Danny knocked on the door of Marshall’s house in Palmer Woods and waited. He was always a little jealous when he came there. A friend always likes to think of his peers as equals. But Marshall had done so much better than he had in the money department. The house was massive and well kept. The kind of place Danny could only dream about. The door opened, revealing Chemin, Marshall’s wife.
“Danny,” she said brightly, flinging open the screen door. “Come on in.” She pulled him inside. “How are you? Come and see the kids.” She smiled a smile that he could only describe as happiness itself. Danny realized that Marshall had done better than he had in the life department, too.
Danny stepped inside thinking how different Chemin was these days. About a year ago, he would not have recognized this pleasant woman. Chemin and Marshall were having a terrible problem that resolved itself and ended in the birth of a baby boy. She was now the person Danny remembered when they’d first met, a feisty, distractingly beautiful woman, who was funny, sensitive, and strong.
“So, how’s Vinny?” she asked. Then finally she noticed his expression. “Are you okay?”
“Not really,” said Danny.
“Is it that case?” she asked. “The murders?”
“Yeah, and other stuff.”
She looked at Danny and he felt that she knew everything. Chemin had always been a formidable woman and one of the smartest people he knew, maybe smarter than the man he had come to see.
“Marshall’s in the back,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll want to see you. We have company, but they’re about to leave.”
“Who is it?” Danny asked. He didn’t want to socialize unnecessarily.
“Just Marshall’s mama and her friend.”
They walked through the house to the den, where they found Marshall on the floor play fighting with a little boy of three. His mother, Beatrice, was sitting on the sofa next to a black man in his sixties.
Beatrice held Marshall’s son while Marshall played with his nephew, Kadhi, who was his brother Moses’s illegitimate son. Moses was bad news, a hard-core killer and career criminal who was Marshall’s fraternal twin. He was the black sheep, or maybe that should be white sheep, of their family, Danny thought.
“Look who’s here,” said Chemin.
“Danny,” said Marshall. He started to get up, but couldn’t with the kid in his arms. Chemin came over, took the child, and Marshall got to his feet.
Danny quickly walked over and kissed Beatrice as he said hello. He knew that if he waited too long to show her respect, she’d get on him, and he’d never hear the end of it.
“Hello, Danny,” said Beatrice. She was a big woman with a good nature who always had a kind word for everyone. When he was young, he saw her as much as he did his own mother. Her husband, Buford, had died many years ago and although there had been suitors in the past, this was the first one Danny had seen in a long time.
“Hi, Ma,” said Danny. She insisted that he call her “Ma” like a second mother since his own had died.
“This is Deacon Walton from my church,” said Beatrice.
Danny shook hands with the deacon. “Hiya doin’, Rev,” said Danny.
“They’re dating,” said Marshall.
“Stop it,” said Chemin. She put Kadhi down and took her own son from Beatrice.
“We gotta go now, Bea,” said the deacon. He got up, stuck out his hand, and helped Beatrice up from the sofa. It was a simple, elegant gesture that spoke volumes about what they meant to each other.
Beatrice and the deacon said good-bye and walked out of the house. Marshall escorted them to the door. Danny checked his friend’s face. He was happy for his mom to be seeing a man, but just a little resentful in that way that a son has to be.
“I guess you two want to talk,” said Chemin. “I’ll get these kids out of your way.”
“See you later, man,” Danny said to Kadhi, and they slapped five in the sloppy way a kid does.
“Daniel, say ’bye to Uncle Danny,” said Chemin. She held the little baby out to Danny and he took the boy with a smile.
“That’s Godfather Danny,” Danny corrected. “Like Marlon Brando.”
“Come on, honey,” Chemin said to the baby. “Let’s let the big men do their thing.”
Danny gave her the baby as Marshall came back. Chemin gave her husband a concerned look, then she bounced out of the room with the two boys.
“Still can’t believe you named him after me,” Danny said to Marshall.
“She wanted to name him Lynn after her grandfather, remember that shit? A girl’s name. Anyway, it’s nice having both the kids here. Kadhi’s mama is in school now, and he’s here most of the time. All of a sudden, I got a full house.”
“Chemin’s still working from home?” asked Danny.
“Yeah, and she loves it. Personally, I don’t think she’s ever going back.”
“I hardly recognize her. What a difference a baby makes, huh?”
“So, what can I do for you, man?” asked Marshall. “That look on your face is pretty serious.”
Danny stared at his friend, wanting terribly to unburden himself about his father. Marshall was the only person in the world whom he really trusted, and he wanted to share his secret with someone. Hell, he thought, he wanted sympathy if nothing else.
“My mother didn’t die in a fall,” said Danny calmly. “I found out that she might have taken an overdose of drugs. And my father…he tried to cover it up.”
Marshall reacted as if hit in the face by a blow. He looked at the ceiling for a second as if something were written on it.
“Jesus,” said Marshall. “Are you sure?”
Danny just nodded and Marshall made another exasperated sound. Then he thought for a moment more.
“Talk to him,” said Marshall finally. “Your father is a good man. My father thought so and so do I. I know he’ll have an explanation. And keep an open mind.” He gave Danny a knowing look. “Remember what you thought about Chemin.”
Danny nodded, recalling that he’d suspected Marshall’s wife of a similar crime over a year ago and he’d been wrong.
“I will,” said Danny. “I just—this is a fuckin’ nightmare.”
They sat in silence for a while and Danny thought about leaving. He felt like an intruder in this happy home. But he knew that if he tried to go now, Marshall would not have any of it. They were too close for him to go running off trying to be the strong silent cop. Their friendship was based on turning away from that terrible habit of men avoiding their feelings.
“Vinny moved out,” said Danny flatly. “It’s been coming for a while I guess.”
“Man,” said Marshall. “What the fuck is happening to you, man?”
“I’ve been asking myself that same question,” said Danny. “It’s like a snowball. Vinny and me, we fell out over nothing, some friends of hers came by.”
“It’s never about nothing,” said Marshall. “That’s just the thing that broke it. So, what are you gonna do?”
“Nothing,” said Danny. “I’ll just let it go for a while. Do some work.”
“Maybe I can talk to her,” said Marshall almost to himself.
“No,” said Danny. “She’ll think I put you up to it and it’ll only make things worse. Vinny said that maybe I needed some white friends, like I was closed off from reality or something.”
“Shit,” said Marshall. “I thought you two were over that whole thing.”
“I think school and hangin’ out with the black elite is doing it. And her sisters, of course.”
“I don’t know what to say, man.” Marshall rubbed his hands together in frustration. “I know what it’s like to have this problem. It’s a hell of a lot bigger than me.”
“Well,” said Danny, “don’t kill yourself about it. Maybe you can help me with my other problem—my case, the murders of the Bakers and Olittah Reese. All of the victims were light-skinned blacks, and I have this nasty feeling that it means something.”
Marshall was quiet as he looked back at him. Danny searched for that hurt look he’d seen with Erik and Janis, but it wasn’t there. All he saw in his eyes was concern.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” said Marshall.
“Maybe, but I think it means something, and so does the FBI agent who’s on it.”
“FBI?”
“She’s a profiler from Quantico. She thinks it’s a serial killer, a black one. It seems only white people usually do this kind of thing.”
“Yeah, sick-ass white boys,” said Marshall, laughing. “So, if it’s important, what does it mean?”
“What I don’t know is why it’s relevant,” said Danny. “I don’t know a lot about skin color differences between the brothers.”
“Colorism,” said Marshall.
“There’s a word for it?” Danny was surprised by this.
“Yeah, a writer made it up. Danny, you’ve stepped into some deep shit, deep black shit.”
“I know. I caught the reactions of my partner and the FBI agent, who’s black, too, by the way. They seem to be bothered by the subject in general and hurt by memories.”
“Everybody’s got a story,” said Marshall. “I’ll tell you what I know about it, but you’ve been seeing it all your life. I guess it never hit you the same way because you were white.”
“So I’ve been told,” said Danny. “What’s your story?”
“Remember Ms. Rattin from Davison Elementary?” said Marshall without hesitation.
“Yeah, I remember. Third grade. Pretty lady.”
“I had a big ol’ crush on her. She was my favorite teacher with that long hair and those beautiful hazel eyes. Then one day, I overheard her talking to another teacher about her class. She said that some kids in her class were ‘as dumb as they were black.’ And she said it in that mean, nasty way that let me know she had a dislike for dark skin, my kind of skin.”
“Ms. Rattin was very light-skinned,” Danny said absently.
“Then about a year later I heard some teachers talking about her; they plotted to keep her from getting some kind of award. They made reference to her thinking she was too good already.” And now Marshall’s face took on that pained look Danny had seen before. “There are two revelations for black people,” he continued. “The first comes when you find out what it means to be black, and the second is when you find out what it means to be dark or light.”
“Light?” Danny asked.
“Yes, it goes both ways,” said Marshall. “A lot of light-skinned blacks get shit for not being dark enough. Remember Tommy, the kid whose father drove that beat-up old convertible?”
“Tommy Sanders,” Danny said, remembering the name. “He had freckles.”
“But he was black,” said Marshall. “The kids called him snowball, spotty, yellow-nigger, sweet pink, and all kinds of nasty stuff. I’m sad to say that I called him a few names myself. And that hurt look you talked about, the one your partner had on his face. I’ve seen that look on your face so many times, I’d like to forget them all.”
“Really?” said Danny, and in that instant he knew Marshall was probably right. He’d endured the worst kind of colorism. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“This all started with slavery, you know,” said Marshall. “When we were brought here, voluntarily or not, the races mixed, voluntarily or not. The slave masters treated their bastard kids better than their darker cousins, and the shit has just been carried on down through the years.”
Danny thought again about the victims and their faces. “And just what is the problem?” he asked.
“The lighter the skin, the better the person,” said Marshall. “That’s the stereotype. Reality is more complicated. And you know, a lot of the first really good jobs, doctor, teacher, lawyer, went to fair-skinned blacks who were more accepted by white society. Darker blacks had to take the backseat twice if you will, once to the white man and again to the light black man. Blacks of all colors married, but there was always a section of the race that intermarried and remained very light-skinned. Some even passed for white. My father told me about the parties with the paper bag by the door, and if you were darker than the bag, your ass couldn’t come in.”
“So, if my killer is all fucked up about color, what could have made him that way?” asked Danny.
“Could be a lot of things,” said Marshall. “These days, we’re all pretty much in denial about the shit. We’re so busy trying to make it, that we’ve just let it slip under the surface of everyday life, and that’s not a good place for something so painful.”
“My gut tells me that the color of the victims is not a coincidence,” said Danny. He took another drink of his beer. It was ever so slightly warmer from being in his hand for so long. “I think maybe the people involved were together for this reason.”
“Then you got yourself a real problem, my brother,” said Marshall.
Danny waited a moment, thinking, then asked, “Have you heard of the Castle Society?”
“Sure,” said Marshall. “My grandmother used to work at their parties as a servant. Why do you ask?”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Danny. “But it’s involved in my case somehow.”
Chemin came back in at that moment. She forced a smile, knowing that they’d been talking about something serious.
“Got them both to sleep,” she said. “That’s like a mommy holiday. So, everything okay?”
“Yeah, more or less,” said Marshall. “Danny’s come for some information about color. Chemin, tell Danny about your sister, Avon,” said Marshall.
Chemin’s face took on the by now familiar look of upset and hurt. “Marsh, why does he need to know that?”
“He wants to know about the color differences between black people,” said Marshall. “It’s for his case.”
“You can tell him,” said Chemin.
“It’s different for women,” said Marshall. “Help the man.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” said Danny. But he was interested in what Chemin had to say. He also saw that she wanted to speak on the subject.
The reference to her sister had taken hold of him. He’d met her sister, Avon before. Chemin was dark. But Avon was completely the opposite. He remembered thinking that maybe they were not even related or had different fathers, which they didn’t. Chemin’s mother was very light and her father was dark. The girls had been split between them almost right down the middle.
Chemin folded her arms and gave Marshall a look that suggested she’d get him later. “No, I’ll talk about it,” she said. “Avon and I got along fine when we were young,” she said, turning to Danny. “In fact, we were best friends in that way that only sisters can be. Then, when I turned twelve we both got interested in boys. In a nutshell, she got more attention than I did. In our culture, the lighter the woman, the more she’s favored by black men.”
Marshall cleared his throat.
“With some exceptions,” said Chemin, smiling at her husband. “And for a woman, that ability to attract men is everything. We’re told all our lives that our beauty is our value as women, and then we learn that some of us are more valuable than others. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it. The world is what it is and nothing is going to change that. All the light-skinned girls got the best boyfriends in school, were favored by certain sororities, got married first—and look.”
Chemin grabbed a magazine from a table and flipped through. She stopped at each ad featuring a black model, and in almost every case that model was light-skinned.
“The media lets you know what time it is every day,” she said. “See how most of them are either really fair or that weird-ass golden color?” She laughed.
“Or maybe you just think about shit too much,” Marshall laughed.
“No, I don’t,” said Chemin. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“This is too fuckin’ much,” said Danny. “Dark brothers get dogged, light brothers get dogged, for what? This thing is crazy.”
“Most of us try to be bigger than color, Danny,” said Chemin. Her face showed her sincerity. “We try, but a lot of times we fail. So the thing isn’t crazy. It’s human.”
“Finish the sister story,” said Marshall. “I never get tired of hearing this.”
“That’s because you’re sick,” said Chemin, giving him a love tap on the head. “Anyway, Avon and I started dating boys, and soon she began to think she was better than me. Or at least that’s what I thought. We never talked about it, but it was there, under our relationship, festering like a sickness. And then one day, we had a fight over, of all things, a sweater. She wanted to wear my red sweater because ‘it looked better on her,’ she said, and it wasn’t right for me. I knew what she meant. I’d heard that old saying about how dark girls shouldn’t wear red. I told her she couldn’t wear it, and she wore it on a date anyway, so I ripped one of hers to pieces. We had a terrible fight, hair-pulling, the whole bit. I called her a thief and she called me a black bitch. Not just a bitch, a black one, as if the word black made it worse. We didn’t speak for almost a year after that. We made up, but our relationship has never been the same.” She looked far away for a second, reclaiming the last of the memory. “What kind of case are you working that you need to know this?”
“A murder case,” I said. “All of my victims are light-skinned blacks.”
“Damn,” said Chemin. “I’m sorry.” She made this last statement after searching for something appropriate to say. “Does it mean anything?”
“I’m afraid it might mean everything,” said Danny. “This killer is sick in the head, and maybe he’s seeing shit that the rest of us can’t.”
“Killers usually do, don’t they?” said Marshall.
Chemin let out a little puff of air that echoed the exasperation Danny was feeling. Marshall said nothing. He just looked at Danny with the self-assured face of a friend.
“Whatever this whole thing is about,” said Marshall, “you can handle it.”
Danny nodded slightly, not knowing whether Marshall was talking about the case or the situation with his mother. He supposed that his friend meant both matters. In that regard he was grateful for his confidence.
Danny thanked Marshall and Chemin, then left them to their evening. He had brought a load of grief and heavy thinking on them, and he didn’t want them to suffer any more.
Danny stepped outside into the cool night and immediately his thoughts went back to his father and the terrible burden he was carrying. He vowed at that moment that he had to face up to it and soon.
He got into his car and pulled off. He was vaguely aware of the car bumping over the road. He was processing all that he’d had just heard from his friends.
“…it was my own people, not being my own people, and I felt like nothing.”
He heard Erik’s statement again. Danny saw millions of black people fighting against themselves and keeping it secret, like a shameful addiction.
Danny wondered if the deaths of the Bakers and Olittah Reese were what they seemed to be, revenge for lost wealth, or were born out of the affliction Marshall called colorism. And if it was, would it make the killer more or less deadly?