The blessings of thickets and brambles

"Daddy?   Can you ask God to make my hair blonde?"

Charles was stunned.   He just stood there, staring into the big brown, almost black pools of his precious little Amina's eyes and gripped the sign-out pen, like it would perhaps spurt out the response under enough pressure.

"Don't worry, Mina," said a little white girl whose name he could never remember, "if you pray real hard god will fix you because you are always a good girl and my best friend."   She had blonde hair and ice blue eyes.   Charles heard a clicking, grating noise and realized that he was gritting his teeth.   A drop of sweat rolled down his pointy nose, an Indian trait he had been told, probably Irish he mused often out loud to entertain his friends.   The drop muddled his signature.

"Wilson!   Oh, um, say good bye to your friend now.   Sorry?"   Wilson, that's right Wilson. One of those so-called genderless names, thought Charles.   He realized that Wilson's mommy didn't know Amina's name either.

"Um, 'scuse me.   May I haff the cleep boared pleeze?"  

"Oh, sorry, I just need to, um, the time.   Yeah the…"   Charles couldn't read his watch.   It suddenly made no sense to him at all.   How dumb would he look if he asked if any body knew what time it was and he was standing there with a Rolex on his wrist?

Wei Li's mom offered the time, saying that he must have been sold an imitation that "don't keepa gud tyme.   You should be angree."

He realized that he was.   Cause times hadn't changed.

∞∞∞

It was still light out.   They crossed the parking lot headed for the gaudy gold Lexus which seemed like 'da bomb' when he bought it 4 years ago, in a twisted moment of celebration of his status as single, even though his girl was bursting with his child, literally, at that very moment he was on the car lot.   "Daddy," insisted Amina," you're squeezing my hand too tight!"   Relax, relax cat.   James couldn't figure out what to say to her. She had asked for a magic potion that would make her look like a fairy since she was gonna be a fairy in the school spring play, she figured she really "should look like a REAL fairy, daddy."

Her teacher blanched and stuttered.   Trying to explain that what she had meant when she told ALL of the girls who had fairy roles was that they needed to make sure that their costumes were , well, like fairies.   That each child was responsible for making and/ or acquiring her own costume.

He couldn't believe that shit.   Monique sure was sticking it to him!   "This bullshit hoity toity school costs 1200 bones a month and you still got to pay for this that and the other seem like every damn week."   And now, here is HIS baby talking about she need to be white, or else she ain't gonna be no real fairy.   That's why I wanted her to go the shule in the first place!   "Better education my ass!"

He paused, put the rage in check.   His therapist had warned him about the stroke that wanted to date him very badly, so he chilled.   Got the nostrils to stand down and managed a smile, of all things.   "So, should she have butterfly wings and sparkles, or dragonfly wings and antennae?"

∞∞∞

"Amina!   How could you ask for something that, that, ridiculous?!?"

Little Amina just sat there on the park bench thinking she liked her real daddy better because he had a real job and would let her go to a real school instead of the co-op that mommy's special friend liked better.   Oh yeah, and let her watch cartoons, daddy always let's me watch cartoons, all day.   We don't even have a TV no more!   A real school, a real TV with real people on it just like the kids on Rugrats.   "If I found all my white parts, then my hair would not hurt and mommy would comb it.   It's only fair! …Mr. Baba Tyehimba"

∞∞∞

Jessica sobbed, burying her head in the throw pillows on the cream and navy couch.   Why did Robert even bother to tell her this s-h-i-t?   Why was he the one to have to tell it at all?

"Jess, I know that this is probably hard coming from me, but I am our black daughter's daddy and I think she really does need to be around other kids that look like her."

This was not what she had wanted when she married this lanky white boy with an affable personality, but charm that seemed anachronistic.   Who knew that he had weak genes?   His daughter was supposed to be a pretty dimpled, curly-haired girl, with a little blonde and reddish highlights at the napless edges, the color of a perfect cup of café au lait, more milk than coffee.   When she looked at Amina, however, all Jessica saw was herself, slightly red, but a little on the dark side and nappeeeeeee!   Boy, did that girl need a touch-up every week and a half or what?   Robert had protested the perm the first time, but caved in.   When he realized that it was to be an ongoing rite of passage, one that could never be passed that had a result that looked nothing like Coltrane's composition sounded, he panicked.   Like the good academic he was, he did some research on this black lady hair thing, and decided to take matters into his own hands.

He had Amina's relaxer cut out of her head.   She was gorgeous.   Just a halo of divine wool.   His little African goddess.   He had almost earned himself a divorce.   After spending all that Saturday convincing his child that her black was the most beautiful thing in the world to him, they got home to have her own mother remind her that she was, in point of fact, just a nappy headed nigglet.

"How can you call this pickaninny your child," she had raged in front of a distraught Amina.  

"She's just four years old!   She doesn't need a perm."   "Relaxer."  

"Whatever!   She doesn't need it AND it is bad for her hair, which hasn't finished developing."  

"It's hair, Robert not teeth."   How ironic was that…

He stood there, watching his brown sugar melt all over the couch, feeling not one morsel of sympathy.   He waited, but she didn't seem to be willing to stop the antics.   So he repeated himself, then waited some more.   Determined that when his daughter was old enough to write a memoir, she would not remember this day as the day that her momma hated her forever after and the one on which her white daddy vanished from her life, he said it again: "Like teeth.   She said she needed to be white like her teeth, so her hair wouldn't stick out so much.   I'm pulling her from school tomorrow."

∞∞∞

"Hello?"

"Oh!   Hello!   May I please speak to Charles?"

"Speaking.   Are you sure you have the right number?"

"Yes.   I met you in the grocery store a while back."

"Look, I think you really have dialed the wrong Charles.   I'm a happily-

"-No! No!   Our daughters.   They have the same name.   Remember we were both saying, 'No, Amina' at the exact same time at the end of the cereal aisle?"

"Oh yeah!   The girls really seemed to hit it off.   Didn't we actually hang out?"

"Yeah, and we both vowed to keep in touch so that the girls could have a playmate and, well, everything deserves a second chance."

Charles laughed, almost like an idiot, he thought, a little too hard on the other end of the line.   Of all the days for this white man to decide to reach out and touch someone one, he had to pick today.   And him.

"So, I'm calling cause, well, my wife is not really into the whole black thing, which is starting to freak me out because she is black but…"

Why do they always have to give too much personal information?   My dick stays limp sometimes but I'm not running around looking for Viagra!

"but when Amina said that today…'White like her teeth' ...   I'm not even white like teeth!"

"What did you say?"

"I said that Amina told her doll, which is a white porcelain doll by the way, that she wished that she was white li- beep -teeth so that- beep - hair wouldn't stick out.   You got another call?"

Yeah, hold on, hold ok?"

"Alr-"

click

"Hello?"

"Negrophobia is rampant my brother!!"

"James?   What the hell you talking about?"

"You know what MeeMee said today?   Said she needed to look like a real fairy so we needed to get a magic potion to make her white for the spring play!

"What?!   I..I…Amina asked for me to ask god to make her blond, I -beep- I - beep - know what to say."

"Can you hold on , man?"

"Yeah.   Wait!"

click

"Shit."

click

"Yeah, Robert.   Sorry, but I'm on hold.   Another Amina.   Yeah weird I know.   It gets even weirder.   I'll tell you in a minute.   You won't believe it.   Shit, must be in the air.   Hold the line ok?"

click

"OK, James, bruthu, you was right about me trying to be with this ofay lady and her half breed kid."

"Whoa, I know this ain't Tyehimba."

"Yeah, bru it is.   I just thought I would say that so you would shut your Caucasian-hating mouth long enough to hear what I got to say, cause I need some guidance and some love."

"Speak it."

"Amina said she wanted to find her other white parts so that her mommy would want to comb her hair and-"

"Naw!   That girl's name is Amina?"

"Yeah.   Why?"

"Cause that's my baby's na-   Aw, G.   I got my man Charles on the other line.   Hold up dawg. Aw'right?"

"Did you say baby?!"

click

"Charles, man.   You remember my dawg Tyehimba.   Yeah, the black nationalist who likes white women.   Yeah, well his new lady got a kid, a girl; half black, half African in fact.   Guess what her name is?

"Amina?"

"Yeah!"

"And she wants magical powers to be all white, or have straight hair, or something like that, right."

"…what, you a hoodoo doctor now?"

"Naw, man.   Amina asked me something similar today.   I couldn't even answer.   There's a white dude on the other line who's got a pretty little girl named Amina who said she needed to be white as teeth.   And your baby…"

"…I just don't know…"

"Dig."

"Well, what you gonna tell her?   Shit, you gonna tell Audry?"

"You crazy?   She'll..Aw, shit.   How I know what she gonna do. What you you gonna say to Meemee?

"Nigger, I asked you first!   If I had an idea, I'da done it!"

"Dig, And don't call me that no more.   I done told you about the 'N-word-"

"The 'N-word.' You whipped dude."

I'm happy.   Anyway, we off topic now."

"Right.   I still ain't got an idea."

"Oh!   They still on hold!   OK, how 'bout this:   I'ma invite Robert over.   You think you can come by this evening with Tyehimba?"

"As they say back in the day, 'word is bond,' 'cause I sure as hell ain't got no clue as to what to do."

" Tah , you foolish.   I'll see y'all around 7:30."

click

click

"Hello? You still there?"

∞∞∞

"Man, that's some deep tall telling you off on!"

"Thank you.   I still can't believe that your playa butt is somebody's daddy."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.   I'ma pimp.   It's just so unbelievable. How could it have happene-"

"So it's settled, then.   We take the four Aminas away on a father daughter camping trip, try and deal with this thing before it's just raging self hatred."

"Yeah.   … how are you this committed to the 'black and proud' thing, being white and all?"

"I'm her daddy.   I want her to be proud. Successful.   Strong.   It just also happens to come with black.   SO she's gotta be black and proud and successful and strong.   It's not gonna work any other way."

"How will my Amina feel, though, if there's a white person on the trip and she's trying to get pure white?   I mean, no disrespect, but maybe her uncle should bring your girl."

"Her uncle hates her mulatto half ofay ass more than he hates my all the way ofay ass."

There is silence as the men look at each other.   Understanding that a daddy is a daddy no matter what.

∞∞∞

Over packed, the Amina club arrives at Robert and Jessica's creaky little cabin, having fully enjoyed the ride up from the city in the rented minivan.   Robert sets about, checking the wood pile, finding cleaning instruments to get the space swept out and instructing the girls on playing in the woods.

"Keep close to the cabin.   And never crawl into anything to play hide and go seek."

"Aw, daddy.   You can't win if you don’t hide!"

"That's not what…. OK, if you don't want us to forget you, don’t crawl into the box of wood."

"OK," squeal the four little girls in unison, tingling at the possibility of hiding so well that their own fathers, well, daddies would forget all about them and leave them behind."

"So we're going to cook out here and sleep in there, right?"

"Yeah, the ventilation is pretty bad inside, so it's best to set the burners up right here."

"Well, I officially appoint you all sous chefs to the great Tyehimba.   Please set about preparing my workspace and ingredients."

"Does this look like Iron Chef to you?"

"Ha.   Look at James.   He seems to be more than willing to take some orders."

"That's right.   I done had the brothers cooking.   He can burn."

Quickly the daddies get Tyehimba cooking and the girls fed, that is after they got Amina-tee out of the woodshed box, full of bites.   After some shadow play, Amina-mee announced that she had tried to catch a butterfly for her fairy costume: "I want a costume made of real butterfly wings!"

Squeals and giggles, Aminas all agree that it would be pretty, but that all the butterflies would be very sad to lose their special parts.

"SO.   Do you all want to hear a story about butterflies and how they keep their special parts?"

YEAH!

Tyehimba began:

∞∞∞

Mariposas used to wander the world, free free free.   Mariposa means 'butterfly' in Spanish.   Time was, they were the most yummiest thing in the world. (Ew!)   And also the most special magic.   People would plan for days how they were going to catch a butterfly because it was said, that once you had a mariposa in your hand, your wildest dreams would come true.   So people would catch the mariposa, make a wish, and to make sure that it came true, quickly eat it.   (Nastee!). No. Not really. You have to remember that they were the yummiest things on earth.   They were considered flying fruit.

Depending on their color, the flavor would be different. (Banana for yellow!) Yes, or sunlight syrup flavor.   What about other colors?   (Orange.   Blue for berries. What about pink? There's no such thing as a pink butterfly.) Well, not now, but there used to be all kinds of color of butterflies.   Pink tasted like sugar covered roses.   Red was like a pomegranate (It has all those juicy seeds).   Exactly.   Green tasted like (Sour apple!), yeah! Like sour apple (or lime Kool-Aide).   Purple mariposas tasted like grapes.   And so on.

Then you had your mixes--pink and yellow, orange and green, red and purple.   The truly special mariposas, though, were the ones that had three colors, since the wish was granted before you even finished wishing it.   They were also the biggest and easiest to catch, but since most people never know for sure exactly what they want, folks learned not to go after a Tesoro Mariposa--a treasure maker butterfly--unless they knew exactly what they wanted.   (I would know what I wanted, blon-) But!   We forgot one of the colors: the Black Butterfly.

Now these were hard to find, since they only flew during the light of a full moon.   The rest of the time, you never ever saw them. (What did they do?) Well, it was said that if you caught a Black Butterfly under a full moon, you could travel anywhere on earth, anyway you wanted, in a split second.   The only thing was, it was hard to get back once you got there.   You had to keep the butterfly alive the entire time you were getting to the new place and the entire time you were gone.   When you were ready go back home, then you ate the Black Butterfly. Thinking that they would just get another one on the next full moon, most folks just ate the Black Butterfly they had caught, 'cause Black Butterflies were the tastiest of all the butterflies--they tasted like ice cream! (Yeah!)   But!   The thing with the Black Butterfly magic was that the butterfly that gave you the trip had to be the same one who brought you back.

Many people ended up staying in far away places and never getting back home.   So some people began to think that Black Butterflies were bad (No!) Yes.   Because their magic was stronger than the Tesoro Mariposa Magic, but as easy to use, people all over the world began to hunt down the Black Butterfly on full moon nights and just drop 'em in jars of oil so that the magic wouldn't work. (That's not fair! They weren't bad.) OK.   OK.   (But how come butterflies are yellow and black?   Yeah, what 'bout the rain-away-bows?)   The rain?   OH!   What happened to all the other mariposa that were colored like the rainbow? (yes!)

Well, people were greedy, and ate 'em all up.   Since the butterflies flew in straight lines and never any higher than the grass, it was easy. (Un unh!   Butterflies do this.   They don't fly in lines!)   Oh my!   You're right.   Well didn't I tell you that when the moon wasn't full, Black Butterflies could not be found? (Uh huh.)   And didn't I tell you that part of Black Butterfly magic was that they didn't fly straight like the other butterflies? (No!)   I didn't tell you that?   That they actually looked like they weren't moving all that much, but could get as high as that tree over there and as low as this log? (No, you did not!)   Hmm.   I'm sorry.   That's the best part of the story. (Oh good grief!)   OK I'ma tell it!   Am I telling it? (Yes!)   OK, I'ma make it told.

As it turns out, the Black Butterflies lived in special places during the day and the times when there was no full moon.   This special place was the reason why the didn't really fly, why they did a upty, hipty boopty, whirl a twirl thang.   Who can guess where they lived?   (Um, in a cave?   In a box! At the ocean.   In a tree?)   A tree, that's close!   It's shorter, and tighter, kinda hard to get through kinda like, like, oh my goodness! (What?)   Come here, girl.   Kinda like your hair.   (My hair?)   I think I see butterfly stuff in there right now!   (Where Let me see.)   Oh, and you got some too!   And so do you! (What about me, Baba Tyehimba?) Oh for sure.   You definitely got some Black Butterfly stuff.   Wait a minute.   All of you got the same name AND Black Butterfly flakes in your hair? (in amazement the girls look at the shiny heads and see shadows that look like butterfly wings passing through their locks).   Well, can you guess where they lived, if it was like y'all's hair but kinda like a little short tight tree? (A bush!)   That's right! And not just any kind of bush.   It was a special bush called 'bramble.'

These bushes were the thorniest, stickiest, ouchiest plants on the face of the earth.   But!   They smelled sooo good and had beautiful flowers that looked like stars.   Their branches twirled like a jump rope, but were strong and sharp like hungry baby teeth!   They had leaves, mostly on the outside of the branches and even the leaves had stickers. (Ouch!)   this was where the Black Butterflies lived.   So that they wouldn't get stuck by the bush, they learned to razzle dazzle, to dodge the thorns of the brambles.   And since it was also very dark in a bramble bush because of all the twirling branches, sticky leaves, and beautiful flowers, no one ever noticed the Black Butterflies in there and if they did and tried to get one, the bush would stick 'em, "Ow!"   And the person forgot what they thought they had seen.   Brambles were a very peaceful place to live.

SO all the Black Butterflies that were left, began to have meetings to decide what to do about the humans that were hunting them and the fact that they saw less and less of their rainbow colored relatives.   Magic was disappearing fast from earth, and they knew that they had to stop it.   They also knew that they couldn't stop dancing on full moon nights either, because it would make Moon very sad and lonely and she would start staying at home.   Then who knew what would happen to people?   No magic and no moon?   Not to mention, that Great Spirit had told them that she had made them to help spread people all over the earth so that it wouldn't get too crowded in one place.   (Like in traffic?)   exactly like in traffic (Or in the store for Christmas!)   Yes, just like that.   It was the Black Butterflies job to keep peace, balance and harmony.

Soon, even the Tesoro mariposas started to vanish; things were looking bad.   One day a Tesoro happened to be flying away from a man who had already eaten three other Tesoros just earlier that day, when she got stuck in a bramble bush.   Well, when that guy tried to get her out, he got stuck by the thorns and forgot what he was doing and left howling about his owie. (Yeah!)   Well, the few Black Butterflies left in that particular bush were surprised to see her there, but it gave them an idea. They invited the Tesoro mariposa to stay there as long as she liked, and asked her if she could maybe spread the news about bramble bushes to other mariposas if she left.   Well, she started to cry.   Do you know why?   (Why?)   because she thought she was trapped in the bush.   She didn't know how to get out and thought that all the Black Butterflies were ghosts because she was always asleep when they came out to dance.   (Oh, man.)   I know, I can't believe it either.   They were her cousins, right?   So anyway, once Ixta calmed down--that was her name, Ixta--the Black Butterflies explained who they were and she began to flit about, happy.   "I thought you guys were just some old story!   You are real!   Can you help us?   Almost all the other butterflies are gone except the Tesoros and some green ones.   The humans are using up all the magic and Earth is in trouble!   We need to keep out of their reach; keep our families and Earth safe.   It's bad, bad!   We Tesoros will follow your plan, just say when," Then looking to her left, then right, then up, and then down, and finally all around, Ixta said, "…but how do I move around in here?"

It was agreed.   They spread the word from bramble bush to bramble bush.   The next full moon, some of the Black Butterflies went out to dance while others went to wake up Tesoro butterflies who were sleeping under grass leaves in a big field.   Several of the dancing Black Butterflies were caught, but not all.   Soon, the brambles were full of color, the colors of butterfly wings!   The next day, people came out looking for butterflies to use for wishes and food, and couldn’t find any in the usual places.   Then one somebody noticed that the brambles had more flowers than usual, and they didn’t all look like stars either.   (It was the Tesoros!)   Yes, the Tesoros were out sunning themselves, which made them taste sweeter and give stronger wishes.   This somebody called all the other people to tell them that what they wanted was in the bramble bushes.   Well everybody rushed to find them a bramble bush, and the butterflies dropped down into the bush--since they still didn't know how to fly in it yet.   As soon as each person stuck their hands down into the bush, ow!   They got poked by a torn and forgot what they were doing and went on off trying to remember something.

This went on all day.   And all the next day.   And into the next week.   And on to the week after that.   And soon, it was time for the next full moon.   The Black Butterflies went out to dance, and nobody was there.   Everyone had forgotten what butterflies were all about.   The bramble bush protected the butterflies, but it also hid the magic from peoples eyes.   Over time, the butterfly families became one big family and made lots more butterflies.  

People had learned other ways to travel other than with Black Butterfly magic, and nobody needed a Tesoro mariposa to get a house built or make some food or have a baby.   People could do that all by themselves.   Soon, it was safe for the butterflies to come out of the brambles, every once in a while.   Sometimes, someone would catch one or two, but they never made wishes any more and they never ate them.   It seems that people forgot all of what butterflies were about.   Almost.   The sight of a butterfly made people so happy, that they would try to catch them, maybe to keep them as pets, but mostly just to be able to say that they touched something that beautiful that day.   And they would jump and chase, and spin, and sneak, but try as they might, people could no longer catch mariposas as easy as they used to.   And since now that all butterflies had black on their wings, if you hold one just right in your hands, without touching them so that they can still fly, and then you close your eyes, they will tell you the secret of the wonderful bramble bush.

As Tyehimba finished his tale, he placed in each bushy head, a rhinestone butterfly clip.   Robert, James and Charles each went to their daughters, and placed the second clip.   Then they whispered in the mesmerized girls ears, "like an afro, your hair does grow, soft and strong, don't worry about long. follow its twirl and you can skip and jump to the stars."