The Perishing by Natashia Deón

Author:Natashia Deón [Deón, Natashia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2021-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

LOU, 1931

The story about Mrs. O’Malley ran today and I can’t wash her son out my mind. He’s my foster brother, I suppose. Existing here before I did. Before I knew that he was. Before we shared a father figure in Mr. Lawrence. I can’t stop wondering whether I’m wrong for not wanting to know where I came from, who my family is. What good did it do Vic when every day he lays in his coffin, afraid to die?

I pace in front of the firehouse, wiping and rewiping the sweat from my hands on the hips of my dress. I walked for over an hour to get here from my apartment. Four miles shouldn’t have taken an hour but it did because I was dancing with my nervous thoughts. They spun me back when I turned to go home, undipped me when I sat on the curb too long. The rest of the walk was a partner-less slow shuffle. I took my time up Central Avenue, where I threaded myself through neighborhoods, doubled back. We’re all Black here, all of us dancing afraid, like any minute our legs will be kicked from under us. The three- and four-bedroom palaces of houses, bigger than Mr. Lawrence’s, with wider and deeper green lawns and palm trees lit by sunshine, give me comfort. But not enough that I’m not afraid of standing here.

The firehouse is wood. More like a barn except for the roof and its decorative concrete finishings up there. The building’s like a woman going out for the night and has two different thoughts about evening wear. On the top, she’s fancy-dressed for a ball, but from the waist down she’s wearing men’s overalls and house slippers.

Hand-carved signs hang on the concrete top of the building: ENGINE CO. 4 and 1892. The barn doors are open to the street.

My hands are shaking. I crush them into each other. I’m going to go in, I tell myself. Just one more minute.

“Hello,” a man says from the doorway, drying his forearms with a red rag. He’s old enough to be my father—no, my grandfather, if I knew him or drew him and didn’t imagine him frail. This one’s got perfect teeth, unstained by age spots of coffee or tea, and his silver hair is full.

His muscled body is pressing through his young man’s uniform. If a woman a third his age closed her eyes and felt up the wall of his chest and abdomen, she’d say he was twenty-one.

I stop looking at him.

“Can I help you with something,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” I say, walking toward him, my hand extended. “I have an appointment with Captain Clayton. I’m Louise Willard from the Times.”

He smiles and a dimple in his left cheek deepens. “And I thought you were here to see me.”

My face flushes.

“From the Times, eh? I suppose I should give you a tour?” His demeanor seems to loosen with his words. “Come with me,” he says, and I follow him up two flights of stairs.

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