Kwame Crashes the Underworld: Chapter 1

When you get a moment, open your hands and study those lines embedded in your palms. If they make a strangely coherent shape, do some research on it. Use encyclopedias, almanacs, anything you can get your hands on. Google works too, I guess.

When you get a moment, open your hands and study those lines embedded in your palms. If they make a strangely coherent shape, do some research on it. Use encyclopedias, almanacs, anything you can get your hands on. Google works too, I guess.

Now, I’m big enough to admit that I have always looked like Ma in the face—deep brown skin, sharp jaw, brooding eyes—but over this past year, I’ve inherited her thin frame and long limbs.

“Sorry, Ma.” I avert my eyes, open my hand, and trace the pattern on the inside of my palm—two stylized hearts, one atop the other, locked in an eternal headbutting competition. I was born with the palm pattern, so I’ve seen it a million times…but it’s still safer to look at that than it is to make eye contact with Ma right now.

I was handed very explicit instructions to follow before Autumn arrived: pack my suitcase for the flight and an overnight bag for the sleepover.

Ma makes her way into my room. Her frown deepens as she sidesteps open comic books and half-eaten granola bars. She’s wearing that principal gaze, the kind of face one might make if they’re reading an essay consisting of nothing but misspelled words. It’s the same look that makes the other seventh graders flee into the nearest classroom before they can incur the wrath of Principal Powell.

Whenever anyone asks how I’m feeling, I try to throw on a lopsided grin and claim that I’m not feeling anything—even though I secretly am.

Grandma must have told me about a million unsolicited half-English, half-Fante stories about everything from our family to mythology.

“I, uh, I still got tomorrow morning to pack, though, don’t I?”
“Right before the flight? I don’t think so.” Ma’s eyes are sharp enough to draw blood. “I told you to have this done yesterday. Stop procrastinating and get it done now.”

I begrudgingly rise from my marshmallow chair and dart around the room, pulling comic books and toiletries into my suitcase like a speed-packing vortex.

I begrudgingly rise from my marshmallow chair and dart around the room, pulling comic books and toiletries into my suitcase like a speed-packing vortex.

My eyes sweep my bedroom floor until I spot Dad’s old varsity jacket. It’s a relic dating back to when Dad was in high school, way back in the 1900s....It’s my go-to outfit enhancer, and today is no exception. I scoop the jacket up and throw it on over my pine-green T-shirt.

I finally muster the nerve to ask the question bouncing around in my head. “Ma…do I really have to go?”
“To Ghana? Yes, you do. It’ll be good for you to honor your grandmother.”

For some reason, she’s convinced that Ghana will be some amazing, emotionally groundbreaking experience for me.

But my Ghanaian extended family disagrees; to them, I’m not actually Ghanaian. At the family reunions that Ma strong-arms me into attending, my relatives jokingly call me white because of my American accent. They quiz me on food I’ve never heard of and then shake their heads in disappointment when I inevitably fail. They make inside jokes in Fante and then stare directly at me to encourage optimal discomfort.

But my Ghanaian extended family disagrees; to them, I’m not actually Ghanaian. At the family reunions that Ma strong-arms me into attending, my relatives jokingly call me white because of my American accent. They quiz me on food I’ve never heard of and then shake their heads in disappointment when I inevitably fail. They make inside jokes in Fante and then stare directly at me to encourage optimal discomfort.

“At her celebration of life,” Ma corrects, that principal gaze slipping back on. “Your grandmother would have hated having some melancholy American-style funeral. So we will celebrate her life and all she’s done—and hopefully we can make her smile.”

Ma’s eyes are unflinching. “Your grandmother is not gone, Kwame. She is still with us, watching over us from the afterlife. From Asamando.”
Asamando was one of the story-time subjects that Grandma would talk about, this magical underworld where age, sickness, and pain don’t exist—where the ancestors dance with the abosom, the Ghanaian gods and spirits.

I sigh. “Sure, Ma. Grandma’s watching us.”
“That’s right,” Ma says, straightening up. Her eyes fall to the darkness of the open closet behind me. “And she would love to see you wear that dashiki.”

"...Finish packing, get that dashiki, do the dishes, and go say bye to your father before you go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” My eyes fall in defeat to the scuffed hardwood floor. I should have known better than to think that I could subvert Ma’s indomitable will.

"...Finish packing, get that dashiki, do the dishes, and go say bye to your father before you go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” My eyes fall in defeat to the scuffed hardwood floor. I should have known better than to think that I could subvert Ma’s indomitable will.

Ma and Mr. Choi exchange uncomfortable chuckles. I don’t quite know what they’re talking about; it’s a little hard to pay attention with the tray of cinnamon rolls resting in Ma’s hands.
I try not to salivate as fresh steam curls up from the pan.

Dad sits at the kitchen table as I work in the sink. He is a gargoyle come to life, complete with the perpetual scowl and the mountainous muscles. His white dress shirt screams for dear life as it struggles to maintain its integrity around his massive form.

Dad sits at the kitchen table as I work in the sink. He is a gargoyle come to life, complete with the perpetual scowl and the mountainous muscles. His white dress shirt screams for dear life as it struggles to maintain its integrity around his massive form.

Dad has never been an easy person to impress. He believes in a single, immutable truth—either you win, or you lose. There isn’t any room for the words almost or pretty good.