Obviously Page 16
“Well, I can’t really speak to her intelligence, but I also feel like—why does she have to be smart? She’s talented, she’s beautiful, and as much as I’d like for her to be a perfect person, why does she have to carry that burden?” I asked, thinking it odd that at this moment in popular culture Beyoncé would be an unlovable character. After all, we were all still riding the wave of her self-titled album and Jennifer was probably one of the most outspoken Yoncé fans I’d ever met.
“Of course you feel that way,” BB said. It hadn’t occurred to me that BB would be jealous of my looks. BB isn’t ugly, but she’s a little older than me and doesn’t have that look like she’s conscious of what her clothes or makeup look like at all. She is a comedian, and I assumed she spent her time taking the ninetieth level of that shitty stand-up class or performing around town. Hmph.
Jennifer quickly finished her drink and called it a night. Missing my second chance to leave, I stayed there with BB, her boyfriend, and a few of her too-drunk friends who decided to join the festivities.
Sandwiched between BB and her deeply inebriated friend who was yelling inches from my face about why Beyoncé sucked, I finally snapped. I paid for my drinks and wished BB a happy birthday but said I had to run. What was fun had turned into a nightmare. A teeny disagreement about a woman who is more successful and impactful than any of us will ever be had turned into a war zone. I was woefully unarmed and unprepared to have to defend such a beloved fixture in pop culture and my personal life.
I lost my credit card, but I paid for my cab with another one. I went online to cancel the card and then fired up HBOGo and got every bit of my life to the On the Run Tour. The cinematography, the choreography, the cameos, everything about it was perfect.
* * *
* * *
A week later I went to BB and Jennifer’s first comedy show together. They had apparently been working on a live show where they’d banter between other comedians’ stand-up sets. They’d made a YouTube video for the introduction. It was great. I was so happy for them. I posted photos everywhere online.
After the show, I caught up to Jennifer. I immediately asked her thoughts about the HBO concert.
“It was amazing! I kept forgetting Jay-Z was there, and then he’d, like, pop up from the stage or rotate out on a platform and I’d get so hype again!” she gushed. That was my girl. This is what adult friendship looks like.
“When you left BB’s party, she started yelling at me about Beyoncé sucking. I honestly didn’t know people hated Beyoncé . . .” I let slip.
“Don’t listen to BB. She just likes to argue,” Jenn said. And that was that.
* * *
* * *
One summer afternoon, nearly a year later, Jennifer asked me if I’d like to come chill with her, her boyfriend, and some other friends. It would be a low-key day of drinking and listening to music. I was free, so I hopped in an Uber and rode the ten minutes to her new apartment in my neighborhood. When I rang the doorbell, I was greeted with warmth from a bunch of mutual friends I’d made in my few short years in New York: a beautiful couple from Africa who were funny and enchanting writers and photographers, other comedy writers and bloggers who I’d met taking courses at Upright Citizens Brigade or working on work projects—and BB.
We were in the same room for four hours, and while I said hello and attempted to make small talk with BB, she gave me the cold shoulder until she finally decided to leave. Once she left I sat next to Jennifer on her sectional.
“Well, that was weird. BB hates me now, I guess?” I asked, hoping she’d be able to elaborate.
“Don’t listen to BB. She’s a hater,” Jenn reassured. I wanted to press her on this, but it was a party. There’s a time and place to talk out your relationship problems, and in the middle of a beautiful condo on one of the nicest days of the year with your favorite people is not the time or place.
As the sun set in Brooklyn, we turned on the On the Run Tour. Yep, still good as ever.
* * *
* * *
Winter rolled around and BB had a “black girl karaoke” event at one of my favorite karaoke spots in Koreatown. There were only maybe eight of us, but the picture we all shared on our Instagram feeds told the same story. This is the young, black, female comedy scene in New York. We are inclusive. We are supportive. We are here.
BB didn’t speak to me. Not even a word. As I sang songs with everyone else in the room, she either sat silently or talked shit about the choice. “That rapper [of Atlanta and Grammy Award–winning album fame] sucks ass. I hate this song,” followed by a long eye roll. As I sang with another girl who also started her career on YouTube, I heard BB make an off-color comment about how “internet comedy” isn’t real comedy. I got tired. I was disappointed. I had a coupon for this karaoke establishment and got an hour knocked off our final fee. I charged the room to my card. Everyone gave me cash except BB.
* * *
* * *
Another spring arrived, and at 11:31 p.m. I chose Instagram as my sleep-procrastination method for the night. I saw a few brand-sponsored posts from bloggers and a few of my friends’ drunken nights winding down. I scrolled and scrolled until I saw two pictures from different accounts, back-to-back, of BB and Jennifer and so many of our mutual friends. All of them, actually. In the back of the images were people that I’d never met and I’m not sure Jenn had, either.
I wish I had something poignant to say about losing friends. I wish I had some positive lesson about female friendship and how everyone is an adult and no one is petty. I wish I didn’t feel personally responsible for jealousy directed at me because of my age or my appearance or how hard I’ve worked. More than anything I wish it didn’t matter to me. I wish I were so strong and resilient and mythic that my feelings weren’t hurt when people I care about choose bloodsuckers and leeches over genuine friendship. But maybe I don’t.
So much of my life has been defined by the moments I was underestimated, abandoned, and had to wipe the tears and put on the big-girl smile and shine despite the bullshit. I used to think that was fake. I used to think that it was braver to fight and fight and fight, but what I’m learning is that all we have are our intentions and ourselves. People can do with them what they choose, but how can I feel down when I know that I have moved with nothing but love and honesty? How can the disdain of others affect me in any way if they’ve never given me anything in the first place?
And most important, how lucky am I to be in the company of Beyoncé on a petty asshole’s list of “pretty but woefully untalented” people?
I’m no longer so small a person that I am actively waiting for the day her career tanks. She’s tanking it in real time. And I don’t wish bad on anyone, but I certainly hope that she learns from the way she’s treated people she never thought were good enough or were going to make it. I’m making work in the same field, on the same networks. She’s going to run into me for the rest of her life and live with the way she drove Jennifer and me apart. But Jennifer is an adult, too, so there’s something to be said about how hard she fights to keep good people in her life.
In recent months, Jennifer and BB have done less and less work together. Word on the street is that Jennifer caught wise to the fact that BB has driven all of her friends away. She reached out to me to apologize for not being a good friend to me. I told her that now would be the perfect time to cut and run from BB since she’s a pariah, but they’re still working together.
I’m not sure what this story means in the scheme of my life. I think I’ve been so aware of my place in other people’s lives and that it’s uncomfortable to have friends and lose friends. That it’s never easy, but also that being friends with a person usually won’t build your career, and if it does, people will know, and hate it, and resent you for it. That it’s always better to make it on your own terms, honestly. And that the Instagram picture is not always the whole story.
Age 5: They can put their LEGOs on your LEGO structure. If anyone notices that you like them, you will be endlessly scandalized.
Age 10: A friend goes and tells them that you think they’re cute. You get embarrassed.
Age 15: Attempting to sit in close proximity on the bus ride to any extracurricular event. Any physical touching whatsoever, including (but not limited to): touching your shoulder, touching your backpack, a hug, tricking you into putting your hand up to your face and then smashing their hand into your hand, causing you to slap yourself. All of that.
Age 20: Booty grabs, kisses, sexts, texts, that crap.
Age 25: Taking you on REAL DATES to places with CLOTH NAPKINS and APPETIZERS THAT AREN’T JUST POTATO SKINS AND MOZZARELLA STICKS. Making out in a clean room and them being so embarrassed by how their roommate grossed up the bathroom that they won’t let you go in until they de-hair and de-grime it.
Age 30: TRIPS. Or at least I guess, I’m not there yet.
Age 35: Finding someone to babysit. If sans children, letting you sleep in on the weekends and making sure you’re only snoozing on GOOD SHEETS.
Age 40: Ooh! Look at my 401(k). (Again, just guessing.)
Being Sick
The health-care system in America is broken. If the end of that sentence bored you, that’s fair. I used to groan at the thought of talking about rising premiums, preexisting conditions, and misdiagnoses, too. Turns out, though, that when you almost die begging for a doctor to help you, these things all become SUPER fascinating.
In the spring of 2016, I got a rash. It was just about as glamorous as a rash can be. After working out on the elliptical for an hour, I was the most exhausted I’ve ever been. I walked the few blocks home, dropped my gym bag, took off all of my clothes, and lay naked on my bed for two hours before having the strength to take a shower. I was planning to shoot a video that evening, so between dramatizing what I thought was a cold and texting to push the shoot back one, two, four hours, I washed my body, put on my face, and headed to Tim’s.
We shot a video about how patronizing articles about #millennials are, and the time I usually spent afterward watching new shows and brainstorming for our next shoot was spent lying on his couch trying to explain just how tired I felt.
Days later I had a full-blown rash and swollen lymph nodes. I was on a flight to LA for the first YouTube Black program ever, and I would be interviewing Mara Brock Akil, one of my Sundance advisors, in front of an audience of the most successful black YouTubers ever.
I made it through lunch, and through the interview, but I felt terrible all day. I bought some aspirin during a breakout session and hoped it would help. After feeling like I was having a heart attack repeatedly, an ambulance had to come and take me to the hospital.
It was clear that this was serious, but there was nothing that could be done without a visit to a doctor first. I came back to New York. I committed to figuring out what was happening to me.
Imagine the most frustrating day of your life. This is a day where everything is inconvenient and taking too long, is too expensive, and is filled with miscommunications. Every day of the following month was like that. I saw a variety of doctors. I spoke with my friends’ parents who were health professionals. My bank account was hemorrhaging. I was getting sicker and sicker, and doctors stopped wanting to give me painkillers to deal with the pain for fear of an addiction that would never come. One doctor offered me Xanax, as if I could relax my way out of whatever was causing the intense pain and fatigue.
* * *
* * *
Lying very still in the MRI machine, I heard a doctor’s voice come over the speakers.
“Hold tight, we need to do some more imaging.”
They’d said a lot without saying much at all. I’d had CT scans and MRIs after car accidents and chest pains. They were always the same. But this time they would have to do it again. I knew they’d found something. I couldn’t be sure, but the tears believed it was cancer.
A day later I would get a phone call from a third doctor.
“Is this Akilah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so we have your imaging results.”
I tried to sound calm on the phone, but I was pacing my living room with the phone on speaker. How bad was it? How long would I have to live? Would I lose all my hair? I tried to quiet the thoughts, but I knew bad news was coming.
Tumors. Three of them. Benign, but two are classified as “giant,” all of my worries were confirmed.
“I’d recommend surgery, but it may be difficult to get someone to operate. It’s a major surgery, and you’re so young.” He choked up. It was the catalyst for me sitting on the floor and crying for the rest of the evening. Soon I’d schedule more and more appointments.
A doctor who had taken the “completely removed” approach to bedside manner explained my predicament.
“One tumor is the size of a golf ball. The other—your pinky nail. And then there’s the large, excuse me, giant one. It’s classified as giant if it is larger than ten centimeters, and yours is just larger than that. Think grapefruit.”
And with all of this knowledge, all of these expensive tests, all of the confirmations that there was, in fact, a real problem, I still couldn’t find a doctor to sign off on surgery. I couldn’t keep living like this. My days were short because I had to sleep to avoid the pain without prescriptions. I was basically at that point in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray’s character is so sick of reliving the exact same day over and over again that he just drives off a cliff—but even that doesn’t help.
* * *
* * *
It’s difficult sleeping with IVs in your arm. My doctor swears that once the IV is in you can’t feel it, but that’s not true. I feel every pull, poke, and rub against them. And there are at least five of them. There’s pain and confusion but then I remember where I am: I’m lying in bed in a room that’s as dark as one can be when the door is open and there’s a light on in the hallway. This time I remembered to bring my sleep mask and earplugs to quiet the incessant, unnatural beeps reminding anyone that the stranger on the other side of the curtain and me—we’re both still alive.
* * *
* * *
My veins are small. Dainty, I guess. Every time I’ve ended up in the hospital (and my visits were becoming more and more frequent), I get stabbed at least five times, causing otherwise confident nurses to reevaluate their training. This time I’ve lost count of how many times blood has been drawn and how many times I’ve been given a spiel about how the fluid for the CT scan will burn through my veins and make it feel like I’m peeing myself, but I’m “probably not peeing myself.”
* * *
* * *
“My head is killing me,” I whined to my mother through the phone.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Kind of like there’s a knife sticking through my forehead?”
“Take some aspirin and go to bed, Kilah,” she said as if she were in the room hugging me rather than hundreds of miles away in Kentucky. I took the aspirin and I went to bed.
But the headache was still there when I woke up.
Until I got sick I thought sleeping solved everything. But lately it was just an interlude to more fear, a short break from being on the verge of tears. I never could fully accept that my life might never be normal again or that it might not last very long at all. I’d taken an Uber to the emergency room. If you call for an ambulance in New York you’re never really sure which hospital you’ll be taken to, so I found a favorite and stuck with it.
The doctors there ran through the normal questions: What’s your name and birthdate? Are you allergic to anything? What’s your pain level? What are your symptoms? And regardless of how I felt, they’d hook up an IV. I was very calm as I explained that I had a severe headache and also that for
the past six weeks I’d been dealing with everything ranging from a rash to swollen lymph nodes to a strange electric shock sensation every time my body temperature changed even slightly, and, oh yes, I had a giant liver hemangioma that no one wanted to operate on because it’s a major surgery and it was benign.
The CT scan results came back about an hour later as I lay in bed on my phone watching Snapchat stories from friends and choosing filters for my own.
“We’re going to have to keep you overnight,” the doctor said. “You said you had a headache?”
“Yeah, since last night,” I reiterated.
“Well, we did a blood test, and a normal range for D-dimer to come back would be fifty to three hundred. Five hundred would be high. Yours was at three thousand.”
“Okay?” I don’t remember what test this was called or what it was used for, just that I was still alive, but this didn’t sound promising.
“The CT scan showed a pulmonary embolism,” he said.
He said a lot more things about the painful blood thinning shot I’d have to take and where I’d be admitted (New York has a lot of emergency rooms that aren’t attached to a main hospital), but I just pretended to listen until he left my curtained area so I could call my mom and cry. To tell her how I’d just cheated death again. How things were more serious than ever. I tried to make her understand that there was a wall between me and the rest of the world, the dead and the living. I could feel my time running out. I was no longer hopeful, even when she told me to be. It’d been two months. My health had never been worse. I couldn’t see the point in playing a game I was bound to lose.
The two EMTs loaded me into the back of their ambulance. I felt their sympathy and avoided making eye contact. It’s difficult to look at anyone sick enough to be in a hospital, but there is something about a young person being ill that reminds us that death might be coming sooner than we planned. It’s enough to make anyone uncomfortable.