Nightcrawling

“Mama used to tell me that blood is everything, but I think we’re all out here unlearning that sentiment, scraping our knees and asking strangers to patch us back up. I don’t say goodbye to Shauna and she doesn’t even turn around to watch me leave, to head back out into a sky that sunk into deep blue while my brother asked me to do the one thing I know I shouldn’t, the one thing Shauna cared enough to warn me about: hollow myself out for another person who ain’t gonna give a shit when I’m empty.”

Throughout the novel, Kiara is conflicted as to whether to support Marcus financially—essentially enabling him to live irresponsibly, pursuing a dream unlikely to prove successful. Here Kiara speaks of being taken advantage of, of sacrificing herself for another who will inevitably do nothing for her in return. This will prove to be the case for Kiara in many of her relationships.

“The flying moments solidify inside my rib cage like a photo album in the body. Trevor and I sweltering, jumping, always close to the sky. Alé and her weed, that smile quick, Sunday Shoes, funeral day. For these moments, I forget my body is a currency and none of the things I did last night make any sense at all. Trevor’s body, the way it fills up with air and releases, reminds me how sacred it is to be young. These moments when all I want is to have my mama hum me a lullaby I will only remember in dreamland.”

Here Kiara enjoys a moment of respite from the stress of her life as she plays basketball with Trevor. The amount of joy the simple activity brings to Trevor successfully distracts them both—albeit temporarily—from how challenging their lives are. This passage also serves as a reminder of how young Kiara is—though she is not yet 18, she has been forced to become an adult and be fully responsible not just for herself but for others such as Trevor.

“I should have known Marcus couldn’t handle it for long. He probably didn’t even make enough to pay for our groceries, and I’m less angry that he doesn’t know how to be a grown man than I am that I trusted he might actually try. I think he wanted to and I think that desire was mostly about me, but Marcus ain’t figured out how to stifle his rage to get a job done. At the same time, I can’t blame him. He’s spent years bottling up every feeling to take care of us and ever since he learned Uncle Ty’s made it big, he can’t keep himself from erupting. He doesn’t understand we don’t got the luxury of fucking up, not right now.”

Kiara’s feelings regarding Marcus are complicated. She recognizes his flaws—perhaps better than he does—and yet holds out hope that he can overcome them. When Marcus disappoints her, she blames herself from not “knowing better” than to depend on him. Though Marcus is older, Kiara is the more mature sibling, making sure that the bills are paid.

“I changed quickly, texting my small list of men to see who was willing to pay tonight. I tell myself I’ll start looking for new job postings tomorrow, that this is what it’s gotta be for now, the only way we gonna survive. It ain’t that I’m not scared, I am. But I know that we’ll lose so much more if I don’t keep us afloat, that suddenly Trevor won’t have nobody to make sure he eats and Marcus won’t have a couch to sleep on and I will be closer to my own funeral day than I have ever been.”

Though she does not enjoy sex work, Kiara is willing to engage in it because it proves to be an effective source of income. She is able to suffer through the horrors of the experience—at least in this moment—by promising herself that the job is only a short-term one. As the sex work continues, however, it will become increasingly traumatizing for Kiara.

“There’s not a thing Daddy could’ve done that would’ve made me hate him. When he died, I thought maybe it was a consequence of not resenting him more, not playing into karma like Marcus had so the world wouldn’t have had to kill him to keep the good-evil balance in check. That was before I learned that life won’t give you reasons for none of it, that sometimes fathers disappear and little girls don’t make it to another birthday and mothers forget to be mothers.”

Kiara’s love for her father is unconditional, which speaks to her maturity and strength of character. She is keenly aware of the injustice of both his incarceration and his subsequent illness and death, but does not dwell on this injustice so as to feel helpless. Her view of the world is a pessimistic one, but it is grounded in experience.

“They take turns and sex feels no different from an insistent punch to my gut. The cops believe that they are invincible. They want me only to show themselves they can have me, that there will be no consequence to putting a gun to my head, to taking me. They want me to feel small so they can feel big, and, in this moment, they have succeeded […] Even if I tried to fight them, these are not the men who would care. These are the men who load their guns and point them with a grin, who find a girl in an alley and decide she is theirs.”

Here Kiara is keenly aware of the power imbalance present in the abuse she suffers by the police officers. Not only does she know that if she refuses to allow them to have sex with her, she will be indicted for the crime of prostitution, but she is certain that these men care nothing for her as a person. She has no autonomy here, and this, coupled with the way in which the men abuse her, is both degrading and traumatizing.

“This my job, my roof, the clothes on Trevor’s back. This every night now, a full ring of them, my own clan of me, and I don’t worry so much about not having enough to pay for hot water. Instead, I worry about bruises and guns and what Marcus thinks. Stopped telling myself it’s just sex, just skin, because it has become so much more than that; there is the sex and then there is the terror, the fear, the marble white of their eyes.”

This passage indicates that a shift has taken place within Kiara—she can no longer numb herself to the emotional pain of the abuse she endures. Instead, she acknowledges that it is traumatizing and upsetting, but she believes that enduring it is the only way she can survive. The responsibility she feels to support not just herself but Trevor too is apparent.

“Telling [Alé] would have been like saying this is my life now, like committing to the streets. Letting the streets have you is like planning your own funeral. I wanted the streetlight brights, the money in the morning, not the back alleys. Not the sirens. But, here we are. Streets always find you in the daylight, when you least expect them to. Night crawling up to me when the sun’s out.”

Kiara resists revealing her sex work to Alé for fear of judgment and for fear that Alé will think Kiara takes pride or enjoyment in sex work. Kiara wishes not only to keep her actions a secret but to not think about them—to keep her trauma metaphorically “in the dark.”

“We’re always trying to own men we don’t got no control of. I’m tired of it. Tired of having to be out here thinking about all these people, all these things to keep me alive, keep them alive. I don’t got no air left for none of it. Maybe Camila’s right, maybe it’s time to let go, to let one of them take over, take care of me.”

Kiara speaks often of the responsibility she feels for Marcus, despite his being older than her and fully capable of working a job. She has been taught, as a female, to put the needs and wants of men above her own. Camila represents a woman who has resisted to comply with this societal and cultural dynamic.

“I think maybe today is the day I’ve been waiting for. The day when Marcus decides he will straighten his spine and learn how to hold up a little of this life again. The day he’ll put his head in my lap and let me cradle him. He might even hold my hand or ask me why there are bruises tracing my chest. Some days it feels like I’m stuck between mother and child. Some days it feels like I’m nowhere.”

Marcus surprising Kiara with paint and encouraging her to engage in the graffiti “tagging” that she enjoys provides a high point for Kiara. She is briefly hopeful that Marcus may have changed and that their relationship can be repaired. Here her words convey the extreme responsibility for caring for others around her. Kiara desperately wishes someone could return this favor on occasion.

“I climb onto my bike, the seat still warm, and I start to pedal, harder, harder, until my legs are a blur of muscle and woman and sweat. I know I’ve sliced into something between us, ripped apart the treaty that was our apartment by saying this right after something so sacred. Maybe the mural will memorialize this day, take us back to before, back to each other.”

Here Kiara references her decision to kick Marcus out of the apartment for not contributing to the rent. She knows that this will damage the ties between them—perhaps irrevocably—but she is no longer willing to place his needs above her own (and Trevor’s). Though it pains Kiara to damage their relationship, she does not regret her decision. Her hope, instead, is that their bond will be strong enough to weather this setback.

“I’m starting to think that there’s no such thing as a good cop, that the uniform erases the person inside of it.”

Here Kiara is questioned by two officers regarding her involvement in the sex parties. Kiara is certain that neither of them has her best interests at heart, having witnessed the unethical practices of the police force firsthand. Her words play on the “good cop/bad cop” trope and also suggest that the power and authority one acquires upon becoming a police officer cannot coexist with an attitude of compassion and care.

“‘The rest of this police department might not have a moral code, but I do. And I’m betting they’re doing more taking advantage of you than you even realize […] It’s unethical and unfair and I have too much respect for you to let them file this and forget about it. A man died and in his last hours he wrote about you.”

Sandra, the female police officer who warns Kiara of the raid, is one of the rare individuals who expresses concern about Kiara’s safety and is enraged by the abuse and exploitation she has suffered. This quote speaks to the way in which Kiara, as a young Black woman, lacks the power to defend herself against the authority of the police force. Had Sandra not brought the exploitation to light, Kiara may have continued to be victimized.

“I nod and, for the first time, I think about what I did, about the panic that sets in when anyone else touches me the way Marcus just did, how many guns have been pressed to my skull, fingers scraping my skin, fists in my hair. In this room, with these golden boys, all the things I’ve done feel vulgar, devastating, like I do not deserve to be loved good again.”

The danger Kiara faces becomes increasingly apparent the more “parties” she attends. Initially, she is able to numb herself to the emotional and physical pain of the sex work, denying that the experience will have a lasting impact on her. Here, though, she begins to blame herself for the police officers’ abuse of her—a result of the trauma she has experienced.

“Cole’s child’s eyes come back to me again and this time I see Cole in them, when he bursts into laughter and they glitter. I don’t know if Marcus does this for me or for Cole, or for his daughter, but I don’t think I’ve ever been that proud of him, ever looked at him and thought, This is a good man. He’s still got a lot to make up for and I don’t know if I’ll ever really forgive him for what he’s done this past year, but seeing a glimmer of the person I know my brother to be gives me hope where I thought I didn’t have any.”

In this moment, Marcus puts the needs of others before his own in a rare moment of altruism, telling Uncle Ty to pay Cole’s bail instead of his. Kiara stresses how this gesture is in keeping with the “old Marcus’s” behavior and takes it as a sign that he has not permanently changed for the worse. Though the circumstances Marcus and Kiara face are still dire, this moment serves as a brief optimistic turn in the plot.

“I know that by trusting Marsha, I’m giving up these streets, giving up so much of what has become my world, at least for now. I thought it would feel like a celebration, and it does, but it also feels like a grieving, still trying to make sense of the months and the men and what I have given up in the name of feeling like I am in control, like I belong to myself even before a moment before it fractures and I remember. When I am tired and cold and just want to curl into a bed that isn’t a couch or eat something that isn’t microwaved. Marsha is telling me I’m free, but I’m still living with the repercussions of the streets, of the job that was supposed to just be a job until it became more.”

Here Kiara reflects on how difficult it is to overcome Racial and Economic Injustice. Though Kiara is “free” of the threat of the police, she is not truly free, as she must still battle the same challenges she faced before falling into sex work. Her life is materially no better than before, and she now bears the scars of further trauma, which will continue to shape her.

“‘Don’t help me to fight a life I’m stuck in.’ In that moment I saw just a glimpse of the truth I didn’t want to see. Camila is not a glowing woman walking free, walking godly. She is a woman who survives, even if that survival means tricking herself into believing this world is something it is not, that her life is all glory […] So much of her life started to make sense. All she ever wanted was to live in her body however she damned pleased, twist her hips, and strut around in neon.”

Throughout the novel, Kiara regards Camila as a rare woman who has power over men. Unlike other sex workers, she is able to assert herself, choosing the conditions under which she has sex. For this reason, Kiara has come to admire Camila. Yet, as Kiara talks to Camila toward the end of the novel, she becomes privy to the difference between the exterior confidence Camila displays and the reality of her inner struggles, which are not unlike Kiara’s. Camila’s exterior suggests she has control over her life, but circumstances have trapped her in a life of sex work.

“‘Nobody learns to walk when they got weights inside they bellies. I want you to walk toward the water, baby. I want you to swim.’ Mama lifts her chin up so her head is pointed toward the sound of ocean, sound of the bay somewhere beyond sight. Mama don’t make no sense and, at the same time, she has never said something my gut understands more clearly than that. […] ‘Silence starves us, chile. Feed yoself.’ Mama’s Louisiana comes out in a drawl that sounds like music and I try again but don’t no sound come out, and if I am really my parents’ child, how can I not turn my body to musical note?”

This is a key turning point in Kiara’s relationship with Mama as, for the first time, she expresses sympathy with Kiara’s plight, and supports her by encouraging her to release some of the stress and frustration she experiences (even if nothing is truly solved by that release). In screaming, Kiara metaphorically finds her voice—speaking out, finally, against the wrongs and traumas she has experienced. This scream is thus a precursor to Kiara’s grand-jury testimony, in which she speaks out against injustice and refuses to allow the judge to twist the events that transpired to portray Kiara as the perpetrator.

“[Marsha] tears her eyes away from the road for a moment to glance at me. ‘If you did something wrong, then so did Harriet Tubman and Gloria Steinem and every other woman who did what she had to do even when it wasn’t respected.’ She coughs. ‘I’m not saying you couldn’t have made other choices, but I don’t think you deserved any of this either.’

“In moments like these, I remember Marsha’s just another white woman who’s never gonna understand what I been through, who can’t find anyone besides Harriet Tubman and Gloria Steinem to compare me to. I try to think of Daddy’s face plastered on that poster instead. Maybe my thighs are just like Daddy’s fists: lovely and soft until they are not; leading us closer and farther from the other limbs that make us up and call us holy.”

In this passage Marsha recognizes the injustices that Kiara has suffered. She understands, intellectually, that Kiara is the victim of poverty and racism. However, Kiara is keenly aware that Martha, as a white person of privilege, cannot truly understand what this injustice feels like, or what it means to live with such injustice each day. Kiara worries that she has not battled this injustice as boldly as her father did, but then decides that perhaps she is worthy to call herself his daughter.

“Fingernails deep inside my skin, blood trickle. ‘I was a child. I was a child.’

And even though Trevor and Marcus and Alé and Mama are out there somewhere, even though there are so many reasons why I gotta say it all, why I gotta let it erupt from my lungs, I’m not thinking about none of them. All I can think about is the way my fingernails stay pressed into the skin even when it breaks, even when I start to bleed. When everything turns to chaos, when I’m sitting in a room full of faces I can’t distinguish, when my body doesn’t feel like mine no more, I still got these nails. Still got a reminder that I can exist broken, like Trevor facedown in his own crusted blood, still finding a way to get air into his body. That these nails are a miracle. Don’t need nobody to make them pretty, to trim them, sharpen them. All they gotta be is what they are: mine.”

This moment is a poignant one during the trial—the novel’s climax. Kiara boldly asserts her autonomy and declares herself not powerless to stand up to the forces that attempt to oppress her. Her focus on her fingernails as a weapon counters the way in which her physical body has been marred and rendered powerless through sex trafficking. Her mention of fingernails also evokes the hands of the police (and other men) that unapologetically abused Kiara’s body, taking advantage of her and never truly obtaining her consent. Here, Kiara metaphorically takes back her body, even though she will always be marked by the trauma of her experience.

“Somehow, I exited that courtroom with a different body than the one I had when I walked under its ornate wooden ceiling, sat on those benches so many before me sweated into. This new body has a chain of holes from the throat to the stomach, where I have tried to bury myself in carvings. This new body got scars more permanent than any tattoo and calls them glorious. This new body got too many memories to hold up inside.”

Here Kiara speaks symbolically of the way her experience has changed her. Having the strength to stand up against systemic oppression has shown her that she has an inner power and resolve that will sustain her in the future. Kiara understands the way her body has been abused and traumatized by rape, and she is working toward healing from this trauma by adopting a metaphorical “new body.”

“And even though she’s saying all the right things, it is the look Alé gives me, the way her eyes pull open so big I know she’s seeing me more than anybody else has. That she sees me beyond the shit that got stirred up inside me. Sees me beyond this new body or that old body or any body.”

The connection between Kiara and Alé is cemented at the end of the novel when Alé apologizes to Kiara for not fully supporting her during the police scandal. Alé now understands that Kiara had no choice in the matter. Here Kiara recognizes that she can trust Alé completely.

“Alé is feeding me and I am telling her about the women I have known. All Desmond’s girls from that party, Camila, Lexi, the two sitting on the wrong side of the aisle torn up. Mama. Me. I am telling her how these streets open us up and remove the part of us most worth keeping: the child left in us.”

This quote speaks to the theme of Gender, Power, and Autonomy. Kiara has learned that the power dynamics of sex work are sharply imbalanced, that societal forces cause sex workers—in many cases—to remain poor and powerless. She understands, too, that this experience has forced her to mature before her time, that she has dealt with very adult issues.