I'm Down: A Memoir (23 page)

Jesus!
I thought.
I’m going to be a wreck tomorrow! Even if I fall asleep right now, I’ll still only get 150 minutes of sleep.
I tried a number of positions and then looked at the clock again.
One hundred and forty seven minutes of sleep.
The red digital numbers on my alarm clock were taunting me and I finally put a pillow over the clock to stop it from making fun of me. Not only did I have insomnia, but I was aware that I wasn’t supposed to have it at my age, causing more worry: maybe I was causing permanent brain damage, maybe I needed it.

I hurled myself out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen of Mom’s apartment. I poured myself a glass of milk and was mixing in some chocolate syrup when Mom stepped out of her bedroom in her bus-driving uniform. She grabbed her work bag and saw me standing there, wide awake in my nightgown. Her face radiated concern.

“You can’t sleep again?” she asked.

I nodded as I stirred my milk.

“Are you like this at your dad’s house?”

“Sort of,” I said.

“Well,” she asked. “What the hell is keeping you up at night? What are you worried about?”

“I think about how I’m not sleeping.”

“Well, why aren’t you sleeping? Are you scared of something?”

I thought about it for a second to see if it was gonna hurt her feelings before I said sullenly, “My future.”

I think she thought I was gonna say “Bears,” because she looked annoyed. “You’re twelve!”

“I know . . . But I’d like to have some financial security when I’m older. The rest of my friends are gonna go to great schools and be doctors and lawyers and stuff.”

“So will you,” Mom said.

“How?” I asked.

This was not a question Mom was ready to face at four in the morning and she tried to sound blasé as she said, “You’re poor and smart. You’ll get a scholarship or something.”

Her lack of concern only worried me more. “But what if I don’t?”

My mom was silent. It was not reassuring. Finally she said, “Why do you care about all this stuff?”

“Because
now
is when you start planning!”

“We’ll plan it when you get closer to going.”

“Okay, but I really want to go to Stanford, MIT, or Penn.”

“The University of Washington is a very good school.”

“Not to my friends,” I said, tearing up. “They laugh at it. And I don’t want to be poor my whole life. Poor people go to the University of Washington.”

“You sound like a Republican.”

“Well,” I cried, “I just want to have a lucrative anesthesia practice like all my friends. And at this rate, I can’t see that happening!”

“Your dad and I didn’t finish college at all.”

I sobbed. Loudly.

“Listen,” she said in her “don’t cry” voice. “When you see the future, what do you see? I mean, what do you envision is going to be so bad?”

“Well,” I said, “there’s this shack—”

“Whoa!” Mom said.

“Can I finish?” I asked. She nodded. “There’s this shack and there’s a mattress on the floor . . . no sheets.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the mattress is stained like all different weird-colored stains. Like you can’t tell what the stains are from—”

“Okay,” Mom said. “I gotta stop you here.”

“Wait,” I said, and spit out really fast, “And I die of hepatitis from bad water. The end.”

“Wow,” Mom said. “How do you come up with this stuff?”

“How is that not gonna happen?”

“Listen, I have to go to work now. But I think you might have a little bit of black-and-white thinking about how people become rich and poor. Will you call me from your dad’s?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to take advice from her. She still had student loans, no degree, and two kids. It wasn’t the type of security I was looking for.

“I promise,” she said as she headed out the door, “that there
are a few steps between Stanford and a shack.” But it didn’t seem that way to me. My friend Marni lived in a glass palace on the ocean, her dad had gone to Wharton—Dad’s friend Randy, who lived in an alley, had gone to the University of Washington. And no one had sat me down for the “crack talk” yet.

“Besides,” Mom said, “there are a lot of ways for people to get scholarships. Just do extracurricular activities.”

“What’s that? Extra . . .”

“Extracurricular activities. Like your violin is an extracurricular activity,” she said.

“Really?”

“You do orchestra. Do it in high school.”

“I was already planning on it.”

“And there are clubs, and student government . . . and sports is huge to colleges.”

“Sports? You saw me at basketball. I’m not athletic.”

“You are. You get it from your dad.”

“I’m not,” I said. “And I don’t think that would be a factor at the schools I’m thinking of. I think it’s just grades and stuff.”

“I don’t know.” Mom rolled her eyes. “Your father had shit grades and even he got a football scholarship to a good school.”

That day at school I had my usual tension headache. And I wound up in the nurse’s office, as was my norm, trying to take a nap on her corner mattress that felt like it was made out of dog hair and chalkboard erasers. But even if I didn’t sleep there, the lying down acted as a reset button for me in a way that really refreshed me. And I thought Mrs. Wilkins and I were getting into kind of a groove—like she really enjoyed my visits.

As I lay there looking up at the popcorn ceiling, I felt
weirdly optimistic. I had never heard of these extracurricular activities before, and as I tried to block out the crushing pain behind my forehead, I made a list on my hand of all the extracurricular activities that might help with getting me a scholarship, shooting down bad ideas as I went:

Soccer—twelve = too late to start

Skiing—too expensive to be great at

Lacrosse—too late, also hate everyone who does it

Basketball—clearly, a no

Debate—awesome, find out what it is

Cheerleading—not pretty enough, in cheerleader way—also no splits

Orchestra—check

Insect club—where do I sign?

Football—

I lingered on that one for a long time. Football had worked for Dad. And the idea of running into things really fast seemed like something that would be good for insomnia.

I was drifting when Mrs. Wilkins woke me from my half sleep to send me back to class. As I stretched she said, “I don’t want to see you in here tomorrow.” And I nodded, a little hurt and embarrassed. I thought we had a connection, but I guessed she was just being a nurse.

That night when I got home to Dad’s house, he was wrestling with Yvonne. Andre and Yvette were trying to help their mom win, and were hanging off Dad’s arms in a way that begged the question:
Why doesn’t he just fling them?
Yvonne had something in her hands that I couldn’t see, and as Dad tried to pry it from her, she laughed and squealed, “Don’t, John, no!”

I set my book bag and violin down and watched, of course,
wanting to see what was in her hand. But Dad immediately involved me saying, “Mishna, grab her arm!” And instead of choosing sides I stood next to Yvonne, looking like I wasn’t quite sure what an arm was or how to grab one. Dad was annoyed with my lack of assistance as he proudly lifted a pack of cigarettes above his head shouting, “Busted!”

“It was just this one time.” Yvonne tried to grab them again, but failed.

“Kids,” Dad asked, “does Mommy smoke?”

Yvonne put her finger to her lips.

“Yes,” Andreus said.

“Andre!” Yvonne cried.

“Busted!” Dad repeated. “You are so busted.”

“Dad,” I said. He, Yvonne, and the kids turned and looked at me like I was from the moon. It was then I realized I had interrupted.

“I’m sorry. I interrupted.” I grabbed my bag and started heading downstairs.

“What is it?” Dad asked impatiently. “You don’t gotta huff off.”

“Well,” I said, unsure now. “Today I decided that I want to play football.”

Dad didn’t look as stoked as I thought he would, and he and Yvonne said in unison some version of: “You’re a girl.” And Yvette the three-year-old just started giggling.

“I know that,” I said. “But there are, like, girls’ leagues, right?”

“Not that I know of!” Dad said. “And even if there were, you’re skinny. You’ll get hurt.”

“She’s not that skinny, John,” Yvonne said.

“I’m not!” I repeated. “Plus, I’ve never broken a bone, ’cause I’m strong!” I tried to make myself look more muscular. “And
you got a football scholarship to college, right? Maybe if I get good I can get one, too.”

“Well . . . ,” Dad said, not wanting to burst my gender bubble yet. “Football doesn’t start until the fall, and if you can gain twenty pounds between now and then you can play.”

“Awesome,” I said.

“But if you’re suddenly feeling athletic, no need to wait till then to get competitive. Let’s get you into a summer sport now.”

“I don’t want to do track again.”

“I want to play football!” Andre shouted, causing Dad to smile uncontrollably. Dad picked him up and kissed him on the forehead, holding him as he continued to talk to me.

“What about summer swim league at Medgar Evers?”

“Cool!” I said. “Wait . . . It’s like laps, right?” Suddenly I realized we wouldn’t be playing Marco Polo.

“You race. It’s a team,” Dad said.

“Okay,” I replied—sold but not quite sure how I had gotten thrown off football.

“A’ight, then,” he said. “You swim this summer.”

“And in the fall I can play football?”

“Twenty pounds.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Yvonne said. “You’re rewarding your daughter for bulking up?”

Then Dad whispered something in Yvonne’s ear, and she laughed a little. I imagined him saying, “Don’t worry. She’ll never get enough to eat in this house.” But it was probably just something about Yvonne’s butt, and how big and awesome it was.

I swam on the league at Medgar Evers Pool where we trained and then did little meets against other rec center pools. And I
couldn’t tell how good I was, but the rest of my team was really horrible—which after being on the Satin Dolls was super refreshing. There were people on the team who were afraid to jump into the deep end, and every race involved a lot of slapping and splashing. So I couldn’t really rest on my laurels knowing I was better than people who looked like they were drowning. Still, I found that there was one stroke I was undeniably good at—breaststroke. And I got blue ribbons for it, lots of them. I also got teased to no end, thanks in part to the fact that the coach referred to people who were good at breaststroke as “her breasters.”

Still, as much as I had fun swimming, I just saw it as a way-station till I could bulk up enough to start playing football. And I focused tirelessly on gaining weight. After swim practice ended I would go down the street to Thriftway, a very low-priced neighborhood supermarket that sold a generic brand called Western Family. I knew Dad would be late to pick me up, which gave me enough time to buy my bulking agents. I had read the labels, so I knew that the highest calorie content for the cheapest food that didn’t make you throw up was Western Family fruit pies—five for a dollar. I tried all of the flavors, and my favorite for bulking was lemon because I thought the sourness of the lemon made it even easier to keep down. Vanilla and chocolate were fun but they actually would make me hurl—and cherry was for dessert. I would consume my pies as quickly as possible on my way back to the pool and hide any evidence of eating them, because I still wanted my pork chop at dinner. But every day when I got on the scale at the pool my weight seemed to be the same. By the halfway point of swimming season, I still hovered around eighty-seven pounds. I began to give up hope of ever getting a football scholarship. And I also spent a good deal of time mentally redecorating my
future shack and finding clever ways to work with the water stains.

One night, I was over at Mom’s and I got one of my tension headaches so bad that she had to give me four aspirin.

“I’m gonna talk to your dad about your stress level,” Mom said. “I think you have anxiety and I think that maybe you should be spending more time at my house now.”

“Yes,” I said, hardly containing my delight. “Maybe you’re right. I’m soooo stressed out.”

“Well, I’m gonna talk to him.”

I was amazed. Mom had always been a little intimidated by my dad and had always agreed with his custody arrangements. But if she was now willing to talk to him about changing things up, I couldn’t be happier. She kept the fridge full and her house was clean and quiet—all things I liked.

The next day when Mom went to drop me and Anora off at Dad’s, she said she wanted to talk to him. “Okay,” Dad said. “What’s on your mind, Diane?”

“Well,” she started, all of a sudden getting squirmy, “I feel like Mishna would maybe do better spending a little more time at my house.”

“Are you saying you’re a better parent than me?”

“No . . . Here’s the thing,” Mom said, sounding confused. “Mishna has these headaches—”

“What headaches?” Dad asked. “She doesn’t have headaches at my house.”

“She has them at school a lot.”

“You’re feeding them stuff.”

She paused. “The nurse and I agree. . . .”

“What nurse?”

“The school nurse.”

Dad looked at her and said, “It’s summer. Mishna’s not in
school.” Mom stammered, she was losing her train of thought in front of my eyes. It’s like Dad was made out of kryptonite.

“Listen,” Dad said, grabbing Mom’s lower back and leading her toward her car, “this is the first time I’m hearing about any of this.”

“Really?” she said.

“Yes,” Dad said. “Mishna hasn’t mentioned any headaches to me.”

“Oh,” Mom said as Dad opened her car door.

“So, I’ll talk to Mishna and together we’ll get to the bottom of it all.”

“Okay,” Mom said. “That sounds reasonable.” Dad shut her door and walked back up to where I was on the back steps. He passed me on his way into the house and said, “Your mom’s a control freak.” And that was the end of that.

The summer swim league was almost over when, after practice one day, a blond guy named Dan who seemed to work at the pool approached me. His hair was white from chlorine, and had the consistency of cotton candy. And he was shaped like an upside-down triangle. He even walked on the outside edges of his feet, which folded in to make the triangle’s bottom point.