by June Jordan
Nothing good enough for Angela. And you know the price be twice as high as downtown.
Buddy drive down Fulton Street and on to Flatbush Avenue between the blank big office buildings mostly vacant on each side. And then he reach the bridge go over it and cross Canal Street. Make a right turn. Take the West Side Highway north.
The highway like a Funny House. You don’t know when something will open at you let you off or what. Drive north past the storybook apartment houses. People dress up for the movies. Dress down to walk the dog. Drive by below the marble bullshit memory of Prez Grant.
Drive by these Bronxlike Mountainside apartments. Look like highrise outhouse and no door. No tree. Drive across the narrow northern edge of the Manhattan secret-island (people use it like the island part’s a secret part). Under a tunnel under eight different intersecting streets under skyscraping (more) apartments on top of George Washington Bridge and curve onto the East Side Drive. The really river drive by Harlem. Brick projects. Brick new private terracing apartments glovelights and concrete colored intermix construction bricks. Drive quiet by the river. Harlem bridges start to sway out the windshield.
Drive toward the crowded power down the East Side Drive. And Buddy just be Buddy practicing for the long trip up to Angela.
About the level of 123d Street the Drive spread wider than it was and Buddy tense a bit like a pilot in a mission cockpit.
Check the gauges. Check the rearview mir—ror. Check the sideview mirror. Watch them cars ahead. The radio be playing loud and nice.
Wrapped up my money
and I couldn’t find my way.
So I changed them bills to silver
And I rolled another game
so two could play
so two could pay.
And things ain’t never been the same
since then
since when you came
you blew my lonely game with
love like a nickel and a dime
making changes all the time
love like a nickel love like a dime
making changes all the time.
Static. Buddy snap to. The drive be under a stone shed tunnel now. Radio song turn to static. Buddy feel a shivering. He see in the rearview mirror a large black car. A hearse and yellow headlights follow him. And snakestyle behind the hearse more of them. Largedarkcars and yellow lights.
Buddy feel fear.
Not able to switch lanes because there be no room for him. Broad daylight and they in this tunnel and this largedarkcar with yellowlights and other largedarkcars with yellowhearseheadlights be following right after Buddy.
They leave the tunnel to the broad daylight again but still the funeral procession following close right after him and Buddy feel panic.
Why they following after him? Where they going on the Drive? No cemeteries in this direction anywhere. This direction take you to the midtown city center of the power. Where’s the cemetery for the funeral behind him? Buddy switch lane. The largedark car behind him switch lane behind him and the other yellow headhearse-lit large dark cars switch into line following after Buddy.
Him Buddy start to sweat. Another stoneshed tunnel upahead and under it the first hearse pull next to Buddy make Buddy feel like a midget. Look up and see the gargoyle gladioli flowers of the funeral like watercolor swords ready to ram another any corpse around.
Buddy frantic want to separate himself from this funeral procession. Find the next exit and leave the Drive entirely. On the midtown Manhattan sidestreet from the highway Buddy wheel the car to the curb and halt the engine underneath a No Parking Anytime sign. Scared sitting in a small sweat. Buddy don’t want to drive no more. Get out and stretch his legs. (Illegal because the sign means on your seat and off your feet.)
From the East River walking west across Forty-ninth Street. Buddy want to cross Second Avenue. He look up north and see the midtown city see the carhorizon taxicolored truckcolored carcolored steel flowers for the funeral. He see the midtown city cemetery and the cold flowers the carsteel flowers filling up the land of stone.
Buddy turn to snatch his car and move it home.
ten
angela send him a letter:
Dear Buddy,
How are you?
I am fine. I am staying at St. Margaret’s in Middlebrook, New York. It’s this home for girls again.
How is your father? I hope he is feeling better.
If you want to, you can write me here. They let me get my mail if the letters are all right.
The sisters are very nice and they read my mail before I can read it.
We eat, sleep, and go to school and everything all in the same one building.
If I don’t get in trouble, I can have a visitor at the end of the month. Do you think you can come and see me?
Love,
Angela
eleven
buddy read the letter again and again. Figure the sisters must be censoring the mail, or else Angela be brain damage from when her father hit her in the head. Buddy not sure what to think, but he have hope that it be censorship. End of the month leave him one week to wait until he see her.
He start a garden. Shovel clear some walkway for the garden. Buy cement and mix it with a strong rose coloring for Angela. She will walk around the earth the color of a rose. He pour the cement mix into a S shape in the yard and around it be planting roses and chrysanthemums, a pear tree and some marigold.
Buddy like working in the dirt. He like the feel of soil under the fingernails and mud changing shape in the palm of a hand or the slight chill shiver of a slow moving earthworm.
His relatives, and even sometimes his mother far away in Barbados, they all send him, send Buddy, food money and money for clothes. Treat him like a little man. He take all the clothes money and spend it ordering seeds from a garden catalog his father always use to use, with color photographs of fruit trees and things like that.
The backyard seem like a flower island in the middle of the block. Buddy stare at the fencing separate the people keep every yard too small. Keep every yard a secret angry under the windows. The alley cats the only living action yard to yard.
Then Buddy get himself a plan and go around to make it happen. Buddy want to tear the separating fences down. At first the people tell him when he talk to them they worry that the junkies will rob and steal out stuff from the new back openspace. But Buddy argue how the back be just as hard to enter as the front of houses. So everybody try it.
Pretty soon the neighbors break the backyard open. Pull the fencing down. Stretch the yard into a park they all will share. Have a great big smoky BarBcue to celebrate. Working the ground with neighbors. Planning the backyard park so there be different things that you can use it for. Buddy be less alone and busy. They have a huge dump of sand somebody bring in and even the older kids spread into it. Have a ball. The men plan how to share the hose they have for waterplay when summer start.
Things looking up. People on the block say hello and talk awhile.
Buddy spend all the money he hold on work stuff, seed, tools, paint. He be losing weight.
He write to Angela:Last night it rain, and I go walking out. I notice how the sidewalk looks blue when it rain. So I buy some strong blue paint to paint the sidewalk strong blue all the time. Then a taxi fly by and I been thinking about your father and I look at the steps lead to the parlor. They probably look better black and yellow. Done that today. Then I buy some slick gray paint to trim the windows. I would like to paint the street a bloody red where cars go through.
But the people on the block don’t really dig all this painting that I do. They come around complaining.
Yak. Yak.
Tell me what they feed you. Good cooking is hard to come by. Do you know how? To cook?
See you soon.
Buddy
Dear Angela:
I be the first one there on Saturday, see for myself what’s happening to you.
Yesterday I make this table. Be like the Japane
se. The table seem like a triangle. One point be the food and the other points be for you and me. It stand 15 inches high, from off the floor. Like I said, you can call me Slim. I hope you slim the same. Otherwise, it be uncomfortable.
Stain it what they call a rosewood coloring. I got this thing for roses, and for you. When the table be finish, I put it next to the big floor pillows where you can lie down and listen to the phonograph, which I still ain’t finish put together, but I have in mind because of you.
Love,
Buddy
twelve
saturday arrive. Buddy driving up to Angela. Drive by houses, drive by parkside, drive by gasoline station, drive by the state police, drive by highway over the highway, drive by byways by the highway, drive by other people, other cars, traveling in the same, the opposite direction. Cross across them. Drive by boats. Drive by pond and river. Drive by train and railroad track.
Take a long time getting there.
Angela see Buddy and her heart beat hard.
She say, “You looking skinny.”
He say, “You watch out. You be like a heavyweight.”
“Sister Frances, this is Buddy Rivers.”
“How you, Sister?”
Buddy see the sister trying to hide her face from the light. Seem like she shave her face.
“Sister Mary this is my friend, Buddy Rivers.”
“How you, Sister Mary?”
Buddy notice Sister Mary look like a football fullback off the field.
“Sister Margaret, this be Buddy Rivers. He my friend from Brooklyn.”
Buddy think she look all right and wonder why the Sister Margaret be a nun.
Angela introduce Buddy to every single sister this and that. Buddy think the bunch of them be like some fallen angels. Fallen out of life.
“Ain no priests up here, Angela?”
“Why you asking me?”
“The sisters need some boyfriends. Something make them act alive. I come up and be a altar boy! Get this heavy incense. Throw it all around the chapel. Everybody be high.”
“Buddy, stop that.”
“Stop what? How you like it up here, nothing but the sisters and the girls?”
“Let’s go where we can really talk.”
“Where’s that?”
“You have to go outside. No place inside where you can be alone. Even for a minute. Even in my room I have four other girls in there with me. Everybody have the same deal. Five to a room.”
They go outside. Buddy feel like a fool to ask in case they have a rule against his holding her hand. But he don’t want to get his Angela in trouble. So they move out separated stiff.
Angela continue. Almost whisper in a hurry.
“Last week one of them attack me.”
“One of who? The sisters?”
“No, not yet. But I hear about a sister on the third floor try to kiss another sister.”
Buddy say, “Try to kiss her?” He start to laughing. “Angela you better be serious.”
“I am serious,” she say, laughing. “Half the girls be going with the other half. They don’t let you do nothing else.”
“Jesus K. Christ, what you be doing?”
“Well, I write my letters to you, you know. But they be no boys up here and we can’t see none except once a month, if we be good. One of my friends, she ask the sister can they pray for all the people who in love. The sister say that’s no kind of prayer for anybody in a chapel.”
“Dig that.”
“And another friend of mine. She suppose to get out when her birthday come. But the sister tell her she have to stay here unless she write her boyfriend and break up with him.”
“Why?”
“The sister say they be too serious.”
“Damn. What they think Jesus was into?”
“Well I don’t know what they think. Except it seem like they want us to turn into nuns like them. Buddy, I don’t want to be no nun.”
“Why you even have to say that Angela.”
Angela don’t answer right away. Buddy waiting for the answer. Look at her face and feel himself not strong enough to help.
Angela go on. “They have this system. Points. More times you go to Mass the more points you be collecting. Points mean you get privileges. Like boys once a month. Or going home for a weekend. So you try for points. Next thing you know you start feeling like already you a nun. I’m fourteen and I think about what be happening when I grow up. Do I want to be like my mother. Do I want to be a nun. And I don’t know between my mother and a nun. I don’t know no more.”
Angela sound funny. Hoarse. Buddy feel scare that she will cry.
“Angela! I break you outa here!”
“What you mean? What you saying?”
“Listen baby, I mean liberation. Here and now! All you gotta do is follow me!”
Tears come from Angela.
And Buddy feel himself whirl around and run back to the building.
Angela running after him.
Buddy bolting room by room trying to find a signal.
Find the dining room bell. And ring the bell and ring the bell and ring the bell. All the sisters run to the parlor look like overheated penguins.
All the girls run to the parlor, look like children.
Buddy ring the bell like bells be going outa style.
Bell, bell, bell.
He make a speech: “In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Mother who got together with the Father and got that Son, I liberate my Angela, here and now. This is Eastertime in Middlebrook. Love is rising up. Love is rising up. I tell you, Jesus was a one hundred percent, hip to the living, female-loving dude. A loving dude.”
Buddy make his speech, the nuns come flying at him. Gray robes, black and shapeless clouds of cloth material.
Buddy dodge among the nuns, and cry out,
“Peace, peace, sister. Find yourself a priest.”
Everything be all confuse, the sisters grabbing at each other, wide sleeves flapping furious, headpiece falling off.
The girls thrash to the doorway. Sisters like obstacles to impede and block their passage. The girls in sweaters, sisters in robes. Buddy yelling, “Peace, find yourself a priest.”
Buddy grab Angela and tackle through three sisters, their weight bewildering their movements. Buddy say, “Sing, Angela, you be singing. This is liberation!” Angela not say nothing, stay close behind Buddy. Reach the doorsill. Start they running out to the car. Get inside, discover other girls be hiding in the car. Waiting for the lift, waiting for liberation.
Buddy start the car, the car take off, they on they way. And speeding.
Tears continue from her eyes and Buddy standing still in front of Angela. Hands at his side.
Angela say, “Buddy, next weekend they let me go home. Visit my family for the weekend. Buddy. You want me to come to you then?”
Buddy answer her yes. His head feel hot. His eyes feel hot. His body cold. They plan together what will happen. When she leave her parents Sunday for the trip back up to Middlebrook. Then instead she will come to the house of Buddy and his father. Then they will then they will then they will do what they have to do. For liberation.
thirteen
buddy believing that alive mean go. He do it. He go there. Do this. Do that. Not so much the speed, but the pattern. Do it. Go there. Make a pattern. Break a pattern. Back and forward, round and round. Curve and drift. Stop to start. Start to stop. Blur and solid:When I’m alone with you
All my worries taking flight
All my sadness out of sight
When I’m alone with you
When I’m alone with you
When I’m alone
With you alone.
Buddy trying to prepare for love inside the house of his father. He nail together and he sand things smooth. Clean and clear. Write down write up long list of things he wish that he could spread around for Angela to see. Then he sit down quiet thinking songs and thinking of his father. Think-ho
w they Angela and Buddy have to find a way to stay together.
Angela come back to Brooklyn with a paper bag. When she reach the building where her family live she feel a freezing terror. But she go inside. Her brothers and her sister have been sent away and so the house seem hopeless ugly.
Angela sit down in the parlor on the couch. She waiting for her mother or her father when he will get off from working.
She check the refrigerator. Find no food. No stuff for snacking. One piece of meat be frozen rocky. Bread seem rocky. Milk smell sour. Only thing available is beer. A couple six-packs and a saucer holding gray beans leftover.
On the stove, a big pot bubbling steady full of peas and hambone.
“Angela! What you doing here?”
Her mother shut the front door and immediately call out.
“Hello, Ma.” Angela leave the kitchen and walk into the parlor where her mother have snap on one of the big lamps no one hardly use.
“They kick you out, or what?”
“I’m just visiting for the weekend.”
“Visiting! Hah. Freeloading be closer to the truth. They give you money? or do you expect that we will feed you for free?”
Angela want to sit down and be deaf. Be dumb. Be blind. She have no heart to argue with her mother. She miss her brothers and sister. Now she realize she have no home. Her family be parents beat you in the head or hate you. She mean the father mother family. Her sister and her brothers make another family where she love and care. Angela trying to think how she can come around the hatred of her mother. How she can have a home that be a happy place be better than the upstate “home” for girls.