My Name Is Not Easy (16 page)

M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

stood off to one side, nervously fi dgeting with his glasses.

Suddenly a door fl ew open and Father Flanagan came rac-ing down the hall, his robes billowing out like black sails.

“Break it up, boys! Break it up!”

“Shaving cream,” Junior whispered, cursing like his grandma taught him.

Father shoved himself between Amiq and Sonny, forcing them apart. Th

e two of them strained against his hold like

dogs at the ends of their lines. But Father’s arms were strong and sinewy.

“All right, boys, that’s enough. Th

at’s quite enough,” he

said.

He let go of them, fi nally, and they pulled away, wiping their faces and glaring at each other sideways. Th e crowd

pressed itself fl at against the sides of the hall, tried to melt into the wall—one thick body with dozens of eyes, watching.

No one said a word.

“All right everybody, break it up,” Father said. “It’s lunchtime now. Get going.”

But before they could even fan out, he laid his hands on Amiq’s and Sonny’s shoulders.

“Not you two,” he said, reeling them in with his voice.

“You two have earned yourselves a little conversation with Father Mullen.”

“Aw, Father, c’mon,” Amiq said. “We were just
playing
.”

He put a barb in the word for Sonny’s benefi t. Sonny glared at him, then looked away.

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“Yes, and Father Mullen is not very fond of games, I’m afraid. Let’s go,” the priest said.

As they walked off , behind Father Flanagan Sonny could hear the others, whispering among themselves.

“Oh man, that Father Mullen, he’s mean,” Bunna said.

“He might kill Amiq.”

“It wasn’t his fault, was it?” Chickie said. “He was just protecting himself. Th

ere’s no sin in that, is there?”

“Depending on how you look at it, pretty much everything’s a sin,” Junior said.

Father Flanagan sailed off down the hall with Sonny and Amiq trailing behind him like two fi sh on a stringer, trapped in the wake of a big black boat.

Father Mullen’s offi

ce was dim and musty smelling, and Father

Mullen’s eyes were just plain crazy. Sonny couldn’t really say what it was that made them crazy, but whatever it was, it was right there, just under the surface, like a big fi sh in dark water.

Amiq saw it, too, Sonny could tell. You’d have to be blind not to.

Sonny saw, as well, the worn two-by-four in the corner of the room, which he was trying not to look at. He and Amiq stood together. Waiting.

White people don’t know how to be comfortable with

silence the way Indians do. Sonny knew this. Without even thinking about it, he understood the diff erence. When Indians don’t talk, it’s because they don’t need to, because things are already understood, and everybody knows it. When a white
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guy like Father Mullen doesn’t talk, it means something else altogether. Father Mullen’s silence stalked them from the edge of the room like a shadowy animal.

“Th

e fi ght’s in your blood, isn’t it?” he said fi nally.

His voice made Sonny squirm. He saw Amiq twitch.

“Do you understand that you can be expelled for this sort of behavior?”

“Yes, Father,” Sonny said as fast as he could.

“Yes, Father,” Amiq echoed.

“Mr. George”—Sonny’s skin crawled at the way he said his name. In Father’s mouth the word
Mr
. sounded small and ugly—“do you suppose your mother saved up to send you here just so you could learn to scuffl

e like a ruffi

an with your

fellow students?”

“No, Father.”

“And Mr. Amundson”—he turned to Amiq—“do you

suppose those scientists who sponsored your education did so for the purpose of training you in the science of
cat
fi ghting?” He spat out the word
cat
so hard, they could feel its claws.

Sonny glanced sideways at Amiq, but Amiq was looking down at his feet. Sonny looked down, too. He didn’t know how
Mr.
Amundson was feeling, but he, Sonny Boy George, was mad about the way Father Mullen had dragged his mom into the room. He stared at his feet hard, remembering how his mom had stayed up late at night threading those tiny beads by the smoky light of the kerosene lamp, making slippers. He studied his shoes, his brand-new shoes, thinking about all the
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beadwork his mom had to make in order to pay for those shoes. In order to get him here.

Th

e air in Father Mullen’s offi

ce was close and stale.

“I said, ‘the fi ght’s in your blood, isn’t it?’” Father hissed.

“Yes, Father . . . I mean no, Father,” Sonny mumbled.

“No, Father,” Amiq added.

“‘Yes, Father. No, Father.’ You boys seem to be suff ering from some confusion.” His voice was tight and terrifying. Like a gun about to fi re.

“Yes, Father, No Father.” Th

ey were both saying it now, no

longer sure about who was saying what.

“Confusion,” Father snapped, “is the mark of the
Devil
.”

His eyes were shining with a strange light, and they both backed away, instinctively, both of them suddenly aware of that two-by-four waiting in the corner behind them.

“And let me tell you something, gentlemen. In this school there’s only one kind of fi ghting allowed.”

Father’s voice was ominously low, but Sonny looked up, surprised.
Fighting allowed?

“Boxing,” Father said, his voice like a fast punch. “Do you know what that is?”

Sonny nodded. Amiq raised his eyebrows.

“You wear gloves, follow rules, and when the fi ght is over, you shake hands. Th

at’s the only kind of fi ghting we’ll tolerate

here. Anything else, and you’ll be punished. Severely. Keep it up, and you’re out. Do. You. Understand?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Yes, Father.”

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