Shades of Gray: The Introduction Of Walter Harrison
Published by Michael Johnson
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2008 by Michael Johnson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter One
Ok, Walter, now is the time for you to find a prom date. The prom is two months away…you have to find a date soon. You have to ask someone to the prom, or you will get stuck going with a girl nobody else wants to take. Do you want an ugly date, Walter? I didn’t think so! This is not just another high school dance. This is the senior prom we are talking about for the class of 2004. If it were another dance, I would not even want to go, and I wouldn’t, just like I never went to any of the homecoming dances through the years. But the senior prom is something you have to attend. My family is going to see my date. My kids are going to see the prom pictures one day and, everyone remembers his/her senior prom. I have to go, regardless of how I despise high school and the asshole students who grace me with their presence on a daily basis.
Darlan High School is a very large high school. Instead of just being one enclosed building, as the schools are in Philadelphia, DHS is designed as a college campus with the classrooms located in several bigger buildings on the main campus and in small, portable structures on the outskirts of campus.
The school grounds have paved walkways with trees and bushes littered throughout the grassy areas and also connected tables and benches painted in the school colors -black and red- scattered all over the campus.
During lunchtime, the freshman and sophomores mostly eat their meals inside of the cafeteria, unless they have friends who are upperclassmen with whom the underclassmen can tag along and buy their lunches from the local fast food restaurants. The lunch period is forty minutes long, and since it takes almost twenty five minutes to get through the crowded drive-through lanes, I normally will bring my food back with me or risk being late to my next class. My parents wouldn’t take kindly to my being late to any class. They wouldn’t discover any tardiness on my part until several months after the fact, but the less motivation they have to involve themselves in my life, the easier it makes my life.
Every day, when I return from my lunch run, I see Latoya Carter and her girlfriends sitting at the bench by the gym, which is the closest bench to the parking lot. I think they like sitting there because that way, they can look at what everyone else is wearing as they return to school grounds. There are six girls in total, including Latoya. I used to wonder how they got their food. Latoya and her cheerleading clique rarely leave campus, but I discovered that the newer members of the cheer squad “volunteers” to bring the clique food on most days. My friend Joshua Jones and I pass her every day, and I make sure to get a prolonged glimpse of the sexiest girl at DHS, when I walk by. For most of my senior year, I would see Latoya sitting with her girlfriends and her boyfriend at their favorite resting area. I never understood what Latoya saw in Jonathan Taylor or “JT” as most people call him. I loathe black guys like JT! JT was born and raised here in Darlan, Florida, a small town with a population of about 50,000 in the suburbs of Tampa. When my family and I moved here last summer, I spent hours in the streets of our neighborhood, waiting for trouble.
Where I am from, when a new kid appears in the neighborhood, he is targeted by the current inhabitants until he proves himself to be someone who has to be respected or reveals himself to be a chump. I certainly wasn’t hiding from anyone. I didn’t hide from people in Philadelphia, and I wasn’t going to in Darlan. I went to the local basketball courts, ostensibly to play basketball, but in reality, I was waiting. I waited until someone challenged me, only the challenge never came. I realized that Darlan is a different place than I am used to. I don’t have to, physically at least, assert myself to prove I belong.
Darlan is quiet at night, and although the evening news recaps a day filled with violent crime, the crimes committed mostly are in Tampa and other large cities in Florida, but typically not in Darlan. Darlan is basically God’s waiting room! So JT is clearly not a thug from the inner city, yet he carries himself like one. He wears his jeans halfway off of his ass, exposing his underwear completely. To make his style more outlandish, he pulls the back of his shirt over his lowered belt line to make sure everyone can see his underwear. It is not enough to just wear a long shirt over his butt to imply his backside is exposed; he has to show everyone. JT also likes to wear Timberland boots and a long, silver chain with a huge medallion of Jesus Christ, the size of a fist, over his jerseys and other oversized tops he enjoys wearing. JT also wears sunglasses, even when the sun isn’t out and a golden grill over his teeth.
I detest everything about him: the way he strolls around campus like he owns it, the way he always has to say “yanowaimsayin” or “na’meen” before, during, and upon completion of sentences. I have watched JT and others behave this way, and if Darlan remotely resembled the slums I am familiar with, I would understand why the young black men in this town act this way. If this was North Philly, these guys would never leave their homes, but here, in a sleepy town of Darlan, these posers are perceived as tough guys. It bothers me because it couldn’t be further from the truth.
JT is a heavily recruited 6’5” senior wide receiver on the DHS football team so that makes him just super in everyone’s eyes: teachers, principal, students, you name it. Even my parents, MY PARENTS, said he looked like a good kid when we saw him at a parent-teacher conference. My parents would bitch incessantly if I came home and acted like JT, but JT is a good kid, in their eyes, because he can catch a football and run fast. That makes him a great athlete but not a great person. This is why I am glad I graduate from high school in two months, so I can go to a place where being black and well-behaved is an asset and not a liability. But I am not at that magical place yet, and the girl I would love to go to the prom with, Latoya Carter, loves JT. Latoya is the polar opposite of JT, being sweet, thoughtful and articulate. I don’t know why she has lowered the bar so significantly to be with JT. Women always are attracted to the jerks, and I never understood why.
Latoya is a young black woman that defies every negative inclination you could possibly have about black women. So often, in the media and in entertainment, black women are portrayed as loud, hostile and sexually promiscuous. Whenever I hear negative things spoken about black people, whether it is other black people or white people who are saying those things, I wish I could show them Latoya Carter because I know it would be impossible for them to have the same ignorant opinions after meeting her.
Latoya is about the same height as I am, 5’8.” Latoya has dark brown skin with big brown eyes, full lips, with black hair about shoulder length, and her hair is always neatly done. Sometimes her hair is curly, sometimes up, other times braided. I have never seen her in a hair style that requires a ridiculous amount of weave, not that there is anything wrong with weave, but I like when weave is used in a way that enhances natural beauty and doesn’t overshadow beauty with overly lengthy and garish hair styles. Latoya always wears make-up, but her make-up is worn subtly, almost like she isn’t wearing any. I don’t think she really needs to anyway. Latoya usually wears tight jeans, even tighter T-shirts, and high-heel open-toe shoes.
Latoya’s frame is so curvy; she could pass for twenty-five years old very easily. Latoya Carter is the type of girl I can envision being targeted by college guys and old married men who cheat on their wives. She has it all: the look, body, popularity, brand new red coupe paid for by her parents, a ton of girlfriends (who secretly hate her), and the attention of every male student, most of whom will probably jack off with her in mind before going to sleep.
The prom is approaching fast, and I heard the best news from my only friend, Joshua Jones, while we were sitting at a table in the Darlan Mall’s food court. Josh plays on the football team with JT. He is one of the few white guys on the varsity squad. Standing two inches shorter than I at 5’6”, he is relatively short for a running back but weighs in at a solid 200 lbs; he is strong as hell and will run through a tackler’s outstretched arms if his whole body isn’t exerted to bring Josh down. Well, two weeks ago, Josh heard during a weight lifting session that JT and Latoya were officially finished. Latoya, with one of her friends, caught JT at the movie theater with another girl. If that weren’t bad enough, JT and the girl were making out like a couple of fresh teenagers, which I guess we all are…anyway; Latoya promptly embarrassed him at the movie theater and ended the relationship.
I met Latoya during my junior year, my first year in Darlan, when she sat behind me in science class. We were paired together during a group assignment, and we got to know each while dissecting squid. I told her about where I am from, Philly, and she told me she is from Ohio. Her family moved to Darlan when she was six-years-old.
I didn’t realize she was with JT at that point, and I could not help feeling she liked me, at least on the surface level. I wanted to ask her out and I did, but she refused, having a douchebag boyfriend and all. Well, someone in the class, and I don’t know whom, told JT about my advances, and he confronted me in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant about a week after I asked Latoya out. Josh, whom I met in English class on my first day of school during my junior year at DHS, and I, were walking to my car after getting lunch from a local fast food place when I heard someone yell out:
“There he is. That’s that dude.” I looked back and I see JT, with three of his fellow teammates jogging towards me and they surround me, with my back to the trunk of my blue sedan.
“Ay, I heard you tryin’ to fuck my girl na’meen,” JT says in a threatening tone, trying to intimidate me. The three guys with him are also staring at me with menacing glares. This may have scared someone from Darlan, but I spent too much time in North Philly, in situations far worse, for this scenario to alarm me. Multiple guys wanting to kick my ass became common to me, like it is ordinary for the sun to ascend in the morning and descend at night.
“You have a girl man? Congrats! You should be proud of yourself, Jonathan. What does your girlfriend have to do with me, Jonathan?” I asked, very relaxed. JT hates to be called Jonathan. I once saw him push a kid down a flight of stairs during my junior year for calling him Jonathan. It was one day before the DHS football team had to play against rival Lewinsky High. The kid, who was pushed, a bookish nerdy white guy, reported what JT had done, but the incident was swept under the rug so that JT could play in the big game in which he recorded fifteen catches for two-hundred forty-four yards and four touchdowns. The game was a 44-7 route in favor of DHS.
“Nobody calls me Jonathan, nigga. Don’t play dumb with me na’meen. I’ll fuck you up if you keep tryin’ to fuck with ‘Toya, yanowaimsayin’.”
“JT, let’s fuck this nigga up, man,” one of his friends suggested impatiently.
Josh stepped between me and JT’s entourage, hoping to diffuse the heated confrontation. The group continued to get louder and louder while Josh did his best to protect his friend, not that I wanted or needed his protection. Josh was pretty well respected; he tried out for the starting running back position on the football team and since every player on defense is black, at times Josh was the object of extra attention from black players that wanted Josh to not be able to hang with them, athletically. Josh took every extra hard hit, and he earned the respect of every black player on the team.
While Josh was ineffectively playing the peacemaker, I quietly placed my bag of food on top of the car, opened the trunk, reached under my spare tire, pulled out a crowbar and addressed the suddenly docile gang:
“Now, who wants to fuckin’ fight?”
The group took a few steps back. I put my hand on Josh’s chest, motioning for him to step aside.
“I don’t hear all that mouth now fellas! Who wants to be the first to get fucked up out here?” I asked indignantly, bouncing to an open space in the parking lot, and signaling to JT that he step forward so I can do my best artificially-enhanced baseball player imitation.
“JT, I’ll give Josh the crowbar to ensure your three bitches don’t jump in, but make no mistake, I don’t need a weapon to take you out Jonathan!”
I gave Josh the crowbar and focused my attention on JT. As JT pretended he wanted to fight me on fair terms, his group held him back. Latoya, on one of her rare lunch runs, came out of a different restaurant and ran towards the action. Her presence alone calmed everyone down. Latoya put her polished and manicured hand on JT’s face and told him to go back to school. JT and his boys reluctantly walked to JT’s blue SUV, and before driving back to school, JT drove to my location, rolled down his window and shouted:
“This ain’t over, nigga.” JT then sped off while rolling his window up.” I knew it was over though. Cowards like JT let feuds die when they can’t bully potential victims.
“Walter, are you nuts?” Josh asked while he handed me my crowbar, which I took and put back into my trunk. “JT is one of the more popular guys in school. He can have a group of football players attack you at any time. Plus, he is a lot bigger than you are.”
“Well, what do you want me to do, Josh?” I asked with adrenaline still pumping through my body “I can’t let him punk me. Besides, he’s a bitch anyway. JT had three guys with him, all of whom are bigger than I am. Do you really think I could have held them off with a crowbar if they really wanted to fight? JT was just testing me.”
Josh and I got into my car and drove quickly to school before we would be late to our classes. When we got back to the campus, I looked towards Latoya’s bench like I always do and I saw Latoya sitting alone. She saw me looking at her, like she always does, only this time she motioned for me to come to her. Josh told me he would catch me after school, and I went over to Latoya’s bench. She looked amazing like she always does, wearing a light blue dress that showed off her body so well. I sat down on the bench and looked at my watch, seeing only three minutes remained before the bell would ring, signaling the start of 5th period.
“Walter, I’m sorry about JT and his friends. I told him you didn’t know I had a boyfriend when you asked me out in class that day.” She started to laugh quietly, “Walter, you have to be careful. JT has a lot of friends in this town. You can’t call him out like that!”
“Latoya, I’m not afraid of him. I come from North Philadelphia! Do you know what that means?”
“No, what does it mean?” she asked.
“It means there is nothing JT can do that I haven’t seen already. It’s rough up there, and contrary to popular belief, JT is not a tough guy. He may be tall and athletic, but he doesn’t have any heart. My God, what do you see in him?” I asked.
“JT is a good guy. I don’t think I understand your question, Walter.” she said.
“Oh, come on! He is not a nice person. Shouldn’t a guy have to be nice person to be with you?”
“He’s nice…to me. And he has a lot of friends here. He wouldn’t have friends if he wasn’t nice,” She said.
“People like him because he plays football, and they know he will go to a big university after graduation. If he was a regular student, he would not be well liked at all…I know you like the idea of being with him, but when you are away from school and away from the hype, do you really like Jonathan Taylor?”
Latoya thought about what I just asked her. The most frustrating aspect of dating in high school is you can be the nicest person in the school if you want to. You can be smart, funny, and you can treat a girl with the utmost respect but if an asshole comes along and he can run and catch a football, he gets the attention. He gets the girl and the respect from everyone, and there is nothing that can be done about it. It’s just the way high school works; always has and always will. The Walter Harrisons just get promised that things change in adulthood, but who knows if that is accurate or not. Why does Latoya have to think so hard about this question? If she really liked him, she would say “yes” right away. The bell started to ring, and everyone started walking towards their respective classes.
“You just proved my point Latoya! I’ll see you later.” I walked to my class and when I looked back to her, I saw JT fussing with her, most likely about what she was talking to me about, while she was getting her books out of her locker.
I never had an extended conversation with her again after that day, and that was over a year ago. Now, when we see each other, we wave to each other or say hello in some way, but I never had another opportunity to get inside her head. I waited patiently for her to become available, not that I wasn’t involved with other girls in the meantime. I just kept the fact to myself that I would drop anyone else right away if I could be with Latoya Carter.
Now, I will finally get my chance. When Josh told me Latoya and JT had broken up, he warned me not to ask her to the prom. He did not provide me with a tangible reason, just something about me not being her type. Josh and I were at the Darlan Mall when he told me the news of Latoya and JT’s breakup. We sitting at a table in the food court, having some drinks and looking at the girls walk by, discussing which ones, hypothetically, were worth talking to. We have not tried to pick up girls together since he committed himself to his girlfriend Rebecca, but when we did, we had mixed results.
The best way for a black guy and a white guy pairing to approach girls is to try and find a black girl and a white girl combination. It is rare to see Asian or Latin women in this town, let alone any other races. Finding a black-white female pairing isn’t always easy to accomplish in Darlan.
Mostly, we will come across two black girls together or two white girls together. When we have approached either of those pairings, one of the girls will like me or like him. It is rare that two black girls will like both of us or two white girls will like both of us, so we target the mixed pairings. When we do find a white and black girl together, I never ceased to be amazed with the results because the results are always the same; the white girl will like me and the black girl will like Josh. It’s never a hood acting black girl that likes him either; it is the nice, polite, and extremely hot black girl, who defies negative stereotypes; that is the type of black girl Josh has gotten play from.
With me, it varies; sometimes it’s a lower class white girl, the one who likes rap and thinks most white guys are lame and is somewhat shunned by her white community. This type will almost certainly not play hard to get, but the downside is those types are not the best looking girls in the world. It’s almost like they could not get a white guy who contains the edge they are looking for, so they target black guys. The other type of white girl that I end up with is the white girl whose parents tell her she had better not bring a black guy home, so she does things to piss her parents off on purpose. These white girls are generally prettier than the hood acting white girls. When I have gone to the movies with them or talked on the phone, I have been fooled into thinking they are really into me instead of using me as a tool to get a rise out of their loved ones. Once the novelty faded, the brief association was over soon afterwards. So when Josh and I looked for babes, one of us jumps on the grenade while the other talks to the real object of desire. After sitting quietly and drinking a couple of sodas, I break the silence:
“Josh, I’m going to ask Latoya to be my date for the prom tomorrow at school.”
Josh put his soda on the table, scratched his close shaven head, rubbed his blue eyes, took a deep breath and looked at me:
“Walter, I don’t think this is such a good idea. What about Tanya?” he asked.
“What about Tanya?” I asked.
“Tanya would be a prefect date for you. Tanya is always asking about you when she hangs out with Rebecca and me. Plus she has low self-esteem so would be down for anything after the prom.”
Rebecca Swanson is Josh’s girlfriend and his prom date. Rebecca plays softball at our school, DHS. Rebecca is tall, three full inches taller than Josh and Caucasian with long brown hair with an athletic build. Tanya is Rebecca’s best friend who came along when Josh dragged me on a double date with them a few months ago. Tanya is attractive...she is like a poor man’s high school version of Jennifer Aniston but our one sided conversations centered on her ex-boyfriend and what a dick he was to her. I just don’t like her, not enough to take her to the prom and deal with my racist parents in the process. Tanya is a nice girl, but I just didn’t feel the magic, but apparently Tanya did, and she has been asking about me ever since the double date. The thought of guaranteed post prom action wasn’t a bad thing though, but I would have to decline.
“Tanya is nice, but I want to make a splash. I want to shoot for the stars. My kids will see those prom pictures one day.”
“Walter, don’t you think Latoya Carter is out of your league?” Josh asked. “She just broke up with the next Jerry Rice, for God’s sake.”
“I don’t think so. Maybe the allure of dating a football star would be too much for most people to give up, but she broke up with him for a reason. Latoya has realized the errors of her poor taste in men, and she has finally matured. We are going to graduate soon! As popular as JT is now, the most likely scenario is he will go to college, play football, not attend his classes, and he will be kicked off of the football team. He will be back in Darlan, working at the Greasy Spoon before the end of next year.”
“That is possible and it could happen to a nicer guy… but you aren’t listening. We don’t live in a world where people make smart decisions. For better or worse, high school is a cliquish world. Once you are stuck with a certain group, you don’t change because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Josh…what the hell are you talking about?” I asked while gesturing my hands in disgust.
“Ok, Walter, listen up. I play on the football team. Most guys on the team date cheerleaders, other athletes, hot bimbos, so on and so forth. Why? The high school dating system has determined these are the girls we are supposed to date. Is it a coincidence I am dating Rebecca? If not her, it would have been another girl from the athletic circle of our school. Nerds date other nerds. Ugly people date ugly people. Like it or not, Latoya Carter is a part of the jock system and considering high school is almost over, she is not about to change now….”
“So what am I?” I asked
“Walter, you are the classic ‘tweener’, the hardest group to be a part of in high school. You are too cool to be a nerd, but you don’t play any sports so you can’t be in the athletic group. You’re not flashy and flamboyant, so you can’t be a pretty boy. When it comes to the prom, the best thing for you would be to go with someone from your own group or bring a wildcard, someone hot from church or another school. You have options, Walter, but this isn’t the movies and the Latoya Carters of the world are used to a particular type of guy.”
I woke up the next day, and I was anxious from the start. I decided today was the day I would ask Latoya to be my date for the prom. No more stalling, I am going to ask her today. When I went downstairs to the breakfast table, I did not want to eat anything, but I also didn’t want Mom and Dad to ask anything if I didn’t eat, so I forced myself to swallow the pancakes and eggs Mom had made. The less I talked to them about my personal life, the better it was for all of us. We moved to Darlan from Philadelphia during the summer of 2002 when I was sixteen years old. My Dad, Joseph Harrison, was born in January of 1950. He joined the Marines in 1968 and served for over twenty years, retiring in 1990 holding the rank of Master Sergeant.
While Dad was on leave in the summer of 1975, visiting his mother in North Philadelphia, he went to a bar one night and saw Monica Levitt, his prom date and high school sweetheart. The two of them sat in the bar and reminisced about the old times they had together. Fearing he would never see her again, he asked her to visit him at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, where he was stationed at the time. Mom went to San Diego and she never returned to Philadelphia that summer. They were married by the end of the summer and had a bouncing baby boy in 1986.
When Dad retired from the Marines, he wanted to get into real estate, so he started to buy rental properties in the North Philadelphia area. We lived outskirts of Philadelphia, but Dad would often sleep at the properties while he was working. Mom had a part-time job at a department store in Center City, but she pretty much stayed at home and tended to the house. I would tag along with my dad during the summers, and I learned a lot about Dad’s business. I ventured into the local neighborhoods and became familiar with what a real hood is and what real hood people are like. Life is hard for people around there! Drugs and crime have destroyed what was once a prosperous section of the city. When guys mark their bodies with tattoos and sag their pants, it’s because they have been to prison, and their outward appearance was adopted from prison. People from the hoods of Philadelphia have truly fucked up lives, and it is reflected in their attitudes towards life.
I used to play basketball in North Philly playgrounds, and I was often under attack from the boys who lived around there because they knew my Dad owned apartment buildings, and they viewed me as some spoiled rich house nigger who acted white. I had to fight my way out of situations much more hopeless than what I faced outside of the burger joint with JT and his lackeys. I get really annoyed when black people in Darlan act like they are from bad neighborhoods and like they had bad lives because they didn’t.
The time finally came for me to ask Latoya to the prom. I returned to the DHS campus from lunch, and I saw Latoya talking with her girlfriends. Just when I started to think maybe I should not approach her in front of her friends, I remembered what Josh had told me at the mall, and I wanted to prove him wrong. I sauntered to the bench where Latoya is always sitting, and I asked her if I could talk to her alone for a few minutes. Her girlfriends all gave Latoya the same “what the hell does this guy want” expression, but despite it, she walked with me about fifty feet away from her meeting area, to another bench that wasn’t occupied.
“Latoya, how is your day going?” I asked
“Ok…I guess…” Latoya said with apprehension “You didn’t call me over here to ask me that did you?”
“No, I was just trying to break the ice. I wanted to know if you would go to the prom with me. I have liked you since I moved down here last year and…”
“Walter, I am flattered you want to go to the prom with me but…I have to say no. You’re a nice guy and everything, but…you’re a little too nice…”
I looked in the opposite direction, away from her face. What Josh said to me in the mall made a lot of sense even though I didn’t want to admit it. I thought Latoya was different though. I wanted her to be different:
“Walter, you are just not what I am looking for in a prom date. You act a little too white for me…”
I turned my head sharply in her direction and looked directly at her decreasingly pretty face. “Not this crap again” I thought to myself:
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Well, you talk properly...”
“So do you Latoya…,” I interrupted
“Yeah, but I’m a girl. Plus your best friend is white,” Latoya said, ignoring the fact that she speaks in the same manner as I do. “Look at how you dress…” she said while pointing critically at the outfit I was wearing, “You are wearing a wrestling T-shirt. “What is an undertaker? You just don’t act black enough and you are not my type. I’m sorry, but I have to go. You’re cute and everything…you’ll have no trouble finding a white prom date.”
I just sat on the bench, dejected. It wasn’t so much that I was turned down; every guy experiences that at one time or another. I was rejected because I “act white.” What does that even mean? If I speak well, wear my pants around my waist with wrestling T-shirts, does it make me less of a black person? It’s like…God, it’s like nobody, not even our own people, thinks much of us! Look at Josh; he can be polite and well-spoken and never gets any crap for it. I am treated like an eyesore by my own people because I conduct myself the right way. Latoya easily could have said she sees me as a friend, she doesn’t find me attractive, anything else, but I act white and I am too nice?
I told Josh after school what had happened when I asked Latoya to the prom. We were in my car, and I was driving him to his house. When I told him I was turned down by Latoya and relayed her reasoning, he laughed quietly to himself little, which was not the reaction I was looking for:
“What the fuck is so funny?” I asked irately. “I was humiliated by a popular girl today and, as my friend, this is your initial reaction! Great! Brilliant! Good job, Josh.”
“Oh, relax, guy. I am just bustin’ your chops a little. I don’t understand why you are so hurt by this. Who cares? She’s just a girl! It’s not too late to ask Tanya!”
“I don’t want to go with Tanya. Truth be told, I would rather not go to the prom at all, but you have to go to your senior prom. What kind of a loser doesn’t go to his senior prom?”
“You big guy if you can’t find a date soon. Latoya is just some girl…who cares if she turns you down?”
I thought that question over for a little while. We arrived to Josh’s house, and I parked into his driveway, behind his white pickup. Josh lives in a gated community called Darlan’s Country Club, where all of the houses look almost the same. All of the houses are two level homes with a four car garage and about eighty square feet of grass in front of each home. Josh walked into the open garage and grabbed two grape sodas from the cooler on the bed of his truck and tossed one to me. We sat on the bed of his truck as I popped the lid on the grape soda and slowly took a sip of it:
“Look, Walt, Latoya is hot and everything and I know she is a cheerleader but I’ve seen her family at football games. Her window is closing, and she will be fat in about ten years, if she has that long. Maybe its better she won’t go to the prom with you.”
“You don’t understand, Josh. She told me I act white. It’s almost the worst thing you can say to a black person. And she said I am too nice. That is the worst thing a girl can say to a guy.”
“Walter, don’t you think you are making too big of a deal about this?”
“No, I’m not, Josh. I feel like every black girl rejected me today. Do you know how it feels to not fit in with your own people? How would you like it if, for your whole life, you were told you are not white enough?”
“I don’t think I would care, Walt. It doesn’t even make any sense for her to say you act white. I don’t even know what it is supposed to mean. How can you care so much about what she says when her statements don’t make sense?”
“Her statements make sense, Josh. The logic is outdated, but it makes sense to black people.”
“Latoya is not the only black girl in the school. Just ask another black girl if you don’t want to go to the prom with a white girl. Is that the reason you don’t want to go with Tanya?”
“Kind of…I mean, you know I date white girls…you were there and everything, but I wanted my prom to be different. My parents will see my prom date, and I didn’t want to fight them about my date. I don’t know of another black girl that I would want to attend the prom with. In Philly, the prom is such a big deal. Up there, girls spend several hundred dollars on dresses, and limos are rented or guys rent fancy cars to drive to the prom. Nobody drives their own car! You have to go to your own house and your date’s house to take pictures, where immediate and distant family members will be present. Even the neighbors will stand outside of their own homes to watch you get into the car and drive off. And you better look sharp, or every flaw will be dissected and discussed at length after you leave. My parents will make a huge deal about it because to them, it is a huge deal. My parents don’t approve of interracial dating, and that is why I don’t discuss my dating habits with them.”
“Yeah, I understand,” Josh said. “My parents and I have had that conversation. You know…when they tell you whom you can and whom you can’t bring home. If they saw the double dates we were on, they would be very pissed off, but if Rebecca were black, I wouldn’t care what my parents said about us. Parents are stupid, Walt, and they don’t know everything. You can’t modify your life to their liking. Sooner or later, you’ll see that.”
Chapter Two
I was relieved to come home to an empty house. After what happened in school today, I did not feel much like talking to either one of my parents. I do not hide disappointment well, which isn’t necessarily good or bad, but my folks are not the most understanding people in the world. If they knew I was rejected by a girl for not acting black enough, they would agree with her and encourage me to modify my behavior. My parents don’t understand why rock is among my favorite genres of music or why I wear wrestling T-shirts and shorts instead of oversized jeans and jerseys. My parents don’t like the fact that I don’t own a bunch of hats and wave caps. They especially don’t like the fact that they never see any black girls coming over to see me. I am accused of acting white just as much at home as I am outside of home.
I am not sure where Mom is right now. I know Dad is at Harrison’s Palace, the apartment building in North Darlan he had built upon our family’s arrival in Darlan. After seven years of basically being a slum lord in North Philadelphia, Dad finally owned a property which made him proud. Dad owned six subpar apartment buildings within an eight-mile radius in North Philadelphia. The people who rented these apartments were, by all accounts, very poor, very uneducated and conducted themselves as such, much to Dad’s chagrin.
Mom never stepped foot into any of the properties, but because Dad always converted one apartment into a leasing office, he and I would spend nights at the different leasing offices at least two weeks out of each month during the summer, when I was between the ages of five to sixteen years old. The renters would constantly complain about the living conditions they were forced to endure, mainly the rundown condition of the building and the influx of roaches, mice and other pests.
I can attest for the pest problem because the leasing offices I had to sleep in weren’t spared. At night, I usually slept on the bed while Dad either slept on the bed in the other bedroom or a desk chair in the living room, depending on whether the leasing office was a one or two bedroom apartment. I could always feel roaches crawling on the bed, or even worse, on me while I tried to sleep. The best I could do was to pull the sheets as tight to my body as possible and curl into the fetal position to shield myself from the vermin, sometimes unsuccessfully. Dad never allowed me to use roach spray. It was hard to sleep most of the time, but I would not dare turn on the lights and rile up the roaches even more.
If the bug problem weren’t enough, the people who lived there were constantly racing back and forth in the hallways, arguing loudly or physically fighting. When I was younger, I would rush to wake Dad and tell him what was happening in the hallway, but he would sleepily tell me to go to bed. One night, things were really hectic out there, and I called the police once, during the summer of 1999, when I was thirteen years old.
The police came about two hours after I called them, after the fight was long over, and I had fallen asleep. When they did come, they wanted to talk to Dad, and he got mad at me for the police waking him up.
“Dammit, Walter, we just take their money. I don’t care if they want to kill themselves.”
During the summer days, when I was old enough to venture past the stoop of Dad’s buildings, at around eight years old, I would go outside and play at the local playground, usually basketball. I made friends with some of the local kids, but sometimes the children of the parents who rented from Dad would take their frustrations out on me.
I remember one day in 1996; I decided to mosey to the local basketball courts. I got knocked around a little and chased by the neighborhood kids, all the way back to the rental property. I was wearing the first signature Allen Iverson sneakers, the white and red sneakers with the letter “Q” on the top of the rear portion of the shoes, when a group of kids between the ages of eleven and fourteen told me to give up the shoes or else I’d get “fucked up.”
When I refused, they all rushed in. I got punched in the face and the upper torso a few times before throwing a dozen wild haymakers and sprinting towards the seemingly safe haven of Dad’s place. When I arrived with a dozen kids hot on my trail, I managed to slam the door to the building before they could get a hold of me. Dad asked what was wrong, and it took me about thirty seconds to compose myself enough to tell him what occurred at the courts. “You come with me,” he said sternly. I followed him outside where the kids were still organized and ready to pounce when I came outside.
“Who’s the ringleader of this clusterfuck?” Dad asked angrily. When a cocky thirteen-year-old kid named Daevon stepped up, my Dad made a proposal, loud enough for all within the vicinity to hear:
“Ok, tough guy, here is what’s going to happen. You and Walter are going to fight right here in front of my building. The fight is over when someone gets knocked down three times. If anyone thinks about jumping in, you’ll get your monkey-ass tossed up and I will evict your family from my building. Now fight, Goddammit!”
The fight was two minutes old with Daevon and me each scoring two knockdowns. We alternated knockdowns with him utilizing an uppercut to my jaw, followed by a knee to his nose on my behalf. He then scored on a violent shove that sent me flying into the solid brick wall of Dad’s building. I wanted to stay down, but if I quit, I could never show my face outside again plus I would never hear the end of it from Dad. I quickly rose to my feet and delivered a right hook to his kidneys and a closed fist to the back of his head. With the score tied at two, Daevon attempted a spear type takedown but he was off target, and I used his Momentum against him, grabbing his head and slamming him face first into the brick wall.
Blood from his forehead stained the gold bricks as everyone looked on silently. Even though Daevon was two years older and stronger than I, I managed to win the fight. Dad then made me help Daevon to his feet as the three of us went into the leasing office. Dad shouted to the rest of the stunned group “Ya’ll niggas go home.”
Dad gave the both of us ice for our bruises and a cold bottle of water. He then made us shake hands and make peace with each other. I had no more problems with Daevon and that particular group again, but that was only one property. Each summer, I had to travel with Dad to spend time at a different property, and each one offered a fresh set of impoverished families, each with a kid around my age who wanted to kick my ass, partially because Dad treated the families horribly as a landlord and because I was the “rich white acting nigga” who needed his ass whipped.
I won some fights, and I lost some fights, but I never backed down from anyone. During the summer of 2001, I was jumped and robbed outside of a corner store by a group of young adults with ages ranging between eighteen and twenty-one. I had about ten dollars and some snacks stolen from me. When I staggered home, bloodied and beaten, Dad took me back outside with each of us armed with crowbars, and we chased the hooligans away from the store, not before I landed one serious blow on one of the fleeing culprits.
The fighting would not be limited to me now; Dad would have to fight now. After chasing those guys with the crowbars, their relatives came to the property a few hours later threatening to burn the place down if Dad didn’t fight one of them. When we went outside to meet him, there were uncles and cousins, each wanting a piece of Dad and me. Dad calmly pulled a compact, semi-automatic .45 pistol from his waist, handed it to me and ordered me to shoot anyone who interfered in the upcoming brawl. I felt powerful holding the gun in my hands, but I didn’t want to shoot anyone. I didn’t even understand what was happening anymore. Dad went too far this time, and I thought someone was about to get hurt.
Dad proposed the same three knockdown parameters I was so familiar with, and the uncle of the young man I struck with the crowbar obliged. Dad, being a retired infantry Marine and black belt, knocked the guy unconscious after the second brutal takedown, an elbow to the back of the head. Dad wasn’t the fit Marine he was in his past but rather a fat shell of himself. I was worried he may not win this fight, but he had enough in the tank on this night.
When Dad tried to help the guy to his feet, uncle’s entourage rushed towards us and out of fear, I fired a shot into the air and made the group scatter.
After helping the uncle into the office and treating his wounds, he and Dad talked their differences out, and the uncle agreed to let the feud end. The same could not be said for the rest of the uncle’s family.
Later that evening, a homemade cocktail was launched into the leasing office window, followed by a fast spreading fire and the sound of screeching tires of the getaway car speeding from the building. If not for my struggles of sleeping with roaches, we never would have made it out of the burning office alive.
My mother and I lacked closeness, and our distant relationship prevented me from sharing a lot of things with her. Before that night, I never told Mom of our summer adventures, but when Dad wanted to retaliate against the family, I called Mom and told her that we were almost killed. Mom drove in the middle of the night to the slums of North Philly and berated both of us for behaving so foolishly.
The summer of 2001 was the last summer Dad and I spent together, battling against the hood. I stayed with Mom for the rest of my time in Philly. I was glad the fighting was finally over. Dad sold the properties gradually over the next year as we prepared to relocate to Darlan, Florida, in the summer of 2003, before my junior year at DHS. My early childhood years were spent on military bases in Japan and in North Carolina being a polite, normal young boy. When Dad retired in 1990 and moved us to the suburbs of Philly, my school years were spent among other well-off children in privileged schools, receiving the best education possible and enjoying my existence, balanced by the hellish summers filled with fighting for my life and battling for respect from poverty stricken communities I was previously, and rightfully so, shielded from.
If one good thing came out of my double life, it was the ability to defend myself at school. If a kid wanted to fight, I was able to dust him off fairly easily. Presumably, I appeared to be a nice kid who received high marks in class, carried himself maturely and always dressed neatly. I never acted out in class or made fun of people, but the summer fights took their toll on my soul and I became a very angry young man. When provoked enough, and by enough I mean merely insulted, I would morph into an enraged lunatic that had to be restrained by staff members from injuring other students.
Appearing so unstable emotionally, it was hard to make friends. Most people were wary of me and thought I was flat-out crazy. Not a cool crazy but a rubber room crazy. I had a few male friends, black and white alike; the square types who would normally have a difficult time with the pseudo-thuggish, bullying students but were safe as long as they were with me. They weren’t really friends but just school acquaintances. I didn’t talk to them outside of school. I used them for company, and they used me for protection.
I always believed if I sagged my pants and dumb down my speech, I would be a hit amongst the fake thugs, but even if I wanted to behave like a jackass, my parents would snap me out of that real quick. My parents weren’t nice to me, but they wanted a son who carried himself like a dignified young man. Because of the guys I hung out with and my own remoteness to most people, I was viewed as a weirdo to many of the black girls in the school, and being looked at as weird is death to the black social scene in high school. I can’t say I didn’t get any female attention. White girls were fond of me. I just thought they were intrigued by the mysterious aura I projected and, being a guy and all, I followed the path of least resistance.
I always had to hide my white girlfriends from my parents. My parents, especially Mom, would flip if I allowed white girls to call my home. I didn’t even entertain the idea of inviting them over, at least not when my parents were home. My Dad was worried I didn’t like girls and confronted me on my lack of female friends until I revealed to him some of the girls I was involved with. Dad was disappointed, but he also said if I didn’t do anything stupid (bad grades, get a girl pregnant, commit a crime, cause trouble in school), he would turn a blind eye to my dating choices.
I didn’t attend my junior prom because I could not find a black date. I had a Latoya Carter experience with a girl named Carmela Jordan. I certainly wasn’t going alone; you don’t do that in Philly, and I wasn’t going to in Darlan. I knew, at best, my parents would ride me if I went to the prom with a white girl. At worst, I wouldn’t be allowed to attend, so I just sat that one out. I didn’t want my senior prom to be a repeat of last year, but I guess lightning will strike twice. I asked Mom why they didn’t approve of interracial dating one day. Mom simply said that a black person should be ashamed for thinking about dating anybody not African American and didn’t offer to elaborate.
“Walter, where are you?” Mom yelled out to me as she arrived home.
“I’m in the kitchen, Mom,” I yelled back to her. Mom walked into the kitchen, wearing a black pantsuit and large sunglasses. Mom always wore black as a way to appear slimmer than she actually is, in vain. Mom is a 5’5” woman who was once in great shape as an attractive young woman but has since gained weight, easily topping two-hundred pounds. Her hair is always designed in a bun as if she found a style she liked and decided to keep it for the rest of her life.
Mom has several shopping bags in hand, and this could only mean one thing: Mom is upset about something. Whenever Dad and Mom fight, she goes shopping or takes it out on me, so I’m glad she chose to go shopping.
“Walter, be ready at seven,” She said.
“What happens at seven?” I asked
“Why you always want to ask ‘why’?” Mom said irritably.
“How am I to know what to be ready for? Are we going ice-skating? Maybe to buy some ice cream or skip rocks at the lake…”
“Don’t get smart with me, boy! If you must know, your father is taking us out to dinner. We are meeting Jeff and his wife at Cerise at 7:30 pm,” She replied sternly.
Cerise is a fancy French restaurant in North Darlan that old people like eating at. It’s the type of place where you pay outrageous prices for miniature entrees and fill up on bread. I researched Cerise on the internet as a possible place to take my prom date. I don’t understand why I have to go. Jeff is the maintenance man who works for Dad at Harrison’s Palace. I met him once, but I was not really stoked about seeing him or his family tonight. Nothing against Jeff, but I would rather stay home and wallow in self-pity.
“Do I have to go with you guys? It sounds like an old people thing,” I asked calmly.
“Yes, you do! I don’t want to be there anymore than you do. Your father likes to entertain these honkies. I had enough of it in the Marines, and now we have to do it here. Besides, they are bringing their youngest daughter.”
My Mom hates white people, absolutely hates them and pretty much everyone else, but especially white people. Mom never would befriend anyone who was white. When Dad was still in the Marines, he had tons of white friends, and we were always eating at someone’s house or different families were at our home. Mom would put on a good show, but underneath the smiles and kind gestures, she was simmering. I remember many late nights filled with them arguing over Dad making her entertain white people. When I started attending high school, Mom made it a point to tell not to bring any “fast white girls” in her home and because of this, I never discussed dating with her.
We all hopped into Dad’s dark green SUV and rode to Cerise. Dad always listened to elevator music in the car, and it drove Mom and me crazy. I’ve learned to tune it out, but Mom still lets him have it when he plays his awful, awful music while driving. It usually takes Mom ten minutes of bitching before Dad lets her control what we listen to in the car, which is usually the classic R&B station. Music is one of the few things Mom and I can agree on. I remember many nights as a younger child that Mom would hold me close and sing songs to me as I fell asleep. As a pre-teen, we would have lively discussions comparing different artists to each other and chatting about who was better. Now, we barely talk at all to each other without my sarcasm or her contempt for all things “Walter.”
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