gilead Story?”

“Shut up, fool,” D.L. knocked Aaron upside his head again. “He meant where does Bobby’s sister live.”

“Yes,” Gilead said.

Russell was glad Gilead had asked because he was curious himself.

“She lives in Barrelon,” Bobby said.

That took both Russell and Gilead for a start. And Russell and Gilead both wore exquisite poker faces at the news that they were being whisked away some fifty miles southeast of home.

Red taillights sped ahead of them, and yellow-white headlights passed against them. Beyond the sherbet orange lights of plants and factories lay the twinkling lights of unknown towns, winking in the blackness.