My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 120

“Bill, those rabbits are eating up
everything in sight!” We sat on Jeff’s
deck and watched the sunlight trace
the slate stone path down toward
the cemetery. Two oak trees formed a
green bower for the path.
“My wife says they remind her of her
childhood and Easter bunnies, me too”
I said, trying to humor him.

“Hmmm,” I said, thinking about
Prexylin’s side effects: insomnia,
depression, excessive daydreaming,
nightmares. And what of its
contraindications: Do not take if
you smoke more than two cigarettes
a day, have kidney problems, liver
problems, glaucoma, heart problems,
eczema, memory problems, or if
you’re pregnant or nursing.”
“Bill, that’s all well and good for you.
You don’t have flowers back there.
You don’t even have grass, you have
weeds and it gets worse down by
the cemetery,” Jeff said as he smiled
and closed his eyes at me.
“Janice doesn’t want me to put weed
killer down. She says it’ll harm the
birds. To tell you the truth, the weeds
are so thick and green, I like them
better than grass. You can depend
on weeds.”
“The birds come into my yard. ‘Course
I have ten bird feeders in ten trees,
but my fertilized grass don’t bother
them a bit. They’re welcome any time,
but not those rabbits.
“Jeff, you sound like Elmer Fudd. ‘Be
vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits,
huh-uh-uh-uh-uh!’”
“They’re a nuisance, I tell you!” Jeff took
off his cap and slapped it against his
thigh, then ran his hand through his
snow-white hair and fitted his cap snug
on his head again.

“I’m going to do something about those
rabbits.”
I got one more beer and thought about
my upcoming meeting with Felton
in d.c. I’d studied the file he’d sent me
on Prexylin. We all knew everything
had side effects, but since I’d been
taking it my allergies had dramatically
improved. My breathing cleared up
immediately after I took the triangular
gold capsule. If I smoked before I took
it, I sometimes coughed a little but
that soon subsided. Of course, it was
probably the cigarettes (I’d switched to
American Spirit). It was a minor thing,
but I’d begun to have strange day
dreams, especially when I was alone.
“Well, I gotta go,” said Jeff. “But, I’ll let
you know when I get it ready.”
“Bill. Bill? I said I gotta go in. The wife’s
got dinner ready. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Hmmm? Oh, Okay, Jeff,” I said and
headed back across the lawn, thinking
the slogan should be, “Control your
environment. Don’t let it control
you. Get prex-elated!” I liked the ring
of that. It would work even better, if
when the people said it, they jumped
straight up in the air. Yeah! ” The rabbit
in the southwest corner of the yard had
been munching on something, but as
I approached my back porch, it became
a statue, paws raised as if in prayer.
Jeff was the nicest guy in the world, but
lately he had developed an obsession
about preserving the neighborhood,
keeping every flower and bush in place,
that is, unless it threatened his house.
He’d cut a one hundred-year old oak
down to the ground, because he said it
was just too close to the house.

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

“Yup,” I said nursing the last sips of
my Bud, as I imagined how my father
would do a better job on Jeff’s yard
than his own year man. Of course,
cutting Jeff’s grass was all my father
could have done in Comity Grove
some forty-five years before. Even now,
there were only three black families and
five families of color in a neighborhood
that spread out over two square miles
and ended at the James River. Rabbits?
How’d we get there again! Oh yes, I’d
said something about the integration of
the neighborhoods of Kings Mill and
Comity Grove. Integration or integrity
and where had I heard that before?

“Well, they remind me of throwing
good money after bad,” said Jeff,
sneezing, as if to punctuate his opinion.

119

“You know, Bill,” he said, “I remember
when my house, the Wilson’s and
the Skerrett’s were the only ones in
this neighborhood. Matter of fact,
I remember when that shopping center
called New Town in Williamsburg was
farmland. I got back from my last tour
of Korea in ‘52, I took over my daddy’s
grocery business in ’65, and retired in
1992 after twenty-seven years. Actually,
it was thirty, if you count the years I
worked before I went off to the army.”