by Josh Farrar
“Anyway, being in America, being away from my mother, is even more reason why I can’t be with any boy,” I say. We have finished our snacks and are now walking up Old Fulton Street, back toward school. “My uncle would be angry to know even that I am with you after school. If he and my aunt were not both at work all day, he would be punishing me for arriving only thirty minutes after I am supposed to.”
“But that’s crazy.”
“To you, maybe. To me it is a little bit crazy that you get to do whatever you want. No one I knew before you and Maricel lives in this way.”
“Wow.”
We walk up Henry, past Cranberry Street. I wonder who named these streets. The first time I saw Pineapple Street, I looked up at the trees, hoping to see a bit of island fruit, but only the names are tropical. Everywhere in Brooklyn, it is only snow and concrete, and the coldest wind I have ever known.
“Oops!” Mary Agnes says. “Speak of the devil.” She nods up the street.
A block away, he walks out of Peas n’ Pickles. Not a devil, though—he, him, the boy, Alex. Before the Spring Thing, I’d only seen him once. Now, he seems to be everywhere.
“You planned this, Mary Agnes?”
“No, I didn’t. Promise.”
“I hope this is true.” I give her the eye. “No more secret plans, please.”
His other friends, the one called John and the other one, Maricel’s brother, catch up to him on the sidewalk.
“God, Bijou, relax. It’s Peas n’ Pickles. Everybody from St. Chris’s and St. Cat’s goes here, almost every day. It’s hardly a coincidence. We’ve seen Alex here before. More than once, too.”
“Maybe you did, but I didn’t.”
“That’s right, you not only never think of boys, you can’t even see them with your own two eyes.”
“Not until this moment did I care to, no.” She looks at me, surprised, but I smile to let her know I am only joking. Mary Agnes rolls her eyes at me.
“Hi, guys,” she says as we pass the boys.
“Hi,” they say at exactly the same time.
“Where are you guys going?” Alex asks. Everyone here calls each other “guys,” I’ve noticed, whether they are talking about boys or girls. A bit strange, no?
“Umm, to get snacks, obviously,” says Mary Agnes. “Duh.”
“That’s where we’re going,” Alex says.
“Don’t you mean that’s where you just were?” asks Mary Agnes.
I almost feel bad for Alex. He was probably perfectly relaxed before he saw me, and now he’s shy again.
“Okay, then, we’ll see you later,” Mary Agnes says. She walks away, and I follow her. I look back at the boys once. They’re as frozen as sculptures. Nomura very serious, Ira looking up at the sky with his mouth wide open, and Alex looking after us with puppy eyes as if his life were crumbling all around him. If only he could see himself. So much drama, and just over a couple of girls!
“Cat got your tongue, Alex?” Mary Agnes calls over her shoulder. “I guess you really did need flash cards!” Then she starts running toward the store, taking my hand and pulling me down the street.
“Ooh, that was cruel!” I laugh once we’re inside.
“Maybe.” She has a mischievous look on her face; she loves this. “Anyway, I thought you wanted nothing to do with them.”
“I don’t, but I don’t want to be mean, either.”
“Oh, it wasn’t so bad. I was only teasing him a little. He’s crushing out on you, hard. It’s pretty cute.”
“But he looked so, how do you say, pitiable? All three of them did.”
“We call it pathetic. Totally pathetic. Can’t they think of anything to say? Can’t they try to act normal and act like regular people?” But I can tell she is more amused than annoyed.
“Are all American boys like this?” I ask.
“No, there are other kinds.” She makes a sour face. “You remember those other guys from the dance, Rocky and Trevor?”
“Yes.” How could I forget?
“Those are the other kind.”
I’m glad, of course, that Alex isn’t like Rocky and Trevor. He is better-looking and sweeter than they are, but somehow he doesn’t know it. How is it that an uninteresting boy like Rocky can look in the mirror and see a movie star, and another, a truly handsome one like Alex, is so nervous he can barely even speak a full sentence to me without a set of cards to rely on?
“Maybe this was a good thing,” I say. “I never would have said this to him, but at least now he’ll stop looking at me with those sad eyes.”
“Actually, after that, Alex will probably be more interested than ever.”
“Comment? What do you mean?” I have a sip. This drink tastes nothing like ginger, but I still love it, the way the bubbles burn my throat.
“Boys want what they can’t get. Or what they think they can’t get.”
I squint at her, trying to see who Mary Agnes is, what she is.
“Friends aren’t supposed to get each other into trouble,” I say. “What are you up to?”
“Maybe getting into a little trouble is exactly what you need right now.”
Oh my Lord, is Mary Agnes the right friend for someone like me? “Trouble is the last thing I need in my life. You know that, right?” I say.
“Not bad trouble, Bijou. Good trouble. Just a little bit of fun. That’s allowed in Haitian culture, right?”
“No, it’s not!” I say, laughing. “In my uncle’s house, fun is absolutely forbidden!”
11
Rara Surprise
Early Sunday evening, Tonton Pierre, Tante Marie Claire, and I are just finishing dinner when the doorbell rings. They don’t know who it is, but I do!
Tonton Pierre shrugs and walks to the door, trying to hide a secret excitement. He thinks it is one of his old-man friends at the door, with an invitation to play backgammon or cards at the barbershop, where he is spending half his lifetime. But my uncle is about to be disappointed. Jou Jou is the one at the door, so I am the one who will be having a bit of fun tonight.
“Ah, c’est seulement toi,” Pierre says to my brother. It’s just you.
“Bonjour, Tonton Pierre,” Jou Jou calls out, clutching the rada, a drum we use in Haitian music, under his arm. He doesn’t try to hug my uncle—Tonton Pierre doesn’t like hugs—but my brother doesn’t bury his happiness, either. His eyes bounce around the room, full of energy, hungry to take in all they can, even in this room he knows so well, this kitchen where he has eaten so many meals and sat through so many of Tonton Pierre’s stubborn speeches.
“Keep that bloody animal skin out of my house,” Tonton Pierre says, going back to English. Tonton Pierre is always telling Jou Jou and me that we must speak “American” if we are going to get anywhere in this country, but when he’s alone with Marie Claire, or with his card-playing old men, he himself speaks Kreyol.
“Yes, sir,” Jou Jou says.
“Lay it on the stoop. I don’t want it stinking up the room.” Pierre sniffs hard. “Come on now.”
“He heard you, Pierre,” Marie Claire says. And it is true: since leaving this house shortly after he turned eighteen, my brother has realized that following my uncle’s rules, or at least appearing to, is the best way to keep the old man quiet.
“Marie Claire, you are looking very nice tonight,” Jou Jou says, kissing our aunt. From the shopping bag he pulls out two enormous mango fruits, big as melons.
“Aah, they are perfect,” Marie Claire says, greedily pulling them toward her before anyone can take them away.
“You are the perfect one, Auntie,” Jou Jou says, kissing her hand like a gentleman. I roll my eyes. My brother is shameless, always flattering, like Gran-Papa, before he became so old that I was caring for him more than he was for me. Like my grandfather when he was young, Jou Jou is not stupid or unaware; it is only that he refuses to fall into the dark mood of this house. Jou Jou will not let Tonton Pierre, no matter how grumpy he is, spoil his mood.
“You come here to take our niece away from us again?” Pierre asks, as if I am not in the room. “It’s very late for a school night. She must wake at seven tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll have her home early, Uncle, I promise you.”
“The sun will be down in an hour, boy.” Who else but Uncle would call Jou Jou a boy? Anyone who looks at him can tell he is a man, but Tonton Pierre needs to keep my brother in his place. “Think about what you are saying.”
Jou Jou pretends to check the watch on his wrist. It’s a game I’ve seen them play before. “You are right, Uncle,” he says. “Ninety minutes, then? I can have her back by eight thirty. Is that all right?”
My brother looks at Marie Claire with his big brown eyes. He is the stray dog she cannot help but pet and love.
“Let Jou Jou be with his sister, Pierre,” my aunt says. “He is good with her.”
“We didn’t take her off the streets of Port-au-Prince only to put her on the streets of Brooklyn,” Tonton Pierre says. “We took her off her grandfather’s hands because he couldn’t handle the girl anymore.”
“I can handle her. Right, Bijou?” Jou Jou winks at me. “At least for one evening.”
“These people you go with are not good people.” What my uncle means is, they are not Christian people. “They belong to no one. They belong only to the street.”
Jou Jou almost responds, but he thinks better of it.
“Bijou is safe with Jou Jou,” Marie Claire says. “He is her brother.”
“Joseph, you can’t possibly continue with that devil’s music.” Tonton Pierre is forgetting that we are talking about whether or not I can go to the park and not his favorite subject: the sins of rara. “Good people have no time for this street music, nephew. Which is why I’m so disappointed in you. You could have done something with your life. You still can. A doctor, a respectable businessperson, someone who would build up the community instead of hurting it. But instead of helping anyone, all you do is drive that dollar van around and play your drum until all hours of the night.”
Jou Jou can’t hold back anymore. “Uncle, I do help our people. I help bring our own culture back to us, here in America.”
“That’s not your culture, boy. You were raised right. That’s some peasant culture, ignorant fools banging on drums all day because they don’t know any better. Because they haven’t gotten either education or the sense to follow a more righteous path.”
“Uncle, at the Gran Bwa, it’s not only the poorest Haitians who come out to march to the music. It’s everybody, the whole community.”
“It isn’t anybody I know, I can assure you that.”
“If you could only see the looks on everybody’s face, Tonton. The joy they feel in hearing their own music, seeing they own culture, here in Brooklyn. It’s magic.”
“Bijou will be fine,” Marie Claire says, staying calm, not looking up as she does the dishes. Safety and security are everything to my uncle. What this means for those of us living with him is that we are almost never allowed to leave our own home.
“It is a sin, I tell you.” Tonton Pierre throws up his hands, but I can tell he is tiring of this argument. We have won!
Which means I get to go to Prospect Park to see the rara with my brother, while Marie Claire must stay home with my uncle, who steals all the stale air in this house with greedy lungs.
The sun is out on Rogers Avenue, but there is a brisk wind that makes the hairs on my arms stand up. As Jou Jou and I walk toward the park, we pass schools, auto garages, and, mostly, churches: the Gospel Tabernacle Church of Jesus Christ, the New Life Center of Truth. Everything here is new, new, new! And yet the buildings look so old and dirty. If a church has “new” in its name, shouldn’t the priests wash it once in a while?
“How could you stand living with that man for three entire years, Jou Jou?” I ask him.
“Tonton is not so bad, sister,” Jou Jou says. “Next to Papa, the man is a saint.”
I never really knew our father; he left us when I was very young. But from what Maman and Jou Jou tell me, I did not miss very much. So I don’t. Miss him, I mean. My brother, mother, Gran-Papa, and Gran-Maman were always enough of a family for me.
More churches: Dios con Nosotros Baptist Church, Right with God Ministries. There are so many houses of God in Flatbush, it would seem as if every person in America is in love with religion. But now we’re walking by a restaurant where the smell of frying meat passes through a steamy vent. Which do Americans love more: God or hamburgers? In Flatbush it is hard to tell.
“How can you say Tonton is so wonderful? You left his house as soon as you had twenty dollars in your pocket.”
“The two of us see things different, it’s true.” He looks me in the eye. “But Tonton is … cranky. The man means well.”
To our right, on Snyder Avenue, is the police station. With its large facade made of brick and rough concrete, it looks like a school for bad children. To the right of the station is a painting of a policeman. GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN TO LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS, read the words under his smiling face, and I suddenly realize that this policeman died, and this is his memorial. Did he really die the death of a hero, as the quote says, while trying to protect his friends?
I think of all the people I saw fighting and dying for the lives of family and friends. These are my heroes: my school-teacher, Madame Jean-Baptiste, directing all the children out of her classroom, trying to point the way to safety with a hand that was bleeding and badly broken; our headmaster, who cried tears of joy when he saw that everyone in his school was living, only to discover after walking six miles that his own wife and young son lay dead under rubble at home; and Gran-Papa, who ran to cover Maman’s body with his own as soon as he felt the house begin to shake.
“You hear the drums?” Jou Jou asks.
“Don’t tell me you can hear them this far away, crazy man,” I say.
“Of course I can. When you feel the drum in your spirit, the way I do, you have the senses of a superhero. A god!”
“You don’t even have the sense of an animal.”
“Oh, but I do, Bijou!” He jumps at me, fast as a cat, spreading his ten fingers to tickle me.
“Don’t!” I cry out, laughing already. He hasn’t tickled me once since I arrived here in January, because he hasn’t needed to; the threat is always enough.
“Tell me you don’t hear that,” he says, cupping his hand to his ear.
“I don’t hear nothing,” I say.
“Any thing,” he says. “You don’t hear anything.” Jou Jou likes to correct my English whenever he can, but we both know I speak as well as he does. While I was learning grammar from Tous Mes Enfants, he was playing football—what Americans call soccer—with his friends in the field behind our house in Port-au-Prince.
Finally I do hear the thumping of the drums, the cries of the metal konets. I remember Pierre calling Jou Jou’s drum a “bloody animal skin.” He meant to make an insult, yes, but the sound of rara truly is a living thing: the drums like a heartbeat, the konet horns rising above the rhythm like birds taking flight.
We always thought Jou Jou would be a great football player, not a musician. But soon after he came to New York (“For a better education!” my uncle claimed), he learned to dance with his hands instead of his feet. Every week, he would call Maman and me speaking of nothing but drums, and of Rara Gran Bwa, the band he had heard playing in Prospect Park. They were master musicians, he said, and if his dream were to come true, he would one day be asked to play the rada—a cone-shaped vodou drum with a cow-skin head—with them.
That day did come, a little over a year ago, and no sooner did Jou Jou get the invitation than he moved out of my aunt and uncle’s house and into a tiny Flatbush apartment with two other members of Rara Gran Bwa. So much for Jou Jou’s “better education.” He is so poor now, sometimes he can barely afford to pay his rent. But I have never seen him so happy. He is living his dream.
The p
ounding of the drums gets louder as we twist through a small opening in the park fence along the avenue. The late-March sky is beginning to darken, and merry sounds fill the air: the chatter of Sunday picnickers, insects buzzing, little children playing their games. I love Prospect Park, the tall tree tops, the smell of leaves, the sun over the lake.
Jou Jou and I are walking along the broad path in the park, runners and cyclists whizzing by us, when I hear a voice say, “Look, it’s Bijou.”
Two boys on bikes stop, turn, and look at me. It’s Nomura and Alex. Suddenly these two are everywhere I turn!
“Hey, Bijou,” says Nomura.
And Alex manages to push out a quiet “Hiya.”
In Port-au-Prince, no boy schoolmate would ever walk up to me and speak to me so boldly. But this is the United States, where there are no rules at all.
“Hello,” I say.
“It’s … nice to see you,” Alex says.
A moment of quiet before Nomura says, “Did you … have fun at the dance?” Alex gives him a look.
“It was all right, I suppose.” I stop, not sure how to continue. Did any of us have “fun” that night?
“Hi, guys. I’m Jou Jou, Bijou’s older brother.” The boys shake his outstretched hand. “You must forgive Bijou’s silence. She used up all her words on the way over.”
The boys laugh, and I glare at the idiot Jou Jou, always looking for a chance to embarrass me.
“I’m John Nomura, and this is Alex.”
“You boys ridin’ around the park, then?” Jou Jou asks. “Nice night for it.”
I don’t know whether Jou Jou is just being Jou Jou or whether my brother is trying to torture me on purpose. But either way, his friendliness makes this situation even more awkward. I suddenly wish my uncle were here; he would dismiss these boys with a wave of his hand, and they would be afraid to ever speak to me again.
“What are you guys up to?” Nomura asks. Alex looks happy that at least one of the two of them is able to speak in my presence.