Jazmin's Notebook: Chapters 1–8

CeCe was six years old at the time, and would have been fast asleep, except that the tenement our family lived in on Lenox & 133rd was the size of a Cracker Jack box, with walls twice as thin, and sound carried easily from room to room.

Apparently my father wanted my name to be a sort of homage to jazz.

He said this while Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” serenaded Mom from the stereo, mind you, so it’s no wonder she got the hint.

He said this while Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” serenaded Mom from the stereo, mind you, so it’s no wonder she got the hint.

The bar & grill blasts rhythm and blues on the jukebox all hours of the night...

...pool-sharks in the back room beat amateurs out of a week’s pay.

CeCe hates it when I denigrate myself out loud that way.

I have to dig around in my pocket, pry out coins for the washer and dryer, and choose the right ones by feel—either that or pull out a handful of coins, and squint, which kind of defeats the purpose.

I swear, I'm not planning on being this vain and shallow all my life.

I hope J.D. wasn't trying to be inconspicuous, because the red, black, and green dashiki he was wearing didn’t do the trick.

I hope J.D. wasn't trying to be inconspicuous, because the red, black, and green dashiki he was wearing didn’t do the trick.

But I was too
dazed myself
to do more than
gaze up, and up, and up
and sigh.

She trudged up the Avenue from a long day of emptying bedpans and dispensing prescriptions at Columbia Presbyterian.

She trudged up the Avenue from a long day of emptying bedpans and dispensing prescriptions at Columbia Presbyterian.

Every time a guy waltzes up the Avenue sporting a beret, I see Daddy, especially if the beret is black and worn the way his was, with a jazzy tilt to the side.

CeCe says my sense of irony has developed quite a bit here lately.

She high-stepped down the Avenue earlier today, uniformed in white to match the other women of New Jerusalem Sanctuary of the Redeemed, over on St. Nicholas.

You know, those flat, orthopedic-looking numbers. Nurse’s shoes maybe. Either way, they gleamed like snow.

I'm not exactly sure what white has to do with God. I understand the connection with purity, of course. Ivory soap, 99 and 44/100 % pure, etcetera.

Still, when I look at the world God made, I get the distinct impression that He’s partial to color.

Shawna was on the stoop with me when Sister Church danced by, high on the spirit, bubbling over with what CeCe calls “the zeal of the Lord.”

“Fine,” I said, answering for both of us. Shawna was too busy snickering to be polite.

Her words sent a tingle up my spine, but Shawna just rolled her eyes. “Lady, you must be hearin’ voices again, ’cause ain’t no God tell you nothin’. If there is a God,” she added, rubbing her swollen belly. The small life inside gave her a walloping kick.

Believing in close encounters of the spiritual kind comes easily to me, partly because CeCe was born with second sight, and I’ve been hearing about visions and prophetic dreams all my life, and partly because I’ve met and talked to angels on more than one occasion, and found their presence so matter-of-fact that I assumed other people saw them too.

Shawna thinks I’m crazy for nursing this notion.