Thomas reminded him that the coaches were in charge of picking the teams and keeping the players disciplined.
“I mean off the court,” said Greg. “After practice. On the dorm. You treat Staines like he’s some royal prince nobody can contradict.”
“Staines does plenty of stuff I can’t stand,” said Thomas. He was dodging the issue.
“You never tell him so,” said Greg. “You just go along.”
That was true. It had happened this afternoon. It happened all the time. A couple of days into the school year, Thomas and Greg had been playing a pickup basketball game with Staines and some of the other sophomores. After Greg had blocked one of his shots out of bounds, Staines had thrown the ball straight into Greg’s face. That had started a fight, which had broken up only when Coach McPhee, who lived in one of the gym apartments, had heard the ruckus and come in to break it up.
Thomas had stood by with the others and watched. He was embarrassed to remember.
“I’ve always been sympathetic with you over the way Staines acts,” Thomas said. Since the fight, Staines had behaved as though Greg were invisible. He wouldn’t make eye contact with him in the halls, wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t acknowledge him.
“Why don’t you show it once in a while?” said Greg. “Why don’t you tell him?”
Thomas was exasperated by the question; it was exactly what he had asked himself earlier in the day. Moreover, it was none of Greg’s business to be questioning how he got along with people at school. Thomas sure as hell had a lot more friends than Greg did. “Staines was here before you were,” he said. “We can’t just turn on an old boy because he starts a fight with a new boy. You handled him okay. You shouldn’t have let him run you off.”
“You think I’m afraid of him?” Greg asked.
“No,” said Thomas. It couldn’t be a matter of fear. Greg still played in pickup games every Saturday and Sunday. He could guard anybody, go anywhere, try any move. He probably could have played varsity if he’d wanted to. “I mean, you let him run you off from the team.”
“It wasn’t Staines,” said Greg. “It was everybody else on the team. All you other guys who defer to him.”
That lofty moral tone irritated Thomas. “That’s your opinion,” he said. “You’re the one to miss out.”
“Miss out on what?”
“Earning our respect,” said Thomas. That one would hurt. Not being respected was the worst thing Thomas could imagine. “We respect people who have a talent and aren’t afraid to use it.” That will get him, Thomas thought. But Greg just scoffed.
“How about people who stand up for their own principles?” he asked. “Do you guys have any respect for them?”
Thomas asked if Greg thought of himself as the Man of La Mancha.
But instead of getting mad, as Thomas had expected, Greg became calmer. “Let me spell it out for you in large print,” he said. “I don’t want to be known here for being good in sports. Everybody takes it for granted—I’m a good athlete because I’m black. I make a good catch or a good shot, they figure it’s because sports come naturally to me. That’s not respect. That’s spectating.”
Thomas had never heard anything like it. “Are you some crazy militant or something?” he said. “People admire good athletes. It’s hero-worship.” He pointed out the recent Olympics in Seoul: Carl Lewis, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Greg Louganis.
“You admire Carl Lewis because he trained so hard,” said Greg. “You see him setting a goal and then reaching it.”
“Exactly.” Thomas hated it when somebody stated his argument better than he could.
Greg said his own goal was to be a good actor. “Why should you and your friends decide otherwise?” he said. “Why do you keep tying me down to athletics?”
“Nobody’s tying you down.”
“No? Then why haven’t you ever congratulated me for getting cast as Othello? Why do you keep picking at me about basketball?”
Thomas started to respond but halted when Greg’s words registered. He could think of no good answer. He had never met somebody with a two-foot vertical jump for whom drama was more important than basketball.
All of a sudden the momentum had shifted. For the first time in his life, Thomas considered that perhaps talent alone was not enough for some people, that maybe being naturally skillful did not automatically make you naturally satisfied. “You’re gifted at sports,” he said finally. “You could make a name for yourself in sports.”
“There you go again,” said Greg. “Why do you keep suggesting that my only chance to make a name for myself comes through the athletic department?”
Thomas hesitated again. Was it true? Was he writing Greg off as a good athlete? As nothing but a good athlete?
“Okay, correction,” Thomas said. “Sports are not the only way you can be prominent around here. They’re just the most logical way. They’re the easiest for you.”
He thought that was a good response until Greg’s comeback: “So how can taking the easy way earn me anybody’s respect? How could I respect myself?”
Thomas realized with discomfort that he was getting his consciousness raised. It didn’t feel so great to have all your assumptions dismantled, but he had to consider Greg’s argument. You watch a pro athlete—black or white, it didn’t matter—make a great play, and you admire his skill, but you don’t actually respect him for it. You respect him for his dedication and his character and his reputation after the contest is over. Thomas had thought he was going to demolish verbally this arrogant roommate of his. Instead, he was getting taken to school. He had served up what he’d thought were killer points, and Greg had smashed every one back into his face.
“I guess ‘respect’ was the wrong word,” said Thomas.
“It’s exactly the right word for what I want,” said Greg. “But I need to earn my respect. The hard way. By succeeding in theater.”
It was time for one last attempt at self-defense. “Don’t you think it’s unusual for a good athlete not to play a sport?” said Thomas.
“Yes,” said Greg.
Thomas was encouraged. “So can’t you see how weird it is for you to ignore me when I ask you to go out for basketball?”
“No,” said Greg, “not when you ask me to play because there isn’t a single black guy on the team.”
He could remember saying that. And an hour ago, if somebody had asked him what was wrong with it, Thomas would not have been able to say. He had thought of it as a compliment, an appeal to racial pride based on the assumption that everybody knew black guys were the best basketball players. He’d never considered that being a good basketball player wasn’t necessarily every black person’s goal.
Oh, hell. It was like asking a guy to be club treasurer because he’s Jewish, or hiring somebody to be your cook because she’s female. It was the worst possible reason.
Thomas felt like a toilet seat.
“I never meant that to be a racist remark,” he said.
“What else could it be?” said Greg.
What else indeed.
“I apologize,” Thomas said. “I see your point.” He could see several points. “All this time I thought you were being moody. You’ve been as mad at me as I’ve been at you.”
Greg said he just wondered how Thomas had been so brainwashed by Robert Staines.
“I wasn’t brainwashed,” said Thomas. “I was just, I don’t know, unobservant.”
Greg said he had been wondering why Thomas had changed so much from last summer.
“That’s exactly what I was wondering about you,” said Thomas.
They sat and stared at each other for a moment. It was much less awkward than their previous silences.
“I guess I overreacted,” said Greg. “I mean, it’s not just because I’m black. I heard the varsity guys were putting a lot of pressure on Nathan Somerville to drop the play.”
Thomas could still recognize a gesture of friendship. “I’m sorry for being so stupid,” he
said.
“I’m sorry for being so silent,” said Greg. “I was interpreting everything you said in the worst possible way. I’m not a good mind reader.”
“How could you read something as narrow as my mind?” said Thomas.
The tension in the room had dissolved.
Thomas was impressed with his roommate’s ambition and abashed over his own failure to comprehend. “So you act because it’s a challenge,” he said. “Because it’s tougher for you than sports.”
“Yeah,” said Greg. “Only it’s not working out too well.” He confirmed that Coach Delaney, the varsity basketball coach, had been furious about the defection of Nathan Somerville from his team, that he had come over to rehearsal today and had yelled at Farnham for stealing good athletes.
“So that’s why Farnham was so crazy this afternoon,” Thomas said. He reported what he had seen in the scene shop. “I bet he was imagining Delaney’s head under that two-by-four.”
Greg was not finished. “After rehearsal,” he said, “Farnham called me aside and said to consider the choice between sports and theater carefully. Promised me he’d understand if I wanted to quit the play. I got the message.”
Thomas could guess the message but asked anyway.
“The message was that I wasn’t any good,” said Greg. “He was telling me that I couldn’t handle the part.”
Thomas had heard the same thing from Richard a few minutes ago. In the light of the desk lamp he could see Greg’s eyes wash into wetness.
“I can memorize the lines just fine,” said Greg. “It’s that I don’t understand them.”
Thomas said nobody could get Shakespeare without the footnotes.
“This is worse,” said Greg. He kept his voice very low. He said he had never read Shakespeare before in his life. “I read it and reread it, and I’m not sure what it says. What if I can’t ever catch on?”
Thomas said he could always do something else. Mr. Dickinson would step in if they needed a substitute.
Greg clenched his fist hard around the pen in his hand. “If I can’t understand Shakespeare, then what am I? What if I really am just a dumb, stupid black boy only good for catching balls for the white folks? I want to be more than that.” Thomas was dumbfounded. It was the first time in his life he had encountered firsthand such a passion to succeed. He tried to smooth matters over. “It would be just like me getting cut from a team,” he said.
“Not when the coach of the team is begging other people to try out,” said Greg. “They try to talk me out of my part, and they’re calling people like you in to audition. Everybody in this school wants me to play sports. I’m not doing it. If l can’t do Othello, I’ll go home.”
Thomas knew that he meant every word. He also knew that he did not want Greg to go home. Not now. Thomas felt protective.
“Is that what McPhee was doing in here? Recruiting you?”
Greg shook his head. “He was cool about it. He said stick to the play.”
Thomas knew what he would do in Greg’s position. He would quit the play and go out for basketball, where he would get a starting position and lots of acclaim among the students. But then what? Wouldn’t he always assume from then on that he couldn’t measure up intellectually, that Shakespeare and the rest of those guys in English literature were over his head? And was that fair? Mr. Warden was always raving at the dinner table about how talented Greg was. And Thomas knew from biology class that the guy was smart as hell. Coach McPhee had charted the course; Thomas would sail it.
“You can do it,” he said. He was not at all sure it was true.
“I don’t think so,” said Greg.
“It just takes getting used to the language,” said Thomas.
“I don’t have time to get used to the language.”
“I’ll help you,” said Thomas.
“What do you know about Shakespeare?”
“Are you kidding?” said Thomas. “All those nights at Arena Stage, all those summer festivals? I probably know more about Shakespeare than Farnham does.” A little exaggeration was acceptable.
“Why do you want to help me?” said Greg.
A good question. Maybe to appease his conscience. But maybe also because he admired Greg’s convictions. He wanted to see the guy make it.
“It’ll be a trade,” said Thomas. “I help you with Shakespeare, you show me how to shoot a left-handed hook.”
Greg did not answer at first. “I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like I ought to do it on my own.”
“You’ll be doing it on your own,” said Thomas. “If you think I’m putting shoe polish on my face and choking Mrs. Warden on that stage, you are one crazy roommate.”
Greg said nothing. But for the first time in what seemed like months, he laughed.
SCENE 12
Warden pulled his scarf closer to his face and walked through the cold to Fleming Hall. It was 8:30 P.M. The campus was quiet, all the boys in their rooms. His wife was at home in her room, in her bed, listening to music. His duty was to be with her.
And yet he had to get away. Seeing her so ill was stirring up dirty old sediment in the estuary of his mind. He groped to define his malady: Helplessness? Despair? Denial, anger, depression, bargaining?
Not acceptance. He would not accept the decline of his wife without a fight.
From the moment he had started to love Cynthia, he had been afraid of losing her.
He used to dream as an adolescent boy—and still did—that his face was flawless and that women were drawn to him for his looks. In high school he had never gone on a date. Girls were mysterious creatures who married Prince Charming, not boys with permanent acne, and it had been easy, here at an all-boys’ school, to get involved with sports and studies and writing for the literary magazine. His favorite play then was Cyrano de Bergerac. He had read it again and again and had cried at the end, had cried to think of the beautiful Roxane loving the man for his words and not for his looks. That was when he had started writing poetry.
Eventually, though, he had learned that girls—just like boys—did not always look merely at the face when they were sizing up a prospect. They also liked the body. His parents had always encouraged both him and Lawrence to play sports. He had loved football from the first time he’d played it at age eight, not only for the fun of hitting, but for the anonymity bestowed by the helmet; in uniform he looked like everyone else. In baseball he always played catcher, so that he could wear a mask. And when he enrolled at Montpelier in the ninth grade, he was delighted to discover wrestling, a sport where he could also wear a mask. Warden was not a great athlete, but he was a willing one. He completed his workouts the best he could and considered himself an average performer with below-average appearance. Hence, he had been astonished during his junior year at Montpelier to overhear some girls behind the backstop talking about what a good build he had. He had liked that and had never forgotten it. At mixers, too, he had learned that he could make girls laugh by saying funny things about the chaperones out on the dance floor, but that it was easier to be funny with a group of girls, because as soon as he was alone with just one girl, he found himself helplessly speechless, and that a girl alone with him would eventually invent a clumsy excuse to leave.
Sewanee had offered him the same environment as Montpelier, but the difference was the automobile and the freedom to purchase a pint of whiskey from the bootleggers down the road and to spend a Saturday evening in Chattanooga. In those days he had discovered women who would consort with him, who would gladly go for a date if he had a ten-dollar bill or even a drink to offer them. They would dance at the roadhouses and laugh and sit in the car on country roads for quick, satisfying trysts. But he rarely had seen the same woman twice, and he had needed a drink or two of bourbon before he could relax enough to talk.
In his senior year of college he had found his Roxane. Her name was Elizabeth, and she was beautiful and bright and attentive. She had come up as a blind date, the friend of the girlfriend of Warden’s
roommate. She went to Converse College in South Carolina, almost too far from the mountains of Tennessee, but Warden’s roommate had a car, and he was perfectly willing to drive across the mountain to visit the ladies at Converse. The four of them—Warden’s roommate, the roommate’s date, Warden himself, and Elizabeth—had become a regular set. Warden at last had understood what being in love meant. Elizabeth had been the woman with whom he had wanted to spend the rest of his life, and late in May, just before graduation, he had asked her to marry him. She had put off her answer. A week later, she had married his roommate.
He enjoyed telling the story now as a joke on himself. But it was a rueful joke. It had hurt at the time, and he had always assumed that the fault of losing her was his own.
Elizabeth was the last woman Warden had allowed himself to love until he met Cynthia. After Sewanee he had deliberately returned to Montpelier, to the monastic existence where he could be free of the distractions of women, but he had found women everywhere—other men’s wives, the nurses, the secretaries, beautiful women strolling along the sidewalks. He had kept himself in physical shape, had understood the benefits of exercise on the libido. At night he had dreams—delicious, tantalizing, excruciating fantasies of himself with all sorts and conditions of women.
Even after he and Cynthia were married, he experienced random moments of wonder that she could really be his wife—and stray moments of dread that, like his happiest dreams, this interlude of joy would end.
And now Cynthia was ill. It was his greatest fear come true. He had initially assumed that the thief would be a younger man with a handsome face, but over the past two years, Cynthia had nearly convinced him that such fears were silly, possessive, childish. He had taken to worrying over her being in an automobile accident whenever she commuted to Charlottesville to meet with the director of her dissertation. He had failed to consider sickness even last summer, when she had suffered the first of these brief episodes of blurred vision.
He wanted to protect her from whatever assault she faced.
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