Midnight by Sister Souljah Page B

toreturning customers who spent more than three hundred dollars with each order.
    I was impressed with her and completely dedicated. Everything that she did naturally as a woman was saving our family. She was my father’s private treasure and wife and people were willing to pay to get even a small item that she touched up, or an ounce of her everyday aroma, or a duplicate of her personal style, or anything that resembled her elegance.

8
UPSTATE NEW YORK
    Funny thing is, when people support you in business, even though you have given them a great product in exchange for their money, they want you and your business to support them in other ways too.
    So, when one of my mother’s clients organized a bus trip to an upstate New York farm for apple picking and purchasing fresh plucked vegetables and fresh squeezed juices, Umma decided that our family would attend.
    It was the fall season. Although we had come to the United States years before, it was our first trip outside of our hood and our five-borough business area.
    Two and a half hours into the trip we exited the highways and the rural countryside appeared on the other side of our bus window, presenting me with a picture completely different than my Brooklyn urban view. There were enormous trees with multicolored leaves that were part green, red, orange, and yellow. They floated down from the tree branches and danced to the ground where they formed waist-high piles on some narrow roads. We were surrounded by the colors of autumn.
    There were houses, none of them masterpieces of architecture, but sitting on land with large spaces between them. There were broken-down barns and cows and sheep and goats and horses.
    Four-year-old Naja was fascinated with these animals,which she was seeing for the first time in her life. Her little face and hands were pressed against the glass. Umma was excited and relaxed, speaking softly and explaining everything to Naja in Arabic. Naja would speak Arabic to Umma and then turn to ask questions in English to me.
    As the bus bumped up a long rocky dirt road and onto the farm, the women put away their snacks and sandwiches, cleaned their children’s hands and faces, and walked off the bus and onto the farm together. I told Umma I would meet them back on the farm in an hour. One of the few males on the trip, I preferred to take a look around this completely new area.
    On a paved black road with no sidewalks or curbs, I kicked through a pile of leaves. Walking alone on the road, seeing no one nowhere, I stopped, then stood still. I wasn’t losing my mind. On my Brooklyn block standing still was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
    I looked up through the trees and into the skies. The sun was beaming through the colored leaves and small open spaces, creating a kaleidoscope. I listened to the sounds of nature, the way we used to back home in my grandfather’s village. I could hear the subtle sounds of the mosquitoes, knowing they were dying out for the season. I could hear the music of the birds flying south. I could hear the wind breezing through the grass. I could hear the deep moan of the cows and stutter of the goats.
    A mile down the road I came upon a horse farm. About eight of them were grazing on some grass behind a rusted barbed-wire fence. I stopped to take a good look at one of them that stood about fifteen feet from me. Horses are big and imposing creatures. I couldn’t even imagine what Allah was thinking when He created them. Allah is the ultimate designer, I thought. How amazing to think up and then bring into existence thousands of different kinds of creatures, eachone unique and awesome on its own. Look at the difference between a horse and a camel, I thought to myself. The horse’s skin was more smooth and tight, its body more streamlined. Allah filled the horse’s eyes with mystery. It seemed like they knew something that humans did not know. Yet there was no real way for a human to decipher what a horse was thinking and