Speak No Evil Read online

  Meredith stands in the corner with a beer in her hand but she’s not smiling. Her nails are painted purple and gold like her teammates but she didn’t run today. She didn’t even show up. She hasn’t returned my calls and she won’t look at me. I can’t stop staring at her. She holds her beer like a professional, like a woman in a commercial with long beautifully delicate but strong hands. Her top has spaghetti straps and plunges down the back so she can’t wear a bra. With eyeliner, mascara and lip gloss highlighting her features, she looks a little older, a little more sophisticated and more noticeable. Rowan has noticed her. He keeps watching her with his tiny eyes. He holds a cup full of punch, then he holds two cups full of punch. Then he holds a cup of punch and a beer. He wears a Princeton hat because that’s where he will go next year, but it is old and tattered because he has always worn a Princeton hat because he has always known he is going there. That is why he never has any fucks to give—because his family can afford not to give them. He holds two cups of punch again and stands at the edge of a granite kitchen countertop scattered with plastic cups, beer cans and plastic bags full of melting ice, tapping his fingers against their red ridges so some of the liquid spills onto his small hands. He watches Meredith toss her long brown hair over her shoulder so that we can see the single diamond stud suspended just beneath her collarbones on a thin gold chain. She rolls it between her fingers and it makes her look delicate and pretty. Rowan thinks she does it to look pretty because he thinks all women do all things to look either pretty or fuckable. He has always thought Meredith pretty. Now he thinks her fuckable. I know she touches her necklace when she’s agitated or nervous because it reminds her of her grandmother and her grandmother made her feel safe. Rowan moves toward her with two beers. I choose to go outside.

  Washington, D.C. is so confusing in the spring. The days grow increasingly hot and humid, but the nights hold on to winter for as long as possible. On some days the grass is still frosted over in the mornings, stiff and crunchy, even if it wilts before the first class starts. If you are not careful you get caught in the weather’s nostalgia and at night, a windbreaker or sweater isn’t enough. Adam wears a T-shirt as he stands with two girls and another guy who all go to another school. Adam drapes his arm around one of the girls, who has wrapped her hands in her thin sweater sleeves and her arms around his body. Still she shivers. The garden table before them is littered with red cups and a bottle of Absolut. The other girl pours a little in each cup. Then she looks at me. You want some, she asks. Adam looks up and cheers. He says, after your race today, you should celebrate, I’ve never seen anyone come from behind like that, you totally should have come in first. I would have come in first if my legs hadn’t faltered in the last hundred meters, and if I had eaten breakfast or lunch. I started off weak, distracted by my body, my hamstrings hurt, my knees hurt, and my chest felt tight from the locker room. Coach Erickson thought I should have won. He pulled me aside while I was trying to find my breath and said, if you’re going to run then really run, you’re not going to get anywhere if you keep holding back. Thanks man, I mumble to Adam. I turn around to go back inside. Oh come on, you’re not going to drink with us Harvard, Adam says. Drink, drink, drink, he chants and the others join in. The girl in the sweater mixes vodka and Coke in a red cup. It’s my vodka, she says and smiles. Drink up.

  You’re not like these white children, my mother says, so don’t go and follow their foolishness. But according to my father I am already foolish, irredeemably foolish. I look at these kids laughing with each other, standing without jackets like even the cold can’t touch them and I don’t understand why there are people for whom rules and norms are fully optional, for whom foolishness is celebrated. There are kids smoking weed in the basement of someone’s parents’ house and there are kids fucking in the bathroom. There are kids who have brought little vials of cocaine that I can’t even imagine where they came from. And there is me, black, sober and scared to death by locker room banter from an epic asshole. There is also me, the senior in the spring on a Friday. I will have the rest of my life to be constricted and I will have the rest of my life to make amends.

  Reverend Olumide says there is no growth without risk. He says that young men should do the things that young men do.

  I say, okay and take the red cup from her red painted fingernails. Adam and his friends cheer. The alcohol swims underneath the Coke and it doesn’t burn and it doesn’t taste. It is the first thing that is not water to hit my stomach. There you go, Harvard, Adam shouts. He rubs my back while the sweater girl with red nails wraps her arms around him tighter. He kisses her mouth and she receives him eagerly. He hands me another cup. Drink, drink, drink, drink, swallow it down Harvard, swallow it down, and he is laughing, and they are high-fiving with me, fist-bumping with me, hugging me until I am no longer myself, but a part of something more. Swallow it down, you’ve got to swallow it down, they say until the cups are empty and my fingers no longer feel cold when they hold Adam’s shoulder because the world is tilting and foggy and twisting suggestions and shapes of things like the silhouette that shouts, pizza, from the light filled doorway, holding boxes up high. Let’s eat, Adam says. Snooze you lose, sweater girl says and the other girl grabs my hand with her soft hands and leads me to the light. You don’t want to lose. No I don’t, I don’t want to lose but I am lost already amongst the so many people crowding everywhere, sitting on every surface without red cups and light bottles and dark bottles and boxes and cans that I don’t touch because I hate the smell of beer as my feet stick and unstick to the floors. I have lost her hand in all the madness, and in the madness, I have found more fist bumps and handshakes and high fives until someone shouts, wassup my nigga, because drunk white kids think imitating black people is hilarious. The walls pulse and now a circle clears beneath a high-hanging sparkling chandelier so the track team can try to dance “I’m On a New Level,” like black people because the way black people move, to them, is funny. You’re on a new level, right, Adam says with his palms to my temples and his forehead to my forehead blowing hot breath that smells of beer and his girl’s glitter-gloss kisses. I am on a new level, a landing one flight up when suddenly there is Meredith’s diamond flashing like an accusatory all-seeing eye. You’re here, I say, she nods with tight lips and no smile and a red cup in her hand. But you weren’t there, at the track meet, why not at the track meet? Because I needed self-care, I didn’t get in. You didn’t get in to? To Harvard. Omygodimsosorry Meredith. Niru, what the fuck, she says and leaves her lips parted with her disbelief. Where have you been? I’ve been here. Not as my friend you haven’t. You avoid me after class. I text. You don’t text back. I call. You don’t call back. I called you today, I say. The boys have gotten louder. They are on a new level and we can hardly hear ourselves above the drink, drink, drink, and all the cheers. She pulls me upstairs and I stumble so she stumbles. The carpet is soft against the hand that catches me. We’re on a new level and it’s quieter so I feel like déjà vu. What’s wrong with you Niru? Did I do something else? I said I was sorry, she says as she rolls her diamond and speaks in a small voice that I almost can’t hear. I can see her face clearly now and how it’s twisted and pained beneath her eye shadow and lip gloss. Every time I tell you something, something goes wrong. What did I do now? You told Rowan. Huh, she says. Her mouth is an O, like she is confused, but there is no sound. She says, I don’t get it. You told Rowan about me, I know you did. I didn’t say shit to Rowan, why would you say that? My stomach turns and turns. Her red cup quivers in her hands between her gold and purple painted fingernails and her face is red. Then why did he say so to me in the locker room, before the meet you skipped because you care for yourself. I can’t believe you think I would tell Rowan. Then how would he know? I don’t know. Stop lying. Fuck you Niru, just fuck you, she says and she is crying a little as she twists her diamond to her lips as she backs away and turns around so I see her bare shoulder blades beneath the thin spaghetti straps. Her freckled skin makes me angry, s
o angry and my stomach turns as the white boys downstairs fuck up some commas, laughing at black boys like me but with bad grammar. Meredith, I shout and burp and feel a wave of hot alcohol breath and bile rise and pull and subside just like when I was four and all I wanted, all I ever wanted was just to have some Coke but she is starting down the steps until she is not because my hand circles her arm and her bare skin feels strangely warm even if her muscles are hard and frozen. You can’t just fuck everything up, literally everything and just walk away.

  She is scared. Her eyes flash across my face, looking for something in my face to help her decide: threat or not, fight or flee? Inhale, breathe, you, yes me, I, not her, am the victim here. I clutch my hand to my belly and squeeze her arm for support because all these things are too much to stomach all alone, especially in the twisting and tilting and the rising noise coming from below. Let me go, she says. She says, let me go, I didn’t make you gay. This world is so unfair, so very unfair my knotted stomach says to my brain and to my hands which clench around her flexed muscles, but now with anger and as her eyes search my face again, now with rage. Well maybe Harvard didn’t take you cause you’re a lying ass-face. There is no more color in her face and then I cannot see her face because my eyes burn, but I hear her red cup crack and I hear Rowan cheer, drink, drink, drink, even if I cannot see through the pain or hear through all the voices, swallow it down, swallow it down, swallow it down, this rage, swallow me down from this embarrassment, this misery, from all these surrounding faces that can look but can’t see what has happened, what she has done. Fight or flee. Now that I can see, I can see only one way out away from here, from these white boys and white girls and their wassup my nigga madness, past Adam and his red-nailed glitter-gloss-lipped appendage and Rowan’s curious, hateful, beady eyes through all the bodies, giving pounds, throwing up high fives until the doors open to let me away with speed so I can run, yes really run, away into the darkness before me, into this night where the air stings my face. I need to stop and really breathe. No such luck. My legs carry me through this world of swirls, wobbling this way that way lurching left correcting right, tripping over my own imaginary untied shoelaces like some oversized toddler mid-tantrum. I mumble to myself through my own stiffness and tears, about myself, about the world as my whole body burns.

  Then there are so many lights and so many bodies, some arm in arm, on the brick sidewalks in front of the shops and banks and more shops and restaurants on M Street where the college students in skinny jeans that make their butts look big and their ankles small above their sneakers and boots, and the medical students, and law students, and graduate students and yuppies who wear dress shoes as casually as they can, all walk. It all makes my head hurt and my head spin and my stomach churn like I am nervous. But I am not nervous. Not here. Not anymore. Not now. All that has been said has been said. What more can be spoken? I am tired and nauseous. I stop to rest against a lamppost while the people on foot and in cars and buses pass me by. My shoelaces have come undone and my intestines are unraveling. The sidewalks undulate with each step and cars rumble around me.

  I can feel it before I smell it, and then smell it before I taste it, the cold shiver and prickling, then the acid hot burn of the vodka and the Coke that rises to force me to my knees and then the purge, and the purge, and the purge. Are you okay? Of course you’re not okay. Nah, nah, stay down, stay down, says a voice that comes at me from every direction and I want to stay down but can someone tell me which way is down? There are so many shoes, Jordans, boots, loafers, cream-colored high heels and then Jordans closer, attached to ankles wrapped tight in skinny jeans. Should we call an ambulance, I think he needs an ambulance. No I want to shout, no ambulances, they are for the sick and the dead, and I am still living, not dead even though I will be if my parents have to leave whatever function they attend to find me lolling about a cot in an emergency room in clothes stiff with my own dried vomit. I stand up. I am fine, I’m okay. But I’m not okay. You’re a hot mess, say the Jordans. My vomit pools in a dip of the sidewalk. The Jordans step back and I wipe my hands against my pants until they are no longer sticky. No hospital. No, please, no, I’m okay. He’s gonna be all right, no ambulance? Nah I don’t think—Gosh these kids think they can just come to this neighborhood and do whatever, we should really call the police. Nah, no need. Do you know him then? The voice is angry for no reason, like everything is too small for everybody all at once and only the strong survive. I’m calling the police, let them take care of him. It’s okay, I got him. Can you stand? I can stand—in your arms yes, yours, if you hold me I think, but my mouth doesn’t move because his face is so concerned and kind with his light brown almost green eyes and his voice so soft and familiar. Can you walk? I can walk—if you hold me, if you hold my hand in your hand and lead me. I work in this store right here, we’ve got a bathroom in the back, I’m a help you back there and you can clean yourself up. Can you walk? I can walk, I think.

  The bathroom is small with air full of freshener and disinfectant, fancy soap in a fancy bottle, something organic, something environmental perched on the rim of a sturdy industrial sink. I grab the sink. I hold on to the sink as more of my life forces itself out of me. I want to rinse my mouth, but the top looks rusted and the rush of water looks full of rust and heavy metals. My face burns, and my lips burn. I touch two fingers to the flow and then to my lips. The rich man begged God from hell to let Lazarus slake his thirst with just two drops but God said certain torments are eternal. I dab at my forehead with my wet palms. I wet paper towels and scrub the vomit on my clothes. Stupid. You are stupid, my father would say because no son of his could do the things I’ve done, the things I do. I can’t see straight enough to see one version of myself in the scratched mirror before me. And I can’t think straight enough to remember where I put my keys, this pocket or that pocket, this pocket, yes. And my car? I slam my palms against the wall. Again. The skin turns pink. You are not like these white children, my mother says except on my palms that turn pink like their skin turns pink, but only when hurt, or scared or stressed. There are taps on the door, Are you okay in there? Imokayjustaminute, someone says and that someone is me. Take your time, no problem, just wanted to make sure you’re still alive in there, that you hadn’t collapsed cause that would be bad. I’m okay, I’m fine. I put a change of clothes on the floor out here if you need them. Thankyousomuch. My shoes stink of vomit even in all the air freshener and antiseptic and soap. I take them off and hold the tops beneath the gushing faucet. Outside the door there are folded gray sweats. Then I am naked. Then I wear the sweats and feel their fuzz against my skin, against my chest and my back and my inner thighs. You have to, have to, get this shit, you have to get under control, I hear myself tell myself as I take my phone and wallet from my vomit-streaked pants and slip them into the pockets of the sweat pants. Yes, yes, myself agrees. The self in the mirror, his red eyes swim in liquid and they bulge from his face. What a horribly ugly face. What a stupid simple face, with its open mouth and big lazy lips shining with drool. Close your mouth, don’t be a gollywog, my father used to say, don’t be a big-lipped gollywog, but I didn’t know what that was. It sounded sweet and friendly, but now I see myself I know what that means and I can’t look any longer. Idiot. Abomination. Not myself. Not my father’s son. Nothing. Nobody to no one. Nonce.

  You good, he asks me with lips so full and eyes drowned by concern. I touch my chest. I can’t pay, I can’t pay for these—no money, I say. Don’t worry, seriously. I shuffle to the front of the store very unsteady. It all takes so much effort, each step a separate command and each action a deliberate thought. Now move, Niru. Now stop. Now breathe. There is no vomit on the sidewalk. Someone has washed me away.

  Can you get home, he asks. His skin is soft brown and his hair wavy jet-black. My heart stops. Home? Where is home? I feel sick again. The world spins again. It’s all right, it’s okay. Do you have a license? Yessir, yes sir, in my pocket. Do you have a phone? Yes, yessir in my other pocket
. Damn I ain’t seen one of these in years, what’s this? It’s a phone. No this is a call-making device. He is funny but if I laugh my stomach swims and if my stomach swims I will vomit again. I’ll get you an Uber. You don’t have to. Oh I do, you’re a hot mess. I’m so sorry. No problem, we’ve all been there. But have we?

  Then there is an Uber with black doors and gray pleather seats. The satellite radio speaks in Amharic to the driver, who looks at me through his rearview mirror. He asks, what’s the best way to go? I say I don’t know as I slump down in the back seat, crack the window and feel the cold air wash over me.