Brother Kiyi Tomorrow!
As he walks past Alice he smiles.
Carl (about Alice as he exits, malapropism of course) Inglorious!
Brother Kiyi returns the books to the correct shelves.
Alice That’s very good.
Brother Kiyi What?
Alice What you do. Reading and that.
Brother Kiyi Care of the community! That is what they meant, wasn’t it?
Alice In the commu . . . Speaking of care, I came in today because I wanted to challenge the way you treated me yesterday. Like a common criminal.
Brother Kiyi Criminal?
Alice At least that’s how I felt, and I wanted to let you know that in fact I am a teacher of much repute. I am a woman that should be respected.
Brother Kiyi I have no doubts that you are. I apologised yesterday, and I will do so again if you wish.
Alice You didn’t actually.
Brother Kiyi Didn’t what?
Alice You didn’t apologise.
Brother Kiyi I distinctly remember saying, ‘I’m sorry, but one cannot be too careful.’
Alice Not to split hairs, but that was apologising for having to do it. It wasn’t an apology to me.
Brother Kiyi What today is? Break-me-balls day?
Alice Sorry?
Brother Kiyi What is it you want, young lady? I’m very busy.
Alice For a start, don’t you think if you are introducing him to poetry, which I do think is great, maybe you should choose a less sexist poet?
Brother Kiyi Less what?
Alice A poet that doesn’t exclude women from participating in ‘the struggle’.
Brother Kiyi It is Claude, ‘the father of the Harlem Renaissance, the poet quoted by Winston Churchill to the British soldiers before the Battle of Britain’, MacKay we are taking about here, isn’t it?
Alice Is it because I’m a woman you use that condescending tone with me?
Brother Kiyi I’m not using a condescending tone with you.
Alice Yes, you are! You’re talking to me like I’m some ‘stupid girl’ that doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Brother Kiyi Well, I don’t think you do actually . . .
Alice Well, I beg to differ.
Brother Kiyi Young lady, you are unknown to me. Why are you raising your voice?
She pauses for a second and gathers herself.
Alice I tend to get passionate about what goes into the minds of those we are responsible for. I’m sorry.
Brother Kiyi OK, please explain why Claude MacKay is sexist?
Alice I don’t actually know very much about Claude MacKay. I meant the poem sounded sexist.
Brother Kiyi Lord have mercy!
Alice The phrase ‘If we must die’, that’s a call to participation.
Brother Kiyi Right . . .
Alice The phrase ‘O kinsmen!’ makes that call specific: the poem’s would-be warriors are men. What about women? He only talks about the race by imagining the aspirations of men.
Brother Kiyi Rasclaat!
Alice No, not rasclaat or however you pronounce it – the contest for humanity in the poem is fought exclusively by men.
Kwesi enters.
Kwesi Yes, it is.
Alice turns and looks at Kwesi.
Alice Exactly.
Kwesi And what’s wrong with that?
Alice Sorry?
Kwesi What’s wrong with that assertion? Battles are fought by men. Not women, not girls, but men.
Alice I think you’ll find that if you look at the number of active service people in the Gulf wars, Kosovo, Afghanistan, you’ll see that the number of women . . .
Kwesi . . . is vastly below the number of men. You guys can’t have it both ways, you know?
Alice What guys are we talking about here?
Kwesi Women! One minute you’re the saviour of mankind due to the size of your humanity and now you’re the sword-bearers that defend the nation? Which way do you want it?
Alice (taken aback) Wow. I don’t know you, sir, but I would say that’s a rather archaic viewpoint for such a – (chooses her words carefully) modern-looking man.
Kwesi Books and covers.
Alice Evidently!
Kwesi exits upstairs. There’s a moment’s silence. Alice switches.
Alice What a great place. How many bookstores can you go into and have heated debates like that?
Brother Kiyi That was my dream.
Alice Who is that guy?
Brother Kiyi Kwesi, my militant-in-residence. Head of the All-Black African Party. They meet in the room upstairs. (Suddenly becoming suspicious.) Why?
Alice No reason. (With passion.) What a hateful man. That’s why people don’t go out with black men. (She stops herself.) I finished The Philosophies of Marcus Garvey last night.
Brother Kiyi You did?
Alice Yes.
Brother Kiyi What about the other one?
Alice No, I haven’t started reading that.
Brother Kiyi Why?
Alice I kind of wanted to discuss the Philosophies book with someone first.
Brother Kiyi I see.
Alice But I don’t really know anyone that is familiar with the works of Marcus Garvey.
Brother Kiyi Right.
Alice I mean, don’t you think he’s a little racist?
Brother Kiyi Here we go again!
Alice No, I mean he comes over to me as a, yeah, a black racist.
Brother Kiyi You’re a teacher, you say?
Alice Yes, I am.
Brother Kiyi What do you teach?
Alice English and – and History.
Brother Kiyi Just over there you’ll find a dictionary – could you pass it to me, please.
She does.
Racist, what does it say here in this Oxford Dictionary. ‘Racism – a feeling of superiority from one race to another.’ Now I would argue, not today, because I’m tired, that we are certainly not economically superior, and I would say, due to the collective lack of knowledge of ourselves and our constant desire to imitate, impersonate and duplicate everything Caucasian, nor are we in a psychological position of superiority. Hence by that definition, we cannot be racist.
Alice Why are you tired?
Brother Kiyi I’m fine.
Alice Cos I’m brown, everybody expects me to somehow know everything black. And I’m like, ‘Hey, how am I suppose to know what . . . raaasclaat means, I’m from Somerset.’
Brother Kiyi OK!
Alice People down here are so fortunate to have a resource like this.
Brother Kiyi You don’t miss the water till the well runs dry . . .
The phone rings.
Tende Mwari . . . Yes, Brother Peter . . . I see. Have you spoken to our beloved local MP? . . . OK, his surgery days are . . . Yes . . . Monday, Town Hall, Martin Luther King Room. Saturday morning at the Steve Biko Library . . . No, you just turn up. If you’d like I have a book here somewhere on the working of . . . Yes, it will inform you of your rights! . . . Send your son to pick it up. Four o’clock? . . . Yes I’ll be here. Tende Mwari.
Brother Kiyi puts down the phone and gets up to search for the book. He has to squeeze past Alice to get there.
Brother Kiyi Excuse me.
Alice is quite taken by the smell of his locks.
Alice What do you put in your hair?
Brother Kiyi Um, Oil of Ulay.
Beat.
Alice Do you do that for everyone?
Brother Kiyi What?
Alice Advise them and then bam, sell ’em a book?
Brother Kiyi I don’t sell the books. I loan them.
Alice Loan them? Do you get them back? . . .
Brother Kiyi Most times . . .
Alice In sellable condition? . . .
Brother Kiyi Sometimes . . .
Alice How many books do you sell a week?
Brother Kiyi Why do you ask?
Alice Curious? How many books did you loan last week?
Alice Any come back?
Brother Kiyi They will.
Alice You have a record of the books you loaned out, right?
Brother Kiyi What is the problem here? I loan books. If I didn’t they wouldn’t be read.
Alice What do you mean by that?
Brother Kiyi I mean . . . (Decides to share.) Do you know what my best-seller has been for the last year? Apart from my Afrocentric cards, that is – you know, black mum kissing black dad. West Indian grandmother in big hat playing with a cat – um, the best-seller was Shotter’s Revenge, and, oh, Black Love.
Alice What’s wrong with that? Who couldn’t do with a bit of black love right now?
Brother Kiyi What is wrong with that? I have on these shelves Van Sertima’s Africa, Cradle of Civilisation! Chancellor Williams’s Destruction of Black Civilisation, Peterson’s The Middle Passage, Williams’s Capitalism and Slavery. I’ve books on the Dogons, the Ashantis, the, the pyramids of ancient Zimbabwe, and what do they buy? Nonsensical nonsense about men with nine-packs doing in the sauna with black female executives. What is that, I ask you?
Alice Six-packs!
Brother Kiyi What?
Alice No one has a nine-pack.
Brother Kiyi I don’t care what pack them have! That is nonsense reading when we face the things we face today. You know, you were the first person in an age to buy, well, to buy a book of substance. In fact . . . (He checks the sales book.) Yes, here it is! December of last year. One copy of The Isis Papers by Dr Cress Welsing. And that customer wasn’t even black!
Alice She was white?
Brother Kiyi No, she was mixed.
Alice I believe the term is now ‘person of dual heritage’.
Brother Kiyi I’m sure it is.
Alice Shouldn’t you be up-to-date on that sort of stuff? Being a leader of your community an’ all!
Brother Kiyi I suppose I should, if in fact I were a leader.
Alice Why aren’t you?
Brother Kiyi A leader or up-to-date?
Alice Both?
Brother Kiyi You ask a lot of questions.
Alice I need a lot of answers. Always have.
Brother Kiyi Answers to what? You a policewoman?
Alice No, I am not . . . Denied histories are fascinating to me.
Brother Kiyi I wish that more of my community thought like that.
Alice Maybe they do and just haven’t told you.
He suddenly remembers and stands.
Brother Kiyi Sugar, what time is it now?
Alice Have I kept you?
Brother Kiyi Kwesi! Kwesi!
Kwesi Yo!
Brother Kiyi Come and hold the store for me, please. Got to run out the road.
Kwesi I’ll be down in a second.
Brother Kiyi I’ve got to go now!
Kwesi OK, go, I’ll be down in a minute.
Brother Kiyi grabs his coat, checks that the envelope is secure and heads to the door.
Brother Kiyi You don’t have to leave, you can, you know, look around still? There’s a chair there.
She runs up to him and hugs him passionately. Almost girl-like, but she’s a woman. Brother Kiyi doesn’t quite know how to deal with that much affection.
Brother Kiyi shouts up the stairs.
Brother Kiyi Kwesi! Kwesi!
Kwesi I’m coming, I’m coming.
Brother Kiyi strokes his hair. Then exits.
Alice walks around the shop looking at things more freely now that she is by herself.
She sees the slave narratives.
She goes to the desk and looks around. She looks though the contents and then under the counter. She stays there for a little while. Then takes a slave narrative. She decides to read.
The lights reduce to a spotlight on her. We are in her head. She takes on the voice of the story-teller.
Alice ‘Mary Gould, Grand Anse Estate, Grenada. One day Masser Reynolds come back from Barbados wid one high yellow gal he just buy. They say she was real pretty but I can hardly remember. But he never put she to live wid the other niggers, no, he buil’ she a special little house away from the quarters down by the river which run at the back ah de plantation. Every negroes know Masser take a black woman quick as he did a white and took any on his place that he wanted and he took them often. But most his pickney dem born on the place looked like niggers. But not all. Once, two of his yella children went up to the big house where Dr Reynolds full-breed child was playing in their dolls’ house and told them that they want to play in the dolls’ house too. The story go that one of the Doctor full breed-child say, “Sorry, this is for white children only.” The reply I’m told went, “We ain’t no niggers, cos we got the same daddy you has, and he comes to see us every day with gifts and wonderful clothes and such.” Well, Mrs Reynolds was at the window heard the white niggers saying, “He is our daddy cos we call him daddy when he comes to see our mammy.” That evening that yella gal get whipped for almost three hours. And within one year all her children had been sold away. No sir, it don’t pay to be pretty and yella.’
The lights snap on as Kwesi rests his hands on Alice’s shoulders. She jumps.
Alice Ohhhh.
Kwesi Did I scare you?
Alice Yes, you did, actually. What are you doing over my shoulder?
Kwesi You were breathing heavily.
Alice I was reading!
Kwesi Do you always breathe like that when you read?
Alice I mouth the words as well!
Kwesi You into that stuff?
Alice Families?
Kwesi Slavery! Old Kiyi here is addicted to that shit.
Alice Aren’t all you political types?
Kwesi Hell, no. I only look forward, sister.
Alice Sounds rather disrespectful to Brother Kiyi!
Kwesi No it’s not. He’s cool. Big expert on all things slavery. Which is good for me cos I don’t have to go to no Yanks when I wanna know something. I hate going to those Yanks. Been in the belly of the beast too long.
Alice What does that mean?
Kwesi It affects you, you know? Being around too much white folk. I seen the bluest of blackest men get too much exposure, bam, they lose their rhythm. Put on a James Brown tune and they start doing the Charleston to ras!
Alice Isn’t there an ointment you can get to mitigate that?
Kwesi What?
Alice Over-exposure to white folk?!
Kwesi Ohhhh, somebody’s getting touchy!
Alice I’m not getting touchy.
Kwesi Yes, you are. I say the word ‘white folk’ and you get all arms!
Alice Two words, actually. Arms?
Kwesi Vex! Wanna fight?
Alice I don’t want to fight you!
Kwesi Why not? It’s half your people, innit, that I’m cussing!
Alice Half my p . . . ? You’re trying to provoke me. Why?
Kwesi You look like the type that likes to be provoked?
Alice Well, Mr Kwesa . . .
Kwesi Kwesi, Kwes-i, not -ah.
Alice Sorry. It doesn’t exactly roll off my half-tongue.
Kwesi Very good. If you were ‘fuller’, I could quite like you.
Alice Is that of body or of race?
Kwesi Both.
Alice If you’re gonna come on to me at least engage on a higher level than that.
Kwesi is slightly taken aback.
Kwesi I wasn’t trying to come on to you.
Alice Is that so?
Kwesi I don’t do your type!
Alice My . . . And what is my type exactly?
Kwesi West Indians. You guys are weak.
Alice Yanks, West Indians, mixed. And there was I thinking it was because I’m from Somerset.
Kwesi You’re funny. I like you.
Alice All of me or half?
Kwesi Depends what side of you you’re showing me. Let me tell you something. I don’t trust you type of people. I see you coming in here tryi
ng to be down, so when the white man thinks he’s choosing one of us you’re there shouting, ‘Hey, I’m black.’ But you ain’t.
Alice Well, you’re nothing if not clear, Kwesi.
Kwesi Nothing, if not clear.
He exits up the stairs.
Lights down.
Scene Three
Fix Up bookstore. Day.
Brother Kiyi is in joyous mood. He runs over to the cassette recorder and throws in another tape. It gives out a very percussive rhythm made up of hand-claps and foot-stomps He starts to sing an old slave work-chant. It’s a call and response. Brother Kiyi is calling, the recording responding. The lead line sounds like a blues refrain. He begins to dance with it. The dance is as if he is picking cotton from the ground and then cutting cane with two cutlasses.
Enter Norma. Brother Kiyi stops dancing for a moment, then continues.
Norma Boy, what you so happy about?
Brother Kiyi You like the rhythm, girl?
Norma I would, if it wasn’t so blasted loud!
Brother Kiyi What you say?
Norma Turn that blasted ting down. You give Mustafar he money?
Brother Kiyi When I hand it him he shit! All he could do was open he mouth so. (Imitates jaw dropping.) You know who was in the office? The same boys he selling it to. Oh God, it was sweet. Thank you, gal.
Norma Good.
She gets the draughts. They sit down to play. Brother Kiyi suddenly catches sight of her hair. She is wearing a very long and glamorous wig. It stops just beneath her shoulders.
Brother Kiyi Hey, gal! A next-animal ting you have on you head. It still alive? . . .
Norma Don’t be feisty. It’s hundred-per-cent human!
Brother Kiyi Human? . . .
Norma Yes . . .
Brother Kiyi As oppose to what? . . .
Norma Horse!
Brother Kiyi So you will spend your hard-earned money on hair dem chop from a horse?
Norma I told you it’s not no horse hair, it’s hundred-percent Chinese . . .
Brother Kiyi Chinese? . . .
Norma Kiyi! Make we concentrate on the game.
Brother Kiyi moves.
Norma Kiyi, you does need any special qualification to go into politics? (She moves.)
Brother Kiyi Apart from a great capacity for wickedness. No. (He moves.) Why?
Norma I feel community-connected. At the meeting the other night, and when me stand up, you know how they introduce me? ‘Madam Norma, a woman who knows this community like no other.’ You know how great that mek me feel? The head of the council calling me madam! The only time I get call madam previous to dat in me life is when they come to arrest me husband. (She moves.)
Plays 1 Page 11