Preston L. Allen Preston L. Allen 
Ultra Cool Pimp Daddy
This entire story is true, except for those parts I made up.
My name is Michelangelo Rice Johnson, but people call me White Rice because they say I’m the color of beans and rice without the beans. They say I’m not to be trusted because I come from a family of practical jokers, which is true. My three big brothers, Pablo P, Leonardo D, and Jack, Jr. are the biggest trips up there at the college, where they star on the football, basketball, and track teams. So I can’t help it. It’s in my blood. Everything my brothers got is in my blood, except for the athletic skills. I haven’t developed too much yet. I am skinny for thirteen, the skinniest kid at the school, and with big feet, which is a good thing because it shows potential. I will grow into my feet one day. And my sport is going to be baseball. Yeah.
My best friend’s name is Ronald McPhee. I call him Hamburger, or Ham B, because his name sounds like Ronald McDonald and he is kind of on the plump side from eating too many hamburgers from the greasy flip burger shop his parents run out of the Amoco station. Ronald has droopy, sad eyes like a puppy, and he wears too much of his dad’s Old Spice. It makes my nose itch to be around him, but he thinks it will help him with the girls. Plus, he’s got big, fast hands and might make the baseball team. Yeah.
I like girls, too. But they’re hard to figure. They have all of these attributes that God has piled on them so that we boys can’t help but look at them and want them all the time, but they don’t want us back, except if you’re one of the bigger guys, the eighth and ninth graders, but not regular guys like me and Ham B. Our school, Parkway Middle (the pride of Miami! Cheer!) is filled with girls like that. You see them kissing these big guys and following them around and crying when the big guys dump them, and you think, what about me? I won’t dump you. I’ll carry your books forever and kiss you after class anytime you want even if I have to get late to baseball practice.So me and Ham B and the rest of us hopefuls are dressed out in our shorts and it’s baseball tryout time during P.E. The sun is hot on the back of our necks, and the grass we squat on is barbecuing our butts. I sit on my glove again, and Black sees it right away and yells, "You! Sophomore! Get off that damned glove or give me twenty." I’m back on the hot grass again, sulking, and I notice my homeboy Ham B doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about our shared plight in the heat. He’s got this far away look on his face I can identify with because I wear it a lot, too. I follow his gaze and find at the end of it, Marisol Vega, the Cuban princess from social studies. Now there’s a girl with attributes: kissy lips, dark mysterious eyes, and black hair that falls to her hips. Her chest is still waiting to exhale, but she’s more than made up for that by having a championship monster booty. She’s dressed in the school colors, green T-shirt, white shorts stretched to their limits on the championship monster, green socks, and white Converse All-Stars criss-cross tied with green laces.
Today Marisol’s wearing a backwards baseball cap and carrying a clipboard and writing down information about us that Black and String Bean give her. Fast, but no coordination. Strong, but too slow. Needs glasses. Can’t hit the broad side of a barn. I snuck a peek at the chart and know already that I have no chance this year to make the team—works hard, but lacks speed, strength, coordination, stamina—which makes me more agitated in the heat. I’m eliminated from consideration, but there’s still a half hour left in P.E., and so I got to stay and pretend I still have a chance, then look all disappointed with the rest of the losers when Black and String Bean don’t call my name with the finalists.
Yeah, I snuck a good look at the charts and next to Ham B’s name it says, Good arm. Good eye. Works hard. Needs to grow into his weight—which is not enough to eliminate him.
If Ham B makes the team, it’s not a problem with me, because I’m his best friend and I’ll be joining him next year when I gain some weight. You can bet on it.
He’s looking at Marisol Vega in that way, and I’ve already eliminated her from serious consideration because of some rebuke of me she offered during social studies last week, so I say to Ham B, "She wants you."
And he says, "Whuh?" in that thick voice of his.
"Marisol Vega told me that she wants you."
He twitches in the grass like the heat's finally starting to get to him. "Whuh? Me?"
"She told me she don’t know why you never talk to her. She told me that if you don’t talk to her soon, you can forget about it. There are other boys at this school, you know?"
Ham B is perplexed. He looks to me for direction because I'm so much cooler than he is. Ultra cool pimp daddy is my other name.
He says, "Well, what do I tell her? What do you tell a girl like that? I'm no ninth grader or nothin."
When I put my arm across his shoulder, he tenses up, and again I feel under all of that sweating softness, Ham B's muscles.
He did not have muscles last year.
It disturbs me that he is not as soft as he used to be. My boy is growing up.
I taught him to throw, catch, and put grass and pine needles in his sandwich instead of lettuce. I taught him to run, slide, and clean dog poop off the bottom of his sneakers with toilet paper dipped in Vaseline. He's still my boy!
"You just go over there now and say to her I know how you feel about me and I like you, too. Would you like to come to my folks' store with me for some ice cream?"
His frown and his nervousness deepen. "But my folks don't give away free ice cream to no one."
I give him my angry glare, and he flinches. I say, "Just get over there and talk to her before it's too late, lover boy."
Ham B presses down the bill of his baseball cap over his eyes and rises to his feet with a groan. Slapping the grass off his shorts. Dragging his feet. Looking down at the grass. Absolutely none. None. No game at all. He gets over to Marisol Vega and he says in that big, dumb voice of his, "Uhm, hi, Marisol, uhm, I like you, too, uhm."
Kicking at the grass as he talks. Not even looking at her. Muttering through his lame rap. Absolutely none. None. My boy has no technique at all.
I mean, if Marisol Vega had actually liked him and I had not simply made the whole thing up, Ham B still would have had no shot at her because he is completely lacking in all aspects of coolness.
Now if it were me, I would have said, "Yo, Marisol. What's up with you, chica? I hear you like me. That's good. It's all good. Cause I like you, too. You are one fine, girl. Your eyes are like bright red stop signs for my heart. I just love how you look in them shorts. Yeah. Can I get them digits?’’
Like that. And she'd be mine.
But Ham B is chewing his words, and I'm listening hard to hear what Marisol says when she kicks him to the curb, which has got to happen because the whole thing is made up, and the next thing I know this big ninth grader, Manny Rodriguez, the first baseman, stomps over to Ham B and kinda grabs him by the throat and lifts him up off the ground right out there on the P.E. field in front if everybody.
"Get away from my girlfriend, sophomore!" Manny says. Then he flips Ham B to the ground on his butt.
Everybody is like laughing and pointing and cracking up now, even Coach Black and Ssistant String Bean, as Ham B crawls back over to me, peering out from under his baseball cap, his eyes flashing confusion.
"I thought you said she likes me."
"I was just kidding."
"I thought you said--."
"A joke, Ham B."
Laughter is cracking around him. He wraps his arms around his torso and tries to disappear under his cap as everybody laughs, including the beautiful Marisol Vega. Ham B's knees are pressed up to his face.
"A mean joke. You’re supposed to be my friend."
"A joke."
He lifts his head from his knees. "People are laughing at me."
"Come on, Ham B."
"When we were kids, it was kinda funny, but we at Parkway now. You shouldn't be lying to me no more." He scoots sideways away from me.
I scoot back next to him. "Ham B, don't be mad at me. I never made you eat dog poop."
"It was all over my hands."
"But I never made you eat it." I buddy punch his ribs. "And you know I could have."
"Gross."
"If you stop being mad at me," I say, "I'll give you my cornbread at lunch."
"With a booger in it."
"No boogers. We're not kids anymore."
Ham B lifts his head again and wipes the water from his eyes with an arm. "Cornbread today and tomorrow."
"Deal."
"Girls. Who needs them, anyway?"
"Speak for yourself, sissy." I have big feet, very big feet, and skinny legs with doorknob knees. I look like a spider. And Ham B has muscles now. I say, "I am the ultra cool pimp daddy."
"Sure you are."
"A non believer?"
"You talk, but I ain't never seen none of your girls."
"A heathen in the tribe?"
He’s squeezing the fingers on his mitt. "I hear you talk, but I ain't never seen."
"Doubting Thomas. It just so happens that I got a date today at lunch. A girl with a lot of attributes, too."
"Who?" He squeezes his catcher's mitt fingers so hard the muscles in his forearm come alive. "Who?"
I nod my head at him like the king rooster ultra cool pimp daddy that I am and utter the name of all names. "Jenny Lisca."
The very magnitude of the name paralyzes his limbs, and he can squeeze the glove no more. The look on his face is awe magnified by a zillion and squared by infinity.
I say the name again and let my tongue loll on the lovely, luscious, lickable L in her last name. "Jenny Lisca."
"The white girl?"
"THE," I say nodding.
He recites the litany. "Face like an angel, hair like corn silk."
"Big up front," I remind.
"Big up front. So big up front."
"The biggest at the school. Don't drool, Ham B."
"I’m drooling. I’m drooling, oh mighty one." Then he shakes his head. "But you must be lying. Nobody can talk to her. Nobody's that tight. Not even ninth graders. Now I know you lying."
"I got it that tight."
"You are the mighty one if you got it that tight."
"I got it that tight. I am the mighty one."
"Oh, mighty one."
Coach and Ssisant blow their whistles and we are on our feet now. They are barking out names for the team. Ham B’s name is called, and mine isn’t. The bell rings. Ham B looks at me sympathetically. I shrug it off. Ham B’s got the swing. But I got the swagger.
"The Jenny Lisca. THE!"
"Oh, mighty one," he shouts over his shoulder.
On his way to sign something on Ssistant's clipboard.
* * *
Lunch goes so smooth for yours truly the ultra cool pimp daddy, because he always has a plan. The ultra cool pimp daddy is a thinking man, and a thinking man never loses to good arm, good eye, works hard.
I set it up like this. I strut into the lunchroom clothed in my finery. I'm sporting my V-neck T-shirt in the green and white school colors. Gone are the estupido P.E. shorts that make my regal knees look bony. My big knees look just fine in pin-legged corduroys with the left pant leg rolled up so my emerald sock can flash from my impeccably-polished white Converse Decks. Ham B is behind me in line. I pay for my hash and toss him the cornbread. He sits at our regular table with my seat empty next to him while I do my leaning pimp walk over to where Jenny Lisca sits with the Philipina girl she hangs out with. I say all loud, "I'm here like I said I would be, baby." The Philipina girl knows the deal, and she gets up and goes to another table so me and Jenny Lisca, the Jenny Lisca, can be alone. Ham B is just about dying of jealousy when I sit down next to her and she hugs me. He's got that cornbread stuffed between his lips, but he's not chewing. And the Jenny Lisca's saying to me, "I am glad that you are interested in learning more about becoming a Jehovah's Witness—."
Yeah. I’m glad nobody but me heard that.
I say to Jenny Lisca, "Hey, I'm interested in a lot of things."
She says, "I stay away from most of the kids here at his school because they are so secular, but I see you're not like that. I'm sorry I slapped you up in the library, but I thought you were trying to get fresh with me."
"All forgiven."
Then she opens up a Watchtower leaflet and begins to chat me up about her religion while I eat my hash and pretend she’s talking love for the benefit of all who can see but not hear. Her voice is like a sweet song in my ear as long as I'm not paying attention to the words. I'm paying attention to the heads that are turned toward the ultra cool pimp daddy eating lunch with the unapproachable the. Jenny Lisca.
Poor, jealous Ham B is on his way over to see it up close and I frown at him and wave him away. He is persistent, and I have to jump up and scowl at him before he will go back to his seat.
"What was that all about?" the unapproachable the asks.
"Just a heathen."
"He can sit with us. I don’t mind. The words of life are free to all."
"He comes only to mock and deride."
Twenty minutes later, my lunch has been eaten, and I decide I have worked this photo opportunity as much as I can, and now it is time for part two of the plan. I turn to the kindly Jenny Lisca and I say, "Thank you for sharing your faith with me, but now I have to go."
"Maybe we can meet again sometime."
I stand and say, "Maybe." I have this strong, distant look on my face. I keep standing there until she does what I want. She reaches up to take my hand, and I step away from her. She is just trying to shake goodbye, but I know I look like the ultra cool pimp daddy pulling away from a girl he's just dumped. She's clinging to him because his love is so good, she just can't believe she's losing him forever, too bad, baby, it be that way sometime. I leave her with that hand extended and make my way back to my regular table with Ham B, future baseball star.
"Stop drooling, Ham B. I'm in a lot of pain. We're both in a lot of pain. You break the heart of a girl like that, it's got to have some effect on you."
Ham B’s mouth can't close. Good swagger never lose to good swing. My boy gushes: "White Rice, you is the ultra cool, the most cool, the pimp daddy of all pimps. You just left her hanging. Jenny Lisca? Oh, mighty one."
"A girl is just a girl to me. Time to move on. I've got a whole lot more of them to love, and there's only one me. It's such hard work." I fan myself.
His mouth is still open. "Pimp daddy of all pimp daddies, I worship you."
"Worship me, worship me, non believer."
"Never again am I gonna doubt you."
"It's such hard work loving them all the way I do, but I do my best. Worship me, worship me."
"Oh, mighty one, I worship you," Ham B says, shaking his head. "Two in one day."
"Worship me, worship me. Two in one day?"
Ham B leans close to me. "That's what I was trying to come over and tell you. While you was over there talking to Jenny Lisca, Tomeka Hightower was getting more and more madder."
"Tomeka Hightower?" I glance over my shoulder at her table. Tomeka Hightower is staring at me like a jewel-eyed cat. She is the queen of all attributes. Skin like caramel ice cream, hair that falls over the shoulders like a cape of black satin, full up front, wide on the bottom, and slightly bowlegged, too. Her majesty the most high Tomeka! Off limits. Strictly ninth grader property. I stutter, "Why was Tomeka getting mad at me?"
"Mad. She was mad like a cat. She told me to come get you away from that white girl. I told her that white girl is your girlfriend, and she got more madder."
"Tomeka Hightower?" I look over my shoulder again, and the prettiest face at Parkway Middle (Cheer!) is shooting daggers at me. I hunch over my empty tray, my mind reeling. Tomeka Hightower, the queen, had her eye on me and I had been so busy acting the fool I had missed it. Tomeka. Tomeka. She is the queen! "I'm dead, Ham B. I'm dead."
He pats my back so hard I almost fall into my tray. "You're not dead. You better go over there and talk to her."
"I can't."
"Why not? You done broke up with Jenny Lisca."
"You don't understand girls like I do," I explain to my boy. "You don't dump a girl and then just go talk to some other girl right in her face."
"But you said they're all the same. You said the ultra cool pimp daddy's job is to break hearts. You are the mighty one."
I growl at his ignorance. "That is the Tomeka Hightower."
"So."
"You remember what I told you about her."
"Uhm."
"Think, Ham B. Think."
His face knits up in thought, then relaxes as he remembers. "She's special to you. You love her."
"Very strong like," I correct. "I mean, she's the prettiest girl at school. Why would she be interested in me?"
"Because you are the ultra cool pimp daddy?"
"Ham B, that doesn't work with a girl like Tomeka."
"It doesn’t?" Ham B licks the cornbread crumbs from his thick lips as he thinks. "What you're basically saying is that you're chicken." He begins to cluck. "Chicken, chicken, chicken."
I put my hand over his mouth. "Shhh."
"She's just a girl, White Rice. They’re all the same."
"Don't you dare say that about her."
"You better go talk to that girl before she gets more madder," he says. "And why is you hunched over like that? I never seen you act like this. I'm very disappointed in you."
"I can't talk to her today."
"Why not?"
"I'm not dressed right."
"You're dressed cooler than me."
"Everybody dresses cooler than you."
"That’s cold."
"Baseball messed me up. I smell too funky."
"You shoulda showered."
"I was too upset I didn't make the team."
"You were upset? You didn’t look it." Ham B puts his arm around me. "I'm sorry about that, White Rice. Really I am."
"Baseball sucks. Good luck on the team, sissy."
"You’re the sissy."
"I’m the mighty one."
"Oh, mighty one."
"Worship me."
"Ultra ultra pimp pimp mack mack squared to the highest."
"Say it again."
"Oh, mighty one."
"Yes, slave?"
"And now you've got the best girl at school. All you have to do is go over and talk to her."
"Not smelling funky. It is not proper."
"What!" Ham B pops up from his chair. "I have to confess, I’m losing faith in you. I'm gonna go talk to her for you. You are the mighty one. Wait here."
"Slave, no! I command you."
Before I can grab him, he is gone. I dare not look. I dare not so much as peek. The unglorious side of my nature is triumphing and that is just not cool. I am the mighty, I am dressed in my finery, I cannot show fear, no matter what happens. Bring it on, Ham B. Bring it on. Bring her to the mighty one.
Just don’t expect me to say anything to her. What can I say to a beautiful face like that? I'm not that tight. Nobody's that tight.
Ham B is taking a long time. My stomach is jumping. At last, he lumbers back to our table. "I fixed it. She wants you to meet her after school today at the front gate."
"I can do that. I will do that. The mighty one will not disappoint. Thank you, Ham B. Thank you."
"At the front gate at 6:00 P.M."
"You know my curfew!"
"Well, then go talk to her now," he says. "That’s the best I can do. I'm tired of helping you out."
One more glance over my shoulder at beauty sipping milk through a straw, and I say to Ham B, "Six P.M. at the front gate. I'll be there."
"I'll go tell her."
"Ham B."
"What?"
"Thanks."
"No problem, sissy."
"Watch your manners."
"Oh, mighty one."
* * *
I am not one of those kids who live near Parkway. My neighborhood is not so rich. It’s a good school so my folks fixed it so that I can go there. My mom drops me off to school most mornings, or I take the city bus. So I say to my mom, "I need to go to the library today."
"Book report?" she says, turning away from her pot.
"Yeah."
"You got lots of books right here. This house is filled with your books. Your brothers filled it with balls, and you fill it with books." She throws up her hands and turns back to her pot.
"Yeah, but I need a special book from the library."
"You know I got prayer meeting tonight."
"So drop me off and I'll wait until prayer meeting ends. The library doesn't close until ten."
"Till ten? What about your bed time?"
My mom is a real mess. Can't she see that I'm not her little baby anymore?
"Mom," I whine, "stop treating me like a kid."
"You got to set an example for your little sister like your brothers set for you."
My mom is wearing a housecoat and slippers as she stirs the pot of rice on the stove. How much longer before the food is done? How long will it take her to dress, put on her wig? Why am I arguing with her? Arguing takes time, and time is the enemy.
"Okay, mom, whatever," I say, "but we got to get there by 5:30."
"Five thirty?" Her eyes light up big. "Prayer meeting doesn't start until seven."
"Yeah, but I'm meeting the class up there, and that's the time we agreed to meet."
She puts her hand on my face. "Are you the group leader?"
"Yes." Why does she make me lie to her?
"I'm so proud of you, Michelangelo," she says. "I knew it was worth it sending you to that school. Already you're beginning to shine. You're going to be a little star just like all of your brothers."
"Yep."
"A thinking star."
"A sports star, too."
"You can do anything you put your mind to."
"Yep."
And she goes back to stirring her pot. Mom, oh, mom. You can do anything you put your mind to, too, except be on time. We don't leave the house until 6:05, and we don't get to the library until 6:20. As soon as my mom leaves the library, I dash out and begin my trek down to Parkway, which is like a good twenty blocks away. When I get to the front gate, it is 6:45. My beloved Tomeka Hightower is nowhere to be found. I'm forty-five minutes late, and my logic is not clicking as fast as my heart, so I wait by the gates another full hour before I decide the beautiful one must have come and gone long before I got there.
Then I walk the twenty or so blocks back to the library and wait on my mom, who gets there like a half hour after the place closes.
* * *
The next day at lunch, Ham B says, "She's getting more madder."
"What could I do? You know how slow my mom is."
"Look at her, White Rice. Look at that beautiful girl."
"I can't do it. I can't."
"Look at her!" my boy orders.
And I look over my shoulder at Tomeka the Beautiful Queen of All She Surveys Hightower, who is shaking her head most foully. There is exasperation and disgust on her pretty, pretty face. All I can do is groan and turn back to the tray of cafeteria food that I am not eating. Who wants hot dogs? Who wants pork and beans? Ham B has already drunk my milk and eaten my cornbread. He can have it all. "Ham B, I am a broken man."
"I am ashamed of you, White Rice. You used to be my hero," he says. He makes a farting sound with his lips. "Seems like just yesterday you told me all it took to talk to a girl is to go on up there and do it."
"Was it yesterday? Seems to me like it was a hundred years ago. It couldn't have been yesterday."
"And you are here, and she is there. You should just go on up there and do it."
"Easy to talk, Ham B."
"But she's right here. And you are the mighty one."
I sink lower into my slumped shoulders. "Not here in front of all these Philistines. I need privacy."
Ham B says in his biggest, dumbest voice ever, "What privacy? Not the ultra cool pimp daddy. I'm so disgusted. Seems like just yesterday I could look up to you." He gets up, still chewing, and goes over to her table, and they're saying something to each other. I see her glance my way and nod her head. My god she's pretty. What are they talking about? Why am I stuck to this chair? All I have to do is get up and go on over there.
But Ham B's right. He's right. There is no ultra cool pimp daddy. There is no White Rice. There is only Michelangelo Rice Johnson, and he ain't worth dog poop if he can't even get up out of his chair.
But it would be different if I had privacy. Love, or very strong like, is a private act. If I had privacy, I could do it.
Ham B comes back and slips into his seat next to me. "I don't know why that sweet girl puts up with you, but she said after school, today, the front gate, be there. One more chance. You got that, chicken boy?"
"Thank you, thank you, my loyal friend, Ham B."
He says cruelly, "That's Your Majesty Mr. B, to you."
"What! No."
"Yes. Your Majesty Mr. B."
"Okay, Mr. B."
"Your Majesty!"
"Yes, Your Majesty Mr. B."
"At 6:30 sharp."
"My curfew, Ham B. I gotta study. My folks are gonna freak."
"But you’ll be there, or forget about it."
"Okay, sissy. I'll be there. I don't know how, but I'll be there."
* * *
I hear my father’s scratchy cough and watch him roll over on the couch. The TV is on a black and white channel showing I Love Lucy or My Three Sons or Mister Ed or one of those old timey shows he likes to watch. The living room smells of Vicks Vapor Rub and he has a wet towel over his face. He is not snoring yet.
"I need to go to the library today, dad."
"Library?" my dad says from under the wet towel. There is a great exhale, and he doesn't answer for like half a minute while I begin to think maybe he's fallen back asleep. His voice surprises me with its brightness. "Your mom says you went to the library yesterday, didn't come back with any books or nothing, now library again today, we are so stupid, you're going to the library but there are no books, now what is that?"
Then dead silence, which is followed by one loud snore.
"Dad?"
He moves under the towel, awakening again. "I'm a cop for twenty years, but I don't know why a boy goes to the library and comes back with no books, then he wants to go to the library the next day and the next and the next, library my butt, some girl thing, that's what this is, but we're too stupid to know about these things, and this head cold, I wish I could breathe, if my head was just clear and I could breathe."
"Dad, you understand me. It is a girl. Dad you're so cool."
The wet towel vibrates with pride as he speaks. "Of course. I have four sons, what do you think? But your mother, she wants to name you after painters and Italians, wants to make you soft, but my boys play sports, and you will too, and you'll have girls, lots of girls running after you."
"Her name is Tomeka. She's the prettiest girl at school. She wants me to meet her at the front gate."
"You have my permission. Go."
"Can't you drop me?"
"I'm sick, don't you see, it's this head cold." There is the scratchy cough. "Take your scooter. You have my permission. When I was your age I didn't wait around for rides. I took my scooter."
"They had scooters when you were a kid?"
He turns on his side with his back to me. "Don't argue with me, Michelangelo, I'm sick. Go and get your girl, son."
"Thanks, dad."
His body trembles with another cough and he says, "And take your sister."
"Take Frieda K?" I shout. "No!"
"Can't you see I'm sick. I can't baby sit. She's strong, she's got a scooter, she's an athlete like the rest of you. It'll be good exercise for the both of you. Take your sister, she looks up to you, don't want you out there with no middle school girl by yourself, middle school girls are trouble, I've been there, I know what I'm talking about."
So here we are, me and my ten-year-old sister, Frieda K, pumping our scooters up 27th Avenue. Frieda is strong, but not that strong. I have to slow down so that she can keep up. Then about ten blocks from the school, she has to use the bathroom. I'm waiting outside this gas station bathroom while she's inside doing number two. Then when she gets done, she's hungry, only because she sees a McDonald's across the street. That's just the way she is. So we duck inside, and by the time she is finished it is ten past six. We pump our scooters and we get to the front gate of Parkway Middle School at 6:29. And we wait. And wait. At 7:30, Frieda K is too tired to scooter her way home. We walk half the way. I carry her piggy-back half the way. She’s getting heavier. When we get home, Frieda K tells me she had a great time and calls me a great brother, the best in the world.
My dad comes into the room where I am stretched out on the bed with all of my clothes on, shoes too.
He's holding the towel over his mouth. "Tell me about this pretty girl."
"She didn't show up."
"Two days in a row."
"I didn't show up yesterday."
"Well good for her," he says. "Equal rights for everyone. I believe in that."
* * *
So what happens is Ham B says at lunch the next day, "She says she's real sorry she couldn't make it yesterday. But something came up."
"I was up here for an hour."
My boy says without cracking a smile. "And with your little sister. That is not very tight, not tight at all, home boy."
"We rode our scooters all the way up here."
"You and your little sister," he says, shaking his head dolefully. "That is not tight at all. And now this bad thing happened, too."
"What bad thing?"
"The thing that came up. The thing with Tomeka and her boyfriend that kept her home yesterday."
"Her boyfriend? I didn't know she had a boyfriend."
Ham B says apologetically, "He's sitting over there with her now."
I turn and Tomeka is sitting next to Benny Scruggs. This is not good. Benny Scruggs has bigger muscles than the teachers. Tomeka looks so sad sitting with her head in her hands while Benny, it looks like, scolds her. Benny catches me looking and punches one hand with a fist. This is not good.
Ham B says, "So now Benny wants to fight you."
"Wait a minute—."
"Yes. Yes. There’s no way out of it. Today after lunch in the spillout area. You got like ten minutes."
I'm shaking my head. "But wait a minute. There will be no fight. I'm not going to do it."
"You messed with his girl, you gotta do it."
"Ham B, I won't do it. He will beat me up. The mighty one is not a fighter. You know that," I say. "I don't want her anyway. She's not my type. She doesn’t keep her appointments. He can have her. Tomeka Hightower, Queen of the Fickle, Empress of All Dog Poop. New subject, slave."
"Old subject."
"I refuse—."
"But she's special to you."
I grab Ham B by the forearm and wish I had muscles like his, wish I could throw a baseball as far, maybe throw a good punch. I'm holding his forearm and I say, "Regular guys like us, Ham B, we don't need no stinking girls. We got each other."
Ham B's lips part slowly. It's like he's about to say something heroic and profound like how me and him together, with him up front, can fight this guy. "You got," he says, "like four minutes left."
Four minutes. Four minutes between me and everlasting humiliation.
Ham B is no help, making deep breathing sounds next to me. Benny Scruggs, when I look back at him, has this hard look on his face, which is the only kind of look a guy who's flunked the ninth grade twice can have on his face. And Tomeka, sitting there so sad as though I have let her down. She had wanted to be free of this guy, maybe, and that's why she had sought me out. She was tired of the muscles and hard faces. She was looking for a guy with something different. She was looking for a guy who could make her laugh. She would kiss a guy who could make her laugh, even if his legs were skinny with big knees. She was looking for a guy with a different kind of attributes. But even a guy who makes you laugh has to be a guy, and a guy has to stand his ground even if he gets knocked down on it. Then she'll pick him up and kiss him and be his girl. And that’s what makes him mighty. He just has to be brave enough to take his licks.
I might even be able to get in a blow or two before he stomps me. I might even get a shot at his nose like my dad taught me and start the blood to running. I'll be on the ground, but he'll be bleeding, and he won't want to mess with me anymore after that. All hail, the mighty one.
Ham B says, "There's the bell."
I am a puppet rising as the bell is ringing. Someone up there is pulling my strings. There is a greater force controlling my limbs. Fear has been banished. I am courage now. And knowledge. Even if I fall, I know I will rise again. And I will be stronger. I walk with mighty steps through the swinging doors out into the bright sunlight to face my foe. There is my faithful Ham B beside me. There is the bustling, cackling throng, eagerly gathering as always to see a fight. Before me stands the fiend with his hard face, hard heart. He shall learn the true meaning of courage today. He shall taste my blood. I shall taste his. The beautiful one shall be mine evermore.
I am pushed toward Benny Scruggs by the throng.
Our names are shouted, screeched even from every mouth. I have no control over my feet as I am bulled to the center of the ring their bodies have formed on the dirty pavement of the spillout area behind the cafeteria. His fists are already clenched. I clench mine. Only two yards separate us now. I traverse the distance with a defiant step and press my chest against him. He stands two, three inches taller than me. He wears a glittering gold chain around his neck with the medallion of a death's head. It hangs between the twin swells of his pectorals. Beyond his shoulder I see Tomeka Hightower, the girl I can have if I become the guy I should be. But the thing has gone out of me.
I fall to my knees before Benny and cry out: "Don't beat me up. Please don't beat me up. Please."
My eyes are closed. I hear derisive laughter. Let them laugh. It is better to be laughed at than pummeled.
I appeal to my foe: "Please don’t hit me."
Only when I hear the dumb slap and plod of Ham B's treacherous laughter do I open my eyes.
I do not understand why my faithful Ham B is shaking Benny's hand, why Ham B is hugging Tomeka. The laughter of the throng makes it difficult for me to hear what Ham B is saying, but he is jumping up and down like an excited monkey and pointing at me.
Finally I hear his words: "I got you, I got you, I finally got you."
"Got me?"
The beautiful Tomeka leans down and utters the first words I shall ever hear her speak to me: "He was tired of you tricking him. So he set you up. He used me and Benny to set you up."
"Benny's not your boyfriend?"
"No! He's my big brother."
"Scruggs? Hightower?"
"My half-brother."
I am still on my knees and they are all laughing as realization sets in on the snatches of Ham B's boastful monologue: " . . . all the way up to the school on a scooter. With his little sister! Boy, did I get him! I got him good."
Somehow I am able to get to my feet again, but I do not brush off my knees, or roll up the one pant leg of my regal finery to be all cool again. Somehow I am able to make it through the rest of my classes that day, the rest of that week, the rest of that year.
At any rate, next year, I gained weight and made the baseball team, at shortstop, and became its star player just like my big brothers. In this way, yours truly, the ultra cool pimp daddy White Rice, passed the ultimate test of courage, for as everyone knows, humiliation sits on your shoulder like a brightly colored parrot with a very loud mouth. There is no way to hide it. There is no way to hide from it.
And that is the honest truth.
Or maybe that's the part I'm making up.
* * *
So I have this student in my class, John Hightower, a good writer with a serious attendance problem. He misses sixty per cent of the semester and turns in maybe two assignments. So I flunk him, right?
A week after the semester ends, John calls and says he wants to speak with me about his grade.
I laugh to myself and then tell him that there’s nothing to speak about. "You’ve quite earned your F, John. Have a good day."
Nevertheless, the young man persists, writing letters, leaving messages, all of which I ignore. Like many of my colleagues, I am of the mind that if these kids would put the kind of effort into trying to pass the class that they put into appealing for sympathy after they have flunked it, no one would ever flunk a college class again.
Finally, John drops by one day during office hours. He’s a tall, lanky fellow with very dark skin. He’s a very handsome boy. Athletic looking. It looks like he would be good at basketball or maybe even track. I remember liking him very much the first day he introduced himself in class, but that is exactly the point. He was almost NEVER in class. He had earned his F.
Nevertheless, he begs for a second chance, and I tell him no.
He pleads. His stepdad had recently walked out on him and his mom, he explains, so he had had to help out by working two part-time jobs to keep the lights on at home and pay for his tuition. He promises he will do any amount of make up work I assign.
I inform him that there is no basis for a second chance because he flunked the course on the grounds of having not done the work. And now the semester is over. It is too late. Had he spoken to me during the semester while the problems were occurring, perhaps I could have done something to help. But now it is too late. The best he can hope for at this point, I explain, is to appeal to the dean of students, who might perhaps proclaim him a hardship case and refund his tuition. But then he would have to sit out a year.
"Sorry. That is the best that I can offer," I say to the handsome boy. "You see, John, you cannot expect to make up an entire college semester of assignments with a major paper done after the term has ended, which is what you are petitioning me to do. At any rate, you are an excellent writer with great potential, and if you learn to stick to something once you have begun it, you will no doubt do well in life."
After that, the young man gets up and leaves, sadly.
I feel sad, too. I hate to flunk talented students. Especially, for some inexplicable reason, this student. Then I look at his name again. John Hightower.
Hmmmm.
I leaf through the papers on my desk and check out the return address on the envelope of one of the letters he had sent me earlier. The address indeed is in a neighborhood I am familiar with. In fact, I grew up not too far from there. And the young man John Hightower looks a lot like her, but taller and male. What are the odds?
Later that day, I call him at the number on his card. A woman answers, and I say, "Is John Hightower there?"
"Yes. Who may I tell him is calling?"
"Professor Michelangelo Johnson from the community college."
There is a pause. Then: "Professor Michelangelo Johnson? Michelangelo?"
"Yes. Do I know you?"
"This is Tomeka, from Parkway! Hi, White Rice!"
"Hi, Tomeka. Well, isn’t this a wonderful surprise? Tomeka. Tomeka."
"White Rice. Ha-ha. This is a trip. You’re a professor."
"Yes. And how are you related to John, might I ask?"
She says, "I’m his mother."
"Wow."
"Wow. Ha-ha. This is a trip."
"Old times."
"Old times."
I say, laughing, "So I guess Benny Scruggs is his daddy, huh?"
Tomeka says, "Stop playing. You know Benny’s my brother. You’re a trip. Ha-ha. Me and John’s father aren’t together. You know how it is. We never got married or nothing. That happened right after high school."
"Are you with anybody right now?"
"You are a trip," she says. "A real trip, Professor Michelangelo White Rice . . . Johnson. Ha-ha."
"Are you with anybody?"
"Ha-ha," she says. "Wait ‘til I tell this to Benny. He’s gonna crack up."
Then she puts John on the phone, and I work out a plan to have him fix his failing grade without having to appeal to the dean for a hardship case.
Old times. My empress.
©2004 by Preston L. Allen
Web Author: Joseph D. McNair Copyright © 2004 by Joseph D. McNair -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED