Swinging On A Star

Swinging on a Star

Kateesha looked up at the stars and smiled. One of them winked at her and she winked back. There was a momentarily giggle that was quickly stifled when a siren wailed in the distance. The sound crested and it felt like the trouble was in her building — it wouldn’t be the first or last time. But, then it turned down a different street and the noise subsided. 

Every night the sirens wailed.

There was activity down below some of which she understood and some of which she did not understand. Her grammy had told her wicked tales of horrible things that happened in the big city.  

“It’s a jungle out there and most of them aren’t human they are animals.”

Sometimes, the screams woke her up in the middle of a pleasant dream and that was just so frustrating. Other night, the screams scared her because something bad was happening.

Because her grammy wasn’t very mobile, the young girl ran errands.  

“You go straight to the store and no messin’ around do you hear me Kateesha?”

“Yes, grammy, I hear you.”

“You don’t talk to anyone and you don’t eye anyone.”

“I know Grammy you done told me a thousand times.”

“Well, make it a thousand and one times. It never hurts to repeat things.”

She smiled not to offend the woman that meant so much to her.

Life in the city was not easy. Months before, someone had robbed a convenience store — the same one that Kateesha bought milk and bread from while running errands for grammy — and some black kid coming home from the library after studying for exams was detained. He protested and everything escalated. He was shot and killed and later proved innocent.

The white cops that shot him were to go on trial and were removed from the force. The whole city went up in flames and that night the stars looked down on a world that had seemingly gone mad.

Kateesha was afraid that someone would burn her building down. There was an overflow of police officers and the National Guard were brought in to restore order. Then the governor brought in the army and that finally settled things down.

It was over two weeks before Grammy let her out to run errands. When they ran out of milk and bread and eggs, a kind neighbour brought them in. She didn’t go to school during that period.

The day that Grammy let her out, Kateesha hurried there and back but couldn’t help but gawk at the burnt out shells of the buildings and all the stores that had been looted.  

Maybe Grammy was right about people not being humans but mere animals.

The young girl and her grandmother didn’t have a TV. Kateesha had a phone that her distant and absent father paid for. It had been a battle because Grammy didn’t like him very much, but that cell was a lifeline — the only real one — to the outside world.

“Grammy we need to know what is going on in the world. We cannot be shut out.”

“When I was a little girl back in Georgia we didn’t have a TV or radio or any of that and we did just fine.”

“Yes, grammy, but things have changed.”

“The world is the same. The sun still gets up in the East and sets in the West. Ain’t nothing changed.”

Kateesha could get very frustrated arguing with the stubborn, out of touch old woman. At thirteen, she could have easily run away and go build a different life on her own. But, there was no way that the girl would leave her Grammy behind.

There were really only a couple of ways to get out of the projects. A life of crime wasn’t a choice, but some decided to follow that path. There was sports, but the young girl wasn’t very co-ordinated or very quick. There was also music, but she didn’t have any musical talent.

An education was the ticket out of the projects, but it cost money that they didn’t have and probably wouldn’t ever obtain. She could always win a scholarship if the young girl could beat out the very stiff competition.

But there was something else forming that might prove to be her ticket out of the slums.

The idea of going to college was an idea but seemed so far away.  

“I would like to be a teacher someday, Grammy,” Kateesha said at supper one night.

“That would be a good thing. Your mama God rest her soul wanted to be a teacher, but that didn’t happen.”

Grammy didn’t talk a lot about Kateesha’s mother. The information provided was scarce and sparse. The bits and pieces that had been reluctantly provided were put together like a puzzle. There was some vital parts missing.

One night, when she was a very little girl, she was looking at the stars and a siren wailed through the streets at breakneck speed. The snow had fallen and it was rather lovely. Kateesha was waiting for her mom to arrive home from work.

Her mother worked in a bakery and it was very hard and hot work. But she was one of the best bakers in the company and there was talk of making her a supervisor and maybe even a manager.

Kateesha snuck back into bed because she was supposed to be asleep. She heard footsteps approaching and realized that Grammy was coming. In a flash, the little miss was under the covers and feigned sleep.

Grammy opened the door slightly and stared at her granddaughter for a long time. Then she slowly slipped away.

The next morning, Kateesha found out that her mother wasn’t ever coming home from work.  

“But why?”

“She went somewhere that only certain people can go?”

“Can I go there?”

“No, I’m sorry you can’t go there.”

“But, why not? I want to go and see my mama.”

Kateesha was crying and on the verge of a temper tantrum.

But Grammy grabbed her. While the old woman wasn’t very big, she was deceptively strong.  

“You have to be a big girl for me. Your mama is gone and now it is just you and me. Do you understand that?”

Kateesha was crying.

“It’s not fair.”

“No, honey it isn’t fair. The universe isn’t fair to anyone.”

It was a week later that the young girl wrote her first story. It was about seeing her mother again in a paradise that had flowers and a waterfall and lots of nice, soft animals.

She liked the story and wrote another one about going to the market and finding a bunch of money and returning it to the owner. Her picture appeared in the newspaper and on social media and on the news. They had to go to the neighbours who had a TV to see her.

“Look, Grammy that’s me, that’s me.”

“It sure is,” Grammy beamed proudly.

A siren wailed again and it seemed to be coming right at her.

But it didn’t matter anymore. The only thing to do now was to keep Grammy safe and happy. It wasn’t always easy, but it had to be done. And to keep writing. Maybe she couldn’t play sports well and didn’t have any singing or musical talent. Maybe she would never be a famous movie star.  She wasn’t going to turn to a life of crime.  

But she could write. And she would write her way out of the ghetto.

Already, the young girl had won a couple of short story contests including one run by Prompts, an internationally famous company.  

Kateesha looked up at the stars and one of them winked at her. She winked back at it.