In Tune

by Jordon Briggs

California, USA

It was his brother’s place; an apartment in Long Beach with a normal set up of two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and den. Eli had a small room with nothing in it he didn’t use everyday. A mattress lay against a wall under the window, a desk some feet away from the foot of the bed, a typewriter in the middle of the desk. A bookshelf, a record player and a crate of records, some threads in the closet. His brother, Willie, was an actor. He’d done that throughout his teens, after Willie left for college to play football, before Willie was shipped off to Vietnam, and kept at it after he returned. He’d been in plays and been an extra on some films and commercials, worked at a theater downtown and a restaurant; volunteered for the Black Panthers, went to the beach, went to bars. It was Willie who told Eli to move in with him and out of their parents’ house after the car accident that took Eli’s wife and son. Told him it wasn’t his fault he’d walked away clean and they didn’t. 

Willie never gave Eli any Bible scriptures or philosophies on death and living to console him. He told him to put his brain to use and learn how to write to get the pain out. His junior year Eli had separated his shoulder. During recovery, he’d altogether stopped going to school, and came back home. Willie convinced Eli that going back was an opportunity, for a lot of things. So Eli enrolled at the state college. Left his high school office job in Watts and got a job as a librarian at his new school. He stuck himself in his room. He read and wrote. He only came out to cleanse himself, go to work; maybe watch the Lakers with Willie, or help him practice lines for an audition or part, then, back into the room. 

In the apartment above, two women and their children lived, six altogether. Daily, either woman pounded the floor with their footsteps; seemed as if they’d fall right through. When they scolded their kids, their yelling penetrated the walls like a bullet does the flesh. They yelled at the children through the window while they were outside, for various reasons: someone cried too loud, someone didn’t play fair, ran too fast, or didn’t get up the stairs fast enough. The children were rowdy, too. They bounced their basketballs in the house, ran and jumped on the beds, screamed in laughter with each other or in pain from whooping. 

Eli had only seen the women together a few times and had seen the thicker sister more often, walking into the apartment complex while he went off to the grocery store or to the laundromat at night. She was tall, taller than Eli, light-skinned, dark hair in a ponytail. Sometimes she’d be coming back from church, clutching her Bible, her two boys skipping or zigzagging behind her, playing with something. Eli would take his eyes to her, to her forehead, quick, then look back down saying nothing. She didn’t speak, either. Her feet slapped the pavement, the heels of her shoes creating a knocking sound that echoed in her waddle. Willie reported once that he saw the thinner sister working at the department store when he stopped in with a lady friend. And when they made eye contact, she looked him up and down, then continued to work. It gave him the chills. It appeared to him that she was the only one of the two sisters who worked. 

Eli had been living with his brother for three months. Whenever the racket from above got so loud that it layered itself with the sound of the TV or record player, Willie would turn down the volume to where the only sound in the apartment was the sparse crunch of Eli’s typewriter while Eli typed up poetry or essays, or the turn of a page if he was reading. Willie’s body stayed hunched, head tilted, his eyes bouncing around trying to place where the yelling was coming from and from whom. After a few minutes, he’d shout to Eli, “You hear that?” The typewriter went on, or silence; then Eli would say, “I hear it.” 

Heavy thumps. Crying. Bass-like yells from the heavier woman and sharp yells from the thinner one, sometimes both. Eli would stop typing. Paper tore, crumbled. He’d close the book; then nothing. It was as if the two places merged and the harshness of the voices, the screams from above took their place down with the brothers, settling into the furniture, the carpet, the walls—their skin. Willie would turn the volume back up and sit back down on the sofa or get a beer from the fridge. If Eli read, the book would be put down. If he typed, he’d remain at his desk, staring at that little machine until his fingers went back to it, or until that feeling, that urgency to write left him—until a haunting feeling came upon on him— then he’d get up and turn the lights out and lay in bed. 

Since the accident, Eli had been out to the burial sites four times, once since he moved in with Willie. When he lay in bed, he thought about his wife and son in that pitch-blackness. Noise all around. Everybody’s trouble had full volume, had a way being heard no matter what. Eli didn’t speak about his loss. If Willie or their mother ever tried to bring it up, he’d suddenly have a loss of energy, of will, and get quiet. They didn’t press him either. He just read, wrote, and worked. On nights like these, when he couldn’t do anything else and didn’t have any business anywhere else, he thought about his family. Concentrated hard on the good memories, brought his family with him into that dark room, into his dreams. He became deaf to everybody and to the world and fell asleep that way. In the middle of the fourth month, Eli reached the end of the semester. He took a liking to poetry; his favorite was Langston Hughes, his favorite poem, “Negro Speaks of Rivers.” Poetry was a way to speak through images that didn’t need explanation, nor an audience; a private way to live, to survive. 

On a Wednesday evening after work, Eli sat on his bed, his wide head pressed up against the window. It had a coldness to it, refreshment after a warm winter day. A book of poetry lay next to him. Eli stared at the white closet door with a half blank, as if there was nothing there, kind of look, the room itself consumed by shadows while outside, the sun fell. He sat in silence, the type of silence where the sounds of the house become more clear, when the passing cars, the jingle of the ice cream truck, kids screeching in ecstasy just because they’re alive, become normal, become necessary, and you disappear. Eli exhaled, got up and turned on the light in the room. He took the book from the bed and set it on the desk, took a pen from his bag and opened up to a poem he had dog-eared.  

The front door slammed. It was Willie. He was singing. Eli looked behind him, then scooted his chair up to the desk, hunched his shoulders, began to read. He heard two quick knocks and the door creep open.  

“Big Brother?” Willie said. 

Eli tapped the book with his pen. This was how Willie found him most of the time. 

“Hmm?” Eli answered.  

“When’s the last time you’ve been to a flick?” Willie said. “I know it’s been awhile.” 

“I can’t remember.” 

Willie stepped into the room. He wore an off-white button shirt with the top open showing off his gold chain. A gold emblem of Africa hung from it. He wore brown pants and kept his boots on. Willie was a bit lighter than Eli and had his hair in a mini Afro, like Huey Newton. He watched his brother in the chair, still as a convict; would’ve thought he was paralyzed if he wasn’t tapping his pen. 

“Shoot, me neither,” Willie said. “Our movies are going to shit from what it looks like. There’s that Star Wars movie that just came out. “ 

“I heard about it.” 

“What’d you hear?” Willie leaned against the wall, arms crossed. 

Eli sat up, carried his shoulder over the chair and rested his chin on the side of his elbow, an eye on his brother. “Just people talking, the kids in class getting worked up about it and how it’s the best thing they’d seen.” 

“Like they’ve never seen a white man in space,” Willie said. 

Eli bowed his head and snickered. 

“They should give us a million and we’ll make a movie about brothers going to space and taking on an empire,” Willie said. “You write it, I’ll direct, act, and get everything else.” 

“That won’t happen,” Eli said. He looked at the closet for a moment, then back down. 

Willie sat on Eli’s bed, kept himself up with his arms.  “Sure it can, it has,” Willie said. “You already forgot about Vietnam?” 

Eli turned his head toward his brother, his eyes on the ground. “No,” he said. “I just don’t think about it.” 

Willie sat up, then hunched, cupped his hands together, surveyed the blue walls, then up at the ceiling fan. Clumps of thick dust spread over the sides of the blades, seemed as if it weighed the whole thing down; seemed if the dust piled up anymore, the fan would get pulled out from the ceiling, fall down and that’d be the end of it. The room went silent for a moment. 

“Ain’t no man making a movie about wars in space know anything about struggle, about dying,” Willie said. 

Eli glanced at Willie’s face before he turned his head back straight and said, “I don’t know. People do what they do: make movies, die, go to space.” 

Willie looked at Eli. 

“Don’t need nobody’s permission,” Eli said. “You can’t get in the way.” 

“And what about the other people involved?” Willie said. “You ain’t just here for yourself.”  

Eli looked at his brother who looked at him like he’d never seen before. Willie’s face was hard, his eyes as still and wide as the street. A thump from above took the brothers’ eyes from one another’s; then, harder thumps, and shouting. It was both women this time. Eli got up and shut the blinds. Willie watched him for a moment before he tilted his head up. The arguing continued. 

“I’m saying something,” Willie announced. 

“You ought not to,” Eli said. “Leave it alone.” The sound of stomps on the stairs became as loud as the women. The apartment walls shook, which got Eli curious and annoyed Willie even more. Willie sucked his teeth, Eli kept still, listening for the first time. They heard someone pound the door upstairs. Someone walked left, then the door opened, while one of the women carried on, talking to herself almost. Willie stood up, his head still tilted. Out of nowhere, all three voices filled the apartment above. A man’s voice was added to the mix and it was as bass-like as the heavy woman’s. Crying sounded off in the distance, which made the people upstairs stop for a moment, before starting up again. Eli was at the desk tapping his pen. 

“Yelling never did anybody good unless you trying to find somebody, or you’re yelling for freedom,” Willie said and looked at Eli for a reply. He didn’t get one. “I’m going up there, come with me.”
“I don’t have time to be playing with you, I got work to do, Willie.”
“How can you work with all that in your ear?” 

Eli shook his head. “I don’t need to be in anyone’s business.”
“We live here too,” Willie said. “I’m tired of them messing you up, and me as well.” 

The yells, and cries kept on, and they could hear the thinner woman console the child. Eli turned and looked at his brother. Willie looked back at him and said, “Real quick, bubs.” 

He hadn’t called him “bubs” in awhile. Eli looked back to the ground and took a deep breath; blew it all out, and said, “Alright, come on.” He followed Willie out. 

Outside, the sky was dark blue with a hint of grey. On the street a car crept, while funk music blared through its rolled down windows; the trunk and license plate rattled, the pavement seemed to vibrate. Young kids walked or ran together on the sidewalks. They talked and laughed loud, clowned each other, or cursed a bum asking for change, and wished aloud they’d seen a fine girl walk by before they had to go inside. Some people came right off the bus and headed in the direction of home or the liquor store, or to nowhere in particular, just walked down the wide, flat roads of the city. In the apartment complex, guys shot dice and smoked reefers together, took bottles of liquor, or wine, or orange juice to the neck. Women walked in with their kids or by themselves, arms crossed, trying not to look at the men, laughing at the energy they felt from their stares and their whistle and hoots, quick ballads even. The air was brisk with the ocean breeze, not so stale or smog filled like the other parts of Los Angeles. Underneath their porch light, Willie and Eli stood there, taking in the neighborhood. This was the first time Eli had ever stood outside the apartment longer than five minutes unless he was waiting on the bus across the street. 

Everything seemed to be buzzing. He could feel it on his skin. When he looked up to the apartment above his brother, his chest grew warm, and a shock went off in his stomach. Was this how Willie felt in the war five years ago? Willie turned to him and said, “Come on,” and he marched up the stairs, his boots pressing down on the cement.

Eli followed and kept his hand on the rail, stared at the back of his brother’s shirt. They got to the door and could hear the voices. Eli looked up and out to the sky and saw an airplane pushing through the air. He kept his eyes on it while Willie knocked. The door swung open, Eli turned halfway, and a round, dark man dressed in a beige jumpsuit was at the door, his bald head covered in sweat. He looked tired, maybe from work, maybe from yelling, or both. 

“Yeah?” the man said. Both Eli and Willie had their hands in their pockets. 

“Who’s that, Roger?” the heavy woman said. Roger turned back, Willie peeked over him, and saw the big woman in pajamas. The couch made a tearing noise when the woman got up and headed over behind Roger and squinted at Willie and Eli. “They’re my neighbors,” she said. “Move!” Roger cocked his head, sucked his teeth, and stepped away. The thinner woman was in the kitchen holding one of the boys, his face pressed up into her belly. She stared at them. 

“How can I help y’all?” the big woman said. Eli moved to Willie’s left, and looked down the stairs. Willie began. 

“I’m William Jones and this my brother Elijah, and we don’t mean no trouble,” he said. “We’re hard working, probably just like y’all sisters are.” He glanced at the woman in the kitchen. The big woman crossed her arms. Willie started to use his hands to help him talk. 

“Y’all can be real loud at times and most of the time we don’t say anything; just let you be. But tonight it seemed like the yelling was worse than usual. It was downright scary...” 

“Man, what are you trying to say?” the big woman said. Willie dropped his hands and exhaled up to the sky. Eli interrupted. 

“We just want some quiet, that’s all.”  

The big woman stood on her tip toes and saw Eli looking the other way. 

“What are they talking about, Angela?” the one in the kitchen said. 

Angela shouted back, her thick head turned back half the way. “Sound like they want us to stop arguing.” She looked at Roger now. “As soon as you tell this negro that he just can’t not call you or come to see his babies, but then wanna come over here and take you out and leave me with all these kids, the sooner they can get some quiet.” Willie turned and looked at Eli, who had snapped out of his gaze and was looking at Angela. 

“Angela, don’t bring our neighbors into this.” 

Angela looked at the brothers. “Y’all got kids?”
“Nah,” Willie said.
“I had a son,” Eli said. His eyes shifted down. Willie turned and looked at him 

quick, before giving his attention back to Angela.
“You ought to know what it’s like,” she said. Roger moved over to the kitchen. Willie watched him, while Angela kept her eyes on Eli, who started to wade, and look left and right, up, down, not knowing where to settle, until he saw Roger in all his bigness, moving toward the kitchen. Roger turned the little boy from his mother and stared down at him for moment. He held up a hand in the air and the boy slapped it. As Roger walked back toward the door, Angela gave him a look like she was watching someone who’d stolen from her get arrested. She moved out of the way, and so did Willie and Eli. Eli watched Roger go down the steps and out of the apartment complex. 

“You got what you want?” Angela said, her eyes shifting from one to the other. The neighborhood was quiet, and only the crickets made the noise. 

“Sorry to bother y’all,” Willie said, turned to Eli and said, “Come on,” and started down the steps. Eli watched him for a moment. He turned his head to Angela, and made eye contact. He took in her brown face. It seemed tired, yet strong and youthful. He glanced over at the woman who had picked up her son and rocked him. 

“My semester is over in a couple of days,” he said. “If you all need help with the kids—if you need someone to watch them, I can; my brother too.” 

Angela uncrossed her arms, placed a hand on her hip, the other on the edge of the door pane and nodded. “That’s thoughtful of you,” she said. 

“Good night.” Eli said. He moved slowly down the stairs, and felt every step. When he got to the bottom he sat down on the second to last step. He looked up to the sky, dark, spotted with stars, and saw another airplane fly over. After it passed, he went inside. Willie was watching the news, held a glass with brown liquid and ice in his hand. Eli passed him and went into the room. Willie watched his brother, then got up and turned up the volume a little. The door to Eli’s room closed, and Willie sunk into the sofa, and sipped his drink. 

Next: Wayne McCray - The Dad I Missed →

Back to Issue I

← Back: Kathryn H. Ross - God’s Garden