T. Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville

He’s just joking, he’s Malaysian, not Indian, explained D’aron. To Louis, You’ll cut your tongue talking that way.

Really? The blonde sniffed. Screw you! She flipped off Louis, though she didn’t thank D’aron. But she did look him over.

What’s the difference, asked the black guy. Welcome to the club.

The difference, Louis explained, is miles and miles, but that’s about all.

D’aron laughed and removed his dot. They all followed suit, except Louis, who pantomimed looking in a mirror, dusting his lapels and arranging his hair. How do I look?

They replaced their dots.

The Prayer, an old Bloc Party song, played in the background, the band’s prerecorded clapping in rhythm with the strobe light. Their faces flashed in unison as the lyrics drifted out to D’aron, one line catching his ear: Is it wrong to want more than is given to you, than is given to you? For the first time at Berkeley, he felt at ease. He half hummed, half sang the lyrics. Is it wrong to want more than is given to you, than is given to you? No, it’s not.

Excuse me? hissed the blonde.

My, you’re sensitive…

The blonde glared at him. You mean a mite sensitive? She drawled out mite .

How’s that?

How?

How, Tonto!

The blonde cranked her middle finger up for Louis. I resent that, especially coming from you. I’m part Native American.

Aren’t we all?

Thus they became the 4 Little Indians. D’aron, Louis, Charlie, and Candice. It mattered not that Louis swapped statistics for film studies only to be near Candice, and she swapped theater for rhetoric only to be near Charlie. D’aron was just glad to be close to her, and to have friends who were also uncertain about their place at Berkeley, and who were nerds, not that anyone could be a nerd at Berkeley. Besides, he had heard that it was easier to get a girlfriend when you had a girlfriend, so being seen with Candice could only further his cause with Kaya (who that night was nowhere to be seen). When D’aron muttered his frustration, Charlie confirmed his theory: The most important lesson I learned in high school was that banks loan quickest to those who don’t need money.

But first they reentered the party, and, as Indians are wont to do, were promptly relocated. One by one, D’aron, Candice, and Charlie were tapped on the shoulder. One by one they were beckoned outside by strangers mouthing entreaties in tones too polite to be heard over the music. One by one, one little, two little, three little Indians followed their interlocutors — new friends, they thought — to the exit, where they could be better heard. Once reassembled at the outer door to the basement commons, in the sunken courtyard where they’d first met, the 3 Little Indians faced a brave detachment of revelers — a cobbler’s dozen threatening to give them the boot — a hodgepodge of both upper- and lowerclassmen, both humanities and science majors, both athletes and scholars, both males and females, students tall and short, brunette and blond, stout and slim, sober and drunk-it.

Their leader? A feisty blonde who wielded her index fingers like a two-gun cowperson, a blonde who stood offended by, Your savage insensitivity, who exclaimed in a voice inflated by indignation, Only freshmen could disgrace a simple dot, a blonde who had the decency to wear her own ornament politely left of center, Where the heart is actually located, a blonde who suggested that they do the same and, Show some empathy for other people. Some respect, too.

There, in that umpteenth year of our Lord, at Dormitory Door, a historic treaty was proposed: Remove the dots and you can stay.

During the blonde’s speech a cluster grew, not chanting Fight! Fight! Fight! but listening intently, as in a lecture, cupping ears and shushing and frowning as each new outflux burped though the dorm doors with the sonic aftertaste of thumping bass. The cluster was soon a crowd, and the crowd soon a congregation constellating in concentric circles around the 3 Little Indians: In the buildings students at their dorm room windows watched like wary settlers wondering how their wagon circle had been breached; within the ring of buildings, passersby perhaps expecting a juggling show or puppetry performance milled at the outer edges of the courtyard, popcorning on tiptoe; within them was a ring of polka-dotted partiers; within them were the blonde’s foot soldiers (that cobbler’s dozen Louis later referred to as Satan’s Anal Army). Our Tribe in the center, fidgeting, with the exception of Charlie, who stood lock-kneed a couple feet apart, and whom no one directly addressed or approached, as if he both was and wasn’t there, a secret at a family reunion, in the same way that no Braggsvillian ever mentioned how Slater Jones was born near the end of his father’s uninterrupted fifteen-month tour of duty. (Everyone just lamented how he was a preemie, and that’s why he was shorter than a Georgia snow day and so Old Testament angry at math.) Yes, Charlie stood there like a secret, if such a thing was possible, which obviously it was. Candice, for her part, was as beet colored as a real red man.

The offer was repeated: Remove the dots and you can stay.

Around this time Louis wandered out, with his collar prepped up and pop-star sunglasses on, and stood next to D’aron.

The blonde pointed to Louis. Except for you! Looking puzzled, she asked, Why are you even out here?

I’m with them. Louis tipped his sunglasses up and mirrored her puzzled expression. The better question is why are you wearing yoga pants?

The blonde blinked as if rebooting. Why are you even out here?

I’m with them, repeated Louis. He again mirrored her puzzled expression. The doors belched two stumbling students and a few bars of a tricky beat. The even better question is why are you blasting that Jay Z and Punjabi MC joint?

Blink. Reboot. Repeat: Remove the dots and you can stay.

Louis began speaking. Candice interrupted him. I’m Candice Marianne Chelsea. I am part Indian. She tapped her forehead. Not the kind you were looking for, but the kind you found. One-eighth to be exact. And I’ll be damned if you get to tell me what to do anymore. She shouldered past the blonde and the foot soldiers and walked in the direction of the door. The crowd parted like the Lord was drawing her finger through water. Charlie followed. The crowd parted wider, eyes to feet. D’aron and Louis followed, but were rebuffed, drowned in the confusion like the Pharaoh’s men after Moses.

When Candice looked back and saw D’aron and Charlie floundering, she huffed and shook her head like a disgusted parent. She pointed to the nearest courtyard exit, put her hands to her mouth like a megaphone: Let’s go. Where I’m from, women don’t need to wear stickers for guys to know where to touch us.

She huffed and marched in the direction of Bancroft Avenue. The other three followed, and 4 Little Indians laughed hee-hee-hee all the way home, never more so than when Candice again claimed to be part Native American. For real!

AFTER HIS ABYSMAL FIRST SEMESTER, D’aron’s academic advisor suggested a meeting, her e-mail as disconcerting as Quint blasting Dio in that stolen ice cream truck. (When Sheriff appeared at his door worn by rue, Quint told him, Grand theft audible: possibly six months. Selling Good Humor wherever the fuck I want, including the Gully: priceless. Sheriff handed him the cuffs. You know how these work.) The good humor of the advisor’s letter, sprinkled with words like informal and independent, was offset by underlying chords of words like probation and tête-à-tête and self-directed learning (all of which had for D’aron become slang for watching Oprah, itself slang for porn, itself slang for the visiting German professor’s stats class, itself slang for beer, itself slang for a few drinks, itself slang for bar crawl, itself slang for… You get the point). When he finally summoned the nerve to meet her, it was nearly spring break, nearly midterms, and at every desk in the César Chávez Center students turtled over laptops. He had applied himself with determination in the few weeks since meeting the other Little Indians, and carried to the meeting those few recent assignments on which he had earned a B or better.