Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate

Van Peebles beating down that white cop in
Sweet Sweetback, Shaft
ruling Manhattan, his leather coat flared out behind him, Ron O’Neal strutting so smooth in
Super Fly
.
    Angela and Rafe loved to go to the movies together. (That was something she didn’t share with Sheila, who got very nervous watching herself on screen and got bored watching most other people.) They saw everything that came out, especially all the black pictures.
    It was after the movies one night, walking back to the car from a double feature, that Rafe first asked her, “What’s up with you and Sheila, anyway?
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘What’s up?’ ”
    â€œI mean ‘What’s up?’ I mean, you remember how we were all . . . together . . . that night at Wilt’s. I just wondered . . .”
    Angela felt her face go still. “We’re friends. She helps me with stuff. We both want to be in pictures. That’s all. We ain’t dykes, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    â€œThat’s not what I’m worried about. I just . . .” He trailed off. They were sitting in the car now. “This is kind of special to me . . . you are.” He drew a deep breath and laughed. “I mean . . . no strings or nothin’. But still. I was just wondering where we stand.”
    She took his hand, played quietly with the fingers. “I’m standing here right now. That’s all I can say. I got . . . I got stuff I have to do to get work and stuff I want to do because I feel like it. But you do too. And we’re together now, right? It is kind of special. I . . . well, that’s all. I don’t know what else to say about it. I’m with you now.”
    He took his hand away, looked at her for a long moment. “Right,” he said. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He just started the car, his hands easy on the wheel. He began kissing her roughly as soon as they got in the house. Like he was trying to make a point. But Angela wasn’t sure it was a point she wanted to see.
    Â 
    When Angela went up for her part in
Coffy
, she knew that something big was coming. Something really big. The audition was pretty much like any other. The look-over. The reading of a few lines of dialogue. The question: “Do you mind doing nudity?” By this point, Angela had had her clothes off in more movies than she cared to count. While she couldn’t really say it
bothered
her, she sometimes felt like there had to be more to an acting career than pretending to be dead and taking off her clothes.
    Then the call came, “You have the part of Jackie,” the message on her service said. “Shooting begins Monday. You will be required on set for three to four days. Please come to the office to pick up your script.” When she got it, she found that she had a long scene with Pam Grier, the star of the movie. Pam was a big, tough, luscious girl. She looked ready to do whatever she needed to do. And she really knew how to fight and how to handle a gun. Angela was comfortable with a gun too. Her father had showed her how to shoot when she was a little girl. She still remembered his words: “Any of them crackers feel like they need to come back down ’round here, you’re going to show them what for.” But she hadn’t been asked to use those skills in a movie yet. The gunplay was all for the stars. Maybe if she did well enough in her scene here, Jack Hill, the director, would ask her if she knew how to handle a gun. “Yes, sir.” she imagined herself saying, standing her straightest. “I sure do. My daddy taught me.” No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get rid of her accent. Sheila told her to stop trying, that it gave her a trademark, something for casting directors to remember her by. So she learned to smile broadly when someone said in what they thought was an