Princess

Princess

“Why don’t the boys like you?” asked LaTonya. She leaned against the chain-link fence surrounding the black asphalt lot. Trees on the outside had forced themselves underneath the blacktop, pushing the metal lattice up. A gnarled black root twisted at our feet.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’d like to skip rope if that’s okay.” 

LaTonya cocked her head and peered into my face. Her hair was parted into two tight braids with two hard plastic balls on each end of the elastic, red and blue. They looked like gumballs and bounced when she talked. I could hear the slap of the double jump ropes hitting the pavement. I looked into her brown eyes. I hoped she could tell I was serious. She placed her hands on her hips and took a deep breath. 

The line of girls had turned around to look at us and were watching her expectantly. It was the second week of second grade, and LaTonya had already established herself as a leader by speaking up the most in class. She was also the tallest person in our class. 

LaTonya looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.

“Okay. But if you mess up three times, you’re out.”

I nodded in agreement and took my place at the back of the line. The rest of the girls turned back around to watch Taisha leap in and out of the double jump ropes. Like twins, the girls twirled the ropes and sang a rhyme:

Miss Lucy had a baby

She named him Tiny Tim

She put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim. 

He drank up all the water

He ate up all the soap

He tried to eat the bathtub

But it wouldn’t go down his throat.

Some of the girls were so good they could jump in while the ropes were spinning. I tried to match my rhythm to theirs. LaTonya gave me a look that said, “Are you serious?” but she was smiling so I smiled back. Then I watched her leap into action. LaTonya moved with precision, her body a hypnotic blur. She and Taisha sang the rhyme the loudest.

Miss Suzie called the doctor

The doctor called the nurse 

The nurse called the lady with the alligator purse. 

He ate up all the doctor

He ate up all the nurse

He even ate the lady with the alligator purse.

Then it was my turn.

Taisha and LaTonya took the ropes to give the other girls a break. I stood expectantly in the center. The ropes whipped through the air. I jumped and tripped. The second time I tripped again. I took a deep breath and bit my lower lip. The ropes whirled over my head and I jumped at the right time. I was off to an awkward start, jumping sporadically here and there just to stay in the game. Somehow my mind and my body united and the activity quit being work. I found the rhythm and moved with it! I felt elevated! I felt free, like when I floated out of my body, but instead of everything passing through me, I could feel the asphalt under my feet, my blood rushing in my body, and the sweat trickling down my neck. 

When I tripped, all the air left my body. It was a harsh contrast, feeling deflated after such an exhilarating moment, and I almost collapsed.  I wanted that sense of completeness back. 

“That wasn’t bad for your first time,” said Taisha. 

LaTonya nodded. “Yeah, but three times is the rule,” she said. 

I smiled at both of them. As I turned to walk to the back of the line, I was knocked to the ground by a sudden blow to my back. I heard the rubbery bounce of a dodgeball and watched it roll away from the corner of my eye. I got up, picked little black tar rocks out of my palms and watched the holes fill up with red. My back burned with pain and I winced as I stood up. I turned to face Brian, a large boy with a blond buzz cut who spent lunch chewing paper into spitballs and shooting them at the ceiling through his milk straw whenever the teacher wasn’t looking. He walked slowly over to me. I could see his breath like wisps of fog in the air.

“Why are you just standing there, gaylord? Are you some kind of special? Go get my ball.”

I wanted to run away but instead, I stood there, counting the different areas of my body that throbbed. How fleeting had been my jump rope victory. 

“Brian,” said LaTonya. “I told you to keep the game on y’all’s side of the playground.” 

LaTonya had retrieved the dodgeball and was holding it under one arm. Brian walked over to her. 

“Give it back.” 

“You want it back? Go get it.” LaTonya tossed the ball in the air with grace. It sailed over the chainlink fence and bounced down the street.  

Brian opened his mouth as if he were going to yell at LaTonya but shut it when he looked around at all the girls. 

“Sissy,” Brian hissed at me as he walked away.

“And don’t come over here no more,” said LaTonya. She and Taisha picked up the jump ropes again. Brian disappeared into a group of boys around the jungle gym. The ball rolled into a street drain and came to a stop. 

LaTonya walked over to me.

“Let me see your hands.”

I opened my palms. Several punctures on both hands oozed bright red bubbles. 

LaTonya sucked some air through her teeth and whistled. 

“You gotta go to the nurse or it’s gonna get infected.”

I nodded, my gaze transfixed to the blood. 

“Hey,” LaTonya gently clasped my shoulder. “Don’t pay Brian no mind. He’s just a bully.” 

I looked up at her. A tear slid down my cheek. I felt the pain rising up through my hands and choked back a sob. 

LaTonya squeezed my shoulder before letting go.

“You can jump rope with us tomorrow.”

After school, my mother picked me up in the wood-paneled station wagon. I climbed in the back seat and put on my seatbelt.

“How was your day? Did you have fun?” she asked. 

“Uh huh,” I said. My back still hurt and the stiff car interior was doing me no favors. I leaned forward and hid my scuffed hands under my legs to take my mind off the pain.

“Yes or no, Luke,” she said, moving the station wagon out of the school parking lot and onto the main street. It felt like what I thought a boat would feel like, floating on the ocean. 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

She pulled up to a stop sign, her eyes staring me down from the rear view mirror. I looked out the window at the gray sky and pretended it was the ocean. My mind became populated with pirates and mermaids and sea dragons. 

“What was fun about it?”

“I learned to jump rope today. With two jump ropes.” 

The car lurched around a corner, not as smooth as the last turn. My mother’s voice was softer, a bit low. 

“Jump rope? Who taught you?”

“LaTonya and Taisha.”

My mother looked side to side as she crossed traffic. I could tell we were almost home because there’s a giant tree on our block that tells me when it’s going to rain. I thought I heard it now, warning me to stop talking. 

“Why were you playing with those girls?” Her lips were a flat line, her brow creased. 

“The boys didn’t want me.”

My mother brought the car to a stop in the driveway. She turned around and leaned over the seat. “Don’t you play with those girls again. Tomorrow you play with the boys. ”

I went to school the next day with a tightness in my chest, wondering how I would manage at recess without the jump rope to keep me distracted from the dying trees. When I walked into the classroom, the teacher had her hand on the shoulder of a new boy. 

“Everyone,” she said, “This is Jacob. His parents just moved to Henderson. Let’s make him feel welcome.” Jacob had red hair, green eyes and stood taller than even Brian. 

“I go by Jake,” he said to the class. 

The teacher ushered him to his desk and asked us all to stand. As we recited the “Pledge of Allegiance,” I stole another glance at Jacob. Freckles covered his nose and cheeks. I felt my skin tingle all over as I stared at him, goose bumps rose all along my arms. My face felt warm and my mouth dry.  

At recess, the boys gathered round Jacob. I stood in the middle of the playground caught between the two distinct groups of girls and boys. Taisha walked over to me, a jump rope in her hands. She motioned to LaTonya and the other girls who were already starting to line up.

“Luke,” she said, “You wanna jump?”

I took a deep breath.

“My mom said I had to play with the boys.”

I looked down and shuffled my feet. 

“I tried to tell her they don’t want me.”

Taisha placed one hand on her hip.

“How she gonna know who you play with?”

I shrugged, still staring down. My cheeks flushed red.

“She’ll know when she makes me tell her,” I said.

Taisha looked around to make sure no one was within earshot before she said, “Your mama don’t like Black folks, does she?”

I gasped. Taisha looked at me with an expression that said, Well, does she?

I chewed on my bottom lip while the truth of her words seeped into me. I shook my head.

“No, I guess she doesn’t.”

Taisha shrugged too, “It’s okay, Luke. Lotsa folks is racist. Don’t mean you gotta be.”

“I’m not!” I said, louder than I meant to. “I promise! I really like you and LaTonya. I never jumped rope before and--”

Taisha laughed. “I already told you, Luke. It’s okay. I know you ain’t your mama.”

“I just don’t know how to lie to her.”

Taisha nodded. “Mamas do their best, but they don’t need to know everything. We’ll be over here if you wanna jump.”

While I watched Taisha walk back to the girls, my attention drifted to the skyline of shadow trees behind her. The wind moved their branches and my body swayed with them.

“Hey!”

I turned to see Jake suddenly in front of me. He smiled, outstretched his hand and I watched mine rise up to meet it. My heart sped up when they touched. 

“I’m Jake. We’re gonna play Star Wars. You wanna?” 

I stared into his green eyes and thought about emeralds and the spring leaves of daffodils.

“Yes!” I said, wincing from hearing myself shout.  

“Great.” Jake withdrew his hand and the heat from my body went with him, making me dizzy. I shook my head to clear it as we walked back to the boys. 

“Okay, I’m Han Solo,” he announced to everyone. He pointed to Daniel, a quiet boy who had gotten in trouble twice for drinking Elmer’s glue. “You’re Luke Skywalker,” he said. He looked around. “We need Stormtroopers,” he said, gesturing to a bunch of boys. “Brian, why don’t you play Darth Vader?” 

Brian had been sulking, his face getting redder while Jake assigned roles. He dragged his feet in front of the new boy with hair like flames and pointed at me.

“We can’t play with him! He’s a sissy!”

Brian folded his arms over his chest. The other boys gathered around, blank looks on their faces. Jake turned to me and rubbed his chin.

“Well, someone has to play the Princess,” Jake said, “We have to rescue her from Darth Vader.” 

“I can be the Princess,” I said, my voice lower than I liked. I shrugged, like it was no big deal, but a part of me wanted to yell to the sky. Brian laughed. Some of the other boys laughed too.  

“Okay,” said Jake, still looking at me, “The jungle gym is the Death Star. You’ll have to climb inside the center until Daniel and I rescue you.” I looked over at the jungle gym’s grid-like lattice of metal cubes. 

“It’s really tall,” I said. “Couldn’t I just crawl under to the center?”

“See? He’s no good!” said Brian, shaking his head. 

“It’s not that hard,” said Jake. “You do it once--you’ll see.”

Jake led me over to the jungle gym. He rested one foot on a bottom rung and grabbed the bars above him. I mimicked his movements and together we climbed up the jungle gym one bar at a time. The very middle was five squares tall and when I looked down I couldn’t believe I had done it. I felt strong and powerful. 

“See? Now go ahead and climb down in the middle. This is where Darth Vader imprisoned you.” 

“I should do the torture now!” said Brian, yelling up at us.

“No,” said Jake, “This is after that. She doesn’t give up information and you destroy her planet, remember?”

Brian frowned. “Then what I am supposed to be doing?” 

“You’re fighting rebels in your ship. We can play tag and pretend we’re shooting lasers.”

Daniel and the other boys nodded admiringly at Jake. He obviously knew Star Wars better than anybody and had great ideas about how to make it fun on the playground.

“We could use the dodgeball instead of tag,” suggested Brian. He had a wicked look in his eyes when he said it. 

“Nobody likes dodgeball but you,” said Daniel. He walked over to Jake who had just climbed off the Death Star. “Tag is better.”

I sat on the bottom rung with my legs resting on the ground inside the jungle gym and watched the boys play tag for most of recess. Then Jake climbed up the Death Star while Daniel and Brian dueled with sticks as lightsabers. Jake lay on top of the bars and lowered his arms down to me. I reached up and his hand caught mine. He was smiling that bright smile and my hand grew warm immediately. I was a match that he lit on fire. My whole body felt white hot.  

“Go limp,” he said, “Let me pull you up.”

And he did. He pulled me up out of the bars and I forgot that in the movie that it was Luke that rescues Leia and not Han. I had felt the same warmth I was feeling with Jake when I saw Han Solo on screen. I had wanted to be Leia then and I wanted to be her now with Jake. It was so difficult to stay still as he pulled me up because I wanted to wrap my arms around him and have him hold me close. I wanted this moment to go on and on. 

Jake shook his hand loose from mine, a puzzled look on his face. I gathered my wits, pushed my feelings down deep, and smiled. He shook his head, as if trying to clear some lingering confusion, then reached out to help me down from the bars. We turned just in time to see Daniel’s stick break Brian’s in half.  

“This is now the Millennium Falcon, guys!” said Jake as Brian’s mouth opened in protest, “Luke and I have to fly away. Who’s Chewbacca?” Before anyone could answer Jake, the bell rang. Recess was over. Jake turned to me, “You have to give us medals tomorrow. That’s what the princess does at the end of the movie.” I nodded. Watching him walk away, I was the last to leave the playground. 

After school my mother and I were floating down the street in the station wagon. She is pleased to hear that I played with the boys. 

“What kind of games did you play?” she asked.

I looked out the window, distracted by the sky. Once I had pulled apart a cotton ball. The clouds looked remarkably the same way, gauzy strips of white. 

“We played spaceship games,” I said.

The station wagon turned and I saw the weather tree again. I nodded reverently at it, remembering its wisdom was to be silent. 

“What kind of games are those?” my mother asked. 

“We climbed the jungle gym.” 

“You did?” she said, turning the car onto our street. In the rear view mirror, the edges of her mouth turned up.

“Yes,” I replied. I was not lying and that felt good.

Later that night in the bathroom as I got undressed for my bath, I took off my tee shirt and the neck of it got stuck around the crown of my head. I turned the rest of it inside out and left it flowing over my back. I looked in the mirror and twisted the short sleeves around and around until they looked like a bunched up version of the cinnamon bun hairstyle of Princess Leia. I felt a sense of satisfaction and beauty as I stared at myself. 

“What is taking you so long?” demanded my mother on the other side of the door, “Why am I not hearing bath water running?”

The next day at school during craft time, I grabbed some yarn and a pair of scissors, remembering in the movie that Leia gave the heroes something that looked like Olympic medals. I cut out circles of construction paper and taped them to the yarn tied together as necklaces. At recess, Jake had the boys pick up exactly where they ended from the day before. While the boys climbed aboard the jungle gym and made spaceship noises and chattered about light speed and thrusters, I had my medals safely hidden in my pocket. I was so excited to show Jake what I had made for him that I kept jumping up and down at my desk and the teacher asked me if I had to use the restroom.   

Jake made Daniel and another boy line up with him near the monkey bars. Brian and the other boys who were Stormtroopers sat on the ground, looking disgruntled. I walked up to Jake and it felt like my heart might burst out of my chest at any second. I took a deep breath, did my best to ignore Brian even though I felt his stare burning into the back of my neck. I took out the medals from my pocket and smoothed out the yarn. Jake smiled at me and I thought about how Han winked at Leia in the movie. Maybe he would do that for me. I took another deep breath and stood as tall as I could and lifted up my arms with the yarn necklace. As I placed it around Jake’s neck, I leaned in closer to adjust for his height, and for just a split second my lips grazed his. There was a collective gasp from the boys and Jake’s cheeks flushed as red as his hair. I took a step back but I was still holding the yarn and I pulled Jake forward with me. He frowned, still blushing. He stared at me like he’d never seen me before. Jake pulled back and the yarn snapped. The construction paper medal floated to the ground. 

I was at home in my room that night, still thinking about how all the boys yelled gaylord at me with Brian leading the chant when my mother told me to take all of the dirty laundry down to the basement. As I went down the wooden stairs carrying the plastic laundry basket, I thought about the way Jake stared at me, partially angry, mostly in disbelief. He didn’t look me in the eyes after that, and he didn’t speak again, but he was the only boy who didn’t call me names. 

The basement of our house was a cave, dark and cool, and when I placed the laundry hamper on the ground, I stretched out my arms and felt along the rough clay walls. They were cool to the touch, made me think of salamanders under rocks and walking on the grass after it rained. I imagined my sadness flowing through my body into my fingers and into the earthen walls. I don’t want to feel this right now, I told them. I have chores to do. A massive stack of clothes and towels surrounded the wringer washing machine, waiting for me to separate them into piles. As I singled out the white clothes from the colored clothes, I noticed something shiny. It was my mother’s slip. I picked it up and felt the smooth slinky softness in my hands. I brought the material to my face and closed my eyes. Suddenly the events of the day slid away and in my mind I saw Princess Leia smiling in her white gown. I opened my eyes and lifted my tee shirt over my head and wrapped it around my head in two mounds, twisting it as tightly as I could. I took off my pants, but left on my Hanes underwear because they were white, and therefore matched Princess Leia’s all white outfit. 

I stepped into my mother’s sparkling slip and cinched it under my armpits with a wooden clothespin, but the fabric still pooled around my feet. I looked into the full length mirror and I saw a princess in white looking back at me. I leaned in, almost touched my reflection, pleading, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” As I adjusted my hemline, I heard the creak of the wooden stairs and saw my mother staring at me, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. 

“What in Jesus’s name are you doing?” she cried. In seconds, she ripped me out of her slip and pulled my tee shirt off of my head, dragged me up the stairs by my arm, her fingers digging into the skin. Upstairs, she whisked me into the kitchen and yanked open the baking utensil drawer. I started to visibly shake and the taste of bile rose up in my throat. The wooden spoon was in that drawer. It was my mother’s favorite tool of discipline, so much so that she’d had my father drill tiny holes in it so it would sting when she used it. When I saw it in her hands, I let out a little yelp. “No! Please, don’t,” I cried. 

Looming over me with the wooden spoon in one hand, she pulled down my underwear with the other. She beat my bare buttocks and the back of my legs, screaming, “You are a boy! I am raising a boy! Boys do not dress in women’s clothes!”

I howled and cried as the wooden spoon whistled through the air and smacked my skin. My legs buckled out from under me, but she pulled me up with one arm and continued to hit me with the spoon. My nose ran and my head ached. It felt like it would go on forever. 

Finally, when my butt and legs were numb with pain, and my chest was clammy from the wetness of my tears, she leaned down into my face, and said,  “You will never do this again!” She waited until I nodded that I understood. “You’re lucky your father isn’t home. Lord knows I can’t tell him about this.” She shook her head. “Go to your room.” 

The next day at recess, the boys played dodgeball on teams led by Brian and Jake. At times, Brian looked at me and sneered, his eyes flashing, but then Daniel whispered something to him and he ignored me again.

I felt hollow inside. I wanted to leave my body in this place of broken tar and dead leaves where the wind had no messages for me. But my spirit wouldn’t leave my body. The pain from the welts on the backs of my legs and my buttocks were raised and sore. I walked to the farthest end of the playground and leaned against the crooked chain link fence. 

“Hey, Luke!”

The sound of my name broke me out of my maudlin reverie. I turned to see LaTonya and Taisha walking over to me. I took a couple of steps toward them. Taisha thrust a jump rope toward me. To my surprise, I caught it. LaTonya smiled.

“Come on, Luke,” she said. “We’re gonna teach you how to double dutch.”

I smiled. Taisha was right--moms don’t need to know everything.

~SA