Array Seka - Inside Seka

So much for my plan.

I knew in her heart of hearts Aunt Sis loved and wanted me. She just didn’t know how to make it happen. She figured they’d come after her if I didn’t go back, and she had no idea how to get state funding to support me.

I got desperate. And defiant.

I told her if she didn’t keep me I was going to run away and be one of those children they never found again. They would never know if I was dead or alive. Uncle John was walking by and overheard the commotion.

He stepped into the room and said, “Let her stay, Nita. Just call them and say she’s not coming back. We’ll figure out how to take care of it.” After several years of living in a place that never once felt like my own, my “escape” had been that simple. I caught my uncle out of the corner of my eye and he gave me a wink, like he was saying, “Don’t worry, Peanut; we got it covered.”

The next thing I knew they were unpacking my clothes. It may have been the happiest moment of my life. It was hard for it to sink in, but this young girl finally had a home.

I knew my aunt and uncle would be good to me. What a wonderful feeling to be in a loving environment! There were even the familiar smells of food throughout the house. The next thing I knew I was being enrolled in school, so it all started to feel real. For the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of belonging. I knew I was going to be okay. My uncle let me do anything I wanted, but my aunt made sure my grades were good or I’d be threatened with losing certain privileges. Making it through eighth grade unscathed, I was just happy to be a normal kid. I had a new life and it was a happy time for me — even when I had to go to church on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. But I figured, what the heck? It was a small price to pay. Actually, it gave me some sense of structure. To this day, I’m not an atheist. I don’t think, “Boom, we’re here.” I think there’s a supreme being of some sort. There has to be some rhyme or reason to everything. The world’s a pretty spectacular place.

Then came high school.

I went to Hopewell High. A lot of the students’ parents worked in the factories. There was a Firestone plant in the area, the Reynolds Aluminum Company, and a factory called Hercules. It wasn’t a rich town by any stretch. There may have been a ritzy part of town, but it certainly wasn’t Beverly Hills. The kids were pretty normal. As the new kid on the block, I started to make friends.

I did well academically — usually a B average, which for somebody who didn’t work that hard was pretty good. I was actually having too much fun to study because I had this whole new life. We had elective classes and I was told I had to take Home Economics, which was kind of boring to me. I really wanted to take Shop. I loved tools. To this day, I get excited when I go to a Lowes or Home Depot. When I walk in, I don’t go to the curtains or anything like that. The first place I go is the tool department. That probably comes from my dad and Uncle John.

I was still a tomboy. I wasn’t interested in being a cheerleader. Instead of discovering boys, I found sports. My cousin Diane was on the basketball and softball teams, so I tried out for both. I made first string on both teams. I was a softball pitcher and the center on the basketball team. I ended up getting my cousin demoted to second string, but there was no friction between us. She still played, but she was much more involved with church and choir anyway. We were junior varsity in both sports in the ninth grade, ending up top five in the district. I also played field hockey. I loved those contact sports.

That year was probably one of the happiest in my life. I had a new home, a safe place to live. And although I didn’t really hang out with my teammates, we had camaraderie. My aunt expected me home to do my chores and homework. She didn’t allow me to date. At the time, I wasn’t interested in boys anyway. Sports were more important to me. I hadn’t had any urges yet. When she kept bringing up dating, I was like, “What is this about? Whatever.”

At the end of ninth grade, I found out I could skip tenth grade if I went to summer school. I had enough credits to be classified as a junior. So I did. Summer was pretty uneventful except for my passing with flying colors.

I was suddenly a junior, a true high schooler with dances and parties and a real social life. The sports were still there, but I had to try out again because it was a different grade. I made all the teams. We were division champs in basketball, which was very exciting because we traveled to different schools throughout the region.

And then came the beauty pageant.

There was a girl on the basketball team named Debbie, a very pretty Greek girl. Mind you, there weren’t a lot of “ethnic types” where I went to school. Just black kids and white kids. She had green eyes and beautiful long, thick, straight blonde hair down to her waist. She looked at me one day and said, “What do you think of this beauty pageant?”

I didn’t know a thing about it. Once she filled me in, I said, “I think it sounds stupid.”

She kept after me, saying, “We should do this, just for shits and grins. If we don’t win, we can’t shave our legs or armpits for a month. If we win or place, we can shave.”

That was a real threatening bet.

Neither of us wanted to admit that we really wanted to do it. But being contestants wouldn’t be in keeping with the fact we were jockettes.

We both tried out and made it. The day of the event, there were three judges and the whole school came. There were fifty of us on the large auditorium stage. There was no talent contest involved, which was good because I can’t sing or dance. I was contestant #32, which I still remember to this day.

I was nervous as hell. The lady who lived across the street was a hairdresser. Before the pageant, I went to her to get frosted blonde streaks in my hair. But the whole thing turned blonde. That was the first time I’d gone blonde. Ironically, I said to myself, “Oh shit, this screws up my chance of winning.” I wasn’t used to it. As I walked up on stage, I thought it was the dumbest thing I had done in my life. I was an athlete with what I thought was a bad dye job. I just felt stupid. But my teammates and the boys’ football team started screaming and applauding when I walked out, which kind of surprised me because I was still pretty unaware and uninterested in boys. It felt good but it also felt weird. I wasn’t crazy about wearing a dress, either. And it was hard to walk in high heels because it was something I’d never done before.

The judges started eliminating contestants. They went down to twenty. Then to ten. Debbie and I looked at each other incredulously. I never thought for a minute I’d win. I never thought of myself as a pretty girl. Just average. And if you told me boys were looking at me, I’d have said you were crazy. I had male friends because of sports but that was about it.

Suddenly, we were down to the final five. The whole thing seemed unreal to me. I’m thinking, “Holy crap, I may actually pull this off.” Debbie and I were looking at each other and laughing, “Are these people blind? Don’t they know what they’re doing?”

They eliminated number five.

If you won, you led the Junior/Senior prom and were crowned “Miss Hopewell High School.” Not that there were a lot of duties. You were in parades for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, those kinds of things. I looked at Debbie and whispered, “How is this going to affect our basketball games if we win?” She just laughed.

The final four were standing there and I started shaking like a leaf; I was so nervous. They called out the second place runner-up, which was Debbie. She just looked at me and gave me a thumbs-up.