For Your Reading Enjoyment:

Urban Strike by J.T. Smith: Chapter Seventeen 

Seventeen

SWINGING IN THE PARK

Sandwiched between 120th and 124th Streets and bordered by Fifth and Madison Avenues is a twenty-acre tract of land known as Marcus Garvey Park. It was named in honor of Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr., the Jamaican born Pan-Africanist who founded the Universal Negro Improvement As- sociation in 1914 to promote social political and economic freedom for people of African descent. He moved to New York City in 1916 and held legendary rallies and parades in Harlem to inspire and motivate members of his race.

Fatima was late to her own rally because the MTA was once again doing construction over the weekend. Subway service was therefore jacked up. As she hurried into the park from 124th Street, she spied a rusted shop- ping cart shoved in a cluster of overgrown bushes. It was jammed with tattered clothes, paper bags, old shoes, broken toys, and blankets. A large plastic bag full of recyclable cans and bottles sat nearby in another clump of thick brush. Fatima stopped appraising the homeless person’s possessions when her cell phone rang. It was Marisol. Again.

This is the last time I’m getting talked into this bullshit! Fatima thought as she answered the call.

“Walking into the park now.”

Fatima ended the call before Marisol could respond. She’d been calling since dawn expressing her consternation about the weather, insufficient

advertising, and the subpar public announcement system loaned to them. Fatima just wanted to get the shit over with.

After this engagement, Marisol would have to accept her refusal to give more damn speeches to teens about sexual behavior. Fatima was certain she could find another way to contribute to the cause besides preaching to horny adolescents. She gingerly stepped over a used condom and an empty liquor bottle as she hurried across the park.

Fatima was dressed in a white blouse already damp with perspiration and a pair of faded black jeans. She hastily wiped away trickles of sweat from her forehead. The July humidity was extremely high. Fatima heard the hip-hop music blasting from speakers before she saw the crowd. An army of teens was amassed near the historic Mount Morris Fire Watch- tower. She recognized Marisol pacing frantically back and forth on the portable stage the NYC Parks Department had graciously provided.

Shaconda was onstage near Marisol, stocking a cooler with bottles of water. What Fatima didn’t see onstage was the lectern that she had specifically asked for. It made Fatima feel protected. She liked feeling that there was something between her and the crowd.

“You can quit worrying now, Marisol,” Fatima said as she hurried onstage.

“Hello, Fatima,” Shaconda said as she opened a bag of ice and dumped the cubes into the cooler.

“Hi, Shaconda. Thanks for bringing water.”
“No worries. Glad to help out.”
Marisol grabbed Fatima’s arm and guided her to the far side of the stage.
“We have a slight problem.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Our other scheduled speaker cancelled. But, we do have a hip-hop group scheduled to arrive and perform in about an hour. Could you, stretch your speech out, and help fill the gap in activities?”

Fatima would’ve slapped Marisol if there weren’t so many witnesses. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
“I’m dead serious. Maybe you can do a question and answer session after you’re done speaking?”
“Maybe you can have your damn head examined?”

“Come on, Fatima? Please, for me?”
“Marisol, you’re a royal pain!”
“I love you too,” Marisol said and then gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Have a seat while I get things started.”
Fatima grabbed a bottle of water and sat in one of the plastic chairs nearby. She sipped the cold liquid and surveyed the scene. The crowd of young people numbered over four hundred; the majority of them female. To the right of the stage was a series of square tables covered with pamphlets on health issues. Fatima was surprised to see on one table a large illustration showing the proper application of a condom. She was sure that if Marisol had her way, there’d have been free prophylactics for the crowd to take home. However, since Marisol enjoyed employment with the Board of Education, that was not the case.

There were different colored balloons tied to a stretch of fencing in the area, most likely the work of Shaconda. A fifty-five-gallon steel drum that had been converted to a transportable grill sat some distance from the stage, belching smoke like a metal dragon. The overweight brother sweating in front of the grill was busy cooking his ass off. Teens were lined up near him to get the free hotdogs, burgers, and chicken wings that the event’s lone sponsor, a well-known commercial bank recently sued for making predatory home loans to minorities, had sprung for.

Marisol stepped to the microphone and cleared her voice before using the PA system.

“Can I have everyone’s attention?”
The majority of the crowd ignored her and continued chatting. “Hello? Can I have your attention?” Marisol said. She received the same weak response. Her NYC teaching skills then kicked in.
“Hey! Please settle down so we can get started!”
Startled, the crowd hushed and focused on her.
“That’s much better,” Marisol said softly. “First of all, my name is Ms. Aquino, and I want to thank everyone for coming out this afternoon. We have a lot of information on sexual awareness that we want to give to you today, so the sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be finished. And, we’ll have a performance from that new rap group right here from Harlem, The Young Turks!”

The females in the crowd screamed at the mention of The Young Turks. They were the biggest sensation to hit Harlem since prepaid cell phones. The suave, handsome leader of the group, Omar X, was the star of countless young women’s wet dreams.

“Now, without further ado, I wish to present a dynamic young orator. If you saw her speaking on The Real Deal recently, you know this sister does not have a problem with telling the truth.”

Several women in the audience clapped.

“She works for Human Resources and sees a lot of the hardships that our community has to deal with, which is why she’s here to speak today. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s put our hands together for a special young lady, and very special friend of mine, Ms. Fatima Richardson!”

The audience gave Fatima a decent applause when she stood up. Marisol’s sugary introduction was not going to smooth things. Fatima let that be known by rolling her eyes at her when they traded places at the microphone stand. More beads of sweat ran down Fatima’s brow as she surveyed the crowd before her. She longed for a cold margarita in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“How’s... how’s everybody doing?” Fatima asked nervously.
The crowd mumbled back an assortment of weak responses. “Good,” Fatima continued. “I’m glad to see we have such a nice turn-out. Hopefully, when we’re through today, you’ll have heard and seen some things that you’ll remember for the rest of your lives.”

The crowd murmured with bored anticipation. Fatima reached into her jeans pocket to pull out a few thoughts she had jotted down while stuck on the subway when someone in the crowd caught her attention. It was seventeen-year-old Lynn Spruill. A golden complexioned girl with a mini afro, dressed in a T-shirt and short shorts. She had a finely detailed leopard tattooed on her left arm. The animal stretched from shoulder to elbow. When Lynn turned her head to speak to the girl standing next to her, Fatima saw beautiful Japanese calligraphy etched down the back of her neck. It was too much to ignore.

“One of the uh, main ideas that we want you people to come away with today is that, you need to think, before you act.”

Fatima plucked the microphone from its stand and walked to the edge of the stage where Lynn was standing.

“Excuse me, young lady?” “Me?” Lynn asked guardedly.

“Yes, you.”
Fatima didn’t miss the suspicious look displayed on the teenager’s face.
“I’m not trying to put you on blast, dear. Can I ask a question about your tattoos?”
“I guess so.”

“Why did you get them?”
“Why’d I get these?” Lynn repeated.
“Yes.”
“To be honest, I got this one on my arm because my sister got herself a nice panther done on hers.”
“And the one on your neck?”
“Those are the Japanese kanji symbols for Love and Peace,” Lynn answered. “I like the way they look.”
“May I ask you one more question?”
“Okay...”
“You ever think about how many long-sleeved blouses you’re going to have to buy if you decide to work in Corporate America with that leopard on your arm?”

“I’ve... never given that any thought,” Lynn admitted.
“You might want to.”
Fatima saw the look of annoyance growing on Lynn’s face, so she turned away before she got cussed out and strode to the opposite end of the stage.

“I am aware of the tattoo craze that everyone around here seems to be enjoying. But you know what?” Fatima whispered, as if she were about to divulge a deep secret. She paused a few seconds for effect. “There used to be a time when the white man branded people who looked like us with free tattoos because they owned us. Now you guys pay for that mess.”

The profoundness of her statement registered with the crowd. Murmurs passed through the audience.

“What? You guys haven’t learned about slavery in this country yet?” Fatima asked with a sly grin. “Look it up online.”

Standing a few feet behind her friend, Marisol relaxed. Everything was going to be fine. She was sure Fatima could keep the crowd captivated until the musical act arrived.

“Sorry for getting off track about tattoos, but that needed to be addressed. I don’t want you guys doing things that you might regret later. The reason I’m standing here today, at the urgent request of Ms. Aquino, is to talk to you people about sexual awareness.”

Giggles echoed throughout the crowd.

“Before anyone gets excited, I will not be telling you guys what goes where and how. That’s your parents’ job. But here’s something I will tell the young ladies who walk around with low riding jeans on, showing off your goodies. I don’t need to see the crack of your butt! Nobody else needs to see it either.”

Loud giggles swept over the crowd.
“Look, when you girls dress like ho’s, some boys treat you like one.” Nobody laughed. Marisol smiled.
“What I also need to tell you folks about, is how HIV is devastating our community. And also, how catching an STD such as herpes, will be with you forever. Like some of the tattoos you people have.”

The crowd laughed once again.

“I’m serious!” Fatima said and looked over the sea of faces staring up at her. “I especially want to talk to the young ladies here today, because you’re the ones who have the most to lose if you make the wrong choices.” The crowd grew quiet. “Let me see the hands of all the young ladies here who call yourselves having a boyfriend?”

Half of the women in the crowd complied.

“Dang! That many of you girls are in love? I should ask how many of you with hands up are engaged in sexual activity—but I won’t go there...yet.”
Once more the crowd laughed.
“I will ask this, though. What do you ‘young ladies in love,’ know about your boyfriend’s sexual health?”
Fatima glanced around. Her eyes fell upon one of the first girls she saw raise a hand to indicate she had a beau. She pointed at the thin sixteen- year-old, who was fighting a losing battle with acne.

“I saw you raise your hand. Do you know your boyfriend’s status?”

Poor Tracie Stevens looked petrified, like a deer caught in the head-lights of an oncoming tractor-trailer.

“I... I think he’s still on probation,” she stuttered.

The crowd cracked up with laughter. This encouraged Fatima. Nervousness was now a thing of the past. Adrenaline flowed through her. She began to pace back and forth across the stage, like a veteran politician stumping at a fundraiser.

“That’s not exactly the answer I was looking for, but I thank you for your honesty, sister.”

Fatima spied another teen who’d raised her hand.
“How about your boyfriend? Do you know his status?”
“His status?” fifteen-year-old Wanda Hardy asked.
“Yes, his HIV status.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Don’t you think you should?”
“I guess so,” Wanda answered.
“You guess so?”
Everyone in the crowd waited for Fatima to scold Wanda for not being aware of her boyfriend’s health condition. She didn’t.
“Sweetie, please do yourself a favor and ask him about his HIV status,” Fatima said softly.
“I will,” Wanda said.

Shaconda was awestruck as she watched Fatima. She whispered to Marisol, who stood next to her.

“Isn’t she good?”
“She’s remarkable,” Marisol replied.
Fatima was hyped up as she spoke. However, she soon lowered her voice and slowed her pace.
“Listen, ladies, one of the worst mistakes you can make at this point in your life, is to become a teenage mother. This could lead to you dropping out of school.” Fatima paused again for effect... “And while we’re on the subject of motherhood, can I ask a question? What is the deal with these jacked up names you guys are giving your kids? Naming them after cars, and liquor?”

The crowd laughed.

“Don’t you all realize that as soon as certain employers see your child’s jacked up name on their job application, they will not get called in for an interview?”

The laughter ceased.

“And poor LaQuanda, Lexus, Tykwon, or Alize won’t ever have a clue that they were discriminated against because of their ‘ghetto’ sounding name.”

Fatima surveyed the crowd. Teens were pondering the point she’d just made. She lowered her voice again, almost to a whisper.

“Here’s a newsflash, folks. Names like Lisa, Mary, Christopher, or David, still work. Keep that in mind.”

Twenty-one-year-old Effrom Daniels had recently returned to Harlem after spending the past fourteen months in Stone Mountain, Georgia. He’d moved there because the cost of living was cheaper. Also, he’d heard how the ratio of black men to black women in the Atlanta area was stacked in his favor. Effrom was also encouraged to leave New York due to an outstanding warrant. It was an assault and battery charge he felt was unjust, because the drunken fool at The Silhouette nightclub had bumped into him first.

Soon it dawned on Effrom that Atlanta was no New York City. The public transit system was whack. The humidity was horrific. The weed was weak. And the women he met were fine, but bossy because of their high salaried jobs.

After a long ride back home via Greyhound, Effrom was not pleased to find insanity going on in Harlem. He had telephoned three of his former flames with the hopes of hooking up. The two girls whose phone numbers still worked had both instructed him to drop dead after he asked them for some booty.

Hot and horny, Effrom was hoofing it up Madison Avenue, sipping on a cold, citrus-flavored malt beverage. He smiled at every young female he passed. He was hoping for a friendly smile, or at least a questionable glance back from one of these females in return. He received nothing but frowns. The fact that many of them were wearing sundresses and showing mad skin didn’t help Effrom’s dilemma. As he neared Marcus Garvey Park, he noticed an event taking place. His curiosity was aroused further when he smelled food so Effrom crossed the street to investigate.

He thought he’d reached the Promised Land when he saw a gathering of mostly young women. The large Sexual Awareness Forum banner hanging on a fence told him what was going on. Effrom walked to the rear of the crowd and eyed all the female bottoms in front of him. Meanwhile onstage, Fatima was whipping the women into a frenzy.

“The onus is on you ladies to make the right choices about your bodies now!”

“Yeah!”
“Because later might be too late!”
“Yeah!”
“Am I right, or am I wrong?!”
“Right!”
“You ladies need to T-B-A! Think, before you act!”
“Yeah!”
“You don’t have to sex every cute boy you meet!”
“Amen!” Shaconda yelled.
Marisol glanced at her, surprised by the teenager’s passion.
“Keep your legs closed and your schoolbooks open!” Fatima preached.

“Yeah!”

“Listen, having sex, paying rent, shopping for girdles... you girls’ll be doing grown up stuff soon enough. Don’t rush it! Because sex ain’t all that anyway!”

Many young women in the crowd applauded. Many young men in the crowd hissed their disapproval. Fatima remained undeterred.

“I know some of you out there don’t like what I’m saying... but I’m here to tell you guys the truth!”

Effrom couldn’t believe the bullshit he’d stumbled upon. Some short, dreadlocked heifer actually preaching against fucking? In Harlem? That was outrageous! He drained most of his alcoholic drink and then hurled the bottle toward the stage.

Kip DiFranco, a twenty-three-year-old rookie photojournalist for the weekly news rag Manhattan Daily Press, was near the stage when this occurred. He was given the undesired assignment of covering the Sexual Awareness Forum because of his lowly status at the publication. A tall Caucasian, Kip stuck out in the crowd like January snow on Vermont macadam. He’d been fantasizing about what Marisol Aquino looked like naked when he saw a bottle slam into the girl standing next to her. Shaconda yelled when she felt the jagged pain from the pieces of glass now embedded in her shoulder.

Hot Alabama summers spent at her grandmother’s house had conditioned Fatima to react quickly on hearing a buzzing sound. (Mosquitos down there loved Northern Negro blood.) The loud whooshing Effrom’s bottle made as it hurtled toward Fatima allowed her to duck just in time.

The crowd gasped on seeing the blood on Shaconda’s arm. “Whoever threw that? Bring your fucking ass up here to my face!” The crowd gasped again at Fatima’s profanity-laced response. Kip quickly raised his camera and snapped photos of her enraged face. He then snapped pictures of Fatima and Marisol attending to Shaconda.

“Should we call an ambulance?” Marisol asked as she soaked napkins with bottled water to place on the wound.

“We got ambulance money?” Fatima asked. She frowned as she watched the dark stain on Shaconda’s sleeve spread.

“Not really,” Marisol replied.
“Let’s take her to Harlem Hospital in a cab,” Fatima said.
“Okay,” Marisol replied.
“I hope we find the bastard who threw that bottle,” Fatima grumbled. Kip was still taking photos of Shaconda getting aid when people near him began to murmur.
“Yo, that was foul,” some girl mumbled.
“Bitch needed to hush with all that noise,” a young man countered.

Two girls next to him responded.
“Why she gotta be a bitch?” the first girl demanded.
“You shouldn’t have shit to say, if she wasn’t talking about you,” the second one added.
“I’ll say what the fuck I want! Y’all best get out my face!”
Hearing the threat, Kip abandoned the drama onstage and turned his camera to the argument nearby.
“You don’t scare me!” the first girl countered.
“You’ll fear my foot in your ass!” the young man replied.
“Don’t let them ho’s clown you!” a young man behind the quarreling trio shouted.
“Who you calling a ho’?” the second girl asked as she turned and faced the interloper.

“You, and your mama,” he replied.

The second girl then hauled off and slapped him. Her bigger foe briefly registered shock on his face and then punched her in the jaw. The young lady fell flat on her ass.

“Don’t be hitting no girl!” several young women yelled as they surrounded the young man. The group began shoving him about, so he swung on them too.

Then all hell broke loose.

A dozen girls bum rushed the young man. Numerous males, previously watching the spectacle, rendered aid to their comrade. Kip wished he had a video camera instead of his single lens reflex to record the boat-load of ‘motherfuckers’, ‘ho’s’, ‘bitches’, and other cuss words that flew back and forth as the teens fought.

Fatima was calling a cab on her cell when she heard the ruckus. She turned and saw the huge commotion going on in front of the stage.

“Marisol, look!”
Marisol was shocked to see the brawl when she turned around. “Fatima, you gotta break that up!”
“Me?”
“They’ll listen to you!”
Unconvinced, Fatima hurried to the microphone and snatched it up. “Hey! Everybody, please calm down!”
Her pleas went unheeded. Fatima watched in alarm as more young men unwisely tried to rescue their peers from the fierce ass-kickings the young women were doling out.

“Stop this fighting!”

Fatima was again ignored. She was about to advise anyone not participating in the fight to safely vacate the area, when a can of grape soda splattered at her feet and doused her blouse with the sticky beverage. Fatima’s jaw dropped in disbelief. Before she could say a word, she spied another teen aiming his soda can at her. She easily dodged the projectile.

“You sumbitch!” Fatima yelled and then leapt off the stage after the kid.

Fortunately, two of the volunteers Marisol had recruited to help with security at the event intercepted Fatima. As she let out a string of expletives at her assailant, Kip captured her angry mug on film.

Realizing things were out of control, and that police could soon be arriving, Effrom decided to leave the vicinity. He was three blocks away, stepping into a bodega for another citrus-flavored malt beverage, when he heard the first NYPD squad car scream past the store toward to the park.

Most teens present that sultry afternoon agreed the male combatants in what was being hailed as “The Battle of Marcus Garvey Park” suffered more casualties. They were outnumbered and outgunned. Men’s name- brand clothing got ripped, their faces were badly scratched, and countless male gonads were injured during the conflict.

Fatima was still fighting mad as she was extracted from the crowd and shoved into a cab by one of the security personnel. She rode with Shaconda to Harlem Hospital’s emergency room, where the poor teenager received sixteen stitches to close the gash in her shoulder. Marisol was left with the task of trying to restore law and order to the event.

Her pleas over the PA system for calm fell on deaf ears, as Fatima’s had earlier. The scuffle in the park attracted throngs of local residents and passersby. Many of them documented the clash on their cell phone cameras, resulting in a phalanx of inner-city paparazzi who would later post the images for posterity.

The high-pitched wails of approaching police cars snapped the fighters back to reality. All teens involved in the scuffle hauled ass before the first pair of handcuffs could be pulled from a NYPD utility belt. When The Young Turks arrived half an hour later and saw all the police cruisers, they assumed there had been a shooting in the area and returned home. Their manager would be tasked with collecting their performance fee from Marisol Aquino.