The man reached up—his chains clanging—and stroked his beard, waiting for Derek to acknowledge him. He made a sound—a combination of the clearing of a throat and a laugh.
I saw Derek, slowly, unwillingly, lift his head to meet the man’s unyielding glare.
The man’s lips drew in from his perpetual snicker to a tight point in the middle of his mouth. There was a sharp intake of air as—in both contempt and domination, in both incitement and provocation—he blew Derek a kiss.
The guard yanked harder at the man’s chains. “Move it!” he yelled.
The giant kept his eyes on Derek for one moment longer, then allowed himself to be steered away, his laughter fading with each step he took away from our table.
Derek said nothing for a time. The chains allowed enough slack for him to rub a long, furrowed line over his brow. He closed his eyes and did not say what was so apparent: that Derek knew—as did I—just what it is like to live among demons. To be played with, unwillingly, like a child holding a magnifying glass over an ant. Or one burying a comb deep in a backyard, underneath a magnolia.
If I had the power to break a man, break him I had. Not a soul, not even Derek, deserved that kind of damnation. And from my hand. I felt utterly ashamed.
After what felt like a lifetime, Derek said, his eyes still closed, “It’s just real nice you came, cuz. Real nice.”
* * *
—
The drive back with Mya took longer than we’d planned.
First, when I left the visitors’ center, I found that Mya had killed the Shelby’s battery listening to K97. When the ignition would not catch, no matter how hard I threw the clutch, I clenched my fist and pounded the car horn in utter frustration.
That goddamned comb. What the fuck had I done? I had gotten the revenge I had waited my entire life for, and yet, I was disgusted with myself. Had I done this? Created this evil? Lord only knew. And I prayed He would forgive me. Because no matter what Derek had done to me, to others, to Memphis, that nigga’s trauma could never heal mine.
I cursed under my breath, then crossed myself. And then, I did what I had to do, what I knew I could do. I kicked open the door, climbed out, popped the trunk, then the hood, and thrust my arms deep into the entrails of that ancient car and fixed it myself.
Once we got back on the road, scattered thunderstorms forced me to steer the Shelby to an underpass and wait it out. We sat for fifteen minutes as hail and sheets of thick rain barreled down around us. The storm got so bad, the radio went out. Sinatra’s voice dissolved to static. I shut the radio off.
The roar of the storm was overwhelming in the silence of the car.
Mya cast sidelong glances at me. She bit her lip the way Mama did when she was deep in thought.
“You weren’t even alive,” I said, finally. “When it happened. Mama was pregnant with you. Daddy was training somewhere, so Mama and I came down to Memphis so she could have you.”
Mya brought her knees up to her chest, rested her head there, and her eyes never left mine as I told her what I could remember. Looking up at the quilts from the floor of the room. How carpet can hurt like hell when a body twists against it with the sharpness of the pain. How I had felt it everywhere. Everywhere. Like electricity going through my body. Like I had been struck by lightning. How I didn’t know if I would die from what Derek was doing to me or from choking on the pain of it. How he had held me down. How he had held his palm over my mouth to muffle my screams.
When I finished, despite all my efforts, I was crying.
“I’m glad I wasn’t allowed in,” Mya said, wiping a stray tear that slid down her face. “I would’ve gone for that nigga’s throat.”
“You don’t understand,” I said.