My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 124

“I noticed the stick for the trap door
was down. What was it, a badger, a
raccoon?” I laughed at my own wit.
“A buzzard.”

“Well, that’s progress, right?
“Yeah, but would he have put that trap
in our yard, if we had been white?
After all, this is Comity Grove, where
actors dress britches and waistcoats
and madams in petticoats and apron
and bonnets whatever and walk up and
down Duke of Gloucester debating
about the independence. Then the
black actors come up when the white
ones have left and talk about the merits
of remaining slaves or running away.”
“That’s an act for tourists, Bill. For tourists!”

“A buzzard!” Janice said, hand over her
mouth in mock indignation.

“Well, westward ho! to Cleveland and
a bigger house in a gated community!”
I said, raising my fist and lowering
my head like the two notorious black
Olympians, back in 1968.

“Well I guess that’ll learn him to set traps
in a black man’s yard,” Janice said and
laughed until tears came to her eyes.

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow, Billy
Huey Newton! I have some errands to
run before choir practice.”

“Racism!”

When Janice left, I reached in my pocket
for another cigarette and got another
beer from the fridge, then wandered
back out onto the porch steps to think
about the possible move.

“A Buzzard!

“Billy, come on! Jeff and Myra welcomed
us into this neighborhood with open
arms. We haven’t had a problem with a
single family,”

Silver in the moonlight. Hey! Over here!

The rabbits had come out of their hiding
places. I had smoked two cigarettes
past my ration and counted seven
rabbits, forming the constellation of
libra in the grass. There was a lone one
to the far left, near one of the lilac trees
that marked the separation of our yard
from Jeff. We listened to the dove coos
together. Suddenly, I thought, “Get
prexylated! That would be the new
tag line! My coughing had ceased, but
not my daydreams, and every day now,
every day, I was more lucid. In one of
the last conversations I had with my
father, he’d asked me how I liked living
in an all-white neighborhood. I said,
“Pop, I’m fine. Janice is fine. She’s more
extroverted, but I can live in my head.
I’m gonna be just fine.”
“You sound ‘bout as silly as one of those
rabbits runnin ‘round out there,” he’d
said, scratching the same place in his
head he’d been scratching since he was
a boy. Just then, I heard a popping
sound, like an exploding champagne
cork. Had a car backfired? We didn’t
move. We kept doing what we were
doing. Another pop! One near the lilac
bush went up in the air, then lay on
her side. I knew she was a girl by the
way she had pawed her nose. My ears
flattened to my head. I sniffed the air
and scanned the yard. Except for two
that stood up on their hind legs and
sniffed the air, the others didn’t move,
over there and there and there, hiding
in plain sight! I walked over to the
fallen one, warm and soft to the touch
but dead now.

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

“I forgot to tell you. Jeff caught
something in the trap, but it wasn’t a
rabbit. In fact, the rabbits seem to
have ignored it.”

“Yeah, but we used to be the only black
couple in the neighborhood,” I said, as
I got up to go into the kitchen, “We’ve
grown from one family to eight.”

123

Out the corner of my eye two kits
were less than seven feet away, and one
munched on something, wild weeds, of
which my yard had plenty. The other
jumped around in a mad, crazy dance.
I held my breath and kept my pose,
but I gripped the can so tightly that
it crunched and they scampered away.
Janice came outside and stood behind
me on the porch.