Nods in her own world while
She waits for the next one
Did you see Leslie’s eyes? Wild beyond tears,
Beyond pain, past hurting
I will tear that History apart.
All I need…
MISS DAVIS
I’m sorry, but I know you’ll do well.
We’ll make every effort to keep you and your
Sister together. Sometimes things can be
Arranged but there are no promises.
The Letter of Determination
Will be handed down in twelve days
And then we will know
We will have the answers in hand
And then we can move on from there
It’s not up to me, you see
My hands are tied.
But may I give you some advice?
I see you have brought a young man
With you. Remember that your mother has no
Husband, just babies
Yes, and a History
JUNICE
Damien, I am lost
Did you hear her, how could she keep talking through
That fixed smile, that frozen face
The narrow head that kept turning away from me
Why doesn’t she give me a chance?
Look, now we are walking down the same street
We took coming here. Time has passed, people have
Been born and some have died
But everything is the same. The sunlight haze
Sweeps across the concrete
Framing the rhythms of souls lost in their
Own lives, but for me nothing
Has changed.
She has given you a date. Something about twelve days
An execution date. Everything will be over then
Will be determined.
When my mother came out of her
Mother’s womb, Black and skinny, and screeching
When the doctor who delivered her skipped
The box naming a father
When the gypsy cab came and picked them
Up to make the drive to Alphabet City
When the smell of reefer rose sweet
And pungent through the gray project walls
When my grandmother called her friend to come
To see the new baby and no one was home
Everything was already determined
The steps are there, we just have to follow
Them to whatever doom there is
I have to think, he said
There is nothing to think about, Damien
What logic stands against logic?
I want to raise my sister and break the
Chains that bind us even though I know
Those chains cannot be broken
What logic sets that right except the rightness
Of denial? How will I discover how to
Defy gravity? How to fly over truths?
I have no money and without money there
Will be no way of living. What can you
Think of that will deny this? Do you think for
One moment that I want what is best for
Me? For Melissa? Reason spits in my face
With its sassy presence. I don’t have a
Better reason than the book Miss Davis held
Before her small bosom like a hand-me-down Bible.
I am too real not to know that real will kill me
I am too street not to know what the streets hold for me
Let me think
Thinking is all I have
If wisdom is a pretense
Then let me pretend to be wise
Go. Think. Turn black into white.
Night into day. I am tired of thinking.
I know where it will lead me and I don’t
Want to be there.
Go love. Do your thinking.
DAMIEN by HIMSELF on the CORNER
Junice turns and walks away
Through the familiar shifting rhythm
Of a Harlem crowd
I have never felt so alone
Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am
Dead thoughts in a dead language
What good is thinking? What good is I am
If I am is not something larger
Than I could ever be alone?
The thinking, the furrowed brow
Had always been, until this time
A comfort.
To this very moment every
Red horizon produced a new day
Every cloud its cleansing shower
The sun never stopped its
Brilliant arcing across my blue skies
What strange land have I entered
Where tsunami questions roar and crush the soul
And the gravity of the blood moon pulls no
Answers from the brooding tide?
What is there to think about
To weigh carefully
That Junice and Melissa enter
Some benign level of Hell
And what if Hell is not so Hellish As it won’t be once I put it
Beyond my sight, into the cool
Regions of intellect. If Hell
Is not so Hellish once out of
My mind, what will life be,
When I am out of Junice?
Comfortable? Without a doubt.
Carefully planned? To the last letter.
Life will resume, the too-familiar
Curtain rises once again, but
I’ve forgotten all my lines.
More important than what happens
To me, for the first time
In my life more important than
What happens to me, is what will happen
To Junice?
Can I shut my eyes, seal my ears
Not know what she stutters through
Her tears
That every distance
From love is too far? That every
Battering of the heart is impossible
To heal, and that a lifetime
Of shielding the wounds
Is too high a price to pay?
Junice has laid down her dreams
For the world to see
While I still clutch mine to my bosom
And whine my prayers to a God
Who wants more
Of me than I can bring to Heaven’s door.
SLEDGE and DAMIEN and HARLEM in front of JACKIE ROBINSON PARK
SLEDGE
Yo, ballplayer, where you been hiding?
They put up two neon signs downtown and
Neither one of them spells out your name
You skipping the race or setting the pace
On up to the Big Time and putting
Down the little folks?
What, you ain’t speaking?
I saw you with Junice, bro.
You liking that tall mama?
DAMIEN
Liking? You’re not deep enough to understand
Anything deeper, so I’ll say I’m liking her
SLEDGE
Yo, if you’re talking about love
You must be slipping or tripping
Skirts are made for lifting
Not gifting with no emotion
Or are you Doing the Right Thing
Getting on the Bus and all that
Zing-zing kind of fling White dudes
Be talking about?
DAMIEN
Hey, I’m in love, Sledge,
But I don’t expect you to dig it
They don’t keep love in the sewers
You hang in
SLEDGE
Yo, Damien, I know her situation
She’s just part of the booty nation
She’ll be out here tricking
When the rent is due. Or don’t you get the clue
When you see that her mama
Resides with the Upstate Brides?
DAMIEN
Sledge, you are jus
t another turd
Who hasn’t heard the word that the
Flushing is done. Take your stink
Someplace else, man. I don’t have
The time for your mental grime.
What could you know about love?
SLEDGE
Yeah, you in love. And with your higher
Brain you got her higher parts
While I had to settle for those holding
Me close and whispering my name
Over and over.
DAMIEN
Watch your mouth, fool!
SLEDGE
If you feel froggy, come jump in my direction
If you feel like a soldier, march on over
If you needy, come get some of what I’m
Handing out by the fistful
Then there are two stallions
Standing toe to toe
One’s breath warming the face of the other
Sliding past the emotional pains they
Can’t express to the physical pains they
Can.
Then they fight. Fists fly, legs spread
Damien’s fury forcing Sledge to back up
As he wards off the blows. Sledge goes
For the groin. The two roll on the
Cracked cement as children watch, never
Putting down their sodas, their bags of chips
It is just the everyday violence of a
Ghetto afternoon. Suicide bombers expressing
I-amness.
Damien pounds away. Basketball muscles
Are quick, his hands are even quicker, but
Sledge goes into his sock and pulls his shank.
Its arc is quick and the spurt of
Blood is a thin red bird in the slanted
Light of late afternoon
Suddenly the two warriors are apart, standing
Sledge, his breath coming in deep gasps,
His eyes bloodshot and wide, stumbles away from
The kneeling Damien.
“He’s cut!” a child calls out.
“It ain’t deep,” is the knowing reply.
Damien feels the wound that has made a thin
Line along his jaw. The child observer was right
It wasn’t deep. A trickle of blood
Runs down the neck and into the collar
Of his open shirt.
“Excuse me, young man, I see you are on
Your knees,” a homeless man interrupts. “If
You’re finished praying perhaps you could
Give an old man a dollar or two for a sandwich.”
Damien’s glance is angry. The homeless man
Amused. The children move to the jungle gym
Only Damien feels abused.
Damien stands for a while on the corner. Across the
Street two policeman sit in a squad
Car and look in his direction. If he had been
Hurt seriously they would have come over
Would have done whatever necessary for the
Greater good of the community. He starts down the
Hill, not planning to go but going
Not knowing what he wants to know
But knowing, looking and not looking
Until he reaches her block.
When she appears, head down
Groceries hugged against her chest
He calls her name and she stops, half in her
Doorway, her keys still pointed away from
The street, almost spilling the onions.
JUNICE and DAMIEN
What happened? She asked. You’re a mess.
Do you know Sledge? He asked.
He exists, She said. But you’ve been hurt, come upstairs
I’ll wash your face. What happened?
I just fought Sledge, and lost, He said.
Why?
He said he had made love to you.
I needed to shut his lying mouth.
To put the lie to his lay.
I knew you would never go with him.
He pulled a knife. But that doesn’t matter now.
What matters now?
All I need is to hear the words from your lips to move on,
To stumble past his profanity.
Just tell me you are who I know you are.
What are you saying?
What words do you want from my lips? Words
That say that Sledge has not touched me? That I
Am pure? Unused? Excused? Unabused? Unconfused?
Is that how you are defining me? What is it that you want?
Some girl of your dreams with fairy-tale themes
Spouting from her lips? I am not the virgin version of your
Life, Damien. I am only what you see, this stick
Of a woman trying to make enough magic
To negotiate the shadows of these streets. You want
To name me according to my abuser, when I am only
Me. I can’t use it. My life is not packaged,
Not tidy. There are leftover strands and jagged
Edges that cut even my friends. Blame Sledge if you must
Or God if you still trust in Heaven
Damien, I believed in you because I
Want to believe in the love I feel for
You. If that’s not enough
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Damien walks away,
There is a stinging pain in his face
There is even more hurt within
The tall body, suddenly
Doubt-weakened, unsure, pushing
One foot before the other, an alien
Pushing through the underbrush
Of his own planet.
At home he finds his room
The four corners of his bed, his quilt
And under the quilt, his darkness
But in the landscape of his once-friendly
Mind there are only strangers
Coming at him with visions
That distort his world
Here are the Sledges hate-hating their way
Through life, mocking tenderness with their
Leering grins.
Here are the Regulators, who check their
Passions at the time clock, tsk-tsking their
Way to Pensionville.
Here is the Artist, snip-snipping from
His own memory (call it history)
Making his own portrait of her.
The night carried a thousand dreams
One moment the violence of his fight
With Sledge had him ripping at the covers
The next found him still and trembling inside
The coolness of the sheets, listening to the
Echoes of Junice’s words as she walked
Away from him…away from him.
DAMIEN and his MOTHER on SATURDAY MORNING
Damien, I spoke to Kevin’s mother
(Toast and tea on a tray)
He told her/she told me
You’re in love with a girl
Is she a nice girl? Kevin’s mother said/he said
Jail/drugs/mother/said/sister, too
I know you won’t like her, I thought
Who knows what is right/wrong/good/bad
These days? Did you want eggs?
She is on the verge of bubbling over
Restless in the invisible cage she paces
As if it were a frame and she the vision
It encases. The voice rises in pitch.
We all must choose/pay dues/even though
Choice is not always easy/queasy/feelings
But nevertheless/I confess/the biggest mess is when we
Let our emotions/notions/devotions to causes
Change us/rearrange our lives in strange ways
Her hands move nervously, spilling
The tea onto the paper napkin
You have a station in life, education, the dedication
Of your father and me, you do know how muc
h
We care, we have dared to care all these years
You can’t just turn/spurn/burn your bridges
I missed your basketball practices?
Have you started your season yet?
Her name is Junice, I said.
She is Black, but comely
She brings me to places I haven’t been
Before, other sides of far horizons
She is an unfortunate girl
She swallows rainbows
And when I put my head against her
Breasts, I hear music
Infatuation is a situation that maturation
Shows us must fail in the long run/bright sun
Of hard truth, Damien
You owe us the fruits of our sacrifices
Our turning away from worldly vices
To give you all the advantages and advice
That would carry you beyond beyond
It would be a terrible thing for you to
Surrender your life for some girl that I
Hate and I do hate her if she is going to
Ruin your life and after all you are my
Son and that has meaning. You have a life
And you just can’t leave it. You just
Can’t leave it lying in some gutter or some
Cheap hotel room with some girl who is no
Mystery, Damien, she is no mystery! The way those
People live. It’s just the opposite of how we
Live. Her mother’s life is just evil! Is that
What you want? Look at her history!
The screaming goes on
Goes on,
I shut out her voice, her words
But can’t escape
Their awful weight
He spoke to himself
Listened to his heart
Mumbled through the tears
Yes, she is the fruit that will
Sustain me and yes, she brings
A rain that I know can chill
But it is a rain so sweet and sings
A song my soul insists
That I follow, if I would exist
As more than I have ever, ever been
If my mother calls it evil, then I embrace the sin