A Summer Evening Nashville

The hot Tennessee sun rays seared into the asphalt on Broadway. A little girl with blonde pig-tails tied with pink bows held her mother’s hand as they waited for the crosswalk to turn.

Walk Sign is on, an automated male voice said firmly and began its countdown. She and her mother took a step onto the pavement along with several other strangers. Her ruffled dress blew in the summer breeze as she tried to jump from one white stripe to the next.

“Come on, honey.” Her mother said, pulling her arm slightly.

“Where are we going, Mommy?” She asked inquisitively, but her mother didn’t respond. They stepped onto the sidewalk and turned left. She was surrounded by new things she had never seen before: buildings that touched the sky, women in fancy dresses, and these strange buses with loud music and people dancing on them.

One was passing them now, one of these vehicles, and she watched the people on it through the large openings that were held together by rails. The bus had mostly women, one of them reminded her of her mother, though her mother didn’t own any clothes that looked like that.

There was one man on the bus and he was wearing a police officer’s uniform. The little girl wondered what those women did to get into trouble, until he started unbuttoning his shirt and dancing strangely in front of them. The little girl watched, confused and embarrassed, why was the officer removing his clothes? She was glad when the bus turned left at the next street, because she didn’t like watching the man and those women, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

At the next intersection, her mother pulled her arm to the right to go down a new street. It was here where she saw the most amazing, beautiful person she had ever seen. The woman was as tall as a building, her deep brown skin glittering under the sun. She had legs that stretched for miles and they were clad in rainbow sequins, in fact, her whole body was covered in rainbow sequins, except her exposed arms, which were muscular and decorated with inky black swirls.

She had bright blonde hair, like her own, but it reached the clouds in tight curls.

The woman was walking towards them on the sidewalk and when her mother saw her, she gripped the little girl’s hand tighter and pulled her behind her, as if to hide her.

“Mommy, stop!” She shouted, pulling free from her grip, just when then woman was in front of them. The woman stopped in her tracks to avoid running into her. The little girl looked up at the woman, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, like a princess or a unicorn, and the woman looked down at her.

“You better be careful and listen to your Momma now,” the woman said to her in a deep voice. The little girl was too mesmerized to say anything back, so she just stared at the woman and smiled sheepishly.

“Come on! Now!” Her mother snapped, yanking her by her hand, she bent down to get on the same level as the little girl. “Don’t you ever pull away from me again.”

The little girl just hung her head and nodded. Her mother stood up and pulled her daughter along with her. The little girl kept her eyes on the ground until she heard police sirens coming from behind them. Both of them turned at the alert. The car was pulled up by the sidewalk where they had just been and where the woman was now. The woman stood there with her hands up as the officers approached her.

“Come on,” her mother said again, pulling the little girl away from the scene. But she kept turning back, watching the officers pin the woman against the car and put her in handcuffs— they turned a corner and the little girl couldn’t see what happened next.

When they made it to their car, the little girl asked her mother why the police officers took that woman away.

“He shouldn’t be dressed like that, not in public. It’s not appropriate.” Her mother replied. The little girl was confused, she didn’t know why it mattered if the woman was a “he” or a “she,” she just thought they looked beautiful.