A Chorus Rises Page 17

  I wonder if her research has revealed the Ancestors to the professor. If she’s tried to get in touch with nonlocal Eloko the way she tried to get in touch with me. And if she has, I wonder whether they’ve known about the wind all along.

  And—if she does know about it—why doesn’t she think it constitutes magic?

  Never Left PDX Naema wouldn’t even be able to focus on these questions after that whole NyNative Saw Priam With Someone Else bombshell last night, that’s the first thing. There’s this extensive bandwidth I didn’t know I was missing before I came down here. If that’s not evidence of the magical and potentially medicinal qualities of the Ancestors, I don’t know what is.

  That being said, I do want to know the deal with Priam. So despite the fact that I didn’t text Jamie last night about it, now I type a few practice messages that I also immediately delete. Things like, “Hey, did you and the boys hang out on Burnside recently?” and “What’s Priam been up to lately?” Neither of which sound anything like me, so I just cut to the chase.

  Is Priam hanging out with someone new?

  Send.

  Immediate dots. Good ole Jamie.

  Like, dating hang out? God no, why would you even think that.

  See, what I love about Jamie is that despite her recent pouting, she doesn’t require pretense. There’s no need for buildup, no reason to ease into it with halfhearted salutations or small talk, or even give her context. Question, answer. Done.

  But it doesn’t exactly satisfy. And being Jamie, she knows that, too, so the dots begin again before I’ve given a reply.

  Ny, he came back more in love than ever. He said it was like meeting you for the first time all over again.

  Aw.

  I sort of feel like that, too. I write, and then, About me, not Priam. [emoji]

  I smile at the message, and then snort back a laugh when she responds in kind.

  I miss you so much it’s stupid, she says.

  Same, I write back. But I’m having fun down here. I’m on my way to prison as we speak.

  And … that’s fun?! Wait, are you serious? Wtf?

  I roll my eyes, like I’ve ever visited a prison before, or like when Courtney told me about the day’s excursion involving security clearance, I didn’t internally balk. I sort of thought the prevailing notion was that if you get sent to jail, you accept that most folks aren’t gonna visit. I mean, I didn’t get in trouble, why would I go to jail, too. But for some reason, Jamie’s incredulous reaction makes me think it’s more about disbelieving I could possibly know anyone in lockup, or be willing to admit it.

  Anyway. It turns out I do. I mean, technically I don’t, since I have no memory of the last time I saw my cousin Kyrie. He’s in his early twenties, and the son of my Uncle Lorrance, Mommy’s eldest brother. Well, her only brother. Some people think he’s named after their mom, Mary Lorraine, but he’s actually named after their eldest sister, Lorraine, who died in her crib a few months after she was born. Grandma Mary and Grandpa Tobias didn’t have another baby for several years, and when they did, she was glad it was a boy. She thought naming another girl after a dead sister would be troubling, but I guess boy-ifying the name was totes different.

  I know all of this because Uncle Lorrance has just arrived, and as soon as he walked by me to get in the van, the story started bubbling up in my brain, from start to finish, but also somehow all at once. Being Eloko around family is like riding shotgun with the auntie who spikes all her drinks and is very loose with the tea.

  Which, by the way, is Aunt Toni.

  She isn’t actually coming today, but we got the full range of I Must Have Misunderstood The Email Instructions headshaking and I’m Really Trying To Reach Back In My Recollections eye-roaming. Because it turns out, if ever your family reunion involves a day trip to the local prison facility to visit a cousin and you don’t want to go, simply ignore the many informative emails from Aunt Carla Ann explaining the pre-visit application process. It takes up to sixty days, includes a background check, and, it turns out, you can’t just show up the day of because It’s A Family Thing. Not to worry: a gaped mouth, tilted head, and a few exasperated gestures of This Just Isn’t Fair later, and the rented commercial van carrying the rest of us will pull away, leaving you free to carry on with the rest of your day. Though fair warning: ain’t nobody fooled.

  Luckily for me, my parents did the requisite paperwork and paid the fee for all three of us, in case we made it to the reunion this year—which is interesting, since we never do. I didn’t know three months ago that Upside-Down Portland would have me down in the desert, and yet here I sit with about ten others, including Courtney, Aunt Carla Ann, and Uncle Deric. If nothing else, this trip is giving me major ammo against any future Not Babcock Enough slights.

  “I’m gonna get up there on my own, though,” Aunt Toni promises everybody’s backs while they work on getting Great-Gram onto the lift and into place beside me.

  “All right, Toni,” Uncle Deric says without turning to give her his attention. He consistently serves We Have Been In-Laws For What Seems Like Forever around her, and I love it.

  “I mean, they wasn’t gonna let me in anyway,” she carries on, laughing overloud and raising her arm to jangle her half dozen bangles. Consequently, she also ends up jiggling her supersized to-go cup, which actually gets a few people to turn and cast a side-eye her way.

  Coming up behind her, Courtney catches my eye and mouths, Drunk! before taking her by the shoulders and saying, “’Scuse me, Auntie, can I get around you?”

  “You going, Courtney?” Aunt Toni steps to the side, but wraps an arm around her nephew and has to look up at him.

  “Got to. You know I’m down with Kyrie.”

  “Mhm.” There’s a whole lecture in that sound, and in her comedically long sip. Whatever is in that cup tastes very good. “Well, just make sure you don’t go down with Kyrie—”

  “Is this new?”

  “What? The vest?” Aunt Toni takes stock of her own garish ensemble at Courtney’s diplomatic interruption. “Honey, yes, did I not show you this one?”

  “’Cause I know you be going to those trunk shows, Auntie.”

  “I do,” she says, and they laugh. Okay, he’s good.

  “You really do. And it came like this, or you added the crystals?”

  “You know I always gotta doctor it up.” She’s still admiring herself, doing half turns, throwing one leg to the side, forcing Courtney to step back.

  “Okay!”

  “You know.”

  “Go ’head, Auntie.” And then he looks up at me with a ridiculously huge openmouthed grin and thrusts a thumbs-up into the air, none of which Aunt Toni interprets as poking fun at her, and not only because she’s taking long sips again. She makes me seem overly sensitive by comparison, for sure.

  Courtney comes by his masterful charisma naturally, though. While Aunt Carla Ann lets her sister watch Little Bit, nobody in their right mind would get in a car Aunt Toni’s driving. Luckily a few years ago, Aunt Carla Ann—and my mom, apparently—convinced Aunt Toni to get a car service, so not only does she not drive, she feels fancy about it. No fuss, no need for confrontationally direct conversations about a family member’s excessive drinking, I guess.

  Once Great-Gram Lorraine is in place, we leave Aunt Toni on the sidewalk and get on our way. It’s really not a long drive, and I’m not sure why I assumed it would be. I guess prisons aren’t all Alcatraz or Château d’If, separated from the rest of society by a moat of water. This one’s like thirty minutes from where we started, and between eavesdropping on the grown-ups talking about Aunt Toni and laughing with Courtney, I don’t realize that I sort of ghosted on Jamie.

  “You hear that?” Great-Gram Lorraine asks me as we’re pulling into the visitor parking section of the prison compound.

  I look back down at my phone to find that Jamie’s sent several messages. I’m impressed my ninety-one-year-old great-grandmother heard the combination ping and vibration.<
br />
  “Good ear, Great-Gram.”

  “What’s that?”

  Never mind. “We’re here!” I tell her instead, and everyone in the van starts looking out the windows and turning in their seats like we just got to an amusement park instead of a medium-security federal correctional facility.

  “Great-Gram?” I say, and I lean close while we’re looking for parking to accommodate the size of our van. “Can I ask you something about the Ancestors?”

  “Of course,” she almost whispers back.

  Her brown skin is too soft, I can tell by looking at it. It’s beautiful and perfumed with a face lotion she’s been using since she was raising her children, but it’s paper thin, and she has more freckles than she used to; the delicate black dots are sprinkled under her eyes and across her nose. I’m not always a huge fan of people, but there’s something about the elderly that consistently humbles me. Like the network donna. I can’t help but approach them with what some might call an uncharacteristic reverence—and now that I know about the Ancestors, I’m wondering if that’s part of who I am as an Eloko.

  “It’s just. You said their voices would get more clear?”

  “I said they would if you’re listening.”

  “Right. Does that mean I always have to agree?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. I mean. When she answers, it’s like she didn’t hear my question.

  “Everybody started to think Eloko are good at speaking, because you’re charming and all. But it was oracles who were good at speaking. Eloko are supposed to be good at listening.”

  It feels like anything I say in response to that would be wrong, so I just nod and know that I’m gonna meditate on her words whether I want to or not. Try to fit it into some sort of direct response to my question. Figure out if Great-Gram is a master of old lady burns, and it’s a personal criticism I’m meant to decipher.

  I’m still deep in thought and not entirely paying attention when we’re parked and pile out of the van, and then Courtney pulls me aside.

  “You might as well get comfortable out here,” he tells me. I must look confused, because he says, “We gotta go in shifts,” like that totally clears it up.

  “Who’s gotta go in shifts? Who said?”

  Courtney’s eyes dart around. “The Department of Corrections.”

  “Well, how come?” I ask through a laugh. Thinking about the Ancestors is more distracting than the Ancestors themselves.

  “I don’t know, Sheba! That’s just the rule here. He can’t have more than three visitors at a time, but they’ll let us do four, and we can stay a few more hours, which is good ’cause it means he stays out of his cell all day.”

  “Wait, why will they let us do that?”

  “Becauuuse,” he says, and rolls his eyes for some reason. “He has a visitor from out of state.”

  “So. Since I’m here? We can go in four at a time and we can stay all day?”

  “I know you’re not gonna try and score on this,” he says, tipping his head all the way back so he’s looking down his nose at me.

  “I’m just repeating what you’re telling me, I like to get all the facts straight.”

  “Imma need you to be on your best behavior though today for real.” He’s making prayer hands.

  “I’m giving him full Sheba. The works.” It’s my turn to lift my chin.

  “Please don’t.”

  “I’m giving Pacific Northwest humble brags,” I pop one shoulder, “I’m giving coastal elite foodie demands,” and then the other one.

  “You’re real lucky you’re from out of town, cuzzo. We get to bring outside food. The alternative are these big vending machines and a microwave. You would be disappointed.”

  “I wasn’t do— What do you usually eat?”

  “That!”

  “You think you’re better than me, Courtney? You don’t think Sheba can eat prison vending machine microwave food?”

  “I do not.”

  I scoff, but can’t think of anything else to say before the adults start talking. Apparently Great-Gram Lorraine is going in the first shift, with Uncle Lorrance and a couple others. Another group’ll go in after that, and then Uncle Lorrance, Courtney, Clay, and I will go in, while the bus takes Great-Gram Lorraine and the others home. We’re staying for the duration.

  “So what, we just wait out here in the heat through two shifts?” I ask Courtney quietly.

  “They’re not gonna be in there long, trust.” His face sobers. Usually he looks on the verge of or the tail-end of a laugh, but he’s suddenly surprisingly straight-faced. “Especially coming like this? The pressure’s off, they know he’s gonna have more visitors, and they know I’m gonna stay the whole time. Thirty minutes each. Watch. We’ll be in there in an hour, tops.”

  “Okay … but like, can we keep the van running? Because I don’t think I can make it out here for even an hour. It’s a blacktop parking lot, with some sprigs somebody just decided to plant last week.” I gesture toward the closest sapling. “I can’t.”

  “Who’s gonna ask my dad for the keys? And explain why we need them?”

  “Who has been the savior of this entire affair, Courtney?” I ask, tapping my chin and foot at the same time. “Who—” and I reach out and grab his shirt when he tries to turn away, “who among us has the sway, nay, the gravitas for such a task?”

  “Hey, Court.” And when we both turn, Courtney’s shirt still in my grip, Uncle Deric is jogging back toward us across the heat-reflecting pavement, keys jingling between his fingers. “Hey, man, keep the van running so your cousin doesn’t melt out here, all right?”

  I turn back to face Courtney with my mouth wide open.

  “That ain’t have anything to do with y—”

  “Thank you, Uncle Deric!” I call, making sure my trill twinkles between my words, and Courtney just shakes his head.

  * * *

  By the time the first two shifts are done, it’s just shy of a full hour. I felt so guilty after running the van’s a/c for a mere twenty minutes that Courtney, Clay, and I turned off the ignition and rejoined the others in the heat. Now I’m hustling to get into the facility before the rest of the family has even saddled back up. Except once inside, it’s a game of hurry up and wait.

  “Take off all jewelry, belts, buckles,” the first guard I encounter past the sign-in area is saying. And they don’t appear to be saying it to anyone in particular. Hands behind their backs and eyes crawling up the wall opposite them, they sound like they’ve said this, just like this, for a very long time, and they really cannot be bothered to slow down or wait until they have your attention.

  I turn around in almost two full rotations, looking for written instructions, or a restart button for the guard, but by then Courtney, Clay, and Uncle Lorrance have started disassembling themselves, and clearly not for the first time. I follow suit, removing my bracelets, studs, bobby pins, and placing them in one of the lockers lining the wall.

  Courtney taps my bell, like he doesn’t want to speak out loud.

  “Oh.” I look down, and take my charm between my fingers. “This, too?”

  And he nods, once.

  It’s not a big deal. I’ve worn it sporadically since getting here, but. That was by choice. I’ve also never been in a place like this, and the two things—being in this prison and not wanting to give up my Eloko charm when I’ve been super casual about it as of late—seem related.

  Uncle Lorrance is taking his wedding ring off, and that feels pretty extreme, but he’s putting it in the little tray alongside his wallet and belt like it’s nothing. So obviously a necklace is fair game.

  I unlatch my necklace and put it in the small tray designated to me, the bell clinking against it and then the chain pooling around it protectively. I put my phone next to it and close it all inside the locker for safekeeping, before taking a deep breath. All that matters is that I’m ready to see Cousin Kyrie.

  Except that’s not what happens next. There’s a whole ’nother process, beca
use apparently none of this has been the security check, just sign-in and disrobing. Now I’m directed into another room, and my cousins and uncle continue down the hall past it.

  Wtf is going on.

  My hand is at my collarbone before I remember my charm is gone. Left in the locker for safekeeping, instead of here, where I need it, keeping me safe.

  Because apparently, that’s what it does.

  The room I’m in now is just like the locker room, except there are no storage units. There are two rows of plastic chairs, and the chairs have metal connectors between them. I don’t sit down because I’m not sure what’s supposed to happen in here, and no one followed me inside to explain it to me. The only noise is a truly annoying whirring sound, like a bathroom fan that’s on its last leg. It whirs and then intermittently it whines, and then when it’s good and ready, it goes back to the whirring. It will become unbearable very shortly, I’m quite sure.

  Everything—here, the locker room, the sign-in foyer—is this muted green color, which I think is supposed to be calming, but instead is overbearing in its insistence on being calming. Not to mention that, coupled with the economic seating selections, clearly chosen for function over any potential inhabitant’s comfort, it kinda feels more like a friendly holding cell than a lounge.

  Why am I here?

  How long do I wait for someone to come find me and take me to visitation?

  I wrap my hands around my elbows and hug my arms tight against my abdomen before I figure out I’m shivering. It’s not cold, and it’s not Ancestor breath either, so.

  It’s the noise, honestly. If the noise would stop, I think I’d relax. I keep getting tricked by the transition between the sounds, thinking or hoping it’s going to stop altogether, but it always comes back around.

  I wanna pop my head back out into the hallway and ask what the deal is, but I won’t. I just assume that’s not the desired behavior, and the last thing I want is to be denied visitation, or worse, have my cousins and Uncle Lorrance denied visitation with Kyrie because of me. These visits clearly mean a lot to Courtney. So even when I catch sight of the black orbs clearly concealing cameras on both ends of the room, I don’t react.