How could I find my balance, let alone trust it? Surely balance was needed to ride on that rolling cart of danger. Where was my good common sense? The common sense that Big Ma always pointed out I was born with. I was mad at myself for letting this happen. Letting them push me into riding down some hill on this wooden, bumpy, hotrod roller. I could fall over on my butt. Scrape every inch of skin on my legs, arms, and hands. I could look a stupid, scraped-up, tangled-up mess, and on top of it all, scream like a fraidycat in front of my sisters.
I hugged the rope. My heart pounded through my ears, down in my toes.
None of that concerned anyone on the parade route. Hirohito pushed happily. My sisters skipped, clapped, and sang. They might as well have been singing “Crash, Delphine. Crash.”
Then Hirohito stopped pushing. Now the tips of my fingers pounded. We were at the top. The very, very top of the hill.
Hirohito looked at me like this was all fine. Not like he was getting me back for being mean to him. My knees would knock if they weren’t frozen. I wanted to get up and walk away.
“Don’t worry. It’s safe,” he said. “My dad built it. It’s sturdy and has no splinters. He sanded it down for days. Good job, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“I helped him.” He turned the T part so it swiveled. “Real axle for the turns. It’s good for racing. But don’t worry,” he said again. “You just have to go straight. Keep it steady.” He nodded and smiled. “My dad’s great.”
I doubted he meant to get all girly talking about his father. He caught himself and changed his voice.
“Ready, Delphine?”
I didn’t answer.
He said, “Use your sneakers to slow down, then stop. Just drag.” Then he lifted my foot and put it in the right position. The position that would turn the heels of my sneakers as doggedy as his. “Remember, you don’t have to steer. It’s a straight ride down. Just slide your sneaker like this.” He moved my foot slightly sideways. It was a wonder he had soles at all.
He told me to hold on tight. Then he ordered Vonetta and Fern to come on as if he had taken my place as the oldest. Part of me didn’t like it one bit. The other part didn’t have time to think about that.
“Push!”
Vonetta and Fern screamed, “Yay!” and I looked up, mad, scared, thrilled.
I felt six hands on my back and the bumpy ground beneath me. With all that rumbling, my head spun with the sheer craziness of it all. Being pushed down the street. My sisters and Hirohito cheering and pushing and letting go and time not ticking but racing away.
It was too late. Too late to jump off while the go-kart rolled, its steel skate wheels hitting every bump and pebble on the sidewalk. I leaned left and right, trying to find my balance. Then forward. Left, right, and forward, my drawn-up knees helping to keep me steady.
There was a curve in the sidewalk. Not exactly straight, like Hirohito told me. To me it was winding, and dangerous like the Chinatown dragon. As the go-kart went faster, I felt the rumbling of the wheels hitting the concrete underneath me. I screamed. So loud I startled myself. I had never heard myself scream. Screamed from the top of my lungs, from the pit of my heart. Screamed like I was snaking and falling. Screamed and hiccupped and laughed like my sisters. Like I was having the time of my life, flying down that glorious hill.
Vonetta, Fern, and Hirohito had run after me, but Hirohito had outrun my sisters and met me at the other end. When we were all together, Hirohito led the parade of him, Vonetta, and Fern, hooting and dancing around me.
The Third Thing
Who would have thought twenty flyers could have brought more than a thousand people to the park? Talk about a grand Negro, well, a grand black spectacle. People simply came, filling up every inch of green in the park. Some even climbed oak trees and perched in branches for a good spot. Everywhere you turned there were college students in T-shirts, signing people up for sickle cell anemia testing and voter registration. Black Panthers from around the country, in sky blue T-shirts with pictures of black panthers on them, stood tall, patrolling the park. Policemen also stood tall, holding on to their wooden clubs.
And yet I wasn’t afraid. I was excited.
“You see,” Sister Mukumbu said, waving her bangled arm like a wand over the hundreds of people, maybe a thousand.
I feel ashamed of the pride I take in ironing a crease extrasharp. Ironing a sharp crease is a job well done. Bringing people to this rally was magic that had you soaring above trees. It certainly was worth marching up to the no sayers. In my mind, all these people came to the rally because our summer camp helped to spread the word. The idea of radio announcements, the Black Panther newspaper, and word-of-mouth hadn’t entered my mind. If only Cecile could see what we’d done. And Pa and Big Ma.
They put the young people’s presentations on first, before all of the speeches and the musicians and the adult poets. Our play was awkward, with Sister Pat following us around with the microphone, but we continued on as if we’d rehearsed it that way. The first time Janice Ankton heard her voice boom out over all those loudspeakers, she jumped back. She soon overcame her amplified voice and proved a bigger ham than Vonetta on her showiest and crowiest days. Janice brandished her silver cap gun at us tired and scared runaway slaves more than Sister Pat’s script had called for. All I knew was the crowd liked it, and that was enough for “Harriet Tubman,” who proclaimed, “Either you want to be free or you want to be scared slaves!” She was supposed to have said, “I haven’t lost a passenger yet.” The crowd went crazy, and Janice soaked it up. Eunice kicked her sister the way I sometimes had to put Vonetta in her place. It worked. Janice stopped waving her silver cap shooter at us and went on with the play as Sister Pat had written it.
After Harriet Tubman freed the slaves, Hirohito and the boys showed off their karate kicks and chops and jujitsu moves. Eunice, Janice, and Beatrice changed into their matching African print head wraps and dresses sewn by their mother.
I was certain Vonetta would be eaten up with jealousy after Janice’s loud dramatic performance was soon to be followed by her dancing in that cute matching outfit. Instead, Vonetta had been awfully quiet while we waited for our turn to go onstage. I feared the worst with Vonetta’s sunken mood. This had happened just before the Tip Top Tap disaster. A quiet Vonetta was a scared Vonetta. That meant I’d have to dance her part or, in this case, say her part if her eyes bugged out and her mouth didn’t open. Then afterward I’d have to “there, there” her for the next two weeks.
“Vonetta, you ready?”
She nodded.
If I didn’t make her talk, we were doomed. “What’s that, Vonetta?”
Another nod.
Now I was mad. Mad because this was the same Vonetta who had stubbornly wanted to sing “Dry Your Eyes” before all of these people. This was the same Vonetta who had recited “We Real Cool” until it drove Cecile to a cussing fit. This was Vonetta who had said, “We should do this poem.” And as usual, I would have to go out there and finish the mess Vonetta started.
“Vonetta, don’t make me kick you.”
“Better not,” she said. Good. At least her mouth opened and two words came out. “And I’m ready, for your information.”
“I’m ready,” Fern piped up. “I’m ready like Freddy. I’m ready and steady. I know a boy in my class named Eddie. Eddie Larson, but Larson doesn’t go with ready and steady.” Then she barked. “Arf. Arf.”
Vonetta and I looked at each other, then at Fern. Vonetta, said, “Fern, what are you talking about?”
Fern smiled and sang, “I sa-aw something.” Then she clapped it out like we were still on the East Bay bus.
The karate boys had run off the platform while the crowd still cheered. I hadn’t been paying attention because I was worried about Vonetta. But when Hirohito ran over, I said, “That was really neat.”
Sister Pat pushed us to the stage and we marched out before all those people. Vonetta was supposed to introduce us and say t
he name of our poem and that our mother wrote it. But I could see her eyes growing big and her face ashen. I whispered the two things I knew would get her going. I said, “Hirohito’s watching. And Janice hopes you trip.”
Vonetta’s face ripened to a peach. She grabbed the microphone pole like Diana Ross, stepped out in front of us—her Supremes—then cleared her throat. “‘I Birthed a Black Nation,’ by our mother, Nzila, the black poet. All the power to all the people.”
The crowd roared and waved their fists. Maybe they carried on because she was a little girl making big sounds. Maybe they cheered for Nzila, who was now a known political prisoner. To Vonetta, they cheered for her, and she was set to show and crow.
Vonetta:
“I birthed a black nation.
From my womb black creation
spilled forth
to be
stolen
shackled
dispersed.”
Me:
“I dispatched black warriors
raged against unjust barriers
to find the
black and strong had fallen
divided
deceived
overcome.”
Fern:
“Black oceans separate us
tortured cries
songs
of black greatness
Still echo in my canal.”
Vonetta, Fern, and me:
“Hear the reverberation
of a stolen black nation
forever lost
to foreign shores
where thieves do not atone
and Mother Africa cannot be consoled.”
All that was missing was Cecile to see and hear us recite her poem. I’m sure she wouldn’t have appreciated Vonetta sprinkling “black” into her poem like pepper, but the crowd loved it, and we went along, following Vonetta’s lead, throwing in the word black as she had. Following each other was easy. We’d been doing it for as long as we could all talk. Saying Cecile’s words, one after another, felt like we were bringing her into our conversation instead of turning our voices on her, like we had.
When we finished, we were supposed to exit the platform—me first, Vonetta second, and Fern last. We’d walked off the stage and over to the wing. That was what I was certain we’d done. Then I turned and saw Fern still standing in the center of the stage. I went to get her, but Sister Pat was already walking out.
Fern wouldn’t leave. She said something to Sister Pat, who nodded and adjusted the microphone down to Fern’s mouth. Then she left Fern alone onstage.
The crowd quieted and waited, but Fern stood without saying a word. Again I went to get little Fern, but Sister Mukumbu grabbed my shoulder. “Wait, Delphine. Let her.”
Sister Mukumbu had no idea how hard it was for me to watch my baby sister stand alone before all of those people. They could laugh at her, shout at her to get off the stage, or boo her into tears. But Fern balled her fists, banged them at her side, and then she spoke.
“My mother calls me Little Girl, but this is a poem by Fern Gaither, not Little Girl. This is a poem for Crazy Kelvin. It’s called ‘A Pat on the Back for a Good Puppy.’” She cleared her throat.
“Crazy Kelvin says ‘Off the pig.’
Crazy Kelvin slaps everyone five.
The policeman pats Crazy Kelvin on the back.
The policeman says, ‘Good puppy.’
Crazy Kelvin says, ‘Arf. Arf.
Arf, arf, arf, arf.’
Because I saw the policeman pat your back,
Crazy Kelvin.
Surely did.”
Two things happened just then. Really, three things.
First, the crowd went wild for Fern Gaither. Janice Ankton folded her arms and told Eunice she didn’t want to go onstage and dance after Fern had grabbed up all the applause.
Second, Crazy Kelvin backed away. I think he was searching for the best way to get out of the park, but he was surrounded by Black Panthers. They knew what Fern had said, even though it took Vonetta and me a little longer to really understand what Fern had said and seen. And what it meant. Luckily for Crazy Kelvin, there were enough policemen to step in and get him out of the park.
It’s funny about Crazy Kelvin. If he hadn’t gone on and on about “racist pigs,” Fern would have never asked herself, “What’s wrong with this picture?” I’m sure it had more to do with Miss Patty Cake and him telling her who she could love. I’m sure it had more to do with him telling her who she was. Fern had Crazy Kelvin in her sights, and she got him with his own words: “What’s wrong with this picture?”
There was a third thing that happened just then, only I didn’t know it at the time. Cecile told it to me in a letter a month later. And that thing, the third thing was, a poet had been born. It wasn’t Longfellow, Cecile had written, but it was a running start.
So
Although the rally was still going strong, Vonetta, Fern, and I couldn’t get down into the crowd fast enough once we had spotted Cecile. We weren’t the hugging type, but we were all happy. We were happy Cecile had been released from jail and happy she was there to see us onstage reciting “I Birthed a Nation.” Thanks to Vonetta, now people called Cecile’s poem “I Birthed a Black Nation.” I had braced myself for her crazy anger at us for disturbing her poem like we disturbed her quiet, but she didn’t mention one word about all the “black” we’d thrown into her poem. In fact, Cecile just seemed different after having been locked up. She even limited her disguise to her big shades. She was feeling so good—in a way that I think only I could make out—that she even gave us compliments.
Vonetta got hers at my expense. Cecile said, “See that, Delphine? You need to speak up like Vonetta. Now, that’s how you recite a poem.” She might as well have said Vonetta was Hollywood’s black Shirley Temple. Vonetta lived on Cecile’s praise for the rest of the summer and into the next year.
To Fern, Cecile said, “Who said you could write a poem?”
Fern said, “I didn’t write it. I said it.”
“Surely did,” Cecile said, beating her to it; and we all laughed. What Cecile didn’t say was Fern’s name. Fern didn’t seem to notice, but I did.
I waited for Cecile to give me my share of praise. I didn’t need it heaped on like my sisters did, but I knew it would be good, because mine would come last. For a change, I planned to roll around in it and grin like a dummy.
But then some of the organizers of the rally swarmed “Sister Nzila” and “Little Nzila.” They fussed over Fern, telling her how brave and clever she was. The organizers had also made time for Nzila to speak of her “unjust arrest,” but Cecile waved her opportunity away. “Y’all heard my daughters,” she said, more tired than proud. “They said it all for me.”
Vonetta, Fern, and I hugged Sister Mukumbu and Sister Pat and told them we had a great time at the People’s Center summer camp. They praised our work. Praised Fern’s bravery. Vonetta’s loud, strong voice, and my being a leader and a helper. They told “Sister Nzila” all about us and that they wanted us back next year.
The rest of the rally was all the speeches about Huey Newton and Bobby Hutton. Cecile said she wasn’t staying for that, even though she could have been the star of the day. She said, “Y’all can stay and run around with your friends. Tomorrow you’ll be on the plane to New York.”
Vonetta and Fern ran off with Janice and Beatrice. Eunice and I found a place to sit and share a bag of chips. I told her we would be flying to New York the next day. She asked if we were coming back, and I said I didn’t know. I suggested we become pen pals and write each other letters once a month. That sounded okay to her. Neither one of us was really a talker or run-around player. So we just sat there.
Hirohito found us sitting and jumped into a karate pose. “Did you see me?”
“We saw you, Hirohito,” Eunice said. “It would have been better if you broke some boards like they do on TV.” She demonstrated with a karate chop to a pile of air boards.
He didn’t really look at her. He looked at me. “Want a ride on my go-kart?”
I didn’t know how to be with Hirohito while Eunice was there. I just said no and looked at my sneakers. I felt my face growing warm. My feet were too big. Too big for a sixth-grade girl.
“Hirohito, you let a girl on your go-kart? Your precious go-kart?” I couldn’t tell if Eunice was teasing him or mad at him.
“Yeah. So.”
“You like Delphine.”
I hit her on the shoulder like she was Vonetta. She didn’t seem to mind. Teasing Hirohito and making me feel silly seemed to provide Eunice with entertainment and satisfaction. She put her hand over her mouth to gasp. “I can’t believe you, Delphine. You like Hirohito. You’re just as bad as Janice and your sister.”
This was the second time Eunice had gotten me, and both times had to do with Hirohito. I never had anyone over me like a sister or brother and didn’t know how to answer back. I didn’t want to deny it in case he liked me too, but I wasn’t about to be the one to say it in words. I hadn’t even said it to myself yet.
Eunice wouldn’t let up. She was finally enjoying herself. “Hirohito Woods, I can’t believe you let a girl ride on your go-kart.”
“So.”
I smiled without smiling like Cecile does. Besides. He could have said “I don’t like her” or “She’s too tall” or “She’s too plain.” He could have said what all the boys in my class said: “I wouldn’t like her if she were the last girl on earth.” Instead, Hirohito said, “So.” Like “Okay.” Like it was okay to like Delphine.
I said it too. “So.”
Be Eleven
We told Cecile everything. About our excursion to San Francisco, the hippies, Chinatown. Vonetta told how the tall, blond, white people took pictures of her like she was a movie star, which I could see Cecile didn’t like one bit. Fern told how she saw Crazy Kelvin with two policemen just before the bus rounded onto the Bay Bridge. She gave us an earful about how Kelvin always said “racist pigs,” but he let the policeman pat him on the back like he was the policeman’s dog. To that, Cecile said, “If you can see that, then you’ll write poems, all right.”
One Crazy Summer Page 13