Sometimes, I hate my life. Seriously. My name is Stephen L'Atelier. I was born in the City of Montreal, Province of Quebec, on the seventh day of February 1989. My father, Jeremie L'Atelier is White, of French-Canadian descent. My mother, Annette Jean-Francois, is Black, of Haitian descent. She moved to Canada from the City of Cap-Haitien in Northern Haiti three years before my birth. My parents lived together but were never married. They split a year after my birth. My father later married Nicole Chang, an immigrant woman from the region of Shanghai, China, and my mother had a long string of romantic failures with men of all races, before settling into a lesbian relationship with Big Bertha, this Australian-born construction worker who runs a company in Sherbrook. How's that for an origin tale? Wait, it gets better.
A lot of people born under the sign of the Aquarius think they're special, but I'm actually worth the hype. You see, I am kind of different. My mother has a secret, one she's never told anyone. She comes from a long line of Witches. Actual Witches. She can do all kinds of stuff, from moving objects with her mind, a power called Telekinesis, to communicating with the Spirits of the Dead. That sounds pretty cool, right? I wish I could say that I inherited my mother's powers. They're pretty cool. Nope. My condition is much worse than hers. Every time I get really angry or scared, I...change. What do I change into? I'm not one hundred percent sure, exactly. I turn into an ape-like, massively muscular bipedal creature covered in thick reddish fur. A creature with yellow eyes and wicked, seven-inch claws that can slice through Titanium. A creature of superhuman strength and speed. A monster.
I call my alter ego The Freak, because that's what it is. The scary part? Whenever I change into The Freak, I am still myself. I always remember everything. It's my body that changes, not my mind. According to my mother, The Freak is my true self and my human side is the disguise. When she told me that, I really freaked out. I refuse to believe that this creature is my true self. I consider my true self to be, well, me. Whatever that means.
In my normal state, I'm nothing special. A five-foot-eleven, skinny guy with light brown skin, curly Black hair and pale green eyes. A lot of people ask me if I'm Hispanic because of my skin color but I consider myself Black. I don't consider myself biracial. I embrace my Black heritage and show it with pride. My mother and I have had problems because of that. When she lived in the island of Haiti, my mother was married to a guy named Claude. Apparently, he was really mean to her and abused her. The thought of any man abusing my magically powered mother kind of shocked me, but she assured me that domestic abuse could happen to anyone regardless of their level of ability in any domain. She loved this Claude guy and he beat her. This disgusted her with Black men in general. That's why she mainly dated White guys, Hispanic guys and the occasional Chinese guy before she met Big Bertha. My mom can't stand Black people, especially Black guys, and thinks White folks are the saviors of the universe. The fact that her only son considers himself one hundred percent Black irks her to no end.
For this and many other reasons, I left the City of Montreal when I graduated from Saint Guillaume High School in 2008. I thought about studying at various schools, from the University of Toronto to Carleton University, two of the best schools in the nearby Province of Ontario. Instead, I decided to leave Canada altogether. I always wanted to live in the United States of America. So, I applied to various schools in the only place I ever visited in the U.S. I'm referring to the City of Boston in the State of Massachusetts, where my aunt Cecilia Jean-Francois, my mother's older sister, lives with her Haitian-American husband Louis Magloire. We visited them when I was younger and I remember how friendly they were and how nice the City of Boston looked. I applied to various schools in the Boston area. Finally, I got accepted with a scholarship offer to Boston College. Apparently, they heard about my prowess as a football player at my old school in Montreal-Nord. Cool. I tried out for the Boston College men's varsity football team as a walk-on. And I made it!
During the fall of 2009, I proudly donned the Boston College Eagles football team. I opted to study business administration at Boston College. Originally, I thought about studying Law but laws in Canada are very different from American laws. Besides, with a business degree you could work anywhere. I embraced my new life in Boston. Sure, I missed the City of Montreal, but Boston became my new home. I made a lot friends on campus. There are a lot of international students at Boston College. Guys and girls from places like India, China, Brazil, Tunisia, South Africa and Japan. I joined the African-American Students Association or A.A.S.A. even though I'm a Black Canadian and not an African-American. I wanted to connect with my fellow Black students. My mother always steered me away from Black people. She didn't think much of either sex, both Black men and Black women were no good in her eyes. At Saint Guillaume, I befriended other Haitian guys and gals and learned to speak Haitian Creole from them.
At Boston College, I ran into a person who changed my life forever. Lucy Dorsainvil. A six-foot-tall, gorgeous young Black woman with dark brown skin, an athletic figure and sharp features. Lucy is of Haitian descent and grew up in the City of Atlanta, Georgia. She transferred to Boston College after two years at Spelman College. I found Lucy fascinating. This chick was pretty, friendly and totally awesome. Oh, and she's the President of the African American Students Association at Boston College. The gal who ran the show. I showed up at a meeting, and charmed the six guys and nine gals in the room with my French-Canadian accent. I'm fluent in French, English and Haitian Creole but people in the Quebec region of Canada have a distinct accent when they speak English. I didn't sound anything like the locals in Boston. If anything, I sounded like a Haitian! Fortunately, Lucy liked my accent, along with a lot of things about me.
