One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams-Garcia

  I kept Fern near, my arms crossed before me. I was here to make sure my sisters and I ate breakfast, and to stay out of Cecile’s hair. If Vonetta wanted to get her feelings hurt chasing after smiles and go-go boots, that was on her.

  The Panthers opened the doors and we trailed inside, the three of us sticking close together. As we entered, I did what Cecile said. I handed the box to the first Black Panther I saw and said, “This is from Cecile.” I wasn’t about to call her some name I didn’t know or tell them she said to leave her alone. The Black Panther guy opened the box. He took out a sheet from a stack of paper—a flyer with a crouching black panther and some writing on it—and held it up to examine it. He nodded, said, “Thank you, Sister,” and took the box with him.

  The three girls in the flower dresses were standing on line looking at us. Vonetta tried to steer me over to them, but I didn’t want to go chasing after them. Their dresses looked so nice and new. We wore shorts and sun tops, although Oakland wasn’t as sunny as we’d imagined California would be. I found us a place on line behind Puerto Ricans who didn’t look Puerto Rican but who spoke Spanish. Then I remembered our study of the fifty states. They were probably Mexicans.

  I thought Black Panthers would only look out for black people, but there were the two Mexicans, a little white boy, and a boy who looked both black and Chinese. Everyone else was black. I’d never seen the Black Panthers making breakfast on the news. But then, beating eggs never makes the evening news.

  As we stood on line, a guy who should have kept walking stopped right in front of us. He crossed his arms and looked down at Fern.

  I recognized the beakish nose on that narrow face. He was the one in the telephone booth who had turned his back to us, like he didn’t want to be seen. For all I knew, he was one of those in the black berets and Afros who’d come knocking on Cecile’s door last night. Now he stood across from Fern, his legs apart and his arms folded.

  “What is wrong with this picture,” he stated instead of asked. He knew the answer, all right. I was pretty good at reading faces.

  He didn’t have a leather jacket, but he was one of them. On his black T-shirt was a dead white pig with flies buzzing around it and the words OFF THE PIG in white letters. His hair was a big loose Afro because it was a little stringy. Stringy like Lucy Raleigh’s, who bragged about being part Chickasaw in the fourth grade but by fifth grade was singing “I’m Black and I’m Proud” louder than loud because James Brown’s song had made it the thing to do.

  The stringy-Afro-wearing beak man wasn’t Papa-grown or Cecile-grown. Probably all of nineteen or twenty, but he thought he was something. He was putting on a show for all the other black beret wearers.

  When none of us spoke, he pointed and asked again the question whose answer he already knew. “What is wrong with this picture?”

  Fern pointed back at him and said, “I don’t know. What’s wrong with this picture?”

  The other Black Panthers laughed and told Fern, “That’s right, Li’l Sis. Don’t take nothing from no one.” And they slapped palms and said stuff like “These are Sister Inzilla’s, all right. Look at them.”

  Beak Man tried to stand up to his humiliation. Shake it off.

  “Li’l Sis, are you a white girl or a black girl?”

  Fern said, “I’m a colored girl.”

  He didn’t like the sound of “colored girl.” He said, “Black girl.”

  Fern said, “Colored.”

  “Black girl.”

  Vonetta and I threw our “colored” on top of Fern’s like we were ringtossing at Coney Island. This was bigger than Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud. If one of us said “colored,” we all said “colored.” Unless we were fighting among ourselves.

  “All right, then. ‘Cullid’ girls,” Big Beak said, “why are you carrying that self-hatred around in your arms?”

  An older teenage girl in a Cal State T-shirt said, “Kelvin, you’re crazy. Leave those colored girls alone.”

  Big-beaked, stringy-haired Kelvin looked pleased with himself.

  I said, “That’s not self-hatred. That’s her doll.”

  “Yeah. A doll baby.”

  “Miss Patty Cake.”

  In spite of the Cal State girl and the other Black Panthers saying leave those girls alone, he went on.

  “Are your eyes blue like hers? Is your hair blond like hers? Is your skin white like hers?”

  The girl said again, “Crazy Kelvin, stop it. Just stop it.”

  Crazy Kelvin turned to a lady who wore an African-print dress and a matching cloth wrapped around her head. “Sister Mukumbu. Our ‘colored’ girls here need some reeducation.” And he walked away, one of those pimp walks, like How you like me now?

  Sister Mukumbu just smiled at him like she didn’t take Crazy Kelvin seriously. She and the Cal State girl exchanged a look.

  The Cal State girl turned toward me and said, “Don’t mind Crazy Kelvin. That’s what we call him. He’s a little wild.”

  For all of that, the eggs were cold, but we ate them, along with the buttered toast and orange slices. It was better than eating air sandwiches at Cecile’s.

  Fern hugged Miss Patty Cake but refrained from putting a piece of toast to her doll’s lips like she would have done at home. Still, the other kids laughed at her and called her White Baby Lover and Big Baby, except for the boy who looked both colored and Chinese. I told them to shut up. And that went for the three sisters in flower dresses. Even the tallest sister. No one could call Fern White Baby Lover even though Miss Patty Cake was a white baby and Fern loved her. No one could call Fern a Big Baby but Vonetta and me. Vonetta ate her toast silently. We had cost Vonetta her summer friends with the white go-go boots and happening dresses. But I didn’t care. Fern could love Miss Patty Cake all she wanted. We could call ourselves Vanilla Wafers, Chocolate Chips, or Oreo Cookies for all I cared about black girls and colored girls.

  And even though Cecile didn’t bother to bring us here or stick up for Fern, the Black Panthers had slapped palms and said, “Those are Sister Inzilla’s, all right.”

  Even the Earth Is a Revolutionary

  Once breakfast was over, most of the kids left, except for a dozen who stayed behind, including us. I told my sisters we might as well stick around for the summer camp program. Cecile had made it clear she didn’t want to see us anytime soon, so we told Sister Mukumbu our names and followed her and Sister Pat, the young woman in the Cal State T-shirt, into a classroom.

  I felt silly and wrong calling a grown person Brother So-and-So or Sister Such-and-Such, but thanks to Cecile, we now had brothers and sisters we had never before laid eyes on. Sure, they said “brutha” and “sistah” in Brooklyn, but here it was more of a title and not like you were saying “him” or “her.” As far as I could tell, none of the grown people at the Center went by Mr., Mrs., or Miss. If Big Ma could see how quickly our home training had flown out the window, she would have had us on the next Boeing 727 back to New York.

  There was something welcoming about Sister Mukumbu, whom I liked right away. If Sister Mukumbu had met us at the airport, we would have felt welcomed as she stepped forward to claim us. She would have wrapped us up in her green, purple, and orange African print dress and begged our forgiveness for having left us.

  We sat at one of the two long tables. The classroom was unlike any I had ever been in. Instead of pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and President Johnson, there was a picture of Huey Newton sitting in a big wicker chair with a rifle at his side. There were other pictures of mostly black men and a few women hung up around the room. I expected to find Dr. Martin Luther King’s photograph hanging on the wall, but I was disappointed. Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali were the only faces I could name. I didn’t know any of the women, although one woman looked just like Big Ma. Next to her picture were the words “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

  On the walls were big sheets of lined-ruled paper written in teacher’s neat handwriting. Th
e first one said “What We Want” in green letters. On the other side of the wall, another said “What We Believe.”

  Vonetta didn’t seem to care that we were in some sort of Black Panther summer camp, learning to become Black Panthers. Her attention was fixed on the three sisters with the flared-sleeve dresses and their round, curly Afros. I knew I would hear all about it later. How it was time for her to have a new hairstyle and that our clothes were baby clothes.

  Sister Mukumbu said, “Hirohito Woods.”

  A boy from the other table with dark spiky hair, brown coppery skin, and slanted eyes groaned. He was probably my age.

  Sister Mukumbu smiled in spite of his groaning. She beckoned him to her side, her many bracelets jangling as she waved him forward. “Hirohito will help with my demonstration.”

  I didn’t have to turn to see Vonetta’s mile-long pout. It was just like Vonetta to be envious of someone else being in the spotlight. Hirohito didn’t seem thrilled. He pushed his chair backward, scraping the floor, and went sullenly up to the front. It was only from the back of his spiky head that I recognized him as the flying T board rider who’d nearly mowed us down yesterday. I had half a mind to sock him good.

  Sister Mukumbu said, “I’m going to be the sun, and Hirohito will be the earth.” She leaned and whispered something in his ear. He heaved a big sigh, like he didn’t want to do whatever it was she told him but would do it anyway. The sighing was for us kids so he didn’t come off as some kind of teacher’s pet.

  Sister Mukumbu nodded and said firmly, “Now, Hirohito.”

  He heaved another sigh and began to turn around slowly, each time taking a step to travel around Sister Mukumbu, who stood still and smiled. This was better than socking him in the arm. Watching him turn around and around in his black and silver Raiders jersey. He looked down and probably felt silly. All the kids in the program, including my sisters and me, giggled. Sister Mukumbu wasn’t bothered by our giggling or by Hirohito’s sighing. She said, “The earth turns slowly on its axis, while also spinning around the sun. Day wouldn’t change to night if the earth didn’t spin on its axis. The seasons wouldn’t change if the earth didn’t travel around the sun. This means vegetation wouldn’t grow, which means poor farmers couldn’t harvest, and poor people couldn’t eat if the earth didn’t spin on its axis and travel around the sun. That one body spinning in motion affects everyone’s lives. Does anyone know another word for the earth’s constant spinning?”

  That was how I knew Sister Mukumbu was a real teacher, aside from her welcoming smile and her blackboard penmanship. She asked a teacher’s type of question. The kind that says: Join in.

  Thanks to my time spent with Merriam Webster, I had a few words in mind. Rotating. Orbiting. Turning. Circling. I wanted to join in, but I felt silly, being one of the older kids. Not as silly as Hirohito spinning around but too old to wave my hand frantically as all the younger kids around me were doing. The older sister of the three girls also sat on her answer. She probably knew too but left it up to her sisters, who wanted to be called on.

  When one of the kids called out “Revolving,” Sister Mukumbu clapped her hands. Her bangles jangled. “Yes! All of your words are right, but ‘revolving’ is right on!” Sister Pat then gave the boy a cookie.

  Sister Mukumbu said, “Revolving. Revolution. Revolutionary. Constant turning. Making things change.”

  Sister Pat said, “Huey Newton is a revolutionary. Huey makes change.”

  And Sister Mukumbu continued, saying, “Che Guevara was a revolutionary. Che made change.”

  As they named all of the revolutionaries who made change, Hirohito came to a complete stop. He held out his hands, a dizzy Frankenstein, and staggered to his chair. The boy who won the cookie said, “Nice spinning, Twinkle Toes.” Hirohito rested his head on the table and closed his eyes.

  I just thought, Serves you right.

  Sister Mukumbu announced, “Today we’re going to be like the earth, spinning around and affecting many. Today we’re going to think about our part in the revolution.”

  Vonetta’s hand shot up. I kicked her under the table, but she was determined to have everyone look at her, which meant have everyone look at us. I forgot all about Hirohito and was now afraid of what Vonetta would say next; and sure enough, Vonetta said, “We didn’t come for the revolution. We came for breakfast.” Then Fern added, “And to meet our mother in Oakland.”

  If Hirohito’s spinning made us giggle, Vonetta’s declaration made everyone—except my sisters and me, and the still-dizzy Hirohito—full-out laugh. The group of girls whom Vonetta had been winking at were the main cacklers. Even Sister Mukumbu, caught off guard by Vonetta’s and Fern’s outbursts, allowed herself a chuckle.

  I blamed Vonetta and not Fern, since I didn’t want the world to learn we didn’t rightfully know our mother. Fern wouldn’t have uttered a word if Vonetta hadn’t raised her hand to speak. Even worse, Vonetta had thrown a king-sized monkey wrench into my plans. I had hoped to ask Sister Mukumbu about the name the Black Panthers called Cecile and why they called her that. I didn’t know exactly how I would have asked her, but something made me believe she would know and that she wouldn’t make me feel bad for asking. She certainly wouldn’t have given me that “Oh, you poor motherless girl” pity look. Or the snooty “Don’t you even know your own mother’s name?” Sister Mukumbu would have given me the plain, pure, teacherly truth.

  Then Vonetta raised her hand and opened her mouth and had the world looking and laughing at us. Except for the boy who was too dizzy to laugh. I wasn’t about to add fuel to the fire by asking questions about things that I should know, like my mother’s name.

  Crazy Mother Mountain

  After the program ended for the day, we stayed out as long as we could. By six o’clock we were hungry. Whether she liked it or not, Cecile had to let us inside her green stucco house. When she opened the door, all she said was “Ya back?” Then she spread the tablecloth on the floor and brought out shrimp lo mein and egg rolls from the kitchen. She had probably gone out to Mean Lady Ming’s while we were at the Center.

  We washed up and sat Indian-style around the food. I said the blessing and then I asked, “Why the Black Panthers call you Inzilla?” No use letting my curiosity go itching. If I had to ask someone, I might as well go straight to the mountain. The crazy mother mountain.

  She gave me a blank stare. Like I said something wrong. Then she corrected me.

  “Nzila.”

  In place of shrugs, my sisters and I shot one another glances. That was not a Brooklyn sound. Or an Alabama sound. It was probably not even an honest-to-goodness Oakland sound.

  Instead of trying it out I said, “Why they call you that?”

  My sisters followed.

  “Isn’t your name Cecile?”

  “Yeah. Cecile.”

  She said, “My name is Nzila. Nzila is a poet’s name. My poems blow the dust off surfaces to make clear and true paths. Nzila.”

  I gave her a plain stare. Plain and blank. It might as well have been an eye roll. She probably hated my father’s plain face on me. That the plain way about him was the plain way about me. I didn’t know about blowing dust and clearing paths. I knew about hot-combing thick heads of hair and ironing pleated wool skirts for school.

  She said, “It’s Yoruba for ‘the path.’”

  I knew better than to roll my eyes at her “so-called” name and where she said it came from. Instead I asked her where Your Ruba was. She quickly told me it was a people. A nation. In the land of our ancestors.

  Vonetta asked, “You mean Prattville, Alabama?”

  This time I wouldn’t kick Vonetta. Good old Vonetta. Prattville was where Papa and Big Ma were originally from. They weren’t from big-city Mobile, Montgomery, or Selma, but from Prattville. And truth be told, my daddy and my grandmama came from a one-cow town rubbing next to Prattville. They just said Prattville because it was more known.

  I asked, “So you can change your name any time yo
u want to?”

  Vonetta: “To anything you want to?”

  Fern: “To anything you can spell?”

  Cecile said, “It’s my name. My self. I can name my self. And if I’m not the one I was but am now a new self, why would I call my self by an old name?”

  Then I said, “If you keep changing your name, how will people know you or your poems?” When my sisters and I speak, one right after the other, it’s like a song we sing, a game we play. We never need to pass signals. We just fire off rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Delphine. Vonetta. Fern.

  Me: “S’pose you got famous. For writing poems?”

  Vonetta: “Then everyone knew your name.”

  Fern: “And you couldn’t hide.”

  She said, “My poems aren’t about that. Fame-seeking poems. They’re the people’s art,” although yesterday she didn’t want to have anything to do with “the people.”

  I said, “What if all the people could recite all of your poems?”

  Vonetta: “And they said them on the radio.”

  Fern: “And you became famous.”

  Me: “You couldn’t hide then.”

  Fern: “Surely couldn’t.”

  She said, “Who you all working for? I think y’all working for the Man undercover. The FBI. The COINTELPRO.”

  I knew about the FBI from the Sunday night show and from the news, but who were the COINTELPRO? Cecile knew she had us baffled and took control of the talk like she had grabbed both the ball and the jacks.

  “Oh, they’re slick, all right,” she said. “The feds hire midgets to front as kids. They infiltrate families with long-lost cousins who don’t look a thing like you, but you take them in because that’s how colored folks do; and before you can say “Way down home,” your long-lost kin are documenting your every move for their weekly secret meetings with the Man.”

  “Family don’t tell on family,” I said.

  “Not real family.”

  “Surely don’t.”

  “That’s what you think,” Cecile said. She went after Vonetta first because Vonetta was needy in a way that Fern and I weren’t. Her eyes stayed wide and fearful. “They get you alone. Alone and scared. They say, ‘Vonetta Gaither. Do you love your country? Do you love your father? Your sisters? Your uncle Darnell in Vietnam and Big Ma in Brooklyn?’” At Fern, she aimed, “‘Little Girl, do you love your doll baby? Do you love Captain Kangaroo? Your kinnygarden teacher, graham crackers, and story time? Well, if you want to keep all that safe, tell us all you know about the person named Cecile Johnson, also known as your mother.’”