Chapter Text
I laughed when I first killed someone.
It wasn't murder though.
I still remember it.
I was sixteen years old. It was late at night, a little bit past curfew for teens. I was walking in a park and I saw two people, both Black.
I saw a pistol in one of your hands.
"Gimme your shoes," he said.
The other person was clearly a Black teenage boy like me, maybe fifteen or sixteen. I did notice his shoes looked better than mine.
"Listen, those shoes won't fit you," he pleaded.
"I think the bullets in here will fit inside you."
I saw a nearby rock and lifted it up. Feeling the strain of the weight, I walked up close behind this mugger.
I then smashed his head with it, hearing skull bone breaking
I kept smashing and smashing. I was animated not just by wanting to stop a mugging, wanting to stop someone from killing a kid just to take his designer shoes, but I was animated by what just by what happened a few hours ago, and what had happened my whole life, and what happened to my mom.
And then, this robber's head was replaced by this red mess.
I laughed.
I looked and saw the teen, already running from the scene.
"You're welcome!" I yelled.
I found shelter somewhere.
"Then go live with your nigger dad!" was the last words I heard from my grandma at the only home I knew all my life.
If I found that man, I would kill him even if my hands were the only weapons I had.
I had been aware of skin color differences even before I was old enough to form memories, as my grandparents were White.
And my mom- her name was Cate- was White.
Looking at me, no one would guess I was born from her.
I never spoke to her, for she died giving birth to me.
She was all of sixteen years old when I was born and she died.
I remember when I was told about my mom. They said she was in Heaven, and it would be my duty to keep her room clean.
I saw her room, with a canopy above the bed, and shelves.
I saw the picture of her, with her blond hair. she had this smile on her face.
And I remember that first beating.
It wasn't the first of course, but the first I can remember.
I decided to take a nap on my mom's old bed.
And for that, i was yelled at for defiling her bed, for defiling her.
During the beatings, I remember grandma calling me a nigger. I think she said something about haven't you niggers hurt her enough.
I learned not to lie on that bed again.
I remember more beatings of course, even for minor things like missing a spot when mopping the floor. Sometimes I would be denied dinner.
And there was this awful punishment of making me sleep outside in an old doghouse, or as my grandma called it, a "niggerhouse".
I'll never forget my first time there, which was done after a brutal beating. I must have been eight or so.
But it wasn't the last time, not at all.
I had some refuges, like playing with other kids at school or in the park, or going to the library to read books, and at home, I enjoyed actually cleaning my mom's room.
My grandparents learned how much i liked it, and sometimes kept me out of my mom's room as punishment.
One thing we started talked about the dinner table when I was ten or so was crime. My grandpa and grandma would always talk about stories of violent crimes they heard or read on the news, asking what I thought, and I said they were the bad guys and they asked what would keep me from being the bad guy and they said they won't let me be the bad guy.
There was this time when i was twelve. I was fixing up my mom's room, as I hadn't gotten in trouble recently, and I found diaries buried under some of her old undergarments. They were for two years- the year before I was born, and the year I was born- and she died.
I read it later that night, starting form tat last year. She wrote her first entry about New Year's Day. There were entries about school. Conversations about her friends, crushes on boy classmates, and complaints about her mom and dad- my grandparents. Typical stuff I'd expect my girl classmates to go through.
I smiled; it was like talking to my mom.
And then, in an entry dated in June, she wrote that she was raped.
I didn't know the meaning of the word at the time. Just from her journal entries, I had figured out it was some kind of hurt, that she felt diseased and defiled and shattered because of it.
her parents were away on a weekend trip.
She woke up to a noise.
And that was when she saw the intruder, a Black man.
He dragged her to her parents' bedroom and pinned her on the bed.
she kept pleading and pleading and told him she was only 15 and a virgin, a term I didn't understand when I first read it.
And he raped her.
She reported it to the police. She wrote about her feelings of brokenness and dirtiness, like she was stained and could never be clean.
She wrote something about how the nurses said she shouldn't have douched as she might have washed out sperm samples; I didn't know these terms at the time.
She wrote her parents couldn't sleep on the bed where she was raped, and got a new bed.
She wrote that even after three months, the police could not find a suspect.
and she wrote in her entry, soon after she started 11th grade, that she found out she was pregnant.
I learned that whatever rape was, it could get a girl pregnant.
And my mom was pregnant with me because she was raped by a Black man.
She continued to write about her fears, abut reliving the rape through her nightmares.
I recall this passage "I can’t stop scrubbing my skin. No matter how much I wash, I still feel him in me. I still feel dirty."
She also wrote how my grandparents would stand by her side as she went through the ordeal. Except for two of her friends, others shunned her, feeling she was dirty and impure.
She wrote about her sixteenth birthday, and how her pregnant belly was dominating her frame.
And I'll never forget this entry she made just three days before I entered the world. I still memorized it in my head.
"To my baby,
I'll meet you soon.
You were conceived in an ugly act.
For a long time, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I felt ashamed, dirty, and broken, like I wasn’t even the same person I used to be.
I felt a part of me died that night on my parent's bed where that man inflicted horror on me.
I felt more so when I found out you were growing in me.
At first, I didn’t know what to feel. You were a part of me, but also a part of him. I was scared—scared of what that meant, of what you might remind me of.
But as you grew, I came to love you.
But as the weeks passed and I felt you move for the first time, something changed. You were no longer just a reminder of what happened to me. You were mine. My little light.
And I came to love you.
I won’t cast you out. I won’t let the ugliness of your beginning define you. I will raise you in a loving home. I will play with you, teach you, feed you, and care for you. I will be there for you, no matter what.
I know you will look different than me, but I will be your mother in word and deed.
I have hopes for you—gigantic dreams that swell within me. My biggest hope is that you will be a better person than the man who tore away my purity and childhood, a stark contrast to the past. I want you to exceed me in goodness, to embrace compassion and kindness as your guiding stars.
I know I'm only sixteen; I'm a child myself. Your grandparents will stand by my side as i am a mom to you, and we will create a family filled with love, support, and acceptance. Together, we will rewrite the narrative that began with pain.
I can't wait for you to be in my arms.
Love, your mom"
But she wasn't here.
She bled out, and despite an emergency hysterectomy, she died at the age of sixteen, just less than half an hour after I left her womb.
I cried and sobbed, drowned in feelings of sadness; I was finally mourning my mother.
I felt that I shouldn't be alive. I was the product of some hurt I didn't understand, a hurt that hurt more than anything else, and it eventually killed her.
It was a night I could never forget.
I didn't tell my grandma and grandpa that I was keeping my mom's diary in my bedroom, nor did I talk about it, not at least for a few years. I didn't ask them what rape was.
There were more beatings, more nights in the "niggerhouse" for some misbehavior over the years.
Of course, eventually I learned the true horror of what rape meant.
I recall sex education classes my freshman year in high school, when I was fourteen years old. We were taught about the sex organs, the actual mechanics, and its role in reproduction and making babies. We were taught what sperm and egg were. I recall gathering with classmates at lunchtime, and we made jokes about sex, and loudly wondered what our female classmates' panties were hiding, us being young teenage boys. One of them even boasted of being able to nut across the street, as I recall.
And then my heart sank, and my entire being sank, as I understood exactly what happened to my mother that awful night.
A man forced himself inside her.
Inside her.
Inside her most..intimate part, her most feminine part.
And she had been only fifteen years old, just a year older than i was when I learned the horrible meaning of rape!
she hadn't finished her transition into womanhood!
I understood some of what she meant by feeling dirty, diseased, defiled, broken, and shattered.
I could only imagine the fear she felt when she encountered him, as she was pinned on her parents' bed, as her nightgown and bra and panties were torn off, leaving her exposed to a stranger.
I could only imagine the fear when she saw the instrument of her brutal assault.
I can imagine her fear as she was trying to plead to some part of him that had some decency to not do this to an innocent girl.
And the pain and anguish and horror she felt when he forced himself...inside.
and I was a product of this act. An ovum, an egg, originally destined to be flushed out, was instead fertilized by this evil, this violence, this perversion, and it grew into me!
It felt I was stained forever.
I felt almost as dirty, defiled, and diseased as she did.
That day, I felt withdrawn, unable to speak to anyone. I can only imagine how she felt—how she carried that pain, that shame, that horror. A stranger had forced himself inside her. Invaded her body. Violated her femininity.
And I kept hearing those words in my head: inside her, inside her, inside her. They wouldn’t stop.
I reread her diary. Mostly, I skipped these parts, focusing on what she was like before she was pregnant, and the passages where she wrote about me. I started by reading the exact entry when she first mentioned she was raped, now knowing what everything meant
"I woke up to a sound.
I wondered if Mom and Dad came home early for their trip.
IU went out to the hallway.
Someone grabbed me, dragging me to Mom and Dad's room.
The lights were turnd on.
I saw him, a Black man.
He pushed me on Mom and Dad's bed.
I knew what he wanted to do when he tore open my nigthgown
I begged him to stop, telling him I was 15 and a virgin.
He said something about a white cherry.
I couldnt get up.
He raped me"
"I don't know how many times I tried to clean myself.
I told Mom and Dad.
We went to this police.
A nurse examined me.
she told me I shouldnt have douched, as it washed away the sperm samples. She them apologized.
How could I not? I didnt want anything of him in me"
"I can’t stop scrubbing my skin. No matter how much I wash, I still feel him in me. I still feel dirty."
"My parents got a new bed. The old sheets were incinerated, the old mattress and frame thrown out.
How could they possibly sleep on the same bed where I was broken?"
"I went to the library to read about what was done to me.
I read victim testimonies. Many of them were betrayed by those they had every reason to trust. A wide variety of stories. Some of them even had babies because of it.
I read about how men do this for power, to humiliate their victims.
He might have done this, but I remembered he enjoyed it.
Those disgusting sounds. I often keep rehearing them.
He was enjoying it.
He was having fun, while I was suffering pain."
"I read my diary entries from before.
It was like I did not write them.
This Cate, the girl in those entries.
Did she die on her Mom and Dad's bed, and I am just an empty, broken shell,, empty of the girl known as Cate?"
"I was horrified by what's happening to me.
I was watching TV, and when a Black man appeared on the screen, I ran into the room.
I was afraid, afraid because of his skin color.
What I was was gone.
I feel defiled, diseased, smashed into a million tiny little pieces.
I know not all Black people are to blame for what happened, but I ran from the room in fear from seeing one of them on a screen.
I'm afraid of how I'm changing.
I'm afraid I'll turn into something ugly."
"a month since it happened.
He's still out there- and still in my nightmares."
"I told Amy and Steph.
I cried.
We hugged.
The pain and shame felt a little less."
"Eleventh grade.
School again.
I said hi to classmates from last year, even trying to fake a smile.
sometimes, for a few seconds, I can forget- but then the pain and shame and the dirty feeling surfaces again."
"Class picture time.
I try to force a smile.
I try to think of happier times with my friends, my Mom and Dad.
But they times don't feel real. They feel like someone else's story."
"Two lines.
I suspected this. I kept feeling tired, often falling asleep in class. I often had this uneasy feeling; once I had to be excused to go to the bathroom, barely making it in time to throw up.
I got the test from CVS, paid in cash.
I did the test twice.
I waited until Mom and Dad got home.
I said nothing,. I just showed them the stick with two lines."
"The doctor confirmed it.
I was pregnant.
I was pregnant with my rapist's baby
I felt I was being raped all over again"
"I went to school, trying to act as normal as I could.
I wasn't showing, but the whole school will know by my sixteenth birthday."
"I looked at the slight bulge in my belly. Still could be hidden now, but by Christmas it would be obvious.
I realized the baby is Black.
How can a Black baby be inside me, a White girl?"
"I had my first ultrasound.
The doctors told me the baby looked fine.
I looked away. I didn't want to see that."
"I noticed the other kids were talking to me less. Even a week ago, there were people who'd always say hi.
I think they're suspecting."
"I looked i the mirror and even wearing a big shirt, there was a visible bulge.
They know.
What do they think, that I'm just a girl who screwed up. Are they wondering who the baby daddy is?
The truth is much worse.
That bulge; he is still controlling my body."
"I am sixteen years old.
And over twenty weeks along.
I knew the exact date, the exact hour of conception.
It was a quiet dinner at home; Amy and Steph were there with us as well. They knew who fathered the baby.
I cant think of him as a father. A father would be comforting me, standing beside me, instead of leaving me broken.
I should feel happy, be excited about growing up, wondering if I'll go to college.
I'm too young to worry about a baby.
But he took that away from me, forcing me to carry a product of his crime!"
"I was leaving the doctor's appointment with Mom. As we were leaving, a Black man entered, and I immediately hid behind her.
I talked about it to them.
"It wasn't him. the face was different," is aid. "I'll be afraid of all Black men."
"It's expected,:" said my mom. "I read people have confused feelings after this. You're just going through this your own way.
"I shouldn't blame all of them for what happened, but I still feel afraid. What if I start hating all of them? What if I turn into someone I don't want to be?"
"You don't have to hate them," said Mom. "Not all of them hurt you. We'll be beside you if you falter."
She patted my belly, a source of comfort."
"We had Christmas.
Pictures were taken. I tried to smile. "
"I felt the baby kick.
And I felt happy.
I felt happy, the first time since that awful night.
How could I be happy?
There's a living continuation of a horrible crime growing inside me, that just kicked my womb.
How can I feel happy about it?
I'm so confused."
"I managed to stay awake long enough to ring in the New Year.
I wasn't home last year; I was at a house party. I even had some alcohol.
It felt like another life. Here I was, with a baby inside me. A baby inside a broken shell
I just want this to be over."
"I withdrew from school for medical reasons.
I was so tired all the time now. Walking- or waddling- between classes was too impractical.
I want to finish high school on time, graduate with Amy and Steph and my classmates."
"I love my baby.
I didn't recognize it. I would often caress my belly.
I still had feelings of resentment sometimes, still thinking of the baby as a monster continuing the assault against my body.
And I can understand why a girl pregnant from a violent act would want to hold on to feelings of resentment and hate against the life growing inside her against her will, especially if she's only a teenager with limited experience in life.
I choose love.
I know itll be hard; I choose to love my baby.
Not the baby, my baby."
"I told my parents.
I would keep my baby, raise my baby. it does not matter how my baby is conceived, or that my baby would be Black.
They were silent for maybe five minutes
"We'll be beside you," said Dad. "We'll help you be a mom. We'll help you. We'll help...our grandchild."
"You have us. We'll be there for you, no matter what."
"Eight months.
I'll meet you in a month.
I'm basically a huge belly with a head, arms, and legs.
I have to think about what to tell you when you ask about your dad.
You'll notice our skin colors are different before you learn how to talk.
You'll notice some other kids have daddies.
You'll see Black kids at school, even if there are far more White kids in school.
You may notice the White kids have White parents, and the Black kids have Black parents. They or their parents may see us together, and ask if you were adopted. You may ask if you were adopted.
I won't lie to you; you were born from me.
And you'll ask about him.
When you're little, I'll say he left. If you ask me why we can't live with him, I'll say he did something bad that you're too young to know.
But you'll be old enough to understand what rape is, and I'll have to tell you.
I don't know how I will tell you. How do I tell you and make sure you know I still love you, that how you came to be in me doesn't force you to be bad, doesn't keep you from being good? How do I reassure you it was a good thing you were born? How do i reassure you you're not a continuation of a crime if I sometimes feel that way?
I'll have time to figure it out, until I don't."
I wished I could reach across time to comfort this scared girl, tell her about the last entry in her diary where she recommitted to loving me.
Of course, my grandparents were informed I had sex ed lessons, and that's when they decided to tell me what I already knew, in much more horrid words. My grandma asked if I learned about sex ed.
"Just stuff," I said quietly, still feeling sad knowing what rape meant.
"Do you know who your father is?" asked my grandma.
"No." That was the truth.
"He was a nigger. He was a filthy nigger who broke into our house while Cate was here alone. That nigger raped her! He forced sex on her. she didn't want sex, and he forced his filth inside her anyway! She became pregnant with a nigger, and she died pushing a nigger baby out of her body!"
"I'm not him," I protested.
"Yes, you are! all you niggers are the same,. Your nature is to lie, cheat, still, rob, kill,...and rape! You're savages, and the only reason any of you people will act civilized is if you fear the consequences. We could've turned you out to foster care when you were born, but that meant you would just be another thief, another killer, or even a rapist like your nigger dad. We're raising you to be civilized, so you don't get on welfare and take money from hard-working people. We're raising you so you don't mug people. We're raising you so you don't do drive-by shootings! We're raising you so you don't hurt girls the way that nigger hurt and killed Cate! Just behave yourself, and there'll be no beatings, no nights in the niggerhouse"
That night, I read through my mom's diary again, a source of comfort for me, as if she was raising me from beyond the grave.
I read about what she wrote about my grandma and grandpa. She did have typical complaints such as being given too many chores sometimes, or not being allowed to go out to parties at night sometimes, stuff that teen girls would whine about, but I noticed something missing.
She never wrote about being beaten. She never wrote about being denied dinner as punishment. She never wrote about being made to sleep in the doghouse as punishment.
I recall passages of her recalling her early childhood. three I remember word for word.
"My mom made me pancakes shaped like hearts for Valentine’s Day. She even let me eat them in bed. Dad said it was a bad idea, but he still brought me orange juice with a little umbrella in the glass. I felt like a princess."
"When I got sick, my dad stayed up all night reading to me. He let me pick the stories, even though I know he hated the ones about fairies. I remember him saying, ‘You’re my little warrior, Cate. You’ll fight this off in no time.’ And I did."
"Mom and I planted flowers in the backyard today. She told me that daisies mean innocence, and roses mean love. She said I should always have both in my life. I told her we’d plant a million of them together."
She wasn't abused by her parents- my grandma and grandpa- at all.
She wouldn't omit any abuse that might have happened. I knew her well enough through these writings. If she wrote details about how she felt after being raped and becoming pregnant, about how she came to love me while I was in her womb-she would have written about being beaten by her parents, let alone forced to sleep in the doghouse.
From her writings, my grandma and grandpa were loving parents. They cared for her and were there for her.
She wrote more than one entry of how they helped out when she was enduring teen pregnancy.
How could the same people who made her heart-shaped pancakes and tucked her in at night turn into the monsters who raised me? How could the same hands that planted flowers with her slap me across the face? How could the same voices that told her she was loved and safe spit venom at me every chance they got? How can the same people who provided a luxurious bedroom for their daughter, with a canopy above her bed, condemn me to sleep in a doghouse as punishment?
It would’ve been easier—simpler—if they’d always been cruel. If they’d been abusive to her, too. Then I could’ve written them off as the villains in this story, people who were never capable of love in the first place. But that wasn’t the truth.
They loved her. They adored her. They were good parents once.
Something in them snapped.
When their White teenage daughter died giving birth to a Black baby conceived due to rape by a Black man, something snapped. Maybe it was their love. Maybe it was their humanity. Whatever it was, I never saw it.
What I saw were the pieces left behind. The bitterness. The anger. The hate.
And they aimed it all at me, the target of their frustrations and rage due to losing their daughter to such a filthy, perverted violent act.
I went to my mom's room and looked at the framed picture of her, with her blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and milky white skin.
I looked at my mirror image, and I tried to see my mom in me. But all I saw was that broad nose, thick lips, tightly curled black hair, and the coal black skin, almost as if I could hide I the shadows.
And my grandparents couldn't see my mom in me, either. they didn't see their daughter's son; they saw the nigger who raped their daughter, taking her virginity, impregnated her, and eventually took her life.
And my Black skin color is the first they see of me, the skin color of the man who caused them and my mother so much harm.
I began thinking. I noticed how when my grandma and grandpa talked about violent crime, sharing stories, whenever I saw a picture of the suspect, the suspect was Black.
And I wondered, if my grandparents were turned racist due to my mom being raped by Black man and dying from childbirth nine months later at the age of sixteen, could crimes committed by Black criminals turn people racist?
Could it explain why racism still persists?
I would occasionally have these thoughts even as I continued to live with them and go to school.
Until that one night.
it seemed typical. I would wash dishes before doing my homework. I put the dishes away before going to my room to study.
My grandma yelled my name.
"What?" I asked, going to the kitchen.
She held a dish. "You missed a spot!"
"Okay," I said. "all right, just let me wash it."
"Don't talk back to me!"
"I said I'll wash it. Geez!"
She slapped me. She then went and picked up the paddle.
I felt pain and she truck me.
After the second strike, I instinctively clocked her in the face. I looked and saw her lying down.
And then my grandpa knocked to the floor.
"How dare you treat your grandma like that!" he yelled.
'I didn't mean..."
"We've had enough of you, nigger," said my grandma. "We tried to make you good, but you wouldn't listen. You...you killed Cate! You took away our baby girl! You should never have been born!"
"Nigger, you leave this house," yelled my grandpa. "And don't even think of ever coming back."
"But where would I go?"
"Then go live with your nigger dad!" yelled my grandma.
I left. I kept walking. i was fuming mad at my grandparents for their abuses and casting out the child their daughter swore to raise and protect, and I was even more fuming mad at my mom's rapist for what he did to a young girl and her family. My mom wasn't his only victim when he raped her almost seventeen years before. My grandparents were his victims. I was his victim.
I would kill him with my bare hands if I could.
This rage remained in me as I wandered.
And when I saw that man, threatening to murder a teenage boy if the boy did not give him his shoes, I had an outlet.
I snapped.