2119—1st Day—52nd week
Mutafarrik!
This is Grace AKA Queen AKA Stank Tail.
I will be leaving St. Lucia, temporarily (never permanently), to do some work in Northern Mid America: Detroit. I’ll be there no fewer than 6 months. Ya’ll know anybody I can stay with, have that person meet me on the last day of the year, between five and six, underneath Joe Louis’ fist. Otherwise, I gotta stay with some friend of somebody, some old lady. Best behavior.
What else? Rumors fly concerning my extra-revolution affairs. No, I’m not luring the men of St. Lucia around with my tush. You can tell the market women to kiss mine. I keeps to myself, tend a garden, wait for my assignments.
I like it here. It’s clean here. Little Rock wasn’t no joke. It got way worse after the word hit the block the Art Bandits had hit that Burial Grounds Auction. Man! The next morning, all hell broke loose. They stormed the hotel! Awww, I was shitting bricks, literally! Spent three hours on the toilet worried that they was gonna find me in this fancy hotel, mistake me for some bourgeoisie or bureaucrat, and kill me before anyone could recognize me.
So then, let me tell you what Knowledge and Wisdom did. About midnight, I’m in the bathroom washing my hands. I hear these noises coming from the big living room area, or so I think, but the damn suite was so big, I couldn’t tell exactly where the sound could be coming from. I’m so used to sleeping in the van where if I hear a noise I just look and see the whole place in a glance. Plus, with Diva, you don’t have to hear the noise to know where it is coming from.
I digress. I press my ear to the door, and I can hear the floors creek, and the sound is approaching me. At this exact moment, my stomach starts bubbling, again. Unnerstan, I pull dem drawers down and sit right back on top of that toilet. I couldn’t go out there if I wanted to. I’d be liable to crap all over myself trying to kick the guy in the nuts.
What did I eat? Like some jalapeno cheese on fry bread with sushi. I had to eat what was in the hotel fridge. I couldn’t go out. People was hostile on the streets. How I’m gon look asking for a fish on frybread?
I hear the floorboards creaking closer and closer, and they don’t make any false moves. So I’m starting to think it’s either Wisdom and Knowledge or some trained assassin, crazed vet or some shit. So, of course, I select the only logical, next step—I sparked a blunt. I figured, first of all, they were going to smell me sooner or later. I obviously couldn’t flush the toilet. Second, if they caught me smoking a blunt, they would be less likely to shoot on sight. Then, if I could buy some time, I could escape, somehow.
The floor boards creek right outside the bathroom door. I hear somebody try the lock. Then, I hear this fool Knowledge say, “Damn, girl! What you been eating? Refried weed?” That’s your uncle, and, Drum, that’s your daddy.
What the worst part is, I relaxed so much after hearing his voice that I had to pull the grannies back down, and climb back on the damn toilet before I could compose myself enough to give them a hug.
What else? Well, the guy who is going to carry this letter to ya’ll is waiting very patiently, so I’m going to afford him the respect of saving whatever else for the next time. I’ll be in Southtown for a couple weeks around James Baldwin’s birthday.
Grace
2120—2nd Day—1st week
Princess
I didn’t ask you to send us a letter. I asked you to send me a letter, and I asked you to send me some cookies.
It’s getting back to normal around here. Everybody at each other’s throats. Dysfunction, like you say. Guess we got it with or without you.
Pick up some weight, Princess. You’ll be beautiful with some weight in them curves, but keep gliding by the way you do. You got so much, Grace. You named right, girl.
2120—4th day—27th week
I feel very ill about sending you secret letters, Lieu. If you cared about me, you wouldn’t want to hide the fact that we communicate. At least, that’s what makes sense to me.
I’m back in St. Lucia. Detroit was a bitch. I mean. They were really resistant to the idea of a cure at all. The people were purging themselves. Suicides off the wall. People killing themselves and their whole families.
A non-council organization contacted the Little Rock clinic. Said, send them up.
Man, talking bout hard! Wisdom got me stomping through snow in wool tights, boots, and skirts. Counseling people, cooking, a lot of cooking, cleaning, sometimes people been sick so long, and ain’t nobody been able to take care of their homes, their yards. You name it. Changing diapers, baby and adult. Then, in the night, I’m breaking in hospitals to purge positive tests or guarding orphanages. Guarding orphanages. No weapon, of course. Just a damn bullhorn and balls.
We empowered people. That’s the most we can do, right?
I missed St. Lucia. It is so clean here.
Lieu, I am desperately in love with any man that is not you. Why is this happening to me? I miss you, but I don’t want to be alone any more.
You coming, huh? I want to see you, but I’m afraid. I want to see you, but only from a distance. Perhaps you should stop sending the messenger.
Grace
2120—6th day—49th week
Our shit ain’t secret. It’s our business. Wisdom know. I got other women. You can have other men. You gon’ always love me most. When I come, I will see you. Don’t worry about how. I will not stop sending the messenger. You trying to hurt me. Why, Gracie? Well, love me today and hate me tomorrow.
Otherwise, game is game. Suave took a few months off. You know without Suave, an argument is inevitable. We just don’t talk much. We went to Harlem. He ran into his high school sweetheart. She sick. Advanced HIV. IM stayed there with him.
The band pulls a few volunteers from the ranks wherever we do a show. Wisdom and Know got scholars everywhere. The musical ones play in. More room on the bus. It’s some rhyming niggers out here. I’m learning a lot of languages.
People really starting to know. You know the band, the drugs, the clinics, the art? That Little Rock shit ain’t so rare anymore. Know what else? I’m seeing a lot of people get so healthy, recover completely, and no drugs. Just diet, exercise, meditation, acupuncture, massage, herbs, natural treatment—grass and roots shit.
I say they curing people. Knuc, IM, Drum, Eights, Doc, your brothers are healers, for real . They say they ain’t there, yet. I guess because they can’t keep people from transmitting HIV, and quitting the regimen will eventually make the symptoms come back... They say they can get AIDS back to HIV in a lot of cases. I feel like I could do this shit, curing people, like I’m picking it up like another one of these languages, just, learning it.
Wear this outfit when I see you. Fill it out, if you too skinny.
And please send my cookies, Grace.
2121—7th day—4th week
How did you find me?
Grace
2121—5th day—23rd week
I love you. You wore my dress. You must trust me. I know you, Grace. That means you love me, too. Let’s meet again. Fill this dress out more. Wisdom will send you to Tanzania.
2121—1st day—37th week
What must the devoted courier think of a brother and sister like we two?
Lieu, I need something real. Perhaps you should stop sending the courier?
Grace
2122—5th day—6th week
Grace!
You send a letter by paid envoy, over mountains, through the brush, across the ocean, and under the city streets, at the great expense of a poor righteous soldier, who truly wishes the courier could deliver the scent of your skin, or the velvet of your hair, and the thought you want to convey is goodbye?
Maybe if you’d stay still, we could get somewhere. You jet set around the world. I’m hearing about you studying with this scholar, traveling with this explorer. Even if I made a place for us, when I got there at the end of the day, you’d be gone.
You need to learn that a woman’s job is to build the home, and first and foremost, that involves being there for and supporting her man. Then comes nation building.
But I’m not going to be like you and put poison between us. So, how are you?
Lieu
2124—2nd day—11th week
Gracie,
I ain’t seen or heard from you in so long. That is the wrongest shit you could do to a person who loves you, Grace—disappear. I hope you forgive me for my attitude in that last shit I wrote.
I’m getting tired, girl. I don’t feel like I’m getting old, even though I know I am. I know it’s come on me fast.
How old are you Gracie? 24? The picture of health. I guess I’m not that much older, but I feel it. Just in the past few months, I’m eating bad or not getting enough vitamins, probably. I ain’t gon say nothing to nobody right now about it.
Knuc and Doc are in Bay Area, anyway. Niggers say they ain’t touring no more. They gone civilian, like our Princess. I M in Alltown. Lily sick. IM say he can cure her.
I need to be near a woman I trust right now. You unnerstan?
Lieu
2126—4th day—5th week
Mutafarrik!
You are the coolest, sexiest, most exciting bastards in the world of change. Mmm. You can come to my village and raid what you want. Panty raid? Yeah, let’s start there. You in my hut, now.
Oh, yeah, I know about that Art Bandit shit, and that shit is so sexy to me. I included some pictures of me demonstrating all the ways I would like to show my admiration. If I can get close enough that is.
Sike! It’s Grace. Hah! These are recent pictures of me since folk complain I’m too skinny. Old Gracie getting some hips. That’s right. I done put on a little weight, but I think I look mostly the same. With the new hips, I don’t get carded as much. This results in way fewer daring escapades, thus more hips.
Still building on quicksand. How about ya’ll? I’m in the Bay with Doc and Knuc. Doc living with somebody. She old, too. She run him like a momma. He love it, too. She a big girl. I think he scared. I think he like being scared.
The weather ain’t tropical, but it’s nice. Man, but California got a lot of white people. It’s like they never left after the reparations.
Knuc and Doc really healing people. It takes a lot, a lot of dedication and patience, but if people follow the regimen 80% of the time, they see 90% of the results. People who follow 100% of the time can be healed. I believe. I believe these people are healed not in remission. They don’t transmit. Wisdom say IM has cured seventeen people of AIDS. T-Cell counts normal, with regular exercise and balanced diet, for a few years, now. He took them back from full-blown AIDS and then treated them through HIV. I.M. says it’s about dancing with the disease.
It sure would be nice if we could all be together again. I’ll be here, indefinitely.
Grace
A massive vehicle chokes its way up the narrow, curving path to the clinic. Lieu hears churning gears and rattling windowpanes. Lieu doesn’t have a weapon on him. He knows some karate and some capoeira, but since he hasn’t the strength to roll out of the bed, he plays dead.
“You brought me back to life.”
“You brought me back to life.”
