Kings of B'More: List 3

In the corner of your eye you'd always catch the edge of a house, the spire of a church, a peeling billboard, a looming apartment building. It was never just sky.

He slowly lowered his gaze, and the building, a dark stack of trapezoids, slowly came into view. It looked black at first, but then it revealed itself—its facade was made up of copper-colored screens with intricate designs.

He'd seen his parents playacting as their old selves for a long time, for years, just to avoid the inevitable truth: that they'd grown apart.

They wound their way through a maze of stanchions, the crowd still relatively sparse.

They descended from the lobby to the concourse, an area where another serpentine set of stanchions would lead, it seemed, to all of history.

A docent in a black blazer stood in front of a glass door. She spoke to the small crowd at the end of the line.

Linus ducked under the stanchion and walked quickly down the concourse, around the corner to the escalator, and rode into the air.

Ms. Doreen continued, "What you're going to do is you're going to walk every step of the way through our history, starting at the beginning and ending up back here, where we got to today. It's a lot. It might seem like too much. But it's important. That's why y'all are here. Once you get back to the surface, you can go into the Contemplative Court. There's a waterfall there and benches and you can just sit and let it all settle."

He looked at a painted mural of Black people toiling in a field of white.

He drifted past other statues—of Phyllis Wheatley and Elizabeth Freeman—and then turned to discover the whole cabin that had been magic'd to the inside of the museum. He just didn't get it. It was so old. It was made of wood and, what, gumption?

Before Harrison could respond, the guy charged away and vanished into a side room named "Antebellum Politics."

Behind a pane of glass: a Klan hood, lit ominously from above.

He stared up at the falling stream and he was nine again, the following summer, facing the placid surface of a community pool in the lessons his parents enrolled him and Corrine in every year thereafter.

At the tips of his fingers, unreachable no matter how fast or how far or how long he swam, was always the promise inherent in water: of lightness, of buoyancy, that he could float away.

A giant car was on display up front. And to his left, less flashy but nonetheless intriguing, was a curved white wall with a dark blue sign on it that read VISUAL ART.

It was mostly gray, with a swath of blue on one side. It looked to Linus like an aerial map, like looking at the Harbor from above.

Cool Aparna, seventeen-year-old Baltimore County resident and Plowshares rising senior, held nothing except her cell in one hand and a chunky key ring—with multiple metal keys, a car key, a carabiner, a gym tag, a Panera tag, and mace—in the other.

"Do you use skin lighteners?"
"Ugh, no. I get not-so- subtle hints about it from some aunties, but, like, no. I'm good."

"It isn't really a thing you donate, is it?"
Cool Aparna looked at me with what seemed like benevolence. "I think everyone deserves to feel good."

Then he was shocked to realize he'd thought of Baltimore Cemetery as theirs. But it was true—it was their domain, it and all they surveyed. And inside it they'd shared secrets and questions and provided each other with answers and solace.

They'd initially ventured up while still vibrating with excitement about getting the job at BaltiTours.

"Do you plan on paying, young man?" It's amazing how some people's tones can make even your demographic truths into a read.

They clambered down the staircase, coming to a connection between two train cars.

The guy from the museum tumbled down the stairs and came careening through the connection between the cars.

The man grabbed the handle and jostled it brusquely, to no avail.

"No bottles, no cans, no flasks, none of those Nalgenes, no Tupperware full of juice, no casks."

"They just explicitly said that it is illegal to be thirsty at Pride."

Linus positioned himself at dueling distance from the ATM. He held his card out like a treat a wild-animal tamer used to placate a lion.

"You're going to be caught out here unawares. You need to stay vigilant. Things are crazy."

It stared Harrison in the eye as if backing up the admonition of the cashier.

The security guards were still calling out all kinds of drinking equipment that was not allowed within the confines of the Pride festival.

Linus's shoulders were shaking as he attempted to stifle his laughter.

There were people dressed in matching T-shirts touting their companies or their organizations, walking in groups after marching in the parade or breaking apart and creating a kind of "find the pattern" game.

"I'm just shocked you call this a city. It's a bunch of different amusement parks with deep economic and racial disparities."

All of them save Linus spent their days at Plowshares talking, making up jokes, and building that library of incidental knowledge that houses a friendship.

He clacked the fan open and shut lightly, not wanting to draw attention and be accused of appropriating the culture of any dad, grandpa, stepfather, or wise old mentor.

Harrison felt Linus wrapping him in a bear hug, pulling him out of his reverie.

There seemed to be a deep sadness that pervaded every mention of them, every part of that family, and Harrison didn't understand it.

He could hedge his bets and say that he left it at home and pray that Aparna was close enough for it to seem plausible.

Corrine puffed her chest out, haughty and dismissive.