I Just Went to School One Day

“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” Princess Diana

My family is a part of Louisiana history, hell anybody who came up in the South during the time of integration was a part of history in some form or another. My name is Felicia Bonfalu; I am one of those dark skinned Creole girls. You know the kind, dark brown skin, curly hair, trying not to speak with that Creole dialect. Can’t speak the French so don’t need the dialect. Anyway, I believe that in Louisiana we must have the hottest, muggiest summers on planet earth. I love them though, because of the community pool and sweet treats for sale on every corner. I always saved my allowance money during the school year so I would be able to buy all the sweets I wanted and especially those juicy, sweet dixie cups our neighbors would sell during the summer months. But this summer was different; I was deeply depressed about the first day of school. I knew that it would come, and this left me paralyzed with fear and humiliation. All I could think of were those instruments of terror that my father was making me wear to school. They were the ugliest pair of black and white saddle oxfords ever made. They were not even the kind with that cute black leather sole. They were the kind that had that big over sized white rubber heal which just screamed out ugly. I was praying for a big miracle from God. I wanted him to end the world for me. The closer it got to summer’s end, the worse my anxiety got. I found myself praying for my asthma attacks to start back again or maybe to just die, but of course, none of these things happened.

September 1, 1969, the day I dreaded all summer. Finally the nightmare that haunted, me became a living reality in my life. I cannot forget that awful morning, our house was full of activity. My brothers and sisters were battling over the bathroom, my mother was making breakfast and lunch, and my dad was sleeping. I did not even want to come out of my room and I certainly did not want to go to school. I had tossed and turned all night long. When I looked at myself in the mirror, my big bug eyes were all red and cracked with black rings around them. They made me look like a deranged raccoon. I started applying cold water to my eyes while trying not to cry. I gave up and decided that at least my hair would be perfect. I worked hard on just the right style, hoping that no one would pay much attention to my eyes. I wondered what God was doing up there in heaven. I certainly did not deserve to be the object of my father’s ill will toward me. Just because I stood up against his unwanted sexual advance that both frightened me and kept me in shape for running track, he punished me with the ugliest shoes on earth. You see he had this problem, seems he liked little girls. I recall exactly when his advances started. It was the summer I turned 12. My cousin Shareice came over to visit, after we had just built our new house. We were in the kitchen and for no reason she asked, “Felicia, did you know that Uncle Calvin was not your real daddy”. I looked at her as if she was crazy. What are you talking about girl that is my daddy? She said, "he adopted you but you are not his child by blood." Well anyway, after her mom came and picked her up I asked my mother if what she had said was true. Well, it was. I was adopted. Shit! The pursuit begin, boy I hated my life. Anyway, he must have had enough of me running and avoiding him so he just downright gave me an ultimatum. Either have sex or he would make my life a living nightmare. I will never forget saying to this man, “you say you are a man of God, you are going to go to hell.” His reply, the scripture says God will forgive you seven times seventy or something like that claiming some kind of biblical absolution for child molestation.

Here I was the first day of school having to relive why I must suffer this humiliation. I decided to just go ahead, get dressed for school, and try to stop worrying. As soon as I walked out of the house, I started to sweat, the humidity took control of my hair, and my style fell. So here, I was terrible hair, these god-awful black and white saddle oxfords, and blood shot eyes, great. I stood at the bus stop for about five minutes. Then the bus pulled up and as the bus driver opened the door I realized, that I was the last pickup; the bus was full. This meant I had to walk past everyone. Sitting at the front of the bus was Gail, she was Miss Popular, and of course, she was sitting with the most popular boy in the hood. It seemed Gail’s entire group was all sitting at the front of the bus. When I passed by them, there were snickers, coughs, groans and some just laughed. I felt like turning around and taking every bit of anger and hate that I was feeling for my father out on them. I just kept on walking straight to the back of the bus and took my seat. As our bus pulled up to the school and the driver opened the door, I deliberately walked as slowly as I could. I wanted to be the last one to get off the bus, well that turned out to be a big mistake.

What happened to me next was something out of the “Twilight Zone”. There he was about 6'3, pale white skin, wearing these awful high water pants with the little cuff in them, with a red checkered shirt, white socks with big black brogan shoes, these thick black rimmed glasses and a hair cut that looked like someone had placed a bowl on his head. His name was Walter Fage. (So you know, kids being as cruel as they are called him Mr. Fag). He was a Frankenstein of a boy. Maybe I was staring at him or something because he looked at me and said, “what cha looking at nigger?” I was shocked for a minute then I said “ya mama is a nigger.” I did not think he would do what he did next, because there was a duty teacher standing up against a post, smoking a cigarette and there was a few white students sorta hanging around. I did not know that their presence that did not mean a damn thing as far as my safety went though. Walter turned and spit right in my face and walked off. I lost my mind. I ran and jumped on his back; he flipped me over it and knocked the wind out of me. When I got up, he punched me in my right eye. There was no one around to give me any help. The duty teacher walked off as if he had not seen a thing and the white students were standing around laughing. Except, for this one little skinny white girl, who had the same haircut as Walter. She was also wearing those big black thick rimmed glasses, except hers had those little points at the corner. Her name was Jonie. She looked as if she wanted to help, but knew she had better not. She watched how Walter beat the living hell out of me. He stomped my side, and kicked me in the head with those Frankenstein shoes. My lip was bust too, but I got up and headed straight to class. I still found it strange that nobody asked what had happened to me. This was hell.

To my utter delight, my first class was Art. By the time I got to class, my right eye was completely shut. I walked into the art room and saw Walter, but he never looked up to see me. I think I went crazy. I could hear my heart beating, my palms started to sweat and my eye felt like a throbbing toothache. I could actually feel the blood boiling inside my body. I eased over to the art counter adjacent to him and looked around for a weapon or something, anything that might inflict pain on him. The only thing that was handy was an etching pen. I gripped that etching pen so hard my fingers were beginning to cramp. I moved with the agility of a cat directly behind Walter. I had to, because at no given moment did I want him to catch me. I stabbed him with the etching pen. I stabbed him for calling me a nigger, for spitting on me, for flipping me over his back, for punching me in my eye, for the kids laughing at me on the bus and last but not least for my father making me wear those god awful black and white saddle oxfords. The humiliation I had to suffer for not being a good girl. While I was stabbing Walter, children were screaming like the wolf man or some monster like him was loose in the classroom. Ms. Locker, the art teacher came into class and fainted, which caused the student to run and get Mr. Darren the Assistant Principle. Mr. Darren was questioning us while trying to bring Mrs. Locker too. I was explaining in between tears, what Walter had done and that the duty teacher did not do anything. Then instead of Mr. Darren fussing at Walter, (who was full of blood and holes) he grabbed me by my arm and twisted it behind my back and literally ran me to the front of the school where the bus had dropped us off. He took his foot and put it in the small of my back and kicked me so hard that I skid across the concrete parking lot scratching my face, my arms, my chest and my legs which added to the pain of my previous injuries by the hand of Walter. At this moment, I thought why in the &*(*(#$%^& would I want to be around these people. I started the long walk home from school to my house it was about 5 miles. There I was walking in all this heat with a swollen eye, a headache, fresh scratches packed with dirt. Not one of God’s good Christians stopped to help me. But, I guess that made sense, this was a white area. Of course they would ignore a beat up little black girl. Every time the sweat rolled into one of those open cuts, it felt like someone was pouring acid on me. My arm was swollen from where Mr. Darren had twisted it so hard and my ankle was swollen as well. But, I kept on walking and thinking. I decided that all white people were monsters that wanted to kill me. I would never forgive the entire white race for what had happened to me and I hated the part of me that had white blood in me. I just hated anything white that day. I walked up to the door of my house hesitant, not knowing exactly what my father would do or what kind of sick opportunity he might feel was presented to him because of my dilemma. He looked at me and asked me what happened. When I told him his only response was “get dressed we are going back to school.” As we arrived at the school and entered the premise, someone must have told Mr. Darren that my father and I were approaching his office. This coward went into his office, locked the door and called the police. Figures.

Well it turned out that, I had been expelled from school because of the attack on Walter. My mother was outraged; she wanted something to be done. She insisted that we take the matter to the School Board. All my brothers and daddy wanted to do was get their hands on them, no matter the cost. Any way, we were told it was my word against Walter’s, and if I did not have a witness, the expulsion would stand. Later that day we received a phone call from the Superintendent’s office he informed us that a young girl came forth that witnessed the entire incident. This angel was Jonie, the skinny little white girl who was watching the whole thing from the very beginning. Coming forth to testify on behalf of a black person was not the popular thing to do. Jonie was totally ignored by the other white students and the teachers. Jonie and I ended up spending a lot of time together. Once we start talking, we realized we had a lot in common. Jonie’s father liked little girls too. Maybe that is the reason she smoked and drank. She would bring liquor to school in her thermos. I figured Jonie was really sick from what was happening to her and she needed those cigarettes and liquor. I never understood why the teachers never questioned her about the liquor. I know they could smell it.

I can almost relive the day that Jonie told me a story that left me in total terror. It was one of those beautiful Indian summer days the kind you know God personally painted himself. Crystal clear skies, a cool breeze and every color of nature seemed to be highlighted by the golden glow of the sun. Well, all that ended when I saw Jonie duck behind the band room as I was walking to my last class. I called to her and she beckoned to me. She was drunk her face was red with these little white splotches in it and she was clammy to touch. Jonie was crying, and she told me she wanted to kill herself. I did not understand this and I did not know how to handle it so all I did was listen. What, Jonie told me made me gag; my head felt as if a thousand needles were being stuck in it. I felt myself shrink as if all hope was gone. Jonie told me that she was changing her sanitary napkin and her father came into the bathroom, forced himself on her and made her put her mouth on his private parts. I am dead now, completely dead, nothing terrified me more than what I had just heard. I kinda feel a bad, because I immediately thought of myself, not poor little Jonie. I knew what Jonie had just described, happened to her, was bound to happen to me. I thought to myself, what is God really doing, and why does God not help the little children. All I ever heard in Church was “suffer little children to come unto me.” On the contrary, it should have been, let all of the children who suffer come unto me. That meant me and Debbie had a right to go to God for help, because both of us was suffering. Then I thought, maybe this God thing was not quite the truth. I could not see it. Black in the south, dysfunctional family, picked on by kids; beat up by white people, and waiting to be raped. Only reason I keep on praying was just in case God decided to get to me with a measure of mercy, he would find me trying to get to him. Hell, Jonie and I needed help, but God needed to help her first. Jonie became my wounded little bird and after the story she told me, I never mentioned anything else about my fathers’ advances toward me to her again. I had also decided to tell my mother and if he was going to kill her like he said, then he would have to kill us both. I loved Debbie and I wanted to take her away from her misery. I wanted her father to change, (this is not true I wanted her father dead). I wanted my father to change and I wanted the people at our school to change. I wanted to believe that the word love was real and not just used as camouflage for victimizers. You know those who exercise their powers to procreate their senseless felonies of injustice over their helpless victims. Victimizer, who use God as a catalyst for their deeds because they say he placed them in power (moral indigents who feed off the innocent). I realize that when love is real it never fails, but when love is used to deceive and manipulate, it is no more than the waste from the bowels of a sick mind.

Friday’s were the best days at school; we usually had a fun assembly. Well they became fun after the white kids stop putting bricks in socks and slinging over to the section where we all sat. Yea, we sat on different sides of the gym then. You know, cultural differences. Oh, and that brick throwing stopped when we started throwing them back. Jonie came into the gym late but, she seemed like she was happy, but not that kind of drunk happy, Jonie was happy, happy. See, Jonie’s father was killed on the railroad track, on that Thursday. He was drunk in his car, people say it seemed like his car had stalled, and he was trying to push it over the track, before the train hit it. Anyway, he was hit. Jonie told me that when she was praying one night, she talked to Jesus. She said she told Jesus either he comes and get her daddy, or she was go come and see him soon. I don’t know about bargaining with Jesus, but I do know that because it was an accident they got a lot of money from insurance, the train company, his job pension and a big collection from the Church. Jonie’s mother did not wait to move. Guess she did not want any of his needed relatives coming around. Now she can live the rest of her life without getting beat down for righteousness. As soon as she got her money, she left, without saying a word. I never got to say goodbye to Jonie. But, maybe that was a good thing; she is still present with me. She is that constant reminder that you should never judge all by one.

I have had a chance to look back on the entire situation. I realize that I cannot judge an entire race of people by the actions of a few bad seeds. However, during this era very little peace existed between races. The white racist in the South had a strong allegiance and integration was fairly new. I also had to realize that you might be my color but you might not be my kind. Not one black came to help me, all of those thug brothers from the hood turned tale and went to class. Anyway, when they did find out, they did not do a damn thing, but talk about what they would have done if they had seen it. No unity, that day, no “say it loud I am black and I am proud”, none of that, just me, getting my ass beat by this monstrosity of a boy. I realized that Jonie and I had done nothing wrong to deserve our fathers’ advances. It was something wrong with them, we just happened to be in the wrong place. Sometimes, I felt that because I was adopted, my father really did not see me as his child. Well maybe not, Jonie’s father was her real dad. I also give way to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, when I looked at Walter, he felt about his dress the way I felt about those damned black and white saddle oxfords. Maybe, I was the last glare he wanted to see and maybe because I was black, I dared have the gumption to stare at him. The truth is Walter was acting as he was taught to act. He was following the social norms of the time. He was executing his supremacy as a white man in the south. See, Walter was ex-spelled from school for assaulting me. However, he was allowed to register in another school district and continue with his school year. Now that is what I called good looking out. I just went to school one day.

Chrystal Ellis

English