by Tre Harris
I start early because the early worm gets the dirt. The air is stale, like expired Top Ramen, dry and seasoned with golden dust. At dawn, I find myself waking up in front of the house that holds my memories. Memories upon memories. The house is fleshy and pink and filled with neurons ready to fade with every swig of liquor. It’s the house I think about when someone says home is where the heart is. This is my life, and I must swim through it every day. This is what it feels like.
My eyelids are heavy, and my nose is stuffy. I’m cotton-mouthed, like my great-granddaddy. The night before I dreamt of the moon rising and the liberation of my people. We all look the same with the lights turned off and yet in the daytime, the dark-skinned wanderers sink deeper into oppression.
The handle to the Memory House is cold. My fingers freeze to the knob. Turn. Turn. Pull. A rush of wind that blows my hair back, makes my curls unfurl and stick to my sweaty forehead.
The door leads to a long, straight hallway. The house is always the same, ever growing with every step I take, though the doors flip-flop so that I’m surprised when any new memory appears seemingly out of nowhere.
Hundreds of doors with ornate watercolor windows. If I look through them, I only see the reflection of a man who doesn’t know who he is.
The doors are built with wood older than Christ, older than Eve, older than Darkness. The floor is blunt cement riddled with blood stains and dust like a layer of ice. My bare feet shrivel and sting with every step. Above, bright lights hum; there is no switch to turn them off. When I wake, I must face who I am, no matter how little I care for that person. At the very end of the hall, a door that brings me to the present. I am not prepared and so I search through the memories to find who I am, so I can make the right choices, so I can live how I want to live.
Portraits of rappers, scantily clad white women, and plantations decorate the walls. 2Pac and Jay-Z appear distinguished next to Virginia landscapes. The sceneries are mountainous hills with manors in the foreground. Black figures haunt the front porches and work in the fields. Brown boys in large sombreros drink cerveza under the hot Virginia heat. Raisins cover their ankles and Lotería cards drift from the sky like snow. El Borracho and La Sandia and La Muerte, La Muerte, La Muerte. The pictures are painted in thick oil, clumped together in a mucusy shimmer. Browns and greens and browns and blacks. Their frames are baroque. They twist themselves in hellish grins.
I shudder, unsure why my Memory House is full of horrific histories. It’s like who I’m supposed to be, what’s expected from me.
I take a deep breath and remember sticks and stones may break my bones, but my mind is incapable of physically grasping my throat and squeezing until I can’t breathe.
The doors all unlock at once, a tremendous click shakes the house. I approach the first door on the left. I could start anywhere I please, but I’m tired today and don’t want to think too far. The path of least resistance is often the most exploited.
This window depicts the Virgin Mary. She dawns her usual blue and white garment, hood wrapped around her immaculate brown hair. It is straight and cascades down to her ankles. She holds a black baby Jesus in her arms. He sucks from her breast, his lips red and cracked. Cherubs with chubby bellies and curly black hair aim their arrows at the baby. The clouds are a vibrant green like the start of Ragnarök.
I take a deep breath in, let my breath out, and open the first door of the day.
I’m shifted into a memory. Far away, years ago, where the sky shines purple, the sun beats on my head, and sets my hair on fire.
Mom drops me off in front of Abuela’s house. I sweat through my polo and it stains bright yellow. Carefully, I walk to the porch where I’ve cried too many times to count. Mom’s car is gone by the time I walk inside.
Abuela has cooked huevos and frijoles. Those are two of the ten words I know how to say in Spanish. When I speak, I open my mouth wide to make myself sound important. My cousins devour the food as if they haven’t eaten in weeks. Their teeth gnash the soft scrambled eggs. Blood from their gums stain the beans and make them magenta.
“Come” Abuela says. She points to the food which is all steaming with magma-hot sauce. There is no room for me at the table.
I watch as my cousins gobble the platters whole. Abuela rustles their hair and whispers into their ears. They nod then look back at me. “Negrito,” Jorge says.
“Negrito,” the three others chant. Jorge is darker than I am. “Negrito can’t speak, won’t speak, shouldn’t speak.”
“No,” I say directing my attention to Abuela. There is a silent L at the end, to make it more authentic—to make me more authentic. “No. Me mucho… Me mucho…”
My cousins laugh, choking on their breakfast. Abuela, in her XXL Fresno National Airport T-shirt, clutches their hands. They cough regurgitated beans onto my feet. She leads them outside, pushes them through the door, and looks back at me with an expression I know all too well. Disappointment. “Grandma,” I start, but she shakes her head.
“Abuela,” she says, loud and dragged out, as if each syllable is a sentence.
“Abuela,” I say, “I want to stay inside.”
She only points towards the front yard. “Afuera, Jaime.” Except Jaime isn’t my name. Close, but not quite.
My cousins are playing outside. Kicking a soccer ball back and forth in the street. Plucking wings off powdery moths. Sucking juice out of sour flowers. Jorge stops the ball with his heel and beckons me with a finger curl. “Negrito, we’re gonna play hide and seek. You’re it.”
I don’t want to be it. Being it means they stab me with broken beer bottles and throw sand in my eyes. Anything to stop me from touching them.
I look back for Abuela, but she isn’t there. My cousin Valerie throws a moth back into the rose garden, runs to me, and grabs my hand. “Come, Negrito. Yo te cuidaré.” She grins. Her teeth are thorny and serrated. Last time Valerie took me behind the house she probed my nose with her fingers and yanked my pants down to my knees.
“No,” I scream. “Get away from me.”
I push her and hurry inside, closing the door behind me.
I’m back in the Memory House. The scent of eggs is replaced with an artificial new car smell. I glance down the hallway. All the doors are still here. It’s going to be a long day. I glance at my hands and there are wrinkles and scars.
I consider running through the infinite hallway, back to my present, but if I were to leave now, I’d be nothing, no one. And everyone must be someone, right? Memories are the canvas in which we create ourselves. And sometimes, our canvas gets painted white.
The door across from me glows a dull blue. The glass pane is thinner than the rest in the Memory House. An alligator, my high school mascot, swims skyward. Its mouth is a scroll, singed at the edges. One of my strongest memories, one I visit often, as excruciating as it might be. Because sometimes I wish I could have been different. When we can’t change the past, we think about it too much.
The handle is hot, and it burns the skin right off my fingertips. A flash of light and I am elsewhere.
“You’re late, Mr. Williams.”
Except I’m not. It’s two minutes till class starts. I’ve made a point to never miss the bell.
“Sorry, Mr. Breit,” I say anyway. “Had to use the toilet before—”
“I don’t want to hear about your shit, Williams,” he says. His face has hooks keeping his skin tight and his mouth open. His lips are peeled back and he speaks with a lisp. “Sit down and get out your books.”
The rest of the class snickers collectively. Their eyes are wide open. Their blue irises flicker brilliantly. I sit in the front because my dad always told me to. “Don’t prove them right,” he’d say. “You have to work harder than they all do.”
“Today, we talk about Frankenstein.” Mr. Breit turns to the whiteboard and writes, Human? Yes or No or Of Course Not?
Sally Wilcox raises her hand. Her straight blonde hair wraps around her neck like a loosened noose. Before the teacher has a chance to call on her, she says, “Of course not.”
The rest of the class repeats, “Of course not.” I say nothing because I’m not too sure. Human is a relative word, isn’t it?
“Correct,” Mr. Breit says.
Immediately, the bell rings. Mr. Breit glances at his watch and nods. “Well, that’s class, folks. See you tomorrow.”
Everyone clambers out of the room, falling over each other, tripping and busting their noses on the shiny tile. Purple blood splatters in clumps.
“Williams.” Mr. Breit grabs my arm before I can leave. “Better not be late next time, you dig?”
“I dig,” I say because that’s what I’m supposed to.
He nods and lets me go.
The school hallway is now empty. The lockers are open and filled with money, stacked to the brim. Washington. Franklin. Jackson. Lincoln. Lincoln. Lincoln. My stomach grumbles and I check my pockets. No cash, but I have my school card and that buys me lunch.
I walk into the cafeteria, and the stench of prison food makes my mouth water. Microwave fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Hard beef tacos from yesterday’s meatloaf. Salad boiled with ranch and bacon bits. I pat my pocket. The card is still there; the outline bulges so that everyone can see the edges, like an overstuffed wallet.
The line is short. There are three white kids in front of me, all with their phones pressed firmly to their noses. Country music plays from the girl closest. Her mouth is slightly open. The music slips out in brackish waves. “I’m goin ta take my horse to them all town roads.”
When it’s my turn, the lunch lady, a large woman with skin like old butter, eyes me up and down, analyzing my food preferences, scanning for food allergies and lactose intolerance. “What’re you having?” she asks. A raspy droll.
“Everything,” I say. I’m so hungry I could probably eat a horse and its stable and its owner too.
She rummages through a carboard box she keeps at her side. “You paying with a meal card?” she asks.
I nod, but I don’t want to nod, I want to shake my head, reach into my pocket, pull out a crisp five-dollar bill and eat something fresh.
“This is all I can give you. Here we are.” She slaps a chicken breast on a metal tray. “Have a good one.” There are holes in the breading from where her nails pierced through.
I nod and take the food. The cashier lady, a large woman with skin like mayonnaise, holds out her hand. “Meal card?”
“Yes,” I mutter and pass her the card from my pocket. She swipes it with a knowing grin and says, “Have a nice day, Jamaal.” But Jamaal is not my name. No one knows my name, and everyone knows my name. I’m one of a kind in a sea of one of a kinds, which makes me nothing.
“You too,” I answer, too tired to correct her.
I search the cafeteria for doors, but there are none. Strange. This is usually where—
“James!”
A table with three white kids appears to my right. There isn’t a cloud of dust or magic residue. Just a blink and now they’re here.
“Yo, James, come sit with us,” the kid with the red hair calls. His skin reminds me of raw rice. Howard? I think his name is Howard.
There’s one spot left for me, and I take it. The seat is hard plastic and hurts when I let my full weight rest in it. “Thanks,” I say.
A pasty girl next to me with stringy black hair and faded red lines on her arms smiles. “No problem, James. You okay?” she asks. “You look a little lost.”
“I am.”
“He’s not lost.” The white boy on my other side blows a raspberry. His face is covered in pimples, popped and pink with pepperoni scars. “He’s right where he’s supposed to be.”
“That’s right,” Howard says, mouth full of pizza.
“They usually don’t last this long,” I explain. I pick up the chicken. It’s greasy and leaves a goopy, clear slime on my fingertips. I take a bite, and it turns to dirt in my mouth. I chew and swallow because I have to. “The dreams or the realities, I don’t know what to call them. They usually don’t last this long.”
“Sure, sure,” Howard says. “Hey listen, we’ve been thinking,” he starts. He puts aside his lunch and sets his elbow on the table, pointing at me. “You in for tonight? Little ‘Hey Mister?’ Maybe a bonfire? Could be fun.”
“I don’t know.” I swallow. The dirt granules stick to the inside of my throat. I wish I had some water. “Last time—”
“Last time if you weren’t such a pussy, we’d been fine,” the pimpled boy says.
“I didn’t see you going in,” the girl says. “James did his best.”
“Ah, why don’t you marry him?”
The girl looks at me, her cheeks turning a fleshy red, and says, “You kidding me? My dad would kill me if I dated a black dude.”
“James isn’t black though. Not really.”
“Can we get back to the subject at hand?” Howard asks. “James, you in or not?”
“Sure,” I say. I won’t be here anyway.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Howard says. “Nigga James for the win.”
I open my mouth to retaliate, but only dirt comes out in clusters. It piles on the table in mounds where I see all the rest, from times before I have done the same thing. I am deeply ashamed of the mountains I have created.
“Ah, dude, you keep getting it all over the table,” the kid with the pepperoni pimples says.
I try again. I want to say something, tell them to shut up, but the dirt keeps coming. It’s turning to mud and getting stuck in my airway.
“Nigga James, you good?” Howard asks.
I get up from my seat and scan the cafeteria. In the back, where the vending machines are, there’s an open door with a bright yellow light glowing from it. I rush, clutching at my throat, desperate for the mud to go away.
I break through and end up back in the hallway, my throat empty and clean. “Thank God,” I say to no one. My throat hurts like I’ve swallowed needles. I always try to fight back in the last memory, and it never works. I end up incapacitated, filled with shit. I won’t stop trying though, because guilt is a powerful creature.
The next door is painted white with a window that sparkles like diamonds. The stained glass depicts a country home with a porch lined with wine bottles and candlesticks. Trees are gargantuan and reach into the clouds. The moon peeks through the night in a golden glow. Two tuxedo cats scurry across the yard. Ground bees chase them and poke at their rears. A memory I go to a lot because I’m supposed to. I do a lot of things because I’m supposed to.
The handle gets stuck, and I have to push with my shoulder. My body hurts more often than it used to. I guess that’s the price I pay for getting old.
The room is dark, with orange and yellow lights flickering across the wall in an erratic dance. I look behind me. A restroom. In the mirror, I appear dressed for an occasion. I always am when it comes to this house.
“James?” she calls from the dining room. “Are you alright, babe?”
I steady myself in the door frame before I answer. I’m drunk, or at least halfway there. Like Hansel and Gretel, I’m fed and fed and given booze until I’m large enough to fit and mold into anything they please.
“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” My voice cracks. My chest is tight. I turn and walk into the dining room. Over a hundred candles are lit. The wax drips fatly down the phallic torches. The walls are bare except for shelving. Delicate china is placed uniformly. Plates with blood roses and olive ivy. Cups with flowers and kitty cats, their claws jagged and sharp. The table is covered with a majestic cloth that matches the beige walls. Dinnerware is set. Crystal goblets are filled to the brim with sparkling water. The wine glasses get bigger every time. The stems are the length of my arm.
The Ford family sits in the same spots, like a Norman Rockwell drawing. Michael is at the head of the table. Elizabeth to his left. And Veronica on his right. She looks at me and smiles. Her teeth are perfectly square, and her gums are pink and fleshy. Her hair is straight and blonde. She is everything my mother isn’t. That’s why I started dating her in the first place. That’s why she started dating me.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” Michael says, pointing at the end of the table. He turns to Veronica and says, “Get the boy some wine.”
Veronica starts, but I say, “No, I’m swell. Really, I don’t care for wine.” Swell. My voice goes higher when I’m at the Ford household. It has to or Veronica might get embarrassed, the Fords might see through my pale mask.
Michael scoffs. “You just haven’t had the right wine then. Veronica, the Malbec, please.”
Veronica gives me an apologetic shrug and hurries so I’m not alone with them too long.
“This is the most expensive bottle I could find on such short notice,” Michael says. He licks his lips and bites his lower lips. Sensual blood flows from his gums. “Your dad never have wine around the house?” he asks. His hair is slicked back and oily with tar-like product. His moustache curls downward so that the hairs cover his lips. Sometimes I can’t tell if he’s opening his mouth at all.
Elizabeth hums softly to herself. A tune I don’t know the name of, but I’ve heard before. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t place it. I want to cut out my tongue and examine it. See if it’s just as pink when I’m not in this house.
Veronica’s mother sits with her legs crossed and her foot bouncing. She wears heels, no matter the weather. Leopard print is her secondary pigment.
“He don’t really drink,” I say. “He liked soda a lot though. Dr. Pepper.”
“Oh,” Michael says. “Doesn’t.”
“Alright, here you go, dad.” Veronica returns with a green bottle.
“Pour the boy a glass, huh?”
When Veronica is finished pouring everyone’s wine, the bottle is empty. She shakes the final droplets into her mother’s glass and frowns. “Sorry, Mom. I can go open another if you want?”
Elizabeth shakes her head with a smile. “No, honey. Thank you though, I really—”
“No, no. We don’t need to waste a whole other bottle,” Michael says. He takes a sip of wine, swishes it in his mouth, then spits it back into the glass. “Sit down, Veronica. Elizabeth, why don’t you get the food out? The boy looks like he’s starving over there.”
“Elizabeth, you don’t have to do that,” I say. Whenever Elizabeth goes into the kitchen to get our dinner, she never comes back.
The three of them stare at me. Veronica’s eyes are large like the moon. Tears begin to leak down her cheeks. “James,” she whispers. “Stop.”
Elizabeth is no longer humming. Her jaw is clenched, and I can hear her teeth cracking from the pressure.
Michael stands slowly, keeping his gaze on me.
“Sir, I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn.” I try to stand but find that my feet are pinned to the floor. Dozens of hairless, gangly cats surround me, their claws shred through my skin like it’s paper. Blood streams from the holes in my shoe, staining the black rubber. I scream and thrash my legs, but they hold on tightly, hissing and growling.
Michael opens his mouth to speak and then freezes. Everyone in the room freezes. Time for me to go. I pull the cats off of me as calmly as I can. They take chucks of flesh with them.
I go to Veronica and kiss her goodbye. The necklace I bought her shines brilliantly in the candlelight. “I’ll see you soon, I guess,” I say.
“You will,” she affirms, but it isn’t pleasant or even reassuring. It’s demanding.
I walk myself to the front door and glance back at my in-laws. I have no idea who any of them are. And they have no idea who I am.
As I close the door behind me, I remember the name of the song Elizabeth was humming. “Tainted Love.”
The hallway is getting colder and colder and I think it’s time I finally get home. I run, sprint, bolt to the end. My knees buckle underneath me and I fall hard on my chin. Blood drips down my chin, but I scramble up and keep going.
The last door marks the present. There is no picture on the window like the other doors, only clear glass. I see myself and I cry because nothing has changed. I don’t know who I am.
Defeated, I open the door and step inside.
Veronica waits for me on the bed.
In her hands, she holds a book with one thousand and one baby names in it. Names like Anthony, Joshua, Clay, and Bret. Jessica, Lisa, Heather, and Penelope. I don’t want children; I’ve never wanted children. They’d be brown, like me, their identity even more warped, no matter who I chose as a partner. Still, Veronica buys the books, the clothes, the furniture. It’s piled around the house like trophies yet to be won.
“Hey, babe.” She closes the book and smiles at me. “How was your day?”
“It was fine,” I say, slurred speech. I’d bitten my tongue in the fall. “Busy. Like always.”
“Well, there’s dinner in the microwave when you’re hungry.” She runs her fingers through her blonde hair. They glide through easily. She sniffs. “Have you been drinking?”
“No,” I say. My stomach feels empty and hungry. “Why do you say that?”
“You just seem different, that’s all.”
“Okay.”
“Are you okay, James?” She pats my side of the bed, but when I look at her, when I look into her eyes, I don’t know who she is. I’ve known her for quite some time, but she wasn’t there for most of my life. She knows nothing about me other than what I’ve told her and I don’t even know myself.
“No.” Suddenly, I am terrified, unsure of what to do, unsure as to what I’m supposed to do.
I back out of the doorway. She’s staring at me like I’m a monster in human clothing.
“James? What’s going on? You’re scaring me.” The way her mouth moves is impossibly inhuman. Her high cheekbones bulge out of her webby skin and her eyebrows arch to the top of her skull. Who is she and what does she want? My vision is blurry, and everything in the room looks like a place I’ve been before only in my dreams.
The way Veronica’s hair waves with every movement. The way her eyes squint when she says my name. The way I feel when I look at her. All of it is different than before. Have I walked through the wrong door? Did I walk into the wrong Memory House? Do we all have Memory Houses filled with terrors and memories we’d rather forget?
She gets off the bed and starts walking toward me. “James?”
James. A white man stuck in a brown body. Too white to be colored, too colored to be white? “Stop, please. I beg of you.”
“James, just please talk to me.”
I shake my head. James. Who is that? A black teenager? “I need you to chill.” I point across the room. “I need you to step off, for real.”
“What? James. What?”
Shake my head violently. James. A Mexican boy? “Lo siento.”
“James, seriously, stop. You’re drunk.”
Shake my head again, again, again, again, again. James. I have no idea. “I—Veronica. I’m not drunk. No, not drunk. I just don’t know who I am.”
She embraces me and I let her. Her arms are warm, but uncomfortable, bony. This must be how Lois Lane feels when Superman saves her life. A stranger to which you owe your soul to. A partner you’ll never share a past with.
“Shh, it’s okay,” she whispers. Her breath is warm in my ear. “But you know who I am, right?”
“No,” I say. “Who are you?”
“Your wife,” she answers plainly.
“But—but, who am I?”
She doesn’t answer me. She leads me to the bed and begins taking off my shoes.
“I don’t want to live through the memories anymore,” I say, staring at the ceiling. The fan spins lazily.
“But you have to, James.” She grabs the sides of my head and makes me stare at her. Her eyeballs are white with no pupils. Her nerves pulsate with every word she says. “It’s who you are.” She sighs. “And you’re exactly who I need you to be.”
“Who am I?”
“Why, you’re my husband.”
“No, Veronica,” I say as I push myself off of her. “Who am I?”
“You’re my husband.”
“Who am I?”
“My husband. My husband. My husband.” She’s angry, throws my shoes across the room.
“But what if I don’t want to be? What if I want to be something else? Someone else. What if I don’t know who I am at all?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What if I don’t know who I am at all?”
I close my eyes, and the world turns to black.
“James,” I say to myself. And I don’t even recognize the name. “James,” I say to myself. And there are so many people I could be.
And yet, none of them sound right.
Tre Harris Salas is a Black and Mexican writer who resides in Baltimore, where he contemplates the dreadful, the macabre, and the end of all things sacred. Find more at treharrissalas.com.