Every Time a Rainbow Dies

  Eventually he would tell Truman and Shakira about his job but not just yet. They had a way of sucking the joy out of a thing with their insights and too many questions. Instead he would walk in one payday and put all his money on the kitchen table, pour his cereal, feed his birds, and not be reminded of where the cornflakes came from.

  He didn’t have to think hard about the money he’d earn or if taxes would be extracted. He expected a minimum wage and to be paid under the table. It was hardly the kind of money that would make him independent. However, the part-time work would provide him with a few dollars he wouldn’t have to ask for.

  His stomach growled from emptiness. He had left the fruit stand without buying so much as a banana. The last thing he wanted was to eat at home, out in the open, where Shakira could question him about his progress on his job search. He’d rather grab a bite out in the street, then go up to his room and close his door. He stepped out to the curb and looked down the block to see what was still open. It was either the pizza shop or the Chinese takeout place. He felt in his pocket for a ten-dollar bill, his lunch money for the next three days.

  As he walked toward the pizza shop, he saw a girl wearing a gold-yellow jacket the color of a bodega awning, coming in his direction. She carried a wide, flat black case, the type used to hold posters or artwork. It was the way she walked, the head just so, the hips a nice sway, and that bright yellow jacket. He was already smiling.

  “Ysa.”

  She sort of acknowledged him.

  “Hey, so…” Where were his words? He couldn’t find them. Her eyes almost glared at him. “Where you coming from?”

  She shot daggers at him. “None of your business.”

  He gave her a wounded look, one so pathetic she almost smiled. This look had in the past been effective on his mother when she initially said no.

  “All right,” she relented. “If you must know, I’m coming from Paterson Silks. I cut fabric.”

  The excitement of just getting a job and having her there made him say, “I’m coming from work too. At Yong Moon’s.” He pointed in the direction of the store.

  “Oh?” she said, doubtful. “You? For Yong Moon? You’re not family.” She was right to doubt him. Even the lowliest positions at family-owned businesses stayed within the family.

  “I work there,” he insisted.

  “Hmp. I don’t ever see you there.”

  He smiled sheepishly, both pleased to know she was a regular customer at Yong Moon’s and embarrassed to have been caught in a half-truth.

  “I just started.”

  He was thinking, If I could keep her here talking, when his stomach growled. She turned up her nose to show that she was disgusted, but he would not be deflated. He tilted his head to the pizza shop, raised his eyebrows, and asked, “Slice?”

  “No, no,” she said. “I have supper waiting.”

  He gave her those eyes again, with more of a plea, for he remembered that he was cute, a workingman, and was feeling quite invincible standing before a girl he had once rescued.

  She said okay.

  Thulani paid for their pizza and fruit punch with his lunch money and carried their tray to the table where she sat, her huge black case leaning against her side. He watched her pat down the greasy pizza slice with one napkin, bite the tip only, chew, and wipe her mouth with another napkin. He was content to have her with him eating pizza she didn’t want. One day he would take her hands, kiss her lips, and put his tongue in her mouth. As he watched her do everything just so, entranced by her slender fingers, her manicured nails, he knew she would be his first everything. For now, seeing her this close and noting her habits was good enough.

  “I’ve been looking for you, Ysa.”

  Her eyes flashed at him upon hearing her name.

  “I wasn’t worried,” she said confidently, but not smiling. “I knew you would find me.”

  “I’ve been by your church, hoping to find you there lighting candles. All I saw were little old ladies praying. Then I went by the Chinese herb place and asked about you. I said, “‘Have you seen this girl…wears every color in the rainbow?’”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  He nodded yes. “I even tried to find you in school. Been thrown into detention every day since September looking for you.”

  “I don’t go to your school.”

  “You know my school?” he asked.

  “No, no, boy. I don’t know your school. I go to a special high school. And you—pardon me—don’t look special.”

  He showed her he was wounded.

  She laughed at him. “Don’t give me that face,” she said. “Besides, you know where I live if you want to find me.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not knocking on your door. Not with your grandmother—” He wasn’t sure. He just knew the woman behind the curtain, the one who cursed him, looked too old to be her mother.

  “Tant Rosie?” She explained that Tant Rosie was her grandmother’s sister. A grandaunt.

  “Whoever she is,” he said, “she wanted to kill me.”

  “She was scared for me. That’s all.”

  “Scared for you? She was beating you.”

  “Beat? Ha! No, no. You exaggerate.”

  He exaggerated about being a workingman. About being thrown into detention every day since September. But he remembered the woman’s slap. And Ysa’s sobs from the other side of the door.

  “All I knew was I couldn’t do nothing. I was worried. Scared. Wanted to protect you, girl.”

  She looked about as if anxious that they could be overheard. Suddenly her confidence was gone. He could see her scars.

  She said, “We can talk about something else.”

  “I’m sor—”

  “Forget it.”

  Then they said nothing at all. Thulani took a big bite of his pizza before realizing she would never finish hers. Once he was through eating, she’d want to leave. He was desperate to make conversation. Anything to keep her there, sitting with him for a few more minutes. He wondered if she would care that he had just become an uncle. Or that he had called the EMS and ridden with Shakira to the hospital. Then he thought, talk about having babies might upset her, a girl who took herbs and teas to cleanse her body when she thought that she might be pregnant or worse. He could tell her about job hunting. How every store manager said no and how Yong Moon finally gave in. But he’d have to admit that he had not actually worked today, and she’d never completely trust him if she knew he had lied.

  He could tell her she had pretty hands, but she might run away, like the girl who used to come to him when he daydreamed on his roof. If he dreamed the wrong thing, the dream girl was gone. Maybe he’d say the wrong thing to Ysa.

  “Tulani.” She broke the silence. “That’s too pretty for you. A girl name.”

  “My mother”—he hadn’t said “Mommy” or “my mother” to anyone except Truman—“named me for her favorite poet.”

  He could see Ysa found that amusing, which he didn’t mind, mainly because she still wanted to talk.

  “Go ahead,” Ysa said. “Say some rhymes.”

  He laughed. “Not me.”

  “I know,” she said with a certain satisfaction. “You have no art.”

  “But you do.” He returned her smugness.

  She didn’t catch on. She said, “I’m studying to be an artist. Not like you think, painting pictures. I’m going to design clothing. Do fun things with textiles.”

  “Textiles?”

  “Cloth,” she said. “Cloth to move in. Dance in. Be free.”

  Her face lit up when she talked about cloth. This enthused her in a way he could not understand. Instead of truly listening to her words, he followed her lips. She wore lip gloss. Not pink, not orange, but that color in between.

  He had to snap himself out of it, or she would think he was strange.

  “Is that what you have in that black case?”

  She nodded and said it was her classwork from Art and Design High School,
where she was in her junior year.

  “Let me see.”

  “No,” she snapped.

  “Why not?”

  He reached to playfully take the portfolio, but she pulled the case toward her. Her eyes were serious. Thulani let go of the case and said, “I’m sorry.”

  She let the moment pass and said, “You can see if I say so.”

  He put his hands up.

  “You can’t just grab,” she scolded.

  “I didn’t mean anything.”

  “And your hands are greasy. That is my work. My work. I don’t want it ruined.”

  He started to apologize for the second time. Sometimes he was talking to Ysa and then she would appear and stand between them. Rape Girl. Show her scars. Take something the wrong way. No matter what, he felt he had to apologize, whether he had done anything or not. He had felt this before. The night he ran and ran and ran. The time he followed her to her church.

  She wiped her mouth and hands. She was done.

  He said, “I knew you were an artist or something.”

  “Why?”

  “Only bright, bright colors for you, Ysa,” he said, watching her take a self-conscious check of herself, as if it had not occurred to her. “Every time you step out, a rainbow must die.”

  She sucked her teeth and said, “Crazy boy.”

  “That’s how I find you.”

  “What?”

  “First everything around me is drab. Dead. Then I see bright this, bold that, and poof! there you are.”

  “So. I like color.” She stood and picked up her case. When she turned the black case on the other side, he noticed the letters YB, done in silver Magic Marker, in fancy loops. Her handiwork for sure.

  They strolled toward Franklin, her street. There was still warmth in the mid-October air. It was a beautiful night. Even more beautiful than those summer nights when he lay on his rooftop, dreaming of a faceless girl. A beautiful night was walking slowly with someone whose hand he could not yet take. And having the air smell so good.

  Thulani was careful of how he pointed to the black case; he didn’t extend his arm fully. He was afraid she would run away if he touched her by accident. “YB?” he asked. “What’s the B?”

  “Baptiste,” she said. “My, uh, name.”

  “So that makes you Haitian.”

  “How do you know what I am?” she snapped.

  “That accent,” he told Ysa and Rape Girl.

  “You don’t know my island,” she sang. Rape Girl had stepped aside. It was just Ysa.

  He said, “I can guess.”

  “Hmp.” She tossed her head and took a few steps ahead of him. “My island’s small, but not poor.”

  He caught up. “Do you parlez Français?”

  “Creole,” she corrected with pride. “Not like you think. A different Creole.”

  “French Guyana?”

  “Ha. French Guyana’s not an island.”

  They were at her brownstone. It was time to say good-night, but he didn’t want the night to end, and he had run out of French-speaking countries.

  “Before you go,” he said, “can I see you again?”

  “I’m too busy,” she said. “School. Work. Study.”

  He was not discouraged. The playfulness in her voice was still there. He asked, “Can I walk you to school?”

  “I take the train.”

  Not a no, he told himself. “I’ll ride with you.”

  “You crazy? You’ll be late for your school.”

  The curtains opened. Tant Rosie stood behind the windows, but this time she did not close the curtains.

  He shrugged. So.

  “I leave too early for you.”

  “Like six-thirty?” he asked.

  “Yes. Like six-thirty. And Tulani,” she said sternly, “I don’t like to wait. I wait, I’m gone.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.

  She told him again that he was crazy.

  He waited for her to go inside, then listened for a slap or a scolding from the other side of the door. He heard nothing. Then he went home.

  TEN

  Thulani set the alarm for six o’clock and stared at the peacocks’ eyes on his wall until they blurred into fireballs floating on a sea of plum wine.

  When the alarm went off, he showered, brushed his teeth, greased his hair, and examined his face to see what she would see. He had laid out his clothes the night before. He dressed, grabbed a spiral notebook, took two subway tokens from his nightstand, then ran out of the house.

  He was a block from Franklin when he stopped walking. His birds. He had not given a thought to freeing them, scattering cereal to feed them, or telling them his dreams. He had to unlatch the dovecote.

  Thulani turned and started back toward Eastern Parkway, but he stopped before he reached the end of the block. It was six-twenty. Forget the birds for now, he told himself. If he was late to Ysa’s house, she would leave. Think him inconsiderate. Not give him another chance.

  He ran down to Franklin and started to cross the street. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure in a bright-colored jacket, carrying a large black case and hurrying in the opposite direction. He called after her.

  “Y-SAAA!”

  She didn’t turn around. He ran to catch up with her.

  “Ysa.” He was out of breath, his heart pounding from making that dash, then pounding more from suddenly being with her.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I looked for you and didn’t see you. I said, Good. I don’t need no one to slow me down.”

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “That’s your business if you’re here or not. I didn’t ask you to come.”

  “Don’t be like that. I said I would come.”

  “What you want, applause? I’m late for school.”

  She pissed him off. He hadn’t jumped out of bed while the sun still napped to take this abuse. He was tempted to walk away, but got over this quickly and followed her to the train station.

  “Look, if you don’t want to see me”—what am I doing? he thought, but couldn’t stop himself—“I’ll leave you alone.” He could lose her, right here, right now.

  She swiped her student pass and went through the turnstile.

  “I don’t want to be looking out of the window to see if you’re coming. I don’t want to say, Where is he? Like I said, if I have to wait, I’m gone.”

  He dropped a subway token into the slot and pushed through the turnstile. “You said, ‘like six-thirty.’ It’s not even six-thirty yet.” He surprised himself. He heard his own voice, strong like Truman’s when he argued with Shakira. He didn’t know where it came from, but it was there inside him.

  The bell rang for the outbound D train. She said, “My train,” and ran down to the platform. Pride held him where he stood, but only for a moment. He had already paid for the ride. He went after her.

  The train was pulling into the station. He was amazed to find the platform crowded with students and working people so early in the morning. She was easy to spot, in her colors. She was already standing at the edge of the platform before the car door. He pushed through the swarm gathered at the middle car where she stood and tapped her on the shoulder. The car door opened. Ysa grabbed his hand and pulled him in, shoving him to the corner of a two-seater. She took the outside seat, stood her case against the side, and unstrapped her backpack.

  He didn’t know what to say.

  “I need this seat,” she said, “so my portfolio will fit here on the side.”

  The doors closed, and the train pulled off. He couldn’t tell if he was still pissed with her or if he was feeling good, sitting next to her. It all melted into one warm stream that ran from his heart to his ass. A sweet burn. What his body knew as simply being with Ysa.

  “Where are your books?” she asked.

  He took out a spiral notebook from the waistband of his pants.

  “And?” she demanded.

  He shrugged.

&nbs
p; “That’s it? You don’t read? You don’t study?” She rolled her eyes to show her disgust or to show off her lashes.

  He shrugged and tried to make himself comfortable in the corner seat, but there was nowhere for his knees to fit. He would have to lean one knee against hers.

  She took out a book from her backpack and said, “If you don’t mind…,” and began to read.

  It was just as well. He hadn’t thought of anything to say. He only wanted to see her. Be with her. Take in her smell, which consisted of coconut oil from her hair, flowers and citrus at her neck and ears, and powder from inside her jacket. Although he was happy to have her knees and arms brush up against him as the train rumbled and shook, he didn’t want Ysa to disappear into her book, thinking him a late-coming, going-nowhere lagga head. He wanted her to know he had responsibilities.

  “I forgot to do something,” he told her. “That’s why I’m late.”

  She looked up from her textbook.

  “I have birds that I let out every morning,” he told her. “See, I was so exci—well, I forgot to let them out. I went back, but then I knew I’d miss you—”

  “You have birds, in a cage?”

  “Not in a cage,” he said, defending himself. “In a home I built them when my mother—when I was thirteen.”

  “And you have to let them out? Every morning?”

  He nodded.

  “So they’re locked up. Caged?”

  He shook his head. She didn’t understand. “Every evening they return to their home, on the roof.”

  “The roof?”

  She looked at him with anger. He was sorry he mentioned the roof. Sorry that he looked too deeply into her eyes, eyes that refused to blink. Sorry he did not know the right thing to say. Still, he tried again.

  “They’re pigeons. Mostly white,” he said. “They’re beautiful. Well, the hens are beautiful.” Tai-Chi might not mind being called beautiful, but Bruno wouldn’t stand for it.

  “Hens?”

  “Female birds,” he said. “The males are bigger, have thick necks. They’re called cocks.” It was too late to take that back, cock. He kept talking. “I started with three white hens—Yoli, Dija, and Esme. I found them on my roof and took care of them when they were tiny. Left by their mother.”