by Ibi Zoboi
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Outta Space Ebony-Grace. The Genesis Device can go downtown where all the rich folks are and their fancy buildings! They need to come up here where it’s about to be live in ’85. Watch. When the Genesis Ten makes it big, we’re gonna take over all of Harlem.”
“And do what? Be like the Sonic King and blast loud music in the streets in the middle of the day?” I put my whole neck and body into those words.
“Yeah,” he says, and puts his whole neck and body into it, too, but he’s making fun of me. Then he waves his hand at me while saying, “I don’t need this, Ebony-Grace! I don’t need to fix what ain’t broken, rescue what don’t need saving. I just need to rhyme. I need to dance. And DJ Jule Thief ain’t playing fair.”
“Not DJ Jule Thief. The Sonic King. And of course, he’s not playing fair. He’s playing favorites with his minions. And he doesn’t want me to save the captain, so he’s punishing me and the Nine Flavas. But I can get him to change his mind.”
Someone opens the door leading to the junkyard from the shop. Daddy pokes his head out. “Broomstick, get on outta there!”
Pablo rushes ahead of me, but Daddy stops me at the doorway and glares down at me. “Ebony, did you happen’a find a white envelope back at the house? It must’ve fell out of my pocket.”
I shake my head. “A white envelope? No,” I say as sure as the sun, and rush past him to catch up with Pablo. “Hey, Pablo Jupiter. I can ask the Nine Flavas Crew to let you join them.” I follow him out of the junkyard with Daddy still glaring at me.
Pablo stops right in the doorway leading out into the block party. He crosses his arms and says, “As long as I could still be Pablo Jupiter. Then yeah. I don’t mind being with an all-girls crew.”
Before I chase after him again to tell him my plan, Daddy grabs my arm. “You sure, Broomstick. It had the grand prize money for the contest. Was gonna be just fifty bucks, but I raised it to two fifty. I thought I’d do something nice for the kids on the block.”
I pause. I was too deep in the fib now to turn back. That money wasn’t supposed to be for the contest and it sure shouldn’t be going to Calvin and his crew. That money was for me to visit Granddaddy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daddy” is all I say before I rush behind Pablo, and into the block party with the music turned down low.
There’s a lot of talk and commotion. People are confused about the contest having no prize. I catch bits of conversation.
“Man, Julius was running game on us!”
“DJ Jule Thief got a lot of nerve doing folks that way.”
“Who does he think he is?”
“He thinks he runs this block, but he’s got another thing coming.”
The minions of Planet No Joke City are plotting to overthrow the Sonic King. And it is all because of me.
CHAPTER
32
When I was little, Granddaddy told me the story of Apollo 13. That mission was supposed to go back to the moon. Since NASA had already landed on the moon, they thought they could go back over and over again—easy as a plane ride from Huntsville to Harlem. But accidents happen. Plans change. An oxygen tank exploded and, thank goodness, the astronauts survived. No one ever thought the moon would be easy again though.
Granddaddy said it was the same year Momma left Alabama to live with her new husband back in Harlem. My daddy. I wasn’t born yet, and Nana was alive and well in that house on Olde Stone Road. That warm April day in 1970, Granddaddy came home sad and disappointed. But the world celebrated when those astronauts landed back down to Earth in three parachutes, all in one piece.
“It was one small step for mankind just a year before, Starfleet, when Apollo 11 made it to the moon safe and sound. Then, all of a sudden, we were ten steps behind. I tell ya, baby girl, you know what I was thinking. Maybe I was responsible for a bolt or screw, one itty-bitty piece in that whole big puzzle called the Space Race,” Granddaddy had said.
That day, Nana had gone out and Granddaddy had the house all to himself. So, he was going to fill it up with music. This was what he did when he was alone. Granddaddy liked his funk music because it was “the new frontier,” he said. New music was like a space shuttle rushing to reach the farthest edge of the galaxy. “You ever hear a sound so outta this world, Starfleet, it could launch you to the moon?” Granddaddy would ask.
The day before the Apollo 13 disaster, the Beatles broke up. Granddaddy had said that there’d be no more John, George, Paul, and Ringo singing “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Let It Be.” It was the end of slow, dripping hopeful music like molasses swirling at the bottom of a glass of sweet tea. So he blasted Sly and the Family Stone instead, with their “Everyday People” and “Dance to the Music.”
“You shoulda seen me, Starfleet. I was getting on down! Groovin’ and movin’. Lettin’ it all hang out without your momma and Nana there. That’s how those astronauts must feel up in the great big sky, higher than high, so close to the moon they could kiss it!” Granddaddy had said.
But I couldn’t shake the thought of how something went wrong. One itty-bitty piece in that whole big puzzle could’ve taken the lives of those astronauts. And that itty-bitty piece was like a bass guitar in a Sly and the Family Stone song or Ringo’s drum set in the Beatles.
The night of the Fourth of July block party, it rained Sonic Booms. Fireworks lit up the skies and no one seemed to be asleep. I curled up in my not-room and covered my ears and dreamed of spaceships and moon landings and galaxies.
Bianca and the ice cream flavors were nowhere around and I had lost Pablo Jupiter in the crowd. I ate a plate of Ms. Fuller’s fried chicken and mac ’n’ cheese all by myself on the stoop while Daddy and his minions tried to figure out what happened to that white envelope. Still, I don’t say anything. As night came close, Daddy stopped playing that boom-boom-bip music with its Planet Boom Box sounds. Some of Granddaddy’s favorite funk and soul music danced all throughout Harlem, making everything sway slowly like leaves in a soft summer breeze. Those songs wrapped around me like Nana’s knit blankets. The Five Stairsteps telling me that things are gonna be easier; Bill Withers singing it’s gonna be a lovely day; and Earth, Wind, and Fire asking about September. And I sure couldn’t wait one more minute to be back in Alabama, in Huntsville, in that house on Olde Stone Road where Granddaddy filled up the empty quiet spaces with stories and that same music—and even Momma, too, with her church gossip over the telephone, Jimmy Swaggart’s songs about Baby Jesus on the television, and the warm smells of biscuits and memories of Nana.
CHAPTER
33
Two weeks after the block party, the 9 Flavas avoid me like cod liver oil. Diva Diane came by a few times, but Daddy got the hint that I didn’t want her to babysit me anymore. He figured it would save him a few bucks, just as long as I didn’t tell Momma, if I stayed home and watched cartoons. So that’s exactly what I did. My imagination location was closed for business. I shut all the doors and boarded up all the windows as if a hurricane were on the horizon. And I hoped there was one coming up to Harlem to sweep me away like Dorothy and plant me right in Huntsville ’cause there’s no place like home.
Or, I could be my own hurricane and take my own doggone self home since I never told a soul about my little fib. I had tucked Granddaddy’s money inside a comic book and at the bottom of one of my suitcases.
I search the whole house for a telephone book until I find one in Uncle Richard’s bedroom. It’s on his nightstand along with an ashtray and too many cigarette butts. His room is neat and almost empty, and he hasn’t been home for days.
Daddy’s in the shop again, so I rush down the stairs, go into the kitchen, sit at the table, and look up the telephone number to the hurricane that will finally set me free.
“Hello? American Airlines?” I say with my sweet regular ol’ Ebony-Grace voice. “How do I buy a ticket to Huntsville, Alabama?�
�
I listen for instructions. I’ll have to go to the airport to buy that ticket. I recount Granddaddy’s money. Three hundred dollars. I’m gonna need extra to take a taxicab to Kennedy Airport.
Since I’ll be gone from here in a few days, I call Granddaddy anyway, even though every morning Daddy reminds me not to. It’s gonna cost him a lot of money, but that’s what he gets for not buying me the ticket in the first place.
The phone rings three times before Momma picks up. I choose my words carefully, as she would say. I make sure that my voice is even and steady, like when I answer a billion questions from the church ladies about bible study, piano lessons, and my marks in school. “Good morning, Momma. How are you?”
“Ebony? Oh, good morning, darling. It’s good to hear from you. Don’t you have your classes now?”
I was so close to asking her what classes, but I know it would get Daddy in trouble. “Oh, yes. I have ballet in the afternoon. I have Tuesdays off,” I fib.
“Ballet? I thought they didn’t have ballet at the Y on 135th Street?”
“Well, Daddy just signed me up at another place, and I love it, Momma.”
“Is that right?” she says.
“Uh-huh, and I wanna tell Granddaddy all about it. Now, where is he?”
She pauses. “Ebony, honey? I know your grandfather wanted you to come down last weekend. But, it just didn’t make any sense, sweetheart. Now, listen. You’re grandfather’s not doing too good. I know you want to see him. But now is not the right time. You’ll be back by the summer’s end. I promise. And then, you can see your grandfather. Okay?”
I don’t answer her.
“Ebony-Grace, I’m talking to you!”
“Yes, Momma.” I hang up.
Sadness doesn’t get a chance to form a concrete cloud over my head because I have to make plans. I have to focus. I have money. I have a way to buy a plane ticket. And I know how to be on that airplane all by myself. I just need a way to get to the airport.
Daddy’s auto repair shop is full of cars. Most of them are broken, but still, there are cars and they can get me to the airport in no time. Then, I’ll just need a driver. I wonder if Loco Lester can drive. He always wants to help.
I go to the stoop and look around. There’s no sign of Lester. The streets are quieter now, almost like Huntsville. Almost. Everybody has settled into summer, and instead of slow drives and visits to neighbors’ porches, people hang their heads out of windows, sit on plastic crates and play cards, take over whole front stoops, or turn on the fire hydrants to let the Old Faithful flying water cool them down.
Everything is like it was yesterday, and the day before. Just like in Huntsville when Granddaddy isn’t telling his stories. The trees and skies don’t bend to become a whole other planet. Instead, I slowly get used to it all, and I’m as alien as the rap music that blasts out of the boom boxes on boys’ shoulders, as strange as the people bringing junk into Daddy’s shop for a few dollars, and as different as Diane’s many outfits and jewelry.
I don’t see Bianca from where I’m standing on the stoop, but I can hear her voice so I go looking. I finally spot Bianca and her friends behind a table propped up at the curb, the same one that held the food at the block party. There’s an emptied-out milk jug that now holds a red liquid, a stack of plastic cups, and a sign that reads KOOL-AID 10 CENTS. ALL PROCEEDS 2 BENEFIT THE 9 FLAVAS CREW.
I dig into my pocket and find a quarter. “I’ll take two,” I say when I reach the table.
Every single one of the 9 Flavas Crew are here, and they talk and roll their necks and laugh out loud like they usually do. So I’m quiet and regular.
Bianca places two cups of Kool-Aid in front of me and I gulp them down in less than five seconds. I search my pockets for more change, but I left the rest of my money in that comic book in my suitcase. I don’t want to leave. So I ask, “How come y’all not practicing or something?”
“Mind your own beeswax, Ice Cream Sandwich!” Monique yells before anyone else answers me.
But still, I don’t go away because, in just a few days, I won’t be seeing any of them. They’d all be a distant memory. “Where’s Diane?” I finally ask.
Bianca points with her chin and I turn to see Diane walking over with a tall boy who has on almost the same outfit as her—white T-shirts tucked into blue jeans and long gold chains shaped like ropes. Diane has on even bigger gold trapezoid earrings that almost touch her shoulders. As she comes closer, I spot a ring on her left hand so big, it takes up four fingers. On it is her name written out in script. She could just hold up her hand with that giant ring if anybody asks for her name.
“How much did y’all make now?” Diane asks the 9 Flavas without even looking in my direction.
Bianca holds out the quarter that I just gave her.
“You mean to tell me that in this heat, nobody out here wants a cup of Kool-Aid?” Diane says.
Her boyfriend laughs and shakes his head. “Y’all didn’t think everybody got their own Kool-Aid at home? And it’s way cheaper.”
Diane smacks her boyfriend’s shoulder. “Shut up, Ray. They’re just trying to make some money. You got a hundred bucks for them to get to the Apollo? Fifty bucks for their outfits. And fifty bucks to sign up,” she says with her motor mouth.
I immediately look at Bianca. She stares at this Ray with hope in her eyes so bright, they might as well have been blinking fireflies.
Ray laughs and kisses Diane on the cheek. I look away, but none of the ice cream flavors do.
“Well, Ray?” Monique asks. “Do you have a hundred bucks for us? It would be an investment.”
“An investment? For a double-Dutch team?”
“No!” they all shout.
“We’re break-dancers and MCs,” Bianca says.
“Yeah, right. Y’all have to come up against, lemme see . . . ” He starts to count off on his fingers. “There’s Roxanne Shanté out in Queensbridge; and if you want respect from the B-girls, y’all have to go up against Baby Love.”
“We already know all that, stupid head!” Monique yells.
“Seriously, Ray,” Diane says. “They’re really good. They’re better than that crew Calvin put together. And if they get to go, then the Nine Flavas deserve to go. It’s only fair.”
He shakes his head. “Good luck, ladies. I don’t have that kinda dough.”
“Yeah, right,” Monique says. “You just wanna spend it all on your girlfriend.”
Before Diane and Monique start bickering, I go around the table to Bianca and say, “I can help.”
“No. No more help from you, Ebony. I told you. I don’t wanna play those games.” She steps away from me and joins in on the bickering about Ray having all that cash in his pockets and not wanting to help them.
I think for a moment and look back at Daddy’s brownstone—the place I’m supposed to leave in just a few days; the place I’m supposed to break out of so that I don’t stay there forever and never see Huntsville or Granddaddy and never hear the stories about the Uhura ever again.
I think of my not-friends back home, the ones who used to treat me just like the 9 Flavas do; the ones who call me strange and crazy and a tomboy. The ones who probably said “good riddance” when I left Huntsville for Harlem for the summer. If they even noticed I was gone.
But those kids in Huntsville only jump with a single rope, and they don’t spin on their heads and make their bodies move like robots. They play boring ring games and dare one another to kiss a boy. They wear fancy dresses to church and know all the answers about the bible in Sunday school. When they look up at the sky, all they see is what Momma sees: The Heavenly Father and angels and storm clouds and stars and the sun. There’s way more than that up there. I know this for sure. So in Huntsville, I always kept my Uhura stories to myself, never letting any of those not-friends know what I know. Besides, Granddadd
y is my best friend. I didn’t need anyone else.
Then, it settles in my belly like a parachute finally landing. Granddaddy is my granddaddy. Granddaddy is not well. Granddaddy is not always gonna be here to tell me stories about the Uhura. I remember one of the last things he told me on the phone: The Prime Directive—you can’t be messin’ with what people already got going. You got to leave it the way it is. Respect it. Get to know what it’s all about.
At least, these kids here know what outer space sounds like. They know how robots move and some of them even know enough to name themselves out of whole planets, even though they don’t want to visit.
Granddaddy told me that when those astronauts on Apollo 13 realized the plan to go to the moon wasn’t going to work, they made a new plan. They thought fast and they improvised with whatever they had on hand. They knew they only had one shot to make the right choice and make it back to earth alive.
In an instant I knew: I have to help the 9 Flavas Crew. Getting an all-girl crew into the contest at the Apollo Theater would be like getting an all-girl crew to man an Apollo space mission.
I look around at the whole block—the buildings with the missing windows, the colorful words that dance along their crumbling walls, the random tire or mattress that sits out on the curb. This is a planet. This is another world. I remember the lights in Times Square, the sounds of the underground train, so loud it must be where the Sonic Boom is born.
I walk over to Bianca and say, “If I get you into the Apollo, will you let Pablo Jupiter join your crew? And . . . can you teach me some of your moves?”
CHAPTER
34
We never even get to meet this Dapper Dan, who weaves gold thread that makes golden outfits from the tips of his long, brown fingers. At least that’s what the 9 Flavas Crew says. But it’ll take a whole week for him to stitch something called a Gucci logo onto the cheap sweatpants they paid for with my money. Granddaddy’s money.