Friday – Felicia (conclusion)
Feb. 5th, 2010 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermorecontinued from Wednesday and Thursday.
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Maybe I ran with the wrong circle, because I missed some of the rumors about Felicia’s death. Kelley mentioned one the other weekend that I’d never heard before.
“I heard she killed herself because they wouldn’t let her on the drill team because she was black,” Kelley said. Kelley is a warehouse of rumors. I can’t remember if she was like this back in high school or not, but she certainly has the skinny on what people are saying about everything now.
”“Who wouldn’t let her on the drill team?” I asked.
“You know, whats-her-face, the drill team instructor.”
“Mrs. Crow?” I only remembered Mrs. Crow’s name because over the summer between my freshman and sophomore year she divorced the coach she was married to and came back married to one of the vice principals, Mr. Crow. I overheard one of the drill team girls telling one of her friends that the director had been nervous about taking her new husband’s last name because she didn’t want any students to ever refer to her as “Old Crow.” The idea caused her a great deal of distress. She was only in her mid 30s or so, but had still not recovered from the idea of no longer being 25.
She had been a professional dancer before her knees went bad and she became a high school drill team instructor. She was very beautiful and very vane. She was also very strict with the girls on her drill team: they had to weigh in every week and, even if the girl didn’t look any fatter than she had the week before, anyone who weighed more than Mrs. Crow thought she should had to sit out and was not allowed to perform with the team. The offensively fat girl was required to wear her drill team uniform and attend the game, but she had to sit in the bleachers while the other girls performed so that everyone could see that she was a lard ass and unworthy to dance. I guess it was hoped the shame would depress the girl enough to lose her apatite until the next game and thus make the weight requirements the following week.
“Yeah, her.” Kelley made a face when she said her. “She told Felicia to her face that as long as she was in charge of the drill team, there would be no black girls on it. None. Not ever. When Felicia went to the principal to complain, he backed up Mrs. Crow.”
“You’re kidding, right? That kind of bullshit was still going on?” I was genuinely surprised. This sounded like something out of the 1960’s, not the 1980’s. Our school was mostly white, but we had more than a few minority students and people got along pretty well as far as I could see. The kids of my generation (at least in my school) were pretty tolerant, but I can’t deny there were still some holdovers in the generation of our parents and teachers who clung to prejudices that were the norm when they were growing up. There are still some of these holdovers around today. When you are raised on a diet of hate, it is the absence of hate that seems abominable to you.
“Oh, yeah. Felicia was good, too. She was one of the best ones who tried out. After she died her parents went to the school board and complained; they made a huge stink about it and were threatening to sue the school district.”
“As well they should have!”
“No kidding. So the school board fired the principal and Mrs. Crow. Don’t you remember when we came back the next year they both were gone?”
I remembered Mrs. Crow had been gone. The girls on the drill team said she told them that the district didn’t want her and her husband working together at the same school, and that since he made more than she did she was the one who had to resign. They said that she’d cried and hugged them all when she told them she wasn’t coming back the next year. Now that I about it, we did have a new principal that the next year, as well. That was when Mrs. Marshall, who had been my teacher in the first grade before going back to college to get her Master’s in Educational Administration, had became principal. I thought it was all a big coincidence, those two major personnel changes that took place that year in a district where there was normally very little turnover. Maybe what Kelley heard was the truth. I hope not. I like to think better of people than this.
Rumors aside, no one really knows why Felicia Handy closed herself in her parents’ bedroom 25 years ago and shot herself with her daddy’s service revolver. She didn’t leave a note. She had no best friend that she confided in. In fact, I don’t remember her ever having a best friend, someone that she palled around with and whispered with. Most girls do at that age, but not Felicia. After she died, a lot of people talked about being her friend and wore it as a badge of honor. Every last one of the honors course kids did, since most of them were in all of her classes. Felicia was my friend. I miss her. But no one ever said, We were really close. We talked ever day on the phone. She spent the night at my house all the time. I don’t understand why she didn’t call me, because we always called each other about everything. She was like my sister.
Every 15-year-old girl needs that friend who is like a sister to her. She needs her like she needs air and water and good food and exercise. It only occurred to me writing this that if Felicia had that girl in her life, that would be the girl who might have the answers instead of the rumors the rest of us had. In fact, if that girl existed there might be no need for the rumors. Most of us might have graduated high school without ever knowing that Felicia’s dad even owned a gun, because that would have been the girl to call on the phone her after school and ask if she wanted to come over to study or listen to music together. That girl could have saved a life that day without ever knowing she had done it.
“I know one guy who told me he was about to kill himself about that same time,” Kelley said. “He had is dad’s gun pointed at his head and he was working up the nerve to pull the trigger when the phone rang. It was just one of his friends calling to ask if he wanted to go do something, but it distracted him and he didn’t go through with it. You just never know how many people that kind of thing happens to. How many people almost do it, but don’t.”
You really never do. And when someone doesn’t get distracted, you never really know what drove them to that point. There are rumors, but that’s all they are. Felicia didn’t ever talk about wanting to die to any of the people who claimed her as a friend (and after her death most everyone who knew her did). She didn’t seem any different at school the day she went home and took her own life. She just seemed like Felicia; very smart, very sweet, and very pretty. She was the girl who everyone just knew was destined to graduate with some sort of cum laude after her name and who would be able to get a scholarship to pretty much any college she wanted. She was the girl with the smile that lit up her face so well that it blinded us to the fact that it didn’t reach her eyes.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
.
Maybe I ran with the wrong circle, because I missed some of the rumors about Felicia’s death. Kelley mentioned one the other weekend that I’d never heard before.
“I heard she killed herself because they wouldn’t let her on the drill team because she was black,” Kelley said. Kelley is a warehouse of rumors. I can’t remember if she was like this back in high school or not, but she certainly has the skinny on what people are saying about everything now.
”“Who wouldn’t let her on the drill team?” I asked.
“You know, whats-her-face, the drill team instructor.”
“Mrs. Crow?” I only remembered Mrs. Crow’s name because over the summer between my freshman and sophomore year she divorced the coach she was married to and came back married to one of the vice principals, Mr. Crow. I overheard one of the drill team girls telling one of her friends that the director had been nervous about taking her new husband’s last name because she didn’t want any students to ever refer to her as “Old Crow.” The idea caused her a great deal of distress. She was only in her mid 30s or so, but had still not recovered from the idea of no longer being 25.
She had been a professional dancer before her knees went bad and she became a high school drill team instructor. She was very beautiful and very vane. She was also very strict with the girls on her drill team: they had to weigh in every week and, even if the girl didn’t look any fatter than she had the week before, anyone who weighed more than Mrs. Crow thought she should had to sit out and was not allowed to perform with the team. The offensively fat girl was required to wear her drill team uniform and attend the game, but she had to sit in the bleachers while the other girls performed so that everyone could see that she was a lard ass and unworthy to dance. I guess it was hoped the shame would depress the girl enough to lose her apatite until the next game and thus make the weight requirements the following week.
“Yeah, her.” Kelley made a face when she said her. “She told Felicia to her face that as long as she was in charge of the drill team, there would be no black girls on it. None. Not ever. When Felicia went to the principal to complain, he backed up Mrs. Crow.”
“You’re kidding, right? That kind of bullshit was still going on?” I was genuinely surprised. This sounded like something out of the 1960’s, not the 1980’s. Our school was mostly white, but we had more than a few minority students and people got along pretty well as far as I could see. The kids of my generation (at least in my school) were pretty tolerant, but I can’t deny there were still some holdovers in the generation of our parents and teachers who clung to prejudices that were the norm when they were growing up. There are still some of these holdovers around today. When you are raised on a diet of hate, it is the absence of hate that seems abominable to you.
“Oh, yeah. Felicia was good, too. She was one of the best ones who tried out. After she died her parents went to the school board and complained; they made a huge stink about it and were threatening to sue the school district.”
“As well they should have!”
“No kidding. So the school board fired the principal and Mrs. Crow. Don’t you remember when we came back the next year they both were gone?”
I remembered Mrs. Crow had been gone. The girls on the drill team said she told them that the district didn’t want her and her husband working together at the same school, and that since he made more than she did she was the one who had to resign. They said that she’d cried and hugged them all when she told them she wasn’t coming back the next year. Now that I about it, we did have a new principal that the next year, as well. That was when Mrs. Marshall, who had been my teacher in the first grade before going back to college to get her Master’s in Educational Administration, had became principal. I thought it was all a big coincidence, those two major personnel changes that took place that year in a district where there was normally very little turnover. Maybe what Kelley heard was the truth. I hope not. I like to think better of people than this.
Rumors aside, no one really knows why Felicia Handy closed herself in her parents’ bedroom 25 years ago and shot herself with her daddy’s service revolver. She didn’t leave a note. She had no best friend that she confided in. In fact, I don’t remember her ever having a best friend, someone that she palled around with and whispered with. Most girls do at that age, but not Felicia. After she died, a lot of people talked about being her friend and wore it as a badge of honor. Every last one of the honors course kids did, since most of them were in all of her classes. Felicia was my friend. I miss her. But no one ever said, We were really close. We talked ever day on the phone. She spent the night at my house all the time. I don’t understand why she didn’t call me, because we always called each other about everything. She was like my sister.
Every 15-year-old girl needs that friend who is like a sister to her. She needs her like she needs air and water and good food and exercise. It only occurred to me writing this that if Felicia had that girl in her life, that would be the girl who might have the answers instead of the rumors the rest of us had. In fact, if that girl existed there might be no need for the rumors. Most of us might have graduated high school without ever knowing that Felicia’s dad even owned a gun, because that would have been the girl to call on the phone her after school and ask if she wanted to come over to study or listen to music together. That girl could have saved a life that day without ever knowing she had done it.
“I know one guy who told me he was about to kill himself about that same time,” Kelley said. “He had is dad’s gun pointed at his head and he was working up the nerve to pull the trigger when the phone rang. It was just one of his friends calling to ask if he wanted to go do something, but it distracted him and he didn’t go through with it. You just never know how many people that kind of thing happens to. How many people almost do it, but don’t.”
You really never do. And when someone doesn’t get distracted, you never really know what drove them to that point. There are rumors, but that’s all they are. Felicia didn’t ever talk about wanting to die to any of the people who claimed her as a friend (and after her death most everyone who knew her did). She didn’t seem any different at school the day she went home and took her own life. She just seemed like Felicia; very smart, very sweet, and very pretty. She was the girl who everyone just knew was destined to graduate with some sort of cum laude after her name and who would be able to get a scholarship to pretty much any college she wanted. She was the girl with the smile that lit up her face so well that it blinded us to the fact that it didn’t reach her eyes.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-06 06:52 pm (UTC)When we are young, we really don't see the big picture; we just see the part of picture in front of us, and assume that's all there is. The whole suicidal failure thing? Been there, done that myself. Failing at being suicidal is a wonderful sort of success to have under our belts, isn't it? *grin*
no subject
Date: 2010-02-07 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-06 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-06 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 05:23 pm (UTC)Every 15-year-old girl needs that friend who is like a sister to her. She needs her like she needs air and water and good food and exercise. It only occurred to me writing this that if Felicia had that girl in her life, that would be the girl who might have the answers instead of the rumors the rest of us had. In fact, if that girl existed there might be no need for the rumors. Most of us might have graduated high school without ever knowing that Felicia’s dad even owned a gun, because that would have been the girl to call on the phone her after school and ask if she wanted to come over to study or listen to music together. That girl could have saved a life that day without ever knowing she had done it.
(me again)
I'm not the type to have a best friend. I'm just..whatever. I am not good at it.
But I bet that kind of friend IS a helpful thing to have.
Spending too much time "in your own head"...I think that is what leads people do do things like Felicia did.
Often, it is those that try to be perfect who do themselve in (it seems sometimes)
::hugs:: It's very sad this happened in your life.
I do think everyone NEEDS to have friends but...I don't know. Some of us can't trust enough to make it happen.
I'm crying too much. ::hugs:: to you, Nina, with all your memories
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 07:50 pm (UTC)I'm not even a character in Felicia's story: I'm just a narrator who was there on the sidelines when it all happened. Learning my peers are as haunted by her death as I am was a revelation for me. I thought I was taking the death of this girl I liked but barely knew far more personally than should be normal. Turns out I'm more normal than I ever thought.
Maria, you are not as alone in all this as you feel you are. You have an army of us out there pulling for you. Sorry most of us live so far away!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 07:10 pm (UTC)It's unfortunate what happened with Felicia, because she was a really sweet natured girl. I had a few classes with her our freshman year, but I particularly remember her in Sra. Sullins Spanish I class. She used to sit over by Kim Beasly and Rusty Nail. Chris Dortch and I (Oh, by the way,"I" am Allen Hines) would tease her because she was always so quiet, yet, every once in a while, you'd hear a little giggle out of her. so Chris and I would tell "Shh..." or "God, why you always making so much noise?" You know, the sort of teasing that teen boys give to pretty girls,most especially if they're shy.
I read your other post, the conclusion of this train of thought, and you wonder what might have happened if she had a best friend, I'm not sure if anything could have been done. Michelle Mallory had Leslie Mallea, and she still did herself. Plain fact of the matter is, none of us will really ever know why people do anything, at least not this sort of thing.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 08:26 pm (UTC)I am sorry for your recent loss. It seems a lot of us are haunted by Felicia; this series was mostly about my discovery that this one event was still so vivid to this small group that had gathered that day. The comments I received on it told me that a lot of people are haunted by similar events in their own life.
At the gathering I was at there was a lot of speculation as to the why of it all. I know enough about clinical depression to know the only why that matters is that she wanted the pain to stop and couldn't think of any other way out of it. I was simply musing that a best friend or any other factor - a random phone call, a knock on the door from a Mormon Missionary, anything - could have interrupted the event and caused a different outcome. Butterfly effect and all that. Or maybe nothing could have changed it. Who knows?
I thought about giving her a pseudonym for this story, but her real name, Felicia, means "happy, lucky, or fortunate" and I could not resist the irony or the poetry in that. Her real name, first and last together, is lovely. I guess I wanted people to know it, to know her and not just the tragedy that she became.
Besides, I figured, what are the odds that anyone who knew her would find this obscure blog? I need to give up figuring, it seems. Obviously, I'm no good at it.
As for who I am...I'm no one, really. At least I doubt you'd remember me. The name on this journal, Nina, is a family nickname and not one that anyone in school knew me by. I wasn't pretty enough for anyone admire, or ugly enough for anyone to despise. Just a professional wallflower turned amateur story teller. ;)