Cactus Patch
19/
As I was entering sixth grade we moved to the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. It was completely different than living in Detroit. The houses were new, huge, luxurious, in many cases identical. But they were also far apart because we were living in a new subdivision in the middle of a desert. At school, competition was fierce. Not for grades, or even friends, but for looks.
Your hair and your clothes were everything. I did have hair back then, but I could never get it to do the right thing with the blow dryer and the hair spray. So clothing was really my only angle. It was all about the right labels. And the right labels were expensive. You see, the whole outfit had to be coordinated, you couldn’t wear a t-shirt from one brand with jeans from another. That would get you called out real quick.
Mom was a little alarmed by my sudden shift towards materialism and fashion, but she chalked it up to my being in middle school. She also saw it as an opportunity to teach me about money. So she had me take on some modest responsibilities around the house, and she gave me a monthly allowance that was enough to fund most of my fancy clothing demands without going overboard.
I was determined to fit in. I allocated my clothing budget carefully on the label jeans, colorful rayon shirts, fresh shoes, belts and so on. Month by month I learned to play the clothing game. The whole problem was to wear very expensive clothing while simultaneously avoiding the appearance of a rich kid. You wanted to be a poor kid dressed in expensive clothes. It was not easy for me to pull off but I could see that the popular kids did it quite well. I was just trying to play the game. Trying not to get singled out as a slob or a rich kid. It seemed like everyone was looking for someone to beat up.
In Texas, classes were geared towards rote-learning and repetition. This was very different from Michigan where there were many outlets for my creative interests like writing and art. For example, if I was really into writing a story the teachers would let me keep working on it while other students did other things. It didn’t work like that in Texas.
We had assigned seats on the bus. I was assigned to sit between a very large boy and a pretty girl whose idea of fun was to ask me everyday who my friends were. If I made the mistake of naming someone they would go talk to that person the next day and report back that that person was not my friend anymore or never had been. I learned that if I buried my attention in my Tolkien novels they would eventually get bored of trying to talk to me.
Honestly, I yearned for social safety first, then popularity. Having “real friends” was third on my list of concerns. I’ve always been happiest while doing my solitary activities. Reading, thinking, creating things.
Even though classes were boring and tedious, and my social life was miserable, I found focusing on homework to be a great way to avoid socializing and possibly getting singled out over some wardrobe violation. I learned mental tricks for getting through the days. On Monday I would think about the fact that it was almost Tuesday already. On Tuesday I would think about the fact that the week would be half over at the end of the very next day. By this method of reasoning, the week was almost over by Wednesday morning. Then by Wednesday afternoon it was all downhill towards the weekend, where I would get two whole days to do whatever I wanted.
Towards the end of my sixth-grade year Dad called a family meeting and announced that he was considering a job offer in New York City. He wanted to know how my brother and I felt about leaving Texas. I still remember the feeling of sudden hope and elation I felt at the prospect of leaving that place. As it turned out, Dad wasn’t very happy at his job either, and the new offer was too good to refuse in any case.
We all set our sights on a new promised land.
