Assata Taught Me by Kalungi Ssebandeke

Author:Kalungi Ssebandeke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oberon Books Ltd

ACT TWO

SCENE 1

May 2nd 2016

ASSATA stands as though in a trance.

The knock on the door snaps her out of it.

ASSATA: Who is it?!

FANUCO: (Offstage.) Madam? Madam. It’s Fanuco.

ASSATA: Fanuco?

What are you doing here?

She lets him in before shutting and double locking the door.

He has his back pack on his back and carries the umbrella ASSATA gave him.

FANUCO: I came to…I would like – I would like to apologise. I wasn’t feeling like myself and I was wrong for doing what I did last week.

Short pause.

ASSATA: Fanuco, you gon’ be the death of me if you not careful. I’m too old to be fretting over a boy that don’t respect me but expect me to bend over backwards just so he can learn.

FANUCO: I do respect you, madam.

ASSATA: Respect ain’t in no words. It’s in how you treat the people in your life, how you appreciate them.

FANUCO: I do appreciate you, madam.

ASSATA: There you go with them words again, boy. You just throw them together and hope they stick.

She’s overcome with emotion. Tries not to let the tears fall. FANUCO notices.

FANUCO: Madam, are you okay?

ASSATA: No. No, I am not.

FANUCO: What’s wrong?

Pause.

ASSATA: I’m not who you think I am.

FANUCO: What does that mean?

ASSATA: You need me to teach you everything? What do you think it means?

FANUCO: That you have been lying to me?

ASSATA: I wouldn’t go that far. I just haven’t told you certain things.

FANUCO: Like what?

Pause.

ASSATA: Tupac Shakur.

A glint in his eyes.

FANUCO: Yes?

ASSATA: Well he was my Godson.

FANUCO: Tupac was your Godson?!

ASSATA: Yes and his mother, Afeni who was like a sister to me, passed away last night.

You know what passed away means?

FANUCO: She died.

I am sorry to hear that.

ASSATA: You got nothing to be sorry for. She’s now resting in power. I just wish I had seen her one last time. You know Fanuco, to be strong sometimes is to let yourself be weak. And today I don’t think I can give you our usual lesson.

FANUCO: Madam. I don’t know if you’ve realised but our lessons so far have been very unusual.

He takes his bag off before placing the umbrella to one side.

Let me get you something to drink.

ASSATA: Oh, Fanuco. You ain’t gotta do that.

FANUCO: I want to, Madam.

He exits to the kitchen.

We watch ASSATA swaying back and forth.

She quietly sings to herself.

ASSATA: Oh, sister, Afeni, I pray you went peacefully. I know, now you join your young cub. Give me the strength to keep struggling because my heart aches, sister. It aches from the blood that no longer pumps through ever since I left. But it also yearns for the days when we were active – dismantling their racist system so much they threw everything they could at us.

I know it feel like I’m here in sunny Cuba, Havana club flowing down my throat but I wanna be there; boots strapped, locs flowing, with a semi-automatic pointed to the heavens; I wanna be in Ferguson; I wanna be there with them all side by side; I wanna

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