Later, in my twenties, after moving to New York to pursue education and life as an artist, long after Cheryl, Shaun and I stayed in contact. I returned to Boston for a visit. I was hurting from a break-up. I’d spent one of my school semesters drugging until it had gotten out of control. I think I’d called Shaun because in many ways he was still home to me. When we got together he took me out for old time’s sake, for a night of snorting cocaine inside the loft of a famous photographer. I had visited the loft before, and was always impressed by its cool, the people, light bulbs and flashing cameras. We stayed up all night, Shaun, the photographer and me, drinking, snorting and smoking cocaine laced with PCP. By morning the room spun in my head. I could see glimpses of gray light through a covered window. Shaun was high and while readying to leave, he mumbled, “Listen, Hun, my car’s broken down and I need some help to get started. My mom’s working temporarily around the corner, and I’ll go ask her to help us out with some money.”
So he left, with no intention of returning. Meanwhile, I was being pressured by the photographer to perform a sexual favor in exchange for cab fare, which I needed to get home.
I remember a beautiful white cotton model’s dress that the photographer instructed me to put on. It was sheer and beneath I felt naked and afraid. I remember the sour taste of a condom breaking, cum in my mouth, and a feeling of dirt and violation by both him and Shaun.
For a long time after I didn’t speak to Shaun, or confront him for leaving me in that situation. I returned to New York, knowing there was no one in Shaun to confront, no conscious person who might have shown up and said, Yes, I love you, I’m sorry.
I began to realize that part of Shaun’s mystique was his elusiveness, an ability to scheme women, while stringing along as many as possible. I suppose now, after traveling the world and living my life as an artist, I’ve met hundreds of Shauns, people who heap damage on you and act as if it never happened.
After many years, I contacted Shaun again. It was a few days before Christmas, and we met outside of his grandmother’s house by an ornate tree. I had long since resolved the situation in the photographer’s loft for myself. The Shaun who greeted me was not the same person I’d known. He was no longer the bright light leading me like a great conductor into a new world. His features were the same, same as the chiseled Nefertiti he resembled, but the sun that bronzed him was gone. I knew he’d been defeated by the same history and tragedy that surrounded his mother, father, brother, sister, and him. He could never escape.
“I was in the hospital,” he said. “Had a car accident, broke a lot of bones and was self-medicating,” which was his euphemistic way of saying, “I’ve been on drugs.” I saw that he was suffering. I told him about my life in New York and my own current struggles. I wanted to show him how much I had grown up. He looked at me and said, “You’re still so beautiful, Pamela. Please don’t ever give up.” And for one brief moment in the moonlight on a Boston rooftop he held me, with his lips brushing mine in quite the same soft way they had on prom night years before, when he’d awakened something in me … to longing, lust, and my power as a woman. So when he kissed me there and then, and held me in that moonlight, though what we had was far behind us, I felt my heart flutter for him, as it always had, beyond reason.
EPILOGUE:
Uncle Vernon passed away a few years ago. From my earliest memories as a child, I remember his painting and collages. He was the first person to ever plant in me the idea that anyone could be an artist.
My family has healed many things, some not. My stepmother is obsessed these days with the idea of me coming home … The other day she sent me a text out of the blue:
Hi Pam
I bought you a blanket and a comforter, so you won’t be cold this winter when you come home.
Love Mom
Years later, I’m writing, performing, teaching. I still struggle with the aftershocks of abuse. As I finish this story, I am thinking of changing the title from History, instead dedicating it to all the Anna Maes of the world and calling it: For Me, Tina Turner, and All Black Women Survivors.
ILA
THE LAST TIME I’d heard my true birth name was in Boston, when I was back in town partying at a gay club. I must have been twenty-seven years old when this beautiful caramel-colored butch appeared. She walked up to me and said cruisingly, “What’s your name?”
“Pamela,” I answered, haughty and full of New York attitude.
“Oh,” she answered, disappointed. “I thought you might be this girl I knew once named Ila.”
Shocked that anyone outside my family could have known that name, I shouted at the top of my lungs, “It’s me, Ila,” ecstatic to hear my birth name.
“I’m Marion,” she said. “Remember, you hung out with my brothers, Troy and Tony?”
“Oh yeah,” I said laughingly, finally making the connection.
Silently, I marveled to myself at how Marion, once a tomboy, a little sister, had grown into the handsome butch who stood before me. I also marveled at how she survived the small homophobic
