Ayoung woman ran down the stairs of the student union yelling something Her hair flew behind her like a magic carpet. It was towhead and the sun somewhere before. Then it hit me. First grade. First Reader Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm made it shine like silver. I had seen her Dave Rathman THE RAMADAN WARS' M E MMOORTI EOSWONF BAO Y H O O D by Frank B. Wilderson, III N INETEEN SIXTY-SEVEN. - the way I saw it, Berry Gordy created the universe. On the first day he made the Temptations, on the second day he made the Supremes, day three it was the Four Tops, then came Smokey, followed by Mary Wells, and when on day six Marvin Gaye stepped out of his cloud ole Barry stopped for a moment to catch his breath. On the seventh day the world got down. Some evenings I’d lean out the window and listen as nine apartments played the same Smokey Robinson song; nine different Smokeys singing in a round. Then June tilted into July and the sirens were everywhere at once. With each bark of the snipers the sirens wound in all directions. And if you looked up at just the right moment you could see twirling red lights chasing men on foot. Although we didn’t know it, Momma had taken out burial insurance on me and Darrell. One of her few transactions that remained a secret, like folding a dollar in the palms of peddlers of Mohammed Speaks though she placed no more than two bits in the basket at church. I can still picture Darrell bursting through the door, going on and on about fire; wheezing from last winter’s boxing match with pneumonia. He still had that cough too, that real bad cough that hung on after three cups of hot Vicks salve and lemon juice, hung on into summer making his words sputter like flames through broken glass. The week before, he had decided it was Nation Time, so he tried to wash the konk out of his hair. But lye and sizzling pomade is some powerful shit; be kicking Head and Shoulders all in its ass. In seven days Darrell had gone from fried-died-laid-to-the-side to a matted mess of straw. Darrell would’ve been downright ugly if not for that square chin, that smooth Clinton St. Quarterly—Fall, 1988 29
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz