Witness: Stories by Jamel Brinkley

Author:Jamel Brinkley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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As she brushed her teeth and wrapped her hair for bed, Anita had a premonition. She knew she wouldn’t be granted the sweet rupture of sleep, the mercy of closing her eyes against the blight of one day and opening them to the clean promise of another. Her sense turned out to be correct. Lying in bed, she was unable to free herself from the agitation of her thoughts. Time passed with a strange combination of speed and sluggishness, discarding her willy-nilly into the pit of night. She turned away from Horace, who was sound asleep, and finally allowed her whole body to shake from sadness. But then her breath caught. Horace’s arm had fallen over her like a plank of wood. Anita could smell the spiciness of the curry through his pores, the slight tang of mustiness from his armpits. She wiped her face as he began to whisper some comforting words into her ear. It turned out he was awake after all. She listened, but more to the soothing sound he was making than to the words themselves. She didn’t really want to hear any words. His touch and his tone had a sedative effect. She noticed her breath slackening. As she began to drowse, he pulled himself closer to her. He continued to whisper, but the sound gradually altered, issuing more from his throat. Her eyes widened as she listened more carefully to him. She felt it as he pressed himself against her, wriggling his hips slightly but firmly, erect. One of his bulky legs edged over and around hers, locking her entirely in a carnal embrace. It didn’t take much to deter him, however, just a disappointed utterance of his name, said almost meekly despite the rage filling her chest. He knew exactly what she meant—no—and he immediately gathered the heavy splay of his limbs from her body and curled himself away.

As a married couple, the two of them had sex only now and then, having settled into a schedule of lovemaking known only to Anita. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d done it spontaneously. Refusing to grant Horace any further acknowledgment of what he had attempted, she gave him nothing more than the silence of her back. And she knew he would remain facing away from her too, frozen in his posture of embarrassment.

But he couldn’t be more embarrassed than she was, degraded even. He must have lost his mind, trying something like that, as if he had forgotten who and what they were—who and what she was. And tonight of all nights. After what their daughter had said earlier. Despite the filth that had come out of the girl’s mouth. Anita dwelled on his reckless lack of consideration until she noticed the sky starting to shed its darkness. Even the barest trace of twilight was somehow enough for her thoughts to become more expansive, to take new turns and pursue different paths. Horace eventually got up to begin his deliberate ritual

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