Fight Like a Girl - Sheena Kamal Page 0,39
next and she pretty much does the same thing as Noor, only she’s wearing a sports bra and her shorts, wraps and ankle sleeves. In her little video spiel, she just says her name and, with a fierce frown, challenges the camera guy to ask for more. He’s learned his lesson, though, and just thanks her.
Kru gives her an exasperated look, but doesn’t push her to say anything else. When I get up there, the camera guy sighs heavily. He’s clearly over the novelty of doing promo shots for female fighters. He runs a hand over the springy hairs threatening to escape from the top of his T-shirt. “Take your mouth guard out, please.”
I do, but I have nowhere to put it so I hold it since I’m just wearing wraps. Kru gives me a shooing motion, which I take to mean “do something” even though what he’s indicating is the exact opposite. It’s a lot harder than it looks, mugging for the camera, so I start to shadowbox.
“Turn more to the camera…oh, Jesus. Don’t look like someone just murdered your family.”
There’s a moment of horrified silence. “What?” says the camera guy.
Amanda and Noor are looking like they want to murder him, but Kru clearly wants to get on with the day. “Give her a minute,” Kru says.
The camera guy frowns. “I’ve got another job right after this.”
I catch a glimpse of myself in the small mirror over the reception desk. Who is this girl, with her hair coiled into a neat braid? Even more important, who does she think she is? Not a fighter, that’s for sure! Look at her technique. Look at how she can’t even say her name for the camera. How she pulls faces, trying to convince the lens that she’s stronger than she is. Okay, so maybe there’s been a murder in her family, but is that really an excuse here?
She doesn’t look like a fighter to me, this girl.
Also, she isn’t really a girl anymore. I mean, she isn’t young. She’s old enough to know better, be better. Her guard keeps dropping. She taunts me with her lack of ability to do even this simple thing. Pretend for the camera—how difficult is that?
No matter how hard I try, I can’t get it right until Kru takes me aside and says, “Think of something that makes you feel like you’re on top of the world. That makes you feel powerful. Or made you feel that way once, even just for a moment. You got something like that?”
I nod. My right hand is oddly numb, until I realize it’s wrapped around my mouth guard. So I loosen it up, scratch at an itch I’ve got on my neck, and think about the night Dad died. I guess the talk about murder in my family gives me what I need, some kind of fierceness. I put my guard up and tuck my chin in.
“Better than nothing,” says the camera guy.
“Whatever you’re thinking, that’s what you need to take with you into the ring,” Kru says while the camera guy packs his gear. He pats me on the back. “We’re going to put these photos and the videos up in the next couple weeks, right after your school break, to get people excited for the fighters going to Florida.”
That’s what I like about Kru. He could have said “girls,” or even the more generic, genderless “guys.” He could have said “young ladies.” He could have said any other thing but he calls us the thing that we want to be, even if we might not be quite there yet. He calls us fighters, and that’s just about the best option. It’s enough to make me forget, for a long spell afterwards, that I look like there’s been a murder in my family. That despite all my attempts to push it down, bury it deep, I’ve been wearing it on my face all this time. In plain view, for everyone to see.
* * *
I remember the exact passage where I stopped reading the soucouyant book that I gave back to Mr. Abdi.
“Your history is a living book…Your history is your grammar for life…”
My history is a travel guidebook. My history is a creature nobody really believes in. My history is a foreign word.
My history is so fucked up, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
twenty-three
I’m looking forward to New York for March Break next week. I definitely don’t want to stay here with Ma and Ravi. I say