ragged

i suppose every class has them, the girls and boys who walk with supremacy from the day they cross the threshold, their clothes natty, their hair so very stylish, their parents' wealth attending to their burgeoning desires like a dutiful butler.

i had three, combed and conditioned for maximum effect, decked in the latest fixation of fashion, that garnered all the boys' attention. never mind that they were as dumb as posts, they looked good, they smelled good, they were all that i suppose most people think a girl is supposed to be.

i was not. i was smart and strange and had a june bug farm hidden in my desk. my closet never held new clothes. i was very much aware of fashion, i stitched together gowns for my dolls and whiled away hours drawing up clothing designs, but fashion held no positive sway on my fourth-grade popularity.

i remember being handed down a pair of Levis that i liked very much, they augmented my two pairs of cotton trousers into a reasonable enough wardrobe for a poor child. i wore those jeans proudly, at least twice a week.

one day those three girls cornered me in the bathroom and asked me to stand at the wall with my back facing them. unsure of their reasoning yet fully aware that something was amiss, i acquiesced. they giggled behind me for a full minute as my face exploded into flames. when they finally tired of their ribaldry and exited, i snagged the tallest and demanded to be clued in.

"you have holes in your pants," she said, with a miniscule measure of sympathy in her still sparkling eyes.

and indeed i did. my ass had worn straight through the sole garment that had offered my appearance a shred of normalcy. i was back to my two pairs of faded and unstylish cotton pants. i'd let some perverted semblance of pride lead me to become a laughingstock for those lucky little ladies who had no idea how it felt to be lowly and poor.

i made it back to the classroom and tied my jacket around my waist for the rest of the day. i told no one and upon arriving home i threw the exhausted jeans in the garbage.

years later on break from university, i found that my mother had taken a job babysitting one of those bitch's babies. i peeked into her crib as she slept, and from nowhere the far distant memory of her mother's wretched giggling seized me. i felt fermented rage shower me from tip to toe. i grabbed a pillow and contemplated the ease of ending that small life in a grossly imbalanced act of vengeance.

i refrained from that nefarious act, but i made a point to look my old enemy in the eye when she arrived to pick up her baby. i know by the way she dropped her gaze that she felt something black and seething brush against her brain.

years later i was in New York for business, still penniless, but many years removed from the shy little girl who thought she could play with pride and win. i strolled into Saks Fifth Avenue in my shabby coat and shoes, took in every floor, touched fine fabrics, looked straight into the eyes of every floor assistant. i took in the jewels at Cartier and Tiffany with my head high, i joked with the doormen and flashed the salesmen my best smile. i was treated respectfully, cordially even.

that day i cured that ugly pride-born blackness that had settled into my heart so many years prior. a beggar in outdated rags, i was still the finest creation on Fifth Avenue and i knew it. i would never again be ruled or defined by my lowly birth, i would never evaluate my worth by any standard but my own ever again.