Memphis

by Tara M. Stringfellow

The framed record covers on the walls shook with the laughter. Laughter that was, in and of itself, Black. Laughter that could break glass. Laughter that could uplift a family. A cacophony of Black female joy in a language private to them.

“Look at me, Mama. Go ahead. Look at me,” Miriam said, brushing away the foreign flowing tears. Her mother looked up and then into her daughter’s eyes. “I got you,” Miriam said. It was both a declaration and an invitation. Her mother’s face broke into a smile. She kissed Miriam’s forehead. Then she rested her head on top of Miriam’s. Closed her eyes. “I got you,” Hazel repeated back.

History had awakened me to the fact that racism is the only food Americans crave.

I never knew a smile could be another, better thing until I saw Mya’s face. Never knew it could be the sun itself, stretching on and on, warming us all.

Touching its corners, I thought then about all that had passed in the eight years since we arrived in Memphis. The eighteen-hour drive in a busted-out van. The screaming matches with Mama every time I opened my sketchbook. Derek. Seeing him again and being so stricken with fear that the piss just came. I remembered the night Derek was arrested. Auntie August, beside herself, muttering that a Black woman would never know the meaning of freedom. And I realized then that even my auntie could be wrong. Because I knew it now. Freedom. As God as my witness, it tasted just like one of Mama’s warm blackberry cobblers.

I laughed so hard at the reveal of it all that I cried. Because I heard Mama declare, her voice stumbling and faltering with emotion, but beating, bearing on, “August, now you go ahead and open all the chests. My, every armoire. Open them all. Joanie not running off to that London cold without us making her a proper quilt.”