Tar Beach

Faith Ringgold

I will always remember when the stars fell down around me
and lifted me up above the George Washington Bridge.

I could see our tiny rooftop, with Mommy and Daddy
and Mr. and Mrs. Honey, our next-door neighbors,
still playing cards as if nothing was going on,
and Be Be, my baby brother, lying real still on the mattress,
just like I told him to, his eyes like huge floodlights
tracking me through the sky.

Sleeping on Tar Beach was magical. Lying on the roof in
the night, with stars and skyscraper buildings all around me,
made me feel rich, like I owned all that I could see.

The bridge was my most prized possession.

Daddy said that the George Washington Bridge is the
longest and most beautiful bridge in the world and that it
opened in 1931, on the very day I was born.

Daddy worked on that bridge, hoisting cables. Since then,
I've wanted that bridge to be mine.

Now I have claimed it. All I had to do was fly over it for it to
be mine forever. I can wear it like a giant diamond necklace,
or just fly above it and marvel at its sparkling beauty.
I can fly-yes, fly. Me, Cassie Louise Lightfoot, only eight
years old and in the third grade, and I can fly. That means
I am free to go wherever I want for the rest of mv life.

Daddy took me to see the new union building he is
working on.

He can walk on steel girders high up in the sky and not
fall. They call him the Cat.

But still he can't join the union because Grandpa wasn't a
member.

Well, Daddy is going to own that building, 'cause I'm
gonna fly over it and give it to him. Then it won't matter
that he's not in their old union, or whether he's colored or
a half-breed Indian, like they say.

He'll be rich and won't have to stand on 24-story-high
girders and look down. He can look at his building
going up.

And Mommy won't cry all winter when he goes to look for
work and doesn't come home.

And Mommy can laugh and sleep late like Mrs. Honey,
and we can have ice cream every night for dessert.

Next I'm going to fly over the ice cream factory, just to
make sure we do.

Tonight we're going up to Tar Beach. Mommy is roasting
peanuts and frying chicken, and Daddy will bring home a
watermelon. Mr. and Mrs. Honey will bring the beer and
their old green card table.

And then the stars will fall around me, and I will fly to the
union building.

I'll take Be Be with me. He has threatened to tell Mommy
and Daddy if I leave him behind.

I have told him it's very easy, anyone can fly. All you need
is somewhere to go that you can't get to any other way. The
next thing you know, you're flying among the stars.