Ginga: a Tor.com Original Read online

  “Clap, kids, yes? For the beat?” He lifts his hands over his head and those thick triceps glare at me. I lose my entire sense of rhythm and have to start over. “Clap, clap!” Rigo yells, breaking into a syncopated beat in time with his hovering step.

  The group claps more or less in time and I work my way back into a steady ginga.

  “Yes, yes, very good!” Rigo yells over the clapping. “Now what happens when I go with one of these?” He spins; one foot anchors back and the other flies up toward me. I know this part—I’m supposed to dodge-bend backward like in The Matrix and then spin into some impossible acrobatic shit and kick. I arch back and throw myself off balance, hurl sideways and catch Rigo’s sneaker in the face.

  Everyone in the room yells, “Oh!” as I stumble backward. I hear Rigo mutter, “porra!” and then feel a whoosh of wind brush past. Arms wrap around me. Thick arms. Rigo somehow evaporated and reappeared behind me. Again, audible swoons erupt, not all of them from the girls.

  My hands are over my eye and Rigo’s hands are on my wrists. “Let me see,” he says softly. “Let me see. I’m so sorry, Kia. Let me see what I did.”

  I shake my head. I probably look like one of those deep sea monstrosities right now, the hell Imma let Brazilian Ken gape at me.

  “We probably need to ice it. Can you see? Kia?”

  I relent. The collective gasp is all I need to tell me what an instant freak show I’ve become. Rigo scrunches up his face. “Is not so bad, minha. Let’s get some ice, okay?”

  “I’ll take her!” Karina yells.

  Thank God.

  In the rec center health room, Karina informs me that I have a boyfriend.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I say. The ice pack pulses a numbing void against my forehead. From the wall, a cartoon condom explains, with the winningest of grins, that he’s not reusable.

  “I’m just saying,” Karina says. “He called that ass out by name. He was like . . .” she drops her voice to an absurd baritone and affects something like a Polish accent. “Kia Summers! Please for to come to ze front of ze el roomio.”

  “Karina.”

  “You in love, girl, that’s okay. We all are. Homeboy is eight feet tall and fine as fuck. And he’s packin’. I’m just mad it’s you not me, but I support you, Kia. I got ya back, all the way. And when it come crashing down because he’s too old for you, I’ll step in on that distraught friend tip and get me some too.”

  “How that even make sense? You the same age as me.”

  “I’m more mature though. And I’m Jamaican, so . . .”

  “What that even . . . Just be quiet, woman. You’re giving me a headache.”

  “That headache is called Love. A love-ache.”

  All I can do is roll my eyes, but even that hurts. “You going to the park after class?”

  Karina scoffs. “It’s Saturday ain’t it? You know I got all those baby beckys to take care of.”

  A bunch of the new white folks in the neighborhood linked up on some social media site and now they have regular Saturday evening dinner parties where they plot, I’m sure, how to make the perfect vegan cupcake and take over the world. Karina got the gig watching their rugrats and she usually just lets ’em loose in Von King.

  “They ain’t scared by all the shit been going on there?”

  “Pshaw! It’s added flavor and excitement to the urban adventure.”

  “Imma come with,” I say.

  Karina sits up real straight and wipes off her stupid grin. “If Renny there, I got ya back.”

  I sigh. “It’s not like that, Karina. It’s cool. I’m cool.”

  Rennard Deshawn White, of all the old-man-ass names for a teenage boy, is this kid I used to talk to. He’s big and black and beautiful, all those loving folds of flesh to get lost in, and he got a quiet, easy way about him like I do when Karina’s dumb ass isn’t around riling me up. We used to walk the length of the park after school just talking. I mean, he talked most of the time and I just let him; he talked about his favorite video games and his moms and his little sister and how he wanted to be an engineer and, okay, yeah, it seems pretty boring if you not in it, if you don’t give a crap about Renny, but I devoured every word and then waited in the silences for him to look over at me and then wrap around me and I could disappear into him and and and . . .

  And in February he started dating Maritza Lavoe. And then they started walking the park, same path we took, same leisurely loving pace, and I sat hugging myself next to Karina while all those little white kids ran screaming around us and wondered if Maritza made him laugh more or if she listened better, if they’d made out yet and if they kissed when they had sex. Dumb shit, I know, but that’s where my off-kilter mind went and that’s where it stayed. Me and Renny didn’t even put our lips against each other’s but I felt like I could go through things with him and come out on the other side a better person. I put my headphones on and with the best King Impervious break up rhymes on the player and I walked out of Von King Park one night and haven’t been back since.

  “You sure you cool?” Karina eyes my faraway look and I snap out of it, flash a smile.

  “Girl, fuck Renny and his video-game-playin’ ass.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.”

  We dap and then I say, “For real, though, he still roll through there with Maritza?”

  Karina shoves me and I almost fall over the desk I’m sitting on. We’re both laughing so hard we don’t notice that Sally’s standing in there doorway, arms akimbo, until she says, “Young ladies,” and then all we can do is bust out laughing again.

  Carlos

  New York weather doesn’t give a fuck about any of us. It wants us confused and off balance and if it has to become absurdly warm after the sun sets on a brittle icy day in a brittle icy week, so be it. Folks are shedding jackets and sweaters, unraveling scarves, looking around dumbfounded and annoyed. Old people step out on their stoops and stretch muscles crimped and tight from flinching against a long hard winter.

  They smile as I pass, turn to each other and wonder who gonna get it tonight and how, what unaccountable tragedy will strike which corner of the park, and why . . . They shake their old heads, jowls dangling, eyes squinting in the streetlights, and wonder.

  I stand in the center of Von King Park and let the whole universe of it spiral around me. Little kids swarm the brightly lit playground in the southeast corner. Dog walkers stroll along in small clumps. In the field behind me, a baseball game wraps up. I’ll say this for the community: The recurring traumas have not deterred people’s impulse to commune. Who can resist the first night of spring? The thaw has come early, and knowing New York’s tempestuous, temptress ways, tomorrow will see another frost.

  “Mass random disasters be damned, huh?” my partner Riley says, appearing next to me. The fully dead have an annoying way of creeping up on a man.

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “The people gonna have their park.”

  “Ain’t mad. It’s a beautiful night.” I’m sweating in this damn overcoat.

  “Game plan?”

  “Bell’s at the southwest entrance.” I nod towards the Marcy Ave gate at the far end of the field. “Posted some’a her soulcatchers at the northeast corner, the rest are scattered along the edges. You take the northwest.”

  “Where the little doggy park is? Man, fuck dogs.”

  “You have no soul.”

  “All I am is soul, brother.”

  “Imma be over at southeast. Kia got a friend who watches some kids there, gonna see if I can rustle up any information.”

  “Kia as in Baba Eddie’s little botánica badass?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Alright, man. You worried? You look worried.”

  “That’s my face, man.”

  Riley shakes his head and moves out to the edge of the park with long ghostly strides.

  Am I worried? No. Not worried, but a growing unease rumbles through my core. I don�
�t have a name for it, can’t trace its roots. It’s been there for the past couple days, I realize, unnamed and rising. I’m just getting myself together so I can ignore the unease when I see Kia sitting next to her friend on the bench. Then I see her black eye. The unease erupts into a full-blown swath of rage.

  “What the fuck happened?” I say, quickening my pace as I cross the playground. “Who I gotta kill?”

  Before Kia can answer, her friend is up in my face. “The fuck are you, homeboy?”

  “I . . .”

  “You gonna back up off my friend ’fore I—”

  Kia’s hand lands on her shoulder. “Karina, it’s cool, girl. That’s Carlos, he’s my people.”

  Karina glares up at me for a solid three seconds before backing off. I smile—not to seem condescending, I’m just relieved Kia has someone else around, someone her age, who will throw herself in the line of fire to protect her. I know I would.

  “Karina, Carlos. Carlos, Karina.”

  I nod at the girl and she appraises me with a squint and an eye roll. “What happened?” I ask, controlling my breath and the urge to incinerate something.

  “It’s fine, it was an accident is all.”

  Did the disaster ghost strike already? Seems there are no accidents these days . . . “Here?”

  “Nah, man. At the rec center. Capoeira-related injury.”

  “What is this Capoeira of which you keep speaking?” I ask.

  “It’s a fighting style or a dance or both, depending on who you ask. Roots in Africa, flourished in Brazil. They came up with it during slavery when they had to disguise their combat training as dance. I suck at it.”

  “She’ll be aight,” Karina puts in. “She was struck by an angel.”

  Kia swats her. “Shut it.”

  “A Brazilian angel.”

  Kia wraps both arms around her friend from behind and covers the girl’s mouth. “Ignore her, C. What did you wanna ask about?”

  “You take care of all these kids, right?” I ask over Karina’s muffled giggles.

  She pulls away Kia’s hands and straightens herself. “Indeed I do.”

  “Every Saturday?”

  “Unless the Ministry of Whiteness decides to take a night off.”

  I squint at her. “The Min . . .”

  “Never mind, C,” Kia says. “She here every Saturday, yes.”

  “You see the old guy get hit by that wheelbarrow from the construction site last weekend?”

  Karina shakes her head and puts a stick of gum in her mouth. “Uh-uh.” She offers me a piece. I decline. Kia grabs one and starts chewing loudly. “I heard about it though. And the lady who ran into a city bus the next day. She lived, though, I heard. But yeah. Whole lotta disaster up in these streets, man.”

  “You seen anything weird, like, around the park?”

  “Besides white people jogging through Bed-Stuy after dark?” Kia says. They both fall out laughing for a minute and then collect themselves.

  “Nothing really. Same ol’ usuals. Drasco and his cat parade. The cops making rounds. That’s it.”

  “What about the kids?”

  “You wanna ask ’em?” Karina stands and makes a pretend megaphone with her hands. “WHAT WE GON’ DO WHEN THE REVOLUTION COME?”

  An eerie choir of high-pitched voices rises in the night around me. “Burn them houses and kill them sons!”

  I boggle at Karina. “What the hell is that?”

  Little white kids pour off the slide and swing sets. They repeat the line in unison as they make their way towards us.

  Karina shrugs. “Song my grandma usedta sing. It gets their attention.”

  “I don’t think . . .”

  “WHAT WE GONNA DO WHEN THE CITY BURN?” Karina yells.

  The kids bustle in around us. “Light them motherfuckas in they turn,” they chant.

  “Karina . . . do their parents know you have them—?”

  “Shit, I hope not. I’d probably get fired. I get nothing but tips and thank-yous so I’m guessing nah. I swore them all to secrecy. Right, soldiers?”

  “Ashé!” comes the yelled response.

  “Ashé, though?” Kia says. “You confusing these children, Karina.”

  “Hell, I grew up confused, why shouldn’t they? What’d you wanna ask ’em, Carlos?”

  Pale, expectant faces stare up at me. They all have big cheeks and wide eyes. “Anybody . . . notice anything . . . strange?” I ask them. I don’t really know how to talk to kids. Not living ones, anyway.

  They just keep staring at me.

  Karina furrows her brow and stamps one foot. “Ay, soldiers. Tell Mr. Carlos the truth.”

  A pudgy hand goes up.

  Karina points at the kid. “Musafa.”

  “You gave them African names too?” I ask.

  “Naw, their parents did that. You know how some them white parents be.”

  All I can do is shake my head.

  “Jimmy has fingerprints.”

  “Shut up!” Another little boy yells. His blue eyes well with tears.

  “It’s true!” Musafa insists.

  “Jimmy,” Karina commands. “Come here, love.” The little guy waddles through the pediatric mob, sniffling back a sob. “Yes, be strong, little mister, don’t cry now. Lemme see your hands.”

  He holds up both palms but there’s nothing strange—no ink, no prints to speak of.

  “Musafa, what you mean Jimmy has fingerprints?”

  A girl in the front with strawberry blonde pigtails and a bright pink jump suit stands up. “Not on his fingers.”

  “Where, Esmé?”

  She walks up to us and lifts Jimmy’s superhero shirt. “On his body. Look.”

  I crouch down to squint at the shimmering blue markings on the boy’s torso. Musafa was right: little handprints crisscross his back and sides. They’re not from dirt though . . . these are ghost prints. “Shit,” I say.

  “Ooooh!” the crowd of kids hums.

  “What we say about what mommy and daddy find out?” Karina says.

  “Nothing,” they answer as one.

  “Alright, then.” She looks down at me and I can tell she’d just been playing cool for the kids’ sake. Her eyes are wide and worried. “What . . . the hell . . . is that?” Karina whispers.

  I stand up and turn because something flickers at the edges of my consciousness. My hand goes to my cane-blade as I scan the perimeters of the park. Nothing.

  “Carlos?” Karina says.

  “Keep the kids close,” I say. “Especially Jimmy.”

  “What is it?”

  At the far corner from us, a car brake screeches and someone lets out a stream of curses.

  “What’s happening?” Jimmy moans.

  I’m about to tell Kia to keep an eye on things when I realize she’s nowhere in sight.

  “Where’s Kia?” I demand, fighting the edge out of my voice.

  Karina spins around, panicked. “I don’t know . . . there!”

  Kia has her back to us as she fast-walks toward a fat kid and a girl with a massive weave by the northeast corner.

  “Fuck.” I hop the small fence around the playground and break into a run. An eruption of translucent fluttering bursts to life along the northern edge of Von King Park. I hear a revving engine, see a newspaper fly up into the air beneath a street lamp and start to drift down like giant falling leaves.

  “Kia!”

  Kia

  Rennard Deshawn White.

  Dark brown like me and round, and those perfect arms, thick as my thighs with great dangling dollops of flesh. Folds I’d have sunk into on a lazy Sunday, some Sunday locked forever in my imagination, some faraway woulda-coulda type shit, as in coulda been all mine but instead, instead, instead . . .

  Rennard Deshawn White, sitting serene and stupid like a beached whale on that park bench in Von King, Maritza perched on ya lap, long manicured fingers in ya fro. Fuck this.

  If they’d been making out that woulda been predictable.
Fine. Make out. That’s ya girl. Alright. But this . . . this uninhibited performance of domestic bliss? Unacceptable. No little teenage love affair has any business looking this much like an ol’ middle-aged couple—no way, no how. It’s a ruse. Unacceptable, and unacceptable shit gets called as such, that’s how I move. And regardless of how I move in general, this how I’m moving now: flushed forward on long strides, fists tight at my sides, face tight so they know I truly will smite down a bitch, lest they test me.

  I’ll not be tested.

  No plan, no words formulated to blast out upon arrival, just fire and the simple truth that this shit, this shit, this shit will not stand. Nuh. Uh.

  Maritza turns first. Renny’s eyes are still closed, his head leaning back, a pleasant smile still splattered across his big, stupid, beautiful face. Her fingers stop weaving through that ’fro, face crinkles into a shrill frown.

  “What happened, babe?” Renny murmurs, and it’s then, in the second before he opens his eyes, that I remember my own eyes, my newly damaged face, what a true disaster I must look like. My mouth drops open, panic rises in me, and instead of fire, nothing comes out. Air. I wonder if I can vanish before he sees me, just be a story Maritza tells and surely she’s kidding, Kia would never roll up on us like that, right? Right?

  A commotion rises from the edge of the park, newspaper flutters down in the orange glow of a streetlight. I remember the disasters everyone keeps talking about and then Renny looks at me, face scrunched with concern, and opens his mouth.

  The voice that says my name isn’t his, though. If Renny did speak it got run over by Carlos’ hoarse shout from behind me. I’ve never heard Carlos sound scared. The next thing he yells is “Run!” but I don’t run, I turn to look at him.

  The motherfucker is crazy. Carlos Delacruz barrels full-speed toward me from across the park. I don’t know where he thinks I’m going to run to. I don’t even know what I’m running from. Then his eyes go wide at something in the air between us, something I can’t see, and he pulls a long, shiny blade out of his cane. Behind me, Maritza lets out the girliest scream I’ve ever heard. I stumble back a few steps and I’m about to run when an icy grip slides around my ankle then up along my leg and swings me around.