The World Doesn't Require You Read online

  I could glimpse his face in the dark through the glow of TV light; he wore the worn expression of a zombie. Light, in waves, flashed across his cheeks. His lids hung low, tiny velvet curtains draped over his eyes. Tyrone and I crept to the door.

  You ready? he asked. I nodded.

  He pressed the bell several times while I made a fist and pounded with the meaty part of my hand.

  By the way, Tyrone said. This is Shit-Shit’s house.

  Huh? That’s Shit-Shit? That don’t look like no Shit-Shit.

  Man, Deez, be quiet. You gonna ruin the element of surprise.

  Who is it? Shit-Shit called.

  He sounded anxious, angry. We said nothing, though we snickered.

  Huh? I can’t hear you. Who is it?

  Tyrone rang once more and I banged, banged, banged as if trying to strike right through the door.

  I could hear Shit-Shit stirring and Tyrone and I both jumped from the porch at the same time. We crouched in the dirt against the side of his house. He snatched open the door, stepped outside, and looked left and right, but not down. I bit my lip and shook and dug my nails into my palms to avoid laughing. When he went back inside we waited for him to sit before we did it again. Once more he came outside and cursed his phantom nigger knockers. Shit-Shit’s voice held an agitation I remembered from our teen years when we would invite him to Kenny’s house just to pour buckets of water on him from the window above the front door. He always fell for it. Once we did it in October when the cold settled early. Snot poured from Shit-Shit’s nose as he burst into a mighty rage, swinging his arms and inventing words to curse us with, blaming us for all the problems of his life from his poor grades to his loneliness.

  We laughed back then even though it wasn’t funny. And I was lonely too, but I didn’t say so or offer any words to soothe him. Tyrone the instigator urged me to do the mockery. He would reach deep into his witty brain to offer up a humorous put-down or a comedic approach, which he would pass to me via whisper. He played the ventriloquist and I his willing dummy. This way Tyrone maintained his cool, above-the-fray image and I burnished my credentials as an asshole. At Tyrone’s insistence, I tried to sound sincere because that was funnier. I told Shit-Shit that we weren’t his problem, his hygiene was the problem, and dousing him with water could only help, despite the fact that he had no hygiene problem, outside of that one day in junior high school when he stank in the way all junior high boys stink. He kept coming back to Kenny’s house fully aware of the cruelty waiting for him, complicit in his own bullying.

  The third time Shit-Shit came outside after we knocked, he waved his hands and spat and screamed, You fucking little kids! If I catch you around my house I’m gonna beat your asses, watch.

  It was all so out of character—he added a false depth to his voice, which made it more hilarious. But then, how would I know his character? I hadn’t spoken to Shit-Shit—now calling himself Stanley or Stan, probably—in years. When he went back inside we tried one more time, though we didn’t wait for him to come to the door. Instead, we immediately burst down the street toward the car. He yanked the door open and sprinted after us. He hadn’t even bothered tying his shoelaces and they tapped against the concrete. I looked back just in time to see him trip and splash into a puddle.

  We got into my car as he rose from the ground, a string of saliva and curse words spilling from his mouth. My engine cut off as I revved it and then it cut off again. We both wheezed heavily. I wondered how we would explain this if he caught up to us. Shit-Shit snatched a rock from the ground and lobbed it into the air as I pulled off. It was a nice throw too, smacked the back windshield and cracked the thing pretty good. Tyrone and I jumped. The car swerved all over the road. When I got control of the thing we brayed and coughed, wiping mirthful tears from our eyes.

  Nightly Tyrone appeared at my door, sometimes with a coffee cup in hand as if about to clock in for work. We decided where to knock partly on how well the shrubbery could hide us. At one house, a man came out with a gun after four knocks. Crouching in his bushes, our mouths dry and our hearts beating in our throats, we didn’t dare to even breathe. At another house we watched the police approach the door minutes after we finished with it.

  We stomped some yellow marigolds out front of one house as we fled, by accident of course. We knocked on the door of a blue house on Gressam Place and Tyrone became so mesmerized by the woman who answered that he went back and knocked again just to get another glimpse at her. She came outside and looked around, thin arms folded delicately across her frame. Dark skin. Straight black hair. Beautiful indeed, but a bit skinny for my taste. She closed the door again and Tyrone said, My man Darius, I’m gonna marry her. Tyrone knocked again, but didn’t run when she came outside for the third time. He pointed down the street at two kids tossing a football. They sparked up a conversation and he left with her phone number. Her name was Zoraya, but she called herself Zo, and she made Tyrone feel like stillness, he said.

  After they finished talking, Zo strode across the street and spoke to the mother of the football-playing children. As we walked away, a woman with a stern face and a mouth that turned down at the corners shouted, Get your little asses in here! Y’all earned an ass-whooping tonight!

  We had a good run, hitting different houses all throughout the Southside over the course of a couple weeks. We hit Shit-Shit’s house several times and the monster we made erupted over and over. It was hilarious to watch. The exhilaration of nigger knocking. I felt new life sprouting in my chest. We moved slowly northward and even braved the rich folks and their security in gated Crispus Heights. Tyrone kept saying that all we saw made good material for nightly revisions.

  When Tyrone, one afternoon in my living room, said we had to move on, I nodded and leaned into the mattress atop my broken futon frame. This thing, as fun as it could be, was never meant to be everlasting, I knew that. It would be good to return to adulthood with the wisdom that could only come from traipsing briefly back into childishness; I fixed my mouth to thank Tyrone for the time, when he said: Port Yooga!

  Huh?

  That’s where we moving on to. We did Crispus Heights, that was a good warm-up, now it’s time for Port Yooga. Enough of this petty little neighborhood shit. We need to knock the big time. Picture it, Deez, two niggas knocking Port Yooga doors. It’ll be monumental. This shit needs its own chapter.

  I cringed a bit thinking about it. The Southside was one type of danger, but it’s rumored that Port Yooga once had its own hanging tree in the center of town. It was the only place a Cross Riverian was allowed after dark in Port Yooga for a time. I wanted to say no. My brain told my mouth to say no, but those excited infectious eyes of Tyrone’s. How they danced in delight at all our knocking triumphs. I don’t remember agreeing or walking to the car or most of the drive over. I do remember coming alive on the bridge to Port Yooga—apparently we had been laughing and planning. I asked myself what in the hell I thought I was doing, but still I found myself unable to turn around.

  • • •

  The following joke, or a version of it, was often told by slaves in the upper Southern states in the late 18th and early 19th centuries:

  Knock, knock

  Who’s there?

  Isaiah.

  Isaiah who?

  Isaiah whole lot of niggers tryna escape over the hills, boss. They thin’ you cain’t see they black asses flyin’ through the night, but you can sees they eyes.

  —Hiram Skylark Rollicks, Signifyin’ Revolt: Black Rebellion in the Antebellum South

  • • •

  We drove about the neighborhood for a while, planning escape routes and backup escape routes and backups to those routes in case something went really wrong. I kept saying, I’m not ending up on that fucking tree. Over and over I said it. I’m not ending up on that fucking tree. And when he couldn’t take it any more, Tyrone said, Deez, could you shut the fuck up? Park and let’s do this already.

  The world turned bluish around us as dusk f
ell.

  We choose a big white house that seemed more appropriate on farmland than in this suburb. I knew it was a mistake from the start, but I didn’t say anything. There rose an unbelievable sinking feeling from my stomach through my chest. I wanted to tell Tyrone to turn around, but how would that look?

  He called knock-duty, and I would be the trusty lookout. I crouched at the concrete path that led to the door like a track star and faced the street.

  I heard the banging behind me, Cross Riverian war drums followed by the rapid dinging of the bell. I shot off, the decoy preceding the greyhound. Somehow I must have gotten confused; I took one of the backup routes. And when I tried to double back, I saw the darkened shadows of people roused out of their evening routines by our mischief. They dashed after Tyrone, a mob in pursuit. I continued along the backup escape route, a true failure as a lookout.

  I ran along yards and through playgrounds and backyards. I ran and I gasped, my heart beating in my throat and my ears. I imagined my friend at the hanging tree, a nigger knocker dying for Nigger Knocks, just like our ancestors.

  I made it to the car and circled the community for a half hour searching for Tyrone, calling his phone to get only his voice mail. Our victim’s neighbors peered angrily into my car as I passed them. I heard some yelling and cursing. Somewhere dogs barked. I must have circled the same streets and the same madly searching people two or three times.

  Finally, I came upon Tyrone James walking nonchalantly in front of a school. I flashed my headlights frantically.

  What the fuck, Deez? Tyrone called, as he snatched my door open. How you just gon—

  I could be saying the same thing, jack; I thought you were right behind me, I said, lying to my friend. I took a backup route. You didn’t see that the main route wasn’t clear?

  Fuck you, Deez. You got to communicate. Them fucking crackers was a stutter-step away from catching me. Tyrone sighed. That shit was exhilarating, though.

  I bet.

  I knocked on a few more doors after I shook them too.

  Man, Tyrone, that’s reckless as shit.

  Tyrone smiled, pulled out a pencil stub and a little green notebook, and he took notes silently all the way home.

  • • •

  This craftily designed joke is packed with information, telling a runaway slave who to rendezvous with (Isaiah, a code name, no doubt); the path to freedom (over the hills); how fast to travel (fly, boy, fly); when to leave (at night); even the punishment for getting caught (a seizure of the eyes).

  —Hiram Skylark Rollicks, Signifyin’ Revolt: Black Rebellion in the Antebellum South

  • • •

  But what ended it all was something that happened on a day we couldn’t go out, a Wednesday. I had to work late and Tyrone said he was meeting with his dissertation advisor, though I think he really went to see Zo. I would finally have the time to sit and write a little something of my own, I thought.

  Easter just passed, and everything from the grass to the buds on the dogwood trees was in the midst of rebirth. As the Days & Times described it, a teenager named Immanuel Richardson—a member of the only black family in the neighborhood—stood outside his house in Port Yooga late one evening ringing the bell for dear life. He had forgotten his keys that morning and asked his mother, Cynthia Richardson, to stay up when he came home from his job at the grocery store. She tried gallantly, but she had worked a full day herself and fell asleep right there on the living room couch. Immanuel could see a bit of her through the window. He looked to his cell phone, but its battery had died on the walk home.

  Annoyed and tired, he placed his backpack on the ground to ease the weight behind him. Almost as soon as he started to bang, Immanuel heard shouting.

  He turned slowly to see five men approaching. He recognized them as his neighbors and his tension eased. Mr. Thomas, Immanuel said. Can I use your—

  Don’t move, kid! Mr. Thomas shouted. He looked at Immanuel with no recognition, even though Immanuel had lived in the neighborhood for each one of his sixteen years. He had played with Mr. Thomas’s kids. Once he washed his neighbors’ cars for extra cash and ended up scratching Mr. Pickering’s pink Pontiac. Now his neighbors watched him with stone eyes. Their faces glowed blue beneath the porchlights. Their mouths grew animated in rage and vulgarity. In the newspaper, the three neighbors who offered a comment—Mr. Pickering among them—said they had never seen Immanuel before.

  Immanuel’s neighbors marched on him, petitioners protesting his existence. Immanuel ran. For his life, Immanuel ran. Left his bag right there on his porch, and Immanuel ran through the streets as the men chased. Help me! he cried. Someone please help me!

  He stopped to knock on doors, but the men were right there at his heels, forcing him each time to abandon that door. His knocks, at some houses, caused more people to come outside and join the mob. Immanuel dipped across lawns, backyards, and through carports.

  It wasn’t long before one of the men caught him with a forearm to the neck. Immanuel’s head hit the concrete. They kicked and punched him as he covered his face. More neighbors arrived, raining more blows. Reading all about it, I wondered if poor Immanuel thought they would take him right to the hanging tree.

  The police, his salvation for the night, showed up well into the beating and arrested him, charging him with attempted robbery, breaking and entering, battery, and criminal mischief. Unfortunately for Immanuel, he needed the hospital far more than he needed the police station and when his mother finally got him into a hospital bed, he was in bad shape indeed.

  Tyrone showed up on my doorstep the day the article was published, holding the paper in his hand, a drained look seizing his sunken eyes and the smirk, for once, gone from his lips.

  This ain’t what was supposed to happen, jack. He shook his head. This wasn’t part of the plan.

  I invited him in and offered him a bottle of Crazy Ninja. We sipped and dashed off theories. Tyrone recognized Immanuel’s house as one he had hit during our night of terror in Port Yooga. Maybe Immanuel Richardson saw us, I told him; perhaps he was among those who gave chase.

  Now you’re just reaching, Deez, Tyrone said. Something we got to face, my nig-nig: this nigga Immanuel took a beating that was meant for us.

  That beating might have happened completely fucking independent of us, Tyrone.

  Tyrone pointed to a sentence in the article quoting Immanuel’s Uncle Carlo: There’s been string of [doorbell ditching] incidents around here lately.

  Well, I said. I mean—look, do you think grown men beating the shit out of a teenager is the appropriate punishment for Nigger Knocks?

  You just don’t want to take any responsibility for any of this.

  I didn’t beat anybody, Tyrone. I just helped you add on to the body of scholarship about this topic, and the shit’s been thrilling. Not to be cold, but this is another chapter. Maybe I can author it.

  Man, Deez. Tyrone stopped, watched me for a beat, and then sighed as if all the exhaustion in the world suddenly tumbled down upon him. I see I can’t talk to you about this. At least not now. He downed nearly half a bottle of that Crazy Ninja piss in one long gulp. I’ll catch you later when you’ve had time to really think and shit. Peace, man.

  Tyrone returned nearly every night, and some nights, sitting on my couch, he would drink so much that I would have to carry him to my car and drive him to his parents’ basement on the Northside where he lived.

  He rarely mentioned his dissertation anymore, and when he did he made fun of it.

  One evening he suggested the café where Zo worked, and we left my house, as sober as children, to spend the night sipping free tea and eating free pastries. We couldn’t escape Immanuel Richardson, though. Tyrone held the front page of the Days & Times. A picture of the teen standing in front of his house splashed itself across the paper. He smiled. Most other images I’d seen of him were bloody and swollen, puffy-faced. In the newspaper he’d smile forever. Tyrone passed his hand over the image as if trying
to absorb Immanuel Richardson through his flesh.

  Zo slammed a hot porcelain kettle on our table before pouring the scalding water into our cups. She pointed to the paper. Who do these people think they are?

  It’s crazy, Tyrone said.

  It’s criminal, is what it is, Zo replied. You guys coming out to the protest, right?

  I don’t know if I have six hours to hear Chairman R. speak, I said.

  Hell, yeah, we’re going, Tyrone said to Zo. We have to be out in force. We got to show these people this shit is not acceptable. Right, Deez?

  I’m too old for protests, I replied. I thought I noticed looks of horror on their faces, but I turned away and said, Be safe, Huey; be safe, Angela. I’m gonna protest by nigger knocking all over Port Yooga, that’s how I’m going to protest.

  Why do you keep talking about Nigger Knocks? Zo asked.

  Nigger knocking? Tyrone asked in reply. Everything I do from now on is nigger knocking. A nigga’s knocking over the system that allows shit like this to happ—

  That’s your guilt talking, I replied.

  Why would Tyrone need to feel—

  Hey, Deez, Tyrone said. We gotta get back so I can do some more work on this dissertation.

  He stood, passed a quick kiss across Zo’s cheek, and nearly stomped from the restaurant. I followed, waving to Zo on the way out.

  When we got to the sidewalk, he removed a bottle of Crazy Ninja from his jacket pocket and took his first sip of the night.

  Look, Darius, he said. Never mention that nigger knocking shit in front of Zo, man.

  She doesn’t know that we—

  No. How the fuck do you explain something like that? She’s so passionate about getting justice for Immanuel. How do I explain that it’s our fault that boy got beat, huh?

  Easy, I said. You don’t explain it, because it wasn’t our fault. You want to protest? Let’s organize a massive game of Nigger Knocks all around Immanuel Richardson’s neighborhood. That’s like two chapters right there. Let me author them. At least let’s you and me go back to knocking.