On New Years Eve In The Garden Of Good and Evil by Push Nevahda

I spent the last seven hours of 2008 at a  small cozy rent party about forty-five minutes from Prescott, two hours from Phoenix, just off Highway 89, in a funky, hip, retro-soul ghost town called Jerome, Arizona, drinking mexican vino with an enchanted group of fellow writers, authors and an exiled Mexican poet. As we washed down tasty homemade fajitas with crisp Mexican wine that Ignacio – the exiled poet – had stolen from a winery in Querétaro, we talked about church, writing, literature, the disintegration of Ole Skool values, black love and romance, and the challenges facing the New Year.

Waiting for the moment when the overhead clock would reach midnight, leaving behind the dignified legacy of that grand historic moment – the Obama election – everyone stopped cold in silence when an intoxicated Janus walked over to the CD player, killed Abbey Lincoln, and started in on what would eventually become the last discussion this eclectic bunch of weed-heads would have for the cutthroat year of 2008. Janus Cohen, a red-headed, 30-something-year-old liberal Jew whose husband recently left her for a younger woman, teaches Judiac Studies at Arizona State University. She starts rambling on religion, the origins of man, and Jesus Christ. Once she had everyone’s attention, with slurred speech and a sweaty glass of Hennessey and coke in hand she says, I think I’m gonna leave the synagogue. Yep, that’s my New Years resolution, to leave the synagogue.”

Janus paused to take a sip of her drink. Everyone stared at her with shock and disbelief. Janus is typically quiet, reserved and conservative, but ever since she’d caught her husband at that seedy hotel with one of his graduate students, she hasn’t been the same.

“Maybe I’ll transfer my religious beliefs! Maybe I’ll go Baptist! Be a Christian like everybody else. Know what I mean? Now, if the statistics suggest that Arab women are changing from their faiths to join Christianity then maybe it’s because they too are tired of being repressed. Right on, sisters! I mean, they see Christian women doing whatever the hell they wanna do. So, they may figure that if they changed religions they too can live as freely and leisurely without the male dominated scrutiny. They can date and marry whomever the hell they want to, work, earn money, suck as much cock as they want, fornicate, or whatever. Know what I mean? In otherwords – from a global perspective – Christianity is seductive because one can be greedy, sexually free, gluttonous, and unaccountable….in a Christian nation! And then people like my husband can go to church, ask for forgiveness and everything be ok! How is that not seductive and sexy!? And that’s what the hell I wanna do too. Be free. Like my Arab sisters.” She raises her clinched fist in a black power sign and says, “I just wanted to say that. Thank you for listening. And, hey! who’s got the marijuana?”

Everyone stood silent and motionless, shocked at what Janus had said, not because she is Jewish, but  moreso for her uncharacteristic outburst. “Whateva, Janus,” says a bewildered Amiri, turning to take a toke off the community blunt, choking while passing it to Bessie Liston, a dreaded-out, bell hooks reading, Lauryn Hill wannabe sista fresh out of Columbia University with a PhD in Ethnomusicology. Bess (as we call her) is working on a collection of essays that deal with the various ways in which black music might serve as a foundation for analyzing the historic and temporal changes and shifts in black life….or something like that. She’s always talking about Ole Skool this and Ole Skool that. All night she’s been trying to start and sustain that discussion, but, as it goes with any blunt fest, the direction of the conversation could go anyplace, especially when Amiri gets to talking about black folks. For him, it’s always about the 70’s and “the way niggas used to care ‘bout each other back then.”

Amiri is an ex-Muslim from Harlem who moved out West to get away from the congestion of New York, and “the disintegration of Harlem.” He teaches African American Lit at a small community college in the Valley, and he’s currently working on a book review of Herb Boyd’s new James Baldwin biography. He always infuses Baldwin into any discussion on black folks. He takes a long toke from a fat freshly-rolled Hennessey dipped, cherry-scented, prime-rolled blunt passed to him by Inacio. Ignacio always brings  marijauna back across the border with him whenever he returns from visiting his parents in Mexico.

Bessie takes a sip of wine and turns toward Amiri to reach for the floating blunt. “I think the reason why so many of us like to reflect on the real Ole Skool days is because of the things it taught us about love and how to love.” She takes a long puff and blows smoke into the air. “Our parents never thought of breaking up just because someone cheated or spent the rent money. Bobby Womack, the Isley Brothers, Heatwave, and the O Jays taught us how to love hard and weather the tough times, and that women were more precious than diamonds.” She passes the blunt to me. “You know I don’t get high, Bess!” “Oh…yeah, that’s right.” She reaches over my head and hands the half-smoked blunt to Maria, then continues with her mini-lecture on the glorious Ole Skool days.

“You woulda never heard those cats singing ‘move bitch get out the way.’ Likewise, Nina Simone taught us how to embrace and express our blackness and love our African heritage rather than dilute, saturate and hate it away with weaves, wigs, extensions, perms, and clownish baubles, gaudy circus jewelry, excessive make-up and so-called feminine products. Lorraine Hansberry taught us how to be a strong family unit; Baldwin taught us the true meaning of masculinity and what it means to be a man – even though he was gay, and Malcolm taught us that a man can change from bad to good, gain respect, and protect the women and children in the black community.”

“Yeah, if a brotha leave them white bitches alone,” Amiri blurts out. Everyone laughs. Janus, the only white girl in the room, gives Amiri a wily smile, one that perhaps knows a scandalous secret about Amiri…and white girls. Amiri doubles back to notice Janus looking at him then looks at Bessie who acts as though she didn’t notice the conspicuous smile that Janus gave Amiri. I – personally – knew that Amiri liked white girls because Janus once told me that Amiri had started dating some white broad at the college he teaches at. Turns out that the white broad knows Janus through a mutual friend. But, it wasn’t no surprise to me that Amiri liked white broads; most Muslim brothas do.

“….and Myrlie, Betty, and Coretta taught us the value in sacrificial and unconditional love. That’s the Ole Skool I’m talking about.” Maria takes a piece of a fajita and hands it to Ignacio and joins the discussion.

“Yeah, I hear ya, Bess, but today, so much of our ideas of loving one another are centered on Euro-market driven concepts of love that highlights materialism, hyper-sexuality, vanity, and selfishness – me, me, me, and my. Tragically, the meaning of femininity and masculinity has changed and now dominates most of our ideas and discussions about who we are and what we should mean to each other.”

“Women are telling men how to be men, although they have no experience whatsoever as to what it means to be one,” Amiri interrupts. ”Men are telling women how to be women: be as white woman-like as you possibly can be, yet, we rarely take the time to get to know one another and accept that persons strengths and weaknesses. No wonder we have so much trouble with loving each other and ourselves.”

“And as black people,” Bessie says, taking a hit of the dwindling blunt, choking on the smoke that  quickly rolled from her mouth to her nostrils. “We can never forget the crucial fact that our meaning of love, and how we love each other is different from every other race, no disrespect to you Maria and Ignacio! But our shit is more unique. After all, even the ‘N’ word is now stupidly and ridiculously considered a term of endearment. Under the circumstances of how we currently view each other as men and women, we wonder why there is so much dishonesty and deception in black romance and intimacy. Even in contemporary black literature you got black nihilism in new form and shape. It’s awful.”

“Yeah, I feel you, Bess,” Amiri says, coughing and choking while trying to smoke the last of the diminished blunt. “And, niggas…I mean, men wonder why our women are so disappointed with the choices of men out there; we wonder why men don’t wanna be the men they used to be or could be. We simply don’t know who we are anymore…or whose we are.”

 Janus patiently waited for her chance to hit the last remnants of the shrinking blunt, pretending to be preoccupied with the bits of chipped ice cubes swirling around in her half-filled glass of dark bitter liquor. It is now three minutes to the New Year and Bessie, still rambling on about what the New Year should mean in terms of black love and black art, lights a cigarette and says, ”So, I guess that real love has to begin with the tough, painful, and courageous question of how do we love ourselves just as we are – white, black, light-skinned, dark-skinned, white-skinned, red-skinned, good hair, nappy hair, straight hair, short, tall, educated, ghetto, whatever. And only in that critical examination of ourselves, can we then turn to someone else and make an honest attempt to love them. So, the real challenge for this new year, 2009, should be one in which we try to be a little more loving and caring towards one another.”

 

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