NYU Black Renaissance Noire Summer/Fall 2011 | Page 20

18

Even when I was a kid playing
stick-’em-up and I get shot, I composed
my dying like a poem. There was
poetry in my dying. When I get shot
and I start to die, I hear the theme
music of the movie, I turn to the bite
of the bullets, my knees buckle, my
hands reach out and I hold on for the
last, a little piece of the world—the
sky, the air, my eyes open and I fill
them with the wonder of trees, singing
birds in the verandas of their branches,
the roar of women in the market
place, the noise of children at the
playground, people quarrelling, lovers
undressing each other, I move into a
dance, feeling the blood of life leaving
my head, I breathe in, the fragrance
of ripe guavas turning to the smell of
crushed corraili leaves, hearing the last
drum roll, cymbals crashing, seeing the
lights growing dim, waves beating onto
the shore, fish leaping silver. That was
when I was a little boy playing. Dying
was a performance. I was at the centre
of my own dying.

BRN-FALL-2011.indb 18

Now, here was I, a grown man, in a
real movie and I was dying like a fool,
like ah arse. And I actually see myself
beginning to fall, following the lead
of fellows who I respected. I see myself
falling when, out of the corner of my
eye, I glimpse this man, one of the
fellars, one of our fellars get shot. And
this man flings up his arms as if he is
lifted by the shot. And he holds them
spread out there above his head like a
stickfighter whose charge is arrested
by his parrying of a blow and he sways,
stretching them away from his body
like he crucifying a cross or like is
carnival day and he playing a big mas,
a big hooray of a Wild-Indian—The
Rise of Montezuma or something—
with a tepee for a headpiece, the tassels
on the sleeves of his jacket hanging
down like a curtain of fern, his cape
spread out behind him, the music
blaring dar-da dar-dar: dar-dar, dar-dar,
and he in front the audience in the
Savannah and he straining to hold the
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