I remember that the ride to school was uneventful, yet my mind raced with anticipation. Questions about cubby holes and mid-morning snacks raced through my head as I stared out the window. So fast and furious were my thoughts that I didn't notice the furtive looks cast my way or the fingers pointing at me. It was better that I didn't or else I, like a crab being removed from the bushel, would have sensed the impending death of my innocent spirit.
I remember approaching the morning with optimism. Sitting at my desk, I folded my hands just like my mother taught me. Every now and then I would catch some of the girls looking at me. Sometimes it was a brown girl who would grin shyly if I caught her eye. Other times, it was a tan girl who would stare unsmiling, trying to decipher the puzzle that was me.
I remember lingering longer than necessary in the cubbyhole room, trying to see if anyone would invite me to play with them. After I removed my jump rope, I repacked and zipped my book bag. One of the brown girls sidled up to me.
I remember the envy in her eyes as she eyed my two honey-colored ponytails before saying, “You've got pretty hair.”
I remember another brown girl tapping her foot impatiently. Half disgusted, half hateful, she snorted, “Come on, Tiffany.”
Then Tiffany left, and I remember walking outside last and alone while everyone else formed Noah's Ark–like pairs ahead of me. It was an early representation of what would define the rest of my life.
THE NEXT DAY
Hope swirled in my head the next day when I awoke. Things will be different, I had assured myself before drifting into sleep.
The wait at the bus stop was the same. But how much different could that possibly be? All the kids were waiting with their parents. The ride on the bus was the same. But how much different could that be? It's a short ride from Mt. Airy to Chestnut Hill, and besides, the bus can get a little noisy with all those gears shifting and all. The first part of the school day was the same. But how different could that be? It's wrong to talk in class despite the fact that other kids managed to sneak in jokes and share some secrets. Their names got written on the board, but I got a star for good conduct. The walk to the cubby hole room was the same. Then I got nervous. Suppose everything was the same, and I ended up with that same lonesome feeling.
Then a change. A little girl, who looked all golden and fair like my mother, approached me.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I returned shyly.
“Do you want to play with us?” she asked, gesturing toward a small group of tan girls.
I smiled and nodded my head. Gathering my rope, I fell in step beside her.
“I asked my mom if it would be okay to play with you,” she said innocently. “I told her that you're almost my color, just a little darker. You aren't nearly as dirty as those other girls, so you must be one of us.”
My mouth fell open, partly from shock, partly from my desire to tell her that the brown is not dirt. It's not like mud.
Before I could say anything, she continued. “Besides, Heather said that she saw your mom, and she's one of us. I told my mom, and she said that at least you're half good, so you can play with us.”
Her words did not immediately register in my head, but my heart felt them. Then my stomach quivered as if epic memories of burning bodies and burning crosses resurfaced into my consciousness. I ran to the bathroom to throw up the vestiges of Emmett Till and the four little girls. My teacher ran after me.
I was spared from recess that day. Looking out the window of the nurse's office, I watched as the other kids naturally fell into groups together. Tan girls. Brown girls. Brown boys. Tan boys. As I watched, the tans became white and the browns became black. And I fell somewhere in between black and white.
EVERY DAY
Every day my mother waited for me at the bus stop. Her eyes anxious, her mouth ready to smile. Her aura was light, heavenly. She seemed so happy, I didn't want to crush her with stories of my colored confusion. So I lied.
Every day I filled her ears with tales of my popularity and acceptance. I told her that so many girls wanted to play with me at recess that I had to choose. I told her that girls always wanted to share their snacks with me, and that was why I wasn't really hungry at dinner. I told her that one of my classmates invited me to her birthday party this Saturday, but because we were going to Baltimore, I declined. I told her that one of the black girls, though it was brown girls for her virgin ears, brushed my hair at recess every day, telling me that it was the most beautiful hair she'd ever seen.
And I learned that mothers and white people were gullible enough to be fooled by a good story and a smile.
AND THEY SAID
Into the bathroom, the black girls came.
“Hi, Shana,” one said, sneering my name.
“Shana, we don't like you. You think you're cute.”
“Don't look surprised, honey, we've got proof.”
“Remember the bus rides all those years in the past?”
“You were too good to speak on the bus and in class.”
“You always looked down your nose at us.”
“I didn't say anything, didn't want to cause a fuss.”
“But, you zebra bitch, your cozy days are through.”
“We'll make these school days a living hell for you.”
With those final words came a slap across my face.
And they taught me that among them I had no place.
ALMOST EVERYDAY
The fingers. They pinch.
The mouths. They spit.
The feet. They kick.
The hands. They hit.
The fists. The punch.
The teeth. They crunch.
The hands. They shove.
The mouths. They munch.
The feet. They smoosh.
The hands. They push.
The shoes. The squoosh.
The doors. They smush.
And they almost never leave a mark.
THE WORDS
I tried to tell, but the words got stuck in my throat. And when they were dislodged, they came out all wrong.
The three of us were sitting in the sunroom. Dad, Mom, and me. Black. white, and between. I was eight years old, but my soul felt so much older. I was weary from years of uncried tears.
I looked from mother to father, noting all of their differences. Her softness, his hardness. Her pleasantness, his sternness. Her hope, his anger. Her optimism, his pessimism. I decided to shoot straight down the middle, making my words plain.
“I don't like my school,” I said, then held my breath.
My mother looked up from her book. My father didn't look up at all.
“Honey, why not?” she asked, her light voice incompatible with the heaviness in my heart.
I inhaled deeply though clenched teeth, gathering strength before saying, “Nobody likes me.”
“Of course, they do. They're always sharing their snacks with you and inviting you places.”
Before I could fix my lips around the words, the dam broke, and my face was flooded with three years of uncried tears.
My mother rushed over to me, scooping me into her arms, holding me so close that between my snot and her sweater, I felt that I would suffocate.
I heard my father's voice demand, “Is somebody messing with you?”
“Shh,” my mother snapped. “Girls don't cry only if someone is hitting them. You should know that by now.”
“Well, why is she crying?”
“I don't know,” she said, rocking me. She probably had a bad day.”
I heard my father mumble something. Then I heard his heavy feet walk across the sunroom and go into the house. Then my ears were filled with my mother's humming while my heart was still filled with grief.
FALLING DOWN
We were at Miles Park for a picnic on Memorial Day. I remember it like it was yesterday because it marked the onset of a series of changes in my life. I should have known that the picnic was just the beginning of imminent chang
e because things always happen in threes.
Mom, determined to bring us closer as a family, had packed a picnic basket of delectable delicacies. Shrimp salad on fat, crusty bagels from Rosensweig's deli. Corn and tomato salsa to cover gourmet chicken burritos from Don Pepe's. Sweet Potato French Fries and Surprise Iced Tea from Sugarene's Soul Food Spot.
Dad had laid out the blanket and was beginning a game of solitaire while Mom had pulled out her latest Danielle Steel fantasy read. I pulled out my jump rope and attempted to jump rope on a flat patch of grass.
Conversation was sparse in our household, and I was used to it, but sometimes under my father's watchful, wordless stare I grew uncomfortable. It seemed that in his watching, he was waiting. Waiting. Ever waiting for me to make a mistake. Mess up. And when I did, he would pounce.
“Watch what you're doing!” “You're making a mess!” “Look at yourself! You're such a slob.” “Damn it! Can't you do anything right?”
So I tried to be perfect. Maybe in my perfection, I thought, I could gain his acceptance. That Memorial Day, I gained more that acceptance. I gained his love. At least temporarily.
Tired of jumping rope, I went to explore the “Kiddie Community.” There were mini-houses like sheds, complete with flower boxes and benches. Uninterested in the frilly girl's stuff inside, I peered up to the roof. There boys walked their big-stepped walk, happy and free. The sun beat down on their faces, and under its warm glare, their colors melted into one. They were all golden brown in its rays. I wanted to be up there. In the sun. In with the others. Like the others.
So I climbed up and up like Jack and the Beanstalk until I reached the top. It wasn't that high, only about seven feet, but on top, I felt like the queen of the world. I tried to do the big-stepped walk, claiming every inch between my feet, on top of the roof, in the world. I wanted to be big, complete, perfect, but in my quest for perfection, I stumbled, and I, like Icarus, came crashing to the earth. The sun, my betrayer, beat down on me.
From outside of my body, I watched my father spring into action. He scooped me up, carrying me to the car. Alone, just the two of us, he charged down Germantown Pike, racing for my life. Through stoplights he sped, pressing his shirt under my chin, trying to stop the bleeding. There in the car, through the fear, through the worry, through the pain, I saw that the way to his heart was through danger. As long as my physical needs were met, he didn't worry. Yet if I were in harm's way, he would save me.
THING TWO OF THREE
I turned nine that summer, and I had my first real birthday party, complete with decorations and a cake. My dad had broken his rule about staying out of North Philly. He had bitten the bullet and gone to Denise's Delicacies for my cake.
“They have the best cakes in the city,” my mother had whined. My father's jaw had been tight as he clenched his teeth and looked at me. I scratched my chin, and I could see guilt dance in his eyes before he snapped at me.
“Leave your face alone!”
Mumbling, he collected his keys and headed back to the place from which he hailed, the place he grew to despise.
“Mommy, why does he hate going to North Philly?” I questioned after hearing his car pull away.
She sighed and wiped her hands on her apron, wondering what to say and how to say it.
“Your dad had a hard childhood,” she began, wondering where to tread and what to reveal.
My innocent eyes compelled her to continue speaking.
“I don't really know how to explain it, because I'm not sure if I understand it myself. He just got tired of poverty and despair.”
“But if there's a good bakery there, and other good businesses are there, can it be all that bad?”
“I don't know, honey. But he hates everything that reminds him of there, and he loves anything that's different,” she said.
Then I heard her sniffle before her head went down. She wept silently while fingering her wedding band.
That afternoon, my mother's family poured into our home to celebrate my birthday. My mom dished up the cake while my dad served drinks. He kept his glass filled, and every time he got the chance, he refilled the glass of my mom's younger sister. She smiled appreciatively and soon she began giggling whenever he approached. Soon, the two of them disappeared. Together.
THING THREE OF THREE
My mother was gone. She left us at the end of the summer. Just walked away, leaving a note for my father in her stead.
James,
I should have known. I should have known that you could never love me when you hate yourself. I thought I could help heal you. Lift you up. Lead you to love, but you never even lit the path.
Know that I don't hate you. I don't hate my sister. I don't hate any of the others. I don't hate my child. Please make sure she knows that. I just need to preserve myself since no one else will.
I love you. Tell Shana that I love her with all of my heart, but I have to go. Please love her, James. Let her know that the skin she's in is not a curse. Make her know that she has a place between black and white.
Elizabeth
He folded up her letter and put it in a drawer. He never mentioned her again.
THE LENS
I fell in love with the lens when I was fifteen. In that stage of swirling emotions, I dug the way I could manipulate the lens and create flatness. Flatness of emotion and energy. Yet if I wished, I could also capture frenzy and excitement. The camera and the lens became my means of control. Despite the circumstances surrounding me, despite the drama, I could create peace. Thinking of it still gives me a rush, and in my egomaniacal moments, I imagine, just for a split second, what it's like to be God.
Around my high school, I came to be known as something of a beatnik, what with my weed-smoking and endless supply of black clothes. I was the Herb Ritz of Girls' High. I was the Photography Club and the Art Club. I didn't like taking pictures for the newspaper or the yearbook because the shots were always so staged.
“Here's Becky, the president of Rotary Interact. Smile, Becky.”
Click.
“Here's Yolanda, captain of the basketball team. Yolanda, hold up that basketball for us and say cheese.”
Click.
Even the ones that were supposed to be candid were fake.
“See the Key Club as they box up the donations from this year's Christmas Drive. Aren't they magnanimous?”
Click.
All people have an image they want to convey, a way they want to be seen. Then, there's the truth. That's what I try to capture on film. The truth. But truth is fleeting. Yet still I try.
HIM
I've always tried to freeze people in the moment their raw purity is exposed. Those moments just come to me. I can't create them. So I must wait. That's what I was doing the first time I saw him.
He raced into my peripheral vision as I sat on a bench on Thirteenth Street in the heart of Temple University's campus. Leaning my back against the table, my camera resting on my stomach, I felt his heat before I saw him. I fumbled for my camera, my breath catching in my chest as I watched the northbound specimen in admiration. His white tank top revealed his glowing golden skin. His tight shoulders led to arms etched with muscles. His torso was lean; his stomach, flat. His behind was tight and high, and his legs, ripped with muscles, carried him quickly as he sprinted away.
Something stayed with me long after he was gone. Though his face looked relaxed, his hands were drawn into tight fists, telling me that his heart was torn. I wanted to get inside of that torn heart, to mend it from the inside out.
ONE O'CLOCK
I determined that with his runner's discipline, he was a creature of habit. That habit would lead him back to Thirteenth Street where he would run north like his ancestors had probably done generations before. He would pass briefly through my life again at one o'clock. I sat ready, like a cheetah waiting to pounce, camera poised to capture his naked edge.
Again I felt his heat before I saw him. I wondered what it was about him that mad
e me sense his presence. It was like I was a heat-seeking missile, and he was my target, only that analogy made me feel too predatory. Whatever it was, whatever I called it, it drew me toward him, and I hoped that the camera's eye could catch and preserve it until I could catch him.
I lifted the camera to my eye and pointed it in his direction, moving slowly to match his pace as he approached.
Click.
Calm.
Click.
Ease.
Click.
Despair.
Click.
Peace.
Click.
Pleasure.
Click.
Pain.
Click.
Happiness.
Click.
A nod and a smile at me.
Click.
Got him.
ONCE MORE
The next day was Friday, and I wanted to see him once more before the weekend claimed him. Camera in hand, I headed toward my usual spot after my eleven-thirty African American Lit Class ended. Gladfelter Hall on Twelfth Street was the only place on campus where I didn't feel quite so different. It housed the African American Studies Department and, from the moment I stepped off the elevator onto the eighth floor, I felt at home. Only my own home was not this warm. Anyway, leaving Gladfelter felt like leaving a cocoon, but it was okay. I could feel a similar heat radiate from him. I knew that I would feel it even more once I was actually able to get next to him.
As I walked up Montgomery toward Thirteenth, something felt different. I felt the heat, but I knew I shouldn't have felt it so soon. I checked my watch. Twelve forty-five. He was early. What was he doing down here?
I slowed my pace and scanned the street looking for him. I spotted him on the other side of the street, also approaching Thirteenth. He waved at me as he passed. I waved back, hoping that his feet and heart would guide him to me. Instead, once he reached Thirteenth, he turned left and headed south.
And I was left with my camera in hand, heart on my sleeve, wondering why.
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