the blueshift journal

I.

 

Andre’s mother is sleeping upstairs. It’s 6:13 a.m. Yesterday, he was officially done unpacking at his mom’s house after his first and last semester of college. In the bathroom, he stops washing his hands to see his reflection squint back. There’s knocking at the door.

​

II.

​

Mom piled the boy’s boxes by the door as he got dressed. “My baby goin to college,” she said. “And not just college, a university.”

​

She cried and the tears flooded the house.

​

*

​

Andre leaned against the wall in an abandoned house, light barely squeezing through the boarded windows. Two other young men, about 21—four years older than Andre—sat in chairs. One had on a fitted New York cap and a full beard; the other had deep waves in his hair.

​

Laughs bounced off the bare walls. The raspy voice: “these fiends is some crazy-asses.” He shook his head and exhaled a puff of smoke as he slowly stood up. The man with the waves was already at the door, staring down the street, red lights oscillating in the trees. Andre was staring at the ground, hands in his pockets. He suddenly spoke, almost in a whisper: “Ay that’s kinda fucked up.”

​

Mac, a light-skinned man wearing a do-rag: “What you say, nigga?”

​

“Fa real man, somebody goin to the hospital and that shit funny? I said ‘that’s fucked up.’”

​

“So you too good to laugh now, Dre? Is that it?” he paused, then took a few steps forward. “You wanna call shit fucked up—what’s fucked up is I still let your ungrateful ass hang around here. Think I give a shit bout you, or ya mamma, or ya fast-ass little sister?” His voice trailed off as he turned back toward the door: “This why I don’t let these young cats hang with us. They down one minute then wanna act like they better than somebody—shit.” He walked out. Everyone followed, Andre slowly behind.

​

*

​

Andre walked down State Street on Central Campus in a straight line with his hood up. No one moved out of the way; they bumped into him, jarred his shoulders in each direction. His backpack eventually fell, and the toothed jaw of a great white shark fell out  onto the street.

​

*

​

Around campus he saw other black men and they would nod at each other quickly, make brief eye contact—but they always kept moving.

​

*

​

Voicemails:

​

Mom: Dre what you mean you got a D on that paper? I saw that shit on Facebook. Baby, I know you smarter than that.

​

Mac: Why you ain't been back home, nigga? You too good for us now, nigga? I hope you love dem white folk in Ann Arbor. You at least fuckin white bitches there, fam?

​

*

​

“Damn I love how you talk so ghetto!”

​

“Oh, Dre, like Dr. Dre, right? I loved Straight Outta Compton! Did you love it? Bye, Felicia!”

​

“But was it dangerous where you grew up, though?”

​

“Oh, ‘Andre’, is that like the black version of Andrew?”

​

“Hey Dre you know where we can score some Mary Jane? Amiright?”

​

“But like if you made it here why couldn't all the other ... people ... from where you come from go to college, too?”

​

*

​

He steps off the porch—the white snow and glare from sun and low clouds and cottonwood and dandelion seeds are everything, everywhere, stretching down the block both ways and across and over and inside the street and blanketing the trees white. He steps into it, the smoke from his mouth disappearing in opaque fog. He sees something he thinks is headlights. He sees something he thinks is the reflection of the shining grease on his forehead. With every step he is more like the white leather of his sneakers.

​

*

​

His roommate asked: “What do your sisters do? Where's your mom work? Why did your friends treat you like that? It doesn’t sound like they were like you—why did you hang out with them? Don’t you think you’re better off now that you’re not stuck there anymore?”

​

Andre exhaled smoke and everything burned down.

​

*

​

On a Friday night when he was back visiting for Thanksgiving, he ruffled through the items strewn on the ground in the abandoned house: a black Barbie, broken glass, brass knuckles, an old burned journal filled with poems.

​

No one else was there. Andre didn’t know if there, alone, he felt least lonely or the most lonely. He decided it must be both.

​

III.

​

Andre opens the door and sees Mac half smiling: “What up doe, lil nigga.” He says this the same as he always did. They shake hands the same way as always. “Well, I guess I’m back,” Andre says as he flips up his hood. They walk off the porch—Mac first, Andre following.