Nightcrawling, page 25
Trevor’s healing body is still cocooned in sleep and I retreat to the back of the apartment, to the mattress, like distance from the hole they already saw me peek through will erase us. Maybe I should have seen it coming. All the warnings were there and I still thought we could escape them, make it out of this together. I still thought I had a choice.
“Open the door, Kiara. We will call the police.” Vernon’s familiar growl.
Trevor’s stirring from his sleep and I want to will him back into it, so he won’t have to be conscious for whatever comes next; for when they pull us apart, pry his fingers from around my neck like an infant. The pounds keep coming. Trevor’s swollen eyes blinking open as much as they can, brown peeking through to stare up at me, frantically looking around for some kind of shield against the rupture. Trevor’s face crinkles and his lips part, trying to ask me what’s going on, but the cuts in his mouth sting him into silence.
I lean over and touch his head. I shaved it so I could patch up his wounds and now it’s grown out enough that I can feel it instead of just the bare scalp. I whisper to him, “Trevor, baby, some people are here and they might be taking you someplace else for a while, okay? Don’t you worry, though. I’m gonna open the door, you just rest there.” I steady my pitch so my voice won’t crack like it’s threatening to: reveal all the wounds that make me up, all the fear I’m harboring in my gums.
I inch toward the door again and I’m scared of it, scared of what comes from this, what Mama opened up. Maybe she called Vern or the government or whoever owns the woman-in-the-suit’s ass. Somebody always owning the woman, knocking on the door so all she has to do is stand there.
My hand on the knob, twisting, pulling, no longer any barrier between me and them. Vernon standing there with a snarl. The woman, waiting.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“This is Mrs. Randall from Child Protective Services.” For the amount of work Vernon put in to get me to open the door, he seems wildly uninterested. Bored, even. “I’ll leave you to it.” He directs this at the woman, Mrs. Randall, and retreats back down the stairs.
Mrs. Randall’s got the kind of face that looks like one a child draws into the sun. Circular, sloping. With these locs that make her look like she should be a poet, like she should be wearing a shawl and not a suit.
She holds out her hand and I shake it. “Nice to meet you. May I come in?”
If I didn’t know better, I would tell her, “No.” Would tell her to get the fuck away from Trevor and that bed, to not enter the only space we have left to call ours. Instead, I say, “Of course,” and she steps inside.
It’s all over the moment she sees him. I can tell from the way her whole face arches as she takes in his scabbing. I can’t blame her. Trevor’s body is a visible testament to how this place has chewed him up. How I haven’t been able to do nothing about it. Part of me is even relieved because what if it’s me? What if I’m the one who has done this to him?
Mrs. Randall begins to walk toward the bed and I can see Trevor starting to shake, his body writhing, and I know if he wasn’t so injured he would be pressed up in the corner, trying to get away from her. I bypass Mrs. Randall to go sit on the bed with Trevor, gather him into my arms. He presses his head into my chest so he’s not looking at her or me or anything.
Mrs. Randall crouches down by the mattress. “Hi, Trevor. My name is Larissa. I was hoping I could speak with you.”
Trevor pretends not to hear, doesn’t say shit back.
Mrs. Randall redirects her attention to me, standing again. “How about we talk first? Outside?”
I nod, leaning into Trevor’s ear. “Imma get up now, Trev. I’ll be right back.”
I have to physically remove him from his place on my chest. He flops back into a pillow and buries his head in it.
I follow Mrs. Randall back outside and close the door behind us. We lean against the railing facing the pool, half turned toward each other.
Her eyebrows tilt. “Look, I’m going to be frank with you, Ms. Johnson. You are not that child’s legal guardian and clearly he is in some form of danger, which doesn’t look good for him or for you. Social workers have visited Trevor and his mother three different times over the years and I understand that you may have just been trying to help, but that is not your responsibility and it would have been far more appropriate had you called us.
“Typically, I would report you to the police for possible kidnapping and child endangerment, but I don’t believe that to be the case. He clearly trusts you and I will do my best to minimize the harm to either of you.” She pauses, glances away from me and toward the pool, then back to meet my eyes. “However, I cannot leave him in your care, not after there is so much evidence of his immediate danger and neglect. I will need to take him and he will be placed in a temporary home while we figure out the most stable circumstances for him. I will be pursuing a warrant which will allow Trevor to remain in protective custody. You will not be permitted to have any contact, at least for the time being. Do you understand?”
I know she’s telling me something that at any other moment would tear at my membrane, break me apart. The only thing I can focus on is how she must do this every day, how this woman stands in front of people like me and tells us the very thing that will most devastate us. How heartbreaking it must be to destroy that many spirits.
“Can I tell him?” The last thing I want to do is tell that boy he’s gonna be even more alone than he already thinks he is, but I also know it would be wrong to do it any different. I would rather break his heart than let a stranger do it.
“Sure. He’ll need a bag with all his necessary belongings. I’ll wait out here.” Mrs. Randall nods off at the pool, like it’s all over. She done her job.
When I reenter the apartment, Trevor is huddled in the same position I left him in, except now he has the blanket pulled fully up over his head and I can see the curled ball he has formed out of his body, as compact as a lanky boy can be. The floor creaks when I walk over to him, and I can see him shaking, the blanket rippling.
“It’s just me,” I say, trying to keep my voice as steady as I can. Try to make it sound like this is not the death of our life together, of dribbling and parties in the kitchen. “I gotta talk to you.”
I’m by the edge of the mattress now, kneeling on the floor. I lean my torso onto the bed and pinch the edge of the blanket, peeling it slowly from his head. His face is crumpling, everything scrunched up and puffy, tears trying to find their way out of his swollen eyes and getting trapped in creases above his cheeks. He’s shaking his head, his mouth moving without sound.
The boy is collapsing right in front of me, Trevor coming undone. I touch his forehead and it is hot, burning even. Like his body is rejecting itself, turning to flame so he might be able to defend himself against what comes next. It is tearing me apart and I think this must be the hardest thing I’ve done: being the adult for him, the woman who can keep it together as he falls apart because we don’t got another choice.
“I know, baby,” I say, nodding. Maybe I can reverse the hurt, stop the destruction with a smile. “Listen to me.”
His head is still shaking, pupils eclipsing his eyes.
I start humming again, lean so my mouth is right by his ear, loud enough that I know my hum is all he can hear, vibrations all he can feel. Gradually, he stops shaking his head, starts to sniffle. I stop humming.
“I need you to listen to me. Can you do that for me?”
This time, he nods once.
“That lady, she’s the woman that’s gonna bring you to a new house for a little while. She’s real nice and I bet if you ask her to turn on the radio in her fancy car, she will. Your mama ain’t coming home right now and I’m not allowed to keep you here no more, so you’re gonna go somewhere else until I figure it out. Okay? It’s not forever.”
Even as I say it, I know it might be. This might be the last time I see his face and I want to curl up with him, hide away until I’m ready for the goodbye. But I will never be ready to let him go and Mrs. Randall is outside waiting. His already plump, bruised lip jutting farther out and I know he’s trying real hard not to let this flood him.
I smile. “You might even go somewhere with some other kids. Then you can kick they asses in a pickup game, huh? Show them how you can dunk?” I put my hand beneath Trevor’s head and push up, so he knows it’s time to pull his body back into a seated position on the bed.
I grab his cheeks in my hands, just like Mama did for me last night, and stare at him like he’s the only thing that exists in this world. He might as well be the only thing that exists in this world.
“You gonna be just fine.”
I kiss the tip of his nose and pull him into my arms, where he burrows into the crease between my shoulder and neck. If I could stay just like this forever, I would. Holding him. Knowing he’s still intact. That Trevor’s gonna light up and dance again. I can almost feel Mrs. Randall’s heel clicking outside, her patience waning.
I rub the back of Trevor’s head, the only part of his body that hasn’t entirely blown up in the wake of his beating. I reach behind my back where Trevor has locked his arms around my waist. I have to fight myself to not stay still, to untangle him from me like untying a knot even though it’s the last thing I want to do, and he’s heaving by the time I remove myself from him and begin stuffing his clothes into his blue-and-yellow backpack that I got him for his ninth birthday because I couldn’t afford the actual Warriors backpack. I watched him scour it for a logo until he realized it was off-brand and there wasn’t one and then try to mask the sinking feeling in a thank-you. Dee might have failed in most ways, but she taught her baby some manners.
I zip the backpack up and put it on the edge of the bed, returning to Trevor. He’s back in the fetal position, so I grab his hands and pull him up, his head hanging backward and heavy. I have to hoist him off the bed and set him on his feet, but he’s gone limp, won’t lock his knees to hold up his body. I could threaten him or scold him or put on my mama voice, but I can’t bear that being our last moment together. Instead, I crouch and place my other arm under his legs, lifting him up like you carry a small child to bed after they fall asleep on the bus. He’s heavy with blood and tears and too much going on for him to figure out how to walk and breathe. I struggle to open the door, twisting the doorknob so it’s open just enough that Mrs. Randall sees us and pushes it open the rest of the way.
“He won’t walk. I can bring him to your car if you go on and get his backpack from the bed.” I don’t look her in the eyes, just stagger past her in an attempt to get us to the stairs. I take them one step at a time, Mrs. Randall following with Trevor’s backpack in hand. Once we’re down the stairs, she takes the lead, but I tell her she’s gotta take the back door because of the reporters, so I lead her out past the pool and nod my head toward the exit gate. She opens it for Trevor and me and then marches down the street in front of us, toward a black car.
She takes a key out of her pocket and clicks a button. The car beeps and Mrs. Randall holds the back door open. Trevor’s shaking again, my shirt soaking in his tears. I lift him up in one last exertion, laying him across the backseat. His arms are wrapped around my neck and, before I pry them off, I tilt down and kiss his forehead. “I love you,” I whisper. As much as I want to climb into the driver’s seat and take him somewhere I know he’ll be safe, where he won’t have to tremble, I know we don’t have that luxury. The only option is this: him, breaking in the backseat of an unfamiliar car. Me, removing him from my chest and shutting the door so all I can hear are his sobs.
Mrs. Randall turns to me before she gets in the car, says, “Thank you, Ms. Johnson,” but I’m already halfway down the street in the opposite direction, toward the bus, toward the cars. She can’t say nothing to make this okay and I can’t stand to watch her pull away from the curb with only his shrieks left to tell me he’s still breathing.
I’m dialing Marsha before I even realize I’ve memorized her number and, when she picks up, all I say is “I’m ready.” She tells me she’ll pick me up in twenty minutes and I tell her to get me from the courts. I’m standing in front of them, empty now, and I walk up the hill to find a bench right behind one of the hoops, looking out to High Street. Everything is moving, quick and relentless, like the city don’t know it should be stopping, should be kneeling, grieving for Trevor. These courts are a memorial, the only thing pausing for him. The only thing left of him in this whirlwind.
It’s been a week since Trevor was taken and five days since the grand jury officially started and today is my turn to testify. When I walk out the gate to the Regal-Hi, the swarm of reporters is on me, throwing a flurry of questions that I can’t decipher. I swing open the passenger door of Marsha’s car and climb in. She immediately sets a ball of fabric in my lap and says, “Put that on.” I hold it out in front of me. It’s the plainest, most modest black dress I’ve ever seen. “I put some shoes in the back too, so you can change back there.”
I glance toward the backseat to see my very own pair of black shoes, a slight heel on the bottom, but mostly flat. Marsha’s feet are at least three sizes smaller than mine, so she had to have bought them just for me. She starts the car as I clamber back and begin undressing, pulling the dress over my head and replacing my Vans with the black shoes. I stare down at myself, my ashy knees, the scars up and down my shins.
Marsha’s been prepping me every day for the testimony, giving me all the information she has about how the grand jury is going so far. Apparently the cops have already testified and today is the last full day in court before the jury deliberates. I’ve been trying to get ahold of Alé, but she hasn’t answered her phone. Every time I start to leave a message, my throat closes up on me and I hang up. Last night, I figured out how to say three words, “They took Trevor,” before hanging up and proceeding to bury myself in the script Marsha told me to memorize. She says it’s not about saying the lines, it’s about knowing the story. As if I could forget it.
I poke my head up between the two front seats and stare at Marsha: the peak of her chin, the barely visible click of her jaw side to side.
“You remember the plan?” Marsha asks and I can tell she’s jittery.
I take a rubber band off my wrist and pull my twists—new ones Marsha paid me to get done a few days ago in preparation for today—into a ponytail just to feel the weight on my neck.
“Calm. Secure. I’m the golden child that got swept up in this mess,” I repeat. “They all gonna be watching me?”
“That’s kind of the point,” Marsha says.
I rest my cheek in my hand and stare at her stone face. “You really think I ain’t done nothing wrong?”
She tears her eyes away from the road for a moment to glance at me. “If you did something wrong, then so did Harriet Tubman and Gloria Steinem and every other woman who did what she had to do even when it wasn’t respected.” She coughs. “I’m not saying you couldn’t have made other choices, but I don’t think you deserved any of this either.”
In moments like these, I remember Marsha’s just another white woman who’s never gonna understand what I been through, who can’t find anyone besides Harriet Tubman and Gloria Steinem to compare me to. I try to think of Daddy’s face plastered on that poster instead. Maybe my thighs are just like Daddy’s fists: lovely and soft until they are not; leading us closer and farther from the other limbs that make us up and call us holy.
The rest of the car ride is filled with the hushed hum of Marsha’s car, her index finger tapping on the steering wheel, waiting for the light to change. Marsha knows what happened to Trevor, but we’re both avoiding it. She tried to talk to me about it after she found out—from God knows who—but I shut her down with a quick side glance. She don’t got a right to put his name in her mouth. I’m doing this now because there ain’t no reason not to. Because if Trevor is gone, I gotta do everything I can to try to get Marcus back. If not, I’m more alone than I was that night in the alley, than I have ever been. I will testify and I will hope Marsha is right and it ends in Marcus’s release and some kind of payment so we will have a chance to start over, and if it doesn’t, I will have to return to some kind of hustle, find some other way to live or end up on the street. Freezing.
We pull into the courtroom parking lot and Marsha puts the brake on, pivoting her torso to face me. “We’ve had reporters on our tail all the way here. We’re going to wait about two minutes and, by then, they’ll be positioned by the front doors. You walk straight past, just follow me. Got it?” Her ice eyes bulge.
I nod.
She’s about to turn and open the car door, but her head swings back to me. “They’ll be in there. Men, I mean. Not the exact ones who…you know, but ones just like them. They might stare at you, try to intimidate you. Don’t look.”
“How am I not supposed to look if they staring at me?”
“Just don’t.”
Marsha clicks the doors open and puts her heeled feet on the ground. I open my own backseat door and place my feet on the asphalt, pulling myself up. I haven’t walked in anything but sneakers in weeks and it’s like my feet have forgotten how to step delicately, the shoes so slippery and new. At first, the only thing I hear is the occasional whoosh of cars behind us, the lake’s salt winding its way up the county courthouse steps with us, now lined in people dressed in half-business, half-casual, cameras out. I hear my name like a chorus of bees with a few distinct words coming through.
“Ms. Johnson, do you have a moment?”
“Do you have hopes for the outcome of the grand jury?”
Their voices are high-pitched and squeaky, always saying something, but none of it really for me. They want it for the camera. They want it for the quick news segment that never extends past city limits. I focus every muscle on the walk up the steps, the back of Marsha’s head, her ponytail swinging. She pulls the door to the courthouse open and I shiver in the breeze, slide inside, let it thud behind me. Marsha keeps walking, but I stop. I guess she hears my shoes stop tapping on the marble floor because she turns around and saunters back to me.
