The Obstacle Course

by JF Freedman

  “Naw, I wasn’t watching TV last night,” I said. My old man had been parked in front of the tube from right after dinner until bedtime, no way I was going to sit in the same room with him. “So what’s the big deal’s got everybody’s bowels in an uproar?”

  “We’ve got to go to school with niggers next year!” Stevie shouted, not wanting anyone else to pass on the news, like he owned it.

  I laughed in his face: what a crock of shit. “You’re crazy. Who told you that?”

  “It was on TV last night,” he answered hotly, like I was calling him a liar to his face, which I wasn’t, I couldn’t believe it, was all. “It’s all over the newspapers this morning, too, you’re the one that’s crazy, you don’t even watch TV.”

  “The Supreme Court said it,” Mary added.

  “The Supreme Court said that shit three years ago,” I told her. “That’s old news.”

  “They said it about Maryland this time,” Stevie said. “About us.”

  Burt joined the group, throwing me a dirty look.

  “I don’t give a shit what the Supreme Court said,” he told everyone, but looking at me, “I ain’t about to go to school with no niggers. I’ll quit first.”

  As soon as he said that several others kicked in their sentiments, which were all the same.

  “My old man said we’d move to Australia before he’ll ever let me go to school with coons,” Burt went on.

  “I’ll believe that one when I see it,” I said.

  He stared at me, hard and cold.

  “Well, I reckon you don’t give a shit if you go to school with niggers or not.”

  “It ain’t happened yet,” I answered, shrugging him off, “so I ain’t gonna get my bowels in an uproar about it.”

  Joe slid over next to Burt. “When your sister starts dating them you won’t talk so free like that,” he said.

  Whoa. I could feel the hairs starting to rise up the back of my neck.

  “I wouldn’t talk like that if I were you, Joe,” I warned him, making sure he heard the threat.

  He hocked a pearl onto the sidewalk between our feet. “What are you, some kind of goddamn nigger lover?”

  Everybody went quiet.

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “What’d you say?” I slowly asked him.

  “You heard me.”

  “Say it again. One time.”

  “Nig-ger lover,” he threw in my face, enunciating every syllable clearly.

  I was on him before the words were out of his mouth, throwing him to the ground, throwing punches immediately, hard punches, no holding back. I was beside myself with fury—this motherfucker had been one of my best friends my whole life and now he was laying this kind of shit on me.

  We went around and around, the others cheering us on; everybody likes a good fight, what they want is to see someone kick the living shit out of someone else. Joe’s a tough guy and he’s big, like me, but I was fighting way beyond normal, Superman couldn’t have beaten me the way I was feeling. I got the upper hand on Joe and started beating the shit out of him, really pounding his ass. I was going to knock every tooth out of his pissant mouth, that’s how enraged I was.

  The others weren’t going to let that happen, though, especially Burt. He and some of the other boys jumped me and started wailing away, really beating up on me. I fought like a banshee, I was crazed, it was like they’d been thrown in a sack with a panther, the way I was fighting.

  All the shouting and commotion brought the teachers out, Mr. Boyle being the first, pulling them off me, then jerking me to my feet, his hand holding me tight by the front of my T-shirt.

  My clothes were torn, shirt and pants both. My face was cut, too, I could taste a trickle of blood in my mouth. I looked over at Joe and Burt. If looks could kill I’d be a dead man several times over. They were as bad off as I was, Joe had blood all over his mouth from where I’d knocked some teeth loose, and Burt was going to have a mighty shiner on his right eye before sundown.

  Boyle jerked me to my tiptoes.

  “Go to my office, Poole,” he ordered. “Every goddamn time—won’t you ever learn?”

  He shook his head, almost like he was sad about it. Whatever he and my mom had talked about or done the last time, he was feeling some kind of sympathy for me, it seemed. But not enough to let me go.

  That was all right. I’d made my point and then some.

  “Go,” he said, pushing me towards the front door.

  I scooped up my crushed pack of Marlboros and stuffed them in the pocket of my jeans. As I started up the steps, I turned back to Joe.

  “I’d rather go to school with niggers than you any day,” I spat out defiantly.

  I turned my back on them and walked to the front door.

  “Nigger lover!” Burt yelled at my retreating back.

  Some of the girls giggled. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke, I thought, not turning to look, I was tougher than all of them put together, when they were crying for their mamas I’d be out in the big wide world making my mark.

  I didn’t break stride as I flashed my former best friend the finger and marched into the building, head held high.

  The rest of the week went by, more or less without incident. I was being shunned by practically everybody, but that was no big thing. I was counting down the days until summer, when I could start all over again.

  There were several other students already waiting in the guidance counselors’ outer office when I walked in. They do it by alphabetical order—in front of me were O’Hara, Pam, one of those invisible kids you go to school your whole life with and never know anything about; Palmer, Teddy, another asshole of the first order, I’ve realized recently how many of them there are in this stupid school; Parker, Lisa, another member of the big-tits-no-brains group; Petty, Mike, a pretty good guy, especially in baseball, he’s been starting second baseman for the school all three years; and Pillsbury, Leonard, a complete loser, Sarkind without brains.

  “Yo, Roy Poole.”

  “Yo, Mike Petty.”

  “Hi, Roy.” This from Lisa, smiling at me. What is there about me that’s making all these chicks with big tits come onto me this year all of a sudden? I’m not even a tit man, I’m much more interested in a pretty face. I don’t mean I’d kick her out of bed for eating crackers or anything, but she’s not my style.

  “Looking good, Lisa.” I winked at her, gave her a friendly smile. You never know, I might run across her some dark and stormy night, I wouldn’t want her to be turned off on me, it doesn’t cost anything to smile at someone, especially when they have big tits and a friendly attitude.

  I flopped down next to Mike.

  “What’s the problem between you and Burt and Joe?” he asked.

  Everybody’d heard about the fight, like it was still front-page news, even though it had happened a week ago.

  “No big deal,” I assured him. “Everything’s copacetic.”

  That wasn’t true. We weren’t talking. It was the Two Musketeers now.

  “Four more weeks,” he said.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” I said back.

  “I’m counting the days.”

  “Everybody is.” This from Lisa, who wanted to be included in. She leaned across Mike to face me. “What’re you doing this summer, Roy?”

  “I’m sailing my dad’s boat to Hawaii,” I told her, straight-faced.

  “You’re kidding! I didn’t even know your father had a boat.”

  Like I said, no brains at all.

  “Just kidding. I don’t know, hang out, whatever. The usual.” The thought of hanging out in Ravensburg all summer long was enough to give me the hives. “Go to Ocean City, maybe, try to get a job there.”

  I wasn’t about to tell her my real plans—to go up to Annapolis and find a boat to crew on for the summer. That was my secret, which I wasn’t about to share with any of these morons.

  “My folks joined the club,” she volunteered, “Claymore. I’ll be at the pool every day. My mom said
I could bring guests.”

  Claymore Country Club is the rattiest country club in the world, but it’s the only one around. Anybody whose parents are hot shit is a member. I’ve been a few times to the pool; it’s not bad, keeps you cool at least, and there’s a lot of cute girls parading their stuff.

  “Sounds like fun,” I said.

  “Maybe we could go sometime,” she offered.

  “Yeah, that would be nice.”

  The two guidance counselors’ doors opened at the same time. Two kids came out. They must time them, I thought. The secretary called out the next two names.

  Kids came and went, every couple of minutes. The doors opened again, and Mike and Pillsbury came out. Mike gave me a wink, moved out. The secretary called the next two names.

  “Roy Poole,” pointing to one office, “Tony Quarles,” showing the Q-man the other.

  Real nonchalant, like it was no big deal, I pushed up from my chair and went in, closing the door behind me.

  Miss Tayman was the guidance counselor I got. She’s middle-aged, older than my mom I’d guess, it’s hard to tell with these old maids. They always look old and dry, although this one made an effort—she dressed nicely, wore perfume, curled her hair. Kind of sad when you think about it, she probably doesn’t have anybody in her life. Maybe a cat.

  She sat across the desk from me, gave me a friendly smile, one of those smiles that says “I’m a nice person, I’m fair, on your side.” Guidance counselors have to be able to smile like that, it’s part of their job. They want you to think they understand kids in a way regular teachers don’t. The truth is, they don’t understand shit, no more than any other teacher.

  Miss Tayman scanned through my file, looking up at me once with another quick smile. It wasn’t particularly reassuring; this was something every kid had to do, like going to the dentist.

  She laid the file aside.

  “Well, how are we doing today, Paul?”

  “Roy, ma’am,” I corrected her.

  It took a moment. She opened the file again for a quick look.

  “Roy. Of course.” She nodded her head vigorously a couple of times. It’s an assembly line: in two days two guidance counselors would be seeing every ninth-grader in the school. Names were a distraction that only took time.

  “Well, then. You know why you’re here.”

  Before I could attempt to answer she continued on—a canned speech. “You have to decide … you need to make certain judgments about what you plan to do that will affect the rest of your life … what kind of job you plan to have someday. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good, good.” She gave me that bullshit smile again. She gives it to every kid, whether she likes them or not. The woman doesn’t even know me, I’ve never been in her office before. Wait, technically that’s not true, I was once, back in seventh grade. She passed me on to Mr. Boyle right away, she could tell from the get-go I wasn’t a kid she wanted to deal with.

  She doesn’t remember.

  “There are several types of curriculums you can take, Roy,” making sure she said my name, trying to convince me the mistake about it before was a fluke, like I could give a shit, as soon as I walked out of this office I’d never see this lady again for the rest of my life. “Several types, depending on what line of work you want to get into. There’s the academic, and the general, academic of course is if you think you want to go to college, and the general is kind of all-around, so to speak, and then of course there’s commercial and vocational.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I know.”

  “Good!” she said energetically. I could see the relief on her face—some kids wouldn’t know academic from commercial from a hole in the wall, and then she’d have to go through this lengthy explanation of each, and it would fuck her schedule all to hell.

  “Have you ever given any thought to what you might like to be? When you finish school? What kind of job you would like?”

  She smiled at me again, but she wasn’t seeing me.

  I took a deep breath. This was it—I had to make a commitment, I had to say it to someone from Ravensburg out loud.

  Admiral Wells was wrong about me. I’d show him. I’d show everybody.

  “I want to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis and be a Navy officer for my career.”

  Real slow: “I see.”

  It was very quiet. The air hung still, warm with the hint of summer.

  She took my file up again and leafed through it. “You know, Roy, to pursue that you would have to take the academic course …”

  “Yes, ma’am. I know.”

  She looked away. I don’t know who felt more awkward, her or me.

  “… and you would have to maintain high grades in difficult subjects, like trigonometry and chemistry and a foreign language …”

  “Yes.”

  She laid the file back down, squared it up on her desk.

  “Well … up to now your grades haven’t been all so good.” She took a peek inside the file again. “I see there has been some recent improvement, but …”

  “I know,” I interrupted, “but they’ll get better, I promise.”

  “I certainly hope so. And your conduct as well. Still and all …”

  She thought hard for a moment, then flashed me a sympathetic smile.

  “I have an idea, which I think is a pretty good one. Let me tell it to you and you tell me what you think. Instead of academic why don’t we put you down for vocational for a start …”

  “But …” I started to protest.

  She put her hand up to stop me.

  “Please let me finish. We’ll put you down for vocational, but we’ll also include a foreign language. French would be nice, parlez-vous français?, and that way you could see if you liked it and how well you did and if your grades are good you could switch curriculums if you felt like it, all right?”

  Without waiting for me to answer, she started to fill in some cards.

  “So that’ll be English, shop math, gym, French, I’m sure they’ll let you take French instead of U.S. history although history is required, wood shop, and let’s see, how about engine shop, that’s real interesting.”

  She finished filling the cards out and pushed them across the desk. I’d been blind-sided—it had happened so fast I was too discombobulated to protest.

  “You know, Roy, you could always enlist in the Navy after you graduate high school, that’s a good career and your vocational training will be of great use to you then.”

  She stood up: the interview was over.

  I stumbled to my feet. She’d planned my whole life out for me in less than five minutes.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said numbly, “I reckon that’s what I’ll wind up doing.”

  I shuffled the cards in my hands. They felt hot.

  “You may leave.”

  I walked out of her office.

  “Academic,” I heard her mutter to herself, even before I was out the door. “What’ll they think of next?”

  The blood rushed to my face. I looked around quickly, to make sure no one was watching.

  June

  SIXTEEN

  “OH, LOVER BOY. HOW you call your lover boy?” Ruthie sang out.

  “Shut the fuck up.” I snatched the phone out of her hand.

  “Well, excuse me for living.” She danced around me. “Baby, oh, oh, ba-aby …”

  I motioned for her to go away. I hate that calypso shit, that’s all they ever play on “Bandstand” nowadays.

  “Hello?” I said into the phone.

  “Baby, oh, oh, ba-aby,” Ruthie sang into my ear with a whisper. Ever since her last boyfriend dumped her, she’s been a real pain. It was like I was the big brother and she was the little sister, not the other way around.

  “You’re the one,” she sang, actually sticking her tongue in my ear.

  “Cut it out, goddamnit!” I yelled at her. Then quickly into the phone, “not you.” I didn’t know who it was, but you don’t
yell at somebody like that over the phone.

  “Who is that, Roy?” came the voice over the wire.

  I felt like I’d had an electric wire jammed up my ass.

  “Melanie?”

  “Hi, Roy.” Her voice was kind of quiet, tentative, like she wasn’t sure she should be talking to me.

  “It’s my sister,” I told her after I recovered, “my stupid, dumb, ugly, stupid sister.”

  “Ugly?” Ruthie pouted, hands on hips facing me.

  “Wait a second, will you, Melanie?”

  I cupped the receiver and turned to Ruthie. “I don’t do this to you.”

  “Baby,” she sang, wiggling her hips like a hula dancer, “oh, oh, ba-aby …” She stopped. “Who is she?”

  “A friend. From school.” I still had my hand over the phone.

  “I never heard you talk about any girl called Melanie before.”

  “She’s new. She just transferred.”

  “Two weeks before school’s ended?”

  “Her dad’s in the Navy. He got transferred here.” It wasn’t a complete lie, it’s her grandfather, not her dad, and they’ve lived here a long time, but no way was I going to tell Ruthie about Melanie.

  I don’t like lying anymore. Ever since the incident in that colored church down in Chattanooga, talking straight to preacher Williams about Texas and all, I haven’t wanted to do it. Sometimes you have to, like now, but it wasn’t as much fun as it used to be.

  “Come on, Ruthie, no shit now.”

  “All right, all right. If you think you have to keep secrets from your own sister, who’s the only person left in the world who cares about you …”

  This was true. As far as my old man was concerned, I didn’t exist. We’d never said one word about what he’d done to my model collection; we hadn’t said anything to each other at all. My mom was all fucked up about me; sometimes she was all weepy, “what am I going to do with you?,” that kind of shit, other times she was mad as hell, threatening to kick me out for good, send me to military school, the usual list. Mostly she was bewildered, and that scared her, which made me feel like shit; but there wasn’t anything I could do about it, not for now.