beyond recognition. Twoooooo! Yep, two! You’re more than halfway to a nightstick more than halfway up your ass. If Momma had heard me, I’d've spent the rest of my life in the Circle of Respect. He stepped off the curb. I’m really getting pissed, now just fuck off ya little pipsqueak! Somehow those crazy Pro Ked sneakers of mine took me into the street also. Don’t fuck me, man, fuck wid me! Next number is three, then it’s your ass! One of the other officers told him that the best way to handle the situation was to call the Detroit City Police. I stopped counting and got back on the curb. Just as he fixed his lips on that walkie talkie a young woman ran down the stairs of the student union yelling something but she was too far back for me to make it out plainly. But her hair...her hair flew behind her like a magic carpet. It was towhead and the sun made it shine like silver. I stood there like a red eyed juicehead coming off a drunk; trying to recall where I had seen her before. For surely I had seen her somewhere before. Then it hit me. First grade. First Reader Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm, with Detroit Board of Education and that four digit number stamped on all the pages in case you was fool enough not to return it at the end of the year. She was the queen whose wand could knight you or turn you into a toad. If it hadn’t been for her running to save Darrell, the Brothers Grimm would have been lost to me forever. Before crossing the summer into second grade, I returned the book (they took military pride in collecting those books) and forgot the queen and her wonderful wand. Not even the prettiest of my classmates, little Tiffany with her shiny legs and patent leather shoes doing the Those Muslimsfrown on the kind of music that’s best to shake your hips to but Papa had died and Sister X was sensitive to our means of laughter and forgetting. Tighten-up to a Four Tops tune, could stir a memory of her. Who ever heard of a Black queen? The Brothers Grimm went the way of Santa Claus, that first Christmas after Papa died, when I woke to find no presents, only bruised fruit in nylon do-rags meant to hold Darrel’s process, and I went outside amazed that never before had I noticed we had no chimneys, just long slabs of two story concrete with a door every ten feet and wet graffiti running like a whore’s mascara into the snow. She broke through the cops and I could have sworn she was calling them out of their name, Pigs-this, Pigs-that. No, the chick can't be that crazy. Her dress was like a painter had wiped his hands on it. And her titties flopped up and.down, up and down under a white tee-shirt with a peace sign drawn on it as she rushed to Darrell’s side. But miss, pleaded the bean pole policeman, this boy’s from the St. Antoine projects. She told them that if it weren’t for her father’s tuition money they’d be in some poor white projects somewhere. Then she said. He’s not a boy, he’s my man. And this chick’s head still ain’t testing them nightsticks? Only someone tired of this world would be right up in their face talking like that. She’s either a stone fool or she’s related to Henry Ford. Before I had time to recover from this miracle, Darrell waved to me, flashed me thumbs up: In a minute young blood! Then he and the queen slipped through the dogteeth gate. That night Momma was sitting in the kitchen reading the newspaper because the kitchen had the best lighting, is what she told me, but it was really because I needed space to do round-the-moon and walk-the- dog with a yo-yo in each hand and the only place with that much space was the living room and Momma didn’t take kindly to being hit in the head with a runaway yo-yo and of course when I walked-the-dog I had to always walk it to music and as much as she loved music she was harly in the mod to hear Jr. Walker and the All Stars singing Shotgun fifty hundred times. I was setting the needle down on old Jr. Walker when I heard laughter from the playground. My red Pro Keds had dried next to the heating duct but “Wilt the Stilt ’65” was a sure nuff dream in the drain. I owned a Lions jersey with Night Train Lane’s number on it which I was Always! Always! Always, to wear with a coat. Momma was asleep at the kitchen table. So I snuck right past her, no coat and all. Darrell and Soldierboy were blowing herb, rocking in swings they’d outgrown ten years ago. Soldierboy was on leave. One month back in the world, as he put it. They drafted him right into the Marines which Momma sais was a crime and a shame; and illegal Darrell would add cause he always had to say the same thing in a different way to make himself look smart. Why don’t you run and tell Lyndon Baynes, Soldierboy would tell him, and while you at it tell him Navy rations don’t agree with me, see if you can’t get me chickpeas and Sister X spoke to us about the Nation of Islam’sfarms in Georgia; how peaceful life is when you’re with your own and have your own. rice on Sunday. He always made like he was a bad dude, but his month back in the world was down to eleven days. Soldierboy was scared shitless. You know Momma don’t want you bustin up these swingsets, I said. Darrell was too far into his high, all he could do was igg me. Who invited this gumpy? Soldierboy asked. I knew the smoke had made off with his reflexes so I walked right up to his reefer-red eyes: Soldierboy, when you go back to Nam I hope a Viet Cong put a bullet right through them big lips of yours. Next thing I heard was a Willie Mays home run, next thing I felt was a burning under my eye. Soldierboy had slapped my face. His knees pinned my arms to the ground. Night Trane’s 81 sponged dirty snow. No way to turn to keep the cold wetness off my back. His fist rose up to the moon then came down like a shooting star. I jerked my head to the side. He bloodied his knuckles on broken glass. Darrell grabbed him by the armpits, lifted him just high enough for me to scurry through like a rat out of a hole. He shook loose of Darrell and came after me. I screamed MOMMA! over and over again. Just when he caught me she appeared in the window. Soldierboy, Darrell, she said, Now y’all save the rough stuff for each other, D.B.'s just a little boy. Any other time I’d’ve fussed with her over the word little but when he let go of me I was glad to wear it. She went on about how they were not to hurt me, And y’all know not to be tearing up the little ones’ playground. Darrell held the joint behind his back and yes-Mammed her to death. When she left the window they returned to the swings and fired up again. I dried my tears and kept a good running distance from them. Then, I don’t know, I couldn’t help it, I just started laughing, laughing out of control. What’s so gotdamn funny, Soldierboy asked. It was a strain for me to talk, I was laughing so hard, but I managed to tell him, If the Cong don’t getcha my Momma will. He rose. I got set to book. Soldierboy just sighed and shook Darrell’s hand: I best-hat up Darrell 'fore I end up stompin li’l gumpy all in his head. Naw, man, Darrell said, don’t leave, I’ll send D.B. inside. Even though I wanted to go inside to change from that freezing wet jersey, I put my hands on my hips and refused: And if I go inside Momma gon be outside to see bout this here reefer smokin. Soldierboy shrugged. He didn’t care who saw him doing what. In another three years neither would Darrell. Naw, man, Soldierboy told him, I’m too pissed off, just pay me for the smoke and I’ll be on my way. From his back pocket Darrell dug a • wad of bills the size of what Good Jimmy carried after a day of konking hair and chastising women. Where you get all that money? I asked. He spread it into a peacock’s tail and fanned himself the way old people do on hot days in church. Keeps me some money! he said. Musta stole it, I said. Do I look like a criminal, boy? I can see why my pahdna laid you out. You still in high school Darrel and you can’t do hair, so what kinda job you got that pay so much money? Soldierboy found my question so funny he damn near burned his lips on the roach. They fell over each other laughing. Soldierboy solved the riddle: Got to get down on your hands and knees, gumpy, lick it till it talks back to you. Darrell stopped laughing, Not in front of my brother, man. It was too late. My stomach felt so queazy that I no longer cared about water turning to ice down my spine. I would’ve screamed LIAR! with all of my lungs, would’ve picked up a piece of glass and made a street map of Soldierboy’s face, if not for the sag of embarrassment in Darrell’s face, if not for him telling Soldierboy to hush. Soldierboy smiled, he wasn’t about to hush, not with water coming back to my eyes; not with Darrell’s guilty hand dog look. You may know him as big brother, he said, but cross the way (he cocked his head toward Wayne State) they call him Sir Filthy McNas- ty. Darrell cringed. He counted the bills into Soldierboy’s palm. He didn’t look at Soldierboy when he said, I don’t see you shying away from Filthy McNasty money. Soldierboy started to walk away. Darrell avoided my eyes as he sunk into the swing. Tell him he’s lying, Darrell. Floor his ass. He know better than to lie on you like that. Do something Darrell, say something. Darrell was in no mood to read my thoughts. My face stung like somebody hit me with a wet gym shoe. I wiped my eyes with both sleeves. Your gumpy-ass brother should’ve been a girl, Soldierboy called over his shoulder, cry more than any girl I know. I broke across the playground, running as fast as I could, the crunch of slush, gravel and glass under my feet, ran up the stairs of our unit, burst through the door would have been in my room face down on the bed had Momma not stepped into the hallway, held my cheek to her waist. They just play too rough sometimes, D.B., don’t mean nothin by it, son. There, there, you got to know when to tease them and when not to; and that Soldierboy, he’s just afraid to go back to war. How could I tell her? It ain’t rought play. It ain’t even Soldierboy. I wish Darrell had been born into someone else’s family...and that I’d never read fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. Frank B. Wilderson, III, a fiction writer and critic, studied under Ishmael Reed at Dartmouth College and won a 1988 Loft/McKnight Award in creative prose and a 1988 Toni Morrison Award for fiction. His work has appeared in an I. Reed Books anthology, Tower, Black Collegian, A.D.A. Today and elsewhere. This excerpt from The Ramadan Wars, a novel-in-progress, appeared in the spring (1988) issue of Obsidian II. Dave Rathman is a Twin Cities printmaker and painter. Designer Gail Swanlund is a regular contributor to the CSQ. Clinton St. Quarterly— Fall, 1988 31
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