“Roxie Page! Hey, hey, hey,” he kept saying through his laughter like a suave Fat Albert. In fact he kind of looked like Bill Cosby, if the Coz had been a defensive tackle.
“God, you look great,” I said, meaning it.
“Look who's talking.”
“I knew I'd be seeing you all but it's still a shock.”
“Hey, sister we survived, what more to say.”
He still had a broad, appealing smile. A little thicker than he'd been when we graduated in '71, his dark skin was heightened by silver that gleamed sexily at the temples of his close cut hair. With every ball player in the big time favoring the menacing Mr. Clean look today, Tank's tightly napped hair was a welcome sight. His tailored jacket and sharply creased slacks, neither of which were wrinkled, told me he certainly hadn't just gotten off a plane.
“So when'd you get in?” I asked.
“This morning. I wanted to walk around a little. I saw Jerome, 'course he got in yesterday, and what's her name . . . Sarah . . . used to play cards all night? She's helping him organize this shindig.”
“Did I just hear you say ‘shindig' ” I laughed.
“Wait 'til I catch you in one, my sister!”
“Black is power,” I said and raised my glass.
“Black is power,” Tank answered repeating the name of our old student group.
We both laughed and shook our heads thinking about Jerome. It was a wonder we'd all gotten as far is the hotel with him pulling the reunion together.
Whenever he'd attempted to organize anything for the BIPs it was fraught with complications. His last screw up negotiating with the administration was why I ended up dangling from the fourth floor ledge of McMillan Hall before we occupied the building for three days. I wondered what we would wind up doing this time.
I listened as Tank talked about his job with a radio station in Atlanta and his divorce. He showed me pictures of his not so young kids and talked like a man who knew more about them than just their names and where they worked.
I did a quick reality check to make sure I wasn't feeling regret that I'd decided not to have children. With all the traveling Dennis and I did when we got together it just wasn't a good idea. We'd built an amazing photographic archive, keeping track of faces and issues that were quickly fading from the news. For me, little could compete with the triumph of a subtle shot of the young Amiri Baraka holding a group of students mesmerized with his poems or capturing Nikki Giovanni's fire in my flash.
Besides I firmly believe in Zero Population Growth, so it didn't seem like a total sacrifice. I did a photo shoot for an article on Black adoptions about seven years back and the idea had begun to appeal to me, then Dennis got sick. But the notion kept swirling around inside, popping to the surface every once and a while, especially in situations like this.
I oohed and aahed dutifully at each of Tank's snapshots but kept thinking how odd it was that I was talking to the guy people thought was an FBI agent. I really liked Tank, he was like his nickname—solid. He'd played football, how could he have been an agent? I wondered shaking my head
“I know, hard to believe, isn't it. Man, sometimes I thought I'd get my head—or my nuts—knocked off on that field and never have any kids.”
“Why were you playing?”
“For the cash, of course. You guys got the brain money, I got the brawn money. I had to work a couple of years after high school to save up, my coach kept pushing me even then. He's the one who wangled me the scholarship.”
My picture of Tank began to shift. I didn't know why I hadn't known any of this already.
“Once I got in I was going to get that piece of paper if it took forever. Which it almost did. But, god, do I hate football!”
“You're kidding!”
“Nope. I did some coaching in the pee wee league when my boy was young, that's as close to a field as they could ever get me. Now, I catch some basketball on TV, the girls' teams are great. But football? That got me through here and that's it.”
I looked at Tank's mammoth shoulders, firm against the elegance of his suit, and started laughing, “Yeah, I can see all that muscle's gone to fat.”
“A gym is a beautiful thing, ain't it?”
“I really expected you to go on to a professional team or something,” I said, still finding this new picture of Tank hard to get into focus.
“Never happen!” Tanks laugh boomed again. “You know why I couldn't do that whole occupation thing with you guys? You know, get locked up in admin and all? I was afraid I'd get kicked off the team—lose my scholarship,” he said his voice still colored with regret after all those years.
I was surprised. Of the many reasons we used to toss around about Tank not joining us in the building I couldn't believe not one of us thought it could be about money.
“I felt really bad, like I was letting you all down. But damn if it wasn't the best thing I ever did,” he said. When I looked puzzled he went on.
“Hanging out with the news crews in the quad was how I figured out I wanted to maybe pursue broadcasting. You know, I was digging on how they did everything and then seeing it on TV that night. They were so scared you were going to blow up the building, and kind of hoping you would at the same time. It was weird,” Tank said shaking his head.
“But I dug being the liaison between you all, and seeing how they figured out what to say about us. I was hooked by the second day.”
Tank looked almost shy at that moment and it reminded me of how young we'd been at the time. Even if he was a year or two older than most of us he would have still been a kid.
“We didn't feel like you were letting us down, Tank. In fact you were probably the only thing I could see from the window when I was hanging on for my life trying to grab that damn banner!”
“Sister, lemme tell you. I thought I was gonna have to retrieve your butt when you came tumbling down!”
“Yeah right. You were just waiting to see if Sheila would drop out the sky into your arms!” I said laughing and squeezing Tank's biceps. Sheila had been the campus' Black beauty queen, at least half the brothers had been waiting for her to fall into their arms.
“Now that would have been a hell of a save.” Tank grinned as he savored the thought of Sheila, the girl every guy dreamed about.
“Hey, she coming?”
I shrugged, honestly having no idea. “Have you heard anything from her?” I asked trying not to let my unsettled feelings seep through.
“I can't believe y'all haven't talked! What's up with that?” Tank was genuinely puzzled. He peered at me unable to conceal his confusion.
“Uh, nothing. You know how time slips through your fingers.”
“Umph,” Tank muttered unconvinced. “I saw her picture in Ebony when she made partner in that law firm, out there in San Francisco, I think.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Great, huh?”
I sipped my wine. Tank shredded the damp napkin.
“You know,” he started, “I heard—”
He was interrupted by a generalized squeal of delight at the entrance to the lounge. Then Tank's barrel-chested: “Hey, hey, hey” put an end to whatever news he was about to pass on. I turned knowing it had to be Blanche. Nobody ever squealed in quite the same way. Omigod, she's doing the matron thing!
Her sandy brown Afro was now confined to a tight upsweep, her mascara and blush were Essence Magazine perfect. The regulation fatigue pants and Malcolm X T-shirt were replaced by the unmistakably fluid elegance of a Tamotsu suit that had to cost $700 if it cost a dime. No longer size 12—more like an 18—but she was still a squiggler. Something about the way she walked and talked gave the impression that all her parts were moving at once. And guys still loved it.
She was lost in Tank's massive arms and somehow managed not to wrinkle her suit, smudge her makeup or stop moving. When she turned to me her engine lowered to idle but she was still a wonder of biodynamics.
“Girrrrl . . .” Blanche said in her high pitched voice, dragging
out the word as if she were just up from Charleston and was still charming the dorm floor. “Look at youuuu!”
I found myself enveloped in her scented embrace; no longer Arabian musk, it was more like something from the ground floor at Macy's. In that moment I flashed on how much she used to irritate me. It usually took about twenty minutes of her girlish, high-pitched enthusiasm before I wanted to tie her to a chair and stick a cork in her mouth. I tried to do some multiplication in my head: I hadn't seen her since graduation, let's see—thirty years times twenty minutes—how long before I would have to restrain myself?
“Come on, let's get comfortable,” Tank said, taking Blanche's arm and dragging us both away from the bar to a grouping of banquettes and cocktail tables. I smiled, remembering when Tank's barely concealed desire to drag Blanche off used to be a running joke. She'd usually been too busy with one out of town Don Juan or another to be bothered.
“Any other Angelas coming?” he asked.
“Hell, don't start on that.” Blanche said
The look of alarm on her face was not far from her expression in the cafeteria when she'd told us about being detained by the police because someone thought she looked like Angela Davis. Other than her Afro and lighter brown skin she didn't remotely resemble Angela, whose picture was plastered all over post offices and newspapers, but the differences hadn't registered with white cops eager to see themselves on the evening news after catching America's most wanted Black radical. The same thing happened that year to Ernestine and Aisha, who didn't look much like each other or Angela either.
“That mess almost lost me my first big job.”
“Oh come on,” I said.
“No really!” When I finally got an interview at Della Robbia, I'd been struggling to get into advertising forever. Then I had to fill out this form and when I got to where it asked if I'd ever been arrested I froze. I mean really, like paralytic.”
Tank and I erupted into laughter.
“Who the hell was going to think being mistaken for an FBI fugitive was amusing?”
“So what'd you do?” I asked trying to keep sarcasm out of my voice. I couldn't imagine Ernestine or Aisha in such a quandary.
“What any good revolutionary does when pinned down by the man—I lied.”
Tank's laugh again filled the room. It was obvious he was still susceptible to her charms.
“Technically it wasn't an arrest,” I said dryly. I don't know why, but I felt like we were being disloyal to Angela. “You didn't even stay overnight.”
“Sitting in a job interview in a corner office on Madison Avenue, literally on Madison Avenue . . . in New York City . . . didn't seem like the time to discuss subtle legal philosophy, my sister.”
I had to smile even though her condescending tone usually got on my last nerve.
“Hey, I'm going to order some grumbles,” Tank interrupted, still running interference between folks when it looked like some kind of disagreement was on the horizon. “Any requests?”
“Grumbles? Tank I haven't heard that word since—”
“Now don't you start, too. You want food or not.”
“Yeah,” Blanche and I answered together like we were cheerleaders, which we'd never been. He went off to the bar to put in a request for a selection of appetizers.
“You still in advertising?” I asked.
“Yeah, it's a living,” Blanche said with the lowest level of enthusiasm I'd ever heard in her voice. “My ex-husband has a small firm and I manage his office.”
“Ex?”
“Believe me it was cheaper to stay working there than try to get anything out of him!”
I was surprised to hear the edge of disappointment in Blanche's voice.
“Business is going great,” Blanche said re-igniting her spark, as if she needed to refute my thoughts. “We keep a steady flow of work going. I can't complain.”
From the cut of her suit it looked like she really was doing fine despite the unusual arrangement, but clearly there was something missing.
“You still doing photography?”
“Oh yeah.”
“You know, I have seen your pictures.” Blanche rolled her eyes upward and seemed to search her perfectly colored coif for a memory: “Once, in the Times, I think. I couldn't believe it!”
Why the hell not! I was just about to spit out when Tank came back with another BIP in tow.
“Edwin!” Blanche squealed and leaped up from her seat as if she were relieved we weren't going to talk about our professions any more. He'd always been the quietest Black man I ever met, and when he said hello it sounded like he hadn't changed much. You still had to lean in to hear what he said; but now the manner had a subtle authority. The fullness in his face was new and the oversized leather FUBU jacket almost concealed his extra pounds.
“Brother man, it's like old times,” Tank said.
“I hope not,” Edwin shot back as he clasped Tank's hand in the multiple grips of the Black Power handshake that went on for four minutes.
I hadn't seen Edwin in years, but we had spoken on the phone a while back when I gave him permission to use some of our photos for a PBS documentary he was directing. Even though he'd filled out, Edwin's tightly coiled energy gave the impression he was wiry.
“The last time I saw you two together Tank was beating your ass in a game of bid whist and you were chugging on a bottle of Creme White Concord!” I said.
“Still cracking wise Miss Roxie.” Edwin's grin widened further as he hugged me. The waiter arrived with a couple of bottles of New York State champagne and glasses.
“At least we don't drink screw top wine anymore,” Edwin dropped into a chair as we widened the circle.
“Righton!” Blanche said, deliberately enunciating like a Black Vanna White. I could see the young, white waiter working hard not to smile as he was popping the cork.
“I loved the last piece you produced for . . . was it “Lehrer News Hour”?” Tank said.
“Oh yeah, Edwin, that really was good,” I said, remembering I'd seen it too.
“It was deep,” Tank said solemnly.
“What, what?” Blanche asked, wriggling in her seat.
There's something that happens around people's eyes when they don't want you to see inside. Edwin masked his discomfort almost completely. “It was a documentary about people who're mixed race.”
“Mixed . . . ?” Blanche didn't squeal. Her voice, perplexed, dropped down to her ample chest. There are always some details that get lost in memory.
“You know, like Tiger Woods,” I said, trying not to sound like I was talking to an adolescent.
“Like me,” Edwin added.
I could see Blanche reassessing Edwin's medium brown skin tones and lightly waved hair, searching to remember if she knew this information already. He'd always been a gung ho nationalist, yet avoided the harshest “hate whitey” rhetoric. He was one of only a few BIPs who'd been on the losing side with me when the controversy broke about changing the name of our newspaper from Off the Pig to Black Times.
“Basically I got a chance to look at the larger idea of what it means to be Black in the U.S. and not rely on some constructed mythology of race or cultural purity that we all know is . . . well just myth.”
“Go, brother, I hear you.” Tank's enthusiasm seemed sincere. Did that weigh in on the side of agent or not?
“That may be the last you hear of me,” Edwin said shaking his head wearily. “The way money is drying up now, if your name ain't Burns, don't even think about getting funds for a documentary these days.”
“Well . . .” Tank intoned as if he were in the amen corner.
“His stuff is good.” Edwin jumped back in, not wanting to sound like he was bad-mouthing another filmmaker. “But I can name you three other black guys who've been trying for the past twenty years to rustle up money for films on blacks in baseball and in jazz.”
There was silence while we each sipped champagne and wondered how depressed we'd make ourselves be
fore the reunion really got going.
“Speaking of white devils,” Blanche said after a moment, tickled with herself. “You know who's coming tomorrow, don't you?”
It didn't take much thought for us to say simultaneously: “Jackson Wright.” He overused that epithet so much by the time we graduated, he'd worked everybody's nerves, including the one brother who was aspiring to be FOI for The Nation.
Blanche led the laughter this time. If I wasn't mistaken, it looked like Blanche's sparkle was spreading itself in Tank's direction very specifically.
“Man!” Edwin said in disgust. “That guy . . .” His voice trailed off and each of us remembered Jackson Wright's way of dealing with people who disagreed with him: nail them to the wall for not being “Black enough.” Unfortunately, since he's an award-winning poet and our most famous alum to date, Jackson was booked to be the featured speaker at the Saturday-night program.
No matter what the poem, he eventually had to break into an egotistical rant that skewered some Black person he judged to be betraying Blackness, or a white person who was betraying him. His tongue was so sharp it should have been registered as a weapon. Wright is brilliant, I'll give him that, but . . .
“They need to put some of those contestants from one of those survivor TV shows in a room with Wright and see who lasts to win the million!” Edwin said, breaking into my thoughts. “Did you check him out on that BET talk show awhile back?”
We all shook our heads together slowly, as if we were synchronized swimmers.
“You really missed a scene. He went on and on about white feminists ruining his career. I think that was when he was filing a class-action suit against the National Organization of Women.”
“Oh stop!” I exploded.
“The host was egging him on like Wright was the second coming, I kid you not.”
“Talk about ecology . . . what a waste of air!” Blanche sucked her teeth.
“He should have been spending the time pushing for some more money from the networks or public TV for Black producers or something. But not this guy.” The anger was ripe in Edwin's words.
“That was during the ‘Me' decade, wasn't it?” I asked rhetorically, knowing that whenever Jackson Wright turned up it was the “Me” decade. Seeing all the optimism that had fueled us reduced to careerism, midlife crises, and BMWs made me a little nauseous. But unless there's a national emergency, I was resigned to enduring the Saturday-night program.
Gumbo Page 100
