Tweety Bird's GraceBy Diana McClure
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Somewhere in Brooklyn....
As I sat at my window I saw the white plumes of my neighbors smoke wafting through the air, backlit by a glorious Sunday morning sun. Still green leaves, a backdrop to our moment of shared intimacy. He did not know I was perched one story above him. It was ganja he was smoking, not a cigarette.
He was fat and porous and his caramel skin had a putrid green under-glow suggesting a poor diet. Little beady eyes dotted his face and his quick jerky smile never stayed visible for long. It was easily swished swashed away with his talking hands.
I’d seen him around the neighborhood for years and been in group smack talking sessions with him a few times. His jittery bald headed antics had earned him the nickname Tweety Bird. Every now and then, perched at my front window, I saw him pop in and out of our local bodega to buy cigarettes. Usually he’d stop right outside the store, stand sway backed, ass out, look left then right, light up, and strut down the block all eyes on me style.
I often heard Tweety Bird below me tinkering around in his apartment, television voices shifting and flickering every few seconds, volume on loud for both gangsta rap and classical music. Somehow, we never crossed paths inside our three-story walk-up.
Sometimes he'd bang pots and pans around. It seemed like it was on purpose. A form of self imposed distraction. There was no way someone could actually like to make that much noise.
Word on the street was he worked in the music business, a low level hustler doing roadie work on hip-hop tours. There were weeks at a time when all I heard below me was the sound of silence. I assumed that was when Tweety Bird was gone.
***
Once the earthy green scent of cannabis faded into the atmosphere I decided to stick my head out the window and take a peak. Tweety Bird wasn’t there. Instead a woman with dusty elbows resting on the windowsill had her head hung low. Her long Brazilian Keratin black hair obscured her face like a helmet. It dangled dangerously close to the ember tip of a spliff held roughly between her red fingernails. She seemed lost in the moody morning like me.
The 100-foot tall trees in the yards of our neighborhood’s attached townhouses created a block long forest. It was silent, barely in bloom. The breeze did not move. For some reason the birds were quiet. There was no fire escape on our building, a definite violation I assumed.
“Grace...! Mamí...! Dónde está my kicks?” a husky voice said in Spanglish.
“Boooyy, who you barkin’ at? It’s too early for that mess. Don’t start.” said the long-haired woman.
Apparently, her name was Grace.
Their voices sounded clear and righteous, banter that echoed in the morning light, rattling the trees and urban animal life. A squirrel jumped and scurried up a branch just as Grace tucked her head inside, turned around and splayed her wide bottom on the windowsill. She was wearing tight shorts. Her honey colored torso peaked out of a black tank top. It looked stocky. A faint dusting of hair whispered across her lower back.
I could see because I had tilted a magnification mirror, secured with the half-open screen, on the edge of my window - a.k.a. snooping without sticking my head out. At heart I was quietly nosy. Some people called it curious.
I could only hear muffled voices now. It sounded like Lucy or Snoopy talking on the old Peanuts Charlie Brown TV shows. A musical murmur that indicated whatever was being said was irrelevant to the story. Grace’s backside fidgeted on the windowsill trying to make more room for her seat. Unable to adjust to a comfortable position she stood up, pulled down the screen and adjusted some sheer curtains.
My view was gone. I moved the mirror and decided to stick my head out to enjoy the sunlight and do some bird watching. One particular Red Robin always frequented the trees outside my window. I’d taken to thinking of him as a sign of good luck. A cosmic hello. I always looked for him.
Pink blooms were starting to unwind on my neighbor’s tree. I’d been looking forward to it since last spring, waiting anxiously in the lagging days of winter. As I took in the emerging jungle-like canopy I wondered what Tweety Bird and Grace were doing downstairs. They hadn’t made a peep since she closed the curtains.
“BLAM!” A door slammed.
“Click clack, Click clack, Click clack….” The sound of heels trotting down the steps with intention rang through the stairwell.
Our apartment doors were paper thin. The cheapest ones our landlord could find at Home Depot. Everything was cheap in the building - five dollar toilet seats, faux silver sink faucets, cold white wall paint, loose door knobs. The price of cheap rent.
I ran to the front of my apartment to look down at the street and see if I could catch a glimpse of Grace.
I caught her back. She had on red stilettos, spandex pants and a black fedora that shielded her profile. Grace waddled when she walked. Her heels were shaky, stretched to capacity for large feet. She seemed to know how to leverage her weight to keep her heft in order. It was impressive.
Just as I was beginning to make a bit of sense out of the woman I heard a screen below me slide up as fast as the slamming door five minutes before. A golden baldhead jutted out yelling,
“Oye! Grace! Mujer! Where you going? Ven aquí!”
The voice husky and commanding seemed to waft right past deaf ears. Grace didn’t even twitch at its sound, or her own name. But she did hear it, her rebuttal a slower swankier version of her waddle.
I imagined she was grinning, smirking, or better yet laughing, on the inside. Lost in thought, living vicariously through Grace, I chuckled out loud and let my head linger outside the window a little too long. The baldhead below twisted up, neck flab holding up a face I didn’t recognize. As he glared at me startled at the interloper above him, his flabbergasted bulging eyes bubbling off his face, he bellowed,
“Damn, Tweety Bird! Estos son mis zapatos! Son of a bitch...”
As I sat at my window I saw the white plumes of my neighbors smoke wafting through the air, backlit by a glorious Sunday morning sun. Still green leaves, a backdrop to our moment of shared intimacy. He did not know I was perched one story above him. It was ganja he was smoking, not a cigarette.
He was fat and porous and his caramel skin had a putrid green under-glow suggesting a poor diet. Little beady eyes dotted his face and his quick jerky smile never stayed visible for long. It was easily swished swashed away with his talking hands.
I’d seen him around the neighborhood for years and been in group smack talking sessions with him a few times. His jittery bald headed antics had earned him the nickname Tweety Bird. Every now and then, perched at my front window, I saw him pop in and out of our local bodega to buy cigarettes. Usually he’d stop right outside the store, stand sway backed, ass out, look left then right, light up, and strut down the block all eyes on me style.
I often heard Tweety Bird below me tinkering around in his apartment, television voices shifting and flickering every few seconds, volume on loud for both gangsta rap and classical music. Somehow, we never crossed paths inside our three-story walk-up.
Sometimes he'd bang pots and pans around. It seemed like it was on purpose. A form of self imposed distraction. There was no way someone could actually like to make that much noise.
Word on the street was he worked in the music business, a low level hustler doing roadie work on hip-hop tours. There were weeks at a time when all I heard below me was the sound of silence. I assumed that was when Tweety Bird was gone.
***
Once the earthy green scent of cannabis faded into the atmosphere I decided to stick my head out the window and take a peak. Tweety Bird wasn’t there. Instead a woman with dusty elbows resting on the windowsill had her head hung low. Her long Brazilian Keratin black hair obscured her face like a helmet. It dangled dangerously close to the ember tip of a spliff held roughly between her red fingernails. She seemed lost in the moody morning like me.
The 100-foot tall trees in the yards of our neighborhood’s attached townhouses created a block long forest. It was silent, barely in bloom. The breeze did not move. For some reason the birds were quiet. There was no fire escape on our building, a definite violation I assumed.
“Grace...! Mamí...! Dónde está my kicks?” a husky voice said in Spanglish.
“Boooyy, who you barkin’ at? It’s too early for that mess. Don’t start.” said the long-haired woman.
Apparently, her name was Grace.
Their voices sounded clear and righteous, banter that echoed in the morning light, rattling the trees and urban animal life. A squirrel jumped and scurried up a branch just as Grace tucked her head inside, turned around and splayed her wide bottom on the windowsill. She was wearing tight shorts. Her honey colored torso peaked out of a black tank top. It looked stocky. A faint dusting of hair whispered across her lower back.
I could see because I had tilted a magnification mirror, secured with the half-open screen, on the edge of my window - a.k.a. snooping without sticking my head out. At heart I was quietly nosy. Some people called it curious.
I could only hear muffled voices now. It sounded like Lucy or Snoopy talking on the old Peanuts Charlie Brown TV shows. A musical murmur that indicated whatever was being said was irrelevant to the story. Grace’s backside fidgeted on the windowsill trying to make more room for her seat. Unable to adjust to a comfortable position she stood up, pulled down the screen and adjusted some sheer curtains.
My view was gone. I moved the mirror and decided to stick my head out to enjoy the sunlight and do some bird watching. One particular Red Robin always frequented the trees outside my window. I’d taken to thinking of him as a sign of good luck. A cosmic hello. I always looked for him.
Pink blooms were starting to unwind on my neighbor’s tree. I’d been looking forward to it since last spring, waiting anxiously in the lagging days of winter. As I took in the emerging jungle-like canopy I wondered what Tweety Bird and Grace were doing downstairs. They hadn’t made a peep since she closed the curtains.
“BLAM!” A door slammed.
“Click clack, Click clack, Click clack….” The sound of heels trotting down the steps with intention rang through the stairwell.
Our apartment doors were paper thin. The cheapest ones our landlord could find at Home Depot. Everything was cheap in the building - five dollar toilet seats, faux silver sink faucets, cold white wall paint, loose door knobs. The price of cheap rent.
I ran to the front of my apartment to look down at the street and see if I could catch a glimpse of Grace.
I caught her back. She had on red stilettos, spandex pants and a black fedora that shielded her profile. Grace waddled when she walked. Her heels were shaky, stretched to capacity for large feet. She seemed to know how to leverage her weight to keep her heft in order. It was impressive.
Just as I was beginning to make a bit of sense out of the woman I heard a screen below me slide up as fast as the slamming door five minutes before. A golden baldhead jutted out yelling,
“Oye! Grace! Mujer! Where you going? Ven aquí!”
The voice husky and commanding seemed to waft right past deaf ears. Grace didn’t even twitch at its sound, or her own name. But she did hear it, her rebuttal a slower swankier version of her waddle.
I imagined she was grinning, smirking, or better yet laughing, on the inside. Lost in thought, living vicariously through Grace, I chuckled out loud and let my head linger outside the window a little too long. The baldhead below twisted up, neck flab holding up a face I didn’t recognize. As he glared at me startled at the interloper above him, his flabbergasted bulging eyes bubbling off his face, he bellowed,
“Damn, Tweety Bird! Estos son mis zapatos! Son of a bitch...”