Only on the Weekends, page 10
I’m pretty sure
He’s talking about more than the jacket.
“This way, gentlemen,”
Says the waitress, and we follow.
She’s a Black girl around our age.
“Been to Nando’s before?”
“Yeah,” laughs K.
“I was here yesterday.
The big group.
Sorry about all the noise.”
The waitress stops and places
The little black-and-red cockerel
On a stick to mark this as our table.
“Don’t worry about it.
We get lots of big groups
And lots of noise.”
I notice the noise,
As if I’m hearing it for the first time.
There’s something private
About a place as loud as this.
Relaxed Waitress leaves us
With our menus.
“I was gonna give you
This jacket for your birthday
But I thought
You’d like the tickets more.”
“You really should have
Just given me the jacket, Cupcake.
West Ham season tickets is too much!”
“I don’t think so.” I shrug.
“Come on, Cupcake.
That jacket costs
Like, one hundred pounds.
West Ham season tickets
Are, like, a thousand.
And you got me two.”
“Well, you don’t want to
Go on your own.
You can take a friend
Or Maz or Uncle O
Or maybe even me.”
“So, that’s the catch!”
K laughs, as if he’s solved
Some great mystery.
“What?” I ask, offended.
“You didn’t get me two tickets.
You got one for me
And one for you.”
“No!
Take whoever you want.”
“Do you really mean that?”
He asks, like it’s a challenge.
“Yeah, of course I do,” I lie.
“Okay. Cool,” he says,
With a shrug and a smile.
Then, he stands up
And says, “I’ll order.”
After we’ve finished
Our whole chicken,
Chips, and corn on the cob
In a semi-comfortable silence,
K says, “Ready to go?”
“Sure.” I act casual,
Even though I’m not.
I wipe my mouth and hands
And drop my napkin
On the sucked-clean
Chicken bones on my plate.
Out on the street,
I say, “Thank you for the meal” to K.
“The chicken was free
With the points on my card.
I only paid for the sides
And the drink,” says K.
“I know, but thank you.”
I smile up at him.
K looks around.
Then he leans down toward me
And kisses me on the lips.
His hand is on my back
And pulls me into him.
I part my lips, slightly,
But I make sure I don’t use my tongue,
Just in case that’d be too much.
Then, K’s tongue enters my mouth
And I can taste Peri-Peri sauce.
This Peri-Peri kiss is our first in public.
Like, really public! In full view.
Not in a dark corner of a bar
Or back row of a cinema.
Maz was right about everything;
I just needed to be patient with K.
It’s happening.
It’s really happening!
K pulls away slowly,
He smiles and says, “You’re welcome.”
Why do I have to leave tomorrow?
Saturday Evening
I sulk in the Den.
I scroll through all the streaming platforms,
Unable to pick something to watch.
Footsteps down the stairs.
“Please, Daddy, I want to be alone!”
“That’s the first and last time
You call me ‘Daddy,’” jokes Femi,
Which prompts Sim to laugh like a hyena.
I feel beyond embarrassed.
Before I know it,
Sim sits on the sofa next to me
And Femi rests on the arm
With a hand on my shoulder.
Perhaps to keep his balance
Or perhaps to reassure me.
“We’re gonna miss you,”
Femi says sincerely,
Which unnerves me.
“Okay.” I wait for the punch line.
“We really are,” says Sim.
“I know we don’t hang out
As much as we used to,
But you’re still our brother
And a few hundred miles
Could never change that.”
“That’s true,” says Femi.
“I share a room with my brothers,
But I don’t feel as close to them
As I do to you.
You know how when my dad left
And went back to Nigeria,
Mum started telling us we had to get rich
So we can look after her when she’s older.
‘Doctor, lawyer, engineer.’
Whenever I remind her that your dad got rich
Doing something he actually loves,
She laughs and says, ‘If he’s so rich,
Why didn’t he send his son to a better school?’”
Sim joins in, “I’ve heard her say it.”
Femi squeezes my shoulder.
“I know you could’ve gone to a private school
But you chose to stay with us.”
Femi makes it sound like I made a sacrifice,
But it’s what I wanted.
“You know I’ll be back,” I say.
Then, I have an idea:
“Why don’t you invite Louisa and Khadijah round
And I’ll ask Maz and K?”
Femi takes the remote control from my hand
And changes the input.
“Or we could hang out, just the three of us,
For old times’ sake?” asks Femi.
He makes it sound like we’re sixteen going on sixty.
“Sure,” I laugh, as the Xbox powers up:
“For old times’ sake.”
Twenty Minutes Later
“Can I ask you a question?”
Femi turns to me and asks.
He’s paused the game.
A bullet is frozen on the screen,
About to make impact.
“Yeah,” I say suspiciously,
Because Femi never pauses a game
Just to talk.
“The makeup in your room,” Femi begins.
“Why were you in my room?”
I see red lipstick and blue eye shadow
In my mind’s eye.
Sim jumps in, to take the bullet:
“Your dad thought you were upstairs.”
“Head on up them apples,” says Femi,
Mocking the Cockney accent
Dad got from his East London foster homes.
Sim laughs but I don’t.
“The makeup on your desk
Was impossible to miss,” Femi starts up again.
“It’s Gem’s,” I lie.
“She was getting ready here the other day
And left it behind.”
Femi tilts his head back
And pushes out his bottom lip,
Like a shrug of the mouth.
He pushes the button
To unpause the game.
I dodged this one,
But that on-screen bullet
Is destined for impact.
Part Three
Weekends
May
Sunday Morning
“Mayday! Mayday!
Euston, we have a problem!”
I say, to fill the silence.
“That’s funny,” says K.
Maybe
But he doesn’t laugh.
Dad and Gem chat to Maz and Uncle O,
To give us some privacy.
The station concourse is full of people
Heading wherever they’re heading:
Watford Junction.
Birmingham New Street.
Manchester Piccadilly.
Glasgow Central, like us.
“I know it’s meant to be Houston, like Whitney.
But it feels like I’m going into space today,” I say.
K groans, “I got the joke, Cupcake.
You want me to kiss you, don’t you?
Here in front of all these strangers
And your dad and Gem and Maz and Uncle O.”
I think:
That would be nice
But I don’t expect it.
I say:
“I don’t want that,
If it’s not what you want?”
“I want to but I can’t.”
“That’s okay.” I mean it.
K leans in toward me.
I’m so confused.
I back away.
K stumbles forward,
Then rights himself,
Arms spread.
He looks like he’s been fouled in a basketball game
And looks round for the referee.
“What the fuck?” K loud-whispers.
“I don’t understand you.
You said you couldn’t.”
“I thought I couldn’t.
But when you said it was okay,
I felt like maybe I could.”
“Then tell me
You’ve changed your mind.”
“Doesn’t leaning in for a kiss tell you that?”
“I’m sorry,” I say,
Even though I don’t think I should be sorry.
“I’m sorry, too,” says K.
“Can I kiss you now?”
“You may,” I say.
Relief, nerves, and excitement
Fill the air between us like a mist.
K reaches through it to grips my shoulders.
He leans in with an expectant smile.
As our lips touch,
We have liftoff!
I imagine
An LGBTQ Mission Control:
They
Appear
Before my eyes.
A dozen names
We learned in school
And a dozen more
I’d searched for: Alan Turing,
Billy Porter, Danez Smith,
Derek Jarman, Elton John,
Francis Lee, Frank Ocean,
Harvey Milk, Ian McKellen,
James Baldwin, Janelle Monáe,
John Waters, Josephine Baker,
Lady Gaga, Lady Phyll,
Laverne Cox, Lil Nas X,
Marsha P. Johnson, Oscar Wilde,
Peter Tatchell, RuPaul,
Russell T Davies, Sue Sanders,
Whitney Houston.
Like rocket fuel,
They lift us up and away!
I can hear them all
Cheering for us,
Proud of our achievement,
As if it were theirs.
Because it is theirs.
We didn’t get here on our own.
First Class
I’m brought down
From this spaced-out feeling
For just a moment.
We get to our seats
And an old white lady asks,
“Excuse me,
You do know this is first class?”
Dad takes out his phone
And hits record:
“Say that again, would ya?”
The woman starts to stutter
With embarrassment:
“I j-just d-didn’t know
If m-maybe you were lost.
I was trying to be helpful.
P-please don’t film me.”
Dad gives the old lady a piece of his mind.
I’ve heard it all before:
“. . . racial profiling . . .
. . . unconscious bias . . .
. . . microaggressions . . .”
We’ve had lots of these
Little racist incidents.
One small thing after another:
They add up to feel like a huge weight
And constant paranoia
About when the next one will come.
But I refuse to let this get me down.
I take my rightful seat.
The woman apologizes.
Dad accepts.
He sits next to me,
Buzzing with victory.
I’m buzzing, too.
Like Buzz Lightyear!
I feel stratospheric!
I can’t believe K kissed me
In front of Dad, Gem, Maz, Uncle O,
And a station full of strangers,
And nothing bad happened.
I think of K and the kiss
For the rest of the four-and-a-half-hour
Journey to Glasgow,
And in the taxi to our new flat:
That’s one small step for K,
One giant leap for our relationship!
Monday Morning—Glasgow
Dad’s happiness hums
And whistles around
Our new Glasgow flat.
The neighborhood
Is called Battlefield.
I lie on my side in bed,
And look it up on my phone:
I learn about a battle
Between the army of Mary, Queen of Scots
And forces acting in the name of her son,
James VI.
But I don’t want to fight.
I’ve surrendered.
I’m here.
Dad’s made plantain and eggs for breakfast.
The smell wafts into my new bedroom,
As he opens the door.
Dad wears a rainbow flag kitchen apron:
An unspoken act of solidarity
With his LGBTQ son.
He swipes away my magazine
To clear space on the bedside table for the tray.
I can’t think of a time
Dad has ever brought me breakfast in bed.
He’s really trying.
“Day’s a-dawning,” says Dad.
“Rise and shine, my son.”
It feels like a challenge:
To rise. To shine. To be a good son.
“Thanks, Dad.” I sit up
And lift the tray onto my lap.
I see pancakes, too.
Where has this new, improved version of Dad
Come from all of a sudden?
I slice the pancake
And pop a piece in my mouth
But it tastes funky.
Not bad but not as I expected.
“Looking forward to the tour today?”
Dad asks, over his shoulder,
As he leaves my door flung open
Like a new page in a book.
I can hear from the clanging,
He’s back in the kitchen already.
This flat is nice but it’s so small
Compared to the London house.
There’s two bedrooms.
A kitchen.
A living room.
A shower room.
There’s no bathtub.
No guest room.
No office for Dad.
No Den for me.
No apples and pears.
No up or down.
Nothing like London.
“What did you say, Dad?”
I hope he will expand
Or explain what he’s on about.
“Looking forward to the tour?”
Dad asks, again, from the kitchen,
At normal volume because,
Apparently, this flat is so small
You can speak to each other
At normal volume from any room.
“What tour?” I raise a forkful
Of plantain and eggs to my mouth.
I hope they’ll taste more normal
Than Dad’s pancakes.
Yum!
The plantain and eggs are perfect!
The plantain soft and sweet
The eggs creamy with a hint of salt.
I can forgive the funky pancakes.
“The Mackintosh Tour!”
Dad makes jazz hands
And grins at me, expectantly,
Like he’s just performed a magic trick.
I point to signal I’m still chewing
But I’m actually stalling for time.
Dad’s hands melt down:
“I told you all about it
On the train yesterday.
It’s a bank holiday today.
You don’t have school.
I’m going to show you
My favorite buildings in Glasgow,
So you can see for yourself
Why I named you
After the architect
Charles Rennie Mackintosh.”
I think back to the train:
I can’t remember a word Dad said
Once we sat down.
I was still so spaced out
From kissing K.
I pretend to swallow
What I’ve already swallowed.
“I remember now,” I lie.
“I’m really excited!”
“So am I,” says Dad.
“Eat up and get ready.”
I look down at my plate
As Dad turns to leave,
“Dad, what the heck
Is in these pancakes?”
“They’re not pancakes,
They’re tattie scones,” he chuckles.
“Whatie what’s?” I ask, bemused.
“Potato scones,” replies Dad,
Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I try another slice
And, now I know they’re made of potato,
They taste pretty good.
Thirty Minutes Later
In our matching Barbour jackets,
Dad and I are in a taxi.
We head to our first stop:
The Mackintosh Building
At Glasgow School of Art.
It’s where he met Mum.
On the way, Dad tells the driver
About his latest scholarship.
When we arrive, I think:
He’s going to talk about Mum.
But he doesn’t.
We go in and meet someone
Who thanks Dad for his contribution.
It’s so cringe,
Like Dad shows off for me to see
What a good guy he is.
Then we get another taxi
To a building called the Lighthouse.
It’s tall and narrow.
