of high-school-age DJs, was running the music. They were black and Latino, and from neighboring towns. But one, Hector, lived across the street from me.
Suddenly, this big black girl walked in with a determined stomp in her step. She had dookie braids, a pink ribbon woven into each one. She immediately stuck out to me, of course, because you know there were no other black girls around. Way across the room, I saw her go up to Hector, who then pointed in my direction. I looked behind me, thinking, Who could she possibly be looking for?
Then she started stalking through the crowd, about four or five people deep, around my lunch table. As she got closer, she lunged through a wall of people to get to me. But I still didn’t understand that I was the target.
This girl is just really angry, I thought. Somebody is going to get their ass kicked. Meanwhile, the white people were practically clearing a path for her, just assuming that the black girl was there for the other black girl.
“I’m gonna whoop yo’ ass, bitch!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, pointing right at me. “I’m gonna whoop yo’ ass!”
I swear, I looked around like, “This couldn’t possibly be about me.” Eventually, the school security dragged her off school grounds by the shoulders. “I’m gonna get you, Nickie Union!” she yelled as they pulled her out the door. “I’m gonna come back after school and kick your ass!”
I was shaking as if I’d had a near-death experience. I had no idea who in the world this bitch was, and now all these white girls were staring at me.
“Oh my God,” went the chorus. “Oh my God, are you okay? That was, like, so terrifying.”
So I marched over to Hector and asked him why he sent her over to me.
“Oh, Queeshaun?” he said. “You don’t know her?” He acted with total innocence. “She asked where you were. We thought you invited her.”
“Hector, you know who comes to my house,” I said. “And not a one looks like this bitch. Thanks a lot.”
I immediately went to a pay phone and called my big sister Kelly. “COME GET ME NOW,” I demanded, and I sat in the parking lot for the half hour it took for her to drive from San Jose State, where she was going to school. When I saw her, I stood up, waving like some castaway flagging down a helicopter.
“Where the hell is she?” she said, flying out of the car and darting her eyes around sniper style.
“She left,” I said. “But she’ll be back.”
“We’re gonna wait for her.”
“Uh, no!” I started screaming. “Take me home!” I was not giving this girl a chance to come back and kill me.
“Nickie, you have to face her,” she said. “Otherwise you’re a coward.”
“You stay, then,” I said, getting into the car and locking the door. I waved. “Tell me how it goes!”
When my mom got home I kept talking about how I was traumatized by “the day’s events.” I practically needed a fainting couch after what I had been through. But my teen/girlfriend priorities kicked in, and I asked my mom to take me to the mall because I still needed to get a Christmas gift for Jason.
We went to a Structure and I picked out the brighter of two Cosby-esque sweaters. I was smug as hell, having turned the day around. As we were getting ready to leave, I half-heartedly hummed along to the mall Muzak’s “Jingle Bells.” My mom and I went down the main escalator and I decided that crazy Queeshaun chick had the whole Christmas break to figure out she had me mixed up with another girl.
Midway down, my self-satisfied haze cracked. I saw my nightmare come to life in the form of Queeshaun standing at the bottom of the escalator, talking to, of all people, my freshly minted ex-boyfriend Tyrone, with his FUCK THE POLICE cast. They both looked up, and I immediately began trying to run up the down escalator.
“Nickie,” my mom yelled, grabbing me by the back of my coat to stop me.
“Mom, that’s her,” I yelled. “That’s her.”
She turned and stared at Queeshaun, who couldn’t believe her luck.
“I can’t believe,” Mom said, “you are scared of a girl wearing a bullet bra.”
I had no idea what Queeshaun’s bra had to do with me, since I was going to die at the bottom of that escalator. “I’m gonna whip yo’ fuckin’ ass for Angela,” Queeshaun yelled,