FLESH AND THE DEVIL by Kola Boof Read online

  ••

  The Palace of King Solomon

  Jerusalem

  •

  The son lay dead upon tablets of stone. His hair like satiny waves of black ocean. Its sheen and luster...like a new oddness.

  Give us our father’s dark hand.

  Give us our father’s dark hand.

  Let it be According to the Axumite (Ethiopian) and the Cushite.

  The three loves of Solomon. The desire of his hands...not for flesh...but for the desire of his own crown.

  The one true hair.

  The one possessed by only one people--the chosen ones--the Hebrews of the ark and the fathers crossing the Sea. The African King who said, “Without black sons...a black man becomes a dead man.”

  Solomon rose now. Israel’s King without a crown.

  Comely and tall, his skin burned orange by the sun, his eyes black as the liquid coals, his lip soft and shapely as caterpillars. Beholding Kentake Abu CanCollo Makeda, the Queen of Sheba.

  And she of course was blue as sapphire berries, her charcoal skin like hives of rolling silver and volcano soot. The black man’s mother--her mouth rich and spacious as a small, tiny face, and her eyes deeper than time, and full of memories from even before that. More sensuous than the song of his longing, she stood before him a foreign carpet...the most beautiful woman in the world...the triangular shape of her head, bald as skin, being testament to the blood of the Ark and Solomon’s own journey. His own glory.

  “But I have no crown”, said the Hebrew King whose skin was blacker than gold. “I am in a newness, two bloods...an utter unknown.”

  The Queen of Sheba told him, “Then I will come to know you.”

  Then there was Sholoongo. The legendary Puntian (Somali) Banker; the earth’s first woman banker. The one whose tight, tiny pussy dodged and moved in the dark, her round black body shifting under wool so as to avoid the poking of Solomon’s golden staff. Her kiss thrilling him more than wine and scorpion fights. Ever gently the moan; ever sweetly the rebuke; ever tender the distance.

  The distance.

  The going away in her mysterious eyes. Like a panther clinging to shadows. His song not possessing her--but the wrapping of her long legs entrapping and conquering him. His Hebrew penis smoldered in the wooly wet marsh of Sholoongo’s infamous Puntian cunt.

  The cunt with the one true hair on it. His voice, like that of a small effeminate boy’s, shouting her name, “Sholoongo.”

  UhSoora...the virgin who bore him five sons.

  Water girl of Kenya, drifting over creeks and stones, her skin burning in the hot sun, her hair stiff like dense cotton on flesh the color of fudge and raisin clay. Always serving him and laughing and running from him when he tried to bathe her in the stream. His orange hands made brown just by his tireless handling of her soft velvety flesh. Her gash of a wet pussy. Hot and tender to his poke. Her fallen cries, rising in a moan that only a black woman can make.

  The sweetness of life. Roo and sunshine and Amber. Yellow.

  Like an enchanted goddess, RooAmber Childress felt herself coming to life in the ocean’s lost shimmering otherworld. Her sea green eyes flashing against the turtle’s back. Her slit wrists sealed by saltwater.

  Remember...

  “If my father dies, I will give birth to him again”, said the Queen of Sheba.

  “My master, my husband“ Sholoongo the woman Banker said. “I will take your song...And die with it.”

  UhSoora, the virgin water girl of Kenya asked him, “How many times...have you made me a woman?”

  “For as many times as you’ve given birth to me”, replied King Solomon.

  And then gladly, he rose up his infant son, and said to the whole court of Jerusalem, each and all of them that were against his mistresses and his seething songs about loving and desiring them, each of them that would go on to make their own stories out of Solomon’s life and tell versions the world over, but... never ...the African one, “Look here now...my son with the one true hair. My son from the earth’s first garden.”

  My son...who remembers me.

  I will call him, “Remember”. And that will be his name in Africa and in Israel.

  ••

  RooAmber Childress bolted up out of the tide, her numb slit wrists reaching for the sun. And as she ran upon land, her legs moving fast as a sprinter’s, she crashed into the chest and arms of Shane Roberts, and when she saw his face and when his lips met hers in a kiss...her head fell back, as if bursting against a cement sidewalk, and all of woman-kind’s insanity was loose in the world. Shane hoisted her up his arms and carried her all the way back to the Bullova Carriage House.

  Once back in her room, she noticed the portrait of the white people’s rendering of Jesus Christ as she glided across the room in Shane’s arms. And when Shane laid her on the bed, she noticed the King James Holy Bible next to it. A book filled with white and olive men’s revisionist histories and re-imagined myths, ancient stories stolen from the African peoples from which those men had come and would eventually disown and deny. For as the skin gets lighter and the hair texture slicker, the identifying and the signifying cannot help but become less and less; thinner blood and thinner. Once by blood, but by flesh no more. People change and forget to tell their mothers. They become something else, they mutate. They are no longer their mother’s children.

  The white people’s bible sat there on the table looking impressive.

  Shane kissing RooAmber as her arms encircled his strong neck, her eyes closed and her body opening to receive his passionate dicking.

  And she thought about the fact that in the white people’s bible...the menstrual cycle of the woman is not celebrated. In their bibles, there is no sickle fire at night down by the river--a thousand topless women with their singing husbands (singing the songs of Solomon) and thanking the Creator for the power he gave womankind to bring forth life; to bring back the dead.

  In their bible, there is no mention of the river of blood; the Nile. Woman is erased. They give Moses and his phallic staff the credit.

  There is no mention of the world’s first mother ripping open to give the earth...a tree.

  “I carry you into this world!” Shane moaned as he fucked RooAmber into the mattress. His eyes going back in his head. “...sweet Jesus, it’s good!” Like some old timey sexist bastard.

  18

  •

  Two Months Later

  Washington, D.C.

  •

  On the same sunny day that RooAmber Childress moved out of her husband’s house and into a walk up townhouse between 14th and U Street in N.W....Shane’s wife called her cell phone (only God knows how she got the number), and made it clear that she knew Shane and RooAmber were seeing each other and that she wasn’t going to stand for it. Sula and Trent were there that day, helping RooAmber carry in her boxes and furniture. Soraya dropped by later with a freshly baked sweet potato pie and ice cream, but just in time to catch the unfortunate fireworks.

  When the cell phone rang, RooAmber called from upstairs, “Sula, could you please answer my phone?”

  RooAmber had just carried her t.v. up to her bedroom as Sula casually pressed “talk” and answered her sister’s cell phone, “Hello?”

  “SO--how long have you been fucking my husband, RooAmber?”

  Sula laughed and said, “Excuse me?”

  The woman on the other end became irrational, screaming, “You think this is funny, bitch!? You really think I’m going to let Shane divorce me after I’ve given him two children and the best years of my life? You must be wearing that hair weave too tight, because...I will...kill you...before I.”

  Sula politely clicked off the cell phone and walked into the kitchen. She leaned into Soraya’s ear and said, gravely, “Ma...RooAmber fuck’n somebody’s husband.”

  Soraya looked up at Sula as though she must be crazy. “She bet not be! Who told you that?”

  “Some woman just called on her cell phone really upset about it--said her h
usband’s name is Shane.”

  “Oh hell naw”, huffed Soraya, furiously. “I did not raise yall to be no goddamn whore-ass chicken head home wreckers--RoooAAmmbeerrr! Git yo ass down here, wh-Y-nnch!”

  The cell phone started ringing again, shaking in Sula’s hand like a baby’s rattle.

  ••

  The break up with Scotch had been unbearably painful, because RooAmber had returned from her assignment in Sag Harbor determined to save her marriage. She had made up her mind during the plane ride that she would tell Scotch all about the past she believed she had in Africa, about the slave children that she now believed had belonged to her in another life, and of course, about the passionately irresistible love affair she’d had with Shane Roberts at the Bullova Carriage House. She had planned to throw herself at Scotch’s mercy, profess her undying love for him, suggest they get counseling, and then bravely walk away from the magical fantasy that was Shane Roberts. Unfortunately, it didn’t go like that.

  Scotch had picked her up from the airport, hugging, kissing and twirling her to the baggage claims area, and then taken her home for a nice, quiet candlelit dinner. He had set out their best china with fresh flowers and champagne, and on each plate--he placed a pinkish rabbit looking meat, the gravy obscuring the shape of the meat portions, and garnished it with sweet potatoes.

  “You won’t believe it, but I cooked this in Oklahoma and brought it back with me. I wanted you to have something special for a change.”

  RooAmber had begun eating the meat when all of a sudden she realized that she didn’t recognize the configuration of the bones. It didn’t look like rabbit at all, and the taste was slightly off.

  “What is this?”

  “Possum.”

  To RooAmber Childress--a possum was a big white rodent with a long tail. A rat. She upchucked all over the beautifully set table and found herself laying on the bed, her breaking with shame as she told Scotch every illicit detail about what had happened in Sag Harbor.

  When she was done spilling her guts, professing her love for Scotch and begging for mercy, he only stared at her with a shocked disbelief and then finally said, “I was told that black women don’t cheat on their white husbands.”

  “What?”

  “I was told that”, Scotch repeated as he realized what a fool he sounded like, “black women don’t cheat on their white husbands. You’re not as whorish as our white women, that’s what I was told. Black women have less prospects than other women, and if you can get a white man, you tend to be grateful and really appreciative--I was told.”

  “Scotch, I love you and I promise that...”

  “You’re nothing but a 14th street cum-catcher”, he surmised out of nowhere, the redness forced out of his face by pure white heat. “Out fucking your black hop-the-broom king and laughing behind my back the whole goddamned time, right?”

  “No, Scotch--I...”

  He slapped her! Hard across the face. He told her, “I’ll always love you, RooAmber, but you’ve got six months to get your shit and get out of my house. I’ll have divorce papers ready by the end of the week.” Then he turned and left her there, holding her face and crying.

  ••

  Now Scotch Childress was walking up the steps to RooAmber’s new place on U Street, a bouquet of red roses in his hand, and RooAmber coming down the stairs, her mother’s voice calling her, kind of angrily it seemed, as her cell phone rang in Sula’s hand. Why wouldn’t Sula answer it?

  Ding-dong went the doorbell. RooAmber opened it, and was stunned to see her husband standing there.

  “RooooAAAmmberrr!”, Soraya Jones hollered from the kitchen.

  “Mama, I’m coming! Hold on just a second!”

  She looked back at Scotch as he forced himself to say, “I love you, RooAmber...and I want you to come back home.”

  RooAmber declined the roses. “What about the divorce?”

  “I don’t want a divorce”, Scotch said, passionately, trying to push the bouquet towards her as she refused to accept it. “I made a big mistake, Roo. We belong together.”

  RooAmber shook her head and said, “I will always love you, Scotch. Always. But I can’t come back. I betrayed you and I’d only that’s all I have to offer you now. Betrayal.”

  There was a long pause. “Because of your lover?”

  “Yes”, she said truthfully. “I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ve decided to take him from his wife.”

  Instantly, Scotch looked as though he’d been dumped over the head with a pitcher of ice water. Tears blistered in his diamond blue eyes and he turned and walked away, his body shaking with rage, his white fingers curling into fists.

  RooAmber closed the door gently, not able to watch him turn into whatever he was turning into, her heart breaking all over again as she turned and walked to the kitchen.

  “Mom, you were calling me?”

  Soraya was so upset that her yellow face looked like spilled corn meal. Her eyes all but lacerated RooAmber’s flesh as she demanded, accusingly, “Is you fuck’n somebody’s husband?”

  Sula handed the cell phone to RooAmber and said, “His wife just called. She’s really upset and wants you to leave ‘Shane’ alone.”

  Both Soraya and Sula looked as though they were about ready to kick RooAmber’s ass themselves, so she took a deep breath, folded her arms and nodded that it was true.

  Fast as lightning, Soraya’s heavy hand slapped RooAmber across the mouth! All she could think about was how RooAmber’s father had lied about loving her, took her virginity, cheated on her, abandoned her, and how Dinari and Sula’s daddy had beaten her up on their wedding night, brought other women in their bed, called her “fat yellow bitch” in front of company, picked other women to be his partner when they played Spades or Gin, emptied out her savings for her children’s education...and abandoned her.

  “Mama he’s...”

  “Oh hell fuck’n no!” shouted Soraya Jones belligerently. “What is wrong with you black women of today? Don’t you know this is a game that men play on us women, especially lonely stupid desperate ass black women? You really think you got a future with somebody else’s husband? Scotch is a good man! He put a ring on your finger, put you in Landover, Merralyn and you go and throw it all away. And don’t tell me this motherfucker is a nigga, too!”

  “Yes, mama!” RooAmber answered defiantly. “Shane is a black man. He’s married to a white Puerto Rican woman, their son died but they have a baby daughter. Yes--I am the devil, I am a bitch, I am not only fucking him, but I plan on taking him away from his wife.”

  Soraya’s mouth fell open in shock.

  “And what you gone do with him?”, Sula demanded as she stepped up in RooAmber’s face, tears bursting in her eyes, because in that moment, she lost all respect for her older sister.

  “Trade places with his wife? Don’t you realize that even if he marries your skank ass, he’ll start taking applications for the mistress vacancy the next damned day?”

  “Sula--I love Shane, and I have to have him.”

  Soraya shook her head. She said, “Where I put my coat? I got to get out of here. God in heaven knows that I did not raise my kids to turn out like this. My son’s a faggot and my daughter’s not just an adulteress, but she’s proud of it. Proud to be a skank ass HO. I hope she’s using condoms. Whurr my coat, Sula? “

  “Dinari is not a faggot, ma”, said Sula. “Please do not use that word. That’s a disgusting word and it doesn’t describe our brother, your son, who is easily the most honorable man any of us have ever known.”

  Soraya ignored her favorite daughter and went looking for her coat.

  Sula then turned her attention back to her sister and said, “You ain’t no kind of right, RooAmber. If his wife don’t end up killing you, karma will. This is the reason why women can’t be sisters in the first place. We’re all so busy stabbing each other in the back over some stupid man. Why can’t you put yourself in that other woman’s place? Don’t you realize that all women
are sisters, regardless of what color, class or religion they are, and that you are willingly betraying your own sister?”

  “I have to have him, Sula. He’s mines.”

  And on that note they all left. Soraya, Sula and Trent. They not only left, but left silently.

  ••

  RooAmber started to take her depression pills after her family left, but something in her spirit made her flush them down the toilet instead.

  “I don’t want that anymore”, she told herself as she climbed the stairs to her new bedroom. The first thing she saw as she entered the room was a bunch of old cassette tapes she’d owned in high school spilling out of one of the boxes. One tape in particular caught her eye.

  It was the one with her great grandmother on the cover of it. The now legendary blues singer Blinky Hampton, the maternal grandmother of RooAmber’s mother, Soraya.

  RooAmber picked up the tape and popped into the tape player. Immediately, the room was filled with clunky blues playing...a ghostly sorrow...Blinky’s elegant but impoverished black voice singing out as though she were some prostitute on her knees, giving confession in an alley:

  hush now...

  I’m only bad

  from all the love

  ...I never had.

  Though raw and drunk-sounding, the music possessed the same literary beauty as poetry. Nothing could top it when it was on. RooAmber held a pillow to her bosom and sat on a bean bag, her soul rocked by the sound of applause flooding into her bedroom as some white man’s voice announced, “Ladies and gentleman, just what you paid for...Miss Blinky Hampton!” And then RooAmber Childress...made the mistake of closing her eyes.

  And putting her head back. The cigar smoke and chattering of the tables. She felt her head go back too far, her neck straining...she was high. Heroin? Morphine? It felt like she was on a wire. Everything sepia toned through the gauze of her bloodshot eyes.