by Paul Beatty
And Tre freaked. Tre just went, "Ah! No! No, I don't believe this, man!
Hey! Man! Hey! No!"
And I went, "Hey maintain, Tre. Maintain. It's just a mouse, man; we can whip him, shit. Come on."
He went, "You right, man. You right. You right."
And Mickey he went, "Hi guys! Tell me have you seen Minnie?"
Tre went, "Uh, this ain't going to mess with my sex drive now, is it? Come on, man, let's get high. You all right, you know?"
We grabbed Mickey and took him behind the Matterhorn. He was fightin'. "Come on guys, let me go! Let me go! Come on! Come on!"
We got Mickey Mouse high, boy, that little sucker freaked, really freaked. Man he got cool, cool, cool. He started walkin' around Disneyland, "Where is that bitch? Shit, where is that ho? All right, all right. Donald Duck, come here, man. Come here, man, Why don't you buy some pants, Donald? I'm tired of looking at your ass, you know what I mean? Fuck you, Goofy! I don't want to hear shit you got to say, you bucktoothed motherfucker! That's right, I'm talking to you! Don't call me Mickey no more, goddammit, my name is Michael. Shit, man, I'm fifty years old. Show me some respect, man, you dig? Tell your faggot friend Pluto that shit too. Yeah, I saw you the other day. Fuck, I got pictures. Hey Snow White! Snow White, come here, mama. Looking good, looking good, jack. Oh yeah, looking good. Wooo shit, I been checking you out for thirty-five years, you know that? You know what I'm talking about? Well, you know, I'm kinda slow. When we gonna get down? What you mean, you don't know? Shit, you fucking seven dwarves, I'm sure you can work me in"
So I started throwing up. It was just too much for my nervous system at the time. Seeing this, a giant mouse cursing people out and shit. I said, "I can't go through this." I just started throwing up, "Yaaaggghhh!" Everybody was looking at me. People were stopping. Little kids thought I was a new attraction.
"Oh Daddy, I want to ride that black one! Come on! Come on!"
"Come here, boy. I don't have coupon for that one. I'll have to go to one these booths. You got a ticket for that nigger ride over there? He's not a ride, hunh?"
I went back to Disneyland this year, man, just to mess around. I checked out Mickey Mouse, you know, he's a junkie now. He just hangs around Jungleland, "What's happenin', Franklyn? What's happenin'? Gimme four, man, gimme four. All right. All right. Yeah, man. You want some blow, brother? It's cut with cheese, man. Open your nose, but close your ass right up, jack. Won't be nothin' getting out."
I said, "Why you getting loaded so much now, man? What's wrong with you?"
"Hey, I'm depressed. Have you ever dealt with the fact that you're a mouse, man, you know what I mean? Wearing gloves and shit, you know what I mean? I mean what am I going to do in this country? A mouse ain't going nowhere in this country. My future is limited. Best I can hope for is to lead parades and shit. That's about the only form of employment I can get. Minnie left me and shit. I can't cook for myself Then the worst blow of all happened last week, man. Worst thing, man. I went over to Snow White's last week, man. I was ready, man. I was ready, jack. I started lovin' on her, man. Got her turned on, jack, man, hey. I took off my clothes, man. I looked down I didn't have no dick. Motherfucker didn't draw one on, man. I don't know what he was thinkin' about. I really don't know what he was thinkin' about, he sure wasn't thinking about me."
TREY ELLIS
from platitudes
1988
Gray desks and chairs on gray rubber mats stripe the glossy, hardwood basketball-court floor. The glass bricks in the walls burn white and the ten lamps hanging from the high, high ceiling—all as big as tin trash cans—hum under the talk of the nervous sophomores.
Please take your seats, people, says Mr. Morgan as he taps the chalkboard rolled in especially for the occasion. This is the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test or PeeEssAyTee, as you prefer. If you are here for any other reason, I bid you good day. [The students all laugh simultaneously, producing not one big laugh but a low, warbled hum that rattles the windows.] Today I am not Mister Morgan your Thespian Arts instructor or Mister Morgan your homeroom babysitter, I am Mister Morgan the Law. I am the head proctor of you twenty-score miscreants, and I intend to fulfill my duties utterly . . . By the way, if you do not know what miscreant means, I shan't assist you. For your sake, I hope the word does not appear in the vocabulary section of this examination. [More window rattling.] You shall have three hours to complete the examination. After one and a half hours there will be one break of ten minutes. Other than during that break there will be absolutely no talking, palavering, or chitchatting whatsoever. Your answer sheets are being distributed forthwith. You shall not, I repeat, not, touch them with your finely sharpened number-two pencils or any other marking instrument until you are explicitly told to do so. Once these sheets are filled out, you will each receive a sealed test booklet. If your test book's seal is broken, you will have exactly thirty seconds in which to inform the nearest proctor: Failure to inform him or her of the tampered booklet in time will result in your being asked to leave the test premises. [The combined whispers of fear do not rattle the windows.]
As I mentioned earlier, and as you all undoubtedly know, a number-two pencil and only a number-two pencil may be used to complete this examination. Any marks made by other writing instruments will not be read by the Educational Testing Service computer and you will receive no score. Do not mark the answer sheet other than in the loci provided, otherwise the computer may misjudge your answers and thus lower your score. Of course it may also raise your score, so the less bright of you may just be providential. You may mark the test book if you wish and use it for scrap paper; however, since it is not graded, any answers not transferred to the answer sheet are answers unseen—hence, useless. You may look at your neighbors' answer sheet to your plagiaristic heart's content, but it will not assist you in the slightest, since there are many different versions of the tests, hence no one in your environs will have an answer sheet that even remotely resembles your own. Some of the questions are experimental and have been inserted by the Minority Testing Fairness Coordinating Committee Council. They will not count against your score, but I caution you to try your best on all questions, since you cannot be certain which they are. I presume you people know where to locate the lavatories, and for those of you fortunate enough not to be strapped by harried schedules so as to not necessitate wearing a timepiece, I shall display the hour on this green blackboard every fifteen minutes per each of the six sections. At the end of each section I shall say Stop and you shall all stop. If you are found to be still writing, you shall be asked to leave the test premises and your test will be invalidated. Finally, though we have laid down rubber matting, the gymnasium floor is slick, so be careful your chairs do not slip, or, in your own parlance—Keep the four on the floor. Is everything clear?
Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test
Test Booklet #dE101 bR-H
NOTE: You MAY mark the test booklet, but these marks are NOT graded by the Educational Testing Service.
SECTION ONE (1): Verbal Relationships. Choose the words whose relationship most CLOSELY resembles the first cluster group conglomerate.
EXAMPLE:
MISCEGENATION: CRIME
a. black: beige
b. zebra: ape
c. Jane Russell: a sexy woman
d. jellyroll: gatemouth
The correct ANSWER is (c) because just as miscegenation used to be a crime, Jane Russell used to be a sexy woman.
Minutes: 20
Questions: 14
1. STRIKINGLY: GOOD-LOOKING
a. cordially: invited
b. thoroughly: enjoyed
c. firmly: believed
d. terribly: British
2. DEVOTED: EAN
a. grueling: regime
b. alarming: rate
c. voracious: reader
d. extolling: virtues
3. INSECURE: LOOSE
a. piebald: apple tart
b. sinecure: facial
c. phonetics: turntable
d. him: her
4. ANC: SAA
a. TWA: CIA
b. FCC: NRA
c. FBI: AAA
d. PBS: RPG
5. SPEISS: SPORAN
a. tocher: toric
b. exuviate: exoteric
c. liberate: lixiviate
d. blench: blowsy
6. RECEPTACLE: LOVEMAKING
a. ephemeral: gauze
b. quixotic: Spain
c. firehose: Selma
d. bulk mail: philately
7. NARRATIVE: PLATITUDES
a. hot dog: shish kebab
b. indict: corruption
c. still life: montage
d. monochromatic: piebald
8. CUTESY: WOOTSY
a. boogie: woogie
b. itsy: bitsy
c. teeny: weeny
d. artsy: fartsy
9. SLENDER: WAIST
a. shapely: breasts
b. knobby: knees
c. broad: shoulders
d. delicate: wrists
10. SCORCHING: SUN
a. licking: flames
b. howling: winds
c. raging: clouds
d. crashing: waves
11. MARTIAL: MARITAL
a. siren: Siren
b. fiend: friend
12. CHOPHOUSE: GRILLROOM
a. eatery: bistro
b. misogyny: feminism
c. enamored: enameled
d. black: mail
13. BEBOP: MUZAK
a. maverick: mule
b. heretic: Jesuit
c. amorphous: tenuous
d. Coney Island: Great Adventure
c. brasserie: diner
d. beanery: cookshack
14. MOUTH: GAPING
a. grin: mischievous
b. smile: radiant
c. smirk: evil
d. laugh: scornful
STOP!
End of Section One (1)
You may review THIS and ONLY THIS section.
DO NOT go on to the next section until told to do so.
section two (2): Sentence-building. Choose the word that most CLOSELY fits the blank in the following sentence group clusters.
EXAMPLE:
The robust man another guest wearing black Romanic leather sandals and fluorescent yellow socks who said, "But darling, Foucault was last year."
a. wheeled upon
b. whistled shrilly at
c. huffed, rolled his eyes toward
d. assaulted
The correct ANSWER is (c).
Minutes: 30
Questions: 17
1. The civil-rights leader was to believe the police officer when he said he "liked the colored."
(1) a. naive
b. insinuated
c. onomatopoeia
d. paid
2. The black boy knows that
(2) a. "Our top story tonight: The Van Camp's bean factory exploded this afternoon soon after their annual All-You-Can-Eat-What-A-Taste Treat charity bean-a-thon. Fire inspectors call the blaze "suspicious."
b. deep, deep, way down, we are all one and the same.
c. it ain't the meat, it's the motion that makes your mama want to rock.
d. yes, oh golly, yes! He would soon meet that special someone who would lead him not into temptation but deliver him into the wonderful world of hand-trembling, glass-shattering, adolescent lovemaking.
3. Though a boy of (3)_____outward appearance, he knows that if the others understood how (4)_____and (5)_____he was, he would soon be loved by all.
(3) a. ebullient
b. intravenous
c. unremarkable
d. piglike
(4) a. boring
b. vapid
c. complicated
d. interwoven
(5) a. slipping
b. just a smidgin
c. interesting, almost brilliant
d. ribbed, colored, and scented for hours of added enjoyment
6. He often feels (6) _____because of his perverse sexual urges, but at other times he thinks he is (7)_____ and just passing through the all-too-common rite of passage to manhood.
(6) a. soluble
b. different, sick
c. an intense desire to win and win big
d. himself
(7) a. St. Zenobi, King of the Wild Frontier
b. pretty as a picture
c. hopelessly normal, replaceable
d. pla??tanos fritos
8. Though usually a man of his word, the homeroom teacher was less than honest when he said, " _____."
(8) a. Ptou
b. Mama's baby, papa's . . .
c. At Morgan's Chevrolet and Used Cars " f i d e l i t y " is our middle name
d. Janey's pregnant?
9. Opening his bedroom door_____, he was surprised to see a white nude Heimlich instructor giving his wife a lesson.
(9) a. quick as all get-out
b. with the wind at his back and a good, stout ship under his feet
c. flowers and chocolates in hand, after having made reservations for two at Windows on the World, chirping, "Happy anniversary, honey!"
d. like a bat out of hell
10. The _____, the disillusionment with a movement that once filled him with such joyous and foolish optimism, is to what he attributes his current and unshakable cynicism.
(10) a. look of love
b. aroma of fresh-baked taste treats
c. pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together
d. dream deferred once more
11. He_____ bumps into her in a public place just before the music swells and the camera CUTS to the tight close-ups of their faces revealing that dreamy surprise of finding that certain someone of your waking and sleeping dreams.
(11) a. unexpectedly
b. perfunctorily
c. knowingly
d. always
12. The American commando (12)_____ leafs through Mein Kampfon a train lurching through war-torn and enemy-occupied France when (13)_____ , a sinister-looking man in a black trench coat, a fedora pulled low over his bony face, small, round glasses, and an unshaven mug barks, "Your paperz! Your paperz! Rrrraus!"
(12) a. nonchalantly
b. tepidly
c. placidly
d. tranquilly (yet inside he's a bundle of nerves)
(13) a. contusely
b. ponderously
c. suddenly
d. not available in stores
14. "C'mon," said the rugged hero, clutching his Beretta in one hand, his woman in the other. "Let's get out of here!"
They (14) _____themselves through the passageway as Dr. Bulow's evil fortress shook mightily; rocks fell everywhere. Once outside, they dashed for their lives, he nearly flying her by her arm behind him like a kite when KA-BOOM! the fierce explosion dashed them to their feet. Moments later they (15)_____ rise to find just a charred, smoking hole where the mad, misguided doctor's laboratory once stood.
(14) a. rushed
b. hurtled
c. flung
d. raced
(15) a. dazedly
b. groggily
c. wearily
d. stunnedly
16. Even though the towering monster walked _____, and the girl was an Olympic silver-medalist miler, he caught her and began to strangle her at arm's length.
(16) a. slowly, arms akimbo
b. ponderously, arms outstretched like a sleepwalker's
c. like a regular live wire, a real wisenheimer
d. lethargically, yet each mighty footfall quaked the earth
STOP!
End of Section Two (2) You may review THIS and ONLY THIS section.
DO NOT go on to the next section until told to do so.
SECTION THREE (3): Reading Comprehension. Read the following passage snippet excerpts to come, then answer the questions based on a foundation grounded in what you have read.
EXAMPLE:
> Most people do not know the interesting origins of Nabisco's Oreo cookie, one of the world's most-eaten dessert snack biscuits. If people realized that it was invented by a wealthy Afro-American baker and leader of the pro-assimilation movement of the 1940s, they might think twice before unscrewing the chocolate wafers and eating the cream filling separately.
The author probably believes that . . .
a. "Whitey is de devil."
b. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
c. The already-troubled black bourgeoisie is now in danger of assimilating itself to smithereens.
d. The best things in life are free, me bucko, the best things in life are free.
The correct ANSWER is a matter of heated debate.
Minutes: 40
Questions: 12
One of the most charming and endearing of the many humorous anecdotes to come out of the civil-rights era concerns a certain Georgia church deacon, one of those fiery, uncompromising few who symbolized that struggle to make old Jim Crow take wing and fly from this Land of the Free.
It seems that his town's major department-store diners and restaurants continued to refuse to serve Afro-American customers, even though similar changes had already been made all over the South in the wake of the now-legendary boycotts and sit-ins. Well, that fire brand of a man, Deacon _____, took it upon himself to rally the hardworking Afro-American community to boycott every downtown store until they "changed their tune."
The town's level of tension was at an all-time high. The Deacon, who did not own an automobile himself, valiantly and effectively organized those in the Afro-American community with vehicles to drive the fifty miles to newly integrated Macon to buy all their dry goods and sundries.
After two weeks of the boycott, the Deacon was called to meet the town's Caucasian elders. Three hours later, the Deacon emerged and told his loyal and good-natured, trusting flock, "Brethren, who wants to eat at their old smelly lunch counters anyway? Shoot, I would not eat their old smelly food even if you promised me a key to the gates o' heaven itself. Let us all go home and forget all this talk about boycotts. We will fight them old white folks when it is really important."
And the funny end of the story came one month later, when the stores did change their Jim Crow policy without seeming to bow to Afro-American pressure, and that fiery stalwart, the Deacon, won a brand-new, soft-blue Cadillac convertible in the Chamber of Commerce's First Annual Negro Car Lottery!
