Dreadlocks

For as long as I can remember, he has had dreadlocks. When he was younger, naturally they were a lot shorter and more awkward-looking, but by now, they hang down past his shoulders. In middle school, everyone would whisper about his hair, the way middle schoolers do.

“It’s so weird.”
“It looks like a bird’s nest.”
“Everyone knows you can’t pull off dreadlocks if you’re white.”

I don't know if he ever heard their hissing little judgments. If he did, he never said anything about it. Actually, he never said anything at all.

I’ve known him for seven or eight years, and in that time, I’ve never heard him say more than five words. Total. I strain my memory to think of a time, maybe in grade school or middle school, when he was energetic and loud and obnoxious like all the other boys. But even when we were little kids. He was silent. The guy just doesn’t talk.

Sometimes you look back, and it seems to you that, as long as you’ve been around them, none of the people around you have changed. Not one bit. And then you think to yourself, No, no, imagine them complexly. They’ve been through a lot since elementary school, just like you have. They’ve grown up. They’ve changed. Look for the differences. Look. LOOK.

But with Dreadlocks, in his silence and his hair and his solemn glare, those differences are very, very hard to see. He’s gotten taller. But… that’s about it.

Throughout the years, he has stayed committed to who he is. He has committed to those dreadlocks, and he has committed to his silence.

The silence was something that intrigued me for a long time, until one day in freshman year when he was called on to answer a question, and we all—many of us for the first time—heard his voice. And I found out in that moment, why he doesn’t talk.

It’s a simple explanation, really: he has a speech impediment. When he gave his answer, his words were laden with misplaced W’s. He didn’t act embarrassed about it or anything, but as soon as he was done talking, he assumed his silence once again. I haven’t heard him speak since.

Since his name has a fair amount of R’s and L’s, he has difficulty even pronouncing his own name.

Looking at him now, you’d never guess he speaks like that. The way he looks. His walk, his hair, his beard, the circles under his eyes.

In some ways, he reminds me of Buttons, who has now graduated. Buttons has big boobs, so she made a name for herself other than The Girl With Big Boobs. Maybe Dreadlocks took the same strategy. Maybe in kindergarten he was known as The Kid Who Talks Funny, so he went a different direction with his identity early on. He became The Guy With Dreadlocks. Who Doesn’t Talk.