If You Have Had Your Midnights
When he returns from the 72-hour hold, he’s so quiet you wonder if they’ve done something to him. You’ve heard stories about other Black men, like the one who died from heart troubles, half-eaten by bedbugs. But this isn’t the Fulton County Jail. This isn’t even Georgia, though you are close. A friend—a white woman—reassures you that the place is not like prison. She’s been to this place before. Just dorm-like rooms with doors, she tells you. Lots of check-ins to see how you are. Sometimes meds, she says quickly, as if it’s all voluntary. She wants to bring you food, go to a movie. But you tell her, Some other time. You two are not close, and right now, you don’t want to be.
You couldn’t go see him, but you did pick him up. Of course, you didn’t ask about anything. Instead, you give him what quiet and space you can. He takes a long shower. In this small house, the closed bathroom door creates a void. You can hear sound from the other side, but you’re unsure if the room still exists. Eventually, he emerges in a seepage of humid air. He seems more returned than when he first got home, like the sun coming out after a black-skyed summer squall. He smells like himself again too: bright, strong, clean. For as long as you’ve known him, he’s used his uncle’s favorite brand of soap. When you catch a whiff of it, tears sting your eyes.
You make a move to sleep on the couch, gathering the blankets from the front closet, but he shakes his head, so you follow him to the room. You both lie down. You do not touch; it would be strange, right? Tonight, at least. But, oh, you want to touch him. Lying there, you think of the night you first met, at a nearby club. Humid air then too, and his dress shirt limp with sweat. He smelled the same, with hints of liquor aspirating between you. You spent so much time dancing with men, you could gauge their propensity for violence by how they held you. His hold was tight, but not desperate. When you broke to go to the bathroom, he let you go easily, telling you it was cool to have met you. But you laughed and said, Oh, no. I’m coming right back. Then he laughed, and rubbed his beard as he nodded. He was proud of the fact that you were interested, but he wasn’t arrogant about it. You found him in the same place when you returned, trying hard to look like he hadn’t been waiting. He tells you his name is Jacen. And you tell him yours.
Those days, you were in your era of hard work and harder play. There were so many terrible men, you learned you were most efficient at life on your own. You mastered the art of taking care of your needs, but to your friends, you complained bitterly. You put on rings of eyeliner, and complained. Why don’t they know how to love us for our whole selves? You’d jump into your small, hot car filled with grocery bags and complain. When will I have somebody to carry food into the house? Your Bluetooth’s battery died all the time.
But when the kind of man you wanted showed up, you were afraid. One night, at his old apartment, while you were making spaghetti—cheap, and always enough for leftovers—you got drunk on an empty stomach, having eaten only a pinch of the garlic bread he had just stuffed with cheese and olives and was baking. While the sauce simmered, you started messing with him, throwing little pieces of the pared inner loaf at his turned back. When he chased you into the living room, you dove for the couch. When he pinned you down with his large body, you stopped fighting. You finally had his attention; that was what you wanted. He gazed at you while tilting your head this way and that as if he was carefully considering your face.
Finally, he smiles.
“You don’t scare me,” he says.
“What?” you ask.
He repeats himself. You are playfully indignant. You ball a fist.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what I said,” he replies. “And I shouldn’t scare you.”
You knew exactly what he meant: all your dismissals and defenses. How you waited a certain number of days to text him back. How you’d pretend to be unavailable, then suddenly someone canceled, and you were free. That night was the first time he showed you he had a way of saying a thing without saying, and you fell in love with him right there, because he was all of this, and other things too. You slept over for the first time that night. For the first time, you had not carefully planned anything.
But three nights ago, when you desperately called for help, you were indeed afraid of him. Not that he would hurt you. It was all so frightening, your brain hadn’t even imagined that possibility. You only knew that he was hurting in a way you couldn’t stop, and what you were really afraid of was that he would go to a place where his mind couldn’t return to you. This happened with your own father. For your father, it was coke, the final dose cut with Fentanyl. For Jacen’s father, it was one too many parole violations. For Jacen, you don’t know what it is.
He holds the knife to his wrist and sobs. You have never seen him cry before, but now, he can’t stop crying. Impulsively, he moves the blade to his thigh and slices. At that same exact moment, a phantom blade pierces your heart. You have loved every part of his body and cannot understand why he would treat it this way in front of you. You love his thighs especially, how they bloom from under his boxers and end at rusty spots on his knees. His legs are big and brown like the bread you ate that distant night, the muscles hidden under his buttery bulk. His thighs are beautiful because he is beautiful. And strong. All of him has held you up, and now, he is oozing blood so thick it looks like he’s melting from the inside out.
You race for your phone.
When you come back, he has made another cut. There is more blood. You don’t think to ask him what’s wrong because nothing has ever been wrong. He is a laconic type of man, but usually happy. He takes care of things in the house and elsewhere. He visits his mother. He has no children, but his sister does. He picks them up for sleepovers and helps with homework. He replaces the brakes on your car and when other problems arise, helps you buy a new one altogether. He is good with numbers, so he does your taxes. He offers advice when you fight with your siblings. When your people ask for money, having to check with him is your favorite excuse. You never do, because you know he would say yes. But you always tell them you did. And sometimes you tell them he said no. Some of them resent him because of it. He jokes about being your favorite bad guy, but never seems to mind.
But tonight, as you lie next to him after his return, you wonder. Real men, your mother once told you, know how to hold their own with no one’s help. You have never questioned this, even though, by your mother’s own standards, she has never been with a real man.
Jacen is breathing evenly, which means he might be sleeping. He doesn’t always snore. You slip out of bed, into the bathroom, which is cooler now, but still smells of him. You disrobe and step into the tub, your feet, ever sensitive, painfully register its lingering dampness. When you turn the lever, hot water comes immediately, an aftereffect of his time in there. You usually shower in the mornings, and then, the water comes at you callously, brutishly cold. You look around for your soap, but on a whim, you grab his. This time, the scent makes you cry for real. Still, you use it to clean yourself.
When you emerge, you wrap yourself in his robe and wander into the living room. The blankets from the front room closet are still out, so you put them away. As you pass a side table, you see his phone. He couldn’t take it with him, of course, but he never asked about it when he returned. Breaking your own rules, you pick it up. It is always on silent. So is yours. You’re not sure what you’re looking for, but what you find is message after message: from his mother, his sister, his cousins, your younger brother. There are even a few Venmo requests. You don’t open any of it, but every message preview begins with an ask.
Hey, bro, can you still loan me that….
JC, did you find time to check on the….
Sup, cuz! Lemme know whether you can….
Man! You still living? Ain’t heard back and I need to know if….
Not a single one of them knows where Jacen has been. He didn’t tell you not to say, but you knew he wouldn’t want you to, either. Still, it’s strange that no one asks how he's been.
(And, although you weren’t too worried, fortunately, there is nothing there from other women.)
When you go back into the room, he is awake and sitting up. His hands are under the comforter, and you’re not sure if they’re empty, but when he looks up at you, there’s nothing left to do but stand there. You refuse to run. During your three days alone, you promised yourself you would never leave the room again, not even to call for help. You promised yourself that whatever happens, you are both in it.
He asks if you are okay, and you say yes. You just felt like you needed a shower. It had been a long day. You are too afraid to ask him the same question. He seems so uncomfortable; maybe he thinks you’re monitoring his symptoms, like they did at the hospital. But he does lift the covers to adjust his hands. He has nothing in them.
You stand there for a long time, unsure what to do next. Suddenly, he throws off the comforter and swings his legs over the side of the bed. You haven’t forgotten about the wounds but are still shocked to see them. They are long. but as much blood as there was—you were cleaning drops and smeared footprints from the floors for hours—the cuts, one doctor told you, were not very deep. They have been sealed with Dermabond, which makes the wound look both ashy and slick, like his skin is serpentine in its peeling and shedding.
He pats his other leg. This is a ritual of sorts. Whenever you are angry or sad, tired or overwhelmed, even excited, he beckons you to his lap. Sometimes, it’s strategic: you kiss and then…. Other times, it is so he can simply hold you. This time, however, you crawl into bed behind him and you wrap yourself around his body. You rest your chin on his shoulder and you close your eyes. You do not know whose smell it is you smell. You have both used the green soap and you are still wearing his robe.
If he notices either, he doesn’t say.
He is quiet at first, but then he clears his throat. It is another long moment before he speaks.
“I don’t want to be like the men who give up,” he says. “I’ve seen them. I know them. I just….” and he cannot finish the sentence, but you know how it ends. You won’t finish it either; you simply hold him from behind, noting how small your arms are, how you cannot envelop him the way he envelops you. Still, you try. You fall asleep that way.
. . .
The next day, at work, you see a thing and order it. Two days later, it arrives. He’s at home for now, but antsy. You can tell he wants to go back to work, and you want him to too, because it will make things feel closer to okay. But you don’t say this. Instead, you tell him to take the time he needs. You mean this, you say. You have never meant anything more in your life. He looks at you for a long time and you do not blink, even though you want to cry. You bite your tongue to balance the pain and thankfully, the tears don’t come. He tells you he is going back on Monday. You tell him he can, but only if he wants to.
So, he’s already home when you get home, and the package is on the front table, where he leaves packages for you. You open it and call him into the room to show him. He asks who these things are for.
“They’re for us,” you say. “Me and you.”
He stares at you again. Again, you refuse to blink or cry.
“Come outside,” you say.
In the yard, you kick the nephews’ toys out of the way. You prepare the solution, load one gun, then the other. Without warning, you point at him and pull the trigger.
The bubbles go everywhere; there may be two hundred of them. He stands there awkwardly at first, as you watch them settle and burst on his face and beard. He looks up at the ones that do not land on him. He smiles. When he points his gun at you, you take off running. You regret this immediately. Maybe his leg still hurts, but when you look behind you, he is chasing you. Like the first time it happened, you let him catch you, and he holds you while you point at each other and shoot. Instantly, you are in a downpour of bubbles. They land on you, on him. He is blinking and laughing. And you, you’re laughing too.
When you stand on your tiptoes to peck his cheek, he turns his full face to you, and you kiss. His mouth tastes strange—maybe bubble residue, maybe medicine—and it feels comforting, familiarly new. You realize this is the first time you’ve kissed in seven days.
“What do you feel?” you ask him. “I want to understand.”
For a moment, he is too confused to answer. But soon, he takes a deep breath, and then he does.
Destiny O. Birdsong is a writer whose work has appeared in the Paris Review Daily, Poets & Writers, African American Review, The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. She has received support from Callaloo, Cave Canem, Jack Jones Literary Arts, MacDowell, Pink Door, The Ragdale Foundation, and Tin House. Her debut poetry collection, Negotiations, was published by Tin House Books in 2020. Her debut novel, Nobody’s Magic, was published by Grand Central in 2022, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, was a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and won the 2022 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction. In 2022, she was selected as the Hurston/Wright Foundation’s inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Rutgers University-Newark and served as a 2022-24 Artist-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She is a contributing editor of Poets & Writers Magazine.