Into White (5 page)

He devised numerous plans of assimilation; he said I could be a barely English-speaking exchange student. “Swedish! Dank-a you vwantta go to da movies after skewl? Swedish is like pig Latin, easy peasy coupled with your towhead. Perfect. What do you think?” He went on without a response. “We should watch Dad's
Trading Places
DVD with Eddie Murphy and Jamie Lee Curtis. She did a pretty good Swedish accent on the train when the guy pretended to be the other guy, you know.”

I did know. Her breasts bounced like water balloons in that movie.

“I don't know about Swedish, Alex. You know that I suck at making up stories as I go. I'll stumble all over myself and screw it up. What if I'm just white? Aunt Evilyn says I talk white.”

“Evilyn is the devil's spawn.” He scowled. “And what does talking white mean anyway?”

We'd had this conversation many times before.
Talking white
means something totally different to Alex. He equates
talking white
with proper English, which he says should never be reserved for only the white community. On the other hand, my idea of
talking white
is an all-encompassing attitude—more of a transformation than simple vocal inflection. Moreover, to succeed at
talking white
, a person must embrace the act of
being
white or it won't work.

A few weeks ago, I attempted it. I consulted what I considered to be the handbooks of white females everywhere:
Cosmo
,
Seventeen
, and
Teen Vogue
. I combed those magazines for tips on how to become as white as a natural-born black girl could possibly be.
Cosmo
and
Seventeen
argued that I should wash my hair at least once a day. “So be it,” I said.
Teen Vogue
highly suggested boy shorts underwear instead of granny panties. “So be it,” I said. All three magazines agreed brown mascara was more natural than black, so I followed the instructions to a T.

My hair started to break off, which I'd assumed was the transition from thick, unruly curls to long, flowing locks. The boy shorts underpants rode up my butt crack so that they turned into bunched-up thongs. The brown mascara made my black eyelashes look like brown recluse spider legs. My bubble really got busted when I marched past Deanté and the other black people perched by first-period biology. He said, “Why you talking like that? You ain't white.”

He was right. I needed to make the thing official, so I went to the one person with the power to grant my wish: Jesus. And wouldn't you know it, he swung by my bedroom and made me white.

Alex nudged me. “You ready for Colossus?”

“Not in the least,” I said. But I had no other choice. The first twenty-seven steps took the remainder of my energy. I stopped cold.

“I counted twenty-seven steps.” He sounded appalled. “Aren't white people supposed to have more endurance?”

I bent forward, gasping for breath. “I need a break.” I sat on the edge of the curb.

“Colossus just kicked your butt. We were getting better, too. Last time, it took us six and a half minutes to conquer.” He took a seat on the curb beside me. “Our goal is two steps a second, remember?”

Alex had been assessing our steps versus the time it took to get to the top of the hill. One day,
for the sake of science
, he'd conquered Colossus twelve times by himself, carefully measuring his stride and step count to ultimately determine our goal of two steps per second. We hadn't even been halfway up when I stopped.

“Hey, Alex. Why did you accept my change so quick?”

“I see you struggle, Toya.” He retied a loose tennis shoe lace and scratched caked dirt from the sole. “You're strong, but these Edgewood people are like your kryptonite. They kill your spirit every day. I've been praying, too, little sis.”

“What were you praying for?”

“Mostly for God to bring your smile back. I knew that he could do it, because he can do anything. The question was how, you know? I must say, though, I never would have imagined this.” He placed his hand on my hand. “He works in mysterious ways.”

I smiled, since he'd officially accepted my crazy story as fact with very few questions asked. “I love you very much. You know that?”

“I do. Now, come on, white girl.” He leaped to his feet. “Don't let Colossus get the best of you.”

When he stood, the sharp corner of a letter peeked from his pocket. “What's with the letters?”

He stuffed the letter deep down and out of sight. “It's nothing, really.”

“They come almost every day now, and they're on fancy paper. Seriously, what are they?”

“Toya, drop it.” He walked ahead.

He'd been guarding the mailbox since he'd started his senior year, and I had no idea why. Aside from the gross puberty stuff, we never held secrets from each other; so not telling me about the letters hurt. However, in that moment, Colossus hurt worse. Every leg muscle banded together, chanting in protest,
Stoppp, you dirty heffa! Waaaait, you filthy mutha!
I pressed on slowly, one foot after the other, and another after that one, too, until I conquered Colossus.

Gasping for breath, we assumed the position.

“All right, fists in the air and biceps to the sky,” he announced between breaths.

“I know, Alex. Come on.”

“No need to get snappy. Just because you're white doesn't mean you get to—”

“Come on!”

“Fine. One … two … three!”

“Colossus the great,

Colossus the cruel,

Alexander and Latoya brought down your rule.

Colossus, you're tall,

Colossus, you tower,

But you will never conquer the Williams sibling power! HUUAAAHH!”

When we first moved to Edgewood, neither of us could walk up Colossus without taking breaks. We made up the chant after we finally walked it without stopping.

It was time to head home.

With the empty castle in our sight lines, we saw Hampton Williams's large head bobbling its way up the driveway. Half pit bull, half chow chow, and full-blooded demon toward anyone other than the four of us. He had broken loose from his restraints again. Luckily, the Alabama Power Company hadn't picked today to shut off the power. A few months back, when our bill first went red, Dad came up with the genius plan to tie Hampton on the side of the house where the power box was located. No power man would dare attempt to get past such an animal. Once, a shaky cable guy banged on the door, yelling, “Mr. Williams! We need you to move your dog!” He stood there banging for nearly an hour. The man finally stormed off when Dad blasted Cat Stevens on his ancient surround-sound stereo system.

Hampton, Alex, and I found the house just as we'd left it, bare. Hampton smelled like a garbage dump and left little golden hairs all over the place, but we were so excited to have him inside that we didn't care. He was a loyal friend with a bad attitude like Kanye West. I dragged myself and my dog up to my room, threw myself into bed, and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow. I woke to the clamor of Mom and Dad fumbling with the front door.

“You crazy as hell, woman!” Dad bickered.

“No! You are!” Mom replied. They were like little kids fighting over a Kit Kat.

Hampton sat patiently at my bedroom door, staring at the doorknob as if willing it to open. After rubbing at my eyes, I saw half of a french fry on my side table, and quickly realized someone had hijacked my portion of the McDonald's. When I locked eyes with Hampton, he dropped his gaze to the carpet and let out a pitiful whimper. He'd undoubtedly eaten whatever deliciousness Alex had left for me.

“Toya! Alex! It's time for
Unsolved Mysteries
. We're late getting home because your dad's car broke down on Malfunction Junction again. He made me get out and push on the freeway,” she tattled. “I asked the Lord to protect me from oncoming traffic and he did. Praise God!”

“Praise God!” echoed Alex.

“Praise God,” I said just loud enough for them to hear.

“Praise God, but it didn't go like that at all, kids! She can't drive a stick, so she had to push. Plus, I made sure there were only a few cars left when I told her to get out,” he re-tattled.

“Man, you must be senile,” said Mom.

“No, I'm not,” he replied. “That's it. I'm going for a walk.” I heard the front door open. “Hampton! Come on.”

Hampton gave my door a single, respectful scratch, careful not to leave an indent. “That wasn't right what you did—stealing my dinner like that,” I said before cracking the door. He took off down the stairs. When he reached the foyer, his unkempt toenails lost traction on the oak floor, and he barreled headfirst into Mom's knees.

“Ouch! Hampton!” she yelled, and he tucked his tail. “Aww,” she said before squatting to scratch behind his ears. “I didn't mean to yell at you, buddy.”

“Why does the dog deserve an apology, but I don't?” Dad asked sharply.

She stood to meet his line of sight. “The dog didn't move us into this empty house,” she said with her hand glued to her hip. “The dog doesn't spill coffee all over the floor. The dog—”

“Come on, Hampton,” Dad interrupted.

“What about
Unsolved
—” The front door slammed behind my father before my mother could finish. “
Mysteries
?”

*   *   *

Winston and Camilla Williams, middle-aged tattletales with mutual zeal for
Unsolved Mysteries
. They bickered constantly, but they were hopeless without each other. They were like inoperable Siamese twins, conjoined at the heart. This became glaringly apparent when Mom went to live with Aunt Evilyn.

The threats were nothing new. Over the years, when Mom got mad or irritated at Dad, she'd say, “Don't play with me, man. Or I'm going to live with Evilyn.” I'd heard it so often, it started to blend in as a part of our household, like black-eyed peas and praising the Lord. Then one day, it wasn't a threat. Mom actually left.

There was no one event that tipped the scale; nothing earth-shattering. After what was just another day of running late for school and work, and breaking down in the Fiat—a typical Williams Tuesday morning—Mom had enough. By Wednesday she was in the wind.

Since he sat next to her all day at work, Dad took it the hardest. He went through three distinct phases: internalized anger, deep depression, and finally, complete and utter confusion. The first two were mildly tolerable. Internalized anger consisted mainly of midnight walks with Hampton that sometimes lasted until dawn. When he walked, he looked like a man in prayer. Sure, he loved Jesus as much as any Southern-born man, but walking was his true religion, where he found peace in his scattered brain. The soles of his cheap white tennis shoes could be worn to the concrete, and he'd still walk the dog all night long.

Tack a six-pack of Bud Light onto the end of the first phase, and you've got phase two, deep depression. The little free time he had between bleak 9-1-1 calls at work and aimless walks, he'd slump on the couch, drinking and watching reruns of
Unsolved Mysteries
alone. Every now and then, Dad would say, “Camille would've loved this episode.” And once, he said, “Kids, I love your mom more than life.” I never knew if he was being honest about his feelings for the first time, or drunk.

Dad stayed in the complete-and-utter-confusion phase for the whole month. It was a horrible time. I worried about him from the moment I woke up in the morning until I fell asleep at night. All I knew to do was pray, and I did so faithfully. I called on the Lord from my upstairs bedroom every single day of that month, invoking every ounce of God's grace to help my father hold his head up again, reciting the Lord's Prayer and singing hymns with my fingers clasped together so tightly my knuckles hurt.

It broke my heart to watch my mild-mannered father morph into a mush of a man, constantly rummaging through drawers and closets, looking for God knows what. He once spent an entire Saturday searching for a can opener. When night fell, he began stabbing a can of Glory greens with a paring knife. He almost cut his finger off, of course, and the three of us spent the night in the St. Andrew's Hospital ER. In the waiting room, Dad bled clean through four thickly wrapped gauze bandages. When the doctor finally called us back, he glared at my father with unmasked judgment and said, “Night drinkers bleed like stuck pigs.”

When the doctor left the room, we tipped out of the hospital without discharge papers and stopped by the drugstore for a monster pack of big daddy Band-Aids. I haven't seen my father drink a drop of alcohol since that night.

Praise God!

Mom's absence was all around us. In the empty bathroom counter, where the brush filled with her brownish shed-hairs usually sat. In the fuzzy gunk in the dryer's lint catcher, which overflowed and nearly caught fire. The only glimmer of joy was the stack of frozen pizzas that replaced the black-eyed peas. She'd left Alex and me alone with our domestically clueless father. In the end, it was up to us to locate the hidden can opener, which turned out to be in the laundry room (washing powder was in the kitchen, FYI).

*   *   *

Mom opened the front door and yelled after Dad. “Our show's on! It's the one about tumor-sniffing dogs!”

Dad hadn't gotten far, because a few seconds later, he burst through the front door to take his rightful place on the living room pillows next to Mom.

Alex and I collided at the top of the stairs. “Here's this.” He handed me a well-read copy of
The Scarlet Letter
before heading down the stairs.

“Thanks, I'll go put it in my room,” I said, watching him shuffle down the stairs.