Bringing Statues Down

The woman buried in the covers has brought in the moon. Her colorless skin almost radiates under a long veil of red hair. There’s nothing familiar; she gets her fantasy and I get mine.

But Leon Brooks has yanked that illusion down. For a few days I’ve ignored his text because of guilt. It is a guilt I thought I had buried with a college degree. But now, beside this White woman who has taken ownership of my bed, the memory of my grandmother settles down hard.

“What a man your granddaddy was,” she whispered. “I tell you, that man was peacocking, sweet Jesus, right up to the stoop where I lounged, feathers and all. His confidence did cost him. But he left me your momma. He sure did do that. And I tell you, most can’t walk three feet without having their powers ripped from their shoulders. Not him, Crosley Bleu, and not you. He had the ability to fly. We all do if allowed.”

I light a joint. The flame rips the shadows back, showing me the White skin still possessing my mattress. My parents must have forgotten they could fly. Dad let Angola hold him behind prison walls, and Mom got passed around Central City like a junky whore until found in the bayou, laid out near the tall reeds, her hidden wings clipped.

The day Leon got sent to Angola, was the day they brought the statue down. We were thick as thieves as far back as elementary school. A stocky, rumbling sort, Leon played football hard, played everything hard like he had something to prove. My grandmother held a suspicious eye toward Leon Brooks ever since he’d stepped foot in her house.

“He ain’t right, that one,” Grandmother warned. “He’ll bring you down, Crosley. He don’t like studying one bit. Not like you at all. Just yesterday that boy lifted candy from my bowl without even asking.”

But it was the day the statue came down that sent Leon and me in different directions: he to Angola and me to Morehouse.

I must have trekked past the General Lee statue ten thousand times and never acknowledged it until an old man wearing that Jim Crow oppression and a pair of gnarled hands, lassoed me in with his fraught, yet tenderly resolute words.

“It should never have been put up there to begin with,” the old man said. “Remember that. Also remember we do misery better; pain can be hidden in food and music. I don’t think they know that. The more they sling the stronger we get. They woke a giant, and I’m glad you came down to watch it get out of bed.”

The old man’s observation was akin to posterity, and all that was left were the logistics. Straps cradled General Lee. Snipers hugged to rooflines with police cars on the perimeter making a parking lot on anyone left inside. Hardhat workers were moving, pointing, scratching their faces. It went on for hours; the wait made it festive. Food trucks arrived. A circus declared. Moments later, a second line. Black umbrellas were raised beside African National flags, and they all kept beat with the drums and horns leading the way.

Then she appeared. That solitary holdout. A White woman pushing sixty clutched to a cigarette in one hand and a rebel flag in the other. I stole glances her way but no one noticed her but me. Perhaps she was too sad looking, too pathetic of a specimen to bother with, squatting on her diminutive stool, the orange barricade eyelevel, waving her small rebel flag in an obligatory tempo. I wanted to ask how many more like her were left? I wanted to try and understand those things I had only read about: lynchings and segregation; their vitriol tone; their stares; their hatred. Are you jealous of me? was something else I wanted to query. Do I make you nervous because I have the ability to fly?

Cheers finally sounded as the crane jerked the statue off. The brass effigy dangled for a moment. It hung there, swayed, then bounced under the heavy load of a dying culture. After several excruciating minutes, the statue of the Confederate general was lowered onto a flatbed truck and swiftly hauled away.

I found out later in the day that Leon had held up a grocery store with a pistol. A few shots but no one was killed. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.

Now, standing naked at my desk, with a strange White woman taking possession of my sheets, I pull in a long toke, let the smoke ease out as I scroll through my iPhone, rereading Leon’s text:

hey my brother. its leon. guess what? angola prison couldn’t take my ass no

more and let me go yesterday. back in town. broke and bored. need to catch up

in a bad way. too much time away. out of the loop and need to get back in

I turn on the desk lamp. The rest of me gets exposed in the window: the dark, tightly wound patch of pubic hair and outlining my penis like an unidentified growth. Does it belong to me? Perhaps it does but looks tired, and for now, it’s done dabbling with puritan skin, red hair, freckles and lies.

I stiffly jostle her awake.

“What?” she rubs her eyes, voice groggy and confused, only to sink deeper into the mattress.

“Come on,” I coax, “let me help you find the front door.”

She wiggles, tucking deeper into the pillow. “I should stay. It’s so late.”

“It’s not a good idea. I just rent a room. There are other people in the house.”

Again, I tug at her, shifting her limp body to the edge, readjusting and lifting her into my arms.

“Fine, give me my clothes!” she huffs.

She bucks and squirms and pulls her clothes into her chest. On the last few steps in the hall, the pallid color of her ass briefly shows itself as she dresses. It’s no more than a second, yet I’m sure the coated hue of her body mocks me. Her White skin, as it is with the white skin of others, quietly demands ownership. It’s always been this way, and even with the statue down, I still can’t stop hating myself for how I’m made to feel, especially when I ask why.