Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins (read any book .TXT) 📕

proof of how much had been taken away from her body, and if she was not careful, she could easily fool herself into believing that these procedures never happened. They all transpired like fever dreams anyway: dim lighting, Maman and Josephine and maybe Landon around her, her lying down on some cool sheet, maybe new age music playing softly in the background. Maybe none of this was real. But something about them had to be real, or else the rest of Harlem would not have hated them so much.

Why hadn’t she refused to cut Iris? Why couldn’t she have just told Maman no and gone upstairs? She soon realized that she was just as afraid of Maman as Josephine was and that they were two peas in a pod—pathetic. But she was not like Josephine. If she were a mother, she would not speak of abandoning her family that nonchalantly. Either Hallow never fully existed in Josephine’s private thoughts or there was a much deeper reason for their metastasizing unfamiliarity with each other.

The legs of a bed dragging across the floor produced a screeching sound from the ceiling. Hallow supposed that their heartfelt conversation had been the foreplay for this moment. She crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her tongue around the inside of her mouth before standing up. Her frustration had to be released in some kind of way, and there was no remedy where she sat. As she was growing up and becoming more aware of consequences, there was hesitation to rebel and strike out. But there was no one else who might have a smidgen of an understanding of what she was going through besides Iris. The pariah is always the one who can give the best details of what’s going on, because it’s from a distance that everything becomes clear.

She crept down the staircase to the basement and heard how busy Iris was through her animated talking and the constant shuffling of items.

“Yes, yes, yes, what do you want? What do you want?” Iris asked in response to a knock on the door.

“Aunt Iris? It’s Hallow. Are you busy?”

“Obviously. What do you want?”

Hallow pushed back the door and saw Iris walking around in circles and waving a blunt over her head. The lingering smoke added an element of theatricality to Iris’s mutterings, and it was through the clouds and the eventual shapes they made in the air that Hallow deduced Iris had never been talking to her in the first place.

“I-I-Is it okay if I s-s-stay with you for a little b-b-bit?” Hallow stammered.

Iris twirled around and jerked her neck backward. “It’s late—leave me alone.”

“But you said—”

“Not you, child. I’m just—go ahead. Just give me a moment.” Iris took a deep breath and said, “Okay. I think they’ve quieted. What’s going on?”

“I can’t sleep. Landon’s here.”

“Oh.” Iris scoffed and sat down at her desk. “Say no more. I don’t want a visual of that. Move those books and crap if you want to sit down.”

Hallow quickly pushed them off onto the floor and sat down opposite her.

“You know . . .” Iris cracked her neck and cleared her throat. “Stop it. Stop it. I’m speaking to my niece. I know you been here. Well, you’re just gonna have to wait. There’s a long queue. Now . . .” Iris took another pull on the blunt, spread her knees apart, and leaned forward. “You know you’re not supposed to be down here, little girl. Unless you’re looking for trouble.”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for, Aunt Iris.”

Iris could see the tears welling up in Hallow’s eyes and sighed. “Aw, shit, girl.” She moved her right hand with the blunt between her fingers toward Hallow’s chest. “You want some?”

“I thought I’m not supposed to have any of this.”

“You’re not supposed to be down here either. Seems like you stopped asking for permission a long time ago.”

Hallow hesitated to feign offense at Iris’s response. That break signaled to both that Iris had her. Because of this, Hallow relaxed her shoulders and took the blunt in between her fingers, surveying its length, and felt as though she were a young child witnessing a pencil for the first time.

“Take it all in your mouth, okay? Hold the smoke in there so that it gets deep in your lungs. Don’t just blow it out. That’s my last one, and I don’t take kindly to amateurs.”

Hallow did as she was told, and the passageway from her throat to chest electrified with a rough, peppery sensation. Her cheeks stretched to hold the smoke, and when Hallow finally let go, she violently coughed and hid in a corner, hunched over and afraid that she would regurgitate bile or a piece of some organ. Those peppers migrated to the middle of her skull and dispersed throughout every angle of her head. Tears streamed down her face, and her nose became congested.

Iris cackled. “It got into your lungs, all right. Come on back over here. You’ll be fine.”

Hallow kept her right hand over her throat and once again took a seat opposite Iris. The roof of her mouth dried, and the tops of her shoulders and feet tingled. She watched Iris take another hit, and then she took another herself. The next hit did not sting or burn nearly as much as the first, so she took another and another until the skin on her face felt like it was slowly sagging lower and lower toward the earth. Her eyes were open and focused, but she was asleep on the inside, helplessly smiling at Iris as she mumbled off to the side and spoke half words.

“Since you’re here . . .” Iris twitched. “I have a confession to make to you.”

“Hmm?” Hallow sat upright then slumped in her seat.

“After Jo hit me with the glass pitcher, I was only out until I was pulled into the hallway. I was awake the whole time when you were cutting me. Felt every incision from top, bottom, and around the sides.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I wanted