Brandy

Dateline: Savannah, Georgia - 1992

I was 17 years old and dating this girl we'll call Brandy, cuz she kinda looked like the star of Moesha. She was a couple of years younger than me, we got hooked up through a mutual friend at our high school. I didn't have a car or a job, so we didn't really go out too much. A couple of movies maybe, but for the most part all of our time was spent in the 2 bedroom apartment she shared with her mother. At first, Brandy's mom would sit in the room with us, but eventually once she became convinced that I wasn't irresponsible enough to impregnate her daughter, she allowed us to hang out by ourselves.

One day in August, I borrowed my mom's Ford Tempo, and drove the 3 minutes to Brandy's crib. We were just chillin sitting on the floor and listening to the new Mary J Blige's "What's The 411?" album that I had recently copped and became obsessed with. Brandy's mother was upstairs, leaving us to our own devices in the living room. We were doing a little light making out, nothing too serious as her mom was upstairs. Brandy got up from the floor and walked to the kitchen.

"What's wrong, B?"
"Nothing, I just have a headache."
"You need something?"
"I'm okay. I'm just gonna take this medicine."

The darkness of the room was briefly interrupted by the light emanating from the refrigerator. Brandy poured two glasses of orange juice and walked back to the living room and sat with her back to me between my legs. She handed me the second glass and we sat there quietly for awhile listening to Mary's unpolished voice over Puffy's hip hop soul production. Brandy began breathing heavily and even in the dark I could see on her face that she was in pain.

"Hey, you want me to turn this off?"
"No, keep it on. Sound doesn't bother me, it's mostly light."
"Okay, let me know if you need anything."
"Thanks, but I'm cool just sitting here with you."

Okay, maybe she didn't exactly say that. It was 16 years ago, but it was something like that. LOL. We sat quietly in the dark, the only movement being me stroking her hair. This wasn't really anything new. Brandy often had bad headaches, the result of an expanding blood vessel in her brain. I don't know much about science, so I'll spare you the details, but from what I understood, it wasn't life threatening, but caused terrible migraines. When this happened, Brandy would need to be in total darkness, so we spent a lot of our time without light. Most of the time, she would fall asleep and then wake up feeling better. This night? Well, this night was different.

Brandy was sleeping in my arms by the time the CD ended. We were still on the floor, so to make her more comfortable, I picked her up and laid her on the couch. I sat on the adjacent recliner rifling through a CD organizer before finally settling on Jodeci's "Forever My Lady." It was still mad dark, so as I fumbled with the eject button on the stereo, I bumped my knee on the entertainment center. The loud thud echoed in the dark, silent room.

"OWWW!!!" I whispered under my breath along with a myriad of curse words. I was trying not to awaken Brandy, but as I looked back towards her direction, I saw her eyes opening.

"Sorry, baby. Go back to sleep."
"Wha-
"I'm still here."
"You best ta keep quiet... You gon' get us in trouble."

Da hell? I recognized the voice, but the tone was different. She sounded like a little kid. And what was she talking about? I brushed it off, thinking that she was still half sleep.

"You better hii-iide"
"Huh?"
"You better hide, fo they see you"
"Brandy, what are you talking bout?"

She fell back asleep and I sat back down in the recliner. I wasn't sure what just happened, but I was ready to chalk it up to me interrupting a dream. I sat there listening to the music for awhile. It was getting late and I had to get the car home, so I woke Brandy up to tell her I was leaving.

"Hey, I'm about to go. You wanna walk me out?"

She stood up and let a squeal escape her lips as she stretched. I held her hand as we walked toward the door. As she opened the door, the light from outside illuminated her face. That's when I saw it. Her eyes were red. No, I'm not talking about the white part of her eyes, I mean the iris part was red. It was freaky as hell. It looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

"Brandy, you aiight? Your eyes are red."

She didn't respond. She just stood silently at the door.

"Brandy?" I repeated.

Again, she didn't say anything. I led her back into the apartment and I sat her down at the dining room table. She was still not responding to me. I turned on the light to get a closer look at her eyes. Logically, I knew that it had to be an optical illusion, the result of the light hitting her hazel contacts the wrong way. No way someone could actually have red irises. I figured when I looked in direct light, I would see that I was wrong. But no, her eyes were still red. What puzzled me more was that she was still not talking.

"Brandy? I'm gonna get your mom. I'll be right back"
"My mama's coming?
"Yeah, I'm gonna go get her."
"Mama's coming! Mama's coming! Mama's coming!"

There was that voice again. I saw Brandy's lips moving, but if I didn't I woulda swore there was a kid in the room. It got even stranger.

"I hope Mama lets me wear my favoritest dress."
"..." Really, I didn't know what to say.
"I promise I wont get it dirty like last time. Mama said if I get it dirty, she gon' beat me"
"..."
"Do you like my yellow dress?"
"uh...yeah. It's nice"
"My mama says I'm the prettiest girl in my school"

At this point, I'm thinking I'm the victim of a practical joke. My girlfriend is talking like a 5 year old, her eyes are red, and I just don't understand. Brandy started singing a song. I can't remember the words to it, but it was one of those hand clap game songs, like Miss Mary Mack or something. I ran up the stairs to get her mother.

"Ms. Moesha.. I think something's wrong with Brandy."
"Hold on, I'll be right there."

I went back downstairs to see Brandy doing hand movements while singing her song. Her mother followed downstairs quickly. She hugged Brandy and told me to leave.

"I'll take care of her. Go head and go on home."
"What's wrong with her?"
" Just go now. She'll be fine."
"But did you see her eyes?"
"Rashan, go home. I'll have Brandy call you tomorrow."

I was basically kicked out the house wondering what the hell happened. I went home as instructed, but I couldn't sleep that night. I didn't have the internet, so I was looking up the symptoms in the encyclopedias we got some years back. No luck. I finally drifted off to sleep, worried about Brandy and hoping that she would call soon.

The next morning Brandy called me. I was still sleeping.

"Hey, you coming over today?"
"Yeah, I'll be there."
"Cool, I didn't hear you leave last night."
"You don't remember me leaving?"
"I must have been sleep. The last thing I remember we were on the floor."
"For real? You don't remember anything else happening?"
"Like what?"
"Umm..like you talking like a 5 year old?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Nevermind, I'll see you around 3."

Brandy had no idea what I was talking about, so I figured I would just let it go for now. I went to see her before her mom got home from work. A couple of times I made reference to the previous nights events, but I could see that Brandy was oblivious. When her mom came home, I eventually was able to get some information. Apparently, when she would get one of those headaches, it would cause a personality shift. Brandy reverted to a 5 year old. Quite possibly a 5 year old from the sharecropping days. As if that wasn't strange enough, she never remembered it happening. It was like 2 totally distinctive personalities lived in that thin frame of hers. This alternate personality didn't happen all the time, but I experienced it a couple more times before we broke up. It was one of the strangest things I had seen at that time in my life. Keep in mind, that this was before all the crazy people in the world began to follow me. If this happened now, I probably wouldn't even notice. LOL. Aiight, have a good Monday!