A Heart Divided

by Cherie Bennett

  I didn’t answer him. My mind was going at warp speed. What had Sara said that night at Starbucks about writing? Every time we get a creative writing assignment I just wilt.

  “You having second thoughts?” Jack guessed.

  “No. Jack, how’s Sara at creative writing?”

  Jack looked perplexed. “Strong. She had a short story in the literary magazine last year. Why?”

  She’d lied about being a weak writer just to sucker me in. Oh my God. Oh. My. God.

  “Jack, she did it.”

  “What, you mean … you think she wrote that play?”

  “I know she did.” I jumped up and started to edge into the aisle.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Down to the field. To kick her ass.”

  Before I could move farther, though, the PA announcement boomed off Redford Hill. “Please stand and honor America as we sing our national anthem.” The crowd rose as one, spilling into the aisles. I was momentarily stuck. I stood on tiptoe, peering around people, searching the sidelines for Sara.

  Well into “The Star-Spangled Banner,” we saw maybe ten kids run out of the dressing-room tunnel, each carrying a bunch of huge red-and-white helium balloons. “What’s going on?” I asked Jack.

  “Dunno,” he answered.

  The band kept playing; when the kids reached the field, they let go of the balloons, which jerked skyward. As they rose, a giant Confederate battle flag unfurled. Delighted, the crowd on the Redford side roared in support.

  But none of it made any sense. Because more than half of the kids who had carried that pole onto the field were black, and one of them was Luke Roberts.

  “Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner…”

  The balloons carried the Confederate flag skyward. It must have already been doused with lighter fluid, because when Luke raised a lighter to the fabric, whoosh! A sheet of flame enveloped the banner as it drifted out of everyone’s reach, burning, burning, burning against the night.

  The end of the national anthem was lost; all hell broke loose. Enraged Redford football players—Chaz leading the way—charged across the field toward Luke and his friends, who dashed for the South Columbia sideline. Practically the entire Barbarians team stepped forward to protect them. Fists flew; bodies fell. Enraged spectators leaped the fences surrounding the field as the announcer pleaded for calm. The police moved in, swinging their batons, but were immediately sucked into the melee. Suddenly, we heard a loud bang echo off Redford Hill. Someone near us bellowed, “That’s a gunshot!”

  People screamed, stampeding for the exits. Jack grabbed my arm as someone almost knocked me over. A crying child fell near us and we helped her up, trying to find out who she was with. A woman—her mother— grabbed her up and ran.

  The aisle was now completely blocked. “Down to the field, then under the stands,” Jack called over the bedlam.

  We clambered over the seats in front of us. As we did, the ambulance that was always on duty at games tore across the gridiron, heading for the Redford side. It stopped near the fence by the fifty-yard line, and the paramedics jumped out with a stretcher and supplies. “Someone’s hit,” I said breathlessly as we leaped over another row of seats.

  “Keep going,” Jack urged me. “Don’t stop.”

  I wish I’d listened to him. If I hadn’t paused, it would have given me a few more precious moments of Before. Because my existence is still defined by Before and After. Before I knew who’d been shot. And after I saw that it was my little sister.

  23

  (five months later)

  Redford Cinema, waiting for my play to be performed, I was in the throes of my worst-ever pre-opening curtain panic attack.

  The theater was almost full. I knew so many of the people in the audience. Kids and teachers from school. Principal McSorley Members of the Redford police department. Reverand Roberts and his family. Mrs. Augustus and her husband. Even Sally Redford. No wonder I couldn’t breathe.

  “Hey, Kit-Kat.”

  I turned. My parents had just walked in. I hugged them both tight, holding on for dear life. My father ended the embrace and held me at arm’s length. “It’ll be fine, Kit-Kat. I know it.”

  “I wish I did,” I said, barely able to get the words past my cotton-dry lips.

  My mother put an arm around my shoulders. “Look around, Kate. All these people, together. It’s something. And you did it.”

  “Not really, Mom.” I knew she’d understand what I meant.

  “I wish Portia was here, too,” she said softly. Choked up, my father nodded.

  “Well, we should go sit,” my mother said. “We checked in with the videographer. He’s set to tape in the balcony, like you asked. Are you sure you don’t want to be with us?” I’d reserved tenth-row center seats for them.

  I shook my head. “Too long a run.” I hitched my thumb toward the rear exit doors. “In case I need to hurl.”

  She smiled. “Okay, then. We’ll see you afterward.”

  They each hugged me again before we headed for our seats. The one I’d chosen for myself was in the last row. I peeled off the Reserved sign I’d taped from armrest to armrest and sat down, the sign in my hands. Two beads of perspiration rolled off my forehead and plopped onto my lap.

  I tried to calm my nerves by focusing on the play’s set, such as it was. The movie screen itself was the backdrop. In front of it was a pair of coatracks from which hung various pieces of clothing—jackets, hats, and scarves. There was a sofa from Goodwill, my dad’s Barcalounger, a table and a hard-backed chair, and the bloodstained rug from Redford House. That was it. Otherwise, the stage was bare.

  “You think she needs mouth-to-mouth?” I heard Lillith ask BB. My two best friends from home had flown in that morning (a total surprise to me, arranged on the sly with my parents) and had slid into the two seats to my left.

  BB scratched his chin. “My guess is, depends on who’s offering. Remember, Kate. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. And repeat.”

  “You smack me with a ruler again and you’re dead,” I warned.

  Lillith raised one newly pierced eyebrow. “You smacked her with a ruler?”

  “In a very loving way,” BB explained solemnly, hand over his heart.

  “Acupressure?” Lillith guessed. “Voodoo? Kinky foreplay?”

  He grinned lazily. “All of the above?”

  “Mmm, interesting,” Lillith purred.

  “You two are flirting?” I yelped. “I’m about to spontaneously combust, and you’re flirting?”

  “Notice how it distracted you,” BB pointed out.

  Lillith nodded. “You’re not gasping like a beached carp anymore. Which, by the way, is not your best look.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  BB leaned past Lillith and massaged my neck with his left hand. “Close your eyes, Kate. Visualize serenity.”

  Visualize serenity. Highly unlikely, considering. But I tried, knowing that BB was just trying to help. And I suppose that when two friends surprise you by flying a thousand miles, you can’t really begrudge them a little flirt time.

  An even bigger surprise, in some ways, had come from Marcus. When I’d arrived at the theater, a dozen long-stemmed roses had been waiting for me. The card read:

  Good-bye, sitcom writer. Hello, playwright.

  Now the real work begins.

  —Marcus

  I’d mailed him a copy of my play, so I was very flattered. But honestly, I didn’t think I deserved any credit. Because I hadn’t really written it. In fact, I’m still not sure I should even call it mine.

  I checked my watch. Five minutes past curtain time. The show could start at any moment. I exhaled as deeply as my constricted diaphragm permitted, glanced down at the program that I’d taken out of my back pocket, and reread my note to the audience.

  I looked up. The lights were dimming; the audience hushed. Lillith squeezed my hand. It was time.

  A HEART DIVIDED

  a performance piece
<
br />   created by

  Kate Pride

  A NOTE ABOUT TONIGHT’S PERFORMANCE

  Not long after my family and I arrived in Tennessee, I decided to write a play about Redford High School’s struggle over the Confederate battle flag. I must have started that play twenty times; each effort was a miserable failure.

  I had just about given up when the one and only Mrs. Augustus invited me to the library to watch a tape of Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror.

  Fires…. is about the 1991 civil disturbances in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. For her play, Ms. Smith interviewed dozens of people involved in the story—black and white, Jew and gentile, young and old—and then turned verbatim excerpts of her interviews into a performance piece. Later, when I read her script, I saw how she’d treated her subjects’ words as poetry.

  Ms. Smith found truth in the words of real people, in the poetry of everyday speech. She and Mrs. Augustus inspired me to look in the same place. The piece you’re about to see is the result. In her play, Ms. Smith played all the parts herself. But since I can’t act, I asked two brave and talented friends if they’d perform my play. Tonight, all the female characters will be portrayed by Nikki Roberts, all the male characters by Jack Redford. They spent countless hours listening to the tapes I made, so that they could capture the voices of the characters you’ll see tonight. The three of us worked together on the physical selves and body language I observed during the interviews.

  I want to thank so many people, especially those I interviewed for a play I was never able to write but who allowed me to use their words here. And most of all, I want to thank Mrs. Agnes Augustus and Ms. Anna Deavere Smith.

  I dedicate this play to my sister, Portia.

  A HEART DIVIDED

  Compiled, edited, and directed by Kate Pride

  All female characters—Nikki Roberts

  All male characters—Jack Redford

  CHARACTERS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

  KATE PRIDE (Redford High School Student)

  I’m sitting on the window seat in my bedroom, speaking into a small dictation-style recorder. I’m a seventeen-year-old junior at Redford High School. I have brown hair with auburn streaks from the sun, brownish-goldish eyes; I am slender but not skinny, medium height. I’m wearing ancient, ratty sweats. My family moved to Redford from New Jersey a few months ago.

  NOW I KNOW

  I’ve wanted to be a playwright

  since I was twelve years old.

  So when Marcus, the playwright

  who taught my writing workshop, said:

  “Your plays are as shallow as sitcoms,”

  it just really hurt.

  Like someone telling a proud mother that her baby is ugly.

  I wanted to write a play

  about Redford High’s Confederate flag controversy.

  I thought:

  “This will prove to Marcus that I’m a serious writer.”

  He always used to say:

  “You can’t write what you don’t know.”

  Well, I’m this Jersey girl, right?

  I knew I didn’t know.

  So I started interviewing people who did.

  Which was fascinating.

  But it didn’t help.

  Everything I wrote was awful.

  Really, really awful.

  So I thought:

  “Well, maybe Marcus was right.

  Maybe I write shallow because I am shallow.

  Maybe I’ll never be more than a shallow writer.”

  And I just—I hated feeling that way.

  It’s funny. Ironic, I mean.

  It wasn’t until my own life

  and my own family

  became part of the story

  that I finally understood:

  I couldn’t write it, because I hadn’t lived it.

  And I could never tell it as well

  as the people who had.

  What I learned is:

  how it feels to love so passionately you can’t even breathe and

  how it feels to hurt deeper than the bone and

  that good really can come from tragedy and

  if I could

  I’d still give up all the good

  to undo the tragedy.

  What I learned is:

  I am not a shallow person and

  if I live long enough inside the truth,

  someday—I hope—I’ll be able to write it.

  Because I can honestly say:

  Now I know.

  DR. ANTHONY BLASI, JR.

  (Professor of Sociology)

  Dr. Blasi teaches sociology at Tennessee State University, an historically African American university in Nashville. Dr. Blasi, slightly smallish, sees the world through thick glasses and from under long brown-with-gray hair that is tied back in a ponytail. No longer trim, he still looks younger than his fifty-seven years. He wears multipocketed khaki pants and a blue patterned sports shirt. We meet in his cramped office at TSU, where he has to move some papers off a chair for me to sit.

  POLYVALENT

  Symbols can be polyvalent.

  Multivalued.

  People will rally

  around a symbol,

  but often for different reasons.

  You take the

  American flag,

  being waved so much now.

  For some

  it refers to a simple

  group feeling

  that they feel threatened,

  And they want to reaffirm to others

  that it’s

  a representation

  of civil liberties.

  And for others,

  it’s for everyday life

  that’s being disrupted.

  So people will take a flag,

  but affix

  different meanings

  to it.

  People will rally around a flag,

  and not around the meanings.

  Intellectuals get worked up

  about the meanings,

  but oftentimes people are more

  upset by the burning of a flag

  than by the reason why

  it’s burned.

  JEREMY EPPS (High School Student)

  Jeremy Epps is a tenth grader from McMinnville, Tennessee. I meet him at the food court at the mall when he and his girlfriend ask me what I’m writing. Jeremy is medium height, thin, with sandy hair and a strong Tennessee accent. He wears an army T-shirt and baggy jeans. When he finishes high school, he plans to join the army. He was shy at first but got more comfortable when he spoke about his family.

  TEN WORDS ABOUT THE SOUTH

  I’m gonna be kinda famous for being in your story?

  The first ten words that come to mind

  when I’m asked about the South:

  Hot.

  Fun.

  Boring.

  I’m trying to think—

  Weird.

  Twisted.

  It can be Exciting.

  Deep. There are deep people around here.

  Wild.

  Redneck.

  Girls.

  Mama was born in California,

  so she’s not really from the South.

  But she’s lived here most of her life.

  And Daddy’s a Rebel.

  He’s been in the South his whole life.

  He’s all about the Rebel flag.

  I mean, that’s just his heritage.

  My grandmother,

  she’s just a regular sweet old lady.

  That flag is just a flag to her,

  it’s just the Southern flag.

  None of that racism stuff bothers her.

  DR. BO ALFORD

  (Curator, Battle of Redford Museum)

  Dr. Alford is the curator of the Battle of Redford Museum. He’s in his fifties and has a long, angular face. We meet at dawn on the dew-covered battlefield, now the municipal golf course. Near us, clumps of golfers stand around, waiting to tee off.

>   HALLOWED GROUND

  We are walking today on

  Hallowed Ground.

  Back in 1863—

  on this very earth—

  in the space of three hours—

  almost five thousand men died horrible deaths.

  Major General Redford was here.

  (he points to the grass under our feet)

  And the Union lines were there.

  (he points toward the far end of the first hole)

  Two Confederate charges

  nearly wilted the Federal lines.

  Redford tried to persuade his superiors

  to remain on the offensive.

  But a timely Union strike

  at the Rebel left flank

  forced the Army of Tennessee

  from the field of battle.

  The land was littered

  with casualties on both sides.

  There was no morphine for the wounded.

  There were no paramedics.

  Only death on

  Hallowed Ground.

  Today they play golf on

  Hallowed Ground.

  There is a fast-food restaurant on

  Hallowed Ground.

  I had a great-great-grandfather in that battle.

  He opposed secession

  but fought for the South.

  I had another great-great-grandfather

  who owned slaves—I’m not proud to say.

  Both men died in that battle.

  People don’t know.

  People don’t realize.

  One out of every three Southern

  white men of military age

  died

  in the Civil War.

  One out of every ten up North.