Who Put This Song On? Read online

  “Oh no, too sweet for my taste!” I play, feeling loose. “I mean, I like an occasional Trolli worm, but I have a very sophisticated palette, my dear and darling David.”

  It’s just terrific, gold-star banter. Then I see a Hollister polo shirt and skate shoes coming right at us. It’s Jake Walker, looking smarmy, breezing up to the three of us like we’re all old friends.

  “Hey, Malcolm’s sister.” He smiles like a puppy, lowered head and absolutely reckless eyelashes. “Morgan, hey.”

  I take the bait because it never hurts to practice flirting, right? Whatever, I can’t help but do my own little bashful routine and smile sweetly back. “Hey, Jake.”

  “How are you guys?”

  “Just trying to go see a movie and you?” James blurts, suddenly tightly at my side, the fake butter smell wafting like cologne.

  “Yeah, uh, dropped my sister off at Beverly Hills Chihuahua and I’m going to see Saw 5.”

  “Us too,” I laugh.

  James looks Jake over. “How ’bout that.”

  “Hey, so, James, I heard what happened after homecoming, something with Mike Pinkskyzif?” He talks fast, rushing the words and flicking his movie ticket nervously. “Hey, man, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about all that shit. I wasn’t there but, I just wanna like, apologize on behalf of those guys.”

  Skeptical, I purse my lips and suck my teeth.

  “Whoa,” David takes a step back. “Who are you?”

  James reaches out for a handshake, his smile only slightly curdled. “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  “Cool.”

  “Let’s never talk about it again though.”

  Jake laughs comfortably. “Cool, cool. I just was like, I have to say something, that’s not cool.”

  “It really wasn’t,” I snap, newly enraged at Mike Whatever and Jordan freaking Jacobsen.

  “Should we head in?” David to the rescue. “Are you, what’s your name? Are you sitting with us, or…?”

  “Hi, I’m Jake.” He rocks on his heels. I feel him looking at me. “I’m just by myself…Would you guys mind?”

  “Sit with us!” James grabs at him.

  It begins delightfully, like in a Tarantino film. Sharp colors, good music. It feels real.

  Walking into the darkness of the theater, sitting shoulder to shoulder with his Abercrombie cologne as the animated soda cup tells us to turn off our phones, I feel Jake Walker leering.

  “Can I have a Junior Mint?” David’s on my other side, all hopped up on sugar and loud.

  The theater darkens. The volume booms.

  “Can I hang on to you if I get scared?” Jake leans, whispers at my earlobe, and I tee-hee like a girl or something.

  “Just, don’t be annoying about it.” I love-tap his shoulder. Everything feels like pretend.

  In the first scene, a giant blade swings like a pendulum. Dread and giddiness fill me.

  Jake Walker’s wide hand is stretching itself out on my thigh. I’m not doing anything about it.

  “You okay?” David shoves the Junior Mints back in my face, eyeballs pointing at Jake’s fingers crawling diligently over me. No one ever asked David to come to the rescue.

  Elbowing him, I nod. Jake’s wet mouth is warm against my earlobe.

  He purrs, “Wanna get out of here?” I weigh my options, but not long enough to consider their consequences, which I don’t really care about, anyway. Exiting the theater into the light of afternoon, I squeeze his hand, disgusted with myself.

  * * *

  —

  This is a story about how I end up in the parking lot of the Empire movie theater in the backseat of Jake Walker’s Ford F-150.

  WHAT DO YOU CALL A FEMALE BLACK BLACK DOG?

  He’s aggressive, we start going at it immediately, tongues reckless. He bites my lip, kisses my neck sloppily, breathes into my ear as he palms my breasts. It’s fast and exciting. We make out with vicious purpose. He leans me back onto the bench seat, straddling me, and starts taking off his belt. I glide my hand over his chest, surprised at how excited I am, surprised at who I’m being.

  “Come here,” I whisper, and lift my head, opening my lips. I kiss him slowly and deeply; I’m training him. I can feel how hard he is, and I’m pleased with myself. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is the power I’m supposed to have.

  “Fuck, this is so hot,” he breathes, unbuttoning his jeans.

  I giggle excitedly and move my fingers across my waistband. “It’s so unexpected!”

  He frees his penis from his boxers. The thing is super hard, like pointing straight ahead. And it’s pretty big. I smile up at him, eyes glassy with excitement.

  “Oh God,” he moans. “I’ve seriously always wanted to do a black chick!”

  I almost gasp. I have no words or courage. I feel bitten, sliced.

  So, I laugh.

  This really gets him going, but not how I want. “I knew you wanted it,” he pants. “I could tell you kinda liked me. Let me see that black pussy.”

  I wriggle underneath him and start to sit up. “Wait. What?”

  Running my fingers through my hair, the ecstasy lifts. “No. No, this isn’t what I want.” I pull my sweatshirt down and wipe his slobber from my face.

  “Aw, come on,” he whines, sliding his hands between my legs, and he isn’t gentle at all. “You little slut,” he cackles menacingly. “God, I wanna fuck you so hard.” It’s like he’s reciting phrases from a script.

  He fumbles with the button on my pants, and I press my backside into the door, searching blindly for the handle. I finally manage to get the door open and jump out, and I want to shout, You can fuck yourself!

  But I don’t say anything.

  Now his entire demeanor changes, and he stares down at me from the raised truck with his veiny white penis exposed. I stand frozen with the door still open, grimacing at him. I want to get the hell out of here ASAP, but I also want some vindication, an apology, anything.

  “Oh hell no. You cannot just leave me like this. Come on, shit, I was just playing. Just, please.”

  “This is so gross,” I mumble to myself, shaking my head at the concrete. I push the heavy blue door closed and pause for a moment, just breathing. In shock.

  I’m not sure what else to do, so I head back toward the theater. I have no plan. I have no clear assessment of myself or what just happened. I feel tears welling up in my chest, then tight anxiety, then vivid, vivid anger. Spicy-food-in-the-belly anger. I walk faster, focusing on the light of the marquee. Beverly Hills Chihuahua, The Secret Life of Bees, Eagle Eye. I think of David and James and the warmth of Nicole’s Psychic Visions, the afternoon sun, the simplicity of my frustrations just earlier today. Why do I have to ruin everything? I always make everything so difficult, so dramatic. I always fool myself into thinking I can be someone other than myself.

  (“What is it with you?” my dad said to me once during a screaming match. “You go immediately to always, and everyone, and everything. That just isn’t the truth!”)

  The entrance to the theater is fairly empty, the stairs leading to the box office quiet except for a few smokers with Mohawks. At least I am lucky in this moment; I can collapse onto the steps and berate myself in peaceful quietude.

  I consider texting David or James but don’t. Pull my knees into my middle, feet together. Then I stretch them out. I’m totally restless. Cold. Or maybe I’m shaking?

  Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see Jake’s raised truck revving through the parking lot, and I tense up, butterflies smack-dab in the center of me. As he speeds past I can tell through the tinted windows that his hair is disheveled, his eyes wild. He’s zooming. My chest pounds like a jackhammer. Then he rolls his window down and whistles. System of a Down blasts crazy loud. What a stupid band. Even the Mohawks turn and frown at it.<
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  “Black bitch!”

  He sounds like he’s speaking through a megaphone, or one of those voice-changer things from Home Alone, or as if all his racist neighbors and ancestors are grabbing his balls and slapping the back of his head saying Be a man.

  I weep.

  What I decide to do next is pretend like nothing happened.

  * * *

  —

  The next week, Barack Obama wins the presidency. We have a black president, for real. However unlikely, a small part of me hopes that maybe this will spur some change in my life, too. Maybe things will be different from now on.

  On election night, our family gathers in the living room as the results come in. We all drink champagne, even me and Malcolm, and watch coverage of people celebrating in Washington, Chicago, New York, flooding the streets. Our street, unironically named Ivory Lane, is dark and quiet. It’s just Tuesday around here.

  My dad blubbers silently in his spot on the couch, all snotty and breathless. My mom balances on the very end of the cushion, holding a hand to her mouth and shaking her head like she’s in church.

  “Kids,” she says to Malcolm and me as we sprawl restlessly on the rug. “Do you realize how important this is? All the years we have fought and fought for this? What people went through…”

  “It’s history,” Dad chokes, his voice hoarse from crying.

  “Yeah,” Malcolm and I both reply gravely, seriously, and then we keep gawking at the mayhem.

  “So important,” I echo, and I try to mean it. But I don’t know. Not really. No one ever wants to tell me the details.

  NOW IS THE BEST TIME IN HISTORY FOR ME TO BE ALIVE

  Suburban white kids have a game they like to play: If you could go back in time to any period, where would you go? It’s supposed to be a harmless icebreaker, a chance to disclose your love for Medieval Times or The Oregon Trail or the annual Renaissance Pleasure Faire (“Ren Fair” to the dorks), how churning butter at Knott’s Berry Farm was always your favorite field trip. A chance to play dress up, to imagine what it was like.

  I try not to imagine being a slave, but it’s impossible. (Is there any clearer metaphor for my life than fourth grade, the Year of the American Girl Craze? Decades of Mollys and Kirstens and Samanthas to choose from, and the only Black American Girl is a slave.) They’re always expecting me to pull the black card, take everything too seriously, disturb the fun, and be a downer once again. I try to hold my tongue and not point out the inherent flaw in the question’s ramifications—specifically, for me. I just try to play along, whitewashing myself into various fashions, trying to feel entitled to any dress. But technically, right now is the best time in history for me to be living. (How depressing is that?)

  During my 1950s housewife phase, for example, spurred by a new obsession with black-and-white movies and the discovery of an adorable vintage store in Laguna Beach, I tried not to think about how my dresses were probably worn by white women whose houses were cleaned by my grandmother. I tried not to imagine how it would feel to be pressed against a brick wall with a firehose, to be spit on and called a nigger.

  I always wait too long to say what hurts.

  * * *

  —

  If I went back in time to any period, who would I be? Would I be silent and passive on the diner stool while wiping a stranger’s saliva from my eyes? Would I be militant like the Panthers? Would I wear all black and go to secret meetings in basements, would I march right up to a white cop and dare his baton to touch my skin?

  If I was a slave, would I be a Yes, massa, suck-up kind of slave, or would I risk everything and navigate the Underground Railroad for even the slimmest chance of freedom? Would I be the version of Rosa Parks they make me play at school assemblies, or would I be like Actual Rosa Parks?

  What kind of person am I? Eager to win approval from my white friends (and even foes), to play along even when I’m injured; as eager as my teachers to approve of passivity as civil disobedience, to keep the peace and blend in.

  The thing is, it’s never quite suited me, civility.

  * * *

  Reading Assata Shakur’s autobiography made me believe. It was the first time I’d heard this part of the story in our own words, not a teacher’s or a textbook’s. There’s no way to argue with her first-person account. The FBI targeted her, they lied in court, and she got put away for murders she didn’t do. Black people were routinely framed by cops and the government as criminals and villains, when they were fighting for their rights, for their justice and liberty for all. They weren’t wrong. They weren’t terrorists. They had a kind of bravery, belief, and fearlessness that I’m scared to even imagine. But it was a disturbance. It messed up the status quo. Their revolution was scary—too radical, too intense.

  This is why the truth hurts: all the years I’ve spent clamping my tongue and shrugging off the sting of being “Most Unique,” all the acrobatics of attempting to blend in and be accepted by white people, all the impulses I’ve been ashamed of, the feelings I’ve punished myself for and the thoughts I’ve tried to correct. (Isn’t that the whole point of sins? To remind you that you’re always wrong? Even if they’ve been “washed away,” they still count—you are inherently flawed.)

  Now I realize I’ve been lied to all this time, fed incomplete and discriminatory stories, especially about myself and my people. It sinks my heart to the ocean floor.

  THE VELVET UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

  My cousin Coco and I have this thing about cranberry sauce—it has to come from the can, so when you pop it out, it has those ridges for slicing.

  “You want a separate plate for yours, too?” I ask, almost butt to butt in Aunt Carolina’s kitchen, going in making our Thanksgiving plates. It’s tradition for us to make our plates together, shimmying with excitement over the buffet trays of sweet potatoes and greens and green beans and turkey and ham and cakes and sauces.

  “Obvi!” Coco giggles and pretends to toss her hair like a white girl. My favorite cousin, the girlie one who’s only a month and ten days older, agrees with me on the important things, like keeping cranberry sauce juices away from the mashed potatoes and corn pudding. “You know I hate when my food touches.”

  We’ve been a duo since we were little: the “Caboodle Girls” is what we were called for a while. That was back when I made clubs for everything—mini backpacks, bucket hats, whatever—anything we were into, we had to be super into.

  “I think I have enough for my first round.” I eye the precarious borders of my dishes, suddenly daunted. “Where we sitting?”

  “At the kids’ table.” She points, and I drop my plates down across from Malcolm, who’s shoveling mac and cheese into his mouth and grunting happily.

  “Two plates?” My brother gawks as Coco and I settle in, considering what to taste first. “Y’all are bougie.”

  “What-ever!” Coco sings nasally, and Malcolm pinches his nose, mimicking her. She laughs from her whole chest, loud and uncontrollable, just like her mom after a Cadillac margarita.

  I smile, wishing I could muster the same revelry, but I’m too tired. I don’t even have much of an appetite.

  (No one in our extended family knows I’ve been “going through a tough time,” and it was decided in the car on the way over that we wouldn’t discuss it. That’s our secret shame, our bond, our blemish and burden. I’m putting on my best face, teasing Coco about her last boyfriend’s big head, dodging long conversations with grown-ups like a professional.)

  “Morgan! You gonna make us do a play again this year?” our older cousin CJ snickers between bites, eliciting an over-the-top groan from Malcolm.

  “No, I’m retired! Jeez, I was, like, eleven.” I smirk. Our Christmas plays were legendary and ridiculous in their ambition. I worked on the scripts for months, assigned everyone acting and production roles, obnoxiously interrupted cocktails and conversations
to demand silence during our performances.

  “But you have to admit,” I add, thrusting my finger into the air, “those were kinda awesome!”

  “You used to be so intense!” Coco cackles. She does her impression of me, which is terrible. “Mal-colm, your line!”

  (At least with this crew, I know my role. And yeah, maybe they’ll relentlessly tease me for it, but they’ve always accepted my intense and difficult ways.)

  I give in, laughing at all the projects and productions I was once so serious about, so committed to. “Don’t worry, I’m still intense.”

  “Y’all are so giggly!” My mom pops over to our table, being such a mom. “Everybody good over here? Need anything?” She always eats, like, an hour after everyone else, needlessly distributing extra napkins or whatever. It’s super sweet, but I also wish she would just hang out with the rest of us sometimes.

  “We’re good,” Malcolm says quickly. She pats his head. Because we’re not at home, he doesn’t try to jerk it away.

  Kids can never be their real selves around extended family. Not exactly. You have to be the version your parents like, the version they’ve approved, because you’re supposed to be a little representative for them. That’s what the teachers tell us before we go on field trips and stuff—we’re representing God’s Word. Like, no pressure.

  That’s why I had a whole breakdown before we came over here.

  First, my mom said, “Is that what you’re wearing?” which she asks every single time we’re going out, and every single time it upsets me, pokes my insecurities right in the gut. I changed my shirt five times and my pants three times. I tried my hair up and down and up. Then I messed up my lipstick and just lost it. Barricaded in the bathroom, trying to catch my teary breath, I felt like screaming. I was so pissed at myself, and I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to get over myself. When my mom knocked, I expected a screaming match about my brattiness, about how I’m too sensitive and how I have to make everything a drama.