Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany by Bill Campbell & Nisi Shawl

Author:Bill Campbell & Nisi Shawl [Campbell, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rosarium Publishing
Published: 2015-08-02T21:00:00+00:00

That was the summer when everything we would become was hovering just over our heads. Girls were starting to take notice of me; I wasn’t good-looking but I listened and had boxing muscles in my arms. In another universe I probably came out O.K., ended up with mad novias and jobs and a sea of love in which to swim, but in this world I had a brother who was dying of cancer and a long dark patch of life like a mile of black ice waiting for me up ahead.

One night, a couple of weeks before school started—they must have thought I was asleep—Nilda started telling Rafa about her plans for the future. I think even she knew what was about to happen. Listening to her imagining herself was about the saddest thing you ever heard. How she wanted to get away from her moms and open up a group home for runaway kids. But this one would be real cool, she said. It would be for normal kids who just got problems. She must have loved him because she went on and on. Plenty of people talk about having a flow, but that night I really heard one, something that was unbroken, that fought itself and worked together all at once. Rafa didn’t say nothing. Maybe he had his hands in her hair or maybe he was just like, Fuck you. When she finished he didn’t even say wow. I wanted to kill myself with embarrassment. About a half hour later she got up and dressed. She couldn’t see me or she would have known that I thought she was beautiful. She stepped into her pants and pulled them up in one motion, sucked in her stomach while she buttoned them. I’ll see you later, she said.

Yeah, he said.

After she walked out he put on the radio and started on the speed bag. I stopped pretending I was asleep; I sat up and watched him.

Did you guys have a fight or something?

No, he said.

Why’d she leave?

He sat down on my bed. His chest was sweating. She had to go.

But where’s she gonna stay?

I don’t know. He put his hand on my face, gently. Why ain’t you minding your business?

A week later he was seeing some other girl. She was from Trinidad, a coco pañyol, and she had this phony-as-hell English accent. It was the way we all were back then. None of us wanted to be niggers. Not for nothing.

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