Love on The Ironhorse

We got to CBGB’s around nine that evening; a notoriously dingy hole of a club; every inch of the stonework walls covered with photographs of popular bands like Blondie, the Ramones, and the B-52’s, pasted cheek-to-chin with hundreds of lesser-knowns and unknowns, and all of it scribbled over with decades of graffiti messages like, hanky loves panky, run like hell, agents of the sun and the bar-bitch-u-ate. The stench of cigarettes and stale beer flooding my nostrils, we made our way to a rickety wooden table and sat down.

Just as Jesse jumped up to get us some drinks, I heard the thrum of an acoustic guitar and turned toward the stage. A young, Asian-looking, black woman in tight stone-washed jeans stood under the hazy lights, sensually gyrating her hips and thighs, and strumming away. Her arms were bare and finely sculpted; the biceps swelling and receding with the cadence of the music--a blend of blues, classical rock, and soulful funk with which she was so skillfully jazzing the air. A jewel gleamed in her navel. Her nipples, like pebbles, strained against the fabric of her T-shirt.

I felt the table wobble when Jess returned with our drinks. And I reached for my mine without looking; my eyes glued to the stage. 

“Man-oh-man, Cherokee,” (his high school nickname,) I blurted, “she’s good.”

“Who,” Jessie giggled, “ya mean Quinn?”

My eyes went wide. “Oh my God, Cherokee,” I croaked, “ya know her!?”
“Yeah,” he said, with another chuckle. “I’ll introduce ya after her set.”

Her set lasted for five songs, my eyes and ears hungrily devouring every second of it. Especially when she finished thanked the audience, and then pulled her tulip-red guitar strap over her magnificent swash of hair. A Mohawk-cut. Just like I had. Only hers was blessed with glorious, radiant curls that shimmered under the glow of stage lights. My knees betrayed me as I rose to my feet. I had to grab the table to steady myself before setting off for the bar at the back of the room. Before anything else, I needed another drink. It was all too much. That face! That body! That voice! That hair!

And just to think this lowly human being was about to meet her, was unimaginable. 

I took the drink from the bartender and made sure I got a good pull on it before heading back to where Cherokee and I were sitting. Just as I was settling back in at our table, there was Quinn, making her way over to where we were. Our eyes locked, as she neared and glided into the seat next to mine. So close, I could make out the beads of perspiration glistening in the curls of her Mohawk, and smell the China Musk, she was wearing. Her upper lip was arched in an ambiguous one-sided half grin.

My heart pounded.

“Quinn meet Dee,” Cherokee blurted. “Dee-Quinn.” 

We shook hands.

I hardly recognized my own voice when I squeaked, “I really enjoyed listening to your music.”

“Thanks,” she said a sweet smile now on her lips. “If you stick around for my next set, there’s a song I’d like to play, especially for you.”

Goose bumps sprouted on my arms.

I gave in to a sudden urge to look down at my shoes.

“Thank you,” I sputtered.

“Damn Girl,” Cherokee broke in, “your sound gets better every time I hear you!”

“I hope so,” she giggled. “I’m at the studio so often I barely remember what my place looks like.”

“Rumor has it that folks from Capital Records have been checking you out,” Cherokee announced.

“And until I get that record deal,” Quinn chuckled, glancing in my direction, “that’s all they are, friend; rumors.” 

I punctuated my timid silence with belts of my drink as the two old friends carried on like this for several more minutes: Cherokee pelting Quinn with flattery and Quinn fending it off with good-natured modesty. Yet, more often than not, her responses were delivered with solicitous side glances my way. Almost as if… But what on God’s green earth, I told myself, could this goddess possibly see in the likes of me? As I said before, it was just too much. Too much to dare hope, too much to try not to. Oh, ye of little faith, I imagined hearing my mother say, as she would whenever she heard me putting myself down. You’re leaping to conclusions. I cautioned myself. You need to get a grip. Step back. Get a little perspective. I excused myself, fled the table, and headed for the bathroom. 

In the lady’s room I stopped at the sink and dab water on my face to cool my rising fever. Cupping my palms, I sipped water as images of the lady filled my mind, I couldn’t do anything but drink her in. Her jet-black Mohawk curls, perfectly accentuating the almond shape of her eyes and enhancing her Afro-Asian features, gold G-clef earring swaying in her left ear animating her amber skin with dancing refracted light.

A goddess!

Quinn, as sure as Jesus wore sandals, mesmerized me with the hope that our little tryst in CBGB’s would be the beginning of something more. But the rational, more doubting, less confident part of me had already accepted that, a fine, black, Asian beauty like Quinn had only hooked up with an ugly goose like me for the convenience of the moment. I certainly never expected her to call me up just two days later and carry on about how much she had enjoyed it all and tell me she wanted to see me again the very next weekend. And I sure as hell never imagined she’d call again, just minutes after hanging up, to tell me she just couldn’t wait until next weekend; that she had to see me now.

She didn’t have to ask twice.

It was a fine enough Sunday afternoon. We met in Prospect Park, where we casually strolled the grounds, engaging in the stop and go, sometimes awkward, kind of conversation that people who have intimate feelings but know little about one another have. 

Quinn didn’t like talking about her early childhood. It wasn’t until weeks later that she let on that she was born in Vietnam, and that her father--a black soldier who had been stationed there at the time--brought her to the US from Saigon to live with him, his American wife and their two children in Maryland. Yet, she ached and longed for her Vietnamese mother and had nightmares about their separation. She has since heard that her mother was now living somewhere in Manhattan’s China Town, and has been on a relentless search for her ever since. 

I told her that I was at odds with my parents too. Being gay was not the problem at home. Getting high was. They worried for me and feared that my bad habits would have a negative influence on my younger brothers and sister. The one difference was that Quinn longed to live with her mother, I didn’t. I moved out when I was nineteen. 

There was no booze this time, just the two of us enjoying each other’s company. Yet, as we stopped at Carvels, and took turns licking each other’s cones, and later browsing a florist’s stand, where Quinn bought two roses and stuck one of them in each of our Mohawks. I was still haunted by the feeling that I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough for her.  Yet, this utterly romantic stroll, had me falling quicker than I believed I should for this chick. 

But it was the ride home that really did it. 

The D train was crowded. We couldn’t sit together. So, Quinn took a seat directly opposite and across the aisle. As soon as we got comfortable our eyes locked, I didn’t mean to stare. But I couldn’t not look at her. I was enchanted by one black curl, shaped like an upside-down question mark that drooped from her Mohawk and encircled her eyebrow, and I was delighted by the G-clef in her right ear and guitar in her left, both swaying with the cadence of the train.

She watched me. 

Satisfied that she had my attention, she relaxed her back against the seat as my eyes surveyed her plaid cotton shirt, where a few buttons had magically become undone, exposing her long pretty neck, abundant cleavage, and braless breasts, as the rocking train caused them to do a jig within.

She watched me.

As her eyes bore into mine, she drew a breath deep enough to make her cantaloupe-size bosoms leap from her shirt.

My lips twitched.

In the window beyond, the sun was going down, highlighting the twin peaks of her nipples in a fiery red orange.

My pussy throbbed.

A fog seemed to descend over the train. The voices of passengers, snatches of song from a boom box, drifted faintly to my ears, and the aroma of a marijuana cigarette perfumed the air. She watched me and crossed her legs, then, ever-so-gently, she let them gap, sending into my view the full crotch of her jean slacks, beneath which all the pleasures of heaven lingered.

I gasped.

She gazed at me and precipitously smiled—her unique smile, half shy, and half assured. I fell back against my seat. Dizzy! On edge and on fire! I was experiencing something I hadn’t before. It was thrilling. Yet at the same time uncomfortable. It was powerful, yet it made me feel weak. I turned away. 

The next stop is Parkside Avenue. Parkside is next, blared the loudspeaker. 

Without looking her way, and on shaky legs, I stood and moved towards the doors. I was grateful that the movement of the train and the horde of commuters camouflaged my unsteady sway, since we both knew that it was, she and not the train that had seriously rocked my boat.

Quinn rose and followed.

As the train pulled into the station, she pushed up close behind me and pressed her cantaloupes into my back and planted one Timberland boot firmly on the right side of me, the other on my left, and wrapped her arms about my waist.

“Oh God,” I moaned.

Faith was beginning to replace my doubts. As my juices flowed, I was excited to see the magic that was about to unfold. And suddenly, I knew that my flaws were perfect for the woman who was sent to love me.

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Excerpt from Hairalujah, O’labumi’s forthcoming memoir. Contact O’la for publication information.
Photo courtesy of ©Tasha A.F. Lemley.

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Dragon Della

My mother would get mad whenever I slipped up and used the words “good hair” or “bad hair” around her. But as I strode into the schoolyard of PS 138 that Monday, head held high, there was no denying that it was my good hair making all the difference. I’d already earned compliments from a couple of the girls. And as Jean-Marie and I began untangling a jump rope for a game of Double Dutch, some of the boys threw me compliments too. 

I was new to public school. I’d spent my first four years of elementary education at Our Lady of Victory on Throop Avenue. But when my brother Dana came along, it put a strain on the household budget. So, PS 138 it was. 

“There’s no such thing as good or bad hair!” mama would argue. “People just have different grades.” 

But I could see the difference in the way people treated nappy-headed folk like me, and how they treated those with long, silky locks. 

There were four of us in the game; Jean-Marie, Cynthia, Shirley, and me…

All 5th-graders. We had become fast friends in the school yard because the four of us loved double-dutch and four is the perfect number to play it:

two long jump ropes being turned in opposite directions by two girls, while another girl-- and sometimes two or more depending on the game--jumped the ropes.                        

“Why do me and Shirley have to turn?” Cynthia complained through the wad of Bazooka she was chewing. She’d been wearing the same braids for two weeks, I noticed.

They looked like a thick nest sprouting from the top of her skull. One sad braid with a lavender bow attached to it flopped around on the top of her head, when she ran, like a broken bird wing.                         

“It ain’t fair,” Shirley, her companion in crime chimed in.

We called her Beaver because of her bulging front teeth, and hair that resembled a pile of twigs, like a beaver’s dam. Bad hair. The both of them.

“Well, since me and Dorian untangled the rope,” Jean shot

back, “it’s only fair that you two turn it.”

As usual, Jean’s hair was flawless; the braids parted with such precision it looked as if they’d been split with a razor instead of a comb. Except for her darker skin, she reminded me of Sherry Alberoni, one of the Mouseketeers on the Mickey Mouse TV show. Jean never had to spend her money or beg for chips and treats at recess.

Kids just gave them to her. And the white teachers never complained when they asked us to line up in alphabetical order and Jean maneuvered her way up to the front of the line. They never scolded her about it like they did when it was one of us. No sir, Jean-Marie Ingram got the real princess treatment at PS 138 because she had what most of us didn’t and that was GOOD HAIR.

I had envied and admired her since the day we met.           2     

But now things had changed.

It had taken me weeks to convince my mother. I recited all my achievements; reminded her of all my good report cards, and pointed out that in another year I’d be in junior high school and certainly too old to be wearing the same old bows, braids and plastic clips I had worn my entire childhood. I begged. I argued. I even spilled a few tears, before Mama finally agreed to let me have my hair restyled.

Now, my dark brown locks were shiny twists, gathered into pig-tails with rubber bands, so that they hung down like thick, straight, strands; each adorned with beads of gold on the ends. I felt regal, like Princess Badroulbadour, the Duchess from the Far East who married Aladdin. She was my favorite fairy tale princess because, unlike Thumbelina, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and the rest, Badroulbadour was brown like me. And now not only did my hair resemble hers, but as I stepped up to the twin ropes that Shirley and Cynthia were turning, my gold-studded hairdo put me right up there with Jean and her good-hair friends.

Into the sweep of the rotating ropes, I leapt.

My eyes sharp…

My grin wide…

This was MY time to shine!

I hopped on one foot for a few beats, then switched into a skip. 

GO DEE GO, GO! GO DEE, GO,

the kids in the schoolyard began to chant.  I went into a “hands-free” jump, my arms crisscrossed behind my back.

…GO, DEE, GO! GO, DEE, GO!                                  

I moved into a scissor jump, one leg forward, then the next; crouched down to my knees, and jumped a fancy-foot- formation. Mirror, mirror on the wall, I told myself as I crouched down to my knees. …GO, DEE, GO! GO, DEE, GO! I’m the fairest of them all!

Next, I angled my body back towards the middle of the rope, closed my eyes, and held my breath. I planned to do the toe-to-toe hop next, which had taken me most of the summer to master. I took my time, slowed my steps, and concentrated, wanting to make sure I’d pull it off. But at the last second, just as I was pointing my toes, the rope collapsed.

I whipped my head around to Shirley, holding the rope. Jean was there beside her, pursing her lips in my direction, trying to indicate something. I took it for a kiss. This must REALLY be my shining moment!

Exasperated, Jean pulled the rope from Shirley’s hand, slapped it against my legs, and whispered, “Behind you.” My eyes scanned the schoolyard, searched out those meddlesome boys who often got their jollies by ruining our fun, and proceeded to give them a piece of my mind.

“You ass—“was as far as I got.

“—You the ass,” someone snarled.

There, not trying in the least to hide the fact that it was her who 4 did it, with one end of the jump rope still in her mitts, was Dragon Della. We called her that because she was the only one in our fifth grade class who could blow long streams of cigarette smoke without coughing or choking.

Her real name was Leanna, and she was the class bully. In the short time I’d been here, she has stolen erasers and pencil cases, and has stuffed wads of trash into the obsolete ink bottle holes in our desks. She’s gone in the closet, when no one was watching,and pulled all the nicest coats and hats from their hooks and left them on the floor. Just a week ago, she rammed the lunch line, knocking me and a few other kids to our knees.

Now, here she was, standing right in front of me, jump rope in her hand, a sour look on her face.

“You look like Bozo the Clown, she said, “wit’ all them beads in yo head and them stupid red shoes.” Her light skin, combined with the slant of her eyes made her look Chinese, which certainly fit into the dragon motif. She would have been cute, actually, if it wasn’t for her hair. It was wooly and shorter than my pinky toe. And no matter how much she brushed, the shit stood on her head like fresh cut grass. Bad Hair.

“Let go of the rope Leanna.” I screamed.

“Make me, Bozo Head,” she yelled, giving me a shove.

Kids closed in around us. A moment ago it had been GO, DEE, GO! GO, DEE, GO! Now the chant was FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!            

5 “NO!” I protested, “I’m not going to fight.”        

“She pushed you Dorian,” Jean hollered, “push her back!”

The crowd murmured their agreement.

   “No,” I repeated. Louder. “I can’t. Dr. King said not to fight      and to love our enemies.” I had gotten this from Sister Garret at Our Lady of Victory, and I had taken the words to heart. So when I said it, it came out with such authority that mouths gaped, eyebrows arched, and the yard went silent. For a moment everyone just stared at me reverently; as if I was the great Dr. King himself.

But Dragon Della quickly broke the spell.

“So,” she smirked, “If I step on your Bozo shoes right now you won’t hit me?”

“No.” I uttered.

“What if I punch you in that Bozo nose? You ain’t gonna hit back?”

“No,” I repeated. A whispered croak this time.

“OK.” She shrugged and then did the unthinkable. She grabbed two hands full of my beads and twists and yanked them violently downward, as if she were slamming the lid on a coffin. In my pain and fury, I swung my arms like a windmill hoping to grab her hair. But, I couldn’t get a grip on her mess because it was itty-bitty and greasy. She swung back. I yanked at her clothing, as her punches landed hard on my gut and chest, but only managed to grab air.

I was able to protect my face from being punched or scratched by  6  keeping my head down, but the dragon had a steely clutch on my locks. I screamed as she yanked my head left and then right, my tears blurring the beads from my hair into mere gold specks, as they hit the ground.

Then, in the distance, I heard the sound of a whistle, followed by Dean Walzman’s familiar voice, demanding to Break it up! just as Dragon Della’s knuckles finally connected with my face. I was grateful to feel the arms of an adult as they pried us apart, Della kicking and hissing Lemme go lemme go all the way.

“Enough, Smart-tard!” The Dean yelled in her direction.

Dragon Della wilted.

Smart-tard was one of Ms Walzman’s trademark expressions. We didn’t know if she was calling us smart or retarded when she used it. But we did know she scared the crap out of us. 

I cried all the way to the Dean’s office.

I cried the whole time I sat there.

“Leanna can’t hurt you now. She’s in the room down the hall,” Dean Walzman protested, “so stop crying.” But, I cried when I went back to class. And, after school, I cried the whole six blocks home. When I took out my key to open the door, I heard something drop and looked down. A single, gold-gilded pellet winked at me from the ground.

…Leanna can’t hurt you now.

Dean Walzman just didn’t get it.                          

[READ MORE IN ISSUE #1 OF THEREAFTER]

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Excerpt from Hairalujah, O’labumi’s forthcoming memoir. Contact O’la for publication information.
Photo courtesy of ©Tasha A.F. Lemley.

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