Assata: An Autobiography (11 page)

"Now, all we have to do," i reasoned, "is get the facts and figures and prove that they are trying to deny us a fair trial." How little did i know!

Junior high school had its advantages and its disadvantages. It was more impersonal and much more confusing than elementary school, but it gave me the chance to move around and change classes, which i liked. Generally my subjects bored me, with the exception of English, history, and a newfound love of ceramics. Parsons Junior High School in Queens was mostly white. A lot of the Black kids had been put into remedial or what we called "dumb" classes. It never ceased to amaze me that the kids who were so smart in the street were always in the dumb classes.

In junior high everybody was going with some one. When girls got together to talk, the subject was always boys: who was cute, who was going with whom, who was fresh, etc., etc. A cute boy was tall, slim but well built, and usually had light skin. A boy was considered super-fine if, in addition to light skin, he had funny-colored eyes. Hazel and green eyes were the best. If a boy was popular or good at sports he usually got a play, but in general the boys we talked about were tall, not too dark, and handsome.

One of my earliest admirers was this boy named Joe. He was new in our neighborhood, from down South or somewhere, because everyone said he was country. He was real dark and had a long body with short little legs. He liked me, and, in the beginning, i think i kinda liked him too. Then everyone started teasing me, saying he was my boyfriend and saying he looked like a black frog because his legs were so short. At that age, i was worried to death about what every one thought of me. I wanted desperately to be one of the pack and i didn't want anybody to make fun of me. So whenever anybody said i liked Joe, i would deny it to the bitter end and talk about him worse than everybody else. But Joe was very sweet to me. Every time he saw me he would smile and say something nice. On Valentine's Day he gave me a beautiful big valentine and some candy. One day, in the spring, i heard somebody calling my name outside my bedroom window. It was Joe. Quickly, he put a flower on the sill and ran away. Every day after that he did the same thing. When i would see him on the street, i would smile. I was really touched by the flowers. Then one day my mother saw him at the window putting a flower on the sill.

"You tell that boy to stay away from that window," she said. "Now he's putting flowers in the window, the next thing you know he'll be trying to climb in." But she still thought it was kinda cute. The next thing i knew she was telling all her friends about it. While i was embarrassed, it also made me think i was cute. No boy had every paid me that much attention before and i loved it.

One day i was coming from the store and i saw Joe. He started walking beside me. He was kinda shy and he had never said anything to me except "You look nice" or "You look pretty." This day we tried to make conversation as we went along. Then, all of a sudden, he said, "Will you go with me? I want you to be my girl." Somehow i was shocked. Did he really think i would go with him and ruin my reputation forever?

"No," i answered.

"No," he repeated. "Why not?”

I didn't know what to say. My tongue became heavy and twisted, I started to stutter. Nothing came out of my mouth. "Why not?" he asked again. I stammered and stuttered and then, with icy bluntness, i said, "Because you're too black and ugly." I will never forget the look on his face. He looked at me with such cold hatred that i was stunned. I was instantly sorry for what i had said, but there was no taking it back. He looked at me as if he despised me more than anyone else on the face of the earth. I felt so ugly and dirty and depraved. I was shaken to the bone. For weeks, maybe months, afterward, i was haunted by what happened that day, by the snakes that had crawled out of my mouth. The sneering hatred on his face every time i saw him after that made me know there was nothing i could do to make it up to him. There was nothing i could do but change myself. Not for him, but for me. And i did change. After that i never said "Black" and "ugly" in the same sentence and never thought it. Of course, i couldn't undo all the years of self hatred and brainwashing in that short time, but it was a beginning. And although i still cared too much about what people thought about me, i always tried hard after that to stand on my own two feet, to stand by what i felt and thought and not just be a robot. I didn't always succeed, but i always tried like hell.

Mostly, when i was young, the news didn't seem real. In fact, my vision of the world was like a comic strip: In China they ate fortune cookies and the men wore braids; in Africa they lived in huts, wore bones in their noses, and were cannibals; in South Amerika they wore big hats, slept in the middle of the day, drank a lot of rum, and danced the cha-cha. The only place, besides the United States, that i could talk about with anything resembling realism was Europe. And my perception of Europe was almost as unreal. The first president i remember was Eisenhower and even he didn't seem real. My mother said that all he did was play golf. When he gave a speech on TV, we turned the channel, and, if he was on all the stations, we turned the TV off.

Only the news concerning Black people made any impact at all on me. And it seemed that each year the news got worse. The first of the really bad news that i remember was Montgomery, Alabama. That was when i first heard of Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white woman. The Black people boycotted the buses. It was a nasty struggle. Black people were harassed and attacked and, if i remember correctly, Martin Luther King's house was bombed. Then came Little Rock. I can still remember those ugly, terrifying white mobs attacking those little children who were close to my own age. When the news about Little Rock came on, you could hear a pin drop at my house. We would all sit there horrified. Sometimes, afterward, somebody would say something, but usually we would just sit there lost in our own thoughts. I guess there was nothing to say. And each year i would sit in front of that box, watching my people being attacked by white mobs, being bitten by dogs, beaten and water-hosed by police, arrested and murdered. Then the news seemed too real.

The older i got, the more i seemed to grow into myself. My mother and stepfather were having all kinds of problems. They were fussing and fighting like cats and dogs. They were like a whole lot of other Black people in that respect. They were catching hell every day on their jobs, in society, and they took their frustrations out on each other. To make matters worse, she was a teacher and he worked in the post office: she had been to college and he hadn't. As far as i'm concerned, if a Black man and woman make a marriage work in amerika, they've accomplished a miracle. Because every thing is against them. Just being poor is one of their biggest obstacles. Most of the arguments are about money. It's hard as hell to be loving and caring when you can't pay the bills and you don’t know where the next dollar is coming from. And the way that we’re brought up to think adds insult to injury. It's changing a little bit now, but when i was growing up, every white man on television was able to support his family with no particular strain. There was no need for his wife to work. Her job was to stay home and take care of the kids. Black people accepted those role models for themselves even though they had very little to do with the reality of their own existence and survival.

While my parents were going through their changes, i was going through mine. I was at the age where i questioned everything. The world was beginning to have more and more impact on me. I was curious about, and wanted to experience, everything. On week ends, whenever i could, i would take off. I went to the movies or to the library, but my favorite activity was riding subways and buses. I would hop on any subway or bus, ride until i got tired, then get off at any stop and walk around. Sometimes i talked to people or played handball with kids my age. Other times i just walked and looked. I went into all kinds of neighbourhoods-white, Black, Puerto Rican, Chinatown too. But Harlem was my favorite place. I was fascinated by the street life. I was always trying to figure out what was going on. Everything was so colorful and busy. Men standing on the corner drinking, boys playing basketball, hustlers buzzing up and down the streets huddling and making deals. It was the land of dream books, kitchenettes, and Johnnie Walker Red. I loved the stores. From the market on Park Avenue to the greasy fish joints, to the candy stores that sold penny candy and penny cigarettes and god knows what else. I would walk and look and think. The world for me then was a big question mark, and the biggest question of all was where i fit in.

I was always late getting home and in trouble. It was like i had some kind of disease. I could never make it home on time. I would leave with the best intentions, but as soon as i got out in the street, it was as if i was in a trance. I would forget all about the time until it was too late. And half the time when i realized that it was getting dark, i didn't even know where i was, much less how to get home. My mother would talk to me, slap me, shake me, punish me, but nothing worked. I was a lost cause. I was running away from home and i didn't even know it. And one thing always led to another. I was turning into a fantastic liar. As soon as i got near home i began making up lies. When i look back at it now, i know my mother must have wanted to choke me when she heard those farfetched creations, but at the time i thought they were brilliant. As the problems in my family intensified, i ran away consciously instead of unconsciously.

The first time i ran away, i went to Evelyn's house. She wasn't home so i fell asleep on the stairway. When she came home, she thought i was some kind of drunken bum, so she walked by me and went to her apartment. I came back the next day and she talked to me, played shrink and family counselor, and sent me home. It worked for a while, but things were a mess. My mother and i couldn't see eye to eye about anything, and i was just as stubborn and self-willed as she was. And even when i tried to do right, it just seemed like i couldn't do anything that made her happy. And when my mother and stepfather were at each other's throats, it drove me wild. I would simply get my coat and walk out. Some days i just didn't come back.

At times, running away was fun and exciting. At other times it was miserable, cold, and lonely. The part i dug about it, though, was surviving. Being out there, face to face with the raunchiest side of life was like living on a roller-coaster, everything hurling itself at you at breakneck speed. It was one hell of an education, and, when i think about it, i was one lucky chile. So many things could have happened to me, and almost did.

The first time i ran away i had just the clothes on my back and very little money. I rode the subway and slept in hallways until i just couldn't take it anymore. Then i started talking to people. One of the first people i met was this boy named David. I told him that my mother was in the hospital and that i didn't have any other family in New York and i was scared to stay home alone. He took me home to his mother's house and we told his mother the same story. She said it would be okay for me to spend the night. They lived in the Farragut Projects in Brooklyn. David took me out and introduced me to all his friends. We got along fine until nighttime. Then it was war-an all-night wrestling match. When he wasn't attacking me, he was begging and pleading and thinking up a thousand arguments why i should give him some. I told him i was afraid of getting pregnant. He went and got this big jar of Vaseline and told me that, if you used Vaseline, you couldn't get pregnant. I was dumb, but not that dumb. I told him to go to hell, and the wrestling match continued. After a day or two at David's, i was ready to move on. Besides, his mother was getting suspicious.

My next new friend was a girl. I couldn't take any more Davids. Tina lived in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn with her mother and her brother in a brownstone house. It was a rickety old house and half of it looked like it was condemned. There was nothing whatsoever in that house that was orderly. There were rooms with all kinds of junk in them, stacked almost to the ceiling: tables, chairs, record players, old radios. I told the same old story to Tina's mother and she was sweet as pie. I could stay there just as long as i wanted, she said. In fact, she said, she "just loved to have young people around her." And she wasn't lying either. All day long there was a procession of people in and out of that house, and most of them were young. When Tina's mother saw that i didn't have any clothes, she said, "We'll just have to take you shopping." I remember thinking how nice she was, to be willing to spend money on me, a stranger. The next morning we went down to Fulton Street.

"All right," she told me, "now I want you to go with Tina into A&S and pick out what you want; I'll be here at the soda place. Just remember where everything is."

Off we went, Tina and I. I was happy as a jaybird; my clothes were kind of on the funky side. When we got inside the store, i started to pick up things and got ready to try them on.

"Be cool," said Tina. "Don't you know what size you wear?" "Yeah," i said. “Why?"

"Let's just get the stuff and get out of here. If you like something, just say so. Don't go picking it up and putting it on and carrying on."

"O.K.," i said, thinking that she was strange. I liked a plaid kilt with a big safety pin and a blouse and sweater to match.

"This will go with it, too," Tina said, pointing to a white blouse. "Now you just do what i tell you. Step in this."

"Step in what?" i said, looking down.

"Be cool, fool!" Tina whispered. "Just keep looking ahead and help me pull this thing up." She had already got half the skirt up around my thighs. Finally we got the skirt up and fastened under my own skirt. "O.K., let's get out of here," Tina said. "Wait a minute. Roll that skirt up, it's hanging down, and don't look down!" I was scared out of my wits, but i started to roll.

"Not your skirt, fool," Tina whispered, "the one underneath."

Well, i was walking and rolling and trying to look cool and, if anyone had seen me, i know i musta looked like a slapstick comedy. But somehow we made it out of there. I expected the police to come swooping down on us at any moment. Tina's mother was still sitting in the same place, sipping on a soda.