Black Dance Read Online Free

laugh.
    “Ah, but she doesn’t know about that, eh? She’s already married and a mom, goin’ on for thirty. I’m twenty-four, how ‘bout you, Nita?”
    “. . .”
    “Hey . . . you’re not underage, are you?”
    “. . .”
    “Jesus.”
    “Jesus got notin’ to do wid it. I been in de trade tree years already, help my moder out to feed de family. Your sister, she respectable and put her own broder in jail. How Jesus s’pose to figure dat out?”
    Again they laugh, inebriated. Euphoria seeps into them. Declan knocks back his drink.
    “Ever since she got her poor lumberjack of a fiancé to buy her a three-carat diamond, Marie-Thérèse thinks she’s better than the rest of us. Poor Régis . . . He went into debt to pay for that ring . . .”
    Billie Holiday sings “Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness if I Do” and the two of them dance close, Awinita leaning into Declan’s shoulder with her eyes pressed shut.
    A white woman, her face a blur, has fastened a sparkling diamond brooch to her throat. Bright red blood trickles down in two lines on either side of her jugular vein . . .
    CUT.
    •    •    •    •    •

II
    GINGA
    From gingare, to lollop from side to side. The basic capoeira movement, which keeps the body in a perpetual state of swing.

    Milo, 1952–56
    A BABY. In these scenes, we can alternate between objective and subjective camera, be now inside, now outside the baby’s head, the baby’s eyes. A screaming, skinny, jittery, seizure-prone baby, brought to this publicly-owned Catholic hospital at age three weeks and left there. Abandoned with relief by a man whose hands were shaking.
    The world is fuzzy. Moving shapes, lots of white. Women’s voices, shrill or harsh. Clipped syllables. Snippets of language—but that, too, is fuzzy, tone rather than words. The sisters all speak French.
    “Garbage . . . A little piece of human garbage.”
    “Human? Are you sure?”
    “Now, now, sister. Jesus loves us all.”
    “Hard to believe sometimes. Born in withdrawal . . .”
    The kid’s in a cot, surrounded by other kids in cots. Large, white female shapes move jerkily up and down the rows of cots. Close-ups on female hands. Reddish fingers emerging from starched white sleeves. Swiftly and unceremoniously, they changethe infant’s clothes and diapers, bathe it, feed it from a glass baby bottle, set it back in its cot.
    Footsteps fading. Lights switched off.
    In the half-darkness, the infant drifts into a brief sleep—then starts awake and clutches out wildly for contact. There is none. It’s just spent nine months surrounded by total touch, liquid warmth, gentle rocking rhythm and suddenly—nothing. Dry air, echoing void. Heels clacking in the distance. The baby squirms and flails, wrings its hands, grabs at its face and at the air around it. Its diminutive arms and legs wave in the empty cosmos. Its high-pitched crying wakes other babies, who also start to cry. Neon lights flick on. Footsteps move in. Voices whisper annoyance: It’s that Indian whoreson. Arms reach down, flip the baby onto its stomach. Tone of reprimand and threat. Footsteps fade. Lights flick off. Other cries fade.
    Smothering, its nose and mouth jammed against the sheet, the child twists its head and gasps for air. Yelps. Wrinkles its forehead . . .
    (Hmm. Excuse me, Milo, but . . . think we’ll be able to find an actor for this role? Won’t we get sued for cruelty to dumb animals? Maybe we should do these images numerically, you know? Cost a fortune, but . . . yeah, sure, sure, we need them, we absolutely need them. Okay. We’ll see . . .)
    Here we could accelerate to give the impression of endless repetition. Empty ceiling. Empty air. Darkness. A huge, fearful darkness. Other babies crying. Rustling sounds and footsteps in the dark. Lights flicking on, off. Neon flickering. A woman’s claw-like hands snatching up the screaming, blue-faced baby, holding it high in the air and shaking it, then dropping it in its