A Bubble of Time

Chapter 9: Going to School

Lincoln Ware was talking in my ear again, this time reminding me that it was 7:30 a.m. and advertising cars for sale at Cherokee Motors under the big Indian sign. Yeah, the "big Indian" had come under fire for being politically incorrect. But in 1982, it was still perfectly okay to use words such as Injuns and Redskins.

I turned off the radio so that my sister could get her additional half hour of sleep, cursed that another day had come and gone and I was still here, and then I went to the bathroom swearing that there was no way that I was going to school. No way in hell.

"No, you're not staying home one more day!" Mama yelled. "Get your tail ready for school, and I better not find out that you skipped! I'm calling the school, and if you're not there I'm going to beat that ass!"

Damn. She was so mean. I sulked back to my room trying to suppress my rising panic. School was the deal-breaker for me. I could accept time travel but not re-doing high school. This was too much to ask of anybody!

But it was either face school or that mean lady. I searched my closet and drawers for something to wear that wouldn't make me look like a clown. I knew I caught the school bus, but where and when? I didn't even know what time school started. My stomach began to twist and churn before I threw my chin up and straightened my back. I am fifty-one years old. I am not afraid of high school! Hell, this might be fun in a nostalgic sort of way…

I went into Kush's room where he had some jerseys folded in his chest of drawers. I borrowed what would become a throwback jersey, located a zip-up hoodie, and along with the jeans I'd worn the night before and my Chuck Taylor's, I felt somewhat comfortable.

I looked in the mirror at my hair. I looked like Don King. The tips were straight and the roots were kinky. I sighed. I had rocked a short 'fro before. So I grabbed Kush's clippers and sheared off the damaged ends until I had about two inches of "new growth." I shaped it up, spritzed it with Afro Sheen, and winked at myself. It was cute, a hell of a lot cuter than what I had before.

I grabbed my bag, nearly dropping it back to the floor. Good God! Did I carry every single book that I owned in this thing? Yes I did. Why did I do that? Oh yeah. No one had time to go to lockers between classes so I carried all of my books with me.

Maybe my mom had a point about this book bag being the root of my back problems. When I got to school I was unloading this thing. Luckily my purse was teeny, and I placed in it the lunch money and note that Mama had left for me on the kitchen table explaining my absence from school. I was too scared of missing the bus to eat so I hefted the book bag up over my shoulder, and certain that I was rocking my little 'fro, I hurried out the front door.

I walked up the street with confidence. There was a white kid about my age already standing at the corner so I supposed that was the bus stop. I jogged down the street, and he looked at me in surprise. Maybe this wasn't my bus stop…

"Well, what do we have here? If it ain't Little Black Sambo." He pointed at my short hair and laughed so hard that he doubled over and tears fell from his eyes.

For a few moments I was stunned. Did this boy just call me Sambo?

Some other kids began to show up, and they joined in laughing at my newly short hair, also throwing in jokes about me coming from Africa and Kenya's so black. I had forgotten about this part of my childhood. I had buried it, placing it in a back closet of my mind. I had tiptoed around my dark skin trying to avoid such confrontations only to come back in time and invite it head-on by cutting off my hair!

I was mortified. At the moment I was no longer a fifty-one year old mother of two. I was a sixteen year-old ugly duckling.

A voice spoke up for me. "Shut up, Rodney! You can't laugh when you've been wearing those same pants for a week! That's why you smell like sardines and Hai Karate."

My eyes widened at the sight of Bernice Landon at sixteen. She would one day go off to college only to die in a tragic campus shooting. This was years from now, but today in 1982 Bernice was my best friend.

Rodney, the white guy who had called me Sambo straightened, his laughter dying away as others now turned their laughter on him. "You and your tar baby friend can eat s**t and die." His face was so red that his pimples looked like targets.

My eyes narrowed, my pain transforming. I couldn't remember ever feeling so angry. I had buried the pain of being demoralized as a child because of this type of bullying. And now it was back, but I was no longer a frightened child. I was an adult, and I would be damned if I would let this asshole treat me like I didn't have feelings!

"You can kiss my black ass, you ignorant hillbilly!" I growled.

Rodney's jaw dropped and everyone began to ooh in surprise. Even Bernice looked surprised, but she smiled and patted my back as if I had choked those words out.

I looked at one of the black boys who was laughing at Rodney but who had been laughing at me just a second before. My anger welled up even greater, and I aimed it at him.

"And you—laughing along with this i***t like a goddamned buffoon!"

His laughter died. "Who you calling a buffoon?" His face grew angry, and he took a step close to me.

I stared him straight in his eye even though I had to look up an inch to do so. He was bigger than me, but my fear no longer existed. It died as I remembered watching news footage of black men and women being killed at the hands of clueless racists. It had turned into outrage as I remembered that in my time people of different races would band together to bring recognition of such injustice, on social media, in boycotts, and by using cell phone cameras to spread it to all corners of the country. I was not going to allow it to unravel in me just because I was in a different time.

"You are the buffoon, and all the rest of you African Americans that laughed when this racist called me a nigger."

At the use of the 'N' word, every bit of laughter disappeared.