This Is Just My Face

by Gabourey Sidibe

  I loved the entire FUCK out of Dad. I loved Mom, too, and she was hella fun and everything, don’t get me wrong, but Dad had a bigger payoff for me. Getting him to laugh felt like a big accomplishment. I would ask him questions ad nauseam that he wouldn’t answer, and he would tell me that I was too smart for my own good, which I took as a compliment. I would insist that he would be much more handsome if he shaved his face. We would argue, and he’d say, “You just like your mammy! All the time talking!” Every now and then he would shave his ever-present mustache to satisfy me. He was right and I was wrong about it, but I would never admit that to him. I was too high on the power I held over his face. He was a better cook than Mom, and he’d let me help him in the kitchen. He’d tell me that he was teaching me to be a wife, and I guess I used to be down with that shit because I would stand on a chair in our tiny kitchen and watch everything he did. The best thing about my father was that when it came to my social coping skills he let me be me. Mom would try to teach me to use my words instead of my fists, but Dad would laugh every time I told him about beating up some boy in my class who had disrespected me. Dad liked that I was tough, so I liked that I was tough. I was Rocky and he was my Mickey. Mom would say, “You’re so mean, just like ya daddy.” She meant to shame me I’m sure, but it made me proud instead. I wasn’t mean. I was tough. Dad and I were Africans who had to live in America. We had African faces. African skin color. And we both had African names. My dad knew what it was to be different when everyone around you is the same.

  I was Gabourey M. Sidibe in American elementary school, in a pre–Lion King world. I was Gabourey in a school of Jennifers, Stacies, Ericas, and Elizabeths. Brandons, Johnnies, and Anthonies. My round little belly and my dark chocolate skin made me look different, and the way I singsonged my African name made me sound different. Teachers would always mispronounce my name.

  “Gab . . . Gob . . . GaborNay Sid . . . Side-Bee?”

  “Gabourey Sidibe.” I’d probably say it with an eye roll.

  “That’s pretty! What is it?”

  “It’s African.”

  “Oh! Where were you born?”

  “Brooklyn.”

  “. . .”

  “My dad’s from Senegal.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a country in Africa.”

  “Oh! Can we call you Gabby?”

  “No. My name is Gabourey. It rhymes with cabaret.”

  Everyone agreed that my name was pretty, but they also agreed that ain’t nobody got time to say it. I hated being called Gabby when I was in elementary school. It made my skin crawl. Mom had tried to nickname me Gabby when I was a baby, but legend has it that I refused to respond to it. I knew who I was, and letting others call me Gabby meant letting them call me by someone else’s name. I would not give that convenience to the kids and teachers in my school. They called me Gabby anyway. I just wouldn’t respond. I’d respond to all the other names they called me. Fatty, Pig, Black Pig, Hog, African Booty Scratcher. I usually responded with my fists. Later, I responded with tears and panic attacks on top of my fists. (Real quick, African Booty Scratcher is probably the most specific and regional insult ever. As if Europeans, Americans, and Asians don’t scratch their booties. Booties itch no matter where you come from! Logistically, that insult just doesn’t work. The other names were way better insults.)

  It wasn’t until junior high school that I changed my mind about Gabby. Listen, I knew I was intense. I was a hard-core kid on purpose, and it left me lonely, reading books at lunch, and going straight home from school by myself every day. I knew I had to change my attitude about a lot of things in junior high. For some reason, junior high school kids seemed at least five years older than the kids who’d just graduated from elementary school a few months ago. I had to grow up fast! Also, I was now in a class with kids who didn’t know what an intense creep I was. It was a fresh start, and I could be anyone I wanted to be. Gabourey had failed at making friends in elementary, so I figured it was time to give Gabby a try. As long as it was my decision to allow people to call me that. I am stubborn that way. Gabby was certainly easier to say and apparently easier to deal with. She was friendlier and joked around a lot more than Gabourey. Gabourey was way serious and Gabby was not. Gabourey was like one of those super-expensive Barbies that you have to buy at FAO Schwarz, and Gabby was a Cabbage Patch doll that your aunt’s weird friend might give you because her ex-boyfriend’s daughter left it at her house and she just wants it gone. I was still Gabourey at home; I reserved Gabby for school and the outside world. Gabby wasn’t and still isn’t my name. Gabby is more like a character I play. Maybe that’s too complicated?

  I’ve been to Senegal—where people can pronounce my name—with Dad and Ahmed more times than I actually remember. My first trip there, I was a baby in diapers. My only memory of that visit was finding a can of coffee and mistaking it for chocolate. It tasted horrible, but I kept eating, thinking that maybe after the fifth handful it would be delicious. My dumb little toddler body eventually shat coffee out of nearly every orifice. That’s not an easy memory to forget. But my memories of my last visit to Senegal are the reason I have vowed never to go back.

  The summer I turned seven, Dad, Ahmed, and I flew to Senegal with two huge suitcases to see Dad’s family. Mom stayed home. I remember how excited everyone was to see Dad. I thought maybe he was secretly famous in Senegal in a way that he wasn’t in Brooklyn. All of Dad’s younger brothers admired him. Asin was my favorite Senegalese uncle. He was almost as handsome as Dad. He smoked cigarettes and rode a motorcycle. He was what I thought my dad would be if he hadn’t had kids. Dad had a bunch of girlie sisters who loved to dress me up in traditional African dresses and braid my hair. They’d teach dances to Ahmed and me, and laugh and clap their hands while we danced for them. All day long Dad’s mom would make bissap icies and sell them out of the house to neighborhood kids. She looked a lot like my mom, as we know, and loved to hug Ahmed and me and test our Wolof. My grandfather was basically the most superior human I’d ever met. He was like King Jaffe Joffer in Coming to America. He was a tall man with a big laugh. He took all of his meals in his bedroom while everyone else ate together with their hands out of two huge bowls in the kitchen. A bowl for the girls and a bowl for the boys. Grandpa would let us eat with him in his bed. He had a plate and a fork. He was the only man in the world who was the boss of Dad.

  The first two weeks of this trip to Senegal were magical. Dad, Asin, and Grandpa took us to Gorée Island to the beach. It was a tourist attraction by then, but Gorée Island started out as a port for the slave trade to America and Europe. We went to the “bush” in Thiès to visit family living on a farm with animals. We took a train to see Saint-Louis (Senegal has its own Saint Louis!!!), and it looked just like New Orleans. We met and played with gorgeous chocolate- and charcoal-skinned kids just like us who played games with us that didn’t require words. Dad took us to shopping malls and food markets, where I ate some of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Foods I still remember to this day. Let me really quickly put you up on game. Chocolate in Senegal is THE BEST! And when you heat it up and slather it on a fresh baguette . . . holy shit!! It’s like a chocolate croissant but somehow better! Get outta here! It’s so fucking good! Everyone wanted to see Dad and his American children with African names, so we went to the homes of a lot of his friends and family and people would always cook delicious meals for us.

  But then Dad left. He had planned to stay in Senegal for two weeks and then leave Ahmed and me there for the rest of the summer so that we could get to know his family.

  Dad’s family went from being welcoming to being monsters. His mother turned cold and cruel to us. She let Dad’s younger brothers hit us. The girls weren’t any nicer, and the dancing became more mandatory than recreational. They called me Patapoof, which is Wolof for “fat,” and called us both Americans in a snotty way, making it clear that it was an insult. If Mom sent us a care package, we’d have very little time
to play with anything before it was gone. If Mom and Dad called us to see how we were doing, someone would stand by us to make sure we weren’t telling. It was horrible. We were seven and eight years old with no real sense of time and no way of knowing if we were ever going to go home. Our parents knew what the plan was—they planned to book a standby flight for the two of us to come home—but Ahmed and I were basically in the dark and just trying to survive. Several times we were driven to the airport thinking we were going home only to be driven right back to Dad’s family.

  My grandpa was still hella dope to us! The others wouldn’t hurt us around him. Problem is, he was gone a lot visiting his other families. We never knew when he was coming back. Asin was still nice to us, but he was also gone a lot. He had lots of friends and probably a lot of girls. Ahmed and I found it better to be out of the house. We made friends in the neighborhood and would find solace at the homes of those friends. Much like Dad had learned to do when he found Gabouré.

  When we finally left Senegal, we each had a backpack. Whatever was in those two huge suitcases when we arrived belonged to the bush now. We told Mom and Dad what we had endured, and they were very upset. Mom even threw up. This is when I vowed never to step foot in Senegal again. I was pissed. I meant it. I stopped speaking Wolof to Dad when he would speak it to me. I didn’t want to be Senegalese anymore. I decided I would rather be named Lisa Simpson than Gabourey Sidibe. That didn’t last too long. Honestly, the feeling of superiority I got from being “foreign” even though I really wasn’t was too powerful. Every one of our American family members wanted to know all about our time in Senegal. All of my teachers at school wanted to know what Africa was like. It gave me an edge. I knew something they didn’t. And not just the obvious, like how there actually weren’t lions roaming the streets, but also all the beautiful things I got to experience there, like the food, culture, clothes, music, and people—the ones outside my own family. I realized that I didn’t hate Senegal. I hated the Sidibes.

  Still, I said I’d never go back to Senegal and I meant it. I’ve gone to South Africa on safari and ate delicious food and did much more. But it wasn’t Senegal. It wasn’t home. Dad has offered to take me with him to Senegal over and over again. I always decline. “I have my own home there! No one’s gonna bother you!” he says. I just shake my head. “We’ll buy your return ticket so that you know when you are leaving. I won’t make you fly standby!” “Nah fam,” I respond. Why? Because I’m an idiot. I made up my mind when I was seven and stuck to it.

  That ends here. I’m not a helpless child anymore. I’m a grown-up and I have my own money. I can stay where I want. I just realized that never stepping foot in Senegal is the same as letting a seven-year-old tell me what to do. Fuck outta here. I choose to make up my own grown-up mind about Senegal, and about Dad.

  “Dad, am I anything like Gabouré?”

  “Oh, yes! Very much so. She is very outgoing like you. She is very smart and outspoken. Very smart. She’s very talkative. Everybody likes her.” It’s so strange to know that in spite of my being a monster asshole to him over the years he still thinks of me in this way. I’m still good enough to carry the African name of the woman who saved him.

  As of right now, I plan to go back to Senegal with Dad so I can experience him and his country as an adult. Maybe I’ll even be open to meeting his other little princesses . . . to let them know that I am the queen!

  11

  MYOB: Mind Your Own Body

  I feel really annoyed right now . . . I should eat a few cookies.

  —me . . . like all the fucking time!

  I GUESS I WAS AROUND six years old when I started to notice that I was a fat kid. Maybe notice is a strong word. I was in my body, so I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at it yet. I just took in that people said things about me that they didn’t say about other kids. I didn’t really get why other kids called me fatso or elephant, or why they felt they could talk about my body at all. My mom was fat. Most of her family was as well. My dad was thin but had a pretty big stomach that he blamed on American food. I thought I looked like my family, and that seemed right and fine with me. Also, it was hard to imagine that there was something wrong with my body when I knew that it was temporary. That’s what little kids do. They grow. Their bodies change.

  Eventually, I noticed my own family starting to talk about my weight. I used to do this thing when I was in kindergarten. At the end of school, I would see my mom and run as fast as I could and plow into her for a hug. She would hug me back, and say, “Ugh! Gabu! You’re like a football player. You’re gonna knock me over.” I took this as a challenge, and every day I would try to plow into her harder because I thought it was a fun ritual we had. One day she told me that I was hurting her because I was too big. I remember that I didn’t get it at first and continued to do this to her for who knows how much longer. But then my brother started calling me fatso, hippo, and the names of many other large animals, like the kids at school did, and I started calling him an idiot and stupid on a daily basis as well. Siblings, right? I still didn’t really notice there was a problem until my father started suggesting that I lose weight so that he could show everyone what a pretty princess he had for a daughter. That’s when I realized that I was different from other kids, and that this affected the people around me. It had never occurred to me that I looked bad in a way that would make my father not want his friends to know he had a daughter. It took so long to realize that my body was different, but it took about two seconds to jump to that conclusion.

  My mom said that when I was a baby I wouldn’t eat anything and stayed underweight. My doctor told her to put a few iron drops in my food. She says she put in the recommended amount and that it worked—too well—I haven’t stopped eating yet. Every time she tells me this story now, I’m like, “TRUE!” because this is, after all, a story of triumph. My mother also told me that her family blamed her for my weight. I thought it was completely unfair of her family—I knew that I was the one who ate too much. I was the one who really liked cookies and cakes and ice cream. It was one thing to bring shame to my dad, but my mom was wonderful and she could do no wrong. I was so mad at her family for making her feel bad about something she wasn’t in control of, and I felt terrible for being something wrong in her life.

  When my parents separated, my mom started giving me diet pills. The purpose of diet pills is to suppress your appetite. But I’d learned that you can actually eat when you’re not hungry. Eating had nothing to do with appetite anymore. If I had a bad day at school, munching Chips Ahoy! cookies while watching cartoons was a great way to elevate my mood! If someone hurt my feelings by calling me fat, an excellent way to stop feeling hurt was to eat a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream! If I had a good day and everything was fine, that called for a celebration of both ice cream and cookies! I was now self-soothing and also rewarding myself with food. If I ever had a free moment with nothing fun to do, like do you even know how fun BBQ Pringles can be? Fun enough to stomp out the boredom! Eating had nothing to do with appetite, so those pills didn’t work.

  The first year my parents separated, Ahmed and I went to live with my dad in Brooklyn for the summer. Ahmed wasn’t thin, but he was thinner than I was and often went outside to play football with his friends in the heat. He lost weight all summer long while I sat friendless in the house all day. Right before summer started, I’d accidentally shot myself in the foot while playing with a Roman candle on the stoop in front of my aunt Dorothy’s house and suffered a third-degree burn. I had to have my bandage changed every other day all summer. I watched TV all day long and ate all day long, too. Dad bought me SlimFast shakes to help me lose weight. I drank the shakes along with some chips while watching TV and feeling sorry for myself. That same summer, Dad took Ahmed to Senegal and France to visit family. He left me in Brooklyn with Tola and the new baby, Abdul. I don’t remember ever voicing this, but I thought he’d taken Ahmed and not me because he was ashamed of me. In all likelihood, he had enough money
to take only one kid, and Ahmed was easier than I was. I asked too many questions and by then I’d already declared that I hated Senegal and never wanted to go back. Also, I had a steak-size hole in my foot. I’m sure Ibnou’s reasons had nothing to do with my weight, but I still thought I was too big for him to want to admit that he was my father.

  That was the summer my panic attacks started. I remember crying and complaining that I couldn’t breathe. It’s easy to see now that with my parents’ separation, my new stepmom and brother, moving into my aunt Dorothy’s house, my fireworks accident, the antibiotics I had to take for my foot—along with the diet pills—life was out of control for me. At the same time, I had two parents whose lives had also changed dramatically. I don’t think they noticed what was happening to me. I was nine years old and my family was split in two and I was too fat for either family. Everything hurt and it hurt too deeply. I was all of a sudden really sensitive; if someone called me a name, I’d cry for hours. That fall, Ahmed and I went back to living with Mom and never tried that “summers with Dad” experiment again. Thank God. If I was going to be too fat for my family, I preferred to be with the parent who was also fat. Mom. Before their split, Dad was diagnosed with diabetes, and he immediately changed his eating habits and lost his big stomach. All of a sudden, he became rail thin with very little effort. I was so jealous. Mom had been a fat little girl like me, and I figured she understood me. Problem is, she was also a fat grown-up, and she didn’t want me eventually to be the same. Some days she called me names just as hurtful as the ones the kids in school used. She thought she was helping me. I’m sure she knew that she was making me hate her, too, but I think she probably thought it would be worth it if I lost weight. But I didn’t. I just hated her.