Black （2014）
I thought of this today as we looked up at the house.
Built in the late-nineteenth century, it is designed in the French Second Empire Mansard style.
It is all cheerful redbrick and cut stone without and black walnut and quarter-sawn oak within.
With its decorative slate mansard roof, it exudes a sense of permanence.
It is an elaborate wedding cake of a house.
Three stories tall, it is L-shaped with a central tower and a second tower placed at the front of the wing built at a ninety-degree angle to the main wing, which contains the entrance.
At the front, granite steps lead up to a deeply shaded wraparound porch.
The entrance itself is guarded by tall wrought iron gates.
Where the two wings meet at the back of the house, some wild wag added a gothic conservatory with glass walls and a peaked glass roof, accessible from the narrow picture gallery and the black walnut paneled library.
The oldest house in the development, it is perhaps a tad self-conscious of its dated pretention, but in its defense, it lacks the self-satisfaction of the rather pedestrian split levels—themselves ignorant of the fact they were simply the unfortunate spawn of The Brady Bunch—that are its neighbors.
The house, for all its majesty, is deceptive, though: the roof that slopes over the house, the wing, and the two towers all conspire to hide the fact that it is only one room deep.
“What do you think?” the realtor asked.
Jackson gazed at the black-walnut-coffered ceiling soaring eleven feet above our heads and, glancing at my enraptured expression, said, “I think we’d like to make an offer.”
Friday, April 25, 2014, Janus—We moved into our new house this afternoon.
By dinner, we had been visited by Kitt, a warrior princess in braids, with bangled earrings, a nose ring, and a chip on her shoulder.
She was dressed completely in black: black clingy pants with flared legs and a charcoal T-shirt with “We were NOT all Kung Fu fighting” emblazoned in a lighter gray across her chest. Kitt introduced herself as the sole board member of the Homeowner Association.
“So, I’m essentially a dictator,” she explained blithely. “You can call me Queen K.”
I was charmed. Jackson, irritated, clearly was not. She strutted about our new living room as if she owned it. Wheeling around, she said, “I take it you’re a couple?”
I nodded; Jackson ignored her.
“Good. It’s nice to have family in the neighborhood.”
Her peculiar emphasis on the word “family” was odd until I caught her drift. Our warrior princess is a lesbian. Also, we learned, without asking, vegan, in recovery, and mad at the world.
“Y’all are cute,” she pronounced looking at us as if we were curiosities in a notions shop, or maybe a special exhibit at the local zoo. “How long have you been together?”
When I told her, she raised an eyebrow.
“We’ve been together since high school. Literally,” Jackson said, clearly, inexplicably, annoyed.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to unpacking,” she said, still watching us curiously.
“By the way,” she said as she waltzed to our front door, again as if it was her front door. “Your grass is an inch and a half longer than regulation.”
Jackson and I looked at each other. “She measured?” he mouthed to me.
“I know you just moved in, so I’ll give you until tomorrow to come into compliance. Otherwise, I’ll have to fine you.”
“But we just moved in.”
“I know, that’s why I’m giving you until tomorrow—”
“But we don’t have a lawn mower yet.”
“A pair of scissors will do the job.” She slammed the front door and was gone.
I looked at Jackson, who was walking towards the kitchen.
“I need a drink,” he called over his shoulder. “Do you want one?”
“Yes, please,” I answered, trailing him, feeling like the survivor of a tornado or a hurricane who hasn’t yet surveyed the damage wrought and so has no idea what that particular visitation has cost them.
“What do you think of Kitt?” I asked Jackson as we brushed our teeth—our new master bathroom has double sinks, so we’ll no longer have to jockey for position to rinse and spit.
He rinsed and spit into his sink. “Let’s see, she’s lesbian, vegan, alcohol-free, angry—we’ll get along great!”
“Oh, she’s not that bad,” I said, moving to the toilet to pee.
“I sense danger,” he said.
“What?” I asked. As the sound of my peeing echoed off the honed marble floor and walls, I thought about how far we’d come.
“I said, ‘We in danger, girl!’”
“Oh, stop!” I laughed.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said, kissing my cheek.
“Give me a few minutes,” I said, shaking off. “I want to write in my journal.”
He shrugged.
“Wait up for me, though,” I said.
He looked at me and laughed. “Oh, someone wants to get laid.”
“Well, it is our first night in our new house. We need to celebrate.”
“Fine,” he said. “If I’m asleep, wake me.”
Wednesday, April 30, 2014, Janus—Kitt stopped by today to thank us for cutting the grass and to drop off a binder full of HOA rules and regulations.
She sat on the couch and made small talk, which I always find exhausting.
Finally, she said, “Well, I should be going…” while making no effort to get up and go.
“Yes,” Jackson said, standing, surprising me. He is rarely direct or confrontational.
“What do y’all do?” Kitt asked, ignoring him.
“Pretty much as we please, being adults and all,” Jackson said.
I glanced at Jackson and said, “I’m always confused when people ask that question, as if knowing what I do to pay the mortgage tells you anything about me.”
Now it was Kitt’s turn to be annoyed. “If you think by being coy about your job you’re being discreet, you’re wrong.”
“We’re not being discreet,” Jackson said in a peeved tone. “We’re politely telling you what we do isn’t any of your business.”
Barely glancing at him, Kitt continued as if Jackson hadn’t spoken. “This house, that watch Jackson is wearing—a vintage Vacheron Constantin, the art deco model with special logs, I believe—tells me everything you’re attempting to obscure.”
When we glanced at her in surprise, Jackson staring at his watch, she said, “I’m a jewelry appraiser at an auction house. See? Not a hard question to answer. Well, I really must be going,” she said as if we’d been keeping her. She rose to her feet and swiftly left.
Sunday, May 11, 2014, Janus—Jackson and I were out front, attempting to plant in the rocky, inhospitable soil under the living room window, when Jackson glanced up and muttered with dismay, “Here comes the angry .”
“What?” Then I saw Kitt striding towards us, dressed all in black, her shadowed face like a storm cloud.
“You know,” she said before we could acknowledge her, “I didn’t think anyone would ever buy this…folly.”
Rubbing sweat from our eyes, we looked up at her.
“It’s such an eyesore,” she continued tactlessly. “For years, we tried to have it torn down, but it was during all that historic preservation hysteria, so no go.”
“I’m glad,” I said.
Shielding his eyes against the sun, Jackson remarked, “You know where we come from, folks considered us an eyesore. They would have torn us down if they could have.”
Kitt, seemingly stung by Jackson’s words, looked at us appraisingly. “Indeed,” she said before starting back across the lawn. She stopped abruptly and wheeled around.
“Seriously, though, why this house?” she asked.
“It’s the perfect house for us,” Jackson said. “You see Oren identifies as an impoverished English Lord keeping up appearances.”
While I tried to choke back laughter, Kitt wrinkled her brow. Whether in confusion or disapproval at Jackson’s clear mocking of identity politics, I couldn’t tell. Looking at him, she asked, “And you? You’re Alec Scudder to his Maurice?”
I bristled at her implying that Jackson was somehow less than I.
“Oh, yes. I’m definitely Scudder to his Maurice.”
I looked at him in surprise. I’d found a tattered paperback of the E.M.
Forster novel in the campus used bookstore sophomore year, after I’d discovered and read Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner and The Fancy Dancer.
Since then, I’d read the novel repeatedly, obsessively.
Our second Christmas together, Jackson had given me a pristine leather-bound edition, which had started my collection of books, but as far as I knew, he’d only seen the movie once.
“Climbing in his window nightly to reclaim him?” Kitt continued archly.
“No. No need for windows or doors,” Jackson said, “when you dwell in each other’s heart.”
Realizing Jackson was her match, Kitt turned and stormed away.
Taking her place, a ragged black cat with an angry-looking scar on his forehead hissed at us.
“Frankenstein, come,” Kitt barked without turning around.
The cat cast us a baleful glance then stalked away behind Kitt on its silent cat feet.
Rising, I said, “I need a drink. How about you?”
“Just water,” Jackson answered, looking lost as if he’d been cast adrift in Kitt and Frankenstein’s wake.
“She didn’t come back, did she?” I asked, returning, glancing around cautiously.
“No,” Jackson said as he hacked furiously at an obstinate root. I handed him a tumbler of water.
“She’s something,” I said. “And that cat.”
Jackson nodded, leaning back on his heels and drinking greedily from the sweating glass.
“It’s so hot. I don’t understand how she can walk around wearing all that black.”
“The devil doesn’t feel the heat,” Jackson said, laying his glass on the grass and once again taking up siege against the obstinate root.
Saturday, June14, 2014, Janus—I watched Jackson, standing in front of the mirror, gather his braids in one hand and sweep them upward deftly before slipping a rubber band around them to form a ponytail high up on his head.
He caught me looking at him in the mirror.
“You get more beautiful every year,” I said walking up behind him and kissing his neck.