Lacuna

The Chapter Before Chapter 1

The sky was about the color of an intoxicated frog. That’s how it always was around here. The sunsets could be beautiful, every now and then, mind you. Just once in a blue moon.

The clouds were lazily scattered across the sky as if God really didn’t care where they happened to be just as long as they were there. As the light faded, deep blue gaps of night peered through like an upside-down ocean. Bottomless. Cold. And dark.

I had always been scared out of my wits of the dark, but now, living here as long as I had, it didn’t really bother me. Just kind of happened to be what it was, as Pops would always say. He’d counter, “Marley, sometimes I can’t answer your questions. Sometimes the smartest person on the earth couldn’t answer your silly questions. It just kind of happens to be what it is.”

And he was right.

I stared up into the sky, darkening now into the not-so-comforting inky black it always did ‘round this time, something, though not very inviting, I had come accustomed to. Taking Pop’s advice.

I reached up from my perch underneath the iron skeleton that had always been here. The old bridge stretched massively across the water, its huge iron frame as black as the sky. It was probably, for all I know, as old as time.

Time that I waited for.

Don’t ask me how you can wait for something that’s happening every moment, every broken promise, every hint of a smile, whether plastic or genuine, but I was waitin’ for it. I kind of figured I would know it when it happened, but that’s always life, popping out at you unexpectedly, even when you can’t see it happening, what you were waiting for all this time.

And when you do realize it, it’s too late. Not always, but life is cruel. It happens to enjoy making you wait and then sneaking up with so much stealth you can’t see it until you see it broken before you on the ground, hollow beneath your feet.

But not always.



I sat there, nothing to do, thinking about all those things. Then a shadow of a figure loomed over me and I figured it was either Tucker, my younger brother, or Momma. One thing’s for sure: I didn’t expect to see anybody else standing there, much less a white girl.

Now, before you lose your socks, let me explain. I ain’t racist; Matter of fact, I was raised to respect all kinds of people, no matter what color, what language they speak, nothing. But it’s real tense around here.

Between us blacks and all the whites around here, we have a mutual kind of respect. We ain’t killin’ each other, but we’re certainly not saying howdy-do. We just have our own ways, keep our own selves, and the other really got nothin’ to do with us ‘cept the stuff we have to.

But the whites don’t take to liking us dark-skinned. A lot of them are racist. There’s been more than our share of fights about it, at school, all those kinds of things, mostly because of a nasty comment from a white kid. Not that a few dark kids never say anything racist.



So there I was, staring up at a white girl who was most likely racist and ready to throw a rude comment in my face about my skin color. But ‘most likely’s aren’t always very consistent. And either way, I wasn’t really in the mood for this kind of trouble.

Instead of some crude remark, she grinned down at me and asked, “You like this bridge?”

I stared. “Yeah, no fake. I guess if I liked it, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” I said sarcastically, just in case she was about to sabotage me with cruel words.

She held up her hands and said, “Hey, don’t get all defensive on me. I’m not here to be a smart aleck. I was just wandering about and happened to discover you here.”

I grinned sheepishly, replying with, “Well, you never know ‘round these parts.”

“Yeah, I guess you never do.” With that remark, she invited herself to sit beside me. She pulled off her slip-on shoes and dangled her feet over the edge of the riverbank, just like I was doing. I loved and still do love being barefoot. Shoes are just not my thing.

We sat there like that, awkwardly contented with the night-broken silence.

“So,” my fellow bridge-abiding companion began, “I’m new around here. We just moved here, me and my mama, and her boyfriend. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me,” I began quickly. “Just that, ‘round here if you haven’t noticed it yet, a lot of the… white people, like you… tend to be a bit racist toward us blacks.”

“Nah. I’m fine with you. My mama and her boyfriend Tim aren’t too fond of… well, as they say, ‘your kind’… Which is why they moved here, I guess. They can be nasty about you people without getting too much trouble from any other white people.”

I paused. “We ain’t no kind. We all just people. We all just out there to survive.”

“Yup, that’s how I see things. Unfortunately, Mama and I don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.” There was a moment of pause. “So, if it’s so bad here, why haven’t you and your family just moved away? The racism must really get to you.”

“Aw, it’s not all that bad, as long as we stay away from most of the whites around here. And besides, it wasn’t always like this. We used to live in a town free of all racism and hate.”

“Nowadays, that's what everybody dreams of but nobody bothers to fix.” She stopped for a moment. “What’s your name?” she asked methodically.

“Marley. Like Bob Marley. I was named after him.”

“Sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him.”

I gasped over-dramatically, saying, “No way! Everybody’s heard of Bob Marley!” She shook her head. I was not defeated. I began to sing his song “Three Little Birds”. She caught on to a part of it.

“I heard some of that on that movie, ‘Finding Nemo’! That was a cute movie.”

I looked at her incredulously. “That’s all you’ve heard of his? Girl, I gotta get you down to my house and listenin’ to some real music sometime. And you never told me your name yet.”

“Iris. Iris High,” she said. “And I suppose we should be polite and shake hands; don’t you?” She stuck her hand out.

“Sure.” I grabbed her hand and shook heartily.

Just then, as Iris began to talk some more, Tucker came running, bare feet and all, gasping for air. I looked up worriedly and asked breathily, “Tuck. What’s wrong?” fearing for the life of my gramma in the hospital. But Gramma was fine.

“Marley! The house!” He pointed, still gasping partially from panic and partially from the obviously frantic run, to a barely distant blaze of fire, smoke curling up in billows of ugly grey that contrasted lightly against a vast, inky stretch of sky lined with small houses and apartments.

“Holy…” I stopped in my words and started running. Iris called after me, and soon enough, I heard her bare feet padding rapidly not too far behind Tucker’s and mine. Soon the flashing bright red and white colors of the tops of fire trucks made their way distantly into the backs of our minds and our eyes.

All I could see from then on was the blazing heat, feeling it bring small droplets of sweat to roll down my forehead. Tucker ran over to Momma and Pops, who were yelling for me not to get too close. The fire started to grow larger until the firemen began trying to put it out. But they didn’t need to worry about me. I stood there; just staring through the blur that was unfolding events I couldn’t comprehend. And I stood there watching the only secure place I had known as “home” fall to ashes that would eventually erode into the ground.

And through it all, there, just a few feet behind me as I looked back at her, stood Iris. Waiting. Watching. Seeing the fire, the pain, everything that was happening reflecting in the distant orbs that called themselves my eyes.

And in that moment, I knew it. Not at the time, but deep down, I knew it. Iris got it. She understood. One person in my life could feel my pain.

It was that time I had been waiting for.

Strangely enough, in that moment, all I could think as I stared at the sky was, “I’ve never seen it so beautiful.” That sky was ablaze in the colors of the burning beauty, contrasting against the sky in such an enlightening way, though this tragedy was often the makings of “hell” in our imaginations. Fire.

And with it, freedom… in the strangest, most trapping way possible.