Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns

by J. California Cooper

  Poor Jamal, always rushing, at last going nowhere. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Left behind.

  Now, you may think this is a too sad story. But the reason I’m telling you is I used to be jealous of Jamal and Kamika. And now . . . I can’t hardly tell you how I feel. I feel sad for them. And I’m almost ashamed to be happy for me. But what can I say? I am happy for me that I didn’t grow up in time for him to rush me going nowhere.

  I’ll be in college soon. There are plenty of young men there, and a education for me too! I’m rushing for that. Going to take myself somewhere!

  Just-Life Politics

  You know, when you talk about somethin you need to know what you are talkin about. And I do! I know what I’m talkin bout cause I’m talkin bout myself and what happened to me.

  I do domestic work; been doin it all my life, since I was thirteen years old, and I am forty-three years old now. Been workin on the same job too. Of course, you got to be someplace if you on this earth livin and my place to be was on my job at work.

  I ain’t shamed of bein a domestic; I raised four children and two of em went to college. So there.

  Now, that might not seem important, and it probly ain’t to you, but I always been a body to try to understand the people around me. I been workin thirty years for the Bsurds, who own the house I work in. He is a politician and she just stays home doin whatever she feels like. (Findin somethin for me to do, usually.) The pay was almost fair, wasn’t too much, but it was better than nothin. And some poor women get even less than I do.

  Howsomever all that may be, my points was I never was a “political” woman. I didn’t know nothin real deep but the Bible, and I wasn’t never gonna mean nothin to almost nobody, so I just worked and left all them politics to smarter people. I learned what I learned from the folks I worked for. They said they was conservatives. Conservative everything. They hated and talked about people who they called liberals like they was fools and dogs.

  I looked them words up in their dictionary that sits in their own house. So they sure did have a chance to look things up and know what they mean. But Mr. Bsurd must not have looked them words up, or we just don’t agree on em. But they done changed it around so they done made “liberal” kind of a bad word.

  Now, I believe in savin money, but I believe in helpin people, when I can, too!

  Mr. Bsurd is a mighty rich man. Mighty rich! And Mrs. Bsurd was already rich when he married her years ago; her family had money. But do you know I started out workin, by the hour, for one dollar and fifty cents a hour. It took me ten years to get to two dollars a hour. Thirty years and now I’m up to four dollars and fifty cents a hour. They hate to hit that five-dollar mark. He say conservative is to help people learn to save their money, and he is helpin me learn that. My mama already taught me that. Good thing she did.

  And he got meat in their pots and on their table every day for years. I cooked every meal they ate. I sure would have liked meat on my table for my children when they was growin up, at least once a week.

  Mr. Bsurd votes in one of them Houses in Washington, D.C. Been doin it for some time now. Both of his grown children went to grand colleges; they sit in high places now, because of their learnin, I ’magin. But one of his votes closed all the libraries round where I live. I was glad they was there cause my kids used them for studyin work. But they’re closed now.

  Another thing he thought was that free clinics and free things was making it possible for people to get off from what everybody else has to pay. He didn’t think that was fair to some who had the money to pay. Them clinics almost all closed now. He thinks he did a good job. I’ll tell you this, there was times when if that free clinic-hospital wasn’t there, my family would’a died and that would’a killed me.

  I hear him talkin to his dinner friends, saying, “All these people don’t need no education. What they gonna do with it? We need to close these schools that serve the community that ain’t gonna raise nothin but dope addicts and prostitutes anyway!” I heard em! They got a plan! You betta watch out little children, all colors!

  I know some of what he thinks because he talks to me sometime about politics when I’m servin him breakfast or somethin when he have to eat alone and ain’t nobody but me to talk to. He loves to talk. Talk and smile. When television came out, I would see him on it, talkin and smilin. Talkin bout lovin God and helpin “the people.” Ain’t I a people? He want me to vote for him, but he don’t vote for me. They always talkin bout cuttin somethin for the poor and sick. All they cut for themself is taxes.

  Anyway, I have worked for him from his marriage to his old age. I done heard him, with his mouth full of Jesus, tearing “liberal” people and thoughts down, and I know he lied sometimes. Cause people starving all over this world, and I b’lieve they pays people, farmers, not to grow food. Now, that ain’t like Jesus at all.

  God ain’t made this big earth and put all these people on it without there being enough to feed em. But when some people have money and is full of food, they don’t mind other people bein hungry. In fact, on TV they say, “Everything is goin long just fine!”

  Anyway, howsomever all that is, this is what I want to tell you.

  That man, my boss, Mr. Bsurd, not too long ago he got sick. After a few years of taking medicine, going to his doctor, struggling to keep his place in Washington, D.C., he had to retire. He was only in his late fifties, I guess.

  Doctors and hospitals is high costs! He fussed and fought about it . . . and he had money! He was always grumbling over how they treat him and he had held some positions in politics! He would tell em that, but it didn’t help as much as he wanted.

  He started goin to church more, though; him and his little wife. He prayed to get well. The whole church prayed for him. He asked me to pray for him one day when I took a tray to his room. I told him, “You got to pray for yourself, Mr. Bsurd. I’d be glad to pray for you but it takes all my time up just praying for myself and my family and some poor friends I got who are suffering.” See, I got friends, black and white and brown, old and young, who are poor and struggling to survive.

  He looked at me out of his sad face and asked, “Don’t you believe in God, Elanora?”

  I looked back at him out of my sad face. “Of course I b’lieve in God, you know that, Mr. Bsurd. I just got so many friends that is poor, out of work, and sick that I need to use my prayers for them. But you always talk about God, so I know you must be close to Him, and when you ask Him for somethin He sure is goin to help you. You don’t need my poor little pitiful prayers.” As I left his room, he looked at me like he was thinkin bout somethin important.

  I wasn’t tryin to be mean or nothin. The truth is the light. And that’s what I told him. After that, he seemed to wait for me to come in there, so he could ask me again.

  Finally, the time came when he knew his time was running out. He was going to die.

  Ohhhhh, he prayed. He prayed and had everybody who came to see him get on their knees and pray with him. Even me; I gave in; I wouldn’t get on my knees (I’m too old and I got to clean his house) but I prayed over him. I wasn’t nothin special so I don’t know if God even listened to me. I knew some of the people who got down on their knees to pray with him though, and I KNEW God didn’t hear them; they was too far away from Him. Take me at my word! Cause I been around here a long time and I know em!

  One day he asked me to have my church to pray over him. Now, he ain’t never cared bout me or my church or anybody starvin to death in it or needin a job, before. Took me thirty years to get a three-dollar raise and he knew I was tryin to raise three children at that time. I stayed workin for him because I needed that steady work to send them to school and college. Now, I’m old, and my children help me. But I don’t want to be too big a burden on them, cause life takes all you got to give now. All life don’t take from you, the tax man comes sneakin up on you with new laws to take the rest of whatever you got left.

  Anyway, what I want to tell you . . . I was so surpris
ed I could’a fell out! I wish I could speak better words.

  Mr. Bsurd was a very sick man, sad, scared, and sick. So, this time, I got down on my tired, sore knees, like he asked me to, and I prayed with him. When we was gettin through, and I was gettin up (breathing heavy from all that effort cause I’m a heavy-built woman), he grabbed my hand and looked up at me with them scared eyes, said, “Elanora? What do you know about God? I mean . . . do you think God will forgive me any . . . mistakes . . . I may have made?”

  I’m a little shamed of myself, but I didn’t really mean him any mental harm. I asked him, “Well, it depends on the way God thinks, Mr. Bsurd. Do you think God is a liberal or a conservative?”

  He looked into my eyes for a minute then moved his eyeballs slowly to look through his huge window at the sky. He didn’t say anything else so I began gathering what I was going to take back downstairs.

  I almost jumped at his voice cause I didn’t expect to hear him speak again, I thought he was thinking. He said, “From now on, when you pray, pray for God to be a liberal. I don’t want to die. I don’t want Him to be conservative with His blessings. Pray that Jesus be a liberal.”

  I smiled when I answered him, “Jesus was a liberal. And he didn’t fool with no politics. If they had votin when he was alive, he didn’t vote. He said his Father’s kingdom was the only good, fair, just, and merciful one. And not to put our faith in mankind, because mankind was corrupt. If you catch a good person, cherish them as if they was a treasure, for they are few. And I b’lieve that. Jesus just loved people, even if they didn’t love his Father, but he loved them more if they did love his Father.”

  Slowly, tears began to roll down Mr. Bsurd’s face. He was crying. I felt so sorry for him. But I had to remember you must reap what you sow. Maybe the glitter of the world had blinded him, so he didn’t know what he had been sowing while he was sowing. But the Bible is a best-seller book. Ain’t no way you can’t know. There was one in this house of his, seldom if ever used.

  As I went down the stairs, back to the kitchen, I was thinking of him, Mr. Bsurd. This man had hated liberals all his life. He was one of those who helped make it a “bad” word. Now he wanted Jesus and God to be liberals. For his sake! But Jesus and God been done been their own way since forever.

  Well, all I can say, for myself, is you live and sometimes you learn. Sometimes life don’t get real to you . . . till it’s bout to go away. Then, it’s too late. The end done got to you before the reality could set in.

  But I ain’t the final judge. I don’t know nothin bout no politics no way. I just know the politics of plain ole life. I know what happened to me and, kind’a to just about all poor people everywhere.

  Well, life is life. Here I am standin up here tellin you all my business when I got work to do. You go on long now. I got to get on bout my business.

  I got to keep my job. It’s all I got!

  I got to get on back to work, chile.

  Oysters and Pearls

  Latesha was a lovely twenty-year-old girl-woman. Hazel eyes complimented the rich chestnut of her shoulder-length, luxurious hair. She had full breasts that were her own, a small waist, and hips that were ready for childbearing or a wonderful cradle for other hips to lie upon. Her pretty hands were slender with nails she kept manicured to match her small, perfect toes. Such gifts life gave her at birth. She was some kinda woman.

  She often said, “I didn’t go to school pass the seventh grade. But, that’s all right. I was born with everything I need, to do whatever I want to do!” And she was almost right! But, she hadn’t gone to school long enough to learn all the things there were to do.

  And nobody told her.

  Inside her mind and body, often filled with the semen of a few strange men, and a friend or two, was a sad swirling of pain and misery she kept covered with small dreams, beautiful clothes, and lately, liquor. But, everybody, men and women, desired her. They wanted to reach out to beauty, paw and cling to it, tear and waste it in their hands. But the only reward for that is the prelude; they make you feel like you are a star come down from the heavens.

  “Hell,” she would say, “I got a good man. You seen that big, long car he drives! And his diamonds and gold shine enough to light up this whole street! What b’longs to him, b’longs to me.” She would throw her pretty head back, and laugh. “The world is my oyster!”

  A laughing, jealous woman-friend might say, “Yeah, but every oyster ain’t got a pearl. What you got of your own?”

  Latesha had the quick answer. “I’ma get me some pearls! Hell, I got me! Don’t need nothing else!” Everyone would laugh, as if at a good joke.

  No one told her.

  Latesha had come up the hard way. But, there are more than a million ways to come up the hard way, and more than a million ways to make it turn out right.

  But, nobody told her.

  Latesha loved the tinsel-sparkle of the night life. She met many people, men in night life, who were there to partake of what life seemed to be. . . . All these men had learned, or thought, was of any value was a great car, a few diamonds, and some shining gold to catch a woman with. Women made money, so a man wouldn’t have to have any other skills. Anyone can gamble, but not anyone can win on a regular basis. So. A woman’s stock in trade never seemed to run out. Her body was his best bet.

  Somebody didn’t tell him either. Or he didn’t listen.

  Latesha thought she loved the man she had; but she really loved the smell and sight of what seemed like success. (He would be in prison in three more years.)

  She had girlfriends who no one had told either.

  They all loved the “good life,” laughing and carefree. They stole the very best clothes, wore sparkling rhinestones until they could get a real diamond, which would usually be taken and pawned by their lovin man. They dreamed of big things, like catching a rap star with all their flashing money. They hung around the places the star athletes patronized. Hoping . . . Dreaming . . . Waiting.

  No one told them.

  Latesha turned a few tricks, slyly, quietly, so she would have money to flash and spend. Her man didn’t give her any; that was against his philosophy. Part of the popular philosophy, among her friends, was that only fools worked.

  One night she met a wonderful man who was spending money like it was rock pebbles. His eyes were on her. So were her man’s eyes. The man spent her way along the bars until, away from her man, he drew her close to him. He spoke into her ear, fast and warm. She laughed, and she thought.

  Over the next few days she saw him several times, until they became friends. Then he whispered deeper into her ear. He said sweet things, fly things, cool things, as he was supposed to. He said them well because he had a lot of practice; they were the same things he always said over and over because they were the things women want to hear. “Some women fall in love just from listening,” he told his friends.

  No one told him there are different kinds of women. But, then, he was probably only going to meet the kind that he could impress. Maybe. And, after all, what did he really have to offer love?

  No one could tell him anything, anymore.

  It came to pass that he arranged an assignation with Latesha. For a little money, of course. No matter how much money it is, it’s always just a little. Can you really put a price on it? No one could ever prove a price to me.

  In this man’s body there was rushing through his veins a crooked-shaped, mean, ugly germ that meant serious business. He was that kind of man, who, even after certain signs from his body, thought he was invincible. So he didn’t go to a doctor who might have helped him. I guess that’s what they mean when they say you can’t judge a book by its cover, cause he looked good.

  Somehow, he hadn’t heard anyone when they were talking about things like this.

  Latesha and the quick-money man made mad, passionate love all day, two or three times, in a very luxurious room. You had to really “dress” before you went to that hotel.

  Each time she went to the
bathroom she grinned, and gloried in all the bright lights beaming on her. She looked even more beautiful, framed by the velvety wallpaper, the marble floors and walls. She smiled at herself as she flicked out the light to go back to the money-man for some more of his loving.

  The germ, and all its relatives, was sleeping in the warmth of the blood flowing, with passion, through the money-man’s veins. Soon they would awaken to fly through any opening to the warmth of Latesha. Once there, the germs looked around and saw all the fresh, new flesh to devour. They would begin a party of their own, with their hungry relatives. The germs did not need, or even know about, a mirror; they have no cares or feelings except the capacity to grow . . . and keep growing. In fact, the germs would not like to be looked at.

  No one had to tell them what to do, they were born knowing.

  Latesha left the money-man with her pockets full and her uterus full. She went to her really nice apartment and cleaned herself up. But the ugly, little mean germs just shook their heads “no, no” and didn’t go anywhere. Satisfied, because they were already going through Latesha’s veins.

  Latesha looked into her mirror, smiled, and said, “I told you the world is my oyster! This is some big-time money, for nothing I’m going to miss!”

  No one could tell her. And she hadn’t listened when she was told.

  When next Latesha rode in her man’s pretty, long car, they stopped to eat dinner at a really grand place because this assured them they were really grand people. Then, he took her home, to her apartment, to bed.

  Well, who could tell him? He hadn’t listened, in his youth, when they did tell him.

  A perfectly lovely lifetime dwindled away a little more every day. Passing without notice amid the arrogance and ignorances of youth.

  Her lovely genes started getting together with her man’s genes and formed a little human heart. She was not unhappy, because she thought she loved him. She told her man the happy news. He looked at her as though she was crazy.