No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

  59. An American Boy

  Garlande had recently moved in with her lover. They lived in a huge, modern condominium apartment overlooking the city and the water. There were Romare Beardens, Richard Mayhews, Elizabeth Catletts, and Jean-Michel Basquiat originals all over the apartment, and here and there were artifacts and masks from Garlande’s time with the Kikuyu in Africa during her field studies. She spoke Kikuyu, Swahili, Xhosa, and other Bantu languages fluently. In one of the rooms there was a full array of African drums, masks, utensils, shields, spears, costumes, and other artifacts. Along one wall there were framed photographs of Garlande with tribesmen and women: sitting in front of huts, working in the fields, dancing in tribal costume.

  Wyndell’s recording had gone well in Los Angeles, and being in Seattle with his sister Garlande again helped him deal with his blowup with Vidamía. He had told Garlande about it and she was understanding. At dinner she and Carl had discussed natural selection and the advantages of a darker skin on a planet that was losing its ozone layer. In New Zealand children had to go to school covered from head to toe because otherwise they’d develop skin cancer. They tried to convince him that there was no advantage in fighting about race. He stood on the balcony, looking out at the night, again on the rim of what was America, the Pacific vastness in the distance. Both Carl and Garlande called him to come in for dessert. They noticed that he was on the edge of depression and they both encouraged him to look to the future and his upcoming gig.

  When they were seated and Carl had cut the pie and dished out the ice cream, Garlande talked about music being the history of the United States, and jazz the heart of that music. At times she was so passionate that it embarrassed him. “I’m not much of a musician, but I know enough from listening to Dad talk about it.” She said that it was in the complexity of jazz that you could truly see what this country was about; that in the other forms of American music you get a glimpse, but it’s more like traveling through a landscape in a speeding car. You get images. “With jazz, and I shouldn’t be telling you this because you know it as well as anybody, once you learn to listen you understand what the United States is really about, because it is a dialogue. Jazz is an ongoing dialogue that forces you to listen intently to the nuances of its language. And you’re gonna throw it all away by turning into a zealot about race. What you told me about your argument with your girlfriend sounds a little extreme on your part.”

  “Oh, come on, Garlande. What do you want from me?” Wyndell said.

  “I don’t want you to give up.”

  “I’m not giving up, but everything you’re throwing at me is part of some Eurocentric reality that destroys my identity as a black man.”

  “Wyn, you sound like you’ve been programmed. If you look at it logically, Afrocentrism does the same thing as Eurocentrism. Don’t you see that?”

  Garlande took a deep breath and her tone became conciliatory again as she explained that he had to understand that the United States was the only place where both European and African ideas and ways of being have had a chance to flourish. Here. Not in Europe and not in Africa or India or any place else where Europeans went and colonized the people. And it’s because of the music,” she said to him. “Because the blues rose out of the experience of slavery. The blues is what survived the African holocaust that took place in the United States. I don’t want to get corny, but the blues is our Afro-American phoenix. It rose from that holocaust.”

  “Holocaust, huh?” he said, sarcastically.

  “Please be quiet and listen, because that’s exactly what it was,” she said quietly. “A cultural holocaust. And it’s here where the experiment is taking place. Here, man. This is the place,” she added, stressing that if they didn’t make it work here, then it wasn’t going to work anywhere. “Just like the blues developed and gave birth to different music, the same thing could happen in other areas. Black people have more influence on the culture than you and other African-Americans take credit for. I know this isn’t going to sit too well with you, but I’m convinced that the United States is an African country.”

  “Oh, great. The great anthropologist Dr. Garlande Ross has flipped out. You sound more and more like a black apologist for whites.”

  “Be open-minded. Let’s say for the sake of argument that the U.S. is an African country in its soul. Because of slavery, because of the influence of Africans on the language, on the culture, on its music it can’t help itself and it is an African country.”

  “Okay, let’s say that’s the case.”

  “Okay, who’s supposed to teach the people of this country to be African? Who knows the most about being African? And I’m not talking about geography or language or other elements of the African continent, but the courage and dignity of struggling like African people have. We do. Instead, you spend half your life pushing white people away, talking nasty about them and creating your own kind of separatism. Afrocentrism this and Afrocentrism that.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Afrocentrism.”

  “Of course there is. Just like Eurocentrism gives preeminence to European things, Afrocentrism wants to exclude valuable things that come from Europe, and some that come from the United States.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like democracy.”

  “There were and are democratic governments in Africa.”

  “C’mon, Wyn. I’ve been there. I’ve lived with the people. There’s nothing like this anywhere in the world. Nothing this complex, with so many kinds of different types of people trying to get along.”

  “That’s white propaganda, Garlande,” Wyndell said. “What are we supposed to do, go around adopting white people and teaching them how to act?”

  “It’s not propaganda. And, yes, that’s exactly what people with an African background should do.”

  “My lady included?”

  “Sure, if she wants to. Has she ever said that she doesn’t share an African background?”

  “No, she loves her grandfather, and read Roots when she was about ten years old. She’s always on a kick about black people being mistreated. You should hear her.”

  “She sounds wonderful, Wyn. You’re very lucky.”

  “Sure, but I say she’s a person of color and she jumps all over me. ‘See, there you go again with this color shit,’ she says. And then she tells me that color’s a trick. She says instead of people of color it should be People of Crayola because there’s even a white crayon.”

  “That’s cute,” Garlande said. “I like it.”

  “Caribbean people, especially in places like Puerto Rico, have different notions about color,” Carl said, offering him more coffee.

  “Maybe it is a trick,” Garlande said.

  “What is?” Wyndell said.

  “People of color,” Garlande replied. “The United States has a real tough time dealing with differences. Just like whites couldn’t deal with the fact that there were Mandinke or Ibo or Fulani running around speaking their own languages and made them all speak English in order to homogenize them. The masters raped the slaves and African women had half-white children, and to control them, whites started lumping all the different shades together as colored people. Maybe the African descendants of those folks have fallen into the same trick bag. The country has no problem homogenizing most Europeans. We’re doing the same thing with this ‘people of color’ nonsense, Wyn. Culture, language. Wiped out. One generation here and people forget their parents’ language. I mean speaking more than one language isn’t a liability anyplace in the world except in the United States.”

  “I’m not denying that,” Wyndell said. “Whites wanted to control their slaves. No African languages, no drums.”

  “Right,” Garlande replied. “And everybody that they wanted to control became ‘colored.’ The more people they could control, the better. What better way of messing with people than branding them? Even if they have one sixty-fourth of a degree of African ancestry, they’re black. Does that make sense to you?” />
  “Maybe those people with the African blood want to be black,” Wyndell said, getting up and looking out over the terrace from twenty floors above the city. “Maybe they identify with black values.”

  “Maybe they do,” Garlande replied, following him. “And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with doing so. But it shouldn’t be because there’s pressure to conform or because their life depends on it.”

  “Discrimination against black people doesn’t concern white people.”

  “Wrong,” Garlande said. “Racism has always been a problem and there have always been white people trying to combat it. On a lighter note, I’ve even heard there are white kids who think it’s cool to be black.”

  “That’s bull,” Wyndell said, turning around to face Garlande.

  “It’s not bullshit, Wyn. You’re so caught up with your own thing that you’re losing touch with what’s going on around you. I hope you don’t get upset with me and don’t think I’m pulling some big-sister trip, but it’s like, you’re twenty-five years old but belong to some old-man’s group that stopped thinking thirty years ago. I’m surprised you’re not talking about ‘the good old days.’ Man, later on this year, right in your own backyard, I think in December, there’s gonna be a concert at the Apollo. A rap group called Young Black Teenagers made up of white kids is opening for Public Enemy.”

  “Yeah, show business. Schtick.”

  “No, it’s not just schtick, Wyn. Something else is happening. Look at what kind of music kids all over the United States are listening to,” she said. “Rap, rhythm and blues, rock, hip-hop, dance music, salsa. All of it has an African beat, doesn’t it? I don’t care where you go. Even the sons of good ole boys driving their pickups are listening to rap music.”

  “Yeah, probably some white rappers.”

  “What do you care? That’s my point exactly. The subjects and lyrics may be different, but the gestures and the beat are going to be that of black homeboys, of Africans. The moves they make are so genuine that it’s like I’m back in Africa, sitting around watching people dance. White kids have the same moves, and we transmit that to them. And how do people talk and act? Is the high five, low five, and all that other handshaking jive folks do in sports restricted to black people? Why do people want to go to the beach and get darker? Why are models with full lips more in demand? Is having an attitude and talking black a bad thing? People really want in on what we have as African people and all you can do is be rejecting. These people live in an African country, support African music, and all so-called blacks can do is play hard to get. And now that black people have a little power, they’re going to reject other people. I talk to people all over the United States and they say that colleges are more segregated than ever and the ones behind the segregation are black student groups.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “What I’m getting at is that rather than try to deal with the differences between groups of people—Asians, Latinos, Native Americans, whatever—blacks are now going to call everybody people of color. Just drop everyone in there and let them homogenize. I’d say that’s a major trick bag. Your girl is right. Eventually, instead of progress, what we’re going to do is get more colored people. Right back where we started. Let’s demean the African experience. And don’t tell me it doesn’t make you squirm when people start talking about colored people.”

  “Well … it’s better than …”

  “C’mon, Wyn. Admit it. Defining people by color is limiting. There are Europeans—Sicilians, Spaniards, Portuguese, and French—who are darker than some people we call black. There are people from different tribes in India who are blacker than the darkest Africans. They’re considered Caucasians. Color doesn’t explain anything. It’s a nightmare to refer to people as blacks and it doesn’t help matters any when you start talking about people of color.”

  “What you’re saying is pretty dangerous, Garlande,” Wyndell said. “It borders on some sort of cultural genocide. It sounds like you’re advocating destroying black identity.”

  “You know that I would never do that, Wyn. That something might get destroyed I don’t doubt. What I do doubt is that it will be the soul of the United States. And the soul of the United States is African. I spent years in Africa, Wyn. You know that. What I’m telling you is based on observation. I’ve sat in on tribal meetings. I’ve talked to thousands of people in their own languages. Believe me, the United States is an African country.”

  “You’re gonna get lynched talking about the U.S. being African, sis,” Wyndell said.

  “Everybody’s gotta wake up. Just because something is European doesn’t mean it’s evil and black people should get rid of it.”

  “Oh, no? Folks should lay back and get raped intellectually and emotionally.”

  “Stop it, Wyn,” Garlande said. “That’s beneath you. Do you admire Miles Davis?”

  “Yeah, he’s done some hip things.”

  “Sketches of Spain?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The music was based in part on the work of European composers.”

  Garlande motioned him back inside. She went over to the sound system and the rack where the CDs were kept in the living room. She searched for a few moments and then pulled out Sketches of Spain and removed the liner notes. “Listen.”

  “I know,” Wyndell said.

  “Just listen, okay?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “No, really listen.”

  “I know, I know. Arranged by Gil Evans, a white man. Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “Let me read you the liner notes, Wyn. The album came about because when Miles was out here on the West Coast early in 1959, in California, ‘a friend played him a recording of Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra by the contemporary Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo.’ And … here, listen to this,” she said, flipping the booklet. “‘Among the music he’—meaning Gil Evans—‘he and Miles listened to in preparation for the album was Manuel de Falla’s 1915 ballet score El Amor Brujo.’ So there you have it, even Miles Davis recognized the contribution that European music could make to jazz.”

  “Yeah, but that was Spanish,” Wyndell said.

  “What difference does that make?” she asked.

  “Spain was run by Moors for hundreds of years,” he said. “Where do you think Moors are from? They’re Arabs from North Africa.”

  “So what.”

  “Most of Spain is African.”

  “You tell them, okay? Southern Spain has a Moorish influence, but also a Jewish one. And up in the northwest they have bagpipes like they do in Scotland and Ireland. But be like every arrogant American and tell people with a rich tradition what they are. In any case, the music is definitely European, and Miles Davis made it even more beautiful. Good stuff, isn’t it?”

  “Excellent. He’s a genius.”

  “Even when he veered away from straight-ahead jazz and began experimenting with electronic music and did Bitches Brew and all that stuff?”

  “Yeah, it was still improvisational music,” Wyn said. “High-quality shit.”

  “Well, maybe that’s what Miles Davis saw?”

  “What?”

  “That he wanted to reach a bigger audience and still be able to be an artist?”

  “Are you saying I oughta do the same thing?”

  “No, baby, what I’m saying is that Miles Davis never compromised his integrity. And more than that, he freed a lot of people from the constraints and prejudices of just playing straight-ahead jazz.”

  “You don’t like straight-ahead jazz?”

  “I love it. That’s what Daddy raised us on. Love and straight-ahead jazz and Mommy’s love of art and her cooking and dry humor. Remember when Dexter Gordon came to the house for dinner and jammed with Daddy and his friends?”

  “I think so,” Wyndell Ross said, feeling soft inside, not defeated but thoughtful and sad and missing being back in New York with Vidamía.

  “Her old man�
�s a jazz musician,” he said. “White cat.”

  “Your girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any good?”

  “Pretty fair. Pianist,” he said and thought of Billy Farrell’s right hand, those three fingers blurring as he played complicated runs on the piano when he was soloing and trading. “No, that’s not true, Garlande. Not fair. He’s a jazz musician, and in that he’s a brother. Billy Farrell is brilliant. That’s his name. He’s my pianist for the gig at the Gate. He’s got two fingers missing. A very simple cat, but a brilliant pianist. Had a chance to play with Miles at one time. But that’s another story.”

  “That’s great. Not every white person can play jazz,” Garlande said. “Just love her, Wyn. Enjoy your life with her. She sounds like a treasure. Next time you come out, bring her.”

  “Okay,” Wyn said, nodding, basking now in his big sister’s love for him. “I will.”

  He slept soundly and then the next morning he left to fly back to New York.

  Back home in New York, WBGO was playing “Love for Sale” with Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis, the horn wailing mournfully. He listened carefully and recalled being back in Los Angeles recording with Sonny Pointer again and all the feelings the experience had dredged up. He recalled driving up to San Francisco and staying at Sue McCallister’s house and how kind and concerned she’d been about him, how supportive she and her husband had been. He shook his head and knew it would hurt Sue to hear him spouting black and white stuff. With them that had never mattered. He poured himself another shot of whiskey and then heard the key turn in the door and knew she was coming back to him.

  “I’m sorry,” Vidamía said, coming over and sitting down. “I shouldn’t have run out.”