by Kia Corthron
5
Basketballs: right hand, left hand, low, high, round the back. Fifty pubescent boys in gray tees and navy shorts scurrying. Drills may be tedious but are mercifully minus the anxiety of captains picking teams for a game, the prayer I not be the very last chosen. Still, PE’s an automatic A just for showing up, so I try not to take it too much to heart that when the teachers are screaming, it’s about fifty-fifty I’m the object of their vexation.
“Look alive, look alive!” Mr. Shane orders no one in particular.
Right after gym is lunch, which means something since Henry Lee come along. That first week we were getting to know each other, he beckoned me to follow him, through the locker room to the old rusted fire escape, no longer in use. He opened his green and yellow Karo syrup tin. Slices of frankfurter in beans with barbecue sauce! White cake with pink icing! Henry Lee ate his cake first. “Best thing about lunch in school is no mother around tellin you food before dessert.” While he has never shared his sweets, he’s always been generous with the regular food, barely touching it himself. Afterward he would take out his Luckies so we started calling the old fire escape The Old Smoke Escape. I am eagerly anticipating this ritual when bang! A heavy thud to the back of the noggin, shaking my brain around my skull. I’m on my knees and now see the seven other boys of my drill circle staring at me and grinning.
“Jenkins!”
“Sorry, Mr. Shane,” says Bruce Jenkins, “but I passed it to him, and I guess his head was somewheres else.”
Mr. Shane considers me momentarily, then shakes his head: hopeless cause. I have a headache. I pay very close attention now but the ball does not come, the smirking boys faking as if they’re passing it to me then tossing it to anyone but me. I catch on, but I know the moment I let on I’m aware, the ball will come, and violently, so I delight them by hopping every time I’m looked at, a puppet awaiting the pull of my strings.
Someone taps my shoulder from behind. I’m certain it’s a trick, and I keep my eyes in the circle. Then I hear, “The principal said to fetch you.” Such a serious missive I can’t ignore, turning to find a fully dressed kid from fifth or sixth handing me the note. Then I see the terror in his eyes and he ducks, protecting himself from the ball banging hard into the back of my head.
When I get to the outer office where the secretary’s desk is, Lucille Furman is already sitting there in her gym clothes so she also must’ve just been excused from PE. The girls’ gym is in the basement directly under the boys’. Lucille is smart and fat. She puts her hands on her substantial thighs, as if trying to conceal them. She’s probably one of the few people who dreads gym more than me.
“Come on in.” Mr. Westerly’s noncommittal smile.
I have never been in Mr. Westerly’s office before. Diplomas on the wall—college, graduate school. A photograph of him talking with three boys at a Bunsen burner from his high school biology teacher days. “You two may know that St. Mary’s competes in debate with other Catholic schools all over Alabama, and then regionally. Unfortunately our local public school system has no such competition.”
Mr. Westerly pauses here. Lucille and I stare.
“However. St. Mary’s has asked us if this year we would like to challenge them in a practice meet before they go on to their official contest with St. John’s, up near Birmingham. So! You are both outstanding students. I’d like you to represent our school as the debate team.”
Lucille and I look at each other. Never before had our names and “school team” been in the same sentence.
“If you’re interested, we’ll set up an empty classroom for you to prepare with each other. Mr. Hickory will be your coach. Some days he will be with you, other times you will have independent study on your own. By virtue of your high academic achievements, you’ve earned our trust. The meet will take place on Friday, February 20th, three weeks from tomorrow. And I see here you both happen to have PE at the same time. I’m thinking you can be excused for debate practice during that period. If you don’t mind?”
“I think you oughta do her,” says Henry Lee on The Old Smoke Escape between puffs.
“What?”
“He said some days they’ll leave you alone. All alone.”
“To practice debate. Sure, we’re really gonna make it when Mr. Hickory can just walk in any second!”
“Just suggestin. Opportunity. You definitely better be practicin the missionary though. Put her on top, one wrong move and you’re smithereens, I’d be readin your eulogy. ‘Obviously,’ I’d say, ‘he died satisfied.’” He attempts a smoke ring and chokes.
“I don’t think I’m gonna come here anymore.” I bite the boiled egg he gave me. He loves chicken salad so he’d asked his mother to pack two sandwiches, claiming to want seconds, and thus we each had our own meal. “I don’t wanna get caught.”
“You been comin here three weeks. How come, all the sudden?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re looking at me more closely now.”
“Oh yeah, the star debater.” He stubs out his cigarette and unwraps a stick of Wrigley’s in case a teacher were to get too close to his breath. Mr. Westerly said our meet might not be official to St. Mary’s, but far as he’s concerned if we win, he’s ordering two trophies from Gephart’s Athletic Gear and Footwear.
“Well,” says Henry Lee, chewing, who usually offers me a stick but today doesn’t, “no Old Smoke Escape, no lunch.”
“We could have lunch somewheres else.”
“No!” Once in a while Henry Lee’d do that, get loud, kind of squeal. I shut up and hope he follows suit, me all paranoid like the principal gonna bust in on us, spying, making sure I’m worthy. Henry Lee brushes crumbs down into the shaft. Pigeons flock to the feast.
After school I go straight home, not stopping by Henry Lee’s. My mother is thrilled by the news. She’s all for me going to college. Not anywheres in our budget but she’s thinking like I’m thinking, that being chosen for this debate thing’s on track toward my earning a scholarship. Few months ago she and my father got into it, him feeling like eighth grade was plenty for me, he could get me on at the mill full-time after that, and her refusing, insisting I graduate secondary. He thinks high school’s okay for Benja, for girls and their frivolous pursuits, just husband-shopping anyway.
Taking advantage of her rush of pride, I fib. “We’re gonna be practicing during lunchtime so I’ll need to start packing.”
It works without a hitch. I’d been feeling guilty about banking the daily six cents she’d been giving me for lunch so the falsehood actually eases my conscience. But then, though I don’t ask for it and even argue against it, she’s adamant on giving me the penny for milk, which in spite of my shame has to go directly to the Sopwith fund as I refuse ever to set foot in that blamed cafeteria again.
Monday Lucille and I sit in an empty English classroom.
Resolved, that the territory of Hawaii should be granted statehood.
Though we are both clear on the topic, she felt it didn’t hurt to write it on the blackboard. We knew nothing about the rules of debate until Friday, when Mr. Hickory from social studies spelled it out. We are given the topic in advance for rugged preparation. In some competitions teams must be ready to defend either side, but we have been assigned to specifically argue the affirmative. We sit several rows away from each other, though Lucille, closer to the front, has turned her desk around to face me for when we need to discuss. Thick volumes are opened before us. For the sake of the meet, extraordinary library privileges have been bestowed upon us: no limits on the number of materials, permission to check out reference books not usually available for circulation.
It’s assumed that Hawai‘i was originally settled by Polynesians around fifteen hundred years ago. British explorer James Cook was the first documented white man on the islands, in 1778. There was fighting among the chiefs, and King Kamehameha came out on top. By the t
ime Kamehameha III took the throne when he was nine, the missionaries had flooded in and a lot of Hawai‘i had gone Christian which the king was conflicted about. When unmarried Kamehameha V died childless, the next king was elected. So was the one after that supposed to be, except the election was disputed, leading to riots, and in come the U.S. and Brits to quell the unrest, and in 1887 the king is coerced to sign the Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i stripping away much of his regal authority and now only the wealthy could vote which was mostly white foreigners Lucille’s got cleavage.
Slumped over her books, writing intensely. The white lace on her pink blouse is delicate, her shirt is loose and some of the fabric falls forward her breasts, Lucille’s round soft breasts softballs, basketballs her eyes snap up! glowering. I quickly go back to 1893, the U.S. overthrow of the Republic of Hawai‘i.
“There’s this picture of the palace,” I say at supper. “The king used to live in it, when they used to spell ‘Hawai‘i’ with a backwards apostrophe, called an okina.”
“That a fact? It still there?” My mother so charmed about the whole thing. My father keeps his eyes on his pork and beans, pops the remaining half of a buttered biscuit into his mouth. Ma’ll be there, I think, I’ll look out in the debate audience, see her. Where will Pa be? Corner of my eye, I see B.J. scowling at me from across the table, undoubtedly related to my scarcity around here for weeks, only destined to get worse with the debate research.
“It became the capitol building of the Republic, and then of the Territory.” The water flying through the air. I’m sputtering.
“Boy!” My father stands, turning on him, furious.
“B.J.!” Then my mother hand-spells and speaks: “Bad boy! Bad boy!” She is not fast with her fingers, but even through my choking, I am impressed as she has obviously practiced. She pounds my back. The coughing spell over, I wipe my drenched face. B.J. emptied his whole goddamn glass on me! Benja making sure I see the laughter in her eyes while hiding it from Ma and Pa. B.J. starts crying and I wanna slug him. I should be crying!
“She’s already had it anyway,” says Henry Lee, gazing at his trains Friday night. “She could give you lessons.”
I stare at him. “Lucille?”
“Yepper.” He places his automobiles in position. Henry Lee has decided to double his casualties by having two cars at once getting stuck on the railroad tracks, crossing from opposite directions.
“You don’t know anything about Lucille.”
“I know she gets it from her father. You been peekin down her shirt?” In Train World a man I’ve never seen before walks a terrier. There’s a new fruit stand, a happy man with a thick mustache tending it, two women carrying full bags of groceries. Does Henry Lee get new toys every single day of the year?
“That’s Alice May Turner, not at all to be confused with Lucille Furman.” Alice May the class slut whose dad had her first. Everyone made fun but I felt bad for her. She didn’t come back to school this year, left town to have a baby according to the grapevine.
“Both of em.”
“How do you know?”
“Everyone knows. Okay, that car’s Jack feelin up Millie, and this other one just gets stalled. Jack’s like, ‘What gives?’ Millie: ‘What are you, a Peepin Tom?’ She yells this to the other car, this other couple.” Henry Lee thinks hard about the casting of this new pair. Lightbulb. “Earl Mattingly and Margaret Laherty!”
“What!”
“Usually this is their spot, so they’re surprised to see Millie and Jack who approached from south side a the tracks.”
“Whaddya mean, ‘their spot,’ I thought you said the car stalled!”
“Yeah, but that’s not very realistic. ‘We’re not the Peepin Toms,’ Earl Mattingly says. ‘You are!’ Then the guys get out. Jack throws the first punch, sendin Earl fallin against his car, nose spewin blood. The girls are screamin! ‘Oh Earl! Oh Earl!’ ” Henry Lee’s penchant for giving his people stupid voices seems to have run amok with his newest creations. “Uh-oh.” Henry Lee starts the train in the distance. “Unbeknownst to them—”
“Stop it.”
“You son of a bitch,” which is Earl, followed by a weird cacophony Henry Lee rather impressively creates with the boys fighting and the girls screaming.
“STOP IT!” I turn the train off, only aware afterward that this is the first time I’ve touched the control button because Henry Lee has never invited me to.
“Who toldju to touch my train?” That squeal again.
“Not real people.”
“That was gonna be a perfect crash!”
“Not real people.”
Henry Lee stares at the couples, his face pouty. “Okay, not real people. After I finish this out, no more real people.”
“Not finishing it out.”
“I gotta finish what I started!”
“Then I’m going home.” I walk over to get my books.
“Okay, I won’t crash em!”
I stare at him from a distance. “She’s not. With him.” He looks up. “She’s not doing it with anybody.”
“Margaret Laherty.” Sneering. “And you get your great knowledge from?”
“I just know.”
“You like her.”
“No!”
“Good, cuz I think she prefers boys won’t strain her neck to look down on during the slow dances.”
“She’s not even two inches taller!”
“Her and Earl Mattingly ain’t no fiction. Slippin the tongue, I seen em back of the football field last—”
“So what? I don’t like her!”
Henry Lee is pulling the red truck out of the fire station. “Oh boy, what a tragedy. The fire is raging. The fire truck gets stuck at the railroad crossing, quick decision: Do they let all the people die in the burning building, or do they take the chance of beating the train and saving all the people? Oh boy!” He starts setting it up.
I want to leave. But leaving he knows he got to me. So I sit through a few more heartbreaking disasters, then tell him I need to go home, get some Hawai‘i reading in. He waves bye without looking up. When I get to the top of the stairs, I’m surprised to see a folded piece of paper with my name on the seat of a corner chair.
25¢ for 2 Cities til Mon after school?
Concealed under the message are five nickels.
“Roger stopped by quick on his way to work, left that note for you.” Sally entering, going straight to the sink and opening the doors underneath.
“Thank you.”
“Remember to close the basement door behind you so the cold don’t escape up here.” She takes out floor cleaner and goes back into the other rooms.
I pocket the coins, flip the paper over and write “Roger,” then place it on the chair seat atop my copy of A Tale of Two Cities. I go to the basement door to shut it, and glancing down I see Henry Lee has set up the two cars on the crossing again, the approaching train now too close for me to stop it. “‘I love you Margaret!’ and then ‘I love you, Earl!’ ” in Henry Lee’s girliest voice, and those are Margaret Laherty’s tragic last words.
6
In the living room, my father in his soft chair reads the paper while I look over my debate notes. 1898: America appropriates the islands of Hawaii (it was suggested by Mr. Hickory that I lose the backwards apostrophe), and same year in the Spanish–American we win Puerto Rico in the Atlantic and coulda also gained Cuba except we didn’t want their debt (so mainly just started keeping a naval base there on Guantanamo Bay). Then in the Pacific America scores Guam and the Philippines, collecting all these archipelagoes sharing a sea with Japan, well we’d already been knocking on Japan’s door, trying to make some annexation headway since the middle of the nineteenth, but Japan didn’t seem like any intention of budging—
“Set em up, boy.”
I drop my notes and run to
get the board. It’s Saturday afternoon. School can wait.
“I’m a chess man in a checkers town.” He’s said it before. Chess is one of the few activities where my father and I find common ground. Certainly not athletic pursuits, where he excelled throughout high school (despite his grumblings that they were four wasted years when he could have been pulling a paycheck) while I find all manner of balls suspicious. Certainly not hunting, something he hasn’t done in years, but in the days he did he must have intuited it would only highlight in his son some new embarrassment for him, and thus he never asked me to come along.
“When I was your age”—I was eight at the time—“I seen somethin bout some foreign chess championship in the paper. Asked an asked, nobody knew nothin bout the game. Roun that time Prayer Ridge just built the public library, I went to see what was what an lo an behold. Checked out the book, took a piece a paper an cut out my own pawns an rooks an bishops, put em on a checkerboard an taught myself. Played against myself, which is a good way to learn. My challenger exactly good as I was, an the better I got, so did he.” Then he gave me my first lesson.
He’s been patient over the years, working me up to worthy. Barely a word passing between us. “Chess is a thinkin game, not a talkin one.” Beyond our very first two bouts where he let me win to build up my confidence and encourage me to keep playing him, I have never succeeded in landing a victory. Now I make a nice L with my knight, and a millisecond after I remove my fingers he slant-slides his bishop right to that square, click, snatching my warrior up.