by Tope Folarin
Since I began writing about my life a few months ago, I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about my father and the way he raised Tayo and me. All those books he made us read, the shows he made us watch, his obsession with our grades. It’s obvious to me now that his entire objective was to mold each of us into his idea of the perfect black man. No—his objective was to mold each of us into men whose blackness would not prevent us from succeeding. Tayo stopped taking him seriously by the time we became teenagers, but as I grew older I internalized his desires for me. I began to take note of the people he admired and those he dismissed. In time, following his lead, I created a template for the kind of black man I wanted to be.
I studied the way that Sidney Poitier held his head when he spoke. Tall, erect, proud. I studied Hakeem Olajuwon’s walk, loping and graceful. I studied Bryant Gumbel—he always seemed so poised during interviews, and sometimes after I finished watching him on TV I’d run to the bathroom and practice asking questions as if I were him.
I’ve only just realized that I was studying a particular kind of black man. The kind of black men whom my father and I admired were inevitably those whom had been mostly or completely accepted by mainstream American society. Simply put, they had been accepted by white people. I didn’t know it at the time, but by modeling myself after these men I was choosing to become a very specific kind of person. The kind of black man who was nonthreatening and well-behaved. The kind of black man who was successful and benign. These are acceptable traits, of course, but I rarely explored anything beyond these boundaries. My objective during those years was to be embraced by others, to somehow make myself conventional in spite of everything about me that was foreign. There were times when I considered following another path, away from my father and convention, there were times when I did so for a day, a week, sometimes months at a time. There were times when I dared to dream of the life that I’d have if the choice were entirely mine, but I always found my way back to reality. I think of those times often now, and I wonder where I would be if I’d had the fortitude to keep moving.
I guess I’ve finally realized that the person I see in the mirror is the person I’m supposed to be, and not the person I actually am.
Maybe this is why my mind is rebelling against me. Maybe my mind is trying to push beyond the restrictions I’ve placed on myself for so long—restrictions that were meant to ensure that everyone I met would be at ease in my presence, at the expense of whatever may have been actually happening inside.
I need to find a way to connect myself to something secure inside me, something that’s genuine and true. Maybe things will get better for me if I figure out how to do this.
I need to tell this person in the mirror a story. Not the kind of story that’s well-behaved and logical—in other words, not the kind of story that resembles me. I need to tell him the kind of story I would tell myself if no one was listening.
I think I’ll tell him about my stepmother. I haven’t really been able to write about her or Femi or Ade because I know how their story ends. Everything I’ve written about my stepmother so far makes her seem like a sidekick or a sitcom wife. I have no idea how I’m supposed to write about her with compassion—to write her as a fully human character—when I know in the end she will leave my father and Tayo and me, that we will never hear from her or her sons again.
Maybe if I just write to this person in the mirror about her, this person who is and isn’t me, maybe if I just tell him how I feel, maybe it won’t be so difficult. Maybe I’ll be able to do it.
You Recognized the Love That Would Never Be
Before anything else, you studied her eyes. They were large, brown, and oval. You saw something like love flickering from them. She had just arrived from Nigeria after almost a day of flying, and later you refused to admit this to yourself because it felt like something of a betrayal, and because of everything that would happen afterward, but for some reason, at that moment, as you studied her eyes, you decided that she had come to America just for you, to claim you as her own.
You decided she was the mother you had always wanted.
Something told you she was a dream come true.
Even as you smiled, though, you noticed that the warmth in her eyes had already begun to fade. You ignored this. You told yourself she needed a chance to get to know you. That you needed to show her you were worthy of her love.
You set about trying to impress her every way you could. You did all your chores, you worked hard in school, and you made sure the love in your eyes was visible to her at all times. But her eyes remained blank and cold even as she cared for you like you had always been hers. You persisted. And you kept your attention on her eyes, always her eyes, hoping the love inside would show itself to you.
Sometimes you tried to convince yourself the love in her eyes was merely shy. You tried your best to draw it out—you washed more dishes and folded more clothes. You earned more As, and read more books. Nothing changed. After a few months you only saw her love when she interacted with her two sons, who had come from Nigeria with her. In the quick moments it took for her to move her head from one position to another, from one child, hers, to another, not hers, the love in her eyes would leap out and disappear, and you always wondered where did it go?
* * *
One cold Saturday in January, about five months after your new family arrived from Nigeria, your father announced he was taking your new brothers out for a drive. You and Tayo were left with your new mother in your cold, cold house, the heater having lost its nerve a few days before. She summoned you to the washroom in the evening, after a long day of silence, around the time you were wondering if your father and new brothers would ever come back. She pointed to a stack of laundry by the dryer.
“Tunde, who folded that?”
You looked at the clothes. They looked as if they had been folded nicely but her tone suggested that something was wrong. You decided to answer honestly.
“I did, ma.”
“What did I tell you about mixing the towels with the shirts, Tunde?”
You looked at the towel stack and noticed that there were, indeed, a few shirts mixed in. It seemed a trivial matter to you, but when you looked at her, your face cradling a tentative smile, her eyes stared back at you, through you, utterly humorless, flint-like in their intensity and willingness to spark fire.
“I’m sorry, ma, I’ll—”
And before the sentence could complete its course, she slapped you. Hard. Your heartbeat rose quickly to your left cheek and began to beat there, loudly, as you tried to figure out what had happened. You held your face in your hand, and your skin felt so raw that it was as if you were holding something else, something slightly heavy and warm, like a newborn. You looked, again, into her eyes, and when you saw nothing but your own hatred staring back at you, you excused yourself and went to your room and cried. Tayo came by and asked you what had happened, but you couldn’t tell him through the sobs.
After you finished crying you touched your face once more. Through the door you could hear a scrap of music. You did not recognize the tune, but for some reason it made you smile. And this smile—the suddenness of its appearance, how instantly it lifted your soul—prompted you to remember what your grandmother had told you the last time you spoke with her on the phone. That you were a young man now.
That you had to focus on yourself.
You thought about all the things you had done to make your new mother happy, all the chores and good grades and everything else. How none of this had worked.
As you sat there smiling, you decided she was selfish. You decided she was cruel. You decided you had no choice but to turn away from her.
You decided to follow your grandmother’s advice. To focus on yourself. To discover the things that made your heart beat faster and slower. The things that gave you joy.
* * *
Do you remember how, in the days and weeks after your new mother arrived from Nigeria, she was always on the phone? Do y
ou remember how at first she called Nigeria just once a week, and then every couple days, and then every day? She always called right around dinnertime. After she had set the table and called you and the rest of your family to the kitchen she would sit and close her eyes. Your father would pray for a few minutes, and then he would rub his stomach and begin to eat, always complimenting her cooking as he smacked loudly. Mom would smile as you and your siblings ate. Her food remained untouched. Then she would excuse herself, always asking your father for permission first, always promising she would return shortly. And then nothing but silence as your mother closed the door of their bedroom. You often heard your parents arguing about how expensive it was to call Nigeria, but your father never said a word when she left. He stared down at his food. His smile grew sour and withered away. Soon you would hear your mother shout or laugh or sigh, and her hurried speech, her voice somehow lighter and higher than it ever was when she spoke with you, when she spoke with anyone in your house. When she was on the phone you always had the feeling that you were hearing her real voice, that the version of herself she presented to you and the rest of your family was somehow inauthentic, that she was actually talkative and loud and funny and happy, but that this other person was just out of reach, that she would never show herself to you, that this person, her real self, would always remain behind a closed door.
* * *
A few days after your mother slapped you, your father told you and your siblings that you could no longer listen to American pop music. He said there was nothing of value in the music on the radio, that if you listened you would abandon his teachings. So you and Tayo and Femi listened to popular Nigerian music instead and, occasionally, American gospel.
You already loved Nigerian music, juju especially, with its dense polyrhythms—rhythms so intricate and layered that you quickly grew tired of merely listening to the drums converse with one another. You always wanted to hold the music, to feel it pulse and thrum against your palms, to feel it wriggle defiantly away. You grew to love gospel as well, never knowing that you were listening to a very particular brand of gospel, not the soulful, eloquent phrasings of the civil rights heroes you would later read about in class—Mahalia Jackson and Paul Robeson never sang in your house—but the leaner, lighter, more accessible gospel that accompanied 1980s-style televangelism. Your father had a particular fondness for an old cassette tape of gospel standards by Tammy Faye Bakker. You listened to the tape multiple times a day, your father’s careworn voice accompanying her every note, you and your brothers listening in silence.
Of course, you had a dim awareness of what was playing on the radio. Your father could not shield your ears at all times, and when you went shopping, or to school, and later when you were out with your father selling ice cream, you would hear fragments of the forbidden music. You greedily collected each fragment you heard, hoarding the bits and pieces in your head as if they were shining shards of gold, and every night before you went to sleep you would carefully piece the notes together, working as hard as you could to force the discordant melodies into a kind of unison. You were trying to distill a lullaby from the bits of rap and rock and soul, something that would soothe you, ease you to sleep.
Once, while you and Femi were cleaning the ancient entertainment system in your living room, you came upon a stash of records tucked behind boxes of tapes and books. Your mother was at work, as always, and your father was out with Tayo and Ade. You pulled the records out and peered at the covers. You saw many records by artists you had heard of—Whitney Houston, Lionel Ritchie, and Whodini, for example—and many more by artists you knew nothing about. You spent the most time examining a record by the Ohio Players. On the cover a man was lying atop a bald, strikingly attractive woman. The woman was holding a knife to the man’s back. Her mouth was curled in ecstasy. You and Femi stared at each other for a moment. You felt warm and excited, but you couldn’t find the language to wrap around the feeling. Femi pulled the record from your hand and held it close to his face. Then he began to chuckle.
“So then why did your father say that we can’t listen to American music,” he asked. “Why can he if we can’t?”
You did not know what to say. You were shocked because he had said “your father.” Like he wanted nothing to do with him. Femi stared at you like he was waiting for an answer. When you said nothing he dropped the record and walked away. You picked it up and put it back where you’d found it.
You discovered other clues that your father loved music as much as you did, that no matter what he said he could not help himself; he had to listen to everything. Sometimes, when you were in the car with your father, and he was feeling down, he would slip a tape into the cassette player. You weren’t really familiar with the songs, but the singers had American accents and they weren’t singing about God. You saw your father mouthing every lyric, though you’d look quickly away whenever he glanced in your direction.
You grew to love singing more than anything else. You joined three choirs at your elementary school, and you were a soloist in each one. Each song you sang seemed to lift you, note by note, from the fog of pop-culture ignorance your father had allowed to settle on your life.
* * *
Do you remember that day when you saw your father holding your mother close in the living room, wiping tears away from her cheeks? You had just come home from choir practice, and Femi was the only other person there. You had never seen her cry before. You didn’t know what to do. And do you remember how Femi rushed to her side and tried to hug her, but your father screamed at him to go to his room?
Do you remember the way Femi looked at your father? You saw a dense, dark hatred swirling in his eyes. They stared at each other until your father took your mother to their room and closed the door. Femi clenched his fists and shook his head slowly. For a moment you were afraid something bad was about to happen. But nothing did. And do you remember when, just two days later, you saw your mother sitting on the couch, holding a thin blue letter close to her chest? Her eyes were closed. Ade was curled up next to her, sucking his thumb. Your father appeared suddenly and told you and your brothers to leave her alone. You and Tayo began to move away, but Femi ignored him and remained behind. You sat on your bed and read an old edition of Sports Illustrated with Hakeem Olajuwon on the cover. Your hands would not stop shaking. Then Femi raged in and said that Mom’s cousin had died. That she was sad because she didn’t have enough money to go back to Nigeria for her funeral.
Femi looked like he was about to cry himself. He said that America was full of shit. That nothing was turning out the way he’d hoped.
You knew he was actually talking about your father.
In the following weeks your mother cried and continued to cry. Do you remember how miserable she looked? The house grew silent. You watched the leaves outside your bedroom window turn yellow, then brown.
* * *
One bright September afternoon, about two years after Mom and your new brothers arrived from Nigeria, your father announced that you were moving to Texas. Dad told you that he and Mom would find better jobs in Texas and you would have a chance to learn more about your Nigerian heritage since there were many more Nigerians in Texas than Utah. Mom nodded as he spoke. She did not say a word. Then your father cleared his throat. He said the move to Texas would also be good for Ade, who would be starting school soon. “I’ve heard that Texas schools are very good,” he said. “Ade is a smart child. He needs the very best.” Your mother smiled wide. You father grinned and folded his arms. The last time you’d seen him so happy was when he’d sold a hundred dollars’ worth of ice cream during a single stop. Ade began clapping his hands. “I’m going to school soon! I’m going to school soon,” he sang. He was jumping up and down. He was four now, and he no longer looked like your father. Nor did he look like your mother. He looked like someone else, someone you had never met before. Someone you would never meet.
You were sad about moving to Texas, but excited too, because you had seen Te
xas in the movies, and you imagined open spaces, and scores of cattle, and Southern accents, and something different from the cloistered life you were leading. So you packed for days and said your goodbyes, and then you were on the road, riding in the back of your father’s ice cream truck with the rest of your siblings, the Wasatch Mountains slowly diminishing behind you.
Your family arrived in Cirrilo, Texas, after almost a day of driving. You moved in with a friend of your father’s from college. Dad’s friend stashed you and your brothers in the small guest bedroom, and you spent all evening fighting for scraps of floor space. On your first night in Texas, after you said your prayers and before your father went to sleep, he passed you a cheap clock radio. He told you you’d have to use it to get up for school since he would be leaving quite early every morning to find work.
That night, after setting the alarm, you roamed the stations until you came across a hip-hop and R&B station. The sounds you heard then, flowing in waves from the speaker as if through a broken dam, almost drowned you. You cupped the radio to your ear, and when your brothers heard the whispering sounds they gathered around, even little Ade, snot dripping from his nose, a raggedy teddy bear in his hand. You listened with them, eyes closed.
You heard Boyz II Men sing for the first time that night. The DJ said “And now ‘Thank You’ by the Boyz!” and then . . .
The song startled you, excited you, overwhelmed you. You couldn’t recognize the various elements of it, the doo-wop, new jack swing, the soul. And yet it was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing you had ever heard.