Miseducated Read online

  By the time Lucas disappeared, my demeanor had already changed. The crescent smile that once made people want to pinch my cheeks had settled into a permanent grimace, as though I was angry at the world. Because I was.

  When I visited my paternal grandparents, Grandma nudged me to fix my face when people asked, “What’s wrong? Is he okay?” But I couldn’t, because I wasn’t. Five years of abuse had left physical wounds that scarred and emotional wounds that might never heal.

  She was especially upset when my scowl drew attention at church. “Fix your face,” Grandma said while preparing me for Sunday school. “You’re always frowning. God is too good for you to be frowning like that.” As far as I could see, God hadn’t actually been all that good to me. She went on and on about how I used to smile more when I was younger. “You had the prettiest little teeth,” she said, “and the cutest little smile.” But I wasn’t that affable kid anymore. It felt like Lucas had buried him alive.

  Social propriety was everything to my dad and grandparents as the first family of their church. When I did not live up to their expectations, they blamed my mother for every inappropriate word or deed. They didn’t like the way Mom let me talk, so they scolded my northern accent, asked me to call them Grandmother and Grandfather with a hard er, and demanded that I over-enunciate vowels like the white people that Papa always wanted to impress. “You’re embarrassing me,” Grandma often growled through her dentures, leaning close enough for me to smell her peppermint breath. They hated the way Mom dressed me. “Ugh, this is a ghetto mess,” Grandma said as she unfastened my gold necklace and patted down my Afro while complaining that only hoodlums wore their hair like that. She had a conniption one time when Mom dropped me off with cornrows.

  I was my father’s firstborn and my grandparents’ only grandchild for much of my childhood. I never questioned their love for me even though they criticized my mother, my world, and thought I would have been better off in theirs. And maybe they could have saved me from some of my misfortunes at home. But in their world, I was a misfit, a miscreant. And their condemnation of my appearance only confirmed that I did not belong in the land of the bourgeoisie.

  I do not believe that this was how they intended to make me feel. I believe their hearts were pure, but they were incredibly disconnected from Black culture. They did not dislike Black people, because their church was full of them. But there was no hand-clapping and foot-stomping at this church. Papa would have none of that. He did not allow gospel music or drums or any instrument other than the grand piano. “God doesn’t like all that racket,” he said. He preferred softly sung songs from the red and the blue hymnal books that didn’t remind anyone of Negro spirituals or our history of oppression.

  They loved me so much that they wanted to adopt me. They wanted to keep me safe. But it wasn’t because of what Lucas did to me. They knew nothing about that because I had never confessed it. They only wanted to rescue me from a culture they loathed. From the “hippity-hop thuggery” they associated with my mother’s side of the family in New York. But that wasn’t all. They wanted to save me from my mother, whom they still presumed to be an unfit parent. She had her challenges, but I hated when anyone bad-mouthed my mother. I never believed that she was unfit. She was broken. She was vulnerable. But she was hopeful. It was just that her faith was misplaced in the wrong men. A cycle that her children continued to bear the brunt of. Especially me. And her next relationship took me to a dark place of no return.

  It was less than a year after Lucas disappeared. The divorce was not yet finalized. Mom was resistant toward the idea of dating any man. Mom told me about one day when she was making a deposit at the bank and she recognized someone who looked incredibly familiar.

  “Wilson, is that you?” she asked as she approached him. Wilson had been a dear friend of hers from back in the day. It had been more than a decade since they’d seen each other in New York, when Sierra and Barry were tiny and I wasn’t yet born.

  “What in the world are you doing here?” he said as he turned in surprise. They spent hours catching up. Those hours turned into days. Those days turned into an unexpected relationship before either was officially divorced. They bonded over old stories and shared struggles, including their failed marriages.

  Their relationship had always been platonic. Never did they think they would be together, until their paths crossed by chance. Wilson was the answer to her prayers. He treated my mother well. He was a family man. And, most importantly, he professed to be a man of faith. Things moved quickly and it was beautiful to see my mother swept off her feet. I had never seen her smile so much. She was suddenly nicer and more affectionate than usual. He had two daughters. One was Sierra’s age and one was Ben’s age. We would occasionally spend the night at their house and they would sometimes spend the night at ours. We were spending a lot of time together and becoming like a blended family, and Mom was caught up preparing for her next marriage before we had really healed from the last one.

  I always looked forward to the sound of the doorbell. It brought a rush of joy, because it meant that it was time to play. The doorbell sang as it reverberated throughout our two-story home around noon every Saturday, announcing that our friends were here to ask if Barry and I could come outside. We were the only ones with a basketball hoop. For hours, we played in the searing sun, taking an occasional break to sip the most delicious water from the spigot on the side of the house, or to run inside and grab Kool-Aid Popsicles and other snacks until Mom yelled, “Do your friends pay any bills in this house?” or “Stop running in and out of this house!” or “Come in this house one more time and you ain’t goin’ back out!” She hated when we “smelled like outside,” though we never understood what outside smelled like. We kept playing until the streetlights came on, marking the end of our fun.

  The precious sound of the doorbell eventually changed. It lost its meaning. It still signaled that it was time to play. But not in the innocent way I once desired. The once happy chimes of childhood became ominous when Renae, Wilson’s teenage daughter, was scheduled to babysit me. Now when the doorbell rang, I would close my eyes and press my palms to my ears to shut out the sound that signaled the end of my boyhood. I’d run to my room and lock my door the same way I hid from Lucas. Mom and Wilson went out on dates. Sierra left with friends. Barry stayed outside to play. Renae situated Ben in his room with toys and cartoons. That’s when she came for me. She took what she wanted. She made me become a man.

  It first happened one night when my mother and Wilson left for an evening of what she called “grown folks’ business.” Renae, my siblings, and I were crammed in my room watching my old twenty-inch Philips television. Barry and Sierra usurped my twin-size bed and I sat at its foot on the floor next to Renae. How I ended up on the floor in my own room is a mystery. But I sat on the carpet as they lounged in comfort. We all fought sleep until 3 a.m., trying to catch a glimpse of something salacious on BET: Uncut. Nelly’s “Tip Drill” music video was the closest we could get to soft porn.

  “Aight, y’all, I’m going to bed,” my sister mumbled as she climbed to her feet. Barry followed only a few minutes later, leaving Renae and me alone with the television softly glowing in the dark.

  We sat there without speaking for a few minutes. My eyelids were getting low when, suddenly, I felt Renae’s hand rest on top of mine. “Are you sleepy?” she inquired so gently. Her tone was tender. Her nurturing touch made me feel safe. I yawned and nodded innocently.

  “Come closer,” she beckoned. I slid toward her and nuzzled my head in the pocket between her shoulder and neck where she had always let me rest. But this time felt different. “Look at me,” she commanded. I raised my eyes as her fingertips lifted my chin. My eyes were drowsy, but hers weren’t. Hers were wide, beguiling, ambitious. She used her hand to guide my lips toward hers. Before I could recognize what was happening, she shoved her tongue in my mouth. It tasted slimy and sour. She started breathing heavily. She unbuttoned her jeans and grabbed my
hand and told me what to do in husky terms that left me no choice. I did not know what I was digging for. “Stick it in,” she said. But I didn’t know where or how. She adjusted her body and angled my hand to go deeper. That’s when I felt it. It was warm and gooey and felt like putty. It scared me and I jerked my hand out. I bolted for the bathroom and slammed the door and locked it. I looked at my hand and there was slime all over it. I turned on the hot water, emptied the entire bottle of soap on my hands, and nearly scrubbed the skin off of my fingers for about thirty minutes straight. Then I fell asleep on the bathroom floor. Because I did not want to go back out there.

  Each time that doorbell rang, I knew she was here. I knew what she wanted. She always waited until no one was around. I was scared at first, then I was confused the first time that my body responded in favor of her advances. For some time, she trespassed against my impubescent body. But nothing happened when she fondled me, so she guided my hands and mouth to the places that brought her the most pleasure. One day, I got an erection. I was so confused. In my mind, I did not like it. I did not want it. But my body disagreed. Her touch sent blood rushing to the place that I was not yet proud of. It was wrong, but it felt good. “You want me to stop?” she asked. But I could not utter words, only gasps as her hands and mouth performed some sort of dark and beautiful magic on my body. The first time I climaxed, I felt so ashamed. Everything about it felt wrong. But my would-be stepsister held me and chuckled and said, “It’s okay. It means you’re a man now.” But I didn’t want to be. I wanted to go outside and play with my brother and my friends, but she held me captive in my bedroom and made me do things that I did not want to feel good. But they did. Every day. I fought back the eruptions in my body that she triggered. I tried to think about my favorite shows on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. But it did not work. My body kept betraying me.

  This went on for over a year by the time my mother broke off her relationship with Wilson. She had no idea what had been happening to me. I tried to tell Sierra once. I must have downplayed the details because Sierra sucked her teeth and said, “Boy, she is too old for you.” I never tried to tell anyone again. Partly out of shame for what Renae did, and partly because of the craving that it created.

  If Lucas left me with a permanent scowl, Renae’s disappearance left me with a yearning emptiness and a raging sexuality that I didn’t understand at age eleven. What we did together began as abuse, but it ended as an appetite. She called it love, and it became my only understanding of the word. I wanted love again. A craving seized my mind and body and blotted my capacity for telling right and wrong. I would go to any lengths to find a fix and fill the lustful void that Renae left. It consumed my body and commandeered my conscience. I was wounded. I was angry. I was sexually charged. And that’s when a menace was born.

  I had just turned twelve and was entering the sixth grade, but I did not like the girls at school. They did not know what I knew. They did not want what I wanted. This became clear when I was written up for flashing girls on the school bus and suspended for asking them to flash me at school.

  Three girls lived on our street. They were best friends and loved to reenact music videos with a boom box in our shared driveway, where they often performed entire Destiny’s Child albums. From the window of our home, I could hear them arguing over who would star as Beyoncé. The honor was usually bestowed upon the most fair-skinned girl. One day, I convinced them to take a break and meet me in a secluded spot behind our houses where no one could see.

  “Follow me, I got something to show you,” I said. We ran around to the back of the house. “Come closer,” I said. They were eager to see my surprise. I whispered softly, “I’ll show you mine, and you show me yours.”

  “Show you what?” they asked, confused.

  I looked in all directions to make sure the coast was clear. I unzipped my pants and pulled them down with pride, as if a fluorescent glow was emanating from my privates. Two of them screamed and ran away. But one of them stayed and stared in shock.

  “Your turn,” I encouraged. She looked uncertain at first, but reluctantly lifted her shirt and quickly yanked it back down.

  “I couldn’t even see anything,” I grumbled. She sucked her teeth and closed her eyes as she gave me another three-second peek at her breasts before hastily covering up. We exchanged awkward, silent stares, clueless about what to do next. Then she wheeled and ran off. And I walked away with a grin, convinced that I had finally found love again.

  That was the most I could get out of girls my age. Then my lustful compass shifted toward girls who were significantly older. Sierra’s friends were the most accessible. They always came over to hang out and stay the night. I tried everything I could to win their affection. I gifted them with bouquets of the finest dandelions I could pick from the lawn. When that approach failed, I set out to learn more about their interests and appeal to them.

  After school one evening, we were watching 106 & Park on BET. Cartoons were a thing of the past. We were grown now, so we watched grown television. And Mom was never home to stop us, so we thrived on hypersexual BET shows and hood movies like Belly and Paid in Full and Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. For us, this was both entertainment and education.

  There was nothing like seeing Funkmaster Flex on the ones and twos and hearing “Welcome to 106 & Park, the hottest show in the universe! I’m Free,” “And I’m AJ!” from two of BET’s most legendary hosts. For us, the daily top ten countdown each evening was as sacred as a table dinner with fine china in a bougie family. We wouldn’t miss it for the world. Especially when Jin, the Asian sensation, shocked all of Black America on Freestyle Friday. This was our Black-ass tradition: gathering in the living room with Sierra and company commandeering the couch while Barry and I basked in their nearness, despite being uncomfortable on the hardwood floor.

  During the top ten countdown, the girls waited on the edge of their seats for one video in particular. They shrieked at the first notes of the electric guitar, but grew wide-eyed and breathless as a close-up focused on the back of D’Angelo’s cornrows, then circled around to his face, capturing his tongue licking his lips, before the camera pulled back to reveal his naked body down to his pelvis.

  “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” was one of D’Angelo’s biggest hits. He didn’t dance and the camera stayed in one place for the entire four minutes and thirty seconds. He sang nude in a dark room. The girls were enamored. I watched them squirm in their seats as the camera focused on the sweat beads falling down his body. They fanned themselves as if the temperature in the room had risen several degrees. I looked at D’Angelo. I looked at the girls’ reactions. Then I looked at the television again, and it all made sense. I realized what I needed to do.

  Sierra’s friends stayed over that night. The next day, the girls were doing girl stuff in Sierra’s room. Barry and I were playing basketball in the front yard with our friends. The heat peaked in midafternoon so we took off our shirts and played bare-chested. We took a break after someone, likely Barry, won a game of 21. Panting in a patch of shade, I looked down and realized that rivulets of sweat were running down my body. Then it dawned on me. I was D’Angelo.

  “I’ll be back, y’all,” I said to the guys, knowing that I had business to take care of. I walked toward the house as if I had a rose clenched in my teeth and Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” was playing on cosmic speakers. I climbed the stairs toward Sierra’s room. I could hear the girls laughing inside. I examined my chest, disregarding its lack of definition, and decided that I needed more sweat. I ran to the bathroom and splashed water on my chest, then topped that off with a few squirts of baby oil. I was ready.

  I took a deep breath at Sierra’s door and opened it slowly. I crossed the threshold with my head bowed, then raised my chin slowly for dramatic effect. Then I closed my eyes to serenade them with passion. But before I could let out the first “Hooow does it feeeeeel?” Sierra yelled, “Get out of my room!”
She rushed me like a tackle and threw me back across the threshold. The door slammed in my face. From the other side, I could hear that Sierra was angry, but her friends were laughing. I decided they liked it.

  Sierra radiated a force field that repelled my attempts to get close to her friends. I had to find a way around her.

  Selena was the one I loved, Sierra’s best friend. I pulled back the bow and shot Cupid’s arrow a number of times, but my love darts fell short. “Sierra, get your little brother,” Selena said when I sat too close for comfort. “Take yo lil ass on somewhere,” she’d retort when I begged her to marry me. She laughed it off, until I went too far.

  This was the era of compact discs, which had album art on one side and a reflective film on the other. At some point, I discovered that this could be repurposed as a mirror. One night when Selena was staying over, I had an idea while she was showering in the bathroom. I reached for one of my CDs, blew my hot breath on it, and cleaned it with my T-shirt until I could see my reflection crisp and clear. Then I used rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball to polish it more. When it was ready to go, I crossed the hallway flat on my stomach like a soldier traversing a swamp. There was a half-inch crack between the door and the floor and I slipped part of the disc under the door and tilted it just enough to catch a glimpse of the other side. I was mesmerized. She was so beautiful. Her crinkly wet hair fell down to the small of her back, and I watched as she dried herself off and tied her curly hair into a headwrap.

  Selena took a step and her foot was only inches from the disc. I should have retreated but I couldn’t. The sight of her was spellbinding. She was wrapped in a towel, and I angled the disc to get a better view when, suddenly, it slipped from my hand.

  “What the fuck,” she said from the other side. I could not reach to retrieve the disc. Before Selena could open the door, I jumped to my feet and dashed to my room and locked the door. I dove into my bed and threw the covers over my face, pretending to be asleep.