Ordinary Hazards

by Nikki Grimmes

  silver-bladed boots

  made for flying.

  And there, flashes of

  sipping hot cocoa

  on the sidelines,

  inaugurating my

  lifelong tenure

  as spectator—

  so many moments

  tucked away

  in the crevices

  of my mind.

  All. That. Time.

  Yes.

  This is the mystery

  of memory.

  SUNDAY MOURNING

  I sat in the meticulously

  polished pew, waiting for

  I don’t know what.

  The church service

  had long ended, yet

  there I sat, discovering

  the meaning of lethargy,

  gazing listlessly

  at the pipe organ,

  which stared back, offering

  no answer.

  Why’d my father,

  the one parent

  who knew my heart,

  have to die?

  Debra slid in next to me,

  laid her head on my shoulder,

  and shared the silence.

  Or did I imagine it?

  Either way, my best friend

  was a comfort

  who never once demanded

  I hurry my grieving

  and move on,

  which is why

  I didn’t mind

  her seeing

  my tears.

  FELONY ON FALLOW GROUND

  Back home from a neighborhood

  basketball game, I ran to my room

  to rip off my sweaty shirt and change into

  something dry, but first I stopped

  to jot down a few thoughts

  in my spiral notebook, which was

  nowhere to be found. I checked my desk,

  my dresser drawer, the floor,

  even underneath the bed, just in case.

  Anything was possible, right?

  And where were my other notebooks?

  The ones that usually lined the small shelf

  attached to my headboard?

  I’d filled pages and pages over the years,

  half of them smudged with tears,

  fingerprints, Kool-Aid stains, and jelly

  from sandwiches I stuffed down while writing.

  Where’d they go? And where was my medal,

  the copper one from junior high?

  I went to find my mother to see if she knew,

  found her in the kitchen, weaving drunkenly—

  a familiar sight since my father’s funeral.

  “Mom, have you seen my notebooks?” I asked.

  Was that a smile on her face?

  “Yes,” she said. “They’re in the trash

  along with all the other garbage

  cluttering this house. I’m sick of it.”

  I stood stock still, forced myself

  to go on breathing, felt the blood rush

  from my head, down through my arms,

  on out to my fingers as they clenched.

  I felt my arm draw back, muscles taut

  and ready to pound that sick, smiling face

  until every tooth went flying, but

  a single thought caught me in time.

  She’s not well. Just look at her.

  My arm dropped and I ran.

  I checked the wastebasket in my mother’s room,

  the trash can under the kitchen sink,

  the bin in the bathroom, my room—everywhere.

  I tore out the front door,

  ran to the street praying,

  Please, God. Please!

  Let the garbage truck be late,

  just this once.

  But—no.

  I dragged myself back in,

  took a few puffs from my inhaler,

  then whirled round my room

  yanking open dresser drawers,

  and tossing handfuls of clothes

  on my bed.

  I added shoes to the pile,

  then schoolbooks

  and the novels from Mrs. Wexler—

  everything I’d need

  to leave.

  A voice inside

  whispered urgently:

  You cannot blossom

  in this soil.

  I knew it was true.

  I dove into the closet,

  hunted for my duffel bag,

  stuffed it with

  everything that mattered,

  then—

  Where am I going?

  Where the hell am I going?

  I dropped to the bed,

  clawed the cover,

  and clenched my teeth.

  Jesus! Get me out of here!

  I closed my eyes,

  waiting.

  Praying.

  Behind my lids,

  an answer finally appeared:

  Carol.

  Tears were a nuisance

  I couldn’t be bothered with,

  so I wiped them away

  with a back hand,

  finished packing,

  and phoned Sis to tell her

  I was moving in.

  Notebook

  I dropped by Mrs. Wexler’s office after lunch. It was great to see her after the summer. Mom’s back in the hospital, which I told her. I also told her about moving in with my sister, and how Carol always let me wake her up in the middle of the night so I could read her a poem. Mrs. Wexler smiled. “You’re on your way,” she said. Then she asked me a question she’d asked before. “What do you want to do with your life?

  What kind of books do you want to write?”

  I thought about Demon, the darkness of that closet;

  I thought about Clark, his sleazy black heart;

  I thought about those girls in the park,

  who scarred me for life, and the gang on the street,

  who branded me with that cigarette;

  I thought about the giant hole in my mother’s soul

  when alcohol and her mental illness took over;

  I also thought about Carol, who took care of me

  the best she could, whenever she could;

  I thought about Daddy, who poured into me

  the history of our people, and encouraged me to explore

  all that the world of art had to offer;

  I thought about the Buchanans, who made me part of their family;

  about Debra, who loved me like a sister; about Willie Mae and Doll,

  who embraced me like their own;

  I thought about Mrs. Wexler, the hardest teacher ever—

  the best, too. That’s when I knew.

  “I want to write books about

  some of the darkness I’ve seen,

  real stories about real people, you know?

  But I also want to write about the light,

  because I’ve seen that, too.

  That place of light—it’s not always easy

  to get to, but it’s there.

  It’s there.”

  EPILOGUE

  Time unwinds faster than a slipknot

  when the string is pulled.

  It’s one year since moving in

  with my sister,

  two since Malcolm X

  was shoved into eternity.

  I attend a celebration of his life

  at a school in Harlem.

  Debra offers to join me,

  but I’m on a solo mission.

  I settle in the front row

&nb
sp; just as the program begins.

  The first speaker

  takes the stage, has his say,

  then exits the auditorium early.

  “Mr. Baldwin! Mr. Baldwin!”

  I call, sprinting after him,

  “Can I see you for a minute?”

  I wave my spiral notebook as I run.

  He pauses outside a classroom,

  cocks his head in that familiar way

  I’ve seen him do on TV.

  “Mr. Baldwin!” I manage, breathless,

  “I’m a writer, too.

  Could you look at my work

  and tell me what you think?”

  He nods, ignores my crossed-out words,

  and missing commas,

  reads my rough poetry,

  cover to cover,

  then writes his name and number

  on the back.

  He looks me in the eye,

  one serious writer to another.

  “You call me,” he says.

  And I do.

  Photo ©: David Flores

  This photo was taken at the Langston Hughes House in Harlem, marking for me a triumphant return to the first place I called home.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  A memoir is a tricky business. Unlike an autobiography, a memoir’s focus is on truth, not fact. For example, two or more people can share the exact same experience, and yet come away with radically different memories of that experience. Is one person’s memory right and the other wrong? No. The memory of each person is true for him or her. A memoir, then, is a very personal, inherently subjective story recalling incidents that have shaped and impacted one person’s life. Even at that, a memoir, again unlike an autobiography, tells the story of a fragment of a life, not the whole of it. Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir is a snippet of my story, and it is my story, alone.

  It’s also important to add that memories rarely come with dates attached, so in some cases, I’ve simply had to guess the week, month, year, or season a particular event occurred. This, of course, is the downside to waiting until most of the members of your family die before you write your memoir. There are too few people left to consult on these particulars.

  Ordinary Hazards was especially challenging as, largely thanks to trauma, I have lost chunks of my childhood memories. There are whole periods of time marked by gaps in memory, and in order to tell my story, I had to figure out a way to bridge them. The notebook entries sprinkled throughout were my way of doing so. The entries also helped me create a sense of sequence. It is often the nature of memoir to jump from one story fragment to another, without attention to strict chronology. But I did my best to create a semblance of chronology here for the benefit of the reader.

  The notebook entries were a work combining memory and imagination. Remember, my mother threw away the original notebooks I kept from the earliest years of my writing life. Without the actual notebooks to refer to, I had to use my imagination to construct specific entries filled with the kinds of thoughts and poems my real notebooks included.

  During the process of writing this book, I often became frustrated when I was unable to answer some of my editor’s most basic questions about the past, so fragmented is my memory. No single person in my narrative, alive or dead, shared my entire journey. I could not even go to my sister to fill in lost memories, as we were separated when I was little more than five years old.

  “ ‘I don’t remember’ is still an answer,” my editor told me. “When you don’t have a definitive answer to a question, simply say so, and explain the reasons why to the reader,” she suggested. This advice was enormously freeing, and I followed it throughout, as needed.

  I hope my story helps you to live more fully into your own.

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  Visual remnants of a childhood,

  a meager offering

  as photographs go,

  but precious nonetheless,

  these scattered proofs

  that I existed

  when few were taking time

  to record

  the fact

  of me.

  The beginning of my Ossining years. I would’ve been five or six years old in this shot. Someone caught me smiling, something I rarely did in those days. I wonder what was on my mind?

  With Kendall and baby Brad Buchanan, who I proudly called brothers. I really shot up those first two or three years, didn’t I? Kendall provided these precious images. If not for his careful digging, I wouldn’t have them. Kendall is still part of my life. Brad passed away long before he should have.

  Alone on the streets of Harlem. Maybe this was during one of my visits to see Mom in the city when I was seven or eight. I look lost. A lot of the time, I felt that way, too. I think I came across this after Aunt Edna died, and my sister ended up with an assortment of photos from her estate. I made a copy.

  Photo ©: Gary Brewer

  Posing in the park at fourteen going on forty! Gail’s boyfriend was a budding photographer, building his portfolio. We got a few photos out of the deal! Gary Brewer went on to a career in photography and film.

  Photo ©: Gary Brewer

  With best friends on the NYC subway, before I chopped off all my straightened hair and went natural. To the left, in her fashionable brim, is Debra Jackson, my friend for life. Gail Broadnax is in the center, the most gifted young writer I’d ever met. I remember being jealous of her enormous talent, and expected her to claim a place in the literary firmament. If only. Gail is gone, now, but Debra held onto this visual record of our threesome. So glad she was able to share it with me for this book.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As with every book, there are people to thank for their various contributions to the making of Ordinary Hazards.

  Many of the people portrayed in this memoir have long since passed away, so I am especially grateful for the input of the few who have not. Chief among these is my sister, Carol Norwood, who generously made time for my questions and confirmed specifics of some memories.

  Thanks to my dear friend Debra Jackson-Whyte who shared key reminiscences that triggered significant memories. Thanks, also, to Debra and my foster brother, Kendall Buchanan, for providing childhood photographs and long-forgotten details. You guys rock!

  Thanks to my sister from another mother, Amy Malskeit, for reading an early draft and, more importantly, for helping me grieve the loss of so many childhood memories.

  Thanks to my good friend Ed Spicer for your insightful reading of a later draft of this work. Your suggestions were spot-on.

  Thanks to my agent and friend, Elizabeth Harding, for boundless support and care of me throughout.

  Finally, the lion’s share of my gratitude goes to Rebecca Davis, my editor. I cannot imagine having gone on this treacherous and emotional journey without your compassion and gentle guidance. Your meticulous care of this manuscript, down to every word, every metaphor, every comma, contributed mightily to the making of this book. Thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nikki Grimes received the 2017 Children’s Literature Legacy Award for substantial and lasting contributions to literature for children. Her books include the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award–winning Words with Wings; the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book One Last Word; the groundbreaking best seller Bronx Masquerade; and Garvey’s Choice. She lives in Corona, California. nikkigrimes.com

 

 

 
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