Darkie the Foster Child

From the time I was little, I have been confused and confusing when it comes to my ethnic background. Children on the playground would ask me questions like, “why are you so dark?’ and ‘how come your brother is white and you’re not?’ and ‘what language to you speak?’ I remember wondering as a child whether my mother had fucked a neighbor or the mailman while my father worked nights as a grocery store stock-boy. Family portraits look like that scene from Sesame Street where 4 children stand in four different boxes, all throwing a ball, except for one who is twirling a baton. The screen would go dark in just that one box, and that baton-twirling boy would be singled out: one of these kids is not like the other, come on, can you tell which one?’ Technically I’m white, whatever that means. I’m not a fan of being labeled something that can also be used to describe a type of bread, but the long answer is too much work. My parents have fair skin and my brother and sister have blond hair and green eyes. So it always comes as quitea shock when people realize that I, brown-eyed, olive skinned and angular, am related to my freckled kin. Such situations inevitably lead to the age-old question, ‘where the hell are you from, darkie?’

“Jimmy? Oh he’s Middle Eastern I think. Something like Sudan or Jordan or some shit like that.”

“What, Jimmy? Oh he’s Guatemalan. And a little Irish.”

“I think Jimmy’s a Mexican but don’t tell him I said that.”

And of course, many people think I’ve got a little black in me. And I’m not convinced that that isn’t true. But the bottom line is, I look ethnic, other, not white, not boy-next-door, not even country-next-door. I am so exotic that no one has any idea where I could have come from. “What are you, Egyptian? No? Mongolian? No? How about Italian? This is a good game! Gimme a hint!”

The truth is, I’m mostly German with a splash of other European nation states thrown in for good measure. It’s my 1/64th Spanish ancestry that has taken my visage hostage and created me in the image of the Moors invading Spain. Try fitting that in the checkbox on a government issued document.

I often wished as a child that the ridicule I received on the playground – Adopted! Adopted! Ji-iiiimy’s adopted! – was in fact true, and that I had no genetic relationship whatsoever to my white parents. I fantasized that one day, there would be a knock at the door and my real parents, the bronzed Lord Edward and Lady Sara, would be standing there, ready to reclaim me after what had obviously been some horrible misunderstanding. Lady Sara would unpin her hat and say, “that’s our child! You filthy people let him go! Edward, honey, tell the Driver to pull the limo around the front. We’re leaving this instant! Jimmy, darling, gather your….no, never mind. Nothing you have here will be necessary where we’re taking you. No, don’t worry about your toothbrush. We’ll buy you one when we get to Madrid.”

I imagined that I would be whisked away on a jet to a lush country estate where I would be given my own wing of the mansion and a pony. Breakfast would be served on Silver, like in the movies, and there would be a bell pull by my four-poster bed so that I could get the servants attention whenever I wanted. But sadly, this was never to happen. Though I often eyed large black cars with suspicious hope, I never met my fantasy parents. Instead my mother would say to me, “Don’t fool yourself buckaroo. You’re my kid, 100%. It took me 13 and a half hours to get you out and I’ve got the stretch marks to show for it. And you’re the only one of you kids to give me stretch marks too! No, you’re definitely mine. Now quit staring out the window and help me tie your brother to the highchair so he doesn’t squirm out again.”

I shared a bedroom and a set of bunk-beds with my younger brother, who was forced to sleep on the lower bunk so that he wouldn’t fall to the ground from a great height. “I swear that brother of yours is such a wiggle worm, he could dig a hole to China if you let him nap in a sandbox! Now help my put up the bed rail!” At night, I was rocked to sleep by my brother’s continuous twisting and turning, movements that sent our entire bunk bed gently swaying in an invisible breeze.

Wiggle Worm and I took the school bus to school when he got big enough to go. I would be forced to chaperone my 1st grade brother to his class every morning. Most teachers thought I was my family’s foreign exchange student and couldn’t understand why I was in charge of seeing Wiggle Worm safely to class and back. “Those parents are making that poor colored child baby-sit their 6 year old. It’s so sad. Someone should report them to Child Protective Services.”

Whatever our relationship now, Wiggle Worm and I were the best of friends; the most brotherly one can imagine when we were children. Only 2 and a half years apart, we had many of the same friends for much of our growing up. We spent time skipping rocks on the man made lake near our apartment or climbing trees and throwing pine cones at passing cars while snacking on honeysuckle weeds. We forged toy bow and arrows from bamboo and string to shoot at birds. We gathered neighborhood children for giant games of hide and seek. We took cardboard boxes and slid down grass hills at breakneck speed. And all the while, I was thinking “This is all well and good now, but when my REAL parents come, I’m gonna have a real bow and arrows with which I can hunt pheasant, and I’ll skip diamonds over the surface of my own private pool. And pure honey that comes from my own private beehive will be brought over to me in a tiny jar marked with a Fleur de Lis and I’ll spread it over graham crackers that the cook made special for me.” My reality was being overshadowed by my imagination more and more. Every time someone said to me, “Child, where did your parents GET you? Are you a foster child?” I retreated a little further into my life with Lord Edward and Lady Sara. To the question, “who’s your REAL dad?’ I often thought to respond, “Why, Lord Edward of the realm of Fauntleroy of course!” but instead would be forced to say, ‘that guy over there driving the beat up pick-up truck. That’s him. He has to sleep during the day because he gets up late to go open boxes at the supermarket. Sometimes he brings them home though, and we get to slide around on them, my brother and me, so I guess he’s okay.”

As an adult, I have learned that I am more like my parents than I ever thought would be possible when I was young and throwing pine cones. It turns out that my mother had a similar fantasy world that she felt more painfully than I did my own. And my father is still somewhat dizzied by the fact that he had three children by the time he was 24. And so sometimes it’s easier for my dad to say, ‘yeah, I don’t know who that guy is. He looks a lot like my son, but he’s way too old to be. Plus I think he’s black.”