Skin Folk (27 page)

Samantha’s mother poured a measure of the liqueur into each of two brandy glasses. Sam accepted one, took a sip. The sweet,
musky brew slid heavily down her throat, calming her. “What that song about, Mummy? Where it come from?”

“Is a old Jamaican song. I not too certain what about. It come from slavery days, and Papa tell me he think Sammy was a slave
who had to work so hard it kill him. You should ask your grandfather—I teach maths, not history. Why you want to know?”

“No real reason. I just keep thinking about it a lot nowadays.”

Mrs. Lewis smiled. “That song is so sad, but I loved it when I was a girl. Is Papa used to sing it to me. He tell me when
I have children, I must sing it to them, so they wouldn’t forget. It make me think of home. When I get pregnant with you,
I tell your father that we was going to name you Sam or Samantha.”

Great. Poor Sammy, worked to death.

Her mother’s dinner had been wonderful, as usual. Samantha had lingered late, nibbling at the leftovers and hoping that if
she just waited another half hour, she’d have room for that last slice of fried plantain. Replete, she dozed on the subway
ride home, and didn’t wake up until Dundas, one stop too far south. No matter. It wasn’t a long walk. It was after 11
P.M.
when she came up out of the subway station and started walking in the direction of her building.

Although never quite deserted, the downtown streets were still and quiet tonight. The windows of the roti shop were dark.
As Samantha passed the fountain of the Polytechnic, she had the odd sensation that cotton wool had been stuffed in her ears,
so softly did the spray of water fall back into the pond. The hookers strutting in front of the all-night burger place seemed
morose, their usual banter with each other and their customers lacklustre. The long, empty stretch of pavement gleamed in
the streetlight. It spooked her. Samantha decided to cut through the small park instead. It would be quicker, and it was brightly
lit. She stepped onto the park grounds. There were the usual straggly knots of people gathered around the various benches
under the trees; smoking up, cruising, or just hanging out. Sam started to feel a little better for having people around her.
She kept going, left the section where the park benches were. In the dark, she could just make out the row of brass rectangles
embedded along the perimeter of the park, plaques dedicated by people who had planted trees in memory of loved ones who had
died. The trees danced and waved eerily at her. Samantha sped up. She rounded the big tree growing at the park’s edge. She
turned to check for traffic before crossing Carlton Street, and tripped on the uneven ground. She tumbled. Felt a sharp pain
across the side of her skull as it cracked against a root of the tree. Then blackness.

… well, those tombs arounn the cottn tree, and I inside the cottn tree lay down. And at night-time I see the cottn tree light
up with candles and I resting now, put me hand this way and sleeping…

“Hey, girl, you all right? That was some fall you took.”

The chill of the icy earth made Samantha shiver. She opened her eyes to find two women bent over her. She was sitting with
her back against the trunk of the tree that had tripped her. Stunned from the blow to her head, she stared bemusedly at the
Day-Glo pink micro-mini one of the women was wearing. Hot pink was not her saviour’s best colour. “I think I’m okay. Can you
help me up?”

… and I only hear a likkle voice come to me. And them talking to me, but those things is spirit talking to me, and them speaking
to me now, and say now:

“Sure.” They helped her to her feet, their six-inch stilettos sinking into the thawing earth as they did so. The throbbing
in Samantha’s head was incredible, like someone pounding behind her eyes, trying to get out. Strangely, though, she could
now hear very clearly, and the night had a pellucid clarity that let her see right to the other side of the park, even through
the darkness. The gently swaying oaks and maples now seemed venerable, not threatening. Samantha took a few deep breaths.
The headache began to lessen. The woman in the Day-Glo mini smelt like apple blossoms. “I’m going to be all right. Thanks
for helping me.”

“Is a likkle nice likkle child, and who going get she right up now in the h’African world?

“Because you brains, you will take something, so therefore we going to teach you something.”

“You sure? Maybe you should go to Emerge?”

Emerge. Oh, the emergency room. “’S’okay. If I start to feel sick I will, promise. But my home’s right over there.”

Samantha crossed the street safely this time. Five minutes later, she was in her apartment. The headache was completely gone,
but she was still chilled and a little shaky.

Well, the first thing that them teach me is s’wikkidi; s
’wikkidi lango,
which is sugar and water, see? And them teach me that.

S’wikkidi lango.
Yeah. At that moment, Sammie knew what to do for her chills. She went to the kitchen, put the kettle on to boil, fetched
the ginger root from the crisper of the fridge and the Demerara sugar in its cookie tin from the cupboard, along with the
nutmeg. As she waited for the water to boil, she heaped the sticky brown crystals into the bottom of her largest mug, then
grated ginger and nutmeg into it. She filled the mug with boiling water and took it into her bedroom, where she changed into
an oversized T-shirt while the infusion steeped. Sitting up in bed, Samantha clutched the mug to her and inhaled the spicy
steam. She looked through the pages of the book while she did, at gold and silver, brass and copper: beauty made by hands,
like her mother’s quilt. Like the empty vase that now sat on her coffee table. She wondered what she could fill it with.

She sipped slowly at the tea until she had drunk it all, then put the mug on her bedside table and drifted into peaceful sleep.

Samantha strolled into work at 10 o’clock the next morning. It had taken longer at the university temp agency than she’d thought.
She didn’t worry about it.
Because you brains.

Camille smiled and shook her head as Samantha walked by the reception desk. “Barnes has been asking for you. You were supposed
to be in at eight-thirty.”

“Yeah, I know.”

As she passed Grant’s cubicle, he stuck his head out. No cotton this morning. “Were you sick or something?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine.” She went into her cubicle, dumped her coat, turned on her computer, started typing. The counsellor at the
community college had said she stood a good chance of getting in, that it was never a very full course.

We going to teach you something. And them teach me my prayers, which is:

Dear Ms. Barnes: It is with regret that I tender my resignation…

She printed the letter, slid it under Barnes’s door. From inside, she could hear the creak of her boss’s chair as she got
up to investigate. Samantha went back to her cubicle, fished the course calendar out of her purse, and started to leaf through
it. Two years to a certificate in goldsmithing, and she could take an elective in forging iron.

T
oronto bags its trees in winter; New York ties theirs down. Tree bondage must be some kind of weird city thing.

T
hat fall, a storm hailed down unseasonable screaming winds and fists of pounding rain. The temperature plummeted through a
wet ululating night that blew in early winter. Morning saw all edges laced with frost.

In the city’s grove, the only place where live things, captured, still grew from earth, the trees thrashed, roots heaving
at the soil.

City parks department always got the leavings. Their vans were prison surplus, blocky, painted happy green. The growing things
weren’t fooled.

Parks crew arrived, started throwing tethers around the lower branches, hammering the other ends of twisted metal cables into
the fast-freezing ground to secure the trees. Star-shaped leaves flickered and flashed in butterfly-winged panic. Branches
tossed.

One tree escaped before they could reach it; yanked its roots clear of the gelid soil, and flapping its leafy limbs, leapt
frantically for the sky. A woman of the crew shouted and jumped for it. Caught a long, trailing root as the tree rose above
her. For a second she hung on. Then the root tore away in her hand and the tree flew free. Its beating branches soughed at
the air.

The woman landed heavily, knees bowing and thighs flexing at the impact. She groaned, straightened, stared at the length of
root she was clutching in her garden glove. Liver-red, it wriggled like a worm. Its clawed tip scratched feebly. A dark liquid
welled from its broken end. “We always lose a few when this happens,” she said. The man with her just stared at the thing
in her hand.

The tree was gaining altitude, purple leaves catching the light as it winged its way to its warmer-weathered homeland. She
dropped the root. He tried to kick dirt over it, his boot leaving dull indentations in the earth. Then he gave a shout, not
of surprise exactly, rushed to another tree that had worked most of its roots whipping out of the soil. She ran to help. Cursing,
they dodged flailing foliage, battened down the would-be escapee.

He panted at her, “So, you and Derek still fighting?”

Her heart tossed briefly. She hogtied the faint, familiar dismay. “No, we worked it out again.”

And Derek would stay, again. They would soldier on. And quarrel again, neither sure whether they battled to leave each other
or stay.

A burgundy gleam on the powder-dusted ground caught her eye. The severed root was crawling jerkily, trying to follow in the
direction its tree had gone.

T
he song “Weakness for Sweetness,” copyright 1996, is quoted with the gracious permission of singer Natalie Burke and composer
Leston Paul.

I
ssy?”

“What.”

“Suppose we switch suits?” Cleve asked.

Is what now? From where she knelt over him on their bed, Issy slid her tongue from Cleve’s navel, blew on the wetness she’d
made there. Cleve sucked in a breath, making the cheerful pudge of his tummy shudder. She stroked its fuzzy pelt.

“What,” she said, looking up at him, “you want me wear your suit and you wear mine?” This had to be the weirdest yet.

He ran a finger over her lips, the heat of his touch making her mouth tingle. “Yeah,” he replied. “Something so.”

Issy got up to her knees, both her plump thighs on each side of his massive left one. She looked appraisingly at him. She
was still mad from the fight they’d just had. But a good mad. She and Cleve, fighting always got them hot to make up. Had
to be something good about that, didn’t there? If they could keep finding their way back to each other like this? Her business
if she’d wanted to make candy, even if the heat of the August night made the kitchen a hell. She wondered what the rass he
was up to now.

They’d been fucking in the Senstim Co-operation’s “wetsuits” for about a week. The toys had been fun for the first little
while—they’d had more sex this week than in the last month—but even with the increased sensitivity, she was beginning to miss
the feel of his skin directly against hers. “It not going work,” Issy declared. But she was curious.

“You sure?” Cleve asked teasingly. He smiled, stroked her naked nipple softly with the ball of his thumb. She loved the contrast
between his shovel-wide hands and the delicate movements he performed with them. Her nipple poked erect, sensitive as a tongue
tip. She arched her back, pushed the heavy swing of her breast into fuller contact with the ringed ridges of thumb.

“Mmm.”

“C’mon, Issy, it could be fun, you know.”

“Cleve, they just going key themselves to our bodies. The innie become a outie, the outie become a innie…”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“They take a few minutes to conform to our body shapes, right? Maybe in that few minutes…”