A Ship Made of Paper

the bare floor.She finally finds it, halfway under the bed.She hurries back to the nest ofquilts and blankets, willing to awaken Daniel with the bounce ofthe mattress, but he sleeps through it all.

She switches on the flashlight.She puts her hand over its broad face to cut down on the silvery glare, and she points the beam oflight at Daniel to inspect what she can see ofhis naked body.

The most puzzling thing is that he is naked at all.She wonders at the thermodynamics ofthis, how such white skin, which she imagines to be porous, diaphanous, and through which would pass all heat and light, how such pigmentless tissue could conceivably hold enough heat to al-low him to sleep.

She moves the beam closer to him.A circle oflight illuminates his chest.A sleek dark wave ofhair rushes between his pectoral muscles.

That ivory-white skin and that dark body hair.She stares at it, struck at how barbaric it looks.It makes her think ofthe stooped figures in school-books, emigrating across ancient tundra two steps ahead ofthe glaciers.

How strange that whites ever compared black folk with apes, when it’s the whites who are covered in hair.Once, in college, Iris had entertained the idea of becoming a doctor;the notion—like so many ofher inspired plans—had a short life span:byApril she was bored with it, and by the end ofthe semester she could barely pass her finals.Still, she remembers:the der-mis, the epidermis, subcutaneous tissue, dermal papilla, adipose tissue, the subpapillary network, and good old Meissner’s corpuscle, the name ofwhich she could never forget and the function ofwhich she could never learn.Back then, she thought ofall the components ofhuman skin that are absolutely identical forAfricans, Japanese, Europeans, and how we are all so similar beneath those topmost layers.But now, in bed with a Caucasian for the first time in her life, what strikes her is the differ-ence, stranger and more unsettling than she would have expected.She rubs her fingertip across an inch or two ofDaniel’s skin, along the shoul-der where the skin is bare, and cool to the touch, with little bumps, a kind ofcottony grit.Without entirely meaning to, she slips a finger un-der his arm, feels the long silky hair, startling in its angora softness.A film ofperspiration is on her fingertip now, she rubs it against her thumb, brings it to her nose, finds Daniel’s smell within the bitterness of failed deodorant like the meat ofa pecan surrounded by its broken shell.

She places her hand over the face ofthe flashlight more tightly so only a faint light escapes as she points it toward his face.His bushy brows, his long, somehow unsturdy-looking nose, his thin lips, the dark growth of whiskers on his chin, as ifsomeone had rubbed iron filings onto his jaw.

His hair rises in clumps in different directions.He looks slightly mad, pleasantly ruined.

She had been thinking about him in this way for months.How had it begun?What first drew her? She cannot remember.The quality ofhis at-tention as he listened to her?The gentle seriousness, the way an angel would hear you, not necessarily able to grant your wishes but able to know exactly why you’ve made them.Talking to him was like running a handful ofriverbed stones through one ofthose tumblers, the kind that turn pebbles into shining things, almost jewels.

Her first time in bed with a white man.How the sweat poured offhim, how he whimpered, how the breath broke in his throat like something frozen that’s been stepped on, the copious, almost surreal amounts ofsemen that came out ofhim, the tireless frenzy ofhis fucks, his eyes staring at her, memorizing her, conquering her and surrendering at the same time.

Iris lifts the blanket and shines the flashlight further down Daniel’s body.Am I really going to do this?But she doesn’t stop herself, lets the light settle on his penis.Who was it who referred to every white man’s penis as Pete Rose?Was that her father? No, impossible that something so naughty would come out ofhis pursed, prim mouth, a man who said sug-arplums instead ofshit.Her brothers? But they were so courtly around her—more dedicated than her parents to the exhausting, irritating proj-ect ofkeeping her the baby ofthe family.Yet someone had said it, and whenever she sees a picture ofPete Rose, with his schoolboy haircut and theWho Me? expression on his face, she invariably thinks:dick.Yet here, at last, is an actual white man’s penis and she stares at it, flaccid and pink, looking so unprotected, vulnerable, raw, and unsheathed, like something that belongs inside the body, its own body, that is, something you are not meant to see.Like the real Pete Rose, this particular member does not seem as ifhe’s going to make it into the Hall ofFame.

Yet he has pleased her, Pete Rose or not Pete Rose.He slipped in, and somehow the gentleness ofthe entrance, the unassuming, gracious, perfect guest aspect ofhis sexual presence caused in her an explosion ofpleasure.

Suddenly, she remembers who calls the white penis Pete Rose.Hampton.

The thought ofhim creates a guilty nausea in her:he must never know.

But what was Hampton doing talking about Caucasian sex organs? She can’t remember.Surely some rant, some long riffofdisparagement.Hamp-ton, materially so well-off, so light complexioned, so privileged, seethes against the white world as ifhe were particularly oppressed, as ifthe indig-nities visited upon him had some greater resonance because they were hap-pening to a man ofhis high quality.Even the gross misdeeds committed against less fortunate folk—the jailings, the beatings—were assaults against him, who perceived them so starkly and felt them so keenly.And so he feeds this disdain for whites into the furnace ofhimself, as ifwithout it he would cease to be fully alive.His sense ofwhite people is full ofthe feelings ofin-justice—how easy life is for them, how their power contradicts Darwin, for surely they are not the fittest—but without any great passion for justice: Hampton admires white hegemony, envies it, and he wishes it were the other way around, he wishes that the privileges were all his, and that to be born into a black family, a special black family, that is, one like his, would be-stow on you the kind ofbirthright that the spoiled white brats took for granted.Inasmuch as possible, Hampton has chosen to live in that sort of world.The people he likes to be around, the people he does business with, drinks with, jogs around the Central Park reservoir with, areAfrican-American strivers like himself, who feel all the proper respect for Hamp-ton’s pedigree—a lineage ofaccomplishment and gentility that no white person would even recognize, with fortunes based on such peculiarly Negro enterprises, such as cosmetics for dark-skinned women, Cadillac dealer-ships, weekly newspapers servicing the folks in Newark and the South Side ofChicago, radio stations at the back end ofthe dial.Wherever Hampton travels, from D.C.to Boston to Detroit to San Francisco, there are people like him, more than willing to pay their respects not only to Hampton but to his lineage, because to celebrate what it means to be aWelles, they also af-firm the importance oftheir own family names, the majesty oftheir schools and clubs and summer resorts.They bow to one another as a way ofgenu-flecting to themselves;they kiss each other like smooching with a mirror.

Daniel murmurs something in his sleep, and Iris clicks offthe flashlight.

She lies back in bed, rearranges her pillows, and recalls with a kind of thrilled griefthe sounds he made while they were making love, the pigeon warble ofmounting excitement, the sweet undefended cry ofsurrender.

The night has ended, the snow has finally stopped.Vast mountain ranges of vapor have been heaved up by the storm, but between the clouds and the horizon colors appear—pale blue, slate gray, and yellow.Inside the house it is light enough to read, light enough to lift yourselfup on your elbows and look around the room and see the scatter ofclothing on the floor.

Their noses are cold, their foreheads, their feet, the tips oftheir fingers.The furnace is still dead, the digital clocks are black.

“Good morning,”Daniel says.“Did you even sleep for one second?”

“I’m not much ofa sleeper anyhow,”she says.

”I don’t think I slept, it was more like passing out.”

“It seemed,”she says.

”Did I snore?”

She shakes her head no.

”So, let me ask you,”he says.He presses himself against her.“Has the myth ofCaucasian sexual prowess been put into clearer perspective?”

“Yes,”she says.“It has.”

Daniel’s smile slowly fades.He looks, in fact, unnerved.A little crack ofcold air opens up between them as he shrinks back from her.

“You were wonderful,”Iris says.“Youarewonderful.I can’t tell you how impressed I am.Seriously.Did your parents send you to sex camp?”

“Sex camp?”

“Don’t white folks have all these different camps for their kids—

baseball camp, weight loss camp, computer camp.”

He rolls next to her, gathering her closer.He is powerless not to.He has waited too long to lie next to her, he has yet to get his fill.