“BROCK CHAPMAN IZ A UNKLE TOM ASS NIGGA”
This time the words are written in mustard, which won’t be too difficult to clean, thank God. He had designated time this morning to accommodate for any possible slander needing immediate attention. A bag of hot feces bubbling on his doorstep. Or razor blades kicked into his tire (that was a horrible day). But today is the first occurrence in over three weeks—PROGRESS—and mustard on the windshield isn’t too bad. An improvement, maybe? He grabs a squeegee and a spray bottle of all-purpose cleaner from the trunk of his SUV. Eight minutes tops. Still time to grab a coffee.
The Wednesday newsroom meeting is its usual grade of bubbly. The anchors—calm, docile, and tenured—offer minor quips as the producers and reporters fight over assignments like Olympic journalists. Criticisms fly out of powdered-sugar-dusted lips as the two fluorescent ceiling lights flicker rapidly from water damage. Brock sips his latte and hums Yolanda Adams in his head.
“So you’re saying I can’t do homicide?” Liz, the network’s new blonde bombshell, argues with Bill, the news director. He’s been here longer than anyone.
“I’m not saying that.”
“Well, then what’s the problem?”
“You just got to Mobile.”
“So?”
“You’ve never been to Prichard.”
“Oh come on, I’m going during the day. It can’t be that bad. Right, Brock?”
Brock looks up from his latte as the milk curdles in his stomach.
“I’ve never been to Prichard.”
Liz blinks as Bill runs his fingers through his hair. Wanda, the black news anchor, lowers her eyes immediately. She wants absolutely nothing to do with this situation.
Finally, Liz chuckles. “Well at least pair me up with a big camera guy like Jimbo or Paul. Not one of those scrawny interns.”
The meeting continues and Brock goes back to Yolanda Adams, imagining her pronounced cheekbones and whether she might be a complete bitch beneath that radiant smile. He really doesn’t have to be here. This Friday makes four months since his News Package Fiasco where he congratulated Officer O’Brien on his acquittal after shooting an innocent black teenager, or, as Brock controversially stated, “a likely criminal.” Two nights later, as a mob of protestors picketed in the lobby, Franz, the executive producer, met with Brock in a dimly lit back office.
“It’s not that we’re upset with your story, but we’re losing your demographic. Diversity is very important and necessary to us.”
Instead of firing him—they had, after all, encouraged his news pitch—the producers agreed to place him under “content supervision” which, in network speak, meant he would be spoon-fed all of his material in order to win back Negro viewers. He would cover Black History Month specials, drive-by shootings, church drives, and black kids with heartwarming stories who could sing and/or dance. A steady rotation of tragic, comedic, and sentimental stories to show how much their beloved Brock Chapman frum right he-uh in Mo’Beel ain’t forgot who he is!
The dusty blinking light in the newsroom reminds him who he is: a college graduate with lowered expectations.
After the meeting, Brock and Franz ease into a press room and shut the door. Everyone knows about Brock’s stipulation, but the two have agreed to maintain a level of discretion.
Brock’s watch goes off, reminding him to take his blood thinners, and Franz reads a sheet printed from the wire feed. He paces wildly about the room, jerking his neck like Quentin Tarantino and constantly stroking his greasy graying hair. Former coke addict, Brock is convinced.
“Okay, so we got a tip here that’s pretty fucking bananas.”
Brock dispenses a cup of water from the machine and sits down. “What you got for me, Franz?”
Franz stops pacing and slides the paper, facedown, across the table.
Brock reads, and the pills make their way back up his throat. “Leprechaun?” This can’t be serious.
Franz throws his head back and laughs. “Isn’t that great?”
Brock continues, “Three sightings of a leprechaun . . . living in a tree . . . in Crichton Court?”
“And the town’s going nuts!” Franz exclaims. “I mean everybody’s convinced there’s a pot of gold under that tree. And St. Patrick’s Day is coming up. Now this is going to be a fun story.”
Brock tries not to sigh, but his face muscles can’t seem to relax. His jaw clenches; his eyebrows stretch toward his hairline. This can’t be good.
Franz takes notice. “Now, Brock. I know you have some apprehension. But, trust me, I get it.”
“You get it?”
“You think I like being a Jewish TV producer? So typical, right? Shit, I should be a break dancing legend right now, but my parents threatened my trust fund.”
Brock offers a weak smile.
“Look,” says Franz, “every time we do a story in Crichton, it’s a homicide, or a robbery, or a drug bust. You remember that last one you did?”
“It was my best one.”
“And it sure was! But, how about taking a chance and showing this community in a . . . well . . . softer light. Something friendly . . . and fun!”
Brock moves his head in a circle, unsure whether to shake his head “no” or nod “yes.”
“Besides.” Franz sits on the arm of Brock’s chair and speaks in a hushed voice. “Pull this off and I’m sure the network will take you off supervision.”
Outside, the morning sunlight bounces off the building’s steel window frames and hits Brock’s watch, a vintage Ferragamo. It was his first expensive gift to himself after working at News 12 for six months.
When his mother saw the watch last Christmas, she gushed to her big sisters, “I’ve always told my baby to mind his time, and look what the Lord done blessed him with.” Having been a retail associate for over thirty years, she knew quality beyond her means. She carefully examined the bezel and laughed. “But you know, for the life of me, I caint figure out why niggas got to get everything in gold.”
The day is equal parts amusing, annoying, and absurd, with Brock clumsily floating around Crichton like Josephine Baker on a return trip home. He grew up nearby under the watchful eye of his mother and five aunties, so walking the streets in a Brooks Brothers suit is a bit unsettling. On the other hand, Jimbo—the fat redneck camera guy who fucks highway prostitutes in the station van during off hours—is fully enjoying himself. These are his kind of people, only a few shades darker and with different tastes in music and beer.
They meet a bevy of characters, including Montae, a local club promoter, who doesn’t believe there is a leprechaun but rallies a mob of believers within ten minutes of spotting the news truck parked near his unit.
Ernestine Jenkins, a nurse’s aide with two grown children, is convinced that the leprechaun is just a drug addict “hooked on the wrong stuff.”
And then Fife, a former drug dealer, more concerned with the treasure than the leprechaun, states his plans to uproot the tree after everyone leaves.
But the most interesting character of the day is Bill Spragley, better known as “Sarg” for his tendency to take charge of any activity coming through Crichton. Rumor has it that he was, in fact, a sergeant in the US Army for many years but was later discharged for exposure to a deadly herbicide. Donned in an army fatigue shirt and brown heavy-duty coveralls, Sarg has appointed himself “tree traffic guard,” guiding passersby and assuring them that there is nothing to fear.
Every story needs an expert, Brock thinks upon first meeting Sarg. This is his man.
Though he doesn’t allow them to record footage, Sarg invites Brock and Jimbo into his two-bedroom shotgun house. They are immediately greeted by the strong smell of roasted meat. The walls are crawling with rustic artifacts—black-and-white family photos in dusty frames, newspaper clippings, fishhooks, horseshoes, and animal skins. Sarg shares the house with his father, Bruce, who wheels around in a wheelchair as embellished as the house’s walls.
“Just cooking a little something for us later,” says Sarg, trying to mask his deep southern accent with northern eloquence. At the fireplace, some charred, unrecognizable cuts of meat lie on top of a grill rack.
“Well, Mr. Sarg,” says Brock, “it seems you have a bit of experience in this sort of . . . field.”
“Yes, indeed I do, Mr. Chapman,” says Sarg, poking out his muscular chest. “I toured Ireland while serving in the army. Lot of leprechauns out there.”
“You don’t say?”
“And they liked to mess with me because they could tell my great-great-grandfather was Irish.”
Brock glances over at Bruce for some reassurance. Bruce remains silent.
“It was on my mother’s side,” Sarg says defensively.
“In fact.” Sarg grabs a small box sitting on the mantle. “He left me this Irish flute when he passed away.”
The flute is so old and worn, Brock can’t tell if it’s made of silver or tin. He tries to get a closer look, but Sarg holds the flute like a mother protecting her newborn from a stranger’s germs.
“Whoa now. Be careful. This here is a leprechaun flute. You play and it wards off bad spells. Those leprechauns are a tricky bunch, and they don’t really like us black folk, specially mixed breeds like me. They get by around us colored folk because nobody would believe a nigger that seent a leprechaun, anyway.” So much for northern eloquence.
The room grows tense and silent for a few seconds. Brock feels his heart pounding against his pocket square and remembers he left his blood thinners at work. From down below, Bruce lets out a tiny, encouraging grunt, and Sarg sighs heavily before he speaks.
“Mr. Chapman, this ain’t the first creature been running through Crichton. This whole area been they testin’ ground for years now. Now I trust we in good company, correct?”
Brock looks over to Jimbo who is stuck in a staring contest with a stuffed squirrel mounted on the wall.
“We good, man. I promise,” says Brock. “I’m curious though: what makes you so sure this thing is a leprechaun?”
“Like I said, we get all kinds of things that run through here. Aliens. Gnomes. Mole people. You name it,” says Sarg. He begins rummaging through a trunk on the floor next to the fireplace.
“But, see, leprechauns are night creatures. That’s why they hide their gold under rainbows, so the other night creatures won’t get to it.”
Sarg hands Brock a handheld radio and a pair of stretched-out headphones. He turns the dial. “You know about AM radio and FM radio right?”
Brock shakes his head. No.
Sarg continues, “Well they put talk radio on AM because it’s an outdated system. FM radio, the waves move a special kinda way where the earth don’t interfere. You can play all day and night, and it still sounds clear. Good for music. But AM radio, the waves move different. They go up and the sun helps them go back down where they supposed to go. But what you think happens at night?”
“Ooh!” cries Jimbo, taking interest. “They don’t go back down where they should?”
“Right!” Sarg exclaims, stretching his large hands. “They bounce around to different towns and make that static sound that’ll drive you crazy.” He crosses the room to a vintage stereo topped with a messy pile of CDs and cassettes. He puts in a tape labeled “Bruce.” “Now every day around this time, I record Miss Aggie’s Bible Study on 87.1.”
“She still got that radio show?” asks Brock.
“Yep. It’s Pops’s favorite. Now take a listen to the show from Monday.” He plays the tape and there is Miss Aggie’s singsong voice, still preaching the New Testament.
“Now take a listen to what the station sounds like right now.” Sarg switches the stereo’s controller to “radio” and tunes it to 87.1. Nothing but static. “See there! It’s been like that since that thing landed here. That shouldn’t be happening. It’s still plenty daylight outside.”
Bruce smirks slightly while Brock and Jimbo look to each other for answers.
“Maybe something’s wrong down at the tower,” Brock suggests.
“Okay, now. Mr. Chapman, that radio you got in your lap has been DX’d—or programmed—to the stations in Tuscaloosa. That’s two hundred miles, roughly. Now I want you to stand on that metal square on the floor next to Pops and face that wooden clock.”
It takes everything in his power not to roll his eyes, but Brock obliges. This is some Toys“R”Us, My First Ouija Board type shit, and Franz definitely owes him a pay raise. He plants his feet and turns on the radio . . .
“But Paul lists it all clear as day in Corinthians! Everybody wanna inherit God’s kingdom but don’t wanna . . .”
Brock’s eyes widen. Well, I’ll be damned.
“You see! Pops, you see that? And y’all know they got all kinda missiles in Tuscaloosa.”
Bruce gives a testimonial nod, and Brock chuckles. “You might be onto something there, Sarg. We’ll see.”
“But wait,” Sarg pleads. “One last thing before you go. You got to hear this.”
Sarg grabs Brock’s elbow and drags him back to the stereo. Brock is surprised, yes, and having a little fun, but the station switch doesn’t prove anything. Radio towers always mess up when the seasons change, and Sarg clearly isn’t hip to XM radio.
Sarg plugs Brock’s headphones in the stereo’s jack and whispers sharply, “I’m gonna turn this up, and I want you to listen reeeaaalll careful.”
Brock closes his eyes as static buzzes in his ears. Lo and behold, beneath the grainy sound is a faint modulated rhythm like a wah guitar. Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah . . . wah-wah . . . wah . . .
Then nothing. Brock takes his headphones off and looks at Sarg.
Jimbo clambers over. “I wanna take a listen!”
“I dunno, Sarg,” Brock says hesitantly. “Maybe that’s the feed just flickering back in?”
“But you heard it though, right? That ‘wah-wah’ sound? Sound like Sugarfoot from the Ohio Players.”
“I did.”
Jimbo pouts. “Aw, I don’t hear anything.”
Sarg pierces a piece of meat on the grill rack with a large grill fork. He chews the meat and picks the charred black bits from his teeth, never taking his eyes off Brock. “Mr. Chapman, if you really wanna help us out, then try and get the president and them over here and explain what’s going on.”
Brock smiles and gives Sarg a pitying pat on the shoulder. Sarge grabs Brock’s wrist and smiles. “Hey, you’re all right, Mr. Chapman. Even after that shit from back in April.”
When they exit the small house, Brock is awash with relief. They manage to get an on-camera interview outside the house during which Sarg makes no mention of Crichton’s other creatures and his theories, declaring that he “don’t wanna end up like Denzel in Manchurian Candidate.” Brock can’t help but wonder if he would have been better off leaving his momma and joining the army like Sarg. And losing his sanity like a man.
It’s dark by the time Brock finishes shooting. Six hours of listening to the most improbable stories told by witnesses with questionable credibility. Six hours with Jimbo. By now, the two are starving. Jimbo tracks the closest pancake house on the navigation system while Brock drafts his voiceover on his iPad. He contemplates switching up the story’s angle into a broader conspiracy on government-issued tests in black communities. Dropping in some Five Percenter shit just to spite Franz and those stuffed shirts from the network.
“Hey Jim, what do you think about this leprechaun?”
“Oh, I believe it, man,” says Jimbo, more enthusiastic than usual. “Not sure if it’s a leprechaun, but there’s definitely something there.”
“How do you know this ain’t just some Salem Witch Trials type of shit? Like one person sees something then the whole town claims to have seen it too, you know what I mean?”
“I see your point. But that doesn’t answer the question—what the hell is it?”
“Like that lady said: a midget crackhead.”
They laugh.
Suddenly, there’s a loud rapping on Brock’s window. He sees two bucktoothed black boys, both under the age of ten and happily sucking on popsicles. One is waving a piece of paper. An autograph? How sweet. Brock flashes his news reporter smile and rolls down the window.
“Good evening, young men—”
“Here,” the taller boy interrupts. “This what the leprechaun look like.”
Brock unfolds it and finds an elementary sketch of the leprechaun drawn on yellow lined paper. No shading or details whatsoever.
“You drew this.”
“Yuh,” says the boy, fidgeting uncontrollably like most boys his age when eating frozen sweets.
“Aye,” says the shorter of the two. “The leprechaun almost kilt that man right thur.” He points to a gentleman standing near an ice cream truck, helping younger kids with their change and opening their ice creams. He’s a much taller man, visibly in poor health. His feet look clownish in diabetic shoes sticking out from underneath a pair of linty sweatpants. Plastic tubes run from his nose to a wheeled air tank resting behind him.
“Mista James!” the older boy yells, then motions him to come forward.
“Tell him ’bout what happened!”
“Yeah, tell him, Mista James.”
Mista James walks over, clutching his chest anxiously.
“Y’all leave that man alone. He been out here all day, Jesus.”
Brock starts to roll up the window, but Jimbo leans over his seat.
“These young men say the leprechaun tried to kill you?”
“Look,” said Mista James. “All I’m saying is I ain’t going nowhere near that tree till that thing is outta there.”
Brock and Jimbo look at each other.
“Hey,” Brock says, “would you mind telling us what happened?”
“I don’t do no cameras. Sorry.”
“We don’t have to record. You can just talk to me.”
Mista James looks back at the kids, who all seem to be satisfied and are now eating their ice creams. He sighs. “Aight. I guess so.”
Brock gets out of the car and mouths to Jimbo, “Keep the car running.”
As they walk around the corner, Mista James describes the events surrounding his ordeal.
“I live in that house right there. Yesterday I was walking over to see what all the fuss was about after everybody left cuz Mista James don’t do no large crowds. So, I’m walking, right, and I get ’bout to where that Chevy is parked right there and I start hearing this high-pitch sound in my ears. Like a dog whistle or something.”
Brock jots notes on his notepad.
“Then all of a sudden, I get this cold feeling right here in my chest. And it just spread all through my body. Felt like all my bones turned to iron.”
“And it happened out of nowhere?”
“Out of nowhere! Next thing I know, I’m laid out on the ground. See, I had that happen to me once befo’ when I was training down at the city dump. I got too close to that machine with the big battery attached. You know, the one that picks up all the metal pieces. It upset my pacemaker. The same thing happened yesterday, and if it weren’t for my grandbaby—”
Brock stops jotting notes and takes a sudden interest.
“Wait, you said you have a pacemaker?”
“Yeah, I got all kinda health problems. The warning on those cigarette packs ain’t lying to you.”
Brock looks up into the night sky, and his thoughts travel back to 1997 and the high school track meet.
He had been training for weeks. A pain had developed in his chest, and he hadn’t told Momma. Coach assured him that he was finally gaining that muscle mass he prayed for every night. Running builds testosterone which builds muscles. Plus it was too close to the tournament to give up now. Pain is just something you run off, young man. Pain is just something you run off. The words echoed through his head and over the stadium’s uproar as his body crashed against the rubber track with a stiff thud.
His pacemaker was now his best-kept secret, the handicap to his collegiate all-American dreams. While his mother had chided herself for passing along her heart condition, his aunties had gathered like crows around his hospital bed.
“His grades ain’t the best, but he talk real proper—”
“And he’s a looker too, just like his daddy.”
“Once them braces come off, he gonna have the prettiest smile.”
“He kinda favor that man on channel four.”
“That could be something he could do. Work for the news!”
“Yeah, and they make good money.”
“And he’s smart enough to do it.”
“He struggle with math and science, but he writes real good. Real good.”
“Yeah, he’s too smart to be running around some track.”
And now here he is, back in his hometown slums. Living out his aunties’ dreams with his Ferragamo watch. Listening to tales of aliens and magic flutes and cursing the inkling creeping up the side of his neck that this leprechaun is anything but pure nonsense.
He shakes his head. “With all due respect, that’s just . . . Look, I have a pacemaker. We’ve been past here several times, and I haven’t felt anything.”
Mista James gives him a sideways look. “Okay, but you the one asking me—”
“Here.” Brock pulls on Mista James’s hand. “Show me exactly where it happened.”
Mista James yanks his hand back. “Oh naw! I ain’t going back over there! All these medical bills I done got, I can’t afford to take on no more.”
Brock stares angrily at the tree looming over an abandoned patch of nothing in the distance. He tries to discern which is more ridiculous, the idea of the “thing” in the tree or his burning desire to go over there and disprove the myth.
“You can go over there if ya want to,” Mista James says, heading back toward his house. “That’s a trek you gon be taking alone.”
Brock rolls his eyes. He marches, or, rather, stomps toward the tree, mumbling, “This trifling bullshit. Niggas don’t got nothing else better to do than make shit up. Probably somebody sprinkled angel dust in his blunt and he don’t know how to act!”
Brock’s face loosens once he realizes he’s past the point where Mista James almost died. He walks closer, quickening his pace and laughing. “Ridiculous!”
But then pop. That deafening dog whistle, stinging a nerve in the back of his head. An icy sensation bursts in his chest and spreads throughout his body. Once it reaches his fingertips and toes, he collapses like a felled tree with his eyes and hands open to the heavens.
His body is completely numb except for the space around his heart, beating strong but moderate. He can feel the cold asphalt underneath and the evening wind tugging at his pocket square. But nothing more. Strange. Surprisingly, his senses are still intact. Laundry wafts to his nose from a nearby vent, letting him know he’s still in Crichton. He sees that the air around him has adopted a gray, digitized fog, as if submerged into a pool of translucent TV static. To his right, a busy rustling can be heard from the base of the supposed-leprechaun’s tree. The rustling turns to footsteps. Then suddenly . . .
Thud.
A tiny golden shoe plants itself next to Brock’s ear. He directs his vision from the shoe and up the body, a tiny frame clad in an emerald-encrusted suit of armor. Beneath the golden helmet, however, is a face of complete darkness aside from a pair of glowing lime-green eyes. The eyes are neither aggressive nor menacing but alert and a bit nervous, like those of a small child.
Who are you? Brock tries to say, but he’s lost his voice along with all feeling in his neck. He has no choice but to surrender to this small warrior, who is now on its knees and moving its hands in circles inches above Brock’s chest. With each rotation, the cold ground beneath grows warmer and warmer until it’s about a hair below unbearably hot. His pacemaker doesn’t skip a beat as a huge vortex of green light shoots up from his chest and into the heavens. The TV static buzzing around him slows its rhythm. The figure leaps to its feet and tilts its head way back. Green gauntlets cup the dark space where its mouth would be, and it lets out three earsplitting modulated screeches from the back of its throat.
Wah-wah-wah-wah . . . Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah . . . Wah-wah-wah . . . wah . . . wah . . .
The piercing vibrations slice through the hot asphalt and send sharp daggers of light up the vortex.
The warrior tries a few more times but to no avail. For what seems like an eternity, all is silent. The laundry smell has grown faint, and Brock can hear the small warrior’s heavy breathing. Its shoulders hunch, and its head hangs heavy.
As Brock lies there, paralyzed and vulnerable, he realizes that the figure hasn’t yet harmed him. If it had any intention of doing so, it surely wouldn’t be standing just a few yards away looking so dejected and pathetic. He must be some sort of child, thinks Brock. Cartoonish, in fact. Like Marvin the Martian. His inside joke quickly dissolves into a pool of new questions and realizations. Who or what is this little guy calling out to?
A small shape forms in the sky. Brock assumes it’s an airplane at first, but as it gets closer, he sees that it’s a large and colorful serpent with opal eyes and an iridescent tongue. Straddling its neck is a woman as black as the warrior and swaddled in emerald-green silk. The warrior, still dejected, doesn’t take notice until the woman’s golden bracelets and anklets beam light in its direction. It immediately hops up and down in excitement, its gold shoes clanging hard against the ground.
As the serpent hovers a few feet above the ground, it lowers its tongue to pick up the warrior. The woman stretches her slender arms and welcomes it into a long embrace. If Brock could shed a tear, he would, but instead he lets his mind wander from the now into the next. What if he never recovers? If his body remains paralyzed forever? How will he explain what he saw tonight? And what will become of this news story?
The thoughts flood his mind so quickly that he doesn’t see the snake’s head inches from his own, nor the bare black feet that have stepped down onto the asphalt and are now on either side of him. The figure crouches down and rests her palms in the middle of his forehead. Instantly, feeling returns to his body—toes, knees, shoulders, and, finally, his head. The black face, cloaked in green, is void of emotion, but Brock is certain she is smiling. Once he finds the nerve to smile back, the TV static fog speeds up to its normal rhythm then slowly disappears. The woman crawls back onto the serpent’s back, and as they make their way up into the sky through the green vortex, Brock is engulfed in a blinding white light.
Brock finally opens his eyes, and all he can see is saturated color for at least fifteen seconds. The sounds are muffled but familiar. Heart monitor. Nurse’s chatter. Intercom. The colors slowly bleed into objects. A silver curtain rod. Art deco wallpaper. A baby-blue hospital robe. Clear plastic tubes sticking out from his wrists. Everything smells sterile and unfriendly. Brock feels exhausted as he feebly pushes a red button on the control panel attached to his bed.
A frumpy nurse with stubble on her upper lip rushes in.
“Oh you’re awake, are ya?”
She has a thick Long Island accent. Brock wants to respond, but a rubbery mask covers his mouth and nose.
“I’m gonna ask ya some questions, okay? Raise one finger for yes, raise two for no. Can you do that?’
Brock raises one finger.
“Is your name Brock Theolonius Chapman?”
One finger.
“Are you from Wichita, Kansas?”
Two fingers.
“Are you from Mobile, Alabama?”
One.
“Thirty-three years of age?”
One.
“Born October 21, 1979?”
Two fingers. I’m definitely a Capricorn
“Good. Looks like your memory is intact. Here, let’s take this thing off.” She removes the mask, and the inside of his mouth feels like sandpaper. A few minutes later, Dr. Bethea, an attractive woman in her late thirties, comes to his bedside.
“Mr. Chapman, the batteries in your pacemaker were completely drained. We don’t understand why. The unit itself seems to be functioning perfectly. You usually only see this sort of thing when the patient has been in the vicinity of a large magnet or high-voltage power lines. But you don’t have a history of that.” She flips through his chart, like she’s already read it front to back and front again. “This is very odd.” She looks up from the chart and smiles absently. “These things do happen, though. It’s uncommon, but not unheard of.”
She places a cold hand on Brock’s as he does his best to avoid eye contact. He’s not foreign to these prescribed forms of affection, but it’s a little embarrassing to be in this condition before a woman he wouldn’t mind taking out to dinner.
“We contacted your mother, but she’s on a cruise and won’t be back until the end of the week. Her sisters, however, have been here. Twice.”
Brock raises an eyebrow. Dr. Bethea seems a bit amused.
“They were here for most of the night and briefly this afternoon, but I assured them you’d be fine so they’ll be back in the morning.”
Brock’s throat is parched. The words come out sharp and crackly. “Time . . . What time—”
“It’s eight p.m. The nurse can bring you some water. Your friend Jimbo is floating around here somewhere. I’ll send him in if I can find him.”
Brock nods. Half an hour later, Jimbo enters, concerned and munching on a honey bun.
“Dude, I thought I lost you! I was soooo worried. I came over, and you were like . . .”
He mimes a dead man, limp with his eyes closed and tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Brock clears his throat and faintly whispers. “Wha . . . What happened? I—”
“Sounds like you had a heart attack or something. Dude, I didn’t know you had a heart condition. I mean you’re kind of young but that’s pretty cool, I guess.”
The nurse returns with a disposable cup of lukewarm water.
“I rode in the ambulance and then I realized, ‘Shit! The van!’ Had to take a cab back.”
“Oh shit,” says Brock, in a much clearer voice. “Did they take anything?”
“Yeah. A couple mics and cables. They probably won’t notice so I’m not going to say anything.” He grabs the remote from the side of Brock’s bed and begins to flip channels. As if reading Brock’s mind, Jimbo adds nervously, “So, about that story . . .”
“What’s going on, Jim?”
“It’s supposed to air tonight. I sent over the footage. Heard they turned it into a VOSOT.”
“A voice-over?” Brock almost bellows, sitting up in his bed. “How in the hell could they have done a voice-over if I wasn’t even there?”
“Apparently, they used that dude who works in the cafeteria. You know the one that’s always singing? Pretty funny, right?”
Brock falls back onto the bed and groans. “No. That’s not right. They can’t do that.”
“C’mon Brock, they do what they want. We both know that.”
Jimbo grabs the remote and scans through the channels. He finally lands on channel twelve where Wine Addict Claire delivers the evening weather with perfect diction despite her flushed face. Jimbo quips and wisecracks as they watch, but Brock’s mind is elsewhere, trying to traverse the fuzzy line between this reality and the one he witnessed earlier. Yesterday, rather. He can clearly recall that numb, cognizant feeling, the warmth in his chest, and the hard clanking sound of metal on concrete. But everything else is wispy, faint. Green jewels and flowing fabrics. A rainbow, or perhaps a snake? Dull gray dust or fog, floating and spinning. The blackest black he’d ever seen and, now, pining for his mother in ways he hadn’t since childhood. All these wisps have purpose, he decides But what is the actual story?
Jimbo taps Brock on the leg. “Oh shit, man. Here it is!”
The evening anchors, Carl and Wanda, are clearly tickled as they present the story. Wanda’s smile looks more painted on than usual. The story that follows is a slapstick tale, one better suited for World Star Hip Hop or Tosh.0. Gold-toothed Bamas so intoxicated by their own poverty that they’ve started hallucinating.
“Everybody seen the leprechaun say yeeeeeeeee!”
And Sarg, intelligent despite his eccentricities, is painted as a maladroit bumbling idiot.
Could I have done him better justice? Brock wonders.
Silence looms over Jimbo and Brock once the segment is over. The loudest noise in the room is Brock’s heart monitor, which has miraculously maintained a steady rhythm. Even Jimbo, just two generations removed from his grandpa’s “Whites Only” general store, seems to fathom Brock’s humiliation. He breaks the sullen mood.
“Hey, that Liz is a cutie, right?”
“She’s cool. Not my type.”
“Yeah, she’s got a nice mug, but I need mine thick. Like Wanda.”
“Okay, Jim.”
“I’m for real. Me and Wanda used to go out for a little bit.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m serious, man. I really dug her. But she had to chose between a camera guy and a lead producer so . . .”
“Wait, don’t tell me.”
“Oh come on, man. Everybody knows that. That’s old news.”
“Wow. I guess it all makes sense.”
He scratches a space underneath the IV sticking out of his right wrist.
Damn, he thinks. I hope nobody took my watch.