Kwame Mbalia - Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood

HOMEGOING. Thats what Forts mother and Aunt Jess and Mimi called it. Homegoing. Sounded fun, actually, like returning to your own bedroom after sleeping over your cousins house for a week. Or a party at three p.m. every day when school let out to celebrate being done with classes. That wouldve been cool. But homegoing meant something different.

It meant a funeral.

The church marquee read antoinette robinsons homegoing, friday 5:30 p.m., and it was wrong. Nobody knew an Antoinette Robinsonthey called her Aunt Netta. She had the warmest hugs, the biggest smiles, and the sweetest apple turnovers Fort Jones had ever tasted, which she dusted with sugar and served after church services at the repast.

Fort would miss the turnovers, not because they were delicious (they were) or because she made one special for him when he couldnt sit still during the sermon and got sent to the kitchen to help (she always had one set aside), but because as he sat there kicking his feet and eating the hot, sticky dessert, Aunt Netta would sing.

Hed miss the singing too.

Thats what Fort was thinking about when the strange old man appeared in front of him like magic. There Fort was, running out the Grover Street Churchs double doors into the Carolina sun, sprinting through the parking lot to the grassy field on the other side, cuffing the tears out his eyes, when the man materialized out of nowhere. Fort almost managed to pull up and sidestep to the left.

CRASH

Suddenly down was up, left was right, his knee throbbed painfully, and Fort tasted the delightful flavor of dirt. Crunchy dirt. He was going to have to brush his teeth for an hour to get the taste out. But as he lay on his back staring up at the sky thinking of the amount of mouthwash hed need, he heard the strangest thing. Words, yes, but strung together like hed never heard before.

The lightning! Spilled the lightning! And the fireflies, oh, theyll be angry. Hmm, is thatOh, biscuits! The chuckle-snorts!

Fort sat up to find the strange old man on his knees, digging through an overturned wagon with the saddest expression. And if that wasnt weird enough, the mans outfit was. He wore a long capeblack on the outside, purple on the insidesilver pants, mismatched flip-flops with the tag still attached, and, to top it all off, a yellow derby hat with a white feather, the words Gary the Griot stenciled on the brim.