Nesta out there makes his shot and Lee Williams, right here, loses another quarter to yours truly, Lucious Christopher.
Lucious Christopher extended his hand and Ndiya, feeling like she was still minding, introduced herself,
–My name’s Ndiya. Ndiya Grayson.
–Grayson … Grayson. Lee Williams, you ever known any Graysons?
Lee Williams, eyes drilling the floating ball, answered,
–Used to know some Graysons from visiting my cousins down in Greenville, but that’s a long time ago.
–Don’t mind an old man’s lack of manners.
Lucious Christopher said, gesturing to the bench in front of them,
–Young lady, have a seat.
And, then, a light tap on her shoulder.
–Ah, beg your pardon there, er, you don’t mind me saying, but you a little old for swimming on the block there, Miss Grayson. You should go on down to the beach.
Lucious Christopher and Lee Williams looked at each other with the all-knowing, we-best-watch-this-one look on their faces. Ndiya’s face heated up as she ignored them. She had a spinning-dizzy feeling like she was a ball of string that was being very quickly unspooled.
And then Lee Williams:
–Grayson! Yes, Lonnie and Lucky, old Clem and them—but that’s all I can get back, it’s been a long time.
Lucious Christopher:
–Is that right? I knew a Lonnie and a few Luckys, can’t recollect they last names, but now you mention it, years back, didn’t one of them Grayson ni—well, brothers—take up with a fine young woman who got herself one of them new apartments off in The Grave? Then, remember there was that crazy thing with—
Lee Williams cut him short:
–Don’t know. Like I said, they was Greenville ni—I mean, brothers—when I knew them. Now, hush while I sight-guide Nesta’s brick on toward the hoop in such a way that it don’t do a “Chocolate Thunder” on Junior’s backboard.
Ndiya sat, stunned, thinking, this is not happening. Melvin immediately climbed into her lap to wait for the shot to go in or not. While helping Melvin change out of his boots, she welcomed her thought: “This might not be happening, but it’s certainly going to impede the dreaded conclusion of my evaluation of date number two.”
Wrong again. As they watched the ball gain speed on its way down the slope toward the front of the rim, Ndiya heard the faint sound of a piano from above the court. The music sounded like it curled around itself in circles of differing speeds and radiuses. In wide, slow sweeps cut by faster, tighter arcs, the first note of each phrase was loud and clearly audible. The notes that followed faded until they almost weren’t there at all when a new phrase began somewhere else, loud at first and fading as if it curved away. It sounded like the piano rode the curve out of earshot. Then, there it was, come around again. It sounded to her like wheels inside wheels.
From time to time, the phrase would start with a note sung by someone and once in a while a few notes would be sung inside the phrases. She’d just noticed it, but Ndiya guessed that the music must have been there all the time because, now that she did hear it, the players’ movements seemed to follow the phrases. They didn’t all follow each phrase, though, nor did they move for the complete audible length of the brief, arc-like tunes. Nonetheless, now that she’d noticed it, the music provided a cadence that held the scene together. Up close, it all seemed less like the baseball diamond inside ripe nighttime and more like she was watching through the thick glass of an aquarium. Movements behind that aquarium glass had always made Ndiya slightly nauseous so she closed her eyes to steady herself. This was a very bad idea.
Upon closing her eyes, Ndiya felt like she’d been lowered headfirst into the music coming from a window above the alley. Instantly, the whole of date number two flashed through her body and behind her eyes as if it had all happened in about twenty seconds. It didn’t move like her memory; the fluid thing washed over her body in one piece like if you watch a wave pass overhead from beneath the surface of the water. She felt the pull of its weight draw over her and move through her at the same time. She saw herself standing immobilized at the Violet Hour window watching the SnapB/l/acklist folks toasting Maurice at a large table to the right of the bar. Maybe it was the way that window framed the scene? Or being home in Chicago? She didn’t know. In that window she’d seen clearly for the first time the vast distance between herself and these youngerish, blackified, professionalized peers. The distance had always been there, she’d insisted and depended upon it. But she’d never opened her eyes and stared at it like this. “Hope it works,” she whispered, either to them or to herself. She had been leaning toward the window. Her face was close enough to the glass that her breath clouded the surface. Suddenly a cement-like certainty seized her. There was no way she could get through that door. At least it seemed like they hadn’t seen her, she thought. But she knew that she didn’t care what they’d seen. She didn’t know what to do.
A new note sounded a new phrase from above the alley. Ndiya saw herself turn away from Maurice’s birthday party and enter the bar next door. She’d leave the bar after half of an Elton John song and two drinks. “Two Blue Labels, please, neat,” she heard herself say.
She’d said it immediately upon reaching the bar, without knowing why or waiting for the barman to approach. She didn’t realize that she’d repeated verbatim what Shame said seconds after the thing with Malik’s house-arrest bracelet. So, we could say she called him up. In the space of about thirty seconds, she downed the brown contents of both tiny glasses, thinking the liquor was too soft to be considered liquid. Then she looked in disbelief at the bill, eighty dollars? Without a pause she placed five new twenty-dollar bills in the black leather folder and left. The price of “whatever the hell Blue Label was” echoed around. It contended with what little she’d assumed she’d known about Shame. International laborer in some local 269 or something? Joycelan Steel-something-something? What was that?
Then she thought, “And here I am soaking wet, sitting on this bench with a little boy in my lap and Shame’s whole block’s high? My whole life’s high?”
Before she could turn toward the southbound bus stop in her memory, the music faded away and a new note punched through the air over the alley. The note brought the scene from date number two to her eyes like the whole thing was a movie on a screen in the alley playing for everyone to see. It wasn’t really in her eyes, of course. It was worse—the physical scene was on the loose in her body:
Shame on his cycle pulling up to the opposite curb. He waves and takes off his helmet, staring at her. She sees herself nod. His U-turn through traffic. The ride. Helmet smell. Sun on scalp. The drinks in her arms and pools of heat in both heels. Song by a long-lost, one-hit group, Surface, in her head. “Happy.” Shame’s toe popping the bike into higher pitches around corners and the pop into a low growl when the road was straight. Oh, you coming right over? Beautiful, baby. Diagonal park. Worn boot heel. Kickstand down exactly onto a small square of wood nailed into the gutter.
Then stoop.
Inside, steps.
The sound of twilight joins the memory wave to the present. Shame’s back on the piano stool. Drowning.
This music. The same music she’s hearing now.
Phrases,
