Uncensored

by Zachary R. Wood

  To get all this done, I cut sleep down to the bare minimum, maybe three hours a night. But after five days, I’d gotten through only five books. At this rate, I wouldn’t finish in time. So I gave up sleep entirely and skipped most meals. I got home from school at around nine o’clock, did my homework, and then started reading until it was time to leave for school in the morning. I got through the books more quickly this way, but I was hurting. It was hard to stay awake in class, and I wanted to be as alert and focused as ever.

  I asked my dad to get me a case of Red Bull so it would be easier to stay awake, but he refused. I begged, and he finally relented, but he brought home only a few cans instead of a full case. He probably thought I’d drink one a night over the next few nights, but instead I drank them all right then and there, sat down at my wobbly desk, and got back to reading.

  After a few minutes, I started to feel weird. Beads of sweat pricked my skin, and my vision became a little hazy. The words on the page didn’t appear as crisp as usual. But I’d been going without much sleep for so long that I knew how to push through those feelings, zone in, and focus. After a few more minutes, the words on the page were swimming and the room started to spin around me. I tried to grab onto the side of my desk for balance, but I collapsed. As I fell from my chair, I hit my head on the corner of my desk. I could feel my body convulsing as I crawled toward my bed and somehow managed to get on top of it, with one leg hanging off the side.

  My dad heard me fall but thought I had just dropped something and sent Nicole to check on me. She came into the room and found me sprawled on the bed, unresponsive, with my eyes drooping off to the side. “Dad!” she screamed. “What happened to Zach?” My dad ran into the room. When he saw me lying there, he bent down and started shaking me. I was awake, and I could see and hear everything that was going on, but I couldn’t move. It seemed like some form of sleep paralysis or maybe what it would feel like to be in a coma with my eyes open.

  “Zach!” my dad yelled, shaking me. “Zach!” Then I heard him mutter, “Shit.” In the background, Nicole was panicking, asking if she should call 911. I wanted to console her and say that everything was going to be fine, but I felt paralyzed. My dad ran out of the room and came back with a cup of water. He handed it to me, and it fell out of my hand. He left the room again to refill it, and when he came back, he tried to prop me up with one arm and pour the water into my mouth with the other. The liquid ran down the side of my face and onto the bed. “Shit,” my dad muttered again, and then picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.

  Outside, my dad laid me down on the backseat of the car and drove me to the hospital. By the time we got there, I was somewhat more lucid, but everything was still blurred, and I was slurring my words. When they asked me my name, I was so discombobulated that I gave them my middle name, Royce.

  I thought the doctors were just going to tell me to get more sleep and send me on my way, but instead they admitted me, and I realized I was going to be there for a while. I turned to my dad from the hospital bed. I was attached to an IV drip and had tubes to monitor my blood pressure and oxygen levels coming out of my nose. “Can you go home and bring me back those books?” I asked him.

  My dad looked at me with a potent mix of concern and fury. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so mad. But even then, his words were spare. “No, Zach,” was all he said.

  I was in the hospital for two days with a case of extreme exhaustion and dehydration. Drinking all that caffeine on an empty stomach had compounded everything. Since I had started at Bullis, I hadn’t missed a single day of school, and when I checked my phone, I had several texts from friends, asking where I was and whether I could still help them study or do their homework. I hated the way it felt to disappoint them. Ever since I was a little boy, reading about Martin Luther King in Lola and Papa’s basement, I’d done everything I could to be someone whom people could count on. When I said I was going to do something, I did it, and I resented being put on my back by something as pointless as sleep.

  On the way home from the hospital, my dad tried to talk to me some more. “You need to eat. You need to sleep. You need some balance, Zach,” he told me. “You need to start taking care of yourself.” It was my turn to be quiet. I knew intellectually that he was right. Of course he was. But I also knew that I wasn’t going to listen to him. There was too much at stake for me to loosen my grip on the reins now.

  I went back to school the next day. On my way home, I was tired. It felt as if I were recovering from a bad flu. I still had a stack of books to get through, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay awake for long. But I knew better than to ask my dad for help this time. So I stopped at a deli on the way home to pick up some more Red Bull.

  While I was waiting in line at the deli I texted back and forth with Drew. I told him that I was getting some more Red Bull so that I could stay up that night and finish reading. “You’re crazy; don’t do that,” he wrote. At first I laughed it off, but then he got serious. “Why do you feel like you have to read all those books?”

  I stopped and thought about it for a minute. I had an easy answer ready, the one I told other people and myself—that I wanted to be prepared for any scenario and make the best possible impression. But why were those things so important to me? Why did I have to perform not just well but superbly, be not just one of the smartest students but the most knowledgeable? When would I ever be satisfied? It wasn’t as simple as being black and poor and needing to prove myself. After all, I didn’t see Devon putting himself in the hospital because he felt he had to read so many books and help as many other students as he could.

  I put the Red Bull back in the refrigerated case and got on the bus. I saw Drew’s question almost as a riddle that I needed to solve. Papa had always told me that self-knowledge was the most valuable thing a man could possess. So I was determined to fully understand my own impulses.

  I started simply thinking about the books I was reading. What did I get from books? Knowledge. Then I asked myself why knowledge was so important to me. Why did it feel like something I could never have enough of? I realized that knowledge was one thing that people almost universally valued and respected, even admired. By filling myself with knowledge, I was literally trying to make myself more valuable, more worthy of their respect and admiration.

  The hardest question to face but the easiest to answer was why I didn’t already feel valuable. When the one person who was supposed to love me unconditionally told me over and over that I was a worthless, ungrateful punk, it became hard to ever truly believe that I was good enough. Some of my earliest memories are of my mom saying things that made me feel unworthy of ever being liked or loved. And now I was trying to fill the void this left inside me with knowledge, and therefore value.

  Over the years I’d told myself that if I could talk to enough people and make the ideal impression enough times, they would like me. My credentials and skills, and ultimately my knowledge, would make me worth liking. And if enough people liked me, I would matter. I’d be worth something. But, I realized on that long bus ride home, no matter how much I knew or read or learned, those memories would always be a part of me.

  The only answer was to keep drawing that fine line between the good and the evil, just like the moral philosophers Dr. Sun had taught me about. There was no universal right and wrong. My mom was like a weight around my neck, but at the same time so much of her advice had buoyed me. All I could do was try to tease apart that distinction, use the good pieces that I pried from the bad to help others, and leave the rest behind.

  CHAPTER 7

  Gravity

  I could feel the beat thumping in my rib cage as I walked past the subwoofer. It was simple but hypnotic. Every head bobbed as 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” emanated from the surround sound. Neon strobe lights flashed across the hardwood floor. Pockets of haze dispersed throughout the room. The crowds were loosely packed, some dancing, others talking. The theme
was “school’s out”; the venue, a party for high school students in the area, reserved at a local night club in Bethesda. I’d decided to go with Drew after he told me about it.

  To this point, I’d been to some middle school dances, a bar mitzvah party, and a homecoming, but this was my first time going out in high school. Drew was talking to a few other guys from Bullis who were there. They were on the football team. But this girl kept glancing at me from across the room, so I was thinking more about how to approach her than what they were saying.

  She had long blond hair with subtle features and a slender figure. She was wearing a white crop top with ripped high-waist denim shorts and tan ankle boots. Her makeup was vibrant—bright red lipstick with lilac eyeliner and silver eye shadow, and her cheekbones pronounced with blush. The tonic warmth of her smile was undiminished by the elaborate highlighting. She was glamorous, though I’m not sure if that’s what sparked my interest. We’d been making eye contact off and on for only a few minutes, but I’d spotted her earlier that night. It was as if I could feel her presence from across the room, the way she gestured delicately, gracefully extending her hands, as if to pull me in closer; the soft layers of her hair swaying gently over bare shoulders as she laughed. She was already talking to a handful of people, but I wasn’t leaving without at least trying to talk to her.

  I convinced myself that I had nothing to lose. So I walked over to her and introduced myself. As we started talking, she turned toward me and took a small step forward, deftly distancing herself from her friends, enough for us to have our own conversation. We talked for a few minutes about our summer plans; hers were far more extravagant than mine. Before I knew it, we were dancing. I was leaning on a pillar in the middle of the dance floor when she turned around to kiss me. We’d been making out for only about a minute when the football guys from Bullis whom Drew had been talking to earlier started making a scene.

  “Aye, son, she got them dukes, though! I see you, Zach, out here flexing,” said Devon, who was the ringleader. “My man Zach got him a snow bunny! Aye, he about to pipe her, yo! My man Zach, about to lay pipe! Blow her back out, Moe! Look at him, son! Aye, y’all,” he said to the people standing nearby, “check out my mans over here!”

  “Okay, Zach! Slim said he about to beat it up,” said Anton, another guy who was rolling with Devon that night.

  To my surprise, she didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by what they were saying. In fact, all the hype surrounding us made her show off a little bit as we grinded. I tried not to show it, but I felt kind of awkward and a little embarrassed being the center of the spectacle they’d created. They were jumping around, spazzing, and holding on to one another like they were watching the final round of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest. All of the siccin’ lasted for maybe two minutes, but of course it felt like a lot longer. I played it off, feigning a mix of slight amusement and subtle approval. But they were being OC (out of control). Had Drew been there at the time, he would have coolly dissuaded them from putting me on blast like that.

  Drew was cool, but never too cool to do the right thing. He was a polite, responsible, likable guy who always worked hard and did well at everything he endeavored to do. And I was glad we went out together that night because I knew he had no interest in drinking or smoking or doing anything stupid that would land us both in trouble. After the group of football guys had moved on, I decided to ask the girl for her number. For this to be my first time going out, I thought things were going pretty well.

  She pulled out her phone and replied, “How about you give me your number, instead?” As I put my number in her phone, she asked me what sport I played.

  “I run track, but only because my school requires you to play a sport,” I said.

  “Wait, so you’re not a football player? Are you on the basketball team?”

  “Nah, our team is pretty good. I tried out freshman year, though.”

  She looked disappointed, like she’d gotten her hopes up for nothing. “Wait, my friend told me that all the guys you were with earlier played for Bullis. You guys won the IAC championship last year, right?”

  “Ha, yeah, most of those guys are on the team. I’m just friends with them.”

  “Okay, well, it was nice meeting you. I’m going to go find my friends. Enjoy the rest of your night.” She turned around and walked away before I’d even gotten a chance to say, “It was nice meeting you, too.”

  To say the least, it was a bit of a letdown. But it felt like even more of a disappointment when I saw her minutes later, making out with a football player from our rival high school. I’d competed against the guy at a couple of track meets. He was yoked, with long dreads and a few tattoos, and seemed to fit more of the “black athlete” mold she was looking for. He was chilling, cupping her ass in his palms as she ran her hands under his shirt.

  I posted up on the wall for a bit and watched unobtrusively as they got high together. A few minutes later, Drew came over to tell me that his mom was there to pick us up. On the car ride home, I talked to them about some of my plans for the summer. But later that night, before going to bed, I felt sad.

  I thought about everything my mom would have said about the girl I’d danced with, why she left me for that other guy, and where I was lacking. I thought about what she used to say about Emmett Till, and how I might have ended up if that night had taken place fifty years earlier. I thought about how much appearances mattered, and how being black and poor made them matter even more. I thought about the times I’d lied and said to various friends’ parents that I lived near Georgetown or some part of DC that didn’t conjure up images of violence and poverty. I thought about how even though Drew was black, he’d never been exposed to the symptoms of poverty and mental illness that often get characterized as black pathology.

  Some part of me wanted to see the world through Drew’s eyes that night, to experience and live in it the way he did. To be able to look forward to seeing my mom and spending time with her. To be able to feel about my mother the way Drew felt about his.

  Since arriving at Bullis, I hadn’t really dated. I didn’t go to house parties, drink, or smoke weed, though I was invited to do all those things. For one thing, I didn’t live in Potomac. Most parties ended after midnight, and the bus lines in Montgomery County stopped running after 11:00 p.m. So even if I wanted to go to a party at someone’s house, it was hardly feasible. I was also very focused—busy working, reading, tutoring, and applying for various leadership conferences and academic summer programs. But there was another factor: I was intensely cognizant of how every move I made could be perceived. It had taken years, but I’d established myself as a model student, a strong leader, as someone who was well liked and respected by my teachers and peers. That mattered a great deal to me, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  I didn’t spend as much time hanging out with the guys from the football team as I did with Hollis, James, Todd, and Drew. But Bullis was a small school, and I still made an effort to be friendly with everyone, to talk to people and get some sense of what mattered to them and why. With my closest friends, I usually talked about politics and literature. But when I was around other groups, whether it was the lacrosse guys or the guys I knew on the football team, I’d try to relate in different ways, by laughing at their jokes and occasionally telling my own.

  This sort of balancing act wasn’t easy, and despite my efforts, I wasn’t able to relate to everyone as much as I would have liked to. At Bullis, I recognized how easily black identity could be distorted. If a black student was in honors or AP classes, he or she was thought of as either exceptional or unqualified. If a black student played lacrosse or hung out with lacrosse players, his or her blackness was questioned. I valued my standing at Bullis, so I felt a certain pressure to act prudently, to avoid being typecast. As a result, I overanalyzed things, such as whom I sat with at lunch and how much time I spent talking with various groups.

  I was
cool with everyone, but I wasn’t happy. I didn’t feel that I was enjoying high school or gaining nearly as much as I was putting in. A part of me always wanted to do more, and I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t. Yet another part of me wanted to relax, to decompress, to fall down and pause and reflect for a while before hustling to get back on my feet again. I felt I was searching for a deeper meaning, for a greater sense of purpose and value that eluded my grasp at every turn.

  There were small things here and there that made me feel good, like when Hollis asked me to read The Divine Comedy with him so that we could interpret it together, line by line. Hollis was admired at Bullis, but he didn’t socialize much outside of school. So I appreciated the fact that he wanted to spend hours discussing literature with me over the phone. I felt the same way when James and his family invited me to go with them to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Concert Against Hate. What mattered to me wasn’t so much the invite or the event itself but the fact that James’s dad invited me because he recognized my “budding passion for social justice and civil rights.”

  But these few uplifting gestures were overshadowed by the stress and pressure I felt on a day-to-day basis. It was as if my head space required a certain level of mental gymnastics for me to stay above water, let alone perform well. Being dependable, likable, and high achieving at Bullis meant that whatever might have been bothering me outside of school had to cease to exist in my own mind the moment I walked into my first class. It could be my mom’s last voice mail or a physical altercation or threat made by someone I knew I’d see again on the bus. It could be my financial circumstances or water leaking over my bed. Or it could be a combination of all those things and more.

  No matter the case, in class and in the hallways, I had to appear happy, composed, and fully present. I had to be on my A game. I had to feel useful, resourceful, and quick on my feet. Because whenever I faltered or didn’t meet “my usual standards,” it felt to me as if I had nothing to feel good about. Sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder how much better I would have been had my life been different, had my desire to overcome my past not driven me to act on so many layers of data and circumspection.