Such was the case at Kim’s birthday party one year. She’d invited a group of girls over for a sleepover, and naturally, I was invited, too. I sat back, eating chips, sipping punch, and stewing as I watched those girls circle around each other, acting like they were better than Kim and, in some cases, even picking on her. One girl in particular, an overweight sloth with a terrible overbite, a potbelly, and a nasty disposition, seemed to be the ringleader, going out of her way to be extra foul, not at all moved by my cousin’s genuine desire to get along or my menacing presence. I had my eye on her. And I was ready.
“I know!” the girl said excitedly after huddling with a few of the girls. “Let’s play wrestle!” A chorus of “Yeah!” filled the air as the big girl and a few of her cronies moved the coffee table and chairs out of the way to make floor space for the matches. Finally, when they had it set up like they wanted, the big girl turned to Kim and said, “You and me first!”
Kim, unsuspecting and completely not ready, agreed and got into her wrestling stance, her puny body squared up against a girl who presented like a miniature peach version of the Hulk. Someone quickly shouted a countdown and, next thing I saw, Kim was flying across the carpet, her bones crashing against the floor, with that big girl right on top. “Ow!” Kim shouted as the girl, using all her weight and brute strength, pinned down my cousin and ignored her pleas to be let up.
I stood from my perch on the chair, put down my punch, wiped the chip crumbs off my hands, and came with it. “Why don’t you wrestle me?” I sneered at the big girl, my eyes boring holes into hers.
The room grew quiet save for my cousin, who was whimpering under the girl’s crushing weight. Big Girl stared me right in the eye as she let Kim up. I could tell she was taking stock of my weight and build, calculating whether she could take me, the big, scary cousin from the hood. She decided she could.
“Okay,” she said, squaring up.
The rest of the girls formed another loose circle, jockeying to see the epic match that was about to commence. Our eyes locked as someone counted us in—“Three, two, one!”—and I was off. I went for Big Girl’s legs and rolled into them like a bowling ball does twelve pins when it hits the strike. It wasn’t pretty, but I took her down; she went flying through the air and splattered across my auntie’s shag carpet. The whole room erupted into “Ooooh” and “Daaaamn” as I popped up and stood over Big Girl’s body, like Muhammad Ali did Sonny Liston when he knocked him the hell out.
Kim had no more problems out of Mini Hulk. Or anyone else, for that matter—at least while I was around. That’s what it was: you don’t mess with her, unless you want to dance with the cousin. This is what cousins—blood by relations but friends deep in the heart—do for one another.
The same is true even to this day. My cousins and I remain close and talk to one another most days through a chat thread my cousin Ricky started years ago—may he rest in peace. Every morning, we wake up to a hearty “Good morning!” and positive affirmations to help us get through our day. It is where, some days, the twelve of us vent about family, work, relationships, and the like. I even lay down my Hollywood burdens there. When I hear, “We got you, cuz,” I know I can get the air I need to keep flying.
We guard each other’s hearts. This was especially true of my cousin Daniel, whom I loved to pieces. He was my road dawg, the cousin who took me to drag shows and schooled me on the ways of down-low brothers who proclaim themselves heterosexual in public but have unprotected sex with other men behind closed doors. It was he who took me to my first all-male gay club, The Mill, in DC. We walked in and I was mesmerized. I was so wet behind the ears; I thought that homosexual men were all snapping fingers and neck swizzles. But this place would blow my stereotypes out of the water. There we were, standing in this club, lights flashing, house music pumping, and the dance floor was full of hypermasculine men dancing on other men—some of them the same dudes who I would see dancing on women at Chapter III just down the street. Daniel took my hand and pulled me to the bar. “Use protection every time you have sex, Taraji,” he warned me as we stood there, swirling the straws in our cocktails. “You don’t know who these men are out here screwing and what they’re bringing to your bed. Condoms! Use them!” I have no doubt that his advice saved my life.
Daniel also taught me how to be a lady. “Look, Taraji, when you’re on the red carpet, carry a clutch. I see a lot of women on the red carpet and they don’t carry clutches. You put your lipstick in it, your credit cards and ID, a mint or two, a little gloss for your hair, and you’re all set.” To this day, sometimes when I leave my clutch at home, I feel like I’m disgracing him.
In the same way Daniel was a friend to me, I made a point of being a good friend to him, too. I still get teary eyed remembering when he visited me shortly after I moved to Los Angeles. He had a list of things he wanted to do, and it was my mission to fulfill his wishes, including going together to get our first tattoos and hooking him up with a performance at an amateur drag show. The tattoo part was easy enough, but I wasn’t a part of the drag scene. Scouting out a club was pure fun; I found some of the best clubs in Los Angeles, filled with the most amazingly beautiful drag queens I’d ever seen—some of them prettier than a lot of the women I knew. There was this one dressed up like Sade who looked so gorgeous I had to do a double take to be absolutely sure she was a man dressed as a woman. I mean, she had it all: perfect, round breasts and a bubble behind so firm you could bounce quarters on it. I don’t know if she was wearing padding or just blessed to be shaped that way, but damn, she was hot. That would be the club, I decided, to which I would take my cousin.
Daniel wasn’t the least bit nervous about his star turn. He locked himself in my bedroom for at least an hour, pouring himself into a long, sparkly, red gown and filling his face with the perfect application of foundation, lashes, blush, eye shadow, and glossy red lipstick. I gasped when he emerged from the room.
“Damn, bitch, look at you!” I exclaimed.