An Autobiography of Skin

Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Dedication Epigraph Part I Yesterday Was a Dream, Today Is a Miracle Part II Lost Your Head Blues Part III An Autobiography of Skin Acknowledgments A Note About the Author Landmarks Cover Cover Title Page Contents Start Copyright Print Page List iii iv v vii 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 37 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 243 244 245 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Lakiesha Carr
 All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
 Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Name: Carr, Lakiesha, author.
 Title: An autobiography of skin : a novel / Lakiesha Carr.
 Description: First edition. New York : Pantheon Books, 2023
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022036145 (print). LCCN 2022036146 (ebook). ISBN 9780593316535 (hardcover). ISBN 9780593316542 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCSH: African American women—Fiction. LCGFT: Novels.
 Classification: LCC PS3603.A774254 A95 2023 (print) | LCC PS3603.A774254 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20220801
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022036145
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022036146
 Ebook ISBN 9780593316542
 www.pantheonbooks.com
 Cover illustration by Valya Urm
 Cover design by Kelly Blair
 ep_prh_6.0_142781534_c0_r0
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 
 
 Part I
 
 Yesterday Was a Dream, Today Is a Miracle
 
 
 
 Part II
 
 Lost Your Head Blues
 
 
 
 Part III
 
 An Autobiography of Skin
 
 
 
 Acknowledgments
 A Note About the Author
 
 
 _142781534_
 
 
 
 For Alfreddie, Ernestine and Clarence,My holy trinity.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 There are things that a woman sings, and only a woman knows the full meaning. You may sing for men as well as for women, but only a woman knows your full meaning. I am not a feminista. I only think a woman should be true to who she believes herself to be. Or who she wants herself to be. Or who she imagines herself to be. I don’t know what I mean, or whether I’m true myself to any of that. I don’t think there are many of us who are true to our possibilities.
 —GAYL JONES, THE HEALING
 My face feels like a living emotional relief map, forever wet.
 My hair is curling in anticipation of my own wild gardening.
 —BOB KAUFMAN, AFTERWARDS THEY SHALL DANCE
 
 
 
 
 
 PART I
 
 
 
 
 Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.
 —AUDRE LORDE
 
 
 
 
 Yesterday Was a Dream, Today Is a Miracle
 The night, as most nights, was like a dream.
 At 10:00 p.m., once I fed the dog the last of the scraps off the stove. Once I cursed the cat for scratching up my mama’s antique furniture, then welcomed him back into my arms. Once I slicked my hair back into a thin ponytail, wrapping it up tight in my mama’s old scarf. Once I stayed in the bathtub a lil too long, letting the heat of the water do things my husband stopped doing years ago. Once I oiled my body down and up and down again with cocoa butter, I reached for my housecoat hanging delicately against the door—leopard print and silk—wrapping it around my bloated body, not caring if the water or oil stained or bled through.
 And as if a ghost, soundlessly, I floated to the garage and had a cigarette alone.
 Mostly I listened to the blues. Lightnin’ Hopkins. Bessie Smith. Bobby Womack, if my mama was heavy on my mind which was most nights, but especially tonight. So I listened to the blues and nursed a lil Crown Royal poured thin over crushed ice. The kinda ice I used to crunch and eat out of nerves, and now just out of habit. I smoked my Virginia Slims, pulling that cool menthol taste to the back of my throat before pushing it out—a thick plume of smoke.
 Creating that smoke is what I liked to do. A lazy sort of cloud that held in the air long enough for me to see the future, revisit the past, the everything at once found within