Later that night I went to the premiere. I don’t remember if I had fun. I must have. When I saw Lee, I tried to suppress my embarrassment. I tried to avoid the pity in his eyes and declined his offer to let me stay at his apartment. Besides that, it was a pretty normal night. I mean if normal was to be at a Hollywood premiere broke. That night I slept on Crystal’s couch and the morning after the clerical problem was fixed and my family was allowed back into our apartment. Four months later, I got a day job and moved out.
Moving out on my own felt like a step toward becoming a successful adult. I thought my leaving would be great for my tiny three-person family. Mom would have more room and wouldn’t have to worry about providing me with food or anything else. Ahmed would see me surviving and figure out how to be his own version of an adult. He’d pick up the slack and start helping my mom with the rent and bills the way I had. Maybe he’d move out soon after me, and then Mom could move into a one-bedroom apartment in a nicer neighborhood. Maybe I’d soon make enough money to be able to make sure they lived better. I wanted to let Mom know that even though I was leaving I would still be a part of the family. I wouldn’t forget about them. I left my checkbook with her and told her that if she needed any help, if she needed money for any reason, she could call me and I’d come over and we’d talk about it and I’d write her a check. What could possibly go wrong?
I am not rich. I can afford my life, but not really anyone else’s. I have friends who think I can. Who say, when I ask what they want to do for their birthday, “You can pay my credit card debt for me.” And then there’s my family. I love the shit outta my family. When I started making more than phone-hoe money, I really wanted to help them as much as I could. I wanted to alleviate their financial fears as much as possible. At first, I would write both Mom and Dad checks whenever they needed them. I gave them gifts and treated them to dinners out. I sent them home in cabs and limos. I bought furniture and replaced broken appliances in their homes, and more times than I can count, I paid their rent. I paid their rent before paying my own. Sometimes I couldn’t afford to pay both, but my guilt wouldn’t let me pay mine without paying theirs. So I’d just pay theirs. They got used to this. Really used to it. My family started to call me less often, but when they did, the conversations ended with “Look. I need . . .” Certain family members began the call with “Look. I need . . .” I felt like an ATM machine, not family. Cousins I loved but didn’t often talk to would text me to ask for thousands of dollars to help save their house from foreclosure. Mom was featured on the show America’s Got Talent, and when it turned out she didn’t crack the top ten performers and was voted off the show, she didn’t go back to singing in the subway. She had a manager now and was putting a band together for her to perform with at talent showcases so people would hire her to sing in different venues around the world. All that cost money; and I was also paying for her to get her nails done; I was helping her buy makeup and wigs. Ahmed needed to borrow money to become a cabdriver (I don’t fucking know why!). Dad was truly relentless. He constantly asked me to invest in businesses, asked me to pay for his divorce from Tola, the woman he’d married behind my mother’s back (the fucking audacity, right?!). An aunt asked me to move her from Georgia to New York City and buy her nice wigs. All of a sudden I was reduced to how much money I could give out. Even if family members asked if they could “borrow” money, I knew that none of them would ever pay it back. I actually had more respect for the ones who just straight up asked for the money without bothering to convince me that I’d someday see it returned. Either way, no one has paid me back. Ever. No one was even nicer to me after spending my money. Wouldn’t it be nice if money bought love? But it doesn’t. It buys resentment.
I called my mom once to complain about my aunt asking me to move her across the country and buy her wigs. I was all like, “Why would she think it’s appropriate to ask me for that much money?!” Mom said, “The family knows how much money you have. We know you have two million dollars. Google said so.” I was floored. I had never thought to google how much money I had. I had never considered that Mom would. Or that anyone in my family would. Also, Google needs to mind her damn business! My family thought I was a millionaire because I had (maybe!) earned two million dollars (like in my lifetime, by the age of thirty!), and for some reason they thought I had that money just lying around. Like maybe I was diving into a vault of it like Scrooge McDuck and that I was so rich the laws of taxation and expenses didn’t apply to me!
My family thinks that I have more money than I actually have, and they think I make my living by pretending to jog after Lucious Lyon to tell him that Hakeem fell down a well. By pretending to cast spells and giving Kathy Bates’s head the business for being racist. By being super cute and a little bit drunk on nightly talk shows. My career—which I am working harder at than my family could ever imagine—doesn’t seem real to cabdrivers and certainly not to my family.
Money changes people. It changed the way my family saw me. It changed how they interacted with me. Perhaps more than it changed them, it changed how I saw them as well. When I was a kid, no one wanted anything from me. Mom didn’t need my help. When I became head of household, she realized that she could lean on me in a crisis. When that crisis came the first time, I was unable to be the savior, but every time after, I’ve been the hero. Moving out has made me a real adult. I’m head of my own household now but not done being the head of theirs. I continue to receive tearful calls from Mom. “We’re being evicted.” These evictions are not the result of clerical issues anymore. I don’t know what it’s about anymore. I just write the check and emptily threaten that it’s the last time. Somehow, with all the gifts, dinners, and the left-behind checkbook, I’ve handicapped my family. They have jobs and careers, but I don’t know what they would do if I stopped helping them. When we were all poor, we were on the Titanic together, but now that I’m no longer poor, I’m on a lifeboat to safety and my family is still sinking. I couldn’t have imagined the responsibility of trying to pull them to safety with me. I couldn’t have imagined how much it would hurt my back to try to pull them or that it would last forever. One of my famous friends has a family just as expensive as mine. Every time I get those pitiful money calls, I complain to him and swear that I’m not going to write the check this time. That they’ll just have to sink or swim. Each time my friend listens, and then says, “You can be mad all you want, but then you’ll feel guilty and you’ll write the check and then complain some more. Why don’t you just save us both some time and write the damn check? Accept your fate.” I grumble and then I write the check. I don’t know if I can trust that my family can swim anymore, and I could never actually bear to watch them sink.
I’m afraid I’ll be getting calls about evictions until my tiny family is gone. Then I’d pay any amount of money just to have them back. Don’t you just hate it when rich people complain?
16
Senegalese Crown
I truly look at edges and natural hairstyles like dudes look at booties. I just took off my sunglasses and rolled down the window for a braided bun.
—my Twitter
SO, AFTER READING THOSE COMMENTS about my brown/blonde braids, I flew into a fit of rage and pulled them out. I’ll deal with my anger issues later. I found someone to come to my house to give me black braids to match my natural color in time for some Washington, D.C., events a few days away. But in the meantime, I had to go buy the new hair, run to two appointments, and get to CVS. I was on my way to my closet for scarves or a hat to cover my real hair before heading out for my errands when I passed by my mirror and saw my reflection. My natural hair was unkempt, all over the place, and beautiful. Today’s the day, I thought. Today’s the day for an Afro. Maybe it was because I knew that later that day my hair would be in braids so no one would have time to hate my Afro and comment on how terrible it was. Maybe I was sick of thinking about the comments. Maybe I’d spent entirely too much time worrying about what other people think about the hai
r that grows out of my head. Maybe after years of braids turning into dreads, perms making it fall out, bleach, peroxide, chlorine, and my pigeonholing it into the same weaved style, my hair deserved to live freely! I combed my hair up and out, and put a headband on. Then I left the house.
Part of me felt exposed. Like I wasn’t wearing any clothes. Another part of me felt free and confident. Like I wasn’t wearing any clothes, but I had great tits and a rocking ass. I felt great! More confident than fearful. No one was pointing and laughing! There were no boos coming from anyone I saw that day. No one said anything at all. By the time I got home, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I felt cute and confident and like I’d finally found my way into the Black Woman Hair Universe of Possibilities. Finally! But then I remembered the Internet. Of course no one had said anything nasty about my hair to my face. Of course no one booed me in person. I live in a polite society of people who usually know better than to comment on another person’s appearance to her face. They’d make their comments on the Internet, where they can hide behind their screen names and Twitter handles! If I was really going to wear my Afro proudly, I’d have to post a picture of it to my Instagram account.
I must’ve taken four hundred selfies before finally settling on the perfect picture to upload. Then, just as I began to post it, I deleted it, put on a new lipstick, and took four hundred more selfies. I was nervous. I was thinking too much. I was taking this too seriously. Finally, after psyching myself up, I posted the picture to Instagram, put my phone in my fridge, and walked away from it for a while. An hour later, I went back to the phone to check the damage. People loved my hair! They thought it looked healthy and beautiful. Well, shit. That’s what I thought. As nice as it is to get validation from strangers online, I hated that I needed it. I was proud of my hair before I posted it. Why did I need 7,000 people to like it? The hair belongs to me. It’s my head. I mean, thanks, Instagram fans, but if I don’t like my hair on my own, it’s not worth having in the first place. I had several days before my D.C. events, and in the meantime, I was going to wear the hair I wanted.
Three days later I boarded a plane to Washington to join the Creative Coalition and a group of actors and musicians in lobbying for arts education in schools. We were going to be split up into groups and take meetings at the Senate and White House. I’d been invited by the Hearst Corporation and Cosmopolitan magazine for the following evening to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
My hair was braided into a black Senegalese twist. For all of my meetings on Capitol Hill, my hair hung down to my shoulders. I ran my fingers through it whenever I wanted to and tucked it behind my ears. I didn’t think about a frame for my face. I felt pretty and confident. The next night, as I stepped into the Correspondents’ Dinner, it had started to rain, but I didn’t worry about my hair. It wasn’t going to move an inch. It was braided and twisted into a high bun with a gold band around it and hid about three hundred bobby pins. My hair perfectly matched the regalness of my custom-made black and gold ball gown. My hair was perfect. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. I wore my hair like a crown. The little girl I used to be with braids and a baby doll strapped to her back was proud. That same girl who sat on sofa pillows between her mother’s legs enduring the pain of hair tugging and pulling was proud as well. I floated around that party like Cinderella before midnight.
As we were making our way through the party, people began to stop me to ask for pictures, and I got separated from my group pretty quickly. Eventually, I got really hot and sweaty. While my hair wasn’t a problem, my heels and huge dress were quite cumbersome to maneuver while posing for pictures. I went into a room and saw a sofa to sit on so I could blot away the sweat and reapply makeup. Just then, a woman came over to me, and said, “I work for the president of the United States and the first lady. They want to invite you to a private reception before the dinner starts.” Holy shit. I was going to meet President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama! I began to sweat even more. The woman led me to the entrance to the reception room, where I had to walk through a metal detector. No biggie. I’ve been to high school. I know my way around a metal detector. Now I was in the room where many people were standing in line to meet POTUS and FLOTUS. I wasn’t ready. I rushed to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror blotting the sweat from my face. A few women in ball gowns came in. I blurted out that I was about to meet the president and that I couldn’t stop sweating. The ladies assured me that everything would be fine and that I should take as much time as I needed. I listened to them and waited until I was calm. By the time I joined the line, though, I was sweating profusely again. Luckily, the line was long and ran along a bar. I just kept asking for ice water. I must’ve drunk a bathtub full of ice water to try to calm down, but it wasn’t working.
Somehow in that crowded room and confusing line, I ended up standing next to this beautiful black woman. I could tell she was African. Her hair was in a beautiful Senegalese twist like mine. We introduced ourselves and she asked for a picture. I took it and asked where she was from. She told me she was from the Congo. I blurted out that I loved her hair and that I was always struggling with what to do with my own hair and that I was proud and so happy to be meeting the president while wearing a hairstyle that was representative of my culture, my father’s country, and the birthplace of civilization. I blurted out that I was so happy to be both African and American while meeting our nation’s first African American leader whose own African roots were so clearly displayed in his name. Like mine. Somewhere in my blurting out what must’ve sounded like high-pitched nonsense to this stranger, I forgot to be nervous. I forgot to sweat myself into a river. All of the rest had drifted away and all that was left was pride.
After just a few more minutes, I was next in line to greet the leader of the free world and the first lady. I had a slip of paper in my hand with my name printed on it that I’d been given at the metal detector line. The paper was to be given to a woman so she could announce my name to the president and first lady. When the woman began to say my name, President Obama cut her off, and said, “I know who she is! You’re the BOMB, girl!” He stretched his arms wide and embraced me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Yeah . . . the president of the United States of America said that I was the “bomb”! That’s pretty much the end of the story. I mean, what else do you need to know? The president said I was the “BOMB”! Good night.
17
Will I Still Be Beautiful When I’m Not Fat?
True life: I can’t stop checking out my ass in the mirror . . . and the window . . . and in shiny cars I pass in the street.
—my Twitter
I HAD MOSTLY BEEN ASLEEP DURING my two-night hospital stay. I’ve always had trouble sleeping, but the anesthesia stayed in my body for so long after surgery that it was hard to keep my eyes open long enough for the nurses to check my vitals and force me to walk around the hospital floor every four hours. Right after one of my hospital strolls, I lay back in that weirdly comfortable hospital bed and scrolled through my phone to see what amazing shit on the Internet I had been missing during my slumber. My birthday was three days before the surgery, so my phone was filled with belated birthday texts, calls, and tweets. I scrolled down my Instagram and came across a comment.
“I don’t understand why you still fat. All that fame and money and you ain’t got no trainers or surgery? The fuck!”
I smiled. Then I laughed. I laughed so hard I was afraid I would pop my brand-new stomach. I held on to it as I continued to laugh, hoping I wouldn’t hurt myself. I clicked that little button the nurses kept telling me to click when I felt pain. They said it was morphine or something, but I’m sure it was just a placebo, like the walk button at pedestrian crosswalks. The button makes you think you can control something, but really, you ain’t got the juice like that. I pressed the “morphine” button anyway and continued laughing like it was my last laugh ever. The entire bed and even the IV bag stand that looked like a robotic coat hanger were vi
brating. Maybe the little button did work and I was totally high, because I couldn’t stop laughing at that comment. All I could think was that in a few months when I’ve decided the time is right to start talking about my surgery that asshole is going to claim it was all his idea! He’ll probably tell his friends, “I TOLD her to do it! I wrote it on an Instagram picture of her as a bunny! I TOLD HER!” This guy and all the other Internet commenters who have tried to shame me into changing my body are going to think they finally got through to me, that they have some power over what I do with my body. But that’s the funny thing about Internet comments. They are the same as those walk buttons. Just placebos. They don’t really have any power over me. You ain’t got the juice like that!
Surgery is a huge deal. HUGE! I’d never been anesthetized before. I’d never spent the night in a hospital. The closest was when I went to the emergency room years ago for my tonsils. They are huge all the time, but if I have a bad cold in the winter, they swell up even more and rub up against each other. I waited patiently but uncomfortably in the middle of the night at Harlem Hospital Center as gunshot victim after gunshot victim kept coming in and trumping my petty little problem of not being able to breathe. I totally get it. (Harlem Hospital Center is great with gunshot wounds, by the way . . . in case you need to know that.) But I had a phone sex shift in the morning, and all of a sudden it was after 3 a.m. and I started to have a panic attack about missing work, which made my breathing worse, so I gestured for the closest nurse. She took a second to look in my mouth with a flashlight and a popsicle stick. “Oh, God! Your tonsils are touching!” “Das what I was tellin’ you befo!” I screamed, with the popsicle stick still on my tongue. She placed me in a room by myself, and the next thing I knew, I woke up with an IV in my arm. It was three hours later, but my tonsils had shrunk and I was free to go to work. You are thinking, Why didn’t she get her tonsils removed? Because I couldn’t get tonsil surgery and sit around eating popsicles and Jell-O all day in between phone sex calls! That’s crazy! YOU’RE crazy! Also, the idea of being put to sleep and ripped open while I slept seemed insane. Either way, that was the most dramatic hospital experience I’ve ever had.
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