Relax and take a moment to enjoy one of my short stories…

Momma presented me with a djembe at a homecoming party during my first visit down south in five years. It wouldn’t have been such an odd gift if I were musically inclined, or if I wasn’t in my second chaotic year of residency at Johns Hopkins Memorial. Perhaps the gift was meant to inspire appreciation of my black culture or maybe a connection to my primal soul.

Since childhood, Momma consistently recited her family history to me and my siblings. Her mother never purchased bread because she couldn’t afford fifteen cents a loaf. My great-grandmother was fathered by a slave trader who owned her mother. Momma always found a way to rehash the horrific days of human chattel.

It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate black history. Slavery, an unfortunate occurrence, was now a memorable detail on a senile timeline. Segregation was over. We lived to see our first black president.

“Play this, baby.” Momma thrust the unwrapped present into my chest. The djembe, far from authentic, was marked by a ‘Made in China’ sticker adhered to the side of the chalice-shaped instrument. Instead of tribal images carved on African hardwood with animal skin tightly stretched over the top, the drum looked like resin made to resemble wood, topped by a piece of splotched beige canvas.

“Uh, thanks, Momma. This is quite a…gift.”

Grandpa Earl leaned on his cane. “Go on, now. Let’s hear you play it, then.”

The other relatives cheered and applauded as if anticipating a folk music concert, every eye expectant and locked upon me.

“Momma, I’ve never even—”

“Oh, don’t you worry none. It’ll come to you, Harlan. Now, sit down next to Cousin Vivian, and let’s hear you play.”

“Lordy,” Great-aunt Thelma said. “He look fresh outta high school, and like he ain’t never seen no drum before!”

My brother and sister laughed at me.

My cousins called out, “C’mon, Ringo!”

Inebriated Uncle Ray yelled, “Spank that baby!”

Cousin Vivian tugged on my arm, and I collapsed onto the sofa beside her, the djembe between my legs.

“If you wanna shut them up, you better play,” she whispered.

So, I played. First, tentative taps with surrendering fingertips, then I used the breadth of each hand to alternately pound the fake animal skin. In minutes, the beat shifted on its own accord as I unleased a bit of daring, matching my energy to that of the drum. Heads bobbed, hands clapped, and Uncle Milton delivered a flippant push on his wife’s backside.

“Show ‘em how it’s done, baby!”

Aunt Sarah swayed like a Jamaican breeze, and the drum followed her undulating arms, the rhythmic pattern of her steps, the percussion of her beaded braids in sync each time her skirt swirled in a vibrant kaleidoscope. Others joined her, everyone laughing as they danced in celebration of the pulsating and deep-spirited sound.

Momma sat down beside me as I thu-thumped the top of the Chinese drum.

“Now you understand,” she said. “That’s how you play the djembe.”

Wisps of S-shaped smoke rose up from the engine. My bumper penetrated the stucco of someone’s home. Oil splattered across the windshield, black inkblots without symmetry. Viscous fluid crawled downward, too lazy to drip in a steady stream. Maybe too traumatized to move.

A slender tree, defenseless against the impact, fell forward over the hood. Her oranges hung from weeping branches, and wooden limbs bent at an odd angle, like my leg. My head drooped over my shoulder.

Juicy pulp bled from crushed victims. I inhaled the sour odor of citrus and gasoline. The tang of burnt rinds in my nostrils didn’t smell like the citrus shampoo I used on my baby boy’s golden hair. Far away sirens lost any sense of urgency, and the oranges hung without fear of falling off branches, as if the stillness could hold them.

The paramedic asked my name, but I couldn’t answer. He shouted, “Breathe!” but I didn’t like what I saw and closed my eyes. The next time they opened I lay in a hospital bed and my leg dangled in a sling strung up to a metal pole. My arms and hands hurt, as if I still clung to the steering wheel, a useless life preserver.

A midnight vista in the window reflected the headboard and smooth plastic edges of the bed with an automated blow-up mattress. Monitors winked at me, as if they had a secret. Two vases of flowers, one full and one anemic, sat on a rolling tray.

A basket held fruit—oranges—and their brilliant color washed out any of the other treats. The fluorescent fixture cast a shadow on the pitted skins. Orange waxing moons. Slivers of smiles, like my son’s just before he fell asleep in his car seat.

Weeks passed before the hospital released me with a stack of papers on my lap and a metallic heart-shaped balloon attached to a long curl ribbon tied to the wheelchair. A nurse pushed the chair and me and the balloon down the long cold aisle to the hospital lobby. People pretended not to stare. Their eyes felt sorry for my scars peeking out the bandages, but the plastic bracelet on my wrist reminded me of who I was.

My parents picked me up in their battered sedan. Mom apologized because there was only one route back to my apartment. For just a second my heart gave out like it did that orange day as their car neared the stucco house. Someone wrapped a sturdy mesh screen around the tree where my bumper had embraced it like a crushing bear hug.

I asked my dad to stop and pick the one remaining fruit, and at home my mom peeled and sliced it. The first bite squirted stinging nectar into my eyes, and it tasted sweet. Blood oranges. It smelled like gasoline.

Dad said to call if I needed anything. Mom would stay for a couple of weeks. She had already packed up the nursery.

Avery Milstrom’s congenial and caring personality set him apart from other murderers.

We met on the inside after I donned crisp jeans and a light blue denim shirt, my personal ID number printed in indelible ink and stamped over the pocket. Suited up in my new prison attire, I trudged into the yard with other dispirited inmates, and we huddled together like a group of shaking first-graders. All of us assumed the image of intimidated visual targets who wandered into a human minefield of hooded eyes and hunched figures clustered in corners or backs against the walls.

A man about seventy, black as my mood, sauntered over. “Yous actin’ like a scairt girl.”

I kept quiet, a bit wary in case he was a convicted serial killer.

“Name’s Avery,” he said. “You?”

“Chisholm.”

We shook hands, his skin a mix of striated crepe and softened leather. “Whud ya do?”

“Grew pot for my arthritis,” I said. “Got three years. You?”

“Killed a man. Got nineteen.”

I stepped back. “Well, at least I never hurt nobody.”

Avery smiled as I stepped back but kept his distance. “We never think we do. Where y’all from?”

One of the guards told me to keep my mouth shut, but Avery seemed okay. “Noel, Missouri. A little town north of—”

“Yeah, I knows it. I’m from Southwest City, but now this place—” he visually canvassed the yard, “this place is my home.”

I snickered. “Yeah, I may have been born into the foster system and never had any real family, but I can’t see being desperate enough to call prison my home.”

Avery shrugged. “Family ain’t like it used ta be.”

The yard bell shrilled, abrupt and obnoxious. I flinched.

“Time ta git,” Avery said. “Keep yo’ eyes straight ahead.”

My chest thrust outward. “I’m not scared.”

Avery grinned. Seconds later, a hulking figure bumped into me, steel ramming my shoulder. I rubbed it out and glanced back at the guy, but Avery clutched my sleeve and dragged me forward.

“He just testin’ the waters. You feel me?”

I nodded. “Why you helping me?”

“Had that look my first day.”

Everyone trudged to the cell block, into the cavernous day room centered between two floors of claustrophobic iron-barred rooms. Narrow-eyed men leaned over rails, every hard look a punch to my gut.

We loitered outside Avery’s cell on the second floor. A woman’s photo, dozens of them, plastered the three brick walls. The light skinned mulatto had pretty green eyes for an old lady, about five or ten years younger than Avery. A decade didn’t make much difference at that age.

“We’s like an ocean family,” he said, and leaned against the rail. His stubbled chin gestured to a sea of blue uniforms. “Most every inmate’s like a little island round some of dem big ones. Pieces too jagged ta fit together, but down under that water we’s connected. We’s always connected ta somebody, but that don’t mean we’s gotta make the same choices and the same mistakes. Still, better ta settle for little, not big, or else you ain’t gonna be part of no island chain for long. See what I’m sayin’?”

I gulped. The guys, the big islands, looked more relaxed surrounded by others who stood straight-backed, eyes darting like ping-pong balls from one inmate to another.

“You ain’t got much time like most of them other guys, so keep ya head low an’ you’ll make it out early on good behavior.”

The bell blasted again, a blitzkrieg on my ears.

“Time ta git to yo’ cell before lunch fo’ head count.”

For three days, Avery met me in the chow hall. We sat across from each other on one of four round metal seats affixed to a round metal table—modern prison décor—and he dispensed valuable advice on how to survive on the inside.

“Why you helpin’ me out, man?”

A sad smile tainted his cheerful demeanor. “Life’s all ‘bout helpin’ people out, son. We ain’t no good if we’s just doin’ for ourselves.”

On my fourth day inside, Avery never showed for lunch. He didn’t return to the yard, either. At supper, a muscled dude with skulls and crossed bones tattooed around his neck sat across from me.

“You waitin’ for Avery?”

I kept my head down. “Yeah. So?”

“Before lunch he went to sick call,” Neck said.

“Geez.” I thumbed my plastic tray. “Is he okay?”

He shook his head. “I dunno. Heard he’s in bad shape.”

“Avery said he killed a man.”

Neck huffed. “Yeah. He beat his neighbor bloody after he raped Avery’s sixty-one-year-old wife.” We shook our heads. “The creep survived but only got a year suspended sentence. One day, that neighbor’s out joggin’, and Avery accidentally ran him over.”

“Accidentally?”

He shrugged. “Avery helps sick guys clean their cells, teaches others to read. He listens if anyone’s got a beef. Inmates leave him alone.”

The ultimate sign of respect inside, when the inmates didn’t badger a person.

A correctional officer tapped his knuckles on the table, and I jumped. “Somebody called earlier for Avery. About his wife,” he told Neck and me. “She committed suicide. He stroked out and didn’t make it.”

Grief dulled the rocky edges encircling the inmates who knew Avery. The following day, no one received any threats, only minor scuffles took place on the yard, bigger servings were doled out at chow time, and the guards waited until the end of the day to have Avery’s cell cleaned out.

For weeks, I mourned a too brief friendship. My head stayed low, and I kept out of the big guys’ way. I got out after a year for good behavior, partly in thanks to overcrowding. Mostly due to Avery’s good advice.

Once released, I always remembered the things Avery taught me in three days, more than what I had learned in a lifetime. My actions defined me. My work as an assistant to a local veterinarian made me feel like an important part of the whole, like belonging to a family. I found those who became my tribe—coworkers and boss and the clients, and even the animals we treated.

No matter how small my individual island, I’d always be connected to everyone else, and always to Avery.

Thirty-five-year-old Robert held his hands as if praying. “Can I go play? Pleeease?”

Samira pressed her full lips into a thin line, then mouthed, He’s so cute! Evelyn nodded and smiled, splaying pudgy fingers on her chest.

I scolded Robert. “Do not beg. It’s unbecoming.” He clamped his mouth shut and extended his arms straight at his sides, back rigid, staring straight ahead. Both women giggled.

“Okay, you can play but don’t…”

“I know. Don’t scare the kids.”

My index finger aimed upward. “And no hitting, touching—”

“I know.” He rabbit-eared the rules. “Play like a kid, not a grown up. Can I go now?”

“And no ugly face if you get mad.”

“I know!” Robert bounced in place, as if needing to urinate. “Can I go play now?”

My friends covered their mouths, eyes begging permission for him to join the other kids.

“Is that alright with you?” I asked them. “After all, he’ll be playing with your children.”

They nodded.

“Of course.”

“Let him have fun.”                                                                     

Robert grinned and ran toward the soccer field of soft green grass after the spring rains.

Samira held her graceful hands to her high-cheek bones. “He’s so adorable!”

Evelyn nodded and waved a chunky arm as Robert joined her and Samira’s sons, and a small group of other kids they met upon arriving. “What is ugly face?”

“When he gets mad and shouts, he can look very intimidating,” I said. “You heard Bobby’s deep voice. Although he’s not the aggressive type, it’s scary when he’s upset.”

He easily frightened other children. Other children. God, when did I start thinking of him as a kid and calling him Bobby instead of Robert? I twisted the gold band on my ring finger. Robert had taken his off the moment he returned home from the hospital, saying he didn’t like wearing jewelry. My love was too strong to give up taking care of him. He may have had the mind of a child, but I still couldn’t justify an affair with another man even as the hope for a satisfying marriage gradually diminished.

            Evelyn asked thoughtful questions. “Do you have anyone willing to help take care of Bobby? You know, like a sitter?”

            “He doesn’t have family who can take care of a man with special needs. I have one sister who is willing to babysit every now and then. Her twelve-year-old son, Ethan, idolizes Robert.”

We watched him blow a whistle and pick up the soccer ball, telling the surrounding kids what to do. If he was their age, kid protocol said to gang up on him and take the ball away. Today I watched from afar, more relaxed, not on the sidelines, normally concerned for any move he made that might inadvertently frighten kids or their parents. I used to worry that he’d reinjure his skull while playing, causing further damage, but the doctor had given him a clean bill of health. Robert’s skull was completely healed, no damage. Not on the surface, anyway.

My sigh nearly escaped. Too many of those stored without hope of release.

Evelyn’s warm hand touched my arm. “What is it, Cayla?” I met her a few months ago, and she hadn’t learned all the details.

 “He may look adorable, but when we get home, he’ll ask me to make mac and cheese instead of wanting to go out for dinner at our favorite brewpub. Then we’ll watch Sponge Bob, Rob—Bobby making sure I’m watching every second with him instead of reading. And after he brushes his teeth with his Avengers toothbrush, instead of having passionate sex with my fucking gorgeous husband, I’ll tuck him in and read a chapter of Harry Potter.”

Smiles faded with their enthusiastic comments. Robert ran toward a goal, blowing his whistle. He stood over six feet, and the tallest child on the field barely reached three and a half.

My breath was too warm and suffocating. I let loose a sigh. “You two are the only ones who allow him to hang out with your children. When I’ve asked other parents if Bobby can play with their kids, they think I’m suggesting child abuse.”

Samira frowned, the only time she had wrinkles on her forehead. “That’s crazy.”

Evelyn shook her head. “Couldn’t you just explain—”

“I told them about the accident,” Cayla said. “Some thought if he got mad, he’d physically harm their children. Rob—Bobby…is so sensitive. I told him other parents just didn’t allow their sons to play with big boys.”

Samira shrugged. “Their loss.”

Evelyn stared after Robert. “And the doctors have tried everything?” She gasped and held up her hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep any boundaries.”

“It’s okay.” I smiled but only half my mouth lifted, too hard an effort to project my waning optimism. “Not much to do. Most of the damage affected his prefrontal cortex.”

“During our last playdate, didn’t you tell me he was in a bar fight?”

“Yes, but it was really more like “boys’ night out. He accidentally bumped into a man in the bar who was high on a combination of meth and alcohol. The other guy became aggressive. The bouncer held onto him while Robert left the bar with his buddies from the fire station. Moments before, everyone else had driven off, but just as Robert reached his car, the guy called behind him, saying, “Hey.” Robert turned around to see who it was, and the man, who always carried a gold metallic bat around, slammed it down onto Robert's head.” I hated that image—an unbidden and unwelcome intrusion of that bastard slamming a bat into Robert’s skull. “You can’t rebuild a brain after it’s been crushed.”

“Shit,” Samira said and slapped her hand over her mouth. “That’s awful when you put it that way.”

“After the rapper came down from his high the next morning and found out what he did, guilt ate at him. Rather go to court, being a wealthy rap star he offered an extremely generous settlement, more than what we would have gotten after paying a lawyer.”

“What does that part of the brain control where Bobby was hit?” Evelyn asked.

I placed my palm above my forehead. “Your frontal lobes are here, at the front of your head, and control things like abstract thinking and self-regulation of social behavior. Robert, uhm, Bobby, as he likes to be called now, can no longer think or behave according to his age.”

Evelyn’s mouth opened slightly, and Samira shook her head, denying reality for me.

“That must be so hard on you.” Evelyn patted my shoulder.

I nodded, accepting her condolence as Robert glanced at me from the field. He waved and blew me a kiss without romantic emotions attached, the way he had sent other kisses in the past. I caught it and held it to my heart, and he chucked his chin, then kicked the soccer ball to the other side of the field. The kids cheered and ran after it.

Evelyn’s sad eyes narrowed on me. “That must have been a dramatic change for him.”

“Nothing is the same. For either of us.” I swallowed, hungry for the way things had been. “For one, he can’t work anymore.”

Samira cut in and spoke to Evelyn. “It could have been far worse. That damn drunkard nearly cost Bobby his life.”

But it cost us plenty. Sure, medical bills were covered for as long as he lived, and our mortgage was paid in full. His monthly life-long stipend surpassed what he made as a firefighter, and I stashed a chunk of it into our savings every month. Last year, I paid cash because Robert asked for a custom four-wheel drive truck that he picked out with “big wheels” and “gigantic flames” on the side, but he’d never drive it.

I’d return everything in a second to have my husband back.

“He has trouble reading and doing math,” I told Evelyn. “Socially, he’s nine-years-old, but academically, he’s closer to seven. A first grader for the rest of his life.”

Robert ran across the field kicking the ball, a line of kids chasing him.

“I used to love watching him shower, but since the attack, he gets embarrassed and asks me to leave the bathroom. And he loved playing basketball with the guys at the fire station, but they haven’t called for two years.”

The ball flew into the goal, and the children on Robert’s team tackled him. They went down in a heap, laughing and clapping him on his back or shoulders.

“I want to skim my hands over his six-pack and feel it on top of me.” I raked my teeth over my lip. Memories came at a price. “I’m sorry. You asked about my husband.”

One of the kids pointed at Robert and shouted loud enough for us to hear on the knoll. “No fair, Bobby! You said I could be the goalie.”

Robert puckered his lips and glared. Ugly face. “Did not!”

“Yeah, you did,” Cayman, Evelyn’s son, chastised him. “It’s time for someone else to have a turn.”

“Diplomatic,” I said. Evelyn grinned at her son, the tallest boy next to my husband.

Robert frowned, dropped the ball, and crossed his arms hard against his chest.

“What do you miss the most?” Samira asked. We had known each other for a few years, but she didn’t know what we experienced since Robert had been injured. A former model, she was still obsessed with make-up, fashion, and body image, not having an awareness of what we, or anyone else, suffered in life. But I needed to unburden my feelings.

“I miss the taste of his favorite butterscotch candy when he kissed me. I miss sharing a beer during a football game. He used to give me the most incredible massages, head to toe. And then we’d make—” I clutched the arm rests on the folding chair. The last time we made love was the morning of the assault, three years ago in January. “But the thought of sex grosses him out.”

“What?” Evelyn nearly jumped out her chair, and Samira bit her lip, nodding, having known this terrible effect on our marriage.

“He’s just a boy at heart,” Samira said, eyeing Robert as he ran at a slow pace after her small, seven-year-old daughter, Arwa, and allowed her to kick a goal. I appreciated the pretense. She missed, and he looked up at me, shrugging his shoulders.

My thumb popped up. “Good job!” He beamed and ran back down field. I glimpsed at the women, then returned to admiring Robert’s form. “When we watch a movie and the actors kiss, he squirms and says, ‘Yuk,’ then drapes his arm over his eyes. I have to respect the way he feels. Besides, the thought of having sex with him would make me feel like I’m seducing a child.”

The women nodded, maybe in agreement, or perhaps, like me, they simply had no words.

 * * *

Before leaving the park, Evelyn asked if I wanted to have lunch on Saturday and do a little shopping. It had been a while since I had gone out with a friend. I told her I’d think about it, not accustomed to leaving Robert alone for too long. If my sister agreed to stay with him a few hours, I might consider girl time.

At home, things went as predicted—the mac and cheese, Sponge Bob, and the Avengers toothbrush spreading foam across his teeth. Although he could stay up late on a Friday night, to ten o’clock, I tucked him in an hour earlier and skipped reading because he had played so hard. I kissed his cheek, and his lips puckered, maybe thinking of a time I kissed him differently.

He whispered in his half-sleep. “Goodnight, Cayla.”

Familiar sensations arose hearing him say my name, and I let my gaze roam the soft angles in his face, the curves of his biceps and the dip at his waistline rising to his firm ass under the blanket. The air close to his body filled with his smell—a rare, sweet perfume I used to rub against while making love. Rather than climb on top of his muscled torso and engulf his penis in wet heat, I rushed out of our old guest room, now his, and into our bedroom, now mine.

My flannel bathrobe spared little warmth over my sweats and Robert’s T-shirt. A glass of merlot and an afghan, dyed the rich sable of his thickset eyelashes, bundled me in comfort. I had yet to endure the daily rupture of tears and forced my grieving heart aside.

Unable to sleep, I plopped on the family room sofa and clicked on the remote. A crummy movie might take my thoughts off Robert lying in bed or to stop thinking of that night. It didn’t. I remembered the police calling. Nothing good came from a call after midnight. Robert nearly made it to his truck. Twenty more seconds, and our lives would have been…but they weren’t.

I pressed random numbers on the remote for the big screen TV Robert wanted last Christmas, and settled on watching a man and woman caught in an argument—a distraction from eyeballing my boy-husband as he slept. The couple kissed and reconciled. He carried her to the bedroom, and they ripped at their clothes. The man, with a V-shaped torso less defined than Robert’s, sucked on the woman’s nipple. My vulva twitched and deep breathing whispered out of the TV—and from behind the sofa, too. Robert had woken up and silently entered the room.

His eyes, ballooned, fixed on the actress’s breasts filling the screen. She tilted her head back, mouth open as the actor tongued her areolas. Robert’s Adam’s apple lobbed in his throat. He licked his lips, unable to look away, fascinated more than repulsed. The deep and seductive voice I heard during so many love-making sessions tickled the fine hairs in my ears, a symphony matching the strength of my beating heart.

“Yours are bigger than hers,” he said, smiling.

The responsible woman in me wanted to shut the TV off and explain to Robert this wasn’t proper adult behavior. But he was an adult, at least physically. His sapphire eyes appeared midnight blue in the dim lights and mirrored my desire.

“I used to do that to you,” he said. “Suck on your nipples.”

My reply croaked out. “Yes.”

He sat beside me on the sofa, glanced at the naked couple, then wrapped me in his attention as he lifted the shirt over my heaving chest, cupping his enormous hands under my breasts. He stared at my nipple and licked the nub. Lightning shot through my genitalia. I gave no protest. Not an ounce of decorum. I wanted my husband back.

Robert moaned, but I held onto any verbal response to his warm tongue on my body, afraid an outburst expressing my sexual appetite might scare him. He squeezed both breasts and suckled one, then returned to the other. My eyes closed, and I inhaled, as if I could breathe in his essence, a light to fill the dark past three years. The explosions continued in my clenching groin, and I inadvertently stroked his erection. He groaned louder. The bed was more comfortable than the couch, and I nearly suggested it, but he spoke first.

“I really like touching your boobies. Can I touch your pee-pee, too?” Bobby said.

Not Robert—Bobby.

My eyelids flew open. I pulled my shirt down, changed the channel to the Cartoon Network, and planned on what to wear to lunch with Evelyn.