The Black Kids(80)

I slept with the entire basketball team, and the football team, too. But not the lacrosse team.

I slept with the water polo team, but not the basketball team.

I hear the whispers in class, the hallways, the bathroom; they follow me around like shadows that get larger or smaller depending on who’s shining the light on them.

As always, Kimberly is the sun.



* * *




At lunch, I look for Lana. I walk around the back of the school, hoping to find her among the strange girls who blow dandelions across the field, or the boys who hide under the bleachers. The back of the school, with its half-burnt grass and white lines, is where the invisible kids eat.

Steve Ruggles sits in the sun with a bunch of boys I swear I’ve never seen before.

“Have you seen Lana Haskins?” I ask.

“You really should keep better track of your friends.” Steve bites into a sandwich.

“Aren’t you the black girl who got pushed into the pool?” one of his pasty friends asks.

“You must be thinking of another black girl,” I say, and head back to the quad.

The chubby girl Kimberly named Jabba sits by herself, eating and reading Dune, which is a nerd book. She’s only a sophomore, but she’s unmistakable.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

She shrugs and moves her backpack off the table so I have somewhere to place my food. She returns to reading her book, and we eat together in silence for several minutes. Her face is framed by a pretty bob that swishes with the slightest movement. Her Tupperware is full of these itty-bitty pork sausages, fried rice, and slices of tomato. Filipino food, I think. Probably homemade. Jabba’s Filipina, so that would make sense.

“That looks good,” I say.

She shrugs.

I try again. “What’s your name?”

“Jabba,” she says.

Jesus, how messed up do things have to be for you to refer to yourself by the name others use to tear you down? Unless she’s reclaiming it, like nigga, but not.

Jabba is bigger than any other girl in school, and even the adults. I understand wanting to shrink yourself until you’re almost nothing; I’ve been there. Especially when everybody else looks one way and you look another.

“I mean, like, your real name.…”

“Does it matter?” she says. “You won’t remember it. But you’ll remember Jabba.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Do you know the ‘The Little Mermaid’?”

“The cartoon?”

“The real one. In the real one with the original ending, she cuts off her tongue to be with that dude, but then he doesn’t choose her. And her heart’s broken and shit, and she becomes sea foam and dies. But not really, ’cause then she becomes this, like, air particle who has to do good deeds to get a soul or whatever.”

“That’s dark.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t want to be what you are,” Jabba says. “I’m Jabba.”

“I’m Ashley,” I say.

“I know who you are.” She returns to reading.

I sit there trying to think of something to say. It occurs to me that I’ve always had the security of eating lunch with girls I’ve known since I was a little kid. I’ve never had to really socialize with anybody else if I didn’t want to. I’ve never even considered the act of eating alone. Jabba doesn’t seem eager for my company either. She seems content.

“So you’re into sci-fi? Do you like Ray Bradbury?”

“Shhh,” she says.

LaShawn taps me on the shoulder. “Cricket! I was wondering where you were.”

“Hey!” My voice is too eager. Too high. Too girlish. Too something.

“Hi, LaShawn!” Jabba brightens at the sight of him.

“Blessing! Watup, girl?”

Yes, this is Jabba’s name. The first week of school it was, “Hey, bless you!” Then Kimberly said, “Blessing? More like curse. That poor girl looks like Jabba the Hutt.”

“Which part you at?” LaShawn says to Jabba.

“Paul’s just become the Kwisatz Haderach.”

“Shit’s about to go down!”

“Don’t spoil anything!”

“Girl, you know I wouldn’t spoil it for you!” He turns to me. “You wanna come eat with us?”

I should stay with Jabba. It’s not fair of me to invade her lunch space and then leave as soon as I get a weird story and a better offer.

“Okay,” I say to LaShawn.

“You wanna come with?” I say to Jabba.

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

“See you in the library?” LaShawn says to Jabba.

She reaches up to fist-bump him, giggles when their knuckles touch, and then goes back to her book.

I walk with LaShawn over to the black kids. This is my first time by this ledge, with all of them at once. The kids who were out during the riots have returned. I’m introduced to them formally so that the black kids now have names.

There is Mildred and Lil Ray Ray and Nigerian Candace and Richard, who doesn’t go by Ricky or Rick or Rich, he tells me without prompting. Richard’s mom is now out of work because the place where she worked burned down.