(3/32) “I was the fly in a bucket of buttermilk. All my...

(3/32) “I was the fly in a bucket of buttermilk. All my neighbors were Italians and Jews. My first crush was a boy named Neil Murray. He’s fat and bald now, but back then he looked like a Kennedy. Every day he’d carry my books home from school. Until one day the nuns gave us a lecture about how you can’t be interracial, so that stopped real quick. But I did everything else the white kids did: ice skating, snow skiing, horseback riding. My mother sent me to a private Catholic school, and we were reading all those classic novels: The Illiad, The Oddysey, Tale of Two Cities, all that stuff. We even studied Latin. No black kids were taking Latin in the 1940’s, but I was near the top of my class. Every time there was an art thing going down, the teachers would put me right in the middle of it. One Christmas they put me inside a big refrigerator box, and wrapped it up in wrapping paper. All the parents gathered around. Then the music started, and the box opened up, and there I was, dressed like a doll. Standing on pointe. I began to dance, and the parents went crazy. My mom was so proud that day. Because none of the other kids could do it, even though they were white. Sometimes on the weekends I’d go over to these kids’ houses, and they had families like you’d see on television. Everyone would be talking nice. Like they were happy to be together. Even the dog would be wagging its tail. But there was nothing like that in my house. My parents didn’t even sleep in the same bedroom. There were no hugs or kisses. My only friends were my dolls. At night I’d pull a blanket over the top of an old card table and pretend it was my home. I’d be under that table, with all my dolls, in their beautiful dresses, and it was like I had a little family.  I’d gather them real close and we’d say a prayer: “Lord, please get me out of here so I can find a family that loves me.” I’d say it over and over. “Lord, please get me out of here so I can find a family that loves me.” One night my mother must have heard me in the hallway, because she burst into my room. She kicked over that card table and slapped me across the face. When I came home from school the next day, all my dolls were gone.”