As Lie Is to Grin Read online

  “Excuse me?”

  “She is home on Christmas, is she not?”

  As the car continued to move, my body felt removed—my life seemed removed from their lives.

  “No,” I said.

  “Oh, quiet, it will be short,” Rick said.

  Though he had not asked to be welcomed into my home, he assumed his right to go there. I was upset by his words, but more so by my lie, which had caused this sequence of passive-aggressive actions that they hoped would lead to my mother. I knew there would be no resolution. The building I pretended to live in had not been reconstructed yet. I had to stop the trip before Melody found out I was a fraud. We got out on 130th Street and Adam Clayton Powell, three blocks from the apartment building where I had said I lived. Melody hustled in front of her father, opening the door for us. I ascended the stairs with a black garbage bag in my left hand that was filled with toys. He knocked on apartment 3c, declaring again, “This is good, isn’t it?” Heat rose to my nostrils. Rick turned to look at me and, briefly, terror disrupted his face. I tried to calm down by staring at different objects in the hallway. There were radiators with chipped copper paint. There were yuletides and quotes of beatitude, little Jesuses with glowing red hearts, blessed Marys in pure white cloth. Melody’s words about Rick, Rick’s words about his father and the city’s class structure, stared at me through the center of the yuletide on the door in front of us. I inhaled from the base of my nostrils. The mucus left my mouth and landed on the right side of her father’s lip. I ran down the two flights of stairs, Melody’s footsteps sounding behind me. A solitary wind gust swept up the avenue.

  I looked back to 131st Street. “What’s wrong with you?” Melody mouthed. I continued toward the station, but she did as well, so I had to sprint to 145th Street. I took the A twelve stops to Hoyt-Schermerhorn, transferring to the C train going east two stops to Clinton-Washington. I got out on the wrong side of the street, passed the bar that resembled a drugstore, and crossed at St. James Place. The block was quiet. I tapped once on the brick and took the key out.

  december 7, 2010

  I was thinking about retracing my footsteps from that day in November, when I had last seen the man in the gray suit. I reached the bench in front of the sign that read “Salmon Hole” again, and began to walk uphill. The wind blew in the other direction, as particles of frozen water got underneath my hood, turning to liquid droplets from the warmth, dripping down. They froze on my face. I passed the graveyard, the Medical Building, and the undergraduate dorms on Trinity Campus, keeping my eyes on the sky. Airplanes sounded above, though I could not see them; buses and cars hummed by. The cold isolated each tone so that the sounds of the world were bound and unobtrusive. To my right there was a purple house with pink polka dots, which had CUT CONSUMPTION NOT FORESKINS written across it in large white letters. As I reached the corner of Prospect Street, where North turns to South, I walked toward the entrance of Ira Allen Chapel, again. I stood in front of two large wooden doors, glancing up at the lamp by the entrance. The doors were locked. I looked down at the phone.

  Ira Allen was the founder of the University of Vermont, though he had been removed from the founding narrative for close to a century. He had been unable to pay the money he’d pledged to the Vermont legislature for the school he had helped to charter, so he traveled to France (1795) to raise funds. His strategy was to arm Vermonters and Canadians with ten thousand guns from the French Directory and secede from the United States. He would then create “United Columbia,” and use his position in the new government to pay down his debts. The French agreed. Allen boarded a ship with the arms, but as his boat left French waters for America, it was stopped and detained by Great Britain. By direction of the newly formed United States government, the British imprisoned Ira for three years. When he was deported back to Vermont, he was arrested again and put in debtor’s prison. Once back in his home state Ira escaped from jail, disgraced and homeless.

  In 1809, he appeared in the diary of a North Texas man fighting for Mexican independence. Though Ira was an ineffective soldier—his joints would seize in pain, sending him into spastic fits—he could not return home because he remained a fugitive in Vermont. On January 15, 1814, the university’s founder passed away in Philadelphia and was interred in a pauper’s grave. Had it not been for the oration of the Latin professor John Goodrich (1892), Ira Allen might never have been memorialized at the university. Though the story had interested me, it did not connect to the man in the gray suit, so I closed the Internet browser and continued past Old Mill and the Royall Tyler Theatre—where I could just make out the light blue water tower that hovered above campus to the east.

  Me: I still want to speak to you. David. 8:15 p.m.

  I slid the key into the dorm room door, and no one greeted me. I put my backpack down, went over to the tan dresser, and looked out the window. From that vantage point, I counted heads almost all evening—every student I saw leave returned about every hour and a half. I thought about going down to the Rib Shack, but my time with Mark felt over for now. I wanted to lie down and stay that way until the morning washed over me again.

  december 8, 2010

  When I woke, the orange container stood on my desk, menacing. I had taken a pill the morning before, and was suffering that same indecision I felt then, before swallowing another. I walked into the atrium of my dorm and went to the front desk to get my mail. I picked through the letters from the school disciplinary committee, the statements from Wells Fargo, and the other two, from a branch of the U.S. Department of Education, but did not find anything from Doris. I put the letters in my backpack and walked to see Amelia at the Student Health Center’s offices.

  “How’s your mother?”

  “Fine.”

  “Is she still struggling with addiction?”

  “No, that was just the lie I’d told Melody.”

  “Have you told her the truth?”

  “The truth?”

  “That you are not who you said you were?” It was becoming apparent that this session would lead to others, and I would develop the belief that my mental health was dependent on her counsel.

  “I did it over break,” I lied.

  “How did Melody react?”

  “She wasn’t happy.”

  “But how did she react?”

  “She didn’t believe that Doris was my mother.”

  “Where were you? How did you say it? Give me the details.”

  “We were in the safe house; I remember that.”

  “If this happened over Thanksgiving break you shouldn’t have trouble remembering the events.” I was beginning to believe this school was holding a little file on me that would become a public record. I didn’t want to talk about it. We moved on. “Have you written anything since the last time we spoke?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too painful to make sense of.”

  “What is it?”

  “Life.”

  “Maybe you should try to write in the present tense.”

  “I’ve tried to switch tense before—”

  “No, like, write about now.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “The monotony of life doesn’t allow me to think critically about the present.”

  “Have you tried the ALANA house?”

  “No.”

  “You should go to their Friday brunch. It might be good for you. How have the antidepressants been working?”

  “I don’t notice a difference yet.”

  “Let me know on the next visit if there are still no changes.” I agreed and then walked back to the dorm.

  Snowflakes fell behind the glass entrance. I began to remember again how I had left Melody on that day in Harlem, in the cold, so I tried to send her a message, but the phone service had been cut off. I sat down
at a booth in the atrium of my dorm, which was connected to a hallway that led from Amelia’s office. In the seat next to me, there was a newspaper dated November 30, 2010. I began reading about the implementation of the Transdisciplinary Research Initiative (TRI), which was not popular among professors who did not work in fields that could be described as complex systems, food systems, neuroscience, or behavior and health. I brought the paper back upstairs, unlocked the door, and placed it on the bed before riffling through the different issues of The Cynic, volume 127, that I had collected in my room. September 14, 2010, was underneath Gary’s old bed, so I skimmed through it, remembering most articles, like “Future of Centennial Questioned.” I looked at volume 127, issue 5, noticing a piece about the president’s search for a new provost that dominated the front page. At the bottom left corner of page 4 there was an advertisement for People’s United Bank. To the right of this ad was the article entitled “Professors Comment on the History of Kake Walks.” It continued: “Kake Walks and Dance Competitions: Race and Performance in American Popular Culture . . . the final event marking the launch of the Center for Digital Initiatives’ new digital collection ‘Kake Walk at UVM’ took place Oct. 4 in Royall Tyler Theatre.” I read on: “This addresses the race issue and allows for a serious study of race that can help us to understand ‘whiteness,’ Gennari said.” I put down the paper, pacing, then put my jacket on and walked to the library.

  I pointed the mouse at >>click here for kake walk<<, which directed me to the college’s sponsored page. I began searching through the images tab of the Digital Collection to see if I could find Rick’s father, but I did not. The pictures were making me upset, so I thought to look through the Cynic archive, beginning with the year on the picture Melody had shown me, 1954. It was the same year that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling rejected segregation. I typed “Kake Walk University of Vermont 1954” into the library’s computer. I clicked on the annual magazine (February 1954) the school sent around as a recap of the weekend’s events. The cover page featured two white men in pink suits, with their hands in the air and black paint strategically masking their faces—except around their eyes and mouths, which were painted white for contrast. I clicked to the second page and in the left column an ad read, “Look at the Front Page again, look at the black face, this is the tradition that we want to see ended!” Right next to this ad was an article that stated, “Two Months of Speculation Went into Selecting Newspaper’s Front Page.” I looked inside that section for some continuation, perhaps, some initiation of the debate about blackface; instead, the article focused on the difficulties of printing in color. I searched the pages for more dissent, finding “Psychology Prof. Finds Numerous Motives Behind Kakewalk Affair . . . Some consider what goes on at Kake Walk a sign of immaturity, emotionality, and irresponsibility, while others—more tolerant—view it as merely an aspect of the general social life at college with a let-them-have-fun-while-they-may attitude.” I realized the second-page ad was what the archive had meant by “the beginning of student dissent.” It was evident the alumni and administration either had no idea a Kake Walk was the end of the minstrel show’s second act, or they had no desire to recognize their tradition as such. There was a letter to the editor postmarked “Dixie” from a small town in Florida. “The U.S. census shows Vermont has 519 negroes. 519! We have 880,000 of these Africans in our state. If it were not for Ed Sullivan, those Vermont syrup people would never have seen a Negro.” I went through all the magazines, reading for signs of dissent until “The 1964 Kake Walk Ushers in a New Look for Walkers,” sure there would be change in the year that the Civil Rights Act had been passed. When I saw the pictures in black-and-white print, the men still appeared to be in blackface. On page 5, the university president addressed the student body: “After extended deliberation, the interfraternity council and its constituent fraternities have decided that blackface shall be replaced by green face, and the kinky hair wigs shall be retired, although it was never meant to be offensive.”

  “Excuse me, sir?” I turned in my seat. “The library is closed.”

  I looked at the man in front of me, who had suffered a disfigurement of the spine. I apologized and left briskly, though I had not found what I was searching for.

  december 9, 2010

  “How have you been?” Dr. Hume inquired.

  “I haven’t refilled the prescription.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m embarrassed to go to the pharmacy.”

  He touched the place where his heart would be on his lab coat. I thought for sure he was mocking me until he rested that hand on my shoulder.

  “No one is saying this is forever. Just for now.”

  “Maybe they aren’t for me.”

  He rifled through his pocket, searching for a pen. “Are you having suicidal thoughts?”

  “No.”

  “Have you increased or decreased your drug intake?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Illicit drugs?”

  “About the same. Less, possibly.”

  “It’s not an ideal solution for everyone, but they have been proven to work. Let us just restart on the twenty and up it to thirty in a month. It seems like the trial worked. No changes in mood, correct?”

  “I don’t dream anymore.”

  “Everyone dreams.”

  “I don’t remember my dreams.”

  “That’s fine. I’m sure your dreams will return.” He paused. “But tell me if they don’t.” I plodded upstairs, stopping next to an ax encased in glass before exiting the building. I did not want to refill my prescription. Outside, the temperature was well below freezing. There were not many students around. In between South Prospect and University Place, I walked by a blond girl with sharp features who was laughing with a friend. She glanced at me, then continued to giggle. It made me think of the connection between eugenics, the College of Medicine, and me. I could not help but feel I was being aided down some long and winding path that would result in my ritual sterilization.

  I typed “1969” into the browser on the library’s computer, knowing it was the last year the school sponsored the Kake Walk. I began scanning through each article in the February magazine that was solely devoted to the Kake Walk. There was no outright denunciation. There was no inflamed critic taking a scythe to the documents, exposing wrongdoing by members of the administration or student body, just muted pieces such as “Pops Night—a Success?” or “Arena Theater to Present Antigone.” The journalists barely mention this momentous change in the school’s history. I went back and forth, rereading Xerox’s ad, “Equal opportunity employer (m/f),” and others like it. Near page 17, there was an article that revealed the results of a poll detailing whether the student body wanted to end the Kake Walk weekend. Sixty-six percent said they did not. Toward the end of the paper, I read, “Black Literature Course to Be Offered . . . The English Department has announced it will offer a course in American Negro Literature in the Fall,” and was reminded of Jean Toomer’s Cane. I sat at the window, envisioning the time before 1969 when there were fewer than a thousand copies of the novel in circulation. Jean Toomer had not published a word since 1950. He died in obscurity in 1967, three months before Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage—two years before Harper’s would republish his work. The company had capitalized on two things: the need for the university system to validate “legitimate” black expression, and a growing college marketplace (student population ca. 1923—947,000; ca. 1970—8,500,000) to consume it. How do you legitimize a human construct? First, it had to be separated. But what is the impact of separating American Negro literature from American literature? The history of Toomer spoke against this binary, but that was not significant. His work endured as a symbol, representing a movement he did not want to be identified with.

  I found Cane on the second floor and took it from the shelf. The cove
r bore the profile of a boy’s face without an ear. Inside this outline, there were three black planters in the southern sun, each wearing a straw hat. This was Harper’s 1969 iteration. I sat back down at the public computers, leafing through the chapters, stopping nowhere in particular. I turned to the story “Theater” to read about Dorris, as I had usually done, and the previous owner or loaner of the book had written “Write!” in the margin. I focused on this note, then closed the book. Though I expected these thoughts to lead me to an epiphany, I was soon disappointed. Still no man in the gray suit. I left the library, finding there were other students outside. It was cold, so most people had pulled their hoods tight around their faces. Looking at my peers, I could not discern individual features, just white faces that were a combination of faces I had seen before. As I continued passing by the campus buildings, with their European façades, I noticed that every single person grinned at me. Smiled, mocking, as if I were on the receiving end of some long and deliberate joke. I tried to distinguish each individual as they passed but was overwhelmed by the similarities. The school and students were defined by one contiguous style, I thought. Whiteness. The architect: colonial amnesia.

  My dorm window looked out upon a freshman green. There were pizza boxes and dirty socks around the room. I remembered the mess that was my life. Outside, a young man wearing a tan duffle coat strolled with a young woman in a brown jacket. He was laughing, tilting his head so that the light caught the golden strands in his hair. She leaned into him; they pecked, then separated. Three branches and a green frame, which cut the window into ten panels, impeded the view. At that moment a bluebird, from seasons past, arrived from thin air and perched on the third, the least strong, branch. I peeked over the covers at my notebook in the wastebasket. As I craned my neck to look out the window again, the sun had already fallen well below the horizon. I walked across campus to Jeffords Hall, where I could follow the path indoors through Stafford Hall and the health-and-science research facility. I walked through rooms, finding silent technicians in different stages of experimentation. They looked surprised when I appeared but, recognizing me as a fellow student, immediately went back to work as if I had not interrupted. The lack of security seemed odd, but for whom, against whom, I thought, continuing into the atrium of the Given Medical Building. I stopped and turned to my left. There was a wall of medical school graduation pictures. Every student had been photographed since the beginning of the twentieth century. The black frames stretched up two stories and the pictures at the top faded from view. I walked backward until I could see each face. From the left side of the wall, the images were marked by the year of graduation and the name. I followed the years as they rose—’12, ’13 . . . ’18 . . . ’22, until I got to ’55. Once there, I scanned each of the photos: ’55 Dylan West, ’55 Perry Stephens, ’55 Kyle Munch, ’55 Richard Murzynowics. I was entranced. His hair was parted on the left, and it waved over to the right. His eyes were close to the bridge of his nose. I looked at the photo for a while, calling to mind the other image of him that I had seen. I searched Richard’s expression for anger, for something beneath the surface, but staring back at me was a college student from the 1950s who didn’t much resemble Melody’s father. I imagined him walking to Simpson Hall, waiting at the front desk for his Kake Walk date. I saw him sleeping in the bedroom of 282 South Prospect Street, where I had the first vision of the man in the gray suit. I envisioned Richard passing Ira Allen Chapel, then Billings Library, into the center of campus, looking up to Converse Hall, feeling he had achieved some great act of survival, not realizing it would eat at him, in small bites, for the rest of his days. In a way, I had come to the school to discover this same truth, though it was something I had already known. I looked down and suffered feelings of loneliness. I saw an image of myself. It was hitting its head against a wall, in the same manner, over and over again. My emotions left me wanting company, so I descended the hill toward the lake, turned north on Willard Street, and walked into the Rib Shack, where there were two handles of whiskey on the table.