JJ Wears Red

JJ was in the fourth grade at Johnson Grey Elementary, and she could only wear red. She owned seven red dresses, four pairs of red pants, two red skirts, three red tank tops, 12 red shirts, two red sweatshirts, a pair of red shorts, and one red jacket. All of her socks were white. According to JJ, socks had to be white. They didn’t really count as clothes. Those had to be red.

Most things had to be red, and JJ could always explain why. Red was the first color in the rainbow and therefore the most reliable. The reindeer that saved Santa and Christmas had a red nose. Most lipsticks were red, and other colors of lipstick just looked weird or like the person wasn’t wearing any at all so that didn’t really count. Red was in pizza, which was without question the best food. Ambulances flashed red lights when they were on their way to help someone. Red just made sense. To JJ, red was the only color that made sense.

JJ stopped wearing all other colors when she was seven, around the same time she started sorting her food. Potatoes over here, green beans over there, chicken in the middle. Nothing could be touching. She stopped eating green beans altogether, of course, when the red thing really picked up. It started with clothes and then spread to toys. She stopped sleeping with the stuffed tiger her dad had gotten for her when she was born because it was blue with green stripes. She refused to play most board games except checkers. Cards were ok, too. Red was good and black didn’t count. Eventually, it started to spread to food. Anything put in front of her that was even remotely orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple no longer entered her mouth. Bland-colored foods were ok, meat and mashed potatoes and rice and cereal. Foods like that were all still fine. The only vegetables she ate were tomatoes, red peppers, and beets. The only fruits she ate were apples and berries. Cheese was pretty much out, except for mozzarella and goat. Those were usually ok. No more mac and cheese. No more soup, except tomato. She ate a lot of pizza. Italian restaurants were the only kind her family could go to after the color red took over JJ’s life.

She could point out what was wrong with other colors, too. Blue was too much. It filled the oceans and the sky. There was enough blue already, so she didn't need more of it. Green was the same, with all its trees and grass. Orange was just weird, a grosser, sillier version of red. Purple made JJ kind of sad most of the time, and so that’s why purple was out. Yellow was far too bright and therefore kind of rude. Pink could be tolerated because it came from adding white to red. Only light pinks though. Dark pinks were bad.

JJ could readily explain why the other colors didn’t cut it. It was as if she had been born knowing red was the only one, as if she’d always sort of known things would end up here.

Her parents, on the other hand, hadn't seen the red thing coming. She’d been such a happy, colorful baby. She hadn’t had any weird habits. She was on track with all her milestones, or so the doctors said. She rarely even cried. And then, all at once, there she was; JJ dressed in red, JJ playing red, JJ living red. Her mother blamed her father for always making JJ be the red pieces in checkers. Her father blamed her mother for painting the kitchen walls red. They tried to find the root of her red obsession, but JJ could never come up with an answer. Thinking about it too hard made her uneasy. Red made her feel safe, so why should she question that?

In the end, it didn’t matter. Red was there to stay.

Of course, avoiding other colors was not an easy feat. It mostly worked at home, but at school, JJ had to improvise. Teachers were always assigning colors to things. Colored markers for art projects, colored teams for gym class, colored jellybeans for math problems. The teachers all knew that JJ “had a thing” about red, but JJ was aware enough to know that didn’t always mean they’d care. And so she worked around it. JJ made most colors work because of the way they related to red.

Orange touched red in the rainbow and pink was just a lighter shade of red, so those two colors were fine. Purple was made using red, which meant purple always had some red in it, so purple was ok too. Blue and yellow each got paired with red to make other colors, and so they were acceptable if need be. She couldn’t always stand yellow and blue for long, but she could make it work. White, grey, black, and brown weren’t really colors in JJ’s eyes, so they were fine, even at home usually. The only color that JJ absolutely could not stand was green.

Green had nothing to do with red. It couldn’t be made with red. In the rainbow, it didn’t touch red. A lot of bad things were green, too, like vegetables, poison ivy, the Grinch that stole Christmas. In JJ’s opinion, green was the worst part of Christmas. JJ’s family hadn’t had a Christmas tree in years.

JJ’s father couldn’t understand why she could tolerate other colors at school, but she couldn’t at home. JJ had trained herself to be willing to accept colors that related to red as soon as she stepped onto the sidewalk in front of her school. When her red sneakers touched down, it was time to be moderately flexible. When they lifted back up into the car, red was, once again, all there was. This was why JJ never took the bus. Buses were a very aggressive shade of yellow. It made her father so mad. You’re normal at school, so be normal here too, he would say. Every time he said that it made JJ feel so small. She had to be normal at school — why should she have to be normal at home, too?

The school told JJ’s parents that she needed to be “checked,” but that took time and patience, neither of which ever seemed to come in large supply. And so JJ continued loving red and avoiding green, and for the most part, the world spun on.

One day on the playground, the teachers brought out a whole rack full of brand new basketballs to play with, all in different colors. There were red balls, blue balls, yellow balls, and green balls. Red, blue, yellow, and green. One was good, two weren’t horrendous, and one just wouldn’t fly. The old basketballs had been orange, and orange touched red. JJ loved to play basketball and played it every day at recess, sometimes after school too. At home, JJ’s basketball was red. There was something methodical and reliable about basketball that JJ really liked. You bounced the ball and when you’d done that enough times you threw it up and into the hoop. Bounce the ball and then into the hoop. Bounce, bounce, toss, and swish. Bounce, bounce, toss, and swish. Basketball made JJ feel happy. Basketball made JJ feel safe.

On the day they introduced the brand new basketballs, JJ was at the back of the line walking from the cafeteria to the playground. It was because she’d gotten a second piece of pizza and wasn’t ready to lineup right when the lunch whistle blew. Usually, she tried to be towards the front of the line so she could shoot at the hoop with the net that wasn’t torn, but even when she wasn’t, she still always got a ball. All the balls were the same, orange basketballs, so that had never mattered before. On the day the balls changed she walked onto the playground towards the back of the line and over to the ball rack in the middle of the blacktop.

When she got there, all she saw was green.

At first, she didn’t understand. Where are the old balls, she asked the teachers, but they just thought she was being rude.

These balls are so much nicer, they scoffed. The other ones were so old. Be grateful, be happy, be quiet, they said. JJ didn’t understand.

She tried to find a red ball. She tried to explain that she couldn’t have green. JJ walked from hoop to hoop, from kid to kid, to see if someone would trade, but no one would. No one understood.

One of the teachers saw JJ going from kid to kid and got mad. She thought JJ’s obsession with red was silly. She thought JJ was just being stubborn. She thought JJ just liked attention. JJ actually hated attention. The teacher walked up to JJ in the middle of the blacktop. In her hands, she held a green ball. JJ started to sweat.

No, JJ said.

Excuse me?

No thank you, JJ tried again. Her breathing started to get heavy and fast, but the teacher wouldn’t listen. She didn’t understand.

You will take this ball and you will play with it, just like you do every day, the teacher said.

The teacher was holding JJ’s hands on the ball, and try as she could, JJ couldn’t let go. Who cares if it’s green, but JJ couldn’t hear her anymore. Who cares if it’s green, but JJ couldn’t respond anymore. JJ could no longer function. All she could see was green.

That was the day the world stopped spinning for JJ. When faced with green, everything else seemed to stand still. The world went blurry and no one was moving. In her new blurry world, everything was green. Kids frozen in time on the jungle gym and in the kickball field wore blank green faces, silent and screaming all at once. Even the grass and the trees looked greener as if someone had drowned them in paint the same color as the ball. Time stood still and JJ was only vaguely aware of where she was and what she was doing. All she could focus on was the ball.

JJ’s hands felt like they were burning. Why didn’t the teacher understand? She simply couldn’t be touching the ball. Why didn’t anyone understand?

Nothing like this had ever happened before. No one had ever gone out of their way to not understand this much.

At some point, JJ hyperventilated so hard she threw up. She had no idea how long she’d stood there with the ball forced into her hands, slowly losing it. At some point, the world came into focus again, and she was being walked inside by the school nurse. Every student outside stared as she passed. Her face was red and flushed. One student started a rumor that her face was so red from trying to turn the green ball into a red one. JJ couldn’t remember much from her meltdown, so she couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t true.

The nurse’s office was the same kind of white as JJ’s socks, and that made her feel in control again. She sat slumped in a pinkish-reddish chair and tried to breathe deeply as she stared at the white ceiling, letting all the green fall away. White was like a clean plate before dinner gets served, or a freshly brushed tooth. Worry-free.

JJ heard her parents arrive but didn’t move. The nurse explained the incident to them slowly and with great concern.

Hyperventilating, the nurse said. Gasping for air. Unresponsive. Some screaming. JJ listened but she couldn’t remember much of that. All JJ could remember was green. Miles and miles of green.

Even though the school day was only half over JJ’s parents took her home. Her father quickly left again to go back to work, and her mother paced around the kitchen, sighing a lot. She hadn’t looked at JJ once since they left the school. JJ sat on the kitchen floor, holding a red marker because it made her calm and drinking cranberry juice from a red plastic cup. Finally, her mother stopped pacing and looked down at JJ.

You can’t hate green so much, her mother said. You can’t just love red. You’ve got to give a little. You’ve got to give me something. You have to change.

JJ whimpered at her mother’s feet, sinking into the brown wood in the red room and crying. I can’t mamma, she whispered. I don’t know how. I don’t know how.

JJ’s mother sank down to the floor too, and on the brown wood in the red room, she put her chin on her daughter's head and wrapped her arms around her tiny knees. I know baby, I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. And they sat there and they rocked, and JJ watched the red walls around her from her mother’s arms, reminding her that everything would be ok. She wondered if it was true. It could be — after all, her mother was wearing red that day.

JJ’s mother had an appointment the next day and couldn’t let JJ stay home from school. She wanted to, she wanted to let her baby girl rest, but at the same time, she had things to do and people to impress. Would one day at home really change anything, anyway? After all, the world would never be only red. There was nothing she could do about that.

At school that day, the teachers watched tensely as JJ approached the ball rack, scanning her eyes down the rows, making her choice. Green balls, blue balls, yellow balls. There were no red ones left, and JJ didn’t have the energy for anything but red that day.

As she started to walk away to find something else to do, somewhere else to play, a boy in red overalls approached her. He was holding a red ball in his hands.

Here, we can share, and he handed her the ball. Red is my favorite color, too.

He didn't fully understand, but he was trying, and that was all JJ had ever wanted.