Randitty

July 16, 2013

She’s a Mean Old H4 Bus, Cpt 6: His Hoodie

Emperor “Moi” Crush reached out with his furred arm and swiftly took Mike’s rifle away as he armed himself. Charlotta got her gun. Dark legs spread, shaking, cussing at herself for not being able to decide whether to…

“No me pegues, Charlotta, o pegaré a tú novio, mister asian-persuasion over there…”

“Shut up, Moi!”

“Charlotta, this is our only chance… don’t worry about me. You know how seductive the deer can be. Just protect yourself. Now, squeeze the trigger.”

Marlin, the busdriver finally stepped on the kid’s shoe to wake him up. Freddy Guzman was a black kid, fifteen, Marlin guessed. Though he raised his eyebrows when he finally got the kid’s full name.

“Wait, you said Guzman? You’re Spanish. All this time, I thought you and your people were the only black folks in Mount Pleasant, gettin’ on my bus. I felt so sad for ya’ll…”

“Shut up. You say latino, or you say guatemalteco, but I’m not a friggin’ language. My mom’s black. My dad’s in Guatemala.”

Marlin sucked in a breath, bit his lip a moment, then let out a low whistle. Freddy fiddled with his red hoodie. The big headphones resting on his shoulders blasted something pum-pum-pum Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, marchando mi combo forma un alboroto… “And, boy, you disrespectful. You always been disrespecting me on my own bus… but don’t worry, H4 and I, we bout to fix that.”

“Whatever, man. I don’t care what anyone says. Plus, I gotta go someplace…”

But, when Freddy got his bookbag and scooted out of the seat, he saw that no one else was on the bus. How? Usually, it was packed this time of day. Then, snuffed and squeezed his eyes shut, trying really hard to banish only a few hours’ sleep. No, this morning… only a few people. It was weird, and then so much traffic…

“Hey, I asked you something—” Marlin stepped on Freddy’s foot again. The bus’s engine rumbled. Freddy staggered a step, but Marlin lifted his chin at the boy.

“Man, stoppit with that, steppin’ on my adidas…”

“Haha, when I was a kid, it was the Nikes everyone wanted. Thought they still did. Wait, you not the only black kid wearin’ adidas, are you?”

Freddy, his young face, the narrow jaw with stubble just growing on, finally a childish pout came out of him. It squished up his little moustache and Marlin told him that. “I like my adidas, these match my soccer shoes. And I don’t have to be black to wear anything or wear anything cause I’m black—”

“Oh, so you a poet? I bet you think you want to be a rapper or something.”

“No, I’ll make more money as an engineer.”

“Oh, so you a smart little gangbanger, wearing your red—I know whose colors those are–wearing your hoodie down, marking up the back of my bus seats with tags. I woulda never guessed it, a smart gangbanger… You didn’t hear me earlier, I wanted to ask you what is this stuff you keep putting on my seats. I got your marker, time.” Marlin lifted the gray and black sharpie between two fingers, waggled it.

“They aren’t gang tags.”

“Liar, liar.” The bus’s engine rumbled again, this time, it jolted forward. In the middle of traffic. Marlin was not in the front seat.

“Man, what the hell—” Freddy’s voice flew up.

“Do you even know what the Aryan Nation is, this thing you wrote next to what I do know is a gang tag? They hate people like you. And, a swastika is worse. You better watch out walking around with your hood up too, you’re gonna get shot. Don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean. And pull your pants up, tie your shoelaces. Wherever you’re going, with a bookbag and your face scrubbed clean for once, I’m sure they don’t want to see you like that.”

“I’m going to the National Zoo. And no, I don’t know what you mean… maybe I’ll pull up my pants, cause my momma says that sometimes, I know… Maybe I’ll tie my shoes so I don’t trip. But, I’m eighteen, so if I want to wear my hoodie. Then it’s my choice, and I am going to wear my hoodie.

They shouldn’t shoot me. I dare them to shoot me.” Then, Freddy did put up his hood. In black letters and flames, embroidered across its edge, the words ‘For Trayvon’ raised prominently. A person might be able to read that from across the street, even they did see this kid coming, judged him as scary and decided to cross to the other side.

Please report any unattended bags. Safety is everyone’s responsibility.

“Okay, so this bus is haunted, man.”

Marlin wasn’t there. Freddy had just blinked or something, and the old man must have vanished from where he was. Suddenly, he was back in the driver’s seat, buckling up.

“So, that’s how your generation’s gonna do it? I went to Howard. We sat down in front of the Dean’s

Office till they changed things. But you’re going to dare the world to fight you.”

“I am black. And, I’m guatemalteco. And, I’m going to college. I’m going to be an engineer, too, and help out my mom and get my dad back here. But, before that, I need a little money for books and stuff, so I’m working at the National Zoo, just for the summer. Signed up with DC Summerworks.”

“That old program? That used to be Marion Barry’s thing.”

“Haha, that guy was a crackhead.”

“No, he was a lot of things. He was one of many young people who fought hard and made this city great before his personal problems got to him. And now, your disrespectful ass has a job so you can afford to buy books, and be an engineer and help out your mom, and dress like Trayvon all the time

…But they place people at the Zoo? Kids want to work there? Why? You selling icecream or something? That must be it.”

“Man, I guess I am nervous about it. Plus, look at all this traffic… I’m gonna be late.”

“This your first job, man? Your very first one, Freddy? No, you not gonna be late. Take a seat.”

Please do not stand in the rear doorwell.

“Oh, don’t sit there. The last girl who did was arrested by the deer police.”

“The what?” Freddy looked out the window but didn’t see anything strange except for cars and cars and cars…

Marlin began to drive them. Cars were everywhere, but the pass sort of… passed through the cars.

Then, on Connecticuit Avenue, when it was supposed to go straight across to Porter Street, Marlin turned, and they were flying over Petco, over California Tortilla, above the Uptown Movie theater, then the bridge, the creek, through trees.

“Which end of the zoo?”

“Shit—we’re in the air!”

“There’s the Connecticut Avenue entrance, and then the Adams Mill Road side.”

“Huh?”

“The Visitor’s Center, or Lion Hill?”

“I’m going to the rainforest one. I’m going to get to work with frogs and parrots and stuff! It’s going to be so fucking off the chain, man! But, first, I have to check in at the Visitor’s Center.”

Stop Requested. Connecticut Avenue and Olmstead Walk.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Freddy laughed, kicked his seat, couldn’t believe it—the green trees bending out of their way. Surprised squirrels and birds scurrying here and there as they turned out of Rock Creek Park and got back on the street proper. Elegant apartment buildings with silver adornments on the roofs, animals in stone crouching to hold up windows. And then, on the other side, a place called the Zoo Café, and big bronze lion statues.

“Jesús y Maria… you’re taking me to some kind of Zoo Hogwarts or something!”

“No, this is just Connecticut Avenue, son. You sure you’ve been to the National Zoo before?”

“Man, the bus… it’s friggin… coño! It’s a flying bus! This is like… the shit!” He yelled and waved to people down on the ground who couldn’t see them.

Please do not stand in the rear doorwell.

“Shit! Sorry!”

“Stop cussin’, I said.” Marlin complained. “At least cut that out when you’re on your job. You want them to take you seriously.” Marlin parked. “Look. It’s not about acting white, when you work. I know I was afraid of that when I first started… Look at it this way, in fact, this is the only way to look at it. You’re there for the job. You mean to focus on looking professional, helping the customers to get what they want, and respecting your supervisor. No matter what your coworkers do or say to you, ignore them. You make sure your supervisor is happy with you, okay?” Then, after a while,

Marlin conceded, “You can wear your hoodie to work if you want to.”

“And on my breaks. I’m not walking out into the crazy-hot DC sun without something over my eyes.”

“You’re going to get overheated.” Then, Marlin stopped arguing. “That’s a nice thing you’re doing for that kid… I’m proud of you, son.”

Freddy was excited. He ran up to the front of the bus, gripped the silver railing, smiled so much, now his thin moustache was easy to see. It was going to fill in. And, Freddy had very dark, flawless skin, almost diamond-cut cheekbones, brow, everything so well-defined. Nature made him look all the more capable, almost regal. He was on the verge of being a very handsome man.

“And watch out for the ladies, you hear me? Don’t forget that’s what they are. Ladies.”

“Haha, sure. How come you sound like my mom? She’s always sayin’ that to me.”

“Well… go on. I want your first job to go well.”

The bus was parked right in front of the Visitor’s Center. Visitors walked casually by with children eating popcorn, dropping icecream. No one knew they were there. A mural of dolphins and wild teal sunlight drew one’s gaze first, before the many shadowed doors beneath the awning made the entrance to the Visitor’s Center apparent.

Marlin pulled the crank to unfold the doors to beautiful white summer sunlight, and Freddy raced down the stairs. “Marchen!

Please report all unattended bags. Safety is everyone’s responsibility.

“Hey! Hey, Freddy, I think you forgot your bookbag!”

Then, Freddy ran back and got it. Marlin had never seen this kid smile so much in all the days he had driven him to school, home, wherever.

“H4, girl, why were you so cruel to the mean-faced-girl who stood in the rear doorwell, but so nice to the highschooler marking up your seats?”

Metro opens doors, punto com.

“Maybe you’re not all that mean, huh? But the real thing that’s just killing me about this… Why would a kid like that want to work in a rainforest?”

Then also,

“And Don Omar… why he listenin’ to such old music?”

Chapters
1, Busdriver Marlin :: 2, The Quiet, Angry-Faced Girl :: 3, Love, After the Deer Apocalypse :: 4, Moises “Emperor Crush” Romero :: 5, Screaming in Spanish :: 6, His Hoodie :: 7, Amazonia :: 8, Behind the Waterfall :: 9, The Cricket Queen :: 10, Don Juan’s

July 11, 2013

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Writing with a broken heart

More single gal writing advice (and slightly entertaining drama too!)

Sorry that it’s been a while, fellow writers… readers… what are you? Write-eaders? Wreaders?

Um, but when you’re reaching down into your most sensitive self to write in any case, and then while your hand is down in there, other sharp things cut up your fingers, ruin your perfect manicure, wedge deep under your nails, you do tend to whip your hand back out and silent-cry over how bad that hurts. My hiatus was a combination of a case of the Satur-daze and also getting over a series of very depressing, domino-affected situations.

A good friend that I dated suddenly dropped out of my life and pulled the silent treatment on me while maintaining a seamless, happy friendship with someone else we were both close with.
Two more “friends” of mine fessed up to something truly shady that went on for a long time behind my back while I was still trying to heal from #1, and then either boasted about it or blamed me for having a hurt reaction.
Not long after #2 hit the fan, I thought I was moving on with yet another great guy who it turned out strung me along for weeks before finally calling, and then after rushing me out for a sketch “I finally have time for you” last minute date, disappeared.
Even more of ye olde bullshit while recovering from #1 + #2 + #3…

Equals…ouch. All in a matter of months, too. And what’s that big writing project I’m working on now? This is a novel where, in two different kingdoms, there are two different romances going on. Survival of both kingdoms depends on whether or not these two couples can keep their shit together, and true love (or maybe them accepting that it’s really true bullshit) is supposed to help win the day.

Um… again… how am I supposed to write this thing?

Not sure if this is directly related, but I was writing a few days ago and realized I hated part of my story. I got mad, sat right on the floor, held my head in my hands… began to doubt a lot of things in my life. For me, and surely lots of devoted writers, this process almost feels like ‘succeed at this novel or fail at everything…’

So in that moment, on the floor, and it was a cold floor, I vowed to start months of hard work all over again, inspired by my old-fashioned ‘oh to hell with this’ gumption, and also a scene where one of the characters gets up on an altar and burns himself like Abraham’s son, except with all the burning… That was going to be my fresh, dramatic new start.

The very next morning, in another of my deep pre-work contemplations while getting dressed, I realized that I was being extreme with the altar-thing. My real problem was, the particular chapter I was working on was a bitch to write because the characters were going back and forth to and from the same danged battlefield…

One kingdom already decided not to fight. But then, an elaborate chain of funny events involving their Queen losing her temper gets them back on the warpath anyway, and in the exact same place where they already swore it was better not to fight—what? Guh? No, condense that please… To fix it, I changed this to one kingdom upholding its vow not to fight. Meanwhile, the protagonista is lost on her own, discovering lots of reasons why her kingdom should go to war. She loses her temper and attacks the enemy mercenary-style, gets back to camp and deflects blame at her surprised and frustrated soldiers, only for somebody to sit that girl down and give her a great big reality check: sweetheart, you started this, and now you have the be the one to finish it. Bitch.

ProTip: It’s always better to add swear words at the end, I swear.

So, no more writing a scene I already wrote but in a different way that’s not supposed to feel like me wasting my precious ‘I just survived a full day a work, so can we please write now’ writing right now writing time.

The real issue here was, when things were frustrating with my story-telling, I took it personally. I doubted my abilities (in an artform where you don’t need to be Shakespeare anymore to sell lots of books and make a living, let’s be completely real) and felt like giving up, then almost did walk away from months of backbreaking squeezing storytime in between work, during commutes and lunchbreaks, and on and on… If you ever feel yourself spiraling for any reason while you write, stop and do a reality check: If the story isn’t working because it’s boring for you to write, then it’s probably boring for others to read. Your “wreaders” will get aburridos…

ProTip: A quick outline of the chapter you’re working on thus far might help you to see where things are getting repeated, or if characters and other story elements are failing you.

Also keep in mind, if you ever take a good hard look at where you are and it truly isn’t working, don’t be afraid to rebuild, but just make sure it’s not coming from an ‘I hate myself as an artist/I hate my story place.’

Another writing-example of what I mean: At one point in my novel, while working on the second kingdom, I struggled with the tone and also what my other protagonista should sound like… was she regal and sincere—beautiful and perfect? Or, would she be flawed somehow? But then how? My childhood image of her was not matching up to what I now knew I could not do as an adult, write anything close to a Mary Sue character. That “perfect princess” was so hard to let go of. So, I stopped, I put the whole thing down though I was three chapters in by then. I read some other things. I thought about what I needed… and ended up just going with the first, sexy thing that popped into my head after the sabbatical. It was something that would hobble her through the whole story, something that all the characters would find completely obnoxious and it would cause everyone to doubt her ability to rule… but then again, it was perfect. She had her weird way of speaking and also a great flaw that would never, ever get boring for me to write. I now can’t imagine my novel without that. So, I tore what I had completely apart and wrote myself a new chapter two and three.

So, remember, kids:

When your “good friend” dumps you by giving you the silent treatment, don’t take it out on your characters, they didn’t do anything to you.
When more of your ex-friends decide they’re going to lie and do things behind your back, get up off the floor and continue writing. Don’t let a few peoples’ bad decisions ruin the passion for storytelling you still have inside. Even now, you deserve to write.
When a guy strings you along… Just tie up your plot tight. Make sure there are no leaks, and if there are leaks, that doesn’t mean that you’re a terrible, talent-less person. It just means that guy was a raging idiot for over-using the “I’m too busy to tell you that I’m busy” excuse. Be grateful nothing good happened with someone so wrong. Be grateful that good writing happened when nothing else went right.
When additional bullshit happens… I recommend doing what I am about to promise myself I will do in the future: If you’re going to keep respecting yourself and staying positive in the face of life’s pelting lemons, then don’t stop writing, either. Just don’t stop. Make a little time for it each day. Make your characters get together and say something stupid, I don’t know what… Anything that keeps you present in your fiction universe (especially if you are a fantasy writer creating a new world), and keeps you in your zone and confident that you can carry on when you are feeling stronger.

Life isn’t easy, and writing a novel definitely isn’t easy either. But, as Terry Goodkind once wrote, “Nothing is ever easy.”

Tha’ heck happened to the end of that series, by the way?

Oh no, I took my frustrations out on poor Terry… ouch again.

June 19, 2013

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Writing when you’re single, Part Three

I’ll answer one more question about writing as a single woman—actually, as a single black woman—to wrap up the Writing when you’re single series...

#3 How is being a black woman writer different? You’re the one who said it was, so no chickening-out, now.

So, some things are common to the human experience and to a woman’s writing experience, of course: wishing you were published like any writer, concern about being taken seriously within your genre (I think Anne McCaffrey is a good example—a woman writing what folks realized was science fiction in the 70s), and so on. But, has anyone here ever tried to write a fantasy fiction story for their favorite video game, did decently well, drummed up a good fanbase, and then wondered whether your fans even knew if you were black? Wondered if that would cause them to question what they’re reading, whether her characters in a fantasy universe (when these are predominantly white) really were so well-informed, or wondered if it would just be safer to keep your racial identity to yourself, or simply not bring it up so that you can keep focusing on enjoying the story? Can you even call that enjoying the story?

Black Wonder Woman returns! (And it’s an ass-shot,
so you know she’s not playin’ this time.)

I’ll raise my hand here. That was me.

If you’re not writing online and using a pen name with the goal of staying anonymous like I used to, the issue may never occur to you. If you’ve never played a video game with others and felt it would be the right thing to do, to out yourself as a person of color when the racist jokes among some of the immature gamer sorts started to fly across chat… And, offline too, I worry about people deciding that the black characters in my fantasy fiction story must all be gangbangers for them to be interesting (so far, a couple people have asked me this—one a family member, bless him), or how I’ll effectively explain that race or the experience of being a person of color in the U.S. fits into a story about talking horses. I will grant people that last one, my novel manuscript about horses and race-relations is not easy to figure without you actually reading it or me pitching it to you… but for the rest of that stuff—geez!

As a single black woman writer back in my fantasy fiction days, there were some advantages I saw after I made peace with the decision to “just keep writing online because that’s fun, don’t change anything and don’t worry about it.” When I had first filled out my profile on fanfiction.net, there wasn’t exactly a slot for “please enter your race in the box, and add a picture too so that people don’t forget that you’re a black writer, since that is normally a part of what people also sign on to when they decide to pick out and read a story.” I only realized that there might be an identity gap later, after once my series got a little popular.

As for the story itself, the particular group of videogame characters I wanted to write about weren’t black; and looking back, none of the main characters in the game as a whole were. However, I chose to be “out and proud” about these characters in my own way, deciding that they would (and really, should) have thick cultural or other “the other” identities as members of their particular kingdom… I wrote an entire reverse-world from the perspective of that kingdom which was considered a villainous one. So, they were villains and they had strong villain cultural values, experienced bias and were discriminated against for being on the wrong side of the war and so on… identifying as the other and experiencing bias and discrimination in society are elements of the black experience that are very translatable. People loved how complicated and vivid it felt. The heroine fangirl valkyrie type tried to save the villainous hero when they were under siege, by taking him to the “enemy” base that touted itself to all the world as a sanctuary. Her goal was to shift their position in the war and end it. But these good warriors just stood in the road and watched her die. After knowing what all the villains had really been through, having it end sharply like that enabled the reader to experience the pang of bias, and let’s also say, some element of racial discrimination too. Whether they knew I was a black author or not… muahaha…

I communicated my romantic longings as a single woman through the story. I let that fangirl valkyrie character do all kinds of needy ish that I used to do when I wasn’t being pretty at all. It was healing, I enjoyed it. Now, I’m wondering if there were any crazy racists reading under their monikers who loved my story and loved the romantic and sexual scenes, especially, but never knew this sexy, savvy authoress was black! Hahaha!

But, ultimately, I loathed writing in a genre (after all I learned and went through, I do consider fanfiction to be a separate genre) where I couldn’t own anything that I created in addition to not feeling comfortable with putting my “hey, I’m a black person” headshot up next to my cute moniker pen name, and so ruining my anonymity… I ended up just making Randitty and posting my real picture on this blog. Which… ultimately… I guess… means I lemonaded that experience as folks, especially we black folks, tend to do when life is unjust. I let the frustration empower me. If not for that experience, now that I look back, I don’t think that I would have thought to create this blog.

June 15, 2013

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She’s a Mean Old H4 Bus, Cpt 5: Screaming in Spanish

“No me pegues, Charlotta, o pegaré a tú novio, mister asian-persuasion over there…”

“Shut up, Moi!”

“Charlotta, this is our only chance… don’t worry about me. You know how seductive the deer can be. Just protect yourself. Now, squeeze the trigger.”

“You? Shoot me? You can’t do it fast enough, Charlie. I’m half deer now, I’m stronger, faster, sexier… think about it! How are you going to shoot me first, when I got coy pond’s gun so fast?”

“Okay, you know what, Moi, you’re really pissing me off with the damned Asian jokes… and that one wasn’t even funny, what the fuck—”

“Charlotta, I said to put down your gun.”

Charlotta inhaled through clenched teeth. She started crying, but kept her eyes wide open. “Our little town… London, L.A.—oh L.A. gave in fast—Brasil, Beijing… all those places fell for the deer stuff quick. People started wearing freaking antlers—you and I sat at my place and watched it on my broke-ass TV, Moi… commercials for how to wear heels and look like you have hooves, ear implants, antler headbands… we were laughing at first. You said Mount Pleasant would never fall for that crap, and we didn’t. When the deer thing hit D.C., people went for it, but not in this neighborhood. Nobody was going to give up and speak one language, look one way, because we’ve all been through that… so why did you change? Why were you the one, out of both us, to just sell out to them?”

Moi spoke to her, as he looked through the sight of the other rifle. “Querida, hay personas en este mundo que necesitan más de promesas… del gobierno, del alcalde Barry, o de Vincent Gray… Did you really think

I’d pass up the chance to be in charge of this whole damned thing?”

“How did you even… get like that?”

Mike had his hands raised, as if corned by the police. He really stared at Charlotta then, and she became aware of how she’d let her lover down, how she was delaying their plan.

“It’s a venereal disease.”

Charlotta and Mike both made faces.

“… the best way to become a deer, the fastest way to be powerful, beautiful, graceful, sleek… is to sleep with one. While I was imprisoned after the riot in Mount Pleasant—well, the second riot in Mount Pleasant—during training, I got to sleep with the right deer. One of the officers had bloodlines from the ungulati.”

“Jogeumdo…” Mike dropped his hands.

“You keep those hands up. It’s not such a horrible story. Not everyone can be in a committed relationship when they feel like and sleep with the one they want, can they? So, I enjoyed myself. I really did… I’d heard the rumors by then, but got it confirmed for myself afterward. And the strain of the virus I caught was the best one. She and I trained together, my captain wanted the throne and she saw me as a great secret weapon, someone of the royal line with all the power and all the focus, but all hers. None of her relatives would know about me or suspect a captive, a prisoner… It took just one imperial gathering where she brought me out in cuffs ‘harmless’ to show off my training. Then, she took off my hood and the two of us surprised the rest and cleaned them out. In the end, I had to get rid of her too… But this all happened on the ship. I’m surprised nobody wondered why the great new Emperor Crush suddenly decided to descend to Earth and focus on a dinky little place in Washington, D.C. best known to the greater area for its location close to the Target… and rather than anywhere else in the city.”

“Charlotta. End this. You know what to do.”

“You were once my friend, Moi… and you want to destroy the neighborhood. All the people…” she put the gun down a moment, “I mean, it was bad enough when they paved over half the soccer field, to replace La Polvosa with a freaking tennis court!”

“I am going to fix it so that Mount Pleasant goes back to the way it was, before Columbia Heights Metro, before Target… and I am definitely going to put all the hipsters out.”

Mike intervened again. “You’re confusing issues—there were always white people in Mount Pleasant—”

“I didn’t say there weren’t. I mean hipsters, those people who wish Bestway would get replaced with a Whole Foods, or the ones from before who got the law passed, that mariachi can’t play and sing on the streets at night… it used to be such an amazing neighborhood.”

“Hey, I live right on that street, and if I had to listen to mariachi all night long, and on a work night, my butt would be at the neighborhood council voting for that too.”

“Mike!”

“Charlotta, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you’d just shoot him.”

“There aren’t many Mount Pleasant natives left, Charlotta. But you’ve seen everything I have. You and I understand perfectly, what it feels like to be edged out of a place, told that it’s better with certain people out of it, made to feel like what you know, what you understand, what you care about your home is backwards.”

The treetops ahead rustled in a breeze. Sunlight dazzled unfairly over this moment.

“But Mike is not like that. And you shouldn’t just group people… you, out of everyone, should know better than to just group a whole bunch of people together and say they’re the ones with the problem. Maybe, no, I know this—we can all just work together.”

“Don’t give me that Sesame Street bullshit. My mother lost her house! Do you know why? Because some other family with more money was able to buy it and she’d hit rough times. The property values have been going up steadily since the seventies. Your parents would have been out on the street too if they didn’t just happen to pay off all their loans when you were a kid, rather than say, “hey, I don’t make that much—it might be easier just to take out another loan and feed my kids”, and then we lose our house and you get to keep yours… and your boyfriend gets to live in a house some richer family didn’t mind selling to what—hipsters—while the natives live out in the suburbs getting fat off your rent checks!”

“And the salvadoreños displaced somebody else before the hipsters!” Mike shouted. “Probably African-Americans,”

“You can say black people, dear.”

“…and before that, hippies in the seventies, and before them was it Eastern European immigrants or something, right? And who was it before that? That’s America, people coming in all the time, so what’s your point, Crush?”

“Oh look at you, Mike,” Moi rolled his yellowed irises, the mutated dear eyes, then twitched one long spade ear of a fly. He snapped back with his wet muzzle roving, “Extra gold stars for reading the Walking Tour of Mount Pleasant signs.”

Charlotta said, “My father once told me that nativity in Mount Pleasant, and in DC, if you think about it… it’s hard to live here for a lot of reasons, and it’s expensive. But those who make it work, they earn it in sweat, not blood. So, you’re just acting crazy Moi, talking about something that doesn’t matter to anyone anymore. Mike’s right, the neighborhood is just going to change… we can’t change that… we should just… well, buy property here if it means that much to us. Be politically active.”

“But you don’t sound sure. Charlotta, is this the big scary plan your boyfriend keeps hinting at.”

“Yes. I am going to settle things for her once and for all, over your corpse, Crush.”
Charlotta flinched.

Mike took one step forward, then another through dry orange leaves. Wherever the deer touched, the land went sweet. The air smelled of campfires, the trees lured into winter slumber. So perfect, one just wanted to give in and be tall, slender, effective like they were. A sign that Moi was working his magic now.

“Charlotta, you’ve never felt like you fit in, your entire life. You told me that. Nor have I… somehow, we found each other. And, we found this neighborhood. If you do this, then you and I can live here, in a safe place. No deer and… no parents asking me why I’m dating a black girl, or why I like speaking Spanish. No more feeling ashamed that you can’t afford to have your own place here, either. You don’t need Crush to secure that. You and I can work on that together. Moi, Empror Crush, is a monster who’s stuck in the past. Look, man, how are you any better than the hipsters you imagine are around here, ruining things? You want everything to be one way, and you want to blame one set of people for a complex cultural or socio-economic phenom… so you’re not any better.”

“You’re still asking me to shoot my friend at the end of the day, Mike. Moi is the only one who understands what it’s like to lose everything. You and I almost didn’t get together. You fought so much to finally speak to me. Why did you do that? Black men, Latino guys, they’ve never done that to me.”

“I never meant to hurt you, it’s just that I’ve never—”

“Found a black woman attractive?”

“You know that’s not true. Just look at yourself and how nervous you were to get involved with me. Admit to that. God, in fact, I thought we were past all this? And not every couple where people are from different backgrounds is like that. I’ll work on my parents, and yours have a bias too… I swear, if I hear your mother say ‘oriental’ one more time… Look, I’m sorry. But we’re gonna be fine. At least in this neighborhood, we can have a start. And back in Connecticut, I didn’t grow up in a place or know of any place where this wouldn’t be a big deal. I always knew it wasn’t right… I thought you were trying for this too, like me.”

“I am the Emperor of the Ungulate Empire. You can’t save just this one place when the rest of the world has fallen. Everything will come and go through me.”

“Listen to that, Charlotta, he’s just using the deer power on you.”

“No, I don’t think that he is.”

“Come and graze beneath me…”

Charlotta spoke over her old friend, “Moi, be quiet. Mike, you’re already talking about marriage. Maybe we just can’t… Maybe you just want to gloss things between us over… and then there was that blonde girl I had to wait for you to break up with, while you decided it was even worth talking to me on the bus. We never even discussed that. We’re afraid to. Or, I am.”

“Charlotta!” Mike was hurt. He turned so she wouldn’t see his pained look.

Moi started up again, cussing at Mike in Spanish, then Charlotta intervened, in her taught-from-Spain accent.
Mike defended himself in excellent pronunciation over Moi’s colloquialisms. The Latino, the Asian, the black girl, all shouting at each other in Spanish, in the woods near Mount Pleasant.

“Y qué es más importante, Charlotta? Tú sueño, o el futuro seguro, conmigo?”

Gunshot.

Mike awakened, feeling as if the whole world was moving beneath him. He’d fallen asleep on the bus again?

He looked over, smiling, wanting to see Charlotta standing with her back to him, so cute, trying not to look.

The day they finally had a real conversation on that H4 bus…

But there was a tree, no—the branches were too close, bleeding the sun into the gray tree color, and the yellow leaves… so he was outside. And someone was crying.

Emperor “Moi” Crush leaned down, a brown face suddenly moved what were truly antlers overhead. These raised and shifted with the man’s speaking. Speaking through those crooked teeth.

“She shot you.”

“Charlotta…”

“You don’t even want to say goodbye, Charlie?”

“It wasn’t a mortal wound. We can still send him home to Connecticut. Moi… Moi, get away from there.”

Her voice quaked, “We need to finish this.”
Mike took final shallow breaths as he watched her. All that beautiful dark skin against the yellow leaves. And then the other man, naked, who joined with her. Antlers both raising from the crowns of their heads as they bucked together.

Mike Lee thought about Bestworld, the ten cent popsicles at the Argyle, men cutting coconuts with machetes on the street, the Easter night procession of the local catholic church chanting in Vietnamese, in Creole, in English down the main street… how he first kissed that beautiful black girl from the bus, and her lips tasted like tamarindo—and he knew the taste, and she loved that he already knew of it… Mike thought of the last Latino Festival he saw, with the man in Peruvian dress bending on his old knees, setting an incense bowl aside, kissing the asphalt of Mount Pleasant Street with his lips. How long the old man held up the clamber, bells and loudspeaker of that entire procession.

Mike remembered how he had wanted to do the same on that summer day. He understood what it felt like to finally belong someplace good. He felt the pain in his left leg now, that he wished to kneel.

Mike shut his eyes and decided to die.

June 12, 2013

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Writing when you’re single, Part Two

The Writing When You’re Single series continues… this one’s a two-fer!

#2 Writing on date night, and writing with a broken heart

What about weekend nights—do you ever feel guilty for staying in to write if nothing else comes up?

For this one, first let’s debunk the idea of singlehood being a pathetic or less-than state of existence. I’m not a romance guru; I’ll refer you to one of my favorite dating bloggers at the moment: Natalie Lue with Baggage Reclaim can help you pull all that mess together.

But, once you haveembraced that your time is your own, you should spend it how you like therefore, and that you definitely don’t need to spend it constantly trying be out with a special someone on the weekends if you’re not interested in what’s going on one particular evening, nor fond of anything your friends are doing…
then, staying in and focusing on your favorite sexy alone-time activity as a single writer (okay, let’s be honest, second-favorite): you write your hands off, goddammit!

You write about your lazy, jaded jade dragon friend, that dancing betta fish who loves Shakira (how do you Shakira-dance with no hips, though??!), the novel chapter that’s just killing you because it won’t get off the ground. Maybe you even make progress. As long as you’re having a good time and enjoying yourself, then what’s the big deal if it’s not done perfectly well? I think it actually takes courage to embrace that you are a writer and need alone time in that way. Just like the first-place favorite sexy activity—don’t do you any good to go ‘round feelin’ ashamed, honey.

I tricked you; I said that last line more like a trucker. Did you hear it?

Do you ever write when your heart is broken?

Unfortunately, I and at least one other of my good girlfriends has told me that she has the same problem—sometimes I lose the will to write when something has gone really wrong romantically. Dating is so up and down anyways, though, so you have to be careful to “not feel like writing” whenever He doesn’t call, or He didn’t consider your feelings, or He moved on to someone else pretty quick, didn’t he? That’s a lot of “I can’t write today”, and for me, this can extend for weeks…

It’s true that, sometimes, you can write someone you really hate into one of the projects on your laptop, let loose some hilarious misadventures on his ass and then feel vindicated. Once, long ago, I needed to deepen the character of the evil prince character in one of my fanfiction stories, and, all of a sudden, I realized that I did know what a manipulative arsehole behaved like, and just used those personality traits to make a charming, selfish and infuriatingly successful villain. Haha! (Not a hehe). Actually, more like another muahahahaha…

But, during those low times when dating, you’ve got to just take care of yourself, get over the issue as you can, and then, I recommend—once you don’t have too many immediately personal feelings tied into the situation which has become ancient history—then you can pull snatches of the guy’s personality or that guy’s or this girl’s, and then use that to craft a mean character, or better yet, a really complex and tender hateable or loveable character that you need in a certain story.

So, you know, you keep writing, you keep dating… eventually, you’ll get married, or become a badass single lady (SNGL4EVABITCH), or get published, or marry your publisher… what would a marriage to Tor Books be like? I dunno if their building could fit in the botanical garden rainforest greenhouse where I want the ceremony to be…

Part One: How the hell do you write a good romance when you aren’t dating?

June 8, 2013

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Writing when you’re single

Oh, yes I did draw a black
Wonder Woman with cornrows…

I’ve had some funny hehe (entertaining) and funny haha (oh, how embarrassing) moments writing as a single woman. Even as a black single woman, which adds another layer to what you may experience when you’re drafting your novel at home in singlehood, trying to explain your story-babies to folks at work, and even “secretly” sharing risqué fantasy fiction from beneath a cute moniker for your favorite video game…

So, I realized it might be helpful and really, amazingly goofy of me to share how the single-writing-female thing goes down, for any avid fiction readers who wonder how it does all come together when real life is in the way, or for any other lady writers out there looking for friendly reflection from a fellow Diana Prince by day, Wonderwoman writer by night type of gal.

This will be a three-part series, so hold on tight! (You’re holding on tight because it’s exciting. Omg, are you still not holding on tight? You just hurt my feelings…)

#1 How the hell do you write good romances when you’re not dating?

Oh my God, so how many times over the years have I plunked down on the sofa at the end of a frustrating day of trying to work, while at day-job and not focusing on some guy who was great/letting me down at the moment, and then tried to come up with something noble, sexy
and inspiring once I’m really at work on the night-job with a story inside of my laptop? I can tell you that some of the romances I enjoyed writing best, happened when I was almost completely dejected about some horrible thing a guy had done to me. Damsel: Once upon a time when I was Catholic happened while I was recovering from both a six-year relationship that hadn’t worked, and also a really scary affair that decided to happen immediately after. So then, of course it starts with a woman feeling totally empty and abandoned, tied to a stake and left with kindling piled under her feet. She’s not been burned up yet. Eve is alone there, forgotten about even in this moment. She’s singing silly songs to keep her spirits up, then cussing at annoying song birds, waiting “for someone to save her, or else have mercy and light the damned pyre!” And then, when the knight and shining armor does come to save her, Eve just can’t trust it…

“Could my body, possibly, become a symphony?
One horrible state offsetting another?”

But then, the goofy romances she recounts for Knight Cymen Ruecross afterwards: an evil baron, a handsome aloof pirate, even a dragon… I think I indulged in making Eve’s love life worse and worse and worse than mine until it was just too horrendous not to laugh at it. I loved laughing at her, and at Cymen, the emotionally unavailable, sexually frustrated, religious, conservative beau who knew he had bigger problems in his spiritual life than heathen Eve, yet, he couldn’t put her back down. They each could have resolved one another, but so far, they don’t ever seem to…

I think, when you love writing, the thrill of it, even when you are upset, can compel you to turn lemons into lemonade more often than you would in real life, perhaps. Often, via smitten horse princesses, fangirl Valkyrie types, anthropomorphic housecats moving on an underground subway to find true love in the big cat city, steampunked married robots who solve mysteries and other wild ideas—I find I am able to indulge in what I know love truly is, have felt at least once in life, and know is worth fighting for… with my fingers tapping in almost aroused haste over a keyboard.

Looking back, writing as a single woman is more freeing than whenever I was dating someone. I was less tempted to hold back from possibly offending my lover at the time with unthinkably brilliant fantasy male types that definitely weren’t him and creative, otherworldly sexual experiences we two definitely were not gonna ever have together.

As a rule, I’m not pressuring any man I’m with to love me like a were-stallion. Let’s just keep things practical, okay, hun?

Part Two: Writing when you’re broken hearted & writing on date night

May 23, 2013

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Get inspired by Daft Punk and Rolling Stone

How I rocked, ro-bot-rocked my way to feeling recharged about writing…

I get energized by really outstanding, super-weird creative people. And, Daft Punk’s feature in the June issue of Rolling Stone was so goddamned satisfying for a fangirl like me. They cover everything I’ve been fiending to learn about: the helmets, three eras’ worth of their muses, and the secret, new pieces that intend to break pace with current non-trends in electronic music.

Also, Daft Punk’s new masterpieces should accomplish what they’ve done with music samples and that technological sound, “but with people”… Okay, so, at that point in reading, my goofy artist’s imagination reeled from some kind of soylent green ‘dear God, the riffs… they’re made from people!’ scenario (probably because these guys always dress like scary robots), before touching back to earth again when it was soon explained that Homem-Christo and Bangalter can rush through their studio mid-song to switch cables from input to output ports, or turn up one of a gazillion dials on custom made sound systems to produce a truly organic — from-the-soul sound that can’t just be repeated precisely from one performance to the next. Wow, imagine an electronic music duo who isn’t afraid to say that most music in their genre is “not deep, it’s surface.” Now, they’re busting their asses to keep their own sound emotionally provocative.

Hrm. Like how I feel about breaking the black experience into mainstream fantasy-fiction… Ouch.

But another real plus for me as an aspiring writer — Jonah Weiner’s descriptions of their unique music, “effects that… seem to glimmer and degrade like memories blossoming and fading…” and “densely woven but improbably buoyant” definitely re-energized me. (Yes: “Shit! I can’t write like that…” and then panicking tends to re-energize me.)

Now, since I clearly traveled into the future (June) with my DeLorean in order to read “Daft Punk: EDM’s Secretive Superstars Finally Open Up” in Rolling Stone, you can’t find it on the internets yet. So, and especially if you’re a Daft Punk fan as well as a writer, go spend five bucks at the store and read it, man/woh-man! (That was an obscure Inuyasha reference to womanizing Koga.)

I think my top three fav Daft Punk music vids are Something About Us from the animated movie Interstella 5555, Da Funk (that ugly dog you adore wandering around NYC, mired in pathos), and that one with them walking in the boiling desert dressed as robots for, what, 1.5 hours or something? Gosh, I think somewhere in there, watching them strut in “sci-fi glam” was a huge turn on for me…

So, yeah, in conclusion, that was mad cool. I never think to read Rolling Stone, but found myself suddenly delighted.

When you guys need that kick in the pants to write, what inspires you?

February 16, 2013

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She’s a Mean Old H4 Bus, Cpt 4: Moises “Emperor Crush” Romero

Emperor Crush had once been a fat little boy named Moises in the fifth grade at Sacred Heart School, between Mount Pleasant Street and Park Road and also Sixteenth and Park. He and Charlotta had played in the Mount Pleasant soccer League together, both the yellow team, the best team. Every Saturday, for hours on la polvosa, the little kids played dusty soccer while their parents shouted and watched. Vietnamese children, Haitian kids, children from El Salvador, from the Dominican Republic, from the Philippines, black kids, white kids, kids from everywhere liked to play. Mostly, those playing fútbol were Latino with a few of the others on one team or the other. It was how the neighborhood worked out. The coaches coached in English, or they could, but they were happier and proud to shout directions in Spanish.

Charlotta and Moises were both fullbacks and they were both good. Once, Moi threw himself almost at a goal post, to stop the ball from getting in. The coach yelled, “Cuidense!” and, “Idiota!” for which he later apologized to Mrs.Romero, regarding the boy’s safety and his facilitating a goal by that same act, because causing a handball so near to the goal meant the other team, from Adams Morgan, was going to put the ball back into play much closer to the Mount Pleasant goalie. Charlotta was the only girl on the yellow team, always was. After a scuffle to rearrange themselves after the ball was kicked in, one that the referees either didn’t see or didn’t say anything about, Charlotta raced ahead, got the ball to herself, and kicked it as hard as she could while screaming something—anything—as loud as she could to all of the boys charging down that side of the field. She might learn later on that blindly kicking the ball away from the boys wasn’t the best strategy, but it was some kind of start. The parents inside the wire fence and the neighbors leaning on it from the outside unhooked their fingers and laughed with amazement.

Mrs. Romero ran along the field, waving the girl over. In halting English, more hastened and difficult for her now that she was excited, “No, when you kick the ball… you pass it. But, wow. You go, very good, girl!”

Charlotta was angry and embarrassed, returned the hug and kept running. Every Saturday after practice,

Mrs. Romero walked her son and their neighbor Charlotta back down Irving Street from la polvosa. “You kids are so good… díle.”

Now Moi was the one embarrassed, for having to translate for his mother. “Earlier, she saw you screaming and said you were good.”

“I know that—”

“But to pass the ball instead, and kick more with your laces next time, to lift it. The ball.”

“Entiende.” She tried.

“No, that’s not really how you say it…” and now Moi was helping Charlotta with Spanish also. She wasn’t able to learn it in school, everybody already spoke it anyways.

And then, when they were far older, he living in Maryland and Charlotta also graduated from college but stuck at home with her parents, the two of them found themselves going down Irving Street again.

They’d come from the Columbia Heights Metro station together and were walking up to Don Juan’s restaurant. Both had just been to a DC United game across town, and had seen the half tennis court-half baseball field behind them where la polvosa used to be. A smaller version was backed even further from that another street behind, where the old Bell Multicultural school had been. Not one stone of the old building remained.

“No me importa esas cosas… Es evidente que—” Charlotta cut herself off. “Look, I just feel like an idiot.

That guy started speaking Spanish to me, really fast on purpose. We were having a fine conversation, I was doing really well, and then he goes and does that on purpose to try and trip me up. But, I’m from Mount Pleasant.”

“Right, but you’re not Latino. I’m not Latino, I don’t feel like it… I’m Spanish and Salvadorean, but it never felt right. Mom raised us, but on paella and then we’d watch Shin Chan in the summers, down in Andalucía… It’s weird, I don’t know, but it’s just the way things are.”

“But you get to pass, Moi.”

“What?”

Charlotta became frustrated, “I dunno what I’m even saying—like, light skinned black people used to pass as white… a lot of times, and there are black people in Central and South America, but then I go to get some damned shoes fixed and he talks to me like I’ve got no right. I played soccer with you, I went to the same church as you, everyone in our class, everyone in the neighborhood speaking Spanish, but I’ve got no right?”

“Where was this again? The one in Mount Pleasant?” And they were walking passed Leon’s Shoe repair now.

“No, it was the one in Union Station.”

“Why did you go all the way over there?”

“It’s close to my job… so, okay, I really went because I’ve never been into Leon’s and I didn’t want to… well, I’m not really fluent yet.”

“Get fluent, then, and you’ll stop having these problems. You can do it. Why don’t you think you can do it?

And avoiding Leon’s that’s just wrong, Charlotta. I thought you were in Spain too, years after Sofí and

I were, right? That’s where you discovered Shin Chan.” And Moi made the funny anime character’s boyish laugh. Charlotta could not be brought out of her gray thoughts.

“I think I’m bicultural or something, Moi, but I can’t say it—no one will believe me. And I don’t feel comfortable living anywhere else but here, in Mount Pleasant. If I can’t hear Spanish all the time, if I can’t shop at Bestway…”

“Bestworld.” He corrected her, and Charlotta pushed him, almost back into the street once they got on the corner of Irving and Park where Don Juan’s Salvadorean and Mexican restaurant was.

“To me, it will always be Bestway.”

“I know, me too.”

“But what do you call that? What in the world do you call that… I’m black but I also have this other side I love… both are me. I’m worried because I have a date with this guy I met at the bus stop…”

“Oh, him.”

“Yeah…” she smiled, “I finally asked him. I think he was just dating that other girl I saw him kissing or whatever, she’s not his girlfriend or anything.”

“Whatever. Let’s go inside. We’ll talk about your weird life and how you think too much in there. Y mira—I want to get that platter you got the last time, los chicharrones…”

“Moi—” she blocked his way in.

“Look, Charlotta. I don’t like this guy, but if you’re so worried about it—he’s probably going to be fine with it, with you, if he lives in the neighborhood too. You said he likes Mount Pleasant, so what are you doing to yourself? Plus, it’s just a first date.”

“I’m not doing it… he’s from New England. He’s really hot, I’ve never dated anyone so hot before, and he’s handsome…”

“Same as hot, Charlotta.”

“He’s Asian. I think he’s Korean. But maybe I’m the one who has too much going on…?”

“You think? Oh God… Anyways, so what? He’ll be like any other guy… and you’re just dating him, unless you think he’s gonna propose? Oh my God, what color dress should I wear, and I better go over to England to get my shoes fixed this time, because I’m afraid to try speaking Spanish in Mount Pleasant or even in Union Station even though I’m bicultural.” All this, in a girl’s voice. And, he sort of sounded a bit like that anime character they loved together too.

“Stop. People speak Spanish in England, Moi.”

“Order some pupusas so I can steal them off your plate.”

“Can you believe people are starting to wear heeled shoes, so they can walk on their toes like those deer?”

“I heard Obama’s even doing it. He wants antlers also but they won’t let him.”

They sat down inside. Don Juan’s had murals of beautiful Latina women, three in tangas (they counted) who were relaxing in the even more beautiful country side, making tortillas, grilling the sort of food they were about to eat.

“Moi? Are you going to that protest next Sunday? It’ll be here, in Mount Pleasant.”

“Really? Didn’t they learn from the riots? I mean, have another potentially dangerous language barrier thing here? And, with those deer?”

Moi hadn’t been wrong. Moi knew exactly what to be wary of, where not to stand when the neighbors and the deer people started shouting, and the police car got tipped over. Moi had known exactly which way to run when the DC police tried, but could not stop the fighting between the people bucking their antlered heads on all fours, and the Mount Pleasanters raising up bottles, breaking sticks down off the skinny little sidewalk trees, brooms, anything.

Moi laughed through his slanted teeth after aiming at one of the deer with a beebee gun.

Charlotta, “What is wrong with you, idiota! Y cuidénse… Shit, the police…”

“I was protecting that kid, a deer was coming right for him. I’m not afraid. Come on, Charlotta.”

But Charlotta had run. Moi was arrested, Charlotta assumed, because she did not see him again. She was afraid to answer Sofi’s messages when she called.

Mike sat on a log next to the angry-faced black girl, guns leaned on either side of them, hand stroking her back. “De… colores…” he sang.

“Oh God, stop.”

“De colores se vista en los campos en la primavera…”

“Oh my God…” she started laughing.

“… y los pollitos, con su pio, pio, pio, pio, pio, pio, pi…”

“Pio pa.” she corrected.

“Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores les gustan a mi.”

And she, “Y por eso, los grandes amores de muchos colores les gustan a mi.”

“You won’t be so hungry after we shoot that deer. And then, you’ll feel better. For two reasons.”

Mike looked at Charlotta. She was watching him, but he didn’t care. He saw his hand pushing at her back, the very real, warm beating brown disappearing beneath his pale hand. “My mother knows about us. It was the same night you called me a Viking.”

“I’m so sorry I called you that. And I’m sorry I made you so upset that you went ahead before it was right to introduce us.”

“It’s okay.” Mike shrugged. “She was going to find out anyway. My mother did not have a lot of nice things to say about a woman she barely knew…” he left out what else, “and who made her son as upset as you did.”

“Shit, I’m so sorry. Even if we do get out of here, and the deer, what’s going to be left for us?”

“My mother should have seen it coming, though. Most of my friends down here are Latino, they speak Spanish. You aren’t the first black woman I’ve wanted… and a black woman who speaks Spanish because she grew up in Mount Pleasant and wanted to try… she tells off a Korean guy who speaks Spanish because all his friends grew up in Mount Pleasant, and he wanted to try to understand… I was so turned on. You were terrified weren’t you?”

“I was obsessed.”

“There were talking deer in the neighborhood, it was hard not to be. Things changing so fast… and those deer did not want to learn to speak Spanish.”

“Mike,” Charlotta sat up when he did, to have a sudden look around. Both of them put hands near their guns. Then, he gestured an all-clear, and they want back to resting, “My father once told me that, though there are natives, a lot of the people in Mount Pleasant, maybe most of them, aren’t Pleasanters because they were born and bred… rather than passing the experience down by blood, it’s been passed down by sweat. People who work and protested to keep the neighborhood safe, people who see me running down the street in my hoodie and try not to cross the street though they look like they’re going to. They say hello instead.”

“God, I can’t believe you put up with that.”

“Sweat, not blood.”

“And your parents aren’t from here, are they? I remember you told me that… so… I’m a native too.

Do you know what I mean?”

Charlotta thought about this.

“If it’s sweat and not blood. Then, I’m a native too. Like you. And our kids will be like you, with two parents who earned the right to be here. A dream realized… I do see it. That and a yard full of the thai basil you still owe me, querida.”

Charlotta did not want to repeat to Mike what he had just admitted to, about what she meant to him. She shivered instead.

“I can’t believe that we met on the H4 of all places. Why didn’t we meet on the street, or at Don Juan’s or anyplace else in Mount Pleasant?”

“Your friend Moi, Crush, whoever-the-hell, gave away the underground for a lot of our neighbors, and carried on a campaign, for weeks, to brainwash the rest. He’ll not be stopped by us having a reasonable lead. We should keep moving.”

But that choice no longer belonged to them. A man with antlers was standing several paces behind them.

Mike could not have smelled him nor seen his shadow, as Emperor Crush easily had done. It had only been a few months ago, but, downwind of them, Crush still smelled like spilled gasoline, tear gas, ripped grass from a scuffed up soccer field, the wet leather of the ball… a Mount Pleasant riot.

“And I thought one of you wanted to shoot me in the head, for betraying the neighborhood? Aquí estoy.”

February 9, 2013

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She’s a Mean Old H4 Bus, Cpt 3: Love, After the Deer Apocalypse

In an orange autumn world, and overlooking a winding gray creek—silver, this morning, a sea of yellowing black walnut trees and kudzu, both invaders foaming far below, and alongside that, Charlotta looked down and breathed smile at the dizzying rush below and the incredible, orgasmic pangs within. The sky above was a whitening blue, the sort of maybe blue that a city sky never is. And there were birds. She didn’t care about those birds. The almost not sounds he was making, those incensed her. Those struggled to hear over every other sensation up from their hips together, and the cool air beneath her feet, that tickled them was an unfair reminder, at the same time, that they could both fall, that he might have lied and would not be able to catch her no matter what…

The Korean boy with the JCrew shirt was doing this to her. The popped collar now on the ground somewhere, torn open.

“Mike…”

She was brown, and to her, his skin looked white. Of all the escapees, they were an impossible couple to misidentify, even at a distance. If anybody in life gave them the once in a while odd look about it before, They were going to use it to their advantage now.
Charlotta kissed and kissed and kissed him. Then, she thought Mike would sort of dismount her, by the hips, and put her back standing face to face with him, and they’d decrescendo with another dramatic kiss like the one that got them going on Pulpit’s Rock.

But instead, Mike’s arms shook and he had to get down on one knee to do it with absolute safety. The air, the trees, Rock Creek Park was all around them. It had changed only a little since the deer people arrived.

“So, we’ve committed a federal offense.” He spoke again when he could, laying out on the sun-warmed rock. One knee to two hands and a knee, and then resting on his side. His chest and sweating neck swole and strained with breath he needed to catch.

Charlotta crawled to him and put a hand on his opened shoulder. “I know, there’s no going back now… I’m sure,” her mouth twisted, “Emperor Moi did see us.”

“No, Charlotta, I meant that this is federal property. You told me that once, I remember… you don’t? I missed the trees, you said there were biketrails in Rock Creek Park and it was a national park. Then I ran the trails.”

“You did?”

Another pair of fast breaths. “…Yeah. You tell me one thing on the bus, a stranger, and it change how I do everything. Morning, night. Well, when there was daylight in the summer.”

“Wow. You really listened to me?”

“I was so nervous. Nervous as shit talking to you… and I was always really mad you never shared your thai basil. I thought you were lying at first, for saying that you were growing some in your backyard, when I complained that I needed it.” Mike stopped what he was doing and stared at her.

Charlotta instantly turned around, grabbed a rock or stick or something, she wasn’t sure till she looked down at her hand, and then up at him, offering a hand up.

“Charlie, I’m trying to make you laugh. Make our last day on this earth together fun.”

“It won’t be.”

“It might be. Better to be practical.”

“You’re too negative though, that’s why you were afraid to start talking to me again in the first place.”

“It was a bad date, you running away from Flying Fish. You really did run away from me, didn’t you? I even saw you…”

“…I wasn’t really… I had to go and do something. And you were the one who actually, literally ran away from me, across the street that time rather than just explain I’d seen you kissing some girl while you were on another date. But that was before our date. So, you get a lot of phone numbers, so what? You’re hot. You’re really nice and awesome, whatever. It just hurt that it happened like, steps away from where you gave me your phone number right outside of Cleveland Park Metro.”

“…and I wasted hours trying to buy a thai basil plant in Chinatown. My brother hated me for making us drive up to Boston for that, rather than just take the train from Connecticut. Here, if you have to reach for something reach for a gun, not a rock.”

“You bought a whole plant? For me? Well, because I had started growing a plant but you needed the basil I wouldn’t give… so that gave you the idea to go and buy a basil plant?”

“I needed the thai basil…” Mike looked up from checking to see if his rifle was loaded well, then snapped the barrel back into place, “And you were being a bad neighbor. A bad neighbor with a really nice ass.”

“I was not—you were the one who had another girlfriend, for all I knew. That girl with the long braid…”

“Don’t strap on the gun that way, Charlotta, do it the way I always tell you…”

And their silly voices carried as they dressed and armed themselves on this last day of the Coronoation Hunt. Mike and Charlotta eventually stepped down from the summit of the hiking trail and got into less familiar territory then their campground, and into deeper woods.

“You know, if we keep following this, we’ll eventually end up in that area where that girl disappeared.”

“Chandra Levy?”

“I don’t know… Mount Pleasant is getting pretty far behind us, Mike.”

“We shouldn’t talk so much, y pués callénse la bocacita. I will miss Corado’s though. And, the bibimbap at
Adams… pretty darn good for a carryout.”

“I had that once.”

“Growing thai basil in your backyard for no reason while poor hot Korean boys on the bus starve? You would. How did you know I was Korean anyway?”

“I thought you said not to talk, y calláte. Shit… no es justo. I’m not used to walking like this at all.”

“Most of the time, a lot of people who aren’t Asian or haven’t had a lot of friends, or who live under rocks can’t tell. Maybe you assumed?”

She wouldn’t answer. Mike knew that it meant she was embarrassed. “Let’s hunt deer instead of talking so much; that’s the main thing. Because this time, Moi is definitely coming for you and for me.”

“It’s short for Moises. You did ask me that earlier, before we… and, thank you for that.”

Mike was confident. He’d walked trails and hunted, though farther up the east coast in Connecticut. He finished gazing over the perimeter and his woman’s butt as she leaned to steady herself on a low branch. Then, Mike stepped aside so that they were no longer walking in a line, one in front of the other, with their guns. The narrow spaces between trees had opened up. “No problem. Baby.”

Charlotta smiled, perhaps for a thousandth time, that they were rubbing off on one another. Enamorados.

“And, you take a body shot. I’ll aim for the head.”

It should have been Mike to get her out of jail, but it was Moi. Emperor Moises with the antlers, saying to keep it quiet, saying he would explain later, and then they passed by deer people herding DC natives into corrals on Mount Pleasant Street. Charlotta remembered now, how horrifying it was then, to remember how human beings were only half… and the deer people were the other half of all the people living in DC, just like anywhere else. And how, of all the people on the Earth who’d given up and decided to go deer, her friend Moi was not supposed to be one of them.

That bad dream about she and Mike hating one another, that mean bus driver… since when was his name Marlin? Nobody knew the bus driver’s name—she didn’t…

Moi had smiled at her, when they opened the cell gate. He still had those crooked teeth from fifth grade. Shadows of antlers slashing across his face. Moi had told her everything would be alright, before shouting at the guards to keep those nasty humans off the waxed car before it drove them both down Park Road, past the mural, where the H4 bus would have gone, but then they turned onto another road, beneath the bridge on Klingle Road, through the woods, where there were deer everywhere, on everything, and that should have told her it was going to be hell.

“Mike… you’ve got to let me be the one to shoot our Deer Emperor in the head.”

“Alright, but don’t miss, Charlotta. I don’t want to end up standing in the rear-doorwell-of-life with you, much as I love you…”

February 2, 2013

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She’s a Mean Old H4 Bus, 2: The Quiet, Angry-faced Girl

The girl with the quiet, angry face did not, of course, call herself ‘girl with the quiet, angry face.’ She was Charlotta Phelps, but Charlotta was the kind of young woman who did realize strangers must call her ‘quiet, angry-faced girl’ and she relished having a quiet, menacing demeanor that kept people unseated with her—she was able to project her frustration, sharpen it, and then strangers didn’t approach. A little girl, she looked like one, but she set it up so that men on the street must have been frightened of her. Who needs mace in this city? She was really very good at scaring the men on the METRO, and that was her best defense, and also her favorite game. She reasoned that she had better like doing it to them. Her offense.

There were more than the homeless-looking men who stared to play the game with. She played the ‘don’t you dare touch me’ silent treatment with the business-looking men who stared at the way she wore her coat, her purse, her body. Leaning on the silver pole on the METRO train with hips cocked, as if she had had enough. All those business-looking men could not have been from DC, almost no one living in her city was anyways, but Charlotta had learned that these men could hurt her with their misunderstanding, shame her by making obvious the distance she (knew she feared she) saw between them, if she ever allowed them to get near and take her, and tap her number down, and text her later,

Ur so beautiful. Nice finally talking to someone on the bus. Wanna get coffee later?

And that turned into,

“I can’t believe you’re really from here… a DC native. What do you call that?”

She’d forget the flash of girlfriends and schoolmates forced to flee a gentrified neighborhood, moved out to Maryland, joked about being ‘exiles’ on Facebook. Charlotta tightened smile and said instead,

“I’m just me, Charlotta.” Then, come on girl, show him a little mercy, “Or a native, a metropolitan, a Washingtonian, I bet.”

“That’s so beautiful. A Washingtonian. I’m going to be one soon too, then. I’ve been here about four years.

Where did you go to school again? Did you stay here your whole life?”

Would there be something wrong with me if I had? But, Charlotta said, “I did go to Boston for school. I chose to come back.”

He then spoke to her about how everyone in DC was rude, and obsessed with appearances. Charlotta wondered if he was Korean.

She wanted to ask, badly, but wasn’t sure. Was embarrassed for being black and even from Mount Pleasant, and still being afraid to ask about someone else’s ethnicity. Her brown eyes passed over the crooked popped collar of his J Crew shirt, across the drained coffee cups, into her own empty hands. She reached through the window and passerby, into the sunlight and back to her quiet morning with her sweet parents that day. They had asked her about her plans for the afternoon, and then said for her to stay safe, take a cab if she was late and needed it, all of them surviving together in the million dollar rowhouse that was too expensive to fix. And now Mike with no last name was saying that DC people were mean, DC people were selfish. DC people should change themselves…

Flying Fish was a coffee shop near Mount Pleasant and Hobart streets. Two large padded chairs were set up in the window front, and to Charlotta, it felt more like she and Mike were sitting on two thrones and observing this end of the neighborhood.

Frugalista and Clínica del Pueblo framed their vista while mostly young white people walked by with colored shoulderbags with the caramel straps and flap—Charlotta had no idea where those they-all-look-the-same bags came from, she was a little disgusted by the idea of going out to get one, though she was starting to want one of theirs… and she was wearing a gray hoodie that looked like it was spray painted all over with hot pink stylized fleur-de-lys, something so girly and urban that she found in El West.

Indoors, a slightly angry-looking black girl, and she chose to keep the hood up and look like she was going to gangbang. Mike was really smiling at her during the pause in their conversation, trying to turn a little in their chairs that weren’t really facing one another and see around the hood. It turned into charmed laughter.

Charlotta finished turning her empty coffee cup around in circles, heart beating into her throat, and for some reason said,
“We can’t afford to fix our roof. I can’t afford to move out where I want, into this neighborhood where I grew up…” she might have said more, but was afraid. Charlotta stuffed hands into her hoodie pockets and needed for Mike to think about it.

“You’re so cute aren’t you? When you’re angry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry… but what do you mean, you can’t afford a place of your own? Don’t you work?”
Don’t you shut up? You selfish, maybe-Korean, JCrew wearing, superficial guy-from-the-bus-guy… But the way Mike’s shirt was unbuttoned… The way he was always laughing at her… a perfect, perfect smile. His uncle was a dentist, hadn’t he said that once?

All by himself, on the bus, silent Mike had exuded sunshine in that laughing smile until she finally introduced herself. And, he liked mint gum. Easy to tell when he smiled so much. Amazing that someone amazing as this lived just next door. Now, Charlotta leaned out from her fuchsia and gray hood, bit down a smile before hastening to her next point. “My parents always speak kindly to maybe everyone on the street, Mike. Even those borrachos. And, that’s how they raised me. So you know, it’s not everyone like that, either.”

“Everyone who what? God, you’re speaking fast… but, wait, borracho… I’ve heard that before. That’s Spanish? God, you can speak Spanish too? That’s so beautiful. But you’re black, right? And yours isn’t like when I try to speak Spanish at Haydee’s. You’ve ever had dinner there? Pupusa sounds so weird, doesn’t it? I feel like a jackass saying it… poo-poo, poo-poo saaah… but they’re so good. Oh—and I hear there are shrimp pupusas right on the corner, over there,” he pointed eagerly for her to look, through a wall. “In Ercilia’s restaurant. Or, maybe that place is a carry out… that whole place is in freaking Spanish, even the trash cans say ‘basura.’ Honestly, I’m kinda afraid to go in there, haha. But, how do you speak Spanish? All my friends…” he lost his voice a moment, while Charlotta let her hood down, bent over an elbow she wedged into her hip, and then rubbed a bare shoulder, hard, with her other hand. Where was her shirt? Or, no sleeves? And her legs splayed like a man, a thug—or something. Beautiful. And, bad and beautiful. Mike finished his coffee and swifted through a mint trident wrapper. Chewed instantly. Resumed confident, clear speech. “Well, where did you learn Spanish?”

She learned it in college after studying it in high school because they didn’t offer it in middle school, because all her salvadoreño friends already spake it, “I come from Mount Pleasant.”

Charlotta then excused herself, left a ten for what he already paid for, she was so nervous, and left. The little black woman was several indignant quick strides down from Hobart Street before she realized she and Mike lived maybe within a block of one another—her rowhouse was her family home, and his rowhouse was some other’s family home that they were renting out. He would definitely see her almost running away if he left Flying Fish soon after. Well, Charlotta just cussed herself, put up her hoodie and ran…

And the H4 bus was maybe the slowest way home with the two of them on it, as it drove along the shortest route from the Cleveland Park METRO station on one side of Rock Creek Park, down through the trees to Mount Pleasant on the other side. Charlotta lived closer to that side of Mount Pleasant than the other edge nearby Columbia Heights station on its other side.

So anyways, since that bad date, Chalotta the quiet-mean-faced-girl had decided to stop talking to the men and boys on the H4 bus. She wedged herself into the rear doorwell and looked out.

At times, when she was really good at not looking at any more men and staring out through the windows of the ever-late H4 bus, Charlotta saw deer along the road. Klingle Road which was such a fancy sounding thing, that became Park Road, which everybody knew was so urban, going through Columbia Heights too, and Petworth and on… and the deer she used to see with their white butts up, or creeping through the trees to eat, seemed so weird. Out of place, grazing on a hill above the long mural painted by the Latin American Youth Center. She really disliked the park that cut up her commute. Build a bridge over it, tunnel under it, anything… then, maybe the H4 would be on time. And the men couldn’t stare as long.

Once, a woman hit a deer with her car and held up traffic trying to wave people away from where it was lying at the edge, where Klingle became Park Road. The damned bus driver stopped to talk her through how to get help. They chatted as he carefully maneuvered the bus around the weird hipster woman, her banged up car, the stupid deer that wasn’t supposed to even be there in the first place… Why were there even deer in Washington, DC?

Charlotta was facing these trees when she woke up on the bus that Monday morning. She evened her breathing, set aside fantasies of Mike’s mint-tasting sharp smile, and the bloodied deer. The bus driver, a man she once heard called Marlin, was half kneeling in the row of blue seats ahead of her. He was leaned against an opened window of the bus, hand on the wall, other hand pulling by the red emergency lever, to try and slam it back shut again. He jerked his entire body several times, using up all his muscles to get this thing to work. He was handsome, though he was much older. She hadn’t really noticed it before. Charlotta focused on how thirsty and sick to her head that she felt instead. She had a water bottle in her purse. But, her hand came out again with a cell phone.

“Goddammit—no smart phones!” Marlin tried to reach over.

“You can’t take my phone, that’s not a bus rule. I’ve been riding this bus my whole life…”

“I’ve been driving this bus here, in DC, for longer than you’ve been alive. And, where are you even from?”

She told him. One genuine smile happened between them. Two natives. He softened, “When I was coming up in Northeast, you know, they used to say, ‘Don’t go over to Mount Pleasant, it’s crazy over there…”She laughed through her nose. “Oh. The riots. Yes, that was certainly true then.”

“Ya’ll’s were crazy back there.” He meant back then. He also meant back up the hill, in that particular place, that neighborhood with people living in it from around the world, throwing Mount Pleasant days that swelled up the streets, eating pupusas, and everybody finding themselves having to speak

Spanish, or understand a bit of it. Marlin hadn’t needed to explain all that. Maybe Korean Mike had needed all that explained to him. Have a little mercy on him girl, show mercy…

Police officers were making their way awkwardly through the cars outside. Most of them were hunched over in an odd fashion, ducking down to search for something.

Charlotta made a phone call. “I should probably tell them I’m going to be late… or sick. And, God, what happened out there? Why is there so much traffic?” then, she craned around, “The bus is empty? It never is on my way to work… if it’s another dead deer in the road, I swear… I hate those damned stupid deer. Aren’t you annoyed too, that they’re even deer here in DC? So ridiculous.”

Marlin’s eyes went wide. He cursed her and the phone, did get a hold of it this time, threw it to the ground, jammed and shattered its screen with the heel of his boot.

“What the fuck is wrong with you—”

“What is wrong with you, trying to kill us—that thing can go on the internet. Did you just go online, on Facebook or something? You took pictures?”

“Alright, I’m getting out. I’m walking to Cleveland Park. Let me off the bus.”

Please do not stand in the rear doorwell.

“I hate that fake bus voice… Shut up!”

Please do not stand in the rear doorwell.

“And then, you complained about them over the phone. I heard. Did they hear you?”

“What’s that METRO emergency number? 832-2121…”

Please, do not stand in the rear doorwell.

“That’s for the subway. Shit, they’re coming over now. Girl, what’s your name? This is on you little girl, with the little scrunched up, I can’t get a man, too quiet face…”

Someone outside banged on the door. The police. Marlin stood by the break to open the doors. He cursed gently, his hand reaching for the lever quivered. He took one last look at Charlotta. For what? For her to help him? The riders never cared…

“You gonna finally sit down and follow the rules? I can start up this bus again—I think she’ll listen to me, but you can’t be standing in that rear doorwell.”

Charlotta became exasperated. She got mad and flipped Marlin off. Then, she set her hand back firmly on the pole near the rear door, her old spot. Raised above the stairs, looking out everywhere, no one seeing her.

“Go right ahead. Let the police in, so they can arrest you for breaking my phone and trying to trap me in here… And you’re so gross. How dare you—I’m maybe twenty years younger than you are.”

Marlin just shut his eyes (and shut his mouth for a moment too, against what he really wanted to say to this stuck up girl) and took a deep, resigned breath. “Fine. Charlotta Phelps, it’s on you.”

Marlin sat, reached down, pulled, and then the front doors of the bus folded away with a gasp of the compressed air release. The men who walked onto the bus consulted Marlin, and he pointed them down the aisle to his only little passenger.

Please, do not stand in the rear doorwell.

“Charlotta Phelps?” but she gripped the silver pole by the rear door, rather than answer. The policemen were on two legs, but they weren’t… right somehow, those were crooked. Then, jutting up through slots on either side of their helmets, were real antlers. Sharp. Twelve points each. These they used to bully in and prod her away from where she was trying to hold fast.

Charlotta felt her breathing get out of control. She tried to twist back around. They shoved her against the edge of a hard plastic seat. Pain and punishment really took her breath away, then. At the head of the bus, Marlin was already looking relieved to see the officers find what they wanted.

Nasal atonal voices in unison, “You are under arrest for treason against the Stag Emperor. Did you witness the treason, Driver Marlin?”

Charlotta was shivering, still trying to get a real look at them or make herself not. It occurred to her in the tense wait that, whatever was going on, Marlin could say something to stop it. She was the one being accused? All she did was take out her cell phone.

Old Marlin leaned back to get comfortable in his driver’s chair. He grimaced and thought. Then, he brushed the shoulder of his light blue shirt, dusted it in Charlotta’s direction.

“I did. And you might as well take her, she’s not a good citizen at all, officer. Yeah, I heard her say that she hated deer. And, she is always standing in the rear doorwell. Then, she’s mean to all the male passengers on my bus. You shoulda’ heard what she just now finally said about me. And I been drivin’ her sulky ass to work and back, up and down this hill every goddam day…”
Charlotta screamed out all her fear and rage.

Please do not stand in the rear doorwell.

The rear doors would not open, no matter how Marlin tried to work the controls upfront again. So, the deer police got high up on their cloven toes, kicked off and rammed in the glass, taking a screaming, rude little black girl with them. All of them falling through the stripped rubber and pierced plexiglass, and Marlin up in the driver’s seat, laughing broad and wide.

Klingle Road and Adams Mill Road. Stop requested.

The deer police gathered Charlotta Phelps up out of the glass and off the pavement. They licked their narrow, chewing muzzles and said she would be tried for her crimes against all men, the Ungulate Empire, and for standing in the rear doorwell.