I listened to Georges’ cassette. The voice of Ami Koita, a Malian griot, scaling and slithering up and down an octave and a half, was accompanied by a balafon. The staccatoed notes fell as lightly as rain. I turned off the cassette. It couldn’t stop me from thinking of Ellen, and of our baby. If it had been a girl, I would have tendered the name Aminata, which meant “the peaceful one.” But we had a boy, born early, born dead. Ellen told me, later, that she had held him before they took him away and that he had my fat lower lip. She said a nurse had taken a picture. I didn’t want to see it.
I waited for my connecting flight at Charles de Gaulle airport. It was six in the morning. The shops were closed. I had a ten-hour stopover. I was so tired that I didn’t trust myself. I wanted to talk to nobody, and to go nowhere. Buses left regularly for the Champs Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe, but I couldn’t stand the thought of them. I wanted to lie down and close my eyes and not have to live the twenty hours that stood between Paris and home.
The wait was unbearable. My mind was like an infant. As soon as I turned it from trouble, it crawled back for more. Ellen and I had watched baby videos in a prenatal course in Toronto. I turned from the thought, let my eyelids drop, and slid back to the memory of my infidelity on Saturday. I had been with that woman at night. Ellen had lost the baby the same day, in the afternoon. Mali was six hours ahead of Toronto, so Ellen lost that baby at the very moment that I was … I tried to drive out the thought. I made myself imagine a face massage. I imagined the pressure of Ellen’s fingers. She used to edge her thumbs along my brows, tug and pull and stroke my ears, push at cheekbones, forehead, hairline, scalp, and even, when my lids were closed, press gently against my eyeballs. Ellen had massaged my face the night she had become pregnant. My eyes had been sealed and fingers limp and arms asleep when she traced my lips with her fingers, parted them, shifted her weight on the bed, and planted her mouth on mine.
I had been standing in a corridor on the lowest level of the Charles de Gaulle airport, shoulder against a wall, dozing for I don’t know how long. Ten seconds? A minute? A man in a brown uniform wheeled a washtub down the hall, away from the tourist shops. I walked that way, too. Trays and dishes clanged. The smell of espresso filled the air. It seemed to say to me, and to me only, that there were wars and pollution and lost babies and more, but there was still coffee, good coffee— at least there was that. The worker I’d been watching unlocked a door, rolled his tub into a closet, locked it again, and turned to meet a young woman striding toward him. She wore running shoes and had a cloth in the belt of her work pants. Her brown hair was pulled into a bun. She leaned into him. He pinched her ass, and she gave out a squeal and brought her mouth to his, and they stood there, fused. Their lips came apart and drew together again as they walked, side by side, across the hall. They ended up under a doorway with a sign in green and orange neon lettering that said L’Arc-en-ciel. The Rainbow. He ran his hand up the back of her thigh, rubbed her ass, squeezed it. She took his cheeks in her hands and kissed him as if she were devouring perfect fruit. They moved together into the cafeteria. I followed them.
It was full of flight attendants, pilots, floor cleaners, salespeople. They were all talking, laughing, eating, drinking. On tables I saw croissants and coffee. My stomach grumbled. Waiters wheeled trays of cheeses, pastries, fruit, yogurt, baguettes, croissants. I had barely eaten in three days. The floor cleaner and his lover hailed a waiter and paid for croissants and two bowls of café au lait. I took a table. A waiter came by. He clapped his hands and his dark eyes rose and his handlebar mustache lifted with his smile and he said “Bonjour!” like an old friend.
I took a croissant with a café au lait. The waiter poured espresso from a big thermos and mixed in steaming milk. I asked for an allongé: lots of milk, little coffee. He teased me about the weak coffee. It wouldn’t even kick my heart into gear, he warned, ça ne fera même pas vibrer le coeur. Nice place, I told him. Mais bien sûr, he said, c’est L’Arc-en-ciel. He asked if I had never heard of the Arc-en-ciel, the most famous of airport cafeterias, and shook his head in wonderment at my reply, adding before he left that it was the happiest cafeteria on earth.
The waiter must have noticed my head in my hands. He passed by with a pat on the shoulder and left me another allongé.
I stayed in the Arc-en-ciel for hours. When the time came to go, the waiter walked me to the door, his arm through mine, as men do in Europe, and as they do in Mali. He took my arm like a friend, and I noticed his mustache again, protruding like a wishbone. It pulled up an inch and he said, Courage, mon frère, la vie, c’est comme ça, and I wondered how he knew, and whether the Arc-en-ciel was real, or whether I was hallucinating.
Sean met me in Toronto at Pearson International Airport. I saw him through the glass walls separating travelers from airport visitors. He was wearing a baseball cap. He waved — a mild, controlled wave — and lifted his eyebrows. I thought about how far I was from the shouting and pushing in the Bamako airport.
We shook hands. He wanted to carry my bags. It seemed important to him, so I let him do it. He drove me east along Highway 401. It felt cool outside. I asked my brother about the temperature. It was eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Cool, anyway, compared to Mali.
We each asked how the other was, he saying fine, I saying the same, neither of us saying much at all, although he could see, in my eyes, that I hadn’t slept for seventy-two hours, and I could see, in his, that he had watched Ellen deliver the stillborn son that I would never know.
We drove into my neighborhood. Kids were throwing a baseball on Montcalm Avenue. We passed a café where Ellen and I had lunched, two days before I’d taken off. Next to our apartment was a variety store. Tom, the owner, had known Ellen was pregnant. He had surely noticed it when the ambulance arrived. He saw me climb out of the car, waved, stayed behind the counter. My brother handed me my bags. We shook hands. “See you soon,” he said. I didn’t want him to go away, but I nodded in a way that he understood to mean thanks, and I drifted inside, lifting my feet up the long flight of stairs. I found Ellen sitting on the side of the bed, pushing herself up to her feet, lips pursed but trying to smile, eyes — I couldn’t bring myself to meet them yet. She wore a night jacket I hadn’t seen before, with a print of purple birds. As she stood, the birds took flight. She put her hand down to her belly. She still looked pregnant to me.
Chapter 14
I SPENT A FEW HOURS IN THE LIBRARY of the Maryland Historical Society, looking for information about my relatives. Then, on a whim, I drove over to Pennsylvania Avenue. I wanted to see where the Old Royal Theater had been, what the neighborhood looked like. First I drove along Pennsylvania Avenue. I saw stores boarded over, and syringes on the sidewalk. I saw children dash across the street, and noticed people looking at my Ontario license plates. Every person on Pennsylvania Avenue was black. A woman crossed the street, pushing a shopping cart full of food. I drove by a street with dozens of cherry trees in bloom. Some of the trees were two stories high, and had branches as thick as my legs. There was no other vegetation in sight.
I parked my car in a lot. I locked it, paid, and had barely put my feet on the ground when a man approached me. He was taller than I am, but much older. Maybe not much older. Maybe just much more aged. I’m a thirty-eight that looks twenty-five. He could have been a thirty-eight that looked fifty. Bowlegged gait. Something jangling in his pocket. Keys. Keys jangling in his pocket. “Hey, there, brother, you look like a good man, I need a dollar, if you will. My kids are hungry.”
I slipped him a dollar bill. It seemed like a good investment. “Thank you, brother.”
I walked up Pennsylvania Avenue. There, the Royal had once stood. Fats Waller had once performed there. And Count Basie. And Joe Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, and The Duke. They had all played at the Royal. My father and grandfather had been in there many times. But now there was nothing to see. The Royal had been torn down in 1971. Pennsylvania Avenue had nothing but tawdry shops left, and half of them we
re locked.
How did I know the sound of gunfire? How did I know to drop to the sidewalk? Rat tat. Rat tat tat. Glass exploded above me, men grunted, a child screamed, I heard the squeal of rubber on asphalt, and I saw a car run a red light. The light was plainly red and cars were coming from the other direction and still this car charged through, and for an instant I found that fact the most shocking of all. I tried to get up. Was I okay? Yes. I was all right. No blood. Glass nearby, glass on the sidewalk, glass not two yards from where my head had been, but no glass on me. My clothes were dirty, and there was gum stuck to my knee. I brushed it off. Then I heard screaming. Two voices? Three? No. Just one. High. Low. Up and down an octave. “My baby! My baby!”
I was up now, and running. Twenty yards away, there was a man face down on the sidewalk. There was blood on his shirt. A piece of his head was gone. The red ooze didn’t unsettle me. He was dead, and there was nothing to do about it. Next to him, a woman cradled a boy, ten years old or so. Blood on his jacket, near the ribs. Blood in his mouth. Conscious. A whimper, then silence. Another whimper. Hurts, he said. It hurts. First aid, I thought. First aid. Check for breathing. Apply pressure to the site of bleeding. But do you apply pressure to a bullet hole? Blood from the rib area, but blood from the mouth, too. The blood at the mouth was foamy. That meant a punctured lung.
Call an ambulance, I screamed. Nobody moved. Ten people around this boy, and nobody moved. I ran to a donut store, grabbed the phone, dialed 911. Funny, the man behind the counter didn’t try to stop me, didn’t ask questions, just let me do it. I ran back to the boy. Put him down, I said. Raise his head. I turned his head to the side, so he wouldn’t choke on his own blood. How old are you? Eleven, he whispered. What’s your name? Billy. Help is coming, Billy. Hurts, he said. My booooy. My baaaby, the mother screamed. I told the woman to calm down, for the sake of her son. Another woman said, You a doctor? No, I said, but she’s upsetting this boy and he’s in shock. No matter, Mr. White Man, he’s gonna die, we all die around here, what you doin’ here watchin’ us all die? He’s not going to die, I said. Billy, you’ll make it. I had Billy’s blood on my hands. Billy’s foamy blood.
I heard sirens. The crowd evaporated. Everybody was gone but Billy’s mother and the other woman and me. Step back. Step back. Cop talking to me. Ambulance men right behind him. Do you know this boy? Cop, talking to me. No, I said, I was here when he was shot, and I called the ambulance, but I don’t know him. You see the incident? Not really, I heard gunfire and hit the ground. You see the vehicle? Vehicle? This was a drive-by shooting, you see the vehicle? I said it was blue, that it ran a red light, and that two men were in it, maybe a third in the back seat. The cop tried talking to the mother. Impossible. The ambulance crew — a man and a woman — already had the boy on a stretcher. They loaded him and his mother into the ambulance and took off. Nobody was bothering with the dead man on the sidewalk, and nobody was watching me. Nobody but some kid, some thug, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen, and who slammed me in the face. Must have been his fist. I was down again, hands up against my face, blood on my hands, mine or Billy’s. Hands ripped the pocket of my pants, got my wallet, and were gone.
I lay there for a moment. Nobody came. I got up. Not so bad. Just torn pants. Which of this blood was mine, and which was Billy’s?
What the hell happened to you? This was a cop speaking.
What does it look like? I was mugged. Where were you?
I can’t be everywhere. What the hell you doing in this part of town? Get in the car. Don’t bleed on my seat. I’ll get you to the hospital. I’ve got to take the mother. Let’s go.
This might not be my own blood.
Just get in the car.
I’d rather drive my own. I don’t want to leave it here. It’s right there. In that lot.
No. Get in the car. I don’t want you taking off. He signaled to another cop. Suddenly, there were four of them. Give Joe your keys. He’ll drive it. I gave the keys to Joe, and told him where my Jetta was parked. Okay, move it. Get in the car.
The boy was in critical condition. His name was Billy Jones. His mother was taken away. Two aunts came in her place. I was sitting in the hospital waiting room, and was pointed out to them. They thanked me. They shook my hands. “I didn’t do much,” I said.
“You stayed with Billy. You didn’t run. You helped. That’s something. You got hurt, yourself.”
I had three stitches above the right eye. It was puffy, and was beginning to turn black and blue. I had a headache. I asked for aspirins. The nurse said they didn’t give out any medication without a doctor’s approval.
One of Billy’s aunts offered me an aspirin. “I’m sorry,” the nurse cut in, “but we don’t allow the exchange of drugs in any form in this hospital.”
“She’s giving me an aspirin,” I said. “Remember? You wouldn’t give me any.”
“Sorry, but we don’t allow drugs passing between people. Not even in the waiting room. But you can step outside and do it there.”
“Forget it,” I said.
Billy’s aunt smiled at me. It was a smile that said, Don’t worry, it’s not just you, these people are crazy.
A cop came along. He thanked me for waiting for him, told me where to find my car, gave back my keys, took my statement. I noticed the aunts listening.
“I’m going to have to file a report about my theft, I suppose,” I told him.
“How much you lose?”
“Hundred bucks.”
“We don’t do reports if that’s all it was. You’ll manage. I have to go. Thanks again for sticking around. It’s a rare thing indeed.”
“I think I’ve seen you before,” said the aunt who had tried to give me the aspirin. “Are you black, if I may ask?”
“I suppose I am.”
She grinned. “I thought so. I saw you before with Millie Cane at the A.M.E. Church. Weren’t you there a few Sundays ago?” “I was.” “You related?” “She’s my aunt.”
“I knew you were one of us. You’re about as light as a white man, but I could tell you’re one of us. Your hair. Your nose. Your mouth.”
The other aunt cut in: “Betty, stop fussing over him.” The first aunt: “Millie’s an old friend. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
“Let’s hope He saves your nephew,” I said.
On the way home, I stopped at a corner store to buy aspirins. The woman at the counter drew in her breath.
“Relax, I’m no mugger,” I told her. “I just got mugged. All I want is aspirins. Oh shit. My wallet. They stole my wallet.”
She exhaled loudly, then giggled. “Everybody’s nervous in this city.” She gave me a pack of aspirins. “Take these. You look like you need ‘em. I’ve seen you around. You can pay me the next time you come by. It’s $1.79.”
I slept through the night. Woke up with my head on fire. Took three aspirins and two glasses of water. There was nothing to eat in the fridge. I stepped out to buy some food and the Baltimore Sun. The crime pages named the man who was shot and killed, and said Billy Jones was listed in serious condition. Nobody had been arrested. I ate a little, took off my clothes and went back to bed.
But Yoyo knocked on my door.
“Look at you. You’ve been in trouble? I was wondering why it was so quiet in here. I thought you were at your aunt’s again. But I saw your car. And there’s a woman outside. Your aunt.” Shit. I had a towel around my waist. My face looked like hell. “Tell her to wait while I get dressed.”
I went back into the bedroom. My head pounded as I tried to pull on my jeans. The front door opened and slammed. My bedroom door swung open.
“Langston Cane the Fifth! What you mean by getting yourself shot at in the streets of Baltimore and then not even letting me know?”
Millicent Cane eyed me. I pulled on my shirt. “You could have waited until I got dressed.”
“I know what a man’s chest looks like, you dang fool. What in the name of Jesus were you doing on Pennsylvania Avenue?”
“Looking for the Royal Theater.”
“They tore down the Royal twenty-five years ago. What got into your head?”
“I was just walking around the neighborhood.”
Yoyo stepped into my bedroom. “The landlady wants to see you.”
“Tell her I was mugged and shot and am busy talking with my aunt.”
Yoyo disappeared. The front door opened and slammed again. Elvina Peck marched into my bedroom. Hell, it was a regular open house.
“Miz Cane! I didn’t know this was your boy.”
“Elvina! How’re you? You still up at that Baptist church? This ain’t my boy. He’s my nephew. From Canada. That must explain it. Only a Canadian would get it into his head to go walking on Pennsylvania Avenue. I guess people in Canada still go for walks. Somebody tell this boy that people don’t go walkin’ in Baltimore. They walk to their car, and they walk from their car, and that’s all the walkin’ they do!” “Look at your banged-up head,” Elvina Peck said. “That wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t spend so much time writing. You need a woman to take care of you. To keep you off Pennsylvania Avenue. You ought to stop all that midnight writing — I seen your lights on late, I seen you scratching your head at that kitchen table. You ought to stop all that thinking and find yourself a woman.”
“He had himself a woman,” Mill said.