Now that you old everyone sorry for you. But I remember you when you was young and the cyaar man-dem used to draw up a de gate and everybody used to look and point behind your back when you walk past the standpipe in your tight-up dress—which you still used to wear when your ass and your belly start exchanging places.

And being the youngest—remember, you had me at forty-five—I grew up hearing that my sisters, most of whom had left the house by then, was just like you: some white-liver, fucky-fucky coolie gyal. Which is why I used to spend so much time with Fire’s old man although him was a faggot. But a faggot better than a whore. Faggots fuck a lot but at least they doan breed.

Mama, you doan know how it feel to walk past a bar and hear a man bawl out, “Bwai, call me ‘Mister’ cause ah coulda be yuh faada.”

Now you talking about Jesus and Jerusalem. It easy to turn Christian, eeh? Now that you old and nobody doan want you. Why now, Mama, and not then?

He heard Margaret’s key in the front door. He checked his TAG. It was four-fifteen. She’d called a half hour before to say she was leaving. In his mind he followed her from her house to his.

She lived about six blocks away, on South Elliot Avenue, but the six blocks could have easily been sixty miles. Fort Greene Park, a rolling green with tennis courts and a jogging trail, sits between DeKalb and Myrtle Avenues, not so much as a barrier but as a sieve, leaching the rehabbed brownstones and shade trees from the streets that enter it from the south. From DeKalb south to Atlantic, Fort Greene is a historic district of boutiques and cafés. It’s the manger of African America’s future—the home of acclaimed and emerging figures in music, fine art, and literature. Filmmakers. Architects. Choreographers. And fast-moving corporate executives. Beyond the park, though, is Myrtle Avenue, and the Fort Greene projects, acres of low-rise boxes like a jumbo pack of roach motels; and incorporated storefront Pentecostal churches; and bulletproof Chinese take-out joints; and liquor stores that cash welfare checks; and teenage boys who will enter manhood with the burden of children; and young girls pushing strollers when they should be pushing for a promotion.

The Navy Yard, where Ian was waiting, was north of Myrtle,north of the elevated BQE, north of the Brooklyn Correctional Facility, on the northern edge of Fort Greene, on the southern bank of the East River.

The Navy Yard, which was now an asbestos-ridden commercial park, did not allow tenants to live there. But Ian had converted some space into a residence. He needed somewhere to live. And the rent was cheap.

He showed Margaret the letter when she arrived. She sat on the bed. Her hair was pulled away from her face and tied in a knot above her head, a style that drew attention to her eyes. They were dark with thick lashes whose shadows gave the effect of kohl. She was wearing a velvet shirt that he’d given to Phil. She hadn’t wanted it when it was his, Ian noted. Brown didn’t suit her, she’d said.