I noticed a dark,
caramel-colored
smallish man,
eyes bigger than quarters.
When the elevator doors parted,
he was swarmed by
finely dressed crowds
adorned with adoration.
“So very, very honored to meet you,”
blathered one woman,
pumping his hand
too long for comfort.
“Daddy,” I whispered,
“Who is he?”
“A famous author,” said my father,
with unfamiliar awe.
Hearing that,
I stared at the man
long and hard,
memorizing the contours
of his face.
The gala at the Copa
went on for hours,
punctuated by songs, speeches,
and the majesty
of lithe-limbed black dancers
snaking across the stage.
Of all I saw and heard
that evening,
I was most struck with
this single revelation:
not all stars in the firmament
were white.
GARMENT DISTRICT
Grandma Mac
had a close kinship
with style.
When she offered
to take me shopping
in the Garment District,
the only answer was yes.
A tenth grader
heading into fall,
it was high time for outerwear
more fashionable than a peacoat,
and Grandma knew
exactly where to find it.
We tramped in and out of
designer shops on Seventh Avenue
until my feet cried mercy.
I groaned, done for,
when Grandma insisted
“Just one more store.”
But I followed her into
another boutique.
“Try that on,” she said
spotting a swing coat
with a collar so furry-soft
it practically purred.
I slipped it on
and grew two inches,
suddenly confident
in my beauty.
“We’ll take it,”
my grandmother told the sales clerk,
and I sashayed out,
sore feet forgotten.
Grandma Mac certainly knew
a myriad of ways to
rack up brownie points.
TRIO
Girls. Girls are aplenty,
but girlfriends are a special lot.
Debra, Gail, and I called ourselves—
you guessed it—
the Three Musketeers.
Debra was my bestie,
and Gail possessed
more natural literary talent
than I was blessed with.
I made up for the difference, though,
with confidence enough to squander.
One afternoon,
we three dressed up
in our finest rags
to help Gail’s boyfriend,
a fledgling photographer
in need of a portfolio
to display his considerable skills.
Debra and I ripped off our glasses,
and we three posed for portraits
in the park
(me in my new coat!),
then hung from
a vertical pole
in the middle of a subway car,
swinging round it gleefully,
pretending to be
professional models.
In other words,
we hammed it up, yo!
And those photographs?
Oh, my God! Portraits
of joy.
COURSE CORRECTION
The first year at William Howard Taft
shot by like a bullet.
I cleverly surmised
the second year
would be the same.
By then, we’d moved to the Bronx,
up near the Grand Concourse,
for who knew how long.
Bone-tired of switching schools,
I put my foot down,
told Mom she could
move us to Mars,
for all I cared,
but I wouldn’t be
changing schools again.
Surprisingly, she gave me
no argument.
My tenth-grade subjects
provided very little challenge,
except for math, which I decided
was clearly the work of the devil.
English, on the other hand,
would be a cakewalk.
When Mrs. Wexler,
my new English teacher,
handed back our first
graded compositions
of the year,
I was nearly fifteen-going-on-
you-couldn’t-tell-me-nothin’.
Hence, I was smugly prepared
with a smile of victory,
certain of the perfect score
awaiting me. After all, was I not
the most brilliant writer in the class—
nay, in the entire borough
of the Bronx?
When the paper
landed on my desk,
scarred with the letter B,
I nearly choked.
“Excuse me,” I said, barely civil,
“there seems to be some mistake.”
“How so?” asked Mrs. Wexler.
“Well, I’ve never gotten less than an A
on any composition. Ever.”
“Really?”
She was clearly unimpressed.
“Class, please take out
Catcher in the Rye
and read silently.”
I reached for my book,
thinking her quite rude
for cutting off our conversation.
“Not you, Miss Grimes,”
said Mrs. Wexler.
“I need to see you for a moment.”
And she waved me over
to her desk.
Offensive paper in hand,
I went forward.
“Miss Grimes,” said she,
once I stood before her.
“If this were written
by anyone else in this class,
it would have garnered an A.
However, you clearly have
a talent for writing
that you are not yet using
to the full.
If you want an A from me,
Miss Grimes, you’ll have to
apply yourself, dig in, and do
the very best writing
of which you are capable—
and nothing less.
Understood?”
I managed a nod
and a bit of a stutter.
“That will be all,”
said Mrs. Wexler.
“You may return
to your seat.”
Flabbergasted,
I wandered blindly
for the remainder
of the day,
in complete
and utter
shock.
COIF
The barbershop
between 147th and 148th streets
on Seventh Avenue
was owned by Debra
’s father, Doll.
Great news for me,
since being his daughter’s friend
meant getting haircuts for free.
I paid though, in other ways.
South African singer
Miriam Makeba’s
close-cropped coif
is the sleek ’do I imagined
when I posed in the mirror.
My dad loves Miriam and her music,
has her album covers face-out
on his living-room shelves
and a poster of the
high-cheekboned black beauty
smiling from his wall,
all the reason I need
for wanting to look just like her.
This I explain meticulously
the first time I go to Doll’s shop for a trim.
He nods, like he’s listening.
He asks before he starts,
“You sure you want it that short?
’Cause if you’re sure,
I can give you what you want.”
“I’m sure,” I say,
never doubting my vision
or his ability to make me
as beautiful as I want.
Then he grabs his clippers
and dots the floor with my tight curls.
When I see my free trim, I gasp
and drag myself home,
still dreaming of Miriam Makeba,
but looking more like
a skinny black boy with a buzz cut,
ready to join the Marines.
Notebook
Debra saw my first buzz cut and covered her mouth,
but not before a few giggles escaped. I rolled my eyes.
“Aw,” she said. “Come here.”
She ran her hand over my head.
“It doesn’t look that bad—Baldy.”
“Shut up!” I said.
Then we both burst out laughing.
Notebook
“Happy 15th Birthday, Baby.” Daddy’s cards are corny.
He got me another book, this one about
the Mali Empire. If he keeps giving me
books about African kingdoms,
I’m going to change my name to Queen.
BLACK MAGIC
For some of us,
childhood photos
are rare.
Years in and out
of foster care
fosters a sense of
invisibility.
Our lives are routinely unrecorded,
perpetuated
however innocently,
by unthinking parents
and other performers of
a dark art—
withholding proof
of presence.
We have no
cartons bulging with
faded report cards,
sheets of construction paper
messy with
finger-painted handprints,
no dimpled or freckled images
lovingly plastered across
refrigerator doors,
or obsessively created
memorabilia of any kind.
We pretend not to mind
this fractured version
of peek-a-boo:
Now you see us,
now you don’t.
Notebook
The Black Panther Party is starting to look real good to me.
To join, or not to join? Haven’t made up my mind.
Debra has a boyfriend. I’m not ready yet.
Raul, this ’Rican boy in my class, smiles at me
every chance he gets. He’s fine, too—brown and beautiful.
I bet he’d laugh if he heard me call him that.
It might be nice to be with him, but…
I can’t stand the thought of anybody touching me.
Don’t know when that’ll change. If ever.
I told Debra about Clark, what he did to me. Some of it, anyway.
She asked how come I still believe in God. What kind of question
is that? How could I not? If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t even be
here. I’d either be in prison, or the grave.
Notebook
Little by little,
I hear God telling me
to let the anger go.
Clark is gone.
Mom is who she is.
I can’t change her
or Grandma.
All my anger does
is get in the way
of my dreams.
GREASE PAINT
Roger Furman,
a New York theater director,
got me hooked on theater.
My father introduced us, of course.
(Who doesn’t that man know?)
Roger led a small troupe in Harlem
and invited me to join.
Visions of being Sidney Poitier’s
leading lady, or maybe
sharing the Broadway stage
with Harry Belafonte,
put stars in my eyes.
After that,
there was no keeping me away
from auditions.
This was it:
I decided I was going to be
a writer/actress.
No question.
LES BALLETS AFRICAINS
My sour experience in ballet class
back in Ossining
gave me mixed feelings
about going to the ballet.
But my father was insistent.
He assured me I’d like
the special performance
he had in mind.
He might as well have been
talking about the Milky Way,
because black women doing pirouettes
was a vision
out of this world.
Their grace, their beauty,
the talking drum rhythms
that reached into my soul
reignited my love
of dance.
This was it.
I was going to be
a writer/actress/dancer.
No question.
HOLD EVERYTHING
A slightly familiar lady
who knew my mother
from way back,
stopped me on my way
from paying a visit
to my grandmother.
She trapped me
with the usual
adult chit-chat:
how much I looked like
my mother,
how much I’d grown
since she saw me last,
blah, blah, blah.
But then she got to
the main event,
asking what I wanted to be
when I grew up,
as if I wasn’t
grown enough already.
“A writer/actress/dancer,”
I rattled off,
and she chortled.
“Wait!” I said,
having almost forgotten
how much I loved
being in the choir.
“I’m going to be the first
writer/actress/dancer/singer,”
I announced
(not knowing Maya Angelou
had already beat me to it).
“Honey,
you’re going to have to choose
one or the other,”
said the woman.
I didn’t see why,
but I was taught
not to argue
with my elders.
When I saw my father
the following weekend,
I repeated the conversation
to hear what he had to say.
“Don’t worry about choosing
right now,” he told me.
“Go ahead and explore
whatever art form interests you.
There’s plenty of time
to decide on your specialty,
and once you do,
you’ll discover you can use
everything you’ve learned.”
Hot damn!
Give that advice-man
an Oscar!
Notebook
Daddy says I can be
whatever I want.
Carol says I can be
whatever I want.
Debra says I can be
whatever I want.
Her mom says I can be
whatever I want.
Mrs. Wexler says I can be
whatever I want.
They’re right.
Everybody else
is lying.
BLACK ORPHEUS
I loved the sound
of conga drums
in that grand old Brooklyn theater
built back in the 1930s,
offering its faded velvet curtains,
chipped paint, and dull cornices
with barely the reminiscence of gilt
by the time I saw them.
But the sound that bounced
off the cathedral ceilings
still swelled to fill the hall,
each note round and golden.
And there I sat beside my father,
below the balcony
surrounded by a small group of black folk,
enjoying the glory of
ebony-hued Brazilian dancers
swaying across the movie screen
as Daddy’s favorite old film,
Black Orpheus,
loomed larger
than any I’d ever seen.
Much of the story
set against Brazilian Carnival
was over my head, but
the parade of costumed dancers
in sun-soaked colors
and elaborate masks
held my attention.
At one point, I turned to my father
to profess my awe at what I saw,
but found him sound asleep,
as usual.
That man could fall asleep anywhere,
even standing up.
Mom used to say my father
wasted his money on movies,
said he could sleep more cheaply
at home.
He missed most of the film,
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