Black Boy White School (6 page)

Brody didn't answer but kept walking. Anthony followed him to their room and closed the door. “Seriously, man. What happened?”

“Guess?” Brody emptied his backpack, dumped the soggy papers into the garbage can, and put his open books facedown on the radiator. He peeled off his clothes and threw them into the corner. Stink rose from the pile like swamp gas. “I fucking hate this place, dude.” He put on dry clothes and sat at his desk, staring straight ahead.

“How'd they get you?”

“On my way from the library. I walked into it like an idiot.”

“Was that big kid with the ponytail there? Seth McCarthy?”

“Oh, yeah,” Brody said hatefully. “Zach, too. They carried us past Mr. Voght and the old bastard made a joke about it.” He went to the mirror and parted his hair. “Hit my head on a rock or something.”

Anthony looked at him. “You just said us. Did they get somebody else, too?”

Brody nodded and sat down again. “Khalik. And he was screaming like a baby.”

Anthony took off. Seconds later he was down the hall and in front of Mr. Hawley's apartment, pressing the buzzer. The door opened and the man stuck out his head. “Can I help you?”

“We gotta talk,” Anthony said. “Right now.”

Mr. Hawley stepped aside, and Anthony stormed past him, slapped the kitchen table hard, and paced the room. “Somebody better do something.”

Looking stunned, Mr. Hawley shut the door and leaned against it. “What's going on?”

“Freshman Brook. That's what's going on. You better stop these people before I do.” He told Hawley what had happened, making sure to mention his roommate's head and the fact that a few kids had been thrown in twice.

“Twice?” Hawley seemed more surprised than upset. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

“You think it's funny, huh?” Anthony said. “It figures.”

“Not funny, Tony, but come on. Nobody got hurt, right?”

“What about Brody's head? That's not hurt enough for you?”

Hawley pressed his lips together. “Okay, you're right. But come on, Tony. You know what I mean.”

“No, I don't. And stop calling me Tony. That's not my damn name!”

Mr. Hawley's mouth snapped shut, and all the fun left his face. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm sorry, Anthony, okay? But if you ever speak to me that way again, I'll have to take disciplinary action.”

“Why? 'Cause it's in the handbook, right? Just like this is supposed to be a smoke-free campus, but then you tell people where they can have cigarettes. Why don't you take some ‘disciplinary action' with those fools doing the hazing, instead of threatening me?”

“I'm not threatening you.”

“And you ain't threatening McCarthy, either,” Anthony said. “That's okay, let one of them put his hands on me.”

Hawley sighed and pinched his temples. “You can't fight here, Anthony. We take that very seriously.”

“No, you don't, 'cause if you did there wouldn't be people getting thrown in brooks and getting their heads dunked in toilets.”

Hawley smiled again, but it faded quickly. “That's not fighting, Anthony, that's hazing. You know, just older kids giving the young ones a little grief. . . . Look, I know it sucks, but Freshman Brook is a tradition. Hell, I got thrown in when I went to school here. I was pissed for a while, too. But the next three years, I more than made up for what happened to me. You'll get your turn.”

“So you're not gonna do anything? And that fat punk of a proctor, you're not gonna do anything about him, either?”

“I wouldn't put it like that. Jesus, Anthony, relax!” He tried to put a hand on Anthony's shoulder, but the boy shrugged it off.

“Don't they have something about hazing in the handbook? Didn't you make us fill out a form?”

Hawley stared back at him but didn't say anything.

“Just what I thought. Tell you what, Mr. Hawley, and God is my witness: If any of those dudes puts their hands on me, whatever happens is your fault, not mine.”

Hawley bunched his hair in both hands and groaned. Anthony waited, but the man didn't say anything. From the hallway outside came the sound of Zach barking orders.

“Fine,” Anthony said, walking to the door. “Just don't be surprised if you have to get another proctor, then. The one you got now might not make it.”

Anthony woke up the next morning and took a shower, working the plan in his mind while he washed behind his ears. His mother had been proud the day he'd washed his ears without her asking, and she clapped the first time he rode a bike without training wheels. He wondered what she'd do if she knew what he was setting up. Would she be happy or tell him to pack his bags?

In the room, he looked at himself in the mirror. There was fuzz coming in above his lip, but it was hard to see against his skin. Kids at home used to tease him about his complexion, said they couldn't find him in the dark unless he was smiling. He had expected to hear the same jokes at Belton, but so far no one had seemed to care.

Someone knocked on the door and told Anthony that he had a call. He got dressed and went to the pay phone cubby. “Hello?”

“Hello to you too, nigga. W'sup?”

“Floyd?” Anthony sat down and grinned. “About time you called me for a change,” he said. “I was fi'n to write you off.”

Floyd laughed. “It ain't like that. Every time I try to call, the line be busy. . . . So what's poppin', playa? What's the word?”

“Same as the last time I talked to you, man. Nothing. Go to breakfast, go to class, go to study hall, go to sleep.”

“Damn, nigga. Sound like you in the joint.”

“Might as well be.” Anthony told him about visual check-ins with the weekend duty crew, the work-study jobs and room inspections. “Plus, we got night security that be walking around campus . . . couldn't get away with nothing if I tried.”

“What I tell you, man?” Floyd said smugly. “That's exactly why I ain't up there with you.”

Anthony looked at the artwork on the walls around him. Someone had scribbled out the running penis and written
UNCOOL!
underneath it. “We got girls here,” he continued. “That's a plus.”

“Yeah, man, all them snowflakes. I need me a fat booty, not a flat one.”

“Same here,” Anthony said. “We got this girl from New York who look like Beyoncé. I'm trying to holler at her.”

“That's what's up, playa. Get yours. Had a couple fiends over at Shane's crib yesterday. Told them hoes to kiss each other and they did! Just like some shit off the internet.”

Anthony laughed. “Be careful, man. You too young to be somebody's daddy.”

“Don't worry about me, playa. I come wrapped or I don't come at all. The last thing I want is some baby or the HIV.” Floyd paused, and when he spoke again his voice had lost its sparkle. “Seem like everybody and they momma got the bug, man, even these two girls in my homeroom. . . . Niggas 'round here always be dropping like flies, from one thing or another.”

Anthony thought about home and all the things that could go wrong there, thought about Mookie and all the gunshots at night. Just like a lot of other things in East Cleveland, even sex was killing its teenagers. “That's some scary shit,” he said absently. “I cain't even imagine.”

Floyd laughed, but Anthony could tell by the tone that his best friend wasn't amused. “You cain't imagine?” Floyd said. “Nigga, you grew up here. Being scared of E.C. is like being scared of yourself.”

He looked at the scribble on the wall again and fought an urge to make it darker. “I'm not scared,” Anthony said. “I just said it was scary. There's a difference.”

Floyd let out a long sigh. “Whatever, man . . . anyway, you seen your boy yet? That writer?”

Anthony hesitated. His mind was in a hundred different places. Then the name came to him all at once. “Stephen King? Naw, he don't live nowhere near here.”

“Oh . . . what about them stories, you wrote any new ones?”

“Naw,” Anthony answered guiltily. “I ain't really had the time yet. . . .”

“Ain't had the time?” Floyd laughed his hollow laugh again and then said he had to go. Before he hung up, he asked Anthony a last question. “If the place is like jail and you hate it so much, why in the world is you still up there?”

He was running into the gym when Gloria stormed out of it, her face a mix of frustration and anger. When Anthony asked her what was wrong, she shouted “GUESS!” and kept walking. Anthony knew that she was talking about George, and the news couldn't have made him any happier. Brooklyn had bound them on the day they had met, but now Gloria and George were oil and water. She thought he was a politician and a low-key Uncle Tom, while George called her a nosy troublemaker.

George was already on the court, shooting three-pointers from the top of the key that barely moved the net. When that rack was empty, he moved on to the next one and tossed in perfect turnaround jumpers from the baseline.

“Thought you weren't gonna make it,” George said without breaking his rhythm. “If you want to get better, you have to practice every day. No excuses.”

Anthony joined him on the court and racked the loose balls. Then he grabbed one of them and quickly dribbled two laps, staying low and keeping his head up, alternating hands after every few bounces, just like George had showed him. “I saw Gloria on my way in here,” he said. “She looked mad.”

George sniffed and flipped in the last shot under-handed. “That girl has serious problems,” he said. “She's mad at the whole world.”

“Maybe so, but I think she's especially mad at you.” He finished his laps and went to the foul line, shot free throws while George snagged the rebounds.

“You're getting better,” George said after Anthony made a couple. “Just find a routine that works and stick with it. That's the key to everything.”

“Everything, huh?” Anthony said, and concentrated. His next three shot attempts missed badly. “Guess I ain't found the right routine yet.”

He moved on to right-handed layups and then left ones, after that it was midrange jumpers over George's outstretched arm. By the time he finished defensive slides and rebounding drills, Anthony was soaked in sweat. George kept after him, though, and made him play through the discomfort. An hour later, when Anthony had completed his mini practice, the two boys sat on the bench and drank from water bottles, looking up at the league championship banners from the late 1990s.

“We can do it this year,” George announced, and smacked a fist into his palm. “All we need to do is play good defense and get the ball to me.”

Anthony nodded. He didn't know what the competition was like, but he had faith in George. It seemed everything that George touched turned to gold. Everything except for Gloria. “Let me ask you a question,” Anthony said. “What's the story between you and your homegirl?”

George shrugged and took a long drink. “There is no story,” he said, and took a sip. “She's jealous. That's all.”

“Jealous? Jealous of what?”

“Of me,” George said matter-of-factly. “She don't understand how a black dude from Brooklyn can come up here and have so much juice.”

Anthony nodded. He didn't understand it either, but he was trying to learn by watching George both on and off the basketball court. “I think there's more to it than that,” he said. “I think she likes you. No, scratch that. I think she
used
to like you. She used to like you, and now she cain't stand your ass.” He laughed and unscrewed the top from his bottle. When he drank, the smell of plastic was strong.

George shrugged and took off his sneakers, set them to the side, and then put on boots. “I know how she feels about me,” he said. “Or used to feel.” He shrugged again and put on his sweatshirt, crossed his arms over his chest, and shook his head. “Don't get me wrong, the girl is fine. I mean, movie-star fine and everything. But she just has too much
attitude
for me, know what I'm saying? I can't be dealing with all that attitude while I'm trying to get a college scholarship. Shit, I have a plan.”

“Attitude, huh?” Anthony thought about it and nodded. Gloria could come off a little rough, just like Shameeka back at home. But she was smarter than Shameeka and looked a hundred times better. “There ain't enough attitude in the world to make me say no to that,” he said absently. “Whatever she dish out, I would just take it and smile.”

“Then you should go for it,” George said, standing up. “Maybe you can rub off on her some, help her fit in and not be such a bitch all the time.”

“Maybe.” Anthony thought about the hazing and his grades so far in classes, the way he alternated between liking his roommate and wanting to throw him through a wall. He wasn't fitting in any better than Gloria. It would be a case of the blind leading the blind. “Let me ask you another question,” he said as they left the gym. “What's the deal with Freshman Brook?”

George looked down at him and shrugged. “Tradi­tion, son. That's what it is. I guess they been doing it for the last hundred years.”

“So I heard.”

George laughed. “Don't worry about it. It's only water.”

“You mean rotten water,” Anthony said. “You shoulda smelled my roommate's clothes.” Then he thought about Khalik and how powerless he must have felt. They had stripped him of his stories and all his Brooklyn bluster, tossed him in the brook, and taken away his clout. Anthony looked at George, who wasn't laughing anymore but still grinning, walking easily in long strides. “I don't get you, man,” Anthony said. “One minute you warning me against white people and now you act like I should let 'em do whatever they want.”

“Not whatever they want,” George said. “But you need to be careful, choose your battles. This is one you can't win.”

Anthony hawked and spat as far as he could. It landed in a shiny blotch on the path ahead of them. “So you don't think I can win, huh?”

“You might. But winning one little thing might make you lose it all.”

That night Anthony lay awake in bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling but looking past it. He was bothered by George's warning: win the battle, lose the war. Anthony wasn't going to let anyone throw him in a brook. And he would never let them dunk his head in a toilet or make him take a cold shower fully clothed. What did any of that have to do with getting into college? How would letting them abuse him win Anthony anything except more contempt and cruelty? George was smart, but his advice was stupid. Anthony had a plan, and he was sticking to it.

He was sound asleep when Zach burst into the room, banging on things and yelling. “Get up, freshman fish! Emergency meeting in the hallway, right now!”

Brody got up and left the room on groggy legs, but Anthony stayed where he was. “What emergency?”

“You'll see,” Zach answered. “Now let's go.”

“Why? So you and your friends can try something? Naw, man. Go on, somewhere.”

Zach sighed. “Are you coming or not?”

“Not.”

“Your funeral.” Zach stormed into the hallway, leaving the door wide open behind him. Seconds later, Mr. Hawley walked in. He looked angry and disappointed.

“What's the matter with you?” he snapped. “Too good to join everyone else?”

Anthony shrugged and jumped down from his bunk. “I thought it was a trick.”

“A trick?” Hawley shook his head. “Yeah, it's a trick. Now let's go.”

Anthony followed him into the hallway and saw the other freshmen. Some were in pajamas and others in their underwear; some seemed wide-awake while others slept on their feet.

“What time is it?” Hawley demanded while he paced up and down the lines. Someone said that it was 1:47, and the scowling dorm parent nodded. “That's right,” he said, “almost two in the morning.” He motioned to Zach, who was standing next to a big pile of cleaning supplies. “Two o'clock in the morning and I'm out here playing babysitter with a bunch of would-be Rembrandts and comedians. . . . Do you guys write on your walls back at home? Do your parents like to see cartoon genitalia?”

Someone giggled, and Hawley pulled him from the line. “Grab a bucket, Mr. Miller, since you think this is so funny.” The boy jumped to the pile, and Hawley looked at everyone else. “I want it clean. The bathroom, the pay phone, your desks; everywhere someone was dumb enough to write something smart, I want it spotless.”

The kids grabbed supplies and started cleaning. Anthony and Paul worked together, in the phone nook. “Mr. H is wilding, son,” Paul said, barely touching the wall with his sponge. “We should report him for slave labor.”

Anthony grinned and sprayed foam onto the dancing bear. It bubbled and ran down the wall in muddy lines. “At least it's coming off,” he said, wiped, and sprayed again. “I thought some of this stuff was permanent.”

Paul stopped moving his arm, cocked his head to one side, and looked at Anthony. “You're a funny dude,” he said. “You know that?”

“Funny how?”

“One minute you walk around here like you're mad at the world and the next you clean graffiti at two in the morning with a smile on your face. I don't get you, man.”

Anthony sprayed again and thought about it, not sure if he should take Paul's words as an insult or a compliment. “I'm used to this,” he said finally. “Back at home, my mother be waking us up to clean all the time.”

Paul shook his head and rubbed his sponge on the wall again. “Your moms sound serious, kid. Remind me not to stay at your house.”

Anthony laughed and moved to another drawing. Maxine Jones
was
serious, but only because she cared. Suddenly he missed her and everyone else at home. He thought of calling, but it would only make him miss them more.

Paul had left the nook but was still only a few feet away, sitting on the floor and pretending to rub the baseboard. Anthony brought his can and rag over and sat next to him. “You going home for Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah,” Paul said, and smiled dreamily. “I'm gonna eat myself to death.”