RED BLACK & MOONLIGHT
@2000 Marguerite Laurent; Windows on Haiti special edition
a) Much like here b) Bwa Kayiman
e) Vodun Woman i) Rolling on j) Beyond 2004
l) Self-Defense
I’m in Port-au-Prince. It's April 1995 and there is this one U.S. hero-general always turning on the intimidation, striding about with his 20,000 U.S. troops, his show of force, his cultural biases, his imperial light eyes. Thank goodness i’m a dancer and knew how to do the pirouette. Thank goodness I was an athlete and know i’m the only one who can psych myself out. And one night in Haiti, i did just that. It's 3:00 a.m. in the morning. I am in my hotel room at the El Rancho, exhausted by the day's blazing heat, still trudging through these old Haitian laws. The tiny bed is laden with papers. I’m drafting a proposal for the Minister to try and get solid judicial infrastructures done, not just training of old judges who are about to get fired. That very afternoon i had spoken to someone who made a contact for me at the IDB. While i am thinking this might be a decent avenue, i fall asleep. The computer is still on. I dreamed i was five years old again - simply a baby bronze girlchild with big dark eyes, ashy knees, a love for the sea, chasing fireflies. I heard my childself. She was asking me a question.
Why did you come back here, she sighed. Couldn't you have just left me undisturbed in your memories, playing with dolls, chasing little green and brown lizards, eating mango and sugarcane, dancing up the road at that colorful Mardi Gras festival with the man on the tall stilts, enjoying the drumming rara bands passing by? Why did you come back here and stop my laughter?
I don't know why i said it. But in the dream i reassuringly told my childself that i came back because i remembered something. I remembered blood spurting, i told her. I remembered the first time i smashed my head on a rock. We were still living in Petionville, Mama was out of sight, last seen seated in front of her bedroom mirror, a gilded kwafe of finely carved cherry wood with those very ornate, hand-carved chest of drawers. Azibob, the Haitian carpenter next door, a friend of Papa's, had handmade it and sold it to us. While Mother was putting on perfume, powder and brushing her long loosened black hair, readying herself for bed, I snuck out, peeping to be sure no one saw me going up the road. I was following the drum sounds and music. When i reached the chalky rock boulder, i scrambled on top of it, scraping my bony knees and skinny legs. But on top there i could see the people on stilts, the vivid colors, the costumes, the drums, whistles and cavorting dancers. I was only five but i remember i was jumping around, dancing my butt off. Next minute i’m slipping down, falling off the boulder headfirst. Blood spurted everywhere. I was so scared, there was so much blood. I wasn't supposed to be out of bed. The pain was so fierce, i thought i was hemorrhaging on the inside. I got this scar on my right temple from that fall.
Oh yes!, my childself clapped, after i told her this disturbing story. I was there too, she grimaced. That first fall makes our big Diane Carol-Lynn Whitfield forehead even more prominently lopsided, huh? Doesn't it? We thank Granmèt la - the Master of Breath - for many things, most especially for bangs...... don't we?
And just as i was going to wake up from this weird dream, my childself pulled at my skirt in great agitation. Spend the night, she pleaded. Take back the key, she said mysteriously. Be cheerful, strong, remember? Nice, that's who you are.
I tenderly embraced her trembling form. Relax, little girl. I’ll keep you safe, happily jumping rope and playing jacks with rocks and marbles 'till eternity dawns. She slaps my arms away.
Go away, li kriye, I don't want to come to the place where you hear babies wailing for food, women routinely exploited, tortured and raped, people dying of malnourishment and curable diseases, or, imprisoned without any trial or defense. I want to play. Touch my duck, isn't he cute? Look at my green lizard, my jar of fireflies. Jar of yellow polka dot butterflies. Come on, let's play again together. Find your smile again, take off your shoes. Run barefoot with me in the rain, ok? Come on, pretty please, here's your favorite ice fresco.
I knew instinctually she was trying to get me to remember the time i had a sublime sense of fulfillment and self-confidence. But i couldn't lie to her, faking a cheeriness i could no longer reach. I can't, i said. Why? she said. Because we have to share this place now, i told her. She wasn't buying it. So i said to her: Don't be like that. I didn't come down memories' lane to hurt you. Right! Believe me. No, she hollered.
Trying to explain, i pointed at our suffering cousins. Listen, i came so that they wouldn't have to live like that anymore. I came so another five-year-old will get to laugh like you did.
Don't drag me out here with you, she said, finally pulling out of my grasp. I don't care about no other kid. Besides, nostalgia won't bring back lost innocence.
Listen, i said in a frantic tone: You'll have the tears i’ve lived trickling in our laughter, sifting across our heart, our minds....your innocence. Life gets like that when one lives long enough. But you'll be fine. Granmoun-yo, they'll make sure of it.
I don't want to think about some unknown kid with potential now positioned on the brink of obscurity. Leave me alone.
Listen.
Leave me alone, will you? This fear that you're heading towards mediocrity and disillusionment is messing with me. Don't you realize you can't save the world. It's not possible. You're not big enough.
This cannot be your final resting place yet. Even though i hate a pity party, i went back, i came back to Haiti to touch my own cultural source, my own innocence - the North Star's promises. And touch, maybe, hope in humankind - that most precious of intangible divinities. Faith, Hope and Invincibility, yesterday grabbed them from me. I can't set them free without my little girl innocence.... What is happening to our people, to the Abner Louimas, won't let me believe wholeheartedly again. Patrick Dorismond's mother, Amadou Diallo's mother, when I think of their experiences I hear things. Listen, that's a wail let loose from a woman who has lost her child to gun violence and status quo brutality. Do you hear what I hear? How it has no bottom to it. It's endless, scorching and unbounded by time....
I know you guys have heard lots about Elian Gonzalez. But i’m worried about my babies, the shipload of Haitian children no one cares about, being sent back without even a hearing. When i got to Port-au-Prince there was that one U.S. general always turning on the intimidation, there was the armies of U.S. military and government lawyers, the innuendoes, the sexism, but amidst all the political and economic complications and difficulties, amidst the legal technicalities, it is those people, the simple Haitian fathers, sons, mamas, sisterwomen, and babygirls, breaking sea chains, who held my attention.
My worst nightmare i think was to stare, do nothing for our people, lose my soul connections 'cause i joined Prozac-land's unfeeling throngs and cynics.
In the dream, the last thing my childself said to me was: What you want lives in the present, not in memory. You've got it already. Just see that!
Well, if i could SEE, i wouldn't be here writing these pieces, right? I wrote this piece, when i woke up:
BREAKING SEA CHAINS
I went back. I returned to Haiti so they would not have to leave like that again... I went so they would not have to leave like that again, but the American general, with eyes in his head like stones, said: When you goin' back to Connecticut?
See over there, staring at the stretch of watery grave ahead, a father trembles as he says goodbye to his papa and three young sons.
I want to go with you, I want to go with you, said his eldest son, pi gran la, mimicking what was just said by Granpapa.
You're too young, the father tells his eldest son. Take care of your mama, Sisterwoman, and Babygirl, TiSoeur. And Papa, you're too old. I’ll take care of things. I’ll break our chains, the father chokes, stepping onto the overloaded ship, losing his balance on a farewell salute, consumed by the crushing throng, the howling waves and the goodbye cries all around.
I went back so they would not have to leave like that again, but the American general, with eyes in his head like stones, said: When you goin' back to Connecticut?
It's been five years now, the father has long since fed the sharks. The sea was his bloody tomb. Granpapa died of a broken heart when he heard about his Number One son. Mama prays, Babygirl starves and Sisterwoman sells her body... to feed them... from time to time.
And today, Martin Luther King's day, the eldest son, stands on his father's faraway shore. He wants to break the chains. He doesn't know what to do. And he trembles as he says goodbye to his two younger brothers.
I want to go with you, I want to go with you, Brother Number Two heatedly tells pi gran la, the eldest one, mimicking what was just said by Lil' One.
You're too young Lil' One, says the eldest. And frè mwen, brother-mine, you must stay. Take care of Mamman-nou, Babygirl, TiSoeur, watch out for Sisterwoman and visit Granpapa's grave. I’ll break our chains, Brother Number One chokes, stepping onto the overloaded ship, losing his balance on a farewell salute, consumed by the crushing throng, the howling waves and the goodbye cries all around.
I went back so they would not have to leave like that again, but the American general, with eyes in his head like stones, said: When you goin' back to Connecticut?
That was yesterday. Two days 'fore Christmas, son Number One, premye pitit la, was interdicted, apprehended by the U.S. Coast Guard. And while the good public were lining up for the latest Tickle Me Elmo breakout toys, son Number One jumped overboard, drowning, 'stead of returning to the life of a curled up breathing stiff with no shoes.
Praying Mama died of a broken heart when she heard 'bout her eldest son. There was no more room left inside Mama to wrap up more pain 'n suffering 'n howling numbness. Husband gone, eldest son gone and young Sisterwoman's throat slashed by a customer not long ago.
Prone and quiet, Sisterwoman's body don't feed no one now. But in her living years, unwashed by the space that turns an ocean into a ditch, she crossed her own seas, was reborn in her own waters. She pushed the tide wide, alternating between suffering and expanding. She wouldn't yield. She was the too loud wave, beating it at its own game, too verse in the up and down motion's curves. She was too liquid to be swept away, too Black, too stacked, too electric, elastic, fertile, WOMAN... and assertive too. All that! Sisterwoman left her waterfalls - six babies behind. And today, Babygirl, TiSoeur, sells her body... to feed them... from time to time.
And the claws of another century unwind. Everlasting Brother Number Two, stands on his brother's faraway shore. He wants to break the chains. Mama dead, Papa dead, eldest brother dead, Sisterwoman dead, Granpapa's tomb full of memories' weeds - asylum, amnesty and justice denied his kind. And he trembles as he says goodbye to his youngest brother, Lil' One, who's in a jeep boogieing down those Martin and Malcolm Boulevards, intravenously taking in the cheap stuff.
I'll break our chains, Brother-Two chokes, stepping onto the overloaded ship, losing his balance on a farewell salute, consumed by the crushing throng, the howling waves and the goodbye cries all around. But just before the anchor is cut, just a second ago, Brother-Two saw Lil' One's gone too, street-fucked, splattered by gunfire, shot by that new U.S. trained cop, driving by in an ol' white U.N. truck. The streets was Lil' One's bloody tomb.
I went back so they would not have to leave like that again, but the American general, with eyes in his head like stones, said: When you goin' back to Connecticut?
And the Atlantic waves rattle on for more, obsessed with the taste of Africa's blood. It closes in, waiting for Everlasting Babysister's little ones.
Leap. Go on. Leap. LEAP! I’m Lil' One in a jeep and a hundred million other ones gone. Beep, beep, I haven't taken care of anyone. I want to break the chains. I don't know what to do. I’m dying too on this faraway shore's heaping stew.....where the Long Island debris is Sisterwoman's algae.
And the Atlantic rattles for more, obsessed with the taste of Mocha blood ever since Africa's Middle Passage's mud. It closes in, blasting our ruby flood to pieces, or to bougie blue.
And I do nothing. Do nothing 'cept...go back where I met the leering (imperial) eye, beached there, whistling back Dixie, himself suffused in Sisterwoman's algae, but saying: When you goin' back to Connecticut?~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ OK, y'all I’m trying not to be sedated by pain, overconsumption, rationality, Prozac or Eastern Zen. But I need my girl vision back.
Climb the years up to me, little girl. Come. Nothing can happen to you. You are engraved here, in my veins, always, and here in this quiet place, my heart, where my school-bought brain cannot reach. You are my out-breath. Come. I need you.
Granmoun-yo di, i’ll stay a caterpillar until i grow the emotional muscles to pull myself to that unknowable center over there. All i need to do, Grann says, is to get myself there to the center i’m pointing to over there. She says when i reach there, then i’ll meet a small connected-to-her-center Black girl and that young girl shall stamp her tiny feet and within nanoseconds all of today's manufactured social and economic skyscrapers will tremble. She says there i’ll meet too a small in-communion-with-his-center African boy with a red bandanna on his head. He will walk by and those skyscrapers will crumble. She's sure of it. I’m starting to believe it. The airborne scent tickles my nostrils.