Disgruntled by Asali Solomon

doesn’t know how it is! I could get him lynched !” Johnbrown never stopped regretting that all he’d done was walk out, claiming that he had been afraid of what he might do.
    On days like this, Kenya noticed every pile of dog crap, every bit of trash, abandoned Hug bottles, newspaper sections. She wondered why her family couldn’t live closer to the campus, where the streets were orderly and cooler. Of course she knew—money and race—but still. These thoughts and her father’s droopy and ominous silence made her angry. His slow shuffle reminded her of Aslan moving slowly with Susan and Lucy to the stone table, where he allowed himself to be killed. But Aslan had made a deal with the White Witch to nobly sacrifice himself for the traitor Edmund. If Johnbrown was sacrificing himself, what was it for?
    *   *   *
    The house was in chaos. Papers and envelopes covered the floor; winter coats from the downstairs closet were piled on the couch. Nearly half of the books seemed to be missing from the shelves. Kenya tasted terror.
    Her father stood behind her gripping her shoulder. He said her name in an alarmed way, as if he was about to give her an order. Kenya wondered if he had time to get his gun.
    But then something changed.
    “Oh, shit ,” he said, moving Kenya aside and bounding up the stairs. “Sheila!” he called. “Sheila!”
    Kenya followed him. They both stood at the top of the stairs, where they could see Kenya’s mother in her room, which looked hurricane-tossed. Sheila, who had been known to spend hours folding underwear to pack for trips to the Jersey Shore, was throwing things into her suitcase.
    “Sheila?” said Johnbrown again.
    She did not stop what she was doing. “What the fuck do you want ? ”
    Kenya knew they had forgotten her. In a flash she was looking at the closed door of her parents’ bedroom. She heard the lock click.
    “What is going on?” Johnbrown asked. “What—”
    “You know what the fuck is going on!” Sheila screamed, her voice hoarse, as if she had spent the day screaming.
    Kenya stood in the hallway picturing different ways to get into that room. She imagined banging on the door. She thought of falling down the stairs, but she knew she couldn’t do it loudly enough without seriously hurting herself. She imagined screaming her voice raw. Then it dawned on her that it didn’t matter. She could hear everything they said, though her father was speaking in a low voice. It was all wrong. Usually Johnbrown was the one screaming, and Sheila was the one you could barely hear. Kenya felt the floor tipping at angles and fell in a slump against the door.
    “I thought you didn’t even like that bitch! ‘She’s not my cup of tea ,’ you said! Remember when you said that shit? I should have known: you don’t even say that! You don’t even drink tea !”
    “Sheila, it’s not—”
    “Not what? It’s not what I think?”
    “Let me talk, please. Let me—”
    “Explain? Apologize? What the fuck is the point of that?”
    “I was going to talk to you about this today. I swear, baby, I was going to talk to you about this today.”
    “How could—?”
    “Sheila, Sheila, it’s not what I wanted. You know it’s not what I wanted, but I think we can work this—ouch! Stop—now!”
    They had never fought with their hands. Kenya stood up and banged on the door.
    “Mom! Baba! Baba!” she yelled. No one answered her. She heard only an occasional curse, scuffling, and a slap. A dull thud. She slid down the door and sat on the creaking wood floor. She wanted to go somewhere else in the house and ignore them, or even walk out the front door. That would show both of them—if they ever came out of that room.
    Their muffled voices started up again and she covered her ears and hummed. Then she started singing all of the songs she knew by heart; songs she liked (“My Cherie Amour”) and songs she hated (“Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now,” to which the fifth grade had to