“Hey,” Casper said.
“Hey,” O repeated, conscious that he should imitate to fit in. In New York people said “Hi”; here they said “Hey.” He hunched over his food, picked up a fork and pushed the grim steak around in its sauce, thinking of the can of Coke and the sandwich his mother had made for him and that he’d left in his desk. He resorted to a tater tot. They at least nominally resembled what they were supposed to be, though Osei thought of his mother’s roast potatoes and sighed.
“It’s pretty terrible,” Casper said with a chuckle. “The only day the food’s any good is Friday when they serve pizza.”
There was a Casper in every school, popular enough that he could afford to be genuinely nice to people. He was probably nice even to the three losers at the other table, because he could be. Casper had entitlement. Osei’s father liked to say it was always better to befriend a man whose family has been wealthy for generations than a poor man who has worked his way up and will be nasty to those who remain where he has come from. The latter would be Ian.
“I am very sorry about your parents’ car,” he said, to get that out of the way.
Casper looked puzzled. “What about it?”
“I hit it with my kick earlier.”
“Oh.” Casper waved a hand. “No big deal.”
“But the roof might be dented.”
“Nah. Oldsmobiles are indestructible.”
For a while Casper and the boys around him talked among themselves and Osei was able to eat peacefully. Then, during a lull, Casper threw out a question to draw him in naturally to the group. “When you lived in New York, were you a Jets or a Giants fan?”
Osei didn’t have to think about that one. “Giants,” he answered immediately. “I will never support a team whose quarterback wears pantyhose!”
The table exploded. The Jets’ quarterback, Joe Namath, had recently worn pantyhose in a commercial, and every boy at the table had something to say about it.
“Faggot!”
“I saw that commercial with my mother in the room. I was so embarrassed!”
“He must’ve been paid a whole lot of money to do that.”
“He shaved his legs for that commercial! You can see his legs are smooth, and not from the pantyhose. He shaved!”
“You wouldn’t catch me doing that to my legs, not for any amount of money.”
“Faggot!”
“No he’s not—a girl kisses him at the end.”
“He’s still a faggot!”
In the midst of it all, Casper grinned at O. “Besides, Namath threw too many interceptions,” he said. “Give me Sonny Jurgensen any day. Even old and on a bad day, he throws better than Namath.”
Osei nodded, though he wasn’t sure who Sonny Jurgensen was. He must be a Washington Redskins quarterback. O would have to find out more about them if he wanted to get along with these boys. Himself, he preferred baseball, but there was no team in this city.
He was saved from having to reveal his ignorance of the local football team by a group of girls coming over to the table. The loudest of them insisted on Casper coming to watch her jump rope, shamelessly dancing in a way that was funny and embarrassing at the same time. Among the girls was Dee’s friend Mimi, whom Osei had spoken to during morning recess and who seemed friendly. Her cheeks were flushed, as if smeared with something, and her braces glinted. Her bright red hair would have been much remarked upon in his grandfather’s village. White skin was a surprise anyway, but coupled with red hair—well, that was devilish. “C’mon, Blanca,” she said softly, pulling on the loud girl’s arm. “We’ll lose our turn with the rope.” She glanced at O and grimaced, which made him smile at her.
“Blame Casper,” Blanca retorted. “He’s the one who’s taking so long!”
Casper sighed in exaggerated exasperation and shrugged at Osei as Blanca pulled him away.
He hadn’t invited Osei to join him, probably thinking he was doing him a favor: what boy would willingly watch a group of girls jump rope? However, the moment he was gone, the atmosphere changed. With Casper as his guardian Osei had been safe, and had started to relax, maybe too much. The boys left were sporty and popular enough to hang out with Casper, but not confident without him. It felt to Osei as if those sitting with him at the table all moved an inch away, literally and figuratively, so that once again he was the outsider. Jokes about Joe Namath had not been enough to save him. Now he had to put his guard back up.
Duncan, the boy who sat across from him in class, was studying him again. When Osei looked straight at him, his eyes slid away. “Can I ask you something?” he said.
“That depends what you ask.”
“How do you wash hair like that?”
It was the sort of question O knew well. White people liked to ask a lot about hair care. Also, did black people ever get tanned or sunburned? Were they naturally better at sports and if so, why? Were they better dancers? Did they have better rhythm? Why didn’t black people have wrinkles? Back before his mother made him get a haircut and he had a decent Afro, sometimes when Osei was standing in line, the girls behind him would reach out and touch his hair in wonder, then wipe their fingers on their skirts. He couldn’t turn around and do the same to them or they would have shrieked and he’d get in trouble. He would have liked to touch their hair—a white girl’s silky-smooth long hair was a novelty every bit as curious as his bushy Afro was to them. He’d briefly touched Pam’s hair before he’d broken up with her, but running his hand over Dee’s head during recess was the first time he’d touched a white girl’s hair properly. Even then, hers was in braids, so he hadn’t had the true experience. When she came back from lunch he was going to ask her to take it out of the braids so he could feel it loose and get his fingers tangled in it.
“Hey, did you hear what I said?”
“What?” Distracted by thoughts of Dee’s hair, O had forgotten to answer Duncan’s question. “Oh. I just use a shampoo that has coconut oil in it.”
Duncan wrinkled his nose as if at a bad smell. “Oil. Doesn’t that make it greasy?”
“Not really.”
Duncan looked unconvinced. Osei stood; he would rather be out on the playground than trapped in his seat, trying to explain African hair care to a white boy.
For a second he thought of telling Sisi about it after school and laughing over how the same questions about hair got asked whether you were in London or Rome or Washington. But then he remembered: Sisi wouldn’t be home for him to talk to.
She had been devastated when their father was posted to Washington, and had begged her parents to let her live at a friend’s house in New York until the end of the school year. Sisi was growing cleverer at getting what she wanted: she didn’t ask right away to be allowed to remain in New York for two more years to finish high school. Osei knew that was what she was plotting, though, as he listened on the extension, holding his breath so she wouldn’t hear him as she talked about her plans with her friends. “Black is beautiful,” she always signed off by saying.
Sisi was so persuasive that their parents agreed to her staying with a friend’s family in New York for the remainder of the school year while the Kokotes went on ahead to Washington. Osei wanted to tell his parents what he knew about her activities, but had decided to speak to her first. One night, just before the family was due to move, he came and sat on the end of her bed and watched Sisi in front of her dressing table, tying a silk scarf around her hair and applying cocoa butter to her face and arms. He had come to her room with the intention of begging her to move to Washington after all. “You can make friends with people there who take African names and wear African clothes and talk about black liberation,” he was going to assure her. What he was thinking was: Don’t leave me alone with our parents. What if I need someone to talk to? Aren’t I as important as pan-Africanism or Black Power? He was all ready to speak—had even opened his mouth—when Sisi gazed at him in the mirror with amusement and said, “What is it, little brother? Have you come
to borrow a toy, perhaps? You can have all of them,” gesturing at a shelf full of redundant dolls and board games.
“Forget it,” he muttered, and stalked out, ignoring her calling after him, “Wait, Osei. What is it?” When she tapped on his bedroom door, he shouted, “Go away!” and turned up his radio. It was easier to be angry at her condescension than to tell her what he really thought. Now he wished he had opened the door, or at least said something to his parents about what she was up to.
In DC he missed her terribly, even in her new radical persona, especially now that she was only a dot at the end of a phone line. The night before his first day of school they’d talked briefly on the phone, but Sisi had said little of consequence and had called him “little brother” again. “I’ll be taller than you some day,” he’d interrupted. She ignored him, and asked stupid questions about the new apartment. He noticed she asked nothing about her bedroom. He knew now he would not be able to share with her whatever happened to him in his new school—what other kids said and did to him, the everyday moments that constantly reminded him he was different from them and which all added up to a growing feeling of alienation.
Osei had ended the call abruptly, blurting out, “Black is beautiful, or so you say,” deliberately emphasizing it differently from her. He’d slammed down the phone on Sisi’s squawk.
Was black beautiful? He did not even want to have to think about such questions. He just wanted to play ball games, laugh about Joe Namath, touch Dee’s hair and smell Herbal Essence shampoo on it.
As Osei left the cafeteria, Ian fell into step beside him, which was kind of a relief, as it was always easier to walk onto a playground with someone at your side rather than alone—even if it was a boy like Ian. O could even forgive Ian’s earlier remark about black people being better athletes; he’d heard much worse. He wasn’t sure if Ian forgave him for choosing to sit with Casper, however.
It appeared he did. “Hey,” was all he said.
“Hey,” O returned warily.
They wandered the playground together, a boy named Rod trailing behind them until Ian waved him away. Fourth graders were playing kickball. Some fifth graders were arm wrestling on the pirate ship. The girls were playing hopscotch and jumping Double Dutch. Blanca was leaning against Casper, who was tolerating it with grace. Everywhere O went with Ian he noticed other students dropping their eyes as they approached; it was like not wanting to make eye contact with an unpredictable dog—who might be friendly but might just as easily bite you. As they passed, some of the students gave Osei strange looks. Walking around with Ian felt a little like being inducted into a gang he was not sure he wanted to join—or that even wanted him as a member. He wondered how he could ditch Ian without offending him.
They stopped by the pirate ship to watch the arm wrestling. One boy was clearly stronger but his opponent had his arm at a curious angle and was using the resulting leverage effectively so that they were at a standstill, arms shaking with effort.
Ian glanced around and paused, his attention further afield. “Huh,” he said. “Don’t like that.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” Ian shrugged. “Well—I don’t know. No, it’s nothing.”
Ian didn’t seem like the type to be hesitant. “What was it that you did not like?” Osei persisted.
Ian turned his flat eyes on him. “I thought I saw something, that’s all. But I may be wrong.”
“What did you see?”
Ian held his gaze for a second longer than was comfortable. “OK, brother. Look over at the Double Dutch.”
You are not my brother, O thought. He hated it when white people used that word, trying to take on some of the coolness of black culture without wearing the skin and paying the dues. Still, he looked across the playground. There were two sets of girls turning ropes, and two girls jumping—one of them Blanca—while others stood around watching. He could see nothing out of the ordinary; it was a scene he’d witnessed many times on different playgrounds. Girls loved to jump rope. Osei couldn’t see the appeal himself. He liked to do things where you move and get somewhere, rather than staying in one place. “What am I looking at?”
“There, it’s happening again. Casper.”
Casper was the only boy among the girls. Right now he was picking something from a hand held out, palm up, to him. Dee’s hand. O’s girlfriend had returned and he hadn’t noticed. And she hadn’t come straight to him. And she was feeding another boy. As Osei watched, Casper popped whatever it was in his mouth.
“What was that?”
Ian narrowed his eyes at the pair. After a moment he turned back to O. “Strawberries.”
Resentment pulsed through Osei, which he did his best to tamp down. The small smile that appeared briefly on Ian’s face told him he had not succeeded in hiding it.
It was impressive how one word could rattle the black boy so easily. With Dee haplessly appearing at the right moment with a handful of strawberries, Ian couldn’t have managed it better than if he’d planned it.
O stepped toward the jump rope area, but Ian put his hand out to stop him—though he was careful not to touch that dark skin. “Let’s see what they do. That’s the second strawberry she’s given him,” he added. As they watched, Casper pulled the leaves off, popped the fruit in his mouth and grinned at Dee, who grinned back, clearly pleased.
“That must be a good strawberry,” Ian remarked. “I wonder if she’ll give him all of them.”
O’s brow crumpled briefly before he smoothed it out like a sheet on a bed. “I love strawberries,” he said in a light tone that didn’t fool Ian. Now he just had to push it a little further, like pressing on a bruise that doesn’t seem to hurt at first.
“Those strawberries are probably from Dee’s mother’s garden,” he said. “She grows her own, you know. They’re a lot sweeter than what you get at the grocery store.”
“Have you tried them?”
“Me? No. I’ve just heard about them.” Ian decided not to explain that Dee brought some in for her class every year.
They stood in silence, watching Dee and Casper chat to each other as the girls jumped rope next to them.
“It’s just like Casper to get the first taste.”
Again O was quick to respond. “What do you mean?”
“Well…he gets everything he wants, doesn’t he? The girls are crazy about him—all of them.”
“But—he is a nice boy. He was nice to me.”
“Sure he was nice to you. That’s the easiest way to get what he wants.”
“What does he want?”
Ian took his time, surveying the playground and all of the activity he knew so well and would have to leave soon, to move on to older and harder playgrounds. “I don’t want to say anything, since it’s none of my business.”
O turned to face Ian, pulling his eyes away from Dee and Casper. “What business?”
Ian shrugged, enjoying the moment. There was no need to rush this.
“If you have something to say to me, please say it now.” O’s dark eyes had turned fierce, though the rest of his face remained still. Ian wondered what it would be like to fight him.
“Look, it’s great you’re going with Dee,” he said at last. “Impressive, since you’re a bl—a new boy. You move fast. All in one morning! Maybe that’ll work out.”
“But…I know that there is a ‘but’ coming.”
Ian waggled his head in a gesture that wasn’t a yes and wasn’t a no. “Dee is probably the girl most boys want to go with in the sixth grade.”
“Not Blanca?”
Ian snorted. “Too obvious. Too…trashy. I’m amazed Casper puts up with her.”
“What about Mimi?”
Ian froze. “What about her?” He tried to sound casual.
“She is…interesting. She told me she has visions sometimes.”
“What?”
O jerked his head at the barking sound, and Ian tried to rein himself in.
“Is she
your girlfriend? I am sorry, I did not know.”
Ian wondered why O felt he needed to apologize. “What did she say?”
“Nothing. It was nothing.”
“What did Mimi say?” Ian repeated himself lightly, but the underlying menace was clear.
It was O’s turn to shrug. “It was not a big thing. She just said that sometimes she gets headaches and a shimmering light in her vision. An aura, she called it. She said it gives her a sense that something is about to happen.”
“Really.” What was Mimi doing telling this black boy things she hadn’t told him? They had only spoken for a minute at recess—she’d obviously packed a lot in. She must have wanted to. Ian was not interested in her headaches and her premonitions, but he didn’t like others gaining access to privileged information about her.
“Anyway, you were saying about Dee…and Casper.”
“Right.” Ian forced himself to snap out of the swelling rage that threatened to overturn the trap he was carefully setting. “Casper is the most popular boy in the whole school. And Dee is—put it this way, if they were in high school they’d be voted Homecoming King and Queen. You know what that is?”
O nodded.
“They go together.”
“But she is with me.”
“Sure she is…except she’s not feeding you her strawberries, is she?”
O shook his head, like a bear puzzled by a wounded paw. “Dee is not going to change that fast over me. We have only just started going together.”
“Sure, sure.” Ian made as if to back off. “You’re right. Forget I said anything. Besides, Dee’ll probably bring in strawberries again anyway. You can have some then.” He paused. “It is strange, though, that she didn’t come straight to you when she got back to school. Are you sure you’re going together?”
“Are you saying that she has dumped me? Already? Between the lunch bell and now?” O’s voice was starting to rise.
“I’m not saying that,” Ian soothed him. “I’m just saying: keep an eye on her. And watch yourself with Casper. Sure he acts nice, but that doesn’t mean he is nice.”