These Dreams of You

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The sternest look Zan has gotten is on the afternoon he carried Sheba from the pediatrician’s office and, having received her first round of immunization shots, she wailed in betrayal, “DOCTOR SHOCK ME, POPPY!” A black man at a bus stop on the corner closely monitored the father and daughter the entire walk to Zan’s car, the two fixed in his gaze, and only as Zan struggled to strap the outraged girl into the backseat did the penny drop: I’m a middle-aged white guy hustling a screaming little black girl out of a building.

Sometimes the color confusion has its advantages. When Sheba slams into a grocery checkout line and the person in front whirls around furiously, Zan studies the architectural wonders of the supermarket ceiling as the aggrieved party searches in vain for a wayward black mother to chastise. Then there’s the time on Melrose Avenue when a young black guy comes up to Zan and says, “Hey, man, just want you to know you have two beautiful kids,” and though it’s obviously Sheba who’s caught his eye, Zan is touched that he includes Parker in the compliment. Now the only way that Zan knows to conclude the conversation with Sheba about the difference between his skin and hers is to say some squishy white liberal thing like, “You’re beautiful,” silently adding to no one, You come up with something better. Sheba takes her thumb from her mouth, locks his eyes with hers, and draws a finger across her throat.