When No One Is Watching

by Alyssa Cole

People bury the parts of history they don’t like, pave it over like African cemeteries beneath Manhattan skyscrapers. Nothing stays buried in this city, though. Anyway: Black America.

“Girl. Sydney. I’m sorry you’re sad, but how many times do I have to tell you? You won’t find gold panning in Fuckboy Creek.”

“Baby, if you wanna keep what’s yours, you gotta hold on to it better than that. Someone is always waiting to snatch what you got, even these damn birds.”

Kim has a framed portrait of Michelle Obama in our living room, so she’s not . . . you know.

“You’re making me feel unsafe, and if you don’t stop, I’ll—I’ll call the police.” There’s a malicious glee on her face as she says it, like when she knows her renovating work has woken me up. An expression that says, I’m fucking with you just because I can.

I should just start building my cabin alongside Fuckboy Creek because obviously it’s where I intend to spend the rest of my days.

In all the times I’d moved in New York, I’d only thought about how safe the area was for me, not what my presence meant for people in the neighborhood. Not about what advantages I had that they didn’t. I was poor, too, after all, even though I had figured out how not to be, for a little while at least.

“You work at the public school. This is going to be an independent school priced just high enough to do the work of segregation for the people who will send their kids there.

When I think of a Black community, the first thing that comes to mind—even if I don’t want it to—is crime. Drugs. Gangs. Welfare. That’s all the news has talked about since I was a kid. Not old people drinking tea. Not complex self-sustaining financial systems that had to be created because racism means being left out to dry.

Not being able to call the police when you need help really sucks, I’m learning.