My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich: Chapters 1–7

It’s star date 06.23.1984 and I’m now E-Grace Starfleet, space cadet, on a mission to rescue the great and wise Captain Fleet!

The stewardess hands me a bag just in time and up come Momma’s grits and cheese and ham and eggs.

There’s nothing out-of-this-world about a too-stiff white shirt, ugly pleated skirt, lace-trimmed socks, a greasy press ’n’ curl, big ol’ glasses, and a tummy that feels like volcanic explosions on the surface of Mars.

When has the brave and powerful Captain Fleet ever needed saving? Never ever. Not when the Sonic King threatened to destroy the Uhura with a single meteor. Not when his evil little minions, the Funkazoids, led Captain Fleet on a wild-goose chase all over Planet Boom Box.

Last Tuesday when he called, Daddy sounded happy to have me for a whole week, even though he promised Momma that this time he’d sign me up for a day camp with ballet classes, piano lessons, and math enrichment, as well as making sure that I get to a good church on Sunday.

“Julius, you better keep Ebony-Grace away from all those greasy men and little street urchins!"

I keep my eyes on a lonely blue suitcase as it rides the baggage carousel around and around, through the black curtain leading to the portal and back toward all the people walking away with their own suitcases.

It’s not sudden zero-gravity weightlessness that makes my arms and legs flail like a headless chicken.

A man pulls me off the carousel and back onto the cold, grimy airport floor.

She’s an alien, of course, set out to deliver me to the ruler of this new world, master of no-laughter, leader of Planet No Joke City, the imperious King Sirius Julius: my daddy.

It feels good to be a little insolent, as Momma calls it. She isn’t going to be around for a long while, and I can be as insolent as I want to be.

“Did you build this car yourself, Daddy? Did you make any special modifications?” I ask.

This street is full of fast-walking people packed onto the sidewalk like Granddaddy’s sardines, sitting around on stoops, and everything in between.

An iridescent rainbow forms on the ground and no one seems to care because they run all over it with their bare feet.

I press my face against the window and the water pounds Daddy’s Buick as if it were the torrential rains of the Second Coming, as Momma would say.

I furrow my brows and purse my lips so tight they almost go numb.

They talk at the same time—No Joke City gibberish.

But luckily, my super-duper bionic ears can decipher it all.

But still, they poke and prod and ask more questions.

wait for the atmospheric pressure to squeeze my whole body into a teeny-tiny wormhole in the universe, and I’d zoom up through an invisible portal, catapult into space, and stumble onto the cold, logical metal floors of the Starship Uhura.

Still, those nefarious minions stand right outside the rusted iron gate, shouting their comments and questions. They’re nefarious because they’re so rude and mean.

Music. Heavy bass music like the Sonic Boom from Planet Boom Box. I can see the sound waves vibrating across the roofs of the brownstones forming a force-field around all of Harlem.

When he finally hands me the phone, I step away from him as far as the cord will take me—which is all the way through the narrow hall leading to the foyer.

I pull the long white cord as it spirals along the wall like a vortex. This is like the portal the Uhura has to go through when it leaves Andromeda for a whole other galaxy!

I lick my lips and swallow hard, getting ready to give Momma my very best Funkazoid robot impression: “You. Will. Stay. Away. From. That. Dirty. Shop.”

I know better than to yell at Momma. But she’s all the way down in Huntsville and fortunately she knows nothing about teleporting through spiraling portals.

After such a long trip, I’m expecting a tall pitcher of sweet tea, fried catfish, maybe some grits or black-eyed peas, and a bowl of peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

But Daddy’s kitchen is dark, hot, and musty, unlike my house down in Huntsville with its brand-new General Electric air conditioner.

I’ll make sure to lend her some of my clothes that I sneaked into my suitcase—my NASA, Superman, and Empire Strikes Back T-shirts. Even the new E.T. one that I got from a boy at my old school. I’d traded it for a Transformers T-shirt. I have to hide all these shirts from Momma, who thinks little ladies ought to dress accordingly.

“You wanna go in the fire hydrant instead? Then we can go dry our clothes in the park. Or maybe we could jump some double-Dutch. When my sneakers are wet and I’m jumping rope, they make a squishy sound and it’s like music when we sing ‘Jack be nimble, Jack be quick...’”

We’d already set up a blue tarp in the middle of the yard where scrap metal, car parts, broken appliances, and even pieces of a staircase from someone’s building were stacked up along the gate.

I hummed the theme music from Star Trek. “Space, the final frontier,” I said, deepening my voice as I gathered all my materials in front of me.

The brownstones are lined up next to one another like soldiers—broken, raggedy soldiers. Some are now boarded up with padlocked chains hanging in front of wooden slats instead of doors.

She and her minionettes keep their eyes on me, and my pleated skirt, lace socks, Mary Jane shoes, and stupid curls. I wish I had changed into an appropriate E-Grace Starfleet uniform before braving the streets of No Joke City.

The nefarious minionettes giggle. Another ploy, as Captain Fleet would say, to get me to smile, giggle, or laugh, too.

I block their laser-beam gibberish by throwing up my arms like Wonder Woman with her Bracelets of Submission.

E-Grace Starfleet will not fall under the hypnotic spell of the Sonic Boom!

So I quickly look for an opening on R2-D2, just like when Princess Leia recorded her hologram message to Obi Wan Kenobi.

“And call me Uncle Rich, you hear? Emphasis on the Rich. Words have power coming out of the mouths of children, ain’t that right? They have the ability to manifest.”

And soon, a wide shot of the great and wonderful expanse of outer space shows up on the screen.