WASTED

I searched the closet where my family stored our luggage, looking for the bag where I'd hidden my last stash of weed. There was nothing special about the luggage, but the bag contained everything that I coveted. Included with the weed were rolling papers, lighters, pipes, even a water bong. It was everything a light-skinned black girl from south Minneapolis needed.

For any number of reasons, the girls at my high school teased me about my appearance. I had medium blonde wavy hair, cut just below the ear, and I had light skin. They'd say, "You know, for a black chick you sure got us fooled- Princess." I walked away head hanging, chin dragging on the floor. I never understood why they didn't like me; they didn't even try to get to know me.

When I got high, I could be indifferent to those who judged me. When I was high, I could chill out, blend in, attract the men I wanted, or I could be no one. I could just be alone. I was living with my parents, and wasn't always the best at hiding my drug use, but thankfully, Momma and Daddy worked too hard to catch on. They never discovered my hiding place.

I chose to get high or drunk away from home. I didn't want to use at home; something about it just didn't seem right. So I used at a friend's house, in the car, or sitting on a bench at a park, down by the Mississippi River bluffs. I planned it so that by the time I went home I was sobering up. Sometimes, I used at school or after school. I wasn't out there doing drugs to be found, I was there to hide and chill.

In 1984, I was lost. I was only sixteen when I first fixed eyes on Ty. It was during our sophomore year when this statue of a man walked into my world by way of the bleachers. I'd taken to smoking under them during football games. The cool fall winds helped disseminate the fruity smoke I exhaled.

He approached me with a smile and said, "Hey, gotta light?"

I fumbled in my jeans pocket and pulled out my lime green bic. "Yeah, here." "Thanks," he said, lighting a Marlboro cigarette from a red box. "My name is Ty, you?"

Looking down, I said, "My name is Jemma."

"Hey, Jemma."

"You play football?" I asked.

"Sometimes, if the coach decides to let me play; otherwise, I just sit on the bench."

"What, you play?"

"Running back," he said.

I looked at him realizing I had asked a question for which I didn't really understand the answer. So I said, "Offense or defense?"

He laughed at that and said, "You know football, huh?"

"Yeah, some."

"Well, Jemma, running back is offense," he smiled at me and handed over the lighter.

"OK, cool. I like to watch the offense," I said.

"Yeah. How you see anything from under here?" He looked about him, noting that under the bleachers when the seats were full of fans, there was a completely obstructed view.

"Yeah," I said, "So, got any more smokes?"

"Nah, that was the last one, didn't get to the gas station today. I got another joint though, wanna share?" After he retrieved the last joint that was hiding in his red Marlboro box, he crumpled the empty box, threw it under the first row of seats, and then sat down on the ground.

I knew I would like this guy; tall, dark skinned, high cheekbones, athletic, and willing to share with an almost complete stranger. "Yeah, thanks." I sat down and lit his last joint.

By the end of the tied game, I had learned that he didn't live far from my neighborhood. He asked to walk me home and I decided to let him. We talked about school and where to score the best drugs. He promised to look for me at school the next day. He kissed me when we were at the last corner before my house. I knew I would like him. Maybe too much.

I always thought Ty blended in with the typical high school students better than I did. He only had to flirt with me once before I took the line. I tried to stop him from flirting with the other girls, not secure enough that he was mine.

I wasn't comfortable in school. There were too many things to do outside of school that were more interesting—like Ty and me under the bleachers, high on weed, and him pushing up my sweater trying to get to second base.

I liked hanging with Ty, and soon we were a steady couple. Momma and Daddy were too busy working to worry that I wasn't behavin'. I was behavin' all right—misbehavin'.

Ty and I never got caught. Lucky, I guess. It's a perspective one doesn't dwell on when you're high or drunk, or both.

I wasn't too well known in my classes either. To most teachers, I was just another African American girl, but unlike some of the girls, I didn't have nappy hair or dark skin. My parents were both mixed race.

Howard, that's my daddy, was a combination of cultures from the southern parts of Mississippi: Choctaw Indian, white, and slave. My daddy had short jet black hair that grew curlier in humid weather, a high-bridged nose and cheekbones, long black eyelashes, and red-bone skin. Outdoor work would seriously darken his complexion.

My daddy moved up North to Minnesota from the Deep South. He'd been working as a dishwasher and a porter for the railroad. All the black folks were movin' north. He worked the Chicago line as a porter after a few months of dishwashing on the Memphis route.

Daddy was never able to pass for white. Sometimes when I was really young, and we were visiting Mississippi, he'd pretend to be the houseman and we'd walk the streets of Hattiesburg—black man minding a white girl. No one thought differently. My light complexion often allowed me to pass for white among whites, but I wasn't black enough among blacks.

The colored girls at school picked fights with me or made me do nasty things, like drink out of the toilet. I received my fair share of trouble for my skin color no matter where I was, north, south, east, or west. The whites didn't trust me because I wasn't all white, the blacks didn't trust me because I wasn't dark enough. No culture accepted a mixed race girl wholeheartedly; each made me feel less than whole.

During one of these city walks in Hattiesburg, my daddy told me, "Jemma, if you could pass for white when I was in school, you know, back in the '50's during the civil rights movement in Mississippi, that was a good thing. You know, I wasn't trying to fool nobody, it was about surviving. That's the real deal, you knows its importan' like."

"Yeah," I replied, unappreciative of the message and his lesson about race.

He stopped walking and stood there looking at me, expecting his point to be made.

I said, "Yes, I remember, Daddy."

"Before I met Mamie, your momma, I would keep my head down and just mutter along looking for work, not wanting to look any white folk in the eye, oh no. I'm so glad I moved up north and met yo' Momma."

"Yeah," I said.

"I looked for work along the Mississippi gulf shore, but they didn't want more coloreds. You know southern whites didn't really trust any coloreds, light skinned or not. You'd think it be different with me being a mix and no one sure what to do with me. So instead of waiting to find out what could happen I decided it was better to leave and never know."

So that's how my daddy ended up in Minnesota looking for work, and for folk to accept him, mixed race and all. Unlike Daddy, Momma wasn't so lucky. She lived in south Minneapolis where gangs, guns, and drugs ran the streets. She was raised by...