SquidgeWorld Archive

It's a sunny fall day on a college campus. Any college campus will do. Oh, sure, there are more brown faces darting in and out of the ivy-covered halls than you find at most schools, and a few more among the ivy-covered professors in whose lectures they fall asleep. Other than that, little distinguishes it from any other small, Midwestern liberal arts college.

Little distinguishes the day, either. The sun is out. The leaves are turning. There's a bite in the air, unexpected enough to catch out a number of scurrying girls in halter tops and very mini skirts. But there will be dozens of days like it before the first snowfall, and there have been thousands like it in the life of this institution. On the whole, unremarkable.

Except for one man, for whom it is about to become the kind of day that lodges in the forefront of consciousness and refuses to shake loose.

The man, now, he is distinguishable. Distinguished, even. A youngish man, a tenure-track professor in the college department devoted to the brown faces. His very tall hair makes him look like B.B. King - if B.B. wore old-fashioned three-piece suits and a pocket watch. But when they speak of him around the school, no one references his fusty clothes or his pointy hair. "Professor Freeman," they say, "you know - the one who always looks angry."

He does look angry, and he knows it. He used to have emotions to match. Lately, though...lately all he feels is disappointed. And tired.

With each year that passes, his students grow more apathetic. They grow less impressed by the sacrifices of a man who once considered a ride in the back of a squad car the logical conclusion of an ordinary weekend. He tries to teach the history of Black Political Activism (in such a way that it's not just history but a thinly-veiled "how-to"), but all they want to know is, "Do you have an FBI file?" ("Everyone has an FBI file," he tells them. "Every one of you has one, just for being a student here. Maybe mine's thicker than yours, but they're not that interesting.") All they want to know is, "Do girls dig radical activists?" (He wouldn't know about girls. His students wouldn't know about that.)

So on this unremarkable day near the end of an unremarkable semester, the man has many things on his mind. His family isn't one of them.

It's about to be.

When he comes back from his 1:30 class, where a fervor for political activism has once again failed to be ignited, the small-framed department secretary - who wears a string of pearls at least forty years before her time and is constantly sitting on her hands in a way that makes her look terrified - calls out to him. Her nervousness is overlain with something else - pity, maybe. "Professor Freeman?" she says softly, and when he comes into the office and takes a message slip from her, she says, "I'm so sorry." He crushes the slip in his hands. "Cancel my classes for the rest of the week, Marianne."

~*~

The plane started in Seattle, so by the time it gets to Huey, there are already passengers on board. He pays them not the slightest heed as he finds his seat and mostly falls into it. Around him, people peel off jackets and shove them gratefully into overhead bins; Huey tightens his around his chest and clutches it shut with his hand. He wants this to be over.

He doesn't notice when someone in the aisle taps the shoulder of the grandmother from Dubuque - who'll whip out pictures of her grandkids without provocation, but who looked at this man beside her who clutches his pain as tightly as his coat and decided to keep her silence - and she leaves her seat. He doesn't notice when someone new takes her place. And when the voice speaks he doesn't notice, at first, that it's addressing him.

He stirs slightly, though his eyes are fixed on the fraying orange fabric that frames his tray table. "I'm sorry. Did you say something."

There's an amusedly frustrated snort. "I said, I know you wouldn't sit in this seat all the way to Chicago and not come say hi to me."

Huey's heart stops, panics, stutters back to life in a startled double-time. He turns his head with great reluctance.

Caesar.

He's more beautiful than ever. Not handsome - he's too fey, too delicate for that. But with his narrow face and wide eyes - and with his hair now in braids falling to the middle of his back - he quite simply takes Huey's breath away. "What the hell are you doing here?" Huey winces. That's hardly getting them off to a good start.

Caesar smiles, not offended. "I was visiting a friend in Seattle when I heard about your grandfather."

Does this explain anything? Huey can't tell. He can't get over this. Caesar. Here. "Thank you," he says, because he's found over the years that you can never go wrong by saying this.

Caesar's smile grows wistful. "Wouldn't miss it." He settles in the grandmother's chair.

Huey tries to dredge up the lessons of polite conversation he's learned from job interviews and department ass-kissing parties. But he's empty. There's nothing to say - not about this ridiculous situation, not to this man. The miles race away beneath them - gone before they're fully noticed, fast like years.

~*~

The taxi driver says nothing on the drive to the address Huey gives him. The driver's name is Omar, and he's a talker, but this fare...the tall one wears anger and grief like extra scarves against the chill; the small one seems enveloped by a cloud of disappointment that he can't do more for his companion. Omar stays quiet.

Huey isn't grateful for the silence. He doesn't particularly notice it. He can't believe he's here. This suburb tried to eat him. He always felt badly constructed here. Was his head too big? Were his arms too short? He could conceive of big dreams - he could see them - but he could never reach. Crawling out cost him so much; he isn't thrilled to be sliding back in.

He's known, though. He's known he'd have to return someday. Granddad was old, even when Huey left. There was going to be a funeral someday, and Riley isn't in any position to plan it. Huey wonders if Riley will be able to come. He wonders if anyone's told him.

There's no one else. He has to plan the final send-off of a man he hasn't seen and has barely spoken to in a dozen years. Who's left to call for the funeral? He started college the year Ruckus died. Was Granddad a church-going man? They weren't when he and Riley were kids, but some people get religion when they get old. Are the Duboises still in the neighborhood? Will they care? Does the will have instructions for the funeral? Is there a will?

He has less of an idea what to do about Caesar. He can barely breathe around this man. Until the day he shook the dirt of this place out of his heart, he was closer to Caesar than to his own brother, but there's no comfort now. Nothing but his heart, an organ not usually heard from much, screaming that this isn't fair.

When the cab stops, Huey thinks they're at the wrong house. Cars crowd the driveway and spill into the street. But, no, there's the bend in the eaves trough when he tried to sneak out to the Bush impeachment rally in '08; there are the deep gouges in the brick from the first time Riley's "ghetto lifestyle" came home to them, courtesy of a low-riding blue car zooming past on the street (at the next neighborhood watch meeting, Mrs. Parkinson down the street complained about "young hoodlums" driving their cars over the speed limit - but not about the gunshots).

So this is his house, but who are these people? Over Huey's feeble protests, Caesar pays the cabbie, and they stand at the foot of the driveway, overnight bags in his hand, staring at the brickwork and the poplar trees.

Any minute, Huey thinks, he'll start to feel like this is home. Or at least like this was home. Right?

The front door swings open, and a woman leans out of it. An old woman, wiping her hands on a yellow apron. "Hello!" she calls. "Are you Huey?"

He walks robotically toward the house. "I am," he says. But who are you? he should ask. When he reaches the door, the woman reaches for his bag, and he's too fog-brained not to let her have it.

She peers past him. "Are you Michael Caesar?" she asks gleefully.

Caesar gives a melting smile. "Yes, ma'am," he says. "Very pleased to meet you." Conveniently ignoring the fact that he really hasn't met her yet.

"I'm Vivian," she says. "I'm Sylvia's sister." Her tone suggests that she considers this to explain everything.

Who's Sylvia? he should ask. But his words keep catching in his throat. He follows Vivian and his bag into the house.

It's cleaner than the last time he saw it. He and Riley were messy kids, and Granddad eventually gave up cleaning up after them. The piles of boyhood detritus that used to litter the house - Riley's CDs and bulky jackets, his own teetering towers of books and print-outs from radical news organizations - are gone. Even the twenty or so people dashing from kitchen to living room and back don't make the house feel cluttered. They make it feel homey, like this is a place where someone lived. Huey thinks of his sparsely furnished studio apartment at the edge of campus, and the first crack spreads through his stone armor.

"Syl?" Vivian calls as they walk toward the kitchen. "Huey and Caesar have come."

Sylvia has been crying. This is obvious in her eyes the instant Huey looks at her. But she looks serene. And she's clearly the center of this group of strangers tracking through his childhood home. She gives him a weak smile and presses his hand with hers. Her skin is grayish, dry, and paper-thin. "Huey," she says softly. "Wasn't sure you could make it. I know your teaching schedule is difficult to work around. And you two weren't on the best of terms these days."

She knows his profession, knows this status of his relationship with his grandfather, and she's sitting in his grandfather's kitchen. "Who are you?" he blurts. "Who are these people?"

A couple of the strangers in the kitchen gasp - angry, shocked. Sylvia looks saddened. "I'm Sylvia Barrett. Robert and I were...close."

Huey squeezes his eyes shut and wants to laugh. He's been so worried about getting the funeral ready, about finding someone - anyone - to come to it, and all along the old sneak had a girlfriend. "And these other people?"

Sylvia looks around and shrugs. "Friends of mine, friends of your grandfather's. From the neighborhood, mostly. A couple from the weekly bridge tournament down to the community center."

Huey has a hard time picturing Granddad playing bridge and a harder one picturing him doing anything necessitating a community center. But hardest of all is picturing him with a girlfriend, yet here she sits. "Caesar," she says, looking past Huey. "Such an honor to have you here. A real celebrity." Huey almost swears she blushes.

The other man might blush, too. "Naw, Ms. Barrett, I'm just me."

This pleases Sylvia immensely. "Good to have you anyway." She looks at Huey. "You're just in time," she says, rising from the kitchen stool she's sitting on. "I'm leaving for the funeral parlor. You can come along."

So Huey's in a funeral home on the outskirts of town. He dreaded having to plan the service on his own, but suddenly he's been relegated to silent supporter. Sylvia makes all the decisions; he makes none, and he resents that a little. Sitting beside her in that grim, dimly-lit place, while two men who never met Granddad pretend to grieve his loss, he wonders, What right does this woman have? Then she pulls out a piece of paper covered in Granddad's spidery handwriting, signed and notarized, detailing the funeral he wanted, and Huey wonders, What right do I have? He hasn't talked to Granddad in over a decade. He doesn't know what he's doing here. He stands abruptly and goes outside.

The cool air helps some. But not enough.

~*~

They've done a wonderful job with the body. Granddad looks sullen and disappointed - like he did in life. For the first time since Marianne handed him the message slip, Huey smiles. "Ornery old coot," he murmurs. "I hope you found something that didn't suck before you kicked it."

"I think he did."

Huey turns. He's facing a young woman he doesn't know. No surprise; he's encountered more people he doesn't know in the last twenty-four hours than he does on the first day of classes. The woman's skin is dark, but that's no shock, either; the neighborhood's changed from the days when you could count the people of color on your fingers - and half of them were Freemans. But the suspicion nags that he ought to know her. "Did you know him?"

She giggles. She's just young enough to get away with it. "Of course I knew him, Huey!"

He frowns. Skinny, frizzy hair, sleeveless dark gray dress that can't be warm enough - "I'm sorry. Do you know me?"

"Huey!" She stamps her foot indignantly, and for an instant it's on the tip of his tongue. "It's me. Jazmine!"

Oh. Jazmine. Well, that explains some things, doesn't it? "Sorry. It's been a while."

"Fourteen years," she says with a solemn nod.

Huey checks his math. "I've only been gone for twelve years."

Jazmine's eyes narrow, and she screams, "I was gone for two before that!"

And that's the thing that will never click for Jazmine. She doesn't register for Huey. About a year after the September 11th attacks, she developed an agoraphobic fear of terrorists that trapped her inside her house and forced her parents to educate her at home. When she reappeared at school two years later, Huey assumed she'd been gone two, three weeks, tops.

Other mourners are looking at them. Huey takes Jazmine's elbow and leads her into a vestibule off the chapel. "It's nice of you to be here now," he says, with all sincerity.

She huffs. "You are impossible, Huey Freeman."

He shrugs. She's not the first person to tell him that.

Jazmine looks at him like she expects him to say more. But what more is there? How would he ask about her parents? "Has your father kidnapped any third-party politicians lately?" "Did your mother ever forgive your father for fetishizing white women?" He could ask about her life, but ten minutes before the start of his grandfather's funeral is no time to begin fourteen years of catching up that he's not interested in.

Shaking her head, Jazmine says, "I will never understand what Caesar saw in you." Huey tightens his grip too much. He's done a damned good job not thinking that name over the past fourteen years, and now everyone - including the man himself - wants to destroy his efforts. She winces to protest the pain. "Ow!"

He relaxes but doesn't let go. "What about Caesar? What about him?"

A flicker of something like fear dashes across Jazmine's eyes. "I never understood the crush he had on you. That's all, I swear."

But it's not. He sees that in her eyes. Her use of the word "crush" doesn't disturb him. He wasted a lot of hours in high school trying to pretend that Caesar's misplaced hero-worship had become romantic pining. She must have done better convincing herself. But she's lying about something, and he feels like a dog that wants to worry a bone until the marrow cracks.

Sylvia appears in the vestibule, smiling gently but commandingly. "Huey, dear, we're going to start in a minute."

Huey releases Jazmine. He straightens his tie. "Thank you, Sylvia." He walks toward the chapel. He doesn't look at Jazmine.

As they reenter the chapel, a commotion ripples toward the back of the room. Sighing, Huey heads back to see what fresh calamity has befallen them. People turn in their seats, crane their necks toward the main entryway.

It seems a large fuss to make over two men - until you look closer at those men. The taller one is white, stocky, wears a cheap brown suit that doesn't fit right in the shoulders, and, although you can't see his gun, you can tell that he's armed. The shorter one is black, thickly muscled, and dressed in a standard issue one-piece orange jumpsuit.

Riley's made it after all.

As he strides toward his brother and the guard, a billowing rage spreads through Huey, but it's not directed where he might have predicted. He halts and unleashes his venom on the guard. "This is our grandfather's funeral. Is an armed guard really necessary?"

The guard looks apologetic. Or maybe scared. He has reason for both. "The prisoner has made several attempts to escape--"

"Not from a family funeral!" Huey remembers those attempts now. Having a strange man with a gun point them out to him only makes him angrier. "And couldn't you find him a suit?"

The guard finds his balls again. "Hey, be thankful he's here at all!"

"Thankful to you?" Huey asks, staring down the guard. He grabs Riley's wrist. At least he's not handcuffed. "Let's find you a suit." They walk. The guard follows. Glaring, Huey says, "Not you."

"I'm not allowed to let him--"

"Not. You." Huey's is a powerful glare; it can subdue thirty college sophomores just back from spring break. A lone man doesn't stand a chance - doesn't matter how big his gun is. Huey hauls Riley through the chapel. Everyone stares. Riley nods to a few people, says "hey" to others. Huey doesn't think Riley knows them; he's working the crowd, like always. He shows particular interest in Jazmine. Huey pulls harder. He tells the astounded minister, "We'll be right back."

In a back room of the chapel is a rack of "emergency suits." The preacher pointed it out during yesterday's visitation. Huey doesn't know what it says about the place, but he's grateful for it. He pulls garments off the rack, holds them up to Riley, and quickly dismisses them. "Too long. Too narrow. Too - ugh - powder blue." He concentrates on this because he's shaking with rage, and he doesn't want to deck Riley at their grandfather's funeral. He doesn't know why he's angry, except that Riley looks so smug, and he's always known that the United States criminal "justice" system is a joke, but he doesn't want the sneering, self-satisfied proof of it to be his own brother.

Riley continues to beam, and he's hopping back and forth in some bizarre dance. "I made it."

Through gritted teeth, as he discards a fifth suit, Huey says, "At the last possible instant."

Riley spreads his hands. It's a laughable parody of contrition. Huey doesn't feel like laughing. "I'm at the mercy of The Man. Ol' Dudley Dumbfuck out there wants to stop at every Kum 'n' Go on the way from Joliet, 'cause he got a teeny dick and thinks it's funny, we do it. He's the guy with the gun."

Huey shoves a navy blue suit at Riley. "Put this on."

As Riley complies, he says, "Don't get high and mighty. You got a record, too."

Comparing their situations would be ludicrous if he hadn't done it himself a hundred times. "I spent twelve hours in county jail for civil disobedience. You're an incarcerated felon. You shot three people. One was a nun."

"The fuck you care. You don't believe in no god."

"You shot a nun."

Riley shrugs as he buttons his cuff. "Who's the fox in the gray dress?"

"In the--" Huey takes a minute to place who Riley means. His eyes bulge. "That's Jazmine!"

"Really?" Riley looks pleasantly stunned. "Damn, she grew up hot. She single?"

Huey stares. "This is our grandfather's funeral!"

Riley shrugs. "Prison's lonely shit, man. No chicks."

Huey thinks about this. This is Riley's life. Armed guards and barred cells and no women. Maybe he should try to visit more often. Maybe he should try to visit at all.

Riley goes on, "Even Caesar wouldn't get nothing outta what passes for fuckin' in that shithole."

Why the hell did everyone have to keep talking about Caesar? Isn't the fact that Caesar is here torture enough? "What does he have to do with it?" He tries to stay calm.

Hopping around to get into the suit pants, Riley says, "Fuck. I don't give a shit if you are a faggot - that's sick shit, what they do to each other in there."

The indignity of what his brother faces every day is - "Caesar is gay and nobody told me?!?"

Riley laughs, a deeply pleased sound that is rusty and out of practice. "You're shitting me. Me, the in-car-cer-a-ted felon, knowin' something about your best friend you don't?"

Huey grips the suit rack. It can't be true. All those years, standing so close to Caesar, wanting so much - and not to know this-- "You made it up."

Riley closes his eyes and rocks on his heels. "'DJ Caesar isn't worried about homophobia in the super-macho club world he inhabits.'" He's clearly reciting something long committed to memory. "He knows he commands enough respect to make it as Chicago's most visible gay spinner." He opens his eyes and grins. "And you never knew. Pretty pissed now, huh?"

Huey pulls his fingers away from the warmed metal. "They're waiting for us," he says. He sounds like a robot.

Grin faltering, Riley says, "Sure sucks. About the old man."

They were close, Granddad and Riley. They kept in touch, as Huey had not. Huey nods. "Yeah. It does."

They slip into the chapel. Huey nods to the minister, who huffs and gets the funeral underway.

It goes by in a blur. Huey isn't giving a eulogy - wasn't asked to. This morning, that bothered him; now he's relieved. How could he concentrate on a eulogy? How could he think about anything but Caesar? Gay Caesar. Maybe he could've prevented the lonely, wasted years if he'd had the courage to say something. To say anything. Yet the more he thinks about it, the angrier he becomes. Caesar never said anything, either.

"Huey?" Caesar whispers, "you okay?"

"Shh!" Huey snaps too sharply, and Caesar withdraws, like a sprayed kitten. They don't speak for the rest of the service.

A pallbearer surrenders his place so Riley can take a corner. He and Huey walk at the front, and Huey keeps his eyes and his mind on the job. One foot in front of the other. The sharp line of wood biting into his shoulder. Lift the coffin. Slide it into the hearse. Stand beside that long black car, completely at a loss. Someone lays a hand on his arm. He looks over; Sylvia smiles sadly at him. "Ride with me, Huey." He nods and climbs numbly into the hearse.

Sylvia talks quietly all the way to the graveyard. About Granddad, he imagines. He should listen. She knows stories about Granddad that he wants to learn. And, for crying out loud, they're driving to the cemetery to bury his grandfather; he shouldn't be thinking about Caesar.

But he is, and he can't stop.

At the cemetery, he helps Sylvia out of the car and looks around for Riley. There's Dudley Dumbfuck, and he can't see Riley, but Dudley's a big man, so he's probably obstructing the view.

They lower the casket into the ground. Huey drops a shovelful of earth onto the lid. Sylvia and Vivian and Caesar and even Jazmine do the same. Riley does not. The preacher drones about the Valley of the Shadow. Huey tunes out and looks around. Dudley Dumbfuck looks antsy; he's still standing in front of Riley. Sylvia leans on Vivian, and Huey decides it's a shame he won't be able to lean on Riley when they're old.

And there's Caesar, next to Jazmine. Huey's fury is so enormous it blinds him to anything but the liar at the back of the crowd - and the liar at the front. Only then Caesar looks over and catches his eye, grinning widely. Huey returns the smile, feebly, his fury dwindling away to practically nothing. How can he stay mad at Caesar? He couldn't do it when they were kids; apparently, he can't do it now, even after decades of practice at holding the pettiest of grudges.

The crowd of mourners disperses. Caesar detaches from the group and motions for Huey to follow him, and Huey is powerless to do anything but obey. They stop behind a row of taller headstones that partially shield them. Caesar grins, bouncing inappropriately on the balls of his feet. Huey hasn't noticed how small he is - the top of his head barely grazes Huey's chin. Really, he's the best thing Huey's seen all week. Still, he forces himself to sound stern. "You shouldn't be smiling."

Caesar's grin widens. "Funeral's over, Huey. We're standing here. Life rolls on." He cocks his head. "It was good you came for this."

In spite of how badly he wants to pin Caesar to one of the tombstones and have at him, Huey bristles. "My grandfather is dead."

"You haven't talked to him in twelve years."

"How do you know that?" Huey demands. This is one of many wrenching subjects they couldn't speak of on the plane.

"I have my sources." All of his vowels are Chicago-flat, so it sounds a bit like "sauces."

"What else do your sources tell you?" Huey puts his hands in his pockets. He's not ready to touch - not yet.

"There's a respected but awfully lonely professor in this cemetery in need of a good man."

The gray cloud of history fogs Huey's vision for a minute. "So you knew?" he demands, but softly. He doesn't think he's angry anymore. "And you never said."

"When did I have the chance? Once you walked away from this town...well. What chance did I have?"

"You had all the chances in the world, Caesar. You had all the chances. Since we were twelve years old."

"So did you." Caesar's smile softens. He holds out his hand. "Come to my hotel with me; tell me about it."

And, admittedly, it's been several years since anyone's picked Huey up, but he knows what "come to my hotel" is code for. He grips Caesar's hand too hard. "Caesar." The other man looks at him. "I won't get into your bed tonight without your guarantee that I'm not going to have to leave it." Ever. He's not going to lose Caesar twice.

But Caesar shakes his head. "No such thing as a guarantee, Huey." He looks to where the gravediggers are dumping the last dirt over the coffin. "The sun's out today. Carrying an umbrella is praying for rain."

It's not enough for Huey. Not this time. He releases Caesar's hand.

Dudley Dumbfuck (Huey wonders if he should learn the man's real name) huffs up to them, face beet-red with fury and exertion. "Freeman!" he barks. "Where the fuck is your brother?"

Huey stares at him blankly. "With you."

One meaty finger jabs at Huey's vest. "Don't play dumb with me, Mr. Smarty-professor-pants. He's a felon. If I find out you hid him somewhere--"

Huey starts to laugh. It starts out as a small sound, but in no time it's bouncing around the cemetery. The gravediggers pause to look at him. "He escaped? You just about sat on top of him for the entire funeral, and he got away?" Caesar is laughing, too. Huey grins. "Excellent work, Officer."

The man's face gets redder and shinier. "I'm warning you--"

"And quite a forceful job you're doing." Huey nods and reaches his hand toward Caesar. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we were leaving." They walk away. If Dudley says something about British cigarettes, they pretend not to hear it.

Maybe there are no guarantees. And maybe tomorrow morning he'll regret that. But somehow, Riley's escape has made everything as it should be. So on an unremarkable autumn day, two men walk hand in hand out of an unremarkable cemetery and into a remarkable life. And that's as it should be, too.