Vida was a half-hour early for the poetry reading. She
wanted to settle in and make sure her heart rate was stable before it was her
turn to get on the mic.
A dozen patrons, mostly women, sat in metal-backed chairs
or lounged by the espresso bar. They didn’t look in her direction. No matter
what their economic background or education, Vida noticed that black women
barely spoke to each other in LA. They regarded her timid salutations with mistrustful
glances, terse replies or downright silence. They eyed her hair to see if it
was real, scrutinized her Coach bag to see if it was authentic or a knockoff
from the Fashion District. She spoke to no one.
Mari was leaning on the tiny stage talking to the
musicians, her back to the audience. When she turned around, Vida bit the
inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. Her friend was always in costume. Her
twists were pulled back in a taffeta head wrap and she wore huge gold earrings
that dangled to her shoulders. She almost tripped over her flowing African
print dress as she strolled regally over to Vida. When they embraced, Vida
caught a whiff of patchouli, the fragrance of choice for the poetry set.
“Blessings
my sister.” She looked at the Nikki Giovanni book in Vida’s hands. “Read
as much as you want. It’s only going to be me, you and John on the mic.”
As Vida scanned the coffeehouse, Mari chimed in, “I don’t
know what John looks like, but he’ll be the only non-black face in the room, so
it won’t be hard to spot him.”
A gap-toothed drummer called to Mari, and she excused
herself. Vida glanced around the small candle-lit room. Indigo walls were
adorned with posters of Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and African art. The hiss
of the espresso machine and the smell of coffee beans were driving her crazy.
She craved a mocha with steamed soymilk, but she
didn’t want the caffeine to make her heart race and send her back to the
emergency room. Vida selected a table by the window and opened her book. She
always had a feeling of safety sitting near the exit.
Halfway through her second reading of “Woman,” the door
opened, and the night breeze creased her pages. Vida glanced up, mildly
annoyed. A cute Italian guy strolled in, taking off his Sixers
cap to reveal spiky-smooth hair. He stared up at the stage, then down at her.
“You here for the open mic?”
Vida nodded. She checked his accent, thinking, I was
wrong about him being Italian. Baby boy is definitely an ese.
The
guy looked at his watch. “There was hella traffic on
the drive out here. Guess I’m running on CP time.”
Vida joined in with his laughter, but her annoyance
intensified. She wasn’t in the mood to indulge his esoteric references to black culture. She just wanted to read her poem and head
back to the Valley.
Unasked, the man pulled out a chair. He lifted her book
to check the cover and then grinned, showing strong white teeth. “You get props
for reading Nikki. She’s one of my favorite poets.”
Against her will, Vida smiled. “I’ve loved her since high
school. She’s totally unpretentious. She really bares
her soul.”
There was a rustling movement at her elbow. She looked up
into the sweating face of Mari.
“John?”
“Whattup, Sapphire? I’m glad we
finally hooked up.”
“I see you met my girl Vida.”
He flashed a crooked grin. “Almost.
We were both professing a mutual respect for the gifted Nikki Giovanni.”
“Yeah, big ups to the Black Arts
movement.
Well, let’s get this party started. I’ll read first, then
you, Vida, and John can close out the set. We need to finish up by ten because
the band has a gig in
As Mari hurried back over to the stage, the Mexican
extended his hand to Vida.
“We haven’t been formally introduced. John
Marques.”
Tentatively, Vida grasped his fingers. “Vida Donnevan.”
“Life-giver. I dig that.”
When she cocked her head,
puzzled, he said, “I’m just hooked on semantics. Looking for
meaning in everything. Your name means life-giver. Well, it could mean
life-giver, etymologically speaking. Vida
is Spanish for ‘life,’ and donner means ‘to give’ in French. A ‘giver
of life.’”
“So you’re trilingual?”
“Not hardly. I picked up the Spanish from my
pops, and a little French from my moms. Very little.”
John turned to the stage as Mari took the mic. He listened to her ode to thick thighs for a minute, then faced Vida. “I’m glad I hooked up with Sapphire. I’ve
been out of the spoken word scene for awhile. It’s good to be home.”
“Where were you?”
“Church.”
“Are they mutually exclusive?”
John smiled wryly. “No. I just swapped one clique for
another.”
He was quiet for a moment, then he said, “You been
performing long?”
Something about his probing glance and the cadence in his
speech, that iambic pentameter swirled with street flavor, made her nervous.
She fidgeted in her chair.
“I’m not an ‘artist.’ I’m just helping out Mar—Sapphire.”
John flashed his big teeth. When he smiled, his lips
disappeared. “It’s all about community, you know? Coalition
building. We have to empower each other.”
Vida sighed inwardly. Just her luck, a Latino Black
Panther had chosen her table. Now she would be expected to engage in a tirade
about unity and interlocking systems of oppression.
She gazed into John’s greenish-brown eyes and thought she
recognized him. He was the Mexican who idled next to her SUV
at the stoplight in his used red Honda, rap music blasting through speakers so
worn, the lyrics were barely intelligible. In the summertime, he wore Dickies and a herringbone necklace above a thatch of thick
black hair that sprouted from the border of his white wife beater. His speech
was shot through with hip-hop slang as he high-fived
with the brothers at the liquor stores and pool halls, rallying them to fight
the power or register to vote. His breath smelled of carne asada
as he spoke rapid-fire Spanish to his homeboys at the
Faintly, Vida heard her name called. She rose as if on
legs that didn’t belong to her. Grabbing her book, she walked to the stage,
feeling John’s eyes on her back. Why did I put on these jeans? she moaned to herself. They really make me look like I have
a flat butt. I wonder if John wonders why I have no hips for a black woman.
Warily,
Vida approached the mic. She needed to think of a
witty preamble the way most poets did to segue into their pieces, something
clever to show that she was hip and enlightened.
“I’m not really a poet,” she began.
“No disclaimer. No disclaimer.” John spoke up from the
back of the room, smiling.
Vida smiled back, grateful for the distraction. “But I
love good poetry. Since I can’t write any, I thought I’d let Nikki Giovanni
speak for me.”
Taking a deep breath, she began: “She wanted to be a
blade of grass amid the fields/but he wouldn’t agree to be the dandelion…”
Vida glanced up and caught John’s gaze. Hazel eyes held
brown ones. His chin rested on his palms, as if her words were sustaining him.
Self-conscious, Vida reached up to rub her temple and paused at a pimple that
was developing there. She realized in horror that she was wearing no makeup.
Cursing Demetra, she continued reading. How was she
was ever going to get through all those paragraphs without passing out?
“…she decided to become a woman/and though he still
refused to be a man/she decided it was all right.”
When
she closed the book, the audience clapped and hooted as if she had chanted an
original piece. Sisterhood had thawed the unspoken hostility in the room. Vida
bowed briefly, trying not to look too rushed as she made her way back to her
table. She needed to get some air.
As she stuffed the book into her Coach bag, John put his
hand on her wrist. “I know you’re not going to be a poetry whore.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Read and run. You can’t dip out before you hear the
other poets.”
Vida looked wistfully toward the door, then back at John.
She had almost made it. “I really have to head back to the Valley. I’m tired.”
He twisted his lips in disbelief. “Tired? It’s only
Sighing, Vida plopped into her chair. “Okay. No whoring
tonight.” She gave a tiny smile.
John sauntered to the stage as if he owned it. Rubbing
his hands together, he said, “Nikki Giovanni’s always a hard act to follow.”
When the audience stopped tittering, he continued, “But I think this is
something she might be proud of. A tribute to strong
sisters.”
He is going to be sooo corny.
Vida groaned to herself, embarrassed for the little Mexican. He’s trying too
hard to act like he’s black.
“Like Zora observed/She be the
mule of the world/A burro burdened by his story/Saddled with the weight of
society/While trying to be more than the eye can see/No shrinking violet
she/Can stand on her own two/Don’t think that she can’t argue—”
Finger snaps resounded throughout the dimly-lit cafe.
Vida felt her hand climbing to her neck and fought off the urge to check her
heart rate. There was a fluttering in her chest like the wings of a small bird
in panic trying to escape. But this was a different feeling than the terror
that sent her racing to the ER. She fidgeted in her chair as if she could
silence the bird trapped in her bosom.
“—or put heads in check/In any dialect/Ebonics or
academic rhetoric/Fingers that wring wetness out of cotton sweaters /Once picked
cotton for rednecks/Her beauty’s effortless/From caramel coated to russet
complexion/Pales in comparison to no one/Yet she still struggles on this
journey/Saddled with the weight of society/While trying to be more than the eye
can see …”
John
gestured as he recited, plucking words out of the air. Vida noticed how gentle
and beckoning his fingers were, like an evangelist. Even after what came later,
she would always remember the kind arc of his hands.