Because . . .

BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT, SUCH A TERRIBLE thing there came to be They did not do that terrible thing.

Because It can’t be possible there came to be It is not possible. Was not possible.

Because They wouldn’t lie to us there came to be They did not lie to us. Our sons.

Through the floorboards you heard. Through the furnace vent you heard. Amid the rattling of the ventilator. Through shut doors you heard, and through those walls in the house that for some reason were not so solid as others, stuffed with a cottony sort of insulation that, glimpsed just once, as a wall was being repaired, shocked you looking so like a human lung, upright, vertical.

Like a TV in another room, volume turned low. Daddy’s voice dominant. Mom’s voice much fainter. A pleading voice, a whining voice, a fearful voice, for Daddy hated whining, whiners. Your brothers knew better than to piss and whine. Shouting, cursing one another, shoving one another down the stairs, overturning a table in the hall, sending crockery shattering onto the kitchen floor—such behavior was preferable to despicable whining which Daddy associated with women, girls. Babies.

And so, your mother did not dare speak at length. Whatever she said, or did not say, your father would talk over, his voice restless and careening like a bulldozer out of control. Was he rehearsing with her—You could say they were home early that night. By ten o’clock. You remember because . . .

They would choose a TV program. Something your brothers might’ve watched. Better yet: sports. Maybe there’d been a football game broadcast that night . . . On HBO, a boxing match.

Jerome I don’t think that I—don’t think that I can . . .

Look. They aren’t lying to us—I’m sure. But it might look like they are lying, to other people. Sons of bitches in this town they’d like nothing better than to fuck up decent white kids.

Don’t make me, Jerome . . . I don’t think that I, I can . . .

You can! God damn it, they might’ve been home—might’ve watched the fucking TV. Or you might remember it that way and even if you were wrong it could help them.

None of this you heard. None of this you remember.

The Rescue

BY CHANCE YOU SAW.

So much had become chance in your life.

Headlights turning into the driveway, in the dark. Your father’s car braking in front of the garage.

By chance you were walking in the upstairs hall. Cast your eyes down, through the filmy curtains seeing the car turn in from the street. Already it was late. He’d missed supper. Past 9:00 P.M. No one asked any longer—Where’s Daddy?