My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich

by Ibi Zoboi

  “His soul is lost,” Momma’s church lady friends had mumbled at Wednesday’s bible study.

  “Ain’t no turning back from that kinda sin,” Mrs. Headley had whispered to Mrs. Turner at last Friday’s fish fry.

  Surely all these whispers and mumbles and Granddaddy’s sadness were signs of a much bigger problem that no one else could understand—not those chirping church ladies, not my nosy neighbors, and not my mysterious momma and her meddling questions about whether I’d seen Granddaddy’s lady friends while Nana was alive.

  No matter how loud I shouted above the hush-hush rumors and gossip, no one heard me or believed me when I told them the truth: Captain Fleet was being held as prisoner on Planet Boom Box by the Sonic King and the Funkazoids.

  No one understood anything because they had all locked the doors to their imagination location and thrown away the key.

  “Don’t worry, baby girl. We’ll hold off on the adventures of the Uhura for a few days. I’ll activate the impenetrable force field so that she’s protected out there in deep space,” Granddaddy said to me as Momma brought out his suitcases for his long trip. He spoke in an unusually soft and quiet voice. He’d patted me on the shoulder and had not scooped me up into his long, wiry arms like he usually did at the end of a Uhura story.

  “But, Granddaddy, I was supposed to reveal my secret identity today.”

  He placed his index finger over his lips and said, “You’ll need to stay undercover for a little bit, Starfleet.” He didn’t make his voice sound commanding like all the other times he spoke as Captain Fleet.

  Granddaddy had been wearing the church suit and tie as if he’d planned to attend my graduation. But instead, a shiny black car pulled up in front of our house. A man came out of the driver’s side, walked around to the passenger side, and held the door open for my grandfather.

  “What mission are you off to now, Granddaddy?”

  “You’re going to be just fine, Ebony-Grace. I’ll try to be back before you leave for New York,” was the very last thing he had said to me as he placed his empty glass on a small nearby table, stood from the rocking chair, picked up his suitcases, and headed for the shiny black car. The sadness around him seemed to have swallowed him up like a black hole.

  CHAPTER

  14

  “Ebony” is the very first word Momma says when I’m on the phone with her. I want to wrap the springy telephone cord around my whole body and hope that it becomes a portal taking me back to Huntsville. “Ebony, baby? I heard you went to church today.”

  I don’t answer her.

  “Ebony-Grace, I am talking to you, young lady,” she says. Her voice is hard candy again.

  I pull the wide heavy metal doors to my imagination location closed—I become regular ol’ Ebony-Grace again.

  “Yes, Momma,” I say.

  Daddy looks at me funny.

  “All right, now listen to me, and listen to me good,” Momma continues. “I know I should’ve sat you down before you left, but we were rushing to get you onto that plane, and there was so much going on, Ebony.”

  Hard candy melts in your mouth after you let it sit there on your tongue, near the back of your throat. It’s like the giant vacuum of outer space pushing and pulling everything apart until they’re all just space dust particles. This is how Momma’s voice sounds now—a tiny piece of sweetness that slowly disappears into nothing.

  “Your grandfather’s in a bit of trouble. I want you to know that he’s still a very good man who just made some bad choices, that’s all. Do you hear me, Ebony-Grace?”

  “Yes, Momma.” Maybe my own hard-candy voice begins to melt, too, and it wants to seep out of my eyes and nose as salty tears and gooey snot. I feel it welling up inside of me like a rising flood, almost drowning me.

  “Ebony, you’re going to have to stay in New York for a few more weeks.”

  I don’t say anything. I only think of the big, fat round moon and how it controls ocean tides. And maybe even tears, too.

  “Answer me when I’m talking to you.”

  “Yes, Momma.” My voice shakes.

  “I have to help your grandfather out so I won’t be around to look after you,” she continues.

  “Yes, Momma.”

  “Now, you have to promise me that you’ll keep away from the auto shop and keep a good distance from those . . . children playing in the streets. I remember that lovely little girl, what was her name? Bianca. You’re allowed to go to church with Bianca’s grandmother and play in the front of the house, but inside the gate only. Do you hear me, Ebony? Don’t go digging through any of the trash on the streets either, trying to find something to fix. And read your books. Your father will be taking you to the library. You’re allowed two hours of television per day until your father signs you up for classes. I’ll be sending money for your lessons. And don’t stay out in the sun for too long. You already know that, Ebony. Do you understand me, young lady?”

  “Yes, Momma.”

  “Good. Now, put your father on the phone” is how Momma says goodbye.

  I hold on to the receiver waiting for more—more about the new space camp, more about this trouble with Granddaddy, more about when I’ll be coming home. But more of anything is not going to come from Momma unless I ask for it. “What kind of trouble is Granddaddy in, Momma?”

  “The kind of trouble grown-ups get into when they make wrong choices” is all she says. “Now put your father on the phone.”

  I don’t activate my bionic ears. I don’t wait to hear what Daddy has to say about all of Momma’s plans for me. I run upstairs to the room that will be my room for a whole summer, and open up Momma’s old makeup case. In it are VHS and Betamax tapes, including my favorite of them all: Star Trek: The Motion Picture—Special Longer Version. I take it out of the case and hold it to my chest. If there’s anything I need most on this Planet No Joke City it’s a VCR. Instead, I reach for another bag and grab the very first comic book I find— Volume One of Star Trek, “The Wormhole Connection.”

  Granddaddy had bought it when it first came out last February. That night, I sat next to him on the couch and we read it together. He’d fallen asleep when I read it a second and third time trying to understand what was happening in the story.

  It’s not until now, in New York City, in Harlem, in my daddy’s house that was first owned by his father, sitting in this bedroom that my daddy has saved for me all these years, that I finally understand the wormhole connection.

  There are pockets in time and space that fold over on themselves like pieces of paper.

  I tear out a piece of paper from a blank notebook I had brought along with the comic books, and I fold it over and over again until it’s just a tiny square as wide as my fingertip.

  This is what happens to my imagination location when the doors are closed. There are a bunch of other doors that keep closing and closing, like folded paper. It becomes so tiny that there isn’t room for any new ideas, even though the old ideas are still there, compact and dense like a tiny star. But there’s always a sliver of space wide and tall enough for me to slip through—like that space in Daddy’s kitchen between the fridge and the sink. And once I squeeze into that wormhole, I can go on a quest to save someone, anyone, or anything. No matter what kind of trouble he’s in.

  CHAPTER

  15

  After two whole days of playing in Daddy’s house, watching TV, and eating cereal, I finally have a babysitter and her name is Diane. She’s a teenager and she just graduated from high school. Momma says that anybody named Diane or Diana is a diva. Like Diahann Carroll, who plays Dominique Deveraux on Momma’s favorite TV Show, Dynasty. Like Diana Ross and her diva hair and dresses. Like Diana Prince, who is a diva superhero in disguise. Even like Princess Diana, who is a real live princess!

  Diva Diane meets me and Daddy in front of the shop, right before he opens up for the mor
ning. A dog barks from behind the gates and I wonder if it’s Albert, the old Lab.

  I stare at Diva Diane from head to toe with my mouth open, catching flies as Momma would say. Her hair is straight and shiny and the very ends are flipped up like wings, as if her head were about to fly away. Bright gold earrings shaped like giant trapezoids hang from each ear, and her lips are as shiny as sunlight reflecting on glass. Her shorts are so short that they might as well be underwear, and her bright red jacket has a glow-in-the-dark white stripe along each sleeve. She keeps it open to show off a too-short T-shirt that hits right above her bellybutton. She has on see-through plastic sandals and her toenails match her jacket.

  Diva Diane looks like a Soul Train dancer from outer space.

  She bends down and rests her hands on her bare knees so that we’re eye to eye. “Hi, Ebony-Grace! Remember me?” she asks, while chewing a huge wad of pink gum. She talks very fast.

  I nod.

  “I was fourteen last time I saw you. I watched you for one night while your parents went out dancing, remember?” she says, popping her gum.

  I don’t remember. In fact, I can’t even wrap my mind around Momma and Daddy even agreeing to a song that they could both dance to.

  “Well, we gonna hang out today, Ebony-Grace. We gonna go to the store, over to the basketball courts, and . . . ” She stands up straight and examines my hair. It’s still in the same four pigtails and I’m sure it’s fuzzy by now, but I didn’t check and I don’t care.

  “And we gonna have to do something with these braids. You want some cornrows and some beads? You want wooden ones or plastic ones? You want your hair going down or up? But first, we gotta wash out all this dirt. What you been doing? Rolling around in the junkyard? I’m gonna need some extra change to get some Dax hair grease for her, Mr. Freeman.”

  Diva Diane’s words fly out of her mouth at warp speed. It’s more than gibberish. It’s shooting stars, flying asteroids, and a meteor shower mixed in with all that spittle, lip-smacking, and neck-rolling! And I can smell her strawberry-flavored ChapStick from where I’m standing.

  I touch my hair and shake my head, afraid to say anything just in case she listens the same way she talks, and her hearing is way too fast for my slowpoke words.

  The gates to Daddy’s shop are open now and I quickly notice all the greasy men Momma warned me about gathering around on the sidewalk, including Lester, the itching man. Lester’s clothes are even dirtier and more torn than before, but that’s none of my business, so I keep my eyes and ears on Diane as she walks down 126th Street as if she were the princess of No Joke City. But I’m actually the princess ’cause the king is my daddy. Now, I’m convinced Diva Diane is set out to take my crown, even though I don’t really want it.

  I follow her around the neighborhood like a stray dog. This isn’t babysitting; I’m the moon and Diva Diane is Planet Earth, spinning around and minding her business while I just orbit.

  We walk over to 125th Street as she stops to say hello to other teenagers who are dressed just like her with their giant gold earrings, chains shaped like ropes, and sneakers with three black stripes along the sides. The laces are so thick that I wonder how they got them to fit the tiny holes in the first place.

  “Hey! What’s going down, D-Boogie?” one of the teenage boys says. He gives Diva Diane a big hug.

  “D-Boogie?” I ask out loud.

  “That’s right. D-Boogie,” the boy says. “Who’s this? Your little cousin from Down South?”

  “How you know she’s from Down South?” Diane asks, looking me up and down probably to see if she’d missed the clues.

  “Her knees, hair, face? Her whole situation!” the boy says, laughing, and gives another boy standing next to him a high five.

  I want to say something really mean but the words don’t form quick enough in my imagination location, and soon, I’m distracted by two girls unraveling a telephone cord. One girl is wearing short-shorts like Diane, except hers look even more like underwear. Wooden beads are at the end of each of her braids and they smack her cheeks as she talks and stretches out the rope. The other girl is wearing blue jeans with a tiny horse sewn onto the back pocket—Jordache jeans like the ones I have.

  “D, you wanna jump?” the girl with the beads asks.

  Before Diva Diane says anything, the two girls are turning the ropes so fast, my eyes are crossing. Diane takes off her see-through sandals, tossing them to the side, and stands next to one of the girls turning the rope, doing a little dance, almost as if she were getting ready to run, but she can’t make up her mind.

  The ropes make music. A bip. A bap. A bip-bap-bip-bap.

  Finally, Diane jumps in as the ropes circle around each other like dancing asteroids.

  Bip-bap-bip-bap.

  As soon as Diane jumps in, the ropes turn faster and she skips over each one as if her feet know exactly when each cord is going to hit the sidewalk. Bipbapbipbap.

  “One up two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine!” the girls start to sing. “Two up two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine!”

  I’m catching flies again, and Diane is doing a boogie-down dance with those ropes. She hops on one leg and turns the other way. Then she does a crisscross with her legs without skipping a beat. She puts both feet together and hops like a bunny rabbit.

  Then the song changes. The girls only say, “Ten up . . . Eleven up . . . Twelve up!”

  Even though they’re counting up and not down, Diva Diane looks as if she were going to launch into space as fast as she’s jumping. So I yell out, “Blast off!”

  Diane misses a beat, one of the ropes get caught beneath her feet, and she almost trips.

  “Dang it, Ebony!” Diane yells. “You made me mess up!”

  “Y’all don’t jump double-Dutch Down South, do y’all?” the girl with the beaded braids asks.

  “Yes, we do!” I lie. But I’ve never seen anything like that anywhere in Huntsville.

  Diane sucks her teeth, grabs me by the arm, and says, “Come on, little girl!”

  * * *

  After hours of hanging out on other people’s stoops, going to the laundromat, a hair supply store, and a stop at a corner grocery for some sandwiches that Diane says I’ll have to pay her back ’cause it’s being taken out of her salary, I play Bianca’s game of avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk.

  “Oh, you still play that game? Not trying to break your momma’s back, huh?” Diane says, but she makes sure to step on every crack on purpose. “See, these are not my momma’s back. These cracks are all my ex-boyfriends’ heads. That’s Jamal, that’s Chris, that’s Devin . . . ”

  “Well, I’m trying to avoid moon craters,” I say.

  Diva Diane looks over at me and smiles. “Moon craters? You’re outta sight, Ebony-Grace.”

  Before I return the smile and even try to pull Diane into her own imagination location, we reach a wide, colorful, and loud playground. Outside its tall metal gate is a sign that says, MARCUS GARVEY PARK.

  Suddenly, kids, lots of them, run past us and into the park screaming, yelling, laughing—letting out all kinds of sounds as if they were forced to keep quiet for a whole year.

  “Last day of school,” Diane says. “I remember those days.”

  I spot Stone-Cold Calvin’s big ol’ peanut head at the other end of the block. The same group of boys always follow him around like magnetic dust.

  “Hey, Calvin!” Diane calls out to him, waving. “Y’all gonna practice in the park? Michael and them got the boom box. But the rain from last week done messed up your cardboard.”

  I look all around me for somewhere to hide. I force back the urge to blurt out, “Beam me up, Captain Fleet!”

  I don’t want to be anywhere around Stone-Cold Calvin. But he spots me and his eyes widen. He taps the closest boy next to him and points. I want to teleport out of this plac
e. I try to. I close my eyes and wish really hard that I was somewhere else.

  Science is real. It has to be. We are stardust. Why can’t we just fold time and space around us and become our very own wormholes?

  “Diane, why you gotta bring that girl over here?” Stone-Cold Calvin asks when he reaches us.

  I’m standing behind Diane as if she were a sliding door to a transporter room.

  “’Cause I’m babysitting her, that’s why,” Diane says.

  I take another step behind Diane wishing that she was wide enough to hide my whole body behind. I am not a baby and we haven’t sat all day.

  “Ha-ha! You need a babysitter!” Stone-Cold Calvin says, stepping around Diane to get a better look at me.

  “Be quiet, Calvin. I’m babysitting you next Friday night,” Diane says.

  The rest of the nefarious minions laugh at Stone-Cold Calvin, but it doesn’t faze him. He keeps his eyes on me.

  “But she’s ugly,” he starts, not skipping a beat. “She’s gonna mess up your reputation hanging around you like that, Diane. All that ugly is gonna rub off,” he says. “Look at her glasses! She can see through walls with them glasses.”

  If a thunderstorm is the opposite of sunshine, then a soulstorm begins to brew inside of me. E-Grace Starfleet is like the Hulk with giant muscles ripping out of too-small clothes. I’m like Diana Prince spinning into her Wonder Woman costume. A superhero breaks out of my body, and I now have the courage to stand up to that stupid boy.

  “That’s right!” I say, stepping out from behind Diane and putting my hands on my hips. “I can read straight through that thick peanut head of yours and ain’t nothing in there but a black void!”

  The nefarious minions laugh, of course. But I can’t tell if they’re laughing at me or their leader, Stone-Cold Callous Calvin.

  Diva Diane waves her hand at Calvin and his followers and sucks her teeth. “Don’t pay him any mind, Ebony. He just likes you, that’s all. Big-headed twelve-year-old boys mess with you ’cause they don’t know how to behave like gentlemen.”