Harbors

By Donald Quist

Suspended between continents and cultures, Donald Quist charts the forceful undercurrents of an American identity. Through these essays Quist explores feelings of oppression and alienation as he wrestles with a single act of violence in a Washington, D.C. suburb, racial tensions in a rural South Carolina town, and the welcome anonymity of crowded Bangkok streets. These personal narratives are rich with Quist’s experience growing up as a person of color caught between parents, socioeconomic classes, and the countries he calls home.

Cover design by Maggie Chiang
Layout and design by LK James
Editing by Tatiana Ryckman
Copyediting by Emily Roberts

• Language: English
• Publisher: Awst Press
• Release date: Dec 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997193831

Donald Quist

Donald Edem Quist is a writer and editor living in Bangkok, Thailand. He is author of the short story collection Let Me Make You a Sandwich. His work has appeared in North American Review, The Rumpus, Hunger Mountain, J Journal, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Cleaver Magazine, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Knee-Jerk Magazine, The Adroit Journal, Pithead Chapel, Numéro Cinq, Slag Glass City, Publishers Weekly, and other print and online publications. He earned his MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

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PRAISE FOR DONALD QUIST’S HARBORS

"At a time when honest discussions of race, class, and violence are both necessary and too often simplistic, along comes Donald Quist. Perhaps this is what it takes—a uniquely positioned literary talent—to get us past familiar, easy categories. In Harbors, Quist assembles fragments, memories, and conversations both real and imagined to reveal people in all their complexity and contradictions as well as the shifting lines of privilege and oppression. As Quist writes of three continents, his slim volume becomes my passport." —Diane Lefer, author of Confessions of a Carnivore

"In Harbors, Donald Quist gathers those moments of clarity that shape one man’s consciousness about the black experience in a global environment. Whether it’s growing up in the American South or seeking adventure in places as far away as Thailand, there’s no escaping the fixed perceptions about class, race, and masculinity. Quist’s poignant essays show us, however, what it’s like to move through tension, conflict, and microaggression with hard-won dignity and grace—not unscathed, not unfazed, though certainly undefeated. A timely, stellar collection!"—Rigoberto González, author of Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa

"In Harbors, Donald Quist bravely chronicles his attempts to find safe haven, to carve a space for himself and his humanity in a world where his blackness marks him for second-class citizenship. Quist sifts through the wreckages of his self—of love, of family, of escape across continents— to show readers the scars he’s earned and the pain that still radiates from them. This is a much needed work, the rare collection that enlivens and enlarges the humanity of the reader."—Rion Amilcar Scott, author of Insurrections: Stories

HARBORS

by DONALD QUIST

First Edition published by Awst Press, 2016

All rights reserved. For permission requests, contact the publisher.

Awst Press

P.O. Box 49163

Austin, TX 78765-9163

awst-press.com

[e-mail]

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016942994

Editing: Tatiana Ryckman

Cover illustration: Maggie Chiang

Copyediting: Emily Roberts

Book design: LK James

© 2016 by Donald Quist

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

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In memory of Thelma R. Hines & Paulina Hans-Quist

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

—Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

~ ~ ~ ~

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

—Lucille Clifton, blessing the boats

CONTENTS

THROUGH THIS / TO STRIVE, TO SEEK : LOG I

Rays

Closing Procedures at Spencer Gifts

Tanglewood

Till Next Time, Take Care of Yourselves and Each Other

The Animals We Invent

In Other Words

Junk

TO THAT / TO FIND, AND NOT TO YIELD : LOG II

Cartography

Dogs in the Kingdom

Lesson Plan

Figures

I’ll Fly Away: Notes on Economy Class Citizenship

Junior

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Through this / to strive, to seek : LOG I

Rays

THE WOLVERINE

I have a scar, a scaly callus on my right pinky knuckle from when I cut my hand on Ray Nelson’s teeth. The day I ripped my fist on his incisors, Ray had snatched my Wolverine action figure. I spent nearly half an hour chasing him along the tulip tree line of the forest bordering our elementary school playground. Whenever I stopped to catch my breath he made sure to keep a few meters’ distance between us. During these respites, I scanned to see if any of the other kids might be laughing at me. On the kickball field, at the basketball courts, and atop the rusting metal jungle gyms, my fourth grade classmates celebrated the end of winter in Maryland and the return of outdoor recess. I lamented the return of outdoor recess. The grown-ups could not monitor the expanse of the schoolyard all at once. This left me susceptible to getting pushed into mud puddles or getting grass clippings and wood chips shoved into my underwear, or having something I cherished taken by little red-headed dweebs like Ray Nelson.

When I tired of the chase, I sprinted over to Ms. Orsega who was posted by the side entrance doors of the school. I nearly cried as I whined to her about the egregiousness of the theft. I tried to explain to Ms. Orsega that everyone, and by everyone I meant every boy in the fourth grade, coveted Wolverine. By demonstrating his posable limbs and retractable claws during Show and Tell, I believed I could bond with my tormentors and possibly befriend them. She listened, arms folded, her silver whistle resting between her lips. When I finished she blew a strident blast.

Ray stood watching and waiting several feet away. He began inching further towards the soccer field. Ms. Orsega beckoned him with a finger, and Ray shuffled closer with his eyes on the ground.

Give it back, she said.

Give what back? he said, pulling Wolverine behind him.

The doll, she said.

Ray and I corrected her in unison: It’s not a doll!

Whatever. Give it back.

And Ray did. I extended my left hand and Wolverine was returned to me.

Okay? she asked me.

A cluster of kids who rode the bus to school with Ray and me gathered around. They followed the scream of Ms. Orsega’s whistle with the expectation of seeing one of us castigated.

I thought of Wolverine, not the one in my possession, the real one in the comics and cartoons. He didn’t need an intercessor. Wolverine sliced bullies with adamantium claws.

What would Wolverine have done?

I imagined weapons like knives sprouting from my fist as I struck Ray’s face. I reached back to hit him again, but Ms. Orsega hooked the collar of my shirt. I almost punched at her to get loose before I noticed the blood, my knuckle, Ray’s mouth, and half of a single tooth cupped in the palms of his red, quivering hands.

GREEN BUS KIDS

At Galway Elementary School, you could always spot the kids who rode the green bus. They seemed to fight for no reason. When belongings vanished from classroom cubbies, they were often found in the holey pockets of the kids who rode the green bus. You could identify those kids by their free lunches and their hand-me-downs. Every Halloween they wore the cheap drugstore costumes comprised of a vinyl smock and a flimsy plastic mask with a thin elastic band. They didn’t bring candy for Valentine’s Day and they never passed out birthday party invitations. They lived in the Windsor Towers apartment complex, those beige stucco cinder block towers behind the shopping plaza on Columbia Pike. On hot days the sour stench of rotten grocery store produce and wasted Chuck E. Cheese’s pizza would waft up from the dumpsters in back of the Safeway. Sometimes the rot stuck to those kids who rode the green bus. They’d carry the stink to school. The kids with scars they chose not to explain, kids like Ray and me.

The school assigned each bus an arbitrary color and taped a laminated piece of construction paper on the right window above the first row of passenger seats. The pigment of the paper in the window helped students remember which vehicle took them home. The green bus that Ray and I rode looked like all the others, big and yellow, but our drivers had a higher turnover rate.

Of all the drivers, I only remember one: a large woman shaped like a deflating balloon. Air escaped from her mouth in wheezy sighs and exasperated shouts. One day after school, the balloon lady parked the bus on Castle Boulevard, half a mile from Windsor Towers. She refused to take us any further if we didn’t quiet down and start showing her some respect. Inevitably, she pulled the keys from the ignition, yanked the lever that caused the heavy doors of the bus to swing open, and walked off.

We waited silently, hoping our new stillness would cause her to reappear. Once we understood that she would not return, some children went in search of a pay phone. The rest of us, myself and Ray included, walked home.

Sometimes I’d think of that bus driver and wonder what became of her. Maybe the administrators sympathized with her wanting to abandon us. Maybe she asked for a transfer to the orange bus with the children from the big detached houses in Tanglewood. Maybe the balloon lady would enjoy chauffeuring the kids who brought their lunches to school, kids who didn’t feel compelled to punch or steal.

SCARS

Because of his freckles, orange hair, and upturned nose, Ray stood out among the few white children living in Windsor Towers. When the other green bus kids grew bored criticizing my weight, glasses, and bookishness, they battered Ray.

Children can swing sharp, cleaving insults; like tiny butchers, they chop down hard for deep cuts. A rumor about Ray’s single mother not having a job and sleeping with men for rent money circulated among the kids in Windsor Towers. Even some of the kids from the neighboring low-rise apartments in Windsor Courts teased Ray about his prostituting mother.

But Ray’s mother did have a real job. I discovered this the