Page 25 of Exquisite Things

Poetry has saved me time and time again. The verses themselves have been a big part of my salvation. The human ability to

transform the mess of life into beauty has never ceased to amaze me.

But poetry physically saves me in this moment.

Specifically: Audre Lorde’s collection From a Land Where Other People Live .

I thank the heavens that this particular book is visible in my pocket.

I feel grateful my attempts to shield its pages from

the December rain are unsuccessful. Lily may never have taken notice of me without the Lorde as our point of connection. And

she did. She does. She has. She’s here.

She’s like a guardian angel as she lies to save me. “My name is Lily Summers and that’s my son.” A subtle accent in her cadence.

Rhythmic hints of a Jamaican childhood that mirror the syncopated beat of my heart. No woman has ever called me her son.

The two police officers who threaten to arrest me for loitering don’t exactly look convinced.

“Your son ?” Venom on the cop’s tongue. He’s a snake.

Just one more member of law enforcement who breaks laws to bash queers like me.

Their slithering hatred of us was always there.

But it’s become worse since that wretched Iron Lady took power.

Margaret Thatcher hates everyone and everything I hold dear.

Queerness. Hair that moves. Bodies that sway.

Clothes with style. Human decency. And most especially: working people.

I’ve been a working person since I was seventeen years old. And I’ve been seventeen for eighty-four years. That’s a lot of

toil. I suppose my early years of thieving might not be classified as work by some. But they required planning. Strategy.

Expertise. Long hours. The drudgery of labor.

“Your son?” I sound just as confused as the officers.

I don’t know why she bothers trying to save me. Until she points to the book in my pocket. “Of course you are. Isn’t that

the book you borrowed from me? Audre Lorde.”

“Who?” The second officer clearly doesn’t want an answer.

She answers anyway. “Audre Lorde. A genius. A radical. A lesbian. A feminist. A warrior for Black people.” The way she says

the last part tells me she too is a warrior.

“So she’s a criminal like your... son here.” Officer number one’s evil eyes look like they’re boiling. The spite in his tone speaks volumes. It says he doesn’t

think a person like her can have a son.

I defend myself feebly. “I’m not a criminal. I just fell asleep.”

“You can’t sleep on the street.” Officer number two slaps his baton into his hand threateningly.

“Well, he can’t help it. My boy is a narcoleptic.” Lily comes up with this falsehood quickly. Speaks it with confident assurance.

Something tells me this is a woman who has gotten herself out of plenty a jam with police.

“A what now?”

“It’s a medical condition. He can’t control when, where, or how he sleeps. Would you like the phone number for our family doctor?” She remains relaxed. Nonchalant. Her eyes dare them to call her on the bluff.

The baton-hitting cop approaches her threateningly. “You’re telling me that you, with your black skin and your man’s voice—”

“I am a woman. My name is Lily Summers and my address is—”

“You’re telling me you are the mother of this brown boy who looks nothing like you.”

She has an answer for this too. “You haven’t heard of narcolepsy or adoption, I see.” I’m in awe of how fast her mind works.

The cops get an alert on their police radios. Just in time to save us. They’re off to terrorize some other deviant.

Lily holds her hand out to me and lifts me up. I accept it gratefully. “Why did you do that?”

She pulls some lipstick from her purse. Reapplies the cherry red of her mouth. “Do I have lipstick on my teeth?” She smiles.

It’s luminous. I shake my head. “You ever slept in jail?”

“No. Never.”

“Once they lock you up, they try to keep you there.”

I ponder what would happen if I ever ended up in prison. What would they do once they realized I wasn’t aging? Nothing good,

I’m sure. “I—I don’t know how to thank you.”

She eyes me curiously. “What’s a kid who reads Audre Lorde doing sleeping in a rat-infested alley?” Most of the city’s grimy

and rat-infested these days. Not Mayfair of course. Not Sloane Square. Not wherever the hell the Iron Lady lives. I’m certain

she’s cozy and warm as she devises legislation to make our kind extinct.

“I—I don’t know. But thanks for saving me. I’ll be back on my feet soon. I work as a tutor, I just... I just came back

to London and—”

“ Back to London? You look like a child. Where are your parents?” She seems genuinely concerned. No one has been genuinely concerned about me since Oliver.

“Don’t you remember?” I smile. “You’re my mother.”

She laughs. “That was all I could think of in the moment. I could not let a boy who reads radical poetry end up in prison

for needing a place to sleep. I loathe bobbies.”

“I do too.”

She shakes her head. “They don’t patrol the streets to protect us. They do it to scare us. They can throw us in the nick for

existing. They can kill us and get away with it. And we all know that when someone does kill us, they look the other way.” She seems to be thinking of something, or someone, specific. “You’re queer, right?”

I nod. “Gay. Queer. Both. Yes.”

“Listen, kid, you’ll come over for a shower and a bite to eat, but that’s it. I have a full day ahead and I need a nap.”

“What do you do?” I walk by her side. Her high heels click along the pavement with purpose. She smells like a night of dancing.

Like sweat. Glitter. Escape.

“I make clothes.” She says it with delight. I can tell she fought for her life. “Custom orders. Alterations too. Where are

you from?”

“I suppose I’m from Iran.”

“Oh.” She looks at me differently now. “I’m so sorry. Did you have to escape because of the revolution?” I don’t say yes or

no. “Your parents? Did they... Are they... I heard a lot of people—”

“Yes, my parents are dead.” It’s not a lie. They are dead. Just not in the recent revolution. I let her make her own assumptions.

“My God, I am so sorry.” She puts an arm around me as we walk. “How did you make your way to London?”

“I—I know some people here.” Again: not a lie.

“Then why are you not with them?” I evade her gaze. She nods. Fills in my history for herself. “Ah. Your people don’t know

you’re gay?” I don’t answer. “This world isn’t easy for us, kid.” She shakes her head. “Look at us, two of the colonized living

in the city of the colonizers.”

The British didn’t technically colonize Iran. They manipulated and meddled in insidiously covert ways to quench their thirst

for oil. Still horrible. Perhaps not to the same degree. I don’t correct her. Not when she sees us as allies against the same

enemy. “Where are you from?”

“Kingston. Jamaica.” She practically sings the words. Fills those three syllables with both joy and sadness. The faint accent

feels more pronounced when she speaks of her homeland. “I haven’t been back since I left. Always meant to. Never had enough

money. And then it got...” She doesn’t look at me. It’s like she’s speaking to someone else. Doesn’t finish the sentence

either. “Well, there’s no reason to go back no more. Not since my mother passed.”

“She didn’t move to London with you?”

Lily shakes her head. “She sent me to live with my Uncle Alton in Brixton when I was twelve. Said I’d get a better education

here. Said I’d be safer too. She was right on one count.”

“So the last time you saw your mother... you were twelve ?”

“When did I say that?” She laughs. “I said I never went back. She visited us when she could. Always hated it here. Rubbish

on the streets. Judgment in people’s eyes. Gray skies.” She switches to a much heavier accent. A warm imitation of her mother.

“ It always be raining in London cuz dis place fills God wid sorrow. ”

I smile. “She sounds wonderful.”

“She was.”

“I’m sorry she’s gone.”

“No pity!” She waves a manicured hand into the air.

The nails are hot pink. “ I got no time for boo-hoo backstories. ” She smiles.

“My mother used to say that.” She switches back to her mom’s voice again.

Clearly enjoys being her. “ Clock always be ticking, pickney. Who got time fi sadness? God give yuh one life. Live it. ”

If anyone has time for sadness, it’s me. “Is your Uncle Alton still in London?”

I see the pain in her eyes. I wonder what happened. Perhaps her Uncle Alton rejected her. Cast her aside. “Tell you what,

kid. You don’t ask about my past and I won’t ask about yours.” Perhaps her Uncle Alton is dead.

“Is that a promise?”

She looks at me with a smile. “It’s a promise.”

She holds her hand out. I shake it. We seal the promise this way. The past will never be discussed. This one promise already

makes me feel so much safer. I won’t need to lie if I don’t have to discuss my past. I can start anew.

She leads me onto Oxford Street and then down a side alley toward Covent Garden. Three men sleep. Liquor bottles by their

side. We barely glance at them. It’s not such an odd sight anymore. The rulers create poverty. Then force the poor into dark

alleys. Overcrowded prisons. They can’t stand to see the human toll of their freedom.

We stop at a red light. Next to us: two teenage girls dressed like they’re coming home from a debaucherously champagne-soaked

all-nighter at some members-only club. “It’s up to sixteen girls.” The one slurring right now wears a tight pink sequin miniskirt.

“And he’s still out there.”

“Well, he’s not here in London, is he?” This one is in short shorts and a tight-fitting designer blazer.

“He’s not far. He could take the train in. Is this light ever going to change?”

Behind us, a man screams something about nuclear power stations destroying us all as he turns a corner.

The light finally changes. We cross the street next to the girls. There’s a haunted tone to Pink Sequins’s voice as she worries