My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | страница 121

When I got home, Janice was in her
nightgown and robe, watching tv. I
told her about my conversation with Jeff.
“Do you remember those old Three
Stooges skits, the one where Larry
acted normal until Curly mentioned
“Niagara Falls?” Then, Larry went
into a trance and attacked Curly,
then Moe. Well, Jeff gets like that
about those damned rabbits,” I said,
stumbling toward the bed and settling
for the chaise lounge.
“Slowly I turn?” Janice said, observing
my difficulty findin g the bed. Jeff
should go easy on the rabbits, and
you should go easy on the beer. One
more thing, Bill. I noticed you’ve taken
nearly half of a bottle of that new
medicine and there were, how many,
eighty? Ninety? Has that stuff been
approved by the fda yet? Bill. Bill?”
“Slowly I turn. That’s funny.”
“Bill, wake up and take your other shoe
off.” Janice said, but I was already asleep.
A couple of weeks after I sat on Jeff’s
deck and he was at it again, railing
against the rabbits, my wife and I were
enjoying morning coffee. We’d been
talking about the upcoming meeting
with Felton and speculating on whether
he was going to offer me the Comity
Grove position of vp of Operations,
when Janice said,

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“Bill, don’t get excited, but Jeff has just
set a rabbit trap in our backyard.”

“What!” I looked out the window, and
Jeff was walking away, hands in his
pockets, shoulders rolled forward, head
down. Close to the first stand of trees,
before the yard began sloping off, there
squatted the wooden box like a
jerry-rigged Trojan horse,
“Well, I’ll be damned!” I said, scratching
the same spot on my head I had been
scratching since grade school. Janice
kissed my unshaven cheek.
“Don’t get your knicker’s twisted,” she
said, laughing. “Myra told to me he
was making it, but I guess I didn’t
believe he’d do it. Looks like a cross
between a chicken coop and a Robert
Rauschenberg ready-made.”
“I don’t remember Jeff mentioning it to
me. What’s a “ready-made?” I said, taking
the cup Janice had refilled and sipping it,
while looking through the open shutters
at the peculiar contraption.
“Myra said Jeff told you he was going
to fix the rabbits and you smiled. Said
you asked him how he liked saddle of
rabbit wrapped in country ham and you
chuckled, because he’d never heard of
“saddle of rabbit.” He said you two had
a beer on it.”
“I don’t remember that at all.”
“Well, he said you agreed to it.
“I certainly did not. Is this because
the rabbits live in my yard, or is this a
subtle form of discrimination? I said.
I lapped up my coffee and reached for
Janice’s half-empty cup.

“Bill, it’s not because we’re black and all
of a sudden Jeff thinks he’s a plantation
owner. He’s almost ninety, if he’s not
already, and he sees himself as a caretaker
of Comity Grove! His father was on
the Comity Grove City Council.”
“Yeah, but remember when Jeff cut down
the three cypress trees last spring
without even a by-your-leave! They were
on our property.”
“He’d planted those trees at least fifteen
years before we even moved into
our house. He said that they were all
suffering from bag worms, and there
were too many to pick off by hand.
Ugh!,” Janice shivered. “Bill,” she said,
coming over to stroke my temples.
“You’re grinding your teeth again. You
used to grind your teeth in your sleep.
Now, you’re grinding them during the
day, as well. Maybe it’s the Prexylin.
“Of course not! It’s Jeff! He’s acting
like some feudal lord who can do
whatever he wants. No, he’s acting like
a plantation owner who thinks, ‘What’s
mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.’”
“Bill, we’ll work this out. We’ve been in
this neighborhood too long to start
questioning our neighbors’ motives now.”
“I know,” I said, although I wasn’t quite
convinced.
“Think about it. We’re on the same
side of things. Jeff’s father used to own
two grocery stores, one on Duke of
Gloucester in Williamsburg and one
near Comity Grove.”