Page 106 - Esquire (November 2019)

sibly can about it. I’ve been through a lot of feels as wrong as not to include it, so I’m aim- Lick-Wilmerding, one of the most prestigious
phases, these intense periods of focus.”
I was joined by a film crew from Germany
that was shooting a segment about the release
of the German translation of my novel, There
There. I felt uncomfortable about how my new,
strange life as an author was bleeding into my
time with Jeffrey. The Germans wanted to film
us together, and I would have said no, but Jef- what recently. And it doesn’t feel complete. I
frey loved the idea. He has no problem being
in the spotlight. In it, he shines. The dojo has
helped with that. “I’m a pretty shy person,”
he told me. “Like, when I’m introduced into
a new environment, I can be quiet at first. My
confidence levels were low in terms of pub-
lic speaking and stuff like that. But karate has
helped me a lot.”
The crew set up outside the dojo; the direc-
tor placed me, Jeffrey, and his teacher on the
other side of the street. We joked about what AFTER THE FILM crew left,
we were supposed to be doing, about how to
act naturally. The director signaled for us to
cross, so we did, and we acted as if we were
not acting, so acted natural and walked across
the street to the dojo, where Jeffrey was to
practice with weapons too big for the space in
the dojo. We kept acting as if he were taking
his lesson while he actually took his lesson. At
one point, the director asked Jeffrey to slow-
ly move toward the camera while spinning a
three-section staff, a kind of giant nunchuck.
The whole thing felt bizarre. Even mention-
ing it here, in this story, feels both unavoidable
and something that absolutely should be avoid-
ed. It’s just that I don’t know what to do with
what’s happened to my life, and to include it
ing for somewhere in the middle, bringing it up high schools in San Francisco. Most families
and dismissing it at once by bringing up why I pay $49,000 each year to send their child, but
think it’s dismissible. I’m not sure of the exact Jeffrey qualified for its Flexible Tuition pro-
moment I felt I’d sufficiently made it out of the gram. Getting in was an intense process, he
gravity my life had felt mired in for so long, at said, “because I’m naturally very bad at stan-
what point I attained the speed to stay afloat, dardized tests. The way they phrase things and
even while continually falling, but it was some- the way that they expect you to answer it in
one specific way, I call it ‘conforming to the
don’t think it ever will. But I know I won’t ever test,’ and I’m really bad at conforming.” His
end up where I once was—doomed—where closest friends are Melinda, Caroline, and Ar-
I maybe had to go to get where I am. iana, and his group includes Julia, Brandon,
At one point, the director asked Jeffrey who Felix, Colette, and Jackie. He’s the only Na-
I was to him. In his answer, he referenced hun- tive American in the school. I asked if he’s ev-
ka, a Lakota word that translates to “adopted er bothered by questions about Native culture.
family.” He said I was a kind of uncle to him, or “When someone says, ‘I have a Native Ameri-
father figure. I hadn’t known he felt that way. can question for you,’ I’m like, ‘Oh, God, what
are they going to say?’”
One time, his friend told him about a joke
her mother made about how, at the school’s
Jeffrey and I walked down the street to get ice annual social-justice workshop, the white af-
cream at Fentons Creamery. I grew up going finity group could relocate the Native affini-
to Fentons, and so did my grandparents— ty group (which consisted of just Jeffrey). “I
that’s how long the place has been a part was like, ‘That’s not okay to say. My grand-
of Oakland. When my mom was pregnant mother...’ And I told her my grandma’s story,
with me, she stopped eating sugar, and how she moved to Oakland on relocation, and
when I was born, my dad went to Fentons what she had to go through to get to where we
and got her favorite—a Black and Tan— are now. She came here with a ninth-grade ed-
and took it to the hospital. My sister used to ucation, and she raised eight kids, and she got
be a waitress here, and I’d come all the time a master’s degree in social work while doing
because she’d give me free meals. It’s almost it. Getting to that level, becoming so good at
always crowded and loud. I don’t have a what you do, is very inspiring. That’s why I’m
favorite thing to get there, so when Jeffrey always bragging, like, ‘My grandma did this!’”
ordered a slice of apple pie and cookie-dough A few days later, Jeffrey said, the friend sin-
ice cream, I got the same. cerely apologized on behalf of herself and her
We talked about school. Jeffrey is a senior at mother. Still, “I feel this weight to sort of ad-
THIS PAGE: Jeffrey deals a hand of cards
to his grandmother, Geri. OPPOSITE:
Jeffrey, who loves trains, recently
repaired the toy model from one of his
favorite movies, The Polar Express,
which he broke when he was five.