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.

Cranes loomed ominously over the surrounding blocks like invaders from an alien movie, mantis-like shadows with red eyes blinking against the night, the American flags attached to them flapping darkly in the wind, signaling that they came in peace when really they were here to destroy.

I try to imagine how Gifford Place must have looked to the people who lived here back then. Big-ass trees and thick underbrush. Darkness unbroken by streetlights. And in that darkness, the sudden arrival of men who’d decided the land was theirs . . .

No more panning in Fuckboy Creek, and most definitely no climbing Cheating White Guy Hill.

“The shitty part of all this research is that it’s like . . . finding all these instances of people burying land mines in the past, finding them right as they’re blowing up under our feet in the here and now.

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.

“Sydney.” Theo is grinning as he calls my attention back to him, though his eyes are somber. “I need you to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. I’ll give you mine. We’ll figure it out because we don’t have any other choice.”

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

“She strung me along for almost a year, acting so concerned and enraged on my mother’s behalf. I’m starting to wonder if all of you are evil.” “Nothing I say right now will put you at ease about that.”