I figured she knew all about Chinatown and Asian things. And I could tell that she liked me and wanted to get to know me better. So, I decided not to stick around down there. I would just bring her into my world to see how she reacts and handles that.
It was the end of February. The cold air made us move more swiftly. I saw the bright-orange powerful sun overpowering the light-blue sky, but throwing its heat to the other side of the world. I could see the cold air lingering around Akemi’s lips as she breathed in and out as if she was actually smoking a cigarette. But she wasn’t. I slowed down a bit and watched the way she moved. She turned to see what I was doing behind her, and smiled when she thought she knew. I picked up my step and she walked behind me from that afternoon into the night.
We hopped on the number six train from Chinatown to 125th Street in Harlem. From the look on her face, it seemed like everything she saw uptown was brand new.
First stop was the record store. I wanted to pick up a couple of joints. The owner of the shop was from South Africa. He had a cool vibe. So whenever I was in the area, I threw some business his way. When we walked in he was playing “Mbube” by Miriam Makeba. Akemi seemed to like it. Her head was rocking to the beat. Her little foot was tapping on the floor.
“Look around,” I told her and gestured with my arm.
The store owner switched the vibe and threw on Salt-N-Pepa, “The Show Stopper.”
When I was ready to go she had one record in her hand. It was Eric B. and Rakim, their first joint, “Eric B. Is President.” I flipped the album around in my hand, checking out the cover. Recently, I had heard that hot-ass joint rocking around my way on a tape. The beats were crazy and the rhymes just reminded me of my Brooklyn block and all of the characters, situations, and everyday happenings. I could understand how somebody who never lived around my way might buy this joint to make themselves feel like they was walking in my hood. But then again, really walking through my hood would be a reality check for anybody who didn’t live there.
I bought her Hot, Cool & Vicious, the Salt-N-Pepa album, and paid for everything else and we stepped.
I needed a line up. I took her to a barbershop where I had only got a cut two or three times before. I told her to sit down. She did, but within seconds she stood right back up. She preferred to look around. She might as well walk around staring at everything ’cause everybody in the shop was definitely staring at her!
As I’m getting my cut she’s watching me watching her through the mirror. Sometimes she would disappear from my sight because I had to hold my head still for the cut. The barber, with his back to her, asked me, “That’s you, man?” referring to Akemi. “That’s me,” I answered. “She’s different. But she’s baad,” the barber acknowledged.
That was something I had to get used to in this country—men commenting on the next man’s woman. Back home, this was a wrong move, unheard of. Out here in the U.S. this was common.
After he hit me up with a fresh cut, the brush, and the talcum powder, I paid and tipped the barber. When I turned around, Akemi was holding a handful of my hair in her palm.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, also gesturing with my hands. She just smiled. She opened her purse and dumped my hair inside a small, nicely crafted, embossed tin box she had with her for some reason. She closed the top on the box and dropped it into her purse.
She held up her finger as if to say, “Wait one minute.” She went into the bathroom and washed her hands with the door wide open.
In the Foot Locker she stood staring at the kids’ rack. Just like I thought. She purchased a kid-sized pair of white Nike Uptowns. I bought some dunks too.
It was bugged out being with her. There was almost no talking but a whole lot of eye contact and signaling.
On the street she grabbed my hand from behind to stop me from walking farther. She wanted to turn into the Mart, an indoor Black version of some of the outdoor flea markets in Chinatown.
She walked into each stall one by one, starting with the art stores, which were up front. There were several paintings of and by African Americans for sale. She flipped through each painting quickly then paused on a particular one. I watched her run her fingers slowly across the surface of one picture, feeling the texture the same way I would imagine a blind person would do.
In the jewelry stall she wanted her ears pierced. She bunched her hair up and held it with her hands so the woman could see her ears clearly. What captured me were her fingers. I noticed how on each of her natural fingernails she had one Japanese letter painted on in black. Each fingernail glistened as each letter was coated with a layer of clear polish.
The woman placed a dot on each of Akemi’s ears with a marker. Akemi gave me a glance. I knew she wanted me to hold her hair for her, so I did. It was soft and very long and felt good in my hands. Her face looked even prettier, her profile now not hidden by her hair. I stood looking at her neck.
She squinted when the jewelry gun pinched her piercings into place. Her eyes filled up with water but no tears fell down.
I tied her hair into a slipknot and left it that way. She seemed to like it. She rocked it that way for the rest of the night.
In the airbrush booth, she pulled her new Uptowns out of the Foot Locker bag and cracked open the box. She wanted her joints spray painted. She looked through the vendor’s art book for a sample of what kind of design she wanted him to put on her sneakers. After a while she couldn’t find one she liked. She pulled out her wallet and laid her cash on the counter. She picked up the airbrush gun to gesture that she wanted to paint them herself.
“Nah, she can’t do that,” the cat told me.
“Take your money. Let her try,” I said. “She’s an artist.”
She adjusted the nozzles and started painting her own sneakers. The designs she was making had thinner lines than the design samples the guy showed us. She got intricate with it. It only took seconds to see she was real nice with her hands. She used only one color, black. When she was through with one sneaker, the guy was asking me if she wanted a job. When she finished her second sneaker, the next customer was trying to get her to stay and do hers next.
Outside, the orange sun was replaced by the white moon. The blue sky gave in to the black night. There were very few stars shining in Harlem, yet there were a few trying to break through. It was clear and cold. The sidewalk vendors lined the whole of 125th Street. The people were still out walking, talking, dancing, and keeping it moving.
I was feeling hungry. We walked across Seventh Avenue. Akemi’s eyes searched the buildings, into the windows, empty lots, churches, and alleys. We ended up at a spot named The Jamaican Hot Pot. We sat down at a table in the small dining area there. I ordered chicken curry for her and stewed chicken for me.
In the men’s room I washed my hands and face. They didn’t look or seem dirty, but every New Yorker knows when you ride the trains and walk the New York City blocks, the dirt just accumulates. I brought a wet napkin back to our table and cleaned Akemi’s hands. Her fingers were slim and soft and relaxed into mine. She just sat watching me intensely.
When she first tasted the curry sauce, the scotch bonnet peppers made her eyes fill with water again. She ate some of the chicken and all of the cabbage and carrots.
While sipping on some carrot juice, she began to draw a picture on a white cloth napkin, using an unusual marker with a long point shaped like a paintbrush. After some strokes I was surprised how I could really see my own resemblance in her drawing.
She held the cloth up and drew a smile out of me. Then she laid the cloth out flat, went into her purse, and pulled out a thin-tipped red marker. In quick artistic strokes, she wrote in Japanese letters down the right side of the cloth.
“Mayonaka Hansamu,” she said, looking me dead in my eyes. I could feel her admiration pouring down all over me. It felt good. It relaxed me a bit and drew me in further.
The red Japanese letters against the white napkin looked wicked to me. I wanted to keep the
drawing, but she folded the cloth up and put it in her purse. By now I figured that’s where she kept most of her secrets.
I paid our bill. Yvonne, the Jamaican owner of the restaurant, gave me the mean look. I gave her an extra tip for the cloth Akemi took.
I’ll admit the whole while we were walking back down Seventh Avenue, I was thinking about myself. Here it was Saturday night and for the first time ever, I was on a date for self with a female. I knew it wasn’t supposed to be happening, but I made myself feel all right by staying in public places with her, not doing anything I or anyone could consider improper.
On 116th Street in Harlem, on the steps of Columbia University, I sat her down. It was a nice spot, especially at night. They kept bright white holiday lights on their maple and oak trees all year around. The bright lights lit up the inside courtyard. Students from all around the country and all around the world and New Yorkers moved back and forth and sideways, across the campus from building to building, some of them chilling on top of statues, some of them chilling behind statues, some of them seated to the side on the steps with their books piled up next to them. Others were gripping hot cups of coffee or buying hot cocoa or tea.
This was a place I came every now and then, because this was a place where my father had been and spent a lot of time studying and socializing. I would sit here alone sometimes, thinking of answers to my own questions first. Then I would think of what my father’s answers and suggestions would be. Sometimes I would wonder if I was standing in the same space where he had actually stood several years ago.
Akemi did not seem to mind our silent date. But now I really did have things I wanted to ask her. So I just started talking aloud to her as if she could understand me.
“How are you feeling right now and what are you thinking?” I asked her in English. She watched my lips. There was a pause. Then she started speaking to me in Japanese. Of course I couldn’t understand one word. I realized she didn’t understand my question either.
“So why did you watch me for three months before you finally said something?” I asked her. When I finished speaking, she began speaking Japanese again.
“What were you looking at anyway and why do you like me?” I asked her. Then she spoke Japanese again.
“Do you have a boyfriend? Have you ever been touched by a man?” I asked, feeling comfortable speaking this way to her only because I knew she couldn’t understand me. She said something else back to me in her language.
“What do you want anyway?” I asked her. She began laughing a little. Then she kept laughing a lot. Her shoulders were shaking. I started laughing too. I don’t know when I last laughed so hard. This shit is crazy, I thought to myself. But I like her. I like her a lot.
“Damn, I wish you could speak English,” I said, laughing and frustrated. She stood up and smiled deviously, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Speak Japanese!”
I stood up and pulled her by her hand. Her palms were soft like butter and warm.
Over at the vendor’s I brought her a Columbia University hooded sweatshirt. When I gave it to her she smiled like I had given her a brick of gold.
She went into her purse once more and came out with a folded shopping bag. As she opened up each square of the bag, I could see that it was made with beautiful decorated heavy paper, with gold twine for handles. I thought to myself how she seemed to be a female who plans and thinks ahead. Everything she wore and possessed, down to the smallest items, seemed to be carefully chosen. She paid close attention to details and preferred everything she wore, used, and surrounded herself with to be unique. It added to her elegance.
She placed the Columbia hoodie into her shopping bag.
At five minutes to ten, on a Queens corner, in a tree-lined residential neighborhood of medium-sized houses, we stood still in the dark. She was looking up at me. I was looking down at her. She stepped inside my leather jacket, standing close to my body but not touching.
I didn’t need my jacket no more, because in the cold air my body was consumed with heat. She reached up and touched my face like I was one of the African paintings whose texture she wanted to feel. Her fingers settled on my lips. I didn’t move. She pulled her hand back and stepped back a little.
I got mad at myself for hesitating. I picked up her bags, ready to carry them to her house for her. She held up her hand to gesture “no.” Gently, she took her bags back and started walking away.
I followed her instinctively. She turned back toward me and said, “Sayonara.” I knew that this word meant “good-bye.” I turned and headed back to catch my train to Brooklyn.
My body was hot in Queens, cold in Brooklyn, and warm inside my Umma’s apartment.
When I walked through the door my mother took one look at me and said, “You met a girl.”
I tried to play it off. It was crazy how she always just calmly stated the truth. She didn’t even bother to put it in the form of a question. It was like she already knew and didn’t need me to confirm or deny.
Stalling, I took off my jacket and loosened my laces, stepping out of my Nikes. No matter how long I delayed, I knew I could never escape Umma’s intuition. My seven-years-young sister laughed at how easily I was exposed.
“I met two girls,” I said, telling the truth but trying to throw her off.
“Which one of them made your face light up this way?” she asked.
“What about my face?” I dodged.
Umma smiled and stood staring. I knew no matter what I said, this conversation would end up meaning the world to her. She was clear and strong in her Islam, a Muslim woman of the highest degree. Umma never lowered her standards. She considered America “the land of women with no honor.”
So, I chose my words carefully.
“She just came to this country six months ago. She does not speak any English. I met her at work. We are friends,” I said to Umma, speaking only in Arabic. My sister Naja hung on every syllable, fully aware of Arabic and English.
“You are leaving some things out on purpose,” Umma said coolly and confidently.
“What things?” I dodged again.
“She is not a Muslim or you would have said that she was. She is very beautiful to you and that’s why the light is spilling out of your eyes. You three are friends for now, but you already know that one of the two girls is very special.”
I just hugged Umma instead of offering her my words. My sister wiggled her way in between us and that was okay too. It was late Saturday night. In our family embrace I said to Umma, “Akemi, her name is Akemi.” Umma repeated softly, “Akemi.”
Alone in my warm bedroom I dashed my window open to bring in a stream of cold air. As I did my pushups, voices from the streets below also came rushing through. My thoughts spanned from Umma to Akemi, from New York to the Sudan, from Islam to the unbelievers.
Surely I know who I am. Yet the reality is that I am living here. I am young. The niggas on the streets consider religion a trick and a weakness. The believers are seen as the duped and the hustled. The Holy Quran, which is the absolute law where I was born, is nothing more than unknown or useless poetry in the eyes and ears of American youth.
I already knew from listening to and observing these American chicks, they didn’t give a fuck about female honor. They fucked any random stranger who looked good to them and switched boyfriends like they changed their hairstyles. They definitely gave less than a fuck about marriage. It wasn’t even a consideration.
In the Quran I read an ayat1 in a sura2 that said, “Allah knows the count on your womb.” In Islam it mattered a lot if a woman laid down for a man, her relationship to him and under what circumstances. In the Quran it was forbidden for an unmarried female to lay with an unmarried male and vice versa. In the Quran every detail was written clear and simple for true believers to follow and limit themselves.
On the other hand, here in the United States, a man gets no respect unless he bangs and twists these females out, right away.
I consoled mys
elf, the difficult position I was in being from there, living here, remembering and believing, and over the years, seeing nothing outside of my little family that reflected my memories or beliefs.
13
GIRLS, GUNS, & FRIENDS
Guns and girls—I keep them separate. Ameer showed up to the dojo Monday night with Redbone on his arm. Me and Chris was looking at him sideways because as a rule, we didn’t bring spectators during our training. Even though every now and then there were times when I had no choice but to bring my little sister, Naja, I thought, or I should say me and Chris thought, Ameer’s move was a mistake. First off, since he turned twelve, Ameer been girl crazy. Me and Chris watched him act like he had fallen in forever love with about eighteen different females. The girls were all crazy about him too. So it was cool. But we knew from experience that he shouldn’t bring girls who we knew he was gonna break up with to any of our permanent hangouts. He already had a female named Sophia turn stalker on his ass. Shit with her got so serious, even Sensei had to step in.
Over the years, when any one of the three of us did anything wrong, we all got the pressure from Sensei the same as if we all had done the wrong thing together. Sensei told us in private that it wasn’t enough for us to master the fighting technique. We had to master our desires for women “before the women master you.”
I looked at Ameer all wrapped up with Redbone.
“Long weekend?” I joked. Me and Chris both laughed.
Our training takes a lot of concentration. Out on the floor we stretched and worked on katas and rollouts.
Later we sparred at Sensei’s demand. He kept the fight scenarios flipping like a quarterback calling out complicated plays. He never allowed us to get used to one sparring partner. I would be out on the floor sparring one opponent, next thing I knew I was surrounded by three more attackers. For half an hour I would be in the defending position. The next half hour I would be one of the attackers. Some of the fighters and students in our dojo were our age. Others were full-grown men. The challenge kept my blood pumping.