Visible Empire, page 22
Genie and Claude, separated by fifteen months, were thick as thieves. They were thick as thick could be. Their uncle had once referred to them as the Gold Dust Siblings. He took the origin of the phrase, along with any explanation, to his grave.
In the dappled sunlight that sneaked in through the thick foliage overhead, the brother and sister ran from rock to rock; they carried large sticks as though they were swords; together they learned the lay of the land to a nearly instinctive degree. They ran and jumped and skipped across those thousand rural acres—though they would never know it, would of course never be told—in much the same way as their father and uncle had once had done, toward the end of the turn of the century.
Genie and Claude took turns with a blindfold, one wearing it, the other giving orders. “Lift your right leg. Higher. No, higher still. Good. Now step. Yes. Good. Turn left. Not that far left. Good.”
Perhaps it was Genie’s idea to go out the open window one night after their uncle had fallen asleep. More likely it was Claude’s. He was older. But it was Genie who took the steep hill toward the creek at a full-tilt run in spite of the dark. In the morning, her legs would be scratched from ankle to thigh from the orchard grass that they rushed through, but that night, running ahead of her brother toward the sweet babble of the water below, she couldn’t feel a thing. It was the first time they’d left the homestead after dark and without permission.
At the edge of the shallow water, Genie paused. She stood up straight. In her excitement, she’d not considered Claude’s position. She’d assumed he was close by, his footfalls merely a beat or two behind. But now, at the water, standing still, she found she was alone. She had time to be scared for only a second or two before she heard him, circling through the woods, his steps coming fast in her direction. She knew her brother’s cadence by heart. Like a cat, he could choose to wispy-run or heavy-run, depending on his mood. That night, to give Genie warning, he heavy-ran.
She braced herself for a friendly attack, some late-night extension of the day’s earlier make-believe. Her heart beat wildly, both wanting and not wanting to be found, both wanting and not wanting to be tackled.
He rushed her from the side, pushing her down into the soft earth and twigs. He dug his knees into her lower back. They gasped for air, Genie trying desperately to hold back laughter.
Suddenly, Claude bent over and bit into Genie’s shoulder. She yowled, then pushed up onto her forearms, knocking Claude over and onto his chest. She crawled quickly on top of him, pinning him so that his stomach was on the ground and his face in the grass. He was laughing and all Genie could think to say was, “You won’t be laughing long,” before bending over herself and biting him on his neck. She rolled off of him and the two of them howled at the moon.
On their elbows now, both with bites that would be bruised but not bloody by morning, they crawled side by side along the bank of the creek bed. They crawled until their shirts were torn and their limbs muddy. They crawled until they were so tired, they considered sleeping in the open air. They crawled until they were at the foot of the hill, at the top of which was the cabin, inside of which was their uncle snoring soundly on a thin twin mattress in front of the unlit hearth. Before Genie could stand, brush off her knees and arms, Claude put a hand on hers.
In a whisper, he said, “I love you.” If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he was crying. But she’d never seen her brother cry, and so she knew this to be an impossibility.
Genie, filled up with gratitude, filled up with her own feeling of perfect sibling love for her perfect brother and her dearest friend, but also filled with the turmoil of youth and the fear of being fooled, pulled her hand away from his and jumped up quickly. She clucked down at him in the dark. “Love?” she asked. “Love?” She hoped to impress him; she hoped to sound as old and wise as he. “What do you know about love?” It was a question she’d heard her own mother ask of her father late one night when she’d sneaked downstairs past bedtime. She said it now not understanding its effect, not knowing that she would spend the rest of her life wishing to undo this single moment, wishing to go back—decades in the future, decades even after his unexpected death on a different continent—and say, simply, “I love you, too.”
Robert
By sundown, Coleman had found Robert but he’d lost the girl. The two men were standing now in the ballroom of the Pink Chateau, at the center of which was a life-size ice sculpture featuring four rearing stallions. The carving had melted down so that the animals appeared swaybacked. Their pointy hooves dripped gloomily into marble buckets on the floor.
“Shit a monkey,” said Robert. “Am I high?”
“Is that a question?” said Coleman. “Are you really asking me that? Are you being funny? Because you made me swear not to give you anything and I haven’t. You have an ant on your shoulder. Get rid of it, please. What happened to the girl who was just standing here?”
“What girl?” asked Robert. “What are you talking about? Look.” He grabbed Coleman by the elbow. “Isn’t that Piedmont? Is the kid following me? Is that Lily’s boy? Does that mean Lily is here? What the hell?”
Coleman was still looking at Robert’s shoulder.
“Snap out of it. Look.”
He did.
“Cocksucker!” Coleman said. “You’re right. That’s him, and why not? It’s July Fourth. Everybody’s out and about. Should we talk to him?”
“Does he look about ten years older to you? Does he look bigger? He looks bigger to me.”
Piedmont spotted them before Coleman could answer.
“Is he going to run for it?” asked Robert. “Or attack?”
Piedmont looked left, then right.
“Attack,” said Coleman. “I say we make a run for it. I need to find that girl.”
Robert gripped Coleman’s elbow more tightly. “You’re not going anywhere.”
The kid, looking directly at them, shook his head. Then, still quite slowly, he nodded once.
“What’s that mean?” asked Coleman. “Is he giving us a signal? Is that a signal? Is he dressed like one of the waiters? Is that a costume? Where’s the girl? What did you do with her? The one in the suede skirt.”
The kid gestured with his head toward an adjacent room, which appeared to be empty except for a few people passed out on a set of matching couches.
“He wants us to follow him,” said Robert. As he spoke, he pushed Coleman through a small crowd of people toward Piedmont, who’d situated himself in a corner. He seemed to be playing at seriousness, at some sort of faux espionage. “What are you doing here?” asked Robert. “How did you even find us? Is that blood on your arm?”
“Find you?” said Piedmont. “I didn’t find you. I’m not looking for you, but listen—”
“Is Lily here?”
“You don’t know where she is? They haven’t phoned you?”
“Who’s they? ”
“Do you even care about her?”
“Watch it, kid.”
“I feel sorry for you is the truth.”
“Is this about the other night?” asked Robert.
“I’m talking about your wife. I’m telling you there’s a problem, and you’re asking me about the other night?”
“There’s a problem?”
“Listen,” said Piedmont. He snapped his fingers. “How doped up are you two? Can you hear me? Can you drive?”
He was talking to Robert, not to Coleman, whose head was going back and forth, following the voices, but whose eyes were now closed.
“I’m sober as a new day,” said Robert. “Where is Lily? Tell me. What’s the problem?”
Piedmont shook his head. He looked newly smug. “She’s having your baby,” he said. “She’s at the hospital. I drove her there last night. If they hadn’t kicked me out, I’d be there now. She’s all alone.” He paused. “What’s your excuse?”
Robert didn’t have an excuse. But he did have a purpose. “I get it,” he said. “You win. You’re a better man than me by tenfold. I get it. I’m a fuck-up. But I’ll do better. I’ll make it right.”
“Master Robert has had an epiphany. Amen. Good job for you. But in the meantime, listen up. You need to get out of here now,” said Piedmont. His voice turned to a whisper. “Shit’s going down. Shit’s going down real soon.”
“What sort of shit is going down?” Coleman asked the question, his eyes still closed, his head tilted toward the ceiling, a vague smile on his lips.
Robert was less than interested in Coleman’s antics—whether they were antics or whether he was truly as buzzed as he now seemed—and more interested in Piedmont’s demeanor, which he realized wasn’t forced or performative at all. In fact, the kid looked solemn; he looked downright unhappy.
“You following what I’m saying?” said Piedmont, talking again only to Robert. He had no time to waste on Coleman. “There are people here who have plans.”
“Plans?”
“Bad plans.”
“Bad plans?”
“Folks in the world are angry. You get that? You understand what’s going down? This is bigger than you and me. There’s a movement afoot.”
“A movement?” This didn’t sound like the Piedmont he’d spent a couple hours with in the middle of the night. This sounded like half-baked zealotry.
“They’ve been listening to the radio. I’m serious. My friends have guns.”
“Guns? What for? Friends? What have you gotten yourself mixed up in?”
Piedmont snapped his fingers. “Enough with the questions,” he said. “Listen. Do you follow me? You need to get out of here now. This party? Firecrackers, booze? Same time every year like nothing ever changes? You know how that makes them feel? Makes us feel? They’re going to teach y’all a lesson.”
“What kind of lesson?”
“They want to put things in perspective. They want attention. They want to be seen. You understand? We’re tired of this. We’re sick of living like this. You know there was a lynching here? An entire family? On this property? And y’all come here to drink and whoop it up like nothing ever happened?”
Piedmont’s confidence had a stirring effect on Robert. He looked directly into the kid’s eyes, and in them he saw panic and confusion, but above all he saw resolution. Here was a man—a Negro man, a Colored man, but also simply a Man—who had had enough. There were thousands of young men just like him—hundreds of thousands in Atlanta alone—who likewise had finally had enough. It was a wonder it had taken so long. Robert had spent the last week feeling sorry for himself, wishing he’d never cheated in the first place, and longing for the company of his wife. He’d spent the three weeks before that pining for a dead girl and ignoring his wife. Piedmont had spent his entire life waiting to be seen, to be heard, to be treated like a human being. Context was everything.
“Yes,” Robert said. “Yes. I follow. We need to leave.”
“You need to leave now. Go be with your wife.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“This is not a joke.”
Robert nodded and once again took Coleman by the elbow. “Come on,” he said. “We need to get out of here.”
“But the girl,” said Coleman. “I want the girl.”
“Forget the girl,” said Robert.
“Those thighs,” he said.
“Forget the girl.” Robert grabbed Coleman’s arm and walked him swiftly out of the house and across the lawn. “It’s time to find Lily.”
Ivan & Lulu
“You know what the real travesty is?”
“Are you dressed, Lulu? Do you have your face on? Please come out of the bathroom. Unlock the door, please.”
“The real travesty is that you’re determined to trot me about as though nothing has happened.”
“No one is pretending nothing has happened. The entire city is in mourning.”
“It’s been only four weeks. Four weeks! And can you hear that? Can you hear the fireworks? It’s as though they’ve all forgotten.”
“Please unlock the door. Thank you. Look at you, Lulu. You’re beautiful. You’re a vision.”
“I’m not going.”
“It’s difficult for me to take you seriously when you say things like that because you’re already dressed. If you weren’t going, then you wouldn’t be dressed. But look: you’ve got the right gown on, just as we talked about. Your hair is done perfectly. Alma did a very fine job. It’s that simple, then. You’re coming.”
“Don’t talk about Alma. You aren’t kind to her.”
“How am I not kind to Alma?”
“You don’t care about her nephew. He’s still missing.”
“There’s nothing I can do.”
“You’re the mayor.”
“My hands are tied. We’ve never even met Alma’s sister.”
“I’m tired.”
“You don’t look tired.”
“I’m devastated.”
“You look just fine to me. It’s time to leave. It’s the Governor’s Mansion, Lulu.”
“The Governor’s Mansion. Ha! You make me sick. I do not like that man.”
“He’s coming around.”
“He ran on segregation.”
“Isn’t a person allowed to change his mind?”
“But has he changed? Has he really changed, dear?”
“You know he helped get the Reverend released from jail.”
“If I have to hear that story one more time . . . He refers to him as Daddy King. It’s insulting.”
“We’re leaving now,” said Ivan. “The car is here.”
“You can’t make me.”
“Don’t push me, Lulu.”
“I dare you,” she said. “I dare you to make me go.”
“I’m warning you.”
“Warning me? Warning me?”
“One more word . . .”
“Are you going to hit me?”
Ivan sat suddenly on the bed.
“Oh,” he said. He clutched at his chest. “Oh, oh.”
“What is it, Ivan? Are you ill?”
“Oh god,” he said. He hiccupped.
“Tell me, dear. Tell me. What do you need?”
“Forgive me,” he said. He slouched forward, his head now in his hands.
“Forgive you?”
His shoulders heaved. It was difficult to understand him when at last he spoke again. “I should never talk to you like that.”
She sat down beside him.
“You take such good care of me, Ivan.”
She put a hand on his thigh.
“Do I take as good care of you as you do of me?” she asked.
She squeezed his knee.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been a very good wife these last few weeks,” she said. “I haven’t comforted you the way you’ve comforted me, Ivan. Not since we lost them.”
His body convulsed when she said this. At what felt like long last, he let out a single immense sob, an undertaking of such force that it seemed his whole person had been waiting an entire lifetime to finally produce and release the effort.
“Oh, my love,” she said. She put a hand to his heart and gently pushed him down so that he was lying on the bed, she beside him.
He covered his eyes and turned away.
“Oh my dearest, sweetest Ivan.”
“Hold me,” he said. His chest and shoulders were shaking.
She curled her body tightly around his.
“Lulu,” he whispered. “Lulu.”
“I’m here. I’m right here, love.”
“Oh, Lulu,” he said. He gulped for air. “I miss them. I miss them all so much.”
She cupped his head in her hands. She kissed his eyes, his nose, his chin.
“Yes, dear heart. Yes, I know. I’ve known it all along.”
Robert
The Thunderbird was half in the ditch and half on the road. The left headlight must have been busted because only the dry creek bed on the passenger’s side was illuminated. Street-side, except for what the moon allowed, all was dark. The fireworks had stopped hours earlier.
Robert opened the door. Because of the angle, because of the way his side was dipped into the ditch, he nearly tumbled out. In fact, he did tumble out slightly: he landed on one knee but was able to catch hold of the door handle before slipping any further into the ditch.
He hauled himself up and dusted off his slacks. A twig snapped in the woods beyond the creek bed. Reflexively he straightened his back and cocked his head, an almost canine pose. He thought he could hear whispers, then footsteps and the crunching of leaves, the brushing aside of branches. He called out. No one answered. He groped his way around to the driver’s side and opened the door.
In the backseat, the girl in the suede skirt was clearing her ears and shaking her head. She’d caught up to them just as they were leaving the party and asked for a ride.
She’d actually been wearing her seat belt. Robert couldn’t believe it. Quite possibly it was the first time a seat belt had ever been buckled in that car.
Up front Coleman was draped over the steering wheel, murmuring. “Hehwuzat,” he said. “Hehwuzat.”
Robert grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him up and away from the wheel. The back of his skull made contact with the seat harder than Robert intended. Coleman lifted his hand and rubbed the spot but didn’t complain. A small trickle of blood ran from his ear horizontally toward his nose. Robert tried not to stare. He thought he might puke.
“Hell was that?” Coleman said more clearly, now rubbing the back of his neck. “A deer?”
“There was no deer,” said Robert. His mouth tasted of iron.
They’d taken the turn from Tuxedo onto Valley at a wide angle. He’d had his eyes closed—he was so exhausted—but had opened them as they took the perilous turn. The velocity had pushed his torso into the seat, reminding him momentarily of the midnight flight in Coleman’s new plane. He’d gulped in the night air and felt first a sort of faintness at the speed of the turn, but then, the faintness abating, another brilliant rush of life. Life! he’d thought. Life! Life!
