Finding Fish

The pervasiveness of Antwone’s sense of alienation during his early life is evident from his fantasy life, particularly the idea that the Picketts are aliens. The concern with his own identity (which will be so central to his life story) is also present in this fantasy about concealed identity: “The thing about aliens is that when I’m not in the room they don’t have on their human faces” (36). The disconnect he feels with the people around him and their treatment of him is figured in the idea of the human face as a mask.

Even in his account years later, Antwone posits the sexual abuse he experienced as a child as a dream. This mimics the infant’s dissociation with an unbearably traumatic reality, a common coping strategy adopted by abuse survivors. Typically, Antwone’s imaginative powers protect him from an intolerable reality. His ability to imagine a different life will also ultimately help him to transform his reality, through his career as a Hollywood screenwriter. The correlation between dreams and reality is a tension that is central to the autobiography form.

Antwone initially performs well in kindergarten, where he finds freedom from the Picketts. Mrs. Pickett keeps the social workers at bay for three years, during which time her psychological oppression worsens, along with Antwone’s grades. Tied up in the Picketts’ basement as a punishment, Antwone dreams about a girl he knows from school. Reverend Pickett and his daughter, Mercy, favor Antwone over Dwight, creating tension between the boys.

Keith, a 4-year-old mixed-race child, is the newest addition to the household. Antwone becomes more aware of how his darker skin color is stigmatized in segregated Cleveland in 1967. Antwone stops being able to daydream and becomes more jaded. He steals from Mrs. Pickett to buy the children at school candy so that they like him. When he is caught, Mrs. Pickett whips him unconscious. Antwone protects Keith from bullies, winning Keith’s trust, but this exacerbates the friction with Dwight.

Antwone is teased at school, so he skips class. When this is discovered, he is taken to the Metzenbaum Children’s Center for psychological evaluation. The results determine that he is above average intelligence but afflicted with feelings of fear and anger. At Christmas, Keith receives presents, but the other three foster children are given nothing, except for Antwone who receives a shirt from Mercy. Antwone accompanies Keith to meetings with Keith’s mother to help him transition back into her care.

Antwone initially believes that his psychologist, Dr. Fisher, is his father because they share the same surname. Dr. Fisher suggests that Antwone be given a piggybank for his social services allowance, but Mrs. Pickett continues to keep it from him. In social services’ reports, she vacillates between wanting Antwone to leave and wanting to keep him. Antwone achieves Bs in art, music, and phys. ed. but scores poorly in the other subjects.

Antwone becomes aware of the Vietnam War from seeing it on television and through local men being conscripted. Watching Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy amid civil unrest on television, Antwone assumes they are the troublemakers. Martin Luther King is shot, inciting local riots in the majority black corner of Cleveland where Antwone lives. He feels responsible for the deaths of both King and President John F. Kennedy. Sadness surges in Antwone, but his tears are transformed into hysterical laughter when it rains, just after his ninth birthday.

Early in his life, Antwone confronts racism alongside the oppression he experiences living with the Picketts. In a poignant but psychologically important moment, Antwone believes his psychologist is his father. Antwone’s identification with Dr. Fisher based on their shared name reveals a common tendency to seek security in likeness. The simultaneity of the civil rights movement and his psychological evaluation in Antwone’s memory highlights the way racism prescribes an identity. Surname and skin color offer tenuous insight into the character of another person.

Reverend Pickett’s congregation has dwindled, and now just the Pickett family attends his services. The Picketts move to a bigger house, the children to new schools. The church service is always the same. The Picketts force the children to show their religious fervor, and Dwight is perceived to succeed at doing so. A few months later, Antwone and Dwight are made to walk the ten miles home for lacking enthusiasm in church. On their way, they pass Mt. Sinai Hospital, where unbeknownst to Antwone, his grandfather Horace Elkins once worked. Antwone announces that he will not go to church anymore and is locked out of the house. The next Sunday, Antwone climbs atop a mailbox from which he can see for miles.

Antwone takes refuge in music, which the Picketts condemn. One day he catches Mrs. Pickett dancing to what she calls “the devil’s music” at the thrift shop that the family runs. They hire Frank, a homeless man who is soon dismissed. The children also do yard work in the neighborhood, and Antwone observes and internalizes Reverend Pickett’s deference to white people. Antwone escapes and explores one Saturday morning. In her eagerness to punish him, Mrs. Pickett falls down the stairs. Listening in on a phone conversation between Keith and a man, Mrs. Pickett realizes that Keith is being abused. At ten, Antwone faces Willenda, and his sexual abuse stops.

Antwone enters what he later refers to as the “golden years” of his tutelage at Parkwood Elementary under Mrs. Profit. This teacher is fair and encouraging, and Antwone flourishes in her care, making friends for the first time. After he scrapes into the fifth grade, his marks improve, and Antwone learns that with hard work “you can change your circumstance” (136). Mrs. Profit is like a mother to Antwone. Meanwhile, Mrs. Pickett is cruel as the children go through puberty, even scrubbing Antwone with bleach. Still, he learns about black pride at school and is proud of his afro. The Picketts secretly oppose such movements. Antwone begins to see Mrs. Pickett as crazy, and his sense of humor develops.

Mrs. Pickett’s forty-something nephew, whom they call Brother, moves in after his marriage ends. Antwone entertains Brother and Dwight by dancing wildly, though Mrs. Pickett squashes this fun. Inventing their own lyrics to a song on the radio, the boys make Brother laugh hysterically. In class, Antwone says that when he grows up, he wants “to be the greatest artist since Michelangelo” (151). After graduating from elementary school, Antwone visits Mrs. Profit but is sad about leaving this happy period behind. Brother commits suicide.

A duality dominates Antwone’s record of his experience during these years. His internal feelings are often mirrored by external circumstances, showing that he is still in a formative period, without a strong sense of self. This passivity is punctuated by adolescent moments of decisiveness and personal care, such as when Antwone rejects the Picketts’ churchgoing and maintains his afro. Despite the end of the physical assault by Willenda, Antwone’s dissociative, dual reality as an abused child persists psychically. Gaining confidence at school, he returns to a precarious home life. His increased independence coincides with the development of his sense of humor, another coping strategy. Likewise, in Antwone’s account, the death of the “golden years” coincides fittingly with Brother’s death.

When Antwone is 14, Dwight meets his real mother and begins running away to live with her. However, after two weeks, Dwight is discovered living off scraps in the Picketts’ basement. Dwight smokes marijuana and listens to typically “white” rock music. Dwight had a girlfriend for a while, but the familial dysfunction curtails the boys’ teenage relationships. Antwone does tasks for the neighbors and buys himself a shirt with the money he earns, but soon Mrs. Pickett intercepts this. She also intercepts requests from Antwone’s real mother to see him but rejects these.

Antwone is less affected than Dwight by the lack of love he receives from both his mother and foster household. Dwight is smart, but flounders without love. Eventually, Dwight goes to live at Boys Town, a group home for displaced adolescent men. This leads him to a lifetime of crime and prison sentences. Flo joins the Job Corps and never marries or has children. Mrs. Pickett fills Dwight’s and Flo’s beds with mentally handicapped people. While they family go to church, Antwone does chores. Antwone rejects the Picketts’ food.

Antwone goes to high school, along with several of his elementary school friends, and develops a crush on Freda Smolley. He becomes a lunch-hour DJ, gaining him popularity and a record collection. While Antwone is shy, his friend Jessie is worldly and has already fathered a child by the end of junior high. Antwone’s popularity saves him from a fight, and school becomes a haven away from home. Antwone is aware of broader social inequalities. A new friend of Antwone’s is shot by his own uncle, a Vietnam veteran with PTSD.

Discussion about the Picketts adopting Antwone begins. Shortly afterward, the Picketts’ son Junior dies in a trucking accident. Antwone is excluded from the funeral. Antwone admires Reverend Pickett. He yanks a rusty nail from Antwone’s foot, though Antwone doesn’t get a tetanus shot. It later is revealed that Reverend Pickett doesn’t know Antwone’s name. Mrs. Pickett changes her mind about the adoption, claiming that Antwone is “talking back”. Antwone asks her one day why she “makes things so difficult” on him (194).

Antwone is forced to share a room with a mentally ill man called Howard. He is given a bike by social services, to whom he complains at 15. Although it is clear he is unhappy at the Picketts’, he has no known relatives who can care for him. He must therefore remain until he is 18. Antwone goes joyriding with his friends before he is found out and banned from driving. While searching for one of the boarders, Mrs. Pickett gets drunk. She is absent for months at a time, looking for a place to retire down south. Antwone is left with her cruel daughter, Lizzie, and her children. Lizzie steals Antwone’s record collection. It becomes increasingly difficult for him to hide the strangeness of his home life. When he breaks his elbow, it takes Lizzie three agonizing days to get him to the hospital.

Antwone’s friends go to a different high school, and he starts cutting class again. Once again, he has no friends. Antwone is excluded from meals, begins to starve, and is increasingly depressed. His old friend Jessie knocks on the door, ready to go to the movies with Antwone. Mrs. Pickett responds by attacking Antwone with her shoe, then announces that she wants Antwone to leave. The next day, she tosses the bus fare at Antwone, who catches the 105 to social services in the rain. Antwone’s social worker, Patricia Nees, meets him there. Mrs. Pickett arrives and accuses Antwone of stealing from her, but he confidently rebuts her accusation and she leaves.

Antwone is temporarily sent to the Metzenbaum Children’s Center, resisting placement in Boys Town after Dwight’s experience. Antwone is given money by social services with which he purchases his own clothes, and a present of cologne that he appreciates, as it acknowledges his independence. His caseworker tells Antwone his middle name—Quenton—and the names of his birth parents.