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Making Callaloo
- Wayne State University Press
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87 Sometimes You Leap; Sometimes You Fall My mother died at the moment I was born, and so for my whole life there was nothing standing between me and eternity . . . —Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of My Mother One day in spring a question fell And went straight through me Do bleeding angels sing when close to tears? —Terence Trent D’Arby, “If you go before me” Fromwhereshe stood at the smoke-yellowed window of the interrogation room on the thirteenth floor of the downtown police precinct, the gull looked like a big dry leaf or crumpled paper bag swirling on the ground as if caught in an isolated air disturbance, a mini-tornado, 88 Lolita Hernandez funneling directly from her tear-filled right eye. She closed that eye, using the left for vision. Then she could see clearly that the gull was pulling on a piece of plastic like a dog tugging at rawhide. It appeared to her aggressive, fearless, absorbed. It fought with the plastic in the middle of the street as cars zoomed north and south of it; only occasionally did its head bob up to scan the area for competing gulls. With each passing car her left eye automatically shut tight then opened to find the bird still wrestling with the plastic. Way to go, guy. I bet you ain’t even afraid of the night. It was easy to become lost in the gull’s motions. What else was there to do after two detectives have had their way with you? After their probing questions? Why this? Why that? Who knows the why of anything? One detective big and black as an ace and bald-headed, the other slight and white. Interchangeable as good guy and bad guy. OK, OK, Mizzzz Lady, what do you know about the murder of Joe Blow from Dearborn Heights the other night? You remember him, don’t you? She didn’t respond. Instead, her head rolled right and left as light from the rising sun climbed into the room and peeked past the bodies of the detectives who both stood directly in front of her. Just then their bodies shifted, each detective moving a few steps toward the side of the table, and for a brief moment her eyes were riveted by the beauty of the muted sunrise filtering through the grease-stained window. Sun bothering you? Your eyes are made for the night, right? Well, where were you the night he died? Who were you with? Had you ever been with him before? I was never with him then. I never seen him before. Yeah, right. [44.212.39.149] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:31 GMT) 89 Sometimes You Leap; Sometimes You Fall And so on and so on. Why this, why that. Suddenly the white detective said, Look, bitch, we got witnesses who say that they saw you with him. Then they both left the room as abruptly as they had entered an hour before. Blam, the door shut. She immediately spun her chair around to face it, waiting for their return. She supposed that they would; after all she had waited half the night alone in the interrogation room for them. Surely they had more questions. She began concentrating on the many dirt smudges on the door in order to distract her from thinking about their return. One smudge, located almost dead center, was long like a snake but with wings like a dragon. Even a plume of pink drifted up from where she imagined the dragon’s nose to be. Below it and to the left she saw her mother’s full image suspended with yellow daisies in her long dark-brown hair. Her arms were outstretched as if waiting for her sweet little girl to jump into them. This was just the way her mother looked the last time she saw her twenty years ago when she was six. I’ll be back for you, baby. I’ll be back. And she gave a toss of her head left to right, causing her curly hair to swish right to left. I’ll be back for you, baby, the natural mother said while the foster mother held the six-year-old firmly by the shoulders. Christ, how many times have I seen those detectives cruising the corridor? How many times? They never stopped me before. Actually, one time they had. The black detective was behind the wheel, the white one talked. If she were...