Open Mic Page 8

  “Okay, okay,” I said softly, pretending to pull away, “don’t get a cow.”

  She sat on her haunches on top of the bed, not letting go of me. “And what did Bernie do when Papá said that?”

  I couldn’t speak. There was a lump in my throat the size and texture of one of those Mexican limes that Bernie liked to squeeze on his chicken soup. “He told him not to say that kind of stuff ever again. That it was not something Jesus Christ would ever say. That it was a bunch of mierda, and that God — that God made all kinds of Mexican guys.”

  She moved closer to me and sat on the edge of the bed. “Have you ever, before that day, heard Bernie use that word?”

  I shook my head.

  “You know why he did that?”

  I shook my head again.

  “It was like he was defending someone, wasn’t it?” She was almost whispering in my ear.

  I nodded.

  “He did it for you. He was defending you. You! Luis. Our geeky little Mexican guy, made just right by God.”

  The green lime that had been stuck in my throat exploded, and I was suddenly crying. I buried my head in Rosalinda’s chest. I don’t know how long we sat there next to each other. Finally, I wiped my eyes on my arm. Rosalinda lifted a corner of her chartreuse T-shirt to dry my cheeks. “Bright colors make you look fat,” I said.

  She smiled and rubbed the back of my head. “Told you I needed a guy’s advice, didn’t I? Now, get out of here. Go to the bathroom and read your magazine.”

  I stood up.

  “But don’t take forever,” she warned.

  I looked at her one more time and smiled. Then I slowly walked out.

  I noticed, as I was walking to my room, that my steps were lighter, so much lighter.

  Hearts, like doors, will (open) with ease

  to very, very little keys,

  and don’t forget that two of these

  are “Thank you, sir,” and “If you please.”

  — Traditional

  1.

  Certain words

  got lost on their way —

  why should they pull us

  down their twisted paths?

  Using them feeds them.

  War is raw, backward and forward.

  Terror contains rot and tore.

  Well, of course.

  It would not be filled

  with toast or lamp.

  Because my Arab father said,

  I love you, habibi,

  darling was everywhere.

  Sweetness emanating from trees.

  Mint in your tea?

  Ahlan wa sahlan — you are all welcome.

  Friends, strangers, came right in.

  Sat in a circle, poured, and stirred.

  Teacups steaming on an oval tray.

  Being a good example —

  why not?

  (I was half-baked, mix of East and West,

  balancing flavors.)

  When they said, May we tell you about Jesus?

  my father said, He was my next-door neighbor!

  Because my father said, Eye of my eye,

  heart of my heart, I felt surrounded —

  soft love cocoon. He went outside to

  smell the air. It spoke to him.

  He crossed the creek,

  took a turn.

  How much you could own without owning.

  Soft hope tucked into branches.

  Down the block and up the hill.

  My friend’s dad said,

  Let’s get rolling, girls.

  He was brusque, tough.

  He drank beer and spat.

  You’re not leaving this house

  till you finish your work.

  My father’s tongue had no bitch

  hiding under it.

  Mine said friend to everyone.

  You don’t even know her, Dad.

  I’ll know her sooner if I call her friend.

  He was Facebook before it existed.

  Only Arab on the block,

  on the street, in the town,

  he ran for president of the PTA.

  Maybe not, said my mom.

  But he won.

  All his friends voted for him.

  The Italians, the French Canadians.

  If someone said, I never met an Arab before!

  he would beam.

  If someone spoke rudely,

  he softened instead of hardening.

  Oh, my, he’d say. Let’s start this

  conversation again.

  Where have you gone, Daddy?

  I need my personal Arab in a world of headlines.

  I need your calm, loving voice like a rug on all the floors.

  He hated chaos,

  fighting,

  wars.

  He said, Let’s get more information.

  Man of gentle words,

  could we bury nasty ones

  in a graveyard now?

  Then the earth would be polluted.

  Tie them into sacks,

  pitch them into lakes?

  Then the lakes would be strange.

  Words that never helped us?

  Holding someone above.

  Words aimed in anger.

  Words that made walls.

  Maybe we need a giant campfire,

  all the dry twigs of sad words piled on top.

  Light them carefully, say good-bye.

  Fold your hands as they sizzle and fly, ash into air.

  This will not be a fire to cook anything on.

  2.

  We need more words like

  Comfortable

  Bedrock

  Pillow

  Cake

  Words that make us part of a whole.

  Compass

  Time

  Chickadee

  Shadow

  Errand

  Dreamboat

  Canvas words.

  Words with hems and pockets.

  Umbrella, flashlight, milk.

  Pencil, blizzard, song.

  Words like parks to sit in.

  Bench words. Did you ever notice how

  pleasant and pleasure have please in them?

  Except for that final e, which is waiting for

  everybody to wrap their tongues around it.

  In Geneva, Switzerland, I saw the longest bench

  in the world. It stretched the length

  of a block or two —

  green with little snowdrifts

  piled against the back —

  no one sitting on it just then.

  I wondered if my father ever sat on it.

  Dreaming of words,

  merci,

  sesame,

  I wanted to stay, sitting quietly,

  soaking in memory,

  till spring washed over

  everyone, visible, invisible,

  watching everyone pass,

  in the neutral country,

  the second United Nations city,

  holding the thoughts.

  Remembering my father’s daily sweetness,

  the way some people make you feel better

  just by stepping into a room.

  He loved the freshness of anything —

  crisp cucumbers, the swell of a new day.

  The way skin feels after being washed.

  I’m happy to see you!

  The day just got happier.

  But dying, this lover of life said sadly,

  My dilemma is large.

  Nothing had become the world he dreamed of.

  He wanted

  simple times, people making room

  for fun, for words.

  Saying darling to fresh minutes lined up.

  Shookrun — thank you — to legs strong enough to walk.

  Shookrun to light coming over the fields.

  Shookrun to light touching the houses.

  Shookrun to everyone we haven’t met yet.

  Especially the nice ones.

  Yes to al
l forgotten ones.

  And then there would be language worth trading.

  Words deserved by human beings, all deserving respect.

  Coins and plums and an endless kiss

  no one saw you get or give.

  CHERRY CHEVA (full name: Cherry Chevapravatdumrong) is originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is the author of two novels, She’s So Money and DupliKate, and the co-author, with Alex Borstein, of It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One. She is a writer and producer for Family Guy and lives in Los Angeles. “A lot of people watching the Family Guy credits think my name is fake,” says Cherry. “It’s not. It’s just Thai.”

  VARIAN JOHNSON is the author of Saving Maddie, My Life as a Rhombus, and A Red Polka Dot in a World Full of Plaid. He was born and raised in Florence, South Carolina, and attended the University of Oklahoma, where he received a BS in civil engineering. He also received an MFA in writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Austin, Texas. “I was the typical high-school geek,” he says. “I played the baritone in the marching band, was a member of the Academic Challenge Team, and counted my Hewlett-Packard 48G calculator as one of my most prized possessions.”

  G. NERI, author of Ghetto Cowboy, Chess Rumble, Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty, and Surf Mules, is a storyteller, filmmaker, artist, and digital-media producer. He taught animation and storytelling to inner-city teens in Los Angeles with the groundbreaking group AnimAction, producing more than three hundred films. “I’m Creole, Filipino, and Mexican — or as I like to call it, Crefilican. On top of that, my daughter is also German. If America’s the melting pot of the world, then we’re perfect examples of how diverse this country really is.” Although he lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida, he and his family spent a year in Berlin, where he was often able to corral extra subway seats.

  NAOMI SHIHAB NYE was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian refugee, her mother an American of German and Swiss descent. Naomi grew up in Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. She is considered one of the leading female poets of the American Southwest and is the author of Habibi, an award-winning novel for children. She received her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio and continues to live and work there. “Writing is the great friend that never moves away,” says Naomi.

  MITALI PERKINS, author of Bamboo People, Secret Keeper, Monsoon Summer, and other novels for young readers, was born in India and immigrated to the States with her parents and two sisters when she was seven. Bengali-style, the three sisters’ names rhyme: Sonali means “gold,” Rupali means “silver,” and Mitali means “friendly.” “I had to live up to my name because we moved so much,” Mitali says. “I’ve lived in India, Ghana, Cameroon, England, New York, Mexico, California, Bangladesh, Thailand, and now, in Newton, Massachusetts.”

  OLUGBEMISOLA RHUDAY-PERKOVICH wrote 8th Grade Superzero, an International Reading Association Notable Book for a Global Society. She is featured in several books on writing: Real Revision, Seize the Story, Wild Ink, and Keep Calm and Query On, and is a contributor to the essay collection Break These Rules. She has a master’s in educational technology with a concentration in English education. “I was the new kid at school many times over, in more than one country,” says Olugbemisola. “I now live with my family in Brooklyn, where I write, make things, and need more sleep.”

  DEBBIE RIGAUD was born in Manhattan, but the Rigaud family packed up the kids and headed to East Orange, New Jersey. “My parents never fully transitioned to Jersey living,” says Debbie. “My childhood was happily spent heading back to Brooklyn for doctors’ visits, summer vacations, ripe plantains — every excuse in the book.” She has written for many magazines, including Entertainment Weekly, Seventeen, Vibe, Cosmo Girl!, Essence, Heart & Soul, and Trace magazine in London. Debbie is also the author of Perfect Shot, a novel for teens, and lives in Bermuda.

  FRANCISCO X. STORK works in Boston as a lawyer for a state agency that develops affordable housing. He was born in Monterrey, Mexico, to Ruth Arguelles, a single mother from a middle-class family in Tampico, a city on the Gulf of Mexico. He is the author of five novels: The Way of the Jaguar, Behind the Eyes, Marcelo in the Real World, The Last Summer of the Death Warriors, and Irises. “Part of me left Mexico when I was nine, and part of me is still there,” says Francisco.

  GENE LUEN YANG is the author and illustrator of American Born Chinese and Prime Baby, and co-creator of The Eternal Smile, Level Up, and Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Promise. He was born in the San Francisco Bay Area after his father emigrated from Taiwan and his mother from Hong Kong. “In fifth grade, my mother took me to our local bookstore, where she bought me my first Superman comic book,” he says, explaining his lifelong love of the genre. Yang attended the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in computer science with a minor in creative writing, and received his master’s in education from Cal State, Hayward, where he wrote his thesis on using comics in education. He teaches high school in the San Francisco Bay Area.

  DAVID YOO lived in Seoul, South Korea, from age three to eight, during which time he learned how to curse fluently in Korean. From eight years old to now, he is a lifelong New Englander, and the author of The Detention Club, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before, Girls for Breakfast, and, most recently, a collection of essays for adults, The Choke Artist: Confessions of a Chronic Underachiever. He teaches in the MFA program at Pine Manor College and has a column in KoreAm Journal, in which he says he “recounts the stupidest thing he did the previous month.”

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Compilation and introduction copyright © 2013 by Mitali Perkins

  “Becoming Henry Lee” copyright © 2013 by David Yoo

  “Why I Won’t Be Watching the Last Airbender Movie” copyright © 2010 by Gene Luen Yang

  “Talent Show” copyright © 2013 by Cherry Cheva

  “Voilà!” copyright © 2013 by Debbie Rigaud

  “Three-Pointer” copyright © 2013 by Mitali Perkins

  “Like Me” copyright © 2013 by Varian Johnson

  “Confessions of a Black Geek” copyright © 2013 by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

  “Under Berlin” copyright © 2013 by G. Neri

  “Brotherly Love” copyright © 2013 by Francisco X. Stork

  “Lexicon” copyright © 2013 by Naomi Shihab Nye

  The traditional verse at the start of “Lexicon” is from Poems for the Children’s Hour, compiled by Josephine Bouton (New York: Platt & Munk, 1945).

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2013

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012955218

  ISBN 978-0-7636-5866-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-7636-6719-1 (electronic)

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  visit us at www.candlewick.com