by Ibi Zoboi
“Great.” Donna sighs. “Now you look like Rosa Parks. Let’s at least do your face so you look like Nicki Minaj.”
“No!” I say, shaking my head. “No makeup.”
“Dammit, Chantal!” Donna says. “There you go. You got your own twin now.” She grabs her makeup box and wigs and leaves the room.
I don’t know if she was joking or really angry that I liked the hairstyle.
“Ha-ha! You lost!” Pri yells to her. “Chantal and her corny-librarian hairdo won.”
I only add lip gloss to my face. I lick my fingers and smooth down my eyebrows like my mother has done for me so many times. I look clean and decent. But now I have to find a good outfit to match my new hair. I search my mother’s suitcase for one of her dresses—a red one with tiny flowers. It reaches to the middle of my calves, but otherwise, it fits perfectly.
“Oh, no,” Pri says. “Don’t tell me you’re wearing that. Girls will jump you for going out with fine-ass Kasim and looking like a church lady.”
“Leave her alone,” Chantal says. “You look cute.”
“Cute.” Pri snorts under her breath. “As long as it helps you keep them legs closed and hold out for a long time. I mean, a long-ass time.”
But I don’t want to look like a church lady. I still want to look . . . good. So I take off my mother’s church dress and put on a plain sweatshirt that belongs to Chantal and a pair of new jeans. I wear the Air Jordans that Pri picked out for me, but I keep my hairstyle. Now I don’t look so . . . Haitian. So immigrant.
I fix my face in the mirror again to make me look serious, almost like Chantal’s, a little bit like Pri’s, with a touch of Donna.
“Okay. That’s better, I guess,” Chantal says. “Where’s he taking you anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if it’s to his house, ask him to bring you back here right away.”
“And if it’s to someone else’s house,” Pri adds, “tell him ‘Take me the fuck home!’ Say it just like that. Let me hear you.”
I know she’s tricking me just so she can make fun of my accent and make me sound stupid. My curses are all wrong. My swag, as they call it, is off. But in my head, I sound just like them. I sound American.
I fix my lips and make a face until it feels just like Pri’s, and I say, “Take me the fuck home!”
Both my cousins burst into laughter. Even Donna comes into the room just to drop her body onto Chantal’s, hold her belly, and laugh from a deep, joyful place. I look into the mirror and watch myself say those words over and over again, and each time, my cousins laugh harder.
“Yo, Fab! It’s fuck. Not fork!” Pri manages to say between laughs.
When the doorbell rings, we all look out the window to see Dray’s white car parked at the curb. Donna runs down to open the door and she calls my name. It’s Kasim. He’s driving Dray’s car to take me on our date.
Kasim has flowers and he’s dressed in a nice black coat, black pants, and shiny black shoes. His hair is shorter and neater and he’s wearing glasses. He looks really good, but that car makes my insides feel like a hurricane. I don’t want to get in, but I don’t have a choice.
He must’ve seen me staring, because he says, “Dray told me I could use it. He likes you. He thinks we look good together.” He rushes to open the passenger-side door. I look toward the corner where Bad Leg usually sits. There’s no one there. Not even the streetlight shines. The plastic bucket is gone.
I turn to the house to see my cousins’ faces pressed against the top-floor window. “Is it okay, Donna, if I sit here?” I call out nice and loud.
She gives me the middle finger.
I slide onto the leather seat and it smells like lemons. I sniff and sniff, searching the air for some remnant of Dray and his bitter-mint-and-sweet-smoke smell—marijuana. But there’s nothing but lemons.
“Oh, I got it cleaned before I came here,” Kasim says as he presses the button that starts the car. “I know it’s not mine and all, so I wanted it to have a different smell, a different feel. All right with you?”
I smile and nod.
He turns on the radio and I brace myself for that heavy bass music. But it’s something different. Something like jazz, but still hip-hop. I look at him. He looks at me and smiles. I start moving to the beat a little. He does the same and turns up the volume. The rapper’s voice is smooth, as if he’s reciting love poems. I’ve never heard anything like it, and a chill travels up my back, making me smile wider than I probably have in a long time.
“You like that?” he asks.
I nod.
“J Dilla. Detroit legend. He died when I was little. I’m into the classics, but all Detroit, all day. Motown, J Dilla, Slum Village.” He pulls the car away from the curb and his voice blends well with the music, as if he’s a background rapper for this J Dilla.
“What about Eminem?” I ask.
Kasim laughs. “Slim Shady? What’d you do, watch 8 Mile before you got here? You need to upgrade your info, Ms. Fabulous. You heard of Big Sean?”
He presses some buttons near the dashboard and the music changes. It’s something familiar I’ve heard on the radio in Chantal’s car. Kasim raises the volume and he dances while slowly turning down the corner of Joy Road.
And there is Papa Legba, leaning on his cane with a cigar in his mouth and looking straight into the car with his gleaming white eyes. My skin crawls, and suddenly what was just a smooth hip-hop song now sounds like heavy conga drums—a downbeat rhythm, like for the Petwo lwas, the fiery spirits signaling danger ahead. My stomach twists into a knot and I almost want to tell Kasim to stop the car and let me out.
But he reaches over and eases his hand into my hand as we drive past Bad Leg, and my stomach settles, my thoughts calm. And we stay like that for the whole ride down Joy Road, until we reach the highway. Then he drives into downtown, toward Broadway Street, where we reach a wide, brightly lit tall building that’s just for cars. We park Dray’s car, then walk in the same direction as the other people coming out of nice cars and wearing fancy coats and high-heel shoes. I look over at Kasim and down at my own clothes, and begin to feel very underdressed for whatever this surprise date will be.
We get in line for a theater called the Detroit Opera House. A poster near the entrance has a photo of a lean, muscular dancing black couple and the name ALVIN AILEY. It’s a dance performance. Within seconds, everything from the past few weeks that has caused me so much worry melts away like ice in the sun.
“I’m guessing you like dance, seeing how you was trying to do the Detroit Jit back at that party,” Kasim says, easing closer to me as the line moves.
I nod because I’m speechless. I’ve seen live dancers before, at folklore festivals in Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes. And at parties where Haitians dance to compas as if they’re on Dancing with the Stars. But never anyone like the ones on that poster, with legs and arms as long as the sky stretches. And never with such people for an audience—all black people with their faces smiling bright, the sounds of their voices all around us like music. It’s as if I’m mingling with the bourgeois businesspeople and entertainers from Petionville. I keep my eyes on one beautiful couple where the woman’s hair sits high and round on top of her head like Jesus’s halo. She and her man hold hands and kiss and talk and kiss some more.
My eyes are so fixed on them that I jump when Kasim puts his arm around me. Then I realize that we are not as beautiful, I am not as beautiful as that woman. I remember what I have on—jeans, a plain sweatshirt, sneakers, and Pri’s oversized coat. I gasp and cross my arms across my chest.
“Kasim, I can’t go in there like this,” I whisper. “You didn’t tell me that I had to dress up.”
He looks down at me. “You look good. You got on your Jordans, some nice tight jeans. If anybody look at you funny, you tell ’em you reppin’ the west side.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m serious. This is a nice event and I could’ve worn something nice. You have on good clothes
.”
“That’s ’cause I was trying to impress you, not them. I wanna show you that I could be bougie, too. Remember? Do some bougie shit with my bougie girl.”
“Kasim!” I look away from him because I want to go home and change.
“Hey.” He turns me around and gets really close to my face. “All that matters is that you’re bougie on the inside. You could be from poor-ass Haiti or live in a trailer park, but as long as you have a bougie heart, you can aim for the finer things in life.”
He makes his face look very serious, as if he’s a professor. His glasses slide to the tip of his nose and he looks out at me from the top of the frames. I laugh and lean into him. He pulls me in and wraps his arms around me. He holds me tighter and kisses the top of my head. I sniff his shirt, then lift my head to take in the bare skin of his neck. It’s a mix of sweetness and too-strong cologne. I only move because we’re at the front of the line and we have to go inside. When he hands over the two tickets to the usher, I see that they cost over one hundred dollars each.
I forget every single thing in the world, every heartache, every tear, every pain as I watch that performance. The dancers, the music, the lights, the people in the theater are all so beautiful that I want to wear them on my skin for the rest of my life. And Manman. If only I can wrap everything that I’m experiencing and place it in a box as a gift for her. I would put into the box the dancers and music and the whole theater as if they are perfectly wrapped clothes and jewelry. I must bring her here when she comes.
“How much were the tickets?” I ask Kasim as we’re walking back to the car.
“Excuse me, that’s not a polite question, Ms. Fabulous.”
“I don’t want you to spend so much money on me. You have your mother, that shitty car, and don’t you want to go back to school? That’s what you said.”
He laughs a little. “I think it’s so cute the way you say ‘shitty.’”
“Kasim?”
“All right.” He stops in front of Dray’s car. “I’m not a baller, Fabulous. But you’re different from a lot of these other girls out here. I mean, they might make fun of how you talk and all, but you’re more bougie than a whole lot of these girls. And by bougie, I mean classy shit. Like going to the theater instead of the movies. My uncle taught me that. To be honest, I got the tickets from him.”
I pull the coat’s hood up over my head because the wind is getting colder and stronger. The headlights from other people’s cars are like the lights on the stage, making everything bright and then dark over and over again. “Your uncle seems like a nice man.”
“Yeah. Well, Q is not my real uncle. He’s Dray’s uncle, but it’s like he’s everybody’s uncle. Shit. He might even be your uncle.”
He opens the car door for me as I let his last words settle in my bones. “My uncle?” I ask when he gets in the car.
“Yeah, Uncle Q. He owns Q over there on West Chicago. That’s his club, practically his block. That’s where he runs his business. And that’s where I first fell in love.” He turned to me and smiled extra wide, showing his teeth.
“Why would he be my uncle, too? I had an uncle. My cousins’ father.”
“Oh, yeah. The legendary Haitian Phil.”
“What?”
“Pri won’t ever let anybody forget her father. She’s always swearing on his grave, right before she gets to stompin’ on some girl’s face. ‘I swear on my father’s grave this, I swear on my father’s grave that.’ And whoever be working for Uncle Q, she won’t ever let them forget that it was her father, Haitian Phil, who went down for Q.”
“What? Went down for Q?” I ask again. This time I’m staring at him with my eyes wide and my ears even wider.
“Damn, Fabulous. Your cousins don’t tell you shit. Good. Stay out of it. West side logic, Detroit politics, as I like to say. I don’t fuck with any of that shit. And neither should you.”
Maybe this is Papa Legba’s doing—making Kasim talk more than he should. Teaching me about Dray and Q and Uncle Phil. Suddenly I feel caught up in something bigger than myself. If he can tell me what I need to know about Dray, maybe Kasim will finally be the key that will help me pull my mother through to this side.
I don’t ask any more questions—instead, right before Kasim pushes the button to start the car, I pull on the sleeve of his coat, lean over, and kiss him on the cheek. He turns to me and I kiss him on the lips. Then he turns his whole body to me, takes my face with both his hands, and kisses me long and deep.
When we drive back to American Street, all the lights look brighter, maybe there are more stars in the sky, and this city is more beautiful than it has ever been.
FIFTEEN
THE LAST FEW nights have been a mix of strange feelings stirring in my belly. I am warm honey when I think of Kasim. And then I become an empty coconut shell without its sweet water and flesh when I think of my mother. Maybe every cell in my body is starting to feel her absence. Even my own hair is longing for her thick fingers in my scalp—the way she would part and grease and braid and hum and tell sad or funny stories. My skin aches for that sizzling midday Port-au-Prince sun when sweat would ease down my forehead and back. Still, there is a sliver of hope now that I am close to the information I need. When my mother comes, she will be the bright midday sun that will warm up these cold days and nights. I can almost feel her presence as morning creeps in through the window and reaches me on the air mattress.
So I stay in bed.
Even as my cousins get ready and tell me over and over again to get up, I stay there.
“Fab, if you don’t feel well, I have to call the school so they don’t think you’re cutting,” Chantal says while standing over me.
“My belly hurts,” I lie. What I want to say is that my heart hurts for Manman.
“Okay. I’ll call the school. But you have to make up the homework. Okay?”
I nod and pull the covers up over my head. I need this day to think and plan.
After my cousins leave for school, I go downstairs to make some tea. This is how Manman and I would plan our next move—over some tea or coffee. All I want is my mother here with me—her voice, her jokes, her cooking, her advice. What would she think of my cousins? What would she and Matant Jo be doing all day together? What would she think of Kasim? What would she say to Donna about her mean boyfriend?
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My mother and I had been so happy, so excited because all our dreams were coming true. We were supposed to all be together—my aunt, my cousins, my mother, and I. And in just a few hours everything changed. Everything.
Back upstairs, I drop my body down onto Chantal’s bed, press my face against her pillow, and scream. Drops of anger trickle out, little by little, as if every single setback over these past few weeks has exploded. Tiny bombs escape me. I sob and my body shakes trying to get everything out.
I take Chantal’s blanket, wrap it around me, and pretend it’s my mother’s arms. I rock myself until there is nothing left but my small whimpers. I’m like an infant, slowly sliding into sleep.
Hush, little baby
Don’t say a word.
His song travels to the window and gives a gentle knock. I get up and pull the curtain back. His overturned plastic bucket is there. His songs return.
Papa’s gonna release
Your little jailbird.
I throw on some clothes, grab a coat, and rush outside. I slow down as I get closer. There’s something different about him. His left leg is still limp in front of him, the cane is leaning against the lamppost, and, again, he has a cigar in his hand. I watch for the dancing smoke, but the cigar isn’t lit like it was the night of my date with Kasim on Saturday. Nor is the streetlight. It’s daytime. This is the first time I’ve seen Papa Legba when the sun is high in the sky.
“You are early,” I say.
Just an early bird
Bringing the word.
“What’s the word, Papa Legba?”
Word on the streets,<
br />
Or word on the beat?
“Street? Beat? What? You always have tricks, eh, Legba?”
Word on the street is word on the block
Word on the block is word in that house
Word in that house is word on that door
Word on that door is word on his soul
Word on his soul is word on my tomb
Word on my tomb does not spell doom.
With that last verse, Papa Legba’s cigar lights up, the streetlight buzzes, and as if God suddenly threw a blanket over this part of Detroit, a heavy cloud blocks the sun and it becomes dark. Thunder rolls across the sky and I look down, not up, because I’ve heard this sound before.
I was only a little girl when my home was almost split in half. And while everyone around me thought the sky was coming apart right above our heads, it was the ground that was surrendering under the weight of our heavy burdens. And maybe this corner of American and Joy is collapsing under the weight of all that troubles me, too—we left everything we loved behind in Haiti and my mother was put into something like jail. And now, a detective has asked me to sacrifice a bad guy so my mother can be free. Sacrifice. We cannot get something for nothing, Manman always says. Prayers, songs, and offerings are not enough. We have to meet God halfway. So I know what I must do.
Heavy raindrops begin to pound on my head like drums, and when I look up, Bad Leg is gone. Papa Legba’s words were street, block, house, door, soul, tomb, and doom. I pause on the word block. I’ve heard Kasim say it before—block. I didn’t know if he meant a block of ice, or a cinder block, but he said block and that an Uncle Q owns it. Along with that club.
I step away from the house. I have to go find this block, this street, this house, this door to the club, to this underworld where Dray resides. I pull the hood of my coat up over my head, and it’s thick enough to keep the rainwater away from my hair. My Jordans are getting muddy, and if Pri sees them like this, she will fight me. She cleans hers with a toothbrush every night, even though she wears a different pair the next day.