Rough Draft

Creative Nonfiction Story: Rough Draft

Note: the format of this looks very different (better) on word // & printed out. This looks like it's a lot less than it really is.

1.

We walk off the Luna 360 with our heads spinning and the world before us still blurry. Kane rubs his eyes and bends down to whisper something to Roman, who tilts his head back and laughs. All around us kids shriek and giggle as their moms hand them purple plush dinosaurs and buckets of popcorn. Little boys and girls fly in their rockets and swing in the air and splash into water as their hair blows in the gentle wind and their parents snap pictures for the scrapbook.

Kane bounces around and does his usual abstract dancing. Nearly 21 years old and he still doesn’t think twice about how others view him.  

We’re close to the bench and I can hear Mama’s voice as she tries to convince John that he has do something, he can’t just let things continue the way they are but she cuts of her sentence when she sees us walking towards them.

The Wonder Wheel is open, she says, more of a plea for us to leave then a genuine suggestion.

Kane brushes his long brown hair away from his face and his warm almond eyes stare at me.

Putting my arm around Roman, we all walk over and get in line.

2.

On a Thursday in December I walked down Mangin Street with Eamon and Shelli to find Dr. Lerner handing out flyers in front of the big red doors. Each taking one from his hand, we go inside and walked up the stairs, reading the paper as we climb each step.

News reports of Ferguson and court cases and jury decisions. Overheard conversations of adults frowning as they murmured about Mike Brown and Tamir Rice. Names and places and events that all seemed so abstract and far away.

11:58 in History of the Americas. Ironic. We turn in our readings on the Civil War, with attached FFW responded to “How did the Civil War reflect contrasting views on racism?”

11:59 and Ms. Riviere pauses for a split second and looks around. I glance at Henry and Maya and Stephany and when 12:00 hits we get up and walk out.

100, 200 students gather outside the school and start marching. Whose streets, Our streets; Whose streets, Our streets.

What do we want? Justice. When do we want it?

Now.

3.

(Wh-asian) Kane hands the (black) lady 21 tickets and (white) Roman and I push through the turnstile.

Roman and I have lived in New York for 10 years and we’ve never actually been on the Wonder Wheel. It’s like the Eiffel Tower or the London Eye, one of those things that really mean nothing to most people but you have to do anyway. And it’s less about even experiencing it than making sure you have a smiling picture in front of it to show to–

Who?

But still, thousands of millions of people come every year to do these things. They’re classics. They’re just one dimensional, scrapbook events.

But like many other things I do while arbitrarily/sheepishly contradicting myself and my own beliefs, excitement still rushes through me as the three of use sit down in the benches of our own, neon pink spray painted compartment.

The ferris wheel starts to move. We’re on the outer ring moving up, while the inner ring moves down. Slowly, the world below us shrinks. I see Mama’s waving hand down below. She gets smaller and smaller.

I turn my head to the right and gawk at the massive blue blanket in front of me. The ocean is taunting. It’s endless, in depth and width and color and everything.

It looks bigger and bigger as we go higher and higher.

4.

I swear I never thought about race as an issue until this year, really.

They can call me ignorant or stupid.

But I know I’m respectful and I know I'm not racist.

Every year in social studies or history of whatever they want to call it, we learn about the United States and slavery and racism and segregation. Every year, after reading the textbook and watching the videos and dropping my jaw at what I’d see, I’d look down at my own skin and feel terrible and ashamed and helpless.

I’m told everyday now about my white priveledge and how it’s okay for black people to be make racist comments to white people but not okay for white people to make racist comments about black people because we have priviledge.

Not that anybody should be making racist comments about anyone.

And people throw around “black” people and “white” people as if it means something definite and important but when I stop to think about who I am and my skin color and how I as just born this way my fists clench and my brain tightens and my head aches because I just don’t know what to do because I was born with white skin and you were born with black skin and that’s just the way it fucking goes.

I’d say that the biggest part of my growing up has been seeing how much bigger the world is than what I know. I’m still learning everyday.

But I continually feel powerless and guilty and terrible that I’m a part of this race that has a huge history–and a present, really–of racism and I can truly tell you that, as a young, liberal teen that really just trying to get some sort of grasp on what the world is, it’s hard to deal with yourself.

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry a million times over and I know I will never ever understand what it’s like to be a person of color and be mistreated by society, I will never know because I am white and that’s just the way I was made so if someone can please just tell me what to do to get rid of all this bullshit that would be fantastic, thank you.

**notes... this isn’t finished, as I changed my story format a few times and this is finally one that I’m pretty sure about, but... here are some more things I need to do:

-Figure out what exact styles I’m using of Diaz’s and add some more in.

-Find a way to either get away with my bits (mostly streams of conciousness) that stray away fom Diaz’s style, or find a way to incorporate them using a style.

-Find a way to have the stream of conciousness connect to being stuck on the top of the Wonder Wheel // add that part in.

-whew wow this is hard to write.