Update plus Chapter 16. The Porch
Empathy: fiction's superpower. Plus Demetrius's wanderings in Rainwood.
* Update * Chapter 16 - The Porch * Keeping Our Balance *
Dear CCNRRFs (Colleagues, Comrades, Neighbors, Relatives, Readers, Friends—pronounced ‘Knurfs’ like Smurfs):
I plan soon to resume publishing essays and reviews on activist culture, with a particular focus on fiction featuring activists.
We rarely read novels or see movies where the characters are immersed in planning a strike or a petition drive, or developing a boycott, or any of the ordinary everyday things activists do (in addition to the extraordinary ones). Not being able to witness these details, as we get to do when we watch our favorite characters in offices, hospitals, or police stations, we can’t imagine those activist settings or activities, and it’s hard to empathize with the hopes, fears, and other feelings of these activist characters.
Fascism fears empathy. The beast in whose belly we live dreads our connecting with others, discovering our common humanity and our collective power to defend it. The beast must continually fill us with stories that nullify activists who push this rebellious notion forward.
We need to notice when the movies, novels, TV shows and other fiction we take in erases or demonizes activists. We need to make efforts to counter it—including pointing out faulty and inauthentic representation, and writing our own fiction featuring activists.
I’ll be writing more about this in future essays, but here are existing essays and reviews of mine on the topic of Fiction Featuring Activists.
Meanwhile, Rainwood House Sings is an example of this category of story. If you prefer to read the story in a bigger gulp, here you can start from the beginning. The full book is coming, and I will soon begin sharing updates on how that’s going.
Though it stands on its own, Rainwood House Sings is part of a larger project I will be telling you about as it messily emerges.
Chapter 16. The Porch
As soon as Marlie dropped him at the library that morning, Demetrius found a pay phone and dialed his Granny Gus. Because he had no choice, he quickly informed her he was in trouble, but was okay, and completely innocent. “Granny, if anyone except this woman, Marlie Mendíval, calls to ask about me,” he begged, “please say you don’t know where I am or what I’m doing.”
“No more than God’s truth, son.” Her wry edge had reassured him, just a little.
Back in Rainwood, he ambles along its narrow streets, marveling at the small-town feel just blocks from bustling DC. Being Cole Robert Benson, carrying a shopping bag like an innocent mall-goer, is kind of fun—as long as he remembers not to think of anything outside the here and now.
At the mall near the library he’d had a barber smooth his choppy garden-shears haircut into a short bush. Now he kicks his pace up to a saunter, resolving to enjoy the freedom of short hair and forget the comfortable rustle of his lost locs.
He rounds a corner, and there is Rainwood House in all its shabby splendor. On the side nearest him, a teetery tower rises above the vine-draped porch. Steep black roof sections slope this way and that, like tumbled dominoes. Dormers jut out to the sides and back. From this angle he observes large rectangles of plywood going up the back wall and imagines a Gulliver-sized Samantha kneeling to apply giant Band Aids to hold the house together.
A few more steps and the patched wall disappears behind a long wing that stretches out behind the house. Demetrius opens the front gate, which Marlie latched that morning when they left after she carefully locked the front door. He smiles at the contrast with her lack of concern for securing the back gate and basement door. Once he becomes a housemate, he will put himself in charge of locking up. If she accepts him.
He picks his way along the fractured path and climbs the worn steps, noting risers green with mildew but also the graceful upward sweep of the wrought-iron railings.
Thick chips of paint crunch underfoot as he crosses the porch to knock on the door. He timed his arrival for about 10 minutes after she said she would be home, but there’s no sound from inside. He knocks again, a little louder. Nothing.
His knuckle is now sore. He turns to check if Marlie’s car is at the curb. It’s not. A bit delayed, he thinks.
He casts an eye about the porch and spots a lone wicker rocking chair. He gingerly lowers himself into it. The frayed seat crackles under his weight, but holds.
From this vantage point, he spots Samantha’s gymnastics bar, which he hopes is better fastened than it looks. That’s another thing he’ll check, whether or not he stays.
Demetrius feels uneasy out here in the open, but decides the overgrown vines mask his presence on the porch pretty well, without making him look furtive. He drops his head back, as he had in his grandmother’s rocker after working in her garden. This chair creaks loudly. He plants his feet firmly on the floor to keep it still.
A shape surges into his peripheral vision. Before he can react, a tall man in a black jacket and black wool cap appears, rounding the left side of the house, a camera case slung over his shoulder. The man strides swiftly across the front yard and then veers onto the path toward the street without a backward glance.
Not breathing, Demetrius stares at the retreating figure, lean and long-limbed, a flash of straight blond hair visible between collar and hat. The man opens the gate and steps onto the sidewalk.
Demetrius keeps absolutely still, eyelids lowered, pulse and thoughts racing. Why was that guy behind the house? He didn’t act stealthy enough to be a thief, but neither did he seem like a repairman or meter reader. Was it a plain clothes cop scoping out Rainwood House for a raid? Did the police track him here, after all?
“Hello, Blake!”
Demetrius cuts his eyes across the street at the sound of the grating voice.
On her porch stands the nosy neighbor, black-clad Madame Crow. “Haven’t seen you here for some time!”
Hand on the gate, the blond man calls out, “Hi, Missus Crick!” He takes a step toward the street. “I’ve been very busy out in California. But I’ll let you in on a secret.” Here the man projects a loud stage-whisper across Ruby street. “I’m moving back here.”
“Oh, to Rainwood House!” Madame Crow squeals girlishly.
“Not under the present circumstances.” The man shakes his head mournfully. “But I’ll be able to keep a much better eye on it. I’ve been concerned about its rapid deterioration.” He cocks his head back toward the house.
Demetrius grits his teeth, trying to shrink noiselessly into the rocker. He breathes only after assuring himself the two remain focused on each other.
Madame Crow’s plaintive voice reaches him. “I wish all the owners recognized the importance of properly caring for a historical house.”
“I know, Missus Crick. I’m always hoping she’ll change.”
The man’s head bobs up and down, and even from that distance Demetrius can see his chest rise and fall as if in a heavy sigh.
“Maybe you’ll have a good influence, Blake. Lord knows, I try to.” The neighbor lifts her opened palms skyward, expressing righteous if fruitless effort.
“I know,” Blake says. “I, for one, appreciate it.”
After they exchange cordial goodbyes, the man turns and moves off down the sidewalk. Madame Crow’s gaze follows him for a few seconds, then she slips inside her house.
Seconds pass, but Demetrius can’t breathe easy. He did not hear a car start or drive away. The man might still be lurking, just out of sight. He had appeared perfectly open with the neighbor, but Demetrius is virtually certain Marlie doesn’t know this guy has been prowling around Rainwood House.
Demetrius sits still for several more minutes, but the man doesn’t reappear. Finally, he extricates himself from the rocking chair. Hoping Madame Crow is not watching from behind her curtains, he descends the stairs and forces himself to maintain a normal pace as he walks up the front path.
At the gate, he casts a surreptitious look up and down the street, hoping to see Marlie coming into view. Evidently she has been considerably delayed.
He sees no one coming in either direction. The house now feels too exposed, so he steps onto the sidewalk and turns in the direction opposite from the one the tall man took. He forbids himself to hurry or look over his shoulder.
Demetrius relaxes as he puts more distance between himself and Rainwood House, walking with the purposeful but unhurried stride of a neighbor out to do an errand. He turns a corner, walks down a hill, and emerges onto Opal Avenue, its yellow center line and heavier traffic suggesting it’s a main street of this small town. He spots a convenience store on the next corner and hurries over to it. Inside, he buys a coffee and stands sipping it, examining a snack display as if trying to make up his mind. In reality, he’s staring through the plate glass and feeling stumped.
A sign on the store window reads “No Estar Aquí.” Don’t Be Here. He feels the words point directly at him, though he knows the sign is for the Latino men who hang around stores like this hoping to be hired for day labor. Three such men stand outside right now, clad in drab work clothes, heads close together over a flyer. Those guys must know a fair bit about the underground economy and living below the radar, Demetrius reflects enviously.
Once, a teacher at the University of Maryland had asked Demetrius, the sole Black male in the class, a question which presupposed direct personal experience with the ‘underworld.’ Demetrius had swiveled his head left to right, taking in the White students surrounding him, then turned back to the teacher and asked, “What made you choose me for that question, professor?” It had been gratifying to score a point off that racist stuffed shirt, but now Demetrius wishes he did possess more of the street smarts the stereotypes attributed to him. He’d only lived in DC until he was eight, then he’d gone to stay with Granny Gus out on the rural Eastern Shore. Nowadays, even though he’s been living back in his old neighborhood for years, and his organizing work has opened his eyes and sharpened his reflexes, Michael still teases him that he’s hopelessly “country.”
You escaped the cops, Jane’s voice reminds him. He smiles briefly, wishing she was there in front of him, hoping he hasn’t already used up his limited supply of savvy and luck.
He leaves the store and walks up the street alongside a low apartment building, one of a large complex of squat red brick structures occupying the next few blocks. The sidewalks are full of scurrying children, harried mothers pushing strollers, boys in baggy clothes with hair in locs or cornrows and backward caps, girls sporting elegant braided and beaded hairdos. Many of these residents appear to be immigrants from Latin America, with some from Africa and the Caribbean, plus a few odd-looking Whites.
He feels more comfortable here than on the too-quiet streets of single homes he’s just walked away from. It occurs to him to wish he’d found refuge in one of these teeming apartment buildings. But no. Chances are that whatever police activity goes on in this town is concentrated right here.
There, in fact, goes a patrol car labeled “Rainwood Police Department,” the uniformed cop at the wheel proceeding unconcerned past the Stop sign. Demetrius feels cold sweat break out on his skin, but forces himself to keep breathing and to walk at a nonchalant pace. His mind zooms straight back to the news articles he found that morning in the library.
“Critically Wounded Police Officer in a Coma.” After settling himself in the periodical room, Demetrius had pasted a bored expression on his face and paged nonchalantly through the entire Sunday Washington Post, even though the only article he cared about screamed at him from the front page, just below the fold. “Officer Merle Larsen of the fifth precinct of the Metropolitan Police is in critical condition after a bullet severely damaged his stomach and left kidney during a police raid in the Tobago neighborhood Saturday night. An injury to Larsen’s head when he fell and struck the pavement further compounds his condition.”
Demetrius had squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the prick of tears, then opened them and read the article two more times. He was glad Larsen wasn’t dead, but feared that wouldn’t help his own situation much. Even if Larsen pulled through, a charge of attempted murder of a police officer would be plenty bad.
There was a longer article in the Metro section, entitled, “Suspect Sighted Fleeing Cop-Shooting Scene.” Demetrius forced himself to breathe slowly while he read it. “Nigel Bennett, Officer Larsen’s partner, stated that he “clearly saw an African American male of medium build wearing dreadlocks, a black hoodie, and what appeared to be Air Jordans run into the alley behind the spot where the shooting occurred.” The suspect is thought to be a neighborhood resident, the article stated. “Officer Bennett attempted to stop the suspect, but the man escaped into a dark alley.”
No word about the barrage of police bullets he’d been fleeing, Demetrius thought bitterly. His hands started shaking, the rustling paper as loud as his thumping heart. He rose, managed to thrust the newspaper back into its holder, and signed up for a computer.
He inserted his MP3 player’s earphones into the machine and listened to a Fox News interview with a representative of the Fraternal Order of Police, who vowed that “the force won’t rest until Officer Larsen’s shooter is brought to justice.” On CNN, DC District Attorney Bob Rawlins called for more resources to be devoted to investigating connections between local criminal gangs and radical terrorists, proclaiming that “both have declared war on our city’s finest.”
Demetrius saw no mention of Liberated Zone or his own name, but that wasn’t much comfort. Lots of neighbors were acquainted with Demetrius and knew he habitually chatted on Saturday evenings with the Lilydale Street Krew at their alley hangout across from the Liberated Zone Center and the garden they’d started that spring. That’s how Merle Larsen knew to look for him there.
Larsen had introduced himself to Demetrius, Jane, and Michael—the Tremendous Trio, Granny Gus always called them—that spring, assuring them he valued Liberated Zone as a community-based organization. “I couldn’t care less if you sound like radicals. You’re doing good work,” he had remarked when he first approached them.
The crew kids had regarded the blond cop with mistrust, but his respectful demeanor toward them hadn’t wavered. When Larsen stopped another officer from detaining three Lilydale Street Krew kids in a street sweep and instead brought them back to the LZ Center, the young people decided he was for real. They even invited Larsen and his former partner, Samuels, to the LZ garden harvest party, along with their families. Barely three weeks ago, Demetrius thinks in disbelief, staring after the Rainwood Police car, now halfway down the next block.
He forces his mind back to the present and strolls across the dry grass of a ball field beside the apartments. He walks slowly, but not too slowly, past the small street of single-family homes on the other side of the ball field, trying not to imagine neighborhood busy-bodies peering at him from behind every curtain, fingers crooked over their phones.
Several turns bring Demetrius back to Opal Avenue, heading uphill. He passes a couple of blocks of old houses with large front porches, comfortably down-at-heels like his grandmother’s. None is remotely as large or interesting as Marlie’s, nor as dilapidated. Many front yards sport signs condemning war, the death penalty, slot machines. As he walks by a handsome yellow house, he notes a large sign calling for “Reparations for African Americans, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America.” Too bad I didn’t duck into their basement instead, he thinks. It crosses his mind to knock and ask them for help, but he shakes his head and keeps going, making a mental note of their address.
After a block or so, the houses give way to storefronts. He passes a variety store, a barber shop, a nail place. Then a flower shop. The sidewalk has its share of gum splotches and trash at the curb, and several premises appear to have closed down, but none cower behind the metal bars and cages ubiquitous in his own DC neighborhood not five miles away.
He sees a corner grocery across the street, with a sign swinging from a horizontal pole proclaiming it to be the “Happy Hog.” Below the name is a painting of a smiling pig munching an apple and the words “Animals here have no fear” in “Olde English” style. Taped to the wooden door is a hand-written sign: “Special on wheat grass juice.”
As Demetrius contemplates entering the store, a bus engine roars behind him. He turns to watch it pass. Adorning the bus’s entire flank is a movie ad displaying the colossal head of a ruggedly handsome White cop. Behind him is the smaller head of what is obviously the Black sidekick, positioned so the White cop’s ear pokes into the Black cop’s nose. His mind fills with Larsen’s cheerful, chunky face as it looked seconds before the bullet hit him.
Demetrius’s legs feel shaky. There’s a bench in front of the store, but he doesn’t stop–he could never relax in such a public space.
The walk back to Rainwood House feels twice as long as it did a half hour earlier. When the house finally comes into view, Demetrius spies a small figure sitting cross-legged on the porch, head bent low over a book. Delighted to see her, before he can think he yells, “Hi, Samantha!” He pushes through the front gate, calling, “Hey! Anther Panther!”
She looks up. Her spaced-out expression sharpens into recognition. “Hi, Duke Cole!”
Belatedly remembering discretion, he hurries up the walk and front steps. “Been here long?”
“About ten thousand hours,” she answers matter-of-factly. “I did the monkey bars a million times after Reading Club, then I came home.”
“Well, you must be faint with hunger.” He sets down his bag and pulls out a packet of small donuts dipped in powdered sugar. There were three left.
“Wow, sugar!” She grabs the package as if he might snatch it back.
Demetrius narrows his eyes. “Let me guess. Your grandmother isn’t a fan of sugar?”
“She hates it! She has books about how bad it is. About how it’s the root of the slave trade, and the Haitians are exploited by it. Cavities, addiction, hypogloucoma insolence.” Samantha bites hungrily into the donut. White powder sprinkles her lips.
“Next time, I’ll bring you an apple.”
Mouth full, the girl gives him a mischievous grin. “My Abue means it about sugar and the Haitians and all that, but she also loves chocolate.” She takes another bite. “So long as it’s Fair Trade.”
Demetrius laughs aloud, then glances toward the street. He squats down, steadying himself with a hand on her knapsack, which she has dropped by the railing. “Are you gonna finish the wall soon?” he asks.
“What wall?”
“The one you’re building with the bricks you’re carrying in here.”
“Books, not bricks!” She draws the knapsack closer and pats it. “That’s a good idea. I’ll build a wall with my books. To keep out the wind.”
“You’d need quite a few books for that.”
“I have a lot of books. Hundreds.”
“Really?” Like the “ten thousand hours,” Demetrius thinks.
“Really.” She cocks her head toward her bag. “I always carry books with me. They’re very useful.”
“You can read them.”
“Duh.” Samantha unzips the bag and extracts book after bedraggled book.
Demetrius watches her in fascination. “Wow, you do have a lot. Aside from reading them, what else are they useful for?”
“Oh, they’re good for furniture. And pillows.”
“Pillows?”
“Yeah.” She stacks a few books on the porch floor, lies down, and lowers her head onto them. “Very comfy.”
Demetrius nods. “I recall that the ancient Egyptians—or was it the Assyrians?—rested their heads on little stools of that shape. They were smart, so you must be, too.”
She smiles, eyes closed, and pretends to snore.
“Anything else you use books for?”
She opens her eyes and sits up. “Toilet paper.”
“Toilet paper!”
“Well, only after you read the book. And if it’s a really raggedy one.”
“I hope you don’t do that very often.”
“Nah. But if I ever really need to, I will.”
“Hm!” He leans back against the porch railing, which shifts ominously. He sits up straight and crosses his legs. “So… tell me about your day.”
The child’s head droops, her ponytails flopping like frayed tassels.
“Not the best day in the world?”
The head gives a tiny shake.
Demetrius utters a small, friendly sound, and waits.
Slowly at first, and then in a rush of words, Samantha tells Demetrius about her friendship troubles and her punishment on the Wall. It’s not an easy tale to follow, since she expects him already to know about her friends, her school, and fourth-grade culture. But he gets the gist.
“Now I’ll have to play all by myself at recess.” She shakes her head sorrowfully. “And go to hell, ‘cause I’m the devil.”
“Hey, now! That is bull-sh… total crap.” He can’t come up with a more euphemistic word. To his chagrin, he suddenly feels dizzy with rage at those stupid girls for tormenting Samantha. He grabs at his short bush, then his earlobes, trying to steady himself. His emotions have gotten so crazy since his life exploded in his face.
Samantha peers at him through her curtain of hair. “You don’t think I’m the devil?”
“There’s no such thing and you know it!” He looks her in the eye. “And even if there was, it wouldn’t be you. Right?”
Samantha nods slowly, chewing on her lip. “I know. But Anahí thinks the devil is real. And that I’m it.”
“Girl, don’t let anyone tell you lies about yourself. Remember, you are the Anther Panther!” He sweeps his hand out and bumps his shopping bag. “Oh, I forgot. Look what I snagged near the library!” He pulls out a green headband adorned with brown felt antlers he found lying on the grass. They had seemed perfectly clean, so he stuck them in his bag.
“Awesome!” Samantha examines the antlers. “Hey, a button!” Little red lights light up all over the antlers. The girl pushes the button again, which sets them blinking. She slides the band onto her head, among her pony tails.
“Now you have Anther Panther antlers! You’ll be visible in a blizzard.” Demetrius’s words remind him of his own visibility, sitting on the bare porch. Nothing to do but hope Marlie gets home soon. And that she’s had a pleasant conversation with Granny Gus. He removes his new pillow from the shopping bag and sticks it behind his back, leaning back only a little. Samantha reclines against a column partially covered in a length of red carpet, which extends a couple of feet onto the floor to make a seat for Samantha. “Looks like you got a comfy place to lean on,” he remarks.
“It’s for lead safety. My Abue nailed it.”
Demetrius nods approvingly. “So, how about showing me your bricks, I mean, your books.”
She hands him the ones she used as a pillow. He fingers the worn spine of one, a hardcover with a smudged ink stamp. It looks like a library book, except more tattered, as if from some third-world country or a poor Black neighborhood.
“Look at this,” he exclaims. “Secret of the Old Clock, 1957. And here’s one from 1943! Cherry Ames, Student Nurse.” He examines another book. “Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman.” He opens it to the title page and reads, “‘By Dorothy Sterling. Copyright 1954.’ And here’s The Snowy Day! I’ve heard of that one.”
“It’s for little kids, but I like it.”
Demetrius strokes the mottled ancient-looking cover. “Wow, you have quite a collection!”
The girl nods happily and opens another book to show him.
Keeping our Balance
We know about empathy burnout—when seeing disaster over and over numbs our hearts to unfolding tragedy out of self-protection, denial, helplessness.
I’m trying to find a balance: I look at news, mostly limited to headlines unless it’s for research, in a wide variety of publications, from the LA Times to the Electronic Intifada, from NYT to Wired to People’s World. And every day I dip into two or three of the many newsletters I subscribe to.
This limited sampling leaves my psyche space to embrace other things, and my emotions to navigate among the horrors. I won’t say I have yet found a stable path where I stay sane and keep my eyes and heart open, as a human and as an activist, but I’m working on it.
Dear CCNRRFs, how do you manage your own path, and has this enabled you to keep your balance?