A Star is Born (4 page)

We all hugged LaShonda before she left, her books clutched to her chest, her head down, going toward the boulevard.

“If I die and come back to life I'm coming as a frog!” Bobbi said. “Then all I'd have to do is swim around in muddy water and burp, or whatever the heck frogs do.”

THE CRUISER

POEM TO MY BROTHER

By LaShonda Powell

Y
o, Zander.” Kambui and I were going up the hill on the way to school. “If it was scientifically proven that roaches were the perfect food, and you lived an extra year for every thousand roaches you ate, how many would you eat?”

“The question is stupid and I'm not answering any stupid questions today,” I said.

“It's not stupid,” he said. “You're just too intellectually lazy to get to it.”

“None. I'd kill myself by not eating roaches,” I said.

“That makes sense to you?” Kambui asked. “You could grow them for free and save on your grocery bills and everything. I'd eat every roach I saw.”

“Check out the television truck in front of the school,” I said. There was one of those vans with the round antennas parked in front of Da Vinci.

“You might as well stop eating today,” Kambui went on. “If eating doesn't mean good health to you, then what are you eating for? You say you don't eat junk food, right?”

“What I'm going to do is watch you eat up all the roaches and then make a fortune writing about you,” I said. “I'll die young, but at least my breath won't smell like roaches.”

“That looks like some kind of a demonstration,” Kambui said. “Check out those folks carrying signs.”

“They've probably heard we're over here eating roaches,” I said as I checked out the signs.

 

COMPLETE! NOT ELITE!

All Students Are Created Equal!

 

“What are they talking about?” I wondered aloud.

“I don't know,” Kambui answered.

As we neared the school I saw Bobbi McCall, and we walked toward her. She was on her cell phone.

“Zander, Mrs. Maxwell wants the Cruisers in her office right away,” Bobbi said. She was wearing feathers in her hair that went all the way around her head. It looked good.

“What did we do now?” Kambui asked.

I couldn't think of anything the Cruisers had done or even had published in our paper. But Mrs. Maxwell was cool and everybody knew that, so I wasn't sweating it.

The people carrying signs were also chanting something, but I couldn't understand what they were saying and it didn't seem like a really big deal to me because somebody in Harlem was always protesting something.

Me, Kambui, and Bobbi went in the front door of Da Vinci and Mrs. Brown, who works in Mrs. Maxwell's office, motioned to us to come up the steps. On the way up Bobbi said she thought it was about our agreeing in
The Cruiser
to referee a food fight. Actually, we were just kidding, but maybe Mrs. Maxwell had taken it seriously.

“I think it's about the protest,” Mrs. Brown said.

We got to the principal's office and it was already crowded. There was a woman with a voice recorder who I figured was a reporter. LaShonda, looking tired, was already there. She kind of half smiled at us and shrugged. She didn't know anything, either.

“How you doing?” I asked LaShonda.

“Hanging in there,” she said. “I don't think this has anything to do with us.”

Mrs. Brown motioned the Cruisers and the reporter lady into the principal's office and we filed in. Mrs. Maxwell was standing behind her desk. Mr. Culpepper was standing in front of the American flag next to one of the school's security guards, and on the other side was a dude dressed in an African robe and another guy I recognized. I had seen Charles Lord on television and in the
Amsterdam News
a lot of times. He was one of those dudes who was always against whatever was going on and always making statements to the papers.

“Mrs. Maxwell, I'm going to say again that I do not approve of these children being here,” Mr. Lord said. “This is a matter for adults to decide.”

“It's their future you're challenging, Mr. Lord.” Mrs. Maxwell's voice was a little strained and I figured she was upset. “You cannot be against elite schools without being against elite pupils such as these young people. So you have to make your case to them!”

“Are these students among the school's best?” the reporter asked.

“These students are just young people who work very hard to do well in the educational system,” Mrs. Maxwell said. “And who,
apparently
, Mr. Lord is against.”

“My case is very simple.” Mr. Lord turned toward where the Cruisers stood on one side of the room. “I don't think that there should be elite schools such as this one in the city of New York. I think that all students should have the opportunities that you have here. And that's regardless of race, color, religion, or economic status. I hope you young people can agree with me and the Harlem community in this matter.”

“My grandmother saw you on television,” Kambui said. “She said people like you don't build anything, you just tear stuff down.”

“Your grandmother is correct, young man,” Mr. Lord said. “It's up to the city to build a competent educational system for all the children in New York. It's up to people like me to tear down their excuses, one of which is the city's elite schools, for not building a complete educational system for all the students in the city.”

That was a good answer and it was really fast.

“You're quick and slick,” I said. “But being strong doesn't mean you're not wrong. Da Vinci is the bomb because everybody here works hard. If the really good schools in the city are smoking it's because the kids who go to them aren't joking. Wrap that up and send it to your brain.”

“'Nuff said, Zander man!” This from Bobbi.

I looked at Mr. Lord and I could see he was thinking big-time but wasn't coming up with anything.

“That was a very intelligent remark and I appreciate it,” Mr. Lord said. He had turned away from the Cruisers and Mrs. Maxwell and was talking to the reporter. “But I don't think you children can understand the complexities of the fight for black education that I've been involved with over the years. I have been in the forefront of trying to get our people —”

Bobbi started out the door and the rest of the Cruisers followed her. We knew we had smoked Mr. Lord and he knew it, too. When adults start calling you “children” and start hanging stuff like “complexity” on you, then it's clear that they can't think of anything better to say.

The thing was that a lot of people, and especially Charles Lord, had been taking shots at Da Vinci. They wanted to point out how many kids in public schools were doing badly, but they had turned the whole deal around so that it looked like it was the fault of the schools that were doing well. I could dig where they were coming from but I also knew that the students at Da Vinci were expected to do more work than kids in most schools. And we were doing it. Case closed. Even the Cruisers, who weren't all rah-rah about good grades, knew we had to represent.

Bobbi had to go to Phys Ed and Kambui went to the media center to look up something, and so when LaShonda caught up with me and took my arm we were alone, except for three hundred other kids going through the hallway.

“Zander man, thanks for your support,” LaShonda said. “I really appreciate it.”

“You need me, just call me,” I said, rather heroically.

“I'd marry you if you weren't already hooked up with Caren,” LaShonda said, her smile spreading across her face.

“Hey, I'm not hooked up with Caren Culpepper!” I said.

“Of course you're not,” LaShonda said, all wide-eyed like she knew I didn't believe what she was saying.

“LaShonda —”

“It's all platonic, right?” she asked.

THE CRUISER

MY READING LIST

By Bobbi McCall

THE CRUISER

MOUNTAINS

By Zander Scott

I had been thinking of going over to Frederick Douglass Academy to show the Da Vinci girls' track team some love but I got myself sidetracked thinking about LaShonda's problem. The thing was that I always thought that if you had a problem all you had to do was be smart enough and you could solve it. Now I was running into problems that looked as if it didn't matter if you were smart because they didn't have any good solutions.

LaShonda's problem was real and I didn't see a solution to it. I could figure out what to do — if she didn't want to be separated from her brother then she should stick to her game plan. That was all cool but it didn't make things right because they were still poor and he was still needing her.

When I got Bobbi's text message I knew what that was about and I almost felt as if I didn't want to go over to FDA. FDA kids thought they were so smart — most of them were — but they were constantly scoping out Da Vinci for a beat down. Everybody in the school leagues knew that Sagal, the anchor on the Da Vinci girls' relay team, was a Muslim and couldn't strip down to shorts, but nobody made an issue of it until they found out just how fast she was. The girl could run!

Kambui comes up with a lot of lame sayings but when he talked about Sagal I thought maybe he had something going on. I met him in the train station at 148th Street and we walked toward FDA together.

“Sagal will fight them if they try to stop her from running,” Kambui said. He had his camera out and was filming everything. “And if she fights, I'm going to fight with her, man!”

Yeah, right.

Sagal Shehabi was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Her father made a living as an appliance repairman and her mother baked bread and sold it. Sagal was wounded in the fighting between Americans and the Taliban and to prove it had a really ugly scar that ran across her forehead, down alongside her nose, and across the tip of her chin. She was usually quiet and stayed to herself and you would have thought that she didn't know anything. But her grades were good and she tried to blend in with the American girls. When she went out for the track team the other girls thought she didn't understand what it meant because she showed up in loose-fitting pants and wore a
hijab
, which covered her hair. But when she ran they knew she had something serious going on.

So me and Kambui showed our IDs downstairs and went up to FDA's gym.

“Yo, Zander, you getting uglier!” I recognized Freddy Brandt sitting in the bleachers. He was in FDA's band. “You looking like a sissy King Kong!”

“And I can smell your breath from here!” I called back. “You need to stop rinsing your false teeth in the toilet bowl.”

Mr. Weinstein, our athletic director, was on the gym floor talking to the FDA coach when I got over to them.

“Zander, go sit down!” Mr. Weinstein said.

“I'm here to —”

“Go sit down!” he yelled.

I gave him a look, but I didn't hold it too long because I really didn't think he was wrapped too tight and he was built like he could knock you out with one punch.

Bobbi found me and started running the whole set down in fast-forward time.

“They're
talking
about how everyone has to wear the same uniform, but I think it's just because they don't want their precious darlings to get beat and they don't even have the fastest girls in this school on the team because they need a ‘cute' factor and our girls don't play cute!”

I knew Bobbi was coming from a feminist position and everything because she lived with two women, but our girls, except for Sagal, were just
too
cute, especially on the relay team. We had the Hopkins sisters, Shantese and Zhade, both of whom I would die for, Maria Torres, who could fly and was fly, and Sagal bringing it home.

Dr. Barnwell, FDA's principal, came out on the floor and called the FDA coach and Mr. Weinstein over. They had a meeting in the middle of the floor and you could tell by Mr. Weinstein's body language that things were not going good for Da Vinci.

Finally, the FDA coach got on the loudspeaker and made an announcement that the Da Vinci relay team had withdrawn. All the FDA kids started hooting at us.

But then …

But then Sagal went to the center of the floor and took the mike from the FDA coach's hand and spoke into it.

“We are withdrawing from the race because you Americans are afraid to compete against a Muslim girl. If your girls can't run fast I can understand that. I feel sorry for you.”

She handed the mike back to the FDA coach and walked away.

All the FDA students started yelling and saying how they would run away from us and we weren't this and we weren't that. Well, what that did was to get all the school officials back onto the middle of the floor with their heads together.

“We have to get Sagal into the Cruisers,” I said to Bobbi.

“Her parents are too strict,” Bobbi said. “They won't let her join. The only reason she's on the track team is that she ran with her brothers in Afghanistan.”

Body language. Mr. Weinstein started toward us and beckoned toward the girls. They were going to run.

There were four teams in the relay: FDA as the host school, Wadleigh, Arts and Sciences, and Da Vinci. I thought our girls could beat FDA but I knew that Wadleigh was just plain tough and you could never tell about a team from Arts and Sciences. Sometimes they would show up ready and sometimes they would be jiving around.

The race was four by a hundred, which meant that each girl would run one hundred yards and then pass the baton on to the next girl. The biggest danger was falling too far behind and then getting careless with the baton. You only had a small area in which you could pass the baton, and if you dropped it you were just out of luck. The race would be over before you picked it up.

Shantese was down in the starting blocks and she looked ready. She was wearing really short running pants and her stomach was bare.

“Yo, Zander, push your eyes back in their sockets,” Bobbi said. “You're embarrassing the school!”

Down the track, Zhade was waiting with the other girls who were going to run the second leg. Maria Torres was straight across from me. On the far side, to my left, I could see Sagal. She was wearing a green
hijood
that covered her hair and neck. Her arms were covered down to her wrists and her legs were covered down to the tops of her running shoes. The girls from the other teams around her were running their mouths.

Body language.

“Yo, Kambui, check out that scene,” I said. “They're trying to intimidate Sagal.”

“You think we should go over there and stare them down?” Kambui asked.

“Don't bother.” Bobbi was leaning against Kambui. “She's been wounded in her body and face, shot at by the Taliban, and she's still got the nerve to compete. They're not making her nervous.”

The gun went off and the race was on. Shantese got a late start and was behind the other girls as she rounded the first turn. The girl from Wadleigh, very short and very dark, was smooth on the front end and she looked like she could have done the whole race by herself. I watched the girls in the second leg line up. I glanced at the clock. The girl from Wadleigh passed the baton a hair past eleven seconds.

If Zhade asked me to marry her I would probably say yes, even though I didn't have a job or anything. And she could run. She started off five yards behind the other girls but made up half the distance by the time she reached Maria.

I could see Maria digging down and leaning on the curve. She was looking great and quickly passed one of the girls. When she hit the far curve she was stride for stride with the second girl. Maybe just a body length behind.

Sometimes the fastest runner is the anchor and sometimes the positions are just about who can handle running on a curve best. When Maria reached out the baton to Sagal my heart was in my mouth. Then Maria fell!

“Crap!” Bobbi said.

“She passed it!” Kambui came back. “Sagal's got the baton!”

I saw Sagal switch the baton from her left hand to her right. Her legs were pumping like crazy as she leaned into the last turn and headed for the last sixty yards. She was still a yard behind the leader, a big, powerful-looking girl wearing the blue and white Wadleigh uniform.

“Run, Sagal, run!” Bobbi was screaming.

Sagal was running hard and I couldn't tell who was in front. Then I saw the girl from Wadleigh's hands go up as they crossed the finish line.

“Who got it? Who got it?” Mr. Weinstein was pushing me with one hand and looking toward the officials.

The two officials put their heads together for a moment and then one of them made a motion, bringing his finger around his head. The girl with her head covered had won!

Yes!

Okay, so Sagal wasn't the best-looking girl in the school and her face was scarred, but right then and there I would have married her, too.

THE PALETTE

 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT AMERICA
By Sergeant Olga Litowinsky

I was told that the Cruisers all showed up in support of Sagal Shehabi at the track meet at FDA. Sagal helped Da Vinci win the race she was in and helped the entire athletic squad win the meet. Although it was a personal victory for those who experienced it, what appealed to me was that Americans are always willing to let everyone compete. I congratulate Da Vinci, Sagal, the track team, and the Cruisers.

I have just served my third tour in the Middle East and I think I see a lot of progress as the area stabilizes. Sometimes the day-to-day operations are hectic, but I know American troops, especially those in Civilian Relations, are doing their best to bring peace to the country. I have had a few narrow escapes and have had to fire my weapon on occasion, but I am proud to be an American and proud of what we have done in this troubled part of the world.