Redefining Realness by Janet Mock Read Free Book Online

playing with fire, Chad and I watched television from the moment we got up until we lay back down on our bunk beds. We fixed our attention on cartoons ( Doug , The Ren & Stimpy Show , Rugrats ), sitcoms ( Clarissa Explains It All , The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , Family Matters ), and late-night fare (from reruns of I Love Lucy and Diff’rent Strokes to The Arsenio Hall Show and In Living Color ) . The kids’ shows we watched were filled with precocity and sentimentality, which I was equally attracted to and disgusted by. If Clarissa, the babies on Rugrats , or Steve Urkel got reprimanded, there was always a lesson that tied up conveniently at the end of the show. Unlike a sitcom, life’s lessons weren’t always clear-cut, and discovering them often took longer than thirty minutes.
    Our home belonged to Dad’s girlfriend, Janine, and her teenage son, Derek. Janine seemed to be built of bird bones that looked incapable of having once carried Derek. She was a slow-moving woman who slid her feet, spreading her coconut-oil scent throughout the house. She had large eyes, similar to Diana Ross’s, that were childlike, making her look all the more vulnerable. She lived with diabetes and underwent a strict dialysis routine that shuffled her in and out of doctors’ offices and clinics. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Janine to be away from the house for chunks of time and for Chad and me to be left with Derek as Dad slept with Janine in the hospital.
    When Janine’s health was stable, I clung to her as a stand-in mother figure who handled me with care, giving me the nurturing and feminine influence I craved in Mom’s absence. I sought solacein Janine’s gentleness and her demure smile and her hair routine. I’d spend evenings seated atop the back of our sofa, she on the cushions in between my short legs. I’d part her hair with a fishtail comb and lather her khaki-colored scalp with herb-infused conditioning oil. If Dad was around, he’d sit in judgment of my femininity with a clenched jaw as I greased Janine’s scalp to the comforting, sweet sounds of Anita Baker singing, “Don’t you ever go away, it’ll always be this way . . .”
    Derek’s father had left when he was just a baby. This house was the only home he’d ever had, and he’d shared it with his mother up until two years before, when Dad and Chad moved in. Derek and Dad seemed to stay out of each other’s way, having only Janine in common. You’d think something as intimate as living together would have bonded the five of us. Instead, I always felt like the yellow house was Derek and Janine’s home and that Dad, Chad, and I were temporary boarders, squatters. A sense of homelessness looms over my memories there.
    Dad had a home in his heart with Janine, and Chad, Derek, and I merely cohabitated because our parents had a bond, though we had independent relationships with one another. Dad and Chad and I were family. Janine and Derek were family. Dad and Janine were romantic partners. Chad and Derek were Nintendo competitors. Janine and I were feminine comrades. Derek and I went unformed for months, but we found our way through the darkness.
    Derek had a high-top fade, like Kid in Kid ’n Play , and usually paid us no mind because of our age. Chad soaked up any attention Derek threw his way. They played Nintendo together and watched basketball games on TV.  Derek was a guard on his freshman basketball team and wore Karl Kani and Cross Colours. I gave him props for style but disliked him when his friend Rob came over. Rob had a belly that hung over his saggy jeans, and he wore a herringbone necklacethat was supposed to be gold but was turning silver and green from rubbing against his neck-fat folds. Rob enjoyed barking orders at me and nicknamed me “The Fag One.”
    The first time he said it, Chad looked at me all wide-eyed to see what I’d say. I said nothing, nodding to him that it was okay. He continued to play Mario Bros. with Derek, and