A BLUEBIRD MINUTE (STORY)

March 3rd, 2019

When I was seven years old, my dad was sent to prison. He would be the first of ten black men arrested and imprisoned in the summer of 1982 in Maizey, Tennessee; on suspicion of organized crime. Dad never owned a gun, he was never licensed. The police report said there was a 3 gram ziplock bag of cocaine hidden in his waistband, and a .45 glock behind the glass in the sunroof. How the hell you hide a gun in a sunroof shade and get away with it is beyond me.
My daddy was never a bad man. He never hit me, my older brother Benny, or Mama; and he would seldom raise his voice. Before he got arrested, he was a car mechanic turned pharmacist. He paid thousands of dollars to learn about medicine, and he was always the person to go to when I needed to know if I was sick or how many aspirins I should take. He was brilliant, and I was his dreamy girl. My eyes are almond-shaped, and he called me dreamy-eyed. That was home. The public defender got him to confess to the thing he didn’t do. He has fourteen fucking years now. It was up to Mama and I to take care of Benny on our own. He’s older than me and he got to keep most of his routines, so we got to manage pretty okay.
Mama tried to keep up daddy’s legacy by calling me dreamy girl, but before long, I was just Albertina. That wasn’t a bad thing. I grew up. I grew up and I was angry. I had so much hatred in my heart for the legal system, and every day a new story would be on the news about some “drug bust” or “crime bust” or some shit like that. When I got to high school, I joined the debate team. I studied every new case and every legal statute, every bit of political dialogue I could find. My room was a mess - There were paperclips and empty bags of pop rocks all over the carpet. Why Pop Rocks ? They kept me up. I never grew into loving coffee. In fact, I still hate it. I was a hermit every day when I got home, mostly studying and watching the news. It all clicked. I got smarter and became the National High School Speech and Debate Champion in 1991. I was a meteorite. Albertina Wise was a monster among her peers, and it felt like it was all just beginning.
I started to spend serious hours in the public library, and it got harder to have time with Benny. Sometimes before, I would walk with him to the Burger King down in Grand Junction, and we would spend the afternoon talking about The Transformers. We had the whole box set and it was his favorite thing to watch. Whenever he got fussy or excited, it would be time to watch one of them. Whenever we asked, he always had one in mind that he wanted to watch. Of all of them, I think my favorite was The Return of Optimus Prime. That one puts me in a good mood. We would spend a good time over lunch talking about it, and he even asked me what I liked about school. We went to that Burger King most every day until that racist bitch from English class started working there.
When I was applying for schools, I tried to break it to Benny the best I could that I was planning on leaving for college. It damaged my soul trying to explain it to him. The first time, I don’t think it stuck. The second time, he asked me why I wanted to go to school somewhere else; I already go to school in Grand Junction. I wasn’t accepted to any schools yet, but I thought it was easier to explain to him then than wait until it’s time for me to go.
Then I got accepted by Saint Mary’s College of California. I started to clean up my room and pack all my stuff. I was surprised when everything I wanted to take with me was able to fit in just two big suitcases and a backpack. Benny lost his temper with me a lot, after that. He didn’t like seeing me do that. He started to get impatient and irritated more often, and that was really hard. Eventually, he started to calm down about it. When I got accepted to SMC, I tried telling him that I was going there for justice. I described at least a couple times that I wanted to go there to do justice, so I could protect men like him and daddy. Benny’s a big man, so when he got sad, it sunk all the air room. Every time I told him about my school, he would wrap himself with his arms, furrow his brow, duck his head, then go off somewhere quiet. I never knew what to make of that, but I’m sure it was because… because.
Sometimes, steps were too big. Mama didn’t like me leaving any more than me and Benny did. She wasn’t so scared of me moving to California as much as she was that I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a politics major. She told me she was worried someone would say some shit to me or beat my ass or something if I did something out of line, but I told her I wasn’t worried about that. She knew more than anything that I was growing too big and ambitious, and she couldn’t stop me. She didn’t want me to come home with my tail between my legs because I got too confident. I understood what she was saying, but I wasn’t scared. Actually, I was excited to go. I wanted to come home with the right scars.
That final car ride to the airport was silent. Mama was driving and Benny was sitting next to me, since that was the last time I’d see him until whenever I got home. I convinced myself not to cry, because shit would start falling apart right then if I did. Instead, we talked about the weather in California. We talked about the rumor that it’s always sunny and nice there, and that sometime we should spend the summer in San Francisco, since my school was close by. As we exited the freeway, I saw the planes. There was mine, with the blue tail and nose. It wasn’t mine mine, but it was from the same company. I pointed it out to Benny to rip the bandaid off, saying it looks like a bluebird. When I did, he couldn’t take his eyes off it for at least a full minute. From where I was sitting, it didn’t look like he was about to get upset. I’ll never tell Mama this, but when she stopped the car at the front of the terminal, I fainted a little. That same second, I was able to come back and grab my backpack, but I stopped breathing at one point, I just forget when.
I gave Mama a hug first. I knew it would be easier. When I gave Benny his, I didn’t feel like crying. I was surprised. I felt his heartbeat against mine, and both of us were calm. I didn’t know what to think of it. When I held his shoulders and looked into his big brown eyes, I remember we both smiled. Maybe for different reasons. I told him I was excited to come back and be a warrior just like Optimus Prime, and he laughed at that. He said he loves me and he’ll miss me. That struck a chord in my heart, but I was still pretty okay. I gave them each one more hug, then I got to the gate.
When the teller asked for my boarding pass, I heard some clutter bouncing around in my backpack. I knew my boarding pass was in my bag, because I remembered to slide it in one of my school folders so that it won’t get crumpled. When I couldn’t get it out immediately, I stepped to the side of the line. There was so much stuff in my backpack that I eventually dumped it out on the ground to get the folder. That was when I started crying.
Wrapped in at least three grocery store rubber bands were nine or ten bags of pop rocks. They were mostly different flavors, but like five of them were cherry, since he knew those were my favorite. Next to them was a cardboard crown from Burger King. I knew which one it was from. The way Benny folded it, I could tell he was trying to hide it for me to see later. Next to that was the VHS of The Return of Optimus Prime. His fingerprints were still on it. Fuck. I couldn’t stop crying. That flight was the longest I had in my life.