Grasping a warm cup of tea sipping on my sorrows, travelling deep into sadness, tumbling
towards a dark chamber of depression brought about by the recent passing of my
beloved sister, I was moved from beneath my schlep-rock cloud and drawn outside
onto my sunshine filled balcony, curious of the raucous I suddenly heard outside, “whooooaaaah!” followed by a whole lot of cheering and oohing and then, “Fight fight, let ‘em fight!” As I stood in the doorway of my balcony I saw a group of raggedy rug rats, a pack of neighborhood bad news bears who had leaked out onto the sidewalk from the park, cheering two girls on as they fought. The scuffle between the girls was swift and appeared to be just that, a scuffle. I took a deep breath hoping that they had exhausted their teenage rage until I heard the ringleader/promoter of the event, a rotund dusty little boy with a red t-shirt on, who was also the self-proclaimed
referee yell, “Alright, that was round one!”
What? Round one? They gotta be kidding me? As the two lady scrappers and the surrounding
audience of 15 or so rascals moved in front of the beautiful Brooklyn Children’s
Museum, which resembles a bright yellow submarine with colorful windows full of
children’s décor, both of the girls’ loud mouthing wolf tickets turned into round two in a split second, only this time it spilled out into the middle of the street. “Ooooohhhh!” the kids yelled as the fat little red shirt promoter jumped with adrenaline-filled joy and exclaimed, “Yeah, round two, round two y’all, yeah boy!”
I thought to myself, this is going to go on until the cops come and one of these lil’ gremlins get arrested or seriously hurt. They looked to be young adolescents, no more than 14 and not a day older; pre-pubescent Brooklyn scrappers. The oncoming beeping cars slowly swerved around the sloppy human boxing ring which prompted lil’ don king to exclaim, “Move out the street, y’all!” and subsequently interrupted round two. Thank God! At this point I am mentally juggling with: do I go down there now? I damn sure don’t feel like putting on my Sista Liza teacher cape, shit I’m
depressed, it’s all about me now! All of this ran through my mind while I secretly
hoped they would get tired and just stop; Stop acting up and fighting in the street so I don’t have to do what my spirit was pulling on me to do, dammit. Then I heard the ringleader exclaim “Round three, let’s go, round three!” Damn these fucking rug rat baad ass kids, shit! I fussed to myself as I ran out the apartment with just a rag on my head, a musty aint-took-a-shower-yet t-shirt (no bra), lint and cat haired raggedy leggings and threw on my silver crystal Stuart Weitzman Dorothy-from-the-Wizard-of-Oz ballerina slippers only because they provided the fastest access. I looked
crazy indeed, but my shoes were fabulous (sidebar). I took my keys and tucked them into my waistband but by the time I ran down two flights of stairs and hustled my ass outside, the keys had slipped down to my ankles. Keys be damned, my cape was on and I was in full throttle Sista Liza mode.
I swiftly walked directly into the middle of the cheering audience of teenage mutant Beybey’s kids, who quickly looked at me with big saucer “who’s this lady” eyes. The speed and intention with my gait caught them off guard, since several other adults had previously walked by, ignoring the un-ignorable, merely shaking their heads in disgust. I walked towards the pack of chuck-e-cheese children like I knew them, ALL eyes on me.
The two girls scrapping had the claw clamp on each other’s weave with their heads down
and both arms stretched out with a two fisted grip on their opponents sewn-in synthetic hair. They weren’t swinging, they couldn’t; they were grip-locked, turning in a circle like two Siamese twins conjoined by the head moving like a windmill.
“No No, we not gonna have this,” I said walking directly into the hornet’s nest, “Y’all
too pretty to be out here fighting, no no.” I said this as I gently put my hand on their backs and began to slowly rub while repeating, “Ya’ll too pretty for this, let her hair go baby, come on, let her hair go.”
The dusty lil’ promoter, outdone that his tournament and show was being foiled, yelled, “Let ‘em
fight miss!”
“I most certainly am not, no no,” I sternly replied as I continued to rub their backs and tried to gently grab the fingers of one of the girls to loosen her grip. Just then two little girls in the audience came to my assistance and began helping me unclench their grip. They saw I wasn’t an enemy; I came with loving authority instead of abrasive confrontation, and they responded by
following my lead…and listened. Whew!
The two scrappers became unhinged but not without one of the scrappers pulling the shirt halfway off of the other scrapper exposing her bra…the ultimate diss and highlight for the boys to hopefully get to see a little titty. As she fixed her bra and pulled her shirt down I followed her over on the side walk where she stood by herself, back facing the raucous crowd. She was clearly the outsider. The other scrapper walked away with much of the crowd following her while they recounted the details of the fight, replaying the highlights as if she wasn’t there. She was clearly the crowd
favorite.
“Baby, you are too pretty to be out here fighting, look at you, pretty as you wanna be,” I said attempting to gain entry to calm this child down and see her to safety. I continued, “Don’t be the entertainment for the crowd, them lil’ boys might as well have been watching a basketball game, and you and that girl was nothing but their entertainment. I bet y’all might not have even been fighting if there wasn’t a crowd.”
Her eyes had a look of relief; a look of feeling somewhat safe with me nearby, “We was gonna stop after the first time but they kept saying round two and stuff so we had to keep fighting,” she said as her eyes went from looking at me to looking back at the crowd, to looking at me, eyes
unsettled. Just then a few of the chuck-e-cheesers came over to me and the unidentified scrapper, curious about what we were talking about and to see just who the hell I was. Two little girls and two little boys including lil’ don king, came sniffing around. I went into teacher mode and raised my tone just under yelling, “Y’all out here fighting is not good, all ya’ll pretty little girls need to settle y’alls beef one-on-one without a crowd, cause all y’all doing is providing entertainment for the group,” and I glared at lil’ don king, “and you were the main one egging them on, instigating, and that’s not right, brotha, that’s not right.”
As if he was in school getting chastised by the principal, he immediately got defensive and exposed his little boy self as he sucked his teeth and exclaimed, “It wasn’t just me! Everybody was saying stuff! See there, why you saying it was just me when it was everybody!”
“Because you were the main one I heard, talking bout round one, round two, I heard you,”
I shot back.
“So! It wasn’t just me though! See there, that’s not right miss! Why you blaming me?”
“All y’all is wrong for letting them fight, everybody out here is wrong,” I said to avoid getting into a one-on-one debate with the promoter who clearly wanted special attention.
Just then little boy number two, the promoters hype man, chimed in, “If they want to fight we gonna let them fight, we can’t stop that.”
I turned to the girls, “See, what I’m talking about? Whoever hypes y’all up is not your friend, they just want a show to be entertained for the afternoon. Friends don’t let friends fight.”
Smarty pants hype boy retorts, “Miss we don’t want to hear all that preaching!”
I snapped on his little dusty butt, “Well go on down the street with your friends, but imma say what I want to say because I’m an adult and if you don’t want to hear what I have to say you certainly don’t have to stand here.”
He scooted off mumbling something inaudible like, “Forget her man, come on,” to lil’ don king, who rolled his eyes and walked away.
The remaining two little girls, wearing plaid skirts, attempted to console the lil’ scrapper, “You alright girl? I was standing right there making sure nobody else jumped in.”
Seeing right through their disingenuous and absurd attempt to make it seem like they were her friends and on her side, lil’ miss scrapper sucked her teeth and barked, “Whatever.” Homegirl was not feeling them. The phoney girls looked offended that lil’ scapper didn’t play along and they scoffed, “Fine, we was trynna be nice, whatever then”, and they sucked their teeth and twisted off.
By this time a cop car and patty wagon pulled up; someone on the block must have called. I told the little girls not to run and they calmly walked away, but the lil’ rug rat boys immediately ran upon seeing the cop car for it clearly triggered their Black Boys in America survival instinct. The
po-po cruised down the block, slowing down in front of me. I looked at them, they looked at me, and I continued talking to the lil’ scrapper, silently indicating to the cops that things were under control, a reasonable adult was on the scene. That seemed to suffice as they pulled off.
“See”, I said, “the cops were coming to lock all y’all up and trust me you don’t want to go to
Rikers, I work there sweetheart and you do not want to be up in that place, trust me when I tell you.”
Like a child trying to argue the absurd she naively said, “Well they wouldn’t have got all of us because we woulda ran.”
“All they need is a couple, and you would have been one of them, trust me sweetheart,” I assured her as I cocked my head to the side for emphasis.
I noticed the group lingering at the corner not quite sure where to go since they were hyped up with excitement and not sure what to do now, since the fight-show ended early. I told lil’ scrapper to walk in the opposite direction of the crowd gathered down at the corner of St. Marks and Brooklyn.
“But that’s the direction I need to get home” she pleaded, not making any logical sense.
“Well today you’re taking a different route because I don’t want you walking in the same direction of trouble.”
“But that’s the long way and imma get in trouble if I get home late,” she nonsensically pleaded.
I said, “So call your mother and let me speak to her and I’ll tell her why you’re going to be a little late”. Like an obedient child in the principal’s office she dialed
her mother on the cell phone. “Mommy… I got into a fight…over on St. Marks…but ma…” and she passed me the phone mid-sentence to avoid her mother’s tongue lashing for the moment.
I took the phone, “Hi, my name is Ms. Peterson and I live on the block, over here on St. Marks, and your daughter was out here fighting and I broke it up and told her to walk in the
opposite direction of the other kids, so she might get home a lil’ later because I told her to take the long way…….I don’t know who she was fighting Miss, in fact I don’t even know your daughter,
I just happen to live on the block and heard the kids out here screaming and carrying on, so I came running out the house to break up the fight because I can’t stand to see kids fight……you’re quite welcome,” I said as I handed lil’ scrapper back to her mother. Though her mother was inaudible and sounded like the grown-ups on Charlie Brown, just by
the tone I knew mother was laying her daughter out. Lil’ scrapper desperately tried to get a word in “We fought three rounds, I won one and she won two, but ma…see there, but I didn’t start
it, ma (sucks teeth), this was my first time over here all summer, but ma…alright alright I’m coming now, bye.”
As I told lil’ scrapper I was going to walk her back to Fulton street, she seemed hesitant and confused, not sure if she should be escorted less she be seen as a punk, “but wait I have to make a phone call,” she said making no sense, again.
“You can walk and talk at the same time, come on let’s go,” I said and to my surprise she followed.
“So what was the beef about anyway, why were y’all out here fighting in the first place?” I inquired attempting to engage her in dialogue.
Eager to plead her case she went in, “Well I used to live over here that’s how come I know her and everybody, and well, she violated me on Facebook, then I violated her back and we was even, but then I had given my best friend Aisha my passcode for Facebook and she violated the girl some more but the girl thought it was me but it wasn’t, but I had to say something back because of what she had said.”
“Well why does Aisha have your passcode in the first place? Why doesn’t she have her own Facebook account? Why she all up on your page?” I asked.
“Because her mother won’t let her have a Facebook page,” she said sheepishly, hearing herself for the first time and realizing in that moment that she fucked up.
“What?!” I snapped like I was her mother, “Oh so because her momma won’t let her have a Facebook page she gonna come all up on your page starting trouble popping off at the mouth. Don’t ever give anybody your passcode, you hear? You learned your lesson this time, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said holding her head down then quickly changed the subject, “I gotta get a scarf right away miss, my hair, I can’t walk home looking like this.”
In my girlfriend homegirl-to-homegirl tone I exclaimed, “Chile look how I ran out the house, I’m the one who look crazy, not you. Aint nobody looking at your hair and it aint like you got tracks missing, plus we’ll just walk real fast,” I paused, then I asked, “How old are you?” trying to divert her attention away from her hair which was only a bit rumpled but understanding her Black girls’ hyper-preoccupation with appearance (which I too, do suffer from at times). She never told me her age but answered with her grade, “I’m in the seventh grade.”
“Are you getting good grades?” I inquired
“Yeah,” she said with a Brooklyn attitude and tone, yet not disrespectful.
I followed up, “Like A’s and B’s, or B’s and C’s?”
“A’s and B’s…but I failed gym, I got a 65.”
Without skipping a beat I asked, “Well what did you get in English?”
“I got a 90,” she said looking at me for approval
“Go head gurl!” I exclaimed in a high pitch sister-girl tone of excitement, “now that’s what I’m talking ‘bout!”
She grinned from ear to ear as we strolled down Kingston Avenue. As we approached the
laundry mat there was a young boy, no more than 12 or 13 years old, was sitting on a milk crate outside the laundry mat watching his baby brother. I didn’t even notice him until he asked, “I heard you and Kita was fighting, what was y’all fighting ‘bout?”
Without missing a beat or breaking stride I shot back, “They squashed it!” Lil’ scrapper never said a word, happy that I intervened. When we got out of earshot from Jr. nosey neighbor she grunted, “Uuugh, I can’t believe it! Out of all the people for me to see, why him?!”
Ignorant to the hood politics she clearly was involved in, I asked, “Why baby, who was that?”
“Miss, he’s got the biggest mouth ever. Now it’s gonna be all over Facebook. Oh my God!”
“Well, why don’t you close your Facebook account for two weeks until school starts, take a
little break from the Facebook drama,” I naively said, clearly out of touch with that critical piece of youth culture. She looked at me like I was an alien and I immediately knew I had asked her to offer a limb and bear a cross too much for her seventh grade spirit to endure, “I’m pushing it huh?” I asked rhetorically as I laughed. She joined me in laughter, “Mmhmmh, you already know,” and we chuckled some more. At least she was laughing and the ice was melting.
“We’ve been walking and talking and I don’t even know your name, baby, what’s your name?”
“Jewel, and my sister’s name is Diamond.”
“Your mother named you Jewel? Like a precious jewel? Well, baby that confirms it; you are
too precious to be out here fighting especially with a name like Jewel…no baby, not you,” I said emphatically pouring as much confidence and self-esteem into her as I could with two blocks to go before we reached Fulton Street, my drop off point.
As we fast approached our departure from each other, I wanted to leave her with a nugget
of wisdom, something for her to contemplate, so I asked, “Jewel, if a pig and a
jaguar were fighting in the mud, who do you think would come out looking
better?”
With confidence she said, “The jaguar.”
Trynna be all Yoda-like I said, “Neither because they are both soiled in mud so you can’t
tell the difference. Jewel, you are like a jaguar, don’t roll in the mud with pigs because once you are in the mud, no one can tell the difference.” It didn’t come out as Yoda swami-like as I
had intended, but I had good intentions as I gave her my mangled version of an Art of
War-esque proverb. “Get home safe,” I added as she crossed Fulton Street and disappeared into the bustle of the busy strip. There were no good byes, no thank you miss, no touching finale, just a dusty rug rat adolescent evaporating into the hood. As I headed back home I suddenly became hyper self-conscious of what I unwittingly ran out of the house wearing. But, I also realized in that
moment that I love bad ass kids and I needed those rug rats that day as much as they needed me. I needed to be pulled out of my depressed dark funk, and they instantly reminded me of my purpose and passion, and those little girls needed and wanted someone to stop them…especially
the Jewel.
Liza Jessie Peterson © 9/2011
Recent Comments