Shooey

Shooey existed in a small pocket between a manic high bout of happiness, and a
soul crushing depression. Though, her country Christian upbringing left her very
unwilling to acknowledge any of her feelings, she miraculously remained balanced.
If a slip to either side ever happened, it went unnoticed by most around her. When a
person so rarely expresses themselves those who exist around them tend to forget
about their emotional needs. Shooey's outburst usually came in the form of a
random question or statement, where after, she would cock her head, with it's much
too square jaw, to the side and wait for an answer. Her round, dark chocolate, wideset eyes stared deep into her confused victim.
"I think my momma hate me," she said to me once with a deadpan expression.
Not knowing what to say, and desperately wanting to look away, I mumbled, "why?"
She shrugged and drew one of her athletic knees to her chest. With the hand that
wasn't wrapped around her knee, she was rapidly scrolling through an app on her
cellphone. The room grew quiet. Her and I, sharing a loveseat, found other things
more interesting to look at than each other. The television was showing a basketball
game that neither one of us was watching, yet reaching for the remote control felt
like a violation of the silence.
After several minutes of getting lost in the deep silence that crashed on the room
like rough waves at the beginning of a storm, I found myself waiting for an answer.
The answer to a question I was beginning to feel like I should have never asked.
With a short, quick sigh, Shooey lifted her head, the big loose curls of her red at the
tips afro fighting against the satin wrap she tied around her hair, and her expression
was a unique mixture of bored and chagrined.
"I don't know", she said in a dead voice.
I didn't pursue it.
On the average day she was friendly and inviting, though very formal. The first two
months after our meeting she prefaced my name with Mr. I joked that she was
making me feel old, and she calmly responded, "you are old." Instantly breaking
into a fit of giggles, she gasped, "but so am I!"
She instantly apologized, wiping a tear of laughter from her pox marked brown skin.
Her hand fumbled over her face, as if the tears of elation were excitedly tracing
around the blemishes of her cheek, and she struggled to catch them. It was her
ritual when the scales of her emotions tipped.
Since I met her, I see Shooey everywhere. Take recently, I came across an article,
complete with pictures, about Eartha Kitt. Being born in the late 80's I haven't seen
much of young Eartha Kitt. I do know the glamorous aged vixen I've seen her

portray several times in movies. But, as I did my reading I saw young Eartha look
like someone I've seen before. Particularly in a short video clip I saw of an interview
after a White House luncheon where a speech by Eartha cause Lady Bird Johnson to
burst into tears. Her face when she told the reporter her feelings about the matter,
a calm rage. Her words, "That's her problem". It was answer enough.
I see Shooey as a young Eartha at times. That look reflected back on the world
when asked to explain herself. The fire in her eyes saying a million words her mouth
never could. It's beautiful, but scary. The fear that resulted caused a derailment in
Eartha's career, leaving a generation of people unaware of her lovely and glamorous
storm.
I learned not to fear Shooey, and I am 100% ashamed of myself for it. She is the girl
that is constantly described, yet looked over. Her descriptions come in the form of
ugly statistics spouted with venom by the likes of Bill O'Reilly and the Blonde of the
Week news anchor of some conservative news program. What I've learned about
statistics is that you can't feel the warmth of a smile from a pie chart or graph about
unwed mothers. You can't sit up until 4am with a study on unmarried Black women.
You will never learn the reason behind a tired sigh from a survey. I also learned that
statistics teach fear, and fear is truly ugly. We shroud girls like Shooey in ugliness
because their beauty is too bright.
Shooey trained herself to be ultra-feminine. Not daring to leave the house on days
she didn't want to do her hair. Always entering a room with her shoulders back,
head tilted up, and walking with one foot in front of the other so her hips had just
enough swing to be considered classy. Her womanhood was surrounded in rules.
Figuring myself as some feminist ally, I showered her with all the things I learned. If
you don't want to wear makeup, or prim and preen, then you don't have to, blah
blah blah, you go girl! She nodded in a way that said, "yes and no".
"That's all well and good, but when I leave the house in my natural state there is
still gonna be some dude telling me that girls who don't wear fingernail polish are
basic, or I need to do my hair, get a weave. I know I need a weave, why they gotta
say it?" She angrily tugged on her natural hair, pulling it to its full length and letting
bounce back.
"I don't know, Shooey. It doesn't make any sense to me." I said, hoping I sounded
calming.
"I'm gonna get one soon. I just have to get paid first. I might have to pinch off of the
light bill money."
I breathed a little easier seeing that she wasn't tipping too close to either side of her
scale. Though she always bounced right back, I was curious how many times she
could go there and get right back out? She was back to her calm mood, neither
happy nor sad. Pleasant, but not engaging.

"If you have to dip into your bill money, should you really be buying weave?" I said,
noticing the superior tone in my voice.
"No. But, I will never hear the end of it if I don't. My momma, my sister, all the
dudes at work, they just won't leave it alone. I don't do it so people will look at me, I
just want them to leave me alone."
It was something I never thought about. Usually when I pampered myself, it was for
self-gratification, and I carried the knowledge that others would notice too. It was a
way of feeling special. I never thought that some people had to pamper themselves
regularly just to be run of the mill, to be left alone and not condemned on
appearance. I wanted to weigh in, let her know that she taught me something, but
she kept on adding curves to what I thought was my well put together feminist
attitude.
"It just gets on my nerves when I'm at work and there is some dude trying to talk to
me, while telling me I need my hair done or my nails done. Why does it matter? If
you don't like it, then don't talk to me."
"That makes the most sense to me."
"They just want to say something. They feel like they are doing me a favor, like I
don't know no better. Like I just be walking around looking crazy for the fun of it,
and they are trying to help me catch a man."
"So, what do you do when that happens?" I said.
"I play along. If they ask for my number and they ordering off the dollar menu, I give
them the number to the health department."
We both laughed. Not full bodied laughter, but a good chuckle. Shooey was telling
the truth about her average day, but the moment was coming when either of us was
going to ask what to do about these situations. What was there to say to someone
who was constantly harassed to be a beautiful decoration. I couldn't expect her to
give a feminist rundown of problematic behavior to every man that thought to
weigh in on her life, yet it was the best answer I had. She told me that that made
her an Angry Black Woman and it could get her fired.
"Sit back and take it like a big girl," she sighed her solution. "I'll go the hair store
Saturday."