Black Boy White School

by Brian F. Walker

  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.”

  “Me, too,” Anthony said. “I might mess around and not even come back, you know? Just stay there and eat . . .” He found a mark on the wall next to him, sprayed it, and wiped the spot clean. He thought about asking Paul if he ever got homesick, if he found the unwritten rules at Belton just as confusing as the handbook. He didn’t, though. Another kid came over with a sponge.

  He got back to the room and immediately noticed the difference. Brody had separated the beds and put his on the other side of the little space. It was no longer right under Anthony’s but at the same time seemed much closer. “You like?” Brody asked from his new spot. “I was wiping things down when the thought came to me: With my bed over here, we can see each other when we talk.”

  “Yeah,” Anthony said, and climbed under his covers. The bed was still high but not high enough. “Next time, just tell me before you make a change.”

  “No problem,” Brody said. “We can move it back, if you want to. I just thought it might be cool.”

  “It is, don’t worry about it. You just surprised me, that’s all.” Anthony wanted to be mad, but he couldn’t. In his heart he knew that his roommate meant well. “You excited about Thanksgiving?”

  “Not really, dude,” Brody said, sitting up. “A lot of bad food and worse family, stuffed together in a room and trying to get along.” He flipped the hair from his eyes. “At least I’ll get to hang with my friends.”

  “Friends,” Anthony said, thinking of Floyd and everyone at home. “What would we be without ’em?”

  “I dunno,” Brody said. “Falling trees in a forest with nobody to catch us, nobody to watch us or even hear us scream on the way down . . .”

  Anthony looked at him. “Man, what in the hell are you smoking?”

  “Dude!” Brody said, and then started laughing. “I dunno, but it’s good!”

  The next morning, Anthony ate brunch with Paul and Khalik. They knew about his crush on Gloria and offered their Brooklyn advice.

  “Just step to her,” Paul said. “Be like, ‘Yo, baby girl, you know I like you. What’s up?’”

  “He tried to,” Khalik blurted. “But she couldn’t see him, standing down there by her kneecaps.”

  They slapped hands and Anthony cut pieces from his waffle, watching the front door.

  Khalik said “Seriously, son. You know she’s too tall for you, right? Why don’t you go after somebody different?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Because he can’t,” Paul said. “That’s why he’s messing with you. Go for yours, Anthony Ant. Every man should climb his own mountain . . . even if he need special shoes.”

  Anthony stuck a fork into his eggs. He didn’t care about the short jokes or if they thought he didn’t have a chance with Gloria. The person he’d been waiting for had just come into the room, surrounded by all of his bullying friends.

  “So I heard you had some static the other night,” Anthony said, looking at Khalik. Then he pinched his nose and acted like he was drowning. “How did it feel under all that stinky water? Come on, killa, did any get in your mouth?” Khalik didn’t say anything. Anthony tilted his chin toward McCarthy’s table. “It was them, right? They the ones that violated you?”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m surprised you let them do it to you,” Anthony continued. “How you let them treat you like a punk and get away with it? What happened to all those bad-ass stories about Brooklyn?”

  Khalik balled his fists and stood up. “Kiss my ass, Slow-hio.”

  Anthony jumped to follow him. From behind, he could hear Paul pushing away from the table, too.

  McCarthy saw them coming and said something to his friends. They all looked at the approaching boys and laughed.

  “How you doing, Seth?” Anthony said. “How’s your food?”

  McCarthy looked down at his plate and then at Anthony. “It’s fine. Why? Did you do something to it?”

  “Not me . . . but somebody could have. You never know around here.”

  McCarthy smiled and took a big bite from his omelet. “It’s good. Work-study kids don’t cook, Tony. But nice try.”

  “My name’s Ant. I don’t know no Tony.”

  “You don’t know any Tony,” McCarthy corrected. “You’re a Belton man now, time to speak proper English.” He raised a haughty eyebrow while his friends laughed. “Anything else, or does that conclude our lesson for the day?”

  “I want to see the brook,” Anthony said flatly. “People say you know how to get there.”

  McCarthy looked at Khalik. “Ask your buddy. We showed him the way the other night.”

  “So I heard,” Anthony said, “and now I want you to show me.”

  McCarthy frowned. “You want me to take you down there?”

  “Bring your little friends, too,” Anthony said. “The more the merrier.”

  McCarthy checked out Paul and Khalik. “What about your friends? Do they want to see it, too?”

  The Brooklyn kids nodded. “Like I already told you,” Anthony said. “The more the merrier.”

  McCarthy faced his crew, and they all leaned close together. Then he turned around and said, “See you on the soccer field in half an hour.”

  “That’s what’s up.”

  Anthony and his friends went back to Kaster and beat on freshman doors. They couldn’t find Brody but got five other kids. They found McCarthy on the soccer field, close to the
woods, along with six older boys, including Zach. Anthony stopped in front of them. “We’re here.”

  “So I see,” McCarthy answered. “Let’s go.” He walked into the forest, and the two groups followed; juniors and seniors on the right side of the trail, Anthony and the other freshmen on the left. Kids from each camp threatened violence to the other, but they shouted out of grinning mouths.

  “So what’s the plan?” Paul asked, walking next to Anthony. “Half these fools think this is a joke.”

  “I know. It’s crazy.”

  “What if they don’t have your back?”

  “You still got it, right?”

  “Yeah, son,” Paul said. “I don’t swim too good, though.”

  Anthony told him not to worry. “If this works out the way I want it to, you won’t ever get near the water.”

  The trees thinned and the path took them into an open area, covered in bushes and tall grass. “Over here.” McCarthy led them over a little hill to a rickety bridge. Rancid water rolled slowly beneath it, foaming white against the bank.

  “That’s not a brook,” one freshman said. “That’s a toxic waste spill.”

  Khalik agreed. “Word life, son,” he said to the older boys. “Somebody gonna buy me new sneakers.”

  Someone shouted, “Bullshit!” and the groups quickly divided. Anthony and Paul stood in front of the freshmen, while McCarthy and Zach led the others.

  Zach said, “Ready for a swimming lesson?”

  “Not from you, you fake-ass proctor.”

  “Eat shit, little freshman!”

  “Make me,” Anthony said, and raised his fists. “I’m right here.”

  Everyone shouted after that, spraying spit and insults. But just like the banter on their walk to the water, it was just talk. “So that’s it?” Anthony said during a lull. “All these threats and I’m still dry as I wanna be.”

  “You mean as dry as I want you to be,” McCarthy said. “All I have to do is give the word.”

  “Well, give it, then. I’m tired of all this talking.” He waited, but McCarthy didn’t speak or move.

  Paul laughed. “This dude is weak, yo. A little girl with a mustache.”