across the deep white wool carpeting that ran through every room. The heat was turned up. He switched on the TV and watched a game show or an old Western. He lay on the floor with a pillow. He forgot all the hustle and yelling and swearing in the diner, the pale fluorescent light by which he made salads, hamburgers, and fries, quick quick, the light that made his eyes sore, the depressing white bathroom tiles and the dirty plates stacked in the dishwashing sink. The hiss of hot oil on the grill. The heat of the subway. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and ran down his back. He always ran that last stretch, from the subway to 79th and Columbus, as fast as he could, as though the devil was nipping at his heels.
He heard a noise from the kitchen. He turned and saw Zaid stagger into the room, flop onto one of the leather sofas, prop his feet on the coffee table, and stare blankly at the enormous lighted aquarium opposite them. It was dark by now, and the aquarium shed a blue glow over the living room.
‘Ameja won’t be back for a while,’ Zaid mumbled.
‘Maybe.’
‘Poets and preachers have a lot in common, don’t you think?’ he laughed. His eyes were closed. A blissful smile played around his mouth. ‘Both looking for inspiration. Am I right?’
‘Get outta here, man. How do you do it? Are they crazy at the Nation? Haven’t they got you figured out yet?’
‘The first time it’s like coming, but, like, with your entire being. A sort of heightened, supernatural orgasm. No pussy even comes close.’
‘I know.’
‘You don’t know nothing. Come with me to the kitchen, Umar. What else are you doing here? You’re just like me. Too proud to just give in, but I see what’s smoldering in you, man. A little turn-on and a quickie isn’t enough for you. What you’re looking for, no woman can give you. Nobody can. Didn’t I say poets and priests have a lot in common?’
‘You’re bullshitting.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Nothing, brother Umar. I just can’t sit here and watch you throw your life away. You belong in the Nation. You know you do. You’ve got something to say.’
‘Bullshit. I don’t belong anywhere. No muthafucka’s gonna tell me where I belong, you understand me? This is totally insane. Have you seen yourself lately?’
‘Come with me to the kitchen.’
‘She’ll throw me out.’
‘So what?’
‘Shut up, Zaid.’
‘Shhh … ’ Zaid put his index finger over his lips and sank into the sofa. His head flopped back. From one second to the next he had fallen into a deep sleep.
Umar looked at the big orange and red fish in the aquarium. He heard the gentle gurgle of the water pump. A pleasantly restful sound. Zaid started to snore. His mouth hung open. He was as thin as a rake. The way he lay there … As defenseless as an old man.
He went to the bathroom and took a piss. So many mirrors: he saw himself from all sides. The shiny white dress shirt that hung loosely over his trousers. His round head. His dick in his hand. He shut his eyes. Missed the rim of the toilet. He heard the splatter on the tile floor. If Ameja only knew. He zipped up his fly and wiped the floor with a towel, then threw the towel into a corner. He went back to the living room. Zaid was lying on his side. His knees bent, legs curled up. Umar stood there looking at him, as though watching over a child, waiting until he woke up. Zaid’s words had gotten under his skin, they reverberated in his head. He was like the devil, that guy. He’d been badgering him for weeks. Umar had laughed at Zaid’s reaction when Ameja read the reviews of Suspenders out loud to them both: ‘Last Poet Convincing As Playwright,’ the critic wrote. In a New York review!
‘You’re one of them, Umar,’ Zaid had jeered. ‘What’s your next move? Hollywood? Get outta here. You’re nothing more than a black mascot for those theater folks, you know that as well as I do.’
It had only taken a few lines of coke to make Umar’s euphoria over his success last the whole night. And the next morning he got up at six-thirty and took the A train to the diner. No one there read The New York Times.
Sometimes it felt like he was a prisoner of his own thoughts. He had received a letter from a professor at a university in Michigan who taught a class in poetry and the black nationalist movement in the ’60s. Wanted permission to include ‘Niggers are Scared of Revolution’ in a reader for his students. The poem was a classic, the man wrote, it exposed the heart of the problem with which blacks, black men, had been wrestling for years. Niggers are lovers. Niggers loved to hear Malcolm rap but they didn’t love Malcolm. Niggers love anything but themselves.
He didn’t write back. As long he wasn’t producing any new poems, he didn’t have the nerve to discuss his work. As though he didn’t deserve to. He could hardly bring himself to listen to music anymore. He had turned off the record player when Malika put on Kind of Blue by Miles one night. It hurt to hear those familiar sounds, the subtle twists and repetitions, the trumpet’s warm, sultry whisper, searching for the right tone. Miles was a strange guy, slippery, but his music cut straight to Umar’s soul. Behind every note a word was hidden, a mood, an atmosphere, but that night he didn’t see a thing, no images, no words; the music blinded and deafened him. He could barely even remember how he himself sounded. As though his poems no longer needed him. They led their own life, independent of him. He saw them: when he hurried through the busy Manhattan streets and saw all those anonymous faces pass by, the lights, the garish neon advertisements, the tall glistening towers, the panhandlers, the hustlers, the junkies, a whirlwind of words and images and sounds that made him wistful.
Zaid rolled onto his other side. Made clicking noises with his tongue.
‘Get up, man. She’ll be here soon.’ Umar gave him a shove in the back. ‘Ameja doesn’t want any hassle. And she definitely doesn’t want your filthy feet on her couch.’
Zaid laughed. He hoisted himself off the sofa and retreated to the kitchen.
But Umar knew he was kidding himself. He knew all along he’d start smoking that shit, sooner or later. He had no choice, really. It was just a question of waiting for the right moment.
So he went into the kitchen. The bright light there blinded him for a second.
‘Sit down,’ Zaid said. As though hypnotized, he stared at the flame of his lighter as it melted the crack in the spoon. ‘There’s the pipe.’
Umar picked up the small stone pipe that lay on the table. Zaid drizzled the bubbling mass into its bowl. ‘Quick,’ he said, ‘before it’s gone. You have to hold it in as long as you can.’
Umar inhaled, felt the bittersweet smoke burn in his throat, his lungs.
‘You feel it?’
Zaid’s voice echoed in his head. He closed his eyes. A warmth flowed through his body; he felt it bend him over backward. It was a gentle, liquid warmth. His cheeks flushed. He felt crackly vibrations in his head, as though he’d just woken up after a long, deep sleep. Everything was red. Red velvet. He wanted to lie down. Got up and walked to the sofa. He saw the fish glide through their viscous water. The bluish-yellow light of the aquarium. The light was clear and crisp and real. He lay down. His fingers tingled; his legs felt heavy and sluggish. The warmth embraced him, caressed him, kissed him. It was like falling into a memory.
‘This is only the beginning,’ he heard Zaid say in the distance.
He couldn’t speak. His yearning melted into the velvety storm that raged through his body. He smiled.
‘Everything’ll be fine, brother Umar,’ Zaid whispered. ‘Everything.’
-
‘A.M.’ (1990)
That sound … What is that sound? So clean. So fluid. Emotions so hot in the passing