We’d stopped at this Tijuana-themed tourist trap called Mexico Way. It’s painted as if some ignorant white folks tried to make a whole town out of old-timey Mexican stereotypes. I walked to the restroom, in a low building painted to look like adobe.
Mariachi horns whined through hidden speakers, echoing in the dim concrete bathroom. I was still wired up and angry, alone while Mason pumped gas and Russell hit the store for a soda and some smokes. I’d have to rejoin them soon. Why couldn’t I just confront racism when it was convenient—at the end of a shift, or from someone who was about to drive off forever? I knew why. I’d had the chance earlier and blown it.
I washed my hands in cold water, then stepped back outside and saw that our van was parked under a giant concrete sombrero. Mexico Way’s mascot is a cartoon named José who wears a sombrero and has word bubbles over his head, written in a phonetic Mexican accent, urging “joo” to buy everything from fireworks to nachos and acrylic blankets. There’s a motel, but it must be impossible to sleep under so much neon.
Mexico Way is what Mexico is to the south. And, to Wilmington, North Carolina, I was hip-hop. All this time I’d spent trying to learn to be black by listening to rap and soul records, and the only time it had gone over was in a room full of old white folks.
I crept back into the van and feigned sleep. A minute later, I heard a door slam and Mason asked, “Everyone in?”
Russell grunted, “Yeah,” and the van’s engine started.
My Black Card was still close, but not in my pocket.
“Muhfukka.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Naw, Muhh-fukka.”
“Mothafucka.”
Lucius sighs. “Muhhh. Fuh-kka.”
“Muthah fuckah?”
“The first part’s just ‘muhh.’ Ain’t no t-h. Muhh.”
“Muhh?”
“Yeah. Now work it in.”
“Muhh fuckah.”
“Let it roll, though. Muhfukka.”
“Muhfukka.”
“Yeah, but feel that ‘uhh’ in your stomach. Not your nose. Don’t say it so white.”
We lived in the DC suburbs and, at my white school, the fourth-grade-boy Mount Rushmore was Bart Simpson’s serrated paper bag head and the five long-haired, cigarette-smoking skulls from the Guns N’ Roses logo. My mom was cool enough to buy me T-shirts of both, and I’d wear them on special occasions, like when we drove the half hour to dinner at Dad’s childhood friend Kenny’s apartment.
I liked Kenny’s living room because I could look out the balcony door and see a parkway, with tall trees waving in the glow of passing headlights. I imagined every car going somewhere interesting. That didn’t happen at home, where I’d kneel backwards on the couch, peering out the window and counting the times one of the neighborhood dads jogged around the block, grinning and waving as he passed.
When we’d come off the elevator for our last visit, we’d found Kenny clutching a frosty beer glass in his building’s carpeted hallway. He’d grinned and shouted, “No niggers allowed!” at my dad, who folded into a convulsive laugh I’d never seen him do.
The elevator door slid shut behind us. Mom’s mouth was a circle and she rotated her wrists, trying to decide if she should cover my ears or her mouth or Kenny’s. I knew that “nigger” was the worst bad word, but had never heard someone say it before that night. When Kenny’s eyes slid to my mom, his grin turned embarrassed and he said, “I’m sorry, y’all come on in.”
Kenny’s daughter, Jada, and I had an easy friendship that we’d renew at the kids’ table over our hatred of greens, but it felt different now that I was ten and the word “girl” had a capital G. Over the past year, I’d heard the n-word in a couple of rap songs and wondered if Kenny would make Dad laugh like that again, but the hall was empty when we arrived. In their apartment, Mom went into the kitchen, wine bottle first, and started laughing with Jada’s mom, Pam. Dad and I followed Kenny to the living room, where he stood in front of the balcony door, his hand on the back of a chair, and gave me the standard “You got so big!” treatment that’s so hard to respond to.
That year, my hands and feet felt huge and I didn’t know where to put them, so I smiled sheepishly. Then Kenny squinted at my T-shirt, seeing the Guns N’ Roses skulls at the tips of an ornate cross, with the redheaded singer at the crux, and asked, “What’s this? The, uh, Grateful Dead?” as if remembering a phrase from another language.
“No, Guns N’ Roses,” I said, incredulous.
“Sorry, I don’t know much rock ’n’ roll,” he said.
“It’s awesome.”
I knew that something that made rock music cool was that adults didn’t always like it, but I sensed something else going on when Kenny shot a knowing glance at Dad.
Jada appeared in the doorway to the small hall, light from her bedroom catching the ringlets of lace in her white dress. At dinner, she took careful bites and talked about grades and church, two things that weren’t to my interest. She was trying to fit into something that I was trying to escape and I didn’t understand why.
Save for a couple of suburbanites, the black kids at my grade school arrived early in a bus from the city, and left together on that same bus, a submarine that dunked into the ocean beyond the Beltway every morning. The busing program was called EDCO and, at school, EDCO meant black. When my white classmates saw my dad they’d ask if I was an EDCO kid, forgetting that, unlike the kids who were bused out, I played in the soccer league with them, went to their birthday parties, and walked home from school.
In fifth grade, we did a heritage unit and the first assignment was to find out what countries our ancestors came from. I asked my parents at the dinner table and my mom said, “Ireland,” and my dad said, “Umm . . .”
“Africa?” Mom asked.
“That’s a continent,” I said.
“Probably Africa,” Dad said.
I showed up the next day to find orange slips of paper hanging on the board by the classroom door. Each one had the name of a European country, with lines for kids’ names underneath. On the far right, next to Russia, was one that said Africa. We went around the room and each kid read off their countries. Germany and Ireland filled up fast, trailed closely by Italy and France, and then two kids’ names under Africa, Naima and Anthony, EDCO kids.
My white classmates said, “Huh?” and “Why is your name on Africa?” as our teacher added my name.
“Because my dad’s from there.”
I started sitting with Naima and Anthony. Naima was taller than me, with glasses and big twisted pigtails. During group projects, she’d tell me what I’d missed on In Living Color, the raunchy black comedy show that my mom wouldn’t let me watch anymore, using its new later airtime as an excuse. Naima had a