by Randi Pink
“I know that, but I’ll answer,” he said slowly. “We all have our place at Edgewood High. I didn’t want to be an Oreo, so I chose the opposite. I went die-hard black.”
“But why pretend to be something you’re not?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me this question with a straight face.” He stared straight ahead.
“I know I’m a hypocrite, point taken, but you were crueler to me and my brother than the white people ever were. I turned my back on black for a reason, Deanté, and your group played its part. I just want to know why.”
I needed to know why.
He pulled the Mercedes into an abandoned strip mall. When he placed the car in park and took his hands off the wheel, I noticed they were shaking. He clenched and unclenched his fists to steady them. “Believe it or not, I have thought about that. I’m sorry, Toya. But we all have our roles,” he said, staring straight ahead at the strip mall.
“So your role is to bring down the other black people in Edgewood to lift yourself up? To laugh at us like we’re jokes? That’s worse than racist, that’s betrayal.” I smacked the leather seat. “And it’s just stupid! Ruin my life, ruin my brother’s life, and you’re sorry. You can keep your sorry. And you can take me home.”
Deanté folded his forearms across the steering wheel and rested his forehead between his elbows. We sat in silence for an uncomfortable moment. Finally, he lifted his head and asked, “What would you have me do? Be you? Confused and lost, running from myself? No. I’m black and you are, too, whether you’re wearing a white suit of armor or not. Yes, I come from a rich family. Yes, I’m in the National Honor Society. Yes, I live in a nice neighborhood. But I was born a black male in Montgomery, Alabama, which makes me a bottom-feeder just like a nigga from the hood. I accept it, and you should, too.” He turned the ignition and stepped on the gas.
I wanted to slap him. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell him he was wrong. But he was so right that it hurt. To be honest, I envied his resolve. He had in abundance what I lacked—perspective. Perspective that you are what you are. Perspective that no matter where you live or how phenomenal you are at anything, you will always be black. Perspective that you may as well accept it.
We pulled up to my driveway. “Thanks for the ride,” I said as I scrambled out of the car. Deanté drove away without another word.
I stood there in the street, watching his taillights disappear. Alex’s time limit had passed, and Hampton barked his family notification bark. Mom’s bedroom light flickered on. Hell was about to be unleashed.
“I haven’t gone in.” Alex stepped out of the darkness with tiny leaves and twigs stuck in his hair. Grass and mud stains covered the knees of his jeans, and his elbow was scraped and bleeding slightly.
“My God, Alex. What happened to you?”
He looked down at himself, ready to cry. “I fell. It’s dark back there.”
“Why haven’t you gone in? You need to clean that before it gets infected.”
“I didn’t go in because I didn’t want our parents to know that their little girl discarded me for a bunch of B words. And was that Deanté? I don’t even want to know how that happened. Remember when he stuck his foot out and tripped me in history? My books went everywhere, and he laughed. I lost my flash drive with all my Halo and Call of Duty codes.” My brother focused on the strangest things when he got his feelings hurt.
I was done apologizing. “I’m done apologizing.” I walked ahead.
“You never even started apologizing.”
“That’s all I’ve done, Alex. You’re ruining this for me. If you’re so jealous, just ask God to make you white, too.” I’d gone too far, but I was entirely too invested to stop. “I prayed for this, and I can’t even enjoy it for my loser brother sulking around all the time.”
I should have just hit him. It would have hurt him a lot less if I’d just hit him.
“I’m not jealous of you, Katarina. I miss Toya is all. I’m glad we had this talk, though. I’d rather lose my little sister than witness her turning into this.”
I looked up to see Mom standing in the doorway, her eyes filled with tears and a hint of confusion. Alex pushed past her and jogged up to his room. “I told you, Latoya Marie Williams; don’t abandon your big brother.”
“I get it, Mom.” I went to my room, climbed in bed, and tried to cry, but couldn’t. That damn Braveheart stole all my tears.
FORSAKEN
Sunday I slept until I heard a knock on my bedroom door. “Toya? Can I come in?” asked Mom in an uncharacteristically soft voice.
I sat up to realize it was half past two. “Yeah, come in.”
Mom stepped through the door wearing a floor-length church dress and a giant sun hat that resembled a lampshade. “You missed a dynamic service this morning,” she said, cradling her well-worn Study Bible like a fragile newborn. “I figured you needed some time to yourself.”
I rubbed at my eye sockets. “Yeah, I did. Thanks.”
She took a seat on the edge of my bed. “A lot of people gave their lives over to Christ today. A few even joined when Pastor opened the doors of the church.”
“That’s nice, Mom,” I muttered.
“You should’ve seen it,” she continued. “In a few more months, Pastor will have to set up chairs in the atrium. The sanctuary is running out of room.”
I just nodded, picking at the loose skin surrounding my nails.
“Praise Jesus.” She reached for my cheek, but I jerked away.
“I’m really not feeling well, Mom.”
She nervously thumbed through the pages of her Bible. “I don’t know what to do, Toya.”
“Join the club,” I said without looking at her.
After a fair length of silence, she left my room.
* * *
On Monday, my eyes shot open at dawn to a spastic cicada hurtling itself against my bedroom window. I let out a mini scream, not enough to alert my parents with their hallelujah chorus or to wake Alex’s pitiful puppy-dog eyes—just enough to freak me out. After a dozen self-inflicted splats, the insect finally died on the outside sill, alone. The death of a cicada in Gump-town was in no way odd, but this particular bug’s manner of death disturbed me. I could see it in its expressive face, its twisted body, and its serrated wings. It had taken just about all it could take. It was done with life. It wanted to die.
I gave my hair a quick brush, slipped on a pair of jeans and an Auburn University sweatshirt, and headed for the curb. The twins would despise the outfit. They prided themselves on being the most stylish crew to walk the halls of Edgewood, but I wouldn’t take their crap that morning. Their usual pickup time came and went. Twice I saw the top of the Bug emerge over the hill, but they were both mirages in the form of Priuses.
“You’ve been stiffed, doll,” said Dad.
“Shut up, man! You can ride with us, Toya. Get in now, or we’ll be late,” Mom said with a gentle nudge.
Wordlessly, Alex let the seat up and slid in the back as close to the opposing window as possible.
“I didn’t like those gals anyway,” Mom said, finishing her makeup in the shattered passenger’s seat visor mirror. How she could see herself in between the cracks, I could not understand. She turned to look at us. “You guys can hang out again.” She smiled wide and hopeful.
“Your lips are uneven,” I told her.
She flipped the visor back down. “Man, I told you to get this mirror fixed. I go to work looking like a clown, trying to fix my makeup in this thing.”
Dad whispered, “Maybe you should move back in with Evilyn. I’m sure her mirrors are perfect.”
“What you say, man?”
“Nothing. Forget it,” he replied softly, white-knuckling the steering wheel.
When we reached the school, no one stood at the entrance. Alex disappeared almost immediately, and no cheerleaders jumped up and down upon my arrival. No guys gawked at my breasts. No banners or balloons or confetti or releasing of the doves. As I wal
ked the oddly silent hallway leading to Mrs. Roseland’s Alabama History, whispers arose from the shadows; the hushed S sounds of teenagers trying to lower their voices when they have yet to learn how. By the time I reached the first set of girls’ bathrooms, the S sound elongated into the word slut. By the second set of restrooms, Ohio slut, and by the third set, stupid Ohio slut.
Stupid Ohio slut, the obvious work of the twins, seeing that they were the only idiots who thought I was from Ohio.
Mrs. Roseland’s classroom door was already closed, and when my hand made contact with the doorknob, it was locked.
“No Ohio sluts allowed in Alabama History,” one of the twins announced from behind me.
“I’m from freaking Kansas freaking City!”
I turned around to face Amera, who said, “Everybody knows that you’re a slut.”
“What are you even talking about?” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
“Don’t give me that crap. Josh told Stephen and Stephen told Amelia and Amelia told me what you did.” She flipped her hair dismissively.
“And just what did I do?” I sounded just like my mother. Amera did a slight double take, but she was too dim-witted to put anything together.
“You know what you did, slut!” she screamed.
“Hey. Get to class.” A substitute teacher peeked his head through a cracked classroom door. “Now, girls, go.”
“See you in swim.” Amera glared back at me as she rounded the corner. “Nice outfit.”
I knocked on Mrs. Roseland’s classroom door, and she flung it open. “Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. I don’t know how that door got locked.” But I had a pretty good idea.
Walking to my desk, I noticed that the guys were no longer staring, and the girls had their pre-Katarina confidence back. Their chins held a slight lift, their hair had a noticeable bounce, and their eyes an ominous I told you so expression, but none were brave enough to confront me. None except the twins, so I had five periods to wait before I knew what they all knew.
Between classes, I deliberately walked past Deanté and his section. They always knew the gossip; with any luck, they would let it slip.
“Eww,” said Trent, one of Deanté’s Jordans-wearing crew.
A girl pointed. “That’s the girl. Sickening.”
I looked around more keenly; it wasn’t just Deanté’s group. The entire student body had slowed to gawk at me.
“She was fine, too,” said Trent. “Damn shame.”
“What?” I said loudly, uncharacteristic of myself or Toya or Katarina or Kat—whoever the hell I was.
Deanté broke free from his posse and whispered it in my ear. “Josh is telling everybody you threw yourself at him and that you have an STD.”
“Very original,” I said under my breath.
“Get away from her, D. She gone give you what she got.” Trent pinched his nose between his fingers.
Deanté placed his hand on my shoulder and walked back toward his crew.
“Wash that hand before you touch me, bruh,” said another member of his circle.
I couldn’t believe it. Well, actually, I could believe it.
Commotion arose, and students started rushing to the media center. “Fight!” someone said in the distance.
“Let’s go!” someone else said.
Relieved that everyone’s attention was elsewhere, I stayed planted where I stood. Then I heard it.
“Alex is kicking Josh’s ass!”
It took a minute for the comment to register. But then Deanté shook my arm and said, “I think he’s going to kill him, Toya.”
I took off, plowing through the crowd until I saw my bloody big brother straddling Joshua Anderson’s soon-to-be corpse.
“Oh my God.” I walked unswervingly into the middle of the fight. The force of Alex’s whirling arms nearly knocked me backward. It hurt, but I didn’t care. Again I stepped into the windmill and hugged him from the back until he stopped thrashing and started heaving. Josh’s face and the upper part of his shirt were covered in crimson. His broad shoulders looked hollow and weak. Not like a relic at all, more like the punk that he was. When he stirred, I hawked deep and spit a piece of his green toxic kiss onto his face.
The crowd expanded a bit and finally parted to welcome Officer Doug, our black off-duty cop. The band of Alex’s shirt hung open, revealing a grid of scratches on his collarbone. His cheeks were bright red with fury, and his whole body still shook from adrenaline. Braveheart tears streamed down his face.
“All right, kid,” said Officer Doug before lifting Alex into an unexpectedly kind embrace. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
“Hey, Doug,” some kid yelled. “You’re just leaving Josh Anderson on the floor like that?”
Doug’s upper lip twitched. “Call the nurse,” he replied. “He’ll live.”
After Officer Doug carted Alex through the crowd, I ran.
Someone called after me, but I sprinted for the side door past the weed smokers and walked to Brookland Mall’s Books-A-Million. I spent the remainder of the day sitting in a comfy chair and filling up on free lemon water. I flipped through magazines, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything except Alex straddling Josh and pummeling the soft flesh of Josh’s face without mercy. He’d never been in a fight in his life, but somehow he excelled at it. Josh, with all his swim muscles, limp on the media center floor, unable to move. Butt-kicked by my gentle brother. I smiled with pride. But then I had to wrestle back tears. I’d called him a loser and he still took up for me.
The urge to cry vanished when I thought of Josh’s wickedness. If the twins were the spawn of Satan, he was Satan himself, and I’d pined over him for years. He had the nerve to suggest I’d initiated what happened up those stairs. That I was the slut. I felt like my skin was on fire with rage. I needed to walk.
BRYAN’S SONG
My dad needed to walk, too. Not for exercise or to get anywhere in particular, simply to rearrange his mind. I liked to think that I borrowed beautiful things from both of my parents: originality from my mom and walking from Dad.
Once, I dreamed that my father passed away. He made it to heaven for his obedience, but there were no pearly gates or golden streets, only reddish packed-dirt roads twisting themselves through plush green hills. I walked beside him for a few miles and asked him where it led.
“Nowhere,” he said. He smiled his signature snaggletoothed grin. “I get to walk wherever and whenever I want. My shoes never wear down. My mouth never goes dry. No one yells at me to clean up coffee grounds. I don’t have to socialize, either. Simply one foot in front of the other forever and ever and ever, amen.” That night, I woke up soaked to the skin from sweat. If my dad left me, I would miss his unshaved beard and uncut hair. When I was little, I’d search for the longest strands of hair stuck to his bald spot. I loved my father, and no amount of spilled-out coffee on the foyer floor could change that.
And so I walked home from Books-A-Million—alone for the first time in my life. Through the practice fields, into the woods, past Gus Von March, around Edgewood, only to stop at the base of Colossus. It stood tall and wise, daring me to take it on. I couldn’t bring myself to conquer it alone. Reaching the top would be too depressing without Alex, and since avoidance was my specialty, I took the long way around, tacking on an additional thirty minutes.
I cut through Edgewood Park. The sidewalks were teeming with moms pushing strollers, and speed walkers. On the green space, a young couple played Frisbee with their medium-sized retriever. Every time the lime-green Frisbee flew, the dog took off with pinpoint focus, and then trotted it back. The dog nearly knocked down a few toddlers on its way to retrieve the Frisbee, despite the KEEP YOUR DOG ON LEASH signs that were posted in the park.
I spotted Aunt Evilyn sitting alone on a bench, her bulgy-eyed Chihuahua, Bryan, peeking from her large purse. I should have gone home. I was white, after all, and since she wasn’t immediate family, she wouldn’t recognize me. But something drew me to her.
I crossed the green space, stopping twice to avoid a collision with the retriever, and sat on the opposite end of Aunt Evilyn’s bench.
“Excuse you, young miss,” she said sweetly. “But there are three empty benches in this park. Would you be so kind as to relocate yourself to one of them?”
I laughed outright. There was something comforting about Aunt Evilyn being evil to any and everyone—it wasn’t just Toya.
“Did I say something funny?” she asked, then Bryan growled and squinted at me from the purse. She caressed his protruding head. “Hush, baby. I can take care of this invasion of personal space.”
“I’m on the opposite side of the bench,” I said, suppressing another laugh. “How am I invading your space?”
She didn’t say anything pithy in response, which was strange for Aunt Evilyn. “Lord have mercy,” she said finally, staring across the park.
I followed her line of vision. A young couple released their curly blond Labradoodle and threw a yellow tennis ball. The Labradoodle shot across the green space like a bullet, but stopped cold when he spotted Aunt Evilyn. I looked from the Labradoodle to my evil aunt and back to the Labradoodle. There was history there.
She slowly lifted herself from the bench, careful not to make any sharp movements.
“What’s going on here?” I asked her.
“Shut up, girl!” she snapped at me, but it was too late. Bryan locked eyes with the Labradoodle and leaped from the purse like a gazelle.
Aunt Evilyn ran after Bryan, I ran after Aunt Evilyn, and the Labradoodle stood in the center of the green space, paralyzed with fear.
“Get your goddamn dog!” Aunt Evilyn yelled for the Labradoodle’s owners, who were so busy talking and chuckling that they hadn’t realized their dog was about to be eaten alive, one small bite at a time.
“Oh no!” one of them bellowed. “Molly! Come here, girl!”
And then everyone was running, everyone except Molly. Bryan’s hind legs straightened with every leap, covering as much ground as possible. He didn’t bark. He just ran toward his target with one goal—to rid the world of this Labradoodle. He crashed into Molly and started gnawing on her front leg. Molly let out the most pitiful sound, and I zipped past Evilyn.