I Am Not Sidney Poitier (13 page)

A tall man whom we were instructed to refer to as Big Boss addressed us as a unit. He said, “You are going to cross the sands. You are not yet black enough to be Omegas, but you will burn under the sun on this, our terrain. If you are man enough you will make it across and be made right.” He turned to Morris. “Isn’t that right, Big Brother Chesney?”

“Right you are, Brother Benson.”

This hazing business wasn’t going to get started too quickly. I knew that. Too harsh too fast and the lot of us, dumb and smart alike, would have called it quits. No, they wanted us to invest some energy and time. They were simply what nature had made them, small bullies. And yet, there I was, more fool me, because I wanted the
college
experience.

I could see immediately that Morris Chesney wanted me to fail, a blind man could have seen that, but not too quickly, because as long as I was pledging and was subject to their commands I was essentially out of our dormitory room. I was required to wear a red T-shirt, the same one at all times, without washing or rinsing it, though I was allowed to bathe every other day.

At the first meeting of Professor Everett’s class, he walked by me, observed my red T-shirt, smiled, and said, “Baaaa.”

Ted was equally unimpressed. He said, “A fraternity? Hell, why didn’t you just go to LSU or some damn place? Have you ever seen a badger? They’re kinda like little bears.”

I had a vague understanding of their disappointment, but I wanted the full cliché college experience. In fact, I even attended the convocation in King Chapel, red T-shirt and all. There a short round vice president of something or other stood to address all of us, at least all of us who attended, and that turned out to be a small fraction of the student body. His name was Dudley Feet and so had to be in some way related to Gladys Feet. How many Feet could there be? There were at least two. He rose to the lectern and cleared his throat for about ten minutes, cast an eye about, no doubt counting the empty seats that so greatly outnumbered the scattered attendees.

He said, “Men, special men, men of our race, men of our future, our future men, our future, manly men, men men, Morehouse men, we gather here today to celebrate a mission, a mission that has produced the likes of the Doctor Reverend Martin Luther King Junior and Edwin Moses, Maynard Jackson and Spike Lee, Howard Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson. These men are more than graduates, they are alumni. This is more than a college, it is an institution. We gather here today on this the beginning of a new academic year to join our spirits and minds together, to move them in one fluid and forward motion toward that great good that is our mission and legacy here at Morehouse. We are called the Harvard of the South, but we here at Morehouse know that Harvard is the Morehouse of the North. You will be tested here on these grounds, tested for what life will throw at you. I ask you to recall the Book of Psalms, sixty-six, ten through twelve: ‘For Thou has tested us O Lord; Thou has tried us as silver is tried. Thou didst bring us into the net, Thou didst lay affliction on our loins, Thou didst let men ride over our heads. We have gone through the fire and through the water; Yet Thou has brought us forth to a spacious place.’ We ask what it means that silver is tried. It means that silver was tried, and it was not as good as gold. That’s what that means. And you wonder what the psalm means when it addresses the affliction that has been laid on our loins and I will tell you what it means: it means leave those girls alone and you know the ones I mean or else men will ride over your heads. We will cross the desert together, our naked toes sinking luxuriously into the hot loose sand, our naked backs darkening beneath the hammering of the eternal sun, our sweat mixing, our blood boiling and becoming one, our voices lifting into one great instrument, our manhood rising into one massive thrust against the oppression that rides us!” Feet was sweating now, though the only rise he had gotten out of his audience was a shifting to become more comfortable and the exit of two students who had wisely seated themselves by the door. “I am pleased today to present our guest speaker. You all know him. He has done much to uplift the race. He was the first black man on television to carry a gun. He is a gentleman, an actor, a comedian, an author, and above all else, an educator. You all know him from television, but we know him as a friend. Students, Doctor William H. Cosby Junior.”

There was an enthusiastic welcome. In fact there was more applause than seemed possible from the audience that I had roughly counted. And when I looked again, the empty seats had been filled, including the one next to me, which had been filled with a smiling Morris Chesney. The smile was a bad sign. After only a week in college I was able to deduce that much.

“Sit on the floor,” he said.

“What?”

“Big Brother Morris says sit on the floor, you pimple.”

I stood, folded up my chair seat, and dropped my stupid ass to the sticky floor. Why? Because Big Brother Morris had said so, and I had entered into this social system willingly for some reason and felt strangely compelled to abide by its rules. I sat, my sight just cresting the level of the seat back in front of me.

Cosby fumbled with a fat unlit cigar and adjusted his dark glasses. “You men think I’m going to take it easy on you. You think because you’re in college and sitting here in khakis and loafers that I’m all right with you. You think that because you’re not bopping your heads to rap music while sitting here that I’m going to embrace you. You’re wrong. You’re all pathetic. You’re pathetic until you’re not pathetic, until you do something strong and good and not until you do that. You think because you probably won’t be clad in an orange jumpsuit for stealing a piece of pound cake that I feel all warm and fuzzy about you. I sell Pudding Pops for the white man. I don’t know why I’m saying that, but I am. I make myself sick, but the white man is not to blame. He didn’t put the gun in the hands of the black kid down in juvenile hall. No, his missing father put it there. Pound cake. I’m on television. Black girls have babies by three or four fathers and why? Pudding Pops! That’s what I’m saying. Some of you are probably wondering how I can stand up here, call me high and mighty, talking about how I can stand here when I’m being sued for having babies with a woman other than my wife. Well, hell, I can afford to have babies. Pudding Pops! If you don’t know who your children’s friends are, then you’re not doing your job. Some of you have probably fathered children already. Babies having babies. Pound cake. Did you know that black girls graduating from high school outnumber men seventy to thirty? Where are these educated, fine young women going to find suitable partners? That’s why I have some babies on the side. Pudding Pops! Pants down around their cracks. What’s wrong with them? There’s something wrong with these people. When you put your clothes on backwards, there’s something wrong. Fifty percent dropout rate. Where are the parents? What kind of parents will you be? That’s the test. What kind of parents are you now? I’ve been on television since nineteen sixty-two. I kissed a Japanese woman on screen in nineteen sixty-six and managed not to have a baby with her. I want to thank you for having me here today, and I want you to know I will be more than happy to sign copies of my book,
Fatherhood,
which is on sale just outside at an attractive discount. Believe me, you need to read it. Thank you.”

Everyone stood to applaud. I didn’t know why. However, I saw it as an opportunity to get up off the filthy floor. Morris Chesney kicked me when I started to rise.

“Did Big Brother Morris tell you that you could get up?”

“No, Big Brother Morris.”

“Then keep your sorry ass down there on that floor.”

I looked down past the row of trousered legs to my right to see the filthy red T-shirt of another pledger, the smallest and meekest of us, Eugene Talbert. He was seated on the floor as well. I realized that though he was eight inches shorter than me, we were the same size.

I wouldn’t say that I had custodial, protective, or even particularly warm feelings for Eugene Talbert, but I wouldn’t say a lot of things that are true. He lived in DuBois Hall with many other freshmen, so I didn’t see him except for shared hours of humiliation and torture at the hands of the Big Brothers. He was from New Jersey, I knew that much. I also knew that he was a chemistry major with little or no interest in chemistry. He wanted to be an Omega as his father was an Omega, as his uncle was an Omega, as his brother was an Omega. They were all chemists and loved chemistry and worked in labs making flavor additives and enhancers for the fast-food industry. They were all tall. Small Eugene told me all of this while we stood side by side with pails of sand suspended up and away from our bodies. We were standing in a room with maroon, flocked wallpaper cleared of furniture while the Big Brothers watched a Spike Lee film in an adjacent room. Eugene was sweating profusely; his eyes were starting to roll back into his head. I told him to take deep breaths, to try to get into a zone, to visualize something peaceful, quiet, a place he loved, which was all bullshit. I was still holding my load up because I was stronger than the little guy. He collapsed and Big Brothers Morris and Maurice came slowly walking in, heads bobbing or nodding, I didn’t know the difference. They laid into Eugene without pause.

“Goddamn! What the fizzy fuck is wrong with you, EUgene?!” Morris shouted or maybe Maurice did; it didn’t matter which one. That was how they said his name, EUgene.

“I think little EUgene here thinks we just give instructions to smell our own breath!”

“Thinks we’re kidding!” The Big Brothers had a habit of echoing each other.

“Seems he thinks we didn’t mean for him to keep the pails in the motherfucking air! What should we do to you, you little maggot?!”

“What should we do?!”

“I don’t know, Big Brothers!” Eugene barked out.

“Do you really want to be an Omega, EU-fucking-gene?”

“Yes, Big Brother!”

“Then, tell me, you tiny worm, why did you drop those pails, the ones we told you to keep in the air?”

“My arms got tired, Big Brother.”

“His arms got tired.”

“Your daddy’s an Omega, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Big Brother!”

“But you don’t really want to be one.”

“Yes, I do, Big Brother!”

“No, you don’t!”

“I do, Big Brother!”

“You’d do anything to be an Omega?”

“Anything, Big Brother!”

“Would you let Big Brother Maurice punch you in the face as hard as he can with a fist full of quarters?”

“Yes, Big Brother!”

I stood there like an idiot holding up my pails of sand, watching them do that to little Eugene, watching them break him down. I hated myself for watching, for continuing to hold my load, for simply being there. When Maurice punched the small man my stomach turned, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I watched the blood gush from Eugene’s nose and though my strength didn’t fail, my pails did lower. I concentrated my stare at Morris, one brow jacked up, leaning into it. Maurice was rubbing his knuckles, looking orgasmic after his blow, and Eugene was crumpled into a ball, blood from his nose everywhere. Morris caught me staring and opened his mouth to say something, but he turned out to be the most susceptible subject I had yet to encounter. I Fesmerized him so quickly that I was uncertain how to proceed. But his eyes glazed over in the textbook manner. Inside his head, he had fallen back on his heels and was awaiting my instructions.

I leaned close and whispered so only he could hear. I said, “Dismiss us and meet me in our room.”

He let us go. The befuddled Maurice said, I believe, “What?”

I didn’t say anything to Morris that evening. I just let him wander about the room in his haze.

I went to Everett’s class the following morning at eight, in my filthy red T-shirt and with red eyes. He didn’t bleat as he walked by my chair that morning, but walked about the room, his eyes closed as much as open, playing with a stick of chalk. He delivered his lecture like that, as if talking to himself, but not.

“I suppose what we’re talking about in this class is art. If it’s not, then I’m lost, but of course I’m lost anyway. At least I’ve been lost before and it looks just like this. Let’s consider art as a kind of desacralization, perhaps a sort of epistemological discontinuity that is undoubtedly connected or at the very least traceable to an amalgam of very common yet highly unusual sociohistorical factors. In this, the end of our rapid expansion into mass-media pop-industrial urbanization, all of which changes daily, not only in and out of itself, but transforms the texture and the intertexture of daily life and discourse, we find the degree of expansion or unfolding modified and tested by the parallel distension and unfurling of moral and ideological attitudes, even those and perhaps especially those of religion and traditional repositories of the so-called and so-seen sacred.”

The students looked at each other, shrugging, scared, frantically trying to carve out something to stick in their notes. I knew that he was uttering gibberish, but what wasn’t clear was whether he knew it. I don’t think he did. There was no snide, sidelong glance at me or anyone or even an imagined mirror. It was just his voice attached to his head. He droned on like that for nearly twenty more minutes, until finally I raised my hand. I was, after all, paying considerably more than anyone else for this so-called, so-seen education.