Virgin Soul (18 page)

O
utside of the Admissions Office I noticed a flyer about accelerated matriculation. I thought it might be one more way to help me graduate. I caught the end of the meeting at the Ecumenical Center across the street from the campus. Several guys from the Black Student Union were listening to a short brother in the uniform—SNCC overalls with the deep cuffs and chambray shirt. The cuffs looked a little ridiculous with his height.

“We need more black students admitted to State. These are the last days of this corrupt white world and its hold on people of color,” he said. “We're fighting racism, fascism, and imperialism.”

I couldn't keep quiet. “Do you know about the two percent rule?” He looked at me like I was high or something.

“Sister, I was on the Freedom Rides.” That was supposed to shut me up, like who was I to interrupt a student who had come back from the dead and politicized the whole campus.

“Yeah, and I could be wasting my time playing cards in the cafeteria. But I'm here instead.” I wasn't going to be cowed by him, even if he pulled movement rank.

“Oh yeah. Ever been chased down a country road by some shotgun crackers who whipped a cattle prod on your black ass? That's why I'm here.”

“I work in Admissions,” I said. “Two percent of the total enrollment has to be set aside for applicants who need preferential treatment. I've seen it in action for Dumb Debs and jocks.”

He looked at me like I had discovered uranium. I went on. “And no way do they have the grades to get in.”

“That's one of the key tasks sisters with skills can take care of—getting information from the man and passing it to the people,” he said.

Another brother said, “I suggest we try for forty students through special admit.”

I said, “Two percent of 18,000 equals 360, not 40.”

They all just sat there for a minute. I said, “Why not round it up to four hundred?”

One of the brothers said, “What it is, what it ain't, what it oughta be.” I had to go to class. I left as they were making open admissions for four hundred students a part of a letter to the president of the college.

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

T
he streetcar was so crowded late that afternoon I found myself pushed up against some doofus white boy from Lowell, the public preppie high school near State. I was looking out the window at the St. Francis Woods mansions, the rumbling of the streetcar wheels vibrating my nipples when the brother who had chaired the meeting approached me.

“Chandro-Imi, what it is,” his voice low and cool even with the din. “Your suggestion was very important.”

“Oh yeah? I didn't think it was that big a deal.”

“You got skills, like the sisters in SNCC.” He was cool, with his briefcase between his feet. “I like sisters with moxie.”

“Moxie? Like balls between my legs?”

“SNCC sisters teach literacy for voter registration, run the offices, deal with the press, take good care of brothers, and—” He paused for emphasis.

“And they shine your shoes too, right?” I said rolling my eyes. Him being a Rider impressed me big-time. But he wasn't going to lord it over me, like I was a sister-in-training.

“And,” he continued with a half smile, “they do all this because they know these are the last days.”

“As in the Last Days of Pompeii?”

“Yeah, only niggahs is Vesuvius.” He combined street with smart. I saw why he chaired the meeting. We'd gone through the Twin Peaks tunnel and come out at Market and Castro, with the Bank of America building rising angled out of the concrete sidewalk. I liked seeing it there every time I came out of the tunnel.

“Yeah. These are the white man's last days. The bourgies' last days too.” He let go of the strap.

“Hey,” he said, talking with his hands free. “It's over.”

I didn't want any of these things new to me to be over. But I nodded.

“Soon as I saw that you didn't waste your time playing nigger bridge, I knew you were a together sister,” he said. So he had been checking me out. I neglected to tell him I didn't play bid whist because I wasn't good at it. When I got off at DuBoce, I had company.

“Chandro-Imi. The name is Chandro-Imi. Rhymes with creamy.”

“Oh, not Imi as in gimme,” I chucked back.

“You definitely have edge,” he said.

Is this about dick?
I wondered. When we got to Divisadero, he turned to cross against the light. I thought,
Well, that's that. I'm not interested anyway. He'd probably try to tell me how to wipe my ass.
And he was short.

“You need to join Black Care.”

“What's that?” He moved away. I felt pulled in the same direction but resisted.

“The women's auxiliary to the BPP of Northern California.”

“Women's auxiliary? Like a Sistahs Junior League? Spare me,” I said.

“Don't close your mind so quick. We're talking about a violent revolution getting ready to go down. Sisters have to be prepared to take care of the brothers who get wounded.”

“I'm not Florence Nightingale.”

“I got something else for you to do then.” He stepped off the curb.

“What?” I felt anxious for him in traffic even though no cars were coming.

“Something you'd like.” He motioned his head toward the apartment building we had come to.

“Do I have to go up to your place to see it?”

“I'm not trying to hit on you. Hey, if that was the case, I'd be a lot more straightforward. I'm a simple man.”

“I don't know about you being simple,” I said. “That's not the first thing that comes to mind.”

“What does?”

“The cattle prods, for one thing.”

“Are you impressed?”

“Isn't that why you tell people?”

“What is this? A game to you?”

“Are we walking somewhere specific?” I countered. He pointed to the building across the street.

“My pad.”

I crossed Divisadero. Even though I was following him, I felt like Sacagawea, the Shoshone leading Lewis and Clark across the Rocky Mountains. I felt determined, strong, in control, as if I was taking a test I had studied hard for. We went into his building; he walked bowlegged, like a cowboy. He turned around and caught me sizing him.

“You walk like you have a Stetson on your head,” I said.

“Bet you didn't know I'm originally from Texas,” he said. “Beaumont.” Upstairs, his floors were shined and clean.

“Where's Beaumont?” I asked, passing a bedroom with an iron bedstead.

“Way back in the past.” He walked to a mirror at the end of the hall. “Come here.” I stood next to a chest he began rummaging through until he pulled out a sheaf of papers.

He looked at me in the mirror, then at himself. “To get rid of my Southern accent, I stood in front of the mirror when I was fourteen and repeated what I heard on TV.”

“TV?”

“Yeah. Everything came from LA except for local programs. I said everything the way I heard it.”

“I think Southern accents are beautiful. All the men on my father's side have deep Southern accents.” A black cat purred and walked down the hall. He stroked it.

“But you don't,” he said. “Your voice stands out.”

“Strong lungs.”

“I want you to check these out.” He handed me the sheaf of papers. “These poems by a sister from LA named Mali are cold.”

“I saw her in the Gallery Lounge. She's bad.”

“As bad as it gets. She's gonna be as bad as LeRoi.” He handed me a stack. “She's calling them
Urban Prescriptive.
I want you to read them.”

“And do a book report?” I felt relieved that he wasn't hitting on me, at least not directly.

“Read. In front of a microphone and a crowd. Like tomorrow at school.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead on.” That was all he wanted. I walked home, reading the poems out loud against traffic and honking horns. I had recited Rudyard Kipling and Robert Frost in junior high. But these poems were about black people loving and being together, fighting the system. In front of the medicine cabinet mirror, I read out loud. In bed, I read them out loud. I woke up in the middle of the night to read them out loud.

When I got up in the Poetry Center at school the next day to read, I knew I looked odd, with my double-breasted peacoat buttoned up. I had perspired so much I didn't want to raise my arms by mistake. I missed the first part of the program because I had a test in Psych. 151: Abnormal Psych: Minor Variations. Mali's phrases kept going through my head instead of the minor variations. As I approached the podium, Chandro-Imi said, “one of the baddest poets out there.” While I read, I tripped on how it would feel if he had said that about me. Everybody perked up, as if Mali's words were crushed ice hitting their faces. I took off the peacoat, because I was burning up. When I was done, the whole place clapped. I was a phantom falling gently out of anonymity.

I walked away glowing.

T
he next week, I read again in the Gallery Lounge, and Chandro-Imi started having me read, at different events, poems that Mali mailed him from LA. He also had his eye on Li-an. After I read, a guy approached me and introduced himself—Dillard. He was older, spare, not dressed in desi boots, khakis.

“Ali doesn't have squat on you. I can't get your voice reading poetry out of my head. It trips me out.” He was blasé instead of euphoric over Ali's victory over Ernie Terrell. He wore slacks, musk. Something about him was unconcealed, though I didn't know what it was.

“I liked the
never
poem. Liked you reading it.”

“Want me to read it for you right now?”

“You got it memorized?”

“After a few times, it's like the Pledge of Allegiance.”

He looked at his watch. “I have to make a run off campus. Keep me company?”

I looked at my watch even though I knew I was going with him. We got in a red '64 Karmann Ghia and drove out of the parking lot and over to Stonestown mall. He went into the post office and mailed a package he'd had on the floor of his car. I recited the poem as he drove back. It sounded entirely different.

you never existed

you never knew truth

you never made history

you never created wonders

you never built a pyramid

you never knew mythology

you never constructed temples

you never took part in civilization

you never conceived philosophies

you never carried your weight

you never were Egyptian

you never were a master

you never even existed

you never prospered

you never conquered

you never were

you never are

you never will

under

stand?

We parked in the same spot; he asked me to say it again while he got high; taking whiffs between stanzas, I said it a second time, swifter; I thought he was going to pull out another joint, for laughs; but he pulled out a bag of white powder; he asked me to take off his horn-rims and hold them; he used a tiny spoon to dip into the powder; he sniffed at the powder and ran it along his gums like snuff; he told me to sniff it too; I said, I hate stuff going up my nose; he said, I'll put it on your gums then; he put it along my gums like snuff; it felt like Novocaine; we started kissing; I was surprised that it was the middle of the day and the parking lot; we finished kissing as if a bell had gone off; we walked back to school; he asked me out; I asked him if the powder was cocaine; he started to laugh; I asked him, How often do you do it?; he said, as often as I want, baby; I gave him a fake number.

I thought not joining a sorority meant I was immune to rituals I didn't believe in. But I kept getting myself snared in initiation rites, even right up under my nose.

O
ne ritual I did love: Li-an, Xavi, and me at Xavi's studio late in the day making monster spaghetti and getting bombed. I loved going over Xavi's hashing out why insanity was insane. We pulled up the lines guys were giving us: “Forget every nigger who's ever gotten next to you, baby. They were preparation for the main course.”
 
”You will never ever forget me, no matter what.” “Is this shit deep enough for your fine black ass? Huh?” Li-an dispensed passion to brothers. She had enough passion to fuel each train that stopped, each puffing locomotive. I envied her, the jubilance she produced when each one came and went, greased by her firm buttocks.
She gitsta fuck i gitsa think about it.
I heard her wide heart fuel their hard cylinders.

“How come they all say the same stuff? Why do they talk so much shit?” Xavi asked.

“Don't they realize some things need to be forgotten?” Li-an said, pointing to the front window. “Like hippie dippies,” she said with disgust.

From time to time, hippies walked by. A couple of longhairs stopped to talk about scoring loud enough for us to hear.

“When their money runs out,” Li-an said, “they head straight for Western Union.”

“Runaways,” Xavi said. “They need to stay away.”

“Here's Chandro-Imi, Mr. Cool.” Li-an stood and gapped her legs, holding an imaginary dick. She made her voice masculine. “I gotta hold on or it might run away from me. Become a hippie dick.”

“You can laugh, but Chandro-Imi never tried to get over on me,” I said. “He told me I have an unusual voice. I think Chandro-Imi's for real.”

Li-an had been stirring chopped olives into the pot but stopped and said, “He told me he liked my eyes. He called them his lighthouses.”

“His?” I said.

“He didn't mean personally his. He meant for the people,” Li-an said.

Xavi spoke. “He told me I had honest calves. Calves that could move mountains.”

“Your calves? I don't believe it,” I said. “Is this his come-on? ‘I love your wide hip bones. They'll carry a heavy load one day.'”

“It may be corny, but at least he's not dogging around. I mean, did he come on to you, Li-an?” I asked. Li-an kept looking at the pot.

“Li-an,” Xavi asked, “are those olives swimming in the spaghetti?”

I went over and moved her jaw from left to right. “Say it, Li-an. Say: ‘No, the Negro has not got in my panties.'”

I couldn't make her head shake. Instead she nodded fast. We were stunned.

“How could you keep this a secret?” I said. She shrugged. “So every poem was his chance to get next to you. And I thought he had a purely platonic interest in us.”

Li-an spoke. “He does. In you.”

“All right, Pussy Galore. You'll pay for this.”

Xavi and I took the pot holders and poured the spaghetti into a serving bowl. The steam hit our faces and we locked eyes, got the same thought, and started laughing so hard we had to sit down.

“What's so funny?” Li-an said. “Spaghetti?”

“Not hardly,” Xavi said, getting forks and bowls out. “We heard you one night. That night we did our grocery shopping.”

“Was he over when we came back?” I asked. Li-an nodded.

“Xavi came in,” I said, “because she didn't feel like walking across Golden Gate Park by herself.”

Xavi mumbled, “I hate to hear sex. I think I'd rather watch than have to listen.” She began to imitate how they sounded.

“Do it, Geniece,” she said. “You make the sound better than I can.”

“I'm not making those crazy sounds,” I said. But Xavi was right. I mimicked the high-pitched damsel-in-distress moans and Xavi pulled up the gruff manly moan, the huff and puff. “And I'll blow your house down,” I bellowed, jumping up and down. Li-an didn't get offended. It was so ludicrous and we were loaded. We howled so that we didn't hear the knocking at the door.

Xavi opened the door to her landlady, a prim black woman who stood with a stern look. Xavi invited her in, a mistake; she might get a contact high. She refused, looking at us like we were hyenas. We were emitting little blips.

“Please quiet down. If I can hear you, people on the street must can hear you too.” She turned to walk upstairs grumbling out loud for us to hear. “A shame. Young ladies carrying on like hooligans. And where are your young men?”

We calmed down and cleaned out the pot. Xavi looked at the clock, her polite way of saying it was time for us to go home.

*   *   *

W
hen Li-an and I got back home later, I apologized. We were each in bed and our voices floated through our curtain.

“I'm sorry for embarrassing you,” I offered.

“No big deal,” she said. “I didn't know it sounded so funny.”

“It didn't sound funny when we were hearing it. It felt awkward, like if we didn't tiptoe, you'd know we were there. But once we got outside, Xavi started making your sound like Little Red Riding Hood and I made his sounds like the wolf.”

I started to fall off to sleep. “Chandro's a good man.”

“Are you falling for him?”

“Fell.”

“Have a happy landing.”