One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams-Garcia

  I can study every move Fern makes and still not completely know her. There are just things I don’t understand about her the way I understand Vonetta. After Miss Patty Cake had been damaged and put away, I slept lightly, expecting Fern to awaken during the night missing her truelove. Not that I wanted Fern to be heartbroken. I didn’t want her to love someone all her life and then not love or want them at all. Even if her someone was a doll. That was no way to be.

  I wanted to say something to Fern, but then she cupped her hand around her mouth and squealed an Ooh! like she’d seen something bad, like a naked lady running down the street. It was that kind of an “ooh” squeal.

  “What, Fern?”

  Her eyes stayed big, her hand over her mouth. Vonetta and I kept going, “What, Fern? What, Fern?”

  She swallowed a gulp of air and uncupped her mouth. “I saw something.” She said it again, and had gone from agog to being pleased with herself. “I saw something.” She clapped to the beat. Clap, clap, clap, clap.

  No matter how much we asked, Fern shook her head no, clapped her hands, and sang her song: “I saw something.”

  Fern was pleased she had seen something, Vonetta was sure she hadn’t seen a thing, and I remembered he had said “Delphine.” Delphine. Want to watch me fly down that hill?

  Wish We Had a Camera

  Once we arrived in San Francisco, Fern stopped singing “I saw something,” and we stopped asking her to tell us what she had seen. We got off the bus and were greeted by hippies hanging out by the bus stop. It wasn’t right to stare at them like they were in an exhibit, but we couldn’t help it. We didn’t see many hippies in Brooklyn, not where we lived; and there was a whole tribe of them before us. All kinds of mostly white hippies with long, hanging hair. You couldn’t miss the guy in the green, red, and white Mexican poncho or the moppy hair covering his face. I’d have called it an Afro except it was on a white guy’s head. I wondered if that made a difference.

  The hippies sat on the grass. One read a small book. Three girls swayed while Poncho Man played his guitar. They must have been out protesting and were done for the day. Their signs lay on the grass: PEACE. BAN THE DRAFT. MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR.

  I wished we had a camera.

  “Peace, sweet soul sisters.” Poncho Man dipped his head as if pointing to his open guitar case.

  I don’t know what made me say it, but instead of “Groovy, man” or “Peace,” I said, “Power to the people.”

  Then Vonetta said, “Free Huey.”

  And Fern said, “Yeah. Free Huey Newton.”

  That was when we met her. The Flower Girl. We had finally seen one! There were all kinds of songs on the radio about hippie girls with flowers in their hair. She had daisies in her hair; and she drifted over to us, her eyes all dreamy as she danced in her flowing, paint-splattered dress. She took a daisy from her hair and gave it to Fern. Then she had to give one to Vonetta, because Vonetta wasn’t about to be overlooked.

  “Peace is power, sweet soul sisters.”

  We wanted to crack up but saved that for later. We took the flowers and dropped two nickels and five pennies in Poncho Man’s guitar case. Even though I could have figured it out, I asked him where Grant Street was. He pointed east. We gave the hippies the peace sign and the power sign and walked over to Grant Street.

  We were excited by the sight of metal rails in the street. The cable car was second on my list of activities. Our first activity was sightseeing in Chinatown.

  You know when you’re in Chinatown. The buildings are just like they are in China. “That’s a temple,” I told my sisters. I had seen the pictures in National Geographic magazine and in the encyclopedia. Nothing compared to actually seeing the roofs, like tiled lamp shades or hats. Dragons of every color. Gold. Red. Blue. Green. Pink. Big heads with large fangs, big eyes, monstrous paws. We needed a camera.

  We shared a plate of dumplings and drank free tea. None of us could keep the dumplings between the chopsticks, so we used forks. After that we found a place where all they did was make fortune cookies. They let us come in and watch the ladies slip fortunes inside flat yellow cookie dough, then fold the dough over. We bought ten fortune cookies for a dollar. Our first fortune said, You will travel far. I said, “We already did.” Still, I put each pink-and-white strip of paper in my shoulder bag as souvenirs. Now we could say we had real Chinese fortune cookies in Chinatown.

  We gawked at all the window offerings. Green statues that I learned were carved jade. China dolls. Fans. Silk and satin dresses with Nehru collars. I almost felt bad about not having more money to spend.

  “I want a kimono,” Vonetta declared.

  “Me too. A blue one,” Fern said.

  “A kimono is Japanese,” I said, as if I knew the difference. “And we’re in Chinatown.”

  “It’s the same thing,” Vonetta said. “And I want one.”

  “It is not,” I told her. “And we have five dollars exactly for souvenirs, so you’re out of luck.”

  While we were arguing about what was Chinese and what was Japanese, I noticed this family of five tall blond people standing near us. I didn’t eyeball them dead-on, but I knew they were staring at us.

  My heart thumped fast. It was happening. That bad thing that happened to kids who went on excursions without their mother. I tried to shush Vonetta, who thought she was winning our disagreement. I had to get my sisters away from these starers. And then, what would I tell the police when they asked about our mother? We were cooked.

  When I turned, I found the five people smiling at us, their faces made long by high cheekbones and long, white teeth. They waved.

  I’d seen white people before. On TV. At school. Everywhere. These people didn’t look like any white people I had ever seen. Even their skin was paler, their hair more white than yellow. I listened as they spoke to one another, probably about us, using flugal, schlugal words. Then, instead of taking pictures of all the Chinese people and the temples and dragons, they pointed their cameras at us. Vonetta started to pose movie star–style with one hand behind her head and the other on her slim hip. I grabbed Vonetta’s and Fern’s hands and said, “Come on.”

  I checked my Timex. It was almost one o’clock. That meant our time in Chinatown was up and we had to go on to our next activity. A ride on the cable car. We dashed over to where metal rails ran along the street and waited. Sure enough, at one o’clock on the nose we were on to our next activity. A cable car ride from the tip-top of Chinatown all the way down to Fisherman’s Wharf. We climbed aboard, and I paid our fare. We stood because standing would be more fun going down that hill. And what a hill it was. It was a thrilling look down, down, down. The streets rolled like a dancing dragon. Hirohito didn’t know the first thing about a hill.

  We needed a camera to get this hill. How steep. How long. We rode it all the way down to the wharf, cheering with every clang of the bell.

  We were now near the wharf. There were palm trees—real palm trees with sturdy trunks. Down here, palm trees made sense. They stood as palm trees were supposed to stand. Reaching up to the sun, branches spread out wide. Not like a sickly child, too small and slouched over in someone’s yard in black Oakland.

  When we got off, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge perfectly well, but we took turns looking through the telescope right there on the walkway. Gazing out to the bridge, I felt what I almost felt on the airplane. It was the pure excitement of seeing the world. Even the seagulls were seagullier than the ones that flew and squawked around Coney Island. These wide-winged birds seemed bigger and majestic, both close-up and far away. Or maybe it was that we could see and smell the ocean and the tar, salt, and wood from the wharf. I breathed in deep to get it all. Too bad there was no way to capture the wharf smell in a jar to take with me. For a minute I forgot I was with my sisters. Then I remembered what Papa had said, and I stopped myself from falling into the whiff of salt air and flying off with the seagulls like some dreamy flower girl. I was happy to be there, and that had to be
good enough. There was no need to get glaze eyed and forgetful.

  We stopped in a gift shop on the wharf. The man behind the counter set his eyes on us really hard. At first I thought it was because we were by ourselves, so I whispered to Vonetta and Fern to be extra well behaved. But then I heard Cecile’s last words in my head. His hard stare was for the other reason store clerks’ eyes never let up. We were black kids, and he expected us to be in his gift shop to steal. When he asked us what we wanted, I answered him like I was at the Center, repeating after Sister Mukumbu or Sister Pat: “We are citizens, and we demand respect.”

  I grabbed Fern by the hand and said, “Let’s go.”

  I had that Black Panther stuff in me, and it was pouring out at every turn. I figured it was all right. Papa wouldn’t have wanted me to spend our money where we weren’t treated with respect. But I was sure Big Ma would have wanted us to say “Yes, sir” and “Please, sir” to show him we were just as civilized as everyone else.

  We walked farther down the wharf and found an old lady with a wooden cart to buy our souvenirs from. She carried mostly postcards, silver spoons, thimbles, and tiny drinking glasses that said WELCOME TO SAN FRANCISCO. Her cart wasn’t as nice as the gift shop, but she was toothless and happy to get our nickels and dimes. Since we didn’t have a camera, I thought buying ten postcards for fifty cents would be the next best thing. I told my sisters to each pick out three postcards. One to keep as a reminder of our San Francisco excursion, one to mail to Pa and Big Ma, and one to send to Uncle Darnell in Vietnam. I’d figure out later what we’d do with the leftover postcard. At least now we finally had something to show for flying all the way to California.

  We took the cable car to the bus stop and took the East Bay bus back to Oakland. We talked and talked about all the things we had seen and the hippies and the tall blond white people and the red and golden dragons and the steep hills and the cable car and seagulls and dumplings and everything! Wouldn’t Cecile be surprised when we told her where we went?

  Then I felt bad because we didn’t get her anything from the souvenir cart. I hadn’t thought of her at all, and guilt began to have its way with me. I told my sisters, “We’re selfish. We didn’t buy anything for Cecile.” Before we got too quiet, stewing in our selfishness, Vonetta said, “She wouldn’t want it anyway.” Good old Vonetta! Fern and I agreed with her. “Surely wouldn’t.”

  In a way, I was glad to be back in black Oakland, the sun still shining. As much as I loved our adventure, I was always on the lookout in between just looking. Here, I knew where everything was: the Center, the park, the library, the city pool, Safeway, and Mean Lady Ming’s. No one stared, unless they were staring because they didn’t like your shoes or your hairstyle. Not because you were black or they thought you were stealing. As much as we needed to go off and have our California adventure, it was nice to be back. Even if it wasn’t our real home. I still carried my shoulder bag Brooklyn-style, but it was now lighter and I wasn’t worried.

  We stopped inside Mean Lady Ming’s and gave her all the change we had left except for two dollar bills. “What can we get with this?”

  Mean Lady Ming yelled something mean back to the kitchen, and in ten minutes we had a brown bag smelling of fried rice and chicken wings. I figured one day of take-out food wouldn’t hurt anything, but honestly, I was too tired and happy to cook. I was anxious to tell Cecile all about our vacation day. I wanted to show off how well I had planned everything down to the minute, that I knew what to do; and I wanted to see if she cared.

  We were a block away from the green stucco house, chatting and laughing. Then we stopped walking. All three of us. There were three police cars parked outside of Cecile’s house. One in the driveway and two along the curb. Policemen lined the walk. Lights flashed on top of their cars onto the streets. Red, white, and blue lights everywhere. We inched up, the happiness knocked out of us.

  Cecile and two Black Panthers. Hands behind their backs. Handcuffed. Being led out of the house and down the walkway. I could hardly breathe.

  The Clark Sisters

  We were only a few houses away when Vonetta said, “Hey!” I could feel Fern wanting to leap out, ready to call out, but I pulled her back and shushed them both.

  “What about their rights?” Vonetta said.

  “Yeah. We know about rights,” Fern said.

  “Just shhhh,” I said. My heart was pounding. “They’re Panthers. They’re grown,” I said, although I didn’t think Cecile was truly a Panther. “They know their rights.”

  “But—”

  I told Vonetta to be quiet. We were now coming up on the house and all the patrol-car lights flashing.

  Cecile was almost as tall as the policeman who walked her to a flashing patrol car. He bent slightly to tell her something. She said loudly, “Kids? I don’t have no kids. They belong to the Clarks down the street.” She wouldn’t even look at us.

  We were now closer, where the police could really see us. With my shoulders, arms, and legs exactly like hers, Vonetta’s I-don’t-care eyes exactly like hers, and Fern a smaller version of Vonetta and me, I said, “She’s not our mother. I’m Delphine Clark.”

  “I’m Vonetta Clark.”

  “I’m Fern Clark.”

  “And we live down the street.”

  “With Pa and Big Ma.”

  “Yeah. Down the street in a blue stucco house.”

  “Not with this lady,” I said.

  “Not with her.”

  “Surely don’t.”

  They had already pushed Cecile down into the backseat of the car.

  I said to my sisters without looking at Cecile, “Come on.” We walked past our mother. Walked with our bag of fried rice and chicken wings as far as we could without looking back, my heart still pounding and the smell of the fried food making me sick.

  Why had the police arrested Cecile? She wrote “Send us back to Africa” poems and “Movable Type” poems. She didn’t write “Off the Pig” poems and “Kill Whitey” poems, that is, if writing poems were a crime.

  It was just as Sister Mukumbu and Crazy Kelvin were trying to teach us. In Oakland they arrested you for being something. Saying something. If you were a freedom fighter, sooner or later you would be arrested.

  Fern asked, “Why’d she say she didn’t have no kids?”

  “She had to,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “They would have taken us away, split us up, and put us in juvie or something.”

  Fern said, “I don’t want to go to juvie.”

  Vonetta said, “She sure said it really easy. ‘Kids? I don’t have no kids.’ It was like she said, ‘Cooties? I don’t have no cooties.’”

  I reminded her, “And we said we were the Clarks real quick. Real easy.”

  “I was following you,” Vonetta said.

  “Me too,” Fern said.

  “Well, we had to say that. Did you want them to send us to juvenile hall? Or call Pa and Big Ma and worry them to death? We’d have to wait in juvie hall until Pa or Big Ma came from New York to get us. You wouldn’t like juvie hall. It’s just like jail.”

  By the time we turned around and started back, the police cars had driven off with Cecile and the two Black Panthers.

  I let us in. I couldn’t tell from the living room what had happened between Cecile, the police, and the two Black Panthers. The door had not been kicked in like it had been at Hirohito’s house. Cecile didn’t have much in her house to begin with. Then I pushed open the door to the kitchen. Out of habit Vonetta and Fern stayed in the living room until they heard me gasp. They followed quickly behind me and timidly peered in.

  Black and red ink was smeared across the floor. Torn and scuffed-up white paper wings covered the floor. Drawers had been ripped out of cabinets. Large and tiny blocks of metal letters had flown everywhere. Blocks of metal Es, Ss, As, and Ts. Paper, ink everywhere. The printing machine toppled over. Rollers knocked out. Legs from my secondhand stool cracked and split off from the w
ooden seat.

  All we could do was take it in. Vonetta and Fern were seeing the inside of the kitchen—Cecile’s workplace—for the first time. I was imagining what had happened. How Cecile didn’t want them in her house. In her workplace. Where she only allowed me, and only at a distance. That the police might have touched her papers or picked up her letters with clumsy cop hands. Cecile might have gone crazy like I knew she could have, instead of saying “I’m a citizen, and I have rights.” She and the Black Panthers might have demanded to see the policemen’s search warrant. She might have reached out to protect her poems.

  The broken stool told me more than I wanted to know.

  I found three forks. Two on the floor and one in the sink. I washed them along with three plates, and we went back out to the living room. Vonetta spread Cecile’s tablecloth, and we sat down to eat. I said the blessing, asking God to protect Cecile while she was under arrest, and then we ate. Mean Lady Ming had thrown in two extra chicken wings, and that was good because we were hungry. Hungry, shook up, and tired.

  “We have to clean up Cecile’s kitchen before she comes home.”

  “Why?” Vonetta asked. “We didn’t mess it up.”

  “We surely didn’t,” Fern said.

  “We’re cleaning the kitchen just because.”

  “Because?” they said together.

  “Because it should look right when Cecile comes home tomorrow.”

  I expected a lot of lip from Vonetta, with Fern on her side. I expected us to go back and forth, them saying “Oh no, we’re not,” while I said “Oh yes, we are.”

  Instead Vonetta asked, “What if she doesn’t come home tomorrow? What if they keep her locked up like Brother Woods?”

  “Yeah,” Fern said. “They could keep her and never let her go.”

  They were right. The police could keep Cecile for days. Even longer.