Black Boy White School (3 page)

The boys continued walking toward the corner, not saying anything. Anthony wanted to turn around and look but kept stopping himself. He was afraid though. Something felt wrong. Weed was everywhere in East Cleveland, and the dope spots were obvious. The men were either cops or something worse. Anthony checked over his shoulder and then didn't care about getting teased. The car was trailing quietly behind them, close to the curb. “We gotta cut through.”

Mookie looked and his eyes got wide, but he sniffed and stuck to the sidewalk. “You cut through, nigga,” he said. “I ain't no punk.”

A sound from the street made Anthony turn again. The passenger was out of the car and moving toward them, his head on a swivel and right arm glued to his thigh.

“RUN!” Ant threw the beer in the air and vaulted the fence. His feet stumbled over things that he couldn't see, but he kept going. The man shouted, and then there were two quick explosions. Something angry whistled past Anthony's ear, and he dropped face-first in the mud. He wanted to cry and to run and to pray; he wanted to crawl to safety. But he was too petrified to move, too scared to stop the spreading warmth in his crotch.

Ant stayed still and listened long for more gunshots or footsteps. What had the man shouted? Was it gangs or money? Shameeka or something else? Slowly he rolled over onto his back and lifted his muddy head. The Buick was nowhere in sight. But neither was his friend.

“Mookie?”

He called him again, more urgently. “Mookie-Mook? Where you at, man? I think they gone.” Still no answer. He hoped that his friend had run away, but somehow Anthony didn't believe it.

He got to his knees and saw a dark bulk on the fence, knew that it was Mookie, and ran over. His friend was bent over the top rail at the waist, dripping blood. Bits of brain were in his hair and on the ground like chewed bubblegum.

Anthony ran to the store and begged for help, went back to his friend and stood guard but tried not to look at him. Soon there were sirens and people with badges who asked him all kinds of questions. No, he and Mookie were not in a gang and no, neither one of them sold drugs. He gave a description of the man and the car but hadn't thought to look at the license plate.

An ambulance came and then more policemen. They set up lights and unrolled yellow tape to control the growing crowd. After that, the television trucks arrived and parked halfway on the sidewalk. White reporters in expensive clothes stood in front of scruffy cameramen, stared grimly into living rooms, and shared the latest news: Another kid had been gunned down in East Cleveland.

And all the while as they talked, Mookie stayed bent over the fence, away from the cameras but bleached by other floodlights. Police and detectives scuttled around him like crabs, sometimes laughing. Why did they have to go for more beer? Why did Mookie slap Shameeka like that? Why had Mookie been too proud to run?

An officer, the first one Anthony had talked to, came over and leaned into the open cruiser. “How you doing, there, kid? Just a few more minutes and we can take you home.”

“It ain't right for him to still be up there like that,” Anthony said. “Somebody need to take him down.”

The officer held up his hand. “Wait a second, they will. We just have to finish the initial investigation. . . . It sure would be nice if you could remember something else. If not the license plate, a motive? Anything?”

“What about a sheet? Cain't you at least cover him up?”

The officer started to say something but closed his mouth. Then he went and found an EMT. Minutes later, someone brought a sheet and draped it over the body. The officer came back. “So, you ready to go?”

“Don't worry about it. I'll walk.” Ant stood up and started off. He went in the wrong direction at first but crossed the street and doubled back. His feet were heavy and numb. It took a lot to pick them up and put them down. Mookie was dead and hanging over a fence; his brains were stuck in his hair. He would never get a record deal, never get to drive a car or live on his own. He was fourteen years old and done with his life, while Anthony was walking home. It didn't feel right.

Before long, Ant stood on his porch but didn't go through the door. The red lights were on in the windows upstairs, and he could hear loud music and laughter. He sat on the steps and stared at the lawn, wanted to be alone but needed company.

He started walking again. It was dark and too cold for the clothes he was wearing, but Anthony didn't care very much about comfort. He didn't care about the drying mud on his pants, and he didn't care about his damp crotch, either. He just walked with his chin on his chest and no destination in mind, walked because it was better than sitting. And it wasn't until he found himself in front of Mookie's house that Anthony realized he'd walked too far.

There were people standing outside under the porch light, Mookie's mother crying inside of a circle of women, her other sons looking angry and helpless. More people were scattered around the little yard, including Floyd and other eighth graders. Anthony thought about turning around, but his best friend saw him before he could move.

“Ant!” Floyd rushed over with a couple of other boys close behind him. All of their faces were strained. “What the hell? What happened?”

Ant told them about the car and the thin man in sunglasses, about the gunshots and Mookie hanging over the fence. And he told them about the police and the TV reporters, how none of them really seemed to care very much about their friend.

“Like that's a surprise,” Floyd said woodenly. “Mook wasn't no white boy from Pepper Pike.”

Just then Paulette, Mookie's older sister, came rushing off the porch, shoeless and in a bathrobe. She ran directly to Anthony and clung to his arm. “It wasn't him, right?” she pleaded. “Mookie ain't dead, Ant. Say they lying!”

Anthony opened his mouth and closed it, shook his head, and then Paulette collapsed on the sidewalk. Caring hands carried her back into the house. Ant followed them and stopped on the porch, in front of Mookie's numb mother. “I'm sorry,” he croaked. “We tried to run but . . . I don't know . . . we tried. I'm sorry.”

She opened her arms and pulled him in. “I know,” she said. “I know, baby. He loved you. You know that, don't you? He loved all of you boys just like you was his brothers.”

“We loved him, too.” They held each other a while longer, and then, without a word, Anthony turned around and walked home.

It took a lot of banging, but Andre finally answered the door. He laughed when he saw his little brother. “Momma gon' beat that ass for messing up your school clothes,” he said. “And she gon' beat it again for losing your key.”

“Mookie got shot.” Anthony said plainly. “He dead.” He pushed past his gawking brother and stopped, could hear Darnell and other people upstairs, could smell the weed smoke and wine. He wanted to go and yell in their faces, he wanted respect for the dead. But Anthony was tired and his feet wouldn't move, so he stabbed the button on the remote and let Letterman into the living room.

“You for real?”

“Wish I wasn't.” His eyes were locked on the screen. They burned, but he didn't blink.

Andre nudged him. “What happened?”

Anthony stoically recounted the story. When he finished, his brother left the room and came back with a bottle, “Sorry, man,” Andre said. “That's some messed-up shit for a little kid to be dealing with.”

Anthony shrugged and twisted the beer cap. “I ain't no little kid,” he said, and took a long drink. Then he thought about Maine and endless winter. White world or not, it had to be better than East Cleveland. It had to be better than what happened to Mookie. “I ain't no little kid,” Anthony repeated, more for himself than his brother. “And I ain't staying here no more.”

That summer, Anthony still hung out with his friends, but almost never at night. They talked about Mookie but less and less, until his name hardly came up at all. They still got quiet when they passed his house, or when they saw any of his family on the street. It wasn't that they had forgotten about their friend. It just hurt too much to talk about him.

Floyd was busy anyway, selling weed for Shane. And Anthony got an unofficial job in Shaker Heights, sweeping hair at a barbershop. He rode his bike up the hill every day, past the wide lawns and white people. All his life they had been foreign to him, living close by but in a different world. That would change, though, once he got to Maine. More than likely, his roommate would be some billionaire from Beverly Hills.

He was excited but scared, too. And on the morning that he was supposed to leave, Anthony lay awake in the predawn darkness, fighting panic. What if his first plane ride turned out to be his last? There were terrorists and sometimes the engines fell off. What if he got to school and couldn't handle the work? Would they put him in special ed or just send him back home? Maybe he should have listened to Floyd and refused to go.

He looked at his sleeping brothers and felt jealous. They pretty much knew what their day would bring. But for Anthony, it would be a plane ride to Boston and then another to Portland, Maine. After that, Belton Academy and the unknown.

An hour later, at a rare breakfast together, Anthony joked with his brothers and mother about Maine. Andre made a crack about igloos and Eskimos, but Darnell corrected his geography. Their mother seemed happy and, simultaneously, sad. She laughed out loud sometimes but never for very long.

“I want you to be good when you go up there,” she said. “Ain't nobody in this family never had a chance like this. Maybe you can even go to a four-year university.” She beamed at the thought of it, and Anthony cringed. Not a single male branch of their family tree had even applied to college.

“I'll be good,” he said while his big brothers grinned. “Just hope I can make some friends.”

“Don't even worry about that,” Darnell added confidently. “Do like I told you and everything gon' be straight.”

“I will.”

“And don't go up there and get none of them white girls pregnant, neither.”

“Andre!”

“You don't have to worry about that, Ma,” Anthony said. “I'm gon' go up there and keep to myself. Make no trouble, make no waves.” He looked at his oldest brother, who was nodding appreciatively. “I ain't even gon' speak to nobody unless they speak to me first.”

“Don't you go up there with no attitude. You need to leave all that nonsense right out there in those streets. . . .”

“I know, Ma.”

“. . . All your little ghetto friends and their ghetto ways, you know how easy it could have been you and not that Mookie boy?”

“I know, Ma. . . . I know.”

The fierceness drained from her eyes and was replaced by relief. “Well, hurry up and get your things together,” she said. “You don't wanna miss your flight.” She stood stiffly and started collecting dishes. Anthony moved his bags to the front door and then picked up the phone. It was early, but he had promised to call before he left.

“Wake up, man,” Anthony joked when his best friend answered. “Still got time to catch that flight.”

“Go on with that garbage,” Floyd said sleepily. “So, is you ready?”

“I guess so.”

Floyd sniffed. “Don't guess, nigga. Either you ready or you ain't.”

“I know, man. It's just . . . I don't know.” Silence, except for the sound of his best friend's breathing. Anthony wanted to say more but didn't know how. “I'll be back home in like two months, anyway. You know, for Thanksgiving.”

“That's what's up. . . . Ain't that where your boy from, anyway? Stephen King?”

Anthony thought before saying anything. As far as he could remember, they had never talked about his favorite author. “How did you know that?”

“Because I pay attention, nigga,” Floyd said. “Just like I know you be writing your own stories sometimes. You ain't never showed me one, but I know, anyway.”

“Damn. You like a teenage detective.”

Floyd laughed. “Wrong side, playa. If you ever write about me, make me a criminal who don't never get caught.”

Someone tapped Anthony's shoulder. It was his oldest brother, and he was holding the biggest bag. “Hurry up, fool,” Darnell said, heading toward the front door. “Momma already waiting.”

“I gotta go,” Anthony said.

“Awright, man. I'll holler. And rep E.C., nigga!” Floyd blurted. “Don't forget where you from.”

“I won't.”

He hung up, took a last look around the house, and then went down the front stairs. His brothers stood quietly outside of the car, both of them looking stunned. Anthony understood. But just like it had been on the phone with Floyd, his mouth couldn't find the words.

At the airport, his mother cried, but Anthony wouldn't. He had to show that he could be a man. She made him promise to be good and study hard, made him swear that he wouldn't do anything stupid. “Do it right,” she said earnestly, and squeezed him one last time. “Show those people that you belong.”

“I will,” he said, and let her go. “I promise.”

The plane touched down in Portland, and Anthony took a deep breath. The whole day he'd been afraid of a crash, but now he was afraid that he'd made it. He was in Maine, impossibly far from everyone that he knew. If there was trouble, he would have to handle it alone.

He followed the crowd off the plane and to the baggage claim area. They talked to one another or into cell phones as they waited for their luggage. Anthony wished that he had a phone, but his mother wouldn't buy him one. And every penny he'd made that summer had gone toward school.

He found his bags and went outside, looked around for a limousine but found a big van instead. It was dark blue, with
BELTON ACADEMY
printed on the sides. A bearded man in a flannel shirt and blue jeans leaned against it, reading a newspaper and moving his lips. He was the kind of white man that Anthony had seen a hundred times: in the hardscrabble neighborhoods on the near west side; pissed off and full of beer after Browns games, looking for a fight. They were dangerous and always seemed to hate black people. Anthony wondered if he had made a big mistake.

The man looked up and smiled at him. Then he folded his newspaper and started across the road.

“Anthony Jones?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Tony. John Dunlap. I work maintenance over at the academy.”

“Call me Ant.”

They shook hands, and Anthony followed him to the back of the van, where John swung the doors open. Someone else was inside. Anthony could see skinny legs.

“Ant, huh?” John continued as he loaded the first bag. “Like the bug? Ever go by Tony? You know, like Tony Soprano?”

“Naw.”

The man grabbed the other piece of luggage and sized him up. “That's okay,” he said with a laugh. “I guess nobody's gonna take you for Italian, anyway.”

Anthony climbed into the van and saw the other passenger; a pale white girl with braces and dark hair. “Hi,” she said, smiling desperately. “My name's Alison, what's yours?”

“Anthony Jones.”

The girl giggled and extended her hand. “Hello, Mr. Jones.”

They left the airport and drove onto a modest highway, Alison leaning on the back of Anthony's seat and talking nonstop. She was in the ninth grade, just like him, and from a town in Connecticut, not far from New York. Before Belton, she had been in a private middle school, and her biggest hope was to make the varsity ski team.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you ski?”

He shook his head. “Never even seen a ski before.”

“Oh.”

They came up on a hitchhiker but blew right by her. The lonely scene made Anthony think of horror stories. He leaned forward and tapped the driver's shoulder. “Stephen King live around here?”

“Not here,” John answered. “Up in Bangor. I hear he's one crazy bastard.”

They turned onto another road, where trees pressed in like an advancing army. The lane wound past dilapidated farms and occasional houses.

“How much longer?”

John eyed him in the rearview. “Depends on the traffic. We may not have it like you New York boys, but you get caught behind some logging truck or some old fart and it'll feel like it.”

“I ain't from New York,” Anthony said. “I'm from East Cleveland.”

“Cleveland,” Alison said dreamily. “Did you ever meet LeBron James? You know, before he left?”

“Naw. He can eat a dick.”

Color came to her cheeks, and her mouth flashed metal. “Wow. I really like the way you talk. Where I'm from, everyone sounds the same.”

“Surprise, surprise.” He saw Alison's wounded eyes and then looked out the window. He hadn't meant to hurt her, but at least she wasn't talking anymore.

They drove on, and Anthony didn't know he'd been sleeping, but John woke him with the horn. “Wakey-wake now, kiddies,” the man announced. “You don't want to miss it.”

Downtown Hoover was four blocks of stores and little restaurants, a firehouse, and a bank near the end of Main Street. There weren't any stoplights or bus shelters. There weren't any billboards or liquor stores. They drove up a hill and around a bend, past a neatly cut field, and then onto the divided campus, with buildings on both sides of the road. They parked in front of a brick building with white windows and green shutters. The sign above the entrance said
KASTER HALL.

An acid bubble rose in Anthony's throat.

“Something else, ain't it?” John said from behind him. “Not a care in the friggin' world.”

Anthony nodded but felt uneasy. Wasn't John part of that world, too? “Is this where I'm staying?”

“More than likely,” John said. “Freshmen and sophomore boys in Kaster, juniors and seniors over there, in Welch.” He chuckled and pointed to another dorm, across the street. “Try not to go in there by yourself.”

“Why not?”

“Aww, you know upperclassmen,” John said, still grinning. “Sometimes they like to horse around.”

“Thanks.” Anthony grabbed for his bags, but the man blocked him.

“Can't go in yet,” John said, and pointed to a big building with white pillars. “You need to register first.”

“Oh.” He reached for his luggage, but John stopped him again.

“No need to lug everything up there.”

Anthony hesitated. “Man, this is all I got.”

John smiled patiently. “What part of the city you from? Brooklyn?”

“East Cleveland. Remember?”

“No fooling?” John scratched his head and looked him up and down again. “Well, this isn't Ohio, kid. Your stuff is safe.”

Anthony went to the main building and registered. They gave him a lot of things to read plus his room key. John had been right: He was staying in Kaster Hall, on the freshman floor. He left the desk and moved through the crowded lobby, making sure not to bump anyone or even make eye contact. Most of the kids were with their parents, and all of them were white. Self-conscious, Anthony walked quickly toward the door. A man in a bow tie stopped him, though, before he could leave.

“Anthony Jones?”

Ant nodded but didn't say anything.

“Fantastic!” The man grabbed Anthony's hand and shook it. “Good to meet you, Tony,” he continued. “I'm Mr. Kraft, director of admissions.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Anthony said. “Thanks for letting me in.”

“Nonsense. We should thank
you
for coming.” Mr. Kraft clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed. Then he waved to a passing man in the crowd. He was big and had bushy eyebrows. “Tony, this is Mr. Rockwell. Coach, meet Tony Jones.”

The tall man shook Anthony's hand and nearly broke it. “Welcome to Belton, Tony. Where you from?”

“Cleveland.”

“Cleveland?” He made a face, and both of the men smiled. Anthony smiled, too, although he didn't know what was funny. “Had a kid here from Cleveland once, he could jump out the gym.” The coach looked Anthony up and down. “What about you, Tony? You play any hoops?”

“Basketball?” Anthony thought about his brother's warning and shook his head. Didn't they see how short he was? “I ain't no good.”

“Maybe not yet,” Mr. Kraft said with a wink. “But give it time.” The men shook Anthony's hand again and went off to talk together. Anthony returned across campus to his waiting bags and took them inside the dorm.

A boy named Zach greeted him and grabbed a suitcase. He was older and said he was a proctor. “So,” he said, walking quickly. “Where you from?”

“Cleveland.”

“Oh,” the beefy boy said, and raised his eyebrows. “Figured you were from New York, like Big George and everybody else.”

“Big who?”

Zach laughed. “George Fuller. You'll meet him. He pretty much owns this place.” They came to a door at the end of the hall and stopped. “Here it is,” Zach said. “Number four.” Three people were already inside, a white man and woman, plus a boy in beat-up jeans. Zach cleared his throat loudly, but the family was already gawking. “Meet Anthony Jones,” Zach said, and put the bag on the floor. “He'll be bunking here, with Brody.”

The boy in jeans put down a box and came over. The name on his faded bowling shirt said
GUS
, even though Zach had just called him Brody. “So you're Tony Jones?” the boy asked, and glanced at his parents, who watched coolly from the far end of the room.

“Anthony,” he corrected. “Or you can just call me Ant.”

“Sweet!” the boy said, and shook Anthony's hand. “Brody Lavallee. Nice to meet you.”