by Nikki Grimes
He’s right about the jealousy, though. I seem to be jealous of everyone and everything. Especially the friendships I see all around me. Leslie and Porscha, Lupe and Gloria, Tanisha and Diondra. It’s enough to make me ill.
It’s been forever since I had a best friend, let alone a boyfriend.
“Friendships don’t just happen,” Sterling tells me whenever I complain. “You have to reach out and make them.”
“How?” I ask him.
“Just be yourself.”
Myself. That’s a laugh. If I were to show anyone who I really am inside, how cold my heart is, they’d probably run in the opposite direction. I tell Sterling this and he says, “Maybe. Maybe not. You won’t know unless you try.”
Sterling’s right. I haven’t been trying. Not since my parents divorced. I’ve been afraid to get close to anyone. When my mom left, I was suddenly out of orbit. It’s like she was the sun, and when she took off, the only thing left was a big black hole where she used to be. Now the idea of letting somebody else get that close ... I don’t know. I’m just not ready. I wonder if I ever will be.
OPEN MIKE
Ode to Stone
BY AMY MOSCOWITZ
One day at Far Rockaway
is all it took.
One look at rocks in water
decided me:
I want to be stone.
I want to be marble.
Dressed up limestone
never looked so good.
Let me be granite
and I promise
I’ll show you how to take
a shellacking.
Yes, I’ll risk sunburn.
Just let me be rock
wedged into the earth or sea
tidal waves crashing over me
while I remain intact—
no split at the core,
more buffed than bruised.
Forget the pillar of salt.
I’ll look back at the count of three
and you can turn me into stone.
Go on.
I’m half rock
already.
Tyrone
Man! That girl is as cold as the snow on the ground. Somebody must’ve put a hurting on her. “I want to be stone.” Can you get next to that? I’ve felt that way a couple of times. Once, when the undertaker carried my pops out of here. Another time when my girlfriend left me for my supposed-to-be homey. Both times I remember wishing I couldn’t feel the hurt, wishing I could just cut my heart out and be done with it. But I like the way Amy said it. Let me be stone.
Sheila Gamberoni
Amy Moscowitz looked at me like I had two heads. Why? Just because I wanted to change my name.
When Mr. Ward took attendance this morning and got to me, I raised my hand and interrupted.
“Please don’t call me Sheila,” I said. “I prefer Natalina, my Africana name.”
“Excuse me?” said Mr. Ward.
I cleared my throat, and spoke a little louder. “Please call me Natalina from now on.”
Mr. Ward looked puzzled. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Why would you—never mind, Sheila. Just see me after class.”
I nodded. Diondra Jordan caught my eye and shook her head. Then she turned back to the charcoal portrait I saw her working on when I got to class. She slipped it into her notebook and shook her head again. I looked away just in time to catch Amy rolling her eyes in my direction. It was obvious she didn’t understand, but since there are only four white people in this class, I was hoping for some support. So sue me.
“Africana name. Puh-leeze! Ain’t nothing African about Natalina,” said Judianne, the girl behind me. We used to call her Short Skirt. I know one thing, her clothes fit her better than my name fits me. But try telling her that. “Why don’t you just keep the name your mama gave you?” she said.
“Leave the girl alone,” said Porscha. “If she wants to change her name, I’m sure she has a reason. People always have reasons for what they do, even if we don’t know what they are.”
“I know one thing,” said Judianne. “She can call herself whatever she wants. It still ain’t gonna make her Black.” Tanisha shot her a look of disapproval. Judianne lowered her eyes. “Sorry,” she said, but it was too late.
I knew someone would misunderstand.
I’m proud to be an Italian. I love being Italian. Not that anybody can tell I am one, with this blond hair and pale skin of mine.
Everybody else in my family looks typical. Olive complexion, dark hair, dark eyes. Then there’s me, sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb. But hey, I might as well. I’m the black sheep, anyway. The only girl in the family who wants a career instead of babies. The only cousin who likes to hang out with Blacks and Latinos. The only one who doesn’t think they’re all lazy and shiftless. Never mind that they’ve been discriminated against and shoved to the bottom of the economic rung since they’ve been here. Try telling that to my father. And don’t even mention slavery, he throws his hands up and walks away. So of course he thinks I’m an idiot for wanting to go into social work to help minorities. He might understand better if he knew any.
It’s ten years since Dad took over the neighborhood pizza parlor from Uncle Tony. You’d think by now he and my mother would’ve taken time to get to know most of their customers, not just the white ones. Maybe they’re afraid to get too close to someone who might actually hug them, heaven forbid. It seems the only Gamberoni willing to show affection is me. How weird is that?
Some days I wake up wondering if I’m adopted. I try my life on like a dress, and it doesn’t fit. I know this life is mine because the label has my name on it, but what kind of name is Sheila? It doesn’t tell you who I am, or where I came from. Sheila could be anybody. That’s why I wanted something more Africana. Okay, so maybe Africana isn’t the right word. But I definitely want something more ethnic. A name that tells a story. A name with roots. That’s what I want people to understand.
After English, I met with Mr. Ward and explained all of that, or enough of it to satisfy him, anyway. “Okay,” he said. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Natalina.” It was all I could do not to give him a hug.
OPEN MIKE
What’s in a Name?
BY NATALINA GAMBERONI
When strangers meet
they hurry past hello and seek
each other’s designation.
“My name is—.
And who are you?”
is the spade we sink
into this foreign, hue-man soil
to see what nuggets
we can dig up
what history
what ethnic derivation
what concentration of
cultural genes we can use
to weigh and measure each other
Some will, no doubt
come up wanting
requiring a change
of designation.
“Hello!
My name is Natalina.
Will that do?”
Tyrone
That classroom sounded like a tomb after she read. I’m sitting there studying the video camera, and I’m wondering what Sheila would think if she could hear herself on that tape, if she could watch those words coming out her own mouth.
Judianne’s right. There’s something wrong with that girl. Hey, lots of peeps change their names, I ain’t got no problem with that. Some have to, the names their folks gave them are such dogs. But that girl sound like she wants to change her race. What’s that about? She feeling guilty ’cause her family’s got it good? I don’t get it, but I’m gonna leave that one alone.
“Hey, Mr. Ward,” I said. “What you planning to do with all them videotapes you’re making?”
“I’m going to keep them, maybe show them to my students next year to introduce them to the idea of open-mike readings. If that’s okay with you.”
“Yeah, that works for me,” I said. “Just make sure you show them mine.”
Steve Ericson
/> Sheila may have identity problems, but I don’t. I know exactly who I am, and no matter what anybody says, I know I was born in New York City for a reason. Where else does the sidewalk tremble under your feet from the rumble of subways underground, and trucks and city buses up top? Where else do cabbies and garbagemen, bankers and businessmen all walk with a beat? Where else can you find grade A, top of the line characters roaming the streets spouting Shakespeare in the middle of a blizzard? And where else can you find Broadway?
The first time my folks set me down in front of a Broadway stage to watch a musical, and I saw walls rising into the ceiling and staircases disappearing into the floor, I knew: I wanted to be a set designer, and I wanted to work on Broadway.
If you come to my house, there’s hardly anywhere to sit in my bedroom, or to step, for that matter, because the whole place is cluttered with hand-painted miniature cardboard sets I designed for imaginary plays. I’ll work on real ones as soon as I get to college, because I figure there’ll be plenty of opportunities to sharpen my skills working on college productions, especially down at NYU, where I plan to go. If I get in. When I get in. I have to get in. I have to get back to the city.
Two months ago, my father announced that we’re leaving. We’re moving out. The city is getting too rough, he said. Mom’s not sure she wants to go on teaching in public schools. She has decided to take a break, so this is a good time to move, he said. As for him, he’ll keep his job in publishing and just commute. From Yorktown Heights.
I tried to pretend like the move is no big deal, since Mom and Dad are so hot on it, especially Mom, who’s been wanting her own house forever. But man, I’m dying. I got friends here that I’ve grown up and gone to school with all my life, and I fit in here, and you can’t tell me there are guys with bleach-blond buzz cuts and earrings in Yorktown. And what about the theater? There’s no Broadway in Yorktown.
But maybe that’s the point. Mom’s not too keen on my plans to work in the theater, which is no surprise. She’s still trying to get over my wearing an earring, even though I bought the smallest one I could find. (She freaked anyway.) I don’t think Dad is too stoked about my plans either, although he doesn’t say it because he knows I remember him telling me how he used to want to be an entertainer. He played drums in a band when he was my age, and had big-time plans of hitting the road like Ringo Starr and the Beatles, and doing shows across the country. Then his family moved to Binghamton, away from all his band mates, and eventually, his dream faded away.
Is that why they’re moving? Is that what they’re hoping happens to me?
Just the thought of maybe never working in the theater makes me crazy, and one day, I tell this story about my father to Raul and I tell him I don’t understand how my father’s dream could just die like that, when what I really want to know is, can mine. And Raul says something that sticks with me. “Maybe your father’s dream wasn’t really in his heart. If a dream is in your heart, you never lose it.”
After we had that conversation, I kicked my doubts to the back of the closet. (Well, almost. I still go in there now and then.) Part of me continues to be afraid of following in my father’s footsteps. These days, though, I try to concentrate on keeping my grades up so I can get into NYU when the time comes, because one thing I know for sure is that my dream is in my heart.
I’ve got two more years of school to go. Two more years to hold on to my dream, and two more years of Open Mike Fridays. Well, one year and a couple of months—this year’s going by so fast. I hope I’ll still have a chance to do Open Mike next year. They’re so popular now, every kid in school wishes they were in Mr. Ward’s class. I can’t blame them. We got a good thing going here, and people need to know about it. We’re sick of the negative press teenagers get all the time. Apparently somebody at The Bronx Insider agreed. Mr. Ward said they’re sending a reporter to cover our next Open Mike Friday, and it should be a monster. Mr. Ward invited a real poet to come speak to us and to read some of his work. It’s not an assembly exactly, but Mr. Ward is having us meet together in the multipurpose room for the special presentation. Pedro Pietri is the poet’s name. He’s in this book called The United States of Poetry and some body said he’s a reverend. Sterling must be stoked! Anyway, I’m looking forward to hearing him. Poetry is the coolest thing we got going on in this school now. Maybe I’ll still be around next year to enjoy it.
Whether I finish up school here, or in Yorktown Heights depends on my folks. Either way, there’s a set designer’s job on Broadway with my name on it, and I’m not giving it up for anybody.
OPEN MIKE
Doubtless
BY STEVE ERICSON
When I was seven,
I looked to heaven
and dreamed
of going to the moon
but pretty soon
somebody came along
to change
my tune.
They put me down.
Bang! There my dream lay
on the ground.
Thank God, eventually
I came around
and dreamed
another dream.
At first, it seemed
a good idea to hide it,
confide it
to absolutely no one.
But that was no fun,
besides, I realized
I couldn’t. The joy it gave me
just wouldn’t
be stopped up. It popped up
at the most
inconvenient times,
effervesced
in all my rhymes.
But, hey! Joy
is not a crime, though
some people
make it seem so.
Does anybody here know
what I mean?
You share your dream
and right away
people laugh,
try to dissuade you,
do what they can to
plant a seed of doubt.
Listen: you’ve got to
root it out,
laugh last, push past,
pursue. Be you—
whoever that is—
dream intact.
And don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
And if you move,
remember: Pack your dreams.
They’re portable.
Tyrone
Either that boy’s been hanging out with some brothas, or he wish he had. He must’ve grown up round here, the way he talks. But I hope he ain’t studying on hanging out with me. We can peacefully coexist, but I don’t have no white boys in my crew.
He ain’t half bad, though. Pedro Pietri must’ve thought so too, the way he clapped when Steve was done. It was kinda cool having a published poet in the audience. First he read to us, then we read to him. He really listened to us too, like we were equals.
I bet Pietri’s partly why that reporter came out to our school. Not that the Insider is the Times or Daily News. But hey, it’s better than nothing. At least they’re interested in the good stuff going on in our neighborhood. Of course, I thought they would send in a brotha, but they sent this white guy. Ain’t no telling what kind of piece he’ll write about our stuff. Somebody should have told him it’s a long way from Shakespeare!
He talked to Rev. Pietri and Mr. Ward, mostly, but he took notes the whole time we were reading, and his photographer snapped a bunch of pictures. He definitely got one of me. He didn’t say which ones they’d be using, though. He got down everybody’s name, just in case, so he’d have them for the captions. Hope he spells my name right. Be just my luck, I get in the paper for something good and they misspell my name.
The paper comes out next week. See if I ain’t the first one at the newsstand.
Raynard Patterson
Finish what you start. That’s my mother’s favorite saying, and she’s earned a right to it. She had me when she was a teenager, but that didn’t stop her from finishing
high school, and she moved more times than Steve could even dream of! Every now and then, when I consider dropping out, I take a good, long look at my mother and think again.
This year certainly gave me plenty of opportunities to practice.
Homework was a nightmare. Essay questions in history and English. What are they trying to do, kill me? All those words swirling around the page gave me a headache I’m still trying to get rid of. If only they could give homework a beat and put it on a CD. Now that would work for me. Then they’d be speaking my language. Chords. Melodies. Homework in the key of G. Oh, yeah.
Music has always come easier to me than words. My mother says I used to beat out rhythms on my high chair with a spoon. I don’t know if the story’s true, but she’s told it so often, everyone believes it. The one thing I know for certain is that I eat, sleep, and dream music. Man, when I see myself in the future, it’s on a bandstand, fingering my alto. I may not be much of a talker, but hey, give me a sax and I’ll talk all night long. My cousin Sterling says one day the whole world will hear what I have to say.
Last week, my English class was the world.
It was Open Mike Friday and I’d shown up with my saxophone case in one hand and a folded-up poem in the other. Not that I needed a copy of the poem. Besides the other kids, I knew we’d have a living, published poet in the audience, so I’d spent a week memorizing and rehearsing my poem in front of a mirror, if you can believe that. Even so, I still thought about maybe skipping the poem and just playing a piece on my sax. But there’d been too much skipping this year for me already. I’d skipped participating in every other Open Mike Friday, and Mr. Ward had skipped over me in class whenever it was time to read aloud. Which is why everybody thought I was three degrees below a moron. Not that I blame them. Even I used to think I was an idiot. Of course, now I know better. So does my English teacher.