Middling

Abstract

Middling LaTanya McQueen (bio) Not long after Martin told her about the Civil War reenactments Candace decided she would fuck the kid. He wasn’t a kid, far from it. Twenty-three, older than the rest of her students by at least a couple of years, but she liked to call him kid instead of his actual name. It was a joke to her at first, because he was half her age, as well as it being a comment on his high-top fade that reminded her of the 80’s. “You got a Kid N’ Play look going,” she’d said to him once. He was too young to get the reference but from then on that’s what she decided to call him. She met him at the creative writing class she adjuncted for at the local community college. The pay was trash but she only did it to get out of the house and make a little money of her own. Like so many of the others he was taking the class as a gen ed requirement, but unlike so many of the others he held an earnestness about him. It might have been because he was the only black student in her class and here she was, a black teacher, perhaps even his first ever. His writing was not bad, not great either—middling, if she was being honest, but there was an unabashed yearning that surprised her. She wished though his work had been bad because then it might have tempered her attraction. In all the classes she’d taught she’d never once considered, except for this time, with him. In class he’d lean back in his chair, stretching, arms reaching high up in the air, and as he did this his t-shirt would raise up too and she’d catch a glimpse of his stomach. Even now, after seeing and experiencing everything he had to offer, nothing compared to that first moment when she snuck a look at the smoothness of his skin, his belly button, and once when she was lucky, the thick band of his boxers. This had been going on for the past couple of months. She’d been meaning to end it, but every time she came home and saw Martin doing more of his reenactment nonsense it put her in a mood. Tonight they’d gotten into a fight, a big one, before Candace left to meet the kid. The fight had been over the trench. Martin wanted to dig one, believing he could better prepare if his environment looked more realistic to what he’d eventually experience. When Candace came home he’d already gotten started on the hole, having spent most of the afternoon digging in their front yard. “What the hell is that hole out there in our yard?” she asked Martin when she found him taking a water break in the kitchen. Martin explained that the trench would help him prepare for his first battle, a reenactment of the Battle of Little Blue. He wanted Candace to come, having asked her on more than a few occasions, but each time she had told him that she would think about it. “Lots of people come to watch,” Martin said, trying to convince her. “Spectators. Families are there for support. Friends. You’d be surprised. Not all groups even let people there, some are completely closed events.” “I’m still not going.” “Why not?” “I can’t believe you even have to ask that.” “This isn’t about race Candace.” [End Page 101] “Of course it is.” “Maybe for some of the guys there, but not for me. I was going through my father’s belongings and he’d done all this research into our family history. My great-grandfather fought in the war. I never knew that. He even fought in this battle the group is going to reenact.” “Your great-grandfather was a traitor,” she said flatly. She’d probably gone too far with that comment, although she wasn’t sure since it was in fact, the truth. She supposed she could have phrased her response differently, but it’d been months...