Hermes's Den

I remember seeing my birth under the glare of bright lights. My mother screamed that day, her howls reaching out to the moon, pleading for it to tear itself down, down, down to earth in an explosion of pale light. My cries were the only response she got that day, but they were enough. They and I were more than enough. The doctor’s office was stark and barren, nothing more than what was necessary and could be afforded for a hospital in 1948. The baby boom was eating up supplies at that time. Even if there was a surplus, they’d debate over why on Earth should it be used on a Black woman and whatever bastard she was bringing into the world before doing it. The air was cold and harsh on my tender skin. I had never known anything like it, and this was the first death I experienced. Autumn is meant for trees to die, slowly or quickly, however it can be accomplished. Shame on me for falling with the leaves. It was never my intention to die. 

I remember seeing my childhood shrouded in white starched shirts. My mother raised me as her grandmother raised her. Prim and proper. Straight as an arrow. A church goer, holy and pious. I was a choirboy, my lips dripping with searing love songs to the Lord Jesus Christ. My hands would find reverent fascination in the sensuously soft satin of my robes. The violet fabric was so contradictory to my shirt underneath. My voice calling out to heaven from the alter deeply inverted how I was taught to silently whisper from the pews. The Lord’s glory sunk into my eyes, drawing all but tears of blood from me. The beauty of a glowing afterlife in the shade of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would make all of my suffering worth it. My passivity was cloaked in a divine shroud and marked me of the holy order of those who would lift no sword. I bore the spit and scorn knowing that God and Jesus were with me, carefully weighing my struggles and only making them as heavy as I could bear. My death would easy for me to bear, closer to the release of everything I had been holding. This was my second death, one smoky with sweet incense and ringing with holy songs of my protectors.

I remember seeing my adolescence sunken in yellowing pages. The sunlight was pale and warm on my skin on the day I met Julius, the wide- and wild-eyed son of a doctor. I had been searching desperately for a copy of some long-forgotten book that his father happened to have. It was that afternoon, the one in his father’s study, that I had my first experience with friendship. Next to copies of dictionaries and anatomy books, half met half and we matched too well to not make a whole. Our conversations grew hurried, breath short to outpace and meet the other’s comments. His rosewood lips held a silver tongue that knew exactly how to get under my skin in the best way possible, irritating, and not disturbing. Agitating enough to make single statements emerge as bright pearls but never enough for them to come out as barbed points. Against his sheets, I learned how well he and I could articulate our thoughts by way of action and sighs. My vision would turn white as I saw the light of a new lord and then collapse into the blackness of guilt. This shame would only last so long. I would return again and again to breathe him in like my first spark of life and sigh out every little death that followed.

I remember seeing my late teen years in the brown polished surface of wood. Working at a hardware store made me reek of pine scented cleaners and toxically heavy varnishes. Here, my attention only went as far as it needed to to get a paycheck. I would simper “yes, sir, no, sir, right away, sir,” as I needed, never giving more of myself to these men fixing walls and building treehouses. My money would vanish into weekend train rides to New York. For two days Julius and I would resume where we left off when I last had to leave him at the mercy of Columbia. We would trapeze drunkenly through the streets, hearing poets call up to our heavenly father and demand he come down and show him how mighty he truly is. My discomfort would evaporate as Julius took the stage and whispered what bit of sense he could spin out of our unintelligible cries. I became known to the throng of Harlem’s artists as Peace, the figure Julius would mount and marry, ride to Washington, and tear down the White House by hand if need be. He would string Johnson up by his toes until we were out of Vietnam and cry Peace! Peace! Peace! all night long. In his dorm, it would be Oliver he would call instead. Quietly enough that no one would hear, loud enough that I would remember. In every one of these deaths and lives, I would become more and more myself and something completely foreign. 

I remember seeing my youth wither away in a haze of fatigues. My number was called before poets acted and so I went to boot camp before deployment. I was taught to kill against my nature, against my Lord, and my first victim was Oliver, who was replaced with Cadet Rey. Cadet Rey would train, and train, and train, but stay skinny as bone. Underdeveloped, according to doctors, but ready for war, according to Uncle Sam. At night Cadet Rey would scribble chaste letters to Julius, resurrecting Oliver to enough to capitalizing random letters until Julius stopped direct denouncement of the war and participation. “This is a drummed-up war and you don’t belong there” became “Looks like it’ll be taking us a bit longer than anticipated to drive out to Big Sur.” Cadet Rey would smirk at this, but I would swallow sobs when the ink smudged and the paper warped due to tears. He and I wept over the same tragedy from different perspectives. 

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