When I First Heard the Word

Her name was Arianna*. She lived with her a single mother and her grandparents in a big two story house. Her mother white, her father black. We were very good friends in elementary school, until she moved away. I usually spent the night at her house but this was one of the first times she came over to my house. We often played “college.” We would put on makeup, pack our purses up with pens and notepads, and talk about our (imaginary) boyfriends. Another good friend of ours was named Maya, she is white. Arianna and Maya grew up together, they lived across the street from each other.

It was a summer day and Arianna, Maya, and I had spent the entire day swimming in the doughboy pool, the one my father and I put up every summer for ten years. I forgot to wear goggles and I swam with my eyes open underwater for hours, exposing my eyes to the chlorine. When I got out of the pool, my vision was cloudy, everything appeared to be submerged in a thick white fog.

We got out of the pool and I headed to the bathroom to try and rise my burning eyes. Arianna and Maya dried off on the back porch and my mother brought out snacks. When I reached the bathroom I began to smell smoke and I thought there was a fire. I turned back leaving the restroom in a rush and found a crowd of people standing on the porch. My brother and two of his friends had arrived home.

I asked my mom if she smelled smoke, she said no, and directed her attention to the back yard. Then I realized Maya and Arianna were arguing with my brother and his friend. Maya yelled, at my brother’s friend telling him not to call Arianna that name. They both turned toward the inside of the house to find my mom.

“They called me (her) the n word,” Arianna and Maya shouted simultaneously. Arianna began to cry. My mother asked who and went outside. It was my brother’s friend. She told him to apologize. “But she is a--” the boy repeated. My mother interrupted demanding that he owed Arianna an apology. She stood there cold and wet, sobbing.

I did not know what the n word was. So I simply watched as things unfolded. I didn’t know what it was, but I saw how devastated it made Arianna. How my mother didn’t ask questions about how the topic arose. No explanation needed; the word was wrong. I saw the way that my brother’s friend had insisted. He was unrelenting.

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*All names have been replaced with pseudonyms