Dayo didn’t like hot sauce, but I didn’t know that at first. We met at a food truck downtown. I was on my lunch break, grabbing a sandwich before taking my mental health walk to the nearby river. She had just come from a die-in at the Hillsborough County courthouse. We stood side-by-side, holding our phones and waiting for them to buzz when our orders were ready. I couldn’t stop staring at her. I tried. I kept looking over my shoulder at the street, taking more and more of her in every time. She wore black joggers and a red crop top, “RESTORATIVE JUSTICE NOW” in yellow letters across her chest. When she caught me looking, she smirked and shook her head. I cleared my throat nervously. She flipped her braids over shoulder and glanced up at me after checking her phone once more. Her long French braids, a mix of purple and black, matched her Converse. Her black hi-tops, clearly customized, had purple flowers embroidered just above the sole and what I assumed was her name, Dayo, in white script at her ankle.
“I… uh… I like your shoes,” I said then instantly regretted it. Wack.
“Thanks,” she said. She slipped her phone in her back pocket and stepped closer to the truck.
After a year of being single and hooking up with random women on apps, it was as if I had forgotten how to meet women in real life. Clearly attracted to her, I was also intrigued. I wanted to know her. But how do you communicate that without sounding like a creep? How do you tell someone that you’ve been checking out—the curve of her hips, the swell of her breasts, the shine of her brown shoulders and soft-looking belly—that you’re not just lusting, but truly interested in knowing? I knew I wanted to fuck her. I knew that right away. We usually do. But I wanted to talk with her. I wanted to listen to her. I felt a flush of heat between my legs and a flutter in the pit of my stomach the more I looked at her. I didn’t believe in love at first sight, but maybe… just maybe I was becoming a convert. I thought, for a split second, about telling her that. “I don’t believe in love at first sight, but…” W-A-C-K. Wackity-wack-wack.
My phone buzzed in my hand. My order was ready. I took three long strides toward the truck, the smell of peppers and onions and tomatoes and mint and falafel and pita poured out the window as I approached it. The woman inside held out my sandwich, half wrapped in wax paper and situated in a cardboard boat filled with fries. I grabbed my food and turned. Dayo raised her eyebrows and smiled before peering into the food truck then taking her phone out.
“Looks good right?” I said. I turned my head slightly and rolled my eyes at myself. WACK.
She didn’t look up from her phone. “Yup.”
I started away from the truck then stopped and turned around, returning to the counter. The sun glinted off the metal countertop. The truck was small, more like a trailer, white with chrome accents and “It’s Raining Falafel” painted in a red, white, and silver font that looked like lightning. Huge falafel, painted to look like they were coming from a grayish-black thunderhead, decorated the back of the truck to the window. “Do you have any hot sauce?” I asked when the woman finally came to the counter.
“Sure,” she said. She spun around and handed me a small dipping sauce container.
“Is it hot though? Like, really hot?”
“Yeah. Sure.” The woman spun around again and returned with an order.
“Excuse me,” Dayo said, coming close to me as she reached toward the counter for her food.
“If it’s not really hot,” I said to the woman at the counter, “I don’t want it.” I held it out to her.
“Yeah. It’s hot.” The woman sighed and shrugged as she handed Dayo her food.
Dayo took her food with a quick “thanks.” She looked at me, and even though there was enough room for her to turn the other direction, she stepped past me. “I see you like it hot,” she said.
Not. Wack.
I abandoned my hot sauce inquiry to catch up with Dayo. She had walked to a nearby bench and was just sitting down when I asked if I could join her. She scooted over a little and made room.
“I’m Alicia,” I said sitting down next to her.
“Dayo.”
“I know.” I gestured to her shoes. “I… uh… uh… uh… I like your shoes,” I mocked my own wack line with an eye roll.
Dayo laughed.
“Weak, right?” I settled my food on my lap then carefully pulled the top off the dipping container.
“Not exactly,” Dayo said. She took a bite of one of her fries. “Compliments are usually a good start, but it was the way you said it. Like, you weren’t sure or something. Like you were just trying to say something to be saying something.”
I nodded. I wanted to tell her she was so beautiful that I didn’t know what to say or how to say it but that I had to say something and that was all I could manage. Would she find that endearing or cheesy?
“I kinda did,” I said. “Say it just to say something.” I inspected the sauce, the deep red of it promising. I looked closely at the yellowish seeds in it and smelled it. Vinegar. Garlic. Basil. “I didn’t know what to say but had to say something.”
“I see.”
I dipped my fingertip into the sauce and brought it to my lips. Dayo watched me. I licked the sauce off my finger and held it in my mouth. More tangy and sweet than hot, I tasted brown sugar and red chili. The heat was too mild, but the flavor was on point. I poured it on my falafel and my fries.
“That’s not true,” I said. “I knew what I wanted to say but wasn’t sure how it would sound.”
Dayo picked up her falafel sandwich. “Try me.”
I looked into her eyes, my tongue emboldened by the pepper and encouraged by the sweet.
“I want to know you,” I said.
On our first date, we went to my favorite Mexican restaurant—tiny tables with plastic chairs, a mural along the far wall featuring a snowcapped and majestic Citlaltépetl towering over a valley of evergreens leading to expansive yellow fields with brown and gold accents. Strings of lights crisscrossed the drop ceiling. Dayo ordered tacos. I ordered flautas. While we waited, we talked shit about white people who love international food but hate immigrants, white people who study abroad to get perspective but come home still scared of Black people, and white people who colonize cuisine and open trendy new restaurants in colonized neighborhoods. “New Age Mexican Fusion” we said in unison then collapsed in laughter.
We both shook our heads and then got quiet and sad that we had spent so much time talking about white people. She told me about the die-in at the Capitol.
“There were about twenty-five of us,” she said. “We laid out the great hall. Pinch-faced legislators in dark suits just stepped over us and walked around us like we weren’t there.” Dayo looked down at the table with disappointment. “I try not to have too many expectations when we do a direct action, but something about the way those fools just kept going, just lifted their sharp ass noses in the air and kept going, felt like… I don’t know.” She shook herself loose. “I’m not one for hopelessness, so it ain’t gonna stop nothing but it gets to you, you know? It hurts.”
“Nothing can stop the machine,” I said. I had told her about my problems at work, a small social media marketing firm that clearly hired me for “a Black voice.” In meetings, I sat across from the windows so I could look out at the sky while the team discussed trends and analytics, clicks and ads. The few times I’d spoken up—trying to explain that Blackness was not a monolith and that focusing on entertainers and athletes to speak to Black communities was racist—I’d been accused of misunderstanding their ideas and being contradictory rather than cooperative. “And the machine was designed to crush, to destroy. Your work. My work. The machine is monstrous. I admire your hopefulness. I truly do. But… nothing can stop the machine.”
“You don’t believe that do you?” Dayo said. She reached her hand across the table and touched my arm. Her fingers and palm were cool and soft. I met her eyes, brown and pleading and hopeful and tired and beautiful eyes, and I started thinking about how people bond over trauma and was going to ask her if she thought two people coming together because they’re hurting is a recipe for disaster, but then the food came.
Everything smelled and looked delicious. Dayo’s tacos—one fish, one chicken, and one poblano—dressed simply with cilantro and pickled onion. My flautas, perfect golden rolls of beans and cheese on a bed of lettuce and tomato, a mound of chunky guacamole in a cup beside. Instinctively, I grabbed the green hot sauce, which I always start with, only to accent even more with the red, the dueling heat, the tomato and tomatillo, swirling in bursts of tart and sweet, coming together in perfect syncopation.
I stopped though. I set the hot sauce down and gestured for her to go first. She smiled, her face sweet and inviting and brown as tamarind. She shook her head.
“No, thank you,” Dayo said.
I sat back in my seat. “You don’t put hot sauce on your tacos?”
“Nah. I don’t really like hot sauce,” she said. She bit into her taco, her strange, hot sauceless taco, and grinned. “Really good,” she said, chewing.
I didn’t know what to say and felt a little embarrassed by the disappointment that sat like an anvil in my belly. I adjusted my face with what I hoped wasn’t an awkward smile and grabbed the hot sauce for my own food. She picked up conversation again, changing it slightly to share with me how her hopefulness was fueled by her students. A sixth and seventh grade science teacher, Dayo talked about how their eyes grew wide during experiments and how excited they got when learning about animals and nature.
“A student said, ‘it’s like everything’s connected,’ and I don’t know how you can be hopeless when a young person says something like that.” Dayo put her taco down and wiped her hands.
I nodded and smiled. She smiled back, the hope and love and connectedness of everything showing in her own face. I was in love. Totally in love. She excused herself and went to the restroom. I watched her walk toward the back of the restaurant.
Dayo was perfect, clearly. Or at least close. As silly as it seemed I felt a way that she said she didn’t like hot sauce. Did I see it as a character flaw? A weakness of spirit? A lack of adventure? A challenge to be bested? Was I, as I often did, sabotaging a chance at love before it began? The line of questioning made me uncomfortable, so I shifted to something that felt more useful.
When she said she didn’t like hot sauce, I wondered how many hot sauces she had tried. I wondered if she knew the wideness and diversity of hot sauces. I wondered if she’d had a bad experience with a novelty hot sauce—a sauce engineered for pure heat, for bragging rights rather than taste. I knew better than to press on our first date, so I let it go but decided I wouldn’t give up. She was too sexy, too smart, too passionate about science and education and Black lives for that.
On our second date, I cooked for her. Oven fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and green beans. I used my Granny Idell’s recipe for the green beans—prepared with onion, garlic, potatoes, and a turkey neck. Obviously, I was trying to impress her. I was also trying to see if she considered Frank’s a hot sauce in her “I don’t really like hot sauce” sensibilities. Growing up in Milwaukee, Frank’s was a staple condiment for Sunday and holiday dinners, whether at home or at Granny Idell’s. Even my grandmother’s church kept Frank’s on hand for their Fish Fry Fridays, where a Styrofoam container filled with spaghetti, fried perch, and coleslaw meant an easy, delicious dinner and new uniforms, new piano, and coach bus for the Greater Galilee Living God’s Purpose Gospel Choir.
When Dayo arrived, looking sexy and comfortable in hip-hugging jeans and off-the-shoulder sweatshirt, I had just finished setting the table. A centerpiece of pillar candles anchored the spread, the chicken, sides, and a basket of Hawaiian rolls steaming and beckoning us to sit.
“It smells amazing in here,” Dayo said, giving me a quick hug and following her nose into the dining area of my small apartment.
“I hope you enjoy it.” I grabbed a bottle of wine from the counter with one hand and the Frank’s Red Hot with the other.
“I’m sure I will. Everything looks so damn good.” Dayo situated herself in her seat, taking the cloth napkin from atop her plate and spreading it on her lap. “You look good, too.” She licked her lips.
I looked down at myself. I wore a black T-shirt and jeans. Nothing special at all. I even noticed a dust of flour across my left breast from preparing the batter for the chicken. I chuckled. “Thanks.” The food was working already, and she hadn’t even taken her first bite. I set the hot sauce down and opened the wine. I poured us each a glass of Malbec and settled myself in my seat.
“What should we toast to?” Dayo said, lifting her glass.
I scrunched my face and looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know… friendship? New connections?”
“Wack.” Dayo said with a laugh. “Come on. You’re a content creator or copywriter or-”
“I’m a writer.” I said the words with more clarity than I had said it in a long while.
“Okay writer.” Dayo smiled.
I lifted my glass. “To knowing each other, in ways that surprise and delight.”
We clinked glasses and took sips of our wine.
“I liked that,” Dayo said.
“I like you.”
Dayo reached for the serving spoon sticking out of the green beans. “Let me fix my plate because if you keep looking at me like that and saying all the right things, I’ll be like fuck this food and get right to eating you.”
I bucked my eyes and burst into laughter. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Surprise and delight, right?” Dayo said as she scooped a healthy helping of green beans onto her plate.
I nodded and grabbed the basket of rolls. “You right. You right.”
We fixed our plates. I grabbed the Frank’s and shook the bottle. I unscrewed the cap and liberally applied hot sauce to my beans and my chicken. Before replacing the cap, I gestured the bottle toward Dayo. “Now I know you don’t eat fried chicken without hot sauce.”
“I’m good.” Dayo forked a bite of macaroni and cheese into her mouth.
“Really?”
Dayo nodded while chewing. She used her fork to pull apart the crispy skin and tender meat from her chicken thigh.
I placed the hot sauce on the table and shook my head. “I don’t know, Dayo. I might have to take your Black card for this one.”
“Black card?” She covered her mouth as she scoffed and finished her bite of food. She swallowed and picked up her wine. “Ain’t you the one always talking about how Blackness isn’t a monolith? Having to school your coworkers and all that?” She sipped her wine.
I tore open a wing with my hands. “Blackness isn’t a monolith, but this dinner screams ‘eat me with hot sauce!’ It’s like… required. A mandatory condiment in this case. And Frank’s ain’t even really hot. It’s more vinegary and salty than anything.” I forked a piece of chicken and a few green beans all at once.
“You are ridiculous.”
“I’m serious.”
“I see.” Dayo laughed and sipped more wine. “What’s with you and hot sauce anyway? I noticed your face when I said I didn’t like hot sauce at the restaurant and now this. Did you make this dinner to see if I’d want hot sauce this time?” She put her glass down and leaned back in her chair. “You did, didn’t you?” She covered her mouth. “This some kind of hot sauce test?” She cracked up and clapped her hands.
I swallowed hard and shook my head. “No. Of course not!” I tried to conceal my guilty smirk. It didn’t work.
“What kind of relationship are we going to have if you’re gonna lie to me?” The question, which came out fast and flirty, hung in the air for a moment. It took on a weight that caught us both off guard. “I mean—I just meant…”
“You’re right.” I leaned in close to the table. “This was a hot sauce test. It’s stupid. I know. It’s just that—I don’t know. Hot sauce is like…” I picked up the bottle of Frank’s and set it back down. “Forget it.”
“No. Tell me. Hot sauce is like what?”
I looked down at the table. It felt stupid to make such a big deal of it, but my love for hot sauce was tied to so many things. Memories of my grandfather Ira who gave me my first taste of it when I was a kid. He had given me just a little dab on a still-meaty chicken leg bone before I was even walking on my own. There’s a picture of me in a walker, my little legs bowed and ringed with baby fat, in the center of his living room. I’m smiling, all gums, and clutching a ravished drumstick in my pudgy fist. My grandfather, who would die the day before my fifteenth birthday, stood beside me, leaning against the top of his oak stereo console. Memories of family dinners that, after a quick succession of grandparent deaths, felt further and further away each year. My grandparents raised me, and between Grandaddy Ira and Granny Idell, something about hot sauce—from Frank’s Red Hot to the homemade pepper sauce Granny Idell made with small green and red peppers from her garden—made me think of love and belonging.
I didn’t want to tell Dayo all of that though. I didn’t want some maudlin story to make her feel all sorry for me. I wanted her to see me as strong and determined. Unafraid and intentional.
“It’s about a certain fearlessness, I think. A certain kind of boldness.” I picked up the Frank’s and put more of it on my chicken. “It’s like going through the fire.”
Dayo rolled her eyes. “Okay, Chaka Chan.”
“Why don’t you like it?”
“I just… hot sauce just be hot for the sake of being hot. I’m just not into it.”
“Which ones have you tried? Some of them are really good.” I put even more hot sauce on my chicken, a bit more on my green beans and potatoes. Dayo watched me and bit her lip.
“I don’t know.” Dayo shrugged. “Hot sauce. I’ve tried that one,” she said, pointing at the Frank’s. “Too hot. And too salty.”
I clutched fake pearls. “How dare you!” I said in mock offense. “Okay. You up to try some others?”
Dayo sighed. “You know what?” She grabbed her wine and drained her glass. “Let’s go.” She pushed herself from the table and folded her arms across her breasts.
I drank the last of my wine and stood up. “Let’s go.” I grabbed the glass dish of oven-fried chicken and carried it to the counter in the kitchen. I opened the cabinet and pulled down bottle after bottle of hot sauce. I lined them up: Sriracha—heavy and smoky, Busha Browne’s Pukka—sharp and tart. Then, a sweet, mango-based sauce from Mexico and a savory carrot-based sauce from Key West. I took out a green chili-pineapple sauce from Arizona and a homemade sauce in an unlabeled jar that I got from my Trinidadian postman. I leaned against the counter like a proud parent looking at all her beautiful children.
“Which one you want to try first?” I asked.
“Um,” Dayo surveyed the counter. “Let’s start with the hottest.”
“What!?”
“Yeah.” She bounced her shoulders like a boxer getting ready for round one. “Hottest first.”
“Okay…” I picked up the homemade sauce from my mailman. It was by far the hottest of all the store-bought recipes. I opened it and smelled it. I reeled backward and coughed. “You sure about this?”
“Boldness!” Dayo pulled a chunk of meat from one of the crispy chicken breasts in the pan. She held it between her fingers and stepped closer to me. I held the jar of reddish-orange sauce toward her. I could smell the heat of the scotch bonnet peppers, already feeling the burn in my nostrils and the back of my throat. Dayo dipped the corner of the chicken in the jar then dipped the meat some more. She did a slight twist to scoop more sauce then held the morsel up. She moved it toward her own mouth, licking her lips and narrowing her eyes in determination.
She opened her mouth then closed it, moving the bite away from her lips. “You first,” she said. “Show me how it’s done.”
I pursed my lips and raised an eyebrow. “Okay,” I said. Putting the jar of sauce down, I moved in closer to her. Dayo inched the meat toward my lips as I parted them. She moved slowly, carefully, looking into my eyes all the while. I leaned forward and took the chicken, and her fingertips, into my mouth. She pressed her fingers against my tongue, and I puckered my lips to suck her fingers as she slid them from my lips. I didn’t even taste the chicken. There was only the salty sweet of her fingertips then fire. The heat didn’t build slowly; it exploded on my tongue, the roof of my mouth, the back of my throat. My gums, my lips, my nose, and my eyes. Fire. I blinked and tears fell from the inside corner of both my eyes. I took in a deep breath, my lips a tight “O.” The air cooled the surface of my tongue but did nothing for my mouth, which had become a furnace. I chewed the chicken tentatively, having almost forgotten it was the vehicle for the sauce.
“Shit!” I said as I struggled to swallow the bite of food. I opened my mouth, almost expecting to breathe fire.
Dayo threw her head back and laughed. “See. Nope.”
I wiped my eyes and coughed. “You… ain’t… right…” I struggled out, sucking in air and fanning my mouth with both hands between words.
Dayo grabbed my wrists. I swallowed and inhaled with a wince.
“Let me taste.”
Breathing hard with my mouth open and chest heaving, I let Dayo pull me into her. She licked my lips then sucked them. She pressed her mouth against mine and slid her tongue into my mouth. My tongue, tingling and burning, danced with hers. Dayo sucked my tongue then pulled away.
“It’s hot,” Dayo said. “I can feel it.” She touched her lips. “That shit is crazy hot.”
“I know,” I said panting. “My mouth is on fire.”
“Show me.”
I inhaled deeply then stepped to Dayo. I took her in my arms and pressed my body against hers. I kissed her with urgency, my hot, determined tongue finding hers, both our mouths hungry for each other amidst the heat. Dayo sucked my top lip as my hands slid down to her ass. I squeezed her cheeks, turning myself on at the thought of burying my face in them. I kissed her chin and neck as I maneuvered her body to the counter. Dayo raised her arms. I lifted her sweatshirt up and over her head before sucking her shoulders and planting kisses across the swell of her breasts. With one hand, I reached behind her and unclasped her bra. She slid her arms from the straps. I pulled her bra off then went to work on her nipples, lapping them with firm strokes. Her skin felt cool against the heat that still tingled across my tongue. I sucked her breasts, gripping their fullness with my hands as I moved from left to right, Dayo’s nipples pebbling against the flat of my tongue. As I licked and sucked, Dayo reached between us to unfasten her jeans. Moving down to her belly, I joined in the effort, helping unclasp the button and unzip her pants so I could slide them down her thick thighs.
Dayo shimmied as I pulled her jeans down to her ankles. She stepped out of her pants as I slid her panties to the side and dropped fully to my knees. I hoisted Dayo’s legs onto my shoulders and lifted myself slightly, helping Dayo position herself on the edge of the counter. Bottles of hot sauce teetered and fell to the floor in the effort. I didn’t care. The smell of peppers and vinegar rose up against the smell of Dayo’s pussy, an inviting, intoxicating scent of honey, amber, and sweat.
I pressed my face, from nose to chin, between Dayo’s legs. The tip of my nose nuzzled her clit as I pressed myself upward, inhaling her and basking in her wetness. When my mouth, still hot, still tingling, still raw, made its way to her pussy, the contrast of smooth skin and damp hair soothed my stinging tongue, my aching mouth.
Dayo pressed herself further back on the counter, trying to grip the cabinets and knocking down the remaining bottles of hot sauce as she bucked and rolled her hips. I gripped her thighs, lifting myself up into a squat to better fuck her with my tongue. I darted my tongue in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out. As Dayo’s breath quickened and back arched, I slid my mouth up to her clit. I wrapped my lips around it, my lips—still hot, still stinging with the heat of the hot sauce—created a seal of heat and suction, a fortress of pulsating pleasure.
Dayo thrusted herself against my face, against my mouth. “It’s so hot,” she said. “It’s so hot.”
I moaned into her pussy. I dug my nails into the softness of her thighs. I sucked harder. I flicked my tongue as I sucked, swirled my tongue as I sucked. My own pussy swelled against my panties, and I pressed my legs together, struggling to stay balanced as Dayo fucked my face from the countertop. Her legs shaking, Dayo slapped at the cabinets then gripped the edge of the counter as she came, breathing hard and moaning loudly. I wrapped my arms around her thighs to steady her as her body trembled and flexed, rose and fell. She stiffened then released, a loud, final whimper escaped her throat as her body went limp. I collapsed backward onto my ass, the deep throbbing of my own clit matching the beating of my heart.
Dayo slid off the counter and sat on the kitchen floor. She looked to her left. Bottles of hot sauce littered the floor, some of them had burst open, the red juice and orange puree in pools and splatters against the cabinets and floorboards.
“I’m sorry about your hot sauce,” Dayo said, her voice raspy and low.
“Fuck hot sauce,” I said.
Dayo chuckled from deep in her throat. “Fuck hot sauce?”
“Surprise and delight, right?”
We left the mess in the kitchen and made our way to my bedroom. We made love then, moving slower and more carefully than in the kitchen, our fingers and tongues leaving nothing unexplored. Sunlight flared through the blinds in bands of warm, glowing orange when we finally stopped. Intertwined, exhausted, and sated, our bodies formed something between an “X” and a “Y” in the center of my king-sized bed. We played with each other’s fingers while looking up at the softly spinning ceiling fan. My apartment held us in quiet stillness that felt like a secret.
“I forget how much I need this,” Dayo said.
“Good sex?” I said with a smile, tickling Dayo’s palm.
Dayo chuckled. “No. The quiet. The peace.”
“Mmmmmmm.” I nodded and inhaled deeply. “I can only imagine.”
“The work I do,” Dayo began, “it’s all so loud. The students, who are great, don’t get me wrong, and the administrators and the parents. So many voices all wanting something different, all wanting to be heard. Then my other work. Us trying to raise our voices against a system that always seems to be screaming at me, at us. Do you feel it? Do you hear it?”
I swallowed. “I do. I think. I guess I try to drown it out. I try to ignore it along with all the other noise. My dickhead boss Colton, my flaky ass coworkers, my sad—I just want…”
Dayo sat up. “What? What do you want?”
“I just want to live my life. I want to be in love. I want to write books and plays and poems. I want—” I stopped myself. Feeling vulnerable, I sat up and scooted myself up against the headboard. “It doesn’t matter. Everything feels impossible.”
“Alicia, that doesn’t sound impossible.” Dayo moved closer to me. “You can do it. You don’t have to stay in a job you hate. You don’t have to live on anyone’s terms but your own.”
“I don’t know, Dayo. I just don’t have your sense of hope. Most days, I feel stuck.”
Dayo grabbed my hand. “I want you to do something with me tomorrow.”
The next morning, dressed in bleach-stained jeans, a blue tank top, and gray Adidas, I met Dayo at the State Fair Grounds. Traffic was already thick with visitors to the fair, the police directing lanes and moving barricades into place. Dayo, in black pants and a white sleeveless button up that draped to her knees, stood in the center of a small group of young people and elders, handing out t-shirts and bottles of water. A tall man with sienna skin and a messy pile of dreads curling and coiling around the top of his head situated two boxes of signs. Folks who had slid their new shirts over their heads went over to the signs and grabbed themselves one, lifting them out carefully by the wooden handles poking from the open top boxes.
The t-shirts featured fourteen-year-old Anthony Jones III, a young Black boy who was killed at the state fair a couple years ago. Jones had been removed from the fair by the police, who had rounded up tens of Black youth during All Student Day at the fair that year. Instead of dropping him off at home, the police put him out the cruiser on the side of the road, over a mile away from the fair. Jones, needing to get back to the fair to get to his ride, crossed the interstate and was killed by traffic. There was a case pending against the police department and a civil suit against the county. In the meantime, a group of protestors— an organized group called The Dream Defenders alongside family members and friends of the family—held a memorial for Jones at the main entrance to the fairgrounds.
“Hey,” I said as I walked up to Dayo to get a shirt.
“Hey,” she said. She handed me a shirt. “I’m glad you came.”
“Of course. What should I do? You need help?” I slid the shirt over my tank top and adjusted it on my shoulders.
“We’re actually all good. We’re going to set up over there.” Dayo pointed toward the man with the box of signs. “We stand over in that area, saying Andrew Jones’s name, giving the parents a chance to speak and others to share memories and stories of him.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. Dayo offered me a water. I grabbed the bottle and opened it right away. My throat already dry.
“It’s fine,” Dayo said. “Trust me.”
I nodded and replaced the cap on the bottle of water. I joined the tall man with dreads, whose name turned out to be Rodrick. He pulled a sign out the box and gave it to me.
“Glad you’re here, sis. We can use all the voices we can,” Rodrick said.
“For sure,” I said. I hoisted my sign over my shoulder and walked over to the small group of people forming a double line near the fenced entrance of the fair. They were chanting, “WE REMEMBER Anthony Jones III! WE REMEMBER Anthony Jones III!” I joined in. My voice a whisper at first, anxiety tightening my throat. I stood shoulder to shoulder with a dark-skinned woman with long gray hair pulled into a single braid that ended between her shoulder blades. She glanced at me quickly, nodding reassuringly. She seemed to say the words directly to me, “WE REMEMBER Anthony Jones III!” I raised my voice, matching her tone and volume. “WE REMEMBER Anthony Jones III!”
Cars pulled into the entrance way. Some car horns honked in solidarity. Some drivers rolled down their windows and chanted with us, “WE REMEMBER Anthony Jones III!” Others honked in irritation. The short blasts and sour, frowning faces filling the car windows did nothing to quiet us though, did nothing to discourage us.
After Dayo had passed out the last shirts, she came over to where I stood. She had put a t-shirt on over her clothes and rolled up the sleeves. She held a bullhorn. She chanted, “WE REMEMBER Anthony Jones III! WE REMEMBER Anthony Jones III!”
We stood and chanted for over an hour. Lifting our signs and pumping our fists. Saying Anthony Jones’s name at the cars entering the gate, at the people walking up alongside the fence, at the police who stood glaring while directing traffic. Rodrick opened a new case of water, and the woman with the braid handed out Walgreen’s brand cherry-lemon throat lozenges. We chanted and chanted until our signs slumped and our feet burned.
Dayo pressed a button and the bullhorn squawked. “I’d like to invite Anthony Jones’s mother to say a few words.” The small crowd hushed then applauded as Mrs. Jones stepped forward. She wore a cream-colored shirt with her son’s face on it, the words “Journey toward Justice” in block letters along the right side. She gave Dayo a hug then took the bullhorn. The applause continued until she cleared her throat into the bull horn and began.
“My son Anthony had so many friends. He made friends so easy. Outgoing and smart, and…” Mrs. Jones’s voice trailed off. She lowered the bullhorn, took a beat, then raised it again. “We’re here to remember Anthony. But we’re also here to make our voices and presence known. We’re here to make sure that we see justice. We’re here to hold the police department, this city accountable, not just for my son’s death, but for the way they enact violence and the way they operate with carelessness and immunity in our communities.”
I clapped my hands along with a few others. Watching Mrs. Jones speak, the passion and sorrow in her eyes, the conviction in her voice, moved me to tears.
“We will not rest until justice is served! We will not rest! WE WILL NOT REST!” Mrs. Jones yelled into the bullhorn. Her voice did not crack. Her stare, set firmly at a pair of officers standing near a crowd divider less than ten feet from us, did not break. “WE WILL NOT REST!”
The crowd, noticing the police standing nearer than before, hands on holsters and varying expressions of disinterest and disgust settling across their tight thin lips and red cheeks, took up the rallying cry. I joined in, too, thrusting my sign in the direction of the officers. “WE WILL NOT REST!”
The police began talking and gesturing among themselves, some of them pointing in our direction. Our chants rose. An officer walked over to his cruiser and flicked on the flashing lights, two loud whoops echoing from two more cars, whose drivers did the same.
Dayo linked her arm with mine. I set my sign down against my leg and linked my other arm with Rodrick’s. The group linked arms and planted our feet against the grass and gravel. “WE WILL NOT REST! WE WILL NOT REST! WE WILL NOT REST!”
The police whooped their sirens in an attempt to intimidate us, to silence us. We wouldn't be quiet. We wouldn’t move. We wouldn’t rest.
After the memorial, I went with Dayo to her place. She rented a small wooden house not far from the high school where she taught. We sat on the porch steps eating cold pizza and drinking cheap white wine while we talked about the events of the afternoon.
“The police couldn’t really do anything. We had the proper permits and everything. We have a right to peaceful protest,” Dayo said.
“For now,” I said with a sigh. “You know the punk ass governor is making up some heinous new rules about how, when, and where we can protest.”
“I heard.” Dayo sipped her wine. “It’s some shit about running people over in there, too, I think.”
“Yeah.” I bit into my pizza. The cheese was stiff, and the crust was tough, but the flavor was still good.
“Sorry about the food,” Dayo said. “I could make something.”
“It’s fine. I just needed to put something in my mouth.”
She shook her head. “It was a long day. Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for inviting me.” I took another bite of my pizza and chewed slowly. I tossed the last of my slice on the plate next to me.
“Sorry I didn’t have any hot sauce,” Dayo said with a smirk.
“It’s okay.” I leaned back on the top step of the porch. “Today was amazing. I’ve never felt so… connected to people before. Like, connected to something bigger than me.”
“Oh yeah?” Dayo scooted closer to me. Our thighs and shoulders touched.
“Yeah. I felt… possible. Everything felt possible.” I cleared my throat. “I was angry thinking about Andrew and what happened to him. And I’m still angry at the police, at the mayor, at the state, at everything. But it isn’t a hopeless anger. Even when the police were flexin’ with their lights and shit, I still felt…” I stopped, my voice cracking. “But I know the hope is fleeting.” I sniffled. “At the end of the day, nothing changes. None of this matters.” A tear sneaked out the corner of my eye and I tried to look away, but Dayo gently grabbed my chin. She turned my face toward hers and used her thumb to wipe the tear that snaked down my cheek.
More tears followed. Before I knew it, I was sobbing. Dayo put her arms around me and held me. “It matters. It doesn’t always feel like it, but it matters. Taking action always matters.”
My tears slowed but the sadness remained. I slipped from Dayo’s arms and wiped at my face.
“Alicia,” Dayo said. She stood up slowly and held out her hand. “Come.”
I took her hand and followed her into the house. The entire house was enveloped in darkness except for a light over the stove and a soft glow coming from a doorway at the end of a short hall. Holding Dayo’s hand, I stepped carefully through the shadows of the front room and hallway. I watched the round of her ass through the swaying tail of her white shirt. Dayo pushed her bedroom door open, the origin of the soft glow was a tall, brass lamp on a side table next to her bed. She turned, still holding my hand, and led me into the room, pulling me inside and gently tugging me into her body as we reached the end of the bed.
Dayo released my hand and unbuttoned her shirt. She shrugged the long white shirt off her shoulders. I stepped forward and dipped my head to graze the swell of her breasts with my lips. I gripped the sides of her breasts, pushing them together in her black lace bra and dipped my tongue between them. I felt Dayo shudder in my arms. She reached up and put her hands on my shoulders, lightly pushing me away. She unbuttoned her pants and pushed them down her thighs. She stood before me in black panties and bra, hands on her hips.
“Take off your clothes,” she said.
I obeyed. I pulled my shirts over my head then unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans. I shimmied them down my legs then stepped out of them. I stood before her, in red, cheeky boy shorts and gray sports bra. We took in each other’s bodies. Our eyes traveling from head to neck to breasts to navel to fist of pussy, from hips to thighs to toes.
Without saying a word, Dayo closed the space between us and kissed me so passionately my head spun. She pressed her tongue into my mouth and slid a hand into the front of my panties. With an expert deftness, she gently parted my pussy lips and massaged my clit soft and slow. I melted into her mouth and dripped into her hand. Dayo moved her mouth to my chin then my neck, sucking and kissing all at once, her fingers gliding between my slick folds. I tilted my head back and moaned. Dayo slid her hand from between my legs and brought her fingers, wet and shining, to mouth. She licked her fingertips. I leaned forward and opened my mouth. She put her fingers in my mouth. Sucking myself off her fingers, I closed my eyes and tried to steady myself. My knees weak and heart pounding in my ears, I twirled my tongue around Dayo’s fingers until she pulled them slowly from between my lips.
Dayo grabbed my wrists and pulled me on top of her as we collapsed onto the bed. We kissed hungrily, desperately, as we freed each other from our bras and panties. Finally naked, we pressed our bodies against each other, rolling our hips and flexing our thighs as we found the perfect position, a friction building and a tension mounting. Dayo sighed and moaned in my ear. I whispered her name as I locked my arms around her, squeezing her body against me as I shuddered and shook against her slippery thigh. She rolled me over onto my back and straddled me as I tried to catch my breath. She lowered her head and licked my lips. She took my bottom lip into her teeth and bit gently before sliding her body down, down, down between my thighs. She rested her lips against the mound of my pussy then looked up at me with eyes that seemed to say “I want to fuck you so hard” and “I want to love you so hard” at the same time. I wanted it, too. Both things. For her to fuck me harder than I’d ever been fucked before. For her to love me harder than I’d ever been loved before.
And for a while after that night, she did.