Harrison Mooney - Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery

THE IRRATIONAL

Here I am at home; I am made of the irrational. I wade in the irrational. Irrational up to my neck.

F RANTZ F ANON , Black Skin, White Masks

CIRCUS

(or The Boy Who Wore a Very Loud Hat)

I dont know where I came from, but I remember craving something sweet.

So I stopped at the coffeeshop on my way home. I must have been about sixteenI drove down in my black Toyota Echobut I left there feeling eight or nine years old. I was standing in line for a donut, or six donut holes in a box, when an elderly white woman turned around, saw me behind her, and shouted out: LITTLE. BLACK. WAIF.

She said each word sharply, with beats in between, loud enough for everyone to notice. The room fell so silent I heard my tinnitusthe ringing that starts when the world goes away. One moment, I stood in a long line of people. The next, I was locked in a liminal space with a stranger whose hatred immobilized me. It felt like the power went out in the building, but I couldnt breathe, just as I couldnt see, and I found myself wondering: How do I move? So I knew that the power had only gone out from my body.

And then it was over. The elderly white womans partner laid hands on her, lovingly, graciously, leading her back to the counter to order.

A dutchie, a cruller, and two double-doubles.

I looked around at the tables, hoping that the woman was shouting at somebody else, and I saw that it couldnt be anyone else, and the rest of the coffeeshops customers already knew that. I felt every pair of eyes identify me, the weight of the white gaze descending, impressing upon me, imagining who might this little Black waif be, and where did he come from, and what did he do to provoke this poor woman? But interest in me faded quickly, and suddenly I disappeared, as though nothing had happened to anyone. No one saw anything.

The power of their denial teleported me outside. One minute I was there, and then I wasnt. I was simply whisked away, as if by magic.

When I got home without any donuts, my white family wouldnt believe me. I must have misheard or done something wrong, they insisted, and five sets of cynical eyes took me back to the scene of the crime. Lets go through it again. My mother, who micromanaged all that I imagined, suggested that, somehow, Id shown disrespect. It felt like she wanted to blame me. I wanted to help her. But nothing I could think of would explain the old ladys explosion. I didnt jump the queue. I didnt fail to hold the door. The woman was in front of me. I didnt stand too close, I didnt dance or curse, I didnt try to snatch her purse.

She was probably demon-possessed, said my mother, who saw the devil everywhere. But even this failed to account for the outburst. What was it about me that so offended her evil spirit, and why would it suddenly erupt, right there in the coffeeshop, and why, if my mothers suspicions were true, would the Lord leave me so unprotected?

What was I wearing, I wonder now. I dont recall. Ive lost sight of myself, over time. My day-to-day style that particular summer was Hawaiian print, mostly, so maybe the loudness offended the woman. But it could have been Sunday, and then Id be dressed up for church. Who could be bothered by church clothes? A demon-possessed sort of person, perhaps. Maybe my mother was right, and the incident wasnt about race at all.

I was adopted.

I began in Vancouver, British Columbia, the westernmost province of Canada, cut from my birth mothers womb in July 1985. She was fifteen or sixteen years old, in foster care then, just a wayward Black youth who engaged in premarital sex with the star of her high school soccer team. He was a white kid. His family was German. Keeping this biracial baby was out of the question, but so was abortion. The families were Christian. Surrender was all but imposed on the mother. She had little say in the matter. She took me to term and they took me away, born to no one, a ward of the Salvation Armys Grace Hospital.

Eleven days later, the paperwork cleared. A wealthy white couple arrived to collect me.