Years ago, a small southern US town, July 4th in late afternoon, I ran away. I found a fair on the other side of the Norfolk Southern railway tracks. A hotdog. Choking, stuck, heat. Sweating fingers probing my chest. A hug, I thought it was love, then fresh air. I turned to look, but the man was gone. I remember the texture of clapping feet, a sound my memory tried to soften. I didn’t realize at the time that the Heimlich maneuver could look like a black man’s assault on a white girl. And while I didn’t have words for segregation or race, or the wrong side of the tracks, in that moment I understood explicitly that I was white and he was black. That it mattered deeply. Suddenly I perceived skin as meaning. And what I’d felt in his fingers was fear.
I also learned that I could die. While startling, it wasn’t as important.
In my 30s I went back to that town looking for lost pieces of myself. Someone who’d known me from foster care days told me this:
They called him Jersey. It wasn’t his name. He changed it when he got out of prison. Well liked. He farmed vegetables, only had one hand, the other lost to a farm machine. His real name was Ewo (pronounced ē – woah), Creole for Hero. He left town soon after. No one saw him there again.
If I were to re-do this, I'd perhaps take off the last two paragraphs. I write it first long hand and then type it in and almost did that when I typed, but it wouldn't have been the fair 10 minute thing. I was ready to stop before 10 minutes, but added on. I'm learning from watching the edits you do that the ending is often in the middle.
Lesson 240 words
Years ago, a small southern US town, July 4th in late afternoon, I ran away. I found a fair on the other side of the Norfolk Southern railway tracks. A hotdog. Choking, stuck, heat. Sweating fingers probing my chest. A hug, I thought it was love, then fresh air. I turned to look, but the man was gone. I remember the texture of clapping feet, a sound my memory tried to soften. I didn’t realize at the time that the Heimlich maneuver could look like a black man’s assault on a white girl. And while I didn’t have words for segregation or race, or the wrong side of the tracks, in that moment I understood explicitly that I was white and he was black. That it mattered deeply. Suddenly I perceived skin as meaning. And what I’d felt in his fingers was fear.
I also learned that I could die. While startling, it wasn’t as important.
In my 30s I went back to that town looking for lost pieces of myself. Someone who’d known me from foster care days told me this:
They called him Jersey. It wasn’t his name. He changed it when he got out of prison. Well liked. He farmed vegetables, only had one hand, the other lost to a farm machine. His real name was Ewo (pronounced ē – woah), Creole for Hero. He left town soon after. No one saw him there again.
If I were to re-do this, I'd perhaps take off the last two paragraphs. I write it first long hand and then type it in and almost did that when I typed, but it wouldn't have been the fair 10 minute thing. I was ready to stop before 10 minutes, but added on. I'm learning from watching the edits you do that the ending is often in the middle.