She sat back down on the bed, this time right next to him. More like a friend than a lover. “You’re a strange one. I hope you know that, Isaiah Wilson.”
“You know what, Dorothy Mae?” he asked. “I have a sneaking feeling that you might be, too. Way down deep.”
“It’s time for me to ask you a question now.”
“Anything at all.”
“Why don’t you show anyone who you actually are?” she asked. “You’re just as phony as you’re implying I am.”
“First of all,” he started. “I did not call you phony.”
“You didn’t have to,” she interrupted.
“Fair enough,” he gave in. “I’ll own that I’m usually putting on. I’m only real when I write. Can I read you one of my poems?”
He felt behind him, where he knew he’d left it, but it wasn’t there. Then he crouched down to look under his bed for his leather journal.
“Stand up a minute,” he told her, before tearing through his pillows and wildly unmaking his bed. “It has to be here.”
“What?”
“My journal,” he said, appearing to get frantic. “The one I always carry with me. Have you seen it?”
Dorothy Mae looked curious at the question. “I have to go,” she said instead of answering. “I have to go,” she repeated. And she was out the window before he could ask why.
ANGEL
“Muggy?” Angel stepped onto the porch to join him. “What are you doing here?”
Muggy Little Jr. turned his back to her and walked to the swinging bench at the far end of her large porch. “Sit,” he said before patting the empty space beside him.
“I have chores,” she started. “My papa … No, my mama needs me to help with a hair appointment … and baby Michael.”
“I’ll make it worth your while,” he said with a rascally grin. “Worth the sacrifice of missing some little chores.”
She stood over him, knowing he had no clue what he was talking about. Some little chores, she thought, included helping her mother clean her father’s excrement, bathe and shift him to avoid festering sores, and help him fight for a will to live. Muggy Little Jr. was the worst hue of green—still naive and entitled but also with an air of grandiosity. He knew nothing beyond himself and cared not to find out. She’d hate to see where life actually took him in the end. Nowhere positive, she surmised.
“Okay,” he continued, striking a match to light his dangling cigar. “Not going to sit? Suit yourself.”
“Please don’t light that,” she told him. “Not here. It’s not good for my papa.”
Ignoring her, he opened the journal and began quietly paging through it.
“My apologies, Muggy,” she said, backing toward her front door. “I don’t have time for—”
“‘Black Angel,’” he started reading. “By Isaiah Wilson. Spin, spin, Black angel, spin…’”
As he read the poem aloud, right there on the sweltering Greenwood afternoon, Angel felt herself leaning against the railings of her porch. Her eyes went from angry and frustrated to kind and soft. She noticed the verbena again, even brighter than they had been that morning. Showing off for the sun and God and herself.
She felt her father, dying of an unknown illness in the next room. Fighting so valiantly just to sit up straight in her presence. Connecting more with beautiful new babies than with anyone else now. She felt her mother, robustly braiding away the pain in their small kitchen. Twisting the smallest of braids for something to focus on outside of the failing health of the love of her life, the father of her best friend.
She felt her hands shaking like they did before she was about to cry. She tasted heavy tears that couldn’t break through until she’d heard the perfect poem about her spinning in the pulpit. Then she saw the strange sight of Dorothy Mae, dressed in fuzzy pink, running up her walkway.
“Give it to me,” Dorothy told Muggy furiously. “This is not your business to tell.”
“Whoa, now,” he said, holding the journal high in the air and out of her reach. “You’re the one who handed it to me through Isaiah’s window just, what, a half hour ago? What the hell are you even talking about? I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard you speak.” He went to grab her around the waist for a kiss, but she wouldn’t allow it.
“Muggy,” she said to him. “This is wrong.”
He laughed in response. “Wrong, right, who the hell cares? It’s fun. Besides, I’ve already read her one of my favorites. Take it.” He handed the journal to Dorothy Mae and rested his attention on Angel. “Now you know, Black Angel. Do with it what you will.” He walked to the sidewalk and tipped his hat, leaving Angel and Dorothy Mae on the porch.
“Angel,” her father called out from the living room. “Who’s out there? Are you okay? I can come help if you need me.”
In a panic, Angel nearly tripped over her own feet heading for the door. “No, Papa, please don’t try to get up. Please.”
As she opened the door, she looked back at Dorothy Mae holding the journal. Dorothy had caught full sight of Angel’s once-strong father, withering on the couch. Angel shut the door, but it was too late; she’d already seen him.
“I’m…,” Dorothy Mae began speaking. “I’m so sorry.”
Then she ran away.
ISAIAH
“Mom!” Isaiah called out, flipping and re-flipping over the same bedspread, and turning his pillowcases inside out for the thirteenth time. “Have you seen my journal?” Isaiah was now in a full terror.
“No, baby,” she said. “You had it when you came in.”
He knew he’d had it. That’s what made it so odd. Isaiah always knew where his journal was. It was a treasure trove of anger and frustration and love. He’d written multiple poems about how much he deeply despised Muggy and the Greenwood hierarchy. And then there was the new, raw love in there. He’d never live that down. Moreover, his personal statements for Howard and Morehouse were in there, and not yet transcribed onto full-length parchment. Those letters were perfect and whole, impossible to duplicate.
“I can’t find it!” he shouted into the ether. Not necessarily to his mother.
“You need me to help you look?”
“No,” he said to her, flailing his hands.
“Retrace your steps.”
She was right. He sat on the now-mussed bed, closed his eyes, and visualized himself through the afternoon.
He saw himself walking in, longing to talk to his father and settling for his mother. He recalled her excitement over Angel Hill and smiled. He couldn’t blame her. If he had a son one day who’d expressed interest in a girl like that, he’d be excited, too. She was a universe of a girl, overlooked like a daily sunset. His finger itched to write, reminding him to concentrate on his lost journal.
After talking to his mom, he went into his room. With closed eyes, he saw himself writing on his bed with his journal resting on his bent knees. He couldn’t remember how much time had passed before Dorothy Mae had traced that heart on his window, but he’d absolutely had his journal in his room. They fooled around awhile, like always, and that’s when the journal left his memories. He felt a stick to his upper thigh—the tip of the ink pen he’d held when writing in it.