There was Steven Campbell. She had a crush on him, but he only paid attention to the light-skinned girls. She’d like to get rid of him.
Angie nodded. “There is this one boy.”
“OK, good. Write down his name.”
“What’s gonna happen to him if I do?” she asked, thinking about magic potions and spells.
Nigel put his arm around her, whispered conspiratorially. “He’ll be out of your life.”
She giggled. “Really?”
He looked at her with those big gray eyes, mock hurt on his face. “You don’t believe me?”
“Maybe,” she said. She wanted to believe him.
“I’m telling you, he’ll suddenly transfer to another school, or move away.” He leaned into her ear. “Or, simply be invisible to you.”
Angie looked up at Nigel.
“Go ahead. Write it down. I won’t look.” He dramatically turned his head.
Angie wrote in block letters, “GET RID OF CRUSH ON STEVEN CAMPBELL. HE’S MEAN TO ME.” She folded up the paper as tiny as she could. The music changed again, this time to hypnotic, techno sounds beneath a woman’s haunting voice moaning over and over, It’s so good, it’s so good, it’s soooo goood.
Just then, a baby-faced woman in a green jumpsuit made her way to the center of the floor, and danced around, arms flailing, hips swaying. The girl kept chanting, “I love this song, I love this song, I love this song,” as she danced. She looked eerie to Angie, the way she dipped her body low then threw her hands up in the air, gyrating in a circle to the heavy weight of the monotone music.
“Sheila must’ve gotten some good shit!” yelled one of the guys. Folks laughed.
One by one, party guests tossed their scraps of paper into the blaze, stepping around Sheila as she sang along with Donna Summer. I feel love, I feel love, I feeel lovvve.
Ella held up a piece of paper. “Know what I’m getting rid of? The old me.” She read out loud from the Frantz Fanon quote she’d written on her own little piece of paper, “In the world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself!” She threw the words into the fire.
“I know that’s right, sister,” said the DJ from the corner.
Nigel got up from the sofa, pulled Ella to him. “To Creation!” he yelled, throwing his own piece of paper into the bonfire. The partygoers spontaneously clapped. Angie felt embraced by the applause, as though it was for her. This was how life was supposed to be.
“Your turn,” said one of the girls to Angie. She wore a tube top that hugged her ample chest. Angie got up, went to the fire, tossed her paper in, watched as ashes sashayed upward.
Suddenly, Sheila unzipped her jumpsuit, exposing a hot-pink bra. She was in a trance, eyes closed, no longer moving to the beat of the music, just moving, like a robot. By now, the song was deeply hypnotic in its repetition. Sweat dripped down the sides of Sheila’s face, brown in color from her makeup.
“Hey, Sheila! Girl, stop stripping!” yelled a guy wearing aviator sunglasses.
“Damn girl!” Nigel called out. “What are you on?”
She stopped, stared at him. “Why you got that bird on your head?” she asked.
“Ah shit, she’s bugging out,” said Nigel. He turned to the guy in shades. “Help me with her Jerome.”
The two men went toward Sheila, each grabbing an arm.
“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” she screamed. Angie could see spit bubbles forming in the corners of her mouth. “FBI! FBI!” she yelled. “Get the fuck off of me! Pig!” And then she screamed.
Ella flipped on the lights, startling everyone. They led Sheila to the couch, forced her to sit. “What’d you take?” Nigel said, shaking Sheila. “What’d you take?”
Jerome took off his sunglasses. “She smoked a joint she got from Eddie,” he said.
“Eddie?” said Nigel. “That nigger laces his shit with Angel Dust.”
“Let it wear off, let it wear off,” said Jerome, sitting beside Sheila, still holding her arm. “She just need to come down.”
“I would like for you to take your damn hands off of me,” said Sheila, her words slow and deliberate. She bucked her eyes. “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”
“Get her some air!” said Ella. “Walk her around.”
“Anybody got a downer?” asked Nigel. “Anything that’ll take the edge off?”
Someone in the crowd produced a pill, and it was passed up to the front. Ella got water from the laundry-room sink, gave the glass to Nigel.
“What’s crawling on me?” asked Sheila. “What the fuck is that crawling on me?” She shivered.
“Take this, OK?” Nigel put the pill in Sheila’s mouth. “Good girl. Now drink some water.”
He guided the glass to her lips. She stared blankly ahead, a look that terrified Angie. Water dribbled down her mouth.
“She swallow it?” asked a tall guy wearing a mud-cloth kufi hat.
Nigel nodded. “She’s gonna be OK.”
“I’ll stay with her,” said Jerome, wrapping his arm around Sheila.
The DJ turned up the music again. He’d put on Phoebe Snow, and her sweet, soothing voice floated gently through the gigantic speakers as she sang about the poetry man. In unison everyone exhaled in relief.
“Anybody else need to drop their paper in the fire?” asked Ella. “Last call!”
A couple more partygoers tossed their papers into the flames. “OK, that’s it,” she said. “When I count to three, everybody yell, ‘Burn Baby Burn!’ OK?”
She counted to three and the crowd yelled on cue, “Burn, baby, burn!” Even Angie joined in. Ella grabbed a small fire extinguisher that sat in the corner and pumped it at the fire, which quickly died.
“We should dump the ashes outside, bury them,” she said.
“Ground’s still too hard,” said Nigel. It was late March, wintry.
The girl with the tight tube top plopped down on the couch beside Angie. “Way I feel, I needed to burn a damn book’s worth of shit.” She looked over at Angie. “Fuck, am I cursing in front of a minor?”
Angie giggled, watched as her big sister carried the cauldron by its swinging handle. She wanted to follow her, but her body felt too heavy. She didn’t mind, followed Ella with her eyes instead.
“Hey!” yelled Jerome, just as Ella was about to climb the stairs. “She’s not breathing!”
Sheila lay against him, lifeless, on the couch. Jerome slapped her face. “Sheila? Wake the fuck up, girl! Wake up!”
Ella put down the cauldron, ran over to them. “Move!” she said to Jerome. He gently guided Sheila down onto the sofa, got up, and stepped back.
Ella dropped onto her knees beside Sheila and placed two fingers on the side of her neck.
“Feel anything?” asked Nigel, by her side.
Ella shook her head. “I don’t.”
She placed one hand over another and pushed into Sheila’s chest over and over. It made Angie think of Ella in a horse’s stall, shoveling hay, with precision and focus. Angie prayed in her head, Please don’t die, Please don’t die, Please don’t die.
Ella pumped and pumped. “Come on, damn it!” she hissed. Sheila didn’t move.
She pried open Sheila’s mouth, pinched her nose, and placed her own mouth on Sheila’s. She breathed in then out, deeply, twice. Everyone’s eyes stayed riveted to Sheila’s chest. It didn’t move.
Ella again placed her hands between Sheila’s breasts and pushed. She pushed again. And again, ten more times, counting out loud. After the tenth push, ever so slightly Sheila’s chest moved up, then down. People gasped. Ella fell back on her haunches.
“Damn!” Nigel ran his hand down his face. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“I took a class,” said Ella. “Once.”
Sheila opened her eyes. She moaned, and they flutte
red closed again.
“Get her up out of here,” said Ella. “Now.”
“I got her,” said Jerome. He rushed over to Sheila, gently shook her. “Come on, girl. Can you walk?”
She moaned again.
“Take her ass to the hospital,” said Nigel.
“It was just a bad trip,” said Jerome. “I just gotta get her home and she’ll be alright.”
With Nigel’s help, he got Sheila to her feet, walked her slowly up the steps and out the side door.
Behind her, the other guests filed out, until just Ella and Nigel and a couple others were left. And Angie.
Ella plopped down on the couch, exhaustion hanging off of her. Angie climbed into her lap, the night’s danger still under her skin.
“Anybody got a cigarette?” asked Ella.
The guy in the kufi hat held out a lit joint. “Here, you need this,” he said.
Spontaneously, Angie reached for the joint.
Nigel lightly smacked her hand. “Little girl, you do not want that.”
She didn’t know whether she was reaching for it to keep Ella from having it or reaching for it for herself.
Ella shook her head. “I don’t trust that shit at the moment. Just give me a cigarette.”
Angie snuggled against Ella’s chest as her life-saving big sister smoked.
Later, when the May issue of Ebony came out, the cover photo boasted Africans dancing in white billowy costumes, beating drums, smiling wide, looking like exuberant, self-possessed cousins of those found in National Geographic. As the family sat at the kitchen table, Ella read aloud the magazine’s breathless coverage: “Despite their diversity, despite their divergent lifestyles, despite their multiple languages, the very coming together of this vast congregation echoed a common desire to accept themselves as they were, to reject nonblack interpretations of them, to redefine reality in their own image, and regain control over their destiny.”
And there, miraculously, was a quote from Ella herself: “Black culture,” said Ella Mackenzie, a student at the University of Michigan, “is a living, organic reality.”
“Let me see that!” said Denise, grabbing the magazine from Ella. She studied the page. “Wow, she really is quoted!”
“I’m going to take that to work with me,” said their mother. “Make photocopies, so I can send it to folks down south.”
“Can I see?” asked Angie. She leaned over Denise, awed by seeing her sister’s name in print; it confirmed that Ella belonged to something bigger, was part of that scary world of current events that got discussed in serious tones by her sixth grade teacher, Miss Hanson. Angie took the Ebony magazine to share with the class, and the boys and girls said, “Oooh,” when they saw her sister’s name, read her words. Ella was current events for 1977.
Now Angie twirled herself in circles on the swing, twisting together the chain link, and then she stopped, unraveling in a whirl of dizzy circles. She did it again and again, the backyard flying past her in a blur. Finally as she let herself slow down to a halt, she planted both feet on the ground and relished the fact that she was high, as wondrously high as those sly little stars above.
SIX
That year ended with none of the sparkle that it began with. After Ella was quoted in Ebony, she decided she wasn’t returning to college in the fall; their mother tried everything—reasoning, bribing, begging, and finally yelling, all to no avail.
“It’s not working for me,” is all Ella said by way of explanation. She would’ve been a senior.
When the South African activist Steve Biko died in police custody, she joined a local Pan-African group to publicize the crusade against apartheid. They passed around fliers, held meetings, and organized a rally, educating black people in America about the harsh policies of that particular majority black country.
Mostly Ella spent her free time with Nigel.
“I see he managed to graduate from college,” their mother pointed out. “Selfish bastard.” That was how it went: Nanette would make sarcastic comments, Ella would pretend to ignore them. Denise, claiming a busy, senior-in-high-school life, was at home very little and when she was, she stuck close to their mother in allegiance. Angie suffered insomnia, which made her groggy and morose all day. The harsh silence around the house got filled by the Bee Gees, whose songs spewed endlessly from household orifices—the kitchen radio, Denise’s bedroom, cars speeding by the open windows, the television set. That autumn and well into the new year, “Night Fever” became an oppressive de facto anthem for Angie.
Spring arrived and Ella hosted an African Liberation Day party in their basement; the raucous affair attracted dozens of people, including Solo. That warm May night, their mother came home from an evening spent with Dr. Benjamin, and smelled the marijuana wafting upstairs. She sat quietly in the kitchen, drinking a light beer and waiting for everyone to leave. Well after midnight, Ella emerged from the basement, red eyed and hungry for munchies. Nigel followed, Angie sleeping in his arms. As Ella swung open the refrigerator door, their mother said in an even voice, “You can’t live in my house and smoke that dope. I won’t allow it.”
Angie woke up, felt the tickle of Nigel’s hairy arms. He put her down, nervously scratched his eyelid.
“OK,” said Ella.
“OK, what?” said Nanette.
“OK, I’ll leave. I’ve been thinking it’s time for me to do that anyway.”
“Don’t think you can just come back whenever you want,” warned their mother.
“I’m cool with that,” said Ella.
Before dawn, she packed her things and left with Nigel. Angie had never felt such anger at her mother, and managed to go two whole days without speaking to her. Her mother didn’t notice.
While Ella was “shacking up” with Nigel, as her mother called it, they knew nothing about Ella’s day-to-day life. All Angie knew was that she missed her acutely. Denise left for Atlanta that June to begin a pre-freshman college program, and Angie found herself alone a lot all summer. Out of the need for something to do, she convinced her mother to let her go see Star Wars three times in a row with Evelyn, Ella’s childhood friend.
Angie did get to see her on the fourth of July. As they all gathered in a neighbor’s backyard, eating barbecued ribs and potato salad, Ella said, “I just want to say that the truly independent thing that has happened today is that Huey P. Newton returned home from Cuba.” Her announcement was met with silence, and Angie glanced quickly at her mother, who shook her head at Ella, as if to say, “Not here, not now.” Ella didn’t meet her eye, rather took her Styrofoam plate of food to the trashcan sitting beside the grill, and tossed it in. “I will no longer eat swine,” she announced. “Pigs are filthy.” Then she left. “Nigel’s waiting for me,” she explained over her shoulder.
Angie ran after her and asked if she could please see her new home? Ella said OK, and she and Nigel arrived in his bright yellow Firebird that Saturday to pick up Angie. Ella and Nigel lived in a two-family flat on Birchcrest, on the second floor, and Angie was surprised to see a front room awash in color, as her own mother’s decor was all muted tones of taupe and forest green. Here was a chunky sofa covered in a royal-blue slipcover and giant Indian-print pillows in saturated golds and purples tossed onto the floor. Satiny red curtains hung from the windows. And behind the bedroom door, Angie glimpsed a dozen or more purses piled onto the bed, their white price tags dangling seductively. She’d later learn that those designer purses funded her sister’s lifestyle, as they were all shoplifted by Ella and Nigel then sold at deep discounts to bank tellers and teachers and postal workers.
Months passed. On a frigid November night, just one day after the mass suicide of Jim Jones and his followers in Guyana, Ella came back home. Angie had been watching the news about the hundreds of deaths nonstop, not sure whether she should ever drink Kool-Aid again. “You have got to use your own mind, think for yourse
lf,” her mother said as they watched the coverage together. “You can’t get caught up in some man’s charisma.”
Ella appeared, saying that she and Nigel had broken up. Catching a glimpse of the news, she noted, “They say Jim Jones got his inspiration for starting a movement from Huey Newton’s book. Sick.” She explained nothing else, just disappeared up the stairs to her attic bedroom.
“At least she had the good sense to come home,” said Nanette. “At least she’s thinking for herself.”
Angie hoped that since Ella was back home, things would return to how they’d been and they’d be a family like before. But something about Ella wasn’t right. She didn’t spew political rhetoric anymore, didn’t keep her head buried in Black Power books, left the house at odd hours, told obvious lies. She was different. Looking back, Angie could see all the signs of Ella’s heroin addiction. Mood shifts. Insomnia. Staying too long in the bathroom. Nodding out. But back then the family hadn’t been to any therapy sessions at the drug-rehab clinic yet. Her mother attributed Ella’s odd behavior to the breakup with Nigel and that became the official explanation. Even her obvious weight loss was no clue. Ella’s size had always gone up and down. And she was still a big girl. For months, they were oblivious, months that allowed Ella’s addiction to take hold and flourish.
On the night it happened, the bathroom door was closed; Ella had been in there a long time and Angie had to pee. She knocked, called her sister’s name. No answer. Angie entered, found Ella slumped over the toilet seat, rubber band still tied around her arm, bloody needle and burned spoon fallen onto the tiles. Angie screamed.
The emergency medical workers struggled to lift Ella onto the stretcher. One of them used his foot to slide her down the steps. That scared Angie the most, watching Ella’s large, limp body kicked down a flight of stairs. Their mother kept asking, “Is she gonna make it? Is she gonna make it?” as they carried her daughter out of the house. Nanette ran behind the stretcher, pale blue coat thrown over her nightgown, feet clad in nylon slippers. The coat was a beautiful, buttery soft leather, the color of an overcast sky, one of those impulse purchases their mother sometimes made, a symbol of a good life she believed in, worked hard to have. Their mother crawled on her hands and knees into the back of the ambulance just before it sped off, yelled at twelve-year-old Angie to go to a neighbor’s house. Angie had two thoughts at that moment: Ella is going to die, and Mama is going to rip her soft, blue coat. She felt her own budding self rush away alongside the wailing ambulance.
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