Is You Okay? (3 page)

So there I was, the first person in class, sitting on my own waiting for school to start. The next person to come into the classroom was a boy named Joey Garratt. I took one look at him and thought,
I'm going to be his friend, because something
is wrong with this poor child. His hair is yellow, his eyelashes are yellow, his eyes are blue. Kids are going to have a field day with this sick little boy
. Then a little girl and another little boy came in, and they had the same problems as Joey.
Is everybody in this class sick?
That's really what went through my mind. I wasn't scared, because I knew I wouldn't be able to catch whatever they had. If it were contagious, they wouldn't be allowed in school, right?

Finally, with all of us seated at our little tables and our teacher totally ignoring the fact that she was standing in front of a classroom full of sick children, I realized that they weren't sick. All these little kids my age with their pale skin, light eyes, and straw-colored hair—they weren't sick, they were just white. And I was . . . not.

Ohhh,
I'm
the one who's different.

I know how odd that sounds today, but I also know as an adult thinking back on my first day of grade school in 1977 that those white kids probably felt the same way about me. They didn't hate me, or anything crazy like that, they just didn't know what to make of me. They saw as many black people in their neighborhood as I saw white people in mine. I thought they all had some disease that made their skin lose color and their hair turn to hay. Maybe they thought I got overcooked in my mommy's tummy and that's why I was extra
brown, or that my skin was a giant birthmark. I don't know, we didn't talk about it—we were five-year-olds.

Regardless, the differences were very real, and they lasted my entire time at Calvary—all nine years—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

On the plus side, I learned that I could make people laugh as early as that kindergarten class, and I think being different had a lot to do with it. Because I acted, sounded, and looked different than all my classmates, the things that I said were naturally just funny to them. And because I could make them laugh, they accepted me. That was huge, and it was something that has stuck with me ever since: that comedy and laughter have the power to break down a lot of barriers.

On the negative side, it couldn't break down their parents' barriers. I was never allowed to go to a lot of my friends' houses. My best friend, Abby, and I spent every possible second of the school day together—up until she switched schools at the end of fourth grade—but we never once went to each other's houses. I guess the amount of time we spent together seemed like enough, so it wasn't an issue, but even if it had been, I was too young to ask why. Our parents knew why, though. My parents knew that her parents would say no if the subject of a visit came up, and her parents knew my parents probably wouldn't ask.

Throughout the rest of my years at Calvary, my other friends' parents wouldn't allow us to have at-home playdates, either. This was the 1970s and early 1980s in the South, you have to remember—black kids and white kids didn't spend a lot of time together outside of school, or off the playing field. Eventually I got old enough to notice it was an issue, but I was still too young to
fully
understand it, so getting turned down hurt my feelings.

My parents, on the other hand, weren't surprised at all. They grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. Forget about going over to a white person's house or having a white friend back then—you weren't even allowed to go to the same restaurants, ride in the same train cars, use the same bathrooms or drinking fountains . . . the list went on and on. Though the racism I faced was a more subtle kind, it was nothing new—same old thing in a different form.

That's why, when I was finally going to have my first sleepover in sixth grade with my friend Patrice, my mother was certain it would never happen. I told her the plan on a Monday: Patrice would come home with us after school that Friday and she'd stay over. We'd go to the water park all day Saturday and she'd sleep over again that night. Then, we'd take her home Sunday before church. I was so excited I talked about it all week on the drive to and from school, and every
time I brought it up my mom would try to prepare me for the inevitable:

“You know GloZell, it's okay if she can't make it this weekend.”

“I just want you to know that if she can't come, it's not your fault.”

“Don't get your hopes up, honey.”

“If she's not at school on Friday, don't be sad.”

My mom clearly thought that at the last minute, Patrice's parents would have second thoughts, come up with some excuse for why she couldn't stay over at my house, and then they would be spared the embarrassment of their child being seen in the company of a black child. It sounds horrible when you say it out loud, but it was a very real possibility. So when Patrice hopped into the backseat of our car with me after school on Friday, it was like my mom had just seen a ghost. (
C'mon, Mom—Patrice is white, but she's not
that
white.
)

In retrospect, I wish I hadn't gotten so excited and talkative about the sleepover, because when my mom's cautious, protective side gets triggered, that's when the diff-UH-rent side comes out in full color. Like a sixty-four-count box of Crayola crayons, where all the colors are shades of “Huh?”
This time it came out on Saturday, in the middle of the night, after eight hours at Wet 'n' Wild Orlando.

Saturday at the water park was like most other days in Florida: warm and sunny. We got there early, like you always do when you go fun places as a kid, and made a beeline to claim the best spot for our stuff and maximize the number of rides we could get to with the minimum amount of walking. Adults don't usually give kids a lot of credit, but if they're inspired, kids can be little baby Einsteins when it comes to choreography and planning. (Don't believe me? Go search YouTube for tribute videos to Pharrell Williams's song “Happy” and count the number of videos submitted by groups of eight-year-old girls cracking off synchronized dance moves like they're on an episode of
So You Think You Can Dance
. I hope you have a calculator.)

Patrice and I had on our totally cute sixth-grader swimsuits. They were modest enough that we didn't look like a couple of “those girls,” but nevertheless they exposed enough skin that we'd get one of those good tans that always screwed up your pictures when you wore a strapless dress to the Spring Dance. . . . Who am I kidding? I wasn't getting any kind of tan; that was all Patrice. She was a tanning
expert,
as far as I could tell. When I asked her if she needed to put on any of that lotion that white people use when they go to the beach, she said she didn't have any.

“It's okay, I don't burn,” Patrice said. This was the mid-1980s, before anyone knew that skin cancer was a big problem or that the sun was almost as bad for you as carbs. My mom and I certainly weren't any help—the only lotion we used was moisturizer for dry skin, or cocoa butter to smell delicious.

Patrice and I spent the next three hours going up and down slides, on inner tubes down the lazy river, splashing in the wave pool. We didn't get out of the water for the first time until a little after one o'clock, when we found my mom camped out at our perfect spot, got some money from her, and headed over to the concession stand to buy lunch. As we stood in line wrapped in our towels debating what to eat, I noticed through Patrice's shivering that she actually wasn't white anymore. She was red, like a crab. Every square inch of her skin that was not covered by bathing suit was a rosy pink color, like a flamingo with a nasty shrimp habit.

“Patrice, are you sure you don't need some sunscreen? You look like a tomato.”

“I don't burn, I'm fine. It will turn into a tan overnight.” She seemed pretty sure about it, so I let it go. Maybe she doesn't burn—what did I know about getting a tan?—but she sure looked slow roasted to me.

The second half of the day at Wet 'n' Wild was a repeat of the first half. It was nothing but sun and fun . . . and more
sun. Everything Patrice and I planned all week was going off without a hitch. Good friends aren't easy to make when you go to a small private school and you're the most obviously different from everyone else, so this sleepover was a big deal for me. It was the best time I'd had in middle school to date.

At normal sleepovers you're up until 2 or 3
A
.
M
., eating sugary snacks that give you the energy to talk for hours about boys, or have a marathon dance party, until you pass out from the sugar crash. We plugged in the disco lamp I won for selling books through the Scholastic Reading Club and danced to the KC & The Sunshine Band “Boogie Shoes” 45 (that's a type of record . . . a record is something we used to listen to on a turntable . . . a turntable is—
OH NEVER MIND!
). With all the sun we soaked up and energy we used during the day, the dance party went from a marathon to a sprint. We were out before my parents went to bed, which is like a cardinal sin of cool sleepovers. You at least have to make it to midnight! Well, in a manner of speaking, we did, because right around midnight, deep in sleep, I was woken up by the sound of soft, pathetic whimpering coming from Patrice's sleeping bag.

She was shivering and moaning and crying all at once. At first I thought she was having a fit like Dr. Almont a few months before, but she was conscious and trying to talk through the pain.

“Mm . . . mm . . . my ski-ii-ii-iin hurtsobad. C-c-can't mm . . . mmove b-b-but laying o-o-on mm-mm-mmy b-back hurtsobad!”

Patrice had gone from seared at 11
A.M.
to slow roasted at 1
P.M.
to well done by midnight. She was like the burnt ends of a brisket. It was not good; I felt so bad for her. She was my friend and I hated to see her in so much pain. I had to do something, so I ran down the hall to my parents' room and woke them up.

“Patrice's hurt really bad from her sunburn. We need to do something.” I had no idea what that something was, but we couldn't just leave her there burned in the sleeping bag like a Hot Pocket.

My parents followed me back into the living room where we'd set up our sleeping bags in front of the TV, and we all stood over Patrice while she shook and moaned like a zombie right before they turn.

“My skin hurts,” Patrice said softly.

I turned to my dad. “What should we do?” He was a pharmacist, surely he'd know. He paused and looked at Patrice for a second before answering.

“I have no idea.” Do they not teach sunburn maintenance at pharmacy school or something? That's when my mom piped in.

“Okay, okay. I know what to do. I know what to do.” Uh-oh. Famous last words. “We gotta get the sting out of her skin. Go put her in the bathtub.”

Again, to be fair, she had the right idea—that's what aloe vera gel does when you apply it to a sunburn, it removes the sting. But what was my mother—a woman who has never had a sunburn in her entire life—actually planning to do in the bathtub with Patrice?

I think my dad knew this couldn't go anywhere good, because once my mom announced her plan, he turned right around and went back to bed. While my mom disappeared into the kitchen, I unzipped Patrice's sleeping bag and helped her up, being extra careful to make sure absolutely nothing touched her skin.

“C-c-can you c-c-callmymom?” Patrice asked. She sounded like one of those movie characters who thinks they're on a suicide mission and will never see their loved ones again.

“I will,” I told her, “but first you need to sit in the bathtub.”

Slowly, I got Patrice into the bathroom and lowered her into the tub. She let out a little yelp when her hot skin touched the surface of the tub, but after the initial shock, the coolness of the ceramic seemed to help. Then my mom came in, holding a bath towel and a large plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol.

“This is going to make you feel better,” my mom promised her. “Trust me, I know what to do. I know what to do.”

If you don't know anything about treating burns, rubbing alcohol is actually a good home remedy for reducing skin irritation and alleviating some of the pain (there's my mom again with a kernel of the right idea). But there's a process to it.

The first thing you do is run the skin under cold water, or take a cool bath, to reduce some of the swelling. Then, you disinfect the burned areas to make sure no bacteria get trapped where there might be blisters. Then, you gently apply the rubbing alcohol to the affected areas with a cotton ball or a soft towel.

My mom decided to skip the first two steps and modify the final one. So she opened the cap on the rubbing alcohol, poured it all over Patrice's body, and then wrapped her up in a bath towel.

You can imagine the problem with that technique. For one, Patrice is not a burrito with extra hot sauce. For two, you're supposed to let the alcohol evaporate. When you immediately wrap her up, you not only trap the heat from the burn that has been trying to escape for the last eight hours, but you trap the alcohol against her skin as well, which dries out and tightens the skin, which HURTS!

Today, more than thirty years later, if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can still hear the screams. My mom—God bless that woman—had just made things worse, despite the best of intentions. I was panicked. We couldn't send Patrice home like this. Her parents might think we're some kind of crazy devil worshippers, exposing their daughter's flesh to the fires of the Orlando sun then baptizing her into our cult with rubbing alcohol in the middle of the night. It sounds crazy, I know. Who would possibly think something like that? You have to understand—this is Florida; weird stuff happens here.

Turns out Mom wasn't finished.

“Okay, okay, I know what to do!” my mom said, quickly leaving the bathroom.