The coldest day of the year. That disrespectful brrr. Outside it looks like everybody’s blazing big blunts. Swirling dark clouds roll in like waves.
I’m in the living room watching Kung Fu Theater on Channel 48. I hear my mom and dad in the kitchen, their voices rising, falling, crashing like distant thunder.
Maybe all this arguing is good, I think. Maybe it means they still care. Like, it shows they’re still willing to fight for each other. Maybe not fighting is worse.
This flick is called Shogun Assassin. Samurais in straw hats sword-fighting in the desert. A little boy flashes on the screen:
When I was little my father was famous. He was the greatest samurai in the empire and he was the shogun’s decapitator. He cut off the heads of 131 lords. It was a bad time for the empire. The shogun just stayed inside his castle and he never came out. People said his brain was infected by devils. My father would come home; he would forget about the killings. He wasn’t scared of the shogun, but the shogun was of him. Maybe that was the problem. Then one night the shogun sent his ninja spies to our house. They were supposed to kill my father but they didn’t. That was the night everything changed.
I hear fists slamming on the counter—my cue to see what’s going on.
“He’s leaving,” my mom screams as I walk in the kitchen. Leaving to go where? I think.
I see my dad. His face looks cold and tight. He’s wearing a black dashiki with an ankh on it. The ankh symbolizes life in Egyptian mythology. Death in Philly reality.
I remember something my dad said when my grandfather died: “He thought of leaving for good every time he heard the long, mournful whistle of the train.” He told me it’s called “wanderlust”—that need to go, to bounce—and that all the men in my family have it.
My mom hangs on him like a peacoat. He drags her, slow and determined like a wounded soldier. Mom’s tears flowing like the Schuylkill River. I’ve never seen them like this.
“Hold up.” I hold my hand out like a crossing guard. “Where you going?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” he says.
Later? Who does he take me for, hitting me with later, like I’m some little kid? I know later never comes.
“Nah, we gon’ talk about it now!” I get loud. His mind is made up, though.
He’s rushing to the door, whooshing like wind through vents, gripping a beat-up black leather bag. That bag’s been everywhere; it spends more time with Pops than I do.
“How can you? How can you? Leave us … like this?” my mom sobs, looking right at me, her heavy eyes begging me to do something. The movement is moving and there’s nothing I can do. Fuck am I gonna do? I jump in front of him, try to block him, but he just steps around me.
“I have to go,” is what he says. “I just have to go.”
“Go where?”
“Just. Go,” he says opening the door. “One day you’ll understand.”
“Fuck one day! Fuck tomorrow!”
Our eyes lock. Tears glisten in his. Rage in mine.
“See?” He looks at my mom, shaking his head. “He has no respect for his father.”
“It’s my fault? He doesn’t respect you because you’re never here.”
He’s at the door now, palming the knob.
I say, “I’ll respect you even less if you walk out that door,” but it’s too late. The door flies open, a cold rush, he’s gone.
I feel my veins turn icy and my soul drift into darkness as he turns his back on us and marches into winter.
Mom falls into me, her wet face against my Hilfiger hoodie. The screen door stutters shut. I lift my mom up under the arms. She’s deadweight. I hold her tight and feel her back expanding in my palms like dough. I didn’t know she was this heavy. You never know how heavy anyone is until you have to carry them.
I wonder if he’s leaving because of her weight.
The other day, looking through her journal, I found this old school photo of her from back in the day. She was a dime. Dancer body, silky skin, the glow of a movie star, Lena Horne or somebody like that. Classic beauty. She’s a dancer that doesn’t dance anymore, not even her eyes. There’s no music, just pain. It’s hard to imagine that the lady in that faded photo is the same woman I’m holding now. She’s all I have.
“Protect me, Malo,” she says through a mouthful of tears.
From what? I think. Everything, I guess.
“I will.” Putting my hand on her shoulder, rubbing the fist-size knots on her back. She’s as fragile as her thin eyelashes.
All night she sobs. I try to comfort her, sitting on her bed, massaging her head. She’s just sobbing. She can’t even look at me. Her eyes are shut with tears. The cries last forever. The whole neighborhood can probably hear her wailing. When I leave the crib, she’s sobbing. When I get back, it’s like I never left.
“You need anything, Ma?”
“To die.”