Memphis

Growing up in rural Florida wasn’t all that bad. The weather is always pretty nice, save for the occasional hurricane, and even then we got “hurricane days” when most of the children in the country were receiving snow days.

I never had a problem with school. Good grades were the norm for me, and while other kids were struggling with their homework, I was looking forward to it. This is what led me to begin doing my friends’ work for them, and eventually what led to me being the go-to homework fabricator.

In fifth grade, when I began to notice that my friend Isabella was struggling with her math problems, I sat down with her and helped her understand them. And when I realized that my friend Rose wasn’t able to read very well, I volunteered to help her read our language arts assignments during our after-school program. Soon enough, I was helping her answer the questions, too, and eventually she would just hand me her work paper and walk away.

Other kids, some of whom I’d never even spoken to, began asking me to help them, which turned out to be their code for asking, “will you do this for me?” And do it for them I did, all through fifth grade. I probably single-handedly kept the majority of our grade from being held back.

One girl, however, never came to me for help, even though it was clear she was struggling. Unless you looked at her very closely, you might mistake her for a boy. Her slight frame, combined with well-developed muscles, suggested that her days were spent outside playing, in stark contrast to my own lifestyle. While most kids would be on the playground chasing one another, or using their free time to get into sports or activities, I was leaching every spare minute into reading, drawing, painting, or playing music. I was chubby and awkward, and had it not been for my superior intellect and willingness to “help” others with their homework, I probably would have been bullied. The girl, whose name was Memphis, never had her math homework done, and by the end of the year it was apparent that she wasn’t going to be headed off to middle school with the rest of us.

I never gave this much thought.