Eviction Sounds Like This
Joy had been aware of the bees since the summer she accidentally ripped the towel holder from the bathroom wall. At five years old, she’d learned to run her own bath, to clean herself until she smelled of green soap, to dry and dress without anyone acknowledging that she had done it. The day the towel holder broke, a swarm emerged from the hole; a cloud of fat, yellow bees surrounded her. The worst part had been the noise, a deep humming she could feel in the back of her neck. Their bodies knocked against hers. They hovered and landed on her face but didn’t sting. She screamed until her father found her and threw a blanket over them both, yanking her against his side. He carried her to safety, holding her the way he did when she woke from nightmares. “Hush, child. Don’t cry,” he urged, kissing her forehead and rocking her into content silence. Afterward, Joy watched him repair the hole with plaster and a putty knife. Swipe after swipe, he smoothed the damage and sealed the gap between two worlds, but the nests remained. Carpenter bees burrowed into wood and made homes in the studs, almost as bad as termites. The noise wasn’t comforting, but it was familiar. Many mornings, Joy woke and fell asleep again to the sound of bee drones, their noise a sign of the lives they led behind the thin drywall. Hidden but unceasing.
Curled where she had fallen on her porch, Joy cradled her stomach and made nail prints in the stiff, red insulation that had oozed and dried between cracks in the siding. Could have been poisonous. Joy could only guess. Beyond the porch, bees found happiness above the dandelion lawn. Their clumsy flight paths provided little distraction from the burning ache in Joy’s eye. Her rideshare app pinged. A stranger somewhere in Atlanta awaited a lift in the back of her cramped Ford Focus.
The screen door swung open and slapped the bottom of her feet.
“Come back and see what happens,” her mother, Stella, screamed.
Joy’s father retreated down the sidewalk, throwing his arm in the air, waving off her threat.
Joy began to sob, and her tears seemed to fuel Stella further.
“Coward,” she yelled after him. “You just see what happens.”
This was not the first time Stella had stood over a distraught Joy while her father stormed away. What made this time different was that he had hit Joy. He never had before. Not even to spank her. When he stormed away in the past it was to get away from his wife, Stella, screaming at him for not holding down a job or holding down too many jobs, for being home too much or not being home at all. Now, it was Joy’s turn to drive him away. She was his only daughter, his only child, pregnant by some boy her parents had never met. Joy was nineteen and in her second trimester.
Stella lit a cigarette and nudged her toe into Joy’s side.
“Get on up from there,” she said. “He’s gone.”
Joy took her time rising to stand beside her mother.
Stella wore a pair of sweatpants that stretched around her curves. Her tank top fell low enough to reveal the heart tattoo on her breast. She had on a full face of makeup, as she always did, and now she grinned despite the fact that Joy’s face was starting to swell.
Stella and Joy didn’t talk for a long time. The other houses on their street shared their quiet, couldn’t help but share it in the hours before the neighborhood children flooded the outdoors. Those young enough to find joy in such things rode bikes and chased each other, calling tag and boogeyman. For now, a stillness hung over the rows of pointed roofs, interrupted only by the ocean sounds of Atlanta’s I-20 traffic, sifting through a sound fence with missing planks.
They lived in one of the few remaining low-income bubbles in the city. On their street, “For Rent” signs migrated among the yards. The signs lasted until a parent or two with enough kids to fill the rooms got approved for a lease. It had been a pastime of Joy’s to track the listings. She searched for them online, paying close attention to the rental requirements, and spending too much time looking at the pictures. The house across the street had an eviction notice on the door. Joy broke their silence, pointed the notice out to her mother.
“That house right there has new hardwood floors,” she said. “Pretty appliances, washer and dryer hookups.”
“Yeah?” Stella ashed her cigarette. “How much they charge a month?”
“Too much,” Joy said.
“The way of the world. Let’s get you some ice.” Stella put her arm around her daughter and helped her into the house.
Joy passed the night in dull agony. She chased sleep until the first blink of daylight fixed morning shadows along her wall, a soft haze from the curtains and the sharp angles of her dresser. Deep in the walls, the bees were busy.
Joy made breakfast, ice pack to swollen eye. She was hungry all the time now. Hunger was not unfamiliar, but pregnant hunger caused a different ache. She could distract herself, for instance, from the pangs brought on by a skipped dinner because the rent check had cleared and she was tired of eating rice. Pregnant hunger, however, made her nauseous and too lightheaded to stand. Before the eggs stiffened in the pan, she chewed through a granola bar and watched as texts from her father arrived one after another. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Not sorry enough.
“Don’t respond,” Stella warned before leaving for work. “We’re done with him, this time for real. I sacrificed to keep him around when you were young, baby girl, but you grown now, and don’t no grown woman need a daddy, especially not one who thinks it’s fit to punch on them while they’re carrying. I don’t want to see that man ever again.”
Joy moved the ice pack from her face. “I don’t want to see him either.”
“You’re his daughter, Joybelle. Nobody knows how to forgive like a daughter, but you’re a mother now too.”
She touched Joy’s chin, lifting it an inch. Stella had a weird sort of pride in her face, like she had something to brag about. Then her hand drifted down to Joy’s stomach.
“You’ll learn it, soon,” she said, and she was off to work.
That word “soon” left tingles in the back of Joy’s neck. Soon, summer break would end, and she’d have to decide whether to return for her second year at the community college. Could she be a mother, a rideshare driver, and a student? Did she have a choice?
The eggs began to brown. She shut off the burner, went to run a bath, and waited for the tub to fill. The bathroom was a hodgepodge—pink and black tiles covered most of the walls, a mahogany wood vanity surrounded the sink, and a plastic tub had been installed over the original, perhaps in the nineties. Before she was pregnant, Joy had helped her mother and father place new vinyl on all the main floors. The best part had been the end, when the yellowed grout, cracked tiles, and stained linoleum were out of sight and forever out of mind.
In the tub, Joy soaped her stomach, which rose above the water like its very own island, round, brown, and already much bigger than she thought it could be. Soon, Joy thought.
Some of the black tiles had birds on them, blue, red, and yellow. The birds were outdated. No one hoped for beaks, wings, and grout anymore. Subway tiles were the style of choice according to most blogs and home improvement shows. The sight of the birds, the remnant of someone else’s taste, was somehow worse through Joy’s bruised eye, which pulsed like thunder as she washed her arms and neck. She cleaned each part of herself with quiet care, wondering how much worse delivery would feel than a punch to the face. Her mother would be in the room when she gave birth; the baby’s father would not. He promised to support the child financially but wanted no hand in its raising. He’d given her a gift card to buy the crib. It wasn’t clear if he objected more to the baby or Joy herself; she didn’t have the luxury of caring.
Joy checked her phone for updates on her rideshare app. Finding none, she went outside to cool off. She saw the neighbor’s moving truck first. Then she saw her father. He wore different clothes than the ones he wore the day before—a pair of dark jeans and a jersey for a team he didn’t care for. It didn’t appear that he’d missed any sleep.
“Where’s your momma?” he asked.
“Gone.”
He came up to the chain link fence but didn’t attempt to step into the yard.
“This lawn could use a good cut,” he said.
Joy crossed her arms.
“You doing okay?” he asked. When she didn’t respond, he said, “Is it a boy or a girl? Okay. Things got out of hand. I take responsibility for that…Joy?”
He reached to unlatch the gate, and Joy stiffened. “Keep coming and I’ll call the police,” she said.
“I raised you, girl.”
Joy backed up and didn’t speak until she was in safe range of the front door. “Yeah, who raised you?” she asked, immediately sorry. His parents had died before she was born. She could see the anger return to his face and figured if she’d been closer, he would have struck her again. Her father had been her hero most of her life, and he’d ruined it with a single fist.
“Y’all can’t kick me out like that,” he yelled.
Joy glanced at the moving truck in the neighbor’s yard, wondering if she might spot a witness, someone with a box in hand as they listened in on one of the most intimate conversations of her life. She couldn’t tell her father to speak softer. One could not speak softly about exile. Like crossing borders and closing different doors.
Rideshare work was inconsistent. Two hours ferrying passengers to and from Hartsfield Jackson, followed by a half hour in a random parking lot. Joy wore a pair of her mother’s giant sunglasses, reflective and darker than a blank screen. She used her elbow to pin the seatbelt away from her stomach when she was alone and wouldn’t be judged. On breaks, she flipped through her phone and watched bathroom renovations, people who ripped out walls and people who painted them over, people who could afford new countertops and those who could only afford cheap marble-look appliques, temporary fixes.
Her next ride was an older Black woman, Loraine H.—a letter instead of a last name. She loaded her bags into the backseat and settled into the passenger side. She brought with her a fog of perfume and stale breath. Joy preferred strangers to ride in the back but did not speak up against customer preferences. It might hurt her driver rating, the only oversight for her job.
“What happened to your face?” Loraine H. asked, somehow able to see around Joy’s sunglasses.
Joy focused on the mechanics of driving. Pressure on the brake, shift gears, check mirrors.
“Accident,” she said.
“And you’re pregnant?”
She nodded.
“The baby okay?” Loraine H. asked.
It hadn’t occurred to Joy to wonder if the baby was all right. She’d gotten hit in the face, not the belly. Why not the belly? Such a big target.
“I prefer not to talk about it,” Joy said, aware that this answer might leave room for the wrong type of speculation. The one benefit of chauffeuring strangers in a city as big as Atlanta was that she never drove the same person twice. One of the largest international airports in the world, corporate towers, dozens of colleges and universities—three that had sent her respectful rejections, two that had offered acceptances but no real funding—and neighborhoods teeming with change all offered up strangers, practically dumped them in her lap. She had no room. Keeping secrets from strangers didn’t hurt, and neither would it hurt to be misjudged, or judged correctly. Loraine H. could think what she wanted right up until they reached their destination. At which point, Ms. H would exit the vehicle and Joy’s life with her bags and her opinions. A five star review, perhaps a tip and a message that fell within the fifty-character limit: Good luck, girl. Joy would read it and feel it. Then the next passenger with only half a name would help her to forget.
The idea to paint the bathroom tile came from a video, Renter-Friendly Renovation on a Budget. A week after her eye started to heal, Joy got the paint, tools, and new locks from the home improvement store. She changed the deadbolts first, peeking every now and then at the kids playing in the street. A couple of them abandoned their bikes on the sidewalk to help the new neighbors unload their moving truck. Joy hadn’t met them, but she knew their house had brand new light fixtures throughout.
After changing the locks, she strapped on a mask, put on gloves, and went to work in the bathroom. Her own milk-sweet breath combined with the bitter smell of epoxy. She gave a mental good-bye to each outdated bird before covering them in white. Each swipe of the paint roller brought her a little closer to victory. She worked to the low humming sounds coming from inside the walls and then began to hum herself.
Later, she let Stella in and handed her a new set of keys.
“Save the old locks,” Stella said. “We’ll have to change them back whenever we move out. What’s that smell?”
Joy showed her the bathroom, where she’d been working on a second coat. The paint canister had warning symbols all over it. Its contents were noxious and intolerable and no match for the walls.
Stella checked the doorsill before leaning against it.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
“Little DIY,” Joy said. “There’s an extra mask on the kitchen table.”
For a while, Stella watched her work in silence. Past times, silence could mean the same as a reprimand or condemnation. It could mean a deep-seated disapproval that would soon emerge, but Stella and Joy had found peace in recent days. They had come to an understanding that seemed connected to the child in Joy’s stomach.
Stella retrieved the extra mask, took the paint roller from Joy, and told her daughter to go sit down.
“You’re not working my grandchild to death before she gets here,” Stella said.
“Working is about all I know how to do,” Joy said.
“Not true,” said Stella with a sly smile that meant she was joking. “You also know how to get pregnant.”
Stella led Joy to the couch and began to sing. Muffled by the mask and her own heavy breathing, Stella’s song was unrecognizable until she got to the chorus.
“Grandma used to sing that,” Joy said.
“All the time,” Stella agreed. She lifted her daughter’s legs onto a pile of pillows and placed one behind her back.
“You want to work so bad, sit here and work on growing that baby,” Stella said. “Pray for her. Sing to her. Tell her something good.”
In the early hours of the evening, Stella worked and sang in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Joy had internal conversations, a swarm of thoughts inside her head. She had refused to learn the baby’s gender at the doctor’s office, but Stella swore she could tell. All Stella cared about was picking out colors and names, Brielle for a girl and Taylor for a boy. Joy didn’t care about colors. She had not yet gotten to a place where she could think of the baby as anything but an extension of herself. She watched the last of the sun trail across the living room wall, and she thought over and over again: Tell me who you are. Tell me what you want. Tell me about your future. Tell me who you’ll be outside of me.
A key sounded in the lock, over and over like someone trying and failing.
“That must be Dad,” Joy called to her mother.
Stella ran for the door, removing her mask and fussing with her hair as she went. Hand frozen on the knob, she stared at Joy, who felt for a moment like time could crack apart. It had been seven whole days since Joy had seen him, and she was not prepared. Everything was so peaceful.
Stella opened the door, and Joy’s father entered with the passive intent of someone visiting for the first time, questioning whether they should abandon their shoes at the door or compliment the furniture.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Joy said.
He opened his mouth like he meant to speak, to offer up more apologies maybe, but Stella shook her head.
“I told him to come,” she said, waving her husband forward. “Come get your stuff.”
Stella followed him to the back room. It didn’t take long for the fighting to start. Stella called him an abuser. He called her oblivious.
“Nineteen and pregnant,” he yelled. “No husband, not even a damn boyfriend.”
Joy retreated to her own room and shut the door. She knew full well it wouldn’t do much to muffle their arguing. There, in the middle of the bedroom floor, a bee hovered and fell. It jerked around, flopping against the threadbare carpet. She often found bees in cabinets, corners, and on windowsills. It was a common occurrence that felt uncommon in this moment. She watched the bee struggle until her parents went quiet.
Ra’Niqua Lee (@raniqualee) is a PhD student of English at Emory University, where she works as an editorial associate for the online, open-access research journal Southern Spaces. She received an MFA in fiction from Georgia State University, where she was a Paul Bowles Fellow. Ra'Niqua has a vested interest in seeing her particular visions of the south represented in print.