My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Seite 126

“Then I have to call you out on it, Jeff,”
I said.
“You have that right, neighbor. This is
Comity Grove.”
“And I’m one of you, right?”
“Of course!”
“Then why’d you do it? Why’d you
come in my yard and kill my rabbits?”
“Bill, why I thought…I don’t know…I
guess I didn’t think. I guess I should
have asked, but durn it, those rabbits
got the best of me!”
How could I ask him if he came in
my yard, because I was a black man
and this was Comity Grove and I was
here by the grace of my good white
neighbors?
“Invitation to get a beer is always
open, Bill.”

As soon as I got in the house, I told
Janice that Jeff had admitted to
shooting the rabbit, but the boys had
done the rest.
“I have to figure out what I’m going to
do, if I’m not going to push the golden
triangle, and if I’m going to live in a
real place, in real time.”
“Bill, you’re not making sense.”
“I know, but I soon will be. Give me
time to sort things out. Comity
Grove is our home, we just have to
keep making it our home.”
“Bill, don’t take anymore of those pills.
They make you…I don’t know.”
“Prexylated?”
“Whatever!” Janice shook her head and
retreated to the bedroom to make some
phone calls, and I stepped out on the
porch. The sky was darkening, as if
someone put it on a dimmer switch.
Before I sat down, I reached in my
shirt pocket, guiltily pulled out my
crumpled cigarette pack and pressed it
with my fingertips. Last one.

My father had understood the world
in neater terms, and he worked in
neighborhoods like the one I lived in
now, but he spent his real life in Grove
in Williamsburg. He raised me to
respect the land and all things of the
land, but to identify with the people…
the people. Where did I live?
Where did I really live, and who were
my people? “Tomorrow,” I thought,
“tomorrow, I’m going to get that
nicotine patch and keep it on, and
I’m going to tell Janice that I changed
my mind, that I’m taking that job in
Cleveland, but…my father didn’t move.
Yes, but they’re killing rabbits! Yes,
but they’re just boys on bikes. Yes, but
Jeff did, too, and it was my yard, and
he didn’t ask me, goddamnit! And
what’s so different about Cleveland?
I reached in my pocket for a lighter
and pulled out a bottle of Prexylin.
Decided to skip a dose. See how things
went. It wasn’t long before the rabbits
appeared on the grid. By the end of
the summer, they would all be gone.
Blue rabbits. Was the darkness playing
tricks? Silver rabbits. There and there
and there. Vanishing.

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

“No, I shot the rabbit in your yard.
I heard they got one, no two in the
Skerretts’ yard.”

He winked at me and and tipped an
imaginary hat.

125

“So that’s who shot ‘em?“