Read Online There Goes My Social Life by Stacey Dash - Free Book Online Page B

butts. Nothing useful.
    When my eyes met hers, I took her in. She had a tee shirt on that was about three sizes too small. The fabric pulled tightly over her bulging stomach, showcasing her width, her girth. Her ability to simply sit on me in front of all of these classmates to show who was boss. But she wouldn’t simply sit on me. No. She wanted to humiliate me, to bring me down a notch or two. And even though I was six years old, I knew the honor of my family rested squarely on my narrow shoulders. Too bad for her, she’d made a critical mistake.
    She was standing, nonchalantly, by a brick wall. Suddenly, my plan was clear. Before she even got to the corner—the predetermined meeting place—I ran up to her, grabbed her, and beat her head against that brick wall.
    And that was it. I didn’t knock her out, but she was probably dizzy enough that she didn’t come at me. She struggled to get up, and I pushed her down.
    â€œGet up again and I’m gonna knock your ass again,” I said. The people standing around on the corner realized they had missed the big fight, so they ran over to us to see what had happened. My mother’s words of advice floated through my head. The bigger they are , the harder they fall .
    Turns out, she was right. It was a lesson I’d learn again and again. Word got around.
    â€œStacey beat TaLonna’s ass and you don’t really want to fuck with her. She’s crazy!” That’s how I earned my nickname; suddenly I was known around school as Crazy Stacey. I wasn’t thrilled about the nickname, but it helped establish my reputation in the neighborhood as someone to avoid. What TaLonna didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that she was unevenly matched when she decided to pick on me. Sure, she was big, fat, and strong, but I had a secret advantage.
    My life had already been filled with grief that my parents never were around and sadness since no one seemed to care whether I lived or died. But somewhere over the past year—maybe during the first few weeks of kindergarten when many American schoolchildren were learning that a was for a - a-apple —that deep well of melancholy and anguish had turned into fury. Whoever is angrier usually wins.
    In third grade, I smoked a joint my cousin gave me and loved the way it felt. I didn’t even know it was illegal. I didn’t become a “pothead,” but I smoked marijuana whenever it was around. My dad tried to protect me from “hard drugs,” or at least he tried to hide his use from me. When I was twelve, I caught a glimpse of the truth. One day I came home from school, opened the bathroom door, and was surprised to see Uncle Freddy and my dad both in the small room. They looked up, horrified, and I saw that my dad had a belt around his arms and my uncle was holding a syringe. I still didn’t understand, but I knew, judging from the shock on their faces, that I was seeing something not meant for my eyes.
    â€œShut the fucking door!” Uncle Freddy yelled.
    A shudder went through me. He had never spoken to me that way. He was like a father to me, always speaking words of encouragement. Immediately, I shut the door and stood in the hallway with my hand still on the knob. What did I just see? What were they doing with a belt and a needle? I didn’t know. But I knew it was not good, and that I was afraid.
    The next year, my mom packed our bags and sent us to live with my grandparents on Long Island for a year. That’s the way things went with us—for large portions of our lives, we were shuttled off to other places. . . . Of course, this change wasn’t bad. I loved being with my grandparents, being in what felt like a stable family, and going to a new school.
    In fact, I had a great teacher named Mr. Ackerman, a very dapper gentleman about 6'4". Like a character out of a storybook, he wore a tweed suit every day, wore a bow tie, smoked a pipe, and had