The Blackbirds (2 page)

Of the four women, Indigo was the tallest. She was gorgeous, and what enhanced her loveliness were her confidence and an attitude born from two Nigerian parents telling her from her first breath how amazing she was, which coupled with an understanding of her true unsullied beauty. She was given the African-born truth before American society told her she was too dark-skinned to be searched for if she ever went missing. Straight Outta the Prestigious Hancock Park, Indigo was the first of her family born in the United States, therefore she had dual citizenship and dual accents. She claimed Nigeria more than she ever would America.

Straight Outta Windsor Hills, Ericka was a hair shorter than Indigo and the oldest in the crew. She was recovering from a divorce, a marriage to a man of the cloth that had been a marriage from hell, and she was in remission from cancer. She'd lost her once-wavy hair during chemo. It was growing back, but she kept it cut close on the sides and back, let it grow long on the top, had the hair dyed blonde and colored the tips of the top cancer-survivor pink. Ericka joked that she attracted European men who didn't like their women too white, and black men who didn't like their women too African. She was the woman brainwashed and biased men loved to have on their arms. She joked about shallowness, but in the heart of her heart she hated both biased mentalities.

Destiny Jones was Straight Outta View Park, the land of doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and entertainers. She wore a thousand and one wavy sisterlocks, all bleached and cascading down her back. Destiny Jones had a face that looked the same now as it had when she was fifteen
and attending private school in Bel Air and used her bleached dreadlocks to conceal her facial features. She was the silent one in the crew, unless talking to her three girlfriends.

Kwanzaa was two inches over being five feet tall, but she packed seven feet of beauty into those sixty-two inches. Her complexion was smooth; Ghirardelli chocolate personified, with subtle orange undertones, insinuating that her Middle Passage ancestry was amalgamated with the Trail of Tears. Two weeks ago she'd cut her hair in anger, was uncomfortable with having short hair, then immediately found hair that matched the texture of what she had mangled, and now she wore her top-shelf, custom handmade twenty-six-inch Brazilian hair with lace closure, flipping her mane every other second, as if a wind machine was always blowing in her mind.

In the days before Indigo's birthday, despite having classes at UCLA, the L.A.-born Nigerian princess celebrated almost every night, including going to a free concert held in the parking lot down at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. That was the mall-formerly-known-as-the-Black-mall. Now it was jokingly called North Mexico. Indigo had pulled Kwanzaa and Ericka in close, then snapped selfies with Deborah Cox, Jordin Sparks, and Chrisette Michele.

Indigo said, “If you are going to be African American, invite real Africans to the party. They should invite Jesse Jagz, Splash, Ruggedman, Mr. Incredible, and other Nigerian artists to perform here so the
African
Americans can learn how to add some artistry to their routines.”

At the same time Kwanzaa and Ericka snapped, “Stop complaining.”

A pride of men gawked at Indigo the longest, and if not the longest, then with the most intensity. She wore a fitted dress and, being five foot ten without the six-inch heels, drew enviable attention. Her body was the first impression, but even without the physical blessing, with her magnificent, undiluted complexion and figure, she was a showstopper. Men who dressed in sweats and sandals, as if they thought that was formal attire, stood before her stunned, leaving their badly dressed dates standing speechless so they could hurry over and try to upgrade, in trances, rambling about her exquisiteness. Indigo would share a word, be kind, but none of the men were on her radar. Indigo had dated Yaba the Laker, and now she dated a Nigerian NFL player. The former relationship had ended suddenly and badly, the latter wasn't going so well,
but it was new and she had high hopes. Even beauty didn't assure life without heartbreak or struggle.

She couldn't take two steps without a man praising her. For each unsolicited compliment, she shrugged, proffered half a grin, waved as if it were no big deal, and told them she woke up like that. She loved to crank up the Nigerian accent and pronounce her full West African name—Indigo Bose Fumilayo Titilayo Titilola Mojisola Morenike Abdulrahaman.
Bose
meant “born on Sunday.”
Fumilayo
meant “gives me joy.”
Titilayo
was “forever joyful.”
Titilola
signified that wealth is forever.
Mojisola
explained she was born into wealth.
Morenike
let the world know she was a child born to be spoiled. And Indigo children were children believed to be special children, children who were sensitive, intuitive, scholarly warriors with a life purpose greater than themselves.

Indigo Bose Fumilayo Titilayo Titilola Mojisola Morenike Abdulrahaman—an amazing name that used up a lot of ink, a name that could cramp your hand when trying to write it all at once, a name she was proud of and loved to articulate, then watch the stunned looks on Americans' faces. Whenever she said her name, wise men fell in love. Her name also signified she did not wear a designation that could be traced back to a family that had once been owned by white Christians. Her name let them know that her history wasn't rooted in American slavery and Jim Crow. Her heritage didn't go back to an area of Confederate flags. Her name said that, no matter how you felt about Africa, her family tree had not been compromised, and her bloodline had not been conquered. There were no chains in her direct ancestry.

When she fired up her Nigerian accent, she was seen as special.

They heard her history and recognized her influence.

Ericka, Destiny, Indigo, and Kwanzaa were all gorgeous in different ways. After the outdoor concert, men came toward the four of them and tried to decide whom to hit on first.

Dressed in skinny jeans, Ericka thought it was cute that the brothers thought she was ten years younger, barely in her twenties, near the same age as her three best friends.

Kwanzaa Browne was heartbroken, missing her ex, and didn't care about flirtations, but men were Columbusing for coochie and grinned
like they wanted to discover hers. Her baby face, high cheekbones, and dimpled smile were heart stealers and attracted perverts who were fixated on her beauty like they wanted to hug her naked with their penises balls-deep inside her no-no.

In a country where the social construction called race outweighed class, political affiliations, and religion, Destiny Jones owned the hue of a sweet graham cracker. She was a lioness, a geek with the heart of a warrior. More than a handful of years ago, before being drugged, before being betrayed, before the sirens, before the controversial revenge, before the detour to the Hoosegow, before the bad diet and growth spurt, she would have been the most outgoing of the lot. Destiny carried her helmet but wore Wayfarers over her brown eyes as if those Ray-Bans were her mask. She needed to get away from the attention, from the eyes, from the aggressive men before her temper flared and it became ugly. She turned to Indigo, whose idea this was, but Indigo was frowning, busy trying to call her boyfriend Olamilekan on her cellular.

She had been trying to reach him all day, had called at least twice every hour.

One twentysomething brother wearing slim jeans, Chucks, and a University of Memphis tee complimented them all, said they had amazing skin, beautiful complexions.

He wanted to take a photo with the fine California girls and post it on Facebook.

Destiny Jones ignored the flirty man and kept walking, helmet in hand, her head down. Her body was toned, strong, with a small waist and a nice blessing that caught as much attention as her gorgeous face. She was a smooth size 10, but with her waist and shape, she looked like size 6 at the most. She wore a blue motorcycle jacket, the words
DO UNTO OTHERS &
MAKE THEM REMEMBER
easy to read across its back. She adjusted her Wayfarer shades and walked on, her sensual sisterlocks both masking her face and bouncing like a cape with each anxious step.

Destiny Jones didn't take any photos. She didn't converse with strangers. She didn't allow people to touch her without approval, didn't give men attention no matter how handsome, no matter how hard they tried. She didn't trust men, and she definitely didn't trust women.

It would take a special man for her to let down her walls.

It would take a very special man.

*   *   *

Ericka, Kwanzaa, Destiny, and Indigo had sung the entire concert, then sang and danced and laughed their way inside the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. It was impossible for the four of them to be next to a mall and not go inside in search of a sale. To broke college students and those living on a public school teacher's wages, a mall was a zoo with clothing, where they could look at the wild fashions or pet a few items if they chose. Kwanzaa had a few extra coins in her purse and wanted to check out the sale at Forever 21, grab something from the five-dollar-and-under rack. Destiny needed a few things from Walmart. Ericka wanted to browse through Pink and Victoria's Secret, then actually buy something on sale at Ross.

That was where the drama jumped off, without warning, but with cause.

Indigo was the first to spot Marcus Jesús Delgado Muñoz Brixton.

Attorney Marcus Brixton was a double minority, an exotic, mixed-race man who stood just under six feet tall, a good-looking man who was slender, clean-shaven, and professional and stood out like a movie star on the law office billboards across Southern California. Some said he was a man who could win the confidence of two communities and eventually become mayor.

Indigo saw him as he went up the escalator. He was holding some woman's hand.

He wore slim jeans and a jacket, but Indigo didn't need to see his dark eyes to know it was him. It was the way Indigo reacted, or tried to hide her reaction, that caused Ericka to look.

Then Destiny jerked, turned, and looked.

And the last person the three of them wanted to look followed the course of the river.

Kwanzaa turned, saw her ex-fiancé leaving the food court and going up the escalator with another woman.

Marcus Brixton looked happy. He looked like nothing had ever gone wrong in his world.

The sudden breakup wound was still fresh, was an open wound, one that Kwanzaa had cried and drank alcohol over. She'd almost dropped out of university because she'd feared not being able to focus would ruin her GPA, and therefore her life. Kwanzaa lost her Jesus and dashed for the escalator, her trio of girlfriends flying behind her as she ran down
her ex-fiancé, the man who was the reason she had cut her hair, wore a weave, and now had to slap herself upside the head when her head itched because she could no longer scratch her scalp.

Destiny ran behind her and snapped, “Let that trifling
blood claat
go on with his life. Go on with yours.”

Ericka snapped back, “No, let her confront him.”

Kwanzaa said, “Six years of my life. Six years and this is what I get as a reward?”

Destiny said, “Not in public. People will Facebook, tweet, or use Periscope and stream whatever you're doing live online and the world will see you at your worst, Kwanzaa.”

Kwanzaa snapped, “Destiny, counsel me when your chakras are aligned.”

Destiny slowed down, let them run ahead, always afraid of being recorded.

Kwanzaa ran in her heels and caught up with Brixton as he passed a row of kiosks, then slapped him in the back of the head. He jumped, surprised to see Kwanzaa. As they stood a few feet from the entrance to the Hair Architect, as the outrage drew a small crowd, Kwanzaa slapped the man again, cursed him in Spanish, told him what she thought of him for betraying her for a Chilean bitch and bringing a damned STD to her bed, and then not having the decency to take her to the doctor. The girl with Marcus was in shock, had no idea who Kwanzaa was. Marcus wanted Kwanzaa to lower her voice, to step somewhere they could talk in private. Before she could strike Marcus again, he had grabbed her hands, but let her go the way a man did when he knew he had much to lose both professionally and politically, and tried to moonwalk away.

Kwanzaa followed him, and Indigo and Ericka followed Kwanzaa.

“Maldito desgraciado, pedazo de mierda. Desecho de la vida. Me engañaste me enfermaste ojalá te pudras en el infierno y te mueras con la puta esa con la que engañaste.”

Brixton tried to get a word in, but Kwanzaa's fury was rapid and too damn powerful.

“Se merecen el uno al otro coño y madre. Deberia llamar a mi papa y decirle lo que me hiciste. Para que te de una pasada de coñasos por asqueroso.”

Kwanzaa Browne slapped attorney Marcus Brixton again. The military brat who had never grown up in the hood imitated a
Housewife of Wherever
as she slapped one of the top lawyers in Southern California, then blasted him in Spanish, dared him to hit her back so she could call her dad and bonus dad and have them come and kick his half-black, half-Mexican ass so hard half of him would return to Botswana and the other half to the other side of Tijuana.

Some women applauded as others dragged their kids away as fast as they could.

The young woman with Brixton hurled a threat at Kwanzaa in Spanglish.

Indigo snapped,
“Sho fe ba mi ja
.
”

It was a Yorùbá phrase that basically meant, “
Boo Boo Kitty, you have messed with the wrong one
.
” Indigo told the girl she'd better stop, drop, and roll because she was messing with fire. The girl had second thoughts, especially when the girl saw Destiny standing there, motorcycle helmet clutched in hand like a weapon, shaking her head as if to say don't even think about it.

The girl with Marcus zipped her lip, kept the rest of her insults to herself, then took a dozen steps away and waited, did that as if to tell Marcus Brixton he was now in this battle alone.

Indigo and Ericka held Kwanzaa back, pulled her away. Marcus Brixton called Kwanzaa
loca
over and over. She called him a
diseased motherfucker
and told him every night she prayed for his crooked dick to fall off. The argument moved with them until they were in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza Bridge, a portal that connected the second level of Macy's to the rest of the mall's second level, a glass see-through bridge overlooking the Shaw and MLK Boulevard.

Ericka and Indigo pulled Kwanzaa over to the side to calm her down.

Marcus hurried away, the girl with him struggling to match his pace, being left behind.

Ericka and Indigo held Kwanzaa back in a section that functioned as a waiting area for men who had grown tired of shopping with unruly children and inexhaustible women.

Kwanzaa laughed the laugh of the ridiculous, the angry laugh she
had acquired recently, the laugh of a woman breaking down. She laughed like she wanted to break out the windows in Brixton's Maserati after she had keyed it and put sugar in the gas tank, and maybe put a dose of cyanide in his Froot Loops. Ericka and Indigo kept her from chasing Marcus Brixton out of the mall. Then Kwanzaa screamed and marched in circles, chained to her emotions and memories.

Destiny kept her Wayfarers on, kept her crinkly sisterlocks over most of her facial features. She bounced her helmet against her thigh as she walked behind her crew, staying behind them, even as she kept their pace. A teen girl wearing a T-shirt that announced
NOTHING IS TH
E NEW BLACK
was recording the incident like she was a wannabe snitch for
World Star
.

Destiny waited until the crowd had dispersed, waited until people had moved on with their irrelevant lives before she went to where her girls had reconvened. They were sitting on a leather sofa in the lounge area overlooking the pandemonium at the intersection of King and Crenshaw.

Destiny stood in the floor-to-ceiling glass window, still bouncing her helmet against her leg, and scowled down on the thoroughfare they simply called MLK, stared out at what used to be a West Coast version of Chocolate City without the intense political awareness.

She stared out just in time to be jarred. A well-known motorcyclist passed by, rocking her yellow Ducati. For a moment Destiny could hardly breathe. She wanted to scream at her past.

Ericka went to Destiny, put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay, Destiny?”

Destiny took a few deep breaths. “I'm okay, Ericka. Had a moment.”

“What happened?”

“I told Kwanzaa not to act a damn fool. Did you see how many phones came out and started recording that madness? I don't need to be on social media ever again.”

“We don't want Hulk angry. When Hulk angry, Hulk smash.”

Destiny took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “It all gets to be a bit much.”

“What?”

“Being afraid. School. Work. My mom's midlife crisis. My dad and his cancer. Being sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Ericka shifted, diverted her eyes. “How is Mr. Jones?”

“Dad is fine right now. I'm just worried. He will have to start radiation treatment soon. His PSA numbers are up and he has to get a prostate biopsy in a couple of weeks.”

“But he's doing okay?”

“We should stop by there and get on Dad's nerves for a while.”

Ericka paused. “All of us stopping by at the same time might be a bit much for Mr. Jones.”

“Dad wouldn't mind. We're his girls. We should go eat him out of house and home.”

“You are a lucky daughter. Mr. Jones is a great dad.”

“We get hit by one thing after another in my family. Now it's fucking cancer.”

“He will kick cancer in the ass. I know he will. He's a remarkable man.”

“I know Dad used to take you to your chemo treatments when one of us couldn't.”

“Mr. Jones would take me to Kaiser, wait on me, sit with me in the room while I got my treatment, tell me jokes, then take me to breakfast at CJ's after Kaiser pumped me with poison.”

“I always used to wish your mother would take you to get your chemo treatment when one of us couldn't drive you.”

“You know damn well that me and Mrs. Stockwell ain't friends like that.”

“She's your mother. I had hoped that you two could work it out when you were sick.”

“Our relationship was
worse
when I was sick. She kicked me when I was down. I was puking and she would say horrible things. Told me what I did when I was a teenager gave me cancer, said that cancer was God's punishment for being a problem child. I stayed alive because I refused to die before that bitch did. I refused to give her the satisfaction of outliving me.”

“When you used to babysit me, Dad used to always say he wished
you were his daughter too. I used to wish that too. I needed your guidance back then. If I had had a sister like you around me, I don't think I would have gone out into the world trying to make friends.”

“Daughter? Wow. I'm sorry. Your dad saw me as his other daughter.”

“My mother saw you as a daughter too.”

“I never felt like Mrs. Jones cared too much for me.”

“She liked you a lot. She hated it when you went away to Oklahoma.”

“I was forced to go. Oklahoma was my Hoosegow. It was my prison.”

“I doubt if they made you strip naked, bend over, squat, and cough when you got there.”

“But it was still my Hoosegow. I was not received kindly or treated with dignity.”

“You have no idea about the conditions in the girls' juvenile hall, have no clue what kids between the ages of eleven and seventeen have to go through at the hands of adults.”

“Can't imagine an eleven-year-old locked up. Not even menstruating, and imprisoned?”

“They're not the normal eleven-year-olds. They have had interesting lives. Some are already hardened criminals. For some, gangs are their families. When you see them, you see how America has failed. America is more concerned with the black oil in the Middle East than its own citizens, and will invest more in incarceration than education. Where I was, a lot of people had been born in hell, had lived in hell, and for some, jail was better than their hell.”

“No, I don't know the kind of evil you met, don't know the hell you lived in.”

“They will put a fifteen-year-old in solitary confinement for a hundred days, give her a break twice a day, and offer no educational services for those one hundred days of solitude. When she's let out, she's in a cell the size of a mattress, with a window smaller than her hand.”

“I know it was bad.”

“They use isolation to break people, to try and kill their spirits. Keeping a teen in her own cell for twenty-three hours a day drives her a little mad. The only contact you have is when guards check on you four times an hour to make sure you haven't somehow found a way to hang yourself
with a string of dental floss, and outside of that, you're lucky if they let you talk to a nurse, your attorney, maybe a priest, or one of the overseers. They call that bullshit
room confinement
. I think that was better than Oklahoma.”

“I wished I could have been alone for a hundred days.”

“You had your freedom. If not for my parents, especially my dad, I would have broken.”

“I wish I had had your father. He lives and breathes to make sure you're okay.”

“He was there for me every step of the way. Never bailed on me. Didn't have a breakdown and take a trip to London to get away from me and the problems I had caused.”

“You hate your mother.”

“I
love
my mother. Just hate that I had put more on her than she could bear. We're different as adults. She respects me. She took me to Paris last year and we had a ball.”

“Wish me and my mother could be like that. Wish we could travel and laugh. Wouldn't have to be to Paris. If we could go to Long Beach and back without fighting, that would be nice.”

“I do too. I really wish you and Mrs. Stockwell could find a happy medium.”

“What she did to me, in the name of the Lord, was unforgivable.”

“I know. I know.”

Ericka repeated, “Fucking unforgivable.”

“Calm down. You look like you're having flashbacks from your Hoosegow in Oklahoma. We can't have me freaking out, you tripping, and Kwanzaa having a meltdown at the same time.”

“Catastrophic events like these have to be scheduled at least six hours apart.”

Destiny laughed. “I'm worried about Kwan. Let's focus on her. It's her turn.”

Ericka and Destiny went back to Kwanzaa. Destiny stopped by the gumball machines, bought four gumballs, gave one to each of her girls, and the bubble-blowing festival began.

Indigo said, “Let's exit stage left and break out of here before LAPD shows up and makes us the latest hashtags.”

Chewing gum to maintain her cool, Kwanzaa said, “
Hashtag,
I'm not running.”

“You just slapped the bejesus out of an attorney whose face is on signs all over L.A.”

“
Hashtag,
I should have beaten the breaks off him.”