It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: What We Want, What We Believe, by Alex Smith, Part Two

Episode Date: August 9, 2026

Prince Shakur returns to finish reading Margaret a story about revolution, repression, and survival for Black AugustSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together in I Heart Women's Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka, showing out. Shout out to you, Naomi. The viral moments.

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And Sean Clemens. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenberg. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever you get your podcasts. Old Zone Media. Book club. Book club. Club. Book club. Book club. Book club.

Hello. And welcome to the Cool Zone Media Book Club. The only book club where you don't have to do the reading because Prince Shakur does it for you. Prince, what are you doing today? I'm good. I'm good. I had a pretty good breakfast today. I had coffee.

I slept well. I enjoy life for the most part. So, yeah, how are you? I'm doing all right. The world has no guarantees and you should do what you want with it. I just found out that a friend passed right before he recorded.

Yeah. But she lived the life to the fullest. Yeah, I don't know. It really kills all my banter for the day that I'm like that this happened right before the recording. Yeah, rest in peace. What was I going to try and banter you about?

I was going to try and banter to you about the provenance of your name. Because your name, when I say things like Prince Shakur is going to do it for you, that is a fucking, you have a sick name. You want to tell a story behind it? Yeah. Prince is my dad's name. Yeah, I started going by it, I don't know, a while ago,

just because I never knew him and I wanted to feel more connected. And around that time I read, condemned by Bumani Shakur. and he was a political prisoner during the Lucasville prison riots and still is. Related to Asada or no, is it just a name that people take? At least for him, it was just a name that he took. He talked about that process in the book and I was really inspired by the text and his journey and I don't know, around this time was like really a radicalizing period for me. And so it just kind of made sense for me to kind of take on this.

piece of my father in relation to all these politics that I was kind of discovering. And my sister's name is Princess. It's kind of like, oh, yeah. And even my dad, like, my grandma had an affair. She's dark-skinned. Her husband was dark-skinned. My dad came out light-skinned, and her husband was like, oh, he's royalty. Let's call him Prince. So that's a story behind his name. So, yeah. Okay. For people who are wondering why I'm talking about this, Prince Shakur is the author of a memoir called When They Tell You To Be Good. Yes. And I first saw it, I think before I met you and was like, oh, Shakur, that's the name with a legacy. And I just, I like that it's, that's something that people have taken on. I like that I've talked a little bit about Asada Shakur, not on this show, but on my other show, the history show.

but like this like idea of people renaming themselves to get away from the history of colonization and slavery, not get away from, reject whiteness, you know? Yeah, or to confront it in a way or to, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of political prisoners because two-thirds of the people I know it, well, no, only half the people I know of that last name Shikor were political prisoners because you are not, and I believe Tupac was not, but Asada and, well, What was the other name of the person? Bumani Shakur.

Bumani Shakur. We are in Black August, and we are doing episodes to honor that. And Black August, as you told me last time, come specifically from a legacy of black political prisoners and the fight for freedom in the United States. Yeah, and it's a very important month of fasting, taking action towards abolition, like doing more than commemoration.

Like I have so many friends that literally fast and have regimens of exercise during this month. Oh, wow. So I feel like it's really important, the action part of it too. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, we will be listening to part two of the story, what we want, what we believe by Alex Smith. And we were following last time, we were following three threads. Regina, a woman whose husband was murdered by the police for being a Black Panther,

who has just fled a mysterious government agent threatening her and her child. We were also following Maya, a trans woman who hears voices and is recovering in a hospital after an altercation, and a child whose name is, who sees a bunny in a suit named Bouncy, who has just been smuggled out of a house in a suitcase. And yeah, you want to read us a story? Yes, yes. Let's finish what we want, what we believe by Alex Smith.

Eight. We want freedom for all black men held in federal state, county, and city, prisons, and jails. This won't hurt a bit. Lie back. Calm. Nurse? I know. The needle?

She's a big one. Ha-ha. Just Miss. Regina, please. Be calm. There, there. Okay, see? Not so bad. You can rest now. You know, at the turn of the century, before that even, they considered the slaves. Nurse? Yes. Just put it on the desk. Yes, there. Thank you, dear. Where was I? Oh yes, slaves. It was considered a type of pathology for slaves to want to be free. This same diagnosis was first given to women that wanted to, you know, work and not get married. Vote. They called it hysteria. It's funny how these things become embedded into our everyday society. The same terminology is being used today, except with kids in the inner city. We call it behavioral issues,

or what have you. But really, and this is the sad part, it's all the same. A young black child isn't a behavior risk because he, say, doesn't want to sit up in class and listen to a teacher go on and on about great white men conquering the world, he's just acting out and often practice pathology. He's experiencing and expressing the delusion of freedom. But what is freedom but another boring, earthbound state of mind? Ah, there, you're almost under. Soon you'll see. Thank you, Regina. Thank you for coming to see us. But don't worry. Rest assured. Soon we'll find your child. Trust us. Let us nurture you. She tucks into her hoodie, hands deep in her pockets, the city paper tornadoes over a vent bursting with hot air. She kicks a rock with her steel toe, 16-eye, red Doc Martins.

It ricochets off a trash can and onto a parked Buick Lasaber, echoing down the alley. The night is a trapdoor hidden under the moonlight. Maya pulls the flyer out of her pocket. She looks up from the piece of paper towards a heaving paint-chipped row home. A band is playing. Two white kids in all-black, ripped pants, cases of beer in hand, covered in patches adorned with band logos on them, turn the corner, walk up the street, and enter the house.

They don't even nod to her. She starts to shake a bit and puts the flyer back into her pocket. She searches her memory to make sure, yes, she took her pills today, all of them. She can do this. A woman with pink hair streaks from the house. Fuck you, Gavin, she screams, throwing a balled-up cigarette pack toward the house. It's fine. It's fine. Sighing.

Maya enters the house. A thick haze of smoke billows up around her. The din of talk pushing out of maladjusted, pierced white lips as a roar that seems to suck her own thoughts away. Check, check. A skinny white boy with a bowl cut. of jet black dyed hair, rocking a white belt bellows into the mic. Check, hello, shitheads. We're Clorox Angels.

This is what we sound like. Roars of guitars and drums toppled into each other. The skinny white boy is writhing like a downed telephone wire. Is there a bassist? It sounds like a drone. These guys are really good, Maya thinks. Maya! Susie's here.

She runs up to Maya and hugs her deeply. uncomfortably. Susie, Maya says, her lungs on the verge of collapse. Hi. Oh my God, hi, Maya. Are you guys playing tonight? Susie's enthusiasm is sweet. They'd spent so many hours on top of so many roofs,

throwing tiny pebbles at the trolley as it lurched down Baltimore Avenue, so many hours on the bed of some redneck punk's truck, talking about Bakunin and dreaming up terrible band ideas, days spent stapling, zines and pamphlets before shows only to see them all discarded and lining the floors of the VFW hall they spent all day canvassing. We broke up. Susie tilts her head like a puppy, trying to figure out the strange sounds of its owner. Maya ventured to continue over Clorox, Angels,

cacophony. How's Aowin? Oh, you know, screaming, crying, throwing stuff, Susie shrugs. So she's two. Yeah, Susie laughed. She has this way of staring at Maya that seems to beg things out of her. Maya has taken to avoiding eye contact, not just with Susie, but with everyone. Since the pills, they make things better, soothe her. Life on the pills is not just safer, more comforting. It is a lucid dream. Constant work, sure, but easier work.

After the band, Maya sits on the porch. Susie sits beside her, cautiously. They both stare at the stars. Thanks for not asking me why I'm at the show and not at home with the kiddo, she says. What? Everyone always asked me that, as if it's all my responsibility, you know? I mean, she's got a father. For Christ's sake.

Oh, yeah, no, fuck that shit. Maya tilts her head down, Susie edges closer and puts an arm around her, almost knocking her own glasses off. You deserve a little freedom. The night is silent. A police car's siren oscillates. Everyone on the porch stops to crane their necks as if they can see the ensuing drama unfold. Philly, Susie says. True.

Maya stares at the sky. The clouds clearing, welcoming the arrival of a million stars. Look at them all. At home, Maya looks at her pills, lined up on her dresser. She takes one, and for a moment pretends it's a rocket. The game feels ridiculous and forced. a bit of whimsy that she can't allow herself. But Maya does eventually that night

take the same bottle of pills and empties it into the toilet. But did you know, Prince, and dear listeners, what else feels ridiculous and forced? It's the ad transitions that we have to do in order to keep the lights on in this podcast. There's no shortcut for saving time. But saving money is simple.

Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and Save. Get a quote at bellairdirect.com. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports,

a new podcast from Together and I heart women's sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo roer to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars,

the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat. Sabalinka. Shout-outs to you, Naomi.

You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the IHeart Radio app. or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller.

The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere, too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken. by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Mouthins. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own.

That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. Yeah.

I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. I'm worried. I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game? I just really, I get it.

I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier. And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games. I'ma check you.

Okay? If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'm gonna play you. Join Yomeneika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the problem with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out

who Sidney Sweeney was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday is part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much.

So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. Nine. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States. Curled up on the bed in her cell, Regina, eyes closed, let the atmosphere around her

heave against her chest. What a wait. She let her sighs soothe her. The noise of prison rattled around her head. Women arguing over dominoes and illegal card games, cursing out prison guards, shoving and pushing themselves into metal bars at the slightest infraction. Mostly a low-grown and shuffled. The sounds were ambient, snatched samples from dreams. So much so, she didn't hear the noisy, clang-clanging of the prison guards' billy club on the cell bars. 71, get up. You can't stay in here all day. Regina rolled over.

Her eyes stretched, weary. Her skin was still pulled taut around her frame. Still small but lumpy in places. She reluctantly meandered into the television room. The news piped in on the small screen. Gertie was always in front of it. slumped down in her chair backwards, sucking her teeth. The other lady shuffled in around her.

Alice, a simpering white woman who ran her husband over with the minivan after catching him in bed with his stepdaughter. Janice, a press secretary for a hedge fund manager, caught embezzling investors' money. Rita, a little, rail-thin spike of a thing whose life was a constant whirl of jail, prostitution, and crack cocaine. And there was Regina, ambling a wrong. around, lifting up books in the library, reading their spines, and putting them back on the shelves, staring at dust mites or flicking her mashed potatoes with a spoon. Something's wrong with her, Rita would say. Rita, Gertie turned from her TV, so this was serious.

We say that every day. Something's wrong with Regina. Niga, don't you know we know that? God damn! Gertie shot her a look. Rita twittered away, mouthing curses to herself. but never to Gertie. Gertie spun back around.

Dumbass bitch. What are you watching? What are they saying? Alice asked, cutting through the tension with her mewing. It was a way to distract, to get Gertie thinking about television again. I don't know, Gertie shrugged,

but the John on here is bang! Who is this girl, yo? Everyone stopped and peered at the television. They became transfixed. Most of them watching for whatever it was they thought Gertie was seeing. There were a thrott. of orange jumpsuits bent toward the television, hands on hips, arms crossed, all but Regina

who just sat, staring into the void, and Rita, who just stared at Regina from across the room. What was behind those eyes, Regina? I don't know, Regina whispered to herself, as if picking up Rita's ambient thoughts through a portal to another plane. All Regina could see was an image of herself and a sundress. She was on a farm. Several men and women in drab, gray, were clapping, a hardened smile on all of their faces. She walks among them. A man at the end of the line. He looked a little like Clark Kent, held a syringe. A stocky, compact, dark black man was running straight toward her. He burst through the line of gray-clad clappers, reaches out to her. Everything slowed down. Stopped, rewound. That was it. This was all she saw. Every bit of my memory is suit.

Rita snaked her way through the crowd of women in the cell. All of them were watching a woman at a podium. They all thought the speaker was a badass. Perhaps Rita did too. Her curiosity for Regina's truth lured her. Besides, Rita had seen so many badass girls doing badass things get cut down by salivating, slovenly, ferocious men, all starved for the attention.

they drained from their mothers, never got from their fathers, and they now demanded from the rest of the world. Rita will not be fooled. She sat beside Regina and stared with the child's eagerness at the woman. Who are you, girl? What are you doing in here? The only thing Regina could think to say was, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds that have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, Rita sat back, stunned. Look at God, she whispered. Won't he do it?

I knew there was something wild about you. You're... Regina, Gertie was standing up. Regina reflexively snapped her head towards Gertie's thunder clap of her voice. Regina, this bitch just said your name, girl! Regina pushed through the crowd on the farm. The hands clapping in gray are now tucked under orange, white hands, black hands. She moved toward Gertie, who stepped aside humbly.

Gertie knew. On the screen, a beautiful woman stood encircled by microphones. Cameras flashed. The woman was tall and lithe with glowing brown skin. Her hair, a wild frizz of curls and locks that seemed to flow elegantly. Her stance was of an oaks. She spoke as if words were small fires. And we will not stop until she is free, until Leonard Peltier is free,

until Mumia Abu Jamal is free, until Geronimo Pratt is free, until all prison walls are raised, we will not stop, no justice, no peace, free all prisoners. There was something oddly familiar about her to Regina, something in the head tilt, the slight twist of the body,

the way her eyes blinked in a staccato rhythm. What was she saying? Oh, the eyes. The woman on the television, her eyes onyx stones, inky black. They swam in the milk of their cornea. Regina clutched her hands to her chest and let the tears fall gracelessly down her cheek. She waved to the girl on the television. That's My, Regina began. She paused, squinting, gently nodding. Yeah, that's my daughter. Minutes after she inserts the

disc, Maya gets a ping on her computer. You've got mail. She's not supposed to be using the office after hours, not after they found her printing 300 copies of a zine about racism in the West Philly Marxist Knitting Circle community, not after she let a few homeless queer boys sleep here for three weeks during a particularly harsh February. She checks the screen, I have the information you seek. A clap of thunder erupts outside of the window. She watches Carrie, the new programming director smiling with her precious latte in hand, laughing up the street clutching a designer briefcase. There are two white men in Birkenstocks standing with Carrie holding newspapers over their heads that doesn't give them much shelter, but those men

think they're bulletproof, that there every machination, every whim, every grant, every invasive design they've hinged the city on matters. A little rain? They're not impervious, simply unconcerned. It's all Maya can do not to toss the computer, out the window and down into the street at them. Don't do it. You'll never find out. Maya scoffs at the little white text box on her screen. What makes you think I want what you have?

How do I know it's authentic? How? Yes, how? I mean, you contact me literally two days after I left the psych ward. Days after a Chinese man in a Buddhist robe, passing out Tai Chi pamphlets gave me, me, specifically, one of those weird AOL discs.

No need for exposition. I know the story. Don't get smart. Maya tears open a bag of chips and angrily pops one in her mouth. Have I steered you wrong before? I told you exactly where the most strategic exits were during the RNC. I helped you and your comrades void capture. I told you Dominic was a saboteur working for the Philadelphia Police Department.

Everything I've shown you has been real. Maya bangs furiously onto her keyboard, and everything you showed me how to catch. I always had to do some fucked up meaningless task before you gave me the full story. Nothing is meaningless. Nothing has meaning. All things simply are. Whatever, Maya flashes the computer screen, the middle finger. The point is, now you're just offering this information freely?

Yes. I don't think so. Maya, it's true. I know who and where your mother is. It is imperative that you go to her now. It is imperative that you know. Bullshit. Prove it.

Another clap of thunder. The lights shut her off. The smell of ozone coats the air. Maya is illuminated by the glow of the computer screen. She feels something gingerly walking up her spine. Something pulling tight, yet somehow loose. Not there, but ever present. It feels like woven gossamer.

then it passes. A buzz and a whir that sound feel like a cyborg's death rattle. Maya looks around the room. Sure, she turned all the computers off for the day. It's the fax machine roaring to light. An image takes shape on the page. An arrangement of pixelated characters,

letters, and numbers forming odd shapes. Each line breaking into rounded pictures. Something like a paw, a body, than long pointing ears, a rabbit. But do you know what Prince and dear listeners also appears despite your best efforts? It's ads. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple.

Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellairdirect.com. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating?

The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka, showing out, she beat Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened.

We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. Oh, that's fantastic. Can you make it on, you make your own?

That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up.

She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me? I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand. understand your little play game. I just really, I get it.

I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier. And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'm a check you. Okay?

If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'm a play you. Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the problem with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday is part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much.

So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast And we're back 10 We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace

The island was a strange place Baboons would come and steal fruit from their tables There was plenty though Regina stood under a canopy where she took hold of a large knife, swatting at birds, swatting at monkeys, to cut a pineapple. She put the knife down and ate the succulent pieces of the thorny fruit. Children, so many children ran about, playing on plastic motorbikes that cut new paths into the sandy dirt. Regina wondered what kind of danger they would be in, but these children seemed feral, free.

She never knew that kind of freedom. Maybe this was just how kids were now. The internet is making them crazy, she thought. People buzzed along on small disks, cutting through the sky while tapping on invisible screens in the air. Diagrams and images appeared in front of them as they navigated over the water down the beach through the trees. A black man in a long, flowing robe, held hands with another man, brown-skinned and shaggy-haired. They pulled each other close. Their blithe laughter echoed.

Regina stepped out from under the canopy and into the sun. The woman tried to act like she belonged there, absorbing the giant radiant yellow spears rays, letting it swim up the canals of her melanin. Maybe I'll write a poem today, she thought. She took another step and almost forgot she was standing on an embankment. Whoops! She looked down on a tall, golden, sun-stroked woman with a wild mane of hair

was walking toward her in the distance. She was flanked by two well-built men, shirtless and flowing pants. One carried a spear, the other typed diligently with one finger on an invisible pad. The woman smiled shyly, stopped, and waved at Regina. Regina slowly waved back, shaking her head in awe. Don't be afraid. They're yours. These are your dreams.

I know you want land and land. bread and freedom and peace. I know you've been through the wars. You've seen the shuddering of shelter. You've looked through the raw, ripped tapestry of the world that was supposed to protect you. And it rocked you. I know. We've always been here, though, with you.

It's okay. It's okay. You don't need them. We're right here with you. Always. Let us in. We know. when you put those dreams on hold for this world,

when you borrowed through the fog of time, when you screamed into the vortex, you did, you took those pills to drown us out. You didn't know that we were looking over you, that you're an ethereal being in a corporeal world, a world that doesn't quite understand you, but it's time. We've got you.

Sit with us. Wake up now. Let us in. Maya wakes up. Mother is there. She crosses the room. You slept again. Yeah.

Maya shifts on the floor. Her legs are crossed and numbed. The pain doesn't wash over her so much as it just misses. She's used to it now. Get up. Mother's hands are crossed. She is draped in a heavy robe of colors that swirl in shimmering chroma. Her every movement is both grand and effortless.

It's weird hearing you talk, Maya mumbles. The little orphan girl, all grown up, Mother paces. Came to me as a seed and now, she says, gesturing, look at you, prickly pine tree, or a great big old oak? You know, I don't do well with this esoteric stuff, Mother. Mother moves so swiftly that it's as if she's simply materialized in front of Maya. Mother frowns at what she sees. Why can't you see it, girl?

Mother urges placing her bony hand on Maya's forehead. why can't you wake the fuck up? A searing heat as mother pushes down on Maya's head. Steam emits from her hand. Maya wants to scream, but when she opens her mouth, there's only a click. A silent burning inward scream. A white-hot everything. The light is massive, weighty.

There she is floating in the middle of it. Is this the sun? The sun, where it all flashes, harsh rays, hues of green, gray silhouettes acting out before her, her birth mother tossing her into a suitcase, her and her grandmother's clothing, bounding out of a window as the old woman bursts after her, swinging a belt from her bad hip. A night under the pier in solitude, a plastic bag squeezed into a drug kit, tucked under a spoon. A nightclub's dizzying strobe lights and thumping bass, a peer group session at the youth center, tossing a kickball back and forth with other

kids and shoplifted jinkos. A shitty job at Rainbow, selling biker shorts the thotty Latinas in the northeast. Kissing Susie on the beach. Starting a band. The co-op. A cop's baton. Throwing a computer out of the non-profits window. Watching the shard splash in front of Carrie's smug face.

Bits of screen embedded in the donor she's coddling's foot. A bullhorn. A fire. Walls of a prison crumbling into dust. Marbed wire choking a police officer acquitted of killing a black teen on a playground in Tennessee. An edict. A convergence of scientists, engineers, ecoists, fashionistas, vigilantes, their afros and dreads and box breeds, resting like impenetrable crowns on their black heads.

A cloud. Maya is floating there like an angel? A Hadron Collider. A massed group of men surrounds a miniature Hadron Collider, pulled out of its cryo cell by barefoot African children, riding hyenas through the hallways of NASA. What? She asks herself, as the heat intensifies and the flashes grow larger, is a Hadron Collider? Her mother, no. Her mother, Regina. Wearing a black beret, a dashiki, an apron, a gray sweatshirt. an orange jumpsuit. Her mother wrapped in needleed, threaded linen, adorned with paper thin, golden embellishments,

and cast in a wreath of doves. Let us in. Maya falls back. The light snaps off like a valve shut tight. Maya pants. Her eyes darting violently. Mother stands above her. Again, Maya gasps. Her throat is a scratchy, Mealy, gullet, again. Mother bends down and smirks at her. No, she says intently. She claps her hands twice, then exits the room through a door of Maya did not know existed. Tomorrow, we really start.

Maya slumps to the floor, crying. Her sobs can't be controlled. They ebb, rise, and ebb again, until they become a simple breath. She closes her eyes to sleep. Let us in. And that's the end of our story. Woo!

That story is weird. Yeah. I really love that ending. Yeah. I like that even though it's very surreal and kind of stressful, like whatever the process is that's happening between this mother and child, it's an opening. It's hopeful. It's a reclamation of self. Like, that's how I kind of read what we've...

been going through in this second episode, the mother being in this facility and being able to see her daughter on screen and kind of these systemic and psychological processes getting in the way of us or these characters being able to connect to their reality. And then these breaks and the illusions being able to, I don't know, I guess cultivate a deeper connection with self. Okay. And I love that in this last section, this deeper connection of self with Maya, theoretically is because of what her mother is able to bring into this process.

And the problem, I mean, I call it a process because I'm kind of like, what's happening in this scene? Like, it seems like. Right. I don't entirely know what happened here. But I like it. And I think I like the fact that I don't entirely know what happened here. Because, yeah,

The opening that you're talking about, the optimism, the chance it seems to be providing is basically like psychedelic itself. Like, it feels like if I were to guess, the literal thing that happens in this story is that Regina sees her husband killed while she's pregnant, gets away, gets kind of taken into a program, like hides the kid in a suit. case in a way that causes the kids some permanent psychological damage, but I'm not mad at the mom here. I'm mad at the police for chasing her, killing her husband. And then that kid grows up to be Maya is just used as like a stand-in. And I like it because it's a stand-in not as a dead name, but it's a stand-in as like, this is a person that doesn't exist. You know, like, I have never been that. Or like, that was an untrue thing that happened. And now I am Maya. You know, that's my my read, and then mom ends up in prison because the program that she goes into,

but maybe it is the program is, maybe, I think it's just a regular prison. Yeah, that's how I kind of thought too. But then there's like kind of two parallel things happening as best as I can tell that both there's this prison that the mom is in and then also this sort of more asylum kind of situation. But there's this like psychedelic possible Afro-Futurist society where they're all like walking around with spears and tapping on invisible screens and they can fly on discs and shit and everything fucking rules. And I feel like as a white person, I tried to understand

Afrofuturism, right? And specifically the more psychedelic elements of it, because I would say that Afrofuturism has a much more psychedelic past than like white science fiction. And I feel like this story kind of helps me understand that of like these prisons that people are put in like maybe kind of understanding that our reality isn't the only reality is like part of people's way out. That's my read. I fully could be entirely wrong about this. Yeah.

I mean, it's interesting because in this last section, like the two people walking behind Maya and the one person has a spear and the other person is tapping on an invisible pad. I kind of, I mean, it's interesting because I think there's numerous ways to read that. I mean,

I read it as like the kind of guards. I kind of read it as Regina, like, getting out of prison. In that little part about the invisible pad, I was like, oh, is she talking about the internet? Like people traveling across the ocean and seas and being able to communicate. And I mean, I do get the Afro-Pessimist reading as well, but I found that kind of interesting. And then, like, with the Afro-pessimism, I'm like, where would she be? Where there was, like, baboons, like, stealing fruit and... Oh, I would say Afrofuturism, not Afrofutrism.

pessimism, but... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I find the last part interesting on those numerous levels, because I did kind of read the invisible pad as like, could this be the internet

or could this be like a more like surreal kind of Afrofuturist kind of assertion of wherever they are? Yeah. And so I found that interesting. And then the other part

that I was kind of curious about was like with Maya being at this like punk show with Clorox. What were they called? Chlorox Angels. Yeah, something like that, yeah. I wondered why at the end she dumps the pills away.

Like, I wonder what that shift was for her leading up to that. Oh, interesting, because she talks about how it's taking the pills that let her go into the white subcultural space and, like, be okay at the show. Okay, so she didn't know. She had enough. She had enough. Yeah, I mean, like, yeah, because I get the impression because she's like, oh, well, the pills help me, like, not lose my. mind all the time. But at the end, she's like, I don't know, man. I kind of want to lose my mind all the time because her like wild knowledge is also part of what's making her a better activist, right?

She has like these voices in her head that are telling her like, so and says a snitch. This is how you escape the mass arrest. My read is that it's kind of disappear into like let the madness be your guide kind of thing. But I don't know. I'm also not trying to make a moral statement out of this. That's just like my read of this one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like also with this ending, the other thing that I liked was kind of thinking about epigenetics as well, like what Regina experiences and how she tries her best to flee, to hide her identity, ends up in the state's custody, and then is further traumatized by these state-driven processes of, trying to disconnect her from reality, and then how her experiences then feed into many of the systems for Maya that makes her life challenging, leads to her being on the streets, like engaging in these countercultures as like a way to, I don't know, experience the world in a deeper way and how

these voices, the medicine, the facility. I don't know, there's a lot of parallels in both of their journeys. And it really makes me think, I don't know, specifically about epigenetics. Yeah. Reading this, like, I think about, like, coming from an immigrant family, having a single mom for a good amount of my childhood, her dealing with a lot of domestic, like, issues before I was born, and how those traumas have led me to question things about gender, masculinity, violence in my life,

like, for better or for worse. And so, I don't know, I just find there to be like a really beautiful correlation around, like, the control that epigenetic trauma can have on us. And I love that there's, like, a duality to how they both free themselves. And it's sort of, like, around similar. times and then their journeys can converge and these journeys converge in this kind of afro-futurist kind of space or afro surrealist space which i think is like a really beautiful imagining and maybe it's also like reading asada shakur into it as well but like i remember a friend

who i think went to an event in philly where assata shakur's daughter was and if i'm remembering incorrectly, my friend said, Sada Shepur's daughter talked about, like, how much state violence is taken away from her, not being able to see her mother, not really having as deep of a connection as they could have. And I mean, that makes me think of like, growing up with a stepfather who was incarcerated and dealing with that or having friends go through state violence or repression or going to jail or prison and how, I don't know, you literally watch people change in front of you, or what does it mean when you're separated from someone and the world is trying to destroy them, erase them, etc.

So I don't know, I just feel like there was so much in this to, I don't know, kind of give various pathways to like certain kinds of liberation, even though, I mean, I don't want to judge the endings. I'm kind of like, okay, what is this process that they're going through? Is this like brainwashing? Is this her liberating herself? Is this like... Right.

It fucking knows. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's fucking brilliant. I think I'm going to read this story again too when we're done because it took me a long time to come around on more like psychedelic fiction

but now I kind of get it more the problem is that my brain wants things to be sort of linear I actually literally can't remember if I said this last time maybe you all hear me say it again usually when there's a break between episodes I'm lying and it hasn't been a week

but this time it actually has been a week but I like I often need things to be kind of linear because I'm a simple person but I've been really coming around on it especially as ways of just getting at that, like, there isn't one truth is kind of the more important truth. Yeah.

You want to hear what Alex had to say about it, the author? Yeah, yeah. Alex says, quote, this is my favorite story in ArcDust, which is the collection it's from that you all should go read. I believe that the previous story we ran was also from ArcDust. But it's generally my least discussed. I remember having to take a walk or drink tea.

or do some light meditation after each chapter. Maya's journey was me paying homage to so many women and queer folks who have informed my life and work, so many movements and niche elements of subcultures who don't largely get their flowers while also projecting and contemplating a future for queer and trans black people. Yeah, let's see.

Here's a bio for Alex Smith. I bet you didn't know that. I bet you did because it's the same one I read last week. But it's worth hearing again. Alex Smith, a.k.a. Alexo Terric is a writer, artist, curator, musician that gets quotes, slash noise maker, living in the cosmically kinetic city of Philadelphia. His work reflects that dichotomy, stark, beautiful, wrought with Afro-topian tension, avant-garde fashion slash assemblage,

and dynamic visual presentation. His sci-fi-inspired worlds collide with Afro-queer and radical reimaginings of the fantastic. He has a family, member of the Philadelphia-based sci-fi arts collective metropolarity, essential personnel in Philadelphia's early Afro-Futurist community, from collage work to zines to bands and solo music performances, to promoting other bands and performers via curation and cultural critique in arts reporting, Smith transcends the concept of Renaissance Man and works from the Afro-Futurist vision,

all things, all the time, each aspect of his work in forming the other. Smith won the 2020 Pew Fellowship of the Arts, presenting work such as his short-story collection, Arkdust for Mercerian Publishing, his experimental art punk bands, rainbow crimes, solarized, spectral forces, glitch proverbs, the cyberpunk superhero indie comic book series,

Black Vans, among others. His work appears in anthologies such as stories for Chip, a tribute to Samuel R. Delaney from Rosarium, Black Quantum Futurism Volume 2, Black Punk Now, from Soft Skull, and The Black Fantastic from Library of America.

He invites you to join him in the chromatic exploration of the unknown. Is art a visual portal to that liminal space? Find Alex at patreon.com slash they are birds or they are birds on Instagram.

Prince, you got anything you want to plug? Yes, yes. Well, one, I mean, I don't know if this is the right part for this, but if folks want another piece of media that I was trying to figure out what this story reminds me of, it makes me think of the poem Rhinoceros Woman by Asada Shakur, which I think is such a companion piece to this story, so I highly recommend folks check that out. But yeah, stuff I want to plug. I mean, I run a podcast with my co-host Jordan called the dugout of Black Anarchus podcast. We do lots of interviews, coverage of things

that are happening politically in the U.S. and abroad. And check that out. You can find it anywhere that podcasts are available. If folks want to check out any of my writing, you can check out my memoir when they tell you to be good. I'm currently working on a collection of essays about James Baldwin. So stay tuned for that. And yeah, just find me anywhere online.

But if you want to find me on Instagram, I'm at Sweet Black Prince. Hell yeah. I'm on the internet. I have a newsletter comes out every week. You can search it. Margaretkilljoy.com. I'm on blue sky, Margaret. B-S-K-Y, whatever. I'm still on Instagram. I feel very conflicted about that. And fuck ice, free Palestine, take care of each other, free all prisoners. Yeah, remember where are we coming from. Bye, everyone. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website,

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