Free Disgruntled by Asali Solomon Page A

and an ugly clay ornament that Kenya had made at Barrett. At the top sat a black angel with a white chip in its cheek.
    “When your father was young,” Grandmama said as they sat at the dining room table, “we would all go with the man who worked for us to chop down a tree. I thought it was splendid fun. But oh, John would moan and groan about the weather.”
    “He never did like the cold,” Sheila said with a distant look.
    “Kenya, we’ll have to take you to the Christmas farm one day to pick out a real tree,” said Grandmama. “You seem like you might be made of some pretty sturdy fiber.”
    More education: sometimes for Christmas the upper classes served slices of turkey and pale stuffing out of Acme supermarket cartons, and gifted ill-fitting sweaters that smelled distinctly like basement. All of this made Kenya feel she had not been cheated by Kwanzaa after all. But then again, Kwanzaa dinner back on Irving Street was an altogether different beast from the one she now shared with her mother on Umoja at the Ardmore Arms. Kenya had never enjoyed listening to her father talk about the stifling confines of the slave hold while supposedly enjoying a holiday. But now she longed to hear anyone talk with interest about anything at all as she pushed around her mother’s brandied chicken, which had been more edible in the pre–Weight Watchers days.
    Though it seemed like it would have been Johnbrown’s idea, Sheila had been the one to push for Kwanzaa. Johnbrown thought Karenga was a huckster who would one day become rich from something called “licensing.” He often brought up the fact that Kwanzaa was an American creation, rather than an African tradition. “It’s a Hanukkah rip,” he had once said, “and that’s barely a real holiday to start with.”
    “So why do we do it?” Kenya had asked.
    “It’s not always about complaining and tearing everything down,” Sheila said firmly. “People need celebrations.”
    The word celebration would not have come to anyone’s mind observing Kenya and her mother during the seven nights of their first holiday in the suburbs. At one time Kenya had viewed the length of Kwanzaa as an advantage over Christmas, which was one lousy day that peaked well before noon. But now, Kenya dreaded each night of Kwanzaa in the Ardmore Arms, where she would face her mother at the kitchen table, making promises like being extra kind to the girls in Daughters of Isis, the black students’ group, and working harder on her math homework. On the second night they hosted Grandmama, who kept saying how interesting it all was and insisted on trying to pronounce the pertinent Swahili words.
    “You know, Kiswahili is not a real language,” she announced, clearing her throat, after a botched attempt to say Kujichagulia . “It’s a mishmash of other languages.”
    “Well, it’s a trading language,” Sheila said without commitment. Kenya noticed that her mother rarely disagreed with Grandmama.
    That night, after Grandmama left, Sheila mysteriously produced a can of beer, which she sipped as she cornrowed Kenya’s hair. They watched It’s a Wonderful Life without really watching, and Kenya remembered her father’s running commentary about “fantasy capitalism.” She recalled that the Seven Days once bitterly debated Christmas and whether it was “categorically antirevolutionary,” as her father put it, which especially angered Earl. As if reading her mind, Sheila said, “They knew.”
    “Who knew what?”
    “All of them knew about your father and Cindalou.”
    Kenya twisted around to look at her mother’s face. “You mean the Days?”
    “Yeah, the Seven Days ,” snorted her mother.
    “Did someone tell you that?”
    “They didn’t have to. How could they not know? And if I know your father, he was building his case to them.”
    “Ow,” Kenya said. Her mother’s braiding became unpredictable when she grew agitated.
    “I know that didn’t hurt,” Sheila said.
    Kenya