Heavy: An American Memoir(36)

“For real? What would Bill Clinton do?”

“He would lie, and fuck whoever he wants,” Nzola said without cracking a smile. “Then he’d lie again.” I told her I’d been working on an essay about Bill Clinton. “That’s all you have to say?” she asked, and hugged my neck. “That’s really all you have to say?”

“Yup.”

“I guess I’ll see you later. Good luck with your essay. Send it to me if you want. I hope you have a fantastic break.”

Nzola never used “fantastic” in conversation with me before that day, the day we broke up without ever really going together. No black person I knew ever used “fantastic” before that day other than you and Ray Gunn when he was warning me.

That night, I went searching through all the garbage cans in my dorm looking for uneaten slices of pizza. On the first and second floor alone, I found enough to make an entire eight-slice pie. I stacked the slices one on top of another and placed them on a paper towel. I started to turn on the microwave in the dorm kitchen when Ray Gunn tapped me on my shoulder.

“Fuck is you doing?” he asked.

I told him Nzola used “fantastic” when she said bye to me.

“Oh, it’s a wrap then,” he said, throwing my pizza in the garbage, slice by slice. “Nigga, you depressed?”

“What you mean?”

“I mean what I said. You depressed, ain’t you?” Ray Gunn started telling me about his ninth semester at Millsaps when a teacher suggested he see a psychiatrist. “I was feeling like you look. Gaining weight and shit. I talked to the dude about stuff like suicide and psychosis. All of a sudden, this white nigga prescribing me with antidepressants.”

“Did they work?”

“That shit had me feeling so white, blaster.”

“White how?”

“Just white,” he said. “Not too high. Not too low. You know when blasters say ‘I don’t give a fuck’? Nobody who say ‘I don’t give a fuck’ has ever been on antidepressants. Antidepressants make you give nan fuck about nothing. I felt so white.” I was bent over dying laughing. “I’m serious. I bullshit you not. If you go, don’t go to a psychiatrist. Go to a psychologist.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The difference is one will listen to you, and try to blame your mama, and maybe your daddy, and one will give you pills to make yo big ass feel white.”

“Nah,” I told him. “I’m good.”

“How you good? You had a fine bowlegged genius sweating your fat ass, and you fucked around and got her using ‘fantastic’ when she say bye to you. You the smartest dumb blaster I met at Saps, but you might be the saddest dumb blaster to ever enroll in the twelve semesters I been here. Don’t eat when you sad, though. I’m serious. Don’t eat or drank or gamble when you sad. Pray. Or talk to me. Or exercise. Or just go to bed. You letting all this shit kill you. That’s exactly what they want,” Ray Gunn said. “Trust me. I been there. You my boy, but you might wanna think about transferring. Ain’t nothing fantastic about where you at. Switch that shit up. Be a switch hitter.”

“A switch hitter? That’s your new shit. You know that already means something else, right?”

“I know what they say it mean, but when I say it, I mean what I mean,” he said. “You see how I be hitting them switches in my Impala? You see how I’m steady switching up my styles? Be like me, dumb blaster. Be a switch hitter.”

I dapped Ray Gunn up and told him I had no idea what he was talking about before walking him to his Impala.

“Bruh, I finally understand you,” I told him. “You a forever nineties-type nigga. Like even in the seventies, you were a nineties-type nigga and even in the two thousands you still gonna be a nineties-type nigga.”

“You just realizing that, dumb blaster?”

“Yeah, I’m just realizing that,” I told him. “On the serious tip, thanks for telling me about your experience with those pills. For real. I appreciate that.”

When I made it back to my room, I wanted the greasy pizza Ray Gunn threw in the garbage. I thought writing might distract my appetite, so I got my notebook and wrote through why Ray Gunn saying antidepressants made him feel white was so funny.

I read.

I looked out of the window.

I felt the painted cement wall behind my head.

I read.

I looked out of the window.

I wrote.

An hour later, I walked back down to the kitchen, dug six of the eight slices out of the garbage, ran warm water on them, picked off the pepperoni, and warmed up my second dinner.

I didn’t feel depressed. I didn’t feel white. I felt so free. I felt so fantastic.





DISASTER


When you came home for your Christmas break, you looked at me, shook your head, and asked, “What are you doing to yourself?”

You made me get on the scale in front of you.

256.

264.

269.

272.

275.

287.

296.

I asked you to leave, then took all my clothes off and tiptoed on the scale again.

293.

In one semester, three and a half months, I gained over fifty pounds. The only good thing about the weight was you seemed disgusted when I acted like I didn’t care.