College Boy : A Novel (9781416586500) (12 page)

 

“Damn, you play Ping-Pong good as hell, and basketball,” Troy said. He took off his sneakers and clothes to take a shower once they had returned to their room.

“Yeah, well I have a table at home in my basement. My brother and I used to play all the time,” Simon revealed.

“What? You didn't tell me you had a table at home.”

“Yeah, well it never came up.”

“Yeah, aw'ight, you probably not tellin' me about some basketball team you were on, too,” Troy said to him.

Simon began to snicker as Troy waited for another surprising comment. “Yeah, I played small forward in high school,” Simon told him.

Troy listened while thinking how stupid he had been. He was fooled without a clue as to the information abruptly being presented. Simon was from Brooklyn, New York. He had played against New York's finest high school basketball teams. His school was ranked twenty-third in the nation. He had been used to boxing out quick Black players. He had perfected his jump shot. Simon also used to bet with a bookkeeper in his hometown. And he was an announcer who had called the games in a Brooklyn summer league. He kept up-to-date with all the athletic news. He knew if one team was unhealthy or missing players. He also knew how many games each team played, to predict if they were tired. And Simon checked the history of each team rivalry to get a historical edge.

Troy was astonished. There was no way to compete with an opponent who knew things that he had not known. For six months he had talked up a game that he thought would be equal. Simon didn't look like an authentic athlete. As it turned out, Simon had received a scholarship to play basketball at a small college. He turned it down. He said that he would rather watch the game with an education ahead of him, instead of jumping in and possibly reinjuring an ankle he had problems with during his senior year in high school.

 

Later that night, one of Simon's friends came over to borrow a calculator. Troy and Simon were both busy doing homework.

Bloomp bloomp bloomp.

“Go the hell away,” Simon said jokingly. His friend, hearing Simon's voice, decided to come in on his own. Kevin was from West Virginia, of German descent.

“Hey, pal, I need to borrow your calculator. I messed around and lost mine when I was running from the premed library,” he said.

“Well, go get it. It's right on my desk, stupid,” Simon told him.

Kevin went to get it, only to be tackled onto the bed. The two, playing, reminded Troy of playful puppies. They were just like the White couples who would cuddle up, kissing and hugging, all over campus. They were free-flowing, positive-attitude-having, joyful White people.

“Come on, Simon. Cut it out, man. You're getting my shirt all wrinkled,” Kevin said, trying to free himself from Simon's wrestling hold. Simon let him up, only to be wrestled down himself.

“Oh, OK. I let you up so you can sneak me,” he said.

“Well, no one said I wasn't gonna jump on you, just because you let me go. That's why you never let your enemy back up, Simon. I could keep you down here forever if I had to. Now, do you give?” he asked. Simon was bigger than Kevin but he was helpless because of the position he was in. His hands were tied behind his back, with his face pressed into his pillow.

Troy finally stopped from studying to watch them.

“Well, do you give, Simon?” Kevin repeated.

Simon continued to struggle to free himself. “Yeah, damn it. You win. Now get the hell off me!” he shouted, scuffling to his feet with a pink face. He was too out of breath to counterattack. Kevin then gave his attention to Troy.

“Hey, Troy. How's it going, pal?” he asked.

“I'm aw'ight, man. But did you say you were coming from the premed library?”

“Yeah, I was in the premed library. Why, are you thinking about going into medicine, too?”

“Yeah, man, 'cause doctors make a whole lot of money.”

“Oh yeah, well that's great. You'll be there with me. There aren't that many Blacks in medical school, though. Have you had biology and calculus yet?” Kevin asked him.

“Not biology, but I'm taking calculus,” Troy answered. He hoped that Kevin would not ask him any more questions about medical school requirements. Troy was informed that most students going into medical school carried about eighteen credits a semester. He had only fifteen and was already behind.

“Yeah, well I had that stuff in high school. So it was like a review for me. I got A's in both,” Kevin said. “And Troy, if you need any help, I got some old exams that you could get, too.”

Troy nodded his head, starting to feel a little pressured. He began to feel like maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

“But Troy, you really shouldn't get into something just for the money. I really want to help people,” Kevin added.

Troy felt a jolt of suspicion. Another White lie. Money was the key. It was part of the reason Troy wanted to play basketball, and why he wanted to become a doctor. He thought that money was the reason why
everyone
was in college.

Nevertheless the field of medicine was limited for Blacks. The counselors had said it, the students knew it, the records showed it, and the chemistry class represented the fact that Blacks were not going into the science fields en masse. It would be hard to go it alone. Then again, there was Matthew, and possibly Clay, who had also expressed some interest in the sciences. They would all have to be pioneers. And Troy conceived that the only way to stay on top of Whites was by playing their game of acting dumb. He speculated that “they,” the White power structure based upon limited opportunities, would never allow a Black student to become the class leader. So young Mr. Potter decided that he would play the dummy role, hoping to gain successful leadership right under their noses.

I
T BECAME MORE DIFFICULT FOR
T
ROY TO CONCENTRATE
without listening to the radio on a study break. He found himself doing what Simon had done the first term. Books became irrelevant. Classes were a constant aggravation. And homework had become the hassle that Doc said it was for him.

Troy began to wonder what actually happened to Black college graduates. He had only seen one Black doctor in his life. He asked himself, Do Blacks really come out of school and go to work? Is it really that hard for Blacks and that easy for Whites? He still believed that America was the place for an equal opportunity, but was it a place for an equal start? Maybe Blacks would have to spend too much time catching up, and not enough time getting ahead.

Troy was always the first to help, the first to ask for help and the first to participate. Yet the White students were the first to get helped, the first to finish the test, and the first to receive high grades. No matter how well he did academically, Troy still felt he was somehow behind.

He had finally stopped daydreaming and rode the elevator down to Matthew's room. Troy had lain in his bed for two hours, not even touching a book.

He dove onto Matthew's unmade bed. “Ay', Mat, how do you study all the time without getting tired, man? I'm sick of studying.”

Matthew was sitting at his desk, studying as usual. “I just do it, man. I don't know,” Matthew said. “Maybe I do well studying because I like to do good on the tests. I mean, a lot of Black people want to settle for regular grades, but you got to want more than that. A lot of Blacks want success fast and easy, but it won't come like that.”

“Why not, cuz? Why can't it come fast and easy? It does to them. White people don't seem to be busting their asses,” Troy argued.

“I'on know, man. It's kind of like, they got a head start or something. Maybe they worked harder before college, so they don't have to struggle as much in college,” Matthew commented. “A lot of 'em do bust their ass, we just don't see when they're doing it.”

 

Troy became further intrigued by his thoughts about race and society. He decided to diagnose his surroundings. He went to lunch in the cafeteria, noticing things. All of the workers were Black, except for an immigrant and one mentally slow woman. It had never dawned on him before. The White students acted friendly, always greeting the Black lunch women kindly. Troy thought, Maybe that's where White people want us to be, serving them.

He noticed that all the dormitory janitors were Black. White students would talk with them for hours at a time. Maybe that's what they want all Blacks to do, clean up after them.

The cooks were all Black, working in hot, stuffy kitchens, fixing meals for a predominantly White campus. Maybe that's where they want all of us to be, cooking their food in their kitchens. Troy's thoughts of misery had opened his eyes to racial disharmony.

He walked around campus and up and down Charleston Street, noticing that the store owners were always White. Every store seemed to have Black employees, though. Maybe that's what they want us for, doing their dirty work. Most of the maintenance supervisors, engineers, and construction workers were White. Maybe that's where they want themselves to be, in the higher-paid, skilled positions.

Except for C.M.P.'s, whenever Troy entered an office inside Platt Hall, none of the administrators were Black. He began to question why he had never realized it before.

The television news paraded Blacks involved in violence and in sports, never showcasing businessmen and businesswomen; they were found only in Black magazines. Blacks were treated as though they did not exist. But they existed, cleaning bathrooms. They existed, sweeping and mopping floors. They existed, changing bedspreads. McDonald's, Burger King, and Roy Rogers, surrounding the campus area, were filled with them. Nevertheless, Whites only flooded the stadiums to watch the 260-pound football players and the seven-foot basketball players, who they seemed to love. Troy believed that the White administrators did not care about the average Black student (not even those who had a 3.7 average). They just want us to fill their quotas.

 

Troy's life had taken a sharp twist. He began to pay more attention in his anthropology class, learning more about the rest of the world and how Whites got such a running jump on success. He had reasoned through his basketball experience: They only let you get as high as they want you to get before they jerk you.

In anthropology, he learned cultural principles that only made him calculate even more. He deciphered the games of history, how it all began. He learned how Africa and other Third World countries had played the game before the Europeans changed the rules. He learned how people of color were systematically devastated by White destruction. He studied the deaths of cultures, animals, souls, and the uprooting of entire civilizations. He studied the capture and rape of millions of colored women. He studied the European hunt for natural resources, stripping the land in all of the Third World. And he studied how the stolen resources left these nations poor.

Troy learned that Africans were the first to practice domestication of plants and animals, methods that were later adopted by Southwest Asians and Native Americans. Domestication brought about a change in social structure. As the levels of society progressed, marked inequalities developed as work became stratified. People became ranked according to the kind of work they did or the family they were born into. Social institutions ceased to operate on simple levels of kin. They became more formal, political.

The specialization of more advanced societies separated the rich from the poor and the skilled from the unskilled. The inequalities produced waves of crime. And in the status evolution, the more ancient peoples were depicted at the lowest levels of social importance.

The anthropology professor, Dr. Polinski, an archaeologist from Germany, compared European male mentality to Robin Hood, who was a thief, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. “The European motto,” she called it.

She said that European males believed in aggression, sexism, and competitive societies. They attempted and succeeded to limit the competition by “underdeveloping the undesirables.” To keep their edge on the world, European males regulated the population sizes and maintained systems of family and hierarchal rule. “They then spread throughout the Third World with the use of imperialism and Christianity to fulfill their greed,” Dr. Polinski informed her class. The White woman instructor led Troy to understand and to believe that no man created was more devious and tricky than the White man.

Troy went on to learn for himself that in some cultures, the Europeans attempted and succeeded in killing entire nations and tribes of colored people. As the weeks passed on, Troy absorbed more and more information. He learned about the many things that he had previously failed to realize conceptually. He wondered how many other Blacks knew and felt powerless. Or how many of us don't know or don't care? An entire world had been captured by a single race of people with white skin, a minority. A world of peoples of color, the majority, were killed, enslaved, traded, hunted, ignored, starved, and set up to live in slums.

Crime and hatred increased among all those who had been beaten by the White race. Pigmented children were born into poverty and into environments of social despair. Their families were broken from the lack of economic efficiency while being trapped within capitalism. So they became “slaves to the system.”

 

An entire planet of colored people was trying, unsuccessfully, to live up to one people's philosophy. The Third World could learn and advance, but they were not taught correctly and not allowed to progress without the fear of death, the punishment for defiance to White rule.

The Europeans had tricked the world as he had been tricked. Troy gave up his answers in class, showed off his basketball skills on the court, and gave away his homework assignments after class. The White students would copy and not teach. They had deceived the colored nations into feeling inferior, while Whites were deemed gifted and most able.

Troy felt that Whites oppressed colored nations through the power that they allowed them to have. The Third World had submitted their minds to the material, conceptual, historical, academic, philosophical, and spiritual confusion of European mentality.

Colored people had already possessed the knowledge of truth within themselves. And as Troy continued to think critically, he realized that college played a vital role in the game. It would weed out the “undesirable” and the “underprivileged.” Even those who had strength enough to succeed would effortlessly be swallowed up by the White establishment—the disappearance of successful Blacks.

Matthew had already begun to hide out, as he seemed to stop discussing his grades and test scores. “Once you succeed yourself, then you can help your people more because you know more and have more to offer,” he would say. Troy listened but he never believed it. He had already helped many fellow Black students to study as well as cheat for tests. And it had worked. Troy was confident that he would succeed as well. Yet suddenly, all the Whites around him seemed to drain him of his energy and of his confidence.

He continued to sink into his anthropology book for nights of reading information. He began to wish he had taken a Black studies course to learn all he possibly could about the struggles of his people to figure out a way to win the war of integrity between the races.

Blacks had lost their power of authority. Without the power of authority, they could not control their culture, their environments, or their education. Having the power of authority would allow them to deal sufficiently with their economic, social, and political problems. Yet they lacked a real revolution, and they lacked the economic resources and the knowledgeable skills to train and to hire. Without economics and skills, they were left with spirit, purpose, hope, and a dream.

 

“Yo, y'all wanna run a game of ball before the intramural games?” Troy shouted. It was Friday, a week from finals in April, and he decided to play basketball to release stress. Stress began to take a grip on his mind each night.

The intramural basketball championships would be held the following week. Troy was too late to get on the roster of an intramural team after quitting varsity basketball in early February.

He picked a short squad, preparing to play a team that had won four straight games. Troy's team was not confident or diversified. They were unskilled in offense, and the defense alone could not win the game. Every team needs points to win, Troy thought. So he scored twenty out of the thirty points that his team accumulated. They lost by fourteen. Afterward, he had a lot to say about it.

“
Y'all some weak niggas, man!
I don't know why I picked y'all. Y'all ain't help me a damn bit! Y'all act like y'all didn't even want to play!” he shouted. He was loud enough for the entire gymnasium to hear.

“Ay', Troy, man, just because you can score all those points don't mean that we can. You act like everybody on the team is as good as you,” one member said. Troy didn't bother to respond as the scheduled teams took the court for the intramural contests.

Most of the intramural teams were all-Black or all-White. One Black team, called the Brothers, was well organized. Their players, who were skilled at their Positions, all wore their name on the back of their black-and-gold jerseys. The other team was predominantly White with two average-skilled Black players. The two Black players did not have outstanding ball-handling talent, so they chose to run with the Whites, who were very appreciative.

The game started in a fast tempo, just as the Brothers wanted. They scored the first four baskets, for an 8-0 lead. Their execution on the court crushed the predominantly White team. It was a quick game. The final score was a killing 74-36.

“Jesus Christ, man! The only way those guys will lose is if the other Black team beats 'em,” a White student said to a friend. They watched from the bleachers, sitting next to Troy.

“Yeah, but if they play each other before the finals, they may run each other so hard that we may have a shot at beating the winner,” his friend responded.

 

Troy left with Bruce and Doc after watching a few more games.

“Ay', Troy, cuz,” Bruce said, chuckling before he could finish. “Dag, mayn, you got me saying that cuz shit all the time now. Anyway, mayn, you been comin' up to the gym, shouting and hollering at people for the past month, cuz. What, you having girlfriend problems or somethin'?” Bruce asked him.

“Yeah, man, but not girl problems. I'm having world problems,” Troy responded. “I use the courts to forget about the shit.”

They entered the freshman dorm lobby to hang out and talk while sitting on the benches. As they sat and watched, floods of White students crowded the lobby, going to and coming from parties.

“Damn, man! We up here with nothing to do on a Friday night while White people got a million and three parties and shit,” Troy said. “They got all the bars on the avenue. They have frat houses. And they got all the women they could want.”

“I know. Imagine if this was an all-Black school, and all these people were Black. We'd probably go crazy,” Doc joked. “We'd be running around trying to talk to all the girls. And the dudes that been there already would be like, ‘Yo, what's up with y'all niggas?'”

“I wonder what it's like at an all-Black school,” Bruce pondered.

Troy was quiet. He decided to just sit and listen.

“I bet it's parties every week,” Bruce said. “And we wouldn't have to sit around, doin' nothin' when there ain't none, 'cause it would be so many black babes to chill wit'. You know what I mean, cuz?”

“I hear there's a lot of light-skin/dark-skin conflicts at Black colleges, though. That's what everybody says, anyway,” Doc interjected. Troy remained calm, still listening.