Heavy: An American Memoir(24)

I remembered turning the volume up on our little black-and-white TV to watch Benson and Night Court when Malachi Hunter came to the house. I remember feeling petrified when Kamala Lackey asked me to touch her breasts in the art closet during second period in ninth grade. I remembered being okay never kissing a girl if I could touch myself to the thought of Layla, or Kamala Lackey asking me to touch her breasts in the art closet, for the rest of my life.

I remembered watching friends with hats cocked left shoot friends with hats cocked right. I remembered what it felt like to watch some of those friends disappear.

I remembered begging Grandmama to let me stay with her when you told me we had to leave Mississippi for a year. I remembered sitting on Grandmama’s porch and watching her tell me she was going to be lonely while we’re gone. I remembered forgiving you when Grandmama told me you beat me so much because something in Jackson was beating you.

I remembered waking up one morning wondering where all the big boys in Beulah Beauford’s house went. I remember finding out that two of them were in jail for selling drugs too close to a school, one of them was shipped out of the state, and that Layla had to move in with her grandparents in Memphis.

I remembered seeing Layla when she came back to Jackson for the homecoming game at Jackson State. I remembered asking her if she was mad at me for leaving her at Beulah Beauford’s house that day. I remembered listening, and trying to look cool as Layla said, “All I wanted to do was swim, just like y’all. I ain’t studdin’ none of y’all niggas.”

Before leaving Maryland, I went to a doctor for the second time in my life. The good news was the doctor said I was six-one, 208 pounds, two inches taller and almost twenty pounds lighter than I was when I left Jackson. The bad news was I had a murmur in my heart. You said even though the murmur was functional, I should be worried because we watched Hank Gathers, the power forward for the Loyola Marymount basketball team, die of a heart attack on television after catching an alley-oop.

I loved the sound of the word “murmur” and I loved that I was coming back to Mississippi with a murmur, a smaller body, and a new relationship to writing, revision, memory, and you.

America seems filled with violent people who like causing people pain but hate when those people tell them that pain hurts.





HULK


You were on one end of Grandmama’s couch yelling at me while I was on the other end grasping the side of my face. We weren’t back in Mississippi for longer than a week when you smashed me across my face with the heel of a Patrick Ewing Adidas because I talked back. The side of my face started to swell, but I couldn’t understand why getting hit in the face with the heel of a Ewing didn’t hurt as much as it had before we left Jackson. I was six-one, 215 pounds, nine inches taller and over forty pounds heavier than you. The softer parts of my heart and body were getting harder and those harder parts didn’t want to hurt you, but they wanted to never, ever be hurt by you again.

I was heavier and taller than all of my friends’ fathers, but the peach fuzz under my arms, thin patches of pubic hair, and no hair at all on my face didn’t care how big my body was. Let the hair tell it, I was still a child while LaThon, Donnie Gee, Jabari, and them were all starting to grow full-fledged mustaches and beards. The weekend before school started, you promised me you’d take me to get a haircut Monday. When Monday came, I had to decide between lunch money for the week or a haircut. I chose lunch money for the week, and you convinced me you could give me the best at-home fade I’d ever seen. I’m not sure why I believed you. You had many gifts, but drawing straight lines with or without a ruler, staying in the lines while coloring in a coloring book were not some of those gifts.

I expected the fade would be a bit off, but you actually managed to give me the worst fade I’d ever seen on a human in Mississippi. It wasn’t just that the fade didn’t fade; it was that no part of the fade looked symmetrical. My eyes watered looking at my new haircut. I asked you to leave the bathroom while you laughed until you cried at my reaction to this fade that refused to fade. I locked the door and wondered what would happen if I shaved my head bald like Barkley and Jordan.

When I opened the door, you gasped and said a bald head would make white people and police think I was more of a threat.

“Good,” I said, and closed the door again to wash all the hair off.

After I got out of the shower, I looked at my hairless head and face and wondered how I’d look, not with a huge Lamont Sanford mustache, but with just the shadow of a mustache like LaThon and them had. I opened the drawer, found your mascara, and smudged the coal across the skin above my top lip until my face joined my body in looking, and feeling, more like a man.

The entire ride to school, you kept talking about my bald head. I kept thinking about my new fake mustache. When I grabbed my bag and got ready to get out of the car, you said, “Be patient with your body, Kie. I love you.” I remember wishing you’d been this version of yourself the day you clocked me across the face with a Patrick Ewing Adidas.

? ? ?

My first few months back in Jackson were spent moving my big bald-headed self from LaThon’s couch, to Jabari’s bottom bunk, to Donnie Gee’s guest room, to varsity basketball practice at St. Joseph High School. One night, after a basketball game, a chubby white tenth grader with glassy eyes, a black convertible, and strong hands asked to buy me a banana shake. Her name was Abby Claremont. Two days later, in the back of Jabari’s van, Abby asked me how many girls I’d kissed. After I lied and said about five—which was five more than the truth—Abby kissed me on my lips. A few weeks later, Abby asked me how many times I’d had sex. After I lied and said about four and a half—which was four and a half more than the truth—Abby asked me to have sex at Donnie Gee’s house while his mother was at work.