Chapter 3
“Mademoiselle Bell?”
“…Oui.”
The rest of the French class roared with laughter as I quietly breathed a sigh of relief. After staring at Kelly’s shoulder blade hovering slightly above the back of the school desk directly in front of me, I’d been lost in fantasy until just moments before when I believed I locked eyes with Madame Meister. I could tell she’d just posed a question in French and was searching for someone to answer, but luckily, she was looking an arm’s length in front of me at Kelly and I wasn’t forced to fumble to find a French answer to a French question. A question to which I undoubtedly should’ve been paying closer attention if not so engrossed with my neighbor’s random body part of perfect proportion and succulent sculpting. As not to label myself “the boy with the shoulder fetish,” I wouldn’t say I was aroused by Kelly’s shoulder per se, but rather intrigued by the bare skin afforded by her off-the-shoulder blouse. Ordinarily, she wore a multi-colored nylon windbreaker of no brand, in particular, comprised of a dominant fuchsia color with hints of electric orange and dashes of lime green. But it was an unseasonably hot September day in Memphis, and the building’s air-conditioning system hadn’t fully caught up with the forecast by second period. Pleased the mechanical unit played the part of the tortoise, rather than the hare, this morning my eyes took advantage, visually engulfing her radiant caramel skin. I was accustomed to seeing bare arms from the elbows down or bare legs below the kneecaps, but those canvases were common and hardly ever in my direct line of sight. It looked as if I was simply looking straight ahead at the teacher and her chalkboard, which I was partially, but my eyes were receiving a bonus.
The view from behind Kelly paled in comparison to its respective front. She was pretty with bright brown eyes slightly larger than the average pair but only by a little bit. You would barely notice as her eyes hid behind long, dark, almost black eyelashes. Her lips were full, but not too full to distract from a wide smile with perfectly white teeth complementing her genuinely sweet and friendly disposition. She wore her hair, what I later understood to be “relaxed by a perm” like most of the Black girls in this predominantly Black school, at almost shoulder length, which was enough to make a modest ponytail when she didn’t wear it in a layered style with bangs. I’m not sure how often her name came up when guys discussed the finest girls in our grade, but to me, she was my favorite, and by far, the fairest.
She stood – or at this moment, sat – in contrast to my sentiments about 2nd-period French class. I was hoping to take Spanish first because my friends Marcus and Tyrone took it that semester. That and Spanish seemed like a more practical language in case I ever met one of the Puerto Rican Fly Girl’s from the show In Living Color and wanted to strike up a casual conversation. Who had ever heard of a French Fly Girl anyway? The whole idea of needing to learn French was ridiculous.
I may’ve been able to muster up another word besides oui, but I likely wouldn’t have fared much better than Kelly. I said as much at the end of class.
“Sorry, Ms. Meister caught you off-guard,” I timidly whispered as we gathered our things.
“It’s ok,” she smirked, “I was filling out this boys’ chart Shimika made and she caught me slippin’.”
“Oh really, what kinda chart?”
“Never mind, it’s just girl stuff. I’ll see you later,” she dismissed me as if she’d mistakenly revealed a dark secret.
“Girl stuff?” Do tell, Miss Bell? I attempted to inquire but by this time, she was nearly out the doorway. I was being coy anyway. Shimika had taken it upon herself to create a rating grid for the seventh-grade boys. She took a sheet of notebook paper and created additional gridlines with a blue pen where different boys’ names constituted the rows and each column belonged to the individual girl’s name who filled out the chart. A legend in the top right corner of the page had different adjectives ranging from ‘ugly’ to ‘fine’. Maybe the makeshift table said something less harsh than ‘ugly’. The intersections of the natural notebook paper’s horizontal lines and the synthetic ones created by Shimika resulted in multiple blank boxes for each boy. The girl would fill-in a number corresponding to the legend key. Let’s say a ‘3’ equaled ‘cute’ and perhaps a ‘2’ equaled being ‘ok’ looking. I’d become familiar with the documenting of the Bellevue meat market earlier in the week by virtue of possessing a locker next to Shimika’s. I remember thinking, “wow, you have a lot of time on your hands,” though I dared not say it aloud, fearing a disparaging comment might negatively sway the judges when evaluating my looks.
At this point in life, young Fred James didn’t have much of a self-concept of what number should rightfully be entered into his figurative blank box. If given the opportunity to fill in the box myself, I would’ve wrestled with which number to put for hours. Days even. I never looked in the mirror and asked myself what I thought. Instead, I relied on random comments I collected over time. When I dressed up for first-grade picture day, one of the fifth-grade girls stopped me to show her friend how cute I was, as she caressed my hair and referred to its “good” texture. At the time, I received it more as a compliment for my barber’s work than I did for the softness of my curls as she’d likely intended. There was also Sophia in fourth grade who sat behind me in class and would suck her thumb, and with the other hand, play with my “gucci,” an uncut strip of hair similar to the royal lock the barber cuts off of Eddie Murphy in Coming to America before saying “that’ll be eight dollars.” The rest of my haircut favored either member of Kid N’ Play, though the top was nowhere nearly as high as Kid’s. Sophia had a crush on me and said I was cute though she tried the same gucci-braiding tactic on my friend, Marcus, also at Bellevue.
My mother’s hairdresser, on the early Saturday mornings circumstances beckoned I join her at the salon, would say “Shirley, your son is so fine.” I’d blush and retreat, and though I was flattered, I was hesitant to take the opinion of someone mom’s age as gospel. Of course, mom would tell me I was handsome too, but I always believed her remarks to be biased. Those weren’t the only compliments I collected but were a representative sample that did very little to solidify my self-image. I feared my chubby waist and cheeks negated my cuteness, but none of the aforementioned women had the heart to say it. Perhaps if Sophia didn’t suck her thumb, I would’ve been more confident. But she did, so back at Bellevue, as I glimpsed over Shimika’s shoulder – her locker was on the bottom row beneath mine – I feared what I might see on that notebook sheet.
“Hold up, Mika, you ain’t put your boy’s name on there?”
“Who’s my boy?”
“Ouch.”
“Quit crying, mane. I haven’t finished it yet. If you want to be on here so bad, I’ll write your name now, shoot.” (Mane, Memphis’ “man,” pronounced like the New England state.)
She did as promised. I felt silly lobbying for inclusion in something I mocked. Yet, I also couldn’t miss a prime opportunity to get the feedback I desperately desired. Ever since my romantic debacle with Ashley earlier that year, my confidence had been shaken.
In February of 1992, I had memorized all the lyrics to Geto Boy’s “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” and I couldn’t imagine a more fitting final piece in my romantic puzzle with Ashley Jackson. Sure, I’d barely said a word to her for the first half of sixth grade, but such details felt more like footnotes than pertinent verses in our love story. In my mind, our few interactions were thousands of loving conversations between us. Sharing this perspective with another good friend following me to Bellevue, I was rudely made aware of my strategic flaws.
“Come on, mane quit being so shy! If you like her, just holla.”
“Have you holla’d at Kenisha though?” I defensively questioned Tyrone.
“I got her number yesterday after school. I called her last night, but her mama said she was washing dishes. I’m in there though.”
“Ok, ok.” Damn, I couldn’t deny Tyrone was light-years ahead of me. “They best friends, maybe I should get you to put a word in?”
“I don’t know, mane,” Tyrone’s pitch always got an octave higher when the answer was no, “Let me get my feet on solid ground first. You don’t need me though, you got this.” “You right.” Tyrone was the type of eleven-year-old who did push-ups for no apparent reason. His muscular build matched his low military-styled haircut. I imagined his adolescent muscles provided him the confidence I lacked.
Mrs. Ashley Jackson-James had me hooked. Even at the tender age of 11, Ashley had an air of sophistication making a hyphenated last name probable if not inevitable. If it was suitable enough for Mrs. Whitley Gilbert-Wayne from A Different World, surely it was good enough for my baby-to-be. That isn’t to say Ashley could stack up against Whitley. Very few women could. Still, Ashley could stand on her own. Ashley had a slim build, long dark wavy hair, and a southern charm, dainty yet quietly strong. Ashley was more girl than woman but a chance at age-appropriate love made me put my dreams of actresses on hold.
Taking Tyrone’s advice, I began to strategize on next steps. With mom’s help, I purchased Ashley a gold-plated necklace and charm I found in the “look at little man trying to be romantic on Valentine’s Day! You BETTER spend your momma’s money!” section at Target. Not only was February 14th approaching, but there was an upcoming field trip to the Black Rodeo. A field trip represented a rare opportunity to show my personality outside of the classroom where I needn’t juggle maintaining my Principal’s List (All A’s) status and impressing peers. There were few chances to work your knowledge of what Naughty by Nature’s “O.P.P.” meant into answering a science question. The adventure was already guaranteed to be a hoot as our class got a good laugh at someone paying the two-dollar admission with a personal check. This may’ve been all fun and games for them, but I was seriously convinced my time had come. Ha-ha, hell.
I didn’t recite a proper rap verse on the bus ride to the Rodeo, but I personally gave Ashley my gift with a short-written note inquiring if she liked me, or not, omitting the maybe option. This wasn’t a game. She thanked me but didn’t open it in front of me. The next day, I received a note saying Ashley had accepted my proposal to go-together. There are no missing steps. Victory! I looked down on all my classmates as I road my high horse through the school and on my gallop home. I had to dismount briefly as Tyrone told me he’d received a similar note from Kenisha, but I saddled back up quickly, as not even his copycatting-ass could steal my thunder.
Contrarily, that evening delivered a devastating drop in altitude. I called Ashley to cement our courtship. Expecting enthusiasm when I first dialed, I was startled by lackluster replies to my, not Shakespearean, but adequate conversational pieces. I wished I had a digital display on my touchtone phone to confirm the numbers I dialed matched those written by her. Surely, I’d misdialed and encountered an imposter playing a sick joke. Puzzled, my protest was minimal, if existent, when Ashley presented me with a chore-based reason to end our phone call. That night I’d ponder how a perfect love goes wrong a couple years before Boyz II Men got down on bended knee and posed the very same.
“Aye mane, you still go wit Ashley, what she talkin’ bout?” Tyrone checked in after a couple of weeks of my loveless marriage.
“As far as I can tell. Mane, not nothing.” I added a customary fake laugh I subconsciously put on the end of statements I intend as jokes. I got what I wanted, still had it, but was heartbroken like it had been taken away from me before I secured a good grasp. At about our two-week anniversary, I returned from the restroom only to find a ton of bricks on my desk: it was an envelope containing my necklace and note back from Ashley. There were no additional written words yet the message was loud and clear. Tyrone later told me he and Kenisha’s relationship ended in an equally unceremonious fashion. Apparently, the two friends had a bet to see who could go with one of us the longest. To this day, I have no idea who won.
Returning to seventh grade, lost in my thoughts next to Shimika’s locker, I knew the numbers within those half-free-handedly drawn boxes held the key to me never being so vulnerable again. If I could find a mutually agreed upon ‘fine’ or even ‘cute’ mate, I’d be on the road to mending my once torn heart. It would take time for the chart to spread around from girl to girl. I had to be patient. It’s said good things come to those who wait and that twice-folded piece of paper embodied the goodness of that promise.