The Black Binger: An Origin Story

Zebra Cakes & Skittles

Elementary school was five long years filled with embarrassing moment after embarrassing moment. It was rough from the start.

I began every morning of first grade crying. I was told that I would fall asleep on the bus from Boston; snoring, drooling and taking up space and sound. When the bus got to the school, the doors would swing open with a loud clang. Students would get up moaning and groaning. And I would still sleep. Ms. O’Neil, the bus monitor with an aunty church wig, White Diamonds perfume, a sharp mothering glare, and vitiligo would hollar my name from the front a few times, but nothing would stir me awake. Eventually she would give up, physically shake me awake. I would open my eyes, frown, and burst into wild and violent tears.

 All of the white kids in Mrs. Gaffney’s first grade class thought that I was cool. They wanted to be my friends, and pet me, and ask me about the night sounds in Boston. I would make them laugh, and they would give me that laugh and allow me to sit next to them during lunch and recess. It was like a friendship. Back then I thought it was a real friendship but I know better now. After spending the day unknowingly shucking and jiving, I would walk onto the bus and share laughter and fantastical stories with the other shaded kids; always on edge. I was the bus cry baby, and everyone knew it.

 Actually, I was the family cry baby. I was the definition of sensitive, which, in retrospect was early childhood depression, but at the time was my moniker on both sides of my family. I would cry and cry and cry. But then, some fast thinking adult would shove a Zebra Cake or pack of Skittles into my mouth, and my smile would swell and my tears would dry. Feeling the sugar dissolve on my tongue was better than crying. Crying emptied me of emotion, it made my voice hoarse, and my face ashy and dry; but eating filled me. It filled me with good, thick, delicious food that hushed me and shushed me.

Cheeseburger Happy Meal with Girl Toy

Somewhere in the middle of Elementary school, I went to a girl named Meghan's house for her birthday party. It was going to be an ultimate and infamous party/sleepover combo even though we all had school the next day. It was the first time I was invited to a school friend’s birthday party, even though I invited everyone in my class and on the school bus to my birthday every year. I had known everyone at the party since I was six; and we were friends - as much as you can be when you are the only black city kid in a white class. The night began to slip away from me when we all went down to Meghan’s basement.

 She had a wide-open space, with wall to wall teddy bear brown carpet; and towards the bottom of the stairs was a cage with a big brown rabbit. I had never seen a rabbit, and the wonderment of an actual rabbit possessed my foolish self to ask Meghan if I could hold it. She nodded. And then I shook my head.

 Suddenly, I had terrible flashbacks of rabid giant rabbits on an episode of Goosebumps. Meghan prompted me, and all the other girls clapped and pushed me to do it. Meghan’s older sister Colleen even came downstairs to take the rabbit out of the cage. I was this close to accomplishing this goal of touching a real live rabbit, and

having the same experience that everyone else had. Every white freckled face in that room was an actual friend of Meghan, not a pity invite for the class clown; so, they have all stood on that penny brown carpet rug, and played with that brown rabbit that was brown like me. But all there cheering was too loud, so I closed my eyes and willed my parents to pick me up. When I opened my eyes, I frowned, and burst into violent tears.

 After Meghan’s mom calmed me down with delicious milk and cookies, my parents did arrive. I was mid bite, my eyes closed, my head swaying from side to side; and then I heard my father call me like a deaf dog. So, for the second time that night; I opened my eyes, I frowned, and burst into violent tears. Although I have no proof, I suspect that once I left, the girls had a secret Ms. Flynn’s white student society meeting and decided that despite my funny behavior and outbursts in class, I clearly failed the social experiment.

 That night, my parents took me to McDonalds. And even though I was full, I ate the whole happy meal; wishing there was more and more and more and more.

 Canned Ravioli, Lorna Doone, Skittles & Coke

Fifth grade was the hardest for me by far. I was rumored to be Kevin's wordy and weird secret admirer. It was true, but they had no tangible proof other than the fact that I told everyone and anyone who listened.

 It was the year where I spent three months telling everyone how I was moving with my mom to Florida, only to find out that sometimes my mom just talked to talked. Which is ironic, because soon after, I was told that all the other black METCO kids in my grade would be leaving me to navigate Braintree’s East Middle School all alone.

 It was the year I peed myself in the middle of Mr. Lemonin's science class because he refused to let me go to the bathroom. I asked and I asked and I asked, and he said I could hold it. Eventually, he stopped responding to my pleas, so I closed my eyes tight, knocked my knees together, and yelped in pain as I peed onto the floor. I was so terrified that I stayed in my very own chilling puddle of pee as the kids filed out to lunch and then recess until my father came to collect me.

 Mr. Lemonin looked me in the hollows of my dead ten year old soul and said, "You should have just gone if you had to go that bad," before patting me on the back.

 I got into the back seat of my father’s car and sat on garbage bags as he made jokes all the way home. At his one bedroom apartment on Templeton Way, he would fill me up with canned foods cooked on a small exhausted stove, and cavity-snacks. I ate as I did my homework. I ate as I waited for him to finish cooking dinner. I ate as we watched tv. And I ate right before my mother tucked me into bed at her house; lying and telling her that I hadn’t had any snacks at my father’s house and absolutely was starving.

 Wing Ding Dinner with a Double Side of Fries

If elementary school was as awful, Cory Matthews, Shawn Hunter, Topanga Lawrence and Mr. Feeney convinced me that middle school was definitely going to be my time to shine. I was going to leave behind me

the days of being a crybaby pee pantser; and this new start was going to turn me into pure magic. I could be funny like Cory, or quirky like Topanga, or charming like Shawn, or at the very least, dorky like Minkus. (Before Angela, the only black characters were probably named, “Black Kid #2” and “Basketball Point Guard”).

 On the day my fatness came to town, my Mother came home from work and told me to get ready to go to the doctor’s for my yearly physical. And then, looking at me, she said, "Just because you're home doesn't mean you can lay on the living room couch naked."

 And even though I disagreed, I put on the chains of society, also known as clothes, and followed her out to the car with a book in my hand. On the car ride, I probably fell asleep. Because I always fell asleep. And if I did fell asleep, I am sure I was snoring over my mother's phone conversation, and awful old people music that made my sinuses sting. I remember jumping out of the backseat, book clutched and walking to the familiar awkward chairs of the pediatric waiting room. I made a show of reading, and my mother made a show of ignoring me; this is how we got along as we waited for my name to be butchered by the nurse.

 "Juh Mee- Juh My- Juh"

 "Jamilla VanDyke-Bailey," my mother said, grabbing her purse and walking quickly as I fumbled behind, with my eyes still glued on the page.

 We probably sat in that cold room for fifteen minutes before we were told that the doctor was on her way; and then after five minutes, she arrived with a smile and a thick Ukrainian accent. Dr. Kandror was a small, white white white person. Her hair was blonding into whiteness, her skin showed the multi-laned interstate of veins, and her clothes always seemed pale enough to blend into her medical jacket. She made small talk with my mother, as she poked and prodded me. And whenever she did ask me a question, I would answer it with confidence, only for my mother to correct me. I didn't realize until I grew up, how my mother knowing my body more than me was a form of love and care more powerful than the hugs she openly refused to offer me. She put the stethoscope onto my chest and told me to breathe, and I, once again, struggled to understand the concept of inhaling and exhaling on command and had to let her coach me through it.

 "Okay, Jamilla time to get your height and weight." She started with the height, and I, for one, was unimpressed with my body's reluctance to physically make me as tall as I felt inside. After scribbling my height down, she walked over to the scale. I knowingly kicked off my shoes, as my mother muttered, "really?" and stepped on the scale. The balance bar snapped up, with a metallic thud telling everyone in a five-mile radius that this was imbalanced. I faced forward, looking at the blankness of the wall in front of me. Maybe there was a sticker there. Or maybe there was nothing but the slight ripples and bumps of cheap white paint over drywall. Whatever it was, I had to make like it was interesting, or else I would be tempted to look over to my mother's eagerness to learn the exact numbers associated with the level of disgust I arose within her sometimes.

 Dr. Kandror left the big weight at zero, and slid the small weight from zero to fifty and back to zero with a knowing speed. I was over fifty pounds, whatever that meant. She moved the big weight to the right once, marking the fifty pounds, and at first pushed the small weight all the way to the higher end of the scale, which, no matter how accurate, is a very rude thing to do to someone you don't really know. With both weights at fifty, Dr. Kandror and my mother, and I watched to see if the scale would read that I was in or out of balance. I was still out of balance. I was under one hundred pounds, which was probably for the best? Still, I had no idea. With slow and steady needle-like hands, Dr. Kandror moved the small weight back to forty-five; taking a step back to check the read. Then she moved it back to forty; taking a step back to check the read. Then, perhaps too overzealous, she moved it back to thirty; and the balance bar clanged. So she moved it towards thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven. She stopped at thirty-eight. I was eighty- eight pounds, which I felt was just about right since it was my weight and I was me, and I figured this whole show was just common practice to make sure I weighed what I weighed. You know, stupid kid logic.

As I sat back on the edge of the observation table, Dr. Kandror, to my shock and my mother's amusement, took off her glasses and sighed. "Momma, I do not think this is good."

 In silence, she tapped on the computer keys and entered some data using the number pad. "Yes, see-- It is not good." Turning the computer screen to my mother, and looking at me, she had a graph filled with x’s that had escaped the limitations of the line. "This is the average weight for someone Jamilla's age and height. It is about 75 percent. This is the weight of Jamilla. As you can see, she is over ten pounds overweight."

 My mother nodded, a smile puckering beneath her lips. "If she does not start to work on building better eating habits, I expect her weight to grow even after she stops."

 My mother looked at me, her brown eyes skinning me with surgical precision. "I told her that. I told her and her father that. I told them that we can't feed her all the time and give her snacks and candy. I took her to the dentist the other day and she has four cavities that need to be filled, and I know that candy isn't the root of weight gain all that much but it still counts. And Jamilla is lazy, you can't get her to get off the couch for nothing. I'm worried. I'mworriedabouthergettingdiabetesandthen-"

 I don't remember the rest of the visit, but I do know we went over time. And I do know that I began to shrink inside of myself as these two women talked about me as if I wasn't there. As they called me fat in all of the medically appropriate ways they thought I probably couldn't understand. As they talked about how much activity I would need to do to begin to lose weight; Dr. Kandror said that if I could do one form of movement for just fifteen minutes each day, it would be a good start. I think my mother scoffed in reply and said that I wouldn't do it because I didn't want to lose weight, because I liked to be fat, because I like to disgust her, because I like causing her pain. Or maybe, and probably, and most definitely, that's what I said to myself in her voice. I remember the ride home. A twenty-minute drive with twists and turns that rocked and rumbled the acid inside of my stomach. I am pretty sure my mother called my dad to tell him how she was right about the bad news, and if so, then they probably ended the call in a name-calling argument.

 I wish I could say that I didn’t eat that night. Or that I filed a restraining order against Chili’s baby back ribs. But in reality, I most likely ate mindlessly with my eyeballs four feet away from the blur of the television until I felt sick. And then I kept eating until I didn’t want to cry anymore. And then I went upstairs to go to sleep, woke up in the middle of the night, and helped myself to more food until I didn’t want to be alive anymore.

Because being dead was a lot easier than being black and fat and awkward and alive.

To quote a Scottish Philosopher, Fat Bastard, "I can't stop eating. I eat because I'm unhappy, and I'm unhappy because I eat." *1

This cycle of mainlining sugar, salt and lard into my molecules became my life. It was my life for the rest of the summer before sixth grade; when I would melt into the couch, eating SmartOne’s sugar free Ice Cream sandwiches so fast I could barely taste the healthiness. It was my life when I stopped wearing my baby blue winter Rocawear jacket because I couldn’t get it to zip across the chest. Or when, in high school, Adam rejected me by blocking me on AIM. It was my life all throughout my hoe-ll of fame stage from college until well you just never mind. It was my life when no one knew I was pregnant until I was six months and only because my stomach started to round at the top. And it is still my life as I crawl near the weight I was when I was induced into labor. I want it to stop. I want it to change. I don't want fat to be one of my descriptors anymore; the unspoken adjective that stains the rest of who I am. But, in all honesty, I do not think I can stop being fat, as I do not think I can stop eating.

 I wish I could blame Dr. Kandror and say that her yearly updates of just how fat I had gotten, was what obliterated my confidence and derailed me towards a life of t-shirts and leggings. But, in all reality, it was true. I was overweight, and became the definition of obese by tenth-grade year. Perhaps a person of muchier muchness would have, at some point, stopped using food as medication and tried to take charge of this overwhelming need to fulfill every impulse that made me feel good for one fraction of a second. But I didn't. I don't know why I didn't, but I didn't.

 And to openly bastardize a quote from Bruce the Great White, an Australian Intellectual, "Food is friend, not food." *2

The first binge the night that my fatness became fully realized in these streets (Tony Baker voice), I agreed to a lifetime commitment to food; the most constant and supportive and filling friend that I have always needed. Food was there for me the night I cried myself into hyperventilation because Kevin called me a freak. Or, when I ate alone in the hallway for one day a week during high school because my undiagnosed bipolar disorder made it hard for me to sustain friendships. Or, the day I found out Derek had been murdered, and my father let me order whatever I needed to get through dinner. Sometimes it is all I have; the food and this fatness. And even when I want to get rid of it so ferociously that I try and I fail because I tried, and I cry because I failed because I tried; it welcomes me back with open and dangling arms, touching thighs, size 9 Target cotton underwear. And it tells me not to leave, and so I don’t; each day burying myself deeper and deeper and deeper inside of it. Stuck. Full and stuck.

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*1. Roach, J., & Myers, M. (Writers). (1999). Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me [Motion picture]. Roadshow Entertainment.

*2. Stanton, A., Unkrich, L., Walters, G., Lasseter, J., Peterson, B., Reynolds, D., Brooks, A., ... Buena Vista Home Entertainment (Firm),. (2003). Finding Nemo.

Jamilla D. VanDyke-Bailey is a 27-year-old, black feminist living with depression, anxiety, ptsd, and bipolar disorder ii. She uses her writing to give a voice to the trauma that is often suffered in silence and to bring a sense of belonging amongst the misfits. She has had work published in The Southhampton Review, K’in Literary Journal, and Oddball Magazine, amongst others.