DID EVERYONE HAVE AN IMAGINARY FRIEND (OR JUST ME)?

An award-winning Black actor reflects on growing up with an imaginary companion.

As Ellis, a star of the HBO show Insecure and other TV shows and films, recounts, he created his imaginary friend, Mikey, when he was a “behaviorally challenged” young boy. An only child who was also part of a military family, the author suggests that loneliness was not the only reason Mikey, who had all the cool Ellis did not, emerged. Equally important was his place as a Black boy in an alluring but dangerous world that bombarded him with “many mixed messages of how to be—what was cool, what was right, who to emulate, who to disavow.” At first, his parents, especially his mother, tolerated and even encouraged the imaginary friend play. However, that stopped when “Mikey got [Ellis] into a lot of trouble” by “encouraging” Ellis to play pranks like locking other children in the bathroom of a local youth center. Though Mikey sometimes made Ellis look “like I had a mental illness,” his imaginary presence allowed the author to lean into the performativity that helped him “not…give a f$*k,” tap into a latent talent for acting, and learn to feel more comfortable around other kids. Mikey all but disappeared in high school, when Ellis found camaraderie in band and especially basketball, which taught him skills like “listening…and knowing when not to try and muscle my way through something to prove I was right.” In turn, these lessons helped Ellis create the “masks” that afforded the kind of protection Mikey offered, not just from the pains of growing up, but from the racism that surrounded him in school and on the street. As Ellis explores a common childhood experience, he also offers insight into the power imagination holds for young people rendered especially vulnerable by race.

A funny, honest, and moving memoir.