In college, I was hanging out with Mitchell and a couple of other friends. We were in Mitchell’s beach house “down the line” – a rickety shack where we had some of our most insane cast parties. (“Down the line” basically meant you lived in a shack on the beach with your nusto friends, as opposed to in the dorms where there were things like RAs, and stuff like that. Living “down the line” was everyone’s goal in college! I lived “down the line” as well.)<\/p>\n
So – it was Christmastime. A couple of us had hung out, ordered pizza, whatever – and then we all watched Rudolph <\/i>on television. We were all 19, 20, but we watched it as raptly as if we were 6.<\/p>\n
A couple of words on Emily before the story itself. Emily was a very good friend of ours. And here are the bullet points in regards to Emily:<\/p>\n
— She was from the Dominican Republic<\/p>\n
— She grew up on the streets of Providence, Rhode Island (NOT the nice part of the city)<\/p>\n
— She was in a gang<\/p>\n
— She was a math whiz.<\/p>\n
— She ended up getting into college – through her math scores<\/p>\n
— She was the only minority female in the engineering department. Almost the only female as well. (There was a moment at the bursar’s office when the lady behind the desk, finding out that Emily was Dominican, said, “Em’ly. I did not know you wasn’t a Negro student.” Negro? Negro?? The woman did not mean ANY harm and Emily didn’t take offense – but Emily also had a high-tuned instinct for comedy … and that bursar lady’s innocent comment was funny. Emily did imitations of the poor woman for 4 years straight.)<\/p>\n
— She had a huge mohawk<\/p>\n
— She had a passion for African dance<\/p>\n
— She wore tiny tartan kilts, ripped black tights, and huge stomping motorcycle boots<\/p>\n
So … put all that together … what do you have? Emily. Oh, and add onto that:<\/p>\n
— a huge laugh<\/p>\n
— a warm heart<\/p>\n
— a no-bullshit attitude towards friendship – she was as loyal as the day was long – but DO NOT MESS with her<\/p>\n
Here’s one Emily anecdote. Brooke – another girl in our crowd of friends – mentioned something about the Catholic girl’s school she had gone to in Providence – let’s call it St. Marks. Emily’s face lit up. Sincerely<\/i>. She had heard of it, she looked happy about it. And she said, “I used to throw bricks at the girls from St. Marks!” She said it in a kindly nostalgic way. Like: ohhh, those were the days, member when I threw bricks at you??<\/p>\n
Emily got her life together in a major way and is now getting her doctorate, I believe. But back in the day, she was throwing bricks at the girls from the Catholic school.<\/p>\n
So that’s Emily. I just need to set it up because what ended up happening was even funnier because it was EMILY who said it. The tough tattooed Mohawked ex-gang member. With a calculator in her pocket.<\/p>\n
We lay around in the living room watching Rudolph<\/i>. Nobody really spoke. We were LIVING the Christmas special.<\/p>\n
Then comes the devastating realization of Santa Claus’s coldness – and how he basically shuns Rudolph from polite society. He won’t let Rudolph join in the reindeer games – he won’t even let him hang OUT with the other reindeer!! The red nose is something to be ashamed of. It implicates the entire North Pole venture. Santa must get rid of Rudolph as quickly as possible. Somehow, I took all of this in stride as a child – I just accepted that Santa was kind of an asshole – but suddenly, in this particular viewing, with Emily and Mitchell, it seemed unbeLIEVably unfair.<\/p>\n
But I didn’t say anything. I just thought it to myself.<\/p>\n
And Emily, sprawled out on the couch, a cigarette dangling from her lips, an ashtray piled high with butts propped on her stomach, her legs with their ripped black fishnets hooked up over the back of the couch, said in a flat dry tone, with dead matter-of-fact eyes, “Santa is a racist motherfuckah.”<\/p>\n
There was a brief pause, as we all nodded seriously, agreeing with her – we were pissed at Santa too … but then we all looked at Emily – the mohawk, the scary gang tattooes, the cigarette – she was our friend – but we suddenly saw her EXTERIOR … we all looked at each other … and just LOST IT.<\/p>\n
We lost it so bad that we missed the rest of Rudolph<\/i> pretty much. We could not get it back, we could not come down. It just kept being hilarious to us. It HURT. Because she truly MEANT it … she wasn’t saying it to be funny, she wasn’t saying it in a tone of “ooh, aren’t I funny” mock outrage … she wasn’t even outraged at all. She was just flatly stating the facts. We could not stop laughing. Emily was laughing so riotously that she thought she would asphyxiate – she had to go outside and get some air, walk around the frosty yard, howling to the moon with laughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In college, I was hanging out with Mitchell and a couple of other friends. We were in Mitchell’s beach house “down the line” – a rickety shack where we had some of our most insane cast parties. (“Down the line” … Continue reading