New Boy (2 page)

"Well, you're on your way, son," said my father. "They certainly keep the place looking nice," he mused, steering the Buick past manicured lawns and the graceful, towering elms that covered the campus. He was fond of bromides, and maintained a barrel of them for use in every situation. Later, after much thought, I realized that they were one of the tools of his trade. Patients came to him expecting the worst, and his first task was to put them at ease by talking, but only about little of consequence.

Mother, on the other hand, was a schoolteacher like Cousin Gwen. She was used to having only fifty minutes to work with, so she got right to the point. "You're going to be under a microscope while you're here and don't you ever forget it. Not for one minute. Just when you think you've been accepted and they're treating you like everyone else, that's when something will happen that will cause you to remember that you're a Negro. The only contact these people have had with our people has been with maids and shoeshine boys, and you can imagine what that's been like. I didn't see another colored face in that dining room, not even back in the kitchen. So you're it. You're going to represent the race, and from what I've seen and heard, they've got a lot to learn." She leaned over the back of the front seat toward me so that I could kiss her cheek, and as I did, I realized that it was wet with tears. "Make us proud of you, son," she said.

As we were unpacking the car, Dillard arrived to help me take my things to my room in the sophomore dormitory. It was a long, three-story brick building, with an entrance set off by four tall
white columns. My room was on the third floor, with a dormer window that looked out on the campus, the surrounding hills, and a part of the golf course. There was a bed, a desk and chair, and a built-in dressing cabinet. It was not as large as my room at home, but it was comfortable enough. My parents, who had accompanied us up to the room to take a look, approved.

"Is there an adult in charge of the dormitory?" my mother asked Dillard as we were all walking back down to the car. Dillard pointed to the far end of the long corridor and a door with a brass knocker facing us. The door was shut.

"There's a master living on every floor," he said. "You don't see them that often, but they'll have you in for punch and cookies once in a while. They're mainly here to make sure things don't get out of hand." The three of us chuckled at Dillard's remark, and strolled out to the car. Everything about the school seemed to be in such perfect order, the graceful elms, the manicured lawns, the handsome buildings, all constructed with red brick that had aged beautifully, and the pristine white columns. The footpaths had been paved with the finest gray slate and did not contain a scrap of litter. Even the birds seemed to have been trained to fly away to deposit their leavings elsewhere. It was hard for me to imagine things getting out of hand in such a place.

All of the schools I had attended before had been hand-me-downs, used by the whites until they were falling apart, when they were ready to be abandoned to the Negro hordes. At least, I thought, I wouldn't have to worry about a leaky roof in my algebra class at Draper.

We were downstairs at the car, and my parents were preparing to leave. Dillard handed me a sheet of paper.

"I picked up your course assignments for you," he said. "You still need to get your books from the bookstore, which is behind the main building. I've gotta head over to the field for football practice. You sure you don't want to come?"

"I'm sure," I said. I knew I was fortunate to have a choice. Draper had awarded me a small academic scholarship, but most of my tuition was being paid by my parents, which meant that there was no expectation, when I arrived, that I would have to earn my keep by wearing the green and gold of the Draper Dragons.

Dillard said goodbye to my parents, shook their hands, and headed off to the football field.

"Seems like a nice young fellow," said my father in his blue serge suit, his hands clasped behind his back, surveying the campus again.

"Are you sure you packed that extra pair of pajamas I left out for you?" said my mother. I assured her I had. "What about underwear? Are you sure you've got enough underwear? What about your gloves? Remember, it gets cold up here." She was having trouble leaving, and it should not have surprised me, for I was the embodiment of her dreams, the life she had nurtured from her womb and then tended in the hoary, weed-choked garden of the South, until the decision was made to send me away to firmer, richer soil. Nevertheless, I was absolutely desperate for them to go. This was supposed to be
my
experience, and I wanted to have it on my own. I was too young to understand that it was also their
experience, indeed, their adventure, in a world they had dreamed about and read about but never inhabited. Now they were going to live in that world through me, but the price of the ticket was steep. When they returned home, my bedroom would be empty. At dinnertime, the table would only be set for two. And they would no longer have to transport me from place to place so that I wouldn't have to ride in the back of the bus.

We exchanged brief hugs and kisses, and both of them seemed to be fighting back tears as they climbed into the Roadmaster. I felt, at that moment, looking at them seated behind the windshield of the huge black sedan, that in the brief trip north, they had somehow aged; that without their realizing it, time had caught up with them and was passing them by, and now, having brought me as far as they could, they were about to return to the past. Dad turned over the big Buick engine and it rumbled to life. From the interior of the sedan, he looked at me standing alone at the edge of the driveway and gave me a big wink, which I pretended not to notice. With the edge of a handkerchief wrapped around her index finger, Mother dried the corners of her eyes and managed a faint smile and a wave. Dad eased the car forward, rolling it slowly down the driveway, until it reached the main road and disappeared.

The meeting with Mr. Spencer was intended to acquaint new boys with the basic rules of the school. It was held in the school auditorium and the entire freshman class was there, most of them in heavy woolen sport coats they were expected to grow into, baggy khaki pants, and ties that were much too long for young bodies that were still filling out. A few seemed to have been dressed by custom tailors, in Harris tweed jackets or navy blazers with gold buttons and gray wool trousers that fit perfectly. And everyone was wearing wide-eyed looks of fresh-scrubbed, pink-faced, beardless innocence that would disappear forever by the end of the school year. The rest of the audience was composed of new students like me, who looked older and were scattered around the room, dressed like the freshmen, in jackets and ties.

I took a seat near the back, to be as inconspicuous as possible. I still hadn't met any other new students, but I was content to be by myself. Most of the new students were gathered in seats near the stage, from which they would steal furtive looks in my direction until the meeting began.

"Is this seat taken?" someone asked. I looked up and saw a homely white boy in a tie and jacket looking down at me with dark, beady eyes and a wide, lopsided smile. His dark brown hair was thick and straight and slicked down, with a part on the side, but the most memorable feature of his face was his skin. It was pockmarked and oily, and inflamed with acne. Of course, he was not the only student in the auditorium, let alone the school, with skin trouble, but his was worse than anything I had ever seen anywhere, and in the limited environment of Draper, the eye of the casual observer was as likely to be drawn to that face, I assumed, as to the color of my own dark brown skin.

"Nope," I said, removing from the seat next to me the books I had just purchased in the bookstore.

"My name's Vinnie Mazzerelli," he said, extending his hand and shaking mine as he sat down. "Guess you're new here, too. What grade you in?" He was speaking to me in a whisper, his mouth shielded by the back of his hand, while onstage, Mr. Spencer welcomed everyone in a silken voice, reminding us how fortunate we were to have the privilege of a Draper education.

"Sophomore," I whispered back, with my eyes still focused on Mr. Spencer, who was standing behind a lectern with a complacent expression on his face.

"You are among the most intelligent, most gifted members of your generation. You come from the finest families and the finest traditions, and many of you will go on to positions of great leadership, to lead our industries, our banks, our armed forces, our government, while our job during your years here at Draper is
to prepare you to assume these positions of great influence, so that you are qualified, both intellectually and morally, to hold them." Spencer spoke to us with matter-of-fact candor, and as I listened, I felt the power of his message relaxing my concerns about being the only colored student in the school, about speaking differently and looking different from everyone else, about doing well and finding understanding at Draper. It seemed that I was being given access to virtually everything I would need in order to overcome the shortcomings of my youth and to find success in my adult life. All I needed to do was perform.

"Where you from?" whispered Vinnie. I was having a hard time dividing my attention between Spencer's exhortations and Vinnie's questions, but I felt I couldn't ignore Vinnie altogether.

"Virginia," I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, hoping my one-word answer might cause him to lose interest.

"No kidding!" he exclaimed softly. "My sister's down there now. She's a junior at Hollins." I greeted this news with silence and intensified my concentration on Mr. Spencer's remarks.

"Of course, with leadership comes responsibility, and an important element of responsibility is knowing the rules. So one of the first things I want you to do before the end of the day is to read the Draper School handbook. It contains all of the rules you will be expected to obey during your years at Draper." And without missing a beat, his tone shifted, from silken to imperious. "Read it and read it well." On the stage, the headmaster had removed a copy of the handbook from the inside pocket of his brown tweed jacket, and was holding it before him like a
hymnal, reading selected portions to the audience through half-moon spectacles perched on the tip of his long, aquiline nose. Everyone, even Vinnie, seemed to be listening.

"There are four offenses at Draper," intoned Mr. Spencer, "for which the punishment is immediate expulsion. They are: the use of tobacco, in any form; the use of alcohol; cheating; and the commission of any act recognized as a crime by the laws of the state of Connecticut." He cleared his throat, and concluded: "As I have said, gentlemen, a Draper education is a privilege and one that must be guarded with the utmost care. If you work hard and live within our rules, you will discover, upon your graduation, that the world will open up for you like an oyster. And the pearls of life will be yours for the taking. Good luck to each of you, and welcome to Draper." As the new boys filed out of the auditorium, Mr. Spencer stood alone on the stage, smiling at his new charges, none of whom, it seemed, bothered to smile back.

"You headed back to the dorm?" asked Vinnie as we left the auditorium.

"Yes," I said. "I want to get unpacked and look at my assignments. What about you?"

"I'm unpacked already, but I'll walk back with you," he said. "What floor are you on?"

"Third. What about you?"

"Second. One flight down. I've already met some of the guys. They seem pretty nice. What time is dinner served around this place?"

We were walking across the campus to the dormitory, as the late afternoon sun burnished the edges of the trees and the brick surfaces of the buildings with golden light. The brilliant green lawn surrounded us like the sea, filling the air with the fragrance of freshly mowed grass. It was as though I had been deposited at a resort or a country club, neither of which I had ever visited, to spend the next three years of my life. I was in awe of my good fortune. Oh, I knew there would be adjustments to make, both on my part and on the part of the school, but, as I made my leisurely way across the campus with Vinnie, I thought I could feel the past slipping away. I was shedding like an overcoat the image of myself with which I had been raised, of the good colored boy brought up in a proper colored home to serve the needs of the race during its sojourn in captivity, treading the narrow line separating them from us, with proper manners and diction and the refinements of general appearance (natural or self-imposed): proper skin color, hair texture, and dimensions of lips and nose Even the Church, into which I had been recently baptized, seemed to lose any claim on my thoughts. Like Joe Louis, I had escaped the harsh and final judgments of the South. I was free to become whoever I wanted to become. I had only to avoid his mistakes. My success would be my contribution to the race.

As Vinnie and I were about to enter the dormitory, the front door swung open, and a group of students emerged in dress shirts, open at the neck, and khakis, engaged in a noisy discussion.

"The Browns are gonna walk away with it."

"G'wan. Nobody's gonna beat the Giants. Conerly to Gifford. Can't be stopped."

"Anybody ever heard of the Colts?"

"Aw, you're just saying that 'cause your old man owns a piece of the team."

"So? Mara's father owns all of the Giants. Why do you think he's picking them?"

Everyone laughed, including me.

"You're new, aren't you?" said a large, freckle-faced boy with long red hair that looked as though it had just been combed into a wet pompadour. I had seen the style on the street at home on young white men wearing jeans and white T-shirts, sometimes with a pack of cigarettes rolled into one sleeve, revealing a blue tattoo. They were usually loud and up to no good. He looked at me with mischievous eyes and a roguish grin and said, "What's your name?"

"Garrett," I said. "Rob Garrett. What's yours?"

"Mike Sargent. But most people call me Carrot," he said, squinting through a miniature thicket of copper-colored eyelashes, and he proceeded to introduce the others in his group. They all had blue eyes and distant half-smiles that seemed to be intended more to please the headmaster than me. "Where're you from?" he asked. I told him. "That's a pretty part of the country down there. What made you want to come up here?"