Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be Read online

  Some names and identifying details have been changed.

  Copyright © 2021 by Nichole Perkins

  Reading group guide copyright © 2021 by Nichole Perkins and Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Cover design by Elizabeth Connor. Cover illustration by Adriana Bellet.

  Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First Edition: August 2021

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  A previous version of “Prince’s Girl” was first published in Buzzfeed, February 8, 2015.

  A previous version of “The Life of a Succubus” was first published in BuzzFeed, October 7, 2014.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Perkins, Nichole, author.

  Title: Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be : essays / Nichole Perkins.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2021. |

  Summary: "Pop culture is the Pandora's Box of our lives. Racism, wealth, poverty, beauty, inclusion, exclusion, and hope -- all of these intractable and unavoidable features course through the media we consume. Examining pop culture's impact on her life, Nichole Perkins takes readers on a rollicking trip through the last twenty years of music, media and the internet from the perspective of one southern Black woman. She explores her experience with mental illness and how the TV series Frasier served as a crutch, how her role as mistress led her to certain internet message boards that prepared her for current day social media, and what it means to figure out desire and sexuality and Prince in a world where marriage is the only acceptable goal for women. Combining her sharp wit, stellar pop culture sensibility, and trademark spirited storytelling, Nichole boldly tackles the damage done to women, especially Black women, by society's failure to confront the myths and misogyny at its heart, and her efforts to stop the various cycles that limit confidence within herself. By using her own life and loves as a unique vantage point, Nichole humorously and powerfully illuminates how to take the best pop culture has to offer and discard the harmful bits, offering a mirror into our own lives"–Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021010633 | ISBN 9781538702741 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781538702758 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Perkins, Nichole. | African American authors--21st century--Biography. | African American women authors--21st century--Biography. | Podcasters--United States--Biography. | LCGFT: Essays.

  Classification: LCC PS3616.E7465 Z46 2021 | DDC 810.9/896073--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010633

  ISBNs: 978-1-5387-0274-1 (trade pbk.), 978-1-5387-0275-8 (ebook)

  E3-20210708-NF-DA-COR

  E3-20210512-NF-DA-ORI

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Fast

  A Woman Who Shouts

  Kermit the Frog

  The Women

  Prince’s Girl

  White Boys

  Janet Jackson and the All-Black Uniform

  Softness

  My Brother the Superhero

  HBCUs Taught Me

  Scandalous

  Keyboard Courage

  Don’t Take Roses Away from Me

  I Love Niles Crane

  My Kameelah-Ass List

  The Night I Took Shrooms

  The Bonnet

  How to Build a Man-Made Tourist Attraction

  Call It by Its Name

  Bones, Depression, and Me

  The Life of a Succubus

  Acknowledgments

  Discover More

  About the Author

  Reading Group Guide

  To Willa F. Perkins and Fannie Mae Puckett

  To Prince Rogers Nelson

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  Fast

  The worst thing a little Black girl can be is fast. As soon as she learns her smile can bring special treatment, women shake their heads and warn the girl’s mother: “Be careful.” They caution the mothers of boys: “Watch that one.” When adult men hold her in their laps too long, it’s because she is a fast-ass little girl, using her wiles. She’s too grown. She tempts men and boys alike—Eve, Jezebel, and Delilah all in one—the click of her beaded cornrows a siren’s call.

  Fast girls ruin lives.

  Even as a girl whose pigtails unraveled from school-day play, I was fascinated with sex and romance and why boys looked up girls’ skirts and why people climbed between each other’s legs. Why did fathers kissing mothers on the back of their necks make them smile such a soft, secret smile? Why did boys stand so close to girls in the lunch line? Why did my sister sneak her boyfriend over, even when she knew Mama had forbidden it? Why did Mama tell my father, with her eyebrows raised, that the only book I’d read from the Bible was Song of Solomon? Yet I knew not to say anything, because being a girl and talking about sex would mean that I was fast, that I was trouble, that I’d end up with a baby before I finished school. I didn’t want to be fast, but inevitably my experiences with sex and boys began early and I learned to keep them hidden away.

  My memories of kindergarten are mostly fuzzy, but I remember eating green eggs and ham that my teacher used food coloring to dye, reading Sweet Pickles books, the boy who kissed every girl during nap time, and the two boys I kissed under the back porch.

  The nap-time lover, an oak-brown boy made of angles, would wait until he was sure the teacher was gone, then make his rounds. He was a lousy kisser. He’d mash his mouth against ours, lips closed, twisting his head back and forth like the actors in the old black-and-white movies we’d watch with our grandparents. I’m not sure why he started kissing us, but we girls were supposed to keep our eyes closed and remain passive, even as giggles lifted our shoulders from thin foam mattresses. One day, he came around and I kept my eyes open. I wanted to know if he closed his.

  He did not. We stared at each other until our faces softened into brown clouds; then he licked my mouth. Why did adults like doing this? It was too wet and smelled of peanut butter. To get revenge, I stuck my tongue into his mouth. Then we battled, our tongues bubbling saliva out of the corners of our sticky lips. I’m not sure what the prize was, but he finally pulled away and laughed before moving to the next girl. Based on the rounds of “Yuck!” and “Ew!” that followed, he tried to slip other girls his tongue with varying success.

  Over the next few days, he started bringing a handkerchief to wipe his mouth between girls. The
re were fewer exclamations of disgust. I’m not sure if he stopped the wet kisses or if everyone became used to them. With me, his kisses began to taste like peppermint candy but remained sticky. We kept our eyes open. I put my hand on the back of his head once, like the women in those same old black-and-white films. He grunted softly, the sound you make when you’re surprised nasty-looking food tastes good. His response scared me, but I liked it. At five years old, I already knew that if you liked what boys did too much, no one would like you. Girls called you names. Boys rubbed themselves against you while you waited for your turn on the monkey bars.

  I never touched him with anything other than my mouth again.

  I don’t remember how he was caught, but the nap-time kisses stopped. I think I missed them. Taking the required nap became difficult, because I was tense, listening for the rustle that meant someone was moving from his blue-and-red mat.

  I soon found myself under the back porch at home with one of the little “mixed” (now called biracial) boys in the neighborhood. He had an afro of loose waves, like Mr. Kotter from the TV show, and blue eyes that changed colors, especially when his white mother called him home. He never wanted to go. One day, she yelled his name, and he pulled me under my porch and stared at me. His breath did not smell good. It smelled of hunger, a stale metallic scent, but when he leaned in to give me a kiss, I accepted it.

  I put my hands on either side of his face, and he did the same. We pecked at each other with our mouths, thumbs invading each other’s eyes, as we tried to imitate adults. And then his neighbor showed up—another boy our age. He was brown like me, with hair that blended into his skin but filled with close waves his mother made sure he brushed down all the time. His eyes were the same color as his skin but with black-black lashes. Those eyes were wide as he breathed out that he was going to tell we were being nasty. I reached out and kissed him, too. I don’t remember how he tasted, but I know he stopped talking.

  I’ve lost track of how long we were under the back porch. The boys took turns kissing me. I took turns kissing them. My mother called me from the kitchen, and I hurried from our little cove. The boys’ mothers would just yell and yell until they came home, but my mother would come look for me. I shot into the house. My heartbeat fluttered my shirt. I could smell those boys on me—the foreign stink of their spit and sweat a secret reminder of my adventure.

  Boys were quiet when you kissed them. They didn’t tease you for being skinny or bucktoothed or smart. Boys followed your lead when you kissed them. Boys let you rescue them from home when you kissed them. But kissing boys meant you were fast. Being fast meant you had babies nobody wanted and women talked mean about you. When you were fast, old men smiled at you with half of their mouths and invited you inside when no one else was home. Fast girls ruined lives. I didn’t want to be fast. I wanted kisses that were secrets I controlled.

  * * *

  Teenage motherhood is nothing new to my family, but it’s something my mother wanted to stop with her, as far as her two daughters were concerned. My sister, Izzie, is what Mama calls a pull-out baby. She was born almost two years before Mama’s high school graduation. When my sister was a teenager, I saw a note Mama had written her: “Always use a rubber.” I giggled at the word “rubber,” such an old-fashioned term by then. Seven years separate me and my sister, and I’d been hearing Mama’s voice deepen with warning for a long time: “Don’t bring no babies home unless you can take care of them.”

  My sister developed early. Until high school, she was always the tallest girl in her class. Her curves constantly fought against the age-appropriate clothes Mama bought for her, but Mama knew how grown men could be, so she tried her best to keep Izzie a child as long as possible. Luckily, my sister went along with that plan. She’s the sweet and obedient one. Perhaps that’s a part of being the firstborn in the family. We have a younger brother, J, so that makes me the middle child, the baby girl. I’m my father’s firstborn. I am a mess.

  I was a scrawny child who always carried books around. For a long time, my family called me Bugs, as in Bugs Bunny, because of my overbite. Family friends said I was cute, but it didn’t seem like boys thought so. At least, the boys I wanted to like me never did. I’ve since learned this is how life is, but until junior high, I felt overlooked for the girls who already wore training bras, had professionally styled straight hair, and who boasted of boyfriends at other schools.

  My sister came of age in the 1980s. Izzie watched all those Brat Pack movies—Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink, plus stuff like Weird Science and One Crazy Summer…and I watched right alongside her. I sat next to her and watched MTV until the music videos started to repeat themselves.

  So I listened to these songs and watched the videos; I watched the movies and saw my sister clutching her hand to her chest because a white girl who sews her own clothes got to kiss the rich, popular guy. I saw teenage love played out as Forever Love, as overcoming class divides and teaching the rich kid that poor people are cool, too. I saw that white girls got to bring home boys and yell at their parents and be wanted, even if by someone undesirable. No adult was monitoring them to make sure they weren’t tempting grown men. In the movies, no white girls were considered “fast.” Instead, they were pressured to have sex, not stay away from it.

  Black girls were tucked way in the back of the extras or in the second row of the dance number, their hair looking burnt from too much straightening, their makeup chalky, and with no love interest more significant than a dance partner.

  There were plenty of sassy Black teenagers on television, in characters like Dee Thomas on What’s Happening!! or Tootie on The Facts of Life. These girls always had a smart remark ready on their lips and got plenty of laughs, but just like in real life around my way, every crush they had led to lectures or scolds: “He’s just using you.” “You don’t know any better.” “Don’t make any decisions you might regret.”

  Images of white girls in love came easily, but everywhere I turned, Black girls were warned.

  In the fifth and sixth grades, school friends started to become pregnant. My mother wouldn’t let me go to their baby showers. She said it would condone their situation, and she didn’t want me to think it was okay to have a baby before I even got to ninth grade. These preteen moms looked like they were in high school, but they had boyfriends who should’ve been in college. The girls wore gold jewelry and had haircuts like women with real jobs—tapered in the back with curls crunchy from holding spray in the front. They had figures that betrayed their ages and minds and could barely solve word problems, and yet they were the ones labeled fast. And maybe they were. Maybe they’d felt compelled to race to catch up to their bodies and ended up at a finish line they didn’t expect.

  I remember one girl asking me why the grass was always wet in the morning. I replied, “It’s dew,” and she said, “No, it’s clear.” She thought I was talking about feces, as in “doodoo.” And this was a child being blamed for her own middle school pregnancy.

  I was not unaffected by my classmates’ becoming pregnant young, even as I remained fascinated by sex and love. I was scared. Teenage pregnancy was a family curse, and every time I looked in the mirror, wondering when my boobs and booty would come in, I worried it would happen because of “an accident.” I was the only one of my friends who was shapeless and without a boyfriend, or even a boy I was talking to. The girls started making noises about introducing me to friends of their boyfriends, and it scared me. When sixth grade began to come to a close and my mom asked me about where I wanted to go for junior high, I told her I wanted to go to a magnet school. Mama assumed I wanted a more challenging curriculum, but in reality, I wanted to leave my friends behind. I was afraid that if I stayed with them, I’d end up pregnant, too, and as much I hated having my body policed by the elders in my community, I did not want to be fast either.

  I wanted to be loved.

  * * *

  Shortly before my fifteenth birthday, my friend Tany
a and I went to a bowling alley. This friend had boobs and booty, played basketball, got her hair done on a regular basis (in a salon, not at a beauty school!), and wore gold necklaces and rings. My mother didn’t like her. She was too fast, too mature for me, but Tanya was pretty much the only close girlfriend I had at the time.

  So Tanya and I went to the bowling alley. Later, I realized she had already made plans to meet someone there and my presence had served as a smoke screen for her mother. We were playing an arcade shooting game when two high school boys walked up to us. Tanya immediately abandoned the game for one of the guys, but I tried to keep playing. I was used to being ignored and didn’t like wasting my time with small talk, so I kept my attention on the game.

  The other boy finally spoke to me, a simple, bored, “What’s up?” He sounded like he’d been the wingman for the other guy all of his life. I’d learn later that was true. The two were cousins, with this bored one being younger by a year or two. I looked up at him, saw he wasn’t hideous, and said hi before returning to the game. My heart started jogging in place. Just from my quick glance, I knew he’d be The One, my first. It felt like the moment in Dirty Dancing when Baby sees Johnny back at the employee cabins, dancing and drinking, only this guy didn’t have Johnny’s swagger (no one does). I felt awkward and flushed. I wanted to impress him somehow, but my only talent was writing and I wasn’t about to bust out a poem about my dead grandmother, so I focused on shooting zombies. I had terrible aim but could cuss out the undead like no one’s business. As the video game reset, I looked up at him and his eyebrows were raised in grudging approval. Yes!

  This guy I’ll call Rocco—he wasn’t the kind of handsome that could turn heads with the first look, but he was the prettiest color I’d ever seen, a red-gold-brown that sang whenever he wore deep colors like burgundy, navy, and hunter green. He had a wide face with sharp cheeks, and eyes that naturally slanted up and disappeared into those cheeks when he laughed. He had a full mouth with a contagious smile, but he was short and skinny and girls kept their distance.