On Beauty Read online

  The family set off, continuing their debate, with the voices of the children now added to the dispute. The black boy with the elegant neck who had been sitting next to Zora strained to hear the disappearing remnants of a conversation he had been interested in, although he had not followed all of it. More and more these days he found himself listening to people talk, wanting to add something. He had wanted to add something just then, a point of information – it was from that movie. According to the film, Mozart died before he finished the thing, right? So someone else must have finished it – so that seemed relevant to that genius thing they were discussing. But he wasn’t in the habit of talking to strangers. Besides, the moment passed. It always did. He pulled his baseball cap down his forehead and checked in his pocket for his cell. He reached under his deckchair to retrieve his Discman – it was gone. He swore violently, padded his hand around the area in the darkness and found something, a Discman. But not his. His had a faint sticky residue on the bottom that he could always feel, the remains of a long-gone sticker of a silhouetted naked lady with a big afro. Apart from that the two Discmans were identical. It took him a second to figure it out. He rushed to get his hoodie off the back of his chair, but it got caught, and he ripped it slightly. That was his best hoodie. At last it was detached – he hurried as best he could after that heavy-set girl with the glasses. With every step more people seemed to place themselves between him and her.

  ‘Hey! Hey! ’

  But there was no name to put on the end of Hey and a six foot two athletic black man shouting Hey in a dense crowd does not create easiness wherever he goes.

  ‘She’s got my Discman, this girl, this lady – just up there – sorry, ’scuse me, man – yeah, can I just get by here – Hey! Hey, sister! ’

  ‘ZORA – wait up!’ came a voice loud by the side of him, and the girl he’d been trying to stop turned around and gave somebody the finger. The white people near by looked about themselves anxiously. Was there going to be trouble?

  ‘Aw, fuck you too,’ said the voice resignedly. The young man turned and saw a boy a little shorter than him, but not much, and several shades lighter.

  ‘Hey, man – is that your girl?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The girl with the glasses you was just calling? Is she your girl?’

  ‘Hell, no – that’s my sister, bro.’

  ‘Man, she’s got my Discman, my music – she must have picked it up by mistake. See, I got hers. I been trying to call her, but I didn’t know her name.’

  ‘For real?’

  ‘This is hers, right here, man. It ain’t mine.’

  ‘Wait here –’

  Few among Levi’s pastoral circle of family and teachers would have believed Levi could launch so promptly into action after an instruction as he did for this young man he had never met before. He pushed swiftly through the crowd, caught his sister by the arm and began to talk to her animatedly. The young man approached more slowly, but got there in time to here Zora say: ‘Don’t be ridiculous – I’m not giving some friend of yours my player – get off me –’

  ‘You’re not listening to me – it’s not yours, it’s his – his,’ repeated Levi, spotting the young man and pointing at him. The young man smiled weakly under the brim of his baseball cap. Even so small a glimpse of his smile told you that his were perfect white teeth, superbly arranged.

  ‘Levi, if you and your friend want to be gangstas, piece of advice: you’ve got to take, not ask.’

  ‘Zoor – it’s not yours – it’s this guy’s.’

  ‘I know my Discman – this is my Discman.’

  ‘Bro –’ said Levi, ‘you got a disc in here?’

  The young man nodded.

  ‘Check the CD, Zora.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake – see? It’s a recordable disc. Mine. OK? Bye now.’

  ‘Mine’s recordable too – it’s my own mix,’ said the young man firmly.

  ‘Levi . . . We’ve got to get to the car.’

  ‘Listen to it –’ said Levi to Zora.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen to the damn CD, Zoor.’

  ‘What’s going on over there?’ called Howard, twenty yards away. ‘Can we get going, please?’

  ‘Zora, you freak – just listen to the CD, settle this.’

  Zora made a face and pressed play. A little spring of sweat burst over her forehead.

  ‘Well, this isn’t my CD. It’s some kind of hip-hop,’ she said sharply, as if the CD itself were somehow to blame.

  The young man stepped forward cautiously, with one hand up as if to show he meant no harm. He turned the Discman over in her hand and showed her the sticky patch. He lifted his hoodie and the T-shirt beneath it to reveal a well-defined pelvic bone and drew a second Discman from his waistband. ‘This one’s yours.’

  ‘They’re exactly the same.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess that’s where the confusion came from.’ He was grinning now and the fact that he was stupidly good-looking could no longer be ignored. Pride and prejudice, however, connived in Zora to make a point of ignoring it anyway.

  ‘Yeah, well, I put mine under my chair,’ she said tartly, and turned and walked off in the direction of her mother, who stood hands on hips another hundred yards away.

  ‘Phew. Tough sister,’ said the young man, laughing lightly.

  Levi sighed.

  ‘Yo, thanks, man.’

  They clapped hands.

  ‘Who you listening to anyway?’ asked Levi.

  ‘Just some hip-hop.’

  ‘Bro, can I check it out – I’m all into that.’

  ‘I guess . . .’

  ‘I’m Levi.’

  ‘Carl.’

  How old is this boy, Carl wondered. And where’d he learn that you just ask some strange brother you never seen before in your life if you can listen to his Discman? Carl had figured a year ago that if he started going to events like this he would meet the kind of people he didn’t usually meet – couldn’t have been more right about that one.

  ‘It’s tight, man. There’s a nice flow there. Who is it?’

  ‘Actually, that track is me,’ Carl said, neither humbly nor proudly. ‘I got a very basic sixteen-track at home. I do it myself.’

  ‘You a rapper?’

  ‘Well . . . it’s more like Spoken Word, as it happens.’

  ‘Scene.’

  They talked all the way over the green towards the gates of the park. About hip-hop generally, and then about recent shows in the Boston area. How few and far they were. Levi asked question after question, sometimes answering himself as Carl opened his mouth to reply. Carl kept on trying to figure out what the deal was, but it seemed like there was no deal – some people just like to talk.

  Levi suggested they swap cell numbers, and they did so by an oak tree.

  ‘Just, you know . . . next time you hear about a show in Roxbury . . . You can call me or whatever,’ said Levi, rather too keenly.

  ‘You live in Roxbury?’ asked Carl doubtfully.

  ‘Not really . . . but I’m there a lot – Saturdays, especially.’

  ‘What are you, fourteen?’ asked Carl.

  ‘No, man. I’m sixteen! How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty.’

  This answer immediately inhibited Levi.

  ‘You at college or . . . ?’

  ‘Nah . . . I’m not an educated brother, although . . .’ He had a theatrical, old-fashioned way of speaking, which involved his long, pretty fingers turning circles in the air. His whole manner reminded Levi of his grandfather on his mother’s side and his tendency to speechify, as Kiki called it. ‘I guess you could say I hit my own books in my own way.’

  ‘Scene.’

  ‘I get my culture where I can, you know – going to free shit like tonight, for example. Anything happening that’s free in this city and might teach me something, I’m there.’

  Levi’s family were waving at him. He was hoping that Carl would go in another direction before they r
eached the gate, but of course there was only one way out of the park.

  ‘Finally,’ said Howard, as they approached.

  Now it was Carl’s turn to grow inhibited. He pulled his baseball cap down low. He put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Oh, hey,’ said Zora, acutely embarrassed.

  Carl acknowledged her with a nod.

  ‘So I’ll call you,’ said Levi, trying to bypass the introduction he feared was moments away. He was not quick enough.

  ‘Hi!’ said Kiki. ‘Are you a friend of Levi?’

  Carl looked distraught.

  ‘Er . . . this is Carl. Zora stole his Discman.’

  ‘I didn’t steal any –’

  ‘Are you at Wellington? Familiar face,’ said Howard distractedly. He was looking out for a taxi. Carl laughed, a strange artificial laugh that had more anger in it than good humour.

  ‘Do I look like I’m at Wellington?’

  ‘Not everybody goes to your stupid college,’ countered Levi, blushing. ‘People do other shit than go to college. He’s a street poet.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Jerome with interest.

  ‘That ain’t really accurate, man . . . I do some stuff, Spoken Word – that’s all. I don’t know if I be calling myself a street poet, exactly.’

  ‘Spoken Word?’ repeated Howard.

  Zora, who considered herself the essential bridge between Wellington’s popular culture and her parents’ academic culture, stepped in here. ‘It’s like oral poetry . . . it’s in the African-American tradition – Claire Malcolm’s all into it. She thinks it’s vital and earthy, etcetera, etcetera. She goes to the Bus Stop to check it out with her little Cult of Claire groupies.’

  This last was sour grapes on Zora’s part; she had applied for, but not been accepted into, Claire’s poetry workshop the previous semester.

  ‘I’ve done the Bus Stop, several times,’ said Carl quietly. ‘It’s a good place. It’s about the only cool place for that stuff in Wellington. I did some stuff there just Tuesday night past.’ Now he put a thumb to the brim of his cap and lifted it a little so that he might get a good look at these people. Was the white guy the father?

  ‘Claire Malcolm goes to a bus stop to hear poetry . . .’ began Howard, bewildered, busy looking up and down the street.

  ‘Shut up, Dad,’ said Zora. ‘Do you know Claire Malcolm?’

  ‘Nope . . . can’t say I do,’ replied Carl, releasing another one of his winning smiles, just nerves probably, but each time he did, you warmed to him further.

  ‘She’s like a poet poet,’ explained Zora.

  ‘Oh . . . A poet poet.’ Carl’s smile disappeared.

  ‘Shut up, Zoor,’ said Jerome.

  ‘Rubens,’ said Howard suddenly. ‘Your face. From the four African heads. Nice to meet you, anyway.’

  Howard’s family stared at him. Howard stepped off the sidewalk to wave down a cab that passed him by.

  Carl pulled his hoodie over his cap and began to look around himself.

  ‘You should meet Claire,’ said Kiki enthusiastically, trying to patch the thing up. It’s remarkable what a face like Carl’s makes you want to do in order to see it smile again. ‘She’s very respected – everybody says she’s very good.’

  ‘Cab!’ yelled Howard. ‘It’s going to pull up on the other side. Come on.’

  ‘Why do you say it like Claire’s a country you’ve never been to?’ demanded Zora. ‘You’ve read her – so you can have an opinion, Mom, it won’t kill you.’

  Kiki ignored this. ‘I’m sure she’d love to meet a young poet, she’s very encouraging – you know actually we’re having a party –’

  ‘Come on, come on,’ droned Howard. He was in the middle of the traffic island.

  ‘Why would he even want to go to your party?’ asked Levi, mortified. ‘It’s an anniversary party.’

  ‘Well, baby, I can ask, can’t I? Besides, it’s not just an anniversary party. And between me and you,’ she added faux confidentially to Carl, ‘we could do with a few more brothers at this party.’

  It had not escaped anybody’s attention that Kiki was flirting. Brothers? thought Zora crossly, since when does Kiki say brothers?

  ‘I got to be going,’ said Carl. He passed a flat hand over his forehead, smearing the droplets of sweat. ‘I got your man Levi’s number – we might hang out some time, so –’

  ‘Oh, OK . . .’

  They all waved vaguely at his back and said bye quietly, but there was no denying he was walking away from them as fast as he could.

  Zora turned to her mother and opened her eyes wide. ‘What the hell? Rubens?’

  ‘Nice boy,’ said Kiki sadly.

  ‘Let’s get in the car,’ said Levi.

  ‘Not bad-looking either, huh?’ said Kiki and watched Carl’s retreating figure turn a corner. Howard stood on the other side of the road, one hand on the open mini-van door, the other sweeping from the ground to the sky, ushering his family inside.

  8

  The Saturday of the Belseys’ party arrived. The twelve hours before a Belsey party were a time of domestic anxiety and activity; a watertight excuse was required to escape the house for the duration. Luckily for Levi, his parents had provided him with one. Hadn’t they gone on and on about his getting a Saturday job? And so he had got one, and so he was going to it. End of discussion. With joy in his heart he left Zora and Jerome polishing doorknobs and set off for his sales associate position in a Boston music mega-store. The job itself was no occasion for joy: he hated the corny baseball cap he had to wear and the bad pop music he was compelled to sell; the tragic loser of a floor manager who imagined he was the king of Levi; the moms who couldn’t remember the name of the artist or the single, and so leaned over the counter to tunelessly hum a little bit of the verse. All it was good for was giving him a reason to get out of the toy-town that was Wellington and a bit of money to spend in Boston once he got there. Every Saturday morning he caught a bus to the nearest T-stop and then the subway into the only city he had ever really known. It was not New York, sure, but it was the only city he had, and Levi treasured the urban the same way previous generations worshipped the pastoral; if he could have written an ode he would have. But he had no ability in that area (he used to try – notebook after notebook filled with false, cringing rhymes). He had learned to leave it to the fast-talking guys in his earphones, the present-day American poets, the rappers.

  Levi’s shift finished at four. He left the city reluctantly, as always. He got back on the subway and then the bus. He looked out with dread at Wellington as it began to manifest itself outside the grimy windows. The pristine white spires of the college seemed to him like the watchtowers of a prison to which he was returning. He sloped towards home, walking up the final hill, listening to his music. The fate of the young man in his earphones, who faced a jail cell that very night, did not seem such a world away from his own predicament: an anniversary party full of academics.

  Walking up Redwood Avenue with its tunnel of cernuous willows, Levi found he had lost the will even to nod his head, usually an involuntary habit with him when music was playing. Halfway down the avenue he noticed with irritation that he was being watched. A very old black lady sitting on her porch was eyeing him like there was no other news in town. He tried to shame her by staring her out in turn. She just kept right on staring. Framed by two yellow-leaved trees on each side of her house, she sat on her porch in this bright red dress and stared like she was being paid to do it. Man oh man, but didn’t she look old and papery. Her hair was really not tied back properly. Like she wasn’t being taken care of. Hair every which way. Levi hated to see that right there, old people not taken care of. Her clothes were crazy too. This red dress she had on didn’t have a waist; it just went straight down like a queen’s gown in a children’s book and was held together at the throat by one big brooch in the shape of a golden palm leaf. Boxes all around her on that porch filled with clothes and cups and plates . . . like a bag lady, only with a
house. She sure could eyeball, though . . . Jesus. Isn’t there anything on TV, lady? Maybe he should buy a T-shirt that just had on it YO – I’M NOT GOING TO RAPE YOU. He could use a T-shirt like that. Maybe like three times each day while on his travels that T-shirt would come in handy. There was always some old lady who needed to be reassured on that point. And check it out . . . now she’s struggling to get out of the chair – her legs like toothpicks in sandals. She’s gonna say something. Aw, shit.

  ‘Excuse me – young man, excuse me for a minute – wait a bit there.’

  Levi pushed his headphones to one side on his head. ‘Say what?’

  You’d have thought that after all that effort of standing and calling out, the lady might have something important to say. My house is burning down. My cat is up a tree. But no.

  ‘Now, how are you?’ she said. ‘You don’t look so well.’

  Levi replaced his headphones and began to walk away. But the lady was still waving her arms at him. He stopped again, took the headphones off and sighed. ‘Sister, I’ve had kind of a long day, a’right, so . . . unless there’s something I can do for you . . . You need help or something? Carrying something?’

  The lady had managed to move forward now. She took two steps and then supported herself with both hands, gripping the porch fence. Her knuckles were grey and dusty. You could pluck bass notes on those veins.

  ‘I knew it. You live near here, don’t you?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I feel sure I know your brother. I can’t be mistaken, at least I don’t think so,’ she said.

  Her head wobbled slightly as she spoke. ‘No, I’m not mistaken. Your faces are the same underneath. You have exactly the same cheekbones.’

  Her accent, to Levi’s ears, was a shameful, comic thing. To Levi, black folk were city folk. People from the islands, people from the country, these were all peculiar to him, obstinately historical – he couldn’t quite believe in them. Like when Howard took the family to Venice and Levi could not shift the idea that the whole place and everybody in it were having him on. No roads? Water taxis? He felt the same way about farmers, anybody who wove anything and his Latin teacher.