“It’s the invasion of the Caucasian,” I say to her, half in jest. I had heard the term used recently on a radio talk show during a discussion about the gentrification taking place in Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The changing demographics in Fort Greene first caught my attention while riding the number 54 bus. The 54, or Myrtle Avenue bus as it is called by some, starts out on Jay Street at the Metro Tech Center, loops around Tillary onto Flatbush Avenue and turns onto Myrtle Avenue. It stops at Prince Street, the second stop on its route, in front of a check cashing establishment and across the street from Ingersoll Houses. As the 54 proceeds along Myrtle Avenue, it stops in front of several New York City housing projects—Whitman Houses, Tompkins Houses, and Marcy Houses. So one can understand why, until recently, white people were a rare sight on the 54 bus. As rare as they once were on the A train traveling from Rockaway Queens to Harlem. But Caucasian sightings are being reported in Bedford Stuyvesant and Harlem. And the A train gets them there.

I recall my teen years growing up in Sheepshead Bay. I used to take the Flatbush Avenue train. I thought nothing of being among the few black people who stayed on past the Franklin Avenue stop. By the time the train arrived at Flatbush Avenue, the last stop, the passengers would be almost all white. This was an anomaly that was lost on my youthful naivetŽ and would only have meaning years later. Indeed, some years later as white flight transformed Flatbush, Brooklyn into a black neighborhood, I always found it amusing when some unknowing white person stayed on the Flatbush train beyond Atlantic Avenue. I always felt compelled to tell them that they should have gotten off at the stop where all the whites made their exodus, and that they were headed into strictly black territory. I never said anything though, reckoning they would figure it out on their own. And if they did not panic and remained clear thinking, they could get off at the next stop and reverse the course of their personal histories. Watching the whitening of Fort Greene, it is interesting to note that it is not black flight that is at the root of the changing demographics there.

White people are accounting for about a large number of the riding passengers on the 54 bus. I find myself making mental notes of the stops they get off at. In so doing, I am able to pinpoint those enclaves in Fort Greene that the new homesteaders have made their home. Seeing them against the backdrop of graffiti marred walls is arresting. So is standing beside them in the neighborhood bodegas. Trying to figure out who they are and where they hail from is intriguing. They’re in the twenty to thirty something age group. It’s hard to pinpoint their socio-economic status. I think some of them take great pains to dress down. I’ve heard South Africans number largely among them. So now I’m thinking they are newly arrived immigrants. Appearing comfortable in these environs, they don’t seem half as curious about me as I am about them.

“I don’t like it,” my daughter whines. “This is where I grew up, and it doesn’t feel the same.” There is little I can say to soothe her. I have my own concerns. For the past six years I have sub-letted an apartment and was told by the owner that she wants to sell the apartment when my lease is up. Reality set in rather quickly. I know I will not be able to afford another apartment in Fort Greene, the neighborhood that I have grown jealously attached to. The willingness of the new homesteaders to pay exorbitant rents for closet-size apartments had pushed already rising rents in Fort Greene even higher. It’s over and out for me.

My world-travelled daughter had already sworn off Fort Greene and Brooklyn and even New York City. She talked excitedly about moving to New Jersey or Maryland. Quite frankly she informed me she had outgrown life in the hood. In the back of my mind, the thought of relocating to another state is starting to take hold. Too many times I’ve said there is no other neighborhood in New York City I would want to live if I were to move out of Fort Greene. Will I be forced to eat my words?

“Maybe white people are integrating into black neighborhoods because they want to relate to us,” I said to my daughter.

“They’re not trying to relate to me when they’re paying $850 for a studio” she responded. We broke up laughing trying to find the humor in a situation that made us uncomfortable. We allowed that there was very little relating going on. An invisible wall stood between the races. There is no eye contact, no words spoken, just quiet politeness. Beneath the silence, though, grumblings can be heard.

My daughter and I are walking to Sol, a stylish bar-restaurant on Dekalb Avenue. Two years ago, Sol used to be Claremont Lounge, a neighborhood bar. The conversation easily lead back to the changing neighborhood as we past a newly constructed apartment building. A warehouse had been turned into a 40-unit four-story structure. It’s not clear whether these units are rentals or coops. But I don’t even entertain the thought of getting an apartment in there, even though it’s right around the corner from where I now live and pending homelessness looms in my immediate future.

“They act like they were here first and we’re the intruders,” my daughter comments.

“And they don’t have any humility,” I chime in. “Not even when they walk by the projects.”

I’m even humble when I walk by the projects,” my daughter says.

The presence of white people in Fort Greene can only be a good thing I’m beginning to tell myself. Neighborhood businesses are investing in making their property more visually appealing. The New York Times is more readily available. Well-stocked green grocers are replacing broke-down fruit and vegetable stands. But best of all, I don’t have to wait forever for the 54 bus anymore. There appears to be more of them on that line now.

I can understand the sentiment. Filled with my own sense of self-importance I boasted, “I’ll be a big fish in a small pond,” when telling people about my plans to move to Philadelphia. It was a rude awakening to learn that being from New York does not earn you brownie points. In fact, it could even be held against you.

My response to the New York Times article was one of angst. My fear was that it would now become common knowledge that Philadelphia was a city of “liberty and affordable rents for all,” as the Times article quipped. The 20- and 30-something year-old artist types, described as being the first wave of New Yorkers who packed up U-hauls and headed for the turnpike, caught on to this about four year ago. Having first been priced out of Manhattan, and then Brooklyn, they are attributed with initiating the Brooklynization of Philadelphia. Following on their heels, as noted by real estate brokers, is an “influx of prospective buyers and renters from the city.” Likely found within this group are empty nesters, couples raising children and young professionals. They, along with real estate speculators and developers, are scurrying to partake of the spoils of gentrification. And thus goes affordable rents.

I believe I’m still ahead in the game, though. “Philadelphia is one of those best-kept-secrets,” I told those who pooh-poohed my city of choice. I had been priced out of Fort Greene and then Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. But it was more than the lower cost of living, which, according to the Times article, is 37% lower than New York’s, which drew me to Philly. I fell in love with Philadelphia the very first time I visited with a college friend in the seventies. The neighborhood where my friend grew up with its brick row houses and awning wooden porches reminded me of my southern roots. It brought to mind childhood memories of summers spent in South Carolina, when I would sit barefoot with my mosquito-bitten legs dangling off the edge of my grandparents’ porch drinking a soda pop. Sometimes my grandmother joined me, and we would shell peas or snap string beans into a large basin on top of her lap. On that and subsequent visits to Philadelphia, I found Philadelphians to be hospitable, friendly, and easy going.

Philly’s slower pace is a further attraction for me. The chaotic ambiance of New York is absent. I read in a travel guide that “Philadelphians think of their home as a ‘livable city’ – not too hectic, not too crowded, manageable.” The air itself seems to have a tranquilizing effect on me. This is probably what Philadelphia’s founder William Penn was eluding to when he wrote back to England: “The soil is good, air serene and sweet from the cedar, pine and sassafras, with wild myrtle of great fragrance.” Philadelphia is a quaint city with beautiful colonial architecture and a low population density. One day while walking through my new neighborhood of West Philadelphia, I realized that, for several blocks, I could be the only person on a block. Wow, a whole block to myself, I remember thinking. Speaking of blocks, Philadelphia blocks are looong. A block here could be equivalent to about two of New York City’s.

And walking is what I got to do a lot of during the SEPTA (transit) strike. Philadelphians took the strike in stride, while I whined and complained every single one of the eight days that it lasted. “New Yorkers would not tolerate this,” I’d say to anyone lending me an ear. (New York’s transit strike was to last three days.) Philadelphians walked, rode bikes, drove, carpooled and went about their business seemingly unfazed. “What about the traffic?” I’d ask, trying to stir up resentment. One person responded that traffic flowed even better without the buses and trollies in the way.

All is not completely rosy in this city of Brotherly Love. Philadelphia went down on record in 2005 with the most homicide deaths in the city’s history. There are blighted neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia where drug dealing, violence and crime are wreaking havoc. The Mayor, Police Commissioner and concerned citizens have joined forces in tackling the problem, but the task is a daunting one. The Governor said he would provide state troopers and even national guards if asked to. The Police Commissioner turned down the offer saying that more stringent gun laws are what is needed, not more manpower. Despite this blip on my beloved city, I feel safer here than I did in my old Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, where I witnessed a shooting in the middle of the day just prior to my leaving New York.

With the passage of time, I remain enamored with Philadelphia. This past summer I beheld a beautiful sight while sitting on the porch of the house where I live. Children were playing outdoors without adult supervision. This was something I almost never saw in my Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. What I saw instead were anxious parents who kept their children within their line of vision at all times. It was a joy to watch children lost in their own merriment as they ran around, jumped rope, rode bikes, or traipsed back and forth to the corner store. When fall came and school started, I was in for another pleasing sight. High school students were wearing school uniforms. Yes, the khaki pants were baggy, and the polo-shirts with the school emblem were oversized, but the teens seemed to be okay with the ensemble. You could sense their relief in not having the pressure of meeting fashion standards. And what can I say about my first winter in Philadelphia? I believe it snowed at most three times, and the public schools were closed each time. Even with a record 27 inches of snow, New York City schools remained open. That alone should tell you that Philadelphia could not be New York’s sixth borough, even if it wanted to.

“Yes?” I inquired.

“Police,” they called out authoritatively.

“Someone upstairs must have called for you” I yelled through the slats.

“We want to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“An incident that happened.”

On my way to the front door, I deliberated whether I would talk to them through the gate. I decided to be courteous and opened it.

“We’re investigating an incident that happened,” one of the men said.

“An incident? When?” I asked with pretend alarm.

“About an hour ago.”

“I just woke up from a nap. So I didn’t hear or see anything,” I responded earnestly. “What happened?”

“A guy was hit over the head two buildings down.”

“Was it a robbery?” I asked with less than genuine concern.

“That’s what we’re investigating.”

I came back into my apartment and looked at the clock on the wall. It was 9:45. After a quick calculation, I figured it had to have been around 8:30 that Sunday evening that someone was attacked on my lovely tree-lined block that is part of a designated historic district.

No way it could have been a random mugging, I thought. It had to be someone the victim knew. My mind went back several months to the time when I broke up with my boyfriend. He joked about how he was going to sit with a baseball bat in his SUV in front of my house and wait to see if a man left my apartment. I chuckled for even entertaining the thought. But my brownstone and several that adjoined it did look similar. Suppose my ex mistakenly…”Don’t be ridiculous,” I chided myself.

The sound of muffled voices outside my window sent me back to peek out through the shutters. The two detectives stood by my stoop talking in low tones and remained there for the next ten minutes or so. When I ventured another peek, I saw that a yellow tape had been wrapped around the balustrade of my stoop, pulled across the sidewalk to the curb, draped along the parked cars, pulled across the side walk again, and tied to the balustrade of the building two doors down, forming a perfect rectangle.

Real alarm then took hold. Wasn’t a yellow tape only used when some one had been killed? I slipped into a hooded sweatshirt and went outside. A few people had gathered on their stoops. I searched their faces to determine the degree of gravity of what had taken place. But none of them had that “what a pity” look that onlookers wear when they’ve witnessed a tragic event. I stepped out and peered around the two detectives to get a view of the cordoned off area. I half expected to see a puddle of blood, but all I saw were small pieces of paper strewn about.

Refusing to stand around gawking like the rest of my neighbors, I went back inside my apartment. I figured whatever happened would fan through the neighborhood the following day. Or there would be something in the newspaper. Unbelievably, I heard nothing about the incident the next day. It was then I lamented the fact that my former neighbor, a woman whom I had dubbed the nosiest woman on earth, had recently moved out. Keeping her out of my business had become an arduous undertaking. Since she did not work a regular job, she was home most of the time. “You’re home early today, she would stick her head over the railing and say if I arrived earlier than my usual time. I went out of my way to avoid her, and she went out of her way to engage me. My conversations with her were guarded and purposely kept short. She felt no embarrassment in coming straight out and asking about anything. She might say something like, “How’s your daughter? I haven’t seen her for a while.” You had to think quickly on your feet with her. Or you could end up telling her how you and your daughter had had a big fight and are not on speaking terms. But then there were those times that she passed on information I was well off knowing about. Like when she told me that the apartment of the lady on our block who drives the pink Cadillac was robbed, and that the UPS man had been ripped off. One morning when I was returning from the grocery store, she told me about a mugging that had taken place in the middle of the night.

“A white guy was mugged last night,” she said to me as I was unlocking the entrance to my apartment.

“Oh, that’s where those bloodstains on the sidewalk came from,” I responded.

“I haven’t been feeling so safe around here lately,” she said.

“Neither have I,” I said as I stepped inside and closed the gate.

“The only thing that’s going to stop gentrification is crime,” a friend said to me as we strolled leisurely through Fort Greene on our way home from dinner one night. Casualties of Fort Greene’s spiraling rents, my friend ended up moving to Atlanta, and I moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant. In moving to Bedford-Stuyvesant, I felt I was just a step ahead of gentrification. But after four years, it’s apparent that the turn over is not going to be an easy one. This was echoed in an article in Time Out Magazine entitled, “The Battle for Bedford-Stuyvesant. “ Many people living in Bedford-Stuyvesant are willing to make a last stand to stay here. Among them are the young men who I push by to enter a bodega or the Chinese restaurant. Where else are they going to go to ride out a sluggish economy, or survive a fifty percent unemployment rate? It is them for whom the moniker, “Bed-Stuy Do or Die,” has meaning.

From my front window, I am able to see the comings and goings of the neighborhood residents. A person interviewed in the “Time Out” article said in a radio interview that gentrification in Bedford-Stuyvesant wasn’t so much evident in a changing complexion, but in rising rental costs. But the slow complexion change can also be attributed to the fact that people are moving in and turning around and moving out. I soon will be among those who are moving out. My cute efficiency apartment with its sunny backyard that I pay just under a thousand dollars to rent is not enough for me make a last stand. Then, too, I’m not the “do or die” person I used to be.

Every summer, at both ends of our block, a police horse was placed along with a metal sign on a pole welded to a block of cement that read, “Play Street Do Not Enter.” This barricade was erected each morning and remained until dusk. The absence of parked cars and threatening traffic made playing in the street an unimaginable thrill, if only because at other times it was off limits. I remember how fear about the dangers of the street was instilled in us. I recall a few times that I pushed through a crowd to peer upon some kid who had been hit by a car. The consequences for stepping off of the curb without approval or supervision was immediate and severe. “Look both ways before crossing. And make sure the light is green,” was the stern warning issued by mother to me and my sister before we headed out to school or to the store. One day I did not heed that warning and when I was nearly run over I was more afraid of my mother finding out than about any injuries I might have sustained. But during the summer, the perilous and hazardous street was transformed into a spacious play area with ample room for riding scooters, roller skating, playing hopscotch, shooting skully, throwing balls, and jumping rope. This was the world my mother entrusted me and my sister to when she went off to work each morning.

Browning all day in the summer sun, my friends and I would enter the dim cavern of our four-story walk-up only to use the bathroom. When done, we would stop long enough to put our mouths under the kitchen sink faucet for a cool drink. Taking time to fill the metallic blue, purple, green or yellow tumblers left out just for our use would keep us indoors longer than we could bear. “The last one down is a monkey’s uncle,” someone would yell, and we would race down the stairs laughing and pushing each other as we tumbled back out into the sunlight. Hot and muggy Harlem apartments could not contain our energy. Ours was a four-room railroad flat. Even with all of the windows open, and two giant floor fans, the air, floors, walls and ceiling, pressed down on us. It was only outside under the blue cottony sky that we felt free.

We never ventured far from in front of our building and rarely if ever off of the block. To the candy store on the corner was about as far as we would go. We congregated on or in front of our stoop, where we were always under the watchful eyes of Old Lady Reed. Hers was a permanent figure in the second floor window above us. Old Lady Reed with her eagle eyes and telling lips could cause us a heap of problems. It was she who told our mother how often we were in and out of our apartment and with whom. She would also inform our mother if we had been jumping rope or playing ball in the apartment, both of which were strictly prohibited. Old Lady Reed’s omnipresence presence gave us a sense of security though. Whenever we needed bandaging, protection, or scolding, she was there. And she was also good for a nickel or dime every now and then when we went to the store for her. Our mother always told us not to accept money for running errands for our elderly neighbors, but we took it anyway and crossed our fingers that we would not be found out.

Mrs. Johnson who lived on the first floor of our building was the total opposite of Old Lady Reed. Mrs. Johnson would not be seen or heard for days on end. The neighbors would start wondering if perhaps she had died in her apartment. Mrs. Johnson kept her blinds drawn tight and rarely left her apartment. As a pastime the kids on our block took pleasure in knocking on her door and scurrying away when we heard her call out in a cackling voice, “You chil’ren better get away from my door.” The chances of our getting in trouble was close to null because Mrs. Johnson did not talk to anyone and never opened her door for anyone.

Old Lady Reed, on the other hand, could tell from the sound of footsteps who was coming into or leaving the building. If she doubted her accuracy, she would not hesitate to crack open her door and peep her head out. It was Old Lady Reed’s telling on us that mostly caused me and my sister to be in hot water. As soon as she heard the click clack of our mothers heels, Old Lady Reed came out into the hallway and blocked our mother’s passing until she told her all the mischief we had gotten into that day. “Good evening, Miss Howard,” she’d start off. “Those girls of yours were keepin’ up such a wracked upstairs today.” And she did not stop there. “And you know they disappeared from in front of the building for almost a whole hour. I have no idea where they went off to.”

If our mother entered our apartment with tightly drawn lips, we knew Old Lady Reed had intercepted her in the hallway. We were prepared for this betrayal. In the hour before our mother’s regular arrival time home, we washed all the dishes, swept the entire apartment, placed out soiled clothes in the hamper, and put away all of our playthings. There was nothing more pleasing to our mother than a clean apartment and nothing more disconcerting than an unkempt one. “Hi, Mommy!” we would yell in unison when we heard her key turn in the lock. We would hold our breath until her mouth relaxed into a smile. Without saying a word, she would reach into the brown paper grocery bag she had just placed on the kitchen table and pull out a pack of Hostess Cupcakes for me and a pack of Hostess Twinkies for my sister. “Now, don’t open those until after dinner,” she says. My sister and I dance and spin around the kitchen pressing our unopened treats to our cheeks. How wonderful life is, we are both thinking.

Later that night after our baths and when Annette Funicello finishes singing M-I-C (See you real soon.) K-E-Y (Why? Because we love you.) M-O-U-S-E on television, we know it’s time for bed, even though it’s still light outside. Our mother stops putting plastic pink andbrown curlers in her hair long enough to receive a hug from each of us. In the dark, my sister and I go over all theevents of the day. “You girls better go to sleep,” our mother yells out from the living room, where she sits in her cotton flowered housecoat watching Perry Mason. We lower our voices to a whisper and continue talking. We never fall asleep until we have carefully plotted out our adventures for the following day.

Michael recently broke up with a girlfriend, a fellow police officer. His co-workers had warned him: never date a cop. He sees now what they meant. He’s contemplating whether or not he should go to Internal Affairs because of the latest spree of incidents with this lady cop. She’s having a hard time letting go of him. She follows him in her car. He’s able to lose her because according to him she’s not a good driver. She has cut his car tires. In the cold early hours of winter mornings he has had to change flat tires. Once she even ticketed his car. It was a big laugh for his fellow officers when he went in to the precinct to complain about the ticket. He didn’t know at that time that she had issued it. In several phone conversations with her, he tried resolving their issues. He really did not want to take his personal business to the Department. One day he left his apartment and found her sitting in his car. She refused to get out so he left her there and did not drive to work that day.

Like many New York City police officers, Michael moonlights as a security guard. He is presently working at the Wiz on Fulton Street in Brooklyn. On several occasions he sees her cruise by the store. He makes up his mind. He’s going to report her to his superiors first chance he gets. He knows that the way the Department works, he will come under just as much scrutiny as she will. That was part of the reason for his hesitancy. But it was evident at this point that this woman was not of sound mind. And he felt she might be pretty close to slipping over the edge.

Michael has been on the force for six going on seven years now. No, he did not as a child dream of growing up and becoming a cop. His mother drives a school bus, and his father is a dentist. They are divorced. The way he tells it, the opportunity arose for him to take the civil servants test. He did pretty good on it and was called to begin training at the Police Academy. “It was a city job, that offered a decent salary and early retirement,” he summed it up blandly. Michael had gone to SUNY New Paltz on a football scholarship. He dropped out after one year. Since dropping out, he had held several menial jobs. He didn’t think of police work as particularly dangerous. He was not going to try and be anybody’s super cop. He would go to work like any other city employee and not place himself unnecessarily in harm’s way.

An accidental pepper spraying landed him in the hospital. After having his heart monitored for several days, the Department decided that he should be removed from the street beat. He was moved to the Youth Officers Unit. At the time of his transfer, he couldn’t say that he particularly liked kids. But it was certainly a relatively safer assignment than running down criminals. As a youth officer, he and his female partner patrolled around schools and responded to incidents inside school buildings. His sensitivity towards kids whose parents and home lives he came to know increased. He says after having met some of the parents, he understood better why the kids were the way they are. Michael has lots of stories to tell about promiscuous thirteen year olds and their boyfriends who are grown men, fourteen year old daily pot smokers, kids who can’t put together an articulate sentence. Kids who are physically, verbally and sexually abused. Kids raising kids.

Despite all of the social ills Michael sees on a daily basis, he remains pretty much apolitical. He doesn’t bother to vote because he doesn’t believe it will change anything. “The world is going to be the same as I found it when I leave it,” he says pessimistically. Somehow he hasn’t connected the kids deviant and anti-social behavior with social, political and economic realities. Some of his other values run along the same line of a devil-may-care attitude. When asked about going to church and God. He jokes that the only God he worships is the dollar bill. He supports capital punishment as opposed to life in prison. About convicted rapists and murders, he says, “Fry their asses. Why should taxpayers dollars feed, clothe and shelter these people for the rest of their lives?”

When asked about racism within the police force, Michael readily admits its existence. He says he deals with it on an individual basis, though, not institutionally. He told of once threatening a fellow officer with taking him “out back and kicking his f-ing ass” because of a racist comment he made. He said he never had a problem with that officer again.

While Michael was willing to talk about racism within the Police Department, the blue wall of silence came up immediately when asked his view around the latest spate of police killings. “We are experiencing a bad moment between police and civilians,” he explained. “But every job has its good and bad workers. I can’t speak for the cops who were involved in these incidents. I don’t know them.” When asked about both the acquittals and convictions in the recent police trials, Michael’s response was “The jury spoke, and the people spoke.” When pressed to expressed his personal feelings about the incidents involving Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond, Michael insisted he had no comments.

“I can’t afford to pick up a paper and see me quoted somewhere,” he said very seriously. “I have a daughter to take care.” He offered to talk about his unit, the Juvenile Unit. “I work in the schools. Now, I can tell you anything you want to know about Bloods, Crypts, juveniles, whatever. I don’t deal with other units in the Department. I get dressed, join my partner and go do my job. That’s it.”

What is Giuliani’s role in the tension between police and the Black community? According to Michael, Giuliani has nothing to do with anything. “The Department is going to always be the same.” As for his future in the Department, Michael responded solemnly, “I’ll be in and out in twenty years, retired.”

When that time comes, he will be forty-three.

I didn’t move out of New York, as I had predicted. Instead, I moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant.

When I first came here, I thought I’d miss Fort Greene forever. But I found out that I didn’t miss the screeching B54 bus coming to a halt at the bus stop across from my ground-floor apartment there. Nor did I miss the rumbling trucks and other colossal vehicles making their way to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway via my block. More than anything, I did not miss the people next door who congregated in front of my window at all hours of the day and night.

What I like most about my new dwelling, a garden apartment in a brownstone, is the unspoiled silence. One Sunday morning, in early fall, the only sounds I heard were the wind rustling through the leaves of the mammoth trees right outside my window, and the singsong of birds in the backyard.

My new block feels like a retirement community. Many of the brownstone owners are senior citizens who have lived most of their lives in these homes. When I was deciding if I should take the apartment, I rationalized that perhaps the time had come for me to slow down. Living in Fort Greene was like living in the fast lane. The neighborhood was changing so quickly that to be in the midst of it all made you feel hip and on the cutting edge (of what I really can’t say).

One of my first observations about Bedford-Stuyvesant was the number of people I saw heading to church on Sunday mornings. The church definitely has a strong presence here. In contrast, most of the people out early on a Sunday morning in Fort Greene are on their way home after a night of partying. Recently, in a definite sign that I’m slowing down, I joined the go-to-church-on-Sunday crowd.

In moving to Bedford-Stuyvestant, I feared I wouldn’t be as anonymous as I was living a building in a Fort Greene with neighbors whose names I didn’t know, or even care to know. I hoped that people would not mind my business, and that I would be able to move about without feeling that all eyes were on me. In the beginning, all eyes were on me because I was a newcomer on the block.

Now, I seldom see my three neighbors, or even bump into them. I’ve learned their names from the mail dropped through the gate, which brings up another issue. At first, not having a mailbox seemed like a real invasion of privacy. Everyone can see everyone else’s mail. But I finally concluded the only thing my neighbors could deduce about me from my mail is that I have a lot of bills.

For me the real selling point of my apartment, in addition to its lovely original details, is the backyard, which I have exclusive access to. Having always lived in apartment buildings, being closer to the earth was a welcome change. There was some trepidation, since my relationship with nature has been limited to a few houseplants and store bought flowers. Two or three annual visits to Brooklyn’s Botanic Garden and excursions to Prospect Park and I have had my fill of it.

But my affair with nature has been developing slowly. This past summer I had to learn how to coexist in the backyard with squirrels, bees, butterflies, birds, fireflies, mosquitos and a black cat who would occasionally strut through as if it owned the place. (I won’t say what I had to learn to coexist with inside the apartment.)

Through all of this, though, I don’t feel quite like a “Do or Die” Bed-Stuyer. Sometimes, sitting in my yard, I still have thoughts of living in a bright and polished apartment building, with squeaky clean glass doors and a wall of mailboxes.

-Marvin Gaye

I came out of the print shop carrying two boxes of flyers promoting a march and demonstration in Harlem that coming Saturday. Michael Stewart, a graffiti artist, had been the latest victim in a string of police killings. Caught defacing the walls at a 14th Street subway station, Stewart was severely beaten, hog-tied and brought to Bellevue Hospital d.o.a. The cops responsible for his death had been indicted and were currently on trial.

But no cop in the history of New York had ever been convicted for killing a black person. It was certain that they would go free. The rally was a call for the end to police brutality and justice for Michael Stewart. Two weeks prior, I had taken part in an overnight sit-in in Governor Cuomo’s Manhattan office. We had demanded a special prosecutor for this case. We did not get one. And when the cops were acquitted, I put the pain I felt in that place where I stored all my other hurts.

Malik had been waiting for me double parked on Remsen Street off of Court Street, in downtown Brooklyn. Prince was playing on the radio when I scooted into the front seat, and Malik was singing along. “I will die for you,” he crooned with Prince. Then he turned to me and matter-of-factly repeated the words, “I will die for you.” We were comrades, of course he would die for me and I for him, which is what I first took the words to mean. Then it occurred to me that wasn’t what he meant at all. I felt flushed. He was saying was that he loved me so much, he would give his life for me. Right then and there my soul opened up to him.

Malik was twenty-four when we first met. I was thirty-one. He was living in Harlem, but he was not a New Yorker. He was from Texas and a recent graduate from the University of Texas. I was impressed when he told me he had majored in economics. He had not been in New York long, but already held a position of leadership in the New Afrikan Peoples Organization (NAPO) an organization I had just become a member of. He was mature for his twenty-four years and very intelligent. He did not have a commanding physical appearance. A vegetarian, he was tall, thin and wiry and rather frail looking, which might explain why older women in particular were attracted to him. He had a “I need to be taken care of look”. He was Ghandi-like in demeanor, which bespoke a kind and gentle spirit. But there was there was that side to him that believed in Malcolm X’s motto that if anyone put their hands on you, you send them to the cemetery.

As I said, my soul opened up to Malik the way a flower opens up to the sun. I was not alone in loving him. Women were captivated by him. All sorts of propositions came his way, some of which he entertained to my grief and consternation. He told me about a Filipino woman in Texas, fifteen years his senior, who had implored him to have a child with her. She had an eleven-year-old son, was approaching forty and wanted another child. She told him she had never known anyone like him before. For this reason, she sought a union to procreate with him, and said there would be no strings attached. I only half believed this story until he went to Texas to see the child soon after it was born. He named their son Mandela. When I got to know Malik, I could see how a woman would want to have him forever be a part of her life through a child they would bear together.

While I felt pretty secure in Malik’s “die-for-me” love, I nevertheless found myself fending off ladies the whole duration of our relationship. And it was not just the ladies, mostly everyone with whom he came into contact was drawn to him. I was in constant competition for his attention, particularly with leaders and other members of NAPO who were jealous of our relationship. I really had no choice but to share him. There was work to be done and Malik was key to getting it done. We were both committed to the “Movement,” which meant our relationship was secondary. Everything was secondary. The sacrifice for me was that we could not spend a lot of time together. But in our hearts, we were never without the other.

NAPO’s New York headquarters was a four-room railroad flat on 124th Street between Malcolm X Boulevard (formerly Lenox Avenue) and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard (formerly Seventh Avenue). Malik and several others actually lived there. I was living in Brooklyn, but had grown up in Harlem. And although I had moved from Harlem some years prior, I still felt a strong bond with it. I remember reading Piri Thomas’ Down These Mean Streets and Claude McKays’ Manchild in the Promise Land as a teenager and being really moved by the depiction of the lives of people who lived in Harlem. Thomas and McKay had succeeded in capturing the harsh realities of life in Harlem. Sunless, airless, roach and mice infested, paint chipped apartments. Scarcity of food. Bedraggled clothes. More tears than laughter. Heart-pumping fear. Misplaced hate and too little love. Incessant fighting to survive.

As a member of NAPO, I came to Harlem three to four times a week. Each time I emerged from the subway at 125th my heart fluttered with excitement. Partly because I was only a few minutes away from seeing Malik. But it was also the thrill of being in Harlem. I noticed how little things had changed since I was a little girl growing up there. The landscape was still that of crumbling tenements, decay, impoverishment along with the downtrodden. In some ways, I found comfort in this sameness. I enjoyed the feeling of coming back home again and again. The bond between Malik and me was deepened by the compassion and love we had for the people, who in our eyes were the wretched of the earth that Frantz Fanon wrote about. Our lives were dedicated to changing the conditions that oppressed us. We would give our lives for the people.

Much of what Malik and I felt for one another went unexpressed because we were almost always engaged in “the work”. To ward off envy, I took great care to conceal my affections for him. He on the other hand wore his love for me on his sleeve. It was in his eyes when he looked at me, in his voice when he spoke to me or about me. It showed in how he spoke up for me and looked out for me. And when we were alone, it was a time of validation and communion conveyed through his touch, his embrace, his kiss. Malik gave good love.

Malik had gone to Nicaragua for several weeks. He went to work in the coffee fields in support of the revolution that had recently taken place there. By then time, distance and other circumstances had taken its toll on our relationship. When he returned to New York, he bought me back a heart-shaped onyx stone. Later, when I lay in his embrace, he sang Luther Vandros’, “Don’t You Remember You Told Me You Loved Me” softly in my ear. He wanted me to remember the love we had shared. What I know now is that the heart doesn’t forget.

As I sat on the bench waiting for the A train, a young man sat next to me. He must have been feeling quite natty too. He gave me one of the most pleasant, non-threatening hellos I had ever heard from a stranger. I responded in kind and took the first step in starting a conversation. “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center this morning,” I said nonchalantly. I had been listening to 1010 WINS that morning and just before I headed out the door I heard that bit of news. I assumed it was a helicopter that was flying too low and continued on my way.

“I heard about that,” he responded.

“Now I bet the trains are going to be late,” I continued. Just what I needed when I was trying to be on time for a meeting that I had been late for two prior times before. That morning I arose bright and early to give myself plenty of time to get there on time. But no sooner had I voiced this agitation than the A train came rumbling into the station. I popped up off of the bench and headed for the train.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched to see if the young man was going to make to board the same car as I. I had felt a little spark sitting there next to him on the bench. His friendliness and uncommon boldness had certainly captured my attention. But I was not going to be too forward. If he wanted to continue our parlance, he would have to make that happen. To my utter delight he stepped right on my heels onto the train. The train was not overly crowded but there were no seats available. So I grabbed onto a pole.

He held onto a strap overhead near where I was standing. I started in with, “Today of all days, I’m going to be held up by the train.”

“Why do you think that,” he asked? He did not think that what happened at the World Trade Center would affect the trains. “How could it not,” I countered. It was obvious he was not a regular straphanger. When I finally got over the angst of my being inevitably late for my meeting, I decided to make the most of the train ride with this (I finally took notice) gorgeous, young man. He was holding a book in his hand.

“What are you reading,” I asked beginning to feel excited. A man with a book on the train is a rare sight to behold. “It’s science fiction,” he said not offering any more information about the book.

“Do you like Octavia Butler?” I figured I would show off my literary knowledge. He said he did, but I got the feeling that he really didn’t know who she was. So I moved on. I asked, “Did you vote yet?” His curt reply that he had not did not deter me from continuing on in that vein. “I’ve just moved to Bed Stuy from Fort Greene, so I’m not really up on the politics here. But I do intend to get involved in Bed Stuy politics at some point.”

Ignoring what was supposed to be my segue into politics, he asked, “What do you do?” I told him I was the Director of a Beacon program. I asked him if he knew what a Beacon program was. I explained that it’s a community center that operates out of a school building providing services for children, teens and adults.

He told me he was a financial analyst. A Wall Street guy, I thought. Did I strike gold or what? “What’s your name,” I asked.

“Abel.” I didn’t get it.

“Abel, like in the Bible,” he said after seeing my puzzled expression. “I would love to come talk to your teens,” he said. I explained to him how that was possible because I had a teen employment program that had career exploration as part of the curriculum, We planned to have guest speakers come and talk to the kids about different careers. I fished a business card out of my wallet and handed it to him. “Parents are not directing their children right,” he said after tucking my card into his pocket. “They’re telling their kids to go to college so they can get a job. They should be telling them to go into business for themselves.” My pat response was, “Everyone’s not cut out for that.”

“It’s only recent in history that people work for other people,” he countered. “A job should be something you do while you’re working on establishing your own business. Parents are also directing their children toward technology, which is on its way out.” Now, I’m thinking this guy is either real smart or real stupid. How could technology be on the down swing?

What followed was an intense conversation about economics, technology, business and globalization. At one point the train stopped for several minutes between stations. I was so engrossed in the conversation, I had long ceased to fret about the time and being late. As the conversation proceeded, I could see that Abel was a very passionate and intelligent person. He lay out his arguments with confidence and clarity. “I’m very thorough,” he said at one point. “I’ve thought about these things for a long time.” He told me that he boggled the minds of some of his associates. They would end the conversation at some point. To be honest, it was challenging for me follow his view points and then counter with my own. But during this back and forth dialogue, something else was stirring beneath the surface. We were both now holding on to the pole and facing one another. We looked into each other’s face as we talked. The more I looked at him the more handsome he appeared. Smart and gorgeous! Oh, God, was this was my lucky day.

In the midst of responding to something I said, he all of a sudden fell silent and just stared at me. I thought I had stumped him. I stared smugly back. He studied my face intently as if he had tired of communicating with words. We were locked in each other’s gaze when the train pulled into Broadway Nassau. “I get off here,” I said in a low voice that didn’t sound like me to me. As I stepped off the train, I turned back and said, “Call me.”

“I will,” he said. As the train door closed and I headed for the stairs, I turned to get one last look at him and to see if he were trying to get a last look at me. He wasn’t looking my way, but it didn’t matter. Something magical had happened between Utica and Broadway and Nassau.

I floated up the stairs and onto the street. When I emerged from the subway onto Fulton Street glass was splattered on the ground and I remember thinking I hoped no one was beneath the plate glass window when it fell. When I turned onto Broadway, my vision was drawn upward when I saw a crowd of people looking up. From where I stood I saw fire spewing out of both World Trade Center towers. As I moved further into the crowd, a man next to me said that not one but two planes had flown into the buildings and that it had been a terrorist act.

I concluded I wouldn’t be the only one late to that meeting. I began making my way to120 Broadway, where the meeting was being held, but stopped again after a few feet. I just couldn’t stop looking. This time a man standing next to me said that he had seen people jumping out of the windows. What!? My mind struggled to process what he said. As I stood there paper floating from the sky dropped by my feet. Insurance certificates, company memos and the like. My focus did not remain fixed on the ground long. I looked up just as the top of one of the twin towers began to crumble like a sand castle.

The crowd began to back up and then turned and began running. My arm reached out to push a man in front of me who was not moving fast enough. I stumbled and fell to the ground. Everything and everybody seemed to move about me in a whir. I thought, “This can’t be happening. I’m going to be trampled.” Amazingly, not one person stepped on me. While on the ground I heard and felt debris beginning to pour down. There was no time to get up and run. I had fallen in the street near cars. I slid between two cars. I could hear the debris dropping on them. I was still not safe. I got flat on the ground and put my head underneath the car.

In a matter of seconds, I was engulfed in blackness. The debris was not falling anymore. It just hung thickly in the air. It was very difficult to breathe. I didn’t know at the time that I was in the middle of a dust cloud. My initial thought was that I underneath rubble. Would they get to me in time? It was pitch black. What should I do? Which way should I go? It was deafeningly silent. I knew there were people near me, but no one was yelling out or saying anything. The quiet and darkness that surrounded me had a calming effect. I’m going to die, I told myself. I could draw upon nothing from my life’s experiences to guide me in that situation. I estimated that I could probably take three, maybe four more breaths. I’m going to suffocate, and I’m going to die, I thought. And I accepted it. I just wanted it to be quick. I wondered how it would feel. Would I black out? Would I struggle desperately for air? Would it be over in fifteen minutes or take as long as forty-five minutes?

My daughter came to my mind. She’s going to be devastated, I thought, and so are my sisters and my niece. They wouldn’t even known I was in Manhattan. Then Abel came to my mind. Oh, God, how could this be happening when I met someone who moved me deeply. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to see Abel again. I started to move then and feel around me. A man who had ducked beneath the car with me began moving toward a light. I followed him. He climbed up onto some type of scaffolding. I kept him in my sight. When I climbed up behind him my pocketbook slipped off of my arm. It seemed to have fallen into a hole. I didn’t even stop to try to retrieve it. I had to get to the light and to air. Once in the light, we entered a building. I began to cry. I’m alive I kept saying over and over. I’m alive.