Decadence (32 page)

“Talk about being in the dark. How many times did you see him?”

“He called whenever he came to LA on business, or if he was in Vegas or Seattle he would offer to fly me up to have dinner. Once a year. Maybe twice. And if I was available, I would answer his call.”

“That's pretty vague. Anyway. Last time you saw Dad was . . . ?”

“After I broke up with this guy, the one who got married. Your stepfather came to town. I was pretty hurt. He was familiar. He has always been familiar. I couldn't bear being alone then.”

“Same guy you mentioned when we were in the car with Panther?”

“Same guy. That was years ago.”

“You really loved that guy.”

“I did. Anyway, your stepfather was divorced from his second wife. And I wasn't seeing anyone at the time. We had a long history together. We have a long history. We know each other well.”

My mother and I held hands. Like I was six years old. Like I was her Little Nia Simone. I wondered what our lives would have been like if Francois had never come to Trinidad, if he had never met my mother.

I said, “My father. My real father.”

“What about him?”

“This interview that I did a few days ago was disturbing.”

“The Quash bitch. I have advised you to leave it alone.”

“Tried. Can't. Now it has me thinking.”

“What does it have you thinking?”

“You remember the first time you saw my father?”

“Of course. I was on the Savannah. Late evening. Was buying doubles and he was getting bake and shark. He saw me walk by. I was with two friends and he came running up behind me.”

“Well? What happened? Who saw who and said what?”

She smiled, laughed, and looked like a teenager again. Memories.

My mother said, “He run up to me, got in front of me, smiling. Ah hope yuh come wit a library card cuz ah checkin yuh out. I walked away. Gyul yuh parents hadda be retarded cuz ya special. I kept on walking. My name is Doug. Thas God spell backwards wit u in de middle. I shook my head. Baby yuh like table, ah jus wa ress sumting on yuh. I looked at him and rolled my eyes. Yuh lookin like a lobster, all de meat in the tail. I tried not to laugh. Gyul you have more form dan a secondary school. By then I had my hand over my mouth. Yuh fadda does cut cane? How ya smile sweet so? Stop laughing, Nia.”

“Oh my God, Mommy. Yuh lookin like a lobster . . . all de meat in yuh tail. That is hilarious.”

“That is what a Trini woman had to put up with from the Trini men. I heard that tripe so much I was often tempted to rip my ears from my head and put them in my pocket.”

“All de meat in yuh tail. Mommy had a fat batty. Batty gurl.”

“Stop laughing.”

“Mommy, last time I was there this man come to me and he say, he say,
Yuh faddah is a terrorist cuz you is de bomb.
And when I blew him off . . . when I blew him off he said,
Yuh like a barbwire fence, ah cyah get ova yuh
. Oh my God, I had never laughed so hard. Those Trini pickup lines are horrible.”

“Fah-ma-lay, oh gosh, ah go pay good money to fuck dat ass.”

“Men still talk to you like that back home? Mommy, no.”

“Oh gosh, gyul, ya man maybe does have a time with that ass.”

I said, “Leh meh touch it nah.”

“When I was younger, when I was out walking with your father it wasn't any better. He almost got into a fight on Frederick Street. Brotha man, you brave to let she out I wudda tie that to bed and fuck she right through. Every time she try to get up ah wudda breed she. That fucking ass boy oh gosh baby.”

“Disgusting, Mommy. And you were with my father?”

“Your father was ready to cut the boy's neck off, but I handled it.”

“How did you handle it, Mommy?”

“I told the boy that I would leave my boyfriend, your father, for him if he could spell the word
receive
. He walked way flailing his hands and cussing me out. You would've thought I cuss he momma.”

My mother laughed too. We laughed until our sides hurt.

I said, “But out of all the Trini men who came after you, my father must've said something right.”

“Yes, he did. Yes, he did.”

“He was ready to fight for your honor.”

“He was. Right on Frederick Street.”

I let a moment go by before I asked what I wanted to know. “Did my father have other children?”

Then her expression changed. Her laughter ended. The smile went away. She glanced down. Her breathing changed. She closed her eyes.

My mother said, “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

“Wow to the fifth power.”

“Damn, Nia. How many years did it take for you to ask me the one question I have dreaded?”

“Swear jar six times over.”

“You caught me off guard. I didn't expect a question concerning Derren Liverpool.”

“He had other kids?”

She paused. “I think. I don't know. I can't say for certain.”

“You don't know, yes, no, or you can't say for certain?”

“I have never seen them if he did.”

“Don't be vague.”

“There was a girl.”

“A girl.”

“Two girls actually.”

“Who dey?”

“One lived in Chaguanas.”

“Nice Anglican girl?”

“She was Roman Catholic.”

“The other?”

“The other was a Laventillian. She was Lavantee like us. That one passed my house every day walking down the road to get a maxi or a taxi. She was old enough to be in secondary school. She was fifteen. She was terrified of me. Fifteen years old. We were all so young back then. I heard that when your father was found murdered, we were all pregnant for him at the same time. It was the girl from around the corner who came running to my house crying like she had gone mad after your father died. She came to tell me that he was dead. I had no idea when she ran up the streets pregnant and crying and came banging on my door. I was seven months pregnant and she was four or five. I thought the girl was about to have a miscarriage in front of my face.”

“The other girl from Chaguanas?”

“Just heard about her. I guess that was nothing. When you have a very appalling childhood, things that come up, some things like those are just part of what you go through. It's as common as rain. My mother went through it. My grandmother and her first husband, my grandfather, he had babies all over Trinidad, the last one being made when he was over eighty. When she remarried her second husband, the Chinese man who gave her three more babies, she still had the same issue. I have an auntie young enough to be my baby. And don't let me start talking about incest. Lots of things happened. And a lot of things were accepted or swept under the rug and not really talked about outside of being back-porch gossip. I hear that I have an outside sister who is one week older than me. And an outside brother who is one month younger. I have no idea where they live, just know that they are in the islands, or maybe one or both of them are in London by now. Never liked talking about that. Never have. It's embarrassing. Many go through that, and when it's like that, to you it seems normal. You cope with it by not talking about it.”

“Same here in America. It's no better here. This is the daytime-television pregnancy-test capital of the world.”

My mother nodded. “Only they aren't trapped on an island. It makes you feel trapped.”

“Here in America they spread the madness across the country, from sea to shining sea.”

“There are a lot of weddings in America where the family of the bride and the groom can sit on the same side of the church. There are secret weddings between siblings.”

“In the Genesis, Abraham and his wife Sarah were related. The fable of Oedipus speaks for itself. Myrrha and her father, Cinyras; she disguised herself as a prostitute and slept with her dad.”

“God. When I grew up I knew men who slept with their brother's or sister's daughters.”

I said, “America is just one big island. The rich commit the same sins that the poor people do.”

“At least here it's spread out over three million square miles. On a small island, with all the secrets, you have to make sure you're not about to get into bed with somebody you don't know is your cousin or maybe your brother or sister. It has happened more than once.”

“Gross, Mommy. Definitely good they can spread it from coast to coast here. At least they don't have to look at each other.”

“True. They are not forced to see each other on the roads or at the market or on Frederick Street. After your father was buried I would see the other pregnant girls. They would see me. It was unnerving. Can't describe how I felt. Carrying the child of a man who has been eulogized, see the others, unnerving. But you have to remember that the island was much different back then. It's a lot more modern now than it was when I was a young girl. Back then I wore vests with flared pants, bracelets, rings, and earrings like Pam Grier, flip-flops and an armed forces bush coat, had on my Black Panther berets, might have had on one of my tie-dye jerseys, dashikis, and I never left home without an Afro comb. Head to toe I dressed myself in the symbols of the Black Power rebellion. Then I met your stepfather. The rest is history.”

“Jesus, Mommy.”

“You're crying.”

“I'm fine. Back it up a little bit, please. Three pregnant women.”

“That's not the way I wanted you to see your father. Or me. Or yourself. Or your island. I don't want you to ever see Trinidad that way. I'm going to stop talking now. Mommy doesn't want to go back to that part of her mind, not right now, not on a day like today.”

A moment later he appeared on the other side of the pool. He had on swimming trunks, his skin pale, the hue of wintertime in Paris. The lean Frenchman dove into the far end of the pool and started doing laps. My stepfather was an excellent swimmer. He had been at my mother's home, his former residence, all week. He had stayed here while we went snow skiing, on vacation from his business and other obligations.

My mother said, “He's the smartest man I've ever met. Intelligent, cultured, extremely polite, caring. When I met him, I had never met a man like him. Not ever. Not in my life. He was different from all of the men I knew in Trinidad. It was like I had met a brand-new species.”

“Love.”

“Love. Yes. But I saw the reflection of who I wanted to be. My heart went crazy over him. He wanted me to follow him to America. I told him I had a baby. I wasn't a single woman.”

“Then?”

“He asked me to marry him.”

“Had you had sex?”

“You are pushing the envelope.”

“Had you had sex?”

“Geesh. Yes. Over a weekend.”

“Was it good?”

“I followed him to America. Answer your own question.”

“Because of sex.”

“No. Because of the way he made me feel.”

“How did he make you feel?”

“Normal. I was feeling like an outcast in my own country. He made me feel normal. The sex was good. I was young. It was new. It was good. But the love he gave, that was what I needed.”

“Okay. Now I'm crying.”

“Me too.”

We turned over again, reclined faceup. I took my sunglasses off, wiped tears from my eyes, and then put my sunglasses back on. My mother did the same. She kicked her feet like she was a little girl.

I sipped some of my cold mango tea and asked, “What about the young guy you're seeing?”

“He's just a friend. He'll be there when I return or he'll be gone. I'll be fine either way.”

“You have put him on pause.”

My mother took my tea from me and sipped. “I have put him on pause.”

“Was he in Amsterdam with you?”

“He was. I didn't want to be abroad alone.”

“International MILF.”

“Well, Prada makes you an international DILF. So take that.”

“Don't let good sex confuse your heart and make you think that it's love.”

She put the teacup down on the small table next to her. “Hush. I do appreciate Francois Henri for what he is, and with his faults. I don't care what he does anymore. Is something wrong with me?”

“Life is as life is. Now whenever someone says life is short, what do you always say?”

Mommy recited, “‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.'”

I said, “Shakespeare. Macbeth's soliloquy. Act five, scene five.”

“Life is short. It moves so slowly, yet it moves so fast.”

“You and Dad.”

“I would love to meet someone new. Someone else. Like it was back home, this is a place that only shows its surface. Hollywood is crowded, but it is its own island in that it's hard to meet people. Well it's hard to meet people who aren
't befriending you to further their own agendas. It is an island of users. And if I do meet someone and the chemistry is not right, I don't try to pretend that it is right. I don't want to go through another divorce again. One of those is enough trauma for a lifetime. Yeah, I left an island to work on another island. Francois Henri is familiar. It's not that I want it, not this way. This was not how I had ever imagined that it would be. But this is how it is. I work hard and long, but when the smoke settles at times I do feel lonely and it's not as easy for me to open up on a personal level with the people in this pretentious town. I don't want to argue and fight. I want to have some enjoyment, to enjoy my life.
”

“
Did you ever cheat on him?”