For the Love of Money

  “Find out about what?”

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t have the energy to get into it.

  “Another time, okay? Another time,” I told her.

  “All right. So what do you want me to do about these scripts?”

  I thought about it. “Well, I’m too busy out here to even—” I stopped myself and thought again. Maybe I could use something to take my mind off of all of the drama around here and think more about my future, I pondered to myself.

  “On second thought, go ahead and FedEx them to my parents’ house. I could use something to look forward to.”

  “Okay. Consider it done,” she responded again in that sarcastic little voice of hers.

  I said, “Would you stop that? I am not like that. And if I ever do get a big head, I want you to mail me a letter and let me know, so that I can stick it in my purse and read it to myself at least three times a day.”

  She said, “Hey, that sounds like a good idea,” and laughed about it.

  I stopped and asked, “So you really feel that I’m getting bigheaded then?” I was definitely concerned about that. A Diana Ross “Super Diva” figure was not who I wanted to be, nor what I wanted to represent.

  My girl said, “Tracy, I’m gonna level with you. If you didn’t have the qualities of determination that it takes to make it out in Hollywood, you would have never made it this far. Trust me. You have what it takes, I just don’t want you to overdo it.”

  I smiled and said, “Thanks for the compliment, but I am not being big-headed.”

  She just laughed. “Sounds like a guilty conscience to me.”

  “Whatever,” I told her. “I don’t have time for your head games right now. So get back to work,” I teased.

  My girl went right back to that little voice of hers.

  “Oh, yes, of course. I’ll get on it right away.”

  I hung up the phone with her and planned to pay my agent no mind. If I was getting bigheaded then so be it, because I still had shit that I wanted to do!

  When the Grass Is No Longer Green...

  ... the sun cannot reflect and shine upward.

  The dirt looks extra hard and plenty thirsty.

  And little boys and girls run inside

  with blood gushing from their knees from bottle cuts

  instead of grass burns that can be washed away

  and kissed.

  ... the trash decorates the streets and sidewalks

  with steel gates and wired fences that intimidate,

  distracting clear vision on even sunny days,

  and claiming to protect its tenants

  from bad, outside influences,

  while locking in the good ones who dream America.

  ... little girls pick up babies instead of lilies

  and daisies,

  while their boyfriends pick up rocks,

  sticks, bats, knives and guns.

  But seldom do they pick up their babies.

  Maybe babies are too heavy to hold, like jobs.

  ... Mickey Ds, BKs, TBs, KFCs and Wendy’s

  are the cleanest and brightest things standing.

  Or at least

  on the outside.

  Because the insides often need sanitation,

  including the attitudes of some who work there.

  ... those who have checks may cash them

  for a fee,

  not to hold and collect dividends,

  but to spend at the next corner

  on their favorite friends and past times

  instead of saving for a better day.

  ...neighborhood fights become entertainment,

  paid not with golden belts and million-dollar contracts,

  but with death

  and deep scars that stop you from running,

  while mothers cry and wear old dresses

  to new Churches for their sons’ funerals.

  ...powerless officials offer Band-Aids

  for solutions

  instead of signing budgets to uproot the soil

  and fertilize the land for grass that grows,

  and shines

  which may take for generations.

  But,

  ... no one living there has time

  to wait,

  because Yesterday barely made it,

  Today is holding on by a string,

  and Tomorrow is forever breaking promises.

  Copyright © 1996 by Tracy Ellison

  September 1996

  I settled down in Baldwin Hills and was lazy as hell for my first two days in California. My car needed a break anyway after driving for four days from Philadelphia to get there. I just wanted to sit outside, suck up the West Coast atmosphere, and watch cars drive by from my second-floor balcony.

  I had moved to California in style. I actually had a townhouse! I didn’t plan to buy any furniture though, that was for sure. If I didn’t get connected with a big job, substitute teaching was not going to pay my rent. I needed to make some serious money in order to stay there. I bought only a bed, some cheap dressers, and a few new dishes to eat from. I also bought a new color television set and a high-tech VCR with a stand. You cannot possibly plan to break into the business of television and film without those two necessities. I had given my previous television set and lower-grade VCR to my brother. The rest of my townhouse was empty, upstairs and downstairs. I mean, I was in echo territory: HELLO, HELLO, HELLO!

  I thought about the prospect of not having any furniture for a while and laughed out loud to myself. I was sure that people would tease me about it, but what was more important, having a nice place to live in a nice area, or buying fancy furniture for a crummy apartment in the ’hood? Excuse me, but I’ll take the pretty townhouse with no furniture in a heartbeat! A lot of people did without furniture in college, myself included. I was used to it. However, my empty place also served as a reminder of how busy I had to get to make sure that it wouldn’t remain empty. So I had plenty of work to do.

  On my third day of officially living in LA, I finally decided to do a little exploring, you know, drive around on my own and see what I could see. I hopped in my black Toyota (which still had Pennsylvania license plates), and drove past the shopping center on La Brea toward Crenshaw. I just figured that Crenshaw was the place to be.

  I guess I wasn’t paying too much attention to the road when I came up on Crenshaw. I arrived much faster than anticipated. I jumped in the turning lane in front of an old gray Volkswagen Rabbit. I didn’t think too much of it though. The young driver was moving slow and listening to loud rap music anyway. It was no big deal in Philly. You just wave politely to the driver and keep on going.

  I turned onto Crenshaw and started cruising with my eyes bouncing from left to right as I took everything in: the shops, the people, the buses, the billboard advertisements, and everything. Crenshaw was definitely BLACK, and I felt at peace with my California people as if I was on North Broad Street back home in Philly. All of a sudden, the young guy driving the VW Rabbit jumped back out in front of me. I went to switch lanes so I could have clear vision from my front windshield. The VW Rabbit swerved in front of me again. I moved back to the first lane that I was in, only for this nutcase to jump in front of me for a third time.

  I finally got pissed the hell off and started to yell, “WHAT THE—,” but I stopped myself and realized that I was no longer in Philadelphia. I thought, What if this asshole has a gun and he’s ready to shoot me just for cutting him off?

  The next thing I knew, he had switched lanes again and slowed up so that he could pull up right beside me. He looked and grilled at me, and I didn’t know if he was reaching his right hand for his stick shift, or for a gun, but I was definitely not planning to wait around and find out. I jammed my breaks in the middle of traffic and tried to make a U-turn.

  BURRRNNNMP!

  “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!”

  BURRRNNNMP!

  “YOU CRAZY ASS!”

  People were blowing hor
ns and yelling all kinds of things at me, but I made that U-turn and just missed hitting two oncoming cars. I was a nervous wreck from fear. My heart was practically on fire it was beating so fast! I was looking for the first police car I could spot to save me, and there was none in sight. My hands began to shake at the wheel while I looked around for that crazy guy in the VW Rabbit who was hounding me.

  I didn’t see him, but I took off up Crenshaw and made a left turn back toward my townhouse anyway. I was thinking about that crazy movie Menace II Society, starring Larenz Tate and Tyrin Turner.

  “Please, God, let me make it back home!” I hollered to myself while driving like a lunatic.

  When I arrived at my townhouse, I hopped out, ducked down, and sprinted back to my door as if a killer was stalking me. I could barely get my key inside of the door I was shaking so badly.

  “Hurry up, hurry up!” I told myself. I finally turned my key and lunged into the house before locking my door. I threw my purse to the floor, relieved, and yelled, “SHIT!”

  I could barely breathe, and my chest was hurting. I tossed my hands to my face and mumbled, “Oh my God!” My ass was ready to fly back home to Philadelphia quick, because I was not driving again in LA. Kendra was right. Those Negroes out there were stone cold crazy! Just because I cut him off. It wasn’t as if I had done it on purpose. I was even afraid to sit out on my balcony, thinking that the guy would drive by and aim up at me with a shotgun.

  Of course, everything I did that day was an overreaction. Nevertheless, how the hell was I supposed to know that you don’t cut people off in LA. Or at least not young black males who listen to loud rap music. When I sat down on my empty hardwood floor and thought about that, it made me sad. My thoughts about the incident fed into the whole stereotype of young black men, rap music, movies, and violence, but shit, if those Negroes didn’t act so violent in the first place, the stereotypes would have never been started!

  I must have sat there on my empty floor and thought about things for a hour. When I was done thinking, I went and grabbed my handy notebook and began to write the most political poem that I think I’ve ever written, “When the Grass Is No Longer Green...” I used a lot of the information that Kendra had already presented to me, added what I had seen out there with my own eyes, and went from there with my creativity. When I finished it, it was also one of the longest poems that I had ever written. However, I wanted to make it even better, so I knew that the initial idea was only a first draft.

  I called Kendra to tell her about my crazy drive on Crenshaw, but she was not at home from her school day yet, so I decided to call my girl Raheema long distance in New Jersey. It was three-thirty in LA, which translated to six-thirty in New Jersey. I called Raheema at home instead of at her office at Rutgers. Knowing her studious behind, she was probably working late at the university. I was surprised when she answered the phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, girl, you busy?” I responded. “I’m officially out in LA now, and already I have things to tell you.”

  “Long distance at that,” she teased me with a laugh.

  “Well, how else am I gonna tell you, through telegram?” I snapped sarcastically. Raheema and I were forever playing a game of smart mouth with each other, no matter how old we were.

  “So what happened that’s so important already? You met a big-time Hollywood producer who wants to turn your life story into a movie?”

  “No, but I was almost shot at today like a movie.”

  “Well, that is Bloods’ and Crips’ town out there,” she told me. “You need to find a book called Do or Die by Leon Bing and Monster by Sanyika Shakur, and read all about it.”

  That was my girl! Raheema knew something about every-damn-thing! She was like a walking encyclopedia.

  “Well, let me tell you what happened,” I started.

  “Actually, I’m getting ready to go out,” she cut me off. I guess Raheema knew that I was overreacting. She had dealt with my drama all before.

  I stopped short and asked, “You’re going out? With a guy?”

  We both laughed. Raheema’s dating life was always news to me. Sometimes I felt that she would join the scholars’ monastery and never have any use for the flesh.

  “Yes,” she answered me, guarded. All that did was make me curious.

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s smart. And he’s patient. Unselfish. And actually handsome.”

  She said each thing as if it stood alone.

  I asked, “What, he wasn’t supposed to be handsome?”

  “Let’s just say that looks are not a major requirement for me like it is for some people we both know.”

  I laughed and said, “Whatever. You have to think about your kids.”

  “Oh, trust me, I do.”

  “Okay, well, you don’t have time to hear my story, but just let me read this poem to you that I just wrote.”

  She paused and said, “Okay.”

  I responded, “It’s not going to kill you, girl. Just hear me out.”

  “Read it already,” she pressed me.

  “Okay, here it is, but I just want you to know that I’m still working on it.”

  “Revision is always good, now let’s hear it.”

  I read it to her with all of the politics involved and the repetitive flow from the title, and Raheema just breathed over the phone.

  I asked, “So what do you think?”

  “I think I might want to use that in my future classrooms,” she told me. “Maya Angelou, look out! That piece was phenomenal!”

  “Aw, go ’head, girl, you’re exaggerating,” I said with a smile. I was glad to hear it though. I added, “You can use it, just as long as you tell them where you got it from.”

  Raheema said, “Do you actually think that I would ever use one of your poems and not give you credit for it?”

  “I’m just making sure,” I told her.

  “You are a mess.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Now go on out with your smart, patient, handsome, unselfish date, and don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”

  “Don’t you mean to say don’t do anything that you would do?” she teased.

  I just smiled and said, “Bye, Ra-Ra.”

  She said, “Isn’t your birthday this Friday, September six? What are you doing, something that I wouldn’t do?”

  “Look, girl, it’s just another year for me. That’ll be my first day of taking a crash course on screenwriting. So I’ll be starting the education of my new career on my birthday.”

  “Well, knock ’em dead, Tracy. Knowing you, I’m sure that you will.”

  I hung up the phone and thought about my first class on how to write screenplays. I began to think of how I could make the Crenshaw driving incident into a scene in a film just like it had inspired me to write a poem. I wondered how much of screenwriting would be the same way, coming up with an idea off of something that happened to you, and expanding on it to make it come to life up on the big screen for everyone else. The theory made perfect sense to me. I guessed that I would soon find out, but first I had to tell Kendra about my day.

  When Kendra arrived at home, I was waiting for her to pick up that line and hear me out.

  “Girrrl, let me tell you what happened to me today. You were absolutely right...”

  $ $ $

  When the Hollywood Film Institute said crash course, that’s exactly what they meant. I paid three hundred dollars (which included the price of several screenwriting books) for two days of instruction to help me figure out what the hell I was doing. We started early in the morning and had classes up until night with several breaks in between.

  I arrived bright and early at the film institute in West Hollywood still terrified of driving out in LA. Since I knew that I would be early, I took my notepad with me to look over my Crenshaw-inspired poem again. I had an extra notepad with me to take down everything I could on screenwriting from the crash course.

  I read my revised poem to mys
elf, rewritten with all of the perfect words and dramatic breaks for mass appeal in performance or on paper. Some poems are no good for performance, just as others are no good for print. I wanted my poem to stand up in both forms.

  I had to go to the bathroom right in the middle of reading it, so I went to search for the restroom. When I returned to my desk, I realized what I had done. You never leave your creativity unattended. A good creation is worth more than money, and there was a dark-haired white girl reading my shit when I returned. At first I thought she was about to take it, but then she saw me coming and tried to pretend as if she was only noticing that someone had left something there.

  “So what do you think about it?” I asked her with a grin. I knew she had read it.

  She turned and asked, “Excuse me?”

  She was attempting to play the innocent, but she had no idea who she was dealing with.

  I said, “My poem. I saw you reading it. What do you think about it?”

  She was dressed in casual gear with tan khakis, Banana Republic style. I was dressed casually myself in blue jeans.

  She smiled and said, “It’s very good. I like how you use the title as your dramatic point with repetition.”

  “Yeah, I try to do something different every time.”

  “So you’re a poet?”

  “I don’t really call myself one. I just do it, you know, like the Nike commercials.”

  She laughed and said, “My name is Susan,” and extended her hand to me.

  I looked clearly over the top of her thick brown hair with my superior height and shook her hand. “I’m Tracy.” This girl must have stood about five foot two with heels. I just loved being tall, and I had to let her know that I was confident with it. I figured that I had to use some kind of an edge out in Hollywood. I would be out of my league out there. It was brand-new territory for me.

  “So, I guess we’re, ah, here to learn how to write scripts,” she said out loud and took a seat in the desk to the right of mine.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I responded to her.

  I stared up at the huge blackboard at the front of the room, thinking how ironic it was for me to go from being a student to a teacher and back to a student again. However, that was life. When you step it up, sometimes you have to start it all over.