Side Chick Nation

by Aya De León

  Wealthy people were filling up the tables, along with activist types. Everything about her felt wrong. Her clothes. Her hair. She should have spent the money to get the blowout. But they still didn’t know if they were gonna get that grant.

  Dulce pulled out her phone and saw a text from Yunisa that she’d be late.

  Dulce wondered what she was doing here. She didn’t belong. She was practically having a panic attack when Kim and Jody walked by.

  “Oh thank god,” she said, rushing up to them.

  Kim laughed. “It’s so easy to get lost at one of Marisol’s big gala events.”

  Dulce nodded.

  “Stick with us, kid,” Jody said. “We’ll protect you from all the drama.”

  Jody grabbed a trio of champagne flutes and they toasted.

  “To justice,” Kim said.

  They clinked glasses, and over the girlfriends’ shoulders Dulce saw the Times photographer snap a shot of them.

  Kim and Jody had a table with another girl from the clinic named Lily. She was apparently a stripper organizer, but also a slam poet.

  Kim and Jody set their purses down, then went to get drinks.

  “So it’s possible to balance sex work and writing?” Dulce asked.

  “Girl, definitely—” Lily stopped abruptly.

  Dulce followed her eyes and saw a tall man walking in. From the looks of him, he could have been either black or Latino.

  “That’s Terence Moreau,” Lily said. “He wrote Filtration System.”

  Dulce didn’t recognize the man or the book title. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties, with a bald head, jeans, and a black leather jacket.

  Lily waved, and he headed over to their table.

  “Lily Johnson,” he said, grinning. “The sexiest woman who ever wrote a poem.”

  He turned to Dulce. “Unless of course you are also a poet, mon cher. Then it would be hard to decide.”

  “This is Dulce,” Lily said. “And she’s a journalist.”

  “Then I supposed your title is safe, Lily,” Terence said. “Where can I get a drink?”

  “Have a seat,” she said. “What are you drinking?”

  “Bourbon and water,” he said.

  Lily rose, but Dulce put a hand on her arm. “I’ll get it,” she said. “I was gonna grab something from the open bar anyway.”

  She hadn’t been planning on getting up, but she didn’t really want to make small talk with a flirty guy right now. Not when the drinks were already free.

  She got him the bourbon, plus another rum and coke for Lily, and a glass of wine for herself.

  When she returned to the table, Lily was asking, “Does that mean you’ll be teaching at Columbia next year, or you’ll be back at SUNY?”

  Dulce didn’t wait to hear the answer.

  She was lingering by the kitchen door, hoping they would bring out another tray of snacks, when she heard the audience erupt in wild cheering.

  Marisol was emceeing the event. “Yes,” she said. “You heard me right. Terence Moreau is up next.”

  More cheering.

  “Terence moved to New York as a homeless young refugee from Hurricane Katrina. He wrote rant after rant about the hurricane, and joined one of the New York teams of poets that competed at the National Poetry Slam. He won first place for an individual poet. And later his book Filtration System won the National Book Award for poetry. When we reached out to him about performing at this benefit, he didn’t ask for any money, he didn’t even ask when the event would be. He just said ‘yes, I’ll be there.’ If there’s a man who knows what the people of Puerto Rico are going through right now, it’s one of the writers that put Hurricane Katrina into words. Please give it up for Terence Moreau.”

  The audience went wild as he walked to the stage.

  After the cheering died down, a young man in the front yelled, “fuck ’em up, Terence!”

  Moreau bowed his head and cleared his throat. Then he began by singing:

  My, my this American lie

  Drove my chevy to the levy

  As the water rushed by

  And George Bush was drinking whiskey and rye

  Singing this will be the day that you die . . .

  His voice was gentle, lilting, but then he stopped singing, and his voice turned to a fast, machine-gun delivery:

  Modern day middle passage

  my people packed in the hold of the slave ship Superdome

  same stench

  Line by line, his poem built a searing parallel between Hurricane Katrina and slavery. He framed it as an auction block, where black bodies in crisis were sold to the highest bidder, from the Red Cross’ self-serving monopoly on relief funds to the photos of Black Death that made the careers of white journalists to the financial incentives of for-profit prisons.

  He wound up the auction with one last sale:

  Final contract, rebuilding New Orleans

  Big money! Big money!

  Good old boy George Bush

  Sold to Haliburton

  No bid.

  He banged suddenly on the microphone like a gavel, and the sharp sound made Dulce jump. Then, before anyone in the audience could catch their breath, he went back to singing.

  I met a black girl who sang the blues

  And I asked if she had happy news

  But she just died and washed away

  And I went down to the French Quarter

  Where I’d heard the music years before

  But the ghost there said the music wouldn’t play

  And in the streets the children screamed

  The lovers cried and the pestilence teemed

  But not a word was spoken

  The government was broken

  And the man who could have done the most

  Was grinning in some camera for the Washington Post

  As the hurricane

  hit

  the Gulf Coast

  The day the music died . . .

  His resounding voice brought it all back for Dulce. By the end of the poem, she had a lump in her throat.

  “One more time for Terence Moreau!” Marisol said. “With both these hurricanes, this country’s racism and brutality has been exposed for all to see. So they’ve upped the official death toll for Hurricane María from sixteen to sixty-four, but we know that’s still a lie. And now the suicide rate is shooting up in Puerto Rico. People need hope and relief. Which is why we’re up here raising money tonight.”

  Lily walked up to the stage and handed Marisol a piece of paper.

  “This just in!” Marisol said. “Not only did Terence Moreau agree to perform free of charge, he also just agreed to donate five thousand dollars!”

  As the cheering echoed throughout the room, Kim approached Dulce and handed her a glass of champagne.

  “You look like you need another drink,” Kim said.

  “Definitely,” Dulce said, and downed it.

  They walked back over to the table, and Dulce hung tight with Kim and Jody for the rest of the evening. The three of them drank lots of champagne. Only much later did Marisol pull Dulce backstage while they showed the ten-minute video of the interviews Dulce had done.

  From the wings, Dulce watched, amazed to see her own work on the big screen. The clip was one of the women from the clinic’s shelter. She had closely cropped hair and was somewhere in her twenties:

  She held a photo of a middle aged, balding man in a tank top and shorts. “This is my father. He died from an infection that was a direct result of the hurricane, a few weeks after. So when we buried him, I cut out the ‘made in USA’ label on one of my t-shirts and buried it with him. That’s my flesh and blood going into the ground. And I know his death was manufactured right here in the United States.”

  Dulce had watched the clip countless times as she edited it. But she was stunned to see the impact it had on the audience. People were wiping their eyes.

  Backstage, Marisol whispered to Dulce. “I know I said you didn’t have to mak
e a speech or anything,” Marisol said. “But it would be great if you just said a few words. Are you up for it?”

  The booze had given Dulce some unexpected courage, so she found herself agreeing.

  After the clip was done, Marisol went back out onto the stage. “Please keep that applause going for the filmmaker,” she said. “Dulce García.”

  Filmmaker? As Dulce crossed the stage, she felt like a preschooler walking in her mother’s high heel shoes.

  “I don’t know if I’m a filmmaker,” she blurted out. “But I’m a girl with a camera phone, and a free app to edit video.”

  The audience laughed.

  Dulce shook her head. “I didn’t really prepare anything to say, but . . . I . . . I wanted to collect women’s stories because I was in Puerto Rico during María, and . . . my people are from the Caribbean, so hurricanes were always just a part of life. But there’s nothing natural about these recent storms. Harvey, Irma, María. This is what happens when the people in charge only care about making money, and don’t care about the people or the planet. You can’t fuck with the environment like we’ve done, and have ocean temperatures and levels rising and not have crazy shit happen.”

  She suddenly recalled herself. “Sorry,” she said. “Excuse my language.”

  But the audience clapped to encourage her.

  “Fucked up is fucked up!” a woman called out.

  “Tell the truth!” one man yelled from the back.

  Dulce looked at Marisol, who nodded.

  “The truth is,” Dulce said. “I just . . . I used to think that environmentalism was some white people drama until this climate change practically fucking killed me. And listen up, this shit isn’t gonna be contained to the brown countries for long. People here in New York, you think your money and power can protect you? You can’t buy a new ozone layer or a new worldwide food supply if you fuck up the ones you have. So we need to fight for the people of Puerto Rico and to fight for climate justice like we’re fighting for our own lives. Because we are.”

  The audience exploded into applause. She looked out to see them, and her sister was in the front row. And her sister was . . . crying? What? She hadn’t seen Yunisa cry since their brother had been deported.

  “I just want to shoutout my family,” Dulce said. “I couldn’t have done it without them. You know? My sister in particular. Cause she taught me how to use a camera phone. Mostly for selfies.”

  The audience laughed, and Dulce walked off the stage to loud clapping.

  Marisol took the mic smoothly again. “Thank you, Dulce. Next up is a young woman I saw recently at the Nuyorican Poets Café. She’s in town from California. Yes, the Puerto Rican diaspora is worldwide and coast-to-coast in the US and beyond. This is her poem about the hurricane. Please give it up for Elena Dayo!”

  A middle aged black woman with long dreadlocks stepped up to the stage. “This poem is called ‘Puerto Rico & Mr. Jones’” she said. And then she gave a little history:

  “The Jones Act of 1920, requires that all goods transported by water between US ports (including Puerto Rico) be carried on US ships, made in the US, owned and operated by US citizens. Puerto Rico’s debt to the US is roughly equal to the accumulated revenue potential lost by Puerto Rico under the Jones Act.”

  Like the slam poet before her, she began singing. A gender-flipped version of the old Billy Paul tune:

  Me and Mister Jones

  We got a thing going on . . .

  Then she began to speak, and went back and forth for the rest of the poem between speaking and singing:

  America loves me. Lets me wear his chain around my neck. Heavy, heavy gold rope got me living larger than any of the other Caribbean islands. He tells me: ain’t nobody’s ships but mine docking up in that port, baby

  He says I belong to him.

  We both know that it’s wrong

  But it’s much too strong

  To let it go now

  He called a few years ago, mad as hell. I told him:

  I know I’ve racked up a lot of debt lately, but it’s not like I don’t wanna work. I mean, if you would just let me—I know the ports belong to you but could I just—? Okay, okay, stop yelling. Yes, I know I owe you a lot of money. Yeah, okay. I’ll cut back on expenses. Tighten the belt. Austerity or whatever. We closed a lot of schools. Cut the civil servants. But still, I got this gold chain around my neck. I belong to him now more than ever.

  Because he’s got his own obligations

  And so, and so do I

  A little while back, word got around the neighborhood that Irma was coming to kick my ass, and he didn’t show up to defend me. But it was cool, right? I’m tough, you know. Not one of those needy chicks. But when María was headed my way, talking bout she was gonna try to take me out for real? She was packing heat, like that bitch was seriously dangerous, okay. I was like papi, you got me, right? You coming for me, right?

  And the winds came. And the waves crashed. And the houses got beat down. And the fallen trees blocked the road. And the water got contaminated. And the gas supply dried up. And the food rotted in the heat and the dead refrigerator. And the water flooded up to the roof. We up here vomiting. Medicine spoiled. Gangrene set in. Viejitos’ rest homes turning to final resting places.

  And you didn’t come for me, papi. You didn’t fucking come for me. But you wasn’t gonna let nobody else help.

  I

  belonged

  to you . . .

  And then she screamed the next two lines, offtune and furious,

  Mee-eeee and Mister

  Mister Jones!

  Since 1900, didn’t I send my children to cut your Hawaiian sugarcane? Since 1917, didn’t I send my sons to your wars? Haven’t I always let your corporate chains put my mom and pop stores out of business? Didn’t I let you play your war games on my Vieques for decades? Didn’t I let you dump towers full of coal ash when your continental US was too good to clean up its own mess? Open ash dumps for the hurricane to knock down? Now your arsenic, mercury, chromium seeping into my people. And Mr. Jones ain’t got a goddamn thing going on to help.

  Now he’ll go his way

  And I’ll go mine

  Your forefathers threw a hissy fit. Dumped tea into Massachussets Bay to protest King George. How the hell am I gonna get ten stories of coal ash up to Boston Harbor? How do I send this shame back where it belongs? This third world, side chick, shame back?

  No, Mr. Jones. You need to act like you got some respect.

  As she repeated the last lines of the poem, she faded out some of the words until she said the final line:

  No. Jones. Act.

  When she finished, the crowd applauded wildly.

  “That’s right,” Marisol said. “We don’t just want hurricane relief, we want justice. Repeal the Jones Act! And cancel the debt!”

  The applause thundered.

  Someone in the crowd yelled out “Viva Puerto Rico libre!” Many voices yelled back: “Que viva!”

  Dulce felt like she was gonna cry. The side chick metaphor sort of undid her. That was just what it was like. Somebody who held all the cards and came just to take and you had to act like you really liked them.

  She needed some air. In the packed room, it took her a while to make her way to the door. She felt like she might burst into tears, or maybe throw up. As she pressed through the crowd, Marisol was back on the mic.

  “I want to thank you all for being so financially generous tonight,” she said. “But there’s more that the people of Puerto Rico need from you. Not only your money, but your time, as well. You know you like to go on vacation. Why not spend part of your vacation helping to rebuild Puerto Rico? We got a list of grassroots organizations where you can volunteer to help do all kinds of things . . .”

  Dulce finally made it out of the ballroom door, and took the stairs two at a time down to the street. It was an unseasonably warm evening, with temperatures in the low sixties.

  Yet her first inhalation wasn’t a deep
breath but a gasp. In front of the building stood Zavier. His hair was longer and a little wild. He looked thinner. He had on jeans and a pale blue guayabera shirt. And he was smoking. She turned to go back in, but he had already seen her.

  “Great speech,” he said. He sounded like maybe he’d had a few drinks, too.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I thought you were back in Puerto Rico.”

  “Back and forth,” he said. “You been reading my stuff?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s good. Especially that piece you co-wrote on the increase in violence against women since the hurricane.”

  “I kept it on my radar,” he said, and took a drag of the cigarette. “I been reading your work on Puerto Rico, too.” Smoke trailed out of his mouth as he spoke.

  Dulce wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Thanks for . . . uh . . . coming out tonight,” she said.

  “It was really . . .” he began. “It had me getting all emotional.”

  Dulce nodded and pointed to the cigarette. “May I?”

  He handed it to her.

  “I didn’t realize you were the filmmaker,” he said. “If I had known, I might not have come.”