The Cruisers

WALTER DEAN MYERS

TO M. JERRY WEISS
                  — W. D. M.

O
kay, this time it was LaShonda Powell who got us into trouble. She had written an article for our group’s newspaper,
The Cruiser,
she called “Life on the High C’s or, Do We Really Need A’s and B’s?” I told her when she turned it in that Culpepper was going to blow up, but you know LaShonda. The girl just doesn’t care.

The last time that Mr. Culpepper had called us to his office he said that it was going to be the very,
very
last chance we were going to have to shape up.

“He can’t suspend all four of us,” LaShonda said. “I mean, really, how would that look on the school’s record?”

“I knew something bad was going to happen as soon as I saw that Da Vinci Academy came in fourth in the Academic Olympics,” Kambui said. “We were supposed to be
numero uno
!”

“At least,” Bobbi added.

I wasn’t worried about Da Vinci being fourth, or even about being suspended. I was worried about being dropped from the school altogether. My grades were way down and I knew it. Da Vinci was supposed to be one of the best gifted and talented schools in the city, and I simply wasn’t doing that well. It wasn’t that the material we were learning was too hard. In fact, it may have been too easy, and I really didn’t have to study so I was only paying attention to the stuff that interested me, which was mostly Phys Ed and Language Arts. Somehow I just couldn’t wrap my head around the other classes.

When Mr. Culpepper, the assistant principal and chief executioner, came in, he did it with a flourish, breathing through his nose and looking like a cross between a really mad Santa Claus and a swishy dragon.

“Well, what are we to say this morning?” he asked, looking over his rimless glasses. “Or have the grades said enough? Hmmm?”

No response.

“We have noted two trends among this small group of miscreants,” Mr. Culpepper went on. “The first is that none of you are living up to your potential. And yes, we do
know your individual abilities because you have all tested very well on the IQ tests. What I strongly suspect is that you just don’t care enough about education or about Da Vinci Academy for the Gifted and Talented. I’m wondering if you are really Da Vinci material.”

“We care,” I said. It sounded lame coming out.

“If it were left to me,” Mr. Culpepper continued, raising his volume slightly, “I would stick with the idea that education is about accomplishment and not potential and suggest that you all find other schools, perhaps ones closer to your homes. But since it is the principal, Mrs. Maxwell, who is the dispenser of last chances and not I, we will continue our little adventure a bit further. And, to tell the truth, I rather like her idea. She sees it as a final opportunity to prove you belong here. I see it as enough rope. If you get my drift.”

“What do we have to do?” LaShonda asked. LaShonda was tall, dark, and slightly wild-looking. Fashion design was her thing. She could make an entire outfit for anyone overnight. When we had first met in the sixth grade, she had told me that her parents had abandoned her and her younger brother when they were kids and that she lived with him in a group home in the Bronx.

“As you know, for our study of the Civil War, the entire eighth grade is being divided into Union sympathizers and Confederate sympathizers. Mrs. Maxwell, she of the compassionate heart, is appointing the four of you—what do you call yourselves? oh, yes, the Cruisers—to attempt to negotiate a peace between the two sides before war actually breaks out. It will take, in my opinion, more skill and dedication than any of you possess. But for some strange reason, she believes that by actually giving you more responsibility she will inspire you to greater efforts. I, of course, disagree.”

“How are we going to stop a
war?”
Kambui asked.

“Well, perhaps Mr. Scott could take his six-foot frame, his weird hairstyle with dreads on top and Indian braids on the side, and simply make them all go home,” Mr. Culpepper said. “I personally would attempt to negotiate a compromise. Maybe something can be learned from the history of the war itself, I suppose. You’ll also have to have more luck than any of you deserve. But it’s up to you, isn’t it?”

When we left Mr. Culpepper’s office we were all down. We knew what he was saying. The “one more chance” had boiled down to just that: one more chance.

“Anybody getting a bad feeling about this?” Bobbi asked in the hallway. “Sort of like he’s handing out menus for a final meal?”

“Look, we’ve got our newspaper started,” I said. “Maybe we can write a series of articles talking about how stupid war is. Let’s everybody think about it overnight and have a meeting tomorrow morning before the first class.”

“Maybe LaShonda shouldn’t have quoted Mr. Culpepper,” Kambui said.

“What we are doing, Kambui Owens, is publishing a newspaper that speaks for the real people of this school,” LaShonda said. “I’m not holding back just because he’s got a little power.”

The Palette
was the official school newspaper and Mr. Culpepper was its adviser. Ashley Schmidt was its editor and she was cool, but Mr. Culpepper had final approval on anything, and as far as I was concerned the paper was just a way of putting out school propaganda. When the school got a printer that prints eleven-by-seventeen-inch pages I came up with the idea of an alternative paper. On the masthead of
The Palette
was the quote from Mr. C.:
Education is a journey on the high seas of life.
We played off of that and said we weren’t on a journey, we were just
cruising. I called our newspaper
The Cruiser.
It was LaShonda’s idea to call our staff—LaShonda, Bobbi, Kambui, and me—the Cruisers.

We published the paper once every two weeks unless something special happened and we put out a special edition. We tried to charge a quarter a copy but Mrs. Maxwell said we couldn’t make it a commercial venture.

“And in the future”—Mr. Culpepper stepped from his office into the hall—“you will not quote me or any other teacher, official, or staff member of this school without written permission. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, O mighty one!” Bobbi said.

Mr. Culpepper started down the hall muttering something about Cruisers rhyming with
losers.

No way we were losers, and if Mr. C. didn’t know it, we did. The thing was that Da Vinci Academy was supposed to be all world. We had been written up in the
New York Times
and
Newsweek
as a Harlem school that was taking care of business. Three quarters of the kids at Da Vinci were from outside of Harlem and were into that heavy competition thing. Who got the most A’s and turned in the longest papers, that kind of thing. But there were some
kids who just were into the sweating and fretting jam. LaShonda called them the “real people.”

LaShonda Powell lived in a home with about fifteen other kids. Every morning she had to take her little brother to school in the West Bronx and then had to take the train downtown to Harlem to go to Da Vinci. She was late three or four times a week.

Barbara McCall was a math whiz and played second board on the chess team. She scored straight A’s in Algebra but D’s in about everything else. Everybody called her Bobbi.

Kambui Owens, my main man, lived with his grandmother a few blocks from me. Sometimes, when his father was out of jail, he lived with them. Kambui was deep into photography and I figured he had the best chance of becoming famous one day.

My name is Alexander Scott, but my friends call me Zander. Language Arts is my thing and one day I’d like to write screenplays. I don’t really have serious issues but I can’t seem to get myself to deal with the work. I usually liked Da Vinci because there weren’t a lot of fights. I couldn’t stand the kids who were snobby just because
they had the smart thing going on. I don’t like snobby people.

I was hoping things were going to work out, even if Mr. Culpepper was ready to come down on us real hard. Mrs. Maxwell, the principal, was good people and she gave us as many breaks as she could. But if I did have to leave Da Vinci I didn’t think it would be the end of the world. At least I didn’t until I got home that evening.

We are all glad that we are taking a journey on the high seas of life with Adrian and his crew. But why do we have to mess up every day by struggling to get an A or a B when a good, strong C will do? When we are out in the world will anybody know what grades we got in the eighth grade? Will anybody care? Although “balance” begins with
B
and A, the
C
near the end of the word is just as important. And from LaShonda’s point of view both the
B
and the
A
are working too hard to get noticed.
A
shows up twice and
B
has pushed its way to the front.
The Cruiser
thinks that life should be laid-back and enjoyed.

M
y moms was at the table checking herself out in the hand mirror she always had around. She had this weird thing on her head that might have been a hat and her eyes looked a little red, like she had been crying or something.

“So what do you have on your head?” I asked her.

“Mickey Mouse ears,” she said. “You like them?”

“Yo, I’m falling out,” I said. “What do you have them on for?”

“They were lying on a set today,” Mom said. “Would you be embarrassed if I had to wear Mickey Mouse ears in a film?”

“Not really,” I said, searching in the back of the refrigerator for jelly. “You got a new job?”

“Not quite,” she said.

If you read any of the black magazines you have probably seen my moms. She’s pretty and she does modeling. Usually she’s just smiling and holding up a tube of toothpaste or a bar of soap. Sometimes she’s only wearing her underwear and I don’t like that because I don’t like guys in the school saying that my mom is hot.

If you live in Seattle or Portland you might have seen my father on television. His name is Donald Scott and he’s a weatherman. My parents were divorced when I was four and I don’t remember my father living with us. He got married again and has another kid, a girl. He sends me gift certificates to bookstores on my birthday and at Christmas and if he’s in New York he’ll call the house to see if I want to see him. Usually I don’t. Everybody thinks that he has two voices, one for television and one that he uses the rest of the time. He doesn’t. Whenever he talks it sounds like he’s announcing his life and any moment he’s going to break out with the weather forecast. It’s not that I don’t get along with the dude. I do, but I like my mom better even if I’m not supposed to choose one over the other.

“Work is work. Isn’t that what you always say?” I asked Mom.

“This is different.” She had on a long face, which meant something was bothering her.

“And?”

“And Marc thinks he can get me a part in a new comedy film,” she said. “They’re going to shoot it outside of Savannah, Georgia, so I’d have to go down there. You okay with that?”

“Sure.”

“What would you be doing if I went away for two months for a shoot?” she asked.

“Drinking beer and having pizza parties,” I said. “What else?”

“I’m serious,” Mom said.

“If you got a part in a movie how come you’re not excited?” I asked. “They want you to take your clothes off?”

“Would I be in a movie where I took my clothes off?” she asked. “Would I?”

“Then why are you acting like something’s wrong?”

“This is supposed to be a remake of
Gone with the Wind,”
Mom said. “But it’s supposed to be satire. You know, funny.”

“So?”

“And I’m supposed to be Scarlett O’Hara’s maid,” she said. “How would you feel about that?”

“I don’t care,” I said. “How do you feel about it?”

“Marc thinks I can do comedy.”

“Then do it,” I said.

Marc was Mom’s agent. He wasn’t that good an agent as far as I was concerned but he was good at basketball. He had a tryout for the Nets once but hurt his ankle the week before and didn’t get a chance for it to heal before the tryout. I was used to Mom trying to get jobs, mostly in commercials, so it didn’t matter to me.

“You wouldn’t really drink beer, right?” she asked. “At least not until you’re sixteen?”

“I guess,” I said.

“Did I tell you that I got a subpoena today?”

“A what?”

“Your father has decided that he wants to have custody of you,” Mom said. “He thinks I can’t …”

She started tearing up.

“Can he do that?” I asked.

“You know she’s a teacher, right?”

The “she” was my father’s wife. “I just won’t go,” I said.

“He keeps asking me how you’re doing and I keep saying fine, but then he called the school.”

“That was sneaky,” I said.

“He’s always been a little sneaky. So now I have to send him a sworn statement about your progress, your health, and your education,” Mom said. “I don’t think he can force me to give you up, but …”

She looked a little panicky. Like the time the rent was way overdue and the landlord started banging on the door. He was just being a pain in the butt and I think he wanted to hit on her. She’s pretty tough when she’s right, but sometimes things get her down and she starts talking about how she should take a job as a waitress or a nurse’s aide.

What my mom has going on is that she’s flat-out beautiful. Okay, so she’s hot. But jobs are hard to get and when she doesn’t get work for a while she starts to lose confidence. I can understand that.

“I think everything is going to be all right,” I said. “You want me to call his wife and tell her that I hate her?”

“Oh, Alexander, you’ll love Seattle,” Mom said, holding
her nose and talking like my father’s wife. “The air is so much fresher out here than it is in New York and the view across the sound is too, too wonderful.”

I love it when Mom does imitations. She’s good at them and it takes her out of her bad moods. Not enough to stop her from burning the mac and cheese she made for supper, but enough so that she wasn’t crying.

The next morning I got up early and took my bike to school. We have racks outside in the back that you are allowed to use if you show up wearing a helmet.

When I got in the building I saw LaShonda talking to Shantese Hopkins in the hallway. Shantese thinks she’s got it going on. She does but I pretend not to notice it. So I just nodded at her when I pushed past some noisy sixth-graders to get to where they were standing.

“Did you hear what Ashley had the nerve to publish in
The Palette
?” LaShonda asked. “And right across from the sports page so everybody was sure to see it?”

“What?”

“A guest editorial by Alvin McCraney and the ‘Sons of the Confederacy’ saying that he thinks the Southern states should break away from the Union so they can continue
their job of civilizing the Negroes. I’m definitely ready to go to war with that dude.”

“He actually wrote that?”

“Yeah!” LaShonda said.

Okay, so Da Vinci has a black principal, and two black teachers, but only about thirty black students out of almost three hundred. Ten in the eighth grade, a few in the seventh, and a bunch of sixth-graders. Everybody got along well, with most of the kids being into whatever their talents were about.

“It’s probably just about this Civil War project,” I answered.

“All I know is that I didn’t like it,” LaShonda said.

The Palette
was a good paper that sometimes ran guest editorials or cartoons. Ashley was smart and hip. Usually she published stories about the school’s activities, such as sports, drama programs, and upcoming events. But once in a while she would run something that would shake things up. Once she ran an interview with a guy on trial for selling drugs who said that crack should be legalized, and once she did a piece saying that schools should be open at night for homeless people to sleep in.

“If we’re supposed to be peacemakers I guess we’re neutral,” I said.

“Can we just kill Alvin and then start being neutral from there?” LaShonda asked.

I could see that peacemaking wasn’t going to be as easy as it seemed.

Guest Editorial

We believe that it is our sacred duty to our brothers of African descent to continue teaching them our ways, including our religion, our principles, and our civilization. Why, go to a Northern city, such as New York, and you will see the black inhabitants of that city lying around in a most unseemly way. Often they will inhabit the worst quarters of the city and behave in a way that would not be tolerated below the Mason-Dixon Line.

In many cities whose newspapers rally behind the abolitionist banner we find Negroes being loud and boisterous on the streets, going into and out of places where alcohol is sold, and acting in as heathen a manner as they did on their native African shores.

We believe that we must protect the Negro race from those who, in the name of freedom, would turn them loose in an uncaring
society and expect them to compete against white men.

We believe we owe it to these visitors to our shore to continue bringing them along, civilizing them as we give them opportunities for honest labor and the fruits of our fair country. To this end and this end alone, we owe it to ourselves to break the treaty with the Northern states and to do our duty as Southerners.

—Alvin McCraney and the Sons of the
Confederacy