The Ink Soaked Bramble

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-12-11T20:24:00.000-08:00

We might be coming closer to terms with the truth; that you have stayed here for just as long as you were meant to. The air that moves around us has heard us declare it regularly; we’ve repeated it like a line that must be learned, and now we’re digesting it.

We came, like a band of thieves, back to the grounds for the first time since the interment, desperately searching out your name along the rows of bronze, feeling short of time. We scanned over crosses and praying hands with the map flapping like a flag in the wind; and then, the exclamation came.

We paused, each one of us, to watch the woman clasp her hands. She cried out in jubilation or exaltation or perhaps relief or grief or all. She was the first to discover you all over again, just like in your beginning and just like at your end. The company murmured that there was no mistake in it.

We made a chain of clutching hands and whimpered as an elder prayed over the letters that form your name. The woman knelt down to place a wreath against the metal and touched the plaque with both of her hands; the garlands were designed in some of your favorite colors and we heard her thanking the maker for having given you to us.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-11-23T22:10:00.001-08:00

We gathered your clothes finally, your mother and I, to put them away or give them away. We loitered at the door for a period before entering your space. It is still your space although you’ve withdrawn. It feels like you. Your things are all arranged in the way only you would have them; the cocoa butter lotion in a big bottle on the shelf next to loose pennies and dimes, a watch, some cologne, an empty potato chip can toppled over, and DVDs in a row overlooking stacks of books. Your shirts and jackets hang like museum pieces: garments that were once worn and kept warm, but now hallowed artifacts after the sudden relinquishment. I ran my hands over the material.

We attempted to work with ears willed deaf to emotion and folded each piece after careful consideration. The woman was standing at the foot of the bed slowly buttoning shirts, gently folding slacks and quietly pairing socks. She sighed every once in a while. I remained silent as I handed her bunches from the piles that surrounded me on the center of your bed. I thought you may be watching from behind the veils between dimensions, and hoped you would appreciate the reverence with which we worked. We loved you so. I crawled across the floor and assembled your shoes. I placed them all in a bag. Who could have dared fathom life would bring us to this?

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-10-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

The woman sits in the armchair alone quite regularly now. She takes many of her meals there. She looks at the television as if she can see through it clear to the other side, with the sounds and colors carrying on unnoticed. Maybe she is remembering overseeing some stage of your development, with a sensation that cannot be imagined or described. She attempts to recover herself whenever someone walks into the room.

We speak about you often and in bewilderment still, shaking our heads to complete our sentences; and from somewhere in the viscera, a grunt would come.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-10-16T14:43:00.001-07:00

Because you altered the state of the whole universe by going, I will continue to write about you. Somewhere, in some atmosphere, a cluster of stones have modified their trajectory. Here, my complete consciousness has been realigned. You have gone from us; you have abandoned the only manner in which we knew you, and left me alone in our once common struggle to live a life of meaning.

I did not know it was possible to sink any deeper into a shroud of malaise. I started the process even before your departure. The thing inside that sees all things must have been alerted, but I was in the dark. I think of us with no more than twelve years between us, lying on the bed and imagining our time twenty years into the future – we lived to see it. We made it to that place after doing battle in series, trudging through unfamiliar territory, and mastering life in what the powers have termed as the inner city.

We used the best of what we could muster and persisted. We persisted. For even in the many days where I was certain I would fall dead from the strain, you shouldered me and pulled me along. We met the trials of the young men coming of age in our environment like twin apprentices training for a warrior’s title. We held conference on the concrete rails of those Crown Heights stoops, knowing that the adults in the house could not possibly comprehend our strife, nor would we have wanted them to. They had their collective and individual troubles to manage, so we made do with our own; trouble in the yard after school had let out; trouble behind the sliding subway car doors; trouble in the pack of sneakers trailing after us down the block; trouble in the path leading past the project walls; trouble at the edge of the stick-up kid’s knife, trouble through the bullet holes covering the backboard in the park. Like twin apprentices training for a warrior’s title, we met those trials coming of age in our environment. We used the best of what we could muster and persisted. We persisted. My beloved brother, If only for the legacy you have left with me, what volumes of significance your existence has had!

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-09-11T00:57:00.000-07:00

And finally you speak – you speak in a dream; no more sitting silently by, gazing in a daze as we all surround you, interrogating you; no more stealing up to the bedside in my sleep within sleep to slip rolled dollar bills underneath my pillow. Words! Words spoken from your voice; and shining from your eyes is that same familiarity and affection. Oh, how I miss you and cry for you in many quiet spaces. We that have remained, console one another, feeling perhaps, that our own individual loss of you is the deepest, as selfish as the thought may be. We have known you, you see, and we feel entitled. But now you speak. This is the thing that the mystics articulate, sermonizing according to their respective affiliations. This is the phenomenon that the elders describe, when the body rests, and the spirit relieves itself to float into the outer spheres. I have taken to sleeping with the hallway light on, thinking you would come, hoping for it but being a little fearful still. I have been conditioned, after all, by the limited and ridiculous imaginations of those that have been given license to create entertainment. They depict images born out of fear and faithlessness. If you had been here we could have discussed it, and the interesting and crippling aftermath of your departure.

Your appearance was unkempt at first. You came bruised and with restrictive forces that I could not see, asking them if you could tell me where you were. But they prohibited you from identifying your location, and I wanted so badly to know. You told me that you were taking time to adjust and that you were studying again. I was uneasy when it was over and recounted an abridged and more palatable version in the retelling. In the next moment, you seemed more confident, preparing me for the trip you would soon take; you were full of suggestion and metaphor - affording me a luxury in the realms that you did not give me in life. Maybe it was necessary for me to relive it elsewhere, re-envisioned. I wept and begged you not to go. You were resolute. Then, another night came and I slid under the covers ruminating over personal issues intermingled with thoughts of you. It has been that way every night. We stood with our siblings around us. Yet, we were the only two in conversation. There was some surge of light being produced from your skin; brown, brown, shimmering brown – brown in luminescence. Your hair flourished down your back in its natural state. Your eyes were so knowing and full of affection. And so, my brother, you have finally found your place, I said. Yes, you responded. Yes.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-07-04T20:18:00.001-07:00

Our cars rolled one behind the other like we were first and second in a motorcade. It was a sunny afternoon, some of the most beautiful weather that had come to town at that point; a sample of the summer you would never see. I led the way to the highway. It was a route you had never taken. We had placed the cargo we were delivering in the seat behind mine. The child said he would rather take the ride back with you, going the same way he had come; choosing you to be his carrier once more. We laughed about it on the sidewalk and then entered our vehicles. I smiled to myself as I pulled out into the main road. You were waiting for me there.

We drove through a city in which we had faced so many obstacles, shoulder to shoulder, and survived. We had a history here. Our destinies had been tied together in knots and had stretched back through these streets and across the continents. And now we were together again, as we had been so often, sharing a moment only we could share – there is such a bond between us.

I led your way out of the borough, ushering you out. My God, but it was a pleasant day! I could not even locate the troubles of my mind. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw you, taking in the scenery as we drove. I thought about how odd it was, you, looking as if you were sightseeing; as if you had never lived in this place and now saw everything for the first time. We were moving slower than I anticipated, but it seemed appropriate. You were dazzling in the glass, surveying everything around you, seeming so very calm, so stunning and young as the sun showered your eyes, your skin and the edges of your hair in a burst of bronze.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-06-22T19:25:00.001-07:00

We can’t see the future, we think about what it should be, but we never get it right! That is what our grandmother said. I sat diagonally on the bed, across from the place in which she was always so grandly positioned. There was a silence between us so heavy… and looming somewhere in our environment was the threat of collapse, the demise of poise and composure. But neither of us would succumb. Her legs were elevated as she sat upright against the headboard. Her feet were covered with a pair of those colorful silky socks she was known to wear. And her hair was tied inside matching material just above her traveling gaze; eyes that had seen the better of nine decades now looked equally pained and puzzled. Hadn’t you and I discussed her great departure? You and I. How we would shudder to even contemplate that coming time and say in those somber and quiet talks that we would have to prepare ourselves – what a loss it would be! We would hardly know how to bear it. But you preceded her. And now I was there sitting alone with her, diagonally across from the place in which she was always so grandly positioned, diagonally still from the chair where you would sit close to her by the bed. I recalled how they had held her by each arm and walked slowly with her, cane and all, to view the last of you. She cried out your name then, and the room instantly became silent.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-05-25T20:24:00.001-07:00

You reclined on the couch. I remember. You reclined on the couch with your feet dangling and the remote control working in your hands to find channels on the new television. You said that you liked the size of it, and I laughed with my eyes still fixed on the computer. Our nephew was playing somewhere in the area, running his line of cars across the hardwood floors.

A sudden thought broke my concentration. I saw that you were asleep when I turned around. The child was still busying himself with the toys; using his mouth to make the sound trucks make. And I watched you for a short while – I do not know why. For no signals in the wind suggested that this was our last day together. No voice from outer space pitied me enough to even whisper that only two days stood between you and death.

It had already been recorded in the atmosphere.

We were like children again, I thought, laughing at some joke in the hallway. We could always come across a good laugh between us. I heard you tell the little boy to wait for us to accompany him down the stairs. I stayed by the door with a leg touching the old television, while you searched for a place in the hall where you could briefly rest your drink; a large cup of that sweet tea you had loved so much, with a plastic lid and straw. But there seemed to be no place that could hold it. You looked over at me and grinned.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-05-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

In the still and chilly parlor, they placed your body amidst a sea of petals; with hundreds of empty seats before you; with air and solemn music flowing – possibly from the vents. And life was at such a standstill for those of us that had arrived – just us four at first, bearing witness to what the others would come to see. We huddled like displaced orphans, in a cluster not far from the casket, too stunned even to speak; too stricken even to let out a whimper, at least for the moment. And in time we were moved to action, arranging things to suit you best; working to give ourselves distraction; wanting our love for you to be on display. We twisted the towering wreaths so that the roses could confront the crowd. And our family soon appeared in a mass of hesitant black, with the elders leading the group like priests guiding a pilgrimage. And as they ventured forward, staggering and gasping for breath, the group disassembled in the aisles and there were tears everywhere.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-05-20T14:08:00.001-07:00

They lifted you, up the stairs and out into the living room, marching right past us and our waiting, widening, worried and weeping eyes. They carried you as if you never had any weight at all, like black plastic bedding or a hammock elevated at the ends. But it was you; you they were taking, your body that they were fetching out. Your body! Oh Omnipotent God, let the ground open up and take us all!

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-05-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

I cried in the bedroom, sinking to the bed with word just received and the phone slipping from fingers that had loosened their grasp. I cried on the thruway, clinging to the steering wheel before veering off the exit to seek the safety of the service road. I cried in the mirror with a face full of shaving cream and steam rising to blur vision that had already misted over. I cried in the chapel, convulsing on the chapel walls. And out in the streets, rain was falling.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-05-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

For even in this great and sudden exit the Divine has shown us mercy; it allowed us to stoop at the base of the platform and position your flowers around the frame. We moved like stage-hands in suits just before a curtain call; working with a swift resolve for perfection, suppressing the reality that the last of you was before us, motionless. We twisted the towering wreaths so that the roses could confront the crowd. Whenever they finally arrived, they would have to look upon the mountains that were erected for you. We loved you so.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-05-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

I only pray for the ability to accept the fact that you have fulfilled your purpose. I ask God for the pause not to wake up and wonder if the clouds have exploded, and the mountains collapsed, if the rivers have flooded over and the walls of every city have tumbled – they should; all things in the world should stand still – even if only for a moment – when someone of your caliber has left it.

On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

2011-05-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

Drag me out, feet first, into the highest point of day; pull and tug me fast so that my arms can cut themselves on scattered pebbles and broken glass; cover me with dust and let it dissolve deep into the wounds; and leave me to weep, just leave and let me weep.

Excerpt from "At The Doorstep of Dawn" (Chapter 4)

2011-04-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

It was the loneliness that he had felt so often. It was the sadness that had taken hold of him. Whenever Lionel would be standing by in the kitchen on a Sunday, watching Mrs. Anderson cook, he always thought about his mother. He kept promising himself that he would not, he tried to push her out of his mind, but Cheryl was persistent. Mrs. Anderson cracked eggs on the side of the frying pan with more effort than his mother had ever used. She breathed heavily and constantly placed a hand on her chest or her waist or used the front part of her wrist to wipe sweat from her forehead as Lionel watched her curious struggle.

“Hand me that oil over there, boy,” she would say.

Lionel would hurry over to the bottom cupboard and grab the clingy plastic bottle; he would shut the door abruptly and thrust it into her outstretched hand. She never looked in his direction. And Cheryl would appear in his sight. He couldn’t help but compare her to this common woman, who breathed heavily and always stopped to catch herself. Nothing she did carried the same hypnotic ease with which Cheryl executed all tasks. Cheryl, in some flowery negligee, seemed to almost float around the kitchen. She was spellbinding. Her wrist was too delicate to be used for anything as gouache as swiping perspiration from her forehead. It was held out and away from the flame and there was always some trinket hanging off of it. Cheryl would hum tunes that young Lionel might have heard in the same house the night before at a party. Occasionally, Cheryl would turn to her son and smile, as if to reassure him that she was there in the flesh. She loved him. He could feel it. She would descend slightly and bring her face inches away from the pots to inhale the aroma. It was her measure of what else needed to be added. She tasted nothing. She would pull back the refrigerator door as if it were a magical treasure chest that had transformed itself in the interim to produce some surprise that would please her. She held the long steel spoon like a wand, or a scepter depending upon her mood. And to make a request that was vital to her art she would say…

“Lionel, sweetheart, reach up to the top left cupboard and hand mommy the salt…”

“Lionel, love, bring mommy de burn sugar from the table...”

“Lionel, baby, fill this mug with water for me…”

“Lionel, darling, pull the big chicken outta de fridge to defross...and careful not to hurt yuhself with it…it heavy.”

And Lionel would hop down from his post on top of the stool to carry out his charge with honor. He would carry out each chore with pride, happy that he was valued enough to be included. She loved him. He could feel it.

Glamorous, by the Service Road

2011-03-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

Within her compass, there was no room for pretense and affectation. She was frank with herself about all matters, and only constrained her views in her dealings with others for the sake of courteousness (she had, after all, been raised to be gracious). She was sure that she could not afford insincerity, since more than enough years had passed already and one day shifted into the next too quickly for her liking. She would never profess out loud her feeling that time was running out, but that was her general mood nonetheless. A lot had been lost, her innocence for instance, and maybe a smidgen of virtue. She smiled less and watched her pride systematically deplete like sacks of grain in a barnyard. She felt very much like a hen required to fight for the feed, although she opted out of the scuffle. There seemed to be less and less to be joyous about. Still, she retained some of her former qualities and that was some consolation: for example, she could splurge with distinction and was convinced that she had few peers when it came to making a stylish representation of herself.

She arrived at the lounge alone and chic. The glasses on the overhead rack gleamed like a row of bulbs, barely lit. They caught her eye for a moment, but then she noticed that there were more women than men in the place. Naturally. It was a theme she had witnessed too often. Someone had said it was the curse of being a woman of her kind, where she would gradually become more accomplished and a comparable man would be unavailable, locked-up or dead. Dead! Or, maybe she had read it in a magazine. Either way it was a hell of an outlook to have. How did she feel about it? It was difficult to say. She was never one to deliberate over statistics, or delve too deeply into the reasons surrounding the social conditions of any particular group. She saw herself in a vacuum and made her own wellbeing her focus. She knew that she just could not stand another year of stretching out on her bed and not pressing up against another soul; and, good God, another year of having no voice to respond to in the dark!

And so it was that she found herself at the venue, venturing out despite her past misadventures, and her present misgivings. She settled in and conducted a survey of the scene. She checked the earrings’ glimmer in the wall-paneled mirror. She reached out and met glances and looked pleasant and smiled. She swiveled her chair sideways so as to invite conversation. She even joined a feminine caucus, hoping to benefit from their catch. The entire effort was fruitless. By the time the house lights started rising, she was following the breeze out the front door. She was hunched, walking on five inches down the avenue; wearing her discontent like a shawl. She squeezed all of her passions into the purse under her arm. She veered to the right, almost trotting down the adjacent block as a drizzle started to fall. The car appeared in her view. She heard her keys and bracelet jingle when she put out her arm. She stopped short. She paused. She leaned forward to focus her glare. She placed a hand across her mouth. The flat tire made the car lean slightly to the side. It was a final affront. The water hit her face as she brought her hand to her hip, looking to the left and the right her.

Abducted

2011-02-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

He should have counted himself lucky (had he been able to count) that he had arrived during a different age in this dimension. His mother and father might have done some tallying of their own, had they not been otherwise disposed. The truth was that they themselves were too young and ill-equipped to fully take hold of the texture of the period they occupied. After all, were there not countless settings they could stroll through without being accosted? The possibility of seeing the eyes of God on a limp swing at the edge of a branch was an abstract one. And they had never grinded their teeth by lamplight, crouching, with windows barred and ears straining to hear footsteps approaching in the wind. Instead, they wore iPods, with sixteen bars pounding on their eardrums; and reclined in front of forty-two-inch screens that made their skin glow from pink to blue to green.

The elders, now well past their prime, were quietly certain of the child’s good fortune. It almost astounded them that he was just three and could access cell phones and laptops with startling familiarity, even if mastery would not come for another four, five years. Whenever they all gathered, they took turns throwing tales about their grandchildren gleefully onto the table, and sat back to watch them bounce together like marbles among competitors. The young child’s parents convened with their own contingent, staggering in from jobs they disliked, making plans to pay for extra studio time, and sending the boy and his toys to the back bedroom so that one of the guests could commence with the splitting of the Dutches at the kitchen counter. Their pungent phrases drifted on fog to where he was contentedly navigating his toy Hummer; they swirled around him; they swooped him up; and when the child swore in front of the elders the following day, everyone was aghast.

These were signs of the times, the elders said. They shook their heads and walked away, and left the young to tend to the young. The boy was boosted in his booster seat as his parents chuckled on the ride home. He marveled at how quickly the houses and trees raced across his window, and the cars. Cars! There were cars in multiplicity roving right beside him; cars for him to pick up and roll clear across the ground or to fling from high on the bed to see them crash. He giggled. Ooh…there was a white and black, no blue car pulling up alongside them, a car with flashing lights! The child called to his mother to share his excitement, but she just placed a pacifying hand behind her seat and tugged his leg. He was not convinced she could see it. The boy called again…Daddy saw it! Yes! But somehow the man was not pleased. He said something to his passenger. They turned the music down.

The vehicle slowed and then stopped. A man with a helmet and something reddening his cheeks was at the window, taking papers from Daddy. He left. He came back. He disappeared once more and returned. The blinking lights mesmerized the child, but he tried hard to focus on what his father was saying to the man. The two seemed to be disagreeing about a grave subject. Daddy started yelling. Mommy was yelling too. The voices formed an echo that made the child’s ears hurt; it frightened him when it reached into the back, undid his seatbelt, and yanked him out of his chair. The boy was cloaked in his mother’s arms. She squeezed his back to her chest and moved out into the grass. Her hair was blowing wildly around her face.

The boy stared at the rotating red glow, allowing its magic to penetrate his eyes. A sudden instinct made him seek out his father. The man had put a lock on Daddy’s hands and was taking him away. What was he doing? The boy’s distress mounted, and then, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” The child hollered, feeling his mother twist him to the side. The boy attempted to spring from her arms as the lights began to taunt him – their earlier radiance now changing unexpectedly to a darker tint. The red flicked fire at him, scorching its image into his memory. The wheels started a slow roll. They were taking his father away. The child was overcome with dread. He let out a frantic shriek as the car pulled off, with his father’s head bowed in the back, and those lights dancing jubilantly in the midst of his tears.

A Gathering (Rewrite)

2011-02-21T17:27:00.000-08:00

They came in a caravan, tumbling one on top the other like a line of dominoes; a convoy of characters mimicking something in a biblical parable. But they rode in cars instead of on camels, and replaced sandals and robes with designer boots, sweatshirts that read Brooklyn, jackets branded with pricy insignias, hats with wool sewn at the sides, and jewelry. There were no rods or staffs, no shawls or blankets, no water receptacles or metal pots. It was quite the reverse. They sipped caramel drinks out of cardboard cups, plugged neon-lit phones into the dashboard and rotated CDs every hour…tapping their fingers, nodding their heads, and throwing grim glances out of the passenger windows. A jingle erupted in the back, signaling yet another text message from someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend perhaps. How far had the vehicle advanced from the city? The dearly loved would have wanted to know. When would the exact return date be? And so on. There was a phone call soon afterwards and a hushed backseat conversation. There was an irritated sigh up front, and then, a hand found the plus sign on the radio and pumped the vintage Whitney Houston up a notch. One or two of those present, secretly wished to feel a cell phone suddenly vibrate; they wanted to hear some familiar voice on the other end tracking their own movements, sending peals of sentiment over the distance; waiting eagerly for a grand reunion. However, they hastily shook themselves from the feeling. This was not the time to think of such things.

The house appeared festive on the surface. The new arrivals walked through the door and there was a noisy greeting; hugs for the cousins, kisses for the aunts, and a clasp of hands between sisters. The baby walked a little unsteadily, still being unused to the art of the activity, but drawing the crowd in his direction nonetheless. The driver made the final entrance, climbing up the last leg of the long trip. He held a traveling bag in one hand, and in the other, a plastic bag containing goods from the homeowner’s favorite Caribbean restaurant. The entire company seemed to have been awaiting his arrival. He felt it. He greeted the elders with some affection, but not too much. He greeted his siblings. They had all gathered like flies around honey coated glue, and he greeted them. A longtime family friend sat in the corner with worry hanging on his face. It was a disturbing sight. The driver smiled and presented the man with a cheerful salute. Always the strong one, that one, the eldest boy, you know…was what the driver heard him say. He acted as if the words did not reach him, and kept moving.

The group was energetic, pretending not to notice that the phone was ringing incessantly. They passed the baby from hand to hand and made a gigantic fuss. They chattered on about the inane, anything but the event that was to take place in the coming days. No, they would wait to speak of hospital waiting rooms and the specific instructions that were given directly by the surgeon. They would wait even to think of it. Someone put the music on. Yes, that was what was needed. There was brandy and ginger ale on the table, and ice making its way into the glasses. Something heavy had been seeping into the air, but the assemblage quickly turned their backs to it. The driver felt it. That dear family friend downed his drink in one go. He started to talk loosely about courage with a crack in his voice. The driver focused on his game with the baby, thinking…he better not dare cry! The older women were in the kitchen cooking something big. “So, you’re only on liquids now?” Someone was heard asking, making light out of the heavyhearted. Laughter jumped up and out of the kitchen, high and loud as if to cover up the thing or drive it away.

At Hill And Bedside

2011-02-06T10:29:00.001-08:00

Some woman came to the door, and it was a surprise. Some woman came to the door barefoot. She held it open in a way that indicated the visitor should enter. This visitor, the young teenaged boy, seemed to provoke much curiosity from her; she just stood there assessing him, wondering probably if this is what the children in America looked like, pulling in the smell of detergent from his clothes. She was thinking, maybe, that there were green bills folded neatly and concealed in the large envelope he was holding. And the young man could not access any emotion. There was anxiety perhaps. He felt it. After all, he had been awakened quite early that morning and called upon to set out on this much-anguished about segment of his visit back to the country of his parents; the country of their ancestors and those that had brought them there by force; his country. But the land had belonged to no one, at least, not anyone who had come by ship. And that indigenous group who stood most in right to lay claim to the creeks and waterfalls, the internal islands and the rain-drenched leaves, the tough bark and minerals that rose to the sand’s surface like stars reflecting on water; those who stood shoulder to shoulder and greeted the barges as they sailed in, did not subscribe to a philosophy that allowed them to see nature as a possession. It was natural to behold how the trees ascended and bended to the side. He had remembered them that way, looking as if they stopped in the middle of some sort of dance. He had sensed how time itself seemed different when he stepped out of the airplane. It was at once familiar and terrifying. He felt the commingling of the spirits. They swayed in between the coconut palms. They spoke languages in the wind that beat against the blue pick-up truck, which whisked him away from the airport. He could barely believe that he had been born in this place. That he had actually been produced there. And now, he had returned as a mere observer; a visitor with roots somewhere in the vicinity.

The boy was made to understand that he could not let his month-long vacation end without visiting his grandfather. It was a mandate. The task had been looming like a loose chandelier above him and now the inevitable was actually happening. He had sat quietly in the passenger seat of the vehicle as it climbed into the hills. He watched the bungalow houses flicker past him on stilts, and was mesmerized. It seemed appropriate somehow that this man would live in a place as removed from the city as it was. Everything about the old man was obscure, his story spoken about in patches and pieces. What had any of them really known about him? The boy had watched his own father discuss the elder with that aloof look held by those that are simply speculating. His eyes were devoid of familiarity. There was no ownership in his tone. And still there was a mandate.

Some woman had come to the door and ushered him in. He walked past her stare and into the back room. She watched him walk to that back room without compassion and left him there alone with the old man. The wood on the walls was graying from neglect. Bags of clothes had been flung into a corner and leaned on one another for support. A solitary window opened out into a budding jungle and was held up by a stick. The old man lay in his bed. He beckoned his grandson with a trembling voice and mimicking hands. The boy approached his relative. He pulled a nearby chair closer to the bed as he was instructed to do. He looked at the man’s face and saw something in it that he had known. The man started to speak. He asked about the boy’s mother and father, his brother and sister. He spoke about age and isolation and learning by living. He wanted to know what life was like in that other world. Was it not cold? Was it everything people described it to be? He had always wanted to discover for himself, he said, the answers to those questions. The boy nodded, not being able to imagine that he had ever known any other kind of existence, although he had. But all of that recollection had grown dimmer with time and relevant only as a point of reference, as something that had shaped him in some imperceptible way. He remembered this man, standing above him at a standpipe, pouring liquid on his head from a bucket of herbs and saying prayers of protection. It was the memory that devoted him to this elder in secret; the idea that someone thought him precious enough to protect in such a sacred manner. The boy was unexpectedly overcome. He huddled by his grandfather and gripped the edge of the mattress. And he was suddenly taken aback, for the old man started to weep. He just wept and wept.

Eleven by Night

2011-01-26T18:09:00.000-08:00

Flocks of feathered floats had helped to facilitate the fantasy, flaring in and fanning out; ruffling as if the breeze had snuck up from the adjoining seaside and tickled them. They were tugged on and put on parade by tanned figures that were glistening with sweat, gyrating and giving in to a general sense of euphoria. They danced on vapors. It was an emancipation exclamation, a festival of melody, a gala that deceived even the native residents into thinking that they had been transported to some tropical dreamland for Carnival. Carnival! Except that this was North America; this was the land of migrants and Mounties, in the summer months, when the clouds were flickering and fleeting, and something frigid was a-rolling-in.

Fed by all the frenzy of the earlier hours, the revelers took the nightfall as it came. They took to the streets, persevering with the recreation and the revelry. The more flamboyant of the set parked expensive automobiles on the avenues with lights beaming, sounds blasting and the cleaning solutions drying unseen into the paint. The sidewalks were abuzz with the intoxicated and the inquisitive, and impudent youngsters on the prowl for their own amusements. Another line of vehicles made a syrupy slow drain down the main boulevard. And inside, the passengers' faces drew closer to the glass, meaning to miss nothing.

From five or so feet away, there seemed to be another costumed mass gathering – similar to that which was marching in the sun just hours before…but here? No. All of that pageantry had died out with the daylight; these were symbols of a different variety. Was it the red stripes surrounding those caps that made them look so unnatural? Out-of-towners would find the attire too bright and celebratory for actual enforcers of the law to wear. And then, a woman screamed! The throngs suddenly became sluggish; frowns were formed out of just buoyant features; a kind of internal movement changed the formation of the police unit and a woman screamed.

Fists pounded on metal. The air had changed. The surge of blue parted to reveal the woman; her braids had unraveled and her head swayed low over her protruding stomach. The squad of blue, eleven they were, advanced upon the bawling captive. She wailed an announcement of her pregnancy, but she may as well have been shouting at thunder. The woman screamed. She wrestled her wrists against the silver handcuffs. Eleven officers struggled to take hold of the woman’s body, unaffected by the emotional exhibition. Eleven men were taking hold of one woman’s body. This, at Carnival!

Flushed

2011-01-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

The noises that echoed from the hollow spaces in the back reached around the hall like long fingers and grabbed and wiggled at his ear. Even at the gate where he stood, the words were crisp with enunciation. It was like listening to a radio in the dark; in the wee morning hours when all but one thing in the world was mute. He waited for an acknowledgement that he could carry out his task. He leaned on the wall in his gray suit and something misty was floating around his mind. He overheard his name. He was surprised. Even at the gate where he stood, the name was crisp with enunciation. His name! There was a sudden foreboding rumbling in the deep. He would know before knowing that whatever reached him next would hurt him. And then, the adjective came; it made his spirits fall like cucumbers just sliced by a knife.

Still, the God of the universe had been merciful, for it allowed him to receive this latest destruction in the hallway alone. The God of his imagination had destined that he would have to share this shame with no one.

Amen. He let his head hang for a second in a mood reminiscent of his earlier more vulnerable days, long before his majestic transformation; his evolution into something elegant with a suit and a pricy watch and an expensive cashmere overcoat that fell toward his ankles; Oh how he walked like a king and held his shoulders up, and stood face-front before judges to articulate his phrases - very persuasive. Who could even comprehend the catalogue of mortifications he had already crawled out of? They were always nipping secretly at his heels. There was a quick moment of delirium. Panic. His eyes were searching for a swift solution. And then, it was decided. He would walk to the end of the hallway and return after an introspective intermission. Perhaps, none of this had happened at all. He was his only witness after all. Yes. He buttoned up his jacket and started to walk.

Swiftly, And Then...

2010-07-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

But nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, not even the old woman sitting on the marble steps in the foyer the day before. She was fanning herself with a magazine and humming some sort of hymn about knowing neither the day nor the hour. In fact, wasn’t that her yearly routine? Yes. The residents in the building were not surprised when they spotted her on their approach to the double glass doors, slouching in her summer print; occupying the space in the corner of the stairs with grace, like the aging black sovereigns that one heard existed in centuries past, but could not quite visualize; or as might have been conceptualized in a painting created by an artist that never had and never would actually witness such living greatness. Yet, the old lady was great in her way; she had lived a lengthy life and deserved some title. She was a sweet old thing really; harmless by most accounts, and seemed always satisfied to be just where she was. They all nodded in her direction whenever they passed through the front doors, and she nodded back.

The nurse expected to come across the elderly woman on her way back in from her day shift. She was ready to greet her with the appropriate degree of deference, while perhaps letting a mild curiosity about the woman play in her smile. She anticipated the hike up the flights of stairs leading to the fifth floor, with her clenching the rail like a rope, blowing full breaths from a body that was not unaccustomed to labor, and marking with each quiet pant, a task that required her attention; the grandchildren would have likely been in need of some item or other and then, she would have had to see how her daughter was making out in the heat, pregnant as she was. It was true that July had only now started, but the humidity had climbed to such a high degree that the young flower buds that were striving to decorate the garden in the building’s entranceway fell over and passed out. Nonetheless, the nurse arrived to find that the old woman had relinquished her place by the door. And that gave her a shock despite her knowledge of the circumstances that had suddenly summoned her home.

It was the first true symbol of the change that had smashed into her routine and demolished everything; this vacancy on the stairs that even the light was beginning to withdraw from, leaving only the pale bare stone. The call had reached her at work. A frantic voice astounded her with the news that her daughter’s body had been discovered motionless on the bed and, that by that hour, the child inside had followed its mother; that the authorities had already come to fetch out the dead; and an aunt had already taken from the apartment the children whose mother had suddenly departed from them. She must have ravaged her mind for an image of her daughter talking and moving. What had they talked about? She would try to remember. As the vehicle drove to the address, she was statue still, thinking that at any moment it would disintegrate into ash with her in it, willing it to happen. But nothing happened and nothing changed. People moved about on the avenues as if this catastrophe was not upon them all; cars and buses moved; planes soared too high for the caving earth to vacuum them in and swallow them; trains still ascended like fountains out of the underground with compartments in tact, and the sun continued to blaze its punishment upon her. It was only the old woman that had vanished; the first true symbol of the change.

The View From Upstairs

2010-05-02T18:17:00.000-07:00

Rows of support beams join at the ends to make the shape of a triangle; white holiday lights drop and hang from them like frills in midair. On the wall, there is a glitzy banner that reads King of Kings. The air is thickest on the balcony, where it smells something like lotion and sweat, and the mourners sit shoulder-to-shoulder, fanning themselves and rocking as the singer sings. There is a widescreen view of the casket from that height and the wreaths propped up like individual portraits around it. A mother’s life has ended; mother and senior member of the church; mother and former resident of one of the public housing towers that surround the place of worship. Mother’s children flank the front row, holding on to one another. Her mostly teenage grandchildren are squeezed between other relatives in the pews. They seem displaced and slightly perplexed. The singer steps forward and vibrates the room with her contralto. There are voices of accord calling out from every corner. One of the surviving daughters jumps to her feet and lifts her hands upward. It is an act of supplication. She surrenders sorrow with a deep groan and her arms give way, pulling her body forward. A family member joins her to support her weight. On the left, her brother’s shoulders quake under his wife’s consoling arm. Further left, her sister slumps, weeping and speaking to the departed with her head sagging over the back of the bench. Mature women ushers that have been on post at nearby tables, rush the entire line with fans and water and boxes of tissue. The leading member of the Women’s League climbs the stage. She is a contemporary of the deceased and presses on her cane with effort. She reaches frail fingers to the microphone and nods to the string of reverends that are presiding like a panel of judges with pocketbooks at their feet. She acknowledges the pastor with a lowered chin and then faces the congregation with a scroll in hand. She draws a deep breath and unfolds The Resolution of the Dead. The parishioners rise.

The Slasher

2010-04-19T03:55:00.001-07:00

The men over whom the officer was custodian had faces that resembled those of her brothers and cousins, her uncles and lost loves, and if she let herself think of it; her two sons. She prayed they would never breathe the air within those walls. It was a frosty and impersonal place to which she reported day after day, but she had settled into the routine of the thing more than a decade ago. She knew why it was possible to be deemed mother and savior one day, and a bitch that warranted spit in her face the next. In her time, she had invited many a miscreant to a tumble outside the path of the security cameras, and because of that, there was always a “Ms.” placed ahead of her name.

The woman believed that the brain adjusted to any condition it was subjected to for a continuous period of time, making the abnormal seem standard. But then, normalcy was generally defined by circumstance and the disposition of the company doing the defining; this was what she had come to understand. It had taken only a tiny fraction of her eighteen years on the job to become used to working in confined spaces, passing through rows of metal gates, identifying individuals by number and housing location, and locking every door behind her with a large key. It was as natural now as opening her eyes and seeing light. She could watch a security team brawl with an inmate while eating a muffin.

The day had been just like all the others. The officer sat monitoring the moving waves of brown with a dead look in her eyes. As usual, this collection of men reminded her of something that she could not yet bring herself to think about; that disturbing thing that was the root cause of their detainment in the place to begin with. She pushed it out of her mind. A young man approached her with his jeans hanging low. She motioned with her hands for him to pull them up and he complied. He smiled and she thought it odd somehow. This child, not much older than her own, seemed to already be installed there. She was moved by him. The woman suppressed her warmth like smoke just inhaled; letting it hover in a place he could not see.

His chances must have been slim from the very start, she thought, a function of his environment. He stood in front of her with his hands at his side. How courteous he was, she thought, and deferential in addressing her, and when she handed him the pen he requested, she noticed that his fingernails were clean. She was moved by him. She imagined in that smile, a boy that was loved well and loved deeply. She saw in his strut, a man that would likely make a mother out of an eager young girl; this child, not much older than her own. She was moved by him and wished to hug him and reassure him and lament the future that would not be his.

“He just got done with a hundred and forty days in the box,” the woman’s partner suddenly said, leaning near to her ear as if he were catching a whiff of her sweet sentiments. She turned a questioning glance towards him. “Yeah,” the man continued, “he went down for fighting in the yard; carved up a bunch of dudes’ faces something terrible, and he cut them up and down.” There was a pause. She let her gaze reach the young man in the corner, where he was leaning over a table writing meticulous lines across a sheet of paper. “They had to lock him down,” the man said again, “they seized a five inch blade from him. That kid is a monster. He’s a lieutenant in his gang, you know, a slasher.” There was another pause. The woman squinted and tightened her jaw before repeating her partner’s words. “A slasher?”

Sophisticated Gentleman: Nonchalant

2010-04-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

He could swing razors with a comparable degree of competence and he knew how to punch a torso sideways so as to take the wind out of it. This was knowledge that he shared with quite a few of his peers, but that was neither here nor there: For he had extracted himself from the process even before he understood how self-destructive it actually was and how murderous it was of his culture and the bloodlines that were sinking inside of it. He remembered being eighteen and in college, of all places, with salt in his eyes and vinegar in his mouth, always carrying around the feeling of wanting to batter something, walking on marble for the first time. He too had been battered in various ways, some of which he would not disclose, and wished to show as well as describe the sensation of being kicked in the mouth and stomped in the back by eleven or so designer sneakers. He remembered being eighteen and running around with a bunch of other loose youngsters who delighted in smoking bush and drinking vodka, and reciting lyrics to rap masterpieces late into the night. He remembered being eighteen and visiting the young women in the dorm rooms, recounting with much exaggeration the things that had transpired there and cursing, always cursing, loudly or in a murmur, defiantly or in amusement. He remembered being eighteen and roving across the terrain with the other young bulls in college, of all places, picking fights with others and sharing frustration on a plate.

And still he had managed to extract himself before he was fully aware that his was an old feeling, formed out of ingredients that had merged somewhere in the belly of a ship to make an explosion with a big bang. Cultivated over time, it was transplanted from dingy building walls to ivied stone gates, where the unwelcome were greeted with a handshake and a smile and an expectation of a stay that would not outlast the year. There, outside the city limits, the misguided young bulls entangled themselves and stepped hoof-first into every ensnarement that had been carefully laid out for them. It was the nature of the time within which he lived, a period that demanded stealth and quick-wittedness and perseverance and on top of that, called for luck, lots and lots of luck: For he had only missed by pinches the fate that would be doled out to the others – attendees at institutions of a different sort. And now even that unfortunate lot would claim him a success because there was parchment with his name on it, and letters for which he would owe a fee for many years to come. How could he disagree with them? He did not delude himself with any misplaced feelings of self-importance or blindly blame them for their circumstances. He was just in a daze really; sitting at a bar with some comely woman, smelling expensive perfume and the cigar smoke rise, staring blankly at the athletes darting across the plasma screen, hearing the latest hip hop music play, lifting a glass of vodka to take that perfunctory sip, noticing the diamonds shine, and never thinking, refusing to think.

In The Timing

2010-02-22T16:18:00.000-08:00

Who can account for the things time does to the body, the mind and the essence both hold within? Who can account for anything? And what does it matter when the day draws to its close? There was a woman in the back room who could expound upon the question. She was knowledgeable about most things after having come up against them for almost a century. She was not one to make much of a fuss. She had become a Grand Master at adaptability in her time, and she still liked to have her nails painted. She would hold her hands out and describe the color; some kind of pinkish shade that the home attendant was partial to. She herself could take it or leave it, she said. And that is how it was.

The woman’s humming could be heard from the kitchen. One peek around the corner would reveal her wrapped in a glossy red shawl, with head tied and arms folded, and feet crisscrossed across the bed, looking through her spectacles at the television screen or hanging over the open book placed delicately in her lap. Smoke rose in the kitchen and there was the sound of a sizzle. There were vegetables softening slowly in a pot and bits of fish waiting to be fried up with the pieces of chopped garlic and scallions already simmering in the oil. The taste was all in the timing the cook had said.

He stood against the counter, moving a spoon around in the frying pan. The lady shifted in her chair, not far from him, she raised meat from her plate and tasted it. The couple was having a conversation. They spoke to each other and also to a nephew who observed them from the edge of the dining table. They feigned contradiction of each other’s perspective. They chided each other in that way spouses can after two or three decades have passed; where words that sound stern are aglow with a character that is much warmer and thicker for the love enfolding it. They called on the young observer for input, but did not particularly expect any.

Someone made a roguish remark and there was an eruption of laughter. The occupants in the room slapped hands on surfaces, dropped utensils on metal, and made the floor rattle. The matriarch called from her quarters in the back that the joke must have been a sweet one. And the couple gave smiles that must have been identical some twenty years before. At twilight, some short evening ago, when they walked with arms linked and hearts associated, connected and hopeful in ways they could not truly communicate; discreetly overwhelmed by what they shared between them. There were no costs to be paid just yet, in whatever capacity; no relatives crowding round to weigh in on matters only of concern to the participants in the marriage. Only the two, just the pair; strolling and grinning; strolling and clinging.

Angela II

2010-02-08T16:53:00.001-08:00

She tapped an acrylic tune on the desk as she monitored the men who were signing the logbook by the entrance. The radio stood upright a few inches away from her fingers and barked every few minutes, making sounds that did not really concern her for the time being. No sort of pandemonium had broken out in the hallways or in any of the remote housing areas. It was still early in the day. Some of the inmates that were filing into the room looked as if they had just been pulled from sleep and added to the general smell of something like stale bread floating into the area.

Angela peered over her designer glasses to the corner in the back of the room. Her partner stood at the door on the offensive, with her body set to support her weight, one hand impatiently beckoning the men in and an unchangeable frown on her face. After the entire group had stepped inside, she walked around the front of the desk and sat at the chair to Angela’s left. They whispered an observation to each other and giggled.

When Angela had slipped from her bed that morning, only four hours had passed since midnight; she showered and dressed so as not to break the silence. She bade her customary farewell to the man in the bed, but he did not respond. He seemed to still be wrapped under the covers with the words they had exchanged at dinner. It was becoming a pattern she would have to cut off at the head. She would think about this on the gradually congesting highway. She would focus on it as she adjusted her uniform in the locker room. She would be distracted by the thought as she moved through the sliding metal gates that opened into the long hallway.

She pulled herself back into the present. There was something very uneven about the environment at the moment; the feel was off. Angela looked out unto the floor. The men were sitting around calmly, some at the typewriters, and others were facing the wall-mounted computer screens. Something was off. But she could not deliberate about it fully; one of the younger inmates walked over to the desk to request a pencil.

Angela opened the drawer and, at the same time, reached for the identification card that the youngster would be using as collateral. What was it that she noticed in his eyes? Angela looked around the drawer for a pencil. Suddenly, there was a loud thud. Angela’s eyes flew up. She saw that four bodies were making a fence in front of her desk. Through the spaces she could see where the commotion was coming from. A chair had been overturned. A table was flipped to the side. A fight was taking place.

Two inmates battered each other at first before one of the strugglers fell and was set upon by a gang of men. Angela clawed for her radio. Someone had moved it. She heard her partner cursing loudly and saw her jump from her chair. Angela sprang for the phone as a hand quickly pulled it from the desk. She made a move for the crowd, but could not find a path. The bodies were locking her and the other officer in. Angela yelled from behind the body-barricade to the horde that was kicking the crumpled figure on the floor. She tried, without success, to push past the row of backs in front of her. They anticipated all of her maneuvering and prevented it. Angela could hear her partner shouting some instruction to her regarding the door. She felt for the keys at her waist. It was a futile effort. Someone was already standing against the door, barring it.

The woman felt as if her mind was not working fast enough. She must have tugged at the toxic spray on her belt at the same time her partner did. But there would not be as much as a puff from the small steel cans. The bodies disbanded even before the threat of a first blast. The plan had already been executed and the group stepped up to the wall, placed their palms on it, and spread their legs.

Blood and dust mixed around the man that was sprawled out on the floor. Angela saw her radio on the counter and was finally free to rush to it and set off the alarm. A security team would soon be dispatched to the area. She shook her head and sighed, stepping in the direction of the fallen combatant. The other woman was screaming orders to the room’s occupants to hold their positions on the wall. The men had no intention of moving now that the deed was done, however.

Angela

2009-12-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

The men in the facility knew which trees to climb and what rocks to step on, as the old saying went. They were city detainees and preserved the system (most of them) by attaining the required state of institutionalization before reaching the legal age of adulthood. How many among them had not spent their formative years being conditioned in some similar structure? It ensured that their patterns would be repetitive. She knew this about them. And they knew this about her: The woman was a titan that was not to be toyed with. It was her job. She lorded over her area like Nzinga directing regiments of troops, and split easy paths between groups of bodies attempting to converge during her patrol of the room. This was a woman of the twenty-first century; a black woman who lived in a time of consequence falling from the very thing the Queen of the Ndongo struggled against; a woman whose blood was tied to those whom she supervised. The men in her custody were shackled in a new and inventive way and she was one of their many paid overseers. It was her job.

She had seen all that there was to see with twenty years of roving eyes; poking into the corners that the overhead cameras could not catch; peering under garments for weapons that might have to be frisked out; and reading the language that hung in the atmosphere, fishing for a forewarning. She sat at a large desk taking the names and commitment numbers of the inmates as they entered her vicinity, taking canes and walking sticks to store at the door, and taking pause to instruct one of the younger ones to pull his pants up. She pulled leather gloves over her hands and covered the elaborate designs on her nails before moving across the floors on a survey. She kept a heavy radio in her right hand for the purposes of calling in assistance or knocking an aggressor back a few feet. She had enough experience to not let the greater implications of her role be of any distraction from her duties. This was the job. She would weigh and evaluate such points with the rest of her own troubles later; side by side with her coworkers, with her ponytail unleashed and her diamond rings glistening and the mounted speakers rattling the glasses holding the shots of high-priced Tequila.

Frozen

2009-12-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

In the middle of the melee, with a glass in hand, the photograph captures her looking way off somewhere. There is no expression of happiness on her face, not even the quiet contentment at just being present. At the holiday gathering, confusion is well installed, forcing bodies up and moving them around the house, but breaking no bones this time like the great song proclaims; just hands reaching out to lift bottles, pass plates, bring sweets to lips, wipe gravy from the babies’ faces, hold chests to control the volume of a cackle and to cut more pieces of meat from the platter. Maybe the camera only just missed her smile by moments when her visage would have been more vigorous and engaging and not so quick to belie…something.

Those who know can tell the story. Secrets are always held by two or three in a room. Glances might meet in the middle of a sentence while the rest of the crowd rambles on in ignorance. Lucky for them! What might his name have been? How would his eyes have looked? What would any of it had mattered when he started to totter across the room, master the way a mouth forms a word and sprout like these that were here? There was no sentencing for them, no final order of doom, no pressing out like wet fingers on the tip of a lit match and the world still rotated in its usual way. Woe begotten was the look, so ready to return to the bottom of the house, to the room in the back, to the other side of the wooden door, to the inside of the covers where tears could flow unabashed.

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2009-12-08T22:55:00.001-08:00

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In Red Ink

2009-11-11T21:15:00.001-08:00

Passion is in the pine trees, at whichever distance they may stand, swaying between branches at a condescending height, oblivious and giving everything to those with whom it is already familiar, those who need nothing. How heartless is such unawareness. How inconsiderate is such carelessness for others that wait. And here in the city, it is evasive still. The tossing wind descends on the town. People hurry to their destinations and their destinies, pulling jackets closer around them, pursing lips, shuddering and looking with a disbelieving sense of betrayal at the sun.

Bliss is sprinkled on the blankets in which the two clinging bodies lay, if only in the imagination of an outsider, somewhere in a far off location. They are so overcome by it; they will cause an explosion if they are not contained. So very selfish are they not to know that others are standing by. Sitting in the city bus, someone rides over a long and lonely bridge, observing that mighty skyline in anguish or swaying under the metal bars inside the subway car, staring at the moving blackness, surrounded by so many who promise nothing.

Affection lingers on the rim of a teacup holding the just-sipped brew made by a lover’s careful hands. It wavers in a room where two people need not speak for the fragrance that is floating between them, swirling happily upward like smoke lifting from a stick of incense and sweet, sweet, sweet. Such callousness has to be occurring on another continent, well worth its distance in kilometers from this barren place. There from the island window, the water looks gray and still, like mercury poured out into a bowl for all the wandering minds in the surrounding city buildings to draw towards and look.

Closing Time At The Auto Spa

2009-10-13T18:12:00.000-07:00

I just dance, Diamond declares, and that’s all I do; them others can be had for fifty dollars, maybe less. She snickers. She turns herself halfway round in the swiveling chair. Her legs are crossed. She is in a jacket and jeans, looking square-faced at the men who come and go to and from the dance area. She sips vodka and cranberry juice from a plastic cup. Her work is done.

Diamond blinks and there is a fleeting spark underneath her eyelashes. All things seem to fall silent as she is brought into focus. Diamond is midtown in a glitzy hotel lobby. She is draped in heavy and expensive garments. She holds a hand against her face with rings shining. She has the freshly bloomed face of a woman who rests often and well.

Diamond looks pensive at the rendezvous point. Passersby gaze at her admiringly as she poses by a statuette. Poses under the chandelier. Poses by the row of plants. Poses in the vicinity of the piano not far from the revolving doors. In moments, a man will stride towards her. He wears an apologetic smile. He is more than slightly late. He will pull her into an embrace and hold her there. He will kiss her neck in a way only the truly devoted can. She will smile softly and grip his arm.

And with a bang, the door slams and breaks all concentration. The organizer walks away from it cursing. An open door attracts too much attention. It is an underground joint after all. The imagination is shattered. Diamond is there teetering on the edge of her chair. She crosses her legs in the other direction. Her toenails are painted in a surprising fluorescent color. It shows up suddenly in the light.

Diamond drains her cup and throws it in a nearby trashcan. Her eyes seem to have already departed the scene. She tugs at the material around her breasts. She draws herself up like a toddler trying to find its legs. Locating them, she recovers. Diamond gives a wide-hipped sashay back to the dance area. A group of men leer as she walks out of the room. Her work is done.

After Hours At The Auto Spa

2009-09-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

One light glows from somewhere in the back, illuminating the box of money that sits on the owner’s lap. Business is business. His eyes seem dull, but his fingers contradict him; working swiftly over the bills, collecting large notes, tearing off tickets, and handing out change. Not far from the owner, the bartender is leaning over the counter. She is almost spilling out of a black bustier and looks bored. She is quite possibly bored, for she is no novice at her art. And she sees all of this action regularly. She makes no effort at hospitality. The venue does not require it. From across the room, she could see Diamond spread over one of the rented plastic chairs like clothes after an undressing. Diamond is unclothed. She sends her toes to each corner of the equator. Her guest is thrilled in some kind of stoned-faced way. Barefaced. He releases a flash of bills in her direction and slides lower in his seat. Diamond reaches down to the wet concrete to retrieve her money. She resumes her entertainment of the spectator. Skillfully. They sit across from each other like opponents or a young couple on a date. It’s a symbiosis, a mutual understanding. No love is lost between the two, no love found.

Friday Night At The Auto Spa

2009-09-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Newspapers cover the glass through which a spy might peep and take the full gulp of his pleasure without paying. At the door, a man sits in a swiveling chair collecting an entrance fee, watching the burly bouncers at their work, looking mean and meaning it, and rocking from left to right. He informs an acquaintance that there are more dancers than people inside.

The Hip Hop is hard and heavy, inducing some of the seemingly solemn patrons to dance. But they think the better of it. Instead, they stand shoulder to shoulder with the other men. They form a line along the walls. They sway in discord, but in agreement with the rhythm. They sit in rented plastic chairs with backs reclined and legs splayed, sipping beer from dripping bottles.

Diamond is what she is called in the dark. Diamond is the name that she has chosen for herself. Diamond is announced as she enters nude and tattooed five, maybe six times in greenish blue ink. She holds a bottle between three fingers as she walks thick-bodied to the makeshift drywall stage. She puts the balls of her fists on her knees and shimmies her lower parts to the ground.

Diamond is dancing in the dark. The men swarm the square to look. Some female customers have also come to see, swaying their heads with arms folded; looking at Diamond’s pink stilettos with arms folded; staring, as the back of her thighs meet the heels; throwing dollar bills her way, finally. Over the speakers, the Deejay chastises the financially reserved.

Diamond is making a goalpost out of her legs for the money. She turns them into a trembling brown and there is a wave of sound from the crowd. The bills feel like dead leaves falling on her skin. The sensation makes her move with more conviction. She keeps her eyes on the ceiling; she lets them slide to the wall; she notices the paint peeling. Someone in the crowd cries, “Bitch, goddamn!”

To Look Like Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Or Any Of His Distant Kin In The New World

2009-08-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

Out of the unknown he comes, the lonesome God, with a net cast a thousand yards further out to sea hoping to retrieve…something, wishing that all of this living has not been in vain. He wears a cap, with an insignia facing front like the sweat drenched faces of those old colonial soldiers going to war for the mother country, or cocked to the side in defiance maybe, or for the sake of fashion. Maybe he carries a gun to rob with, making those popular beliefs true after all.

Thrust from the wreckage of the past is he, stumbling in confusion, dreaming in secret that his father would call him by name, claim him the same and without shame. For he has not left. He has been brave enough in spite of it all; brazen to the point where he can stoop down in the face of the child and with one outstretched arm say, you too can survive this, you must. But alas, it has not been so and in the eyes of this descendant of the divine could be seen a hurt that is locked so far away.

Here at the heart of the modern world, a desert shawl is at his neck or under the insignia fitted cap in defiance maybe, or for the sake of fashion. The passions are dulled so swiftly and so soon, he is numb without even realizing it; given the sludge to drink, as brew is sipped, aged and refined in another part of town. The sun rotates for another day. The waves rise and fall wherever they are. The stars drop and freeze like sugar crystals in glue and he is none the wiser. This path has already been set. He reacts and destroys himself.

There is a recluse living in the guarded recesses. No conscious hand can touch him. No head can nod with authority at his derision. No mouth can articulate his dreams with upturned lips. At this place, resilience lives, controlling his own fate, dictating the terms of his beginning and end, finding no fault with what comes between; giving in to it knowingly; succumbing to it piously, like the knees that bend at the holy city of Touba; like Ahmadou’s distant kin in the new world…taking it day by day.

A Scattering

2009-07-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Where is that old man who gives the records from his mouth? Where has he disappeared to? Where is he when the channel blares, shining with those who might have been his offspring, grinning as it pulls back the curtains to show them dancing? Dancing…as if nothing has happened, as if it had all been some terrible foretelling that slipped from the cord of this current history and fell with a thud onto another plane. And no one is awakened by the noise.

In the apartments above, backs are turned upon the noise, glasses are raised despite it, ears are pressed up against plastic buttons hearing nothing; knowing nothing as the child walks through rows of traffic in the streets cussing with his arms outstretched, looking (some say) like the son of God at his crucifixion; swearing and tugging at his jeans right there in the middle of traffic. Still, the curtains fly in the window, uninterested, and spectators sit placidly in their air-conditioned automobiles.

But where is that man who sits on the tree stump with ragged bare feet, with eyes silvery and foreboding, and the waiting faces to gaze down into as he leans on his staff? What has become of him? Where is he when the shots ring out and the young girls squeal and hold their heads and run up the pavement in their summer sandals? Five or six others will sprint in the opposite direction, bellowing like half-crazed wildebeests as they join the cussing child on a rampage.

On the opposite side of the boulevard, a kind of war is occurring and the onlookers inch-inch their cars to the stoplight, unbothered; watching the crowd meet at the intersection, knowing nothing, feeling nothing as the pummeling begins and ground rumbles; doing nothing as the hand-held canon rings out. A resident steps back inside her door. The whipping red flames speed in the distance to swallow all within their reach. Somewhere, a woman cries for her child. Somewhere, a woman does not.

A Full House

2009-07-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

There on the corner it stood. A house; with four walls around it, and within, more besides. It was a deceptive place; crooked. The steps to the front door seemed as if they had been built in a hurry. Inside, there was the patter of toddler’s feet, microwaves, rounds of carefree laughter and music coming from the television.

Upstairs, the rooms were built opposite one another and close together. The occupants held more space between them. A husband, a wife, a visitor, and child lived together. The staircase seemed as if it had been built in a hurry with carpeting stretched so thin that it had grown pale. A map of Africa hung on the wall.

There in the back room lived another visitor, a witness to life in its many stages; someone who had seen more than her share of crisis happen and was fearful still. Satin curtains hung in her enclosure, blankets folded despite the season, books that were read and some unread and a back yard splattered behind the window.

Downstairs, the rooms stood behind each other, slanting to the front in unison. The walls were painted in a serene pearl to match the external view. In the kitchen, an occupant could move without notice, drinking a cup of water perhaps; overhearing by chance the shared hot words and the distinct sound of muffled sobs. Soon there would be music coming from the television.

On Survival

2009-07-13T00:41:00.000-07:00

Had it rained? It was not so easy to tell. Under the street lamps, the road held a soft moist glimmer, as if someone had just sprayed a cleaning formula on the solid tar and was about to wax it to a high sheen. I stood at the window watching. I felt like a tourist must feel; uncertain and unknown, inhabiting a city that had no compassion for me. But I had loved this place. I had always loved it. I loved it in a way that made me want to return when I went away. I loved the pandemonium, loved the centrality, loved the familiarity with things I had had knowledge of from birth and the intense solitude that one sometimes feels even in the heart of all the commotion: Yes. I loved even that.

I remembered days when the season had darkened the streets prematurely and I had stepped through the pillars that upheld the Brooklyn Public Library marquee, gripping a bag of books in the cold. I was hard-pressed to find any other objects that excited me then. I had already suffered and nurtured a catalogue of injuries that had affected me in ways that are too profound to write about. It was not so easy to tell. I fantasized often about how my adult life would certainly reward me for such trials. I satiated myself with the weekly doses of religious doctrine I had relied upon then. I was naïve. Life had not turned out the way I expected it to at all.

Had it rained? The woman had wanted to know. I walked into her bedroom the way I had done every week. We embraced. She smiled at me from behind her reading glasses. I held her hand a moment longer. She said that she felt insulated, not always knowing what the weather was doing outside the walls of the house. She could not roam the streets as well as she once had. She was paying the price of age, she said. It was not so easy to tell. She sat upright. Her head was wrapped in a material similar in color to that which she wore. She closed her journal and marked the page with her pen. Over her feet was a blanket designed in the pattern tigers wear on their skin. I leaned against the wall watching.

She told me that she had just spoken to her daughter; my mother. She looked pleased. I thought to myself that there could never be enough written about this woman. She was magnificent. She adjusted a ring on one of her fingers and offered me a chocolate from her bowl. She asked about the week I had, my only living ancestor of her generation. The week was not too bad, I said. She smiled at me without looking. It was not so easy to tell. Perhaps she could tell, after ninety years of telling, that my mind was ripe with worry; that panic reached my open eyes in the dark; that I satisfied my debts with precision and despair and waited.

Had it rained? The woman asked once more. I answered again, as I always did. I wondered more about her. Someone was reading scripture on the television. She recited it from memory. She talked to me with eyes straight forward, saying things about struggle. There were truths we knew respectively that had sustained us in our own trials, bringing us yet again to each other’s company; she, with over nine decades of telling and me, with a meager one-third of the same. This life is not easy, she said. She was quietly an expert on the subject. It was not so easy to tell. But things eventually improve, she continued, after one time comes another. It is the way of The Divine. This was what we both knew; thinking our own thoughts, falling into silence, and feeling hope unfurl and flower as we sat on the bed watching.

Love & Trepidation

2009-07-12T09:50:00.002-07:00

They found him dead. That is what the man had pulled me aside to inform me of. They had found him dead and I threw myself unto the concrete. I sobbed and sobbed. I grazed my fingers on the hard stone walls and cried bitterly. It was what I had always been afraid of. And now it had happened. I felt sweat forming on my brow. I gasped and sat upright with wide eyes.

I could hear the sound of the radiator. I could see the shadowy drapes in the dark. I felt the heat coming from the electric blanket. My breathing slowed down as the realization came. It had only been a dream. I was stunned at first and then relieved.

When we had been younger, he never questioned me. Everyone had always been required to work, even I had started a weekend gig. But I was responsible for him and the younger one. There would be no lingering for me after school. I would hop the bus down Bedford Avenue and hurry to my grandmother’s place to pick them up. That was the routine. We walked the five blocks to our apartment daily. We stopped at the corner store for quarter juices and the processed desserts in their plastic packaging. I threw together corned beef and rice or boxed macaroni and cheese for them to eat and we would watch television and wait for the adults to arrive. Every now and then I might have instructed him and the younger one to clean their room or take out the garbage while I cleaned things up in the kitchen. He never questioned me.

I imagine, though I never asked, that the transition must have been difficult for him. My private journal and wet pillow knew that I had my own issues to deal with. Brooklyn had not been easy in those days, especially since we had previously known a different life. Circumstances had called for me to stash a six inch box cutter in my puff coat and walk the streets with a hood pulled over my face – not wanting any trouble. If ever I saw him on the street corners with the other males, lounging like lions that had just eaten the kill, I would call him in. For the woman said that she did not want her son on the street corner and I was obliged to follow her instructions. She had known her reasons…trouble was his constant companion and many was the night that we were unwilling companions of those very corners, trekking across them and looking for him. I imagine that it must have been difficult for him; that he had his own issues to deal with - only he could truly say.

This world is a precarious place for our brothers, someone said to me. And I knew it firsthand. I knew it as literally as I knew the shades of my own palms. It was one more bitter fact of our existence. Because we are men, and since we had been so raised…I showed more than I could say that I loved him deeply and unconditionally. Love was not a word to be thrown around loosely among us. I had never uttered the words. I never once whispered, when no one was watching, that I loved him more than my life…that I worried about him…that I wanted to grip him close to me and keep him safe…that I would watch over him forever; for we were pulled from the same womb. His pain is mine. His joy is mine. He is me. Because we are men, and since we had been so raised, I hoped these things would be implicit. I knew these things would be evident in the smile I gave him across the dinner table, in the way I nudged him as we shared a drink, and in how tenderly I held and rocked his son to sleep.

My mind was with him and so was my heart. I thought about him as I moved through the day. I frowned over something that had occurred to me and remembered a look I had seen in his eyes. His spirit was on me and my mind was with him. My heart was his as it always will be. When the phone call came I was not surprised. The woman was distressed. I heard it in her first hello. They locked him up again last night, she said. I sighed.

Prince Muhammad G

2009-07-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

They had incarcerated him intending to make it a permanent arrangement.
This Prince who may have well ruled nations at a time of our own making; a time
in history past when we knew ourselves and our divinity; when we took the feel of water, sun and air for granted and stood on rich soils in ownership.

He was indeed great, sitting at the typewriter, majestically, and finally taking his destiny into his own sun-kissed hands. He sat on the worn swivel chair, posing in the same way Mansa Musa must have perched on stools carved out of gold. He slanted his head in thought like some other citizen of Mali; some statesman, some craftsman, some warrior, some priest, some uncle, some scholar, some lover, some thief, some official, some subject, some mentor, some fiend, some merchant, some father, some honored son…with a dignity and identity all their own – untouched by western winds and free from the injury that was to come.

Yet they had incarcerated him, housing him in the lower depths with dust and staleness and the state central air system blowing more through the overhead vents. It was there underneath the barred windows that he held court; as focused as a scientist on the verge of discovery. Only The Supreme God could be truly acquainted with his trials. Only God and those who genuinely loved him could fully realize his worth, his beauty…his nobility.

He was glorious indeed, one to be feared for his good qualities and not out of envy and self-consciousness. He moved as if onlookers should have bowed out of his path –standing upright only after he had withdrawn from their presence. He locked his vulnerabilities behind his gaze and hit the keys with the precision of an acupuncturist. This Prince who may well never see his talents bloom; they had incarcerated him.

Lady In The Looking Glass

2009-07-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

They were talking politics on the television, Middle Eastern nations, the current administration and that man so spoken about; the mastermind behind the destruction of the trade centers…they said that he had permission to kill ten million more.

I wondered if I would be afraid should death arrive like a swift nuclear breeze upon my city. My heart was Brooklyn; my core another country on another continent, which contained things like cashew, guava and Suriname cherry trees. No, I was not afraid of death. Even though I felt that I had not known life enough. I was not afraid of death. If the breeze reached my nude body as it stood under a hot shower unsuspecting and defenseless…it would be divine will. I was not afraid of death.

Was she afraid, the woman that I visited the next day? This woman who held some of the secrets to my genetic code and had seen the inner sides of nine decades could not have been afraid. She may have had some anxiety though. I had heard somewhere that one becomes anxious as one’s destination comes into sight. She spoke things with finality. She stared often into the distance. She sang hymns that she knew from memory. She read romance novels and medical self-help books with equal relish. She moved with painful precision. She had raised a generation of adults, and raised another generation after. She had governed yet a third generation from a respectful distance and was satisfied. There could be nothing existing that could frighten her now.

I sat across from her, thinking that enough could not be written about this woman; wondering if it was not but a moment ago when she held my mother in her arms, and me. Now we laughed as she ate the bakes that I had made in my very own kitchen – following her instructions. I poured the flour into the bowl. I filled a wide pot with oil. I put a generous helping of sugar and baking power into the bowl. I added warm water and made the dough. Everyone had his own method of making them. In a few hours when the dough swelled a little, I would stand in front of the stove to fry the pieces of dough I had cut and rolled. It was not lost on me the fact that no one would be sitting on my couch smiling as I brought in the meal; no one to eat it as I sipped my Heineken and waited for a verdict on taste. Still, I never approved of pity parties and so I snapped out of it. Besides, there was nothing to feel sorry about. Things would occur as they were designed to. I practiced patience in front of the stove and smiled at the thought that I would watch her eat the results the next day.

“It’s good…it taste good,” she said. I smiled like a five-year old, knowing that she was probably refraining from commenting on the fact that she could taste slightly too much baking powder in the bake. We talked about my week. We talked about her week. We sipped green tea mango iced-tea. She asked questions about online banking and listened with mistrusting interest to my explanations and reassurances that it was safe. We talked about my nephew – a good baby she said. She knew about babies. We sipped green tea mango iced-tea. How much time you have left at that daytime location? She wanted to know. “Not too much longer,” I answered…thinking about it. I wondered about my own direction. I wondered if it were true that she was moving slower than she was the last time I saw her. But then again, I thought that thought every time I saw her. Who was the one that was really anxious? “The time will fly out,” she said confidently, stretching her piano-playing hands out to look at her painted nails. She knew about time and other things. I still had much to learn. We sipped green tea mango iced-tea.

Shutters & Shades

2008-09-22T22:12:00.000-07:00

When they see him in the street, hopping over puddles, striding with purposefulness, eyes forward, back straight, and shoulders set like the scales of justice are rumored to be; they are certain that he is honored, held tightly and close and worshipped at night.

So becoming is he, with a head like a polished bowl and a manner that surely only rulers must have; easy confidence, natural appeal, a sense of comfort with the way he moves his own weight. They are convinced for a quick fleeting flash that they want him.

With his eyes he may dismantle the sturdiest of barriers. His lips may untangle the most concealed facets of love and that skin that glistens like the deepest of brown waters announces him, separates him from those yet to discover themselves. They feel secret pangs of envy and resent him.

So expert is he, with a mind like an antique clock with parts that are delicate, disguised and hard to reach. He deceives them. On the inside he feels as if pressed between concrete walls; stripped nude and in exile with arms and legs bound, shivering and praying to be touched just once by a loving hand.

On Forgiveness

2008-09-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

Forgiveness is healing; it is the process of treating a wound and nursing it back to health, thoughtfully, meticulously, and with the use of the right tools. Since anger, hurt and resentment are such overwhelming emotions, they are easy to preserve and revitalize at any given moment. It takes effort to release them. It takes strength to let go of the surprise and devastation of an affront, whatever the level.

Forgiveness is understanding, not necessarily only to decipher why something has happened, or what motives a person may have had for that person's dirty deed – but an appreciation of the fact that one is going to be faced with the challenge of having to wholly assess the situation, measure the damage, muster the energy to let go of the negative consequences, and to move on. Such actions require serious objectivity of thought, disregard of pride, and rejection of malice; difficult tasks.

Forgiveness is awareness. It is being conscious of how the injury was delivered and by whom; it is considering the reasons motivating the blow and pondering the universal purpose of it all. Life's events have the quality of repeating themselves. One must be ready; prepared to apply the truths taken from the current situation to one that is likely to come, and primed to extricate toxic characters from one's life story. In the end, we must build the courage to extract ourselves from destructive environments.

Forgiveness is self preservation. It is vital to peace of mind, well being and sanity. For the actual or perceived wrongdoer is not burdened by hurt or anger, saddled with betrayal or weighed down by bitterness. He or she is pouring drinks, eating heartily, thriving and traveling forward after having done the worst. We must also continue forward, come to terms with our emotional torments, let them go and let the instigators pass from our minds…with no prejudice.

Guardian Of The Gates

2008-09-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

It was an odious sight, the way her mouth twisted to form the words, as if she distorted her lips to spit out a bitter grain. And her eyes shone with secret ugly pleasure like some sort of Medusa…live and just as terrible as the capabilities of the mind that could imagine such a creature – a ragged old bitch with snakes for hair and poison on her breath.

But he did not think of those things when he heard her words. He was not capable. It would be years later, in adulthood, when he’d be able to analyze why she would want to hurt him so. For there, in that moment, with the end of the barbed wire whip tearing a generous gash into his young heart, he was just confused.

Were but for the windows to crash away, and the walls to collapse; were but for the zinc ceiling to be carried away by the wind, and the floor to crumble taking him into death’s crushing arms, he would not care. No hurt could be fathomed after, that would dig him as deep. For there, in that moment, his young heart could not understand why she would want to hurt him so.

A child so young would not yet appreciate how time can harden and embitter the mind; how one damaged hand strikes so easily at another. He did not yet know that such a lesson was one he would have to learn many times. In his innocence he was easy prey. And she called the name with such evil ease that he almost did not receive the shock.

Were but for the windows to crash away, and the walls to collapse; were but for the zinc ceiling to be carried away by the wind, and the floor to crumble taking him into death’s crushing arms, he would not care. No hurt could be fathomed after, that would dig him as deep. For there, in that moment, his young heart could not understand why she would want to hurt him so.

But he heard the words and saw her mouth, saw her still body and her bare feet on the floorboards, saw her forehead and her descending shining eyes; with snakes for hair and poison on her breath. In a dream someone whispered that peace was his reward, it was written and recorded, the testing of his spirit, for he was a keeper of the gates of heaven.

It was an inkling of these things in him that stirred her passions well. It was the allure of wholesomeness that set her on her path. She had a taste for destruction and a vendetta to carry out. It was written. His was the duty to hold and heal her damaged hands, to bring them to his face and kiss them, to show the compassion which she once withheld from him.

A Web Of Silk

2008-09-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

Where there is a beginning, there is an end. The universe is set in an infinite balance; uneven but even, unequal yet equal…like a web. Stars hang in the distance in their own peculiar pattern, like ice drops in the daylight, frozen as they fall; disordered but ordered…in a web. Trees stand in their own specific fashion, with vines grouping like the veins that run to the human heart; elaborate but plain…like a web.

It was a friendship solidified by time and born out of the circumstances, of place, of destiny, of complexion and plight. They fought the same fight, even if they had not yet known it. It was a brotherhood. Who discussed the stars and trees, when food had to be bought and obligations paid? Who meditated upon the intricacies of the universe, when jail or death was just one wrong turn away? It was a matter of survival. It was a matter of making one’s way in a predatory world. Their paths crisscrossed like a web.

It was a friendship burdened by its own environment with seeping toxins gnawing at the frame, miniscule like the clinging molecules in a web. It was a brotherhood. One brother can injure another, and nurture resentment in every form. One friend can love another with envy and dislike as his constant residents. Love is an object with many sides; an object of one color with different shades. Envy has strands that are deeply laid; they strengthen and stretch out like a web.

One brother will betray another and seek forgiveness to betray again. Betrayal is a brew that is bitter in its warmth. No brotherhood can rest on contaminated grounds. There has to be an ending. It is a matter of survival. It is an exercise in self-preservation. Love will not subsist on the length of time alone. Love must be bolstered, and built upon and reinforced and respected. Love must revere the sensibilities of all of its subscribers, and rejuvenate itself like a web.

Where there is a beginning, there is an end. The universe is set in an infinite balance; uneven but even, unequal yet equal…like a web. Stars hang in the distance in their own peculiar pattern, like ice drops in the daylight, frozen as they fall; disordered but ordered…in a web. Trees stand in their own specific fashion, with vines grouping like the veins that run to the human heart; elaborate but plain…like a web.