Defeated By Jenelle Tayler

BRITTANI BIRCH

“Yo, where you from bee?” This was North York Toronto slang. It can be translated into English as, “Where in Toronto are you from exactly?” From kid to kid, this was a formal “gangsta” check to see if you were a threat at my middle school. Apparently, my answer was never good enough in terms of Pierre Laporte Middle School’s language and lingo. Like a naïve, unsprouted nerd, in my first year at the school, I would typically reply, preppy and bug-eyed, with, “My parents have a house at Jane and Sheppard, not far from here!” Over the summer, I had gone to camp because my mom and dad did not want me home. Like the hero he was, my dad found the grungiest camp you could ever send your child to. It looked like a deserted warehouse on a street about fifteen minutes away from the main road. All I was thinking was that this would be the perfect place to get away with murdering a twelve-year-old child. My dad blatantly let me know that he was not going to drive me to camp and that I needed to find my own way there every day, or else there would be major consequences. My dad was this scary, husky black dude with a Jamaican accent, who regularly listened to Cher and Shania Twain. I will give you a minute to picture this horrifying image. He could “Dad stare” anyone into an early grave. I loved him, but he was a low-key brute. I mean, who sends their child to a camp that has no children? I was one of three kids at this creepy camp. And second, what type of dad gives their child no money to get to camp and threatens them with punishment if they don’t show up? Oh, and third, I could have died! That place was so far away from any type of life forms. Well, I did see a rat once. Anyways, I had to be resourceful, so I hopped on my old pink-and-white bike to get to camp. With each peddle, my knees hit the bars. I remember riding on Oakdale right where the 84 turns and hitting those two steep hills over Highway 400 every day. I also remember the day I got to the top of the hill without stopping. My point is that this was how I lost most of my weight going into middle school. I was a new person. No more “fat Brettani, you could roll down the street,” as my Uncle Noel used to say. Nope, no way! I was now slightly chubby Brettani with the little belly. This black girl had curves, muscle, and tone in places she had never seen before. I mean, I was still a little chunky, but there was progress. No more Mom combing my thick, nappy black hair into these ridiculous ponytails ending in plastic bowtie clips, resembling Loonette the Clown or Pippi Longstocking. I was growing up. This little black girl watched some YouTube videos. Yes, honey child! This black girl got a perm and a weave. Slicked back with Eco styling gel and tied down with a stocking, dried, and loosened to reveal a perfectly laid ponytail and baby hairs. I was going to be a new person at a new school. It was 2003. Justin Timberlake had just come out with “Cry Me a River,” and my parents had been arguing for weeks about the money they did not have to pay bills. So, me being a noble, bumbling idiot, I told my parents I wanted out of private school. Well, they listened to my business model, tracked our spending habits, and agreed that this would be the best financial move. Lo and behold, we will soon see that I was nowhere ready for the dangers and freight of callous public-school kids. My dad, my heroic, Jamaican superman, decided to send me to Pierre Laporte: “the-best-school-in-Toronto-because-your-sister-went-there-in-the-’80s-and-if-it-was-good-back-then-it’s-good-now.” Well, my first few weeks were more like “if-you-could-just-take-me-back-to-that-sketchy-looking-warehouse-camp-on-Oakdale-Road-I-think-I-would-be-safer-there-with-the-one-rat-and-the-two-kids.” But before I continue my tale, I must say that this story is not meant to reinforce any stigma or stereotype about kids from low-income neighbourhoods or middle-school students in general. This is an authentic experience that I am choosing to share with you about a middle-school defeat with a somewhat twisted ending. Now, back to our regular programming: how I tried to survive middle school in the ’hood. Pierre Laporte is located right across from what is now known as the Humber River Hospital. It’s a small school surrounded by Roding Park. When the sun rose behind the school in the summer and fall, it was majestic. I remember hearing the faint sounds of the sparrows flying past me each morning. The caretaker was Italian, and he would always take extra special care of the tulips planted at the front. My school had busty, tall trees and a large green field for soccer, all located on a slight hill surrounded by this lovely Italian neighbourhood. And I say “lovely” because Italians always have the most beautiful lawns. I had to give it up to my dad. My first impression of the school was not what I had expected. But, unfortunately, what was waiting for me inside was not so pleasant. My first months of Grade Six were really tough. They were a reality check for me. Very similar to a never-ending segment on Beyond Scared Straight, where you send your kid to jail to show them the potential reality of their poor choices. This school felt like a punishment I did not deserve. I was a great kid! I listened, I was helpful most of the time, and I got straight A’s. A lot of these kids were nothing like me. I witnessed kids selling crack cocaine and weed, and I heard rumours of children making sex tapes, which sounds ridiculous, but turned out to be true. There were kids I met who were contemplating suicide and showed signs of it on their bodies. There were kids at my school who were affiliated with gangs. This was Crip territory, and if you wore red instead of the blue and black Crip colours, it was a general rule that the kid wearing the wrong colour had to spill blood the colour they were wearing. This kind of thing was normal and terrifying. These were little kids who were going to grow up into adults. I was constantly wondering what it looked like when these kids went home and what caused them to be this way. Coming from a small Christian private school, I had no clue Pierre Laporte would be this petrifying. My goal for Grade Six was to keep myself off the radar. But I was black, and that alone makes you stick out. I remember hearing this line once from the movie Shrek, where the king orders his men to kill the ogre and says something like, “The knight who murders Shrek will be a hero. Go get him!” This motto definitely applied at my school. I truly believe that if I was your average Joe, a white kid, maybe I could have blended in better, maybe I could have hidden better. But I was black. Since I stood out, according to the unspoken rule of any institution I needed to be placed somewhere so I would be easier to understand and identify. I soon met my classifier, my first bully: Jenelle Tayler. Jenelle was in Grade Eight and about to graduate middle school when I started in Grade Six. The most messed up part about this bully is that even though she was a bit older, Jenelle looked similar to me. We were the only two black females at the school, with the same skin tone and the same hairstyle. Yes, honey, the one with the slicked-back ponytail and Eco styling gel. (I guess this style wasn’t so unique.) I mean, the only main differences were that she had beady eyes and the personality of an ogre. But even with that mean face, I still thought Jenelle was beautiful. Jenelle was a top dog, which was the problem. It’s like my dad always said, “Too mucha one ting is neva good.” He would say this whenever I poured sugar all over my fruit, but the expression is relevant to the dynamics of my school. At Pierre Laporte, there could be only one Jenelle. As the weeks passed, our hallway encounters became more routine. Like a scene from a movie where the nerdy kid is walking down the hall, gets his books slapped out of his hands, and then the big bully catches him in a corner to peer down and scoff at him. Jenelle would constantly stalk me and try to break me down psychologically by cornering me, then glaring down at me with her friends. I mean, the only positive thing was that after this one year, she would be gone, and I would be free. Since Jenelle was about to graduate, she had to steer clear of any major issues within the school. All she could really do was taunt me. One day, however, Jenelle really decided to get at me. It was winter, and the whole soccer field was covered in snow. It was that real Canadian winter with tall heaps of snow reaching almost as high as the streetlights. I mean, it was cold, but still absolutely beautiful. I had just come down the stairs onto the main floor of the school. I had to go to the end of the hall to hand in the attendance sheet at the office. At the opposite end of the hall, I saw Jenelle making her way towards me. I was nervous, but kept walking down the hall as close to the wall as I could get. I repeated under my breath, “Don’t make eye contact, do-not-make-any-eye-contact.” Jenelle noticed me basically hugging the wall like she was a disease. Then she got close enough to me so I could hear her whisper, “You ugly fat bitch.” I instantly pulled away. A rush of cold ran down to my fingertips. My body felt numb, but I kept walking toward the office. I felt lifeless as I handed off the attendance sheet and walked out of the office and back up the stairs to my class. I was there, but I felt as if I had just left my body. I didn’t cry, but I did start to think. I started to remember the Indian lady who babysat me and told me I was too dark and fat, how she used to lock me in a room and starve me when I was five years old. I started to remember the man in his car who passed me near my old school at Bathurst and Finch, yelling “fatty” out his window as I drank my slushy on that hot summer day. I started to think about the way my family thought it was okay to make those types of comments. Everything became ugly the day Jenelle whispered to me. That was the day that triggered the start of my anorexia, my hair falling out, the blackouts at school from malnutrition. This was the beginning of my own self-hate. This was the day you defeated me, Jenelle Tayler.