“And when my baby says, it’s too late, sorree …” In unison they crossed their arms over their chests and dropped their heads sorrowfully. “It just backs me up and turns me rrrrround.” They crossed their legs over and turned with a back leg hop-slide that drew a trickle of applause from some of the audience, who didn’t know the best was yet to come. “But I keep on coming, just keep on coming on strong.” The three, in precisioned timing, spun as if on ball bearings, then, hands at waist like Baptist preachers, they shuffled one-leg, hopped, then strode boldly to the railing, gliding on the last beat. “Cause that’s the kind of man I am.”
Ruby was enjoying the serenade. But as she looked from the 7 Arts stencil to Jan, thinking about the rumor and Jan’s close connection with the cowboy fringe at the Academy, she buried her mouth in her hands and frowned. She could actually picture her friend passing out rifles like so many report cards: “Be sure to get these signed, boys, and bring them back as clean as you got them.”
Jan, smiling, a little embarrassed by the attention, was looking from the brothers to Ruby, thinking about the rumor and Ruby’s association with the more militaristic hotheads. She imagined them lined up at her shop—and Ruby outfitting the youths in chest plates and shields—“And the rat-teeth muthafucka that dulls the shine on my masterpieces better not come back here without his own chamois cloth.”
The whole café on that side broke into enthusiastic applause, Rising Sun banging his ivory holder against the side of his wine glass, capturing Iris’ attention if not Mai’s. The boys stepped back in unison, spun, snapped out a bow from the waist, and continued on down the street, slapping five.
The two women avoided each other’s eyes for a moment until the singing dimmed and the trio crossed over toward Gaylord, heading for the Academy. Jan and Ruby watched, bobbing their heads and smiling rather than trusting themselves to comment on the talent, the youth, anything. Both fished amongst the objects on the table, hunting for the thread of the conversation that had been interrupted.
“Velma’s predisposed to strife and conflict and crises. It’s how she learns, by struggling through. One of the things about her chart—”
“Janice, please. None of that dharma, karma, brahma stuff. I’m up to here. Getting so I can’t get a decent conversation nowhere in this city. Don’t anybody talk political anymore, talk Black anymore? If it ain’t degree degree, it’s job job, boogie boogie, or some esoteric off-the-wall sun/moon shit. Look, the main thing I wish you’d get serious about is the next election. You really must.”
“You know, Ruby, you ought to settle down and have babies. Can’t leave it to the kids and fools, ya know,” Jan said, browsing through the wine list.
“You’re not funny, but I’ll get off your case.” There was still the rest of the night to get done what the group’d assigned her; it really was a serious matter. And Janice was such an excellent worker. Ruby reared back in her chair and gazed about. “Speaking of kids and fools, there goes my cousin Buster up the way. Developing into a first-class ass. Was bugging everybody at the Academy this morning trying to find out what the Brotherhood’s up to for the procession. It’s embarrassing, cool as I am, having a jerk for a relative.”
“And what is the Brotherhood up to?”
“You know better than me.” Ruby shrugged and once again their eyes bounced away.
“Your cousin looks pregnant, Ruby.”
“You’re sharp. He is. His body’s taken on the weight his mind still refuses to accept. Very young the girl. Fifteen or something and none too swift. There ought to be a workshop at the Manhood Conference on pregnant fathers, a much-neglected topic. When’s the last time you heard a decent discussion of pregnant men and male menopause and male moon cycles and the like?”
“Last time us sisters got together.”
“I mean in an official way?”
“Ain’t sisters’ rapping official enough for you?”
“Jot some notes on the subject on the back of that questionnaire.”
“I wish I could say I was too busy enjoying the music to be bothered.”
The musicians in the café were attempting Latin. The speakers were hung over the espresso machine and music wafted out of doors on the aroma of espresso. Iris dropped out of the conversation long enough to calculate the months since she’d strolled up Broadway in the afternoon, checking the prices of avocados, mangoes, sugar cane along the way to her favorite China y Latina near the Olympia movie house. And how long it would be before she’d hear again Yorican spoken unself-consciously as opposed to the way she composed her pieces. How long it would be before she would have rice and squid again at El Mundial with loudmouths who knew how to eat, or something fancy at Victor’s with Paco, go to the mercado under the viaduct and shop for the old woman who ran the botánica on the first floor of her apartment building, dance with Popi in the street while his cronies kept time bongoing on the checkerboard or beer-can timbale-ing or slamming down dominoes singing with their eyes closed and always corazón, corazón and love ever siempre and passion caliente, and a high-note esperanza lifting the old men from the chairs and their pants baggy but the singing magnificent.
Easier to feel the distance from New York—pain, than from home—vague. The old streetcar sheds of Piedras, the casino on the hill behind the firehouse in Ponce, the resort Paco had taken her to in Rincón for their honeymoon. It was dim, a lot less vibrant than the New York memories. She could barely remember anything about home, for home had really begun with the Mobilization for Youth theatre project, the St. Mark’s poetry group, the committees of defense for Carlos Feliciano, the Puerto Rican Student Union at City College, and then the Young Lords. She’d written faithfully to compañeros of CAFU, a feminist action group that had sent expressions of solidarity to the Young Lords in the early seventies when she’d been correspondence secretary. She’d kept up communications over the years with most of the Independentistas, FUPI, JIU, MPI, who had direct and immediate links with groups in New York. But she’d gotten cut off in a way traveling with the troupe: transplants all, Inez from farm valley country, Chezia from the Tupercuin hills, Nilda from the contested Black Hills, Mai from the hills of San Francisco they liked to joke, or the paddy fields of Berkeley, Cecile from a maroon community in the hills of Jamaica. Only Palma was at home, and not even, she said it herself. Home was with them or in the studio or with her main man. But “eventually we all come to the hills,” like in the poem. And they had to evoke it with music, dance and encantados.
Iris had ordered a fruit salad, a bowl of plantain chips, a sweet roll or bun if they had, and coffee, explaining carefully to the waiter that she wanted the coffee in a bowl and wanted the milk scalded. She was trying to stay awake till it got there. She had toyed with the idea of taking a leave and making a quick run to New York, but the group had dwindled so fast. And she’d promised. There was a Black Women’s Conference in New Orleans to start with. A major reading sponsored by the Before Columbus Book Project to end with, just days before she was due in Mayagüez for the start of summer session, not even enough time to lock herself up with the Berlitz long players. The kind of Spanish demanded at U. of Mayagüez she wasn’t putting down at all, nada nada. But in between New Orleans and the Bay area were several campus appearances, a benefit for the farm workers’ union, some kind of Black and Indian thing that was jumping off right after the Tuskegee air show, and two visits to the joint. Iris got weary just thinking about it all. But that was always the way. The minute they got to setting up, though, it was all beautiful again, things popped, and she cooked.
“I think they’re friends of Palma and Velma’s, yes?” Mai was jabbing her pen in the direction of two women by the railing clinking glasses of white wine. “Maybe they know where Velma is. We should ask?”
Iris nodded yeh maybe, noticing how dragged out they all were. It seemed an effort for Chezia to turn her head. Cecile was bent over her plate, shrugging. Nilda had opened her eyes long enough to notice only half her order had
come and now seemed fast asleep. Iris said nothing further, just smiled as Mai smiled when the two women looked their way. She was content to sit there and listen to the music. She listened for all of eight bars, hunting up under the trumpet for the congas. She had seen the musicians go by and knew not to expect much. Ersatz salsa. She thought of the last time she’d caught Ray Baretta. It had been too long. La Lupe. She could cry, it had been that long. La Lupe, La Lupe, La Lupe. The thought of recruiting La Lupe as the next Sister of the Plantain woke her up. It was wild. It was perfect. La Lupe, her replacement.
“Taste, Iris. It’s billed as a piña colada. Tell me I’m not crazy.”
Iris waved Cecile’s glass away. She was saving herself for the black-bean coffee, drowsing in her chair thinking of how Paco made it with the nasty sock thing and wondering if he’d started packing yet, sent out any feelers, found a lead on a job yet. They were both going to try to get through law school together. It was loco, but.
“This is the kind of rum we use back home for cooking.” Cecile was pouting, flirting with Campbell. “You don’t drink it, brudder, you light it up.” He took her glass away, very noticeably not flirting back. Cecile and Iris exchanged eyebrow lifts and slumped in their seats a bit, trying to second-guess where the wind would spring up next, under Cecile’s hat which was Nilda’s, under the tablecloth edge, under Mai’s dress.
“I hope it doesn’t rain,” Cecile said, motioning toward Nilda, who sat beyond the shadow of the awning. “How would we get her to move?”
“Self-centered? But that’s a good thing, Ruby. Velma’s never been the center of her own life before, not really.”
“You mean that Obie and the kid is the sun the dear sister revolves around or what-have-you?”
“No.” Jan sucked at her sticky fingers. “Neither of them, but especially Velma,” she emphasized, “ever set things up so they could opt for a purely personal solution.”
“Quotes around ‘personal,’ if you please.”
“I hear you. It’s like what you were saying earlier about wanting to retreat from confusion to your shop, just you and the jewelry making. Confined space, everything under your sure control. Not that you mean it. But that’s what I mean by ‘personal.’ Velma has worked hard not to hollow out a safe corner—yeh, quotes around the safe—of home, family, marriage and then be less responsive, less engaged. Dodgy business trying to maintain the right balance there, the personal and the public, the club/heart cluster versus spades/diamonds, and a sun and Venus in Aquarius … Ahh, I knew I’d get a rise out of you, Ruby. But it’s good she has put herself at center at last. If that’s what you meant by ‘self-centered.’ ”
“Jan, I’m sick of the subject.”
Ruby sighed and clasped her hands behind the chair and cracked her elbows. “I think my ass is falling asleep and my legs too. I also think this has been the first conversation we have ever had out of doors that didn’t get interrupted thoroughly by some joker sidling up with the ‘hey mama’ or ‘hey foxes’ like what we could possibly be talking about is nothing compared to some off-the-wall nonsense a brother could lay down. Don’t cloud up. I’m just stalling, that’s all. Trying not to be an alarmist. Last time I pronounced somebody crazy, you were ready to line up the psychiatrists. Remember? You went tearing after Tina Mason’s mother to get her to tackle Tina to the mat?”
“You really had me going.”
“Now, that bitch is really crazy, that Tina. Do you know what her latest thing is? She’s got the studio over the Regal now. And she plans to revive the ancient Earth Mother cult. Got posters, buttons, flyers, costumes, the works. And guess who she plans to cast in the role of ancient primavera, support stockings and all? The boardinghouse lady who’s great-grand-somebody got Harpers Ferry rolling. What’s her name? The one whose son got messed over in the antidraft rally the year we met.”
“Sophie Heywood.”
“Now, can you imagine that old bird traipsing down the street with Tina’s crew in their X-rated all in all, a daisy chain around her head, flinging yams and golden delicious apples to the multitudes?”
“As a matter of fact, I can. Mrs. Heywood will be riding the Parade float this festival.”
“And half her mixed-bag crew of witches are doing this dance on the Heights Saturday night called Freedom in Romany for the Gypsies. That’s a dance. You should see the flyer. And check this—she calls me to ask if Nate would be interested in joining her band of merrymakers—”
“And would he?”
“Nigguh pul-leeze. Who? That bitch crazier’n hell. But I’m not talking about that brand of lunacy. Velma … I wish she’d get here. I’d like to hear more about the computer caper.”
“Well, I’m glad Velma wasn’t here in time for dessert, Ruby. The mere mention of plutonium and she goes off with dire predictions about a police state coming to insure or at least minimize against unauthorized access to nuclear materials. She has so little faith.”
“In what?”
“The people.”
“All this doomsday mushroom-cloud end-of-planet numbah is past my brain. Just give me the good ole-fashioned honky-nigger shit. I think all this ecology stuff is a diversion.”
“They’re connected. Whose community do you think they ship radioactive waste through, or dig up waste burial grounds near? Who do you think they hire for the dangerous dirty work at those plants? What parts of the world do they test-blast in? And all them illegal uranium mines dug up on Navajo turf—the crops dying, the sheep dying, the horses, water, cancer, Ruby, cancer. And the plant on the Harlem River and—Ruby, don’t get stupid on me.”
“You’re sounding like Velma.”
“Hell, it’s an emergency situation, has been for years. All those thrown-together plants they built in the forties and fifties are falling apart now. War is not the threat. It’s all the ‘peacetime’ construction that’s wiping us out. And remember that summer we met, all those TB mobile units in the neighborhoods? Giving out lollipops and donuts and the kids going back two, three, four times for an x-ray. Oh, Ruby.”
“Yeh, I know there’s a connection,” Ruby sighed, releasing her hands and dropping forward. “Pass the carafe.”
“Has the executive committee decided to take on the nuclear issue?”
“I voted it down. Wait! Hear me out. Now, we formed the group mainly to insure ‘input’ in local politics, right? An interim tactical something or other until the people quit fooling around and decide on united Black political action, right? There’s no sense taking on everything.”
“But Ruby, sistuh, heart of my heart, will you just tip your chin slightly northwest and swing your eyes in the direction of Gaylord and tell me what do you see? You think there’s no connection between the power plant and Transchemical and the power configurations in this city and the quality of life in this city, region, country, world?”
“Sold. But can’t I specialize just a wee bit longer in the local primitive stuff—labor with the ordinary home-grown variety crackers and your everyday macho pain in the ass from the block? Yawl take on this other thing. It’s too big for me. I’m just your friendly neighborhood earring maker.”
“I hope you’re kidding. Here, have some more wine, the tea’s cold.”
“What I need is a real drink. Let’s go hang out, unless you’re deliberately hanging out to get something going with our literate friend, albeit a waiter?”
“What?”
“Janice, please. He’s done everything but bite your neck and ravish you on the table.”
“Oh, I don’t think he … just a friendly type brother … I mean …”
“That is bullshit of a non-biodegradable sort. The man’s got eyes. Deal with that at least.”
“Ruby, do me a favor.”
“Okay. I will shut up and drink my wine like a good girl and then I will pay the check with this bogus credit card I traded a bogus Benin gold weight for.”
“You will pay cash money in the hand. It’s the least you can do having
saddled me with this questionnaire and a major decision to make about my life.”
“Right. Fine. Now, is it my imagination or are we at a rerun of Singin’ in the Rain?”
Several young people who’d been boogie-ing in front of the record shack and others who’d hung drape-style around the café railing had rushed into the café’s table area and were broken-field running among the tables, some walking wolf-style as if puddles already threatened Romeo Ballad loafers, Yo Yos, Candies and Converse All Stars. Others were ducking in anticipation of clearing the awning that could in no way be dripping yet, but it was. A sudden downpour with no warning, the light only now shifting from metallic lemon to a purple-gray. Customers by the railing had already begun dragging their tables across the prized quarry tile, knee-bent walking and carrying their chairs on their behinds, these odd-shaped creatures colliding with equally strange bent-over runners darting in and out between waiters, the runaway dessert cart, and one or two stunned customers returning from the rest rooms caught up in a turbulent not-sure-what-something-hey-watch-it happening.
Campbell got hemmed in the corner by the service counter, his order pad pressed against his throat, his elbow in a bowl of fruit salad not picked up. And he’d been about to make a connection; he’d been clutching at an idea and it was trying to come together, congeal, get structured into something speakable. But now, with the ball-point leaking against his shirt, the stain leaching ever closer to his skin as the contaminated soil in Barnwell reached the water table—it was slipping past him. But in the months ahead he would remember—the height of divinely egocentric association—that lightning had flashed lighting up the purple, smeared sky just as it came to him. Damballah. A grumbling, growling boiling up as if from the core of the earthworks drew a groan from the crowd huddled together under the awning, in the doorway, as if to absorb the shock of it, of whatever cataclysmic event it might turn out to be, for it couldn’t be simply a storm with such frightening thunder as was cracking the air as if the very world were splitting apart.
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