Coffee Will Make You Black
Page 26
“Kevin doesn’t even go for light,” Mama had marveled. “Every girl he’s introduced me to has been brown-skinned, not a high-yellow one in the bunch. The only thing a white girl can do for Kevin is tell him which way a black one went,” she’d said proudly at the coffee hour after church this morning. Mama’s words soothed every woman in earshot who worried that white women were taking all of the good black men.
After church I followed David into our dark, cool basement. He had to duck his head going down the stairs. It was a relief to be out of the blazing hot sun. David and Daddy had built him a room down here. It had a door and everything. David called it the cave. I thought that was an appropriate name for the hideout full of dirty clothes, record albums, and empty beer cans. I suppose it looked all right when David turned on his black light and you noticed every speck of dust glowing in the dark instead of the clutter.
I’d just finished telling David about Mama bragging on Kevin at coffee hour.
“It’s easy for Kevin, he’s not a basketball player surrounded by white girls smiling in his face like I am at Iowa State,” David said, sipping a beer.
I nodded as I looked for a place to sit down. I threw David’s old funky sweatshirt on the bed and settled into the old bean-bag chair.
“Kevin’s not under the kind of pressure I’m up against,” David continued.
“Poor baby. All those white girls grinning up in your face. It must be hard.” I pretended to play a violin. “What’s a brother to do?”
“Come on, Jean,” David whined. “Cut me some slack.” He tossed me a can of beer.
“David, you know I’m not gonna really bring out the violins for you.” I popped open the cold can. “There are too many sistahs sitting home alone on Saturday nights.”
David pulled an album from the rack. “This is in your honor, Stevie.”
David played Santana’s Black Magic Woman on the stereo.
“Whoopey do do,” I answered sarcastically, between sips.
David turned on his red lava lamp. “How’s this for atmosphere?”
My eyes were drawn to the flow of the red mixture inside the lamp. A person could be hypnotized by it.
“Stevie, didn’t you ever cross over in your four years at college?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I went on a few dates with a couple of white dudes.” I remembered Jeremy on the school newspaper. He was a stone hippie, love beads and the whole bit. We’d seen Easy Rider at the Student Union together. Afterward we’d hugged. I liked Jeremy, but he wasn’t big on soap and water. He was overdrawn at the funk bank. So, I’d turned my attention toward a brother named Skylar.
“Did you ever kiss one?”
I remembered Daniel, this white dude I’d gone to dinner with while traveling with the debate team. Outside my hotel room, Daniel had pressed me against the wall and forced his tongue inside my mouth. I had to fight to get away from him. Daniel hadn’t kissed me, he’d attacked me.
“No,” I answered. Then I remembered my French kiss with Celeste. But that didn’t count because she wasn’t a man.
“Would you ever be involved with a white dude?”
“I don’t know, it would all depend on how I felt.”
“I heard that. Let’s get high with my bong. I’ve got some dynamite weed, Jamaican.”
My eyebrows shot up. “David, you get high down here?”
He nodded, producing a wide glass tube.
“Mama and Daddy would kill you if they knew.”
“Look, Mama and Dad have their own problems. They’re tired and worn out. All they want is a little peace these days. They don’t look for things to get upset about. Hey, as long as I burn some incense and stuff some towels underneath the door, everything is cool.”
“You don’t think they suspect?”
“Sometimes people see what they want to see.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” I agreed. “You know, bro, I don’t want to end up like them.”
“I don’t want to end up miserable either.”
“I appreciate all the sacrifices they’ve made. But it’s like I never remember them ever being happy,” I added.
David sighed as he went to fill the bong with water.
Buy Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice Now!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“It takes a village to raise a child,” according to an African proverb. It took the love, support, and wisdom of many people to write this book.
Thanks, first and foremost, to Susan Holper, my manuscript consultant, for walking me through the creative process with sensitivity and insight.
A special thanks to all of the people who encouraged me at readings from my work in progress throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and in Garberville, California.
I am grateful to three fantastic teachers, James Frey, Allie Light, and Irving Saraf. And also to the Ragdale Foundation, Urban Gateways, and the crew at the Alameda County Community Food Bank for their support.
Thanks to Winifred Golden and the Margaret McBride Literary Agency: the best agent and agency any writer could hope for. And much gratitude to Leslie Wells, my brilliant and supportive editor, and the rest of the wonderful staff at Hyperion Press.
The enthusiastic backing of my family in Chicago and Florida and my friends in the San Francisco Bay Area kept me going. Thanks especially to Kimberly Rosa and Judy MacLean for their help with the manuscript. And sincere appreciation to Wayne Jenkins for buying me dinners at a time when I could hardly afford groceries.
About the Author
April Sinclair is the acclaimed, award-winning author of three novels. Her debut, Coffee Will Make You Black, was named Book of the Year (Young Adult Fiction) for 1994 by the American Library Association, and it received the Carl Sandburg Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library. The sequel to Coffee Will Make You Black, titled Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice, was published in 1995 followed by the novel I Left My Back Door Open. Sinclair has been a fellow at the Djerassi, Yaddo, MacDowell, and Ragdale artist colonies. She worked for fifteen years in community service programs, and has taught reading and creative writing to inner-city youth. Born and raised in Chicago, she currently lives on an island connected by bridges and a tunnel to Oakland, California.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1994 by April Sinclair
Cover design by Kat Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1865-4
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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