Faking It

MCG sophomore year

MCG freshman year

Lolani Hawkins was popular, and she was Hawaiian. She wasn’t Me-wuk or Mexican, but she was popular anyway. Everybody knew Lolani Hawkins, but no one in Tuolumne knew that much about Hawaii apart from what we learned about leis and hula dancing from Lolani and her family. We certainly didn't know that most Hawaiians are a mixed-race people: Polynesian, Japanese, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Portuguese, Malaysian, Korean, and white. Lolani had dark skin, long dark hair, and dark brown eyes. From elementary school to high school, everything about Lolani set her apart from the others and in a good way. Striking but not particularly feminine in the way she moved her athletic body, walking with purpose, her broad shoulders sturdy and her head held high, she was smart, did well in school, had friends, was close with her family, and she was proud to be Hawaiian.
         PE teachers and coaches loved Lolani because she was good at sports. Growing long, powerful legs in fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, she was best at basketball, easily dominating the court and intimidating the girls from neighboring schools, with the exception of Jamestown, whose team of girls we kindly referred to as amazons.  Lolani was the kind of player who made the teachers, doubling as coaches, feel their time after school coaching the Summerville team worth it, though it was hard to ever tell if Ms. Martz, who rarely smiled, unless it was to sneer like she was smiling, was ever glad about anything. I remember her barking orders from the sidelines of the court during games, always with a look of disappointment, in her weird beige loafers, beige polyester slacks, and shiny, white windbreaker. Maybe it was the school mascot that was getting her down, coaching a team of girls whose mascot was a beaver.
         Summerville teams were never viewed as much of a threat, didn't have a reputation for winning most of their games, or having whole squads of excellent players, largely because there were girls like me on the team, girls trying to find their way, sports being one uninspired stop on the journey to finding the one thing in which they truly excelled. But Lolani's tenure in school sports changed the Summerville reputation a bit. She became well known around the county --  a real stand out. Most girls were either intimidated by her, or in awe of her power -- usually a combination of both. And the boys thought she was cool. She was in with them too. Practically one of them, she could speak their language, copy their swagger, hold her own.
         In fifth grade, I went to a couple of basketball games to see some of my friends play and got it into my head that I could do that too, not remembering that I was only about 4'9, afraid of getting hit by any kind of ball, and usually picked last for any teams during PE. I played basketball with Lolani just one season in the sixth grade, but I was never any good on the court. With all the passing, dribbling, and running about, I couldn’t remember which way I was supposed to be running, which basket I was supposed to be taking the ball to. My best move was grabbing the ball at the toss, as it was coming down, and holding onto it in a tug-of-war, waiting for the referee to blow the whistle.  Of course, Lolani was the star of the team, and she would go on and be one of the stars of the high school team too. The court was her universe, and the rest of us on the team were just in it -- she had those she relied on for rebounds, like the super tall Emily Ames, but everyone knew to keep their eyes on Lolani; she was the girl to watch, and she never got too big-headed about it either. Making baskets and scoring points for the team was just a fact of life for her -- it's what she did. Everyone called her a jock and tomboy, which seemed just fine with her. Nothing seemed to phase Lolani, either, not even my terrible plays. In fact, she didn't come down on anybody for not holding her own. Cool under pressure, she did what she needed to do to score points for the team. 
         But for me, basketball was something that I was just trying on, and watching Lolani play down court, in possession of the ball, made me realize that it didn't fit. I was at middle court, waiting around, not really playing at all when Lolani stole the ball from Jamestown. A handful of friends and parents in the stands, were whooping wildly, when she made a run for it, a pack of black and red jerseys a ways behind, unable to catch her. Just south of the net, she shot the ball, and course, she scored. Her power was impressive, and it made me think two things: I was never going to be that good, no matter how hard I tried, and I didn't care enough about basketball to try. Lolani went on to become the star of the high school basketball team, and I began to find my way in the high school pep band, marching band, jazz band, and choir where my actual talents were put to good use.                  

          However, in high school, my talents didn't get me cheers, trophies, or accolades, or popularity, which I tended to look down on. What they got me was a snowball with a rock inside upside my head. I thought I was just being myself, but to everyone else, choosing to be a punk girl and a band geek, I was just asking for it. One snowy, winter day, sophomore year, Jeremy Fong, the school counselor's son came after me more viciously than he had before. He had been taunting me for weeks, calling me a freak, and purposefully crashing into me in front of my locker. I was leaving pre-Algebra which took place in a classroom in the same building as the administration office. Passing in front of the flag pole and the school mascot statue, a giant black bear, when whap, a snowball nailed me in the temple. Breaking apart on impact, icy snow skidded across my face, and I could feel a lump forming, where something harder than a snowball had hit. Jeremy was ahead of me, laughing and carrying on -- the only Chinese guy in the whole school, not particularly tall with thick, dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, had assaulted me, to make himself look cool, and he would get away with it. Holding my head, and trying not to cry, I turned, and stomped through the snow-covered grass toward the school's office. I busted through the door and demanded to speak with Mr. Fong. I was prepared to be greeted by his snide smile; he had a way of making you feel like he never took you or anything you said seriously. He wasn't there.
         "I want to speak with Mr. Fong, right now," I shouted, startling the office assistant behind the counter.
         "Is there something that I can help you with?" her voice light and airy and without urgency.
         "I want to speak with Mr. Fong," I repeated, holding my head.
         "Michelle, I don't believe that Mr. Fong is even your counselor."
         "I need to speak with him."  By this time another office assistant had come out of the back room to see what all the commotion was about.
         "Mr. Fong is not in," the second office assistant announced. "Is there something we can help you with?"
         "Mr. Fong's son just hit me in the head with a snowball, and it had a rock in it. Look at this, look at my head," I said turning my face in their direction. They both looked at my head from their place behind the counter, not bothering to move too close.
         "We will let Mr. Fong know about this incident," said the first assistant, "as soon as he gets in." They didn't even offer me an ice pack.
         I didn't understand it. I didn’t want to be popular for things that the popular kids were known for, like sports, having an upperclassman for a boyfriend, for being a cheerleader, but how did Jeremy Fong rate? How could someone like Jeremy Fong be popular? Was it simply because his dad was the school counselor? I got it with Lolani, for the most part, and I understood why I wasn't. I was a weirdo, and she had great athletic prowess, a great personality, and she was Hawaiian, which seemed somehow cooler than being Me-Wuk or Mexican, and maybe the hula dancing helped too, but I didn't think so.
         Lolani had literally sweat a lot for her popularity, but maybe she was just doing what came natural. Maybe this is what made her a standout. I was doing what came natural to me too, the weird clothes that I could afford because I bought them from second-hand stores, the short hair because I was tired of people pointing out that I was a Mexican girl, and the heavy dark eye-liner just in case anyone didn’t get the point that I was trying to make. I just wanted to be noticed for something other than my skin color and my last name, the stuff that made me visible and invisible all at the same time.

I had seen what happened to many of the other dark-skinned kids. Many of the native kids who lived on the Me-Wuk reservation and not in town had dropped out of school already. School didn't seem to fit them at all, and it certainly didn't support them being there, not like elementary school had, or attempted to, at least. The curvy and quick-tempered Rhonda Kerzer who always wore a folded navy blue bandana on her forehead to hold down her full, thick mane, Jimbo and Louis, who I slapped once for whacking me on the head on the back of the bus, and several others, who I had shared teachers with in elementary school had long dropped out and been forgotten. The Maria sisters, the few only bilingual Mexicanas were practically invisible too until the older Maria got on the yearbook committee and made sure there were lots of pictures of her and her sisters in it that year. And during my four years at Summerville High, there were only three African American kids: Mona, Jay, and Lloyd. The best we could do for them was to pretend that we didn't notice that they were black.
         But for all I know, Lolani could have been pretending too. I remember watching her perform with her petite and beautiful mom and older sister at the high school. To see her swiveling her hips in her grass skirt and bikini top seemed wrong somehow. Each time I saw the act, I never quite bought it. Nonetheless, she, her mom, and her older sister continued performing here and there around the county, a kind of exotic novelty act. Instead of her face serious with sweat and determination, she smiled awkwardly with a gardenia behind her ear, her thick muscular legs fouling up her attempt at femininity but getting her noticed just the same.

Abusing Authority

The real life "Ms. Flanigan" eyeing me, in stripes, to make sure I don't talk

In sixth grade, Ms. Flanagan said I talked too much. In September, she called me loquacious. By April, she had to resort to a different approach to shut me up.

         “Michelle, you’re being much too loquacious.”

She said it just like that, one hand suspended in mid-air, holding a piece of chalk, the other on her waist -- she had been writing on the board and stopped because I was talking, turned in my seat to face Amelie who sat near the back of the room because she was tall, taller than most of the boys. We must have been in the middle of an English lesson.

         “Do you know what loquacious means?” she turned back to the board to write the word for us all to see. Ms. Flanagan was a petite woman with black hair, a little nose, a little mouth, and big brown eyes. The chalk snapped as she dotted the ‘i’.

         I shifted in my seat, trying not to giggle.

         She continued talking, not really waiting for anyone in the room to answer the question, “Loquacious means talkative, as in excessively talkative,” she faced the classroom, looking me in the eye, and smiling wide.

         I sat in the front row because I, being well under five feet tall, couldn’t see over the others’ heads otherwise. We were in one of the new classrooms on the backside of the playground, the ones that had been finished over the summer. They still smelled like fresh building materials and paint. There was a window at the back of the class that looked onto an old oak tree, under which lay a huge tractor meant for climbing, the hole covered by a piece of heavy plywood. The bathrooms in the new building smelled new too, all the faucets and toilets worked, and there were shiny chrome boxes on the walls in the stalls of the girls’ bathrooms, shiny chrome boxes for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade girls who might be having a period. During recess, we had to walk around younger kids who played jacks on the brand new black top in front of the classroom.

         “Loads of loquacious laughter,” said Amelie, as Ms. Flanagan went back to writing on the board. She said it quiet enough so Ms. Flanagan wouldn’t know who was speaking out of turn but quiet enough so I could hear. Amelie and I, and couple of others, started laughing. Ms. Flanagan turned quickly around, her super straight curtain of black hair swung around with her.

         “Okay, girls, that’s quite enough,” her smile gone, her eyes narrow. Her hair was mostly all black, but there were a couple of wiry grey hairs that sprouted at the crown. I could see them sticking out when the light hit her hair in just the right way or when standing up close.

         Ms. Flanagan was hip in her own way. We all liked her a lot at first and wanted her approval because she was petite and pretty and because she was our teacher. Besides my music teacher, Mr. Lark, I had only had female teachers up to that point and they had all been dowdy in some way. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Robinson, was remarkably fat. I always marveled when she lead us in PE on the black top, singing “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes, knees and toes,” coming very close to touching her toes every time. Ms. Flanagan seemed younger and more hip than many of the others who wore heavy shoes and tent sized dresses that made them look older and heavier than they probably were. Ms. Flanigan wore blouses and slacks rather than dresses and her slacks weren’t made of 100% polyester.

         But during the second half of the year, the boys and the girls were separated for sex ed. All the sixth grade girls came to Ms. Flanagan’s class to watch the sex ed movie from which we learned the anatomical names for the different parts of the male and female genitalia. Several weeks before, we all had to get permission slips signed by our parents to even participate or we’d be sent to the library where we might have been able to find a book that covered the same material. We learned about semen, or sperm, and how it got from the male body into the female body, and how it can fertilize an egg, which would result in a pregnancy. On a separate day, so as not to scare the total crap out of us all at once, we watched a video about VD. The movie was full of graphic examples of people with hideous rashes on their hands and feet, stories of people who went insane because their diseases went untreated. We learned words like discharge, chancre, testes, and clitoris. Sometimes poor Ms. Flanagan would use the terms like “balls” and “crotch” to clarify what she meant, and she did it with straight face. I didn’t dare look at Amelie.

Once the movie was over, Ms. Flanagan got even more serious than she had been. The lights were back on, the move projector was pushed to the side of the room, and she was standing at the board.

         “Now girls, it’s important that you understand that if you have sex, you will get pregnant.”

         It sounded like something adults say just to scare kids out of doing something they might want to do, and I knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t true according to the first sex ed movie that explained how a women could only get pregnant during a certain time of the month, sometime after she had her period. And I knew it wasn’t true because our house was small, and my mom was loud, and I had heard my mom have sex plenty of times, way more than three times, but I kept my mouth shut. I knew this wasn’t the time to talk out of turn or contradict, but I really wanted to. I wanted to expose the lie.

         By April, Ms. Flanigan had had it with all my talking, and I was tired of her too -- tired of her posing as a hip, modern female teacher when she wasn’t one at all.

One day in April, after a particularly loquacious morning, Mrs. Flanagan, interrupted my talking, and held up a roll of invisible tape.

“Michelle, come up here. Come here and take a piece of this tape and put it over your mouth.”

         I didn’t move or get up. I stared at her, thinking at first that she was making a joke.

         “Michelle, come and get a piece of tape, she said again, shaking the roll of tape in her hand.

         I got out of my seat and walked the length of waxed floor from my desk to hers. I took some tape off the roll and went back to my seat. A few students were watching, and the others were pretending to be focused on Ms. Flanagan’s lesson on the board. I had been given no other orders. I didn’t know for how long I was supposed to wear the invisible tape, but I didn’t want her telling me to do it again, so I pressed my lips together and covered them with two pieces of tape. I had to breathe through my nose, and I was aware that some others were still watching me. Amelie was quiet. And now, so was I.

         Just before lunchtime Ms. Flanagan remembered that I had the tape over my lips and told me to remove.

         “Oh, Michelle, it’s been so quiet. I almost forgot. You can take the tape off now,” she looked at me and shifted quickly back to her lesson.

         I hesitated because I wasn’t sure if I should remove the invisible tape slowly or all at once. It didn’t matter either way. As I pulled up and over, a layer of my skin came off with it. I winced and spoke, my voice a bit scratchy at first.

         “My lips are bleeding,” I rasped loudly, making a scene. “ Ms. Flanagan, my lips were chapped – the tape ripped off my skin.” I held up the tape for affect.

A flash of worry lit up her face, not for me, but like she didn't quite know what to do -- then the bell rang. Without looking at me again, she found her lanyard of keys, put it around her neck and excused us all for lunch. 

Secret Rivalries

           Being in a class with another kid who has the same name was a drag. It made extra work for everyone, and there is always some kind of confusion or rivalry. Michelle Brewer and I were both in Mrs. Plescia's second grade class; we were known as Michelle G. and Michelle B. We were both petite, but Michelle B. was blonde with dainty English features, and I looked her opposite: dark-haired and indigenous. Our moms were friends, sort of -- they both hung out at the Logger's Club, one of the three bars in the one block radius that made up downtown Tuolumne. My mom and Maureen were both interested in the same guy, so by extension Michelle B. and I became rivals too. Robert Mason was a tall, rugged, blond haired guy, who sometimes wore Indian leather and who all women loved. They would both eventually date him but at different times.

         Michelle and I we just went to school and pretended we were normal. I wore dresses with tights and kept my hair neatly braided. I was polite, respectful, and easy going with the teachers. Michelle kept her unusually long fingernails clean, smiled when she was in trouble or spoke in a cutesy voice. But as extensions of our single, beer-drinking, pot-smoking, bar-carousing mothers, we were at risk of being exposed. 
         We should have been friends, but mostly we tried to pretend we didn't know the other, hadn't both stood around in front of the bar, closer to the little store as cover, waiting for our moms to finish their beers and come home. Michelle's mom, Maureen, also a pretty, petite blond, had a son and a daughter, and was on welfare just like my mom. Just like mine, she had to fill out a monthly income report, meet with the family's social worker in Sonora in the hospital building, and buy food with brightly colored food stamps -- the mark of poverty. The monthly income report had to be filled out every month and sent in or hand delivered by a set date in order for a family to receive its benefits: a check for cash, food stamps, and those green medi-cal stickers that my brother and I used to stick all over each other once we received a fresh batch to be used in the new month. My mom complained about those income reports each month as she was filling them out, usually at the last minute and in need of a ride to Sonora to get them there on time. 
         "The same fucking thing every God damn month," she'd say, rummaging through her purse for the envelope sent by the welfare office. "Every god damn month."
         I had heard this tirade before. I knew that they always asked about how many people lived in the house, if the recipient has made any money, or received any cash gifts, and on and on. And most of the time, the information that she put on those forms was the same information that she had included the month before that and that and that, but sometimes she did lie -- usually about whether or not she was "co-habitating," or not. It seems the welfare system liked knowing if they're single parent recipients were getting laid or not and/or whether parties responsible for making sexual contributions to the head of household were also contributing financially. If that were the case the recipients’ benefits would need to be "adjusted." Michelle B.'s mom, Maureen had to fill out the same forms, and decide whether or not to report the short-term live-in boyfriend whom she had hoped would have lasted longer than he did, not necessarily expecting him to begin providing for her children of her former husband, or as it turned out, to stick around.
         For these reasons, Michelle B. and I were sort of friends; we sometimes played together on the weekends when our mothers took us with them to visit their mutual friends. When our mothers weren't getting along or were competing for the same man, or accusing the other of being bad mothers, we'd argue and Michelle would pinch me on the underside of my upper arm with her long fingernails. At school, we kept our distance, always still aware of what the other was doing, or saying, and to whom.
         We made an unspoken effort not to be associated with the other for several years.  We probably weren't the only welfare kids who worked hard to not look shabby and to blend in. Michelle used her petite femininity, and I just tried to stay out of trouble. As I got older, the biggest complaint from my teachers was that I talked too much in class, but not in second and third grade. In those early grades, I kept to myself and spent a lot of time observing the other students act up and the teachers' reactions. 

         In Ms. Plescia's second grade class, it was Jimbo Dry who had become known for getting into trouble. Jimbo was stout and muscular in the second grade. I suppose his stature, his dark skin, and his often serious face intimidated some teachers; it seemed to make our second grade teacher, Mrs. Plescia angry. Jimbo had what I recognize now as a great deal of difficulty with authority figures and anger issues. And maybe this was the case because his most important authority figures weren't meeting his needs, or because being male and Me-wuk, he was expected to act up and probably to fail, or some combination of the two. Our teacher, Mrs. Plescia, also had anger issues. She was widowed and lived with her sisters in a mansion that bordered the school grounds. One of her sisters, Mrs. Robinson, also taught at Summerville Elementary school; I had her in first grade. Mrs. Plescia was what kids called a strict teacher. She often warned our second grade class to behave, threatening to turn into a "grumble snort" if we didn't
         "Class, you know what happens when you don't listen when I'm talking," she'd warn. "I turn into a grumble snort. You don't want me turning into a grumble snort do you?"

         Frankly, I never saw much of difference between the real Ms. Plescia and her grumble snort, but I did see her very very angry one time, and it was at Jimbo.
         The class had been particularly rambunctious that day and Mrs. Plescia had already threatened us with the grumble snort several times and asked Jimbo several times to do as he had been told. While transitioning from working at our desks to the next activity, there was lots of talking, the sounds of desks opening and closing, chairs scraping the floor, and children milling about. But a much louder commotion brewing between Jimbo and Mrs. Plescia stopped time, freezing each kid in place.
         "I said, sit down," Mrs. Plescia shouted at Jimbo, her face in his.

         Jimbo just stood still, his arms crossed in front of him.
         "Sit at your desk. I said, sit down" Mrs. Plescia repeated, this time leaning in and grabbing Jimbo by the elbow.  
         With that, his face suddenly a dark, dark red, Jimbo, went toward his desk. Half growling, half shouting, he threw the desk over, going immediately to the empty desk in front of him. Mrs. Plescia who had jumped out of the way of the first desk, was now lunging for Jimbo, who was lunging for another desk. Just as he grabbed a corner, Mrs. Plescia grabbed one of his arms, put him in a kind of bear hug, and dragged him writhing and half growling, half screaming out of the room, crashing into empty chairs and desks with kids sitting in them, their mouths agape, along the way. Stunned into complete blind obedience, each second grader went to his or her seat if not already there and sat quietly until a teacher from another classroom came and told us to read quietly to ourselves. We remained in a silent shock until Mrs. Plescia returned alone to the classroom a few minutes later, still breathing hard. We were quiet and on our best behavior for the rest of the afternoon.       

                                                                                                                                                    
         Though no one mentioned his name for the rest of the day or the incident ever again, I couldn't help thinking about Jimbo. Why couldn't he listen to the teacher? Why did Mrs. Plescia get so angry? Didn’t Jimbo know what he did meant? How what he did was now always going to be associated with who he was? It was the kind of attention I avoided, the reason Michelle B. and I pretended we didn't know each other, or that our lives were any different from any of the other kids in our class -- except Jimbo. We certainly were not like Jimb; that much had been made clear. 
         I managed to lay low for a month or so after the Jimbo incident which was still fresh in my mind. I managed not to bring any unwanted attention to myself, my image still intact. I couldn't say the same for Mrs. Plescia who had taken to reading to us often from her favorite Mrs. Piggle Wiggle chapter books, but who we were all still afraid of. One morning after reading a chapter or more, the class was getting restless, and Michelle spoke out of turn.  
         "My mom saw Michelle G's mom at the Logger's Club on Tuesday night. She was dancing and she wasn't wearing any underwear."
         Stunned, I turned my head with a quick jerk in Michelle's direction. Waiting for an audible reaction from the class, she looked smug, her pointy nose in the air. But the room was mostly quiet, probably waiting for my reaction. 

         And I hadn't been there, but I could see it. The Loggers Club. The juke box playing "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy. My mom dancing with some guy, the only lights coming from the juke box display, the lamp over the pool table in the back of the room, and the low lights at the bar. Hazy lines of cigarette smoke and mom dancing in circles, her hands over head, her cotton prairie skirt lifting, lifting, floating higher and higher on a naked gust of wind.
         I didn't say a word.

         And I didn't look at Mrs. Plescia either, but I knew that she was looking at me.