“What?”
“My real name is Abdul, call me Abdul from now on, OK?
OK?
”
“OK.” She tiptoes to kiss me on my forehead. “OK, Abdul.”
I go to put on my sweats and T-shirt and warm up for class. I try not to look at the other people, but it’s hard. Some of them just sit on the floor in second and lay their stomach down or lay on their back and pull their legs up to their ear like they ain’t got no bones or ligaments attached to them. My body ain’t like that. Imena says I have strength, ballon—and when flexibility comes, I’ll be glad for what I have. Sitting down on the floor with both my legs straight out in front of me, I can’t reach my toes or my ankles. It’s no better in second, I grab my calves and stretch. I guess if I was older I wouldn’t even be here, I’d be someplace trying to fix shit. But what can I fix? What’s fixing? A foster home, I’m too grown up to be adopted, but I’m not a man, I don’t know how to get out and get a job. My shoulder still hurts, but I know once I get warmed up and moving I’ll get over the pain. All these scratches and the cut on my face from the mirror hurt too, but so what? I just put the focus on what I’m doing. One of the drummers is playing the kalimba and singing African words soft like a breeze while we warm up.
“Reach, one two three four.” I extend my long arms over my head, try to touch the ceiling. “Soften your knees, contract your abdominals to protect your back, and roll down two three four.” Sometimes I have this feeling everything in my head is on a computer screen and the brightness of the screen is turned up sometimes and it’s all luminous like how the rays come out of the saint’s head in gold on the paintings in chapel. I’m not even on nothing. I just feel happy or hypnotized or some weird thing when the music starts and my juice gets to flowing. Sounds, the
ting-ting
of the kalimba, the flute, woodwind? Wind out of wood! The sounds go through every cell of my body, and I feel it, I
feel
it happening. “
Reach,
two three four.” Imena is like my master, I try to be what her voice says. “Feet in parallel.” I can smell the girl next to me, sweat pussy smell clean fresh a little like curry powder we had on, or would have, on Thursday, ethnic-food night at St Ailanthus. “Brush your foot out, tendu.” The girl in front of me got on lime green tights, she’s already sweating, the sweat turning her tights dark in the small of her back and between her legs. Her butt is like two big green apples. Whew! “Rotate your ankle
out,
two three four five six seven eight.” I’m starting to perspire. “
In,
two three four five six seven eight.” I like my smell. I like how the gym smells, everybody’s odor mixed up with the old smell of the gym—wood, sweat, the stink from a million motherfuckers thumping the ball, now us. And the girl’s butt like apples. Yo ho ho! My sweat, can the girl next to me smell it? It’s not like I feel happy, it’s that I don’t feel dead when I’m here. I feel I got to do something but I don’t know what so I’m doing this. Fuck St Ailanthus’s, those stupid kids—
“J.J., pay attention!”
Oops, I thought we was going into pliés, but she’s doing hip isolations now warming up for pliés.
When we line up to go across the floor, I get in the back with the rest of the guys—men, Imena calls us. Drummer plays the break, Bee dee dee bah pah dah dah Pah! I almost miss it. Some of the dancers got such good timing, Imena too. She got it naturally or she learned it? “Your hips, torso, and arms are doing this—one, two, three, four in place. Then run—five, six, seven, eight.” The drums sound like they’re saying, Nkisi boom! Nkisi boom! Nkisi boom! Nkisi boom boom
boom
! My sweat is stinging my cuts and scratches. I check out the guys on both sides of me, their, the whole room’s, right foot is coming down on
N
, hips swiveling on
KI SI,
then contract on
boom
! Then run five, six, seven, eight, like you falling, arms going round like you a windmill. I got the step, now I try to dance it!
OK, I got it so now of course she has to change the combination. This step now, funny little catch step after the one, then rotate your hips step together
whoosh,
step together
whoosh,
going across the floor I try to keep my mind on the step, but the rhythm is reminding me, is it a dream?
Whoosh whoosh,
like my kaleidoscope pieces of glass falling into some kind of picture
whoosh
the picture my mother the blood spurting like a geyser the nurse snatched the tube wrong out her hand. I’m so angry that they’re all just scared of getting blood on them they ain’t trying to help her. But I ain’t scared of no part of my mother. Step together
whoosh
I don’t know how to tell the doctor, he thinks I’m scared to touch my mother, but I don’t want the tubes to break loose again. He think I don’t love my mother? The machine by her bed is going
whoosh whoosh
with its mechanical rhythm, quiet horrible sound like a train you can’t see that disappears anyway. I see the moon and the moon sees me, Mommy! Step together—oh!
“You’re off, J.—Abdul! Listen to the drum, come in on the
one
!”
Shit! I get back on the beat put everything out my head except the drums. She’s doing some hard-ass steps today—Haitian, Congolese. It’s the Congolese that trips me up, even though she say one come from the other. I forgot exactly where Haiti is. She motions for us to form a half-moon circle in front the drummers. She does this sometimes near the end of the class to give us a chance to work it out doing solos to the drums.
“Listen up! I’m going to tell you a little story,” she says. “And I want you to think on it and let the story inform your solos today. Keep moving! Keep moving while I’m talking. You don’t have to retell the story or act it out—in fact, I wish you wouldn’t. Just let the words in. Way way back
before
‘back in the day’ from Father Sky and Mama Earth and rain came the first life on the planet. Father Sky breathed into the dirt, had Sun shine into the dirt, but no life emerged. When Father Sky saw that, he upped the ante and started to blow Wind hard into the earth, tearing its soil asunder, and when that didn’t work, he sent Thunder and Lightning down hard into the Great Mother. No dice! Father Sky was so angry and sad with his failed efforts because he really wanted life, and great as he was, he couldn’t do it alone. He began to cry. When his warm, salty tears rained on the Great Mother she said, ‘Shit yeah, this is smooth, I like it,’ and she opened up her body and Life came, and the earth, which had been gray and barren, turned
GREEN
. Grass and grapes and apples, lush greens, collard greens, mustard, avocados, mangoes! The earth turned greener than the mighty ocean. At that time the people had been living under the ocean; in fact, all creatures had been in the water at one time. Now old crocodile, one of the first creatures to really stick his big nose out of the water and talk about what was going on out on earth, came back to the people and told them it was very, very green on earth, greener than down on the floor of the ocean where the people lived. There are mangoes, cherries, and avocados, he told the people. But the people were afraid ol’ crocodile was just feeding them a line to get them to come up so he could eat them. Under the ocean they were safe; on the way to land, they might be eaten by crocodiles. One of the old first people had already lived three hundred years and had great respect among the people for her potions she made from seaweed. Potions that gave you immunity from disease and protection from danger. People drank them, but nobody was a hundred percent sure they worked, because there really was no danger or disease deep down under the sea where the first people lived. In all her long life, she had never drunk the guts of the shark potion designed to give . . . well, guts. One day old first woman—Lucy was her name—decided she had to eat this mango, crocodile or no crocodile. So she drank the potion, guts, she walked up from the bottom of the ocean right past ol’ crocodile. She was the color of the rainbow when she stepped onto earth. All people were once all colors—how they got separated into different colors is another story. But Father Sky and Mother Earth saw Lucy standing alone. They knew that under the ocean both men and women could give birth. But when they saw Lucy’s guts, they gave the job of birthing to her.”
Imena turns around, claps her hands at the drummers, and the
ting-ting-ting
of the cowbell starts, and the drums roar. Imena moves her back like she has the ocean in it. She looks around for someone to step out; this freak-ass fine Asian chick jumps out in front the drum. FIRE! FIRE! A lot of the time, I’m the first one out there, I feel like an asshole sometimes, but that’s better than standing there watching everyone else and getting scareder and scareder, wishing I had jumped on out there. At least when I get on out there, I feel like I’m, you know, a dancer. These girls here ain’t shy, I seen them do a lot of stuff . . . well, not seen but heard the boys, “men,” say stuff; it’s four “men” men in the class. They gets the girls. What am I? A boy.
The drums is hot now, the Asian girl moves back in the line. I move on out, dancing fast. One of the drummers has a jembe drum, I love its sound. And when they open up with sticks beating on the side of the big conga drum feeding in another rhythm, it takes me out! I go with what I feel; you ain’t got to be no professional to do that. I don’t care about being no beginner or having tacky clothes, this is Crazy Horse in the house, dude! Wild horse be running past me and stop on the high tabletop on the Great Plains, they call it a mesa. I got scars. Scarification like Africans. I got a eagle feather. I drag the arrowhead across my chest blood drop the lightning is flashing but no rain and my horse is dancing in the sky, jack!
Dancing!
It’s that way when I get to moving like a gate opens and buffalo stampede, everything comes rushing out of me at once. It’s like I remember everything that ever happened to everyone. My body is not stiff or tight, I’m like my mom, soft, dark, and beautiful. It last about a minute, hah! I feel her kiss, kiss her lips, she’s like African. The top and the bottom—Africans got the worst of everything, Brother Samuel say. Nonsense! Brother John would say. I’m so mad at them! Fuck them, right now I’m a warrior walking from the bottom of the ocean to plant my seed! A
man
man! A man! Amen! Our Father Who Art in Heaven—
“Yeah!” People are screaming. “Way to go, J.J.!” “Dance, boy!” “Work that shit OUT!” “Yes, Abdul! Yes yes
yes
!” I look over at Imena shouting at me. A couple of people run over to where I am press both hands over their hearts, then kneel down and touch the ground at my feet. That’s like mad respect for another dancer’s effort; no one ever did that for me before. I back back into the half circle with the other dancers next to Imena. She hugs me, then dances out in front of the drummers herself. Fast birdlike movements but sexy, she got that. Sexiness! I want to move like that too, yeah! I start winding my hips like she’s doing. Another of the guys standing in the circle is doing the same thing. He sashay out to her and they start winding down together! Their pelvises music together. Bah dee dee bah dah dah PAH!
I WALK UP
Lenox Avenue to 145th Street, totally bypassing the pigs. I hate them. So what now, it’s almost four o’clock. I ain’t got a dime in my pocket, and where am I going? Back to 805 St Nicholas. Do what? Just hang out in that room. What about school, ducats, grub, riding the train? I don’t get it, I really don’t get it.
I hardly ever used to come up this far, 145th Street. Interesting. What guys, kids, do for cash? Sell crack, ass, strong-arm. Rob? I never really robbed before, maybe I hit somebody tried not to give me something like that old guy once in Marcus Garvey Park, gave me ten dollars to blow me up near the bell tower, I wanted twenty, he had
said
he was gonna give me twenty. I didn’t hit him hard, I don’t consider that robbing. Little as Jaime is, he is doing that shit all the time
and
pretending like he got a piece. Then he wanna act like he’s scared of me now.
I get up to the old brick face of the building. What?
What
am I spozed to do? I look up the street, nothing. Behind me dance class, but that’s over. Go back inside, just for the night. Tomorrow? I don’t know.
I knock no answer try the doorknob it’s open! I walk in the vestibule turn left down the hall. All the doors are closed except the bathroom door at the end of the hall and the door to the room with my suitcase in it. Out the bathroom window you can see the city lit up like Christmas, cars crawling across the bridge from far away look like bugs with headlights for eyes. Bronx, Manhattan, I been in every borough except Staten Island. On one side of the hall are two closed doors and the kitchen, which doesn’t have a door. On my—the side of the hall where the room is that has my stuff in it—are four doors, all closed except for the one to the room with my stuff. Looking at a hole in the linoleum, the layers of linoleum, um—four, five, six, look like rings around a tree, the bare wood shining through the hole. I think of St Ailanthus, clean, clean, floors like on TV.
I stick my head in the kitchen, go in, pull the light string, and stare at the swimming-pool-colored walls, two refrigerators, probably a lot of people used to live here? Everything—the walls, clock, stove—seems covered with a film of grease, there’s a old, I mean
old,
smell of fried chicken hanging in the air. A long table pushed up against the wall is covered with a blue and white plastic tablecloth with birthday hats, whistles, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY written in different spots in big letters. On the table there’s an unopened loaf of bread, a big can of peanut butter “USDA Grade” something I can’t make out, “Smooth Style,” and a plastic container with . . . um, let’s see, bacon, about eight slices of cooked bacon, smells good. And next to the container two keys. To the front door? One says “Medeco,” the other “Jet U.S.A. SE1.” I dash down the hall to the front door and out. Try the keys, bet! Come back in, now for bacon and peanut butter sandwiches? I almost laugh; this shit is funny in a way. Well, I like peanut butter and I like bacon. I open one of the refrigerators, the olive green one, on one shelf are four trays covered with see-through plastic wrap. The top tray has a plate with grayish string beans, a scoop of mashed potatoes with a pool of gravy in the middle, and brown cubes of something with more gravy poured over it. Next to the plate a bowl of lettuce with orange stuff on it and on the other side of the plate, a perfect pink square of cake. Written across the clear plastic wrap on a piece of masking tape: “WHEELING MEALS senior.” On the bottom shelf a carton of eggs, two big packages of bacon, half jar of spaghetti sauce, square stacks of yellow cheese slices. The freezer is full of what looks like hamburger meat and bags of turkey wings, and a can of coffee and a Sara Lee cheesecake that takes, let’s see, three hours to thaw.