I'm Down: A Memoir (14 page)

“It is?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” Dad said. “There’s no pacing yourself around the field. The four hundred is an out-and-out sprint.”

I really hated this idea: run longer at the same speed. But Dad was sure that was the distance for me. And even though
the whole next week I begged not to, I was running that stupid race.

By the day of the race I had convinced myself that if I ran the four hundred, I would die of a combination of exhaustion and embarrassment. I don’t know how I knew, but I felt like the old wise people who die in movies—I just knew it was my time. I glanced at my competition: six hesitant-looking white girls and Yolanda, a teammate. Then I looked at Dad who, from the look in his eyes, was trying to make my legs faster with the sheer power of his mind. I got up to the blocks wondering how I could not run this race and avoid an ass-whooping.

I thought,
I just don’t feel like trucking those four hundred yards to the other side of the field.
I looked at the finish line.
It’s just so far. . . .
Then it hit me.
Wait a second, if I fell, no one would look down on me for not running
. People fall. I could even be hurt. Then Dad would shake his head and say, “Why? Oh Lord, why? I’m so so so sorry ever let her run the four hundred!”

So I got on the blocks, and I knew I needed to make the fall good or no one would believe I was hurt. And so the gun went off. And I fell. And it was good.

But the dumb lady with the gun had some investment in me making it to the other side of the field, ’cause she screamed at me, “Get up! Get up!”

I ignored her, and decided to look at the dirt. Like,
This is an interesting pebble. Has this always been here?

But she kept screaming, “Get up!” So I grudgingly picked myself up, and as long as I was running I wanted to do it fast, so I could get the stupid race done with and get into a bag of Fritos. And all the while I’m running I thought,
What does this bitch care whether I run or not? I’ve never seen her in my life. She needs
to mind her own business is what she needs to do.
And I’m embarrassed, and in such a hurry to get off the field, that I accidentally come in second, meaning I lost to Yolanda. And I had to admit, four hundred yards wasn’t as long as it looked and it actually was a sprint.

I imagined Fritos were out now, though.
I’ll be lucky if he ever feeds me again,
I thought as I made my way over to the stands where I was sure Dad was waiting, pissed. But when I got over to him, he was with a group of parents. Rather than being mad, his eyes were full of tears and he was beaming with pride. He grabbed me by the shoulder and held his arm up pointing to me while exclaiming to all the other parents, “My girl!” And that was just the beginning.

That night he sat with his buddies, and during a lull in their arguing Dad began to recap the day.

“Mmm . . . It was at the Jesse Owens invitational. Mishna was running the four-hundred-yard dash. And that gun went off, and I don’t know what happened, but . . .” He got really singsongy, like a preacher as he continued, “I think there was something wrong with her shoes, ’cause she tripped and fell and she had lost a lot of distance. And I knew she was gonna be disappointed ’cause she had been looking forward to the four hundred for a long time, and she wanted a piece of that race. You know that’s life, right? You try to get yourself going and . . . you know the politics and such. But Mishna is on the ground, and she sees these girls getting ahead of her, and I saw a look in her eye, like a tiger who sees a fish. . . . This girl picks herself up, and she’s chasing these girls like a pit bull. She comes around that first turn and she’s already caught most of them. The girl comes in second. . . . Second, from being out of it—down—finished . . . second.”

He took a pause to gauge the attention level of his listeners
before adding, “I raised ’em tough but fair. They don’t have to be number one but they have to try. You got to or, you know, the Man takes you down without a fight.”

The first recounting of the four-hundred-yard-dash story was to the fellas. The second was to anyone who made eye contact—neighbors, grocers, total strangers. And even though I felt kind of bad for not setting the record straight, I was now officially well rounded. In fact, I was almost a hero. And though I had given up on it, Dad’s approval felt good. So good that I forgot about the Sweet Beats or that I had taken a dive in the first place.

A week later we went over for dinner at Maybelline’s house. Candy had cooked and Reggie Dee was there. Anora and Maybelline sat side by side, practically eating off each other’s plates. Dad helped himself to seconds of everything and was so into the food that he didn’t notice when Candy and Reggie kissed in the kitchen. And after dinner as Dad told everyone the four hundred-yard-dash story, Maybelline’s half brother Carlos seemed truly impressed. But what I noticed was that Candy was practically in Reggie’s lap, which was weird because I thought Reggie was always over at Candy’s because Anora was in the Sweet Beats. I looked questioningly at Carlos, who was sitting on my left. He looked annoyed as he whispered, “Reggie lives here now.”

After dinner we ate ice cream while the grown-ups had another beer. Maybelline asked, “Uncle Reggie . . . when are you gonna get us some shows?”

But Reggie was staring at Candy, his hand on her shoulders, and just said, “What?”

“Some shows . . . The Sweet Beats,” Maybelline repeated, annoyed. “What did you call them?”

“Gigs . . . yeah,” Reggie said, without taking his attention off Candy. “I’m gonna get on that.”

Anora clapped her hands excitedly. But Maybelline, who knew better, just pushed her ice cream around. She knew there wouldn’t be any gigs or any more managing.

I took a couple more bites of my ice cream and looked at Maybelline and Anora sitting across from me. I nudged Carlos and said, “You guys can do a show for me.” Maybe I was just earning my allowance.

“Really?” Maybelline asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Carlos will watch, too.” Carlos gave me a nasty look for volunteering him. Maybe I just wanted to protect Anora from the news that hadn’t reached her yet.

“Yay!” Maybelline said, throwing her arms around her older brother. He rolled his eyes, but I knew he wouldn’t say no.

“I haven’t seen you guys in a while,” I said, looking at Anora. “I bet you’re really good now.”

“We are!” Anora said, getting up to set things up in the family room. “We really are!”

“Where do you want me to sit?” Carlos said. “And how long is this gonna take?”

“Oh stop being so weak, Carlos,” I said as Anora finished setting up a couple of chairs and told Carlos where to sit. The truth was, I liked it when Anora was happy.

So that night, Carlos and I watched as the Sweet Beats performed their first and final show. They did all their big numbers: “Push It,” “I’m Not Giving You My Digits,” and “Somebody’s Triflin’ ” with the skill and grace of six-year-olds who have had too much root beer. And when they finished they smiled and bowed, and Carlos and I clapped really loud. And then we beat the shit out of them with the couch pillows.

A
FTER
PE at rich school we had lunch, during which I made an elaborate production of trying to hide my subsidized lunch ticket. We would all line up in front of the desk of an ancient Polish lady with a mustache, and one by one we would tell her our last name so she could give us our ticket. When it was my turn, she would file through the perfect aqua-colored tickets until she got to my ghetto peach-colored ticket, while I used my body to hide our transaction from the rest of the kids. Then I would palm the ticket till I got to the lady who punched it, hoping to God she wouldn’t make her usual show of holding it up to make sure there were no hanging chads.

My special different-colored ticket served as a reminder that the city thought I needed some extra parenting. It was such a thorn in my side that I would actually skip lunch on days I wasn’t feeling strong enough to answer the question, “Hey why is your lunch ticket a different color than EVERYBODY ELSE’S?” Or simply, “What’s up with the pink ticket?” Once, in frustration, I told Catrina Calder it was because I was allergic to raisins, to which she responded, “Bummer . . . raisins are good.”

______

I made my way through the line, getting my well-balanced meal, then found a seat at the fifth-grade oddball table with Lilith and Violet. Lilith was pushing her spaghetti with meat sauce around her plate like maybe it was poison. She took a few bites of the salad, which she deemed “edible” so that she wouldn’t catch too much flack from the lady that scraped the food off our trays while reminding us about the drought in Ethiopia. While Violet just looked at her spaghetti and meat sauce and let out a long low sigh, Lilith speculated, “It’s gotta be horse.”

“No way,” said Violet. “I know it’s cat. It smells just like my cat’s box.” Then she turned to me and said, “Mishna? What do you think they used in the sauce?”

My turn. “I think maybe it’s just really bad beef.”

“Beef?” Lilith said amazed that I was defending the meat. “No way that came from a cow.” And as she glared at me I felt myself slowly becoming the mystery meat. So I changed my answer to rabid raccoon meat.

“Ewww!” the two girls said in unison and pushed their trays away, signaling my redemption.

The truth was, I loved my lunch and would have eaten two lunches if I could have. And not just spaghetti. I loved it all: turkey tetrazzini—delicious. Salisbury steak—warm and juicy. Tacos—did I just die and go to heaven? I lived with a single man who liked to go out; my sister and I had literally been living off a Costco container of minute tapioca for a week. (It deserves to be noted that minute tapioca takes over half an hour to prepare and requires eggs.)

Yet sitting there with my friends, I was agonizing over the fact that I would have to throw away some food no matter how much it killed me. One lunchtime, I scarfed down my entire portion of ravioli and used the roll to sop up the sauce. And when I looked up, Lilith and Violet were looking at me as though I had just become Chef Boyardee. Even though I had
washed my hands, the running gag all day was how much I smelled like ravioli.

I looked at my tray. I knew not eating my coffee cake was not an option. I’d rather lose an arm than throw away cake. And the salad had yummy ranch dressing on it, which went so good with spaghetti sauce. It was like a scene out of
Sophie’s Choice
. I decided I would mix my salad into the pasta and eat half of each, but wound up eating three-quarters.

Then I set my fork down and said, “God . . . This food sucks!” Lilith nodded. And Violet gagged on her finger.

Then changing the subject, Lilith turned to Violet and said, “Are you guys going to Sun Valley this Christmas break?”

“Yes,” Violet said, rolling her eyes.

“Well,” Lilith said. “We might go, too.”

“That would be good. I get stuck skiing with my little sister and she always gets stuck in the powder. When will you know?” Violet asked.

“Well . . . ,” Lilith replied. “Dad doesn’t want to fly so he thinks we should go to Whistler. But my mom doesn’t want to leave the country, and she’ll probably win. She always does.”

“Awesome!” Violet said, and they shared a moment. I did not share that moment.

“What’s Sun Valley?” I asked. Lilith and Violet were my friends, so they didn’t laugh at me. Instead they talked to me slowly—like I was a slow person.

“Sun Valley . . . ,” Violet said. “Is . . . a . . . ski . . . resort.”

Then Lilith said, “It’s for skiing.”

“Lilith and I ski,” added Violet.

“Well,” I said, “I want to ski, too.” Neither of them said anything. So after a minute I asked, “Why can’t I ski?”

“We’re just really good,” Lilith said apologetically. “We’ve been doing it for a long time.”

“Oh,” I replied.

And then to soften the blow Lilith added, “I really liked your science diorama. That moon—looked so real.”

“I just spraypainted a golf ball,” I said, looking up sadly. It was at that moment I realized I had accidentally eaten the rest of my lunch.

When I got home from school that night, my sister was walking around the house in a pair of shiny new track spikes. She clomped around the kitchen floor enjoying the sound her spikes made on the linoleum.

“New spikes?” I asked, setting my bag down on the counter.

She responded by beaming. “I’m gonna run track, too.”

“It’s November,” I said. “Track season isn’t till the spring.”

“So,” she said, and went back to listening to her feet.

“They’re on sale now!” Dad said, walking in from the bathroom. “That’s how you do it.”

“But what if her feet grow?” I asked.

“You think I’m stupid? I think of everything.”

“They’re a size too big,” Anora explained. She was now trying to tap dance in her track spikes.

“Okay,” I said, and grabbed my bag to head downstairs to the basement. “I’ll be downstairs.”

“Where are you going?” Dad asked.

“My room?”

“Nah, nah, nah,” he said. “You gotta change for dinner.”

I didn’t know we had special dinner plans and asked, “Are we going to McDonald’s?”

Anora started jumping up and down, clapping her hands, but her track spikes made her lose her balance and she had to steady herself on the counter.

“No,” Dad said, “you don’t worry about where we’re going. Just make yourself look nice.” Then he added. “And find a dress for your sister, too.”

There was enough time to change and get a little homework done before we left, but unfortunately I had to get my sister out of her new spikes, which she refused to remove.

“Just take them off,” I begged. “You can put them back on the second we get home.”

“NO!” she snapped. “You’re not the boss of my feet!”

I insisted that I wasn’t trying to be the boss of her feet, I just wanted to preserve the sharpness of the spikes, but she wasn’t buying it.