OCTOBER 8, 2020
I Am What I Am ~ A story written with Bill Kirton
Humans of the Present describes the following image — hands together in solidarity for episode 99 of the WordCount Podcast.
For this story, author Bill Kirton and I are collaborating for the FINAL time for the WordCount Podcast. Though the podcast is sadly ending after episode 100, we’ll find a way to write and share stories with you, so stay tuned!
For this story, I wrote parts 1 and 3, while Bill wrote part 2 and the conclusion. If you’d like to learn more about our process, feel free to read Bill’s post on it. It’s a great summary of what we do in case you want to collaborate on a project with another writer.
STORY INSPIRATION: You may recognize the title from a Shakespearean play, though … it’s mis-quoted, as the actual line is “I am not what I am.” Have you guessed it yet?
ONLY ONE MORE EPISODE of The Wordcount Podcast remains!
It’s been a great run for 10 years, so give it a listen!
+++
Jada Wilson peeked out the window just as her daughter was heading up the walkway. She went to the entrance and opened the door to a tearful face with a fat lip.
“My god, Tracy! What happened?”
The teenage girl shouted “I hate school, never going back!” She ran down the hall to her bedroom and slammed the door.
Breathe, Jada thought to herself. Don’t overreact.
She walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer door, cracked ice cubes out of a tray, and wrapped them in a dishtowel.
It wasn’t the first incident of this kind. When she decided to move away from the big city a year ago, she knew it would be difficult. Riverdale, population three hundred thousand, had very little crime, boasted one of the best high schools in the country and was also home to an excellent university. Her dream was that Tracy would one day go to it, the first in her family to attend post-secondary education. The main reason for the move though, was that Jada could buy a bungalow here, which was nearly impossible for a single mother on a clerk’s salary to do anywhere else. She wanted to put down roots, had hoped that life with Tracy could change here, that people might accept her.
Unlike her daughter, Jada had no problems in their new hometown. With her dark skin from her Jamaican ancestry, she fit into the diverse fabric that made up Riverdale. Her co-workers hailed from all over, so it broke her heart that Tracy faced so much discrimination at school.
She knocked on her daughter’s door. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
Silence.
“I have some ice for you. May I please come in?”
Jada opened the door and saw Tracy sitting on her bed, head bowed. She walked over and sat beside her. “Here, it’ll keep the swelling down.”
Tracy took the ice and pressed it against her lip. After a minute, she removed the towel and looked at Jada. “Mom, why do they hate me so much?”
Jada wished she knew. Unfortunately for her daughter, she had inherited her father’s British genes. Her lily white skin, pale blue eyes, and long blonde hair did her no favours in this world.
+++
After an hour or so of chat about what else had happened at school (apart from the name-calling), Jada sensed that Tracy’s mood had shifted. The hurt was still there, but Jada’s careful, gentle questioning had teased out of her details of the sort of lessons she’d had, how the teachers were, what friends she’d made among her classmates, and it was altogether obvious that there were at least some positives the two of them could work on.
‘The English teacher was nice. Mrs Bennett,’ said Tracy, the change in her expression as she did so telling Jada that ‘nice’ was perhaps an understatement.
‘How d’you mean?’ she asked.
Tracy shrugged. ‘Read us some nice stuff. Poems and things. Asked which ones we liked. They were all good. Some were a bit hard though. It…It was…
She stopped.
‘What, darling. Tell me.’
‘Well, when Julia said she didn’t understand one of them, Mrs Bennett went through it slowly, telling us about the words, making it easier.’
‘Sounds like a good teacher.’
Tracy just nodded. She looked down at the towel she was twisting to and fro in her lap.
‘We’re going to do some Shakespeare,’ she said, so low that Jada had to lean forward to hear her.
‘Wow,’ said Jada. ‘That could be quite hard.’
Tracy, her eyes still on the towel, nodded again and, in almost a whisper, said, ‘It’s called Othello. Melanie’s brother Josh is going to be Othello. He said he didn’t want to.’
‘That’s a shame. Why not?’ said Jada.
‘He’s a bit shy. But in the end, he said OK.’
Jada nodded. There was silence for a few seconds, then Tracy added, ‘And she said… well, she wants me to be Desdemona. That’s Othello’s wife.’
The names sounded very impressive to Jada, who had heard of the play but knew little about it.
Eager to encourage Tracy, she said, ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
Nodding her head, Tracy looked up at her mother and said, ‘She said I looked just right for the part.’
Jada smiled and nodded.
She’s right. You’re gorgeous,’ she said.
Tracy smiled back and said, ‘Othello talks about Desdemona’s skin being “whiter than snow”.’
+++
While lining up with other excited parents, Jada glanced around the crowd and took note of its colourful make-up—Asian, Middle-Eastern, African were among the nationalities she saw. Many of the women were wearing head scarves and several men had donned kaftans. A couple in front of her were in full traditional dress, the woman in a hijab and her husband in an ornate damask kurta. She overheard them speaking a language other than English. Suddenly, she felt grossly underdressed in her conservative blazer atop a turquoise blouse and black pants. At least she had the foresight to put on a pair of bright, dangling earrings.
The white faces caught Jada’s attention because there were so few of them. A white, middle-aged couple stood quietly a few feet in front of her. They looked out of place, even uncomfortable. Jada remembered a very different world when she was growing up, when she was in the minority while the white folks dominated the landscape. She never belonged then, so she understood Tracy’s struggle to belong now.
The line inched toward the school’s entrance. Once inside, however, the pace quickened with a team of students collecting tickets. Jada approached a Somalian boy in a wheelchair.
“You must be Yasir.” She handed him her ticket. “I’m Tracy’s mom. Your mom and I work together.”
“Hi, nice to meet you.” He tore the ticket, placed half in a box and returned the other half to her.
“Nice to meet you too. It’s too bad your mom couldn’t make it.”
Yasir shrugged. “She had to take care of my baby sister, and I’m not in the play anyway.”
Jada stood aside as more people filed into the school. “Maybe next time.”
The young man offered a huge smile. “Nah, I’m not an actor like Tracy. I’m a musician, play guitar.”
“That’s great, will I hear you at a concert soon?”
“Count on it!” he said. “And don’t forget to keep your ticket. We’ll do a draw at intermission. Enjoy the play!”
Yasir’s confidence warmed Jada’s heart. She removed her jacket and walked up the steps to the main foyer. It had been decades since she set foot in a high school auditorium, but here she was, going to her daughter’s first performance.
+++
‘Mrs Wilson?’
Jada turned to look into the crowd for whoever had called her name. A young, slim woman stepped forward, smiling broadly and holding out her hand. Jada took it, returning her smile, and began, ‘I’m sorry. I’m not sure we’ve…’
‘No, we haven’t met. I’m Madeleine Bennett. Tracy’s English teacher.’
She took Jada’s arm and angled her away from the stream of people making for their seats.
‘I won’t keep you, but I just wanted to catch you before the play started to tell you what a gem Tracy has been. You should be very proud of her.’
Jada wasn’t sure how to respond to the enthusiasm, but she was spared the need to reply as a clearly excited Mrs Bennett, her eyes flashing, went on, ‘Not just the way she’s learned her lines, worked hard at the part, but the example she’s set for the others and the way they’ve responded to her. It’s been a joy to see.’
Jada smiled and said, ‘She’s really enjoyed it. But she hasn’t told me much about it. Probably thought I wouldn’t understand.’
‘Well, I’m not sure I do,’ said Mrs Bennett, ‘but I’ve produced several school plays and I’ve never seen anyone have the effect she’s had. I know you’ll be watching her closely tonight. And I’m sure you’ll be proud of her, no question. But look at Josh in his scenes with her, too. He’s the one playing Othello,. He was so shy when he started. He’s from Barbados and they’d never read any Shakespeare in his old school. When we first started reading, all the others felt so sorry for him. He’s got a lovely voice but he was so quiet. It was hard for them to take cues from him. Tracy was so sweet with him. They did their lines together in break. He was terrified of the whole idea at first, but she pretended they were doing it for her sake, not his. All the others noticed it, and he just got better and better. In fact, it was because of him that we changed the ending. I’ve put a note about it in the programme. It was the way, in the bedroom scene, Tracy said “Talk you of killing?” and then “Kill me to-morrow: let me live to-night!” Honestly, it was so real. She was…’
She stopped and Jada was sure there was a tear in her eye.
‘Anyway, Josh just couldn’t do the killing. He knew it was only pretend, but he just thought it was wrong. We’ve all learned so much from the rehearsals. Including me.’
As she spoke, she hardly gave herself time to breathe. In the end, she simply took Jada’s arm, gave it a squeeze, and said, ‘Look, why don’t you come with me and see for yourself?’
‘See what?’ said Jada.
‘The kids. I’m just going backstage. Give them a sort of pep talk, I suppose. Make sure they enjoy themselves. Because, after all, it’s for them more than us, isn’t it?’
Jada smiled at her enthusiasm and allowed herself to be piloted around the edges of the crowd to find their way backstage. There, the cast and crew were already assembled behind the curtain, held by a quiet tension which was increased by the sounds of the audience arriving on the other side of it. All of them, even Tracy, seemed oblivious to Jada and Mrs Bennett’s arrival. They stood in a tight circle, their arms outstretched to overlap in its centre. Noiselessly, they bobbed their hands together before throwing them high in the air and moving off to their starting positions