“...which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a
Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
All other persons...meaning slaves...meaning her ancestors.
She vaguely remembered hearing of the ‘three-fifths part of the Constitution, but hadn’t known exactly what it meant, nor had she grasped its significance until now. She now recalled hearing one of her father’s militant L.A. friends railing about how blacks had been considered three-fifths of a human being by the nation’s Founding Fathers, but she now wondered if that man had really known what he was talking about—if he had really grasped the significance of that part of the Constitution beyond the surface insult.
According to her textbook and one of Mr. Weinberg’s previous lectures, during the formation of the U.S., the Founding Fathers decided that the number of congressmen from each state sent to the House of Representatives would be decided by each state’s population. The southern slave-holding states had been so concerned that they would be dominated by the northern non-slave-holding states, due to the latter’s superior numbers, that they threatened to pull away from the northern states and form their own nation. In order to prevent this, a compromise was struck. Each slave
would be counted as three-fifths of a person, in order to bolster the southern states’ representation in the House of Representatives and in order to get the South to join the Union.
But, in the Declaration of Independence, didn’t Thomas Jefferson claim that all men had God-given rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? The hypocrisy, especially that of the northern states, screamed at her, as if the Constitution had only recently been drafted. The northern states compromised only because they needed the southern states’ agricultural products. Not only had the slaves been given only partial representation only when it served the white southerners’ purposes, but they had not been given a voice. That definitely didn’t suit the slaveholders’ purposes.
At least they had the decency not to tax the non-represented Natives, but she then wondered whether it was decency or expediency. It would have been kind of hard to go get those taxes. Then she remembered that the Natives were not considered citizens.
But a thought occurred to her out of the blue: what would have happened if the North had told the South that it could not join the Union? What would the course of history looked like under those circumstances? As Felice walked into the Quad, she imagined herself walking in chains.
After slavery, blacks were recognized as full citizens and the three-fifths clause became irrelevant. However, the South wasn’t having any of it and it continued to ignore Thomas Jefferson’s assertions about God and man, culminating in Plessy v. Ferguson. Felice remembered learning about Reconstruction and Jim Crow in an earlier history class, one of the few times she had paid attention to her high school studies.
It had seemed to her that many white people loathed black people and loved them at the same time. They loathed/loved them because they needed to have someone be lower than they were.
This schizophrenia was demonstrated many years later in the era of Marcus Garvey. He had wanted to take all black Americans back to the Africa from which their ancestors had been kidnapped. Felice wondered whether she would have been a part of that movement had she lived in that day. After all, judging by white America’s treatment of black Americans up to that point in time, she would have thought that this was what most of the white Americans had wanted as well. However, Garvey’s back-to-Africa organization, the Afro-American Improvement Association, was undermined by government plants, and Garvey, a Jamaican by birth, was deported.
What did this mean? How was she to judge this history, along with the subsequent seventy years?
She got into the cafeteria line to order herself a breakfast sandwich and orange juice. After doing so, she turned and looked around at the mass of tables in the cafeteria, which were filled nearly to capacity. There were smatterings of black students, but only one or two, and not as many Latinos as one might expect at a major university in the southwestern United States. Most of the heads of hair were straight and blond, red, or light brown. She wondered if any of them had any concept of the dual nature of this country. Probably not, and if they did, they would probably ignore it. She considered the black students. Bet many of them didn’t have a clue either. A generation ago, back when Joseph LeCroix was eating breakfast here maybe, but now, forget it.
It occurred to her, as she paid for her breakfast, that black people had mimicked white peoples’ love/loath conundrum. They loved/loathed white people and loved/loathed themselves. Look at the color thing. Felice couldn’t count the times she had been called black and ugly as a child. Nor could she count the times that, as a young woman, she had been told that she was pretty, to be so dark. She remembered seeing the movie School Daze. So many black people got mad at how Spike Lee had aired their dirty laundry. Others had even denied that such situations existed. Talk about denying reality! She remembered how one girl in high school said, upon seeing her light-skinned father, “you don’t look anything like him. He’s so handsome.” She remembered how her own grandmother--her father’s mother--reacted when she stopped straightening her hair.
“You look just like those nappy-headed Africans now,” she had said, as if it were the worst insult in the world. She thought of the Taus and how they railed against white people in general, but how only a few of them had a steady girlfriend who was black.
The thought sent a wave of guilt through her as she sat down at one of the few empty tables in the Quad. One of the Taus she had slept with, had been the ex-boyfriend of a girl, who used to be a friend of hers. That friendship had ended upon exposure of Felice’s deeds. Vonetta was older than most of the students at the university; about twenty-five. She had worked with Felice in the African Cultural Center during the summer and had taken the younger woman under her wing.
She had been having a few problems with her boyfriend, Calvin--a Tau fraternity brother five years her junior--and would occasionally confide in Felice about them. After the two had broken up, Calvin began to pursue Felice. Felice had, by then, had fleeting relationships with Trevor, the fraternity’s president and another Tau, but, stupidly, didn’t take this or his prior relationship with her friend into consideration at all. All she saw was Calvin. He wasn’t overly handsome, but was the nicest and smartest of any of the Taus with whom she had come any contact. She had liked him a lot and had naively thought that they would be able to keep their relationship a secret. Calvin, however, still had feelings for Vonetta, and had broken off his relationship with Felice after only a month and a half.
Now, she thought of nothing but remorse. Vonetta had been her friend and how had she repaid that friendship? Laura had asked her why she hadn’t thought of revenge. The secret was that she deserved no revenge. Had Vonetta been another kind of woman, she thought, I’d have been in the hospital at the start of the fall semester.
Felice sighed. Laura and Adrienne might think that she was a victimized innocent in this whole situation, but she knew better. She had callously stabbed Vonetta straight in the back and for what reason? Thoughtlessness?
Whorishness? Stupidity? Hatred? Did she hate Vonetta or the Taus or herself? Did she hate all black people? Was this a part of the love/loath relationship that black people have with each other? Felice’s head was beginning to ache.
“Hi.”
Felice looked up into Kevin’s smiling face. He was holding a bagel and some kind of sports drink. “Mind if I sit down? There’s not a lot of room in here.”
“Go ahead,” she gestured. “Though I’m sure that most of the people in here wouldn’t mind if you sat with them. You’re famous, remember?”
“Don’t remind me. The question is whether I want to sit with them.”
“Spoken like a big-time athlete.”
“…who can’t get his head through
any doorway.” He tentatively sat, then looked at her.
“Are you sure you don’t mind? You looked like you were untangling the problems of the western world just now.”
“Go ahead. The western world can wait, believe me.”
“Okay. So how was the rest of your weekend?’
“Not bad. I had lunch at my friend’s house in Santa Fe on Sunday. Her mother is an artist and they have an interesting house. Her mother is...different...a good different.”
“Still eating, I see,” he said with a grin.
Felice shot him a mock threatening look. “Man must eat to live. Woman, too, pal.” She eyed his bagel.
“Mine!” He said, encircling his arms around his food. Felice mimed, throwing her fork at him, as they both laughed.
Just then, a blond young woman that Felice didn’t know passed them, barely noticing them. However, familiar laughter caught the woman’s attention and she turned around. Felice saw her mouth fall open a little then heard it lightly snap shut. It was one of the girls who had been with Kevin on the day he had first spoken to her--the same one he had told to shut up.
The woman quickly recovered her aplomb as she came back to their table. Since she was approaching from Kevin’s back, he couldn’t see the green daggers that were her eyes.
“Hi, Kevin,” Felice heard the woman say sweetly. Her smile was wide as she came around to the side of the table. The green daggers were gone. Apparently, they were only for Felice.
“Oh, hi Mandy,” he said. Felice could almost sense the woman’s fear at the nonchalance in Kevin’s voice.
“I thought we were supposed to have a tutoring session today.”
“Oh, sorry, I got to talking with Felice, here, and, uh...do you know each other?”
“No.” Try as she might, Mandy couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of that one word.
Kevin appeared to not have heard the tone. “Mandy, this is Felice; Felice, Mandy.”
“Hi,” said both women. Felice gave Mandy a close-lipped smile and held out her hand. For a fraction of a second, Felice could see Mandy inspecting Felice’s hand, as if for cleanliness. Then she shook it.
What a light, limp-wristed handshake that was, Felice thought, mentally comparing it to Laura Anderson’s.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Mandy. The sweetness in her voice didn’t reach her eyes, however.
“I guess we’ll have to skip this session,” said Kevin. “Let’s meet in the lounge on Friday, okay?”
Mandy looked as if she were about to plead with Kevin, then she thought better of it. “Okay, honey. I’ll see you later then,” she purred, stroking his shoulder seductively. “Bye.” She kissed him on the cheek and sauntered away.
Felice’s eyebrows shot up.
“Your girlfriend?” she asked casually; slightly amused; indifferently.
“That would be a ‘no.’” Kevin’s face, which had reddened considerably when Mandy kissed him, was now only a medium pink.
“Well, apparently she’s something to you.”
“Yes, she is. She’s my tutor and my friend, and that’s it.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It’s just that I don’t want her to have a fit every time she sees me talking to you.”
“So, you anticipate that we might talk to each other again in the future?”
“Maybe…after all, how can I not talk to a man who bought me a double-combo plate at a nice Mexican restaurant?”
“A girl who likes to eat-ahh, how refreshing! What other kinds of food do you like?”
“Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Creole, of course...though with my parents’ restaurant, The Creole
Experience, I’m about burnt-out on the Creole. What about you?”
“All of the above plus Greek; ever had it?”
“No. But I hear it’s good; according to my dad, at least, who’s had just about any kind of food you can imagine.”
“So, you come by your appetite honestly.”
Felice looked a little hurt.
“No, no. I like watching you eat. I like a girl who can put it away. It shows a love of the good things in life.”
“The good things?”
“Yes, the good things. Things like good food, good drink, fun, laughter, love...the good things; the things that make it fun to be alive.”
“Oh...thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But, you know what they say. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.”
“Who is this ‘they’ anyway and why is it that ‘they’ always have something to say?”
“Good point.” She smiled at him. “Maybe ‘they’ should get a life of their own and stay out of yours and mine.”
“Good point.”
A few minutes later, Kevin was walking Felice to her World Lit class. As usual, he was greeted by nearly everyone they passed, most of them eyeing Felice as they spoke. Hardly, anyone said hello to Felice, however.
“Do you have many friends?” he asked.
“No--just one.” She paused. “It’s pretty much been that way most of my life. I guess I’m not the most sociable person in the world.”
“You’re probably better off. I don’t have too many friends, either.”
“It seems like you do from here.”
“Those aren’t friends. Those are associates, hangers-on, groupies and the like.”
“That sounds pretty harsh.”
“Harsh, but true; Malik is the only person around here that I consider an actual friend. Pretty strange considering how different we are.”
“Different how, besides the obvious?”
“Well, he’s from a big city, Detroit, and I’m from here. He grew up poor and I didn’t. He’s smart and I’m not.”
“He’s got a harem and you’ve got a harem.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Usually when I see you...either one of you, there’s a gaggle of girls around. You must have given them the slip when you sat down with me.”
“True enough. Those are the groupies. That’s what I’m talking about: the difference between liking me because I’m a football star, and liking me because I’m a great guy. My friends like me because I’m a great guy!”
“You only have one friend, so you must not be that great of a guy,” she teased.
He put his hand to his heart and pretended to look hurt. “Oh Miss LeCroix you have wounded me grievously!”
She laughed as they approached her class.
“Well, here it is.” She suddenly grew serious. “Kevin.”
He warmed at the sound of her speaking his name. “Yes?”
She looked at him sadly. “I only have one friend because I’m really not that great of a girl. I’ll see you around.” She turned and headed toward her classroom.
Kevin, frozen for a moment, watched her retreating back. Then he sprinted, easily overtaking her and blocking her path.
“Wait! I’d like to call you sometime. Maybe we can try that Greek stuff or maybe go bike-riding.”
She looked at him with amazement. “What do they call this-class interference?”
“Good one...corny...but good. Actually, it’s called brush-off interference.”
“555-9087. Bye.” She hurried away.
He threw off his backpack, immediately pulled a pen and a sheet of paper out of it, and scribbled the number down. He looked up just barely in time to see her going through the doorway of the classroom. She was smiling at him.
In her dormitory room, Amanda Bain, known as “Mandy” to all except her mother, stood in front of her mirror, staring at her own bloodshot eyes. She had been crying. All of her hopes for her and Kevin were gone, dashed away by...by some mousy black girl. How? How had it happened? She had been a good friend to Kevin, though she hadn’t been interested in more than that, at least at first. But after they had studied many times together, laughed and joked together, talked about politics, religion a
nd the weather together, she had thought, maybe.
After he began to tell her frequently how smart and wonderful and lovely and good to talk to she was, she began to think he was interested in her, and began to think, maybe, just maybe.
Then, an unwelcome scene intruded on her reverie. Kevin had told her to shut up the other day just so he could say hello to that girl. She tried to banish the scene but it wouldn’t go away. Seeing the two of them together, not long after that, had struck fear in her heart. She hadn’t meant to give the girl the evil eye, but she couldn’t help herself. When she had seen the two of them sitting there laughing like the friends that Mandy and Kevin really were, it was like a kick in the stomach. She knew what was happening, but she couldn’t understand it. Her mother had always told her, that to be a good woman to a man, you first had to be his friend. That’s what she had tried to do with Kevin, and Mandy doubted that he had ever even spoken to this girl before the Quad incident.
Mandy had grown up in a family where black people had been tolerated, but looked down upon. There was a large part of her that knew this was wrong and racist, but then there was that other part, that ugly part of Mandy, that felt that Felice was beneath her. Not only was Felice beneath her, but Kevin had known nothing about her. What could he possibly want with her? All he seemed to know about her was that she was...beautiful. Unfortunately, Mandy could not deny it. And then she was shy and quiet--totally different from Mandy in all respects. Mandy was headstrong, talkative and wasn’t shy about demonstrating her intellect and knowledge. Nor was she shy about letting someone know when they patronized her.
Kevin had done that just once. Mandy also recognized that Kevin was smart and there was one particular subject that he knew a lot about…math. During the math class in which they were both enrolled, she had to ask him for his guidance about a problem. Instead of answering her question, however, he had treated her as if she were an idiot, seeming to forget that she had guided him through Political Science and English. He went all the way back to the beginning of the class, as if she had been sleeping in class from day one. She felt as though he were treating her as if she were stupid. When she got angry with him and told him about it, he simply walked away from her.
Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game Page 6
