After an hour of walking through the soggy streets, we arrived at an old brownstone storefront sandwiched between two monstrous condos. We could hear Mrs. King’s voice crackle on the old intercom. “You finally made it.”
Her tiny apartment sat above a sewing supply shop. In the storefront’s window, a headless mannequin stood, wearing a patchwork of featured fabrics on sale, with a measuring tape artfully cinching its waist. When the door to her second-floor walk-up opened, we had to back up on the narrow stairwell to accommodate its outward swing. Mrs. King stood there with black dye still processing on her scalp and eyebrows. A stained towel protected her shoulders from the dark trickles down the nape of her neck.
“Hello, Mother.” You kissed her weathered jowls carefully, avoiding the line of ink-like liquid dripping near her ears.
Before I could greet her, Mrs. King took me by my wrist and forced me to stand in front of her. “Let me have a good look at you. Come closer. Yes. I can’t wear my glasses until I rinse my hair, so you have to stand about here. Very nice.” Her arthritic hands squeezed the muscles from my forearms to my biceps to evaluate me. Two deep-brown irises encircled by the blue of a ripe cataract studied every inch of me. The perimeter of my mouth. The balance between my right and left foot. The tiny protrusion of my belly button through my sweater. Then my hair. I gulped, suddenly recalling the sensation of my hair passing through a fine-tooth comb, my own mother pulling and pulling at her mistake manifested in my mane.
“Aren’t you ever handsome.” Mrs. King smiled. She looked at you and playfully squeezed your hand. “Be good to this one. The other one before made me want to scream with his gum-chewing. But this one is a good one.”
You sighed dramatically. “Mother, please don’t start.”
“First there was the boy who was always on a diet. Then the one after that who was hungry all the time but was a . . . what do you call it? What is it called, Evan?”
“A vegan.”
“Yes. A vegan. Kay, tell me. Are you a vegan?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Thank goddess.”
I bit the inside of my cheeks to keep my emotions at bay. I was thankful when a kitchen timer dinged and she broke eye contact with me.
Without discussion, you pulled a chair from the adjacent living room to the kitchen sink, your mother sat down, and you gently rinsed her hair. How did this come to be, Evan? This graceful way between you and your mother? How did love become a language? Become a dance?
I looked around the small space and decided to rest on a depression in the mid-century chesterfield’s upholstery, most likely your mother’s favourite spot. When I felt springs poke through the frame into my buttocks, though, I changed position to the less-worn wooden step stool in the corner.
“I’m sorry we took so long. Those damn protesters got in our way.”
“Nothing wrong with a little protesting,” Mrs. King shouted over the sound of the running water. She wiped moisture away from her eyes with one of her crooked fingers.
“I’m fine with it, as long as it doesn’t get in my way.”
“Evan, dear. They’re not going to give you the heads-up. They’re not going to work around your schedule. They want to disrupt. They want to get your attention that it’s no longer safe to be an Other. That’s why it’s called civil disobedience.”
You expertly wrapped your mother’s head in the stained towel. She used the corner of the towel to absorb water that poured into her ear before tucking the tail into the nape of her neck. “You kids nowadays don’t even know when your world is falling apart, and you don’t even know when it’s necessary to take a stand.” She gestured for you to help her back up to standing. She slowly made her way to the kitchen cabinets and got three floral-printed glasses.
“Back when I was young, it was as plain as the nose on your face when you were being wronged. Take this place,” she said to me while pointing to the four corners of her humble apartment. “I raised my son here. It was the only place I could find where the landlord was willing to rent to us. My husband, God bless his soul, said to the landlord, ‘Mr. Willems, I am willing to give you five months’ rent if you will let us stay here.’ He said yes. It didn’t stop him from pretending we’d only given four months’ rent, but we finally had a place to stay. So when we would march way back then, it was clear what we were fighting for.” She walked to the refrigerator, opened it, took out a bottle of ginger ale and a jug of orange juice. “Today, it’s not so obvious. But you know it’s there. People pretend more. Smile like it’s not a problem, when they still believe the same things about me and my son. I think it’s even more dangerous. Take Mr. Varela next door, for example. Lived above what was a 7-Eleven back in the day. Stayed my neighbour for thirty-two years. The man had to be wheeled out on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to the hospital. Heat stroke. I almost passed out myself last summer. Good thing we’re on the second floor. The floods didn’t affect us much other than some power outages. And I’m familiar with a can opener and a can of beans. I am not a fussy woman. I can live on very little. But the heat wave was unbearable. No one thinks about why those things happen, other than climate change this and climate change that. But it’s also because Mr. Varela is—or was, I don’t know if he made it or not—a Venezuelan man, a Brown man, who was poor enough to live above a corner store with no AC. It’s so complicated, no one is able to see the bigger picture and how it’s connected to the Two Nations, One Vision campaign. They think it’s two separate things. It’s not. But when we marched back in the day, we never marched for people to be polite to us. It was clear as day what we marched for. We marched because we deserved to live.” She poured a bit of ginger ale and orange juice in each glass, then handed it to us. The intense sweetness of the beverage could not drown the sinking, complicated truth of what she was saying that was growing in my stomach. I took several more gulps, and still the feeling remained.
“Tell me, Kay. Tell me all about yourself.”
“He’s a performer, mother.”
“Did I ask you, Evan?” Your knees clamped together at the sound of your mother’s discipline. “Go on, Kay. Pardon my son and his rudeness. He always fancied himself an expert in everything. Can you believe this fool had the audacity to suggest I redecorate my home? Please, Kay. You tell me about yourself.”
I looked at the blue of her cataracts and held my breath before saying, “It’s true. I’m a performer.”
“How exciting. And do you like performing?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I can see it in your eyes. The hunch of your shoulders. The way you look down at your feet. The smallness of you transforming onstage to be as big as you want to be. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
“I am happy you know where your heart is. Not everyone in their lifetime will be so blessed.”
She simply pointed to the refrigerator and you knew to take roast chicken and side dishes from the shelves, heat it up in the microwave and divide it among three melamine plates. Our hearty eating was punctuated every now and then with you giving your mother a tender kiss on the cheek. I could see the beginnings of you, the roots of you, and my heart was singing.