While they were just beginning what Baba called their transcendence to a higher self, none of the women had eaten solid food in seven days. Baba was a strict vegan who ate a diet of only raw food. The women, or “sister circle,” as the people at the project called them, were surviving on a diet of distilled water, lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. Explaining the fasting process would help them connect with their physical strength, he told them that if they passed through the initial days of hunger, by day five, they’d have clearer skin, actually feel nausea around the food they once enjoyed, and begin to see most of the things in their lives more clearly.
While Tamia could confirm that this information was correct, Baba’s idea of being able to work through bodily pain during meditation was proving wrong. The longer she sat, the longer she hurt and the longer she hurt, the longer she wondered when Baba was going to call off the meditation.
By hour five, when Tamia could take no more, she realized something—in all of her anger, she’d been so busy being angry at Baba for making her sit for so long, she’d forgotten that her bottom was hurting. In fact, she couldn’t feel it anymore. She couldn’t feel anything. It was like her mind was just hovering. It was being held in her body, but for the first time she realized that it wasn’t attached to anything at all.
?
“You be careful with Baba,” Malik said, walking out of the project with Tamia. They were headed to a live foods bar that served a peppermint tea Baba would allow on Tamia’s diet. “I once saw him convince a dog to run out in traffic.”
“Did he die? Did the dog get hit?” Tamia cried. For some reason she’d been pretty sensitive lately. Beneath the African dress she was wearing, she had on a red, black, and green tank top. Though she thought it was odd that not one of the colors in the outfit matched, Tanya had put the outfit together for her and she was proud that her sister would do such a thing. She also allowed her to put wooden beads in her ears and a medallion bearing an ankh around her neck.
“No. But he was pretty messed up. I never saw him go back into traffic again.”
“Maybe that was the point,” Tamia concluded and with that Malik saw that she was learning one of the first rules of the circle—always protect the father.
He wanted to laugh. To smile. To sing. It was funny. Amazing. Perplexing that someone like Tamia,
like who he’d thought Tamia was, had been changing so much, so fast. While he hadn’t told anyone of his doubts, when Tamia said she wanted to join one of Baba’s enlightenment circles, he’d thought maybe she was just another bougie sister having a bad day. She wanted a walk on the wild side. To connect with the people. Within forty-eight hours, she’d be back on her grind. Back in the city. That was what he’d thought. But that wasn’t what was happening.
Tamia stopped walking when the two of them made it to the curb in front of the project.
“Why are you stopping?” Malik asked. “The subway is around the corner.”
“That subway?” Tamia repeated in a way that clarified for both of them that she had no intention of riding the underground locomotive.
“You don’t ride the subway, do you?” Malik asked, ready to take back everything he was just thinking about Tamia.
“I have…once before.”
?
Tamia wasn’t exactly open about how long it had been since she had been on a subway, but when she and Malik were standing on the platform, she actually considered that maybe she should have said something. Baba was correct; because she wasn’t eating, her body became nauseous at the idea of stuffing her mouth, but what he hadn’t told her was that her senses overall would become more sensitive as the days went by. Unfortunately, she was realizing this in the subway. As trains whizzed by, so did scents. Old, new, dead, and alive and drenched in sweat. She smelled it all and by the time the train came to gather her and Malik to take them to their next stop, she couldn’t imagine drinking tea, much less watching him eat anything.
“You okay?” Malik asked, looking at her as if he was wanting to protect her in some way.
“I’ll be okay.”
He put his arm around Tamia to keep her steady as they walked onto the crowded train. She felt she would fall right into him—and it wasn’t because of the smells. It was his body.
“I can’t believe you don’t ride the subway. This place is the underworld of the center of the world. The blood of Gotham,” Malik said.
“Gotham? Did you just say Gotham?” She looked up at him and prayed he wouldn’t see her sudden alertness as a reason to move his arm.
“Yes. I was a big Batman fan growing up. Had the PJs. The mask,” he said, laughing as the train wiggled through a tight tunnel. “My dad even bought me one of those Batman lights one year. I shined it out onto the street until it went out one night.”
“Really?” Tamia laughed too. “I didn’t peg you for a Batman fan.” Tamia paused. “I hadn’t pegged you for more than a man who loved the Freedom Project.”
“Sad news alert!” he started. “I grew up like most people. My dad was a private investigator. My mom was a bread maker.”
“You said was. Did they both pass away?”
“Yeah,” Malik revealed. “My dad worked a lot. My mom didn’t. She started seeing some man who lived around the corner behind Pop’s back. The man shot drugs. He died of HIV. A year later my mother died. Two years after that my dad died. A whole circle of black folks wiped out because one brother was trying to feed his family—put his son through college.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Tamia said.
“Don’t be. It saved my life. It helped me save lives.” He snatched a seat when two men dressed completely alike got up and exited the train. He didn’t sit down, though. He simply stood before the seat so Tamia could have it.
“So, that’s how you came to start the Freedom Project?” Tamia asked.