Another day. I cut out of the firm early to visit the Nzinga Clinic because Jan and even Riley were pleased with my results from the trial by ordeal. After I’d given out all the brochures, one insistent couple even followed me back to the BEG satellite office to get their own. Jan said I could consider the satellite office my domain. I’d receive further instructions soon. That’s why I was at Nzinga’s. I’d just jumped from the backroads to the highway. It was time to map the final route to Nigel’s future.
The clinic was in the medical annex adjacent to Personal Hill Hospital. Sitting in Dr. Nzinga’s waiting room, the short medical tower where Penny worked was clearly visible. Fourth floor, northeast corner. I could feel her in there. Her heartbeat. Her breath. I was sure the hairs on the back of her neck stood up just then.
In the foyer was a maquette of a proposed massive new clinic large enough to service the City for generations to come. I imagined Dr. Nzinga, that tall, noble dark-skinned—but not too dark-skinned—man, somehow still practicing at the age of 101, holding the hand of my future granddaughter and telling her that life would eventually improve.
I see you have your grandfather’s nose. Do not worry. It is easily resected.
Life did eventually improve. But hope wasn’t enough. You had to work at it.
In the distance, the Sky Tower roof floated beneath milky clouds.
I had visited the clinic once before on my original fact-finding mission. That time the waiting room was populated by all kinds of people: a girl with a partially corrected cleft palate, a large-bellied man, a redhead in cycling clothes. I had quickly downloaded the demelanization brochure (only available if you stopped into the clinic) but accepted a couple of brochures about varicose vein correction to cover myself and giddily ran out. This time everyone was black (and half of the room wore purple faux-fur coats). This time I checked in at the counter and took my seat in a far corner with my back to the wall like a mafioso. I needed to meet Dr. Nzinga. I needed to tell him about my intentions for Nigel.
“Hey, brother,” the man next to me said. It was the streetcar driver from the Musée. The one with the stained blue eyes. “You here for a scrub, too, huh? What you looking to have done? Nose? Lips? You got some real repugnant back-to-Africa lips, for sure. Need to trim them shits down.”
“I’m just here for work,” I said.
“Makes sense.” The man sipped a can of P. Cola, the can’s pulsing blue a color I always found happy and hygienic. “I saw this thing on TV about folk who get some of this done. They get paid more. That’s why I’m going to get this trimmed down some.” He pinched his nose. “Gonna upgrade. Maybe I’ll finally make supervisor.”
“Good for you.” An ad popped up on my device—for a butcher shop in the Myrtles mall—but I couldn’t really focus—because the guy—wouldn’t stop—talking—I vaguely noticed a scrolling promotion for that ridiculous Tony Award–winning musical, A Comical Furrier Funs. I also came across a plug for the Nzinga Clinic that I’d seen around town before. A dark woman’s face under a wash of sunshine: YOU CAN BE BEAUTIFUL, EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN BEFORE.
One of the nurses opened a door and called out a name. Unfortunately, the streetcar driver remained seated. He gabbed on about all the procedures he wanted to have done. Suddenly it dawned on me that he was just a lowly City employee. How the hell would he bankroll any of his dreams?
“Pilot program for municipal workers,” he said. “City covers up to seventy percent. Can’t say that’s not fair. I’m working as much overtime as I can pinch.”
A woman entered the waiting room from the examination room area. She wore a scarf like one I’d seen at work and large sunglasses that I’d once tried on and found too tight. Overall this woman looked an awful lot like Dinah. I called out to her. The woman looked at me with surprise and stepped into the hall. I opened the door and yelled her name, but the woman kept walking.
Ads kept pinging on my device. Very irksome that the ad bots tracked your movements and offered up their masters’ wares. I rarely clicked on ads—why reward them?—but I needed a distraction from Chipper Charlie the Chatty Conductor.
A bookseller, offering a suite of books, to wit:
Mommy, Why Is My Skin So Dark?
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Lakeisha’s First Perm (with new foreword by V. Sirin-Johnson!)
Dilution Anxiety and the Black Phallus
Black Past, White Future
Keep Your Child Out of the Sun!
I was about to purchase the last one when I recalled that I’d read it ages ago, even quoted choice passages to Penny.
My name was said. I glanced at the driver. He smiled at me and said good luck. A girl—I couldn’t remember her name—from Nigel’s school walked in with her parents. I had been struck by her round face and diaphanously pale skin in the past, even as I noticed that her parents were black. I stepped into the medical suite.
I should probably pause to say another word about Crooked Crown, the pop star I bumped into the day Eckstein kicked Octavia and me to the curb. Other than making really annoying songs—if I never hear “Love the Real You” again, I will be very pleased—she had set in motion several fads. She was the reason, for example, that purple fur coats were all the rage among common black folk. She was also the instigator of the demel fad. It seemed ridiculous to me that one person could completely alter an entire society’s image of the physical ideal. But stranger things have happened. After all, it was Coco Chanel who got white people to tan for a whole century before tanning salons were outlawed. And Hitler permanently removed the toothbrush mustache from the dapper man’s fashion vocabulary.
In Crown’s case, it was clear that demelanization had changed her life. She went from being a background singer in a moderately successful R&B group—Faith Colombo or Kate Sambo, I could never recall their proper name—to one of the biggest stars in pop history. Which brings me to Nzinga, who not only perfected and performed the first successful full-body scrub but was also Crown’s Merlin.
The nurse in the consultation room checked my vitals. She had clearly been black…once. And I suppose she still was on the inside. But she must have undergone the full panoply just like Crown. The brochures called it the Spotless Special. Must be nice to get the employee discount.
Still, the work wasn’t perfect. There was something not-quite-right about the curves of her lips and the way the skin tone around her knuckles was oddly dark. Even Crown suffered from these hiccups, pointed out by some of her haters on social media. That was the problem with being an early adopter of such wondrous technology. They hadn’t worked out all the kinks. Fortunately, there had been improvements to the technique.
Another nurse entered, this one with dark skin and Africa-Face. What was it about people who were late of the Motherland? There was something about the cant of their cheeks and noses that made them instantly recognizable in relief to run-of-the-mill African Americans like myself. I guessed that people like this nurse’s ancestors were history’s victors, the lucky souls who had avoided the Middle Passage and miscegenation. Coffee never diluted by creamer.
This second nurse measured my forehead with a set of calipers. She pinched my nose. She yanked my lower lip.
“Good elasticity,” she said rhapsodically, in her rhythmic accent. Still holding my lip, she jotted something on a chart.
“Whabt?”
“It means you are a good match for the program.” She let go. “Still, you are going to require some effort.”
“When will the doctor see me? I’m kind of in a rush.”
“Excuse me, Mr. ‘Kind of in a Rush,’ but the doctor sees you now.” She shone a penlight in my eye. I squinted.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—” In all the literature I read about the clinic, I’d never seen a picture of Dr. Nzinga. I’d assumed she was a man. Penny would say this was another of my blind spots.
“Do not dwell on it. After all, the place you dwell is the place you live. Shame is no proper residence.” Dr. Nzinga groped my face, kneading my forehead as if I were a lump of clay. “Now. You will tell me of your dreams.”
“Actually, doctor.” I had a frog in my throat. This was a moment I’d anticipated for years. I was frozen. My heart whirled in my chest. I was in danger of coming across as a lunatic. “I—uh. I’m here for my son.”
I pulled up a picture of Nigel on my device and told Dr. Nzinga everything. I was probably too sincere. But once I started, I couldn’t slow down. I told her about my fears and the sleepless nights. About the skin creams. About how I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing in general.
“What father is certain he’s doing the right thing?” Dr. Nzinga put a hand on my knee. “Why do you think I moved my program here from Abuja? We can help your— What is his name?”
“Nigel,” I said.
“We developed these protocols precisely for people like Nigel. I anticipate that his birthmark sinks to the subcutaneous layer, but his condition is relatively minor and can be revised.”
I couldn’t help myself. I hugged the woman.
“Now, now, good father,” she said. “We are only doing our jobs.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No more than removing a tattoo. Although it is much more involved than that.”
“How much does it cost?”
Dr. Nzinga directed me to speak with one of the clerks. She said there were financial programs to help, if necessary.
“Once you work all that out, be sure to bring this—”
“Nigel.”
“—Nigel in so that we can do a full assessment.”
I floated out of the consultation room but quickly ran aground as the clerk and I reviewed an estimate sheet. The cost of the procedure had gone up since my recon visit. The success rate was over 90 percent now, but the improvements to the procedure had not made things cheaper. Short of finding a pot of gold, the bonus was my only shot.