Death Became Her
It has been two years since Anna died. My feelings are MUCH more complicated than at first glance. It’s not just sadness, or even mostly so. Or even mostly about her. This is a matter of Tue being a black man who has been mostly integrationist in his outlook, where his tie to “their world” has been broken, and he is, in real time, trying to build the wall between “their world” and “our world” in real time. Because of a series of negative experiences, Tue does NOT consider himself an integrationist anymore.
Tue has found that the absolute best way to prevent non-black people, especially white people, from blaming him incessantly or unfairly is simply to remove the opportunity. Tue as a black man doesn’t have to calculate your willingness to destroy his reputation if he assumes that you’re too irresponsible not to. Want Tue to become more multicultural? Introduce him to women who make him relax, not women who make him double down.
Anna is Pervasive:
Tue works at Job Corps as a staff member. The same Job Corps that Anna was a student at. So he spends 40 hours a week where she lived for a year. There was a week where her daughter tried to go through the same program. The only holiday Tue consistently celebrates is Anna’s birthday, with his own being more ominous than celebratory.
Anna Helps Tue Through White America:
1. Some people are one track. One track people are predictable.
Anna could sometimes be so stubborn, that for me to “win” an argument, I would have to give her what she wanted. Which sounds like a dream for a woman, until one realizes that there have been multiple times I knew she was going to end up in tears, and there was nothing I could do about it but let it happen. I have now calmly gotten used to white women who can’t hear me, not because of my race, but because of my gender.
2. Tue has got to let go.
Nothing Tue can say or do can give him a single moment with Red. This is a good thing. Tue has cycled through easily half a dozen combative, hyper emotional white women. How many have he met AFTER Anna died? None. While he did love her, she was so damn oppositional defiant, that Tue would intentionally encourage her to do exactly the things Anna thought Tue would discourage - things that would cause her to break bones, miss work and be sick. Sometimes, people are so insecure, that they would rather be hurt than listen and be concerned about being controlled.
To get to the point, when Anna died, most of his capacity to take abuse died with her. So women who think keeping it real and keeping it incessantly bitchy are the same I have no need for. I don’t have a deep psychological womb to fill now. It’s literally buried.
3. Her memory is a professional guide.
Tue is now on record, in print, in his official school record, as being motivated by his dead ex fiancée to pursue a degree in medicine. While Anna only was an Associate of Nursing, it isn’t too surprising that’s how Tue remixed me wanting to go into the field. And it’s a guide and ruling mechanism with how he deals with white America. The meat on Anna’s bones has decayed, and any relationship that is complicated with a white woman where Tue is always made to be the bad guy may as well be dead as she is.
Anna Guides Tue Through Black America
One of Tue’s big rules is making sure he doesn’t get bogged down with someone unreasonable. While Tue loved Anna, he sure as hell makes sure he doesn’t get into a financial, romantic, sexual, or employment relationship with someone so stubborn, so obstinate, that they MUST suffer misfortune to see your point. I’m looking at what I didn’t like about Anna, and it’s changing my interaction with everyone.
What does this have to do with black America? Let alone black women? Bahiyyah (Bee Ree) isn’t like that. I’ve made more progress with Bahiyyah in ¾ of a year than I did with Anna in ¾ of a decade. Bahiyyah is a badass nurse who if she fucks up, people die. She’s too busy and too important as a woman to be so insecure that she needs to belittle any man, let alone me.
Was admitting to Jess that black women are just so fucking peaceful, and therefore comfortable, that I wasted twenty years difficult? Yes. But it beats the fuck out of the alternative of being with someone, or around them, and wishing you were alone. Making sure that I treat black women who heal me with the same level of respect that I gave the white women who hurt? Absolutely. Such presents a floor, a bare minimum.
XXX
Anna isn’t the end all and be all in Tue’s world. But she does make a foundation. If you think Tue changed for the worse, ask what happened and who did it to make him do so. If you think he changed for the better, the ties he has to the world have gone ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Tue knows the man he wants to be, but he makes no promises. Especially since he’s learning how to trust again, so he needs to know who will speak evil upon his hopes before he dares say them aloud.
Bee Ree seems pretty understanding. There are rules and regulations I have gathered after years of conflict with outsiders. I’m shedding the rules, and relearning and rewiring myself. Bee Ree gives me space to learn. None of the baggage of the past she carries. I explained to her this way: “You (she) is emotionally stable enough to actually want to help me solve problems. Those who don’t come from a culture of actually solving problems. Sometimes, I just like listening to you do your daughter’s hair for the sense of normalcy. Those from the outside? They pay no penalty for being mindless, and have no reward for thought. When you’re off, your patients die. You have to be in the real world.”
The moment is here. For the first time in twenty years, the road is clear. I understand it, I get it. I have a partner to travel with me, I can leave the rest at Anna’s grave and be done with it.