New Boy

by Julian Houston

  Gordie walked over to me and whispered nervously, "What do you think? Maybe we should just leave." I wanted to leave, but I was still smarting from Tyrone's insult, and I was convinced it was Tyrone who had spoken. I wanted to see him face-to-face, to confront him and get an explanation, but it was obvious that I needed the minister's cooperation.

  "The only reason we came over here, Minister Malcolm, is because the man insulted me," I said. "We're not looking for trouble, but I don't like somebody calling me something I'm not, and I have a feeling you wouldn't like it either." He gave me a wry smile, as though I had struck a chord somewhere inside him, and then he walked around the car to the driver's door and opened it. The driver was still seated inside, staring straight ahead.

  "If you wasn't black, young brother, I wouldn't be doing this," said Minister Malcolm, and he told the driver to get out of the car. We were half a block away from Jinxie's, so the light wasn't perfect, but as soon as the driver got out, I knew it was Tyrone. At first I could only see his back, as he and Minister Malcolm were quietly talking back and forth, but the height was right and the neck and shoulders were broad enough and he was dark enough, and then, slowly, he turned around to face us over the hood of the sedan, and there was no question it was he. It was like being in a cop movie, when the cops show the suspect to the victim for the first time.

  "Tyrone?" shouted Gordie immediately. "Why didn't you come out? I was standing right here next to the car. You must have known it was me. We just wanted to talk to you. I just wanted to get a ride home." Tyrone stared straight ahead, his face a mask of cool indifference, as though Burns wasn't even there. Gordie was shaken by Tyrone's refusal to recognize him.

  "Tyrone?" called Gordie across the hood of the sedan, as though the chauffeur had not heard him the first time. But Tyrone remained impassive. "Can't you at least look at me?" said Gordie. He was pleading, as he would to a friend, but Tyrone continued to stare blankly ahead. It was apparent that in Tyrone's mind, at least in this setting, Burns had ceased to exist. He had become invisible, like a magician's assistant at the circus, and Gordie seemed stunned by his inability to get Tyrone to look at him. "What the hell is happening?" he cried. He was becoming agitated, as though he had been somehow betrayed. I saw a smile briefly flicker across Tyrone's face, a cruel smile, like the ones the boys at Draper flashed when Vinnie and I were standing outside the dormitory. The bystanders on the sidewalk were becoming loud and their number was beginning to grow.

  "What's goin' on, anyway?" said a bedraggled old colored man in a worn, smelly overcoat. He was using a cane, walking all around, asking others in the audience the same question.

  "Nothin', old man," said one of the minister's men, fiercely. "It ain't nothing

  "Look like somethin' to me," said a middle-aged Negro woman in a sweater and a housedress. "Why is that white boy upset like that? What did them Black Muslims do to him?"

  "Who is that fellow standing over there with Minister Malcolm?" said one voice.

  "Anybody call the cops?" said another.

  I couldn't be silent any longer. "What you got against me, man?" I yelled at Tyrone across the sedan. He gave me a baleful stare. His eyes had become slits. "I never did anything to you. You don't even know me. So how come you want to call me out of the race, telling the man I want to be a white boy? I don't want to be nothin' but myself, nigger," and as soon as I uttered the word, I could see his face light up like the sign at Jinxie's. Minister Malcolm was leaning into him, holding the lapels of his suit coat to restrain him, murmuring softly to him, but Tyrone was built like an ox and Minister Malcolm, though tall, was lean. I could see them struggling on the other side of the sedan, and the bystanders in the audience were beginning to cheer.

  "Get in the car," ordered Minister Malcolm as Tyrone broke away, trying to feint around him and get to the other side of the sedan. "That's an order," said Minister Malcolm emphatically. "Get in the car." But Tyrone was in no mood to obey. He looked at me across the sedan with a malevolent frown. "How you sound, motherfucker, callin' me a nigger! You Jew-lovin' dog. You must be a Jew yourself," and he threw himself on the hood of the sedan to try to scramble across and reach me. I froze with fear.

  "Grab him," Minister Malcolm shouted to his men, "and put him in the car," and they swooped down on Tyrone, who was by now spread-eagle on the hood of the sedan, and hustled him into the back seat of the car. Two men climbed in the back on each side of Tyrone and slammed the doors. Minister Malcolm took the wheel and they sped off rapidly into the night, followed by a second car carrying the others.

  Gordie was slumped against a light pole, quietly sobbing. Most of the crowd had disappeared, but a few people walked over to him, examining him with curiosity, as he had examined Minister Malcolm's men earlier.

  "What he do to you?" said an older colored woman with gray hair. Gordie just shook his head and looked away, wiping his tears with his bare hand. "Musta done somethin' terrible to get you all upset like this," she said, patting him on his shoulder. "Don't worry, son. The Bible say, 'Weeping may endureth for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.'"

  It was after midnight. I knew I was late returning to Cousin Gwen's, but I couldn't leave Gordie in that condition. "Come on," I said. "Let's go for a walk," and I took him by the arm and led him down Seventh Avenue. We were both still trembling. Even at that hour, there were people sitting on stoops and on the fenders of parked cars, and they silently watched us as we made our way down the street. "You gonna be all right?" I said.

  Gordie nodded. "I'll be all right," he said, but I could see he was still shaken. After a couple of blocks, he seemed to loosen up. He took out a cigarette and lit it, and his face was illuminated in the Harlem darkness. In that moment he looked like an old man, as though the incident with Tyrone had suddenly aged him.

  "Let's go back," I said, and we turned around and headed toward Jinxie's. Gordie seemed much calmer after lighting the cigarette, so I decided to have one myself. "Let me try one of those," I said, and he handed me the pack and the lighter without a word. We stood on the sidewalk and I took a cigarette and placed it between my lips, letting it droop slightly, the way I had seen the detectives do it in the movies, but as I tried to click the lighter, the cigarette drooped so much that it fell from my lips onto the sidewalk before I could get the lighter to work. Gordie laughed and I laughed and it was good, because we both realized that despite what had just happened, life would go on. I quickly bent over to pick up the cigarette and put it back in my mouth, while Burns expertly clicked the lighter and produced a flame.

  "Just stick it in the flame and take a puff," he said, and I followed his instructions, or at least I thought I did. With the cigarette in my mouth, I held the tip against the flame until it started to glow bright orange and I inhaled deeply, so deeply that my lungs filled with smoke and I choked. I was seized with a coughing spell that bent me in half for several minutes. Gordie was laughing uncontrollably. "I said take a puff," he said. "That's all you need. You're not supposed to smoke the whole thing at once," and he whacked me on my back a couple of times to help me stop coughing. Eventually I came out of it, although my lungs continued to burn. I decided to give it a final try. I was still holding the lighted cigarette between my fingers and I brought it up to my lips and took a small puff, so small that I could barely see the smoke leave my mouth when I exhaled, but it was a start. We headed back up the street, and despite the incident with Tyrone and the irritation in my lungs, I felt almost jaunty as I took my first real puffs from a cigarette and blew out the smoke.

  When we reached Jinxie's, there were several taxicabs double-parked in rows. People were still leaving and entering the club and you could hear Hawk flying high inside every time the door opened. It was nearly one o'clock and I knew my parents would be ready to call the police. I said goodbye to Gordie, who seemed to have recovered from the initial shock of the encounter with Tyrone. Gordie said goodbye and climbed into one of the waiting cabs, which made a U-turn and disa
ppeared down Seventh Avenue, and I climbed into another.

  "Four oh nine Edgecombe," I said, settling back in my seat. I was two hours late.

  Chapter Eleven

  "Well, how was your evening?" said my mother, who was standing in Cousin Gwen's doorway when I arrived. Her voice was as frosty as a cold root beer, but I acted as though there was nothing out of the ordinary, and I strolled into the apartment with my hands in my pockets to disguise my lingering nervousness. Without saying anything else, she closed the door and followed me into the apartment. My father was sitting in the living room reading a newspaper, but Cousin Gwen was nowhere to be seen, and the door to her bedroom was closed.

  "You're over two hours late," said my mother in a voice that cut through the air like a razor blade. She was standing in the living room with her hands on her hips, and she seemed to be close to tears. "Why didn't you call? You're in a strange city. Did you ever stop to think we'd be worried about you? And what have you been doing anyway? You smell like you've been smoking cigarettes."

  Dad put down his paper and gave Mom a quick look of disapproval. "Clarissa, Clarissa. It's all right. He's back now and he's fine. You've made your point. Now let it rest." He ruffled his newspaper for emphasis and then looked at me. "How was it, son?" he said. And deep inside I had the feeling that he knew everything, that he knew the story about dinner with the Burns family had been a fabrication, that he knew I had been out on the town and he was trying to give me cover, and I even thought that at some point I might like to tell him what the evening was like. But I decided to think it over first.

  "I had a good time," I said. "His folks were nice. Big apartment they have," and I pretended to yawn. "I'm tired. I think I'll turn in." I just wanted to be by myself. I didn't want to answer any more questions about my evening or the Burns family or what I had for dinner, even though I knew they were probably dying to hear about all of it. "See you in the morning," I said.

  I went into Cousin Gwen's study and closed the door without bothering to turn on the light, and I lay on my back on the day bed. I could see moonlight framing the study window and the dark sky and the glimmer of a few stars in the distance. My body was still trembling imperceptibly from the confrontation with Tyrone. As I lay there, I repeated his poisonous words out loud: "so-called Negro," "Jew-lover," words that had never been spoken to me before. My ears rang when I said them. I couldn't imagine why he would say such things about me, since he didn't know me. Maybe he thought the only way for a colored boy to succeed in the white world was to become an athlete, and when I told him I wasn't playing sports, he must have thought I was weak, "trying to be white." A lot of Negroes have disdain for studying and prefer to cast their lot with sports, but I couldn't figure out what this had to do with Burns. Why had Tyrone been so cold, so indifferent toward him? I remembered Tyrone's smile from the other side of the sedan, as though he was enjoying the sight of Burns breaking down. Was it because Gordie had stumbled upon Tyrone's secret, his affiliation with Minister Malcolm and the Black Muslims? That must have been it, I thought. Tyrone's secret had been revealed. His mask had been removed and his facade was no longer necessary. And once it had been cast aside, Tyrone was free to declare himself which he did in his angry words to me, words that were probably meant as much for Gordie's ears as for mine. I doubted if Gordie really knew much about Tyrone, although Tyrone had worked for his family for years. I was sure he didn't know that Tyrone was a Black Muslim or a chauffeur for Malcolm X. But he knew Tyrone well enough to expect him to help tonight, and he fell apart when Tyrone acted as though he didn't know him. It was all very strange, different from anything I had seen before. Very strange and very sad.

  I could hear sounds outside the door to the study, footsteps padding in and out of the bathroom, and my parents' voices as they prepared for bed. It occurred to me once again that I was still the embodiment of my parents' dreams, and even more so, I suspected, after this visit, but what they could not know was that deep inside I had begun to have misgivings about Draper and whether I should remain there. As my mother had warned, even at Draper, where I had been left alone for the most part, I could not get away from prejudice. Willie Maurice was surely right—being around nothing but white folks every day puts a lot on your mind. And even in Harlem I felt uneasy. Except for Willie Maurice, who was, after all, from home, nobody I met on the street seemed at all interested in how I felt about things. Everybody was trying to prove they were tougher and angrier than the next person. Nobody bothered to look inside the heart, mine or anyone else's.

  In the darkness, I went over to the window and looked across the rooftops of Harlem, the battered contours washed in steely moonlight. So much was happening, so much was changing inside of me, around me. I could feel it all revolving, and I was struggling, groping to find a place for myself on the slippery walls of the world, and suddenly, my eyes began to fill with tears, blurring my view of the moonlit rooftops and the distant stars, and I returned to the daybed and buried my face in the pillow to muffle my sobs, and cried myself to sleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  At the breakfast table the next morning, my mother spoke of going to church, but my train was scheduled to leave at 1:00 P.M. and I didn't want to be trapped in a church service with the choir whooping and clapping and the minister shouting and carrying on, and then have to get up and walk out in the middle of it all.

  "You're right," said Cousin Gwen. "You get in there, you'll never get out." I had a feeling Cousin Gwen wasn't much of a churchgoer. When we were in the kitchen talking about Marcus Garvey, at one point she muttered under her breath that Garvey was "no better than these jack leg preachers we have to contend with." And among all the books she had in her apartment, I couldn't recall seeing a single one about religion. Not even a Bible. "You'll be much better off if you get on that subway at eleven thirty and get down there to the station with time to spare," said Cousin Gwen.

  "Well, I can drive the boy to the station," said my father. "I don't have to go to church. I don't know any of these churches up here anyhow."

  "You know Abyssinian," said my mother.

  "Everybody knows Abyssinian," he said. "And everybody will probably be there, but I can skip it."

  We cleared the breakfast dishes and I went into the study to strip the daybed and pack. It was a beautiful day. The sun was streaming into the study window, filling the room with light. There were books everywhere and, in spite of my insecurity about Draper and what to do with my life, I felt comforted by being in a room that was filled with books. I wanted to read what Cousin Gwen had read, to find the ideas that her books contained and to use them to help me find my way. I felt that they were my only hope, that without knowing what was in the books, without at least understanding the ideas of others, I was lost, as lost as Joe Louis and Marcus Garvey had been, as lost, in my own way, as Vinnie.

  When I finished packing, I went into the living room with my suitcase. Cousin Gwen was wearing a housedress and was curled up in a wing chair, with a coy smile that could have been mistaken for a wince. "Did you have a nice time last night?" she asked.

  My parents were still in the guest room packing, and I was tempted to tell her about our trip to Jinxie's. I don't think she would have disapproved, but I didn't have the nerve. "It was okay. I had a nice time."

  "Your parents said there were a few words with the doorman when you arrived," said Cousin Gwen.

  "Yeah. At first he didn't want to let me in the building. When I mentioned Gordie's name, he changed his tune. It was like you said. I don't think they have too many colored people show up at the front door."

  "Well, that's how it can be up here, sometimes. The whites can be downright nasty, and they don't even realize it. The same thing happened to me once. I was going to a meeting at the home of an acquaintance on the East Side and the doorman told me I couldn't be admitted to the apartment building. I knew the hostess had given him my name, but he didn't bother to ask me for it. I just walked right past him. 'You'll ha
ve to get a ball and chain to stop me,' I said. He came running after me. 'Wait, wait!' he said. 'What's your name, madam?' When he said 'madam,' I knew I was in control, but I still had to be careful. So I told him my name and he checked the list and found it, and he became a different person altogether, charming and polite, like he should have been in the first place. But so often, we don't get that far. They take one look at you and they think they have all the answers they need. And that's when the trouble starts. Of course, it's different in the South. Down there, they think they have the right to do whatever they want. They don't have to ask you your name, because as far as they are concerned, you don't have a name."

  We were silent for a moment. There was something on my mind. I wasn't sure how to say it, but I finally did. "Cousin Gwen, did you ever think about how much Negroes talk about race? I mean we talk about it nearly all the time. From the minute we get up in the morning until we go to bed, everything we say ends up becoming a discussion about race. It gets tiresome after awhile."

  "We are all a product of our experience, and our experience in this land has not been a happy one, even though it's our country. Because of what has happened in the past, we have to be vigilant. Always. That's why we talk about race so much, because we have to consider all the angles in everything that goes on around us. Once you have been defined as a second-class citizen, white folks feel free to treat you any way they please. I hope it won't always be this way, but until we truly get treated like everybody else, we can never let our guard down." Cousin Gwen paused. "I know what you mean, though. Talking about race all the time can make you weary, but things should get better one day. I just wish I knew when."