My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich

by Ibi Zoboi

  “All the fly rappers come to him for their outfits,” Monique tells me as we walk from the store back to the block. She’s Mercurial Monique again. She talks to me, puts her arm around me, and doesn’t call me Outer Space Ebony-Grace anymore.

  But I’m still the ice cream sandwich in this 9 Flavas Crew. I still don’t have no flava, they remind me.

  Bianca is nice to me, too. I don’t talk about planets and spaceships. Not even around Pablo Jupiter, who abandoned the nefarious minions—I mean, Genesis Ten—to join our crew. He took the Genesis name with him, too, since he was the one who came up with it. So they’re just the Cold-Crush Calvin Crew, and according to Pablo, no one likes it ’cause it makes Calvin the leader, just like Monique is leader of the ice cream flavors.

  “Since Diane is hanging out with her boyfriend all the time now, then you should be our manager, Ice Cream Sandwich,” Monique says when we reach the block.

  “Me? A manager of what?” I ask.

  “Us,” Rhonda says. “You can manage us. Organize battles, get us into contests, and probably get some of the news reporters to come up here and tape us like they did for the New York City Breakers.”

  “And maybe even get us into movies!” Bianca says. “It’s not fair that only the boys get the spotlight and not us.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Monique adds. “I heard some news reporters are coming to videotape Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew over there on 122nd. Calvin and them are going to be right there! But nobody told them about us.”

  “But we didn’t take a vote on her!” Mango Megan says.

  “We don’t need to take a vote,” Monique says. “Me and Bianca already agreed. So, Ice Cream Sandwich, you’re the manager of the Ice Cream Flavas. You’re paying for the outfits, paying to get us into the Apollo, and we need breakfast, lunch, and dinner while we rehearse. You heard?”

  I push down a smile. I won’t be happy yet. I won’t laugh. “Well, can I be called a . . . captain instead?”

  “Captain? Okay. Captain Ice Cream Sandwich.”

  “No,” I say. “Captain E-Grace Starfleet.”

  “Captain Starfleet,” Bianca says.

  Monique shrugs. “Okay, Captain Starfleet. Now, can we get some sandwiches from the store?”

  This will be the third time I’ve bought everybody food. No one asks where I got the money from. And only once did Bianca say thank you. Only Bianca, no one else.

  So Monique grabs my hand and the rest of the crew fall in line behind her, except for Bianca who stands on the other side of her.

  “What y’all want? Put in your orders now! Captain Starfleet, take note!” Monique shouts.

  I want to tell her that I’m supposed to be giving orders, not taking them. I pat my shorts pocket to make sure I feel the wad of cash that’s supposed to be there, and in that same moment, a shiny black car comes speeding down the block, music blasting from the stereo.

  The 9 Flavas Crew all stop to dance. I can’t see the driver but a pretty lady with big, curly hair, bright red lipstick, and giant gold hoops sitting in the passenger seat. And they all talk at the same time.

  “Ooh, she looks like Donna Summers!”

  “No, more like Diana Ross with all that hair.”

  “I bet you she’s a Solid Gold dancer.”

  “What if she’s looking for dancers to be on her show?”

  “Everybody, pose!”

  In the blink of an eye, the 9 Flavas Crew are in different poses as if the pretty lady in that fancy car were ready to take their photograph. I’ve seen fancier ladies in Huntsville, and fancier cars, too, like Granddaddy’s Cadillac.

  Daddy steps out of his shop across the street. The fancy car pulls up to the curb and none other than Uncle Richard steps out, runs around to the other side, and opens the door for the pretty lady, who is neither Carol nor Not-Carol.

  “Uncle Richard must be a pimp!” Rhonda says.

  “Oooh, don’t call Captain Starfleet’s uncle a pimp. She might beat you up,” Monique says. “With her Wonder Woman bracelets!”

  They laugh at her joke and at me. I lower my head until I hear Daddy’s voice boom across the street.

  “You went ahead and got yourself a new girlfriend with my money?” he shouts.

  Everyone who is either walking by, sitting on their stoops, or hanging their heads out of windows hears my daddy’s voice and turns to look his way. He’s walking toward Uncle Richard really fast and real angry. He gets in his face. He shouts.

  “You stole my cash, Richard!”

  “Whatchu talkin’ ’bout I stole your cash?” Uncle Richard shouts back. “I bought this car with my own money. I told you I was getting it.”

  “I’m sick and tired of all your lyin’, stealin’, and cheatin’! You gots to get up out of my house!”

  Uncle Richard steps closer to Daddy and spreads his arms out as if daring him to do something. Other men come out of the shop and surround them.

  Daddy and Uncle Richard shout about the new girl, the new car, the new suit, and the three hundred dollars.

  If there was a Sonic Boom right now, it would be a bunch of exploding curses oozing in molten lava dripping over this part of No Joke City. There is nothing funny about right now, at all, even though Monique and them are giggling with their “ooooh!” and telling my daddy to just sock it to Uncle Richard one time for cheating on all those girls he brings around.

  “We don’t want no pimps, junkies, and hos on our block, Mr. Freeman. You tell him!” Monique shouts.

  Bianca steps closer to me. “Why is your daddy and your uncle fighting?”

  I shrug and touch the bulge in my pocket. I don’t say a word.

  No one stops them from shouting. So I walk closer to the shouting men and, with my teeny-tiny voice against their Sonic Boom curse words, call for my daddy. But no one hears me.

  The pretty lady comes out of the car with her long legs and short dress, but she doesn’t stop them.

  Señora Luz comes out of her apartment, waves for Bianca to come inside, but she doesn’t stop them.

  Everybody comes to watch and tell my daddy to punch his little brother in the face—the same little brother who calls me EG ’cause I’m extra-galactic. They don’t stop them.

  Daddy says he took his money.

  Uncle Richard said he didn’t. This was his new car and that woman ain’t cost no money.

  Daddy said he’s freeloading.

  Uncle Richard reminds him that he’s his brother, and pushes him.

  Daddy pushes back and accuses him of taking that money for dope.

  Then the fists start flying.

  “Daddy!” I yell, ready to dive in to save him.

  But someone holds me back. “Wait a minute now, little girl. This is grown men’s business. Don’t want you to get hurt.”

  I’m ready to pull away from that man, but Bianca comes over and grabs my arm. “No, Ebony,” she says quietly.

  There’s nothing else to do but to watch two planets colliding and exploding, and everyone standing around watching like stars, doing nothing except taking up space. I do the same thing, even as my eyes well up with tears, as Uncle Richard tries to punch but he’s too weak and skinny, so Daddy becomes like Admiral Kirk wanting to destroy Commander Kruge and they both tumble down on the ground and Daddy throws punch after punch until Uncle Richard can’t do anything but just lie there.

  I’m yelling, “Daddy, no! No, Daddy!” over and over and over again until my voice just gives in and all I can do was whisper, “Daddy, no!”

  A noise coming from far away sounds as if it’s doing all the crying and screaming for me. An ambulance. Or a sheriff’s car. Or both. It gets closer and everyone starts scurrying away back to their stoops and windows as if nothing had just happened.

  “Five-oh!” somebody yells.

  Daddy stands over
Uncle Richard, breathing hard, wiping his sweaty forehead and bloody mouth with the back of his hand.

  So I run to him.

  He pushes me away without saying a word.

  Before I run back again—because maybe he doesn’t know it’s me, maybe he’s too angry to even notice—two sheriffs rush to him to grab both his arms and put them behind his back.

  By this time, no words fall out of my mouth. And without thinking, I dig into my shorts pocket and grab whatever’s left of the money. I hold it up so those sheriffs can see that it’s okay, that Daddy shouldn’t go to jail, that neither he nor Uncle Richard did anything wrong.

  “I took the money, Daddy!” I yell out, and then the rest comes pouring out with it: “I just wanted to make things right. For Bianca and her friends—my friends. I didn’t mean to lie. Take me prisoner instead. Please!”

  CHAPTER

  35

  I see fights in movies and on TV all the time. Kirk is always kicking somebody’s butt. Mr. Spock can do his Vulcan nerve pinch. And there’s sometimes a phaser or a lightsaber. But someone’s always the bad guy. Two good people could never get into a fight. Somebody’s gotta win.

  The only real live fight I’ve ever seen was between Mrs. Turner and some other church lady from another part of town. I didn’t really know what they were fighting about, but it was at a church picnic and they knocked down a pan of cornbread. That fight was funny.

  But Daddy and Uncle Richard’s fight was not. Everybody on the block was talking about it for days afterward.

  They talked about what a shame it was to see brothers fighting over money. About how Daddy wouldn’t see that cash again after one of the police officers snatched it out of my hand to keep as evidence. About how they’d never seen a skinny little girl from Down South cause so much trouble.

  I never thought that this was going to be the thing that forced Momma to get me back home to Granddaddy. This, and that other thing.

  “Baby,” Momma says so softly that I don’t recognize her voice. “It’s time for you to come home now.”

  Daddy is at the kitchen table eating a bowl of oatmeal. He’s been eating oatmeal for two weeks, since after the fight and spending the night in jail. The left side of his face is still swollen. I had to stay in Bianca’s room, where her abuela let us watch TV late into the night until the screen sizzled and fizzed like soda pop.

  “I gotta stay and look after Daddy,” I tell her. I’m like Momma now. While she looks after her own daddy, I look after mine.

  “Your father’s going to be all right, Ebony. He got his own self into that mess. You’re too young to get all caught up in his stuff.”

  I watch as Daddy tries to chew with the bandage across his jaw. He broke it. He had a fat, busted lip, too, and a black eye from the fight with Uncle Richard, and from another fight while he was in jail.

  “It’s my fault, Momma,” I say.

  Daddy looks up at me and shakes his head. He didn’t tell Momma about my fib, which was really a straight-up lie. All he ever said to me was, “Broomstick, it’s my fault I didn’t do the right thing with that money in the first place.”

  Momma says, “Nothing is your fault, Ebony. Now, I don’t want you coming down here with those thoughts in your head. Especially when you see your grandfather.”

  I gasp. “Where is Granddaddy, Momma?”

  “Ebony-Grace, your grandfather’s in the hospital now.”

  CHAPTER

  36

  Bianca doesn’t even look my way anymore. It’s Sunday and she’s off to church with her abuela. When I spent the night in her apartment, we both only stared at the TV. She fell asleep first, without saying a word. I left the moment I heard Daddy’s footsteps upstairs. Before going in to see Daddy, I sit on the front stoop with my elbow resting on my knobby knee and my chin in my hand.

  The 9 Flavas had no outfits or money and couldn’t compete in the contest—the contest that the Cold-Crush Calvin Crew won with the help of Pablo Jupiter, the traitor, who turned around and begged Calvin to take him back so he could be in the contest.

  None of that mattered anyway, because I was finally going home to see Granddaddy.

  “I defeated the Sonic King and I’m now captain of the Uhura. If there still is an Uhura,” I say to no one in particular as I sit alone on the stoop. I look up at the wide blue sky and the buildings in the distance that teased it. There wasn’t an Uhura up there or a Planet Boom Box or a Sonic King. These stories were all starting to look and feel like those white, fluffy clouds—slowly moving away and pulling apart and dissolving like cotton candy at the county fair.

  I spot Pablo Jupiter walking down the block and I try to do something, anything, to avoid him. But he calls my name. My other name.

  “Hey, Captain Starfleet!”

  “You don’t get to call me that!” I say, as he reaches the front gate of the stoop.

  “Why not? Isn’t that your name?” He’s wearing a clean T-shirt and jeans with a long crease down the fronts of the legs.

  “My name is Ebony-Grace Norfleet Freeman,” I say.

  “No, it’s not. It’s Captain E-Grace Starfleet of the Mothership Uhura. That’s what you told me. Why you gonna change up the story?”

  “Why are you a traitor?” I ask.

  “I’m not a traitor. One of us had to get into that contest. Now, since we won, I got a little bit of money to help the Nine Flavas. There’s gonna be a back-to-school contest and I want me and the Nine Flavas to compete as a team,” he says, digging into his pocket and showing me five twenty-dollar bills.

  “I don’t care,” is all I say, shrugging.

  “Why? ’Cause you’re going back to Alabama to save Captain Fleet?” he asks.

  “Captain Fleet is no more!” I want to take back those last words, but I have to remember that Captain Fleet is just a story, is just a part of Granddaddy’s imagination location. Not mine. It was his all along.

  “Did he die?” Pablo asks.

  “No! Don’t say that!”

  “But you said he’s no more.”

  “He’s not a real person!”

  “So, you’re not going to outer space anymore? And isn’t Alabama where they have that space camp?” He sits on the stoop a few steps down from me without me even inviting him in. “If I had the choice, I’d go to space camp. Forget all this MCing and break dancing, because that’s what everybody here wants to do. I mean some of us are better than others,” he says, rubbing his chin. “But at some point, so many people will be doing it that no one is gonna get to shine. You know what I mean?”

  “But, Pablo, there are lots of stars in outer space. Every one of them shines,” I say.

  He doesn’t say anything. Then he asks, “You think I’m gonna be a star, Captain Starfleet?”

  “I guess you ain’t never heard how the Nine Flavas talk about you behind your back.”

  “No. Not that kinda star. I mean, one in outer space,” he says, biting his fingernail. “An astronaut like Neil Armstrong and Guion Bluford.”

  “You know who Guion Bluford is!”

  “Of course, I do! And he’s probably from Harlem. Everybody who’s black and famous is from Harlem.”

  “Well, I wanna be like Sally Ride! And she’s definitely not from Harlem. And I’m not either.”

  “Take me to Alabama with you. I wanna go to that space camp, too,” he says, looking out at the block.

  “Why would you want to go to Alabama when you have all this . . . ,” I say. I look out to my right as the Soul Train passes by on the aboveground tracks on Park Avenue. A car drives down the block real slow blasting that boom-boom-bip music out from its opened windows. Rap, they call it. Or hip-hop. A kid shouts some curse words from an open window across the street, and a group of girls, including some of the 9 Flavas, shouts back with their own curse words. A grandma down the block yells out, “I
’ll wash y’all’s dirty mouths out with soap if y’all don’t stop all that cussing!” Another car zooms down blasting old disco music that neither Granddaddy nor Momma likes. A boy walks down the block holding a boom box over his shoulders, blaring some more of that rap music, and this time it’s a song I recognize from the block party: “Jam On It” by Newcleus—like the center of an atom, where all the energy is stored. Pablo starts to pop and lock his hands and arms and I start to bop my head. A group of young girls come out from a building next door holding a telephone cord for double-Dutch, and in that moment, it’s as if someone had turned up the volume real loud. It’s the Sonic Boom, all right. But I don’t cover my ears.

  I stand to walk down the steps, out of the front gate, and onto the sidewalk. I’m Bionic Woman opening up my ears to every sound, every beat, every rhythm in Harlem. I can even feel the trains passing underground. It’s all music. So I snap my fingers.

  A boom.

  A bip.

  A bop.

  “What are you doing?” Pablo asks from behind me.

  I don’t say anything for a second. Then, “If space is the place, then Harlem is the biggest, baddest planet in the galaxy!”

  “You got that right!” he says.

  Then Harlem’s volume turns up at full blast.

  Hip and hop and stop.

  Beat and feet.

  Bang, boogie, and bang.

  Stop, rock, and bop.

  Pop the pop.

  On and on

  To the break of dawn.

  “Harlem isn’t going anywhere,” Pablo says. “It’s never gonna change. But I’m gonna be a man soon and I have to live out my dreams. I wanna go to that space camp to practice being an astronaut.”

  “Well, you don’t need a space camp to be an astronaut,” I tell him. “You just need an imagination location. And you already have that here, Pablo. You’re already an astronaut. You’re a space hero!”