BACK TO THE FUTURE

It’s a few days after the big night at the movies with my sisters and Skinny and Kyla - and the final realization that it’s not going to happen with Kyla - what do I do now without Esperanza?

Of course, you know when I wake up the next morning, it all just seems like a nightmare, that flash of insight. And for the next few days, I can convince myself of that, as I buy another dime bag, and a little hash from Marc. I meander down the school hall, inattentive and dull over these next few days. Suddenly, from around the corner, a fist plunges into my forehead. I react instinctively, firing a punch back, but my reaction time, slowed by the fog of the weed, badly misses my target as he runs off, his laughter echoing through the hall. David White.  Motherfucker. Those hyenas are just itching to get me.  A welt grows on my forehead.

The next day, I come back to school a little warier now. A crowd is gathered in the hall around the words Uncle Tom, spray painted in huge red letters covering the span of about eight or nine lockers, across from Contreau’s office. Black kids and white kids are both puzzled, fearful, and angry. Na-Na Johnson and Contreau are still waging their own little private war, I think to myself. I don’t even get off on it anymore – too preoccupied with my own stuff. Besides, Na-Na is too smart, too stubborn, to get caught.

Later that day, walking down Chestnut Street on my way to work, I notice a black sedan following me, cruising along slowly. First, I try to make believe I’m ignoring it, clenching my fists in my coat pockets. I’m getting ready to defend and attack, as I pick up my pace. It’s David White and the Orange Face brothers, and their boys. I just know it is.  I cross the street ahead of me; the sedan pulls up alongside me.

I’m not going to run – fuck them! The window rolls down.

“Strong.”

“Holy Shit! Na-Na! Where you been? I haven’t-”

“Step in”

He’s puffing on some ganja. Sly and The Family Stone is playing on the radio, through a fog of aromatic smoke.  He offers it to me, and I take a drag.

“Them mo’fuckas been fuckin’ wit you?”

“Punk-ass David White snuck me in the head yesterday, then runs away like a bitch.”

He’s silent for a moment, as he ingests the fumes deep into his chest cavity, and holds.

“Aiight.”

“So where you been, man? I scoped out that shit you painted on the lockers today.”

He lets out a slight laugh with the exhalation of smoke.

“Contreau still doggin’ you, huh?”

“Yellow mo’fucka can’t do shit to me, ain’t got proof of a mothafuckin’ thang.”

I smile, enjoying the contact high.

“Yeah, he think he slick an’ shit – he don’t know who I am.”

We pass the spliff back and forth another time.

“Nigga think he back in the CIA or FBI, or some shit. like I don’t know what up wit’ his game.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that shit, Na?”

“Nigga think he gonna play me - me against your ass. They don’t do shit to you, calculatin’ I be buggin’ cuz you bitched me out. I come in lookin’ for payback…man, that nigga be illin’.

Divide and conquer shit, the White man be playin’ that same technique since back in the day…how he shackled them strong young African brothas and sistas. Turn niggas against each other. Plant hate in their minds. This mo’fucka ain’t nuthin’ but a Uncle Tom, pimpin’ for the white man. Kissin’ they ass like he be their house nigga… he don’t know. I got something fierce fo’ that nigga, somethin’ extra fierce!”

“What you gonna do, Na?”

No response. We drive around a few minutes in silence, take another toke each before he drops me off in front of The Fox Hole.  

“Yo, gonna hook you up wit’ my man, Malik, Strong. He a righteous Muslim brotha. Later.”

Of course, Philly is in front of the store again. He smirks and goes into his Mick Jagger impersonation again, this time singing Brown Sugar, using the broom as a mike. I don’t pay him no mind. I’m deep in the swirl of my own thoughts. Something gets switched on. Na-Na’s words strike something heavy in me.

THE HARSHNESS

          Its two o’clock in the morning now. I’m still standing outside in front of Kyla’s house, shivering in the frigid darkness. Everybody else, Skinny, Ricky, my sisters - they’ve all long gone home.  I spark up the spliff again, the one that (I dreamed) is supposed to bring Kyla and me together, on that special trip. I take a hit and put it out again. I’ve been repeating this same motion for the last hour and a half. Sparking up, greedily, frantically inhaling two or three tokes, coughing, spitting, and putting it out. Sitting on the curb, getting up, pacing the frozen tar, back to sitting on the curb again.  Again and again. Nothing. It’s not giving me nothing. The comfort, the carefree feeling I crave, never comes back to me. Only paranoia, fear, and anxiety reign. I look down at the tiny roach that remains of my jay, a reminder of what I feel like - a tiny roach.  And I don’t even have my roach clip with me. It also reminds me that just as the roach signifies the end of a joint, it also signifies the end of a part of my life. Both of the girls I have totally idolized, of whom I’ve somehow attached a significant aspect and meaning of life to, have basically rejected me. That is the cold, raw truth of the matter. Then I realize that this also is just an illusion. My illusion. Kyla made her choice a while ago. And she chose Skinny. I wonder if maybe the main reason that I idolize Kyla is, because, on some level, I know (or feel) that being with her will give me a kind of legitimacy?  Or, at least, maybe a sort of warmer, more comfortable, and safer path? A type of My Three Sons life, that I alternately despise and desire. As opposed to the other road that I might be embarking on. The Esperanza road. The Na-Na road. The artist road. Free-falling, chaotic, open, unknown, and potentially terrifying. And, even though it appears that we all   had such a great time tonight at the Park Theater…like it was old times, actually, I’m more cut-off from my family, my cousins, than ever before. Because, really, I’d been kind of using them. Plotting against my own cousin, Skinny, to get at Kyla. The paranoia makes me even more paranoid. Now I’m feeling paranoid about being paranoid.

Holy Shit!

This isn’t paranoia. This is lucidity. Total fucking lucidity. Hard insight. And this realization seeps into the marrow of my bones, seeps in like a bitter cough medicine that clears away the congestion. It shakes me, terrifies me, till I don’t want to leave that curb, that street. I don’t want to go home, and face the fact that I’m nowhere, floating between two worlds.

THE SCHEME

So we all go out to see a movie at the Park Theater, and the scheming begins

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, is playing tonight, and we’re all chatty and boisterous. All anxious to see it, as we frolic over to the theater. Kyla, as usual, looks so angelically cute that I can’t restrain myself from constantly glancing over at her, even though she’s holding hands with Chris (Skinny). When we all stampede into the Park, we take up a whole row, and I cleverly position myself so that I get a seat next to Kyla. Again fully realizing that she will be sitting with Skinny. But that red wine buzz is really kicking in now.
Next, my own movie appears, running through the private screen of my mind. In this movie the scenes are just as vivid and colorful, as I view myself sneaking back to Kyla’s house after Skinny drops her off and leaves. When it’s all clear, I move stealthily over to her window.
“Kyla…Kyla” I whisper loudly.
She pulls open her curtain and opens her window.
“Joey? What are you doing out there?” She whispers.
“I wanna talk to you.”
“Now?! About what?”
“Come on out.”
“I can’t - it’s too late”
“C’mon, I got something I want to show you.”
“What?”
“Just come out, ok? Please …” I coax.
She smiles, closes the window, and a minute later she appears outside, a dark navy blue parka over her night gown. Vapor is streaming into the frigid night air, as she breathes.
“What do you want to show me?”
I reach into my pocket and pull out the spliff.
“Marijuana? Joey, you know I don’t do that!”
“Shhh” I whisper.
“Don’t worry, it’s alright - just try one drag, ok? I promise nothing bad is gonna happen.”
I spark up, take a hit, and after much hesitation on her part, I finally convince her to try. I am so enjoying this, my own movie.
In the theater, in reality, Kyla laughs out loud at a funny scene in the actual movie, turning over to glance at me. I catch her eye, smile, and try to hold her glance for a while. A warm confidence floods over me, and I return to my movie…she takes a hit from my jay, then another, and passes it back to me. Anticipation, desire building in me, I take her hand. I relax more into my seat, dreamy smile occupying my face. A soothing sense of peace and innocence washing over my insides. I don’t know exactly how long this feeling continues, until I’m startled out of my tranquillity -
“Oh no! Oh no!” cries and gasps from the audience resound throughout the theatre. My eyes quickly readjust to the big screen in front of me.
Billy Bibbit, the young stutterer, has just killed himself. Cut his wrists. Blood running everywhere.
McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is stunned. Then he just goes mental, choking the hell out of the Big Nurse who’s the cause of all this. Nurse Ratchet.
I turn over to Kyla, tears flood down her cheeks. Sobbing, burying her head deep into Chris’s sweater. He holds her, comforting her, caressing her gently, and gives her a little kiss, while whispering into her ear. Their hands clench, interlocking tightly. The emptiness inside me rumbles back like a bowling ball. My fantasy ebbs, flickers…extinguishes

THANKSGIVING

Before I know it, Thanksgiving is upon us.  Just like that. Even though I usually pretty much dig the holidays, I am just not into it this year. Don’t want to mix with people now. Don’t feel like making small talk with the SWAT team of something like one-hundred-and-twenty ravenous, loud relatives. Aunts, uncles, grandmothers and cousins are about to descend on the house. A bunch of them are making the annual journey here from the hallowed ancestral grounds of Brooklyn, for the feast. Mostly, I guess, I’m just not up to fending off the inevitable artillery of questions and barbs regarding my somewhat shaggy afro, my glasses, and especially, my clothes. My purple pants and purple silk screen shirt, particularly, seems to really provoke white people. My father, for one, despises that ensemble.

“You look like one of those goddamned fruits from The Ice Capades, for crissakes, prancing around here in that get up.”

My sisters are calling me “Rooster,” in reference to the black pimp character from Baretta.  

Thanksgiving arrives anyway, despite my foreboding. All the siblings and cousins wind up sitting at one long table in the living room, as usual. It reminds me of the painting of The Last Supper I saw at Esperanza’s house. The heavy-duty adults occupy two other tables in the dining room.

I remain sullen, until about the time tales from the old days begin circulating around the table. Then I just can’t help but join in on the guffawing and the fun, and pretty soon my mood lightens up considerably. It’s like somebody turns on a cosmic switch, and everything is brighter. I’m in my element now - I’m in the storytelling spotlight. I go into the one about the time that me, Ricky, and Skinny somehow convince Daniel Webb to let us make a dummy using his best Sunday clothes, and one of his mother’s Styrofoam wig-heads.  While me and Ricky are laying it down on the curb to scare the shit out of cars and passer-byes, Skinny sneaks up to the payphone and calls the cops. Like, five minutes later, the cops pull up - we scatter - and they load the dummy into their trunk and drive away. With Daniel’s pants legs hanging out!

Man, the look on his face when he has to tell his mother! Oh shit, now that is funny… especially when she has to go down to the police station to reclaim the clothes! He gets a few raps on the head. We’re all howling, everybody taking turns recounting their stories, although we’re always interrupting each other with forgotten details. I’m secretly sneaking red wine from the adult’s table into my glass of Coke, and everything is a belly laugh.  Man, I love those belly laughs. The feast part is finishing up, night has already fallen, and we all agree to embark on our most recent tradition (the second year) of getting together with the McBride sisters. All of us, my sisters, my cousins - everybody - to go see a movie at Park Theater. I’m buzzed pretty good now, and the idea of seeing Kyla again has me all perked up. I dash up to my room, and pluck a joint from my Sucrets box of secret stash. It’s ulterior motive time.