Sentimentality

I remember Biggie Smalls rapping about letting his tape rock until it popped. It was a phenomenon I completely forgot, as CDs were the move in the 90s. Recently, I purchased a near complete cassette discography of Roberta Flack and the prophetic words of Biggie never rang truer. Roberta’s cassettes stay on full blast, full time in my apartment. Her svelte voice and sassy words ricochet off the peaches, mints, chocolates and salmons of my walls. For the first time, I understand the bliss of letting my tapes rock until their imminent doom.

Something about the way she does what she does moves me to a newly discovered place. Even as I write this, between chopsticks and a soup spoon digging down into miso with spinach, she and Donnie have me rocking to an airily sexy tune. Hearing her, pulls out all of this guilt and unfathomable desire. Others have excited me before. Patti makes me wince, closing my eyes until mere slits remain. Nina makes me roll my head, neck and eyes in perfectly choreographed movements. Dinah makes me lightly toss my head back and curl my lips in the left corner. But Roberta, Roberta does something else. When she calls Jesse back home, I tremble. The solemness is overwhelming. It is the sentimentality that accompanies thoughts of ancient lovers and long extinguished flames. Something about the slow twang that strings her words together makes me crave those mornings, under crisp white duvets, in arms I have outgrown.

Her plain question, unencumbered by the weight of pride, about the feeling in the morning, opens the wounds I thought were healed, washed of pain and absolved of their emptiness. Reminiscing the ecstasy of holding firmly, finally, a lover chased for eternity, only knowing deep inside that once your façade collapses, their interest vanishes leaves me spent. In the middle of the dishes, wiping the sink, writing a letter, arranging the bromeliad, I am always forced to stop when she begins because I know the feeling, like the intrigue, is always gone at dawn.

When she moans and sighs, breathing life into memories that died long ago, the images of men over the years flash across the landscape of my mind, each one holding a special place and a strange feeling. Why does the regret come so quickly between the eternal pauses and the mild drops in her voice?

My own eyes become heavy, unable to support the weight of lids too old for my years, when she talks about his face. The pure joy of a crush relished in unassuming gazes and telling giggles rushes forward, a fleeting smile lightens my face. Then the sadness comes when she reminds me of the first time I saw so many beautiful faces and endless brown eyes. The shock of light kisses and starving hugs embraces me.

I have been trying to make sense of this for weeks now. What is it about her that makes things so stale seem so fresh? Why do I still remember, so precisely, the lines of his nose and the contours of his cheeks in a dream where his face is not present? How is it that a sensation I have moved away from can come sauntering back into my life as if it never left? Who is Roberta Flack and where does this sentimentality come from?

© T.I. Williams

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Coconut Groves: Ann ELiza, The First Price

"I can't promise you..."

The low murmur of his voice rang softly between her ears that heard everything. But somehow, last night, as she listened greedily to his words, so much so that her small ears perked up and awkwardly outward, she could hardly hear anything from her ears that heard everything.

"That I won't hit you".

She shuddered at his somehow unsure yet deathly certain words. Ann Eliza without thinking and lost in pure habit pushed her back, the color of eggplant, into the jagged and worn uneven planks of old wood as she pushed her bottom down into the sun-warmed water in search of the coolness of the homemade tub's zinc bottom.

The sun-warmed water sloshed around a little, engulfing her body but forcing her small yet sturdy feet over the deciduous planks. She watched wearily as the water trickled down from the spaces between her toes- apparently the water from above was eager to join the sun-warmed water below.

Life taught her not to want, but in that moment, all she needed was the brilliance of his smile. She had never even given thought to the possibility of his love. In fact, she had not given thought to the possibility of anyone's love. Life taught her that as well. So it was quite understandable, the shock and then emptiness she felt when, in place of his love, he would not even allow her the comfort to know he would not beat her like his other women.

The first of the tears came suddenly and silently at first when she remembered him in the moonlight, the way the early morning heat caused his body to shine from the arrogant sweat right before the descent of cooling dew. She remembered loving him then, the way the silver light cast a fantastic halo that made his skin look like sugar just boiling. She remembered wanting him then as his heated caramel poured over her purple black form making his way over, under and inside of things.

The little streams of rainwater cascading down from her dark eyes began to choke her then. Her stomach sent small pockets of stale, hot breath up in bursts only to be captured in the cage of her chest and swallowed in the thin pipes of her esophagus. Her diaphragm hardly expanded but already her lungs collapsed as she remembered then how he ran ravenously to her strong, supple frame at all sorts of hours in moments of resting, during eating and when they should have been working.

Ann Eliza was so different he claimed. That's why he wanted her. Different he said, because she was as black as the long, thick mane on his prized horse and her black was just as lustrous. Different he said, because her stomach was flat and as tight as the square goat skin drum he beat under the gathering at the Guango tree. Different he said because her bottom and her legs were thick, yet soft and unbearably smooth. Different he said because he had searched a thousand mouths before, but none possessed lips as undescribable and unforgettable as hers.

So it was understandable, her shock, that sent clear, thick slime from her nose down along the curves of her breathtaking mouth. Her shock that caused an unpredictable rumbling that shattered her resolve and made tears explode from places where they could have never possibly come. The earthquake that bombarded her face, neck and chest with steamy tears made her heave and bawl out. She remembered then his promise, that if a baby were on its way soon, like the rest of the women, he would not leave her.

She searched and searched for the words to tell him that the only promise she cared to hear with her ears that heard everything, was that since she was so different, he would treat her differently from the other women and not beat her.

Through water-logged eyes sagging with a life full of burden she looked to the banana trees, seated in a circle for counsel. How could she explain to him that his leaving, or worse hers, she could bear, but his hitting would cause her to wither and perish.

© T.I. Williams

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