Every Time a Rainbow Dies Read Free Page A

free-flowing skirt that was tied, not zippered or buttoned. The tie, a simple strip, had been ripped, yet managed to hang on to the body of the skirt by a few loose threads. He looked about. Someone could be watching him. He shook the street off the cloth and rolled it into a tight loaf that he held under his arm. It was time to go home.
    Upon seeing him, Shakira, his sister-in-law, let out a gasp, an exaggerated one. “Ya look a sight!”
    He shrugged but thought, Got to get past her.
    Shakira did not mean to let him pass. She stood, her belly huge, and legs a big A before him. “And what do ya mean, chargin’ through heah wild and crazy, scarin’ poor Old Dunleavy to his grave?”
    Mr. Dunleavy, a countryman from Thulani’s mother’s village, was the tenant in the first-floor apartment. He had been a retired photographer for many years when Thulani’s mother rented to him ten years ago. His mother was fond of saying, “He knew me before my parents were born.” Now Old Dunleavy was decrepit. Thulani laughed inwardly at Shakira’s concern for their tenant. Both she and Truman had plans for thatapartment as soon as the boneyard claimed Old Dunleavy.
    â€œThe food is put away. You’ll have to fix your plate if ya want to eat.”
    Shakira waited for some reply, the usual thing he’d say about her half cooking. All he wanted was to get away from her.
    â€œMnot hungry,” he said, taking a big step to get around her. He could see she was a face full of questions and she wanted to talk.
    â€œWhat’s that you got there?” She spoke to his back. He wouldn’t turn around.
    It was easier when Truman wasn’t on night shift because then Shakira had no use for Thulani. She and Truman would sit at the kitchen table and dream their dreams. Shakira was having some sort of difficulties with her pregnancy and was trapped in the house.
    Thulani closed and locked his door by wedging the backrest of his chair underneath the knob. He fell into his bed with the cloth still tightly in his grasp. He lay on his back fingering the cloth, thinking that it had been tied around her body. The fine cotton cloth.
    He had touched her. The girl. In fifteen or twenty seconds he had seen what girls hold secret, though she did not invite him. Or them. And he had her skirt. The torn cloth. In his bed.
    He took the cloth and unfurled it from the tight roll, then spread it into a full rectangle on his bed. It was beautiful. An indigo sea, streaks of violet, drops of turquoise in bolder drops of gold. He ran his hands along the fabric, searching for the girl who wore it. To picture her in it, he had to see it fully open. He took two nails and a hammer from his bottom drawer and began to nail the cloth to the wall facing his bed.
    â€œThulani! What’s that noise?”
    He ignored Shakira.
    She jiggled the doorknob but could not get in.
    â€œThulani! What are ya doing?”
    â€œLeave me alone” is what he said, but it came out in a mumble.
    â€œThulani, open.”
    He blasted his stereo. Some Wyclef Jean. Finally she gave up.
    Shakira didn’t really care, he reasoned. She was doing what she thought her role as woman of the house called for. He wished she’d do it elsewhere and leave him alone. He wanted no words tonight.
    He hammered the last nail; then he lay in his bed to admire the skirt. He was so struck with the cloth he couldn’t sleep. At the Dumpster he could not fully appreciate the colors. The indigo. The turquoise. The violet and gold. But now, in his bed with the lightsturned off, he saw the design, which was the pattern of a peacock in full fan. Thulani could not take his eyes off the colors. And in the semi-darkness it seemed as if a hundred golden eyes of the peacock all stared back.

THREE
    With the exception of one recurring event, every Wednesday was like every Monday, was like every Tuesday. That Wednesday Thulani rose, showered, stepped