The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

by Junauda Petrus

  AUDRE

  A COZY AND WARM FLUSH OF INCENSE and Alice Coltrane hits me as soon as I get in the door. I take off my boots and coat, I tired and ready for a nap. All that energy was beautiful, but now I feeling like I gon’ conk out. I went to tell Mabel the news, but Ms. Coco said she was still sound asleep, so I came home.

  My dad is on his laptop at the dining-room table when I get home. And soon as he sees me walk in the door, he is smiling at me and lowers the music down. “How did everything go today with your peaceful riot?” he asks. “It was peaceful, right?”

  “Yes, Dad, it was. I was really, really nervous, and it was like nothing I ever experience before. We was taking over and making noise where usually you can’t, like it was J’Ouvert morning.” I carry my backpack in and give my dad a kiss on the forehead and then keep telling him what happened. “So many kids leaving they classroom and was in the halls with us, boy! Then we all meet up in the cafeteria and it was bacchanal there too, Dad, but a peaceful one. But then Jazzy pull everyone together, just so”—I lift my fist up in the air like she did—“and she hand up over she head like she a Black Panther and it is the sixties. And then she ask that we all boom love to Mabel and then she tell everyone who Afua is and what Life Wish do.” I walk into the dining room. “Dad, I can’t believe we did it. I was so afraid, but we was able to get people together and we was a force,” I say, dropping onto our couch across from the dining-room table where he is sitting.

  “I’m so proud of y’all, baby! I can’t believe my daughter is a young revolutionary. You know your first protest was in utero? I remember me and your mama while she was pregnant with you went to a protest against police brutality. Maybe you got some of that radicalism sprinkled on you from back then,” he said with a nostalgic smile to a past that I ain’t feeling any connection to. No matter how I try to imagine my mom and him in love and together, I can’t.

  “I couldn’t be any more proud of you,” he says, beaming joy, and I feel he truly has pride in me as his daughter, which is a feeling I have never really felt from my mother.

  “It was for Mabel,” I say, and pull the throw blanket over me, feeling a chill as usual, yet also a new warm feeling that I have had since I come from Minnesota. I think it come from having a dad who just loves me no matter what.

  “The way you have committed to supporting Mabel and have been so hardworking at school, in a new city—shoot, a new country—girl. I hope you see how off the hook a little sista you are.” He is looking me in the eye to see if I know he means what he is saying. I nod and looking away already feeling too much feeling, especially after the protest.

  “Thank you, Dad. I’m grateful to you too and how nice you have been to me,” I say. “At first, I struggled with adjusting to being here, but I do feel like it has been better than I thought it was going to be. And getting to know you has been good.” I sit up to feel more sturdy. I feel a question I been curious about travel up from my heart and it sitting at my throat now and I force myself to be brave. “Dad, can I ask you a question, please?”

  “Yes, of course, girl.” He closes his laptop and turns to me.

  I pause for a second, almost afraid to ask, but then I just let it out. “What was it like when you and Mom were together?” I say the words, and they live there between us. Then he nods and smiles a little smile and then chuckles to himself. He leans back and I can see he is thinking.

  “Well, it was an interesting time in my life. Makeba and I were young, but we also had an instant connection, and it felt magical,” he says, and he is looking at me and beyond me into a place where his memories live. “I fell in love with your mama, her intensity and confidence. Even her accent was my favorite sound. I would save her messages on my answering machine for weeks. And of course she is a very beautiful person too, timeless and natural.” Hearing he describe my mother from another time was like hearing about someone different altogether. I curl up in myself and I listening real close. “And I like to think she fell in love with me too. Even though I was an awkward dude, always seeking something, some knowledge or understanding,” he says, and he places his hands on the prayer beads around his neck. “Did I ever tell you I was in a punk band, Audre?” he asks, and I start giggling and shaking my head no.

  “Oh, wow, yuh serious? You ain’t ever tell me that!” I leaning in wanting he to keep talking.

  “When I first moved up here from Chicago, I was in a all-Black punk band called Nanny Neptune. Oh Lord, let me show you some pictures. Girl, let me tell you, I been so many cats in this lifetime.” He goes and gets a photo album from his bedroom and then sits down next to me on the couch and opens it up. “Anyone look familiar?”

  And there he was. My dad’s face, for sure, but he looked like a baby, with none of the facial hair he has now and skinnier, but still his kind eyes. I can’t help but see some of me in his face. He head was shaved, except in the back he had a ducktail of dreads. He had a yellow T-shirt with Nelson Mandela on it, black jeans that were real tight-tight. He even had eyeliner on. I turn the pages and see black-and-white pictures of him with two other Black dudes and one Black woman, and they all punked out and looking real, real cool.

  “I played the bass and sang some songs. Sehet, the drummer, was who introduced me and your mother. They both studied communications at the U of M, and she invited your mom to come to a show of ours in this little bar on the West Bank,” he says, slowly paging through the photos with his hands that look like mine. “And I still remember seeing her for the first time, after almost twenty years. Your mom has always stood out. She had come to our gig early to hang out, and Sehet introduced us. And when she said hello, and told me her name was Makeba, and the lilt to her voice was so pretty and strong. That was it, I was straight up in love,” he says with a shrug. “I still remember how she was dressed to the nines—a blue dress, her hair was laid in this cute little short do. I remember looking at myself, and feeling so bummy. It was my style back then, but still, she made me feel underdressed to my own gig, that’s how fly she was.” He starts to giggle, covering his face with his hand, embarrassed. “She took a seat at the bar and watched us do our thing. The whole show I thought about her. Our band’s music was hella political, and our shows were loud and rowdy, mainly a way for us to exhaust some of our frustration at life. I mean, I would feel so free on the stage and be screaming and yelling,” he says. “Audre, you ain’t going to believe but I would jump out into the audience and roll around on the ground with my bass, it was wild, yo,” he says and we both are cracking up imagining his antics.

  “Go head, laugh at me—people thought I was cool then, girl. So anyway, we had one sorta love song that I had written for the band, and I decided in my youthful boldness to dedicate it to ‘Makeba, the goddess from Trinidad.’”

  “Oh no, Dad, yuh serious?” I say, and we is both almost crying from laughing.

  “Yo, I was a major nerd. Like, here I was—this young sensitive brother—trying to impress a sophisticated foreign woman, have pity on me, okay? It’s the best I had.”

  I turn a page and see him and my mom snuggled up and she is smiling so big and looking at him, and he is grinning and looking at her. They looked like they loved each other, even though they looked as different as different could be.

  “After the show, I asked if I could take her out some time and she gave me her number. I called her the next day, and we were on the phone for like five hours together. She was so smart and intense, and I wanted to know everything about her and she would ask me about my life too.” I am looking up at him and seeing the young man still in his face. “She agreed to let me take her for Ethiopian food by campus and then we walked by the river. After that it was a wrap. We were different, but we also really loved each other. And two years later, we got pregnant with you in your mom’s junior year,” he says, adjusting his glasses while rubbing his face, and I could tell from his voice that this time is harder for him to talk a
bout. My courage still with me I ask another bold question.

  “Dad. Am I why y’all broke up?” It was a thing I had always wondered, and I think in some ways had just assumed was true. He looks over at me and starts shaking his head no.

  “We broke up because we were young and very different people. You were a magical force that we got to create together, girl. I’m glad you chose us as your parents, although at times I wish I knew how to be a better father to you, especially when you were in Trinidad,” he says and I hear the regret in his voice.

  “Do you think Mom loves me?” I blurt out. I ain’t never get to speak to him about real stuff and now I was desperate to get information about me. Information I feel like I have always needed to know.

  “What, Audre? Of course she does, baby.”

  “I feel like my whole life she ain’t like me,” I tell him, all of my honest feelings coming out with tears. He gets me some tissues.

  “These are some heavy questions, honey. I’m glad you asking them, to be honest. Obviously, you have had a unique upbringing and set of parents, and of course you gonna have questions.”

  “I can take whatever the real truth is okay, Dad?” I tell him.

  “I’m going to answer all of them the best I can, but I also want you to know that I will always love and respect your mother. We made a miracle together, and she taught me a lot about who I am,” he says, taking in a deep breath. “I know your mom loves you, more than life itself. Okay? You don’t have to worry about her loving you.”

  I still don’t believe him, or rather, I think he doesn’t know who she is now and how much she is ashamed of me. “But I don’t feel it,” I say. “I really don’t feel that she love me, Dad.” And the tears is dripping down my eyes around my nose, as is trails of snot that I am soaking up in the tissue my father brought for me.

  “I’m sorry, baby, I wish you didn’t feel that way,” he says, and he puts his arm around me and dabbing at his own eyes with his tissue.

  “I know your mom is struggling with how to love you as a young woman who fell in love with another girl in a way that she doesn’t understand.” As he says it, I freeze and then start to tremble. I is trying to understand. He knew all along?

  “Wait, Dad, you know about everything? Mom told you?”

  He looks me in the eye and nods. “Yes, she did and she was confused and upset by it. I told her that I have no problem with you loving whomever, Audre. She asked me if I wanted you to live with me for a while, and I told her absolutely.” He takes a deep breath. “To be honest, I wanted to make sure you were okay as well as know you before you were grown.”

  There is a silence. I don’t know how to feel. Betrayed? Grateful? I just feel my body get more and more floaty and light, feeling all of this information washing over me. About my parents and me back in time and my dad knowing about Neri.

  “I just assumed you didn’t know since you never brought it up.” I look up at him briefly and then look back down at my fidgeting fingers, wondering what he is thinking.

  “Audre, I guess I was trying to find the right time. I wanted you to feel like you could share who you were with me in the way that it made sense for you. I grew up with parents who treated me like their property, and I always wanted you to feel like you was your own person, even if I ain’t understand it. When you came, I could see you were so depressed and not wanting to talk about anything, I tried to just give you your space and time.”

  I nod, understanding better.

  “Dad, I’m glad that you still love me.” I lay my head on his shoulder.

  “Of course I love you, girl! You can love whoever you want, just as long as you loved in return.” He put his arm around me and snuggled me in. “There is nothing you can do to lose my love. I mean for real, girl. Your dad got your back and will ride or die! Like even if you kidnapped a whole pound of puppies, I would help you evade the law and raise them in the woods,” he said, and I look at him giggling through my tears, because he is such a nerd. But he is my dad. For real.

  “Audre, I think what many parents struggle with, mine included, is that they may not know how to love us in the way that we need. I think that being a parent can bring up a lot of your own fears and traumas and a lot of parents don’t know how to not pass that on to their own kids,” he says. “Let me tell you a story about when I was young in Chicago.”

  Dad tells me how when he got into punk music at fourteen, teaching himself bass and wearing all black clothes and makeup, his dad did not know how to handle it. His dad called him terrible names, like “faggot” and “pussy.” He even fought with his own son. “I was always a more sensitive cat, and he would always come at me,” my dad tells me. And so he left Chicago at seventeen. “It wasn’t until after he died when I realized that was his stuff and not mine. He grew up in the south and experienced a lot of racism and abuse too and that’s all he knew, but I didn’t have to be like him. It wasn’t that he didn’t love me, it was that he didn’t really love himself.” My dad stares at his hands as he speaks, his eyes glistening with tears.

  “In my experience, your mom has always struggled with the blues and being hard on herself. Some people are like that and it isn’t a thing they can control always. Even before you were born, Audre, she would get depressed and nothing would make it better. I thought being her man, my love could make it better, which was a young and arrogant thought. When we found out you were coming, we were both so happy. She was going to stay in school and graduate right after you were born. And she was such a happy pregnant woman, I foolishly thought her depression was cured.” He leans back and smiles. “Queenie even came up for a month to cook and help us get ready for you, and she cooked up all the curry your mom and I could have ever dreamed of, excited for her grandchild. She helped us make that little funky one bedroom apartment into a beautiful home for our little family. It was a really special time.”

  I imagine all of them, getting ready for me back in the day.

  “After you were born, her blues came back and they didn’t leave. I was trying my best to work so that I could pay the bills, be a new father and still play music. And to be honest, I wasn’t being the nicest guy at all. She was too sad and overwhelmed by motherhood to go to class and dropped out. I felt confused by what your mom was going through and I would say insensitive things and sometimes stay out with my homies to avoid our drama,” he tells me. “When things got pretty bad with her depression, she and Queenie talked about her moving back with you for a little while, to help her get her spirit together, and I could use the time to get myself together too,” he says. “But then when she got there, she realized that she didn’t want to leave Trinidad. And she also realized that she didn’t want to be with me anymore. And that was that,” he says with cool clarity. It was quiet between us after that last sentence. I had never heard these particular stories.

  “How did you feel, Dad?”

  “Goodness . . . ,” he says with a long exhale as he leans back. “To be honest, I was hurt about it at first. We argued and argued. Five months after you all got there, I came down to Trinidad to see you and try to get her to come back to Minneapolis. But when I went to Trinidad, I got to understand what she was missing. I had never left the US before and hadn’t known what it was like to be in a place where you didn’t feel the oppression of America, where you had Black people in power and there was a pride in being from some place. I missed you and wanted to bring you back, but I would be by myself raising you in some free-floating life. But in Trinidad you had family everywhere: a grandma who adored you; all kinds of aunties, uncles, and cousins. You had fallen in love with the beach and the food, and you even had a Trini accent developing in your little baby talk,” he says, and I feel the young man in him, crying and divided within himself. “And, Audre, I couldn’t bring myself to take you from all of that, even though being away from you was so, so heartbreaking. So we decided you would live in Trinidad prim
arily and I would visit there and you would visit me and we would correspond. We tried our best over the years to co-parent you in two different countries.” He pauses and shrugs a bit. “But I will say, having you here these past couple of months has been the best time in my life since your mom and you left.”

  I sit there and let all of what he said settle into me. I feel like he gave me a piece of me to myself. “Dad. Thank you for telling me all of this. I’m grateful you are my dad.”

  “Awww, chile, you love to see me cry? And I’m even more grateful that you’re my daughter, Audre. Did I ever tell you where you name is from?”

  “A poet, Audre Lorde,” I say, which is what my mom told me years ago.

  “Yes, but there was a quote I found of hers, when your mom was pregnant, that made me want to name you after her. ‘If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched up into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.’” He recites it smoothly from memory.

  “I knew I wanted you to be a kid that always felt free to be yourself, since I never did. Anyway, thought you should know that too,” he says. I lean my head on his shoulder and think of my name. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out and see a text from Jazzy. It simply says:

  Girl, this shit done blowed up for Mabel. We did it! It’s on the news, girl! #Mabelforeverfreeafua

  TAURUS SEASON

  the Black girls crave dirt to chew

  taking commune from the soil

  sucking and chewing the minerals out the land

  like marrow out of bone

  absorbing somebody daddy tears

  digesting somebody mama rage

  they make delicacy from the leftovers

  they lay down on the earth

  and its night