CHAPTER 12

Keith: Ain’t nothing changed.

Author: Did people say stuff about your sneakers?

Keith: Absolutely, but they know I would get them. Eventually I would get them. One thing … I thought about this. That I didn’t realise I was bullying. Like a lot of guys … One guy … Used to talk about him so bad and he punched me right in my face.

Author: He punched you?

Keith: Yeah.

Author: What did you say to him?

Keith: I kept calling him schizo-fag. Like, one minute you’re gay, one minute you’re straight. It was a good chuckle. Everybody laughed. I was like, ‘Ah, this is good.’

Author: Where was that? At the back of the bus?

Keith: In school, in the back of the classroom, also was … The teacher said, ‘Keith, go to the back of the room, you’re not going to learn, you just want to make fun, get your ass to the back.’ And I’m smiling and I was, ‘Hey, hey, schizo-fag.’ Guys are laughing. We’re just having a good time. But I didn’t realise back then that was a form of bullying. A girl, I used to always mess with her. Like I would do the Beverly Hillbillies song, ‘Black gold, Texas tea’, because she was real dark. That, ‘Hey there lonely girl’, I’d say, ‘Hey there ugly girl.’ I would just fuck with her so bad, right? I would fuck with her so bad and like … I mean really bad. I was fucking with her, seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade.

Author: Did she cry?

Keith: Oh, you didn’t see how bad it was. I was out of school now, graduated high school and all that. I was maybe nineteen at a church, sat there, Bethel Baptist Church, and I’m sitting there and she starts kicking my chair. Boom. I’m like, ‘What the hell? Who’s kicked my chair?’ It was her, making faces at me, just angry. She was still hurt from sixth, seventh grade.

Author: When was that?

Keith: I was nineteen then. I was only thirteen, fourteen when I was teasing her. And she was in there kicking my chair. I’m like, ‘Huh? Hey.’ ‘Fuck you.’ ‘What? We’re in church.’ She hated my guts.

Author: Did you apologise to her?

Keith: No, because you don’t know. And I’m like, ‘Why is she so mad? I was just joking with her.’ But you don’t know the effect you can have on people.