Twilght by Anna Deavere Smith

Author:Anna Deavere Smith [Smith, Anna Deavere]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-101-91128-0
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-11-25T16:00:00+00:00

To Look Like Girls from Little

Elvira Evers General worker and cashier, Canteen Corporation

(A Panamanian woman in a plaid shirt, in an apartment in Compton. Late morning, early afternoon. She has a baby on her lap. The baby has earrings in her ears. Elvira has a gold tooth. There is a four-year-old girl with large braid on top of her head and a big smile who is around throughout the interview. The girl’s name is Nella.)

So

everybody was like with things they was takin’,

like

a carnival,

and I say

to my friend Frances,

“Frances, you see this?”

and she said, “Girl, you should see

that

it’s getting worst.”

And I say, “Girl, let me take my butt

up there before something happen.”

And, um,

when somebody throw a bottle

and I just …

then

I felt

like moist,

and it was like a tingling sensation—right?—

and I didn’t like this,

and it was like itchin’,

and I say, “Frances, I’m bleedin’.”

And she walk with me to her house

And she say, “Lift up your gown, let me see.”

She say, “Elvira, it’s a bullet!”

I say, “What?”

I say, “I didn’t heard nothin’.”

She say, “Yes, but it’s a bullet.”

She say, “Lay down there. Let me call St. Francis and tell them that

you been shot

and to send an ambulance.”

And she say,

“Why you?

You don’t mess with none of those people.

Why they have to shoot you?”

So Frances say the ambulance be here in fifteen minutes.

I say, “Frances,

I cannot wait that.”

I say,

“I’m gone!”

So I told my oldest son, I say,

“Amant, take care your brothers.

I be right back.”

Well, by this time he was standing up there, he was crying,

all of them was crying.

What I did for them not to see the blood—

I took the gown and I cover it

and I didn’t cry.

That way they didn’t get nervous.

And I get in the car.

I was goin’ to drive.

Frances say, “What you doin’?”

I said, “I’m drivin’.”

She say, “No, you’re not!”

And we take all the back streets

and she was so supportive,

because she say, “You all right?

You feel cold?

You feel dizzy?

The baby move?”

She say, “You nervous?”

I say, “No, I’m not nervous, I’m just worried about the baby.”

I say, “I don’t want to lose this baby.”

She say, “Elvira, everything will be all right.” She say, “Just pray.”

So there was a lot of cars, we had to be blowing the horn.

So finally we get to St. Francis

and Frances told the front-desk office, she say,

“She been shot!”

And they say, “What she doin’ walkin’?”

and I say, “I feel all right.”

Everybody stop doin’ what they was doin’

and they took me to the room

and put the monitor to see if the baby was fine

and they find the baby heartbeat,

and as long as I heard the baby heartbeat I calmed down,

long as I knew whoever it is, boy or girl, it’s all right,

and

matter of fact, my doctor, Dr. Thomas, he was there

at

the emergency room.

What a coincidence, right?

I was just lookin’ for that familiar face,

and soon as I saw him

I say, “Well I’m all right now.”

Right?

So he bring me this other doctor and then told me,

“Elvira, we don’t know how deep is the bullet.

We don’t know where it went. We gonna operate on

you.

But

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