Part 83 (1/2)

”Yeah, but you're the professional.” Tank smiled at me.

”Not then I wasn't,” I said. I snapped Tank just as he turned his high beams on Blanche.

”Roxie, I never sent a card or anything, but I was sorry to hear about Dennis pa.s.sing,” Edwin said it in that soft voice of his. His awkward sincerity was soothing, not the hard slap I'd been afraid I'd feel when I first heard Dennis' name out loud. These had been my best friends when Dennis and I met. Our occupation of McMillan Hall provided the chance for Dennis's first professional breakthrough. The pictures he'd taken in those three days doc.u.mented a serious leap in the significance of Black student activism and in the relations.h.i.+p between us. These were the friends who'd nurtured both events. I looked at Edwin directly, not through the camera lens and smiled. I was afraid to try to say thanks out loud. It doesn't look good for folks from Chicago to cry.

”Those shots he took when y'all were locked up inside McMillan Hall were kickin' it!” Tank said.

”I still have that one he sent me, I'm sleeping under that desk, remember?” Blanche said wistfully.

I nodded and slipped back behind the camera appreciative that they felt good about Dennis. At the same time I tried to fight the feeling that Dennis was the celebrity and I was just the girl who married him. I used to really identify with Yoko Ono when she hooked up with John Lennon and the other Beatle boys got set on ragging her. Fortunately I was never going to try singing rock and roll.

”I don't suppose you got a sympathy card from CL?” Blanche said slyly after a moment.

”No, I don't suppose I did.”

”Oh, don't look so grim, girl. I was just teasing. After 30 years who cares about Charles Leonard?”

”Charles Leonard would be first on that list,” I said. Blanche almost fell out of her chair laughing. The sound of it made my anxiety ease up. I'd been so busy remembering the things about Blanche that got on my nerves I'd forgotten how many laughs we always had together.

”I don't know why you sisters were so hard on CL,” Edwin said.

”You don't know what?” Blanche's voice raised only slightly, but small strands of hair threatened to explode from her do. I returned to my camera. I'd done my battling just getting myself past him in the lobby, I wasn't about to break down CL to these guys.

”He had his nose stuck in the air a little but, d.a.m.n, he was always down with us,” Tank tried to keep the conversation light.

”Charles 'CL' Leonard made Mike Tyson look like the Image Award winner at the NAACP.”

”Aw, come on . . . let's . . .” Edwin was startled by the anger in Blanche's voice.

”Let's what? Okay, how 'bout let's each of you tell me how many times you slapped your girlfriends upside their heads?”

The guys were silent and I was too, except for the click of my shutter. Despite the statistics, it was impossible for me to conjure up a picture of either Tank or Edwin doing something like that.

”Okay,” Blanche said letting up. ”But I didn't see none of you rus.h.i.+ng in to school that brother on keeping his hands in his pockets.”

”That was all rumors, Blanche,” Edwin said.

”Maybe to you all, if you didn't want to see the facts.”

Tank looked disturbed and, for once, had no words of defense.

'Go girl!' I was thinking but I figured we didn't need to have this conversation in the hotel bar. ”You know folks, CL's actually here. I saw him earlier. So, uh . . .”

We each looked up at the door as if our parents might catch us swearing. Then we returned to our champagne, everyone in an uneasy silence. I sipped from my gla.s.s remembering CL's girlfriend after me, a freshman. She'd arrived at a BIPs meeting more than once with more makeup on than was required for cranking out a newsletter. The guys never noticed and I know I never said anything. I guess n.o.body wanted to see what was really up. Fortunately for CL, he and I weren't dating long enough for me to find out.

”So, do you have an archive, your own, I mean?” Edwin asked, carefully guiding us back to comfortable ground.

”Oh yeah! We . . . I've got every demo ever staged, that was our specialty for a while.” I chewed the inside of my lip, wondering when I'd be comfortable with the singularity of the word. Even though there had been time enough for me to be used to being on my own I'd been resisting it way too long. I might as well start here and now. ”I have a major collection I'm thinking of donating to some HBC sometime.”

”Right on!” Tank said raising his gla.s.s of champagne.

”You should do a book,” Edwin said, his eyes twinkling with enthusiasm.

At that moment I wondered if it were possible that some of my friends back home in Chicago had somehow gotten in touch with the BIPs and bribed them to read their lines. One or another of them was always driving me crazy with ideas of photo books I should do: Black Male Professionals, Black Women Professionals, Young Black Athletes, Old Black Athletes. I could never figure out where the h.e.l.l people got these ideas.

”Yeah! A book on us. It's just the right time.” Suddenly Blanche was a publis.h.i.+ng consultant.

”Blanche got something, Roxie. Listen to the woman.” Edwin sat up in his chair as if he were seeing the cover right then and there.

Whenever the idea of my doing a book came up I felt a ripple of fear pulse through my body as if a police siren was wailing outside my door. I knew I should do it. Time was pa.s.sing and who better to doc.u.ment the awakening of the 1960s than a photographer? And now, before our eyesight gets so bad we can't see the pictures. I took some deep breaths trying to keep the ripple from turning into a tidal wave.

”Hey, I saw that spread you did on Curtis at his marketing company a couple of years ago. In Ebony, right?” Tank leapt in for the save.

”Didn't he look great?”

”So that's what he's up to?” Edwin asked.

”Public relations. In Connecticut,” Blanche answered. ”We did a job with him a couple of years ago! Is he coming?”

”Maybe. He e-mailed me a month or so back.” I was happy to have a new topic.

”I can't believe he's still around.” Edwin said with a tightness in his voice that was puzzling. I wondered what's that all about, then I got it.

”Of course, he's still around,” I said. ”Curtis is just gay, not terminal.”

”I know, I know . . . but that last year was hard on him. Then AIDS and everything.”

”Let's be clear, the year wasn't hard on Curtis, it was CL and Jackson Wright that were hard on him.” Blanche was in rare form, reminding me of another reason I couldn't stand my ex and Mr. Afro House.

”Yeah, that was the only thing they could ever agree on,” Tank said glumly.

”Egotistical s.h.i.+ts,” I said with a shudder.

”I don't know what the big deal was,” Edwin said. ”Long as Curtis kept his johnson in his pants around me, what'd I care?”

”I don't think most folks felt that casual about him, Edwin,” I said flas.h.i.+ng on the disaster our last BIPs party had turned into, at least for Curtis. When his folks came to graduation he told them that the black eye and cracked rib were from a car accident.

”And just because Curtis is gay doesn't mean he's got to die with HIV.” I tried to keep my voice level but memory was making it hard. After four years of sister this and As Salaam Alaik.u.m that, I was still livid at how shallow brotherhood could be. I a.s.sumed Edwin would have a deeper perspective, working in film and all.