cut and splice

“You are not taking him to any dance.”

“But why?”

“Cause I said so.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“I’m your father. That’s the reason.”

“Just give me one real reason.”

“We don’t know this kid.”

“Sure you do. He’s been over here a bunch of times. Mom, tell him!”

“I’m not getting involved.”

“We don’t know his family, where he comes from.”

“He’s from Chicago. His parents are divorced.”

“Kids who come from divorce are always screwed up in the head.”

“How can you say that?”

“Cause it’s true.”

“Russell lives with his father. He’s a stockbroker. You can talk to him if you want.”

“I don’t need to talk to him.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“He smokes.”

“Mom smokes!”

“And you mother’s stupid for smokin’.”

“Steve smoked. That didn’t seem to bother you.”

“Yeah, well last time this Russell kid came over here he smelled of beer. Your mother told me so.”

My head swiveled in my mother’s direction, but her eyes were studying the floor. I wanted to remind them both that my father drank , even driving us around after he had been drinking, but something told me to shut my mouth on that one.

“All of my friends drink. I’m the only one who doesn’t. You want me to just stay in the house and not have any friends?”

“You keep this up and that’s what’s gonna happen.”

“Is it because he’s black?”

“Noreen….”

“Is that the reason?”

“Don’t push it!”

“Is it?”

“Yes. It’s cause he’s black. You happy now?”

I wasn’t happy. I was the exact opposite of happy. I had never heard my parents use racial slurs against anyone. I heard plenty of racist names in the neighborhood: moolie, mook, spook, mick, spick, wetback, guinea, wop, polack. But none of those words were ever uttered at home. In fact, it was my father who had told me to stop calling Patrick Healy “Chink”.

I had known Patrick since I was seven. We met during a wiffle ball game.

“Who’s the new kid?” I had asked Billy.

“That’s my cousin, Chink.”

Chink was playing first base, and when I hit a grounder to third and made it to first, I introduced myself.

“Hi, I’m Noreen.”

“I’m Chink.”

“You’re Billy’s cousin?”

“Yep. We just moved here from Buffalo.”

“Cool.”

Then Thomas hit a line drive over the second baseman’s head and I made it all the way to third, leaving Chink at first with his glove in the air.

It wasn’t until I was 12 when Dad and I were driving past the park that Dad told me what I was saying was wrong.

“Hey, Chink!” I shouted out the window as Dad looked for a parking space.

“What’s up, Nor?” he waved back.

“Noreen! What did you just say?”

“What? I was just saying hi to my friend.”

“What did you just call him?”

“Chink.”

“What’s the matter with you? You don’t say a word like that.”

“I didn’t say a word. It’s his name.”

“I doubt that’s the name his mother gave him. I don’t ever want to hear you say that word again, you hear me?”

“But everyone calls him that.”

“I don’t care who calls him what. You call him by his real name.”

“I don’t know his real name.”

“You better find it out then.”

So that’s what I did. Billy told me that his father and Chink’s father were brothers. Chink’s father had married a Korean woman, so Chink was half Korean and half Irish. Billy said Chink didn’t mind everyone calling him “Chink”, since it was just a nickname like “lard ass” or “lefty”, but that I could call him by his real name of Patrick if I wanted.

“Hello, Patrick,” I said with great formality the next time I saw him.

“Hey, what’s up?’

“That’s a nice hat, Patrick.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“Where did you buy that hat, Patrick?”

“I don’t know. My mom got it for me.”

“That was nice of your mom, Patrick.”

“I guess.”

Whenever I heard anyone else call him “Chink”, I immediately said his proper name and smiled at him. I wanted Patrick to know that I wasn’t like the rest – I wasn’t a racist.

“Chink, you going to the game tonight?”

“Yeah, Patrick, are you going?”

Patrick started to avoid me like a mud puddle, and then one day Billy came up to me.

“So what’s up with you and Chink?”

“You mean Patrick?”

“Yeah, I mean my cousin. What’s up?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have the hots for him or something?”

“No! Why?”

“Cause he said you keep saying his name all the time, and you look at him weird.”

“No, I don’t like him like that. He’s just my friend.”

“Whatever. He thinks you want him.”

I couldn’t seem to win no matter what I did. I decided to avoid saying his name at all, and I would certainly not be smiling at him again.

“But I don’t understand,” I whined to my father. “I have all kinds of friends and you’ve never said anything before. We even took Thomas to the Mets game that time, and he’s black.”

“That was different. He’s just a friend.”

“Russell is just my friend. I don’t want him to be my boyfriend. I just want to take him to my formal.”

It was true. I only wanted to take Russell because he was part of our group and I knew we’d have fun together. Plus, he was several inches taller than me. At 5’9, it was difficult for me to find a boy to slow dance with whose head wouldn’t look like my chinrest. If I didn’t take Russell, who else was there? I couldn’t ask Eric the Shadow because he was Steve’s best friend. Ricky was going with Melissa, though they’d probably spend the night fighting anyway. And Professor was pre-engaged to Lilith. So that left Russell.

I tried explaining this all to my father, but he wouldn’t listen.

“I don’t care if you have black friends, but you are not to date one.”

“I’m not dating Russell!”

“That’s right, you’re not.”

“Why do you have a problem with blacks?”

“I don’t have a problem with them, but other people do.”

“I don’t care what other people think.”

“You better learn to start caring. We have to live in this house and in this town. People get the wrong idea of you and it can start a lot of trouble.”

“Like what?”

“Like we can be told we have to move out of here.”

I opened my mouth, then stopped to consider this. We lived in a four-family house that was owned and occupied by an old world Italian family. Three brothers and their families lived above and below us. They used racial slurs as easily as they named the ingredients to their sauce. But could they really evict us because of my choice of a dance date? Rents were skyrocketing all over town. Some of my friends who lived in rent-controlled tenements had already been burned out of their homes to make way for fancy new condos. Where would we end up if we got evicted?

“That can’t happen,” I said without conviction.

“It can happen.”

“I don’t care. I’m taking Russell to the dance. If we get evicted then we’ll get a lawyer or call the NAACP or the ACLU or whatever.”

“Jesus Christ Noreen! Don’t push me!” Dad pounded his fist on the table and I jumped. Wormy veins bulged in his neck and forehead. Mom swept imaginary crumbs off of the table.

“Keep this up and I’ll pull you all out of school and move you to Long Island. Is that what you want?”

Dad knew I had no response to this threat. It was his sole solution to any problem we had in school or in the neighborhood. My mother, equally opposed to the idea of moving to the suburbs, hinted that we shouldn’t tell my father certain details. So instead of telling Dad that my occasional black eyes and bruises had come from Butch, the town bully, we blamed baseball.
I couldn’t let Dad’s Long Island threat stop me this time. He was wrong. Russell was my friend, and I wanted to take him to the formal. I was trying to form an argument in my head that would persuade Dad that I was right and he was wrong, but I knew the words would never come out correctly. I felt angry tears building, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

“You’re a racist jerk. I hate you!”

“Noreen!” Mom shouted.

My words landed like a smack. Dad’s face fell, the fight washed out of him. He looked old and tired and sick. I had defeated him. It was the last thing I had wanted to do.

Those words had never crossed my lips before. I had never even thought them. I wanted to take it back immediately. I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t even me who had said it. It was the ugliest part of me, this thing inside that I hadn’t even known existed until that very second.

Hit me, I thought. Punish me. Send me to the convent or forbid me from going to the dance or move me to the suburbs. Just please say something!

Dad walked out of the room and out of the apartment without a sound. I wanted to make it better but I couldn’t. I wanted to run after him and hug him, tell him I loved him, that he wasn’t a jerk at all and I could never hate him, but we weren’t that kind of family.

Dad had always loved playing with his Super 8 camera when I was a kid. He taught me how to edit the film, cutting out portions and splicing the film together again. I wished I could splice out the hurtful words I had hurled at him. I didn’t want this scene replaying over and over in his head.

Russell was waiting for me on the corner the next morning. Ever since my break-up, Steve and Eric the Shadow had started taking the earlier bus, and Russell had walked me to the bus each morning. He comforted me with stories of girls who had broken his heart.

“This one girl told everyone that my breath smelled like sour milk.”

“In eighth grade, I caught my girlfriend and my best friend in my closet. His hands were up her shirt. I had dated her for two whole months, and she had never let me feel her up. That really hurt.”

“My last girlfriend is now a lesbian. I’m scarred for life.”

Russell’s stories, and his friendship, made the sting of my single status hurt a little less.
Sitting on the back of the bus with the group, the talk immediately turned to the formal.

“My mother thinks my dress is too slutty.”

“It is too slutty.”

“I know, but that’s what I was going for when I bought it.”

“I hope Josh doesn’t wear too much cologne that night. He smells like a car freshener.”

“Fred is threatening to wear sneakers with his suit. My father will kill him.”

“Who are you taking, Nor?”

“Yeah. Did you decide yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“It’s a week from tomorrow.”

“I know.”

Professor poked his head out from behind the Wall Street Journal.

“You know, I’ve never been to a dance at your school.”

“Do you want to go to the formal with me?” I blurted it out with no forethought. I was beginning to wonder if I had that disease that made you curse at old people and pigeons.

“Uh, you know I’m pre-engaged?” Professor said, a blush blooming beneath his five o’clock shadow.

I didn’t know what to say. I could play the invitation off as a joke, but that seemed lame. I had to play it cool and casual, like the whole thing was no big deal. Besides, I wasn’t at all attracted to Professor. That would be like having the hots for your history teacher. Not the young one with the bulging biceps, but the old guy who loved to talk about the Civil War and smelled as if he had been a first-hand witness to it.

“Yeah, I know you’re pre-engaged,” I responded coolly.

“To Lilith.”

“I know. But we could just go as friends, you know?”

I could not ignore the fact that Russell was shifting uncomfortably in his seat next to Professor.

“Uh, this is, uh, highly irregular. I, uh, I’m not sure what to make of this.”

“How about if you ask Lilith? She knows me. I’m sure she’d be okay with it.”

“I, uh, wasn’t expecting this very unusual offer. Yes. Let’s get Lilith’s take on the matter and I’ll get back to you.”

The boys got off at their stop and Russell left without a good-bye. The girls assaulted me with questions before the bus even pulled away.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Why would you ask Professor?”

“He’s totally boring.”

“He doesn’t dance.”

“He looks like he smokes a pipe, for Christ’s sake.”

“And, he has an almost-fiance.”

“I know! I know! I don’t know what happened to me.”

“Why don’t you just ask Russell?”

“Yeah, he’d be a perfect date.”

“If I didn’t have Ricky I’d take him.”

“I don’t know.”

“Ask him.”

“Want me to ask him for you?”

“No!”

“All right. Jeez. Relax a little.”

The bus quieted down, and a panic quickened my heart. What was I supposed to tell my friends – that my dad wouldn’t let me ask Russell because he was black? That my father still hadn’t looked at me since our fight? That I didn’t even want to go to the stupid dance anymore? I didn’t know how to explain any of it without sounding like a racist myself, so I let it slide and prayed that Liilth would take pity and allow Professor to act as my date for one lousy night.

Professor answered me loud and clear on the bus the next morning. Instead of assuming his regular seat at the back of the bus with us, he buried his head beneath the Wall Street Journal in the seat directly opposite the driver.

“Hey, Professor,” I said when I recognized the briefcase on the seat beside him.

Professor put his nose up against the paper in an effort to hide from me. I sighed heavily and made my way to the back of the bus. Great. Not only was Professor pretending I didn’t exist, but Russell hadn’t met me on the corner that morning and no one had heard from him. This stupid formal, and my father, were ruining my life.

I ended up taking Joseph to the formal. We had gone to grammar school together, and he had been dating a girl in my Algebra class until she dumped him five days before the formal. When I heard of the break-up, I swooped into action. Although Joseph was an inch shorter than me, he did have a suit and he was white, so I figured my father wouldn’t object.

I wore my satin polka-dotted dress, my hair piled on top of my head with bobby pins piercing my scalp. We slow-danced a few times, but Joseph kept stepping on my toes, which were already pinched in my pumps. We took pictures under the arch composed of blue and silver balloons, and went for dessert in a little café afterward. A mouse ran across our table and hopped over Melissa’s chocolate mousse. The boys then ate the desserts that we girls were too grossed out to touch. It was the most disappointing night of my young high school life.

I hadn’t seen Russell once the week leading up to the formal. Although Professor was keeping his distance and sitting at the front of the bus, he did reveal that Russell was in school but was taking a different bus. I didn’t know what was going on, but I suspected it had something to do with my not asking Russell to the formal. I figured that Russell was hurt and was avoiding me altogether. I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I tell Russell that I had wanted to take him, but my father had forbidden it? Would he think it was a lie? Would he think that I agreed with my dad, that I was a racist?

My fears seemed to evaporate the Monday after the formal. Although Russell wasn’t waiting for me on the corner, I did find him sitting in the back of the bus with the girls. My shoulders relaxed and I exhaled my worries when I saw Russell’s warm smile.

“Hi,” I said as I approached tentatively.

“What’s up, Nor?” How was the formal?”

“Boring,” I shrugged, my cheeks coloring with guilt.

I sat opposite Russell, glad that he was back and talking to me again. The girls gossiped about our classmates’ dresses and dates, make-up and dance moves. Russell listened and laughed, looking over at me from time to time.

“I would have loved to have been there,” he commented.

“You didn’t miss anything,” I assured him.

“Sure I did. I missed you dancing.”

“What do you mean?”

Russell cackled and clapped his hands. The girls’ chatter quieted and my body went stiff. It was that old familiar feeling - bracing against an assault I knew was coming my way.

“You dance like you have a board shoved up your ass!” Russell said between bouts of laughter.

He then stood up on the moving bus and swayed stiffly side to side, jutting out his hips at odd angles. The girls tried to stifle their giggles as I sat there dumbly, watching Russell imitate my spastic dance moves.

“This is how you dance.”

Russell stood in front of me, hips swiveling and gyrating inches from my face. I bit my lip and looked away. A tiny part of me felt like I deserved it. I was a coward for not standing up to my father and fighting for what I knew was right. I should have found a way to take Russell to the dance, no matter what my father had said. But how could I have done that? If I had defied my father, we might have ended up on Long Island, and things would never be the same between us again. As it was now, my father and I barely said good night to each other. I had made a choice, and I chose to do as my father said. I just hadn’t realized at the time that my choice would mean losing Russell as a friend.

It continued each morning.

“Damn, Nor. Did you even brush your hair this morning?”

“What is that smell? Did something die? Oh wait, it’s just Nor.”

“Your legs are so skinny I could clean my teeth with you.”

“Could you please sit somewhere else? You’re too ugly to look at before I’ve had breakfast. My stomach can’t handle it.”

Some mornings Russell pelted me with wads of paper. Once he tripped me and I landed on an old man’s lap. I was starting to fear Russell, though I wouldn’t admit it to anyone else.
It went on and on. The girls didn’t laugh, but they didn’t exactly tell Russell to lay off either. I ignored his comments and taunts, concentrating on my homework or pretending to nap. I could have taken a different bus or moved my seat, but I wouldn’t give Russell the satisfaction. It was exhausting.

One morning, Russell wasn’t on the bus. I was so relieved that I actually slept during the whole ride and almost missed my stop. He didn’t show up the next day, or the day after, or the day after that. Ricky said he had stopped showing up in school too.

“What happened?” I asked Ricky, half out of curiosity and half out of concern.

“Nothin’. He just needed a break, I guess.”

Melissa was the one who finally told me.

“Russell’s under house arrest,” she whispered in the library one day.

“What? What for?”

“Drugs.”

“No way.”

“Uh huh. Ricky told me.”

“I don’t believe it. Russell doesn’t do drugs.”

“Not only does he do drugs, he was selling drugs. Where do you think Ricky got his shit from?”

“So what does this mean? Will he end up in jail?”

“Ricky said he has to do three months of house arrest at his dad’s, then he’s going back to his mom in Chicago. Turns out he’s in trouble there too. He got into a fight with some guy and the guy nearly lost an eye. That’s why his mom sent him here.”

My throat closed up and my heart did jumping jacks. How had I not known this? Russell had been my friend and he was in trouble, and I never knew anything about it. I couldn’t understand why he would be dealing drugs. His dad made plenty of money and Russell had everything he could possibly need. I wished I could call him and talk to him, tell him I was sorry for everything, that I wished I had taken him to the formal, even after everything that had happened. But we were no longer friends.

Little by little, our group broke apart and formed new groups. Melissa and Ricky continued to fight and make up, fight and make up, until Melissa found Roger and Ricky found a new dealer. Although she and Ricky were officially broken up, they sometimes hung out in her mom’s basement and played doctor. Tara became a cheerleader and got rides to school from one of her teammates. Kris joined the popular clique, the girls who could gut you with their words and look beautiful doing it. Jackie and I both made the softball team, but freshmen mainly rode the bench and carried the equipment. After a while, she and I stopped hanging out, too.

I tried my hand at different cliques, but nothing seemed to fit. I had spent most of my freshman year clinging to Steve and my Hoboken friends, and I had missed opportunities to hang out with new people. Now, approaching the end of my first year of high school, most cliques were solidly cemented and I had trouble fitting in anywhere. I froze in the bleachers during football games, repelled by the constant crunch of bodies against helmets. I doubted I would ever dance again after Russell’s interpretation of my convulsive moves. Fashion shows were a big social event, but what was I doing cheering and whistling for sickly thin boys and girls clomping up and down a runway to bad house music?

I felt like a fake and a phony and a liar. I didn’t know who I was or what I should do, but I knew that none of those things were me. I was the puzzle piece that had been bent and chipped, my edges too ragged to fit in anywhere.

Taking matters into my own hands, I decided to employ the editing skills Dad had taught me with his Super 8 camera. I cut out all the nasty bits – my fight with Dad, my decision to not ask Russell to the formal, the way he treated me after, and even the trouble he had gotten himself into. I cut all around the jagged parts, neatly splicing myself into a better life.

What I was left with were quick moments and memories that weren’t mine, snapshots of smiles and times I didn’t even own. It was like flipping through someone else’s photo album and pasting my face into another family’s trip to Disney World. It was all a lie, a fairy tale I told Erin to help her fall asleep at night. Russell was not a prince; he was just some kid in trouble who had a nasty temper. My father was no benevolent king, but he was trying to do right by me in his own 1950’s West Side Story kind of way.

I didn’t want the Hollywood version of life. I wanted to find my own starring role in a script that I had yet to write. The blank pages were ready, the pen poised in my hand. I stared down at all that blankness. And waited.