Above Sugar Hill – Linda Mannheim

‘My husband,’ she continued, ‘though he was a good and handsome man, sometimes was a lost drunk. When he returned to Ponce, I was alone here with the children, and your father would come with flowers for me and toys for the little ones. Yes, that’s how it started between us. Mi negrito. Imagine if my husband came back and found me with a baby who looked like that.’

Aixa looked up at Doña Alicia’s face now, and in it, she saw her own eyes as if they were dead. She saw Doña Alicia light a cigarette exactly the way she lit hers. She saw hands that were as thick-fingered as her own, even though Doña Alicia tried to make her fingers look slimmer by keeping her nails long and light pink.

She saw Doña Alicia bring the cigarette to her mouth, a lipsticked version of her mouth, and she watched the smoke pour from Doña Alicia’s lips. Doña Alicia spoke then, but Aixa heard her as if she was watching a badly tuned TV channel. Doña Alicia’s lips moved, and Aixa heard a buzzing. The cigarette came to Doña Alicia’s lips, and the buzzing stopped, and then her lips moved and the buzzing continued again – until she heard Doña Alicia say, ‘If I knew you were going to turn out so light, I’d have kept you.’

Aixa got up then, and she reached for her coat, and she left without saying a word, and Doña Alicia didn’t say anything either – just let her go. Aixa walked down 116th, walked to Lexington, and she got on the number 6 train and rode it up to the Bronx, up to Soundview. There was Ricardo, in the apartment he shared with Danilo and Luz. When he opened the door, she fell into his arms, and he leaned over and kissed her neck, and she buried her face in his Afro.

And he was asking, what? Only night in my life, she’ll say years later, I couldn’t say a word. Just took him into that room, with its mattress on the floor and its leaflets lying next to it. Took off his clothes, and took off hers. And after they made love, and he was lying asleep, she read the poem in the Young Lords’ manual by streetlight.

Published by Influx Press Studio 25, The Heartspace, Hackney Downs Studios 15—17 Amhurst Terrace, London. E8 2BT www.influxpress.com All rights reserved. © Linda Mannheim 2014 Copyright of the text rests with the authors. The right of Linda Mannheim to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77 of the copyright, designs and patent act 1988.

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Influx Press. First published 2014 Ebook conversion by leeds-ebooks.co.uk ISBN (pbk) 978-0992765521 ISBN (ebk) 978-1910312001 This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re- sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

1kitap1.com/en Above Sugar Hill Linda Mannheim Influx Press, London 1kitap1.com/en For Abby 1kitap1.com/en Contents Marilyn Monroe on 165th Street Once The Street The Dust That Rises From Bombs Business The Song Jimmy Used to Sing to Drown Out the Sound of the TV Coming From Next Door Tenor When it Breaks Dropping Above Sugar Hill: An Afterword Acknowledgements 1kitap1.com/en Above Sugar Hill Linda Mannheim 1kitap1.com/en Marilyn Monroe on 165th Street When Silvia was a little girl, her sister used to scare her to tears by telling her Marilyn Monroe was coming.

Their mother would be off cleaning someone’s house, and Silvia would be sitting on the dirty carpeting in the living room, cutting shapes from construction paper, lost in thought. And maybe Maria would spot her like that, through the glass-paned door. She would choose just that moment to burst in and scream, ‘Run! Run! Marilyn Monroe is coming!’

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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• Title: –
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• ISBN: 9780992765521, 9781910312001
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