Crazy Is My Superpower: How I Triumphed by Breaking Bones, Breaking Hearts, and Breaking the Rules Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by AJ Mendez Brooks

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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  Crown Archetype and colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Brooks, A . J., 1987– author.

  Title: Crazy is my superpower : how I triumphed by breaking bones, breaking hearts, and breaking the rules / AJ Brooks.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Crown Archetype, [2016]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016027302| ISBN 9780451496669 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780451496676 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780451496683 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Brooks, A . J., 1987– | Women wrestlers—United States—Biography.

  Classification: LCC GV1196.B76 A3 2016 | DDC 796.812092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2016027302

  ISBN 9780451496669

  Ebook ISBN 9780451496683

  Illustrations by Rob Guillory

  Cover design by Jake Nicolella

  Cover photograph by Anthony Tahlier Photography, Inc.

  All interior images courtesy of the author.

  Thank you to Celeste Bonin and Eve Torres for contributing photographs for the insert.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Drowning Barbies

  Chapter 2: Mad Love

  Chapter 3: A Place Called Home

  Chapter 4: Swallow Me Whole

  Chapter 5: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Turn into Your Mother

  Chapter 6: Lie to Me

  Chapter 7: The Robin Hood of the Express Checkout Lane

  Photo Insert

  Chapter 8: Born Again

  Chapter 9: I Want to Believe

  Chapter 10: Hello, Sunshine

  Chapter 11: No One Wants to Have Sex with You

  Chapter 12: Extra Whip

  Chapter 13: Girl on Girl

  Chapter 14: Crazy Chicks Do It Better

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “Would you like to join the rest of us?”

  I look up from the intertwined fingers resting in my lap and into the eyes of a pissed-off second-grade teacher. I was certain if I sat incredibly still in my desk at the back of the classroom I would not be visible to the naked eye. I am rail thin and the approximate height of an average Cabbage Patch doll, so it is not outrageous to think it would be possible. The entire class has dragged their chairs into one large circle for “story time,” an hourlong activity in which Miss Cahill will read Dr. Seuss while twenty kids try and fail to hold their pee. At seven years old, I already know I am too old for this crap. I consider making a run for it, but I am not exactly an athlete. I have the type of asthma that requires me to be so well acquainted with my inhaler it is covered in Lisa Frank puffy stickers. Combined with stubby legs that can only move in short bursts covering little distance, I would get nowhere very slowly. Imagine an overencumbered Chihuahua who has been frightened by a firework. I am that nimble.

  I have been alive for seven years and have spent the majority of that time avoiding group activities. I sit in the back row of every classroom. I bring nothing from home to school bake sales. And I preemptively run at the flying balls during dodgeball, just to save everyone the time and effort. I would rather control the crowd than play among it. The only story-time experience I have ever enjoyed was last year, when I swiped Stephen King’s Cujo off my first-grade teacher’s desk and began reading it aloud during recess. My classmates were a spellbound audience while my teacher found it absolutely adorable, thus teaching me two valuable lessons: If you pretend that you know what you are doing, a large group of people will blindly follow you. And, if you are cute enough, you can get away with stealing.

  “Are we going to be graded on this?” I answer a question by asking a question.

  With a look of confusion, Miss Cahill folds the readied book in her arms. “No. This is a group activity. It is meant to be fun, April.” She pronounces “fun” in a way that implies it is extremely painful.

  “If we are not being graded, I’d rather have fun by myself,” I reply while searching for my scented markers and dolphin-emblazoned Trapper Keeper. With the warmth of a bikini in January, Miss Cahill cups my hand in hers and leads me against my will into the group. “I don’t know how you do things at home, but in school you have to learn how to follow the rules, like a good girl.”

  This doesn’t seem like sound advice to me. For one, “be a good girl” sounds like the coax of someone trying to lead me into a windowless van. But I have also gathered some very valuable knowledge. Grown-ups are mostly lying pieces of shit. I am a straight-A student, my homework is always completed, and I am even a frequent winner of John F. Kennedy Elementary School’s “Student of the Month” award. They gave me a ribbon. My picture is tacked to a goddamn bulletin board. And homegirl is going to talk to me like I’m a problem child? My parents taught me that the “rules” of school were to get good grades and to try to not get stabbed on the way home. (We lived in a sketchy neighborhood, but that’s really just solid advice for anyone.) It doesn’t quite add up that despite my skill I would not be considered “good” unless I quietly agreed to find something fun just because everyone else did. Is that truly what makes a “good girl”? Not her level of performance or intelligence but her ability to follow along? To listen without questioning? Well, there must be something wrong with me because I question everything. In fact, I cannot listen to an adult complete a thought without interrupting them with at least three follow-up questions.

  At the pediatrician’s office:

  DOCTOR: You’re going to feel a little pinch…

  ME: Wait! Why? You said this was a checkup.

  DOCTOR: Well, I have to take a sample of your blood.

  ME: WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH MY BLOOD?

  DOCTOR: I’m just making sure you are healthy. I’m doing it to help you.

  ME: So you’re going to help me by hurting me?!

  DOCTOR: *Sigh* You probably don’t have diabetes…*puts away needle*

  But each and every time I question an adult, I am treated as if I have just used crayons to draw a swastika on my forehead. Adults do not understand how to navigate my inquisitive nature. They instead label me as a “smart-ass.” (But both parts of that word make me smile, so I wear that particular scarlet letter with pride.) I ask so many questions, the grown-ups in my life have begun to just straight up lie to me. I know “The Magic School Bus” is not going to pick me up in the morning if I go to bed on time, like my father would like me to believe. NJ Transit is not operated by Ms. Frizzle. I know, despite my mom’s repeated claims, that pointing at someone is not sign language for “your mother is dead.” It’s just rude. This exaggeration seems a little extreme. I know that my grandma is lying when she says that if another girl runs her hands through my hair it means she is putting a hex on it to fall out. I asked my friend Jamielee why she tugged at a strand and she said I just had a Cheerio stuck in it. I am also certain most second graders are not well versed in the dark arts. But that’s only because I have checked out the same book on witchcraft seven times from the public library and I am
still not Sabrina. I know that sitting in a circle listening to an adult tell me a story will not be fun. Adults lie. I want to see the words for myself.

  I wonder, if I were to ask very politely, would Miss Cahill consider reading some of Chris Claremont’s X-Men instead. Certainly everyone would be as emotionally stirred by the “Dark Phoenix Saga” as I was. So moved by this story arc, every night after finishing all my homework, I would sit down with my Barbie dolls and joyfully reenact Jean Grey’s suicide.

  “She could live as a god, but it is more important she die as a human!” I would scream while Cyclops Ken watched in horror. Then I would go off script and throw everyone a much-needed pool party, filling a large Tupperware with water and bouncing the dolls inside of it. But just when they would begin to have some fun in the sun, several of Barbie Rogue’s guests would slip and fall into the deep water, screaming, “We can’t swim! Our legs don’t bend that way!” The X-Men are never off duty. If they couldn’t save all the drowning Barbies before bedtime, I would store the container of submerged dolls inside of the freezer until the next morning. Then I would use telekinesis, and often a kitchen fork, to rescue them from their icy prison. I tried to convince my friend Nikita of this game’s merits, but she promptly cried about it to our teacher. Like any rational child, I scribbled “I HATE NIKITA” onto a piece of paper and taped it to the top of her desk.

  With a growing mistrust of adults and distinctly different interests from my classmates, it is clear that I didn’t entirely fit in. You might ask, Where does a young freak go to find acceptance and commonality? Mistakenly, I looked to my family. My brother and sister knew I needed them and thus made me pay gravely for it.

  LITTLE RASCALS, BUT LESS CHARMING

  I am the youngest of three children. Erica is two years older than me and likes to call me “the baby.” This nickname may sound precious, but imagine someone saying it with equal fervor as a racial slur. Because that’s how she means it. I am the bane of her existence. My sister went through a particularly impressive “Gerber Baby” phase—the period of time in which a child is so cute, every stranger suggests they should star in commercials. With jet-black ringlet curls, deliciously chubby cheeks, and a playful outgoing nature, Erica was the fawned-over center of every room. I, on the other hand, had a head the size of two full-grown humans, thin flat hair, and the body of a slug. Combine that with the resting bitch face I emerged from the womb sporting, and I was substantially less cute than Gerber Mendez. But I had something she didn’t. Health problems. I was a preemie who had to spend weeks upon weeks in the hospital, and if there’s anything people drool over more than a cute baby, it’s a baby with a sob story.

  When I came along, I unknowingly stole all her thunder and made an immediate enemy. But now, as a second grader, I like to believe a lot of Erica’s disdain is really just a required part of the sibling process, much like the pair of hand-me-down gray sweatpants we have each been forced to wear. Erica likes to punch me square in the temple while I sleep because that is what was done to her, and she is just respecting tradition. It may also have something to do with the fact that my idea of “sharing” a bed includes spreading my limbs like an underwater starfish and breathing directly into her mouth, forcing her to protectively sleep in the fetal position facing the wall. We will share a room and a bed until we are in college, and then, pathetically, a great many times after that. Our tension can really just be chalked up to forced proximity. After spending the school day separated from each other, we can actually be quite pleasant.

  3:15 p.m.

  ERICA: That Barbie you’re drying off from the torture chamber is really cute.

  ME: Wow, thank you. Do you want to borrow her?

  4:00 p.m.

  ERICA: This doll’s hair is perfect. Thank you for letting me borrow her.

  ME: I barely use her. Sometimes she’s Jubilee if I’m desperate. Would you like to keep her?

  ERICA: Oh my God, yes. Thank you!

  ME: Anytime!

  4:30 p.m.

  ME: Why are you cutting my doll’s hair off? You said you loved it.

  ERICA: Well, now she’s my doll. And I told you her hair was perfect for cutting.

  ME: Oh, okay, that’s fine. Have fun!

  4:32 p.m.

  ME: I’m pretty sure you didn’t mention the cutting part.

  5:15 p.m.

  ERICA: Are you jealous of how great my new Barbie’s new hair looks?

  ME: Uhhh, no. I told you I didn’t even use her. I barely even liked her. And her new hair doesn’t really look that…oh, wow, that looks really good…How did you do that?

  ERICA: You should’ve asked me to cut it while she was still yours. Do you want to borrow her?

  ME: No.

  5:20 p.m.

  ME: Hey, Eri, can I borrow your new doll?

  ERICA: No.

  5:30 p.m.

  ME: Hey, Eri, can I borrow your new doll now?

  ERICA: Nope.

  5:40 p.m.

  ME: Hey, Eri, I’m gonna need my doll back.

  ERICA: What? You didn’t even like her! You just want her because she’s prettier now!

  ME: I never said that! I love her! She’s my favorite doll!

  ERICA: I’m telling Mommy!

  8:00 p.m.

  ERICA: Maaaaaaaa! AJ ripped my doll’s head off and left it under my pillow!

  ME: If I can’t have her, no one can!

  After a few hours of existing within ten feet of each other, my and Erica’s peace would inevitably unravel and we would find a reason to come to blows. And thanks to the coaching and encouragement of our parents, we knew how to throw a solid punch.

  We lived in several rough neighborhoods all over northern New Jersey, one time witnessing a group of kids in an actual knife fight. In these cold, gray, concrete cities—where the streets were lined with low-income housing tenements, dollar stores, struggling bodegas, corner drug dealers, and sometimes unwrapped condoms I would unknowingly kick around with my siblings’ unbridled encouragement—this was not the scariest thing we would witness while walking home from school. But it would certainly convince our parents to start cultivating our self-defense skills.

  Standing us in the center of the living room, our parents would pit us against each other to see who was paying the most attention to Daddy’s “bob and weave” lessons. It was basically Baby Gladiator. Erica and I would use these newly acquired skills on a nightly basis. But my full strength was saved for my brother, Robbie.

  Robbie is four years older than me, which is just enough of an age gap for him to be deeply ashamed of our being related. While I often get in trouble for whipping novelty-sized pens at Erica’s dome, leaving blue ink-stained splotches in the center of her forehead, it is Robbie for whom I save the really painful stuff. Ours is an unrequited love. My brother was the coolest kid I knew. So cool, in fact, I believed we couldn’t possibly be blood related. I came to this conclusion after holding my almost see-through, pasty-white arm next to his naturally tanned face and accusing him of either stealing all my melanin or being a Filipino stranger’s love child. He promptly told me the truth—that I was always so sick because I was adopted from a third-world country’s Dumpster. Robbie would cut his own hair into a flattering mushroom helmet, could throw his skinny body off the top bunk bed without breaking anything (almost every time), cursed with reckless abandon, and embraced the foreign concept of “having lots of friends.” He skateboarded on rooftops, Rollerbladed while holding on to the rear bumpers of strangers’ cars, and had the sweetest Pog collection this side of the Hudson River.

  (From left to right) Erica, a slug, Robbie

  The only thing I didn’t like so much about him was his undying hatred for me. Maybe it was because I refused to put his comic books back in the sleeves after reading them, or because I borrowed his clothes without asking—wrinkling every shirt by tying them with a hairband at the back to fit my smaller frame. Perhaps it was because I could not control my snort laugh despite his
continuous warnings that people would confuse me with a retarded pig. Or maybe it all led back to that fateful day when a viewing of WWF’s Saturday Night Main Event turned tragic.

  At the time, Robbie was the world’s biggest professional wrestling fan. Pro wrestling was monstrously popular among boys in the 1990s due to its larger-than-life personalities, soap-opera-like story lines, and heroes ripped straight off the pages of a comic book. (If you really don’t know what professional wrestling is, why did you buy this book? Did you lose a bet? Do I look that intriguing on the cover?) And while during the day it brought Robbie physical pain to share the same air as me, he never seemed to notice when I sidled up next to him on the carpet in front of the TV while WWF programming was on. The first week I got away with encroaching on his pro-wrestling pastime I was sure it was a fluke. But the next week it happened again. And then again. Every week I would quietly join Robbie, cross-legged on the floor in the darkened living room, the bright lights of the tiny TV glowing against his captivated face. So enamored by this real-life world of superheroes and villains, he didn’t seem bothered by me joining in on the fun, and occasionally he even spoke to me! “Doesn’t Macho Man Randy Savage remind you of Wolverine? Man, he’s the coolest,” Robbie would say in my general direction while keeping his eyes fixed on the television screen. “Oh, yeah, they’re both the coolest. Macho Man should be Wolverine for Halloween! Do you want to get friendship bracelets?” Perhaps I was a bit too eager and this would be my undoing. In an attempt to keep the party going after the last match’s bell rang, I brought into the living room Robbie’s WWF trading card collection and the plastic miniature wrestling ring our dad had found while Dumpster diving. The toy ring was missing one of the ropes it originally came with, but it still had its center WWF logo sticker, so I cherished it nonetheless. “How do you play with these cards? Do you want to make them fight in the ring?” I asked like an idiot lamb to slaughter. “You don’t play with those cards! You collect them!” Robbie was red with rage, lunging at me to remove his prized possessions from my dumb, dumb hands. Somehow in the struggle, a 1987 Miss Elizabeth Topps card was irreversibly bent. “You…you bent her…MISS ELIZABEEEEEEETH!” Robbie screamed with the fire of a thousand Puerto Rican suns. Miss Elizabeth was not only Macho Man Randy Savage’s manager but also the love of Robbie’s life (second only to Winnie Cooper). I done fucked up. “I will make you pay for this for the rest of your life,” he creepily promised. And Robbie was a boy of his word.