We were at the party after the party when we met. I still had my bridesmaid dress on; he’d abandoned his tie. Our circle had shrunk down to seven: Annie, resting her head against Colin’s leg; Samantha making quiet signals to Max that perhaps the night was done; her case bolstered by Kevin’s head drooping, weighed down by sleep. And Nathaniel: the stranger who kept holding my gaze in the night’s embrace.
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“Right,” said Max, stubbing out the joint that was being passed around, “I’m calling it.” He looked skyward. I followed his gaze. The blue wasn’t so deep, we’d chased the night away. Dawn arrived as we all trudged back to the grand house which still bore the echoes of celebration. One by one, we split away until it was just Nathaniel and I outside the room I was staying in. My hand hovered above the door handle while I waited for one of us to make a move.
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“Well, I guess—” He started.
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“I’m hungry,” I declared.
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A tilt of his head. A curious smile. “Come,” he said, and gestured for me to follow. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t question this stranger; I didn’t question at all, submitting to my instinct, following him down the stairs, following some distant, brewing spark.
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Down in the kitchen, I hoisted myself on the counter while Nathaniel rummaged through the fridge, humming something I recognized but couldn’t quite place. I couldn’t hear anything else but the slight reverb of his music rippling in the space between us. In the intervals, the quiet was unnerving. I tried a few deep, steadying breaths but couldn’t shake the feeling that someone would enter our space, intrude on this latent thing between us, something still in the midst of becoming.
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He must have sensed me glancing at the door, smiling. “I think everyone’s asleep, you know.”

“I know,” I said, squaring my shoulders and feigning bravery. He turned back to the fridge, quiet now. I fiddled in my lap before asking, “I never asked how you know … I’m assuming the groom?”
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“Kayo and I grew up together. But I also did all this,” he said, gesturing to the open fridge.

“Ah.” His ease explained.

“Which means I take your hunger as a personal affront. You weren’t fed enough.”

“I get an anxious stomach,” I said. “Hunger shows up at the worst times.”

“There’s never a bad time to feed yourself.” And with that, he got to work. Glugging oil into a large, deep pan. Shutting the doors, opening the windows. Unsealing a bag of chicken marinating in something viscous. Dredging it through some flour, lowering it into the oil. A crease in his forehead loosened when he heard the meat sputtering, and, satisfied with the music, his hums returned to join in the chorus oozing from the stovetop.

I watched him as he labored, not just because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t stop.

“Alright,” he said, minutes later. With wide, veined hands, weathered by the bruises and scars of the kitchen, he tore open the first piece and offered it to me directly; I leaned forward, his fingers grazing my lips as I took it. He broke into a grin as he saw my surprise.

“That is … seriously good.” I continued to eye him as he arranged the chicken onto a serving plate. Wiping his brow. Remembering something. Heading to the fridge to pull out a bottle of sauce, dolloping a serving on the side. Standing beside me. Close. Pulling the plate between us to share. His smile made me do the same.

“So. This is … your thing?” When he nodded, I asked, “Why?”

“It’s an easy way to say to someone … I care for you.”

“But we just met,” I said.

Nathaniel shrugged, like care wasn’t something to be earned, but an essential labor. I gestured for the rest of the plate, and we ate, the food quieting us.

“A wedding, fried chicken, and good company,” I said, biting into another piece. “Almost a perfect day.”

“Almost? What’s missing?”

“Hmm.” I considered. “Water. A little swim.”

“You got swimwear with you?”

“Always do. Just in case.”

He pulled out his phone, studying the maps. “I don’t think there’s any big water around, but I can see … a lido?” And before I could ask how we would get there, “I’ve got a car.”

I paused mid-chew. Eyed his open face. “Just like that?” I asked.

“Just like that.”
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We stole glances at each other while he barrelled down mostly deserted roads. His car was old but clearly loved. I watched him fiddle about in the armrest storage, retrieving an unmarked CD, sliding it into the stereo slot. He flicked on his music and when he started humming along again, I finally recognized his song: “The Line” by D’Angelo. The longing in his voice brushed against us as the sun peeked over the horizon, winking at us. I wound down the windows and the world rushed in as the sprawl of the countryside became the tightness of the city.

By the time we arrived and spread our towels poolside, people were already congregating, seeking reprieve from the seemingly endless heat wave. There was a general murmur of summer, which I always take to be the hum of possibility. You know, like those moments just before a night might end but doesn’t, blossoming into something entirely new and bright, or where a stranger might become familiar. I sat on the edge of the water, a little startled by its warmth, before slinking myself into its clasp. Nathaniel quickly followed, and I led him further, where there was nothing to hold on to.

Treading water, I closed my eyes for a moment, and listened: the soft roar of distant traffic, the bird’s waking lullaby, morning’s melody interrupted by the splash of bodies broaching the pool, trailing away into the quiet swish of a small body of water. Familiar music. I felt my chest loosen. I could feel the edges of myself, could feel the rhythm of my own song.

Nathaniel swam in circles around me, before bobbing in my direction, treading water too. “Why the water?” He asked.

I closed my eyes again. “When we first came here—my Dad and I—we moved around a lot. The water was somewhere to be still.” I could feel the hulk of him approaching and it didn’t scare me. If anything, I ached to be closer. And so, I swam toward this need, until, without thinking, I reached out, my arms draped across his shoulders, my legs cradling his waist, our cheeks pressed together. He took on my weight as I spoke. “And now that it’s just me, I’m always looking for the water. Anything to feel … weightless. Like it’s holding you up, rather than …” I trailed away. He didn’t press. I let go, or he released me, but our fingers laced together as we both reclined onto our backs. We let our limbs starfish, our desire clasped like a jewel in our hands. We surrendered to the small expanse of the body of water, to the swish of its music. To ourselves. To one another.

*
Years later, we were trying to say goodbye, and not doing it well. It rained most of the summer—July alone had been years long. Nathaniel picked this spot for his restaurant because we were within walking distance of the ocean, which really means he picked this spot for me. And yet, I had barely been in the water. I couldn’t ignore it—the ocean and its quiet rush made itself known from our balcony, from the restaurant, wherever I went, I couldn’t just see it, but feel it—but the water was too vast; if I entered, my own sadness might consume me. It had been ten years since Dad had passed and it was like the grief was only now catching up to me. Like I’d only just noticed that grief wasn’t something to put on and take off, but something that resided and roamed in the cavern of my chest. I guess, I’d always associated grief with consumption; and, worried its jaws would swallow my heart whole, I was refusing to approach.

I gave up my studio when I got the residency that would take me across the world for the next year, so I’d taken to painting in the living room, late into the night, waiting for Nathaniel to return from service. I’d watch from the window as he approached, and when he caught sight of me, he’d raise a grease-soaked bag, triumphant, his grin bringing one of my own.

Inside, I could feel his smile as he enveloped me in his arms, the musk of hot oil and garlic in threads of his skin. He would wash his hands and I would meet him at the table where he would split the bag open. The chicken was always hot, fresh, and perfect. We’d chase it down with one of the many bottles of champagne I had been given in celebration. And I loved him anyway, deeply, always, but I’d grown to love this version of him, where, after a drink or two, he would put on some Marvin or Minnie or Al Green, anything that would bring us into each other’s arms. As of late, it would be D’Angelo, so that for the duration of the song, we could be back there and not here. Back on the counter of that kitchen, me trying to figure out his hum; back in his car while he hummed “The Line” and I was falling for his music; back where we could believe we were just starting, believe the distance between us couldn’t be separated, rather than the reality of an impending chasm.

Today, after we had eaten and drank, we flipped the vinyl of Voodoo as many times as we could. Nathaniel, gripping the bottle we were drinking from by the neck, stood a few feet away from me, his gaze as sure as the night’s embrace. We had finally stopped dancing. He made his way to the door, slid on a pair of sandals, and gestured for me to do the same. I hesitated and he gestured again, his smile saying trust me, before I followed him, into my own sandals, out the door.

Nathaniel slowed a little until we were in line and we made our way with ease, like this wasn’t the first time we had done so, like we were in someone else’s memory. We followed the ocean’s music until we were where the shore breaks, the water hugging at our feet and ankles. We discarded our clothes, flinging them away from the reach of the creeping tide. He went first, not letting go of my hand, leading me into the sea. I exhaled as the water dissolved what I didn’t realize I was carrying. We swam a few strokes out, past the small waves, until it was only the undertow and the ocean’s gurgle with us. Nathaniel opened his arms and I swam into them, cradling his neck, his head against mine.

“You know, it’s not forever, right?” I could feel his voice against my cheek, like it was coming from inside my mind.

“Then why does it feel like that?”

I knew he didn’t have an answer. Neither of us did.

“Maybe …” he started. “Maybe, our band has to go solo, for a few. Play our own music for a bit.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Who are we then?”

“Well, obviously, I’m Black Thought.”

“Right,” I said, holding in a laugh.

“And you’re Questlove. You’re my drummer. My heartbeat.” His cheek was wet, and I couldn’t tell if it was the water. “My everything.”

We were quiet then. After a while, my lips found his and our longing set us aflame in the cool of the water. His grip on me was as firm and tender as the day we met. I closed my eyes, and listened to us: the gasp of surprise, the splash of bodies coming together, the laughter as we found the depths of each other, the trail away into the quiet swish of an endless body of water. Familiar music. I felt myself loosen. I let go, or he released me, but our hands hadn’t left each other’s as we reclined onto our backs. The sun peeked over the horizon as we buffered by the ebb and flow, surrendering to the sea’s endlessness, to its possibilities; as we surrendered to each other, to ourselves.

Afterword

Noah Davis’s work first arrived to me as many good things do: with good fortune and tangents. His brother, Kahlil Joseph, was showing work in London sometime in 2016. I was immediately enamored and embraced by the film: a visual accompaniment to Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, which put the everydayness of Black Los Angeles front and center, which allowed images to play like they were a music of their own, like jazz. My fervent investigations into Joseph would reveal he had a brother who shared similar sensibilities, albeit on the canvas. In 2021, I would see some of Davis’s work in person for the first time, and I would be lovingly haunted by the beauty of its solitude, how he marvelled in our community, until four years later, I would spend hours wandering a large scale exhibition of his paintings and drawings at the Barbican, falling in love and being loved all over again.  

But why this painting? Water has been and I suspect will always be central to my work. It is how many of us arrived, it is simultaneously our grief and our refusal, it is the memory of those before, it is the freedom which we believe waits. In Davis’s 1975 (8) (2013), an everyday moment becomes a spectacle. I imagine a warm day, perhaps one of a handful in a row. I imagine knocking for friends, swimming trunks already on, ready for reprieve from the heat. I imagine trying to convince the person scared of the water that the deep end isn’t endless, that there’s safety in our company. I imagine the cheeky grin of a young man or woman, flinging themselves into water from a height, despite the no diving sign. I imagine, I imagine, I imagine. And I can do this because Davis’s work isn’t just interested in representation, but asks what it means to push against the realms of possibility where Blackness is concerned. In a world where so often our experiences are flattened, this painting makes me feel whole.