The Avocado
“In 1971, drunk on the sweet, sweet juice of
revolution,
a crew of us marched into the president’s office with a
list
of demands,” the black man tells us at the February
luncheon,
and I’m pretending I haven’t heard this one before as I
eye
black tortillas on a red plate beside a big green bowl
of guacamole made from the whipped, battered remains
of several harmless former avocados. If abolitionists had a
flag
it would no doubt feature the avocado, also known as the
alligator
pear, for obvious reasons. “Number one: reparations!
Enough gold to fill each of our women’s wombs, gold
to nurse our warriors waiting to enter this world with
bright fists,
that’s what we told them,” the man says, and I’m
thinking
of the money-colored flesh of the avocado, high in
monosaturates;
its oil content is second only to olives. I am looking
at Yoyo’s caterpillar locks dangle over her ear. I dare
you
to find a lovelier black woman from Cincinnati, where the
North
touches the South. “Three: we wanted more boulevards
named for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. An
airport
named for Sojourner Truth.” The roots of the avocado tree
can raise pavement, so it’s not too crazy to imagine the
fruit
as a symbol of revolt on the abolitionist flag. We are all
one kind
of abolitionist or another, no doubt. And we are like the
avocado too
with its inedible ruby-colored seed that can actually sprout
from inside
when the fruit is overmature, causing internal molds and
breakdown.
“Demand number twenty-one: a Harriet Tubman statue on the
mall!”
Brother man is weeping now and walking wet tissue to the
trash can
and saying, “Harriet Tubman was a walking shadow,” or,
“Harriet Tubman
walked in shadows,” or, “To many, Harriet Tubman was a
shadow
to walk in,” and the meaning is pureed flesh with lime
juice,
minced garlic, and chili powder; it is salt, and the
pepper
Harriet Tubman tossed over her shoulder to trouble the
bloodhounds.
Many isolated avocado trees fail to fruit from lack of
pollination.
“Goddamn, ain’t you hungry?” I whisper to Yoyo, and she puts
a finger
to my lips to distract me. Say, baby, wasn’t that you waking
me up
last night to say you’d had a dream where I was a big
luscious mansize
avocado? Someone’s belly is growling. “We weren’t
going
to be colored, we weren’t going to be Negro,” the man
says,
and I’m thinking every time I hear this story it’s the one
telling the story
that’s the hero. “Hush now,” Harriet Tubman probably
said
near dawn, pointing a finger black enough to be her pistol
barrel
toward the future or pointing a pistol barrel black
enough
to be her finger at the mouth of some starved, stammering
slave
and then lifting her head to listen for something no one but
her could hear.
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