Excerpts from Tyriek White’s

We Are a Haunting

Chapter 10, “The Oyster Woman,” pg 134

TREASURE lay to the side as I kneaded the muscles of her lower back. Last minute checkup for preeclampsia. The aides took blood and urine from her, made us wait for what felt like hours. “This is what the doctor recommends,” the same nurse reiterated. There was hierarchy in the way she said “doctor,” tugged at the end of the word with her teeth almost. Around us were folk left unattended on hospital beds in hallways, rooms with plastic curtains giving false sense of privacy, crowded waiting rooms with benches full of people who looked just like me. The ebb of equipment, the murmur of doctors, the groans of the sick, the bated breaths of the loved ones waiting along benches and walls, near half-lit vending machines. Grit collected at the corners of the walls, the ceiling edges, yellowed the machines and counters and beds. Treasure’s man brought a small boom box and played meditation music, drowned by the frenzy of the maternity ward. Finally, he headed down to the lobby in search of headphones.

We call our hospitals what they are known for. I was born in Killer County. Everyone dies at Crookdale. When the Post reported a death in East New York and mentioned Brookdale Medical Center, we kissed our teeth. We knew all along. How they patched up folk with gauze or tools still in them, misdiagnosed for convenience or expense, often broke people worse than when they got them. This is what the state gives us. After a while, a doctor came over and pulled Carrie and the husband aside.

“We’re so happy when girls have somebody who knows what they’re doing,” an older nurse said to me, one we’d seen most frequently. “Makes our job easier.”

There were different doctors than the one we had met with for months. I was irritated, more than usual. My ears kept going in and out, like water was stuck in them. Med students flowed in and out, taking notes in folders and clipboards, watching patients as if behind the glass panel of a display Case.

“What a beautiful, haunting and hued narrative of American living. I’m in love with this story and the way Tyriek White breathes life into these characters.”

A poignant debut, Tyriek White’s We Are a Haunting follows three generations of a family bound together by a brutal history and its aftermaths: a story of hope and transformation. A supernatural family saga, a searing social critique, and a lyrical and potent account of displaced lives, We Are a Haunting unravels the threads connecting the past, present, and future, and depicts the palpable, breathing essence of the neglected corridors of a pulsing city with pathos and poise.