Months ago, a friend of mine invited me to participate in a literary event, which included submitting several pieces to a juried magazine. As usual, I’d been juggling a lot of other things at the time and looked for several reasons to decline since participation involved an overnight trip. After he sent me a copy of last year’s magazine, however, I was convinced.
At least I didn’t have to write any new pieces, thanks to past essays I’d written for the Austin Writers Roulette. As a matter of fact, I submitted pictures of myself in the costume that accompanied those essays. I sent more than what was needed just to give them a selection to choose from and, of course, because my writing, in some circles, may be considered a little controversial.
Fast forward to the first Wednesday in September. Allegedly, GPS doesn’t navigate well to my friend’s house. Plus, he had to send me a picture of his house since he’d planted large shrubs in front for privacy. Oh, and the name on his mailbox isn’t his.
So, he emailed me his best recollection of the driving directions,
but following them was more like a scavenger hunt. I had to call him twice for clarification because the terrain didn’t match the instructions. I wasn’t going to stop and ask anyone.
My general philosophy about living in Texas has been that I live in Austin, which happened to be in Texas like a liberal island, surrounded by a sea of conservatism. I drive around the greater Austin area and occasionally Houston, and fly in and out of Austin, but never in the 10 years of being an Austinite have I driven to a Texan podunk town.
My nervousness about driving out of the liberal oasis manifested in thinking that one of my tires seemed a little wonky. I kept praying that I wouldn’t have a blowout since I didn’t want to suddenly have to discover just how racist people were if my car broke down.
Once I pulled into my friend’s driveway, instead of getting out of the car, as I would have normally done, I called him to verify that I was in the right place. I described his truck and his grown son’s car because, as I joked with him, “I sure in the hell don’t want to knock on the wrong white person’s front door!”
He gifted me a bottle of red wine, not merely because I’m a red wine drinker,
but he thought it was funny to give a former math teacher wine that had “Trig” in its name. I was more than ready to have a glass of wine once I arrived although I had a glass of merlot that was already opened along with a grandma’s slice of homemade chicken pot pie.
Then, I brushed my teeth, washed my face and changed into a dress that accompanied one of the things I’d planned to read at the literary event. My friend and one of his NY poet friends were also reading during our shared 45-min segment. I teased my friend about importing two black women for this thing. He told me that black people only made up about 1% of the population; however, he needn’t have added the Klan rally stories he “entertained” us with on the drive over to the event.
Even the poet shared how her grown children had advised her to call them periodically because they feared her being in the middle of Klan country. We were all banking on the fact that since this literary event was sponsored by a university, we’d have a liberal audience.
Once we arrived, we set up our books in the reception area. Fortunately, the walls were pillow padded since they regularly displayed art. I’d bought push pins to hang up my poster.
We walked across the yard to the conservatory building where we’d perform.
Although we arrived a few minutes “late,” the organizers were still putting the final touches on the tech equipment. I’d only seen the computer and projector, but the last performer actually used a microphone, which would have been a good option for all of us had we’d known about it.
Together, we represented a variety of creative forms:
poetry, music, clothing, essays and paintings.
My friend started off by explaining how his two books were published by a small press,
in which his NY poet friend appeared in both and I appeared in the second.
She read some beat style poetry to my friend’s flute improvisations.
Then, it was my turn. Normally, I’m not too nervous to perform, but I worried that this audience may have been far too conservative to appreciate my liberal bent. So, I eased into it.
First, I explained that the 12-doll pattern cutouts of curly Afro’d women represented the 12 generations of mothers in my lineage. Then I read the accompanying piece, “All-Knowing Mother,” a Mother’s Day tribute to the generations of black women’s mother wit. Toward the end of the piece, it laments about how much of their knowledge had been lost during the time blacks were not legally allowed to be literate. If any conservative member of the audience winced at my references to slavery, I didn’t detect it.
Instead, I segued to my next reading selection by saying, “If nothing in that first piece shocked you, then surely this will.” I explained that my first novel was a racy story about a woman looking for Mr. Right and still being smart about it. I tested the waters by reading the first sentence in the book. I paused after nervous laughter broke out when I said, “vibrator.” I eyed the crowd and asked, “Shall I continue?” They laughed again, so I continued.
After a few short paragraphs, I read one sentence with so much gusto that I merely had to dramatically pause and look at the audience again for them to fill in the blank of the male body part that I hadn’t said. More laughter. By the time I got to the phrase “cock block,” the audience was prepared to hear a vulgar action verb.
I’d only read the first page and a half from my book, but I’d worked it for every glorious, scandalized word and thought it conveyed. The audience greatly rewarded my performance with their clapping. At that point, I had completely forgotten my paranoia of reading in a conservative part of Texas.
During intermission, a woman beat a path to me. Not only did she buy the copy of the book that I’d read from, but we had a very touching conversation about how she strongly identified with the whole pursuit of love and still have a sense of integrity. We also talked about the writing process. I only gave her two pieces of advice: consider self-publishing to minimize the gate keepers and definitely pay to have professional editors tear her manuscript apart. I admitted to paying 2 different editors before I published Tribe.
Once the event was over, the host’s father approached me, saying that he loved my dress, but unfortunately couldn’t hear what I was reading. I reached into my purse, and gifted him the print out of “All-Knowing Mother.”
In the reception area, one of the servers confessed that many of them had thumbed through my book and had thoroughly enjoyed my writing. After so many years of not reading from Tribe to an audience, I was as entertained by their discovery of this story as they were to the story itself.
I paired a glass of red wine with a chocolate and coconut dessert, magic bars, that Mom used to make when I was growing up and sat down beside a woman who turned out to be the writer in residence for the university that sponsored the literary event.
Throughout our conversation, newly won fans of Tribe paid me for a copy of the book and handed it to me to sign. Experience definitely pays off. Instead of asking them their name, I personalized it by writing everyone a unique message, signing my name, and dating it. No more worrying about if I spelled their name correctly.
Once we returned to my friend’s house, we ate more savory food since the reception was more of a dessert and drink event. I didn’t mind starting with dessert first, but that didn’t do much for actual hunger. Afterwards, I showered and went to bed. I was happy that they were also ready to go to bed. Normally, I wouldn’t have gone to bed quite that early, but after worrying while driving and worrying before reading, I was more than ready to rest for the drive back the following morning.
I’d repeatedly said that I wasn’t getting up early and I didn’t. At least for me. I got up my normal time, ate breakfast, packed up and had brushed my teeth before my friend woke and asked if he should make me breakfast. Ha! At that point, all I needed to do was put my things in the car and drive home.
Since I’d just driven there in less than 24 hours ago,
the route was still fresh in my mind and I had no problem reversing the trip–except for when I came upon a slow procession. At first I couldn’t make out what I was seeing because I couldn’t readily process a fishing trawler traveling by land. With police escorts in the front and wing cars on either side. That entourage delayed me by at least an hour.
Even so, I didn’t stop off to gas up my car until I got to Georgetown. I figured that was close enough to Austin that my presence wouldn’t trigger a “gassing up while black” interaction.
I’m well aware that just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean that nothing would have happened had the general population known of my presence. I’m just happy nothing bad happened and I got to share my work with people who had not previously heard of me.