Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game

by Juliette Akinyi Ochieng

  stuff rolling around in his brain or he’ll go crazy,” she had warned. When Elijah had seen how much his son had enjoyed football and how good he was at it, he had sighed. His other sons had been just as promising in that area.

  So, Malik spent his young life playing at being the homeboy and being the scholar under cover. He had grown to his adult height, six feet three inches, by the time he was sixteen, and had his mother’s caramel-colored skin, and her sunny disposition (the one she’d had before Alex’s death). He had his father’s straight back and his white, even-toothed smile, and his own wicked sense of humor. As a result, he was universally popular wherever he went. The reputations of his brothers, and later, his own athletic reputation, kept him from being hassled by the gangs. His athleticism also protected him against the syndrome that so many intelligent black children suffer from in their elementary and secondary school years: being stigmatized for “wanting to be white.”

  Girls, of course, adored him and he liked them right back. He’d had several dates with the prettiest and most popular of his female classmates by the time he finished high school and he wasn’t a virgin, but, oddly enough, he had never had a steady girlfriend. He had wondered at this,

  but Elijah hadn’t. He knew that if his son kept looking for female companionship among the cheerleaders and the homecoming queens of the world, Malik was unlikely to find a girl that he could stand talking to for more than a few minutes.

  And on this day, Malik had learned that lesson yet again.

  Unlike many black people, Malik was very conservative politically. He hated the concept of affirmative action. It made him feel as though white people were giving him a handout because he was genetically too stupid to earn a place in a college or at a job on his own. (Not many people knew that Malik was at New Mexico University on an academic scholarship rather than an athletic one.)

  He knew that his brothers and his sister were just as smart as he was, but hadn’t succeeded in life because of their own choices, rather than being held back by some phantom white man. Nobody had forced Randall to become an addict. Nobody had forced Alex to become a gang-banger. And even though his sister, Regina, was respectably employed by the Army, Malik knew that she had so much more potential than she was probably using, as the enlisted woman that she was. Choices were the key to success, Malik believed. Oh, he had no illusions that there were still quite a few white racists out there. He had run into enough of them as a teenager in Detroit, and right here in the “Land of Enchantment,” but he’d be damned if he’d let them have any power over him. He’d be damned if he let them be right in saying that blacks were inferior. He’d be damned if he let their “prophecy” come true: that he’d end up in jail, have a bunch of illegitimate babies by a bunch of women, be an addict, be a gang­banger, or be a drain on society. He wondered why so many of his peers didn’t understand that when they made these types of choices, that they were playing right into the hands of the racists. In this year, his first being of age to vote in a presidential election, he planned to cast his vote for the incumbent; a Republican.

  In his World History course, Malik was the star, as in nearly every other subject he had taken. In high school, he had been fascinated by the causes of World Wars One and Two and morbidly fascinated by the Third Reich.

  Additionally, he was fascinated by the Cold War--which appeared to be at an end--the Soviet Union, and had done as much reading as a graduate student on the subjects. He was riveted by the Warsaw Pact’s disintegration right before his eyes.

  However, his brilliant, but still teenaged mind, found it difficult to grasp how a people could set out to purposely and so efficiently wipe out another group of people. Hitler and Stalin had deliberately gassed, shot, and starved their own countrymen and those of other countries, simply to reduce the numbers of any who might oppose their efforts to gain and retain power. The two had brainwashed their people; set up a particular group as an “enemy,” used seemingly plausible means to prove that a chosen group was the enemy, and then destroyed that group. It was brilliant, Malik had to admit--horrifying and disgusting, but brilliant. And their hoodwinked countrymen had just let it happen!

  Malik had long ago vowed that he would visit Germany and Russia someday to find out if they were somehow different from the rest of humanity. Though his brother had been murdered, evil hadn’t yet bared its face enough to him for his keen intellect to discern, identify, and study it. He was nineteen years old.

  In spite of Malik’s patently broad knowledge base and critical thinking skills, there were always those who thought that brains, athletic talent, and brown skin could not possibly come in the same package and one of them had picked this day to test him. He should have been

  beyond getting angry. It always happened eventually whenever he took a class any more mentally taxing than typing. Yet, each time, he could feel his face burn with the desire to put his knuckles into a smug, usually white, usually male face.

  Oh they’d just love that. The nigger shows his true colors. We always knew he’d revert to type. They all do eventually.

  But on this day, the face was that of a girl. And, this time, it was the only other black face in the class; that of a girl named Ayesha. Ayesha was one of the Tigers’ cheerleaders. Malik knew her on a casual basis and they had talked a little bit, flirted, and laughed. But, he had stopped speaking to her because he had overheard a conversation of hers. She had said to another girl that Malik was a just another white girl-loving, race traitor, and that the only thing he could do for her was spend his money on her.

  Ayesha was usually fairly quiet during a lecture, only occasionally asking a question, just for clarification’s sake. On this day, however, she felt it necessary to contradict Malik’s points at every turn.

  The professor had been expounding on the events that had recently occurred with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new independence of the former Soviet satellite states and the reunification of Germany. He asked the students why they thought Soviet empire had collapsed and why the U.S. and its allies had apparently won the Cold War. Malik raised his hand. “It seems to me that the Soviet Union was bankrupted by the arms race between itself and us,” Malik began.

  Ayesha, without raising her hand, interrupted him. “Who is ‘us’?” Her voice was sardonic and knowing.

  Malik glanced at her. “The United States, of course,” he answered mildly.

  “I’m not a part of that!” Ayesha shot back. “I didn’t try to bankrupt the Soviet Union. The United States government purposely set out to destroy another country. They never asked for my vote when they did this!”

  Great...a live one, Malik thought. “My parents are tax­payers and voters. They paid for the arms race with their sweat. They and I are a part of this country. However, if you don’t want to be a part of this country, that’s up to you. From now on, when I use the first person plural pronouns ‘we’ and ‘us,’ I’ll make sure that I add except for Miss

  Watson. By the way, Miss Watson, do your parents pay taxes?” Malik couldn’t help taking a shot at her. He had heard that Ayesha’s mother was a single welfare recipient.

  “You Uncle Toms are all...”

  “Miss Watson, that’s enough. You’re out of line with the name-calling. Mr. Hayes has the floor.”

  Well, it took you long enough to step in. Malik knew that this professor had the same political leanings that Ayesha did. He was just more polite about it.

  “Thank you, sir.” Malik continued on his subject, seeming not to be perturbed, but inside, he was boiling. If anyone, anyone, threw down the intellectual gauntlet in front of him, he never hesitated to pick it up. But why did it have to be somebody black this time? He especially hated having to put a black person in his/her place, but he would stand up to any challenge set before him.

  That it had been a black woman, especially set Malik’s teeth on edge. When Malik was on the attack, he was ruthless. On the football field, he could deliver a surprisingly vicious block, belyi
ng his relatively slim build. On the intellectual field, he was equally as vicious, but unlike when on the football field, he would feel guilty when he made a particularly malevolent stab at another. Having made that

  crack about Ayesha’s mother filled him with remorse and put him in an even worse mood. But, she was asking for it.

  Since he had come to NMU, three years ago, most of his dates had been white. Initially, he was fascinated by white girls, the straight blond hair, the different smell, the free and easy manner. But that euphoria had faded. Now he knew that most of them were fascinated by him for similar reasons. They didn’t care that he was a three-year senior, didn’t care that he loved math. They didn’t care that he was funny, or liked old jazz, or about anything like that. They cared about finding out one thing: whether it was true what they said about black men. Malik was a young man and wasn’t above getting a little bit if the bait was appealing enough, but for the most part, he was disgusted by the ones who wanted a sample of the dark meat. And many were so obvious about it, that it caused his fertile imagination to take over: he was up on an auction block, being inspected for purchase as a stud.

  He knew that a lot of black guys at NMU wouldn’t be caught dead with a black girl (not that there were that many to chose from). They were entranced by white girls for the

  same reasons he had been. Like him, they’d come from all-black environments and had never been near the types of girls that were at NMU. Now, such girls were throwing themselves at them.

  Malik also knew that most of these black guys also enjoyed the murderous looks they got from white guys when they sported the blondest and the prettiest of white girls on their arms.

  Malik found this incredibly stupid. Why hang out with someone just to annoy somebody else? Is that going to make you some money? Probably lose you some money, when you marry that girl, find out that she’s just trying to get back at white people too, doesn’t really care about you, divorces you and takes half your shit.

  That initial white girl craze had had an unintended side effect on his life: most black girls on the campus hated him. They hated the other black athletes, too, but unlike them, Malik actually cared. He was his usual self with black girls, the friendly extrovert; the comedian. But most gave him a wide berth, lumping him in with the rest of the arrogant athletes. He wasn’t surprised at Ayesha’s summary judgment of him, but it had hurt him. He had liked her in the beginning and had hoped she’d give him a chance. No such luck, he sighed as he walked into the Quad. And via the

  classroom incident, he had put a nail in that coffin.

  As he walked in, he eyed the lounge chairs. Their high backs prevented a passer-by from seeing who was sitting in them and they appeared to be empty, so Malik decided he would sit down for a couple of minutes and attempt to cool off. As he rounded the corner of one of the seats, he saw that it wasn’t empty. Amanda Bain sat there in tears.

  Malik’s first instinct was to get back around the chair and be on his way before she saw him, but his better nature won out. Shoot, the girl is crying. Maybe her mother died or something.

  “Mandy?”

  Mandy looked up at him and began to quickly compose herself. “Oh, hi, Malik.” The two were silent for a few seconds.

  “Um, is there something wrong? Do you...is there something I can help you with?”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Well, if you’re crying about it, it must be a big deal, at least to you.”

  Mandy looked at him. She had disliked Malik on sight, having met him through Kevin the year before. And

  the feeling had seemed to be mutual. Oh, he was always polite and always spoke. He had never treated her the way many of Kevin’s black teammates did: eyeing her as a potential bedmate. But whenever she walked up to Kevin, he would beat a hasty retreat most of the time and when he did choose to stay around, he would look at her with something she was unaccustomed to seeing in men’s eyes: scorn. He treated her as if she were beneath him. What an asshole, she remembered thinking.

  Now, here he was, no condescension this time. He seemed to be genuinely concerned. Should she tell him about her and Kevin and that girl? What would Kevin think about her confiding in his best friend? To hell with it.

  “Well, Malik, if you must know, I got my heart broke.”

  Broken, said the English stickler inside Malik’s head. He shushed it.

  ”Well, that always sucks. Anybody I know?”

  Mandy made a face at him. “Yes, you know him. Kevin, of course. He found somebody else--that tall, black girl. Pretty, I guess, if you like that kind of thing.”

  Malik’s eyes widened in recognition.

  “Oh.” He paused for a second. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? Why would you be sorry about me getting hurt?” Her voice was sardonic.

  Malik sat down next to her. “Hey, Mandy, I know you and I have never gotten along, but you’re hurt. I’ve never wished anything like that on you.”

  Mandy sniffed and pushed her hair out of her face. “Malik, I’m sorry. I don’t have any right to take my bad mood out on you. And, to be honest, I don’t have a right to be heart-broken about this Kevin thing. We were just friends.”

  “But you were hoping it would be something more.”

  “You got it. That’s how I thought it was supposed to happen. You become friends with a guy and then you get together.”

  “‘The best laid plans of mice and men...’”

  “‘...sometimes go astray.’ You read Hemingway?”

  “Him and Steinbeck--that’s where the quote originally came from,” said Malik as his voice trailed off bashfully.

  Mandy laughed. “No wonder you’re so arrogant and obnoxious--star athlete and a scholar to boot.”

  “Is that why you act so funny around me? You think I’m obnoxious? I thought it was because you thought you

  were too high and mighty to associate with us lowly black boys.”

  She looked him in the eyes.

  “Malik, give me a break. Sometimes people will dislike you just because you’re you.”

  “Oh, so you mean that you were judging me by the content of my character. Thank you!”

  They both laughed.

  “I always thought you were kind of loud and obnoxious yourself,” Malik teased.

  “I am. That’s why disliked you so much. We’re too much alike. I think that’s also why Kevin picked that girl over me. I have a tendency to speak my mind a little too much.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with speaking your mind. Personally, I like girls who say what’s on their mind. But, everyone might not have that preference,” said Malik gently.

  Mandy shrugged. “Obviously not.” She looked at him. “When you came over here, you didn’t look like you were in the best of moods either.”

  “Definitely not.” He told her an abridged version of what had happened in class.

  “Sound like this girl is intimidated by you. You are a little intimidating.”

  “You’re intimidated by me?”

  “Yes, I guess I was. I guess you’re not so bad after all. You did make me laugh on one of the crappiest days of my life.” She smiled at him.

  “Happy to be of service,” he said, reddening slightly.

  “You know what? Suddenly, I’m starving.”

  “Are you asking me to have lunch with you?” he grinned.

  “Well, if you’re not ashamed to be seen with someone as loud and obnoxious as me.”

  “Lead on. If you get too loud, I’ve got a gag in my pocket.”

  “You can try using it, but you’ll have a hard time catching a ball with your arm broke...broken.”

  Malik laughed delightedly. The two got up and headed for the Quad’s cafeteria.

  Tale of the Tigers

  Chapter Eight

  In three months, Felice’s world had been changed and herself along with it. A new feeling, a sense of something, was a part of that world. She hadn’t had much experience with the feeling,
but she recognized it immediately: happiness. The recognition of happiness underscored its previous absence in her life.

  Surely, her new-found happiness had a great deal to do with Kevin, but there was more to it than just his presence in her life. She finally liked who she was, not just because Kevin loved her, but because she loved herself and was proud of herself. Her grades were bound to be high.

  Why? Because she had put in the time and effort to make them that way. Her relationship with her parents was good. Why? Because she obeyed them and had stopped lying to them. She and her parents actually talked to each other instead of them talking and her listening, or not listening in sullen silence.

  Then, on the other hand, Kevin had played a major role in her life. The feminists had been wrong about the value of a man in the quality of a woman’s life. Evil men, like the Taus, could ruin a woman’s life--but only if woman allowed it, as she had. Conversely, good men, like her father and Kevin, could up the quality of life to very high levels.

  She started thinking about the girls she knew who didn’t have any men in their lives and Adrienne immediately popped up in her mind. Adrienne was tough, powerful, head-strong, and opinionated, but Felice wondered how much of that part of her was just her and how much of it was from necessity. Felice had always had her father, her uncles, her male cousins--and now Kevin--around to protect her. And though she had chaffed under her father’s occasional over-protectiveness, she was secretly pleased by it, and knew that it was a demonstration of his love for her. On top of that, she

  had only to recall her involvement with the Taus to understand why her father was the man he was.

  Who did Adrienne have to do that, Felice asked herself. No one. So, she and Laura had to protect themselves. And they did an admirable job of it too, and being six-footers hadn’t hurt, either. She herself had been the beneficiary of Adrienne’s tough, powerful persona.