New Boy (13 page)

"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 disappeared down Seventh Avenue, and I climbed into another.

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

"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.

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 have 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."

"You ready to go, son?" said my father. He had come into the living room holding his suitcase.

"Ready when you are," I said. I got up and went over to Cousin Gwen and gave her a kiss on the cheek. I felt much closer to her than I ever had before. "Thanks for everything, Cousin Gwen. I'll be back to see you before long."

Cousin Gwen beamed. "I'm always here," she said. "Come anytime." And then I went out into the hallway and pushed the button for the elevator. My folks were still saying goodbye to Cousin Gwen when the elevator arrived, and I got on with my
suitcase and held the door for them. We rode the elevator downstairs in silence. I was thinking about Burns and wondering if he had said anything to his parents about the incident with Tyrone. And I wondered what my own parents were thinking. I had cut off any discussion of last night's events by going into the study and shutting the door, but I knew they had not forgotten about the fact that I was so late returning. We loaded the luggage into the back of the Roadmaster and headed downtown, following the same route we had taken the night before, across noth Street and down Park Avenue, passing through the Spanish area, until awnings and doormen and freshly swept sidewalks gradually came into view, and suddenly, there was Gordie's building with a doorman in a dark blue uniform standing outside.

"Isn't this the building where we dropped you off last night?" said my father, slowing down the car.

"It sure is!" said my mother. "And look! There's that doorman. I ought to go over there and give him a piece of my mind right now." As the Buick continued slowly down Park Avenue, we stared across the street at the doorman. I could see it was a different person, and I wondered if Gordie had said anything to his parents about the incident with Charlie the night before. I thought perhaps I might see him coming out of the building, and we could give him a ride to the train station in the Roadmaster, and I could introduce him to my parents, but he never appeared, even though I continued to look for him out the back window until we were far down the street.

"You know we tried to get in touch with you last night, when
you weren't back on time," said my mother. "Dad was going to drive down here to pick you up, but these people don't have their telephone listed, and you didn't leave us the number." I breathed a sigh of relief. I could just imagine the conversation between my mother and Mrs. Burns, once they discovered that they had both been hoodwinked. For the rest of the way, I sat quietly in the back of the car, as we passed the towering buildings and broad sidewalks, empty but for an occasional fellow selling Sunday papers on the sidewalk or a well-dressed couple, headed, perhaps, for church.