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  “Scandal: s-c-a-n-d-a-l. Scandal,” I said, walking to take my seat at the end of the row to prepare for round three.

  Halfway through my march I heard, “I’m sorry, the correct spelling was s-c-o-u-n-d-r-e-l. Scoundrel.”

  Disbelief, shock. I hardly even remembered where the disgraced bad spellers were supposed to go. I took one last look at the row of kids moving forward in the competition, but they wouldn’t even look at me. I hung my head and held back tears as I found my mom, already holding her bag, ready to pile back in the car for the drive home.

  “I told you to take a deep breath and wait, but no. You just rushed it. If you ever listened to me you’d have won.” The speech I’ll never forget. Even now Marilynn gets pissed off when I bring up the spelling bee. “A waste of gas,” as it were.

  * * *

  * * *

  At the close of freshman year at Berea College I had almost completely moved on from the mortifying spelling bee display. I’d gotten jobs, gotten into college, and could finally hear either s-c-word without the flush of latent shame. I had left behind my old identity, content to brag about my nail beds and other less academic gifts. I saw the trailer for Akeelah and the Bee during my afternoon ritual of watching Oprah and eating my microwave popcorn pre-dinner. Critics already loved it. Purposely earnest and heartwarming, it made me want to kick a wall.

  From that point on, meeting people has been a painful experience.

  “Like Akeelah and the Bee?” they all ask, proud of their clever word association.

  “No,” I answer without explanation. The alternative of me recounting the incidents of identity theft, PTSD (Post- Traumatic Spelling Disorder), and appearance-based envy would be breaking every bit of small talk etiquette.

  My blood-feud with Keke, aka Broadway’s Cinderella, extends to this very day. My nephew Mason had a hard time with “Kiwi” (my childhood nickname) as a baby and has taken up calling me “Kiki.” It’s really fucking adorable when he calls me “my Kiki,” so I never corrected him.

  But if Keke and I ever meet, I want her to know that though none of my names mean it, I forgive her. If she had known that her ten-year-old acting chops and family nickname were causing me such anguish, I’m sure she would have begged for the studio to scrap the film and suggested her own legal name change. Of course she would have—she’d have to be a downright narcissistic monster, so proud and absurd that she thinks her individual feelings far outweigh those of others only relevant due to absolute coincidence, to be picking this fight.

  . . . Right?

  Marilynn

  I think you’d like my mom. She’s not a cool mom in the Mean Girls sense—letting us drink in the house or trying to impress my friends—but she is cool. She has a solid record collection, she has a story for every occasion, she bought and is renovating a bus for nomadic travels, and she’s the reason I have never taken anything too seriously. I’ve never laughed to the point of tears with anyone more.

  Marilynn Elizabeth (named after Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, respectively) is the kind of mom who is always in my corner, even when it might be easier not to be. One very real thing I have in common with my mother (and grandmother) is horrible, small veins. If you tell a doctor that you have small veins, they’ll accuse you of being a greedy wuss, of wanting to use the supply of small needles designed for children for yourself.

  They will then proceed to try to draw blood with the giant needles they used for André the Giant and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. This will prove futile and excruciating. They will “blow” the vein and bruise your entire arm. Then, as if it’s your first rodeo, they will exclaim, “Wow! You really do have small veins!” and sheepishly retrieve the petite needles. They will then proceed to stab you no less than three more times on either arm, finally resigning themselves to vampirically removing your life juice from the most painful spot—your hand.

  As an adult it’s enough to piss you off, but as a kid with little agency it just makes you howl, pathetically drenching your face and T-shirt while confused as to why this situation is still happening dear god make it stop!

  My mom would always schedule her blood work around when I had to go so we could hold each other through the pain. Yes, it is truly so bad that we have a familial tradition surrounding doctors hurting us.

  The worst time was when I was in an asthma medication study—the kind from the radio commercials. For a payment of three hundred dollars, I’d try brand-new steroids for lung development and asthma relief. Since albuterol wasn’t working (and recently a study came out saying that albuterol doesn’t work at the same rate for black people . . . shock sur-fucking-prise) I had nothing to lose, but plenty of rage and weight to gain.

  After the first month of taking the oral steroid, I had gained about twenty pounds on my four-foot-two frame. I was a little smiley face in a sea of bony third graders. Every month I’d have to get blood work to make sure nothing else had changed dramatically. This particular time they never found the smaller needles and never actually figured out how to get the blood out of my body. I suppose since they were already hurting me so much they could have just used a saber to cut me in half and drain whatever they could into a variety of tubes, but instead they just gave up after my bloodcurdling screams prompted one family to leave the waiting room and another single older man to give me a twenty-dollar bill to “calm down.” It was a whole-ass fiasco.

  My mom felt so awful about the whole ordeal that she took me to Wendy’s. It was the ’90s, so fast food was absolutely beyond acceptable as a gift. She even let me get the large, cup-holder-size Mountain Dew. This was perhaps a shade too far, as neither of us realized just how long the drive back to the school where both my mother works and I was being taught would be.

  About twenty-five minutes into the trip I realized I had to pee, but my mom had already done so much to make the day up to me, I didn’t want to ask to pull over. Before you tell me, yes, I know now that that was stupid. When you’re a kid you do all kinds of irrational shit to be what you think is polite, or “good,” or convenient. Turns out bodies don’t care how thoughtful you think you are, and about ten minutes later the involuntary moaning began.

  “Akilah, is that you?” my mom asked, genuinely concerned that perhaps she was having a stroke if I didn’t also hear the guttural groans that came in fifteen-second increments.

  “I have to pee!” I finally screamed. I couldn’t pretend any longer. My arms were sore, my stomach was full of lime-green soda, and this was an emergency.

  “God damn it, there’s not an exit for five more minutes. You gotta hold it, baby.” She tried to console me. I already knew this was going to be a nightmare. I tried to focus on dry things I’d read about in books: tundras, deserts, the Great Plains. Sarah, Plain and Tall. When you’re little your worldview isn’t even big enough to help in scenarios like this.

  My mom sped off the exit and to a gas station. I hopped out of the car as she ran to the cashier to get the restroom key. But . . . it just wasn’t enough.

  I gave up. She was running back to the car when I pulled down my shorts and underwear and then just peed right on top of them.

  “NO! KILAH, NO! OH MY GOD!”

  The stream lasted for the greater part of two minutes. Cars on the highway passed my moon.

  Mom found a towel in the trunk and laid it down for me to sit on. The rest of the ride back to school was a lecture on the importance of pulling your panties and bottoms to the side if you have to use the restroom. I couldn’t see how this knowledge would be helpful seeing as I’d just died of embarrassment.

  When we got back to the school, I half expected to have my mom announce over the intercom that her youngest daughter peed her pants today. I don’t know why I thought she’d do that, but I was so embarrassed. I was embarrassed for her. She told her assistant, Susan, what happened, and I was just waiting for a break in the discussion for me
to apologize again for being born. But she wasn’t disappointed. She was laughing. She was laughing so hard she had to take her glasses off to wipe the tears out of her eyes.

  “Worse shit always happens,” she assured me. I’ve moved with that energy ever since.

  * * *

  * * *

  A couple months passed and the asthma trial medicine was really doing a number. I was still a chubby bean, but I had the new added benefit of mood swings. One such swing came out at the wrong time. We were in the middle of an after-school-program kickball game.

  For the second time in this essay, I’m too uncomfortable not to preface with yes, I know there was an adult solution to the problem, but I was an irrational child at the time.

  Crap, I do not want to tell you about this. Anyway.

  One afternoon we were playing kickball in the after-school program. I was not athletic, but it was before I realized I could decline such an invitation. Our team had amassed two outs. A mean girl with a high ponytail pitched the ball to me, and as it rolled and bounced I thought, If I can just not get out immediately, that will satisfy my friends. That’ll be enough.

  I couldn’t decide if I should hold my breath or take deep breaths, and by the time I decided on the latter I had kicked the ball. Far! And no one caught it. It bounced somewhere in the “outfield” of our concrete playground. And I ran! I ran as fast as I my short legs would carry me.

  First base seemed like a given, but I got cocky and kept it moving, and by some miracle the outfielder overthrew the ball to the third baseman. I was cocky, but not a moron, and I decided to park it on second base. My team, once seated on this concrete barrier, was now on their feet, cheering me on. The second baseman was in disbelief. This girl? She’s the one who kicked a double? Yes, bitch, IT WAS ME. You shoulda picked me to be on your team when we had time for all that, but it’s no use worrying. It was time for Michael to kick for our team.

  Every school has a Michael. He’s not only the fastest kid by a measurable amount, but he also spends all summer playing for neighborhood peewee teams in prep for the school year’s football, basketball, baseball, and soccer offerings. He was the captain of all the teams. It was assumed that he’d be the closer for the game, and I was ready to go.

  The high-ponytail girl looked at me as if she was gonna do that thing baseball players do trying to tag out the sad sack who leans too far off the base. Sadly for her, I wasn’t going anywhere. I could have just had one foot on the base, but I was fully planted. I was not going to be the reason my team lost. I get it, she had underestimated my newfound kicking talent, but hoping I would make some other mistake just feels like denial, even typing it up now. Girl, I was dope, you should’ve recognized.

  Back to the game: The high pony decided to give up on her plan and pitched the ball to Michael. I couldn’t see her face, but I’m guessing the expression was crestfallen mixed with rage. The stakes couldn’t have felt higher, even though there were no prizes for whichever team won, just bragging rights. It couldn’t have mattered less, but what else did we have to worry about? This may as well have been an Olympic finals game.

  Michael kicked the ball over the fence that separated the school from the poor neighbors who probably underestimated how loud the kids would be all day and late into the afternoon. Another ball kicked into their yards, another plea with the universe to help them find literally anywhere else to live. It was a certified home run.

  So I ran! And even having a two-base head start, Michael was closing in. Still, I “hustled” to home plate, and even did a cute little hop. I high-fived everyone while Michael came to the base right behind me. We won! Eat it, high ponytail and other people I’ve forgotten.

  As we were celebrating, the outfield team had retrieved the ball and the pitcher with the ponytail came up to our celebration and threw the ball at me. Hard. The ball was the same light rubber one you remember, but it hit me in the stomach and even though it didn’t hurt, her intention was to hurt me. My whole team turned to figure out what she was thinking.

  “You’re out!” she screamed, her desperation for the game to go into further innings on display.

  “You didn’t touch the base,” she continued, not specifying which base. At this point the program coordinator should have probably stepped in to tell her that’s not how home runs work, and that because the ball went so far we just scored two points, ending the game and her hopes for a college kickball scholarship. Tough cookies, kid. Movies rarely show the losing teams, but surely you’ll figure out what to do with all that rage.

  What HP (high pony) hadn’t realized was that I was out of my mind on the asthma-study steroids. Even I couldn’t articulate that it was not only bananas that she hit me after the game was called, but that in any event we could have just done a re-kick, with me on second base. Michael was sure to sink it deep into the outfield again, and she’d just have to come closer to terms with her inevitable defeat. Instead, I railed into her.

  “Fuck you! Fuck YOU! I’m not out, motherfucker! Your team sucks and you suck and your mom is ugly! Fuck you! At least I don’t live in those shitty apartments with all the roaches! You’re jealous because my mom is pretty!”

  This was a lot and, rightly, reduced the girl to tears. But not just her; I have always had that problem of getting so mad that I am also screaming and crying. When I die, if there is a God and she’s taking requests, I’d like to see this interaction again. I’m not proud of how I acted, but I think it still would be kinda funny to watch a third grader’s ’roid rage as an adult. Kids are just exploding emotions.

  Before anyone could grab me, I ran back to the building, into my mom’s office. I was crying and screaming.

  “What’s wrong, Kilah?”

  “And I told her that at least my mom’s not ugly and that our house is better! Fuck!” And my mom tried to hide her laughter. This was uncomfortable because I was a raving lunatic, but also because that other girl’s mom also worked at the school, and happened to be in my mother’s office, and my mother had already agreed to give them a ride home that day.

  Things were awkward. What was the right move? Cancel the car ride and do the Triple-X hip thrust at high pony and her mom? My mom had to think fast, as high pony was about to walk into her office.

  So she yelled at me.

  “Kilah! That is not nice. You need to apologize to her right now. Are you ashamed of yourself? Because I’m ashamed of you,” and then to HP’s mom, “I’m so sorry, Brenda. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.” And with that, she walked me to the bathroom to help me “fix my face.”

  I rinsed all the tears off, but before I could dry my face I replaced them with fresh rage tears.

  “We won the game! This is so stupid!”

  “Hush! You can’t talk to people like that, Kilah. I’m giving them a ride home tonight!”

  “Why?!”

  “I told them way before that I would. You can’t just lose your temper on people.”

  I rolled my eyes and went and sat in my mom’s back seat. I stared out the window, waiting for the uncomfortable twenty-minute car ride to begin. I’m not going to apologize, I’d reckoned. I’m not gonna punk out and apologize.

  The car ride was spent with my mopey face pressed against the glass. No one spoke, the radio played R & B. When we pulled up to their complex, my mom turned down the radio. Before she would just let them go on with their lives, she made me apologize one more time.

  “I’m sorry I said your mom is ugly. Your mom is not ugly.”

  It wasn’t a great apology. If I had to grade it, I’d give it a C-minus. I believe in being specific when apologizing, but bringing up someone’s mom’s attractiveness or lack thereof again is just not a great move. Still, it was the most civility I could muster. If I had my way I woulda lunged across the car and choked the girl until her mom unbuckled her seat belt and got her out of there. I’m just being rea
l. The steroids on top of the well of rage, the supposedly “lost game,” and my fall from grace in slow motion had me unprepared for reconciliation in the slightest.

  “It’s all right,” they both said. It wasn’t, and it went without saying that since the car ride was so awkward it probably wouldn’t be happening again. There was always the city bus? Eh, no one felt good about that afternoon.

  * * *

  * * *

  This would be the last year I spent at my mom’s school. It was her decision. It wasn’t because of the kickball blowup. It was just that Latonia Elementary School had the only “gifted and talented” program in the district and I’d passed the test to get in with flying colors. I was nervous because I’d amassed a pretty solid group of friends that I’d known since preschool, and changing up the rotation this close to puberty was a risk.

  The summer before I made the switch, my mom found ways for me to work off the ’roid rage. For starters, we dropped out of the study. So far my asthma had not improved and my attitude was worse off. But she also enrolled me, Lanie, and Bo in the local chapter of the National Junior Tennis League. In the back of the RAV4, vibing out to “Electric Avenue” on cassette, we’d make the journey from Florence to Covington in the midst of smog alerts to learn how to play tennis from Mr. Johnson.

  Venus and Serena really came into national focus that year, and my mom thought that Lanie and I had a chance at being the next generation. Spoiler alert: it absolutely did not happen. The most active I am is trying to put on a sports bra to then sit on my couch and think about working out, and Lanie, well, same. Bo just liked activities, so he came along.

  Maybe my favorite thing about my mom is that she doesn’t take anything seriously, so when Coach Johnson would say, “Uh-kill-uh! Get ya rack back!” she would laugh hysterically in her car and quote it the whole way home. We’d worked on our volley skills and eventually I learned exactly one trick, which is serving the ball without even looking at it. It’s only ever been impressive one time, in college, and after that I got a leg cramp and forfeited.