“It is the most perfect moment that ever was.”
The time felt like no time at all, even though it is six hours. The evening is warm and easing from twilight into a navy sky. I’m feeling lost as to what to do with these last moments with him. A gray-haired older white man in a gray suit approaches us. Earlier he had introduced himself as a warden at the prison where Afua was locked up. Mr. Belfield. He was a direct but kind man.
He warns us that we’ve only got thirty minutes left for Afua’s visit, but if we’d like, Life Wish has arranged for us to ride the Cyclone.
“You’ll have the whole ride to yourself for one loop. Apparently one of Life Wish’s board members wanted to make sure you two had this opportunity. She said no visit to Coney Island is complete without riding the Cyclone.” He says this with a tender smile, but I can tell he’s a little confused about the arrangement.
“I love roller coasters. I’m in,” I say, without a second thought.
Afua looks between me and the warden, hesitant. His eyes settle, then he nods.
“Yes, thank you. I wonder if it is still as rickety,” he says.
“I’m sure it is,” says the warden, and we are guided by the armed security alongside our familial entourage to the Cyclone.
* * *
• • •
I hear it before I see it. A series of loud metal clicks pause and then you hear a whoosh and a loud flutter of screams. The roller coaster is made of steel and wood painted beach white, like it was found washed up from the ocean. Like a shell, belonging to another time. Audre slides by security, gets close to me, and squeezes me tenderly.
“You couldn’t pay me to ride on this blasted, shaky thing.”
“You would definitely pee your pants,” I tell her, and she kisses me on the cheek.
Afua is helped into the car by security and then handcuffed to the ride.
I slide in the red leather interior beside him in the very front seat. I slip around on the leather as I settle in.
“Enjoy the ride, baby. We’ll be right here,” my mama says. She and my dad both are smiling at me with Sahir beside them. I look over at Afua, and he is looking ahead and a bit nervous.
“I can’t believe I used to ride this shit as a kid. I’m feeling afraid. I don’t know if my little jailbird heart can take it.”
“Don’t worry. How many people have taken this ride before? We got this.” I feel bold in that truth.
“You’re right. Let’s see what this ride got.” He grabs the bar in front of us, smiles at me and then faces ahead. We hear a big click, and the cars begin to move. After what seems like forever, our car edges to the highest beam-and-plank summit on the ride. We both gasp at the sight ahead of us. All we see is the limitless black sky and all we hear is the roar ahead before we descend into an unknown thrill.
AUDRE
AT THE END OF THE CYCLONE, the caterpillar of cars returned to its starting place, but their car released nothing more than two butterflies into the stars.
They freed themselves. Mabel and Afua are gone, only the handcuffs remain dangling from the lap bar. No one could explain it, but somehow I understood. The sky reclaimed them somewhere between the ocean and its blackness.
I knew the sky was speaking Spirit. I felt it the moment we reached the water that day and Mabel was as sparkly as the diamond reflections on ocean water. There was a zook that let me know Spirit was moving with us. I felt something limitless in my heart, when we was arm and arm and we give them white flowers to the goddess of protection and the mother of all waters. She, the one who cleanse our sorrow and hold our dreams. I felt it again when the sky was merging with ocean as they were devoured into twilight and then night.
I feel Mabel. She is with me always. I feel she, a sweet electricity that has belonged to every heart that has known this ancient and sacred kind of loving. The kind of love you eat like a raspberry from each fingertip or like a mango, ripe and unleashed in love and sharing. A love that carries lifetimes of sweetness and care.
Mabel. Loving on you is prayer, like the prayers of bees is honey. We loved on each other like we always been. My fingers caressed your naps in this life. It placed oils. And we was infinite and knew how to love. On the scalp. Along the cornrow and on each other. These coilings was anointed like a real love. We was a cosmic conversation, before I even met you in this life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The journey of writing this book was profound and juicy, and along the way, I was blessed to realize that I was surrounded by so much love, magic, sweetness, and power. Thank you to all of the wild witches, wizards, deities, shaman, and soul sweeteners in my life, known and unknown, named and unnamed, who have shown me love, wisdom, and protection in my journey. So much love to all of my ancestors whose blood and magnificent existence protect, empower, and celebrate me. Sweet and glittery gratitude to my queer ancestors for your magic and fierceness.
Profound gratitude to the Leo Queen, Whitney Houston, for being a divinely important ancestor to this work and helping draw it out in ways that were tender and curious.
Limitless gratitude to: The divine Alexis DeVeaux, who was the Queenie to my Audre. Thank you for being another wild mommy to me and doula-ing me into an author with all of the sweetness and Libra beauty you hold. My editor, Andrew Karre, for everything. To have a Virgo editor for such a dreamy and layered book was what I needed. You are an amazing person and editor, and I was very lucky to have you on this journey. My gratitude is overwhelming. My agent, Tina DuBois, for being so encouraging and thoughtful at every turn of my journey with this book. Thank you for your fierceness and believing in me, my writing, and this book in ways that truly have empowered me as a writer. You are a jewel. Shannon Gibney, thank you so much for your belief in me and for making a life-changing introduction! You are my big sister in this work and I’m so grateful for you and your brilliance and passion.
So much love and appreciation to: My wifey for lifey, Ngowo Nuemeh, for being on this and all journeys with me. Your love and support made me strong and tender for this work. Your snuggles and cooking and patience while I did my wild and emo artist writer thing was sweetening and nourishing. I love you so much, my Leo king lover of Sweetness! MWAH!! To my baby bear Isley Nuemeh and my goddess-chile Sanyah for reminding me through example to honor my little Juji in all ways.
Gratitude to: My parents, Ingrid and Melvin, for errrrthang. Mom for your sweetness and wildness and all of my Trini-ness. Dad for your complexity and limitlessness. Thank you as always for the spaceships of your bodies and the blessings of your souls. To my grandmas, ancestral grandfathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunties, tanties, nieces, nephews, cousins, and dem who been in this life and journey with me and who have supported me in so many ways and been spaces of love and connection.
Special and sweet thank you to: My Trinidadian family, Kelvin, Ann Marie, Roslyn, Tantie Roma, Tantie Patsy, Gemma, Alana, Sparkle, Khalid, Amanda, and all who welcomed me with love and openness and shared stories. To Tony for driving me all over the island and having philosophical conversations with me. Denicia, Shaden, Leah, Dannii, Adisa, and Stephanie, y’all introduced me to a dimension of Trinidad that I so deeply needed and the book was better for it. Angelique Nixon, for opening your home and for introductions, vibes, earthquakes, homemade meals, and cute cats.
Special thanks to: Lisa Allen Agostini for walking the streets of Port of Spain with me and giving me your time, humor, and warmth while in Trinidad. Thank you for bringing me to connect with your group of teen writers in POS. Your insights about spirituality in Trinidad were so important to me and this book. Malaika and Richie Maitland for your time, stories, and introductions for this project. Erin Sharkey for being a Sagittarian goddess, with your support and encouragement for me and this work and just being an amazing friend and co-creator. Valerie, my Aquarian soul sister, for reading this book at various stages and loving me and witching wi
th me in this lifetime. Mackenzie, my Libra bamboo boo! Thank you for your love and belief in my emo ass and dreamo sessions. Sharon Bridgforth, a loving mentor and whisperer of all things sweet, queer, our people, and jazz. Senah for reading the manuscript at so many different points in the process, offering encouragement and being an important nerd on my path. Bao Phi, Diane Wilson, Nneka Onwuzurike, Jessica Lopez Lyman, and my Beyond the Pure Cohort for giving feedback to early drafts of this work.
Thank you to: Zyon Gray and Wendell Jones for your astrological wisdoms and brilliance, as well as sharing your stories and experiences with me. Naimonu Jones, Chani Nicholas, Rob Breszny, Alice Sparkly Cat, Imani Cohen/The Hood Healer, Joanna Martine Woolfolk, Linda Goodman, and countless astrologers on page and online who have inspired me in the radical and ancestral magic of astrology.
Thank you to: Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Sangodare for being so warm and sweet in your support and magnificent in your magic. Tananarive Due for being one of the realest and sweetest in the game and for empowering speculative stories from magical souls. VONA and all of the staff, faculty, and writers who created a beautiful and encouraging space for my writing. My whole Speculative Fiction Crew, Aaron, Ariel, Jacqueline, Joseph, Latanya, Maya, Muriel, Nia, Rosana, Stefani, T.K.!! The limitless emo nerdery of our communal love was such a sacred well for my heart and soul. adrienne maree brown, for all that you have done to encourage and support pleasure in this world, in my spirit, and within this book. Nicole Asong Nfonoyim-Hara, Kylie Osterhaus, and Christina Beck for giving me space to write in beauty in ways that were so important. Turkey Land Cove for the time, space, and pampering while at a critical time of my writing this book. My land-dyke and friend Erika Thorne for being amazing and supportive.
Thank you to all of the teachers and students of the Minnesota Prison Writer’s Workshop. I write this book to remember all of the millions of souls who will sleep behind bars under the same stars as me and away from their families and how our society must do better by you. Thank you to Mumia Abu-Jamal, asha bandele, Angela Y. Davis, Assata Shakur, Stanley Tookie Williams, Malcolm X, and countless stories and books I have read from people who have experienced and lived with and through incarceration. You shaped and transformed how I understood the prison and legal system in this country. Your accounts were transformative to me and my life journey. Thank you to Orisanmi Burton, who gave me critical insights and references for the Afua sections.
Thank you to every young person I have worked with from Powderhorn to Harlem. You were in my heart anytime I struggled with the soul of this piece. Thank you.
Thank you to the Jerome Foundation, Art Matters, Minnesota State Arts Board, The Pillsbury House, The Loft, and Intermedia Arts for generous support towards the completion of this manuscript.
Thank you to Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, Bilal, June Jordan, Dizzy Gillespie, Sade, Sun Ra, Nina Simone, The Roots, Laurie Carlos, Rosa Guy, Grace Jones, Prince, Thelonious Monk, Missy Elliott, Alice Coltrane, Dr. Sebi, Queen Afua, Kiese Laymon, Marlon James, Donte Collins, De La Soul, Janelle Monáe, Tupac Shakur, Lauryn Hill, Billie Holiday, Ntozake Shange, Erik Ehn, Haruki Murakami, Erykah Badu, Yasiin Bey, The Pharcyde, Biggie, Sokari Ekine, Saidiya Hartman, Roxane Gay, Edwidge Danticat, Talib Kweli, Queen Latifah, and countless and limitless other creators for creating art that helped inspire me to become the writer, artist, thinker, and revolutionary that I am and inspired this book in some way.
THE STARS AND THE BLACKNESS BETWEEN THEM:
A Playlist
“Consideration” — Rihanna
“My Love Is Your Love” — Whitney Houston
“Everything Is Everything” — Lauryn Hill
“Come Over” — The Internet
“Pop Life” — Prince
“So Afraid” — Janelle Monáe
“Pink + White” — Frank Ocean
“Concrete Jungle”— Bob Marley and the Wailers
“Lucy” — Destra Garcia
“Scenario” — A Tribe Called Quest
“Tempo” — Lizzo (feat. Missy Elliott)
“Butterflies” — Floetry
“Between Us 2” — Shafiq Husayn (feat. Bilal)
“Your House” — Steel Pulse
“Pelas Sombras” — Arthur Verocai
“Superwoman” — Stevie Wonder
“Thieves in the Night” — Black Star
“O.D.O.O.” — Fela Kuti
“Beyond the Shore (Badaba)” — MMYYKK
“Alone & Unafraid” — Eliza
“Telephone” — Erykah Badu
“Umi Says” — Mos Def
“Tender Love” — Meshell Ndegeocello
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Junauda Petrus is a writer, pleasure activist, filmmaker and performance artist, born on Dakota land of Black-Caribbean descent. Her work centers around wildness, queerness, Black-diasporic-futurism, ancestral healing, sweetness, shimmer and liberation. She lives in Minneapolis with her wife and family. www.junauda.com
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The Stars and the Blackness Between Them Page 25