The White Boy Shuffle

by Paul Beatty

  Remember the pamphlet the camp sent me with pictures of Jacuzzis, the horseback riding, and shit? Well, it’s all true. The place is sweet as hell. Me and this white boy from Topeka are the only ones who ride the horses. I eat lunch real fast, then run to the stables. My favorite horse is Chuckles. He’s really gentle. You hop on his back and he takes off down the trail at a leisurely pace. I don’t have to steer or nothing, just prod him to go faster every now and then. The horse knows each trail like ten-year-olds know the alphabet; they’ve repeated it a million times but haven’t tired of the sounds and twists and turns. I imagine Chuckles’s whinnies and snorts are equine for “H, I, J, K, Elemenopee, Q, R, S, T.” I sympathize with these animals ’cause this place makes me feel like a racehorse. Every morning I get up at six o’clock to get weighed, fed, and put through my paces.

  The only good thing about the place is it’s fun to see the whities having to earn they propers for a change. We be disrespecting these peckerwoods something terrible. We have one play called “Milkshake,” which is whoever has a white kid guarding ’em takes that clown to hole.

  I’m rooming with these two fools, Touch from Miami and Z-Groove from Brooklyn. They’re cool, but all they do is talk about basketball, 24-7. We come back to the crib after eight hours of playing and analyzing basketball and the first thing they do is stick a highlight reel of their hero, Cleotis Jacobin, into the VCR. (We have a big-screen television set in our room.) Cleotis Jacobin plays for Crawdad A & M, a small Division XI school in southern Alabama. The man can literally fly. He shoots a three-point lay-up where he comes flying down the court and takes off from behind the arc and swoops to the basket like he’s riding a magic carpet or something. Whenever he jumps, you can hear the crowd in the background chanting “One Mississippi! Two Mississippi!” until he lands. On one move he goes baseline against Tallahassee School of Cosmetology, jumps in the air, stops, hovers, then spins right, sails for a bit, then changes direction and starts floating left. I swear to God, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, James Brown, nigger’s in the air so long the crowd gets to three Mississippi. It was Ham Hock Night, so when he finally touched down the fans threw fatty pieces of pork and bottles of hot sauce onto the floor in appreciation. The reason Cleotis is playing in obscurity is because he cannot shoot. He has absolutely no touch. Jacobin goes to the glass like Peter Pan but finishes like a Kennedy. It’s like he’s playing basketball with a shot put. In one game he launched a jumper that hit the rim so hard the net fell to the floor. In another he shot the ball and it sailed through the backboard like a rock through glass.

  So between Touch and Z-Groove and the adventures of Cleotis Jacobin, I’m going stir-crazy in this hole. I even brought up sex just to talk about something other than basketball. You know I rarely talk about sex. So I say, in my best macho baritone, “Hey, Missy Gibson got it going on justa bit, don’t she?” But wouldn’t you know it, these guys use basketball as a metaphor for everything. Touch is like, “Yeah, she cute, but she don’t make my starting five.” Starting five? “I got Lena ‘Methuselah’ Home at the point guard, seventy years old, running the show like a vet. Fredi Washington at the two spot, dead but still full of shake ’n’ bake. My big fella in the middle is Iman: statuesque, smooth, good hands. Dorothy Dandridge at a small forward, and Lark McCarthy, the nightly news anchor, at the power spot. Halle Berry is my sixth man off the bench, instant offense.” Z-Groove has all dark-skinned lineup: Denzel Washington and Lightning Hopkins at the guards, the forwards Richard Roundtree and Michael Jordan; his center was Woody Strode.

  Cuz, I been having nightmares in this hole. Woke up last night sweating and shit, screaming, shaking. Scared the piss out of Z-Groove and Touch. Z-Groove tried to play it off by saying, “What you dreaming about, having a threesome with Gary Coleman and Emmanuel Lewis?” Very funny, right? I didn’t know what the hell I was carrying on about. All I knew was that it had something to do with death. Like I was running through different scenarios of how I’d like to die. So we got into a conversation about death or more specifically our demises, from which I concluded that niggers aren’t afraid to die but are worried about how to die. We was up till five in the morning talking shit.

  Me: Touch, how you wanna go out?

  Touch: Definitely on the floor dunking, bang. (Raises his hands in the air simulating a dunking motion.) And you know that. Word up. Have a mad large funeral. Big-ass tomb and shit. Mausoleum with eternal candles, and I’d hire some out-of-work actors to cry at my grave twenty-four hours a day.

  Z-Groove: I hear you, kid. Not a bad way to die, but everybody goes out dunking, word up.

  Me: What you mean?

  Z-Groove: Did you ever see Come Back Charleston Blue?

  Me: No, I read the book.

  Z-Groove: Figures. I don’t know about the book, but in the movie there’s this hit-man, bodyguard-type nigger named Stretch or some shit, and he playing ball in the park at night. He goes up to stuff this two-hander and gets machine-gunned in the chest and dies hanging on the rim with his ’fro still perfectly combed.

  Touch: That’s make-believe. Any real motherfuckers die dunking?

  Z-Groove: You ever hear of this disease called Marfan’s? I did a book report on it last year. It affects tall, elongated motherfuckers. They’re born with a thin aorta, and if they overexert themselves it tears and they die. A while back Sports Illustrated did a story on Marian’s, talking about this gangly-type brother who had the disease but didn’t know it and died dunking in a pick-up game.

  Touch: What about Hank Gathers? That bailer with the weak heart who died a few years back after finishing an alley-oop in front of a house full of folks.

  Z-Groove: That’s awright, only thing is I don’t want white people saying I went out happy like a good b-ball-playing nigger. Know what I’m saying?

  Touch: What I want to know is, how come none of these overweight, hysterical coaches never bust a gut on the sideline and collapse in the middle of a big game? That shit never happen to white folks.

  Me: All I know is I want to die, but I don’t want to die alone.

  Scoby, this death thing is for real. I can’t avoid it so I might as well embrace it. Right? Dude, am I going crazy? Have you finished with Ella Fitzgerald yet?

  Later,

  Gunnar

  P.S. I know, I know, you’re saying what was my starting five? Midnight movies at shooting guard, Joan Miró at point guard, thunderstorms at small forward, the beach at power forward, and metamorphic rocks at center.

  *

  Dear Psycho Loco,

  Enclosed are the photograph and medical records you requested. Why won’t you tell me what this is for? The photo is a bit mug shot-ish, but the best I can do. I been thinking about death out here, something about being surrounded by rickety old ex-athletes trying to relive their youths. I’ll talk to you more about it when I get back. Thanks for the money, Robin Hood, I hope you kept your promise not to lend me any ducats from the heist. I snuck out and went downtown to buy some books. Here are the answers to the questionnaire you sent me.

  Height—6´ 4˝

  Weight—187 lbs.

  Favorite authors—Zora Neale Hurston, G. K. Chesterton, Richard Pryor, and Charles Chesnutt

  Favorite foods—Fish tacos and grape juice

  Greatest inventions—Right on red, multiball pinball machines, and the ballpoint pen

  I should have the results of the sperm count by the end of the week. Incredible medical care at this mug, they got to keep they niggers physically fit.

  Miss ya and stay up,

  Gunnar

  *

  Scoby,

  Since I’m writing you this letter, it means I played against Leon Tremundo and survived. Leon didn’t kiss Missy Gibson once, and after the game she refused to let him touch her. “How you let that black white boy dog you!” The coaches tried to offer me jersey number eight (apparently I don’t penetrate enough), but I turned them down.

  Easy,

  *

 
Mama,

  You can do something with my part of the college money, I don’t think I’ll need it. I was sitting in the bleachers when a white man wearing a Raleigh State shirt sat next to me. He didn’t say anything, but he took out his wallet and opened it so I could get a good look at what was inside, a brick of hundred-dollar bills. I thought about taking it and sending it to Christina and Nicole, but unfortunately, you raised me better than that.

  Your still poor

  ghetto child,

  running wild,

  Gunnar

  *

  Dear Motome Shimimoto,

  I want to thank you for never screaming at me, but I’m not sure if I should. I threw the ball cross-court yesterday and this coach from Wyoming Tech, whose name I don’t even know, started yelling at me. As if it were an honor for the greatest coach within spitting distance of the Grand Tetons to shout at me. The other kids put their heads down for a moment, then kept playing. I took one step up-court, then beelined straight for Coach Crude. When I got over there, he tried to stare me down. I put my nose on his forehead and told him if he ever raised his voice in my direction again I’d kill him. Did I overreact? Coach, as soon as I said it, I knew I didn’t mean it. So did he. But the fucker still crumpled to his knees and started pleading for forgiveness. Afraid I’d never consider attending his powerhouse program. Guess I’ll never be one of those black role models who “transcends race,” will I? Thanks for never yelling at me, but maybe if you had I’d be used to it and wouldn’t take these assholes so seriously. I think you should tell the coach over at El Campesino not to yell at me. I’d appreciate it, thanks. Can you ask Christina and Nicole not to do anything gross like saving the afterbirth in a jar?

  Sincerely,

  Gunnar

  “STUDY LONG, STUDY WRONG”

  Eight

  In return for my father’s not pressing charges against me and my friends for stealing the safe, I agreed to go quietly to El Campesino Real High, an elite public high school in the San Fernando Valley. It was hoped that the reinfusion of white upper-class values would decrease the likelihood of my committing another felony, but the two miserable years I spent at El Campesino had the opposite effect. If you want to raise the consciousness of an inner-city colored child, send him to an all-white high school. Five days a week I woke at 5:30 A.M. for the hour-and-a-half bus ride from our shtetl to the pristine San Fernando Valley. The migrant student-workers and I trudged off the bus like a weary chain gang, fighting to stay awake and trying not to be intimidated by the luxury cars in the student parking lot, the self-assurance of everyone from the students to the cafeteria workers. I often found myself short of breath from the change in economic and cultural altitude. Gasping for air, I almost took the remedial schedule and the weeks’ worth of lunch money my counselor, Ms. Baumgarten, offered me, but my pride got the better of me.

  “Ms. Baumgarten, I appreciate your eleemosynary concern, but have you checked my records?”

  “My elemen … elmo … my what?”

  “Just stop patronizing me and do your job. Treat me as an individual, not like some stray cat that you feed once a day.”

  It had been a long time since I’d communicated with white people who weren’t athletes or police officers, and here were goo-gobs of them yammering in the halls and blowing wispy bangs off their foreheads. I meshed in well. It was like swimming; you never forget how to raise your voice a couple of octaves, harden your r’s, and diphthong the vowels: “Deeeewwuuuude. Maaaaiin. No waaaaaeeey.” Whether they slouched or walked upright like proud Homo erectus cutouts from the encyclopedia, these kids were so casual. Most of them never had to look over their shoulders a day in their lives until they saw us get off the bus. I was envious. When no one was looking, I found myself trying to blow puffs of air past my wrinkled brow or emulating that quivering headshake, freeing imaginary blond locks from my eyes.

  It was sad to watch us troll through the halls, a conga line of burlesque self-parody, all of us affecting our white-society persona of the day. Most days we morphed into waxen African-Americans. Perpetually smiling scholastic lawn jockeys, repeating verbatim the prosaic commandments of domesticity:

  Thou shalt worship no god other than whiteness.

  Thou shalt not disagree with anything a white person says.

  When traveling in the company of a white person, thou shalt always maintain a respectful distance of two paces to the rear.

  If traveling by car for lunch at McDonald’s with three or more white human deities, thou shalt never ride in the front seat nor request to change the radio station.

  Those niggers most afflicted by white supremacyosis changed their names from Raymond to Kelly or Winifred to Megan. They walked around campus shunning the uncivilized niggers and talking in bad Cockney accents. Listening to teens who’ve been no closer to England than the Monty Python show saying, “Blimey, Oy-ive gowht a blooming ’edache” will bring any Negro with a shred of self-respect to tears.

  Some situations called not for ethnic obfuscation but for rubbing burnt cork over our already dusky features and taking the stage as the blackest niggers in captivity. We pleaded for academic leniency: “Mistah Boss, sir. I’z couldenst dues my homework ’cause welfare came and took my baby brudder to the home and he had all the crayons.” We performed with vaudevillian panache, like adolescent interlocutors entertaining the troops back from the Rhine. We gave goofy white kids the soul shake, caught footballs, and sang in the hallways.

  On weekends Mom forced me to pal around with the Valley bon vivants. “Gunnar, I want you to hang out with those nice boys from school today.”

  I bristled. “Ma, make up your mind. You moved us out here. Late; for those peckerwoods.”

  “What’s the statute of limitations for safecracking, seven years?”

  “That’s fucked up, Ma.”

  I’d go into my “Hey, guy” mode and meet my Caucasian crew in neutral areas like Venice Beach or Melrose Avenue and hang out on the strip, eating cheeseburgers and window shopping.

  “Stay black, nigger,” Scoby would call out as I boarded the bus. Scoby had a standing invitation to come along, but he always declined. Psycho Loco also refused, unless I agreed to set the white boys up for a robbery.

  “And what exactly does ‘stay black’ mean, Nick?”

  “It means be yourself, what else could it possibly mean?”

  The arrogance of the white kids was enervating and I soon tired of their unspoken noblesse oblige, the subtle one-upsmanship. For instance, Danny Kraft was always bragging that he could name the capital of any country in the world.

  “Test me, Gunnar, test me.”

  “Portugal?”

  “Lisbon.”

  “Poland?”

  “Warsaw.”

  “Luxembourg?”

  “Luxembourg, ha.”

  “Djibouti?”

  “What?”

  “Djibouti? Little spot near Ethiopia and Somalia.”

  “Isn’t the capital Abu Dhabi?”

  “Nope. How about Kiribati?”

  “That one’s Abu Dhabi.”

  “You’re a dumb fuck. I thought white people were supposed to be smart.”

  “Well, ask me some real countries.”

  “What are ‘real countries’? Places where real people live? White people? What’s the capital of the Maldives? Guinea? Burkina Faso? Laos? Well, motherfucker, what are the capitals? Goddamn jingoistic jerk.”

  The most important lesson I learned at El Campesino was that I wasn’t in arrears to the white race. No matter how much I felt indebted to white folks, I owed them nothing. My attitude changed. I began treating the bus ride out to the Valley as a daily vacation. The school’s library rivaled most college libraries and I turned it into my personal athenaeum. I buried myself in Senghor, Céline, Baraka, Dos Passos, decompressing and reacclimating myself to myself, like a diver just returned from a deep-sea sojourn. In the library I could avoid white boys asking me if I thought blacks were c
loser to gorillas while tufts of unruly chest hair crept past their collars like weeds starving for sunlight. I could hide from smarmy college basketball recruiters who’d never think to look for a black athlete in the library. Ditch classes where the teachers talked past me, saying things like “It’s not hard to be a millionaire. What are your parents’ houses worth, five hundred thousand dollars? See, that’s a half mill right there.”