by Omar Tyree
“What’s up, Jay?” Troy said excitedly, snapping out of it. “I was just thinking ’bout you, man. It was a long summer for me, cuz.” He spoke loud to make sure James could hear him over the music.
James moved his chair closer, to listen without straining. “So what did you do this summer?” he asked.
Troy shook his head. “Man, I think I’m messed up in the head, cuz. All I see is White and Black. Nothing is like it used to be. And it’s killin’ me!”
James nodded. “Yup, homes, I told you them White people are deep. But I joined the army reserves this summer,” Troy heard him say.
He was startled. “You did what?”
“I needed the money to pay my tuition,” James quickly explained. “I bought a car, too. It’s a nice little ride.”
Troy was still shocked. “Man, I thought your pop had this big government job.”
James smiled. “Yeah, he do. But I wanted my own dough to finish college instead of having to count on them. I wanted to teach myself responsibility.”
“By joining the fuckin’ army?”
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” James answered. He had cut off his goatee. Troy figured that the army made him do it. James would never have cut off his treasured goatee on his own.
Troy shook his head again. “I don’t believe you joined the army, cuz. I thought you knew better than that,” he muttered in disdain. “This country damn sure ain’t gon’ own me. Sofuck the army! You must of lost your mind.”
Troy left the party, bored with it by midnight. He went to the hallway bathroom on his dormitory floor. He read the graffiti inside the stalls while sitting on the toilet. “I’m proud to be Black, and I could never be a slave,” he read. Several responses followed: “Yeah, but your grandfather was.” “Whoever wrote this comment is obviously a fool. We could make you all slaves again if we wanted to.” The last one read, “Tell me one thing you have to be proud of, and I’ll agree that you should be. But truthfully, there isn’t any. So just be proud that you’re free and living.”
Troy cradled his head in disgust. Things were falling apart. So-called minority students were dropping out of school like flies, despite all the affirmative action and scholarship programs. Many students from the previous year were no-shows. Only one Puerto Rican remained at State University out of the six that Troy had known his freshman year.
He, Matthew, and seven other students were the only Blacks to maintain 3.25 G.P.A.’s, or above, out of all 167 C.M.P. students. Some sophomore students were still finishing reinforcement courses. It would take them forever to complete what they needed in their majors. The lack of progress in so many Black collegians was scary. Yet it was real.
Troy rushed to the cafeteria for breakfast that Monday morning before another early class. The same three White friends were there, talking loudly as they ate. Troy could not help but overhear their conversation.
“The Japanese are now the world’s number one supplier of technological goods,” the first was saying. He was the culprit who had knocked over Troy’s plate.
“I don’t know how they did it. You figure after we blew them up, we should have kept them down,” the second friend added.
“That’s why they’re more advanced than us now,” the third suggested. “You know that after the war, we invested millions of dollars to rebuild Japan. I mean, imagine that. We bomb a country to pieces and then fix it up to surpass us. I think we should have let them all die after the war,” he said with hearty laughter.
“No, because we had to keep the image that we were the good guys,” the first friend refuted.
“Aw, ta hell with that good guy stuff. We should have dropped a few more bombs on ’em,” the second argued.
“Yeah! No one messes with the U.S.!”
Troy left for class before they did. He walked past the bus stop on Madison Avenue and began to focus on some of the Marsh County citizens: a Black teenager with a greasy Jheri curl; another with a slicked-back wet-set, as if she had recently jumped out of the shower, stirred his embarrassment.
Inside class, Troy sat in the first seat available, next to a White girl. She moved to join one of her friends and was replaced by a much larger football player, who wanted to sit next to a girl one seat away from Troy. The big, brown-haired bruiser squeezed by and was too large for comfort. He stood six-three and 240. Troy then decided to find himself another seat.
As he searched for another empty space, a girl walked in and caught his eye. One shade darker than yellow, she strutted up the aisle with much self-assurance.
Troy watched her sit by herself, half expecting it. After class, he approached her.
Troy’s heart beat wildly, fearing rejection. But he was no coward, especially not when approaching the opposite sex.
“Hi, how you doin’?” he asked her.
“I’m fine,” she said, pacing ahead to her next destination.
He walked beside her. “Are you from another country?” he asked, assuming from her obvious ethnic appearance.
“Yes,” she answered flatly.
Troy sensed that she was unwilling to talk, yet he pressed on. “Well, what country are you from?”
“Kenya,” she responded, finally looking at him.
Troy smiled, feeling a sudden connection to her.
“You from Africa, hunh?” he repeated, intrigued. She didn’t resemble a Kenyan or an African person to him. But nevertheless, she wasfrom Africa!
“What’s your name?” he continued.
Kenya sighed with bother. “You know, you’re asking a lot of questions.”
Troy’s ego was slammed as they continued to walk. He wasn’t planning to let her get away with it. “You know what, you’re extremely rude to say some shit to me like that! I bet if I was White I could ask you a thousand fuckin’ questions!” He was about to call her a bitch, but refrained.
“You don’t have to get all angry about it,” she told him. She then crossed Madison Avenue’s five-lane street toward the freshmen dorms. Troy felt more discontent. He was losing his cool. Race politics controlled his mind, making him too defensive to be charming.
Matthew was already sitting inside the main cafeteria as Troy walked over with his tray to join him.
“What’s goin’ on, Mat?” he asked. “What did you do all summer?”
“Yo, what’s up, troop?” Matthew responded, shaking Troy’s hand. A week and a half had gone by before they had caught up with each other. “Yo, I had a job at the movies,” he answered.
Troy grinned. “At the movies, hunh? What position did you have?”
“I was an usher.”
Troy nodded and started to chuckle. “Yup, I knew it. They always make us Blacks the ushers.”
“Naw, man, there’s Blacks in every position,” Matthew said.
“Yeah, but you live in Harlem. Your movie is in an all-Black neighborhood, so of course. But I’m talkin’ ’bout a movie where you’re with White employees, too. Then it would be different,” Troy assumed.
Matthew frowned, unconvinced. “You figure, how many different jobs can a guy do at the movies? The girls are all behind the counters,” he mentioned.
“Damn! You’re right. Aw’ight, then, forget that,” Troy said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “Ay’, man, I was in New York this summer,” he added through a mouthful.
“Word. What part?” Matthew asked him.
“We went to see the Statue of Liberty.”
His New York boy grinned. “That ain’t really New York.”
“But we went to Forty-second Street, too,” Troy added.
“Man, it be a lot of White people down there, with money. Don’t no niggas live down there,” Matthew told him with a smirk.
“Well, I saw many Puerto Ricans when we were there.”
Matthew nodded. “You must have been on the east side. That’s where the Puerto Ricans live in Manhattan, in them broken-down buildings.”
“Oh yeah. Well, it was this White lady who was forcing ev
erybody around on that trip, Mat. She acted like she owned slaves or somethin’,” Troy alluded.
Matthew smiled lightheartedly. “Yo, man, that was just her job.”
Troy insisted. “Naw, cuz, I think she was old and racist.”
“I wouldn’t say she’s racist. Maybe she’s just like that. Maybe she just shouts and yells a lot,” his friend calmly suggested.
Troy gazed around the cafeteria, watching the Black lunch women cleaning up tables. “You ever notice that all the workers in here are Black, besides that one retarded lady and that mean-ass immigrant?” he asked.
Matthew fell out of his seat in laughter. He laughed for two minutes before he responded. “Maybe they like their jobs. Money is money,” he said, once he calmed down and took his seat back.
Troy snapped. “What, are you crazy, cuz? Who the hell is gon’ like a job cleaning up and serving college students every day?” Troy said harshly.
Matthew didn’t answer.
Troy noticed his sensitivity and decided to change the subject. “Did you hear about Jay joining the army?”
“Naw. He joined the army?” Matthew was as surprised as Troy.
Troy nodded. “Yup, cuz. He just sold himself to the White people.”
“Hey, Mat, buddy! Are you gonna study with us again tonight?” a tall and husky White guy asked. He was surrounded by a group of three others.
Matthew was startled momentarily. “Oh, I don’t know, man. I have to see what I have to do tonight,” he answered, feeling the immediate tension from his Philly friend. “Yeah, Troy, you have organic chemistry, right?”
“Yeah, and the lab, too,” Troy answered. He didn’t care to comment on the White students Matthew was supposed to study with. Nevertheless, he was beginning to suspect that Matthew was crossing over. He had always seemed to defend White people. No matter what they did, Matthew seemed to have an explanation for them.
Later, Troy found himself inside the C.M.P. offices shooting the breeze with the counselors. He had finished all of his classes for the day.
Paul was grinning and holding Troy’s hand for a firm shake. “So, what’s been going on?”
Troy frowned. “Nothin’ at all,” he responded glumly. “Did Max really leave?”
“Yup, he left aw’ight. He got a job as a substitute teacher with the city,” Paul answered. He released his handshake and sat behind his cluttered desk. “How come you ain’t left yet?” Troy asked curiously.
“Well, once you get used to something, it’s kind of hard to go away. Max had been talking about leaving for three years. Now he finally did it. But did you hear about your boy Mat getting a four-point-oh?” Paul asked cheerfully.
Troy raised his brow, confused. “Naw. Mat got a four-point-oh? I was just with him. He didn’t tell me.”
Paul nodded. “He probably don’t want people thinking he’s a nerd. He’s a real tenderhearted guy, you know.”
Troy sat in the student chair opposite Paul’s desk to think.
Paul looked over his student roster. “Yup, Troy, we didn’t get as many freshmen as we got last year with you guys,” he alluded.
“Why not?” Troy asked, barely interested. He was still wondering why Matthew didn’t tell him about the 4.0.
“Well, for one, the college isn’t kickin’ out the money to get Blacks anymore. The cost to go to school keeps rising,” Paul informed him.
Troy chuckled and shook his head. “Dag, that’s terrible. So that means it’s going to be more drug dealers in Black neighborhoods,” he joked, still really thinking about Matthew.
Paul smiled. “The White man ain’t makin’ it no easier for Black students. Not at all,” he said.
Troy left C.M.P. with Matthew’s secrecy remaining on his mind. He thought they were good friends. But suddenly he felt excluded. So far, his sophomore year was filling him with despair.
Peter walked into Troy’s room with two new friends. “Ay’, Troy, I got some freshmen who need haircuts.” Troy looked them over. He had noticed them before, and they both had been hanging out with White students. He suspected that they were Oreos, and he was planning to give them the third degree. “Hey, you guys live out in the suburbs, do ya?” Troy asked mockingly.
The freshman giggled as the shorter, stocky one, wearing glasses, answered. “Yeah, I live in the burbs of New Jersey. But there are other Blacks who live there. So it’s not like my family is the only one.”
“Oh, what, it’s, like, three other Black families?” Troy jibed.
“Yeah, around that.”
Troy nodded and grinned. “Unh-hunh. I thought so.”
The freshman took a seat in Troy’s empty desk chair to get his haircut. “So what are you trying to say?”
“Oh, I ain’t sayin’ nothin’. What’s your name?”
“Roy,” the stocky freshman answered proudly. He reminded Troy of a young Paul or a young Max.
“Yeah, like Roy Rogers, hunh?” Troy responded, giggling again. “So what is your major, Roy?”
“Well, I’m thinking about becoming a technical engineer.”
“Are you in C.M.P.?”
“C.M.P.? What is that?”
“Yeah, I am,” the second freshman interjected. He sat in the sofa next to Troy’s desk. He appeared to be the same size as Troy.
Peter leaned on the wall next to the door, smiling. He was enjoying the stir of social chemistry.
“I’m on a scholarship in the honors program,” Roy informed him.
“You’re smart as hell, then,” Troy quipped.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. I just work real hard.”
The second freshman, Scott, was from a neighborhood called Logan in Philadelphia. He was undecided about a career. He mentioned that he had tagged along with his White roommate the first couple days of school until he made some Black friends.
In the course of the next few days, Troy spoke with the two freshmen on several occasions. He found that Scott knew a lot about world history, yet his schoolwork was lacking. He reasoned that the undecided freshman should go into teaching. Scott, however, said he was after big money. He was looking into business, like so many other Black students on campus.
In biology, just the second week of the new semester, the White professor used the term “slave master” to describe his teaching technique to the class. He was a Southerner, wearing large brown-rimmed glasses. He wore his brown hair long, and he spoke loudly.
Clay was late for class, therefore Troy had no one to share his tension with. They then found a nice comfortable spot in the back of the class once Clay had arrived.
The long haired Southerner went on to use the contrast between black and white to make a point about the human immunity system. “We don’t know which things are good for the body and which things are bad. But we do know that the bad guys wear the black hats, and the good guys wear the white hats. So we must get rid of the bad guys,” he explained.
As the story went on, the loud instructor began to slip up. “So we get rid of the bad black guys, and keep the good white guys,” he said, forgetting about the hats. Clay’s and Troy’s hearts jumped, beating faster by the minute. They were both in shock.
“Did you hear that, Troy?” Clay asked. “I mean, why does ‘Black’ always have to be bad?” He sighed and shook his head, offended. “Man, I feel like running down to the front and socking the dude.” “I dont even want to talk about it,” Troy re sponded. His legs were wobbling underneath his chair and his hands were shaking against the armrests. The shock of an open gesture of racism was overwhelming. But the White students laughed at it. They thought that it was humorous. They were the “good white guys.”
SUBMISSION
THREE TIMES A WEEK, THE THREEWHITE FRIENDS CONTINUEDto haunt Troy in the cafeteria before his early-morning classes.
“Down South still has some of the most racist people in the world,” the first friend was saying.
“I still think that their problem is not as bad as they say it is,” the s
econd friend suggested.
“I know. They’re always complaining. But I don’t see where they’re trying to better themselves by violence,” the third friend added.
The first friend nodded. “Yeah. That will only make the situation worse.”
Once they spotted Troy seated two tables away and listening to them, they quieted down to a whisper. Every other day, they spoke as if they were at a concert. Obviously, a race-discussion audience of a fiery native son was not something that they desired.
During the biology lecture that morning, Clay went storming through the doors as if he owned the place. He marched up the auditorium stairs and headed straight to the back, where Troy waited for him. Clay seemed to always make a scene.
Troy grinned at his arrival. “What’s wrong with you, man?”
Clay hunched his shoulders and smiled. “I’on know. I think I just want some attention. But these mugs don’t even notice me.” He looked around the class at all the White students as he adjusted himself in the seat next to Troy. “Man, I wonder if they ever think about us. I mean, they don’t even act like we exist.”
Troy frowned and shook his head. “They don’t care shit about us. They don’t have to see one of us in life, but we can’t live without dealin’ with them. I hate these White people, man,” he said aloud.
Clay looked around to see if any White students would react. Once no one did, he turned back to Troy, smiling. “You don’t care nothin’ ’bout these mugs, hunh?”
Troy thought for a moment. “Man, I just wish they had left us alone in Africa.” Then he got excited. “Oh, Clay, I forgot to ask you. Why the hell do you sit all the way back here?”
“Because I feel comfortable back here.”
They continued to copy notes from the huge mile-away blackboard as they talked.
“You feel comfortable back here?” Troy repeated. “Man, me and Peter used to sit up front every day in psychology class last year. Matter of fact, I sit up front in all of my classes.”
