I thought I would share the Prologue and First Chapter to my fiction book, Scars. I am seeking a publisher for it and if you like what you read and are a publisher or have a friend who is a publisher who is looking for something along the lines of this genre, then please let me know. Scars has 5 major characters and it deals with emotional healing from racism as well as dealing with the complexities of being a working class black teen lesbian in a rural white New England town, intricacies of whiteness and how it manifests in new found cross-racial friendships. I also have a leading character who is vegan and is a woman of mixed ethnic identity (Guatemalan and Nigerian). The synopsis of the book is AFTER the sample first chapters. Sorry about the terrible formatting. It simply won’t format the way I want it to, making it not as easy to read. If you enjoy the first few pages and want to read the whole thing in printed book form, or as an e-book, you can purchase it here: http://stores.lulu.com/breezeharper Please be aware that this copy has not been professionally copyedited or proofread (I can’t afford those services), so you may run into a few errors.
Prologue
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Hear-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
-Countee Cullen
“Incident,” 19251
∞
“Look at that skinny little nigger.”
First day of school and these were the first words that had greeted me as I entered the halls of East Lebanon Middle and Senior High school, in East Lebanon, Connecticut. It had not been the era of Jim Crow nor the Civil Rights Movement. However, the n-word had found its way into the year 2000, revealing that as we entered the new millennium, time had little to do with change. The memory reminds me of when hard times would befall our household, Mama used to say with dark sullen eyes, “This too, shall pass.” I am still waiting for it; so are millions of other brown and black folks.
Nearly seven years later, I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about that day and that word on a weekly basis. I know, with the utmost confidence, that every brown and black person will never forget the first time they were verbally assaulted by the n-word. With precise clarity, I can remember what I was wearing, what I was doing, where I was walking to… and that the sun’s brightly shining rays weren’t strong enough to warm and repair my crushed twelve year old spirit.
My dark brown hair was in two neatly braided cornrows, weaved by Mama’s strong chestnut brown hands. My pants had been a royal blue polyester and cotton blend with a stretch waistband, made by Mama with the antique sewing machine she had purchased from the local church’s weekly summer rummage sale in 1994. I had helped her choose it by pointing it out with my little finger, “She looks so lonely in that little dusty dark corner.”
As I had walked down those halls that morning, I had been wearing my favorite cotton button-up short-sleeve white shirt, painted with vertical multicolored stripes. Until the n-word had penetrated my small mocha colored ears, my morning had started out with a youthful optimism, inspired by my ride on the bus through the warm late summer rural New England ambiance. I had sat in the back of the bus, clutching my new Hello Kitty thermos, while an inviting sun rose from the East, drenching me, and the rolling green hills, with warm love and fresh renewal.
I had exited the bus and felt like a “big kid.” No longer was I, Savannah Penelope Sales, in elementary school. I was in middle school. A smile of pride, eagerness and confidence brightened my thin face as I entered through those creaky lobby metal doors and made my way to find my locker number 156. No more desk to put my stuff in. I had a locker!
It had been while walking past the art department, in a crowded hallway of high school kids, that a young male’s voice echoed, “Look at that skinny little nigger.”-
-That sound! That unforgettable miserable sound had startled, shocked, and appalled me. Less than the time it takes for a hummingbird to flutter a tiny wing, my smile had been replaced by a trembling lower lip. I remember I had nervously turned around to see who had said it. Unfortunately, the halls were crowded and the coward had strategically hidden within a sea of white adolescent faces with chattering mouths. He had to have been referring to me, for I had been the only black girl in that ocean of whiteness.
My calm saunter had transformed into a quick-paced and terror-stricken gait. Tear filled eyes focused on making it through the double doors that partitioned the high school from the middle school. Like clockwork, the coward stung again, “Run skinny little nigger, run.” A sadistic cackle had trailed after his vicious utterance. As I had hurried through the double doors, I remember my small heart had been beating furiously through my chest. It had become increasingly difficult for me to breath and even harder to prevent the tears in my eyes from escaping down my soft cheeks. I remember commanding myself not to have an asthma attack. Foolishly thinking I was “too old” for my inhaler, I had left it underneath my pillow earlier that morning.
“Run skinny little nigger, run,” kept on echoing in my head. Panicked scenarios flashed through my mind: Would he take the next step and follow me through those doors? What would he do to me? I’m barely five feet tall, what if he’s really big? What if no one will help me?
Undeniably, the n-word is the worst word- no, sound!- in the English language. He had known this, which is why he had been unable to fire it to my face. Seven years later, I have always wondered why none of my schoolmates had heard it. Maybe they had but it simply didn’t incite the petrified terror in them that it did in me. As soon as his vocal cords clamored “nigger” at my back, the word had instantly connected me to a visual recollection of America’s sordidly violent and racist past. My acute mind had begun to rapidly fire through a memory bank of collective misery: faded photographs of lynched black bodies surrounded by sadistic grimacing white-faced onlookers; Norman Rockwell’s unforgettable little black angel in “The Problem We All Live With;” Life magazine’s portraits of blacks being hosed down and chewed apart by German Shepherd dogs as if these black bodies were subhuman disposable “niggers”; Langston Hughes’ cover to Black Misery; lastly, the memory of my mama pounding her fist on our kitchen table before I departed for my first day of Kindergarten, “Never let anyone call you a ‘nigger.’ Do you hear me, Savi? You beat that idea out of them if they do.” By the third grade, via mandatory weekends of our history lessons, Mama had made sure that I knew about my people. Our people. The bookcases of our living room were filled with any books and articles about us that she could get her hands on.
Of course my schoolmates had not been terrified of that word. Their whiteness was their security clearance, which included a pass to a collective amnesia that blessed them with only happy memories of America’s “patriotic textbook” history, simultaneously teaching them that a fair-skinned Jesus and God were protecting them and only them. Their whiteness was my insecurity coupled with the fact that I was the “token” black girl in our predominantly white blue-collar town.
Most black people in America have been or will eventually be called the n-word. However, it doesn’t make my story- my vivid recollection- any less significant. It’s not just a word in the English language.
Stick and stones… When I was eight, I broke my arm when my bicycle collided into a slow moving car at the intersection near my home…may break my bones…
Bones break. They hurt. They heal. However, but words will never hurt me…
“Nigger” hurts, scars…
…and never heals.
Chapter One
1993
Pieces of biscuit-brown cocoa butter slowly melt on top of my ashy bruised knees.
“I don’t understand these little kids. Why do they push my baby around like that? It’s kindergarten for god’s sake!” Mama says, as I squirm a bit between the warm confines of her legs.
“Stop moving, please!” she says, pulling the bushy hair on my head, trying to ease it into neat little cornrows. I am wearing the turquoise sequin dress that Mama bought last week. My warm bottom presses against the cool linoleum floor.
Mama reaches into the jar of blue greasy goo on the chair beside me. Her fingers pull out a lump of glistening teal. It shimmers slightly underneath the sixty-watt bulb in our dimly lit kitchen.
“Damn, you have the driest scalp. These dry winters sure can leave a negro so ashy!” Mama exclaims, gently rubbing the goo onto my scalp. I giggle in relief as a portion of my itchy skin finds salvation under Mama’s smooth fingertips. For a few seconds, I forget about being pushed into the pavement by Teresa Bateman, earlier that day.
“I don’t know why they always push my baby around,” she says again. I grab the scratched leg of the wooden chair beside me, and start playing with a shiny screw that Davis’ daddy had put in last month to fix it.
“Savannah! Please stop moving so much! This ain’t going to make it go faster. Why’d you let that little girl push you like that? Stop moving!” she warns, weaving my hair into one of her unique patterns. I hope she doesn’t pull them too tightly. ‘Can never sleep good the first night she does it. Last month I couldn’t even close my eyes she had braided them so tightly. Mama’s braids were destined to never unravel from my rowdy head.
I reach forward to scratch my tender knee, but before my bitten down finger nails can touch it, Mama says, “If you keep on scratchin’ them they are going to never heal and then they are going to fall off. You know how stupid you’re going to look wit’ no knees? You be a no knee Negro.” My right arm retracts instantly as I try not to envision myself walking to school with no knees. Is that possible?
“Is that too tight?” she asks, as I feel her finishing up the last row. I nod eagerly, hoping she’ll unravel them all and start over again, perhaps showing more mercy to my scalp.
“Well, why didn’t you say something before, Savi?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, they’ll loosen up in a day or two. Now, stand up so I can look at you. I want to make sure they’re goin’ in the right direction so your head don’t look crooked,” she says with a giggle. I giggle back with, “Come on, Mama! Do it! Do it!” I raise my arms up in the air. Her strong arms and hands swing me to my feet like she always does. Whirling me around to face her, I whisper, “Is my head crooked?” She cocks her head slightly sideways and grimaces, “Nope, not anymore. Just tell the kids to look at you like this.” She cocks her head even more to the side then crosses her eyes.
“Mama!” She tickles me in my belly for a few seconds then squats down and gives me a hug, “I love my crooked headed little princess.” Her body and scent engulf me as my nostrils fill with the mélange of fragrances from Mama’s blouse: Virginia Slims, Secret deodorant, Crisco cooking oil and a hint of Bounce fabric softener.
She sits back down on the kitchen chair with me on her lap.
“Mama, what’s ah L-A riot?”
“Why you wanna know that?” she asks with curious eyes. Looking down at her shirt, I start playing with a purple button and then shrug with a small whisper, “Because I want to know.”
“Well, a bunch of Negroes actin’ foolish. That’s what the L.A. riots are. They’re pissed off for the right reasons but now they just actin’ foolish. Burnin’ up they own communities. Foolishness. ‘Should be burnin’ up some rich white folks’ houses instead.”
“Well, Teresa said- well, she said-”
“That little white girl who pushed you today? What did that little girl say?”
“Well-”
“Look up at me when you talking, poopie bear. Always look people in the eyes when you are talking to them- even grown folk.” I lift up my tightly braided head, and then nervously peer into Mama’s captivating and serious eyes.
“She said her daddy says that black people are crazy animals and that’s why there’s ah L-A riot-”
“-Oh!? So those four white folk aren’t crazy animals for beating the piss out of that poor man?” I shrug, not knowing who she’s talking about.
“She said that we were animals Mama. I told her that she was stupid and then she pushed me.” Securing me with one arm, she reaches across the table and grabs the phone book.
“What’s her last name?”
“Bateman.” Within several seconds, she has found the phone number. Finger on the page, squinting her eyes, she mumbles, “Let’s give a J L Bateman a ‘wake-up’ call. Gimme the phone baby.” I tentatively slide off of her lap, then amble towards the phone on the kitchen counter and bring it to her.
“You want to sit back on my lap?” I shake my head nervously then sit across from her. Calmly, she lifts up the receiver and dials the number. As I hold my breath, I can faintly hear the phone ringing on the other end.
“Hello?” I barely hear on the other end. Mama perks up.
“Is this the J. L. Bateman residence..? OK, is this Mr. Bateman who has a little girl named Teresa? Because I want to make sure I got the right place…? For what? Because I got ah important message for you and your daughter Mr. J. L. Bateman…” she quickly takes the phone from her ear and stares directly at the receiver, “Fuck you and your Nazi ass daughter!” The phone slams down and I jump up, startled. My tiny body is numb. Do I cry or do I laugh?
Mama reaches into her shirt pocket and pulls out one Virginia Slims cigarette. Squinting my eyes disapprovingly, I vividly remember that yesterday she had vowed to quit because it worsened both our asthma and the cough she has had for the past year.
“It’s shit like this that makes it hard to quit.” Sighing and shaking her head, she lights it, stands up, and leaves our dimly lit apartment.
Synopsis
Scars is a book about whiteness, racism, and white privilege as seen through the eyes of eighteen year old Savannah Penelope Sales. Savannah is an African American closeted lesbian growing up in a predominantly white working class rural Connecticut town called East Lebanon. She is a teenager surviving in a culture she perceives as being oppressive to working-class black girls.
My work engages the reader to think about USA culture through the lens of race, class, sexual orientation, and how geography can construct one’s consciousness. What makes my work unique is my emphasis on queer teen experiences of whiteness and racism within rural geographies. Often, interrogations of white and class privilege are left out of fictional literature (as well as addressing “race relations”) within the queer community. My intention with Scars is to fill this gap by creating emotionally intense dialogues among four primary characters in this book: Savannah Penelope Sales, Davis Allen, Esperanza Perez, and Erick Roberts.
Davis Allen is one of Savannah’s best friends. A straight white male who grew up on a rural dairy farm in East Lebanon, Davis and Savannah have been close friends since they were toddlers. Davis is the only white friend Savannah has ever chosen to develop a close relationship with. When Davis and Savannah interact with each other, the intimacies of their conversations reveal an interesting dynamic within their friendship: Davis’s perception of reality manifests from what Savannah has marked as “a privileged point of entry”: white, male, middle class, and straight. Davis can never experience Savannah’s position or perception of being a black lesbian female. Growing up in an USAmerica that has institutionally legitimized whiteness and heterosexuality as ‘normal’, Davis’s white/straight identity limits him to merely superficially interpreting Savannah’s verbal hostility as nothing more than stereotypical “angry black female” banter.
The second theme developed in this book is the irreconcilable differences that Erick Roberts and Savannah endure in their rocky new platonic relationship. Erick and Savannah both identify as gay, however, that is where similarities between them end. Their often antagonistic verbal intercourses deconstruct the common myth that being gay/lesbian means they will instantly connect emotionally to each other as comrades in the same battle. The exhaustive energy it takes for both to maintain their volatile relationship has it’s roots in Erick’s oblivion to the fusion of his upper-middle class status and his white male privilege when attempting to advise Savannah about being and coming out as a [black, poor, rural] lesbian.
The third and more subtle theme I develop in this book is how Savannah’s perception of oppression is positioned within a privileged First World epistemology. Savannah never acknowledges her privilege as a USA national; only her lack of privileges as a non-White raced person. She considers herself revolutionary in thought in comparison to the people living in the provincial town she grew up in. However, simultaneously, she has no conscious awareness of her perpetuation of inequality outside of America; for example, Savannah is unaware of how many brown and black people outside of USA are exploited so she buy cheap coffee, chocolate, and Coco-Cola. Esperanza Perez, a key character in my book, is one of her best friends. Esperanza, a vegan and fair trade anti-globalization activist who originally grew up in Guatemala, visits Savannah from college. Through honest and heartfelt dialogues with Esperanza, Savannah’s oblivious understanding of her First World privilege is revealed. I hope to engage the reader to empathize with Savannah’s realistic struggles with “whiteness as the invisible norm in the USA”, while also addressing the need for Savannah to engage deeper into social injustice by encompassing and linking Black struggles and USA racism to a broader range of social and ecological inequalities throughout the world.
This novel is directed towards people with interest in: Women’s Studies, Sexuality Studies, African American Studies, LGBTQ studies and Racial relations. The book is titled Scars, because I’ve been heavily influenced by Frantz Fanon and his intense dedication to making visible, the psychological trauma and scarring that colonialism and racism have caused to both the “colonized and the colonizer.”
