Lina sat back in her chair. So she’d been right after all. There were hyenas in the hills. They were hungry, always hungry, even hungry enough to eat Brownsville. They’d eaten all the rest of the borough and had nothing else left to eat.
“I’m sure we can agree,” Andrew continued, “the neighborhood deserves a truly democratic process: all ideas out on the table, everyone discussing what the community really needs—”
“I’m not a one-woman show,” interrupted Lina.
“I see you have about eighty signatures, Ms. Armstrong, but there are more than one hundred and fifteen thousand people in the Brownsville community district. And we’ll be inviting many of them to the community visioning sessions that we’ll be holding over the next few months.”
“I’m sure you, more than anyone, understand the importance of having a groundswell of support behind your project,” Olivia added. “You can prepare a presentation and try your vision on a larger audience.”
Under the table, Lina massaged the felt of her beret, wondering what Nellie would have said. Nellie, the love of her life, had sewn thathat for her decades ago; since Lina could never make up her mind about whether to wear her Young Lords beret or her Black Panthers beret, Nellie had made her a third hat, purple on one side and black on the other, split down the middle like a half-moon cookie. Lina had been wearing it for forty years, and there were holes in the lining.
She felt a sudden heaviness and wished Nellie was present to scold her for wearing her garments ragged and to strategize with her about these city officials—for the Wesley Price Community Land Trust was for Nellie too. Wesley Price was Nellie’s son.
Olivia and Andrew did have a point. She couldn’t claim all her people’s support, not yet. Neighbors had been reluctant to get involved, too busy with their own problems. Brownsville wasn’t as active as it used to be. The young people were overworked and distracted.
“Well, we’re happy to make a presentation,” Lina said, faking a smile.
Lina accompanied Olivia and Andrew down to the sidewalk. “May I get you both some lunch before you head to the city?” Olivia and Andrew might be on the team choosing the RFP winner, and she’d have to remain cordial.
“Oh, that’s so kind of you—no, thank you so much, Ms. Armstrong.”
“We should run, but thank you.”
Lina accompanied them as far as Livonia and Rockaway, then watched them mount the station stairs to the elevated rail. Young Michelle Pfeiffer skipped on her heeled loafers, one arm swinging, like she’d already left Brownsville in her head, already onto the next thing. Another meeting.
“Ms. Lina!” a voice called. It was Melvin, sitting on a crate with his spine against a mail collection box, wearing pink shorts and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. “Ms. Lina is my girlfriend!” he announced to the street. “Darling, spare me a dollar so I can get a slice of pizza?”
Lina scraped a dollar out of her pocket and handed it to him.
“You got to stop popping pizza slices, Mr. Melvin. You walkto that soup kitchen on Newport I told you about and get yourself a full meal.”
“I forgot about that, Ms. Lina.” Melvin nodded. “I should go up there.”
Maybe she was dreading the six flights of stairs to her apartment, but Lina found herself walking in the opposite direction, straight down Livonia Avenue. She dug a Hershey’s Kiss out of her purse and peeled back the foil. Not great for her blood sugar levels, but she needed a bit of comfort.
It was from her father that she’d inherited her sweet tooth. Her righteousness. And loyalty. When Lina reached the age of eight, she’d started accompanying her father on his Saturday-morning outings. Usually they walked from East Harlem to Lenox Avenue, where he got his haircuts. Then he would send her across the street to buy Jodie’s spoon bread, and at the end of the meal, he’d reach into his trouser pocket and hand her a piece of Hershey’s chocolate, which in the summer was usually half-melted, making a mess in his pants pocket that her mother would scold him for later.
A few times, he took Lina all the way to the docks where he worked on the West Side, and that was where he told her about the union and about the Jim Crow Local that was fighting for better pay and better work, and about the white men who, for no God-given reason, thought they deserved the easier, better-paid jobs on the docks.
Before the docks, she’d only known her father as a quiet man. She was eleven when they shot him, when he became her first martyr. Malcolm was her second. Martin her third.
Growing tired, Lina paused by the handball courts to catch her breath. There was no one around but a couple of kids with towels draped over their shoulders, heading to the Betsy Head Park pool. Gospel hymns floated out the church door, clashing with a reggae tune from a backyard barbecue. She picked herself up and walked the last two blocks down Livonia, then stared through the wire fence at her lot.
Someone had dumped a rusty fridge on the grass. A cat eyed her from one corner.
“They better issue that RFP,” Lina said to the new Miss Freedom. “And when they do, I’m getting back everything we lost. I’m going to make it right.”
If she was still a niña delgada, she would have climbed the fence right then and gotten to work. To hell with the RFP. Back in the day, no one waited around for the bureaucracy. They’d carved their dreams out of brick and concrete. When the teachers stole the schools, they started their own. When the landlords left their homes to rot, they reclaimed and repaired and repainted them. Brownsville had been going somewhere back then—Brownsville had been saving itself, Lina thought.
All until Richard Wong had destroyed everything.
THE WONGS
Chin Dun Ho—Richard, he would be called most of his life—left China eager for the New World. Eight years old, he had round red cheeks that the aunties liked to pinch and a strawberry nose that the ngen ngens found adorable, but to himself he was a fearless adventurer: not afraid of the deep ocean—not afraid, even, of the bak gui.
On the day of his departure, his mother scrubbed him in the basin, dressed him in a jacket with his documents sewed into the inner lining, and packed a knapsack with a supper of shrimp, rice, and chestnuts. Next, his yia yia took him up to Cloud Hill to burn incense for the dead and offer them cuts of pork and oranges.
“And pour the wine!” he hollered, handing Richard his flask so the boy could wet the soil.
