Remember Us
It starts with a full moon
Her neighbor is watching TV (Blue screen)
There were fires occurring near down of Knickerbocker, up Madison, across Cornelia, both ways on Gates Avenue, down Ridgewood Place, rounding corners of Putnam, Wilson, Evergreen…
Evergreen- a family of trees (Name of a block in Brooklyn another way of saying forever)
Word she’ll never forget- Palmetto is a name for a tree and an oversize cockroach (Street name of her old neighborhood)( burned)
The year her neighborhood burned was also the year of Freddy
Freddy moved into the corner building on Palmetto Street right where it was sliced through by a small block called Ridgewood Place
1st time she talked to Freddy was the day he called to her from his window while she was dribbling her basketball through her legs
He asked where's the park
Freddys a little shorter than her and skinny (Light skinned with a short messy afro) (Eyes that were the darkest blue, then gray, then darkest blue again) (Depends on how the sun hit them)
It was 2 on 2 (Her and Randy and two guys from Putnam Avenue) (Randy were winning) (Sage is her name)
She played ball since she was little kid
She is the only girl on the court (Hair back in a braid every day and one of the best players in the park/ wore a BB shirt and high-tops)
She wanted to be around anybody who wanted to talk about Bob McaAddo joining the Knicks and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar leaving the Bucks for the Lakers or who had the most points in a game in history
Wilt Chamberlain- 100 points in 1962 (Freddy said) against the Knicks
Sage is a Knicks fan
They’ve all never been to a real game
She used to be friends with Angie
Every morning her mom laid the Daily news out on their kitchen table and made her read it
A saturday, she saw the words The Bushwick Section Of Brooklyn
This was her dad’s house (Here mom is planning to move because of the fires)
A kid who had lived in the burning building is called Al. Al lives with his aunt and lives over in the Marcy Houses.
Her mom was wearing a red t-shirt with two skeletons and the words GRAND CANYON above them (Her dad and her mom had gone there for their honeymoon)
That day they played 3 on 2 and 2 on 2 and one on one.
She asked her mom if she was going to find a house made of brick
Sage is born two days after Thanksgiving just before the sun rose. Sage was named by her mother (Sage means healing plant)
She was a Sagittarius (Supposed to mean she’s wise, energetic, beyond her years) (a fire sign)
Sage Michael Durham (Michael was after her father)
Her dad is dead
Mom thinks about her dad every night
Dad liked pineapple juice and BBQ potato chips and his steak cooked medium rare. (Tall and dark and smiling) (has a picture of him kept in her wallet) (Was wearing white undershirt and fireman’s pants with the red suspenders holding a fireman’s hat)
He was a firefighter)
Charlie, Isabel, Archie died
Her mom brought blankets, water, and food (Sometimes) to the fire before the firefighteres did (For the people) (She let them cry)
They were standing in a small group looking at Palmetto (Her, Freddy, Randy, and three other guys they'd been playing ball with. Her, Freddy, and nRandy had been in the middle of crushing them when one of the guys said he was gonna go see if he could find anything where the new burnt building sections)
A little kid found blackened Matchbox car
She saw a little boy named Jacob ran over and found the photo (a melted picture frame next to the hydra had a mom stood smiling into the camera holding twins in her arms, behind her the father looked down at he babies) (Blurred at the edges where water had gotten to it)
Freddy treated them to candy because he found a five dollar bills (Soaked din a small pool of water)
They wanted candy buttons and Now and Laters, Milky Ways, and Baby Ruths, licorice strings, and Lemonheads
Jacob likes butterscotches and she likes them too (Jacob asked her if she like butterscotches)
Her mom kept a bag packed for each of them, (Clean underwear, toothbrush and an outfit that she would change with the season) (Her bag had canned goods- corn, beans, SpaghettiOs, and sardines) (An envelope of fives and singles)
She wants to be Superman because she wants to be the strongest one (Freddy said supergirl or superwoman)
Jacob did a standing backflip on the mattress
Freddy calls her ‘slick’ and she also calls Freddy ‘slick’
Jacob cannonballed into the sky again but he landed wrong and started screaming (He didn’t want Sage to tell his mom) He and his friends weren’t supposed to be playing in the burnt-out lots and his ankle was starting to swell
When the fire trucks were close to see, the tiniest kids would yell Hey, Mr. Fireman and the firemen always waved back
The year before she was orn, her father joined the Vulcan Society- a fraternity of Black firefighters from all over the city. He was transferred to Engine 234/Ladder 123 inCrown Heights where there were other Vulcans (He’s the tallest and darkest and the most handsome in their photo)
The firefighters her dad used to work with wouldn’t speak to him and sent him into the most dangerous fires first
A year after he died, the Vulcans came to his funeral
Late in the summer, a yellow cab pulled up in front of Freddy’s building (She and Freddy were eaying the choclate chip cookies her mother ade) (Given each of them four wraped ina anpkin)
Uncle Angel and Aunt Jasmine have came to vist (And his cousins)
ONe of his cousins had reddish hair which were pulled tght into long cornrows, and had brown eyes and looked older than them (She)
Her cousins are Gwen and Shaunessy
Gwen was about her height
Freddy called her the next mornign to see if they (Her and her mom) wanted to come ovver that night for osme New Orleans cooking
She is making beignets (Feddy’s mom) (She has only eaten beignets before from New Orleans food)
The O’Jays album was on teh record playin gthe song “Family Reunion”
Shaunessy is a boy
Etouffee has shrimp
She likes etouffee (It was spicy and warm)
Gwen asks her t owrite to her (Gave her her address in a piece of notebook paper with her name and a small heart beneath it)
Sage asks if Freddy wants to go shoot hoops (he says No)
When she used to walk by the red frie alarm, on teh corner of her block, she used to hug it, now she wants to lift it
She was watching The Wnderfu World of DIsney on a saturday night she saw a public service ad (There was a bear named smokey) (It was about teh fires saying only you can prevent fires)
When the Dutch explorers came, they called this place Boswijck “Little town in the woods)
This used to be the place of the Lenape and the trees
Freddy thinks that it’s like a ghost when they walked past 2 ladies laughing
Freddy moved here from Bronx (to much fire)
His house isn’t there any more after he moved
The daily news called their neighborhood the matchbox
Her mom sits at the kitchen table staring at her wedding photo
It is toward the end of June, the raining season
She saw a boy, tall and wide-shouldered, asked her what type of girl are you (she thought he wanted to one on one)
The boy stole her ball
It started raining
The basketball was her dads (A Rawlings he’d had in college)
The hung her dads Knick shirt over her chair to dry ( that afternoon)
She has an old poster of Julius Erving
Her dream was to grow six feet tall dn smashing the all into the basket
Her mom worked in the main office of a high school in Manhattan (since she was off during the summer too, we usually took a vacation in August to Disneyland once, Peg Leg Bates’ country a club upstate a lot)
She wants to tell her mom about the boy
She took another of her basketballs out of the closet
Sage asks her mom if she’s pretty (mom says yes)
There was a box of matches on the counter beside the stove that they used when the igniter didn’t catch
She burned a roll of toilet paper attached to the bathroom door
The fire that killed her father had been caused by frayed wires hidden in he all’s of a. I.ding in downtown Brooklyn
Her mom hid the matches after the fire and asked sage who are you
She was grounded for a month
She sees cats in all colors roam in their backyard
She saw apAngie play handball with some other girls against the factory wall in the corner
When they turned ten, their relationship changes
She had been the fastest kid on the block
She saw Mr. Jolly outside when she when to go to the bathroom (called Mr. Jolly because he was always whistling but now he was dead quiet while walking toward the corner)
He pulled out a painbrush fro the bucket and paint teh handle of he fire alarm He’d used ink on the alarm, black ink that in the humidity o the summer wouldn’t dry
She found out when he saw him chase two boys with ink on their fingers
Maybe Mr. Jolly was out own Smokey the Bear (Sage thinks)
The world knew she was Liden and Putname and Gates and WOodbine adn Palmetto streat
Her mom and her where the only people on their block who didn’t attend church and their neightbor ,Mrs. Peat, offten stopped them on teh street to invite them to go with her
One Sunday, shwe saw a little’ kids’ head three rows in front of her had heart-shaoed patch of white hair just behind his left hear (Jacob)
Three days later Jacob died in a fire
Mrs. Peat told them
They went to jacobs funeral and she sat between Mrs. Peat and her mom (Everyonein the neighborhood seemed to be there and Freddy wa ina dark suit sitting between hsim om and dadd. Angie with ehre little sister and mother)
The twin girls who lived down the block stumbled past her on matching sliver skates (She couldn’t tell them apart) and Angie , her little sister, and some others came around the corner (Two of the girls with her were siters who lived onCornelia street. She the one called Samara was the same age as her and Angie)
Shes not at the part
Some kids said that a dog ha been hit by a car on the corner of Knickerbocker and Madison
The dogs eyes were only half closed and he was wearing a red collar (She turned it over to look for an address but only foudn the name Spottie written int eh black marker)
She touched the dog and a kid from teh block told her not to (Disgusting)
Later, the street cleaner came down Kinckerbocker spraying bleach0scented water over the place where Spottie had been
Freddy came the next with his baskball
She needs new sneakers first to play ball with him
Eachmornign she worke the sound of her mother’s typewriter
Her motehr hugged her in teh mornign tight
Some days when freddy came, the put record on teh platyer (They couldn’t afford whole record albums so they settled for the single songs on the 45s)
if the record was scrathed, the needle skipped and parts of the songs repeated them selves (THey listened to Michael Jackson A-Bs and Donny Osmond0 One bads)
Durning theat summer a song coming out ffrom a teenagers’ radio caught her ears (Jose Feliciano. and id blind)
She baught a called “Light my fire” ont he B side.
Her mom braught her a brand new pair of white All Stars with black laces
Randy got sage on his team
On one of the last days of summer, her mom told her she was mobinhg intoa house made of brick (Jangling soundswere keys that her mom held above her) (She signed the paperwork yesterday)
vShe moving in teh Queens (In Hollis, not far, you can take a train and then a bus)
Mrs. Peat in her chruch dress and hat handed her a gift-wrapped Bible and a hug (Mr. Jolly and lots of the neighborhood kids came to say goodbye) (The block cam eto say good bye)
Freddy gave her a basketball needle (He was going to put this in her mailbox)
Freddy told her to make it to the NBA
Her new house was made of brick and a bunny ran across the front lawn when their car pulled up to it (It was the beginning of September)
Her families have moved from places like East New York, the SOuth Bronx, Bushwick, and Brownville and the Daily News had something to say about it
on the first day of school, a girl named Lisa sat hehind her. (ONe of ther eyes was bigger than the other and was a startling nlue)( She lost that eye in an accident because of glass)
Kids bullied Lisa for it
One saturday, her mother and her took a bus andt hen a train tot Coney Island (freddy was in Bronx with his cousins)
It s so quiet in Hollis
She doesn’t beliveve in ghosts
Her mom tells here to remember everyhintg (Write it somewhere more permanent, she says her mom is the writer and her mom said maybe she’s a writer too)
Knicks has Earl the Pearl and Walk Frazier (Freddy thinks they’re going to win)
She was still mad that she missed going to Coney Island
one morning, she got to school ong before the first bell hoping tofinsih a science project that was due that afternoon and she saw Lisa polaying basketball
Lisa’s eye is supposed to be brown, not blue (They made a mistake) (The government paid for it and she has to wait to out grow this one until she can get the next one)
Lisa moved form teh Bronx because of the fire (She got brunt out)
Lisa said that she’s not hooking her rist enough
Lisa has five brothers that aare all older than her and her mom always mdae them take her to the park (Sh took a shot and missed and Sage took it and made a layup
There was a not that asked her does she liek to play basket ball , is she a girl, and to come to the ousdie court tuesday 3:30 sharp
That tuesday she got the the court at 3:15
Her ball needs air (sage’s) but she only has a needle, not apump (Lisa brings it tomrorow)
A side foor opend adn three girls came (the tallest girl asked them if they were playing a game and shot and missed)
One asked to give it five minutes cause they have 3 other firends coming
Everyone was talking about jealous guys, Knicks and the Philadelphia 76ers, and basketball sneakers
tall girl was Bea
Sage chose Lisa
Bea called for one of the twins (They played till streetlights cacme on)
Shes five eight now (Mr. Jolly asked if she was 6 feet niow)
Seventh grade got more familiar
Fereedy moved to Queens or Long Island (they bought a house and it has a pool in his backyard)
Freeddy asked her where the parks at
They’d walk to a cafe , where they ordered hot chocolate and beignets
She looked at the window and could see the year passing; His mom had a bag of Abon spraying perfume onto her mother’s wrister and his cousins were there dancing to the O’Jays and Jacob was there too.