Bitch Is the New Black

by Helena Andrews

  I got in anyway.

  “I’m a journalist, and I’m doing a story on Senator Barack Obama.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Actually, you might be able to help me. Is there a particular neighborhood or any place down here where African Americans hang out?”

  “Oh. Well, you don’t wanna be going to any of those places. It ain’t rally safe—drugs and…” The rest of that sentence would only be important to know at my murder trial. I’m not going to say “Mr. Cabdriver, sir” was a racist, but he was racist-ish. After a mind-boggling minutes-long tirade about all the places I shouldn’t go because “the blacks”—who he personally had nothing against—in Columbia were not only dangerous but also totally in the dark about politics, he dropped me off at the one place he knew there’d be “someone smert enough tuh talk tuh ya,” Dr. Ray’s Used Cars and Ground Transportation. He promised I’d be safe.

  “They’ll take care of you,” he said, now unloading the trunk, perhaps unaware of the alarming similarity his guarantee had to a gangster’s. Perhaps. “It’s back in there.” He pointed to a darkened wormhole–slash–front door near where his “Lincoln” was parked. You’ve got to be shitting me.

  But before I had the chance to plead, “Wait, what? In there?!” the handle to my suitcase was in my hand, and I was left alone, listening to the popping sounds tires make when they run over busted-up gravel mixed with dirt. Across the driveway, overalled men worked under the huge shadows of beached Beemers. It started to rain, and I walked inside.

  See, this is what Gina calls “some ole white people stuff.” The type of commonsense-defying idiocy—sticking your head in a “trained” lion’s mouth, walking alone from the train at 2:00 a.m.—that we of the overcritical-black-female variety routinely categorize as “white girl shit.” Which is to say any action that is in no way demonstrative of how we ourselves personally would behave in a situation of similar life-threatening level. Much is made of the high mortality rate of horror-movie black people. But think of it as a question of plot, not prejudice. Boomsheekah gets the ax in the first five minutes of Slasher Movie Magic IV, not because she lacks the mental acumen to stay alive, but because the whole thing would have been over in the five minutes it takes to run out the front door (not up the damn stairs) and call the police (not your idiot friend who lives twenty minutes away).

  Back at the garage, nobody came out to offer me a mint julep, so after standing perfectly still with my eyeballs looping roller-coaster-like in their sockets, I decided to stop looking like an asshole and go inside. The solid smell of boiling meat greeted me at the door like a gruff old man. Whuddayawan, I don’t have all fucking day.

  “Heeehhh-looowww,” I yodeled, one hand gripping the door-frame.

  “Yeahp,” came the answer from the next room.

  I approached the main office the way a Discovery Channel intern approaches a den of wild hyenas in the bush—very carefully and with low-pay-grade precautions. Sticking my head into the room before the rest of me followed, I wouldn’t take my notepad out just yet—don’t want to frighten them into a stampede. Them was a seventy-one-year-old black man, J. C. Martin, and the boss of the place, “Dr. Ray” Charles Jones, who, judging from the juice of his Jheri curl, looked to be in his early fifties and definitely not a doctor.

  Steak and onions. That, plus motor oil. Perfect. I was interrupting lunch. Everybody knows wild things act more so when they’re hungry. Dr. Ray walked over to a Crock-Pot on a desk littered with garage tools, stirring what was inside before introducing himself and his friend. “He’ll answer all your questions,” he said, nodding to where J.C. was sitting without taking his eyes off what was in the pot. I took out my reporter’s notebook.

  “I know more about Jesse Jackson than Obama. He just popped up. I never heard anybody say anything about no Obama,” answered J.C. when I asked him the most profound question I could muster: Did you ever think you’d live to see this day? We went on like that for a while—me asking stupid questions and him trying his best to answer them without making me feel stupid. He sat with his legs so far apart I was in constant uncomfortable eye contact with his old-man junk. I played it off by pretending to be blind. He wouldn’t tell me what J.C. stood for, aside from “the closest you’ll ever get to Jesus Christ.” When it was finally over, he decided to do some interviewing of his own. Probably trying to show off.

  J.C. and his wife had been married for fifty years before she died. Dr. Ray, who finally started acknowledging my presence, said he “got started early” and had eleven children before he was middle-aged. I scanned a shelf crowded with frames of cap-and-gowned girls and tuxedoed boys, while Ray checked on his steaks and onions for the third time. He mentioned his wife in the past tense, and I nodded, not sure how we got so off topic. But there does come a point after one has reached the socially preferred age of procreation when talking about one’s reproductive prospects with total strangers is not only common practice, but anticipated.

  “Are you married?” asked J.C. as I was furiously scribbling down details. Something like—“Ray Charles Jones, who runs a ground transportation business in Columbia…”

  “Ahhhh? No,” I answered hastily, looking up with a cocked eyebrow. I knew this would be coming, but not so soon. My coat was still on.

  “But you’re looking for a husband? Right?” This was more of a biblical command than anything else. Make babies, not bachelor’s degrees.

  Had I been looking? Had any of us? I wasn’t so sure. At that point, Dex and I were still in the “this could so work” phase. Everything he did was magic—making inedible eggs, writing impossible poetry. Imagining the look he’d give me just as the doors were opening for my big reveal on the day of our wedding was a treasured pastime. As was examining every inch of his Facebook wall. Happy to claim somebody, I was hardly concerned if he was that somebody, and ignored the faraway looks he sometimes got. Besides, a stared-at BlackBerry never vibrates or whatever. If I was out there looking all the damn time, I’d probably never stop long enough to find someone. In my head that sounded all feministy and liberated and logical.

  Hiding behind a brief smile, I considered what to say to the little old man sitting in front me with the potbelly and splayed knees. He was waiting patiently for whatever answer I was searching for. How exactly does one look for a husband? Is there an educational game I should’ve gotten for Christmas instead of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Who’s got time to find Machu Picchu when there’s a man on the loose?

  If I had screamed, “YES, yes. A thousand times yes!” would I be better for it or worse? Of course I wanted someone of the male variety, a husband even, to help get rid of the lonelies, but hadn’t I just gotten to the looking point? Or was it the tipping point? Even after reading Dex’s copy of Malcolm Gladwell in four metro rides, I still didn’t know the answer to that. So J.C. got the response I usually saved for family things. “I’m just way too busy. I’m trying to be a super star right now. Career stuff, you know?” It’s hard to imagine three more ridiculous sentences in the history of speech. I’d either just sledgehammered more nails in the coffin of educated-while-black relationships or slugged a grand slam for the home team.

  “Uh-huh,” J.C. grunted, sliding down a few more inches in his chair, junk in full view. We were done here.

  But there was still the question of my ride.

  Ray said he knew the best young person to take me around and introduce me to black people—his oldest daughter, Rayetta. Suspicion and superiority immediately took hold of my soul.

  When she arrived, she told me she was twenty-six, only a year younger than me. Her nails were long and red, and her hair was hard and crimped. She had never been on a plane before and asked me twice if police cars in Washington looked the same as the ones in Columbia. Not sure of what she meant, I answered yes.

  “Can we see the stuff you write online?”

  “Umm-hmm, just go to—”

  “But we can get that here? On our compute
rs in Columbia?”

  Loose lawns ran into one another and past the windows of her cab (she worked for Ray during the day). She could have been one of my cousins, the ones who made me drink Listerine and still thought I lived in New York. I kept still in the backseat, silently scrolling through already-read e-mails. For whatever reason, chitchatting with her felt like a chore. Actually, I knew the reason. I didn’t ask, but I guessed that she had kids. That she went to the karaoke every Friday night if there weren’t any lanes left to bowl on. And that she was married, engaged, or in some other way involved with a man. Just like all the Korean girls from high school with new Facebook albums—“Jackie Kim’s Wedding!” According to Gina, our best bet was to be an Asian psychology major from Biloxi. Too late. Even Gary—the slutbag I lost my virginity to in college and then was bored into dating after graduation—was getting married to a girl whose profile pic read “Cambodian.”

  “Her name is fucking Sue Meh,” I groaned.

  “Ohmigod, dude, her name is litigious.”

  “The Asians, that’s what it’s about. It’s like 1989 all over again,” I said, having absolutely no idea whether or not there was a violent uptick in Asian/black unions in 1989. But for some reason, it sounded about right.

  “It’s time, man—the marrying time. Just not for us. Not black women. We don’t ever get a time. Not never.” A Waiting to Exhale moment followed, and afterward the two of us got back to the business of living our lives.

  Rayetta had probably never even seen Waiting to Exhale. And if she had, I’m sure she didn’t know any of the lines by heart like we did. For example: “Well, guess what, John, YOU’RE the motherfuckin’ improper influence!” Sitting up there in the front seat with her red-ass nails on the steering wheel, Rayetta didn’t have a care in the world, because her world was about as big as a tank of gas. I should’ve asked her some questions while we were on our way to the hotel—it would save me some time—but I didn’t want her voice in my piece.

  Instead I made appointments with graduate students and young professionals, wrote my story, and flew home. It made the front page without Rayetta in it.

  But she wasn’t all gone. I finally got the courage to interview her on our way to the airport—we were running ridiculously late because she didn’t realize I needed to be there more than ten minutes before my flight. For the last few days, whenever I climbed into the backseat—after she’d been waiting for me to finish asking someone more worthy what real regular folk felt about Obama—Rayetta would always ask how it went. I’d grumble meaningless stock sentences, and we’d take off. Once I got as far as “so…” but stopped myself before adding “what do you think?” Deciding I already knew her life, I felt stupid asking about it. On my way out of the South, I figured what the hell, it’s not like I’ll ever see her again. I acted like we were having an actual conversation while I tapped her answers into my Berry. She didn’t think I was paying attention. She said her mother hosted a party for Mrs. Obama a few months back. “Michelle came to the house and served hors d’oeuvres,” said Rayetta with something more than pride—familiarity maybe. “She was real nice. She sure got our vote.”

  This was the first time I’d felt stingy since second grade. Michelle was ours, damn it!

  A black president—shrug. For those of us who didn’t watch Roots on the first color TV ever, that always seemed possible. But a black first lady—with diplomas in plural, a career in progress, a presidential husband, and perfect babies—now that was “historical quantity.” Michelle was our anchor in outer space.

  Rayetta knew this, and I’d tried to ignore her. After spending years claiming to be the best black woman possible, I wasted two silent days in a backseat, afraid to talk to a real one. I left Rayetta out of my story, but kept our interview on my Berry for months.

  “I have never been more hyped to not have nobody,” said Gina as we were making plans for the inauguration. She’d be in Washington for the whole week. Triple negatives aside, I was confused.

  “Are you serious, dude?” Since when did single and loving it become acceptable for our “about me” sections?

  “Dude, Michelle is making it super famous to be a black woman right now. I’m ready.”

  I guess she was right. Maybe Mrs. Obama would be our sixth man, invisibly racking up assist after assist. Maybe we’d even get laid. But Gina was the basketball star in high school. It took a year of scoring a grand total of ten points in JV until I ditched the Alonzo Mournings for a pair of pom-poms—making noise on the sidelines seemed more productive. Anyway, I was beginning to think I was unMichelle-able—at least when it came to the man I wanted most to see me as first-lady material.

  During the final four of our breakup championship, Dexter called me an elitist. We argued about picket fences and my hatred for the mediocre lives they were built to prettify. That type of life disgusts me, I told him after it’d been made totally clear that he didn’t want that type of life with me. We’re so different, he said. You’re right; I was just horny when we met. We both know this is pointless, I mean, it’s not like you were ever in my league or anything. Sweet Jesus, somebody stop me. I want someone who’ll take me to live in Malaysia or something, I said, like a Peace Corps volunteer with an endless trust fund. Because Dex didn’t want to run the country with me, I decided to run him down with all the expectations I never had.

  Like I say, it was frightening to be a black woman when a black woman like Michelle was around, was everywhere. And when her husband won the White House, everybody kept talking about how little black boys would have no more excuses. No father, no money, a name blacker than dirt—you too can rule the world. But no one talked (cared) about how Michelle changed us. We’d lain awake nights wondering if our Wonder Woman acts would ever get found out. Then suddenly there was proof we could be everyday and superhuman. But where were the instructions?

  Still, Gina was weirdly positive that all this would work in our favor, and I was still scared shitless—this could be a train wreck waiting to happen. But like a rubbernecking driver on the freeway, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  Michelle does weird things with her lips sometimes. When she’s waiting for someone to finish asking her a question or just waiting for someone to shut up, she folds her mouth in on itself just briefly, like she’s warming it up or something. What comes out next—you know it’s going to be good.

  She was on The View once, televising the revolution. While Barbara Walters stuttered on about something or other, there it was again. Michelle’s lips pressing against each other as if getting ready for a smack or a smack-down.

  “People aren’t used to strong women.” She was talking about her husband’s opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, but this was all about me. Usually the people who think the people on TV are talking to them are straitjacketed. I, on the other hand, couldn’t be saner. “We don’t even know how to talk about ’em,” she continued, wearing a $148 dress from White House/Black Market. Rayetta could get that dress.

  I bought a J. Crew dress that looked like something she’d wear—sheath, cobalt blue, understated. Once, I was in a car packed mostly with women when the one guy, a friend of mine, almost got killed. “Michelle isn’t even all that cute,” he said. “She got a really high booty.” By some miracle he made it out in one piece. But the truth is, she isn’t the most beautiful woman in the world. Her butt does sit up kind of high. She’s a “dark, black, woman,” as Whoopi put it that day on The View, slapping the back of her hands together to slam home the meaning of each of those adjectives.

  I don’t think Michelle minds being our new muse. I think she gets it. We little brown girls—drunk off The Cosby Show, sobered up by life, and a little suicidal—we need her.

  These days the word hope is unsuitable for civilized conversation, having been ridden hard and put away so wet on the campaign trail. But despite being the vocabulary equivalent of a slutbag, there’s no better word to describe Michelle’s spot in our run-down hearts.

  Gi
na’s even got a new pickup line to be used during our inauguration-weekend festivities: “I have a master’s degree. Fuck me.”

  Eight

  “PERFECT GIRL” AND OTHER CURSE WORDS

  He meant it as an insult.

  Maybe if he called me a “stuck-up bitch whose sadistic obsession with a mythological black male would inevitably leave her childless,” maybe then I could’ve slapped him like a monochromatic movie star before slinking off to the boudoir to be “ahvown.”

  Instead he called me “perfect girl,” and I was forced to snuggle up to the rented space between his bicep and his pits, breathing in the stink of another relationship gone bad. Perfect girl? I gave us another month. Two, tops.

  First you have to know that Dex already had a growing urban harem of “girls.” There was “hotel girl,” “club girl,” “seven-month school girl,” “London girl,” “law school girl,” and a girl whose secret identity I knew but whom I refused to refer to as anything other than “Prom Shoes.” Actually, I knew the etymology of each one, because so far, I’d been losing at a little game I play called “Super Cool,” in which I pretend to be the super coolest girl in the history of the universe, so cool, in fact, that it’s totally cool for us to chat about all your other so-called relationships because “it’s cool, my baby,” and we both know that in the end you’ll choose me, the coolest. Despite sucking at sports, I keep at it.

  The toughest part of my favorite pastime is making sure the other player never catches on to how I really feel. Keeping secret that one more word about Prom Shoes’ (the only one of Dex’s girls who I’d seen in real life, in silvery rhinestoned peep toes) complete lack of moral authority as evidenced in her choice of footwear might send me to the other team, Red Rover style—sweaty, pissed, and eventually submissive.

  Even with all that pent-up obsession, when the time came for my comic book christening I used my amazing super powers to keep my mouth shut. It happened like the Fortune Cookie game where the future always tastes better “in bed.” We were lying on one, stretching out my Jersey sheets with 3:00 a.m. predictions of what might come next for us. For me, it was a life made painless by the proximity of another human being. For Dex, it was probably another blow job, the possibility of which brought him to his next point.