don’t tell a soul
she’s dancing on beer cans and shingles...
As she spoke, the other women slowly came to life, a chorus of many shades and shapes, mahogany and cream, round
and slender, young and not so young, stretching their limbs across the stage.
somebody / anybody
sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin’ / struggle / hard times
sing her song of life...
For the next hour, the women took turns telling their stories, singing their songs. They sang about lost time and
discarded fantasies and what might have been. They sang of the men who loved them, betrayed them, raped them,
embraced them; they sang of the hurt inside these men, hurt that was understood and sometimes forgiven. They showed
each other their stretch marks and the calluses on their feet; they revealed their beauty in the lilt of their voice, the
flutter of a hand, beauty waning, ascendant, elusive. They wept over the aborted children, the murdered children, the
children they once were. And through all of their songs, violent, angry, sweet, unflinching, the women danced, each of
them, double-dutch and rhumba and bump and solitary waltz; sweat-breaking, heart-breaking dances. They danced
until they all seemed one spirit. At the end of the play, that spirit began to sing a single, simple verse:
I found god in myself
and I loved her / I loved her fiercely
Lights came up; bows were taken; the girls behind us cheered wildly. I helped Ruby with her coat and we walked out
to the parking lot. The temperature had dropped; the stars glinted like ice against the black sky. As we waited for the
car to warm up, Ruby leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
“Thanks.”
Her eyes, deep brown, were shimmering. I grabbed her gloved hand and gave it a quick squeeze before starting to
drive. Nothing more was said; for the entire ride back to the South Side, until I left her at her door and wished her
good-night, we never broke that precious silence.