Chapter Seventeen Evelyn
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVELYN
You got this, girl,” Evelyn mumbled for the umpteenth time as she made her way down Fourteenth Street, the eerie silence broken up by the occasional car or bus that passed by.
She needed to be brave, told herself she had nothing to fear as she walked toward U Street Metro.
The station’s entrance was guarded by a cluster of National Guardsmen in fatigues, one of whom nodded to Evelyn as she walked by.
She descended into the station’s belly, the only person on the escalator.
The last time DC had been so deserted during prime-time hours?
The pandemic. Folks didn’t want to risk joining the ranks of the Afflicted.
Several stores were closed, iron gates down.
A few people trickled into restaurants. Even Ben’s Chili Bowl lacked its usual bustling crowd spilling out onto the sidewalk.
The streets weren’t safe. The air wasn’t safe, as if something could descend from above and wreak havoc.
As if whatever had beset the demon eyes had floated through the ether and infected their minds and bodies, as easy as catching a cold or the flu.
That’s what folks were assuming. That’s what was keeping folks inside.
The death of Pastor Samuelson had become a city-wide specter.
People were losing it. Yesterday evening, a finance VP was arrested and accused of second-degree murder after he’d bludgeoned his wife to death with a rock on the streets of Silver Spring because he thought he saw a flashing red glow beneath her shades.
Multiple reports were coming in of folks forcing roommates or romantic partners or children or parents from their home for acting weird, for having something “of the devil” about them.
One Bible-waving woman who was popular on the feeds had kicked her husband out of their house.
“I’d rather let that sinful mofo live on the streets than have whatever’s consuming his soul take me,” she declared.
Evelyn decided she would carry a bottle of pepper spray anytime she went outside, something she hadn’t done in years since she’d left Baltimore.
The train she stepped into was almost as empty as the streets.
A few people were headed home from work, those who couldn’t telecommute, she assumed, or those who weren’t afraid.
She suddenly recalled she’d run into a disheveled Pastor Samuelson on the Green Line.
Evelyn wondered if she’d been one of the last few people to see him out and about before he succumbed to…
whatever he’d succumbed to. A thought she pushed aside.
She switched over to the Red Line at Fort Totten, got off one stop later at Takoma.
Less than twenty-five minutes after leaving her studio, she’d reached Trevor’s four-story walk-up, an older renovated building that she suspected had been built in the ’50s.
Trevor buzzed her in and she walked up to the second floor.
He opened the door, gave a grand bow in nothing but loose white shorts…
shorty shorts that clung to his upper thighs, to her delight.
A towel lay on his forearm and he held a silver tray with a flute of bubbly orange liquid. A mimosa?
“Trevor, we don’t have to do the whole love-scene thing anymore.
” She picked up the flute and took a sip.
Definitely a mimosa. It felt off to indulge in something so frivolous, considering what was happening to the district.
She hadn’t even paid her respects to Pastor Samuelson.
Hadn’t gone by Ebenezer, a place that could’ve easily been her church home if she lived closer by, just to be with other folks.
Last she saw on social, a mountain of flowers rested outside the sanctuary, laid there in his honor.
What right did she have, to prioritize pleasure?
Trevor tucked the tray under his arm and helped Evelyn take off her jacket. “Why not? Maybe this isn’t special. Maybe this is just what it’s supposed to be like between us every day. Nice threads.”
Underneath Evelyn’s jacket, waiting to be revealed, a blue two-piece romper patterned with white butterflies.
Another outfit she’d only had the courage to wear in a store dressing room and her apartment.
Cute, but showed off her curves too much, made her look fat.
But now she wanted to show what she had, wanted Trevor to see everything that he could devour.
Evelyn leaned in for a kiss, for their embrace.
Their wonderful, sweet embrace that felt like it was sprinkled with honeyed raindrops, with dust from the stars.
That made the anxieties and uncertainties of the past few days disappear.
She felt the magnetic pull of Trevor’s arms, his skin against hers, could tell from how he held her that the pull was there for him, too.
An embrace that was gentle yet passionate.
Maybe even a bit desperate, like he had to exult in her energy because he wasn’t sure when he would see her again.
An electricity that circled her, that made her feel supported, strong…
alive. The times when she was in Kent’s arms…
an increasingly fading memory… a mercy… their hugs fast, furtive.
An overbearing mountain making its presence known.
Evelyn understood the subtle message; she was to make herself small.
She rubbed her nose against Trevor’s neck. Let her fingers trail the curve of his slick, smooth back. Evelyn wanted him badly.
She forced herself to step away and noticed the dark circles under his eyes. Had he been up late?
“You okay, sweetie?” Evelyn asked. “You seem a bit tired.”
“Nah, I’m good. Just out of it… I think, everything that’s been going on, just starting to get to me.”
She nodded, unsure of what to say, sipped her drink, and took in his place.
Music wafted from his wall unit speaker, Chaka crooning, “Please stay with me now…” It had been months since she’d stepped foot into Trevor’s apartment.
Things hadn’t changed much. A big living room with hardwood floors.
A mauve shaggy carpet in the middle. A round, wooden coffee table with bills and a bowl for keys and little knickknacks, including the sun amulet Trevor had taken out at her place.
Big flat-screen TV that was on, volume low.
Wicker bookshelves with musical biographies and political biographies and fantasy novels and mythology texts and manga.
On the walls, framed vinyl albums. Trevor’s favorite musical era?
Clearly the ’70s, almost two decades before he was born.
Marvin, live at the London Palladium, legs splayed wide as he sang his heart out…
fire. Aretha when she was rocking an Afro, looking so confident in nothing but a white fur.
Stevie in his cornrows and a velvet brown robe in the desert, flanked by brushwood.
Diana, in wrap top and lavender bottom, skin aglow, arms outstretched to open the door to her house long as you knew who ran the show.
But what really caught Evelyn’s eye, like the first time she’d visited his place, a poster of Al Green and Ann Peebles sitting on a porch, barefoot, holding hands.
Countrified. Al in an open blue shirt and light blue jeans torn right by his crotch, Ann in a pink patterned dress, open at the top.
For a moment, Evelyn imagined herself in the same pose, same attire, with Trevor.
It struck her just how sensual the entire display was.
Sensual and proudly Black. Hadn’t dawned on her during her previous visits.
Trevor may not have been showing up fully in relationships, but he was showing up for himself.
He’d curated a home that reflected his passions, a more organic, honest presentation of self than what Evelyn had ever cultivated. She had so much work to do.
One thing was new in the apartment, which she glimpsed from the corner of her eye… the large wooden cross above his door.
He gestured over toward the hallway and kitchen doorway.
“Made some grilled salmon, spinach, quinoa…” He poked his thumb over at the bathroom.
A plush robe hung on the door. “Got that last night. Just wanted to make sure to have something here so you can feel comfortable.” A peck on the lips.
“I’ma go check on the food.” A sweep of his arms. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Evelyn sat down and looked at the TV. On CNN, a live feed from New York.
A slender, somber-faced man was speaking.
The banner at the bottom identified him as Fonseca “Fonsi” Harewood, New York mystic, owner of the Bronx-based botanica La Playa Espiritu.
One of the biggest news platforms on the planet was hosting a mystic on their station, had identified their guest as a mystic. The world, forever transformed.
Fonsi had a fade, goatee, and gentle demeanor. Definitely gave off Caribbean, Afro-Latino vibes. Something Evelyn always loved experiencing when she visited New York. She leaned in to better see the captions.
“I’m part of a special mystical community,” Fonsi said.
He spoke slowly. His head was lowered. He wasn’t used to being on camera.
“We’ve been in dialogue with each other, and after much soul searching and deliberation, I realized it was important to share what I know, what we believe.
This is a hard time for the people of the DMV region with the death of Pastor Samuelson.
People are leaving the area in droves. We haven’t been able to fully understand what happened to him and the rest of the so-called Afflicted, though we do believe it was supernatural.
But just from precedence, from everything we’ve learned about how spirits and apparitions work, it’s almost unheard of for someone to be ‘infected’”—Fonsi held up his fingers, made quotation marks—“with a supernatural entity. We’ve simply never heard of anything like it. ”