I convince Tanner to abandon his car and take a walking mural tour with me. This is the real test for potential romance, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s see what he sees out in the streets.
I remember when I first realized there’s a separate, almost parallel account of our city. Everything that’s happened in Richmond is scrawled across the walls of nearly every building. I was stumbling back from a bar one night in college, only to stop dead in my tracks at the image of a Black girl staring down at me. Her face was covered in tears the size of my fists, but there was anger in her eyes. I reached out to touch her and felt the brick beneath her skin. In lacelike, looping spray-painted letters above her head were the words: JUSTICE FOR KENDRA
Who was Kendra?
When I got home, I googled around until I found her: Kendra Thomas. Nineteen. Shot and killed at that very spot. No one knew who pulled the trigger and no one was looking—not anymore. Her murder hadn’t even made the local papers, so it was no surprise that I’d never heard her name until now. But Kendra Thomas is still there, hovering over the corner of Grace and North Henry, staring at every car and pedestrian that goes by, insisting that they acknowledge her existence. The mural didn’t ensure justice—there would be none—but its existence meant that Kendra hadn’t been erased yet.
Kendra is here.
There are more murals like this. They’re all around us, waiting for us to bear witness, recording the history no one talks about, enduring even as the city evolves and sheds its skin every few years. The stories behind these murals might not be fully told but the sheer number of them tells me this isn’t the city my parents grew up in. The murals multiply, while the statues of Confederate generals along Monument Avenue are just waiting for the day they’ll be toppled over.
I want to share this version of Richmond with Tanner. I’m curious how he’ll react. Am I feeling, I don’t know, hopeful? Optimistic? It’s been a while since I’ve done this with anyone. Not since— “Where are you taking me? You were kidding about that whole serial killer thing, right?”
“This. This is one of my favorites.” We stop before an albino octopus that covers the eastern wall of Fan Thrift. Its pale tentacles branch across the broadside of the brick building, curving around the corner, as if squeezing the building. “What d’you think?”
“Wow. Never noticed it before.”
“How could you miss it? It’s as big as the whole building.”
“Guess I never looked.”
“Murals are everywhere. All around you. You just have to look up.”
“Isn’t it illegal? Defacing public property?”
“That’s where your mind goes?” Major points taken off for that one, Tanner…
“Shit. That was a dumb thing to say, wasn’t it? Can I rewind? Just ten seconds?”
“No take-backs, sorry.”
“It’s just…I’ve never been on a date with someone like you before,” he says.
“Like me?”
“You’re…cool?”
“Cool? What is this? Sixth grade?”
“Most of the girls I date are—I don’t know. Not like you. You’re different?”
“?‘You’re not like other girls’ is not the line you think it is.”
He laughs, turning away from the mural to look at me. He leans in like he’s thinking about making a move, but instead says, “What should I say to get you to go on a second date with me?”
“How about ‘Drinks are on me’?”
We’re closing in on my apartment and I realize it’s do-or-die time. I’ve played a full-on mental tennis match with myself—invite him in, don’t invite him in—when I realize my phone is still off. I turn it on and my phone explodes with texts. Silas. Silas. Silas. I can’t read them all.
There is a voicemail. I mouth just a minute to Tanner and raise the phone to my ear.
Come save me.
That’s the whole message. Less than three seconds. Silas needs someone to rescue him again. Needs me.
I play the voicemail again, just to make sure I heard it right. This tactic is certainly new. He’s never come out and begged for help before. Come save me.
Silas says spring me out of rehab.
Silas says bail me out of jail.
Silas says…
“Everything okay?” Tanner asks.
“Fine,” I say. I’m in friendship recovery, I should tell him. “Just dealing with a friend with some boundary issues.” Why does Silas always do this to me? He always expects me to drop everything and come to his fucking rescue.
Does he know I’m on a date? I wonder. Of course not. That’s absurd. He never knows what I’m up to, never cares to ask what’s going on in my life. My life. The thing I’m still trying to get going two years after graduation.
Come save me, he said.
I say goodnight to Tanner in front of my apartment and give him a peck on the cheek. I can tell by his baffled expression that he was hoping for more, but he’s a perfect gentleman when it becomes clear this is where our date ends. We make a few hazy promises. Drinks next week?
“There’s this new sports bar on Franklin I’ve been wanting to check out,” he says, and I hear myself halfheartedly reply, Sure, sounds good. His number is already in my phone, so I tell him I’ll text. I watch Tanner awkwardly turn, like he doesn’t know what to do with his legs anymore. As he walks down the street, I see him glance up at the surrounding buildings and take them in, like he sees them differently—or he’s trying to, anyway.
“Promise you’ll call?” he shouts from the end of the block.
“Cross my heart,” I holler back, dragging my fingers across my chest in an X, even though I can taste the lie across my own tongue. Then he’s gone. Swallowed up by the city.
I text Silas as I head to my car parked just down the block: where
rehab is for quitters
How many times have we been down this road? What is this, the tenth—Christ, the hundredth—time I’ve bailed his ass out? I’ve heard all of his excuses. I’m the one who has been there through his darkest stretches. I took care of him during his worst withdrawals. It’s my couch he crashes on, my money he borrows, even when it’s painfully obvious what he’s really using it for.
A faint rain begins to spatter-pattern the windshield. I avoid my reflection in the rearview mirror and focus on the road. If I catch sight of myself I’ll regret it—the accusing stare wrapped in eyeshadow. What the hell am I doing? We’re not kids anymore. Our college days are done. We’re supposed to be adults now, right? Striving to, at least. Only Silas didn’t get the memo.
I turn the radio on. None of this bland pop pap sounds right, so I switch it back off and drive in silence.
While my childhood friends were busy landing football-player boyfriends who would become their husbands, I was shedding my J. Crew skin, dyeing my hair, piercing my nose—all the obvious forms of teenage rebellion. But nothing scared my parents quite like Silas.
I first spotted him at the crossroads of All-American Avenue and Vagabond Boy Lane in our freshman year. He had a Rimbaud-quarterback build, strong without being brutish, muscular without being brawny. A real Sal Paradise knockoff. I fell prey to his smile, just like everyone else did. That devilish grin—always looking like he was up to no good. The cat who ate the goddamn canary, smirking with a stray feather still clinging to his bloody lips. He was utterly unlike the boys who manhandled me in high school. Silas possessed a restless spirit, always searching, yearning for more more more. He made me feel alive when everything else in my life up till that point had left me for dead.