It’s Never Black and White

Andrea Askowitz (one of the co-producers of Lipservice) heard me read Raw at a Miami venue, and suggested I submit a story for the upcoming show. It would showcase stories about “Culture Clash.” Interfaith, interracial true stories, out loud.

It’s Black – It’s White

I told her I didn’t think I had anything to write about. On the way to my car I knew what I had, or more so, what had me. I wrote, edited, and rehearsed It’s Never Black and White. I spoke it until I knew it, until I felt it.

I had loved him for more than thirty years. By the time I stood on stage in front of a sold out audience of three hundred to read It’s Never Black and White I loved myself more.

I Am A Rock

My husband was white. Jewish, a lawyer. I was married to him for more than a decade. We had three children together. But before I married him, I was desperately in love with a different man. A black man.

White statue of a powerful animal figure

On A Pedestal

We had talked over the phone for months. I was producing a performance piece at a downtown space in Manhattan, and he was one of the artists. He had a beautiful voice.

We were professional until the instant we met. And then it was on. He was the first black man I had ever been attracted to.

Thomas Zipp – acrylic on canvas/mixed media on paper

He walked in and said, “So, you’re Jill.” “Yea, and you’re black. You didn’t sound black over the phone.” As soon as I spoke, I knew I sounded stupid and inexperienced. I was twenty-something from Brooklyn.

I sunk into him hard, and fast, and deep, and what would become forever.

He brushed his arm against my skin the first time we met and even though I’d spent months planning the exhibition, I kept the audience waiting. Wedged between paintings in the storeroom I kissed him because he told me to.

Pulled

He commanded my attention and dictated my behavior from then on. He was maddeningly smart and charming. And unfaithful.

I knew about the other women. We crossed the street many times to avoid a conversation with one or another of them. Sometimes he would stop to talk. I was humiliated, but I always waited until he finished.

Love – HATE by NOBODY

He told me early on that his mother was white, and left him when he was really young. Because of that, he hated white women. No doubt, he hated something about me, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be whatever he wanted me to be. I would have changed the color of my skin for him if I could have.

For more than two years we danced between exhilaration and explosion. I felt powerless over my attraction to him. Maybe it was an addiction.

Work by Sergio Garcia

One night in my apartment, we were awakened by the phone. He had given another woman my number. I harnessed the last shred of self-respect I had, and told him to leave and to never come back.

So, even though I rehearsed telling my mom I would be marrying a black man, we never had that conversation.

Square-Diamond

Years after my divorce we ran into each other in a restaurant. I was with my three children to celebrate my daughter’s eleventh birthday. His dreadlocks were gone, and he was bald. The muscles that were chiseled decades earlier were softer, but he looked as beautiful to me as he had the first time I saw him. This time the surprise of seeing him had nothing to do with the color of his skin.

Let Go

We met for lunch the next day. I didn’t know what to say, or how to tell him that I had loved him for all these years. But my body came to my defense, self-preservation, I suppose. I woke up with laryngitis, and couldn’t speak.

Eleven years later he sent me a Facebook friend request. I stopped breathing, and waited days to accept.

He came to town this year,and we had dinner. I was waiting at the bar when I felt his embrace from behind. I felt my heart pounding, and I could smell my own bitter sweat. I was afraid I would want to kiss his mouth.

Then, Not Now

My voice cracked when I told him I regretted choosing him. He said I didn’t choose him, we had chosen each other. At our small table in the middle of a very crowded restaurant I cried, not because I wanted him back, but because I realized I was just like him.

He was trying to resolve his childhood pain with me. Since falling in love with him so many years ago, I have attracted only mean, only selfish men. I have repeated the same relationship with every man, black or white.

I’ve been trying to resolve the pain of my relationship with him for thirty-two years.

Being different colors was the obvious difference between us. But failed love is never black and white.