New Boy (5 page)

"Or a bar mitzvah," said the first voice, and the bus rocked with laughter. Burns and I remained silent, but I noticed that his ears and the skin on his neck had turned bright red and his lips were pursed into a thin pink crease. As the bus rumbled along to the railroad station, everyone's attention was quickly diverted elsewhere, but I was puzzled that the comments about Burns had evoked such laughter.

"You're a friend of that Mazzerelli kid, aren't you?" said Burns, turning away from the window.

"Yeah," I said.

"It's a shame what has happened to him," he said. "This
place sucks." He turned back toward the window. Brightly colored leaves littered the sides of the road and the surface of nearby fields like confetti.

I had never really talked to an upperclassman before. I assumed they were as unmoved by Vinnie's plight, if they were even aware of it, as the members of my own class, and I was surprised to hear Burns express sympathy for Vinnie.

"It's been pretty bad," I said. "And the worst part is, nobody seems to care."

Then Burns turned toward me, lowered his head, and spoke in a confidential tone. "You know why that is, don't you?" His green eyes were riveting, as though he possessed a family secret he had sworn not to reveal. I shook my head in uncertainty. "It's because the ringleaders are all from families that have sent boys to Draper for years. Sargent. Holcomb. Schroeder. Their fathers and uncles and cousins are all Draper men, and a lot of them are still around. There's only one reason that Spencer hasn't stepped in and cracked the whip." Burns stopped for a moment, with a dramatic pause.

"What's that?" I said. I was bursting with curiosity. Burns had suddenly given me a different outlook on Draper, and I was eager to hear more.

"Money," said Burns. "They have a lot of it, and they give a lot to the school. They also know how to raise it." Burns was smiling mysteriously. "And don't forget, Sargent's father used to be on the board of trustees."

So that was it, I thought. Vinnie never had a chance. The
deck was already stacked against him. I decided to take the seat next to Burns on the train down to New York, if I could. I wanted him to tell me more about the world of Draper behind the scenes, as well as the wider world beyond.

The train had already arrived and was sitting on the tracks when the bus pulled into the parking lot next to the station. There was a rush to get off and find your bag among the pile that had been stuffed in the luggage compartment beneath the bus and get on the train before it pulled away from the station. I managed to find my bag quickly; however, Burns was still searching for his, so I offered to save him a seat and headed for the train. I entered a coach and found two empty seats, put my suitcase onto the overhead rack, and sat down. A few minutes later Burns appeared, wilted and holding his suitcase. His face was flushed and his blond hair was falling into his eyes. He tossed his bag up on the luggage rack and collapsed on the seat next to me.

"Whew," he said as the train jerked and moved slowly forward. "I didn't think I was going to make it. I couldn't find my suitcase at first. Somebody had taken it by mistake." And then in one smooth motion, Burns reached into the pocket of his sport coat, produced a pack of Lucky Strikes, gave it a flick of his wrist so that two cigarettes emerged, and offered me one. I was astonished. In his remarks to incoming students, Mr. Spencer had made it clear that all forms of tobacco were forbidden at Draper, and here was Burns, not thirty minutes away from the campus, offering me a cigarette from a pack that was by no means full.

"No, thanks," I said. "I don't smoke." I confess I was tempted by his offer. Tobacco was big business in Virginia and it seemed that nearly everyone in the state smoked, but both of my parents disapproved of the practice: my father didn't like the stains cigarettes left on your teeth and my mother didn't like the smell they left in the house. She never put ashtrays in the living room. But I was still curious about the cylinders rolled in white paper that seemed to give people such pleasure, and were it not for the fact that I felt an obligation not only to myself but to my family and the race to avoid unnecessary risks, I would have gladly taken Burns up on his offer.

Burns shrugged and took out one of the cigarettes, held it up to his lips with two long fingers, and lit it. No one else in the coach seemed to notice. In fact, I saw a few other students smoking in the rear. He leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs, and blew a cloud of smoke across the coach, which was now barreling down the tracks. In his wool sport jacket and gray trousers, he looked at least twenty and very worldly, and as I watched him holding the cigarette between his fingers, occasionally raising it to his lips, it began to dawn on me that there was more to Burns than I had realized.

"Are you from New York?" he said between puffs.

"Me?" I said. "Nope, I'm from Virginia. I'm just going to New York to stay with a relative for the holidays. She lives in Harlem."

"No kidding!" said Burns. "I go up there sometimes. Does she live near any of the clubs? Small's Paradise? Minton's? They used to get some pretty good groups up there, but these days you usually have to go downtown to Fifty-second Street for the best jazz, or all the way to the Village."

I listened to him in silence. I had vaguely heard of Fifty-second Street and the Village, and I could remember reading something about Small's Paradise
in Jet,
but they meant nothing more to me than that. I was tempted to ask Burns what went on at these places, but rather than appear naive, I decided to simply nod, as though I knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Do you ever go to any of the jazz clubs in Harlem?" said Burns, mashing his cigarette into an ashtray embedded in the armrest.

"Not really," I said. "I'm not old enough." In New York City, you had to be eighteen to enter a nightclub that sold liquor.

"Oh, that doesn't matter. You could easily pass for eighteen." I suppose he had a point, but I had never thought about it before. I was tall and I had begun to shave every morning. When I wore a jacket and tie, I probably did look eighteen, especially to white people. White people, I had discovered, had the annoying tendency to overlook the distinguishing features of my face and only see my color. At least once a week, since I had been at Draper, someone would tell me that I looked just like Willie Mays or Floyd Patterson or Sweetwater Clifton. At first I tolerated the comparisons, telling myself they were really compliments, until I finally had to admit that they were merely evidence of the inability—or unwillingness—of white people to see me for who I really was. Of course, they had displayed a similar blindly
ness toward Vinnie, but without comparing him to a popular athlete. At Draper, Vinnie's fate was to be seen as a pariah, for whom there were no comparisons.

"Where do you live?" I said.

"On the Upper East Side," said Burns. "My folks have a duplex on Park Avenue, but we usually spend the summer in the Adirondacks." It sounded as though Burns also came from money, like a lot of the students at Draper, but he seemed different, not only because of his sympathy for Vinnie, but because he knew about the world. He was the only person from Draper I had met who knew anything about Harlem.

"How do you manage to get into these clubs?" I was pretty sure Burns wasn't yet eighteen, and I figured he must have a fake ID or at least a fake mustache.

"It's easy. I just show up, like everybody else. With all the competition from downtown, the clubs in Harlem are glad to let you in, no questions asked."

"And what do you do when you go?"

"Oh, mainly I go to see the musicians and listen to the music. New York has the best jazz in the world. It used to be in Kansas City, but not anymore. Do you know anything about jazz?"

"I can't say that I do," I said. "At home, we listen to rhythm and blues. A lot of folks at home think jazz is the devil's music. I'm talking about older people, churchgoing people. As far as they are concerned, you're committing a sin if you go anywhere near a nightclub where jazz is playing. We mostly listen to Johnny Ace, Little Esther, Shirley and Lee, people like that." I leaned back in my seat for a few minutes to close my eyes, and I thought of home. Except for gospel music, which I thought was terribly old-fashioned, the only music played on the Negro radio station at home was rhythm and blues. White people called it race music, and I suppose it was, in the sense that the musicians were always colored and, as far as I knew, so was the audience, but I'm sure that wasn't how the white people meant it. They meant it as a warning to other whites, especially the young ones.

"One time," I said, "my friend Russell and I went to this big rhythm and blues concert. It was at this theater in town called the Majestic." I paused for a moment, deciding whether to explain to Burns that the Majestic was segregated and that Negroes had to sit in the balcony. I decided to skip that part for now.

"Oh, really," said Burns. "Who was in the show?"

"Ruth Brown
and
Joe Turner," I said proudly. "Ever hear of them?"

"Oh, sure," said Burns. "They're on the radio all the time."

"On the afternoon of the show, I was sitting on the porch. I had already been dressed for two hours in a starched white short-sleeve shirt and khakis I had ironed myself, and I was whiling away the time before leaving for the Majestic by listening to the local Negro radio station. Leon the Lover Anderson, king of the local disc jockeys, was touting the show in his inimitable style. 'It's gonna be a
baaad
mamma jamma, ladies and gents, boys and girls. Ruth Brown
and
Joe Turner on the same stage at the Majestic Thee-a-ter. Now, can you top that? You know you can't beat it with a stick. If ya wantcha wontcha, then why in the world dontcha? Awri-i-ight. Sendin' this one out for Haywood and Pearl and Tiny and Eulamae. They gon' be there tonight. Don't you miss it! Big Joe Turner singing "Shake, Rattle, and Roll."'"

"Well, how was the show?" said Burns. I smiled at his question.

"The show was terrific. We had a ball. But first we had to get there." I decided that this was as good a time as any to find out how much Burns knew about the South. "My folks didn't want me to go at all, because the Majestic is segregated. You know what that means?"

"Sure," said Burns. "They have it in Florida. I've seen it when my family goes down there for vacations. They don't let Negroes stay in the hotels or eat in the restaurants, and they can only sit in a certain section of a theater."

"Well, I finally got my parents to let me go. Russell came over and we started to leave and my dad asked us how we were going to get to the Majestic. I told him we were going to catch the bus and he said, 'Look, it's bad enough that you're going to a show in a segregated theater. Why do you have to go in a segregated bus?'" I chuckled at Dad's line, but Burns was silent.

"You mean even the buses are segregated?" he said. He seemed surprised.

"The buses. The schools. The restaurants. The movie theaters. The swimming pools. The water fountains. The bathrooms. Everything is segregated in the South," I said. "So Dad drove us to the show and picked us up afterward. Russell and I went inside and climbed up to the balcony, which was the only place we were allowed to sit, and we found a couple of seats. The balcony was packed, but after a few minutes everybody around us started rushing for the door. They were going downstairs to the white section on the first floor, which was empty except for a handful of white kids. Russell and I went down with the others and found seats in the white section, and pretty soon the curtains opened and the lights went up and Ruth Brown came on the stage wearing this red-sequined dress that was so tight she could barely walk. Have you ever seen her?" I said. Burns shook his head, but I could tell he wanted to hear more. "Well, she's sorta short and chunky," I said. "But on the stage, she's a real live wire. So the audience was yelling for her, everybody on their feet calling, 'Ruth Brown, Ruth Brown,' like they knew her, and she just stood there with this big grin on her face, enjoying the attention. And then all of a sudden, she grabs the microphone and lets loose with 'Momma, He Treats Your Daughter Mean,' shimmying and shaking in that red dress. It brought down the house. There were people jumping on the seats. Dancing in the aisles. Some were even trying to climb up on the stage. It got so crazy that a white fellow in an usher's uniform started walking up and down the aisles with a flashlight saying, 'Just cause we let y'all down here, don't mean y'all can tear the place up. If y'all keep it up, you gonna have to go back upstairs where you belong,' but nobody paid him a bit of attention."

"Wow," said Burns. "That sounds really exciting." His eyes were shining and, for a moment, I thought I'd made a convert to rhythm and blues, but he lit another cigarette and resumed his look of cool sophistication. "That stuff's okay," he said. "But
you haven't heard anything until you've heard Lester Young play the saxophone." He took a puff of his cigarette and released a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. "Look, if you're not doing anything this weekend, maybe we can take in a show together at one of the clubs. Uptown or downtown, somebody's bound to be around." I was eager to take Burns up on his invitation, but I could just imagine what my parents would say, not to mention Cousin Gwen, if I told them I was going out to a New York nightclub with a schoolmate. It would be enough for my mother to withdraw me from Draper on the spot and bring me home for good. And yet I didn't want to say no.

"Sounds like a great idea," I said, "but I need to find out what my parents have planned."

For the rest of the train ride, I thought about how I could get out of Cousin Gwen's apartment for one night without arousing my parents' suspicions. I decided I would tell them that I had been invited to Burns's home for dinner. My father would offer to drive me to Burns's home and I would decline, but if he insisted, I would let him drop me off near the entrance to Burns's building and meet Burns nearby.

I was intrigued about jazz. I had no idea what it sounded like, but I had heard it sometimes referred to as "Negro music," and I wondered what that meant. Burns had called it "the freest music there is," which made me even more curious. And the fact that churchgoing people were against it made me want to hear it all the more. Burns seemed to know a lot about jazz. He could name all the greats, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins, and someone named Bird. He would casually work their names into our conversation, as though he was on a first-name basis with all of them.