by Kola Boof
Whereas Shane had embraced and insisted upon their love on the very night that his son had been killed, RooAmber still needed time to forgive herself. But when she and Shane had been naked at the top of the cliff overlooking the ocean and he had said, “We are the future!”
It sure felt good knowing that black lovers...could have a future.
••
Before they came to Blue Egg Island, three major events had rocked RooAmber’s life.
The first was the dilemma of her handsome brother, Dinari.
He had come back from a trip to West Africa and told RooAmber that he was getting married--to another man, of course--and wondered how he could break such news to their mother.
RooAmber had gone to his apartment to bring him a protein shake from their favorite health food store and had come inside his place asking, “Who’s music is that you got playing?”
“That’s the number one Gumby-drawls pioneer. Tori Fixx. The undisputed Prince of Gay Rap and Hip Hop.”
“They have gay rappers now?”
Dinari smirked. “Girl, where you been?”
“Well I don’t know nothing about gay culture, shit.”
Dinari took his banana shake anxiously and sipped through the straw. “Uhm, that’s good.”
RooAmber put her shake down and started dancing to the music a little bit. “Whoever his ass is, he’s jamm’n.” She popped her fingers and shook her hips.
“That’s Tori Fixx, girl.”
They had sat down and talked about Dinari getting married to another man.
“Which one of you is the bride?”, RooAmber asked.
Dinari twisted up his face. “We’re both men, RooBoo. Neither one of us is the bride. Elliott Sumboo is just as masculine as I am. We’re both butch.”
“Sumboo? What kind of name is that?”
“It’s West African, but Elliott’s a British boy. Here’s his picture.”
Dinari handed RooAmber a photo of the two of them smiling back at the camera, two gorgeous chocolate skinned muscle boys with intelligent eyes. RooAmber gasped, incredulously, “Yall are too damned fine to be gay!” Her mouth stayed open in wonder. “Why are gay boys so damned fine?”
Dinari rolled his eyes smiling, because he knew RooAmber and Sula too well. They loved Dinari as much as two sisters could love their brother, but they also had secret prejudices against gay men, and were especially annoyed by the really handsome, masculine types like him and Elliott. RooAmber shook her head, then she looked in his eyes and said, “Dinari...I’ve been dying to know for years. When you have sex--are you the top or the bottom? Please tell me. We’re like sisters. I won’t tell anybody.”
Dinari laughed and took another swig of milkshake. “I ain’t tell’n. But anyway, do you think I can get mama to come to my wedding?”
“Hell no”, RooAmber chuckled immediately. “You know damn well mama ain’t coming to watch you marry no man, and because I am not a cat and have only one life to live, not nine--I won’t be the one to try and talk her into it. But you know me and Sula will be there. We’ll be the bridesmaids!”
Dinari adored his mother beyond words, and Soraya loved him, too, but theirs had always been a relationship in which they had agreed to respectfully disagree.
Dinari, although very masculine and discreet, was adamant about his homosexuality, unapologetic about it, and refused to listen to Soraya’s religious edicts in which she announced that she was praying for him or in which she sometimes described his lifestyle as an abomination against God and a sin against nature. Somehow, however, through some ancient part of himself, he knew that his mother’s religious ideals were bullshit when it came to his sexuality. He was natural and right with God and in his mind, body and soul. He didn’t waste his life listening to sinful hypocrites who damned his joy while pursuing their own. “I’m gay and I’m glad”, was all Dinari would say, and over time, he and Soraya settled into a conspiratorial “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation regarding his personal life. They had dinner together every Thursday and Sunday night without ever bringing the subject up.
“So tell me”, said RooAmber. “How did you meet this Elliott Sumboo?”
“He was in Senegal”, Dinari said wistfully. “We met at this wondrous place, RooAmber, my god! They have this lake in Senegal, it’s right next to the ocean--I’m talking literally just a few hundred yards from the open sea. But some people claim that the lake moved itself there, because it wanted to be next to the ocean.”
“The lake moved itself?”
“O.K. Don’t laugh, but I’m about to tell you some really heavy shit, and it’s all true...but anyway...this is the part you won’t believe. The lake is called Pink Lake--because the water in the lake is actually pink and the bottom of the lake is made of pure salt.”
Something came over RooAmber. Some kind of memory. The moon at the bottom of the lake. Shango and Ife Ie descending into the secret cave of love.
“...it’s a magical lake, because nothing can sink to the bottom of it, the salinity of the water makes everything float. The Senegalese women wade into the lake each day and mine the salt from it. They carry it to shore and the men harvest it to be sold. They also have a myth, a legend that surrounds the lake concerning these two great lovers.”
“I never heard of West Africa having any great lovers.”
BAM!
RooAmber saw a skinny naked baldheaded charcoal girl running through paradise, her crotch jangling of silver jewelry and her shiny, shiny face laughing...chased by a charcoal boy. Their black beauty painting the scorching plains with an urgent tiki music. A clean, natural humanity.
RooAmber squinted. No!, it couldn’t be from any movie that she remembered this scene--because there had never been a movie made with a scene like that in it. Two African people, running through their paradise, in love. In Hollywood, they would make the man charcoal but cast the woman (the womb of his people) as a longhaired barely brown something. Wild instead of royal. Post-colonial. Blackness “disallowed”...as wholeness.
“They had tons of great lovers, RooAmber! The Senegalese elders told me about this one couple. But actually, you have to go back to prehistoric days. There were two moons in the sky and one of them fell to earth and caused the water underground to rise up as a lake. The fallen moon became the floor of the lake. The elders claim that there was a beautiful princess called Ife Ife, the French call her “La Charcomonde Swanee”--the Charcoal Swan. But anyway, the natives say that she fell in love with a warrior prince from the Sea tribe, and because she was a princess of the Sky people’s tribe, her father beheaded the prince while he was on top of the princess one night, and because of that, she took ill from a broken heart and died...and upon her death the lake turned pink and the moon at the bottom of the lake turned to salt. I know it sounds crazy, but after actually traveling there--I believe the myth. You really have to go to Senegal to see it. It’s an amazing place, I’ve never seen anything like it, and a good majority of our ancestors came from there.”
“That must have been so romantic for you and Elliott.”
“It was. I met Elliott at Pink Lake. He had flown in from his home in London to do some AIDS research for Glax-Collier North Atlantic. He’s a scientist and he’s determined to cure that disease. We struck up a conversation as we walked around the lake, mesmerized by the beauty of it. It didn’t even dawn on me that Elliott was gay until I’d been sipping margaritas and eating popcorn shrimp with him for two days.”
“That’s really touched. A black guy from Britain and a black guy from America--meeting in Africa and falling in love. Sounds like destiny.”
“Ooooh...”, cooed Dinari with worry. “Do you think so?”
“Sure. You and Elliott have as good a chance as any other couple. Love is so universal until there’s no way to plan an outcome. You remember my husband’s sister I told you about--Rum Childress?”
“Oh yeah, the one in Seattle that married a black man.”
“Right. Well, they’
re one of the most loving, meant-to-be couples I’ve ever seen. And unlike most interracial black couples, it had nothing to do with a black man running from his own image and trying to co-opt the face and heritage of the dominant race. Her husband had no interest in white women, period, and before she met him, you could not tell her that she would have ever ended up with a black man. But circumstances took over...and they let love happen. They’re such a wonderful couple, and they’ve been through so much to stay together. If they can hang, then anybody can.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I really love Elliott”, Dinari said. He smiled and squeezed his sister’s hand, remembering how in childhood, he, Sula and RooAmber would dress up and pretend to be the Supremes--and since his name began with a “D”--he would always have to be Diana. They both thought of their closeness now and burst out laughing, even without having to talk about it.
They hugged real tight as RooAmber gushed, “You’re the best brother in the whole world!”
••
The second major event for RooAmber that year was the witnessing of her sister Sula’s dramatic downfall, rebirth and determined rise.
Trent had abandoned Sula two months after their baby was born.
Sula said that they had been standing over Trent Jr.’s crib one night, four in the morning, Sula lifting the strongly kicking little black chocolate drop up to her bosom for a feeding, when suddenly, the daddy shook his head and said, “I don’t know about this fatherhood thing.”
Sula looked at him like he was crazy. What? She said, “Trent, you’ve been acting really weird for two weeks now. Hanging out with your boys til all ours of the night and floating around with nothing to say. You hardly ever hold Trent Jr.”
“I don’t know, Sula...maybe this was all a mistake.”
What can a woman say when a man that you’ve just married and had a baby for says something as profound as that?
Sula had lowered her eyes. Remembering the days after she and Trent had come home to their apartment with the baby. Almost none of their associates from the neighborhood or from their jobs dropped in to visit and see the new baby. Trent claimed it was because they, as a couple, were so “dark”--people, according to him, just assumed the baby must be ugly.
“Nobody’s thinking like that!”, Sula had said. “Stop being insecure.”
“When Peaches the HO had her little nigga wit good hair--the whole damn block showed up”, Trent told her. “When Cocoa had a baby by that Mexican janitor at her job, the whole damned block showed up. In fact, when they saw the baby’s hair and chico-stick coloring, they threw a goddamned party. And look at that white chick on the second floor with the brotha that beats her ass every other weekend. People couldn’t wait to get a look at her baby’s good hair. Then you got Tyrone and Love Bug. They both regular black folks, but he’s brown and she’s yellow. People dropped by and wished them well. Same with Owen and Niecey. He dark brown, she’s yellow. Folks wanted to see their baby. Even fat ass Cynique who’s dark brown and ain’t got no man--she let everybody know the baby’s daddy was high yellow and a few people showed up. But look at you and me.”
“What about us”, Sula intoned defensively. “We’re fucking fine as hell. The original Bonnie and Clyde. Outlaw love. Black on black. Afro nappy. The real motherfuck’n deal. Why you gotta be so insecure all of a sudden?”
But Sula knew exactly why he was so insecure. She had been over to his mother, Zenobia’s house, one day. They had watched Bold and the Beautiful together and someone had phoned from Zenobia’s church to ask if she would bake a sock-it-to-me-cake for the coming Sunday and sing a special solo. She said that she would and then went on to tell them that her son Trent, who hadn’t been to church since he was fourteen, had gotten married and had a baby. “And I just love Trent’s wife”, Zenobia had said of Sula. “She’s real dark skin like me and Trent’s daddy, but that don’t matter none ‘cause she’s got a good job and she’s sweet as pie. And can coooook her ass off!”
Yes, Sula understood Trent’s insecurity. After all, he often played basketball with his buddies at the park and had to be a good sport as they made the typical “your girl or wife is so black jokes”. Something they never did when a black man was with a Latina, an Asian or a white girl. No, those ones they gave a brotha special marks for “bagging”, those ones they asked immediately, “Are you guys getting married?” But with black girls whose features or whose coloring they deemed “non-television quality”, black men made jokes, and in many cases, they could be unapologetically colorstruck.
“As black as you is nigga, why you go and marry Sula Jones?”, one of the blackest Heckyll and Jeckyll Mag-Pie look’n motherfuckers asked him one day. “I mean, I know she got the bomb shape, she got dat ass fa sho, but damn man, that chick black as our damn mamas.” All the other guys cracked up. A single light skinned guy came to Sula’s defense with a meek, “Sula Jones is nice looking. She’s the only woman I know around here who doesn’t dress like a hoochie.” But that kind of defense was rare.
On and on they went.
“Man, did you see Toni Braxton’s new video? That bitch is foine!”
“Man I want me some of that fine Spanish chick over on K street. I done took a second job to save up enough duckets to take her ass out.”
“Did you see that white girl they got work’n in the bookstore now?”
“Tell me this--is Ornette biracial or not? That bitch got a fat ass.”
“Have you seen the ass and tits on that Kola chick? That bitch know she be teasing us. Talking ‘bout she can’t speak English. African freak mama.”
“Man I heard they got some bomb ass women in Brazil. I would marry one of them motherfuckers in a minute! They got that honey pineapple skin and light eyes and that long ass silky hair. Man, they is foine!”
“Did you see that bitch that works over at the pharmacy? She look white, but I asked her and she really black.”
“That fat chick?”
“Man, don’t be call’n her fat. She’s a church woman.”
“That bitch ain’t black. Holly’s a white trash welfare queen who hangs around the hood ‘cause she knows this is the only place she can get a man. All kinda niggas done tapped that pale cottage cheese ass. She got four kids.”
“A brotha ain’t try’n to hear that. I’ll take her.”
“Bet you wouldn’t take no two ton black woman with four kids and a welfare check.”
“Sheeeet. A black bitch betta get out there and make me some money.”
They all cracked up laughing! That was hilarious.
“Man, I would drank Mariah Carey’s bathwater.”
“I want my baby’s mama to look like Halle Berry. That bitch is finer than a motherfucker. I fuck the shit outta her and Vanessa Williams. Her, Vanessa Williams, Sade and Brooke Shields. Them bitches is my queens, man. Either that or one of them submissive Asian bitches.”
••
Soraya and RooAmber had moved into Sula’s apartment to watch over her and the baby for the first few days after Trent walked out.
“Why did he leave?” RooAmber asked.
“He’s just got a lot of issues”, Sula replied in a low voice. And she had burst into tears for the millionth time. She was so broken up for those three days that she couldn’t really take care of Trent Jr. RooAmber kept him and fed him, rocked him and played him while his mother laid in bed those three days. “Look at how handsome he is”, RooAmber had said to Soraya. “He could grow up to look like Sidney Poitier or Michael Jordan or Tyson Beckford.” She kept seeing the faces. “Wesley Snipes, Taye Diggs, Djimon Hounsou, Leon, Seal, Tupac Shakur, Barry White, Don Cheadle, Miles Davis.”
“Patrick Ewying, Curtis Mayfield”, Soraya threw in with a sarcastic smirk and a wink.
“Mama!”
RooAmber had carried Trent Jr. into the bathroom where Sula had covered the mirror with a sheet. With one hand, RooAmber pulled the sheet down so that Trent Jr. could see himself in the mirror.
“Look how handsome him is! Coochy-coochy-coo! Him is handsome.”
She wondered why it was that the whole world could see the endlessly wondrous beauty in dark black men, but fail to see how uniquely beautiful and Nubian-esque-featured so many, many dark skinned women were?
Soraya answered it for her later that night.
“This is America, sweetie. Females give birth. Part of America hating the black man is hating the womb from which he comes. They would much rather see him come out of a white woman, that way--they can raise him and brainwash him in their own culture. Make him a real nigger. And then on top of that...a white woman can easily imitate Halle Berry’s beauty. She can look exactly like Mariah Carey. She can even imitate Dorothy Dandridge and Vanessa Williams’ looks. But the real true dark majesty of an African looking queen with jet black skin and the facial features of Solomon’s Sheba. A white woman can’t imitate that. So America makes those looks invisible. When I was a young girl, they put Lena Horne on a movie screen a hundred feet high and told us that she was our black goddess. But like most black neighborhoods in my day, it could take you a week to run into a girl who looked like Lena Horne. And mostly all the negro women back then was dark black. But they never did allow a movie actress to be thin, chocolate black and beautiful in movies when I was a kid. Only fat dark skinned Mammies was allowed. If a movie called for a pretty black girl--then a high yellow or light brown girl like Diahann Carroll or Dorothy Dandridge was cast. The Afro-black woman is too powerful, genetically. It’s always been a plot in this country to separate black people from they real mamas. And now that black mens can have them a white woman, biracial is the new yellow. Yellow is the new brown. Men back in the day that would cut they arm off to marry Tisha Campbell or Queen Latifah--would leave them heffas high and dry in today’s colorstruck world. But don’t dare point this shit out to black men, ‘cause they get mad as hell or go into denial so deep you’d think they was digg’n a hole to China. Them motherfuckers are weak! They lie and they more colorstruck than the KKK. They walk around acting like the whole world respects their smug prejudiced asses, but guess what--everybody on this planet looks at the black man and knows he’s been defeated. And they glad he’s fucking up like this, ‘cause number one--he gone lose his black queen for good. In her heart, she gone start to hate his sorry ass just like she should. And number two--he’s destroying his own seed, his mixed kids is being raised by Asians, Latinas and white women. Which is just what it takes to destroy the black man, which was the plan from day one, white folks ain’t never denied that, go back ‘n read they history books. Centuries of teaching the black man to hate himself and his own mama’s womb is paying off. And as pretty and as intelligent as Sula is, that sorry no good Trent got my baby lay’n in there think’n she ugly. All ‘cause niggers is fucked up in the head and don’t deserve no goddamn respect, truth be told. If I was twenty years younger I’d track that motherfucker down and whoop his ass my dam self.”