“Kenisha, girl, you need to chill out on that,” Jalisa said. “You know how important college is. We’ve talked about colleges for months. Now all of a sudden, you’re like, whatever. What’s up with that?”
“Wait, Jalisa,” Diamond said. “I know what she means. And I know exactly how she feels. We both do. Dealing with all this school stuff is crap compared to everything else. Remember how we felt?”
I went silent. We all knew what she meant. She was talking about my mom, and she was right. I looked at Diamond and then Jalisa. I knew they’d get it. When her grandfather died, Diamond was heartbroken. When Brian, Jalisa’s older brother, started drugs and went all crazy, she was devastated. We were there for each other then. I guess I forgot that they’d be here for me now.
The first bell rang for fourth period. Each of our classes was on the other side of the building. That meant we had to hustle if we wanted to get there on time. I spun the combination lock and then slung my book bag on my shoulder.
“We’d better go,” I said. Jalisa and Diamond nodded. “Since I got another chance, I’d better start off by being on time.”
Then we started walking down the hall together.
“For real, I heard that. I have Mr. Cooper, he apparently trained with the friggin’ Gestapo. The man has no clue as to the concept of chill,” Jalisa said. We laughed as we approached the hall that would send us in three different directions. “Call me after class.”
“Me, too,” Diamond said.
“Crap—” it hit me “—my dad has my cell. I gotta get it before he leaves.”
“We’ll walk you,” Diamond said. Jalisa nodded.
“No, don’t be late to class. I have a note, remember?”
“Okay, see you later,” Jalisa said.
“Call us,” Diamond added.
“I will.” I turned and hurried back to the main office. I was actually starting to feel a little better. Maybe I could get through this. Knowing that Jalisa and Diamond had my back was definitely making me feel better. I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course they’d be there for me. They always are. So as soon as I opened the door to the main office, I saw that my dad was standing there talking to Mrs. Clarkson. “Dad, I need my cell back, and I gotta get to class.”
“Actually, Kenisha, Mrs. Clarkson just sent a message to your fourth period teacher. You’re excused the rest of the day.”
Crap, what did I do now? This is the last thing I expected to hear. “I don’t get it. I didn’t do anything this time.”
“Kenisha, we know you didn’t do anything,” Mrs. Clarkson said, using her silly, soft voice again. “Your father has some good news for you. It’s going to help you tremendously. I’ll let him tell you.” She turned to my dad, smiled, offered her condolences again with a lingering-too-long handshake and then told him that everything will get better. I was just standing there watching them wondering how soon he was going to add her to his harem. “See you tomorrow, Kenisha. Remember, you can always come to me anytime.”
I nodded absently. My immediate concern was what the hell was going on now. “Come on, Kenisha. Let’s go,” my dad said walking away, expecting me to follow.
“Go where?” I asked without moving.
He turned smiling. “Mrs. Clarkson has generously asked a friend of hers to speak with you. He has some free time in about twenty minutes. We can just about get there on time.”
“Wait, what, get where? I thought I was supposed to stay here and start getting my grades up.”
“You are. You will tomorrow. Right now, you need to come on,” he said. I slung my book bag on my shoulder, started walking, following my dad down the hall. “His name is Dr. Emmanuel Tubbs. I’m told that he’s a nice guy. He’s a psychoanalyst. He’ll be—”
“A psychoanalyst, a shrink? What, you think I’m crazy now?” I asked, speaking louder than I intended. But it was just the shock that my dad had conspired to get rid of me, again.
“Kenisha, keep your voice down,” he said quietly.
“You’re trying to get rid of me again, just like before.”
“Kenisha, calm down. Nobody’s trying to get rid of you. Dr. Tubbs is a professional. I just want you to sit down and talk to him. There are things you apparently need to express, and I think this is good way for you to do it.”
I was still in shock by the time we got to the car. My dad was still spouting his propaganda about how much I need this, and how I’d feel so much better afterward. Isn’t that the same thing they said about shock treatment? “Fine, whatever, I’m done.”
two
Looking in the Mirror
“So I look in a mirror with a mirror behind me. I see myself over and over again. Maybe I’ve been wrong all this time. Maybe it wasn’t me after all. Maybe all that other stuff happened to somebody else, maybe.”
—MySpace.com
When you walk into a shrink’s office and you see a couch you’re expected to lay down and spill your guts. Uh-uh, I’m not having that. I plopped down in the massive chair and waited, so much for doing the predictable thing. “Kenisha, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
“Didn’t my father and Mrs. Clarkson already do that?”
“I’d like to hear from you, your words.”
This was going to be a total waste of time. I rolled my eyes and looked around the room. It was a lot cheerier than I expected. I guess I assumed the place would look like what you see on television, all dark and gloomy. But the office was nice in a grown, no taste kind of way. So I continued looking around until I realized that Tubbs was actually sitting there waiting for me to say something about myself. “The model teenager, Kenisha Lewis is broken. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I’d like to hear whatever you’d like to tell me.”
“I have a better idea. You tell me something. Why exactly am I here?” I asked.
“Your father is very concerned about you.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“You’re very angry. Let’s talk about that.”
Let’s not. I was seriously not in the mood to have a deep philosophical discussion with a total stranger. So I sat in the shrink’s office listening to him drone on about stuff he had absolutely no idea about. His name is Emmanuel Tubbs. What kind of name is that for a shrink? He’s this old white guy, seventy-or eighty-something going on a hundred with absolutely no clue what my life was like as an African-American teenager in the twenty-first century. He didn’t even have a computer or a laptop in the office. Please, what a joke.
So this was session one, a half hour in and I just nod and ignore him mostly. Maybe he’d shut up eventually. In the meantime I figure he’s got a serious noisy, all-up-in-your-grill complex. I continued looking around checking out his crib.
He’s got a million books on the shelves, and the office is bright. I seriously would have done a better job hooking him up. His has the typical college diplomas plus all these pictures of some man all over the walls, his lover maybe. Strange. He also has this half statue of I guess the same guy sitting, looking over his shoulder from the corner. Talk about an obsessive disorder. How am I supposed to take this man seriously when he has this weird guy everywhere staring at me? What a joke too. Talk about a Dr. Phil wannabe.
We played this word association game. He said a word and I had to say the first thing that came to my mind. Of course I deliberately messed with his head. He caught on after about the eighth time when he said umbrella and I said Uranus. I had to laugh. Afterward he got all serious on me and started asking how I feel about different things, like death. Pleeease. How do you think I feel, weirdo?
Psychoanalysts, I know what they are, mostly. At least I know what they’re supposed to do. They’re supposed to help a person deal with their emotional baggage by talking about past drama. Isn’t that like everybody? Who doesn’t have past drama?
“Kenisha, let’s talk about your mother now.”
I looked up at him. Okay, it was time to get this over with. I decided
to change subjects to something more to my liking. “Is that your dad or your boyfriend?” I asked needing to make this last half-hour a bit more interesting at least.
“Excuse me,” Tubbs said, I guess stunned that I actually spoke.
“Your boy there, his picture’s on the wall?”
He turned. “No, that’s Dr. Sigmund Freud. He was a brilliant and noted psychoanalyst. As a matter of fact, he’s known as the father of psychoanalysis.”
“So he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“How does that make you feel?” I asked.
Tubbs smiled for the first time since he sat down. “We are not here to talk about my feelings, Kenisha.”
“So what was up with him, anyway? I guess he was perfect, right.”
“Far from it. It’s widely speculated that he was addicted to cocaine even though he was a brilliant man with an enormous amount of courage and inner strength. It’s also reported that he had oral cancer and suffered numerous surgeries.”
“So that’s supposed to excuse the fact that he was a druggie?”
“No, of course not.”
“So why is it that when some guy like him is addicted, he’s brilliant with inner strength. But when it’s somebody on the street, a nobody, then they’re a common criminal?”
“Excellent observation.”
“It’s not an observation. It’s the truth,” I pointed out.
“I completely agree. Society does have different standards according to who or what a person is. You’re absolutely right, and I have no answer to your query.”
I didn’t expect him to agree with me. I thought he’d defend Freud and others, saying that they were special and deserved more consideration. “So what happened to him?”
“He committed suicide with the help of a friend.”
“How’d he do it, bullet to the brain or by hanging himself?”
“Nothing so dramatic. He ingested lethal doses of morphine.”
“Bummer.”
“Indeed, but I prefer to be more inclined to his professional attributes such as his theories on repression, the unconscious psyche and the human defense method. I think maybe we should talk a little more about your defense methods.”
“So the fact was that this guy was supposed to be all mentally brilliant and could dig deep into a person’s psyche and everything. But at the end of the day he was actually nothing but a blow-head druggie? Doesn’t that bother you? Not exactly a role model, ya think? I guess he should have just said no, huh?”
Tubbs, much to my amazement, started cracking up laughing. “You got me there, Kenisha. But let’s get back to our previous conversation.”
“I don’t have anything to say,” I said.
“If you don’t talk to me, Kenisha, I can’t help you.”
“Finally you get it,” I said. “See, you can’t help me ’cause there’s nothing wrong with me.”
“No one is saying that anything is wrong with you.”
“Liar, everybody’s saying that.”
He smiled and nodded then started writing something in his notebook. I figured all he was doing was a crossword puzzle or something like that. After a while he looked back at me. “Let’s get back to your mother and your feelings. She died, I’m very sorry. Death can be hard, extremely hard, particularly an untimely death. Your father spoke to me briefly about her.”
“Did he tell you his part in all this?”
“If you mean that he let her go from the house, then—”
“Let her go from the house? That’s hysterical. Are you kidding me? He kicked us out of the house so that he could bring his girlfriend in.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We had no place to go, and she blamed herself.”
“Did you blame her also?” he asked.
The question surprised me. “No,” I lied.
“Do you still blame her?”
“No,” I lied again, “I don’t still blame her for getting kicked out of the house. I’m fine with it.”
“Do you blame her for leaving you, for dying?”
“No. What kind of question is that? How can I blame her for dying? Everybody dies. It was her turn.” My voice cracked and I was starting to hurt again. I could feel the anger welling up inside. An explosion was coming. I needed to scream, to hit, to fight, but not to cry. No, not again, never again.
“It’s okay to be angry, Kenisha. Your mother left you at a very—”
“Would you stop saying that she left me? She didn’t leave me. She died. There’s a difference. If she left me, there’d be the possibility that she’d come back. But she didn’t leave me. She died. Get it? She’s not coming back, ever.”
“Let’s talk about anger. Your anger.”
“Let’s not,” I said, angrily.
“Anger is one of the seven stages of grief we all go through when death touches us. There’s shock, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression and finally acceptance. You’re angry, Kenisha, understandably. But it’s okay to be angry, angry at your friends, your family, your classmates, at yourself and most importantly, angry at her—your mother.”
I looked up and glared at him. It took everything inside of me not to jump across the room, grab that stupid statue and beat him down. I dug my nails into my palms and prayed. That’s what my grandmother always said to do when I feel angry. I prayed big time.
“Be mad at your mother, Kenisha. It’s okay. Let it out, and let me help you get past it. Let’s talk about—”
“No, let’s talk about your mother,” I snapped.
“My mother isn’t the point of all this, Kenisha. We—”
“Humor me,” I interrupted. He nodded and told me that his mother was fine and lived in Florida with his father, both retired doctors, blah, blah, blah. “See, you have zero experience with my drama. I’m a fifteen-year-old African-American girl, my mom’s dead and my dad would rather I disappear. Bottom line, we have nothing in common.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“About what?”
“About what you just said.”
I looked at him like he was crazy. He must have seriously got it ’cause he looked down and started writing in his book.
“You got in a fight today. How do you feel about that?”
“I won,” I said simply.
He scribbled in his notebook again. Then, as soon as he looked up to presumably ask me another silly question, a chime sounded. He grimaced looking annoyed. I presumed it was to end the session, so I got up and left. My dad was sitting out in the outer office waiting for me. He stood as soon as Tubbs and I came out of his office. “Well?”
“Well what?” I asked.
“What happened? Is she all right now?” he asked Tubbs.
I walked away. The implication that I was sent in for some kind of mental tune-up was so typical of my dad. He didn’t do drama well. He caused it, spread it, passed it on, but never actually dealt with it.
Tubbs gave him some BS about me needing more sessions and contacting his secretary to set up a series of appointments. By this time I was too ready to leave. As expected, when we got in the car, the lecture started.
“Kenisha, I’ve done everything you wanted. You asked to go back to Hazelhurst. Fine, you’re back. You asked to move back in during the week. Fine, the door’s open, you’re back.” I didn’t respond. So he continued a while longer, everything centered on how great he was and how good he’d been to me. Then he stopped and went quiet. “I know you blame me,” he said softly, “I blame me, too.”
“I don’t blame you, Dad. I just don’t get you.”
“I miss her,” he said.
“I miss her, too.”
He pulled up in the driveway of his house—my old house. Leaving the engine running, he shifted to Park then turned to me. “You’re gonna get through this, Kenisha. We both will. Here’s your cell. I didn’t want you distracted in the doctor’s office.”
I nodded, took my cell, grabbed my heavy boo
k bag and got out the car. After I closed the door I looked back at him still sitting there with the engine running. “You not coming in?” I asked, stating the obvious seeing him shift the gear into Reverse.
He looked up at our used-to-be gorgeous house. “Nah, I have things to do at the office. Tell Courtney I’ll be home late.”
I went inside. As usual, it hit me like a five ton anvil that things were different now. What used to be Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Rachmaninoff softly playing throughout the intercom sound system was now replaced with two yapping, screaming boys running around the house with two almost-dogs.
“Hi, loving family, I’m home,” I said sarcastically, to no one. I plugged in my MP3 player and headed to my room. On the way, I stopped to deliver my dad’s message to Courtney. It still felt weird to go to my mom’s bedroom and see some other woman in there. Anyway, I dropped my earbuds and walked down the hall. I heard all this crying. I stopped at the half open door and listened.
Courtney was on the phone apparently talking to one of her skank girlfriends. The phone was on speaker, so I could hear both sides of the conversation. She was crying like crazy as the other woman tried to calm her down. “Can you believe that asshole wants to name my baby girl Barbara, after that bitch?” she said.
For calling my mom that I was seriously ready to walk in there and slap Courtney like before. But it was so damn ironic and funny. My dad wants to name Courtney’s baby after my mom. What a trip.
“Now he’s hanging out all the time. Every weekend it’s the same thing. He says that he has all this work to do, but I know he’s lying. I call the office or go by there. The place is all locked up. He’s not even there. I know he’s got somebody else—probably that skank from his office,” Courtney said.
“Don’t worry about all that, girl. Whatever he’s doing, leave him alone, chill and, seriously, stop nagging the man and checking up on him,” skank girlfriend said.
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