T. Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville

Mrs. Brooks occupied a small inside office whose only window was the sidelight beside the door. On her desk, family photos greeted all who entered. D’aron always found it hard to imagine people in authority with a family, arguing over Netflix and ice cream. She sat with her back to the hall, boxes of tissues piled high on her credenza, her face only inches from the computer screen displaying… was it MS-DOS?! When D’aron knocked she spun around and waved him in with a smile and a How-do-ya-do. Seeing that she was black, he turned to leave. Sorry, I’ll make an appointment. He wasn’t in the mood for an ass-chewing. No, no, no, no. Come in. He thought he detected a faint accent, but couldn’t be sure because once he gave his name, her expression grew stern and officious. I’ve been busy and stressed and am trying to do better, ma’am. She softened a bit, leaning back in her chair and sighing as if there was a big decision weighing on her, one she regretted being charged with making, like a soccer ref giving a red card to a favored player.

Let’s start at the beginning, D’aron. Is it Daron or Da ron or Da ron ?

Daron, ma’am.

What about this apostrophe?

The name’s… Irish, he started to say before catching himself… The name’s misspelled. I never figured why it’s like that or how to git ’em to change it.

Where are you from, Daron?

He told her and she smiled. I’ll bet Berkeley has more students than there are people in your entire town.

Yes’m.

It was the same for me when I first came here from Tennessee, too long ago to tell you. I’ll just admit that when I was an undergrad here, twittering was for the birds. Even now, back home anyone who tweets too loudly is likely to end up plucked, stuffed with spicy pork sausage, and served with cornbread.

They both laughed.

She leaned forward and whispered, I’m from a holler.

My backyard backs right up to one. Daron settled into his seat. It was the first time he’d met anyone in California who was from a holler. Most people didn’t even know what it meant, and he’d stopped explaining because too often they’d ask why he couldn’t be like everyone else and call it a valley.

Look, Daron, it’s a big school. It’s an achievement and an honor for you to have made it this far, so don’t sabotage yourself. If you need help, ask. There are too many students in some of these classes, and it’s only going to get worse; however, the school is committed to seeing first-generation college students succeed. But you have to ask for help. No one is going to offer it.

Yes’m.

And you have to stay on top of your work. It’s not high school.

It sure ain’t. I didn’t even have to study much in high school. I could show up for the test and—

— A lot of students fall prey to that mistake. It’s not as easy as you thought, so then you kind of check out. You start asking yourself crazy questions about your intellectual abilities.

Daron’s face burned and he looked away.

Then your grades plummet, and you start to wonder if you even belong here, or if it’s a mistake, or if you were a sympathy admit.

Daron looked at his shoes, unable to hold her gaze. He had wandered up to that idea on many occasions, but never explored it at length, treating it like a street he mustn’t cross. Why had Berkeley accepted him? Candice had gone to a small public school in Iowa, but her parents were professors. Louis was Asian, so he possessed the magic membership card. Charlie was black, but he went to some fancy boarding school on a football scholarship. Then there was Daron.

If you were accepted, you deserve to be here.

At that, Daron started to cry, and as he did so, he admitted that he sloughed off for the first couple months of each semester, planning to pull it out of the bag at the last minute, but also thinking that if he failed at least he couldn’t be blamed because he hadn’t studied. He knew it was crazy, and couldn’t explain how he knew, but he knew nonetheless that somehow his ego had tricked him into adopting this strategy so he wouldn’t be disappointed. He had seen this as clearly as a drive-in movie screen against a starless sky, the insight cruelly ambushing a fine Friday-night buzz, and so he refrained from sharing with Mrs. Brooks the specific circumstances surrounding a revelation she deemed preternatural. He told her about high school, which he had burned in effigy shortly after graduation but now missed terribly because he had been on top, at least academically, while here he was average at best. She handed him a tissue. How his entire high school graduating class would jeer — Faggot! — if they saw him all snotty-nosed in California in this black lady’s office, except Jo-Jo, who wouldn’t have laughed at all, who woulda told D’aron, in that regretful tone he used for both bad and good news, I warned you, they ain’t like us. And if Daron didn’t succeed, after flaunting UCB back home, after defying his father’s wish that he become a Bulldog, after applying to Cal in secret, he would never be able to return home to B-ville, and would end up like those homeless kids on Telegraph — wouldn’t he? — with only other homeless kids and mangy dogs for friends, and he saw how people looked at them. He felt idiotic admitting this, especially when she chuckled.

Mrs. Brooks stifled her laugh. Daron, honey, those are not ex-students. Those are people getting an early start on an unusual career. Don’t you worry; no matter what, you’ll never end up like that. You come from a good family.

A line had formed in the hall while they were talking. Mrs. Brooks pushed the box of tissues across the desk. Take a minute to get yourself together. I know it’s hard, sugar, I know it’s hard.

I just want to fit in.

I know, dear. You said they spelled your name wrong?

Yes, ma’am. All wrong.

I’ll take care of that for you. You just focus on your work and let Mrs. Brooks know if you need anything, and remember, you deserve to be here as much, if not more, than everyone else. Repeat that.

I deserve to be here.

That’s right. You come back and see me every day if you need to. In the meantime, there are over one hundred student organizations here at Cal. Whatever your interests or beliefs, you can find a like-minded group.

He left relieved to have learned he was not alone in his anxieties, feeling unburdened of a load he had not fully comprehended the enormity of, much as he had felt after his first real sex ed class (not that makeshift tutorial Quint choreographed wherein a hot dog rousted an unsuspecting chicken). He also found himself wishing, he noted with puzzlement, that more professors were black. He understood them, it seemed, and they him. All the way back to Unit 2, he repeated Mrs. Brooks’s mantra. I deserve to be here. I deserve to be here. I deserve to be here. He also resolved to find a like-minded group. All of this he did while wearing empty headphones so as to appear to be singing.

BACK HOME IN B-VILLE, GA, the 4 Little Indians would stand out like J. Crew rejects, but in Berkeley they were just four friends, four inseparable friends, four constant companions, so close that he wondered if siblings could be closer. No, explained Charlie when the subject was raised. I love my brother and all, but it’s not like we actually talk. We didn’t even do that after my dad died.

That was Charlie, wise beyond his years. But they were all savvier than Daron. Louis taught him hard-learned lessons like the wisdom of avoiding edibles after drinking. Candice taught him that one must never follow white with red. Once a month they did medicinal 420 and communally fashioned quotes such as, How do we know stars aren’t just holes and God hasn’t just thrown a curtain over a cage? Their jointly constructed code word for weed aka grass aka Mary Jane: alien technology . Technology because it made them smarter. Alien just because. (Alien because it make my May-he-can real good, hombre, Louis liked to say.) On their languorous strolls the percussion of Daron’s flip-flops calmed him, and air running between his toes formed fins that climbed his back and combed his hair into lightning rods. And when they sprawled along the water at Berkeley’s Aquatic Park — lungs bursting between breaths, counting ducks as day hushed and short gusts soughed the bobbing grass along the bank, the longer stalks arcing over to nose the lake — passing headlights might brush Candice’s hair, the ponytail resting across one shoulder like a small animal while she absentmindedly stroked it, or sketch Charlie’s profile, his regal nose, his broad back exaggerated in shadow, or highlight Louis’s sneakers worn like slippers, his habit, when in thought, of axing the thin edge of his hand against his forehead, his hand in profile resembling a cockscomb. Daron (and not only at those moments, to be honest) desperately wanted to hug them all, and instead would settle for the huddles between bursts of Frisbee football.