“She developed a protocol that would divest me specifically of the fallacy of white supremacy, long before The Shift, and she wanted to use me as the prototype to teach and train other white men. I will, I’ll train other white men in the fullness of the season when I’m called to do so. I’ll help them see their racism and how to see Black people as human beings, as something more than human dildos, but not now . . . For now, I’m enjoying every second of this New World and my ability to please Black men and treat you like a King and pamper you the way you deserve to be treated.”
Marvin took a deep breath and moved closer again. He needed more answers. “What the fuck kind of protocol did she develop that literally changed the way you look AND the way you look at Black people? I mean, I experience LESS racism from white people after The Shift but not nothing like what you spittin’.”
Thinking about who he was, and who he was now, and how he got there, the shit he had to release and learn and relearn and unlearn old patterns of thinking and trying to explain it all seemed like an insurmountable task to Lee. “Well, the first thing I had to do after The Shift was sit down with my wife and tell her that I was destined for something bigger. I knew immediately after The Shift that my future was with Scottie, helping her.”
“Whoa! How did she take it? That had to be wild.”
“Truthfully, she was fine. Our relationship had been a casual friendship, a marriage of pretense, nothing more. What I thought were sincere feelings of love for her were feelings of guilt, responsibility, and conformity. I never felt true love for her and equally, she never really loved me. It wasn’t until I learned to Love myself that I could understand that. We were both incapable of Love, real Love, soulful, abiding, the ‘put your partner’s needs above your own because you can’t breathe without them Love,’ without neuro-melanin. As soon as that spell was broken and the Old World was no more, after The Shift, we both knew that even though we had both been wardens in the prison, we had to voyage outside the prison walls that had confined us and that our paths would diverge for a while.”
“We are actually great friends now. She comes to visit me and I go back and spend time with family at least once a season. We are closer than we have ever been, our conversations are deeper and more meaningful, but she is not my truth any longer. She is more sexually attracted to me as this new Lee but because her path is so different, because she hasn’t addressed her racism to the same degree, I don’t want to lead her on or hurt her and I can’t deal with her residual whiteness so I keep a respectful distance and I Love her for who she is on her path. And, seriously, for as sexually inept, inadequate, and as clumsy as I was during our marriage compared to my skills now. . .” His voice trailed off and he got a bit choked up.
“I know that this is my place for now,” he continued. “For the first time in our lives, I’m so grounded and I’m really comfortable in the head space that I occupy now even if I still don’t see myself inwardly as the way I present to the world outwardly. Does that make sense? Who knows what the future holds for us, however. Today, I know that this is who I am and where I want to be and I’ve never felt more alive, more fulfilled, or more authentic in my own skin.”
Just for a moment, Lee mourned his old life, but not because he wanted it back, but because so much of his life had been wasted telling lies. Lies he told others, lies he told himself, lies he lived because he thought had to be this mythical white man of conformity and pretense.
Marvin was hypnotized. “Lee, you don’t move like a white man. Your mannerism. You don’t talk like a white man. You don’t sound white, I mean, you don’t sound ghetto but you got the swag of a brotha. Everything about you screams BLACK.” Lee expressed his gratitude for the compliment because he understood what it felt like to be authentic and soulful. When he was steeped in whiteness, he didn’t have access to that swag.
“For real,” Marvin said, “I have a lot of healing to do because I’m not sure I could be that honest with any female in my past. Not about anything. I’ve thought about being radically honest with anyone who I meet in the future, any relationships I start in the New World, but I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I’ve been fucking with other dudes since I’ve been 13 and that I’m for real, for real, like for real . . . bisexual.” Even saying the word felt traumatic to Marvin. “I been fighting this shit my entire life.”