ENUMERATE

My mother’s scrapbook found while I was looking for inspiration

By MACK ROGERS  |  24 SEP 2024

Our new arrival. it snowed the day you were born. Mama's Boy A picture of Mom holding me at four days old. A picture of Dad holding me at one week old. Baby me in an MRI machine. I fell out of a shopping cart and hit the back of my head. I still think that’s where the snow came from. The three of us together on the couch. Me just barely darker than Mom and much lighter than Dad. Uncle Greg holding me. I look just like him now. He’s a photographer but it’s very difficult to get him to pose for a picture... go figure. Me as a toddler in the bathtub surrounded by alphabetical bath toys with a no no sticker over my baby penis. Is it weird that I kind of want to take the sticker off? Me in my Sunday best, a cheerful smile on my face. Me sleeping with Mom in her bed. The bed with the mirror for a headboard. I remember puking in it. Me with my cousin and my E aunt, my lightest-skinned ! relatives. Hell, he looks white. My favorite photo of me as a baby to be honest. Cute! Your cousin was so sweet with you. You both enjoyed posing for Uncle Greg. Me with my nieces and nephews who were roughly the same age as me. I think I only met them two or three times, once at a sleepover at Dad’s. We shared his waterbed. I forget their names. Me dressed as the black power ranger. My favorite was blue. Several pictures of me with Dad several years before we stopped talking. He really doesn’t suck that much. Maybe I really am overreacting. There is nothing like a child’s smile to make all the chaos worthwhile. Me as a ring bearer with the wedding party. Couldn’t tell you whose. Mackenzie was a good baby except when it was bed time. He was very happy, always waking in a good mood!
K-8. Dad carrying my friends on his shoulders on school trips. Me as Snoopy in the 1st grade play. My only “line” was to lick Lucy with a loud slurp. Me and my best friend at his house. I spent the night in 2nd grade and we dared each other to kiss the other’s privates. Me with the first girl I liked. I told her at recess in 3rd grade and she moved away the next year. My school pictures from 3rd grade with flexible glasses frames because I was afriad to take them off. Me playing Ode to Joy on the recorder in front of the whole school in 5th grade. Pictures of me with my classmates and teachers every year up until middle school. Always the only kid with any bit of melanin. A Very Good Looking Class! Me with the essay I wrote about my pop pop’s death in 5th grade. Me in front of a poster for the Powerpuff Girls movie, around the time I stopped posing for pictures. Me from various Field Days holding mostly blue ribbons. Wait. Was that why Mom kept trying to make me do sports? Because I was actually kind of athletic? Wait no. There were a lot of group activities. No no. I was a fast runner. Even that time I got tripped, I still got second. Maybe she wasn’t trying to fix me this whole time. A Halloween picture of me in a Frieza costume with my cousin and his friend. They went as Goku and Vegeta. Did you know Freiza is black now? Called it. Trick or Treat! Me at my first eye doctor appointment for some reason. I still get freaked out by those dark rooms. Another friend and me. I spent the night with him and we played Halo until 3am, cheating off each other’s screen. I told everyone he was gay the next day. I really liked him. Mackenzie loves playing games on the computer! I believe he also shares my love for reading. He is very intense and single-minded when he wants something. He is also sensitive and loving and a wonderful son. Me playing clarinet at the middle school band concert a couple years before everyone started calling it gay. A four page spread of me and nine other kids at the Middle School Scholars banquet with Mom and Dad. They gave me this ridiculous bronze eagle statue just for being smart. I still have it. I remember Dad standing up and yelling “That one’s mine!” when they gave it to me.
Christmas. Christmas Lights. Mackenzie had two stockings! Me with my new Xbox 360, the same one I played Call of Duty on with white boys who called me a monkey and a nigger. Me with my new PlayStation 2. I used to be terrified of playing by myself. I bawled during Kingdom Hearts when I couldn’t beat Cerberus. A picture of me smiling. Christmas lights. Me playing video games in Uncle Greg’s room, aka the computer room. I sat on the floor so I wouldn’t mess up his day bed. Me with my new PlayStation 3. I watched so much porn on that thing. He never smiles—but at least I got a photo. Me screaming with joy after unwrapping a gift and finding a PSP. Me holding World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. The expansion after I got hacked, I basically skipped the previous one because I was too afraid to play. Mom and me waiting for Uncle Greg to get up at 8:04am. Dad was always much later because he had to drive from two towns over. Dad tickling me. My cousin and me with our Power Ranger ornaments. He got green. I got pink. I didn’t ask for pink. A picture of our house lightly covered in snow. Me with my new tenor saxophone. Without the neck or the mouth- piece attached because Mom couldn’t wait to take the picture. I wanted to switch from clarinet because it seemed less gay and my aunt told me once that it would help me get the ladies. Me posing next to our tree before my band concert, decorated by me. Mom and me hugging. Possibly the happiest picture of the two of us out of all her scrapbooks. Me wearing an oversized shirt that Mom got from her work as pajamas. That shit was comfy. Christmas lights. Mom with the dustbuster I got her. She asked for it. Promise. My favorite of our Christmas trees decorated with purple and silver ornaments. That was around the time I started making a fuss about decorating it and Mom did it by herself. As usual, he got everything he asked for... Uncle Greg in the hospital, breathing tubes in his nose. Christmas lights.
9-12: Ode to Joy. Treble 4 clef 4. Dotted Quarter note. Another picture of Uncle Greg in the hospital. Me in my marching band uniform playing the sax on the football field. Our church congregation in a room at the local arts center that our cousins rented every Sunday. It was nice being around people who looked like me but the whole making me do altar call then trying to push me to the floor while speaking in tongues left an odd taste in my mouth. Uncle Greg taking pictures of me during halftime at a football game, his oxygen tank carried by my cousin. I can hear him coughing now. Me refusing to let anyone help me carry a heavy container we brought to that church to prove myself. Two pictures of me with my prom dates, both women. I was good friends with both of them, though I only had the first fooled. Dad teaching me to drive in Mom’s car. Eighth note. Mom and me standing on the football field for Senior Night, Dad voluntarily absent. Me and my two best friends at prom. Admittedly, I befriended her to get closer to him. I was in love with them both in two very different ways. Six pictures of me packing my car to drive to band camp at UT. Me in the Pride of the Southland marching band doing Circle Drill. Honestly, I’m impressed Uncle Greg managed to pick me out of the whole band. That shit was fun as hell but I’d never do it again. Me in my dorm room right after band camp. Mom, Dad, my aunt, and my cousin came to visit. Half note. Me graduating college, the second in the family to do so after Mom. Uncle Greg noticeably absent.
We don't really take pictures anymore

 

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Mack Rogers is a queer Black writer whose work appears in Foglifter, Diode Poetry Journal, Glass, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. Mack is a poetry reader for Split Lip Magazine, staff critic for Pencilhouse, and poetry editor for Zero Readers Magazine. He has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and the Pushcart Prize. He lives with his partner and their three cats in Raleigh, NC. Find him on mackrogers.com.

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