And finally O’Page. It had to mean
something that the two men who
took the children looked like O’Page.
Not just white, but wide white men.
Under six feet tall and sturdily built
with torsos like trees. Square heads
with cleft chins like O’Page and little
Samson. If tall and thin men had taken
the children, Cherie would have said
so. How had Jasmine and O’Page
ever found each other? As a closet
black nationalist, Daddy Peaceful
had quite frankly raised his daughters
with instructions to marry men darker
than themselves. He wanted chocolate
brown grandchildren, he told them. At
age twentytwo, Jasmine had dutifully
complied, marrying Arrington, a
handsome dark brown man, who
reacted to Jasmine’s rise in computer
circles by snorting cocaine and one
night nearly strangling her. Jasmine left
the marriage immediately and divorced
without looking back. After that she
began to date white men, getting her
heart broken at least once, and decided
to make a fresh start in her social life
by moving to City Island, off the
east coast of the Bronx. Sitting in the
Rodeo Bar on City Island avenue one
night she struck up a conversation with
the club’s part time bouncer, a master
carpenter with amber eyes named
O’Page. They dated for a time, tried
living with each other, then rented
apartments around the corner from
each other, and for reasons which
Daddy Peaceful accepted without quite
fathoming, though Nana-Lily seemed
to understand, got pregnant. So along
came mighty little Samson.
BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE
Jasmine had seen more of the world
than Tulip, so she might have made
enemies whose names Daddy Peaceful
did not know. She grew up singing
and had prepared for a career in
singing but while waiting for her big
break had begun temping. Temping
here and there, she had acquired a vast
knowledge of computers and how they
work, their care and feeding. After a
while places where she temped started
trying to hire her away from the temp
agency. Finally she took one of these
offers, and began to make more money
than anybody in the Peaceful family
had ever made, going back to the time
when the first African Peacefuls farmed
the Harlem flatlands for their Dutch
owners. Someone might think she had
enough money to pay ten thousand
dollars for the two kids, except that
Jasmine had a clothes and shoes habit.
Until the birth of Samson five years
before, all her money went to filling
her closets.
9
Tulip had waited for five years before
she got involved with the Weasel,
Bloombloom’s father. He had a name
of course, but nobody used it any more,
because by calling him the Weasel, they
could talk bad about him around
Bloombloom and not confuse her too
much. Besides the Weasel suited him;
he popped up from time to time and
usually left a mess. At first, like Latour,
he seemed legitimate. He sold new and
used cars at a dealership on Fordham
road in the Bronx. Working on
commission explained the fluctuations
in his income. Actually he gambled
compulsively, got involved in marathon
card games, and usually lost. But his
infidelity and tendency to impregnate
the other women he had sex with, not
his gambling, broke Tulip’s heart.
When all came out, Tulip discovered he
had six children by six different women,
three before Tulip and two after. She
had known only about one before
herself and had forgiven the first after
Bloombloom, but after the second, she
threw his clothes into a dumpster and
set them afire then smashed his car with
a crowbar. Subsequently she had sworn
off men, losing confidence in her ability
to pick a good one. Tulip lived the hard
life of a single mother of two, working
part time in telemarketing, going
to college at night, living in a rent
subsidized housing project in Queens.
BRN-FALL-2012.indb 9
9/7/12 11:26 PM