T. Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville

When Daron was sure the tears had stopped — for good… finally… at last — he again caught the train to campus, arriving a couple hours before the colloquium. He decided against meeting with his professors and instead walked through Memorial Glade and up to the base of the Campanile to watch the waves: both the nearby students and the distant bay. Freshman year he’d often lunched here and wondered vaguely when the campus would feel like home. By the time the 4 Little Indians went to Braggsville, campus felt familiar, like a roommate who plays too many video games much too late at night but is otherwise reliable. The regional peculiarities were now badges. He knew what biodiesel was. He carried his own bag to the farmer’s market. He went to the farmer’s market! When it was time for the colloquium to begin, he visited Mrs. Brooks. He knocked on her open door, and she perked up at seeing him as no one had in weeks. After guiding him by the arm to a chair, she closed the door, her face as soft as Nana’s.

Daron, Daron, Daron. Poor baby. How are you?

Daron picked at the seam of his pants. Mrs. Brooks sat patiently, holding the space, no fiddling with her phone or computer. When the mail alert sounded, she turned off her speaker and waited without complaint. How did she do it? After a long, long silence, he admitted, I don’t know what to say. Sorry.

Don’t be. Take all the time you want. All the time you need. I’m honored that you came to see me.

How long did you have to live in California before you learned to say things like that without sounding stupid? Without sounding like you were practicing for an appearance on Oprah ? How long did you have to live in California before you could hear things like that and believe them? Mrs. Brooks, there’s an apostrophe in my name.

I know. Your name’s been all over the news.

I’m sorry I lied to you, Mrs. Brooks.

Is that a lie, Daron? Can finding a personal truth ever be a lie? What if Chuck is a Chelsey inside? If a young person named Sheryl feels in her heart that she should identify as an Errol, is that a lie?

Daron rolled one shoulder. Chuck and Chelsey? Sheryl to Errol?

Or Saul to Paul. Malcolm X. George Eliot. You have the right to be who you say you are. But you also have that responsibility. You can be Da’ron, D’aron, Daron, or Chuck. But whoever you decide to be, be!

I tried being, he wanted to say. I found a like-minded group, he wanted to say. And look at what happened! he wanted to say. Daron felt his eyes welling. He stood. I have to go.

Wait a minute, Daron. Have you talked to any of your professors?

Don’t matter. I’m not staying. The trip. Louis. I missed too much time.

These are extremely unusual circumstances. Try talking to them. Just try. Okay? We can even meet them here if you want to. But you must be willing to try.

Yes, ma’am.

Speak your piece even if your voice cracks.

Yes, ma’am. That advice appeared on many bumper stickers around town — mostly old Mercedeses converted to run on French fry grease, and Priuses. (Prii?) Daron had never shined to the saying. He always imagined a tree nut in ankle bells and tie-dye complaining faintly about global warming. Now, thinking about what it meant, he liked it even less.

And Daron, have you talked to any of the grief counselors? Any counselor?

No, ma’am. Sorry, I have to go. Now he really did.

She handed him a card for student mental health services. And hugged him. Hugged him and he tensed. And hugged him and he melted into it. And hugged him and he hoped — knew it wouldn’t happen, but hoped — that maybe he could convince his parents to let him stay. What would his friends at home say? Perhaps his entire high school graduating class would jeer — Turd Nerd! — if they saw him sniveling in this black lady’s office, but right now that didn’t matter. Were they ever friends, or only fellow inmates?

COULD HE STAY when people only knew bits and pieces of the story, sawdust really, rumors and hearsay gathered from student blogs, Tumblrs, the news, Facebook, patched together into a self-contradictory account — though every news outlet agreed on two points: (1) It was D’aron’s idea; (2) D’aron had abandoned his friends. Professor Pearlstein officially said otherwise, but that didn’t matter. Hirschfield had been right. Solely by virtue of being from Braggsville, Daron was assumed to be the diabolical mastermind who lured his roommate into a cruel trap. Surprised? At least one of James Byrd Jr.’s assailants knew him, and they still chained him to that truck, stated Francis Mohammed, leader of the Nubians, in one YouTube sermon.

Could he stay when part of him blamed the university for everything that had happened? Almost all of his professors offered to allow him to take incompletes, or submit work late and without penalty, except math class. They all seemed to sympathize, even the math prof, and he couldn’t decide how he felt about that because he couldn’t decide whether or not to leverage it, whether or not he wanted it, whether or not he deserved it; he was still in a state where solicitude only inflamed guilt.

But could he stay after he talked to the monocled history professor? After that professor suggested making his class project into an honors thesis? No. A repulsive suggestion. It was precisely the perverse type of academic thinking that caused the mess in the first place. It was as though academics thought the entire world was some kind of ant farm constructed for their pleasure and enjoyment and strained observations. He had no place in an institution that suggested personal loss be re-wrought, re-vised, re-fashioned as intellectual palaver, as a paper. Not even for honors.

WHILE DARON WAS WITH MRS. BROOKS, there was no parking on the city side of the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower was closed for repairs, and the fog sabotaged the elder Davenports’ afternoon Alcatraz trip. His mother proclaimed there would be no more museums, no libraries, no self-guided tours, no historical sites. When Braggsville was founded, this wasn’t even a state yet. No guidebooks, no cultural stops, no on-off bus, no night tour of the bay, no zoo. No Japanese Tea Garden, no Botanical Gardens, no Cliff House. No stores that charge for bags — I didn’t charge for travel to get there, nor can I deduct for trunk space utilized to transport said purchases home. (Utilized! Said purchases?) Gesturing around the room, she declared, This is not how I intended to spend this year’s vacation, in a land where I can’t even get saccharine — with a wink — in a city where April is too cold for capris.

So, for the last day, let’s hit the bars and shops. The promise of spontaneity kicked in, and his parents’ mood noticeably improved after that decision. Daron’s worsened. When he was home, he’d wanted to come back to Berzerkeley. When he was on campus alone, he wanted to go back to Braggsville. When he was with his parents at the highest point in the Presidio, listening to his father whistle his appreciation for the view, Daron wanted to stay in California. Then when he was back on campus with his father, he couldn’t wait to leave. The night before they were scheduled to fly home, Daron’s father drove him to the dorm to pack. The door to the room he and Louis had shared was laden with photos, cards, and dollar bills taped in the shape of a heart, but they might as well have spelled C-O-R-O-N-E-R. This time, Daron couldn’t enter, couldn’t open that door, nor could he be made to.

After his father placed the boxes and bags in the car, he sat on the trunk with his feet on the bumper, as he’d always told Daron not to do, and motioned for his son to sit beside him. Daron hesitated. Come on, son. We’ve got full coverage.

Daron joined him, both pleased to be asked and aghast at the possibility of being seen. From where they were parked, he could see where Hearst Ave appeared to come to a sudden end, but Daron knew it simply dropped into steep decline, and that decline was the hill the Indians had all tackled when trooping from the other direction after the infamous Salon de Chat.