Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [22]
“Well, as many of you thought, your tests have proven that, as a group, you do have a percentage of Native American heritage. There is a margin of error, of course, but overall your tests proved to have between zero and thirty-two percent Native DNA, between eleven and sixty-four percent European DNA, and as for your African DNA—”
“On average then,” Tyrone interrupted eagerly, “how much Native blood do we have?”
The professor stiffened visibly, put down the chart he was reading from, and leaned back on the desk behind him. “Well, the average … On average you have about six percent. Six percent Native blood among you, which is about the average for African Americans on the East Coast, for instance.”
“Six percent? Six percent?” Tyrone stood, indignant. “That’s all you could find, six percent? Well what the hell is the margin of error?”
“Six percent.” The professor coughed into his hand and then immediately began shuffling his individual results, moving to hand them out just so he didn’t have to stand in the center of the room anymore.
As the NAACG members inspected their individual test results, it became clear to me that the natives were getting restless. Antony, for instance, dropped his Boston creme right onto the floor and declared, “It’s scalping time!” Mrs. Mathis, clearly trying to keep herself composed as the elder of this village, not even bothering to look at her own results, attempted to calm the room. “Professor, you did say that some of us have thirty-two percent Indian, right? You did say that.”
“Well, one of you does. The rest … not so much,” the professor, in motion, offered. Amazingly, his coat was already on when he said this, and most of his many papers had been speedily repacked into his briefcase.
“Me!” came a slight but jubilant voice from the far corner of the room. It was the woman in the pink raincoat, who now pumped her fist, staring at her report as if a great bounty had been won. Her round brown face did look like she belonged to a tribe, but more Igbo than Apache.
When I turned back to Mahalia Mathis, she seemed to have aged nearly ten years in as many seconds. Her mouth was agape, her top denture clacked loosely down for lack of support. Mrs. Mathis thought the thirty-two percent Native was her, I realized. That was the only thing that had let her keep her composure before now. Putting a trembling hand to the folder before her, Mrs. Mathis looked inside, and I peered discreetly over her shoulder. Two percent Native. Twenty-three percent European. Seventy-five percent African. This last bit I saw when I picked the findings off the linoleum after Mahalia Mathis collapsed, unconscious.
Discovering to my great relief that the older woman was neither dead nor in a coma, I carried Mrs. Mathis off the floor and out of the room, placing her barely conscious body in the backseat of my rental car. There she moaned and coughed as I returned her to her residence, invisible in my rearview mirror, her occasional sobs the only proof I had that she had recovered from her faint. At her curb, my steadying arm was all that managed to get her to her door. Not a word was said, not even “Good night.” I was so freaked out by the entire incident, so in a rush to distance myself from the entire event, that I left her front stoop before I realized that I didn’t get what I had come for: Poe’s letter. It took all of my social strength to return right then to Mahalia Mathis’s door and knock on it. “The letter,” I bellowed to the wood, attempting to be both loud and empathetic, repeating this refrain until my throat was as sore as my rapping knuckles. It took me a while to accept that, even if the older woman heard me, she was beyond my reach now.
By the time I got back to the Hudson Valley, I could laugh at some of it as I told Garth what had happened. Garth had his copy of Chesapeake Cabin rolled out on the coffee table, along with printed out driving directions to possible site locations. It wasn’t till I’d finished my story and he looked up at me that I realized he was pissed.