In My Skin

by Brittney Griner

  Not me. When I pulled on my Phoenix Mercury uniform before my first game as a pro, looking at those tattoos that everybody was about to see, I thought about how far I had come—and how different everything would be going forward.

  THE TRUTH ABOUT BACON

  My first three days in Phoenix were rough. I can laugh about it now because it seems like a little hiccup in hindsight, but I wasn’t laughing at the time. I was a big pathetic lump in the middle of the desert, feeling out of place. Everything had been moving crazy fast for me, and then— bam!—it all stopped, and I was stuck in a holding pattern, looking around at unfamiliar surroundings and thinking, This is my new life. Welcome to adulthood. My apartment was about fifteen minutes from downtown, in a gated complex, as part of team housing. It was nice and came fully furnished, but none of my stuff was there yet because I shipped it all, so I had only the things in my suitcase, and most of those were dress clothes. I’m not sure what fancy events I was planning to attend, because the only place I ended up going was my own pity party. I didn’t know anybody in Phoenix yet—training camp was still a few days away—and I just felt so sad and alone. I might as well have been on the moon. My phone was my only connection to the world, to my old life. I would call my girlfriend and say, “I want to come back to Waco.”

  I didn’t sleep in my bed the first three nights I was there, because it didn’t feel like my bed yet. I just slept on the couch in the living room and watched TV. I was flipping channels and found this show where this dude goes to crazy areas of the world and tries to survive in the wilderness: Man vs. Wild. He was stranded on an island somewhere, and I was lying there on the couch, talking at him. “I feel the exact same way, mister. I’m a castaway in this apartment. I’m alone just like you!” It was probably the worst thing for me to watch.

  I kept telling myself everything would be fine once my stuff arrived and I met all my teammates. And I’m happy to say it was; Phoenix was a good landing spot for me. But that didn’t make those first few days any easier. The hardest part was being so far away from my friends and family back in Houston, especially my mom. I would call her to check in, and I could hear the sadness in her voice, the lump in her throat. I knew she was missing me. She is very emotional. Ever since she was diagnosed with lupus, after my freshman year at Baylor, we’ve been really close, and I’ve tried to be strong for her. But I wasn’t feeling strong right then. I didn’t even want to call her, because it hurt to hear her hurting. At one point, my second night in Phoenix, she called me, and I just sat there on the couch, looking at my phone and thinking, Nah, can’t do it. Can’t do it. I’ll call her back later.

  I feel guilty remembering that now, because my mom is the one person who has always been there for me, no matter what, loving me without question, just giving and giving. She wouldn’t describe herself as strong—in fact, she was sick a lot when I was growing up, in a lot of physical pain, serious back problems—and yet she has always been my rock. She has always let me be me, let me figure out who I am, when so many other people were telling me who I should be. I have never felt judged by her. Never.

  OF COURSE, LIKE A LOT of kids, I took that for granted when I was younger, how patient my mom was with me. Let me tell you, I gave her hell. For one thing, I had a lot of energy; I couldn’t sit still for very long. I was always into something, running around outside, chasing squirrels, digging up worms, climbing trees. But the thing I did best was pushing her buttons, trying to see how much I could get away with when my dad was at work.

  I spent a lot of time occupying myself as a kid. We lived in the Bellewood section of Houston until I was in seventh grade. We had a one-story three-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in a good neighborhood. My father was a cop with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office (as I got older, he worked a number of law enforcement jobs), and my mother stayed at home, taking care of me and my sister and the house. My parents are both from Texas. They met when Mom was a cashier at a Houston grocery store and Dad was doing security work there. He had a son and a daughter from his first marriage, and they were around a lot, because Dad was on good terms with his ex-wife. But my brother, DeCarlo, is seventeen years older than me, and my sister SheKera is ten years older. They have always been great to me, and we consider each other full blood, but it’s not like we were all running around the yard, playing games, living under the same roof. It was just me and my sister Pier, who’s five years older, and the two of us could not be more different. We’re much closer now than we were then. Pier was a total girly girl, and I was all rough-and-tumble. She was always in the house, talking on the phone, playing with dolls, watching Saved by the Bell, while I was outside wrestling with the dog in the mud. Pier didn’t like playing with me because I would usually end up doing something to make her cry. The little sister beat up the big sister.

  My mom and I had our bonding moments, but it wasn’t like it is now. She taught me how to sew, and I would curl up on her lap in the living room while she watched her favorite shows: The Price Is Right and Family Feud and anything on the Food Network. I love my mom’s cooking. We were big meat eaters in our family, and every night we would have delicious ham or fried chicken or steak or burgers. And yes, I ate a lot of bacon for breakfast. That was something the media latched onto when I was at Baylor—“BG Loves Bacon”—and I played along with it because it felt like one of the few safe topics I could talk about. But I really do love bacon, and nobody knows that better than my mom.

  When I was little, I was impossible to wake up in the morning. I was just one of those kids (and then teenagers) who would mumble and roll over and never wake up when someone first called to me. I would yell, “I’m up!”—and then I’d close my eyes and go back to sleep. Sometimes Pier would come in to wake me up, and her go-to move was to shake me, which she knew I hated. Who likes to be woken up that way? As retaliation, I would flail my arms while turning over in my bed, occasionally smacking her as she leaned down to poke at me. One time, when I thought Pier was trying to wake me, I shot my arm out while my eyes were still closed, and I clocked my mom in the head. I didn’t hurt her, but I startled her enough that she didn’t take any chances after that day. She would just stand in the doorway and call my name— “Brittney, Brittney, wake up!”—until she saw me finally sit up in bed. Eventually she discovered she didn’t even have to leave the kitchen to get me up. All she had to do was sizzle some bacon in the skillet, and as soon as I smelled it, I was out of bed and on my way to the breakfast table.

  Now fast-forward to my career at Baylor. When we were playing at home, we ate all our pregame meals at Georgia’s, this great place in Waco. If we had a night game, I would always get chicken—a thigh and a leg—and a biscuit. If we had a day game, we would eat breakfast there, and I would get French toast and bacon, every time. One game during my freshman year, when we were on our run to the Final Four, all I had for the pregame meal was a big platter of bacon. That afternoon, I played really well, maybe my best game of the season, and Coach Mulkey jokingly said afterward, “Whatever you ate, keep doing it.” I’m not sure if she expected me to actually answer her, but I did; I told her I had a lot of bacon. From that day forward, our support staff made sure there was bacon at every team breakfast, including on the road. By my senior year, even the national media would ask me about bacon, and the whole thing became an inside joke with me and my teammates—the bacon sound bite. Whenever a reporter mentioned it, I would play along, especially for on-camera interviews. The anchor would ask, “Did you have bacon today?” And I would flash a big grin and say, “I sure did!”

  I’VE ALWAYS HAD a mischievous streak. My mom is really quiet and reserved, sweet and soft, and when I was a kid, I liked to see how much I could get away with on her watch—partly because my dad had so many damn rules, but also because I’m stubborn like him. I had to do all my acting out when he wasn’t around. One time, my mom sent me to my room for disobeying, and I climbed out the window, scooted down to the ground, then walked around to the front of the
house and rang the doorbell. When she opened the door, I just stood there and said, “Hi. I’m out.” She was so mad, she actually started yelling, which is out of character for her. Usually when I was pushing my luck, being a smart mouth, all Momma had to say was, “I’m going to call your father.” That’s when I would answer, “Okay, I’m going to my room now. Please don’t call him!” She never spanked me, but he did. I got the belt sometimes, mostly the hand—although his hands are so big, they felt like a belt.

  When my dad was at work, I couldn’t go anywhere. The other kids in the neighborhood were riding around on their bikes, but I was supposed to stay in the yard, where my mom could see me. My dad had a very strict upbringing, and that’s how he raised me, as if danger lurked around every corner. It didn’t help that my brother got into a lot of trouble when he was younger, hanging with the wrong crowd. I couldn’t even go over to a friend’s house; there were no sleepovers or slumber parties for me. Hell, no. My dad didn’t even like the idea of me playing with other kids.

  Mom covered for me a lot when I got a little older. Dad would call in the afternoon and ask, “What’s Brittney doing? Can I talk to her?” And if I wasn’t there, she’d say, “Oh, Baby Girl is sleeping right now,” or tell him I was busy doing homework. Meanwhile I was probably down the block, hanging out at the corner store. She saved me a lot of whoopings. I guess it was just easier to disappoint my mother than my father, because I was such a daddy’s girl, from the moment I could walk. Everywhere he went, I was there, attached to his leg. He could not get out of the house without me knowing about it. If he was leaving to run an errand, I was in that truck with him. If he was working in the yard or the garage, I was right there next to him. Cutting the grass, putting up a fence, fixing cars, doing repairs around the house—I was Daddy’s Little Helper. I learned all about tools in that garage. He’d be working on something, and he’d say, “Go get me a 716 D socket and an extension cord.” So I’d go get whatever he wanted.

  My mom could never put me in a dress because I would mess it up so fast. She’d put the little lace socks on me, and I’d rip the lace off to make them look like regular socks. We’d go school shopping, and I always ended up in the boys’ section because I liked those clothes better. She’d pick something out for me in the girls’ section, then hold it up and ask, “Don’t you want a new dress for the school year?” And I’d say, “Nope, I’m good.”

  “What about a skirt?”

  “No thank you.”

  “How about this pretty pink blouse?”

  “I like this T-shirt better.”

  She wasn’t going to make me wear something I didn’t like, so I got to pick out my own stuff. And my dad didn’t care what I wore—at least not back then. He knew I couldn’t be outside helping him do stuff if I was in a dress or a skirt. I had this orange shirt with punk rock characters on it, and I wore it all the time. I practically wore it ragged, until it got too tight on me. I also had a pair of overalls I lived in. I wore one strap up, one strap down. I thought I was so cool. (I wasn’t.) And I loved being a little rebel.

  My best friend when I was eight years old was Thunder, our police-trained rottweiler. We got him after our dog Rottie passed away. Dad liked rottweilers because they’re good for protection. I went to a training class with him before we brought Thunder home, and I remember thinking, That is one mean dog. I was only allowed to go near Thunder only if Dad was around. We had a fence in the backyard, and Dad put him out there every morning before he went to work. He would tell me, “Do not go in that backyard. The dog will bite you.” I guess some kids would have been scared when they heard that, but Rottie had never hurt me, and Thunder seemed to like me, too, especially when I slipped him bacon through the fence. After he had been with us for a few weeks, I was curious to see how he would treat me when my father wasn’t standing guard over us. One day, while Dad was at work and Mom was busy doing laundry, I looked out the window and saw Thunder on the far side of the yard, away from the house. So I went out there and walked in the opposite direction, to the other side of the yard. I got down on the ground, on my knees, then looked at Thunder. Sure enough, he took off running toward me, full speed. I was so far away from the back door, I could have been mauled. But Thunder did what I thought he would and slid right into my arms.

  A little while later, Dad got home and came running outside when he saw me and Thunder rolling around, playing. At first I thought he was going to yell at me, but instead he said, “How the heck did you get him to do that?” I smiled and said, “I don’t know. I guess I’m just good with dogs.” I didn’t tell him I had bacon in my pocket and I’d been giving it to Thunder. I think I knew, instinctively, being close to Thunder was another way of being close to my dad, even as I was trying to assert my independence—in whatever ways an eight-year-old can express free will.

  When I wasn’t shadowing my father, I was mimicking my brother. I worshipped DeCarlo. I would call him and say, “Come over and spend the night, please!” And when I heard his motorcycle pull up, I’d run outside, jumping up on him, jumping on his bike. I wanted to be just like him. He was into cars, so I was into cars. He had tattoos, so I got them when I was older. I even tried to walk the way he walks. Everything about him seemed adventurous, probably because he’s a jack-of-all-trades. He has been a mechanic and a truck driver, worked on oil rigs, installed pools— whatever blows his way. My dad liked how good DeCarlo was to me, but he didn’t want me taking after him, because my brother was wild when he was a teenager, doing stupid stuff like boosting cars. He gave my dad hell, and they bumped heads a lot. I remember one time Dad told me and Pier, “There’s no bail money for y’all because your brother used it up. So you’d better not end up in jail, because you’ll be stuck there.”

  I thought that was funny as hell, because when you’re a kid, you don’t fully understand the consequences of your actions, how one mess-up can lead to another, and all of a sudden you find yourself on the wrong path. My dad wanted to make sure I stayed on the right path as I got older, and I appreciate that now. But he would end up saying and doing a lot of things in the years to come that made me question his approach and caused me a lot of pain.

  A KID GOING NOWHERE

  I don’t remember the exact moment, the first time I realized I was different from other kids. Because we’re all different, right? We’re all unique. And everybody always talks about how we should celebrate the things that make each of us special in our own way. The problem is, a lot of people are full of crap when it comes to following their own advice. They say one thing, then do another. They say it’s important for kids to express themselves, but from the moment that starts to happen, from the moment kids start to make choices—what clothes they want to wear, what toys they want to play with, what activities they want to pursue—society tries to define them and put them into neat little boxes. Girls are supposed to act this way, boys that way. And any kid who doesn’t fit into one of those boxes gets labeled as weird or strange or different.

  I guess I started feeling different when everybody started telling me I was. At home, I was a carefree, curious, mischievous little girl. At school, I was a freak. And no matter how much love I got at home, it couldn’t protect me from what was happening at school. It couldn’t keep me from feeling sad, frustrated, angry, lonely. Everything was getting harder, and I went from being fearless to scared.

  As far back as I can remember, I was never attracted to boys. They were just my buddies. I always liked girls. I had a crush on my best friend when I was in elementary school. We would hold hands, like kids do, and I remember thinking it felt good—it felt right. But over the next few years, most everything else started feeling wrong. I’m not sure middle school is easy for any kid; for me, it was awful. I wasn’t one of the cool kids, with the trendy new shoes and clothes, and I was starting to stick out more because of my height and appearance. I was all elbows and knees and rough edges. So I just tagged along with my own little group at school and tried to fit in how
ever I could, hoping to avoid the verbal darts that kids were throwing at each other more often. It seems so stupid when I look back on it now, how much I wanted to be part of the in-crowd. You know what? Screw the in-crowd. Trying so hard to be like everyone else, to talk and act like everyone else, to be something you’re not, is exhausting and self-destructive. I learned that lesson the hard way, because sixth, seventh, and eighth grades—the years I tried the hardest to fit in—were the worst for me.

  I always had a handful of friends. In elementary school, that was all I needed, because it’s not like kids are making plans outside of school without their parents. But as I got older, the friends I did have started hanging out together after school, meeting at the mall to walk around, look in the stores, eat pizza at the food court. At first I would ask my dad for permission to join them: “Can I go to my friend’s house?” And he would quickly say no, without even really considering it, his voice like a rock dropping. “I don’t know anything about that family,” he would tell me. “They could be killers.” He actually said this; that’s how much he distrusted other people and wanted me to learn to do the same. I wasn’t allowed to do anything but go to school and come home from school. If I wanted to go to the mall with my friends, he would have been right there with me, like a bodyguard. My mom would let me do what I wanted, but when it came to giving me permission to leave the house, she would always say, “Ask your dad.” And after a while, I wouldn’t even bother asking him; I’d just trudge away, my disappointment morphing into anger. Pretty soon other kids stopped asking me to hang out, because everyone already knew the answer. I became the “at-school friend.”