Man Curse

by Raqiyah Mays

  I taped the finished art project to the wall next to my bed, arranging it in the middle of pictures scattered about that represented my past. Glancing over the old-school photos, my eyes rested on a shot from high school. I remembered the day, crowded at a cafeteria table, cheesing in B-boy stances for Meredith’s brand-new Polaroid camera. In the picture I was standing back to back, arms crossed, with Michael Tubman, my high school freshman crush.

  School was a peaceful sanctuary for me, the only place where I felt free from the constant carping at home. Between books, classes, notes, and bells, I surrounded myself with friends to channel my personal focus with gossip, jokes, and crushes on boys. I’d lost my virginity freshman year at fourteen years old. In retrospect, I was too young and immature to deal with the psychological repercussions of having sex. But at the time, on that specific day, it seemed right.

  “Meena!” my friends shouted like a chorus as I arrived at our table, third from the right, next to the water fountain, across from the salad bar, in the cafeteria of building two.

  “Hey, y’all, what’s up?” I responded, still sluggish from the six o’clock alarm. I’d been up till after midnight talking to my second best friend, captain of the varsity girls track team, Doreen Robertson, about the same thing we discussed every day: boys, clothes, the single mothers we wanted to trade in.

  “Wake up!” she snapped, before stuffing a cream cheese–filled bagel inside her mouth. I always wanted a body like Doreen’s. Full 34C breasts. Jeans fitted around a plump booty. I had to tighten my belt into the last hole, waistband gathering up, just to get the fit that Doreen wore so naturally. The guys loved her.

  “Wake up, so you can get your man,” said Meredith, popping up from under the table. Meredith Benjamin had been my first best friend since she moved to town in the fourth grade. Always seated next to each other in homeroom, we became close because our initials were both MB. We even joined the track team together. She ran the third leg on the 4 x 400 meter relay team. I was anchor.

  “Look to the east,” Doreen said.

  I glanced to the left and saw Carl Murphy. Head buried in a book. Sitting at a table alone. He looked up briefly as our eyes met before nervously stuffing his head back inside the pages. He’d have been a cutey if he wasn’t so weird.

  “That’s west, girl. East, I said. East. Look to your right,” Doreen said. “Not toward the geek.”

  I glanced to the right and my eyes met Michael Tubman’s. He stretched his neck past his boys, nodding toward me. I nervously smiled back, before turning away to inspect every item in my purse.

  “I love him,” I said, with a Kool-Aid grin. “Is he still staring at me?”

  Doreen’s eyes popped out. “Girl, fix your hair, fix your hair!” She let out a boy-group-fanatic squeal. “He’s walking over!”

  But I couldn’t find my brush. Rummaging through the tissues and papers that clogged my purse, I pulled out a hot pink comb just as he approached.

  “Hey, Meena,” I heard him say behind me. I could see Meredith and Doreen stretch their eyes wide as I turned to face him.

  “Oh hey,” I said, doing my best to feign a nonchalant tone. Meredith discreetly pulled the comb out of my hand. “What’s up?”

  He passed a piece of lined paper folded up into a small square. My name was written in red ink across the middle. “Let me know what you think when you read it, okay?”

  “I, um . . .” I managed, glancing at the tiny package. “Okay . . .”

  “I’ll see you in Mrs. Johnson’s class,” he said before walking away.

  I opened the letter.

  Dear Meena,

  You looked pretty yesterday. I forgot to tell you that I think you look nice in pink. Call me tonight. I don’t get home till after 7p cuz of practice. But my parents are out of town. Maybe you can come over since you only live around the corner. Let me know.

  Michael

  The table erupted into gasps.

  “Oh my God,” Doreen and Meredith said simultaneously. “What’s it say?”

  “He wants me to come over tonight,” I screamed. “He said his parents are out of town.”

  It was like déjà vu: the table broke into gasps again.

  I’d had a crush on Michael since the first day of ninth grade. Twinkling straight teeth. Chiseled chin. Long eyelashes. He was one of the few freshmen, like me, who’d managed to make varsity. He’d done it playing football. I was the occasional track star. Sharing Mrs. Johnson’s first period science class together, we’d grown to know each other after being paired for a lab experiment. Homework sessions turned to long talks about life and dreams, including his hope to play for the New York Giants. He was funny and chivalrous, pulling out chairs and opening doors. He referred to me as “Beautiful.” I’d never had anyone say that about me. I found myself fantasizing the entire last marking period of school, hoping to be girlfriend to the most popular boy in the ninth grade. Hoping we’d go to the same college, marry after graduation, and I’d have baby boys who’d grow up to play ball just like their daddy.

  His letter, folded up tightly into a tiny Chinese star, proved that the dream was manifesting. He was finally ready to ask me out.

  “What are you gonna wear?” Doreen asked. “I have to do your hair. Oh my God, are you really going over there?”

  “Why are you rhyming?” Meredith asked, making us all crack up. “What the hell?”

  “I don’t know if I can go,” I said, shaking my head. “You know my mom won’t let me go to a boy’s house.”

  “Well, you gotta,” said Doreen. “I mean, this is Michael Tubman.”

  “Yeah, but this is Meena’s mother we’re talking about,” Meredith chimed in. “Hitler in a skirt.”

  “So she needs to plan her escape from concentration camp,” Doreen replied. “It can’t be that hard. I sneak out all the time.”

  “That’s ’cause your mom is cool,” Meredith said, sipping the last of our shared orange juice. “You’re lucky. We are not.”

  I gazed at Michael’s letter. But my parents are out of town. Maybe you can come over. I kept rereading that letter, forward and backward. Michael Tubman wanted me to visit his house. Wow.

  The loud chime of the bell ringing for homeroom slapped me back into reality.

  “So you going?” Doreen asked, zipping up her backpack. “Are you gonna finally do it?”

  “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, Meena,” Meredith stressed. “Don’t let Doreen pressure you.”

  “I’m not pressuring her,” she snapped. “I’m just saying she needs to get on it now while the opportunity presents itself. Because if she doesn’t, somebody else will.”

  Doreen nodded toward Michael’s table, where Sheila Anderson, the class whore, was in overt touchy mode. She grabbed him tight, forcing a hug. As he put his arms around her, she rubbed his hand and eased it over her butt. He smiled and laughed while his friends clapped with approval.

  “Told you,” Doreen said to me. “Don’t lose your chance trying to be Miss Goody Two-shoes.”

  “Who the hell is Miss Goody Two-shoes? And why do people say that? Who is she?” Meredith asked as she handed back my comb. “Come on, Meena, let’s be out. Not only are you always late, but you always do the right thing. And you’ll do it this time.”

  So that night, I planned my escape into Michael’s arms.

  11:00 p.m . . .

  “Good night!” I screamed downstairs, making sure Mom knew I was officially going to bed. “I said, good night!”

  “Did you brush your teeth?”

  “Yeeees,” I said, shivering with the shaky vowel. “Good night.”

  “How many times are you going to say good night, Meena?”

  “Um . . . I love you!”

  The sound of a metal spoon mixing sugar inside porcelain was my cue that Mom was getting ready for bed
. A cup of chamomile was the last thing she drank while watching the evening news. Its warm flavors relaxed her mind and tired pupils enough to pull them into a deep, six-hour sleep. She never made it to the end of the broadcast without snoring.

  I pulled the covers over me and stared at the ceiling, waiting for Mom’s bedroom door to close. After twenty minutes, I began to sweat. The mixture of cheap polyester comforter fibers, unsure nerves, and the pink sweater Aunt Connie had bought me for Christmas made beads build on my chest, dampen my forehead, and moisten my neck. I pushed back the blanket, fanning myself with the sheets that felt like a used baby wipe. As soon as I heard the closing click of Mom’s door, I hopped out of bed, sprayed on Victoria’s Secret body spray—under the arms, over the chest, between the legs—and grabbed the plush Macy’s Snoopy I’d gotten after the Thanksgiving parade. Positioning it on the pillow, I hoped that if Mom did walk into my room, she’d be too tired to see it wasn’t me. Just in case, I took my night scarf, tied it around Snoopy’s head, and threw the covers atop him so the navy silk fabric with tiny yellow flowers peeked over the blanket.

  Butterflies prepared to take flight as I hopped onto the radiator, opened my window, pulled up the screen, and climbed out onto the edge of the roof. He must’ve been a descendant of Harriet Tubman, because Michael Tubman inspired me to escape for freedom. I could feel his warm hands wrapped around my body like it was a football, with a hug so intensely passionate and tight my bones melted. I turned back to pull down the window, glancing at the clock on my dresser: 11:42 p.m. I told Michael I’d be there around eleven thirty. But I couldn’t have moved faster. The fear of Mom’s wrath paralyzed me. I could see a year of invisible chains banning me from touching the TV, telephone, or going to the mall. But I had to take a stand, on a roof in Jersey, at midnight, in the cold suburban dark evening, with a patch of bushy grass to break my fall for love.

  I hadn’t realized that the jump from the second floor was so high. I hadn’t figured out how to explain a broken leg if I happened to land wrong. But I needed to get going. So I sat on the edge of the roof, slowly, steadily, nudging my butt forward, toward the edge, till finally I had nowhere to go but down.

  “One, two, three,” I whispered to myself. But I didn’t move, gulping, staring down at the hard, bone-killing ground. “Okay, I can do this,” I said out loud. “One, two, three!”

  On the last number I jumped, past the kitchen window, into the garden, atop the begonias, onto my feet, with a slight roll back to my butt. I felt like Catwoman—limber, agile, sneaky, fast. In seconds, I was up running to the side of the house, dusting the leaves off my ten-speed bike and pedaling like the mama police were in pursuit. I never looked back, speeding down the dark block, breezing through the late-night spring air. Free from Deena Mitchell’s restrictions. Free to be me.

  That emancipation carried me away during the short, five-minute ride while I imagined what Michael and I would do: how he’d grab me, pull my head back, caress my neck, kiss me twice, like on an episode of The Young and the Restless.

  When I got to Michael’s, I hopped off my pink Huffy ten-speed and sized up his stereotypical suburban lawn. A white fence outlined in tiny yellow tulips. A fountain with an angel spraying water from its mouth. A basketball hoop at the end of the driveway. The butterflies began to fill my right and left shoulders, fussing, whispering in my ear. What are you doing here, Meena? Why did you sneak out? You should go home before Mom wakes up.

  But as soon as I was ready to turn around and head home, Michael opened the door. He was smiling, and his dimples twinkled, adding a sparkle to his movie-star teeth.

  “Hey, Meena!” he said, standing with a phone to his ear. “I thought you changed your mind.”

  I paused, unsure of what to say, nervous and embarrassed by his charm and forthrightness. “Your hair looks nice.”

  “This? Oh, the wind was crazy . . .” I suddenly found the ground, the most fascinating sight in the world. “But thanks.”

  “You can come in, ya know,” he said with a giggle. “I mean, unless you’re leaving.”

  “Um . . .” I stammered, tiptoeing through the doorway, nervously looking over my shoulder. “No . . .”

  I stepped into the porch, and he guided me through a huge family room with a black leather couch in front of a movie screen–size TV with ESPN blasting. Wedding pictures adorned the coffee table. Family photos of him, his mother, and his father at a fair, wearing matching sweatshirts. A group shot of about twenty people wearing T-shirts that read “Tubman Family Reunion.”

  Michael grabbed my hand and led me to his bedroom. It was decorated with a mixture of mahogany and blue accents. His Pop Warner football trophies aligned wall shelves, next to plaques, certificates, footballs, and NFL jerseys from the Giants. He walked me to the bed.

  “You look really pretty,” he said as we sat down. “I like the way you look in pink.”

  “Thanks,” I said, digging in my tiny purse. I pulled out a tissue and squeezed it in my hand. “Um, you have a nice room.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, moving closer to me, grabbing my hand. “My mom decorated it. She’s good at that kinda stuff.”

  “So, what have you been doing?”

  “Who, me?” He nudged a few inches closer, playing with my hand. “Waiting for you.”

  Then he kissed me. But I didn’t move, stiff in shock, letting his lips do the maneuvering. Letting him slip his tongue into my mouth. Letting him run his hand up under my sweater and over my white lace bra onto my breasts. He squeezed them hard. But I didn’t complain. This was what I wanted. I was going to be his girlfriend. With his other hand, he squeezed my other breast and pushed me down on the bed, kissing me and grinding. I felt him playing with my bra. Desperately trying to unfasten it. After long seconds of maneuvering, he gave up. And I felt him unbuttoning my pants, pulling down the zipper and slipping his hand under my panties. He rubbed my vagina, petting its soft virginal opening. Next thing I knew, my jeans were down and he was inside me. Burning. Pain. Like something rubbing hard on dry, broken skin. The hurt was unbearable. I gasped and tried to hold in the whimper. I didn’t want him to know this was my first time. I didn’t want him to realize I didn’t know how to do it, that it felt like my flesh was tearing apart, that I wanted to cry.

  “You okay?” he whispered.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, lying there, letting him push deeper inside.

  He felt so big, like a tree trunk squeezing into an ant hole. I squirmed, trying to feign enjoyment, but the pain . . .

  “Okay, stop,” I begged. “Stop.”

  “You all right?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, pulling up my panties. “I just gotta go real quick.”

  Stepping inside the bathroom, I looked in the mirror. Hair a mess. Face twisted from the hurt of each movement. When I checked my underwear, I could see blood in the seat; tiny specks stained the middle. The burning sensation between my legs inflamed my body as I peed; I held in the urge to scream, closing my eyes to hide from reality. No one ever told me sex felt this way. I thought it was supposed to be an experience that floated bodies above beds, into clouds, and across the heavens. But it was more like a torturous tearing of flesh. Right then I decided: that was my first and last time.

  The next day, I limped to school. As much as I tried not to, despite the bowlegged feeling of a large crater drilled between my legs. But the soreness I felt lingered from the night before, and not just in my vagina but in my heart and head, accented with a fleeting feeling of shameful embarrassment.

  “Sooooo, did you talk to Michael?” asked Doreen, smiling hard. “You go to his crib?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, girl. I didn’t even talk to him last night,” I said, looking through my book bag for something, anything. “He was at practice pretty late.”

  “Why are y
ou standing like that?” Meredith sat eyeing me before getting up out her seat. “You look . . . crooked.”

  “Crooked how?”

  “Like this,” she said, mocking my stance, likening it to that of a constipated hunchback. “Did you fall again running to the bus stop?”

  “Ooh, I remember that!” Doreen screamed, laughing. “Remember when she fell running from her dog in those white tights! And then it grabbed her purse and ran down the street?”

  Meredith and Doreen busted out laughing.

  “I’m good. Thank you for asking, stupids,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I . . . just . . . hit my knee this morning.”

  “You are so clumsy, damn.” Doreen pulled out a compact to comb her hair. “Better not let Michael know that. He likes them model-looking girls. You could be one, but you need to learn how to walk, instead of tripping all over the place. And you need to put some makeup on. How come you don’t wear makeup?”

  “I can’t be a model. I’m too short.”

  “You don’t have to be tall to be a model, Meena,” Meredith added. “You could do catalogs. You’re pretty, you got the look. All skinny and everything. Long neck. Nice smile.”

  “Whatever,” I replied, attempting to slowly sit, before feeling the pain of the squat and deciding to stand. “I’ma go to the bathroom.”

  “Good. When you come back, be off your period,” snapped Doreen. “Crankiness doesn’t look good on you.”

  I turned to walk toward the girls’ room when my eyes met Michael’s. He turned away quickly. During Mrs. Johnson’s class, he did the same, rushing out of the classroom before I could speak to him. I wondered whether he was embarrassed, too. Perhaps he didn’t know how to talk about it either. So after lunch, I decided to go to his locker. As I limped down the hallway, I saw a congregation of the football team standing next to him. The closer I got, the more they snickered. I smiled at Michael as I walked up.