Blind Ambitions Read online

  She was fingering the black mudcloth he had hanging against the wall. It had the stick-figure shapes of a herd of white antelope running across a beige African plain.

  Jackson’s heavy feet hit the floor. He leaned forward, slapping his palms against his desk, staring at her in disbelief.

  “Sharon, you must’ve been smoking today, to drop some foolishness like that!”

  “I’m just talking.” Sharon sighed, wandering around the room again. “Don’t mind me.”

  “Naw, naw … we need to talk about this,” he insisted, his eyes following her. “All we need is for some white studio head to hear you poppin’ that nonsense. That defies everything I stand for.”

  Sharon cut her eyes at him as she neared his desk.

  “Jackson, you know that’s something I would never say to anybody but a close, close friend, of which, I think, I only have four. Maybe five. One’s in a holding pattern right now.” She lethargically slapped him on the shoulder as she passed behind him again. “Come on. I’m just tired. I’m restless. I don’t need no Afrocentric lectures today. I’m down for the cause, alright? Ungawa. Black power. Asalaam Alaikum, and all that shit.”

  Sharon stood in front of him, held up her left fist, then pounded it against her chest in a pseudo pro-black, Pan-African gesture. She contorted her face into a serious freedom-fighting scowl. Jackson laughed. She let out a deep breath and sat on the side of his massive mahogany desk, facing him.

  “I don’t know,” Jackson said. “Sometimes I don’t think you West Indians understand the plight of the African-American. Y’all don’t take the struggle seriously enough.”

  “I dare you to go to Jamaica and say that,” she replied, reaching over and picking a piece of lint from one of his twisties. She flicked it into the air. “By the time you leave, you’ll have so many footprints stamped on your ass, they’ll spell out Marcus Garvey.”

  He roared with laughter, the chewing stick dropping from his mouth onto the floor. He leaned down, picked it up, and stuck it right back in his mouth.

  “Shorty, you’re something else. But you know I’m right. You know I’m speaking the truth.”

  “Whatever,” she sighed. “Like white folks know the difference anyway. We’re all black, and ain’t hardly none of us in this industry working.”

  “Bourgie island girl,” he teased in a dreadful patois, “act like me nah just tell her she gwine get a check for two hundred grand in tree days.”

  “Keep messing me with and my people, and I’m gon’ start Marcus’s name off for them.” Jackson smiled.

  “You know you’re my girl.”

  “Yeah … well.”

  She toyed with a rock on his desk.

  “Where’d you get this?” she asked, regretting the question almost as soon as it exited her mouth.

  Jackson took a deep breath and launched into exposition.

  “An aborigine gave me that. Actually, no, wait … I’m wrong. The aborigine gave me this didgeridoo.”

  He picked up a flute-looking thing and showed it to her. Sharon was mentally kicking herself.

  “I got that rock from a Maori woman when I shot that Lil’ Kirn video in New Zealand.”

  Somehow Lil’ Kim and New Zealand didn’t seem to go together in the same sentence, and Sharon’s head began to swim.

  “You ever been to New Zealand?” he asked, off and running on another potentially lengthy topic. “The Maori people are amazing. Did you ever see that Maori flick where the husband was kicking the wife’s ass on the regular? What was the name of it? They had a whole bunch of kids. That shit was marvelous. A Maori guy directed it. He’s done some other flicks, too. What was his name? Sounds Japanese, but trust me, it’s Maori. Guerrilla filmmaking, man. The real deal. Now that’s the kind of stuff—”

  “Jackson!”

  “What?!” he asked with alarm, annoyed at breaking his accelerated rhythm.

  “Stop. Count to ten. Take a breath. I’m not going anywhere, alright? You don’t have to talk me to death all in one sitting.”

  Jackson pursed his thin lips together.

  “You sure that Maori woman gave you this rock?” Sharon asked with a slight smile. “Or could it be she was throwing it at you? I’m inclined to believe the latter. Folks’ll do anything to shut you up.”

  “You’re lucky you know me, shorty. Anybody else would get pimp-smacked for popping some yang like that, and for cutting me off.”

  “I once saw George Will cut you off during a roundtable debate,” she said, smiling.

  “Yeah, and George Will almost got pimp-smacked. He saw my hand poised and itchy. That’s why he didn’t cut me off anymore.”

  Jackson had his hand pulled back, in position, demonstrating his pimp-swing.

  Sharon chuckled. She needed to leave. Before the rain, and before she collapsed on the floor from sheer exhaustion right in front of Jackson’s feet. Something like that would really have him running his mouth.

  “Alright, shorty, what’s the deal?” Jackson asked, as if reading her mind. He was leaning back in his chair again, peering at her with small black eyes. “Why are you so restless? I could tell you were kinda absent when I was telling you about the film and the budget. I expected you to be jumping off the walls. Two hundred thousand is usually enough to make me want to raise the roof.”

  Sharon studied the face of her longtime friend. It was a face of drama, complexity, sometimes even mischief and mayhem, but behind it was one of the most underappreciated minds she’d ever known. She considered Jackson’s work genius, and his style of filmmaking awe inspiring and Oscar worthy.

  If only his mouth wasn’t so damn big. Maybe then some of that genius would come shining through to everyone else.

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind, Jackson.”

  “You pregnant?” he flatly asked.

  It was all Sharon could do to keep her eyes from stretching wide. Her heart skipped five fast beats and her pulse jumped.

  “Now why would you say that?” she responded, feigning indifference to his pointed question.

  “I’on know,” Jackson said with a wave of his hand. “That’s usually what’s wrong with females when they got shit on their mind. It was just a wild stab.”

  “Don’t call me a female, like I’m a cow or something. I hate that shit.”

  “Well, with you women, it’s usually your period or the absence thereof. You know I’m right. Come on, tell me I’m wrong. That’s why God made y’all the weaker sex.”

  Jackson was baiting her. She could tell. He wanted conversation and he would do anything to provoke a debate.

  Sharon didn’t respond. Instead, she picked up a framed photograph from his desk. It was a picture of Jackson and his wife, Castanza Nettles, a well-respected field correspondent for CNN. They’d met three years prior at an intimate Upper East Side cocktail party and fundraiser hi support of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Sharon, in New York on other business but invited to the same gathering, had witnessed their karmic connection.

  Castanza had been immediately smitten. Jackson was surprised to find her taken by his unseeming wiles. He considered himself a man who had no rap, no game. Those who really knew him knew otherwise. The five-foot-four, leanly athletic (“chickendiesel,” Brooklyn heads like to call it) Jackson had spent years perfecting his game. He’d done it with his screenplays. He’d mastered it behind the lens.

  His game had obviously worked on Castanza. They married within a month of meeting one another. Less than a year into their marriage, the two had a child, an overstuffed, never-sated, mealymouthed thing named Chakra whom Sharon found almost as noisy as his father. She’d asked Jackson once, during a visit to his brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, what chakra meant. Eager to expound on the subject of anything, he announced it meant wheel, then launched into a windy explanation of how it signified one of seven basic energy centers in the body. Castanza, a yoga freak, backed him up. Sharon heard them say something about “arche-types,” “correlating,” and “ganglia,” but the
rest pretty much faded to black after Jackson said “wheel.” Why anybody would want to name his child Wheel was beyond her comprehension. Not even on a weed high could she conceive of such a thing.

  Chakra was pretty round though, so she figured it made sense. There were plenty of times she’d visited with Jackson and Castanza, in both New York and LA, and found herself wanting to roll their little bad-ass two-year-old right out of the front door.

  Now Castanza was pregnant again, which Jackson found appealing as hell. Those were his exact words. Her full belly was a testament to his virility. Little man or no, he wanted the world to be aware that he was of strong African stock, spitting out seed and populating the earth with a serious ferocity.

  This child was a girl, the ultrasound revealed, and they would name her Kundalini.

  Oh brother, Sharon had thought, when they first told her the news. It sounded a little too close to cunnilingus for her liking and she imagined that, as their daughter got older, her name would get her in a whole lot more trouble than she would probably deserve.

  She never bothered to ask what kundalini meant. Knowing Jackson, it probably meant kill whitey, or something equally excessive. Maybe it really did mean cunnilingus. If she had to ask to find out, Sharon decided that she would never know.

  She gently stroked the glass surface of the photograph in her hand. Jackson watched her curiously.

  There was a patch of dust in the center of the picture, so faint Sharon only noticed it when the light hit the glass at an awkward angle. She ran her index finger across it, wiping it away. It seemed to mar the purity of the image beneath it.

  In the picture, Jackson’s right arm was around Castanza’s waist. They were standing next to a baobab tree in Kenya. (Sharon knew it was Kenya because the two had just returned from the trip in August.) Both were dressed in tribal garb. The picture was striking because Jackson was the same size as his wife, and the two looked like a perfectly matched pair. Gastanza’s clothing was tight across her stomach, compliments of being in the fifth month of pregnancy. Jackson’s left hand was on her belly.

  As Sharon traced her finger across the surface of the glass, she slowly began to smile.

  Jackson’s voice broke her reverie.

  “We took that in Nairobi,” he yammered, ruining the pristine moment. “It was our last stop after checking out Lake Victoria. Hey, did you know that Swahili is not the sole native tongue of Kenya, like most people think?”

  “What?” Sharon answered, lost in the picture. His words descended upon her as if out of a mist.

  “Word, it’s true,” he continued. “Most Kenyans have their own tribal language thing going on. For instance …”

  He took the picture from Sharon’s hand. She instinctively frowned.

  “… during this visit, we stayed with the Masai, and the language they speak is called Maa.”

  Sharon’s head began to swirl again.

  “Stanzi and I stayed at their enkang while we were there,” Jackson said proudly. “I actually slept in an I-manyat. You know what that is?”

  He knows damn well I don’t, Sharon thought. Nor do I give a damn.

  Jackson didn’t bother to wait for her answer.

  “It’s where the warriors live. That’s right, shorty, you’re looking at someone who has slept amongst the warriors.”

  Sharon wished she’d never picked up the picture at all.

  She raised up from the edge of his desk. Her head was a spinning top.

  “I really do have to go, Jackson. When is our first real meeting scheduled?”

  “How about the middle of next week?” he said, rising from his chair. He checked his calendar. “Let’s say Wednesday the twenty-seventh. Here in my office at nine o’clock. We need to go into preproduction ASAP. And don’t worry, I’ll have your contract drafted up with everything just like we discussed. If I can get it for you tomorrow, do you want to sign it then?”

  “Fine. Have it couriered over to Eddie’s so he can look it over first and make sure it’s clean.”

  “Why not your boy Glen?” Jackson asked. “He’s pretty good, from what I understand.”

  “I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

  “I hear that.”

  “Exactly. So, if all is cool and I sign the contract tomorrow, when can I expect my check?”

  “I know you understood my Jamaican accent. I said tree days, not counting the weekend.”

  “Is that supposed to be three you’re saying?”

  “Yup.”

  “Jackson, nobody gets their check in three days. This is Hollywood.”

  “I’ve been waiting on this budget a long time, shorty. Now it’s mine to disburse. We’ve got a lotta shit to do. I’m paying you first so we can get rocking on this thing.”

  “Bet,” she said. “Is it the whole two hundred?”

  Jackson nodded, gnawing on his chewing stick.

  “That’s perfect,” Sharon said, her spirits slightly lifted. “You gonna send it over, or do I need to come and pick it up?”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “I’ll come and pick it up,” she replied. “Three working days is Wednesday next week, so I can just get it when I come back for our first meeting.”

  She made her way to the door, feeling the energy seep from her body with every step. Perhaps it was the weed from the night before that had drained her. She had no business smoking while she was pregnant anyway. She found herself afraid to consider what all that weed might mean for her baby.

  No. Not baby. Fetus. Embryo. Zygote. Gamete.

  She kept trying to reduce the thing within her to its lowest common, detached denominator, but kept coming back to the realization that it was, indeed, a baby. Her baby.

  “What about this business with Jet?” Jackson asked. “I told him that you would call, so he’s expecting to hear from you, and soon. They could use you over there, and I know he’s willing to pay you well.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said with a shrug. “And I’ll definitely call him.”

  “Don’t fuck around and let him put somebody else on, Sharon. There are plenty of people who would leap at the chance.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Yo … one other question,” he said.

  Sharon stopped. She felt the ground sway beneath her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your girl, Desi. What’s she got going on right now?”

  “Actually, she has some irons in the fire that are looking pretty good. Why?”

  “ ’Cause …I’m really feeling her for this film. I think she could portray the hell out of Rita Marley. I’d prefer not to even have to go through the process of auditioning other actresses, that’s how strongly I’m feeling her for the role. I know her steelo, so ain’t no worries there. Put a bug in her ear for me that if she wants the part, it’s hers. She’d be one of the lead characters.”

  “Alright, I’ll tell her,” Sharon replied, “but don’t even front and try to offer her scale.”

  “Come on, Sharon. Who am I?”

  “I’m just saying. If she does take it, you need to come correct with her pay.”

  “No doubt, no doubt. But, yo, answer me this,” he said, chawing on his stick, “does Desi blame me for how the public treated Flatbush Flava? ’Cause I know she had to realize that was just some straight-up playa-hatin’ the media did on me and the film. I’ve offered her parts since then, but she hasn’t bitten.”

  “They’ve been small parts, Jackson,” Sharon said, desperate to leave. “She’s got a name. People know her face. She’d rather pass on a bit part than go back to square one.”

  “Then why’d she do that burger commercial?”

  Sharon waved her hand in the air and made for the door.

  “I’m out. I’ll be sure to tell her what you said.”

  She took three steps, then swooned a little. She stopped and leaned against one of the Ethiopian chairs.

  “Shorty,” Jackson asked, getting up, “
are you sure you’re alright?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sharon said, the room spinning around. She held on tightly to the hard wooden chair. “Just let me rest here for a minute. I should have eaten something this morning. I think my sugar is low.”

  “You hypoglycemic?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I could be.”

  Jackson walked around the desk to Sharon, then led her over to his cushiony leather chair. He gently pushed her into it. He knelt in front of her.

  “Hypoglycemic people know they’re hypoglycemic. You want me to order in some food?”

  “No, no,” she protested, raising her palm. “Really, I’m okay. I had a rough sleep last night, and I think all I need is a quick energy boost. Maybe I’m just carb-depleted.”

  She opened his desk drawer, rooting around through the paper clips, pens, chewing sticks, and assorted invitations to movie premieres.

  “Don’t you keep any candy in here? All I need is something to munch on.”

  “That’s it. I’m ordering you some food.” He pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Khalilah! Bring those menus in here!”

  Sharon mustered enough strength to push herself up from the chair. She stepped around him.

  “I’m out, Jackson. I’m supposed to be meeting somebody in”—she glanced at her watch—“thirty minutes anyhow. If I rush, I can make it.”

  “With the way you look now, you don’t need to be rushing anywhere. You want me to call you a car?”

  “It’s not that hectic, Jackson. I gotta go.”

  She gave him a quick, sincere hug, and cautiously made for the door. Khalilah came in with the menus.

  “Never mind about those,” Jackson told her.

  Khalilah, used to his antics, spun around on her axis and disappeared as quickly as she had arrived.

  “Thanks for looking out for a girl,” Sharon said as she stopped at the door.

  “Always,” Jackson replied. “We go too far back. You’re cool peoples, shorty.”

  “Ditto.”

  Just as she was about to leave, she remembered something.

  “Oh yeah. The name of the movie you were talking about with the Maori people is Once Were Warriors. The director’s name is Lee Tamahori.”