Playing Hard To Get

“You know,” Ava said, “with all of the bullshit women face, you’d think we’d be able to stop shoveling shit on other people.” She looked at Tamia and a fire that long ago seared certain sides of her heart into something unrecognizable could be seen. “The young me, the one who came from the projects in Memphis and ran barefoot to the bus station with the last $20 my mother had in her pocket the night her pimp killed her, would’ve come out of that stall and beat your ass.”

“But…I…I…” Tamia tried, but she was too flustered to speak. Her heart was pounding through her ears. The closest she’d ever come to a fight was with a pimp named Diamond at a strip club in Los Angeles.

“No. There’s no reason to explain, or apologize. Don’t be scared, because I’m not that girl anymore,” Ava said. “See, she was easily upset when people said shit to her that she knew was true. But now I’m grown and I can accept my own shit. So, you’re right. I am a gold digger.”

“Ava, I didn’t mean to say it like that,” Tamia tried. “I don’t even know—”

“You’re right,” Ava cut her off. “You don’t fucking know me. I’ve seen bitches like you all my life. You don’t know what it’s like to starve. To be hungry and dream about shit like this. Places like this. It’s all you can think about. And then some nigga is up in your face, breathing on you because your mother is dead now and he says, ‘Keep yourself pretty and you’ll get out of here.’ I got out of there and I remembered what he said. So, you’re motherfucking right I’m a gold digger. And, yes, Nathaniel probably could do better. He could probably have picked one of you stuffy-ass, fake hoes. But he didn’t. He chose me.”

Ava closed her purse and balled it up in her hand like a fat orange.

“You know, before you go talking about what someone else is, maybe you should figure out who you are,” Ava added. “Now, you have a good night.” A smile washed over her face quickly and two of the other women she was with came in.

“There you are,” one said. “I thought we were going to need a plumber to come get you.”

The women laughed, Ava winked at Tamia, and they left.

?

Like the Freedom Project, the Royal Ankh looked nothing like Tamia expected. And this time, weathering the late hour and cooler evening spring temperatures without a jacket, she did have a few solid expectations—a building with doors, windows, a roof. But none were present when her cabbie stopped.

“777—this is where the address should be,” he said as they looked at a dark, empty space where a building had been hollowed out between two others.

Tamia exited and fretfully followed four shadows into the darkness. Behind a foot of bricks, which marked what was left of the old building, was a flat of fresh green grass. Everything inside of Tamia said she should be afraid and reminded her of how ridiculous this was. But something else, like a propeller tugging her navel, pulled her to something she felt she had to see. Really, she reasoned, she was just there because there was no way she’d get to bed after what had just happened between her and Ava at the party. She was afraid, angry, and ashamed. Actually, she might have felt better had Ava hit her.

The steam from the heaters in the other buildings filled the empty lot with a moist heat that softened the loose soil beneath Tamia’s feet. Trying to keep up with the people in front, she cursed herself for wearing heels as they dug into the dirt. She looked down at the tip of her gray suede shoe and saw what looked like gold dust.

“Oh, crap!” she said, forgetting her leaders and pulling out her cell phone to get a little light.

She shined the light on the grass. The gold dust was everywhere around her.

“What is this?” Tamia said, holding the light higher. The cell phone’s blue glow highlighted from the bottom of the cross to its loop, where Tamia stood, the outline of an ankh.

?

“I can’t believe you came,” Malik said later when Tamia had found her way to the back of the lot where an open field hosted a crowd of what looked like a hundred people. Above them was a huge, wooden ankh, suspended in the air by chains that were linked to the surrounding buildings. A tall oak tree, whose branches seemed to reach out into the crowd, was centered beneath it.

“Really, I can’t believe I came either,” Tamia admitted, looking around the crowd. Men and women wore Afros and dreadlocks, head wraps, and some even had short buzz cuts with Adinkra symbols etched into the napes of their necks. They were all adorned with nose rings and intricate African neckwear. Some wore gold and bronze; others had silver and wood. While they all seemed like they were at a party, dancing to a set of African drummers and smiling at each other, it was quite different than the one Tamia had left in the city. “I thought I’d be too late,” she added.

“We’re just getting started,” Malik said. “Brothers and sisters will be coming out here all night.”

“So, what is this? Why are all of these people here?” Tamia asked as an older man who had one huge dreadlock spiraling down his back walked past beating a drum and chanting as if in a trance.

“It’s the crescent moon.” Malik pointed to the sliver of a bright white moon above them. “In our itan, our history, it meant fertility—the line between life and death. It is time for the Erena for some brothers who are being reborn to the purpose of their spirits, elevated to a higher spiritual consciousness—the ori orun.”

“You do realize that I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say things like that?” Tamia chuckled. “I mean, you have to know that.”

“Yeah.” Malik smiled back at her. “Basically, it’s a rite-of-passage ceremony.”

“Thank you for the translation.”

Suddenly all movement and chatter from the increasing crowd of onlookers around them stopped.

Behind the drummer’s syncopated beat trailed seven men dressed in so much white, the moon, the clouds, and stars seemed more luminous above them. They were all bald, and ancient Kemetic symbols and markings Tamia didn’t yet understand were penciled into their scalps, cheeks, and foreheads in white paint. Tamia watched intently as they organized into a circle and chanted a complicated rite to the ancestors before libations were poured into the soil around them. The drummer continued chanting what was becoming a song, as he led them around the tree.

“They died and now they’re alive,” Tamia heard. She turned and now Kali was standing beside Malik, draped in a beautiful red sari. Her eyes were locked on the men.

Tamia turned back around. Their composure and steady focus defied the bitter March wind that was numbing her toes. Their eyes were focused east as they called out with the chanting drummer.