Chameleon (31 page)

I’d be the new guy. That could be a good thing. Or a bad thing. Girls would wonder who I was and how old I was. Guys would wonder if I’m any good at sports; that could be good — my b-ball skill could sneak up on them. I could take classes at Carson they probably don’t have at Marshall. Like French. And I wouldn’t have to worry about any of my classmates stabbing the teacher. Or me. That would definitely be good. I wonder what kind of people
do
go there. I know there’s blacks and Mexicans, but what else? Carson has a lot of Samoans — we have four families on our block alone — so I’m sure I’d see plenty of them. But what else? I wonder if Carson is smaller than Marshall. I should find out. Now that I was finally thinking about it, I had more questions than answers.

I plopped back onto the bed. It’d be hard to leave my boys. And Marisol. Could I really leave her behind? I don’t know, but after talking to Yvonne today and seeing all them bikinis yesterday . . . it’s a wide-open world when it comes to girls. Man, Dad was right: girls always figure into the equation somehow. This wasn’t gonna be easy.

“Shower’s all yours,” Dad said, poking his head into my room with a towel around his waist.

The clock ticked two; just a few hours to go before Dad would take me home. It felt like forever since I was home or saw the fellas. If they could have seen me this weekend . . . man! Andre would have gotten a kick out of seeing me on the court today. Lorenzo would have gotten a kick out of seeing me talk to Yvonne — if he didn’t try to talk to her himself. And all of them would have gotten a kick out of being surrounded by all those bikinis on the pier yesterday — a
big
kick.

As the water washed over me in the shower, I closed my eyes and opened my mental movie screen. Kaleidoscopic images collided in crystal-clear colors: peach fingernails . . . blue sarong . . . orange bikini . . . bright smiles . . . dark skin . . . light skin . . . Yvonne . . . Marisol . . . Carson . . . Compton . . . Lorenzo . . . Trent . . . Andre . . . Auntie . . . Mama.

The once-hot water was cool and turning colder by the second. Dang, Dad used all the hot water! I hurried to rinse the soap off my lathered-up body. By the time my wet feet stepped onto the cold tile, I was shivering.

Dad knocked at the door. “I’m gonna take a nap. If I’m not up by four, wake me.”

“OK,” I yelled.

Four? That’s almost two hours away. What was I gonna do until then? I combed my hair and moved closer to the mirror to inspect my sideburns; they were already getting darker. The hair on my upper lip was getting darker too. Cool. I should have a full-blown mustache soon. I wonder what the fellas will think. And Marisol. I hope I see her soon. With summer, you never know. Sometimes you see somebody every day for a month, then you don’t see them again until the first day of school. I hoped I would see her before that.

I backed away from the mirror and patted my hair. It looked good. I touched my less-black eye. It looked good. I rubbed my cheeks. My sideburns looked good too — shoot, I looked good. Don’t fall in love with yourself, though, Shawn. Remember, Dad said girls hate that.

I rubbed on some deodorant, got dressed, and went back to my room. I sat on my bed, twiddled my thumbs, and stared into space. What now? I took a walk around the house, looking for something to do, and found myself standing in front of Dad’s bookcase — or should I say bookcases. Dad and Mama have always loved to read; maybe that’s where I got it from. Mama loves romance, horror, and mysteries. Dad loves pretty much everything else: old stuff, new stuff, fiction, nonfiction, history, travel — you name it. He’s had bookcases in every place he’s lived, but over the years he’s added more books to his collection, so he’s needed more shelves . . . way more shelves.

Five cases towered in front of me. All about the same height; a little taller than me with five shelves on each one. I scanned the titles:
Soul on Ice . . . Miles . . . Think and Grow Rich . . . The Godfather . . . Cane . . . The Fire Next Time . . . Roots . . . Cotton Comes to Harlem . . . Mumbo Jumbo — Mumbo Jumbo? . . . The Autobiography of Malcolm X — The Autobiography of Malcolm X?
Didn’t that professor recommend this to Mama for me? I tugged it out. A picture of Malcolm X stared at me from the cover and “As told to the author of
Roots
” blared below the title. I snatched it and headed outside.

When Dad asked what kind of house I thought he should get, in addition to mentioning that it be on a hill overlooking the ocean, I also said it would be great to have a hammock. So, on my first visit a few years ago, we went and picked one out together: bone-colored with big holes to let the breeze in. We hung it under two trees, and it’s gotten plenty of use ever since.

I positioned myself in it and got comfortable. The warm California breeze caressed my scalp as the ocean glittered in the distance. The neighbor’s palm trees leaned over to sneak a peek at what I was reading as I stretched out and cracked open the world of Malcolm X.

The book caught my attention from the first sentence when it opened with him talking about the KKK knocking on his mother’s door while he was still in her belly, and it only got better as his unbelievable life unfolded before my eyes. I was surprised by the things that happened in his life, but it wasn’t until he talked about eighth grade that I completely identified with what he was going through. He was one of the top students in his class and elected class president. He was also one of the few black students in the school, but back then he wasn’t called black — he was called a Negro half the time and a nigger the other half. Dang.

Anyway, Malcolm’s English teacher called him in after school to talk about his future before he went to high school, just like this teacher did with all the other students. Malcolm and two of his classmates shared the highest grades in the school, but when he mentioned to his teacher that he might want to be a lawyer, his teacher, who had given him some of his highest marks, laughed in his face and suggested that Malcolm “stay in his place.” He then suggested that Malcolm do something more realistic for a nigger, like be a carpenter, because he was good with his hands. Never mind the fact that he told the other students with worse grades than Malcolm that they could be anything they wanted. Dang!

Eventually, the name-calling and poor treatment he got for being black drove him from the detention home he stayed at in Michigan to his half-sister’s home in Boston. His half-sister was a very dark yet proud member of the black race, unlike many of the other blacks he encountered at the time: those who bowed to whites, those who dismissed other blacks as inferior because of their dark complexion, and those who were content to make a living as a shoe-shine boy or waiter at the local country club. None of that was for Malcolm. He asked his half-sister, whom he’d only spoken to in letters, and she took custody of him. He looked forward to something in Boston that didn’t exist in Michigan: the chance to dream.

He was fourteen, just like me, when he made that decision. I don’t know if I could’ve done that, but times were different back then, and he saw an opportunity for change and jumped on it. He didn’t know what would happen in Boston, but he knew it had to be better than staying in Michigan. I’m not in the same exact position, but I don’t know what’s gonna happen either way. His decision was a little easier: stay in Michigan and be called a nigger while he worked as a shoe-shine boy or carpenter, or take the first train to Boston and start over. The details of his move faded as my eyes drifted into sleep, and the image of Malcolm on the page was replaced by Dad standing over me, blocking out the sun and shaking me awake.

“Go get your stuff. We’re leaving soon.”

I rubbed my eyes awake.

“Already?”

“Whatchu mean already? It’s a quarter to five.”

I sat up. “A quarter to five? Shoot. I forgot to wake you up.”

“That’s all right. I needed the rest.”

Dad eyeballed the book as I dog-eared the page and got out of the hammock.

“Malcolm X?
I was wondering when you’d find that book.”

We stepped into the house, me bringing up the rear.

“Whaddyou mean ‘when’? You knew I was gonna read this?”

He rubbed his goatee.

“I didn’t know exactly when, but I had a feeling you’d read it sooner or later,” he said.

“Well, there wasn’t much to do when you took your nap, so I grabbed a book. I do like to read, you know.”

“I know you do. That’s why I kept most of my old books. I just didn’t expect you to read today. Shoot, I thought you would’ve walked down to Fatburger to talk to Miss Thing again.” He laughed.

“Ha-ha. Very funny!”

“Go get your stuff so we can leave.”

I held up the book. “Can I take this with me?”

“Of course.”

I got my stuff together and threw it in my bag. My pajama shorts crunched when I folded them up. Gross. Mama’s gonna know it happened again. I hope she doesn’t give me a hard time about it.

“Ready.”

We hopped in the car, and the yellow house at the end of the block with 100 on the mailbox and the hammock in the backyard disappeared behind us, not to be seen by my eyes for another couple of weeks at least. My mind wandered back to Malcolm and his move: Michigan to Boston. The segregated Midwest to the wide-open Northeast. That’s a pretty big change. Especially for that time. Especially at that age.

“So, Dad, when did you read that book?”

Dad swung his head over at me as we got on the freeway.

“What?
Malcolm X?
” He paused. “Shoot . . . I read that a while ago. I gotta think way back for that.”

His eyes ran through a range of emotions, ending with surprise.

“Actually, it was right before you were born. I was driving a cab, and I read it while waiting for fares at the airport. It blew my mind. I had heard about what he had done when I was a lot younger, but I didn’t know much about him as a person.” He looked over at me and asked, “How far did you get?”

“I fell asleep just after he moved to Boston.” I paused. “He was fourteen, you know.”

That turned Dad’s head my way.

“Really? I read it so long ago, I don’t remember all the details. I remember Boston, but where was he before that?”

“Michigan.”

I ran the story down about his English teacher and why he left Michigan, and Dad shook his head the whole time. He sat up straight and said, “I guess he proved his teacher wrong.”

I nodded. Skyscrapers shadowed the car as we wound our way through downtown L.A. I thought about Malcolm at fourteen and Malcolm as an adult. I’m glad times have changed. Yeah, things happen here and there, but it’s not like it was. If I was at the top of my class and my teacher suggested I stay in
my
place, Mama
and
Dad would give that teacher an earful and make sure he no longer taught me or any other student ever again. I’m sure plenty of black parents felt the same way, but what could they really do? Especially in a time when if a black person talked back to a white person, he could find himself beaten up or, worse, strung up in a tree like a piñata.

Malcolm hoped Boston would be better for him, but he didn’t know what was gonna happen. When he was on that bus, was he scared? Excited? Which did he think about more: his past in Michigan . . . or his future in Boston? Was there a girl who made the decision to leave harder for him? My decision wasn’t quite the same, but it was still a big one. I had no idea which school would be better for me. I’m sure Malcolm had no idea either, but like Dad said, we know what he went on to become. Did that decision have anything to do with it?

Malcolm stayed in my thoughts right up until we pulled into the driveway. That was fast.

“Look at you. Eye looking bad. Hair looking good,” Mama said, opening the door.

“And what’s this?” She ran her fingers along my face, then turned my head left and right to inspect my sideburns.

“I’m starving. We got anything to eat?” I said as I kissed her and entered the kitchen.

“Glad to see you too, Shawn,” I heard from behind.

“How you doing, Shawn?” Mama asked Dad as he stepped in the door.

“I’m good, Brenda. You have a good weekend?”

Mama made her way into the kitchen, and Dad followed.

“Yeah, I was finally able to clean this house from top to bottom. Speaking of which . . . Shawn, your room looks like a cyclone hit it, so I left that for you.”

Here we go.

Dad took a seat at the kitchen table. Mama joined him. I hunted through the cabinets and fridge for something to eat.

“What’s for dinner?”

“There’s a roast in the oven. It should be done in a few minutes.”

I found a fresh bag of tortilla chips and some salsa and joined them at the table. Everybody started crunching chips.

“So?” Mama said.

“So, what?” I crunched.

“So how was your weekend?”

“It was cool.” I chewed.

“You guys do anything special?”

“We went to the Santa Monica Pier yesterday, hung out, took some pictures, but today was more mellow.” Dad crunched.

“That reminds me . . .” I got up to get the book. “Look what I found.” I tossed it in front of Mama.

She held up
Malcolm X
. “Yeah, I remember this book. Your father got it right after we got married, read it, and started wearing dashikis and black leather jackets.” Mama laughed toward Dad. “Talking about ‘Black Power’ and stuff.”

Dad rolled his eyes and folded his arms. “That was a while ago.”

“Really, Dad? Did you wanna be Malcolm X or something?”

“Not quite, but no other bruthas had said what he did, and I connected to a lot of it.”

“So you read any of it, Shawnie?” Mama asked.

“He just started today. Tell her where you are,” Dad said.

“He just moved to Boston from Michigan.” I crunched. “At age fourteen.”

“Is that right?” She chewed. “You learn anything that might help you?”

“I learned I ain’t Malcolm X.”

Me and Dad laughed. Mama crossed her arms. “Shawn, I’m serious.”

“I’m just messing with you, Mama. I learned I have a tough decision to make that could affect my future.”