T. Johnson: Welcome to Braggsville

D’aron the Daring, Derring, Derring-do, stealing base, christened D’aron Little May Davenport, DD to Nana, initials smothered in Southern-fried kisses, dat Wigga D who like Jay Z aw-ite, who’s down, Scots-Irish it is, D’aron because you’re brave says Dad, No, D’aron because your daddy’s daddy was David and then there was mines who was named Aaron, Doo-doo after cousin Quint blew thirty-six months in vo-tech on a straight-arm bid and they cruised out to Little Gorge glugging Green Grenades and read three years’ worth of birthday cards, Little Mays when he hit those three homers in the Pee Wee playoff, Dookie according to his aunt Boo (spiteful she was, misery indeed loves company), Mr. Hanky when they discovered he TIVOed Battlestar Galactica, Faggot when he hugged John Meer in third grade, Faggot again when he drew hearts on everyone’s Valentine’s Day cards in fourth grade, Dim Ding-Dong when he undressed in the wrong dressing room because he daren’t venture into the dark end of the gym, Philadelphia Freedom when he was caught clicking heels to that song (Tony thought he was clever with that one), Mr. Davenport when he won the school’s debate contest in eighth grade, Faggot again when he won the school’s debate contest in eighth grade, Faggot again more times than he cared to remember, especially the summer he returned from Chicago sporting a new Midwest accent, harder on the vowels and consonants alike, but sociable, played well with others that accent did, Faggot again when he cried at the end of WALL-E, Donut Hole when he started to swell in ninth grade, Donut Black Hole when he continued to put on weight in tenth grade (Tony thought he was really clever with that one), Buttercup when they caught him gardening, Hippie when he stopped hunting, Faggot again when he became a vegetarian and started wearing a MEAT IS MURDER pin (Oh yeah, why you craving mine then?), Faggot again when he broke down in class over being called Faggot, Sissy after that, whispered, smothered in sniggers almost hidden, Ron-Ron by the high school debate team coach because he danced like a cross between Morrissey and some fat old black guy (WTF?) in some old-ass show called What’s Happening!! Brainiac when he aced the PSATs for his region, Turd Nerd when he aced the PSATs for his region, Turd Nerd when he hung with Jo-Jo and the Black Bruiser, D’ron Da’ron, D’aron, sweet simple Daron the first few minutes of the first class of the first day of college. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Yes, ma’am, Daron it is. What about this apostrophe, this light-headed comma? Feel free to correct me. Oh no, ma’am. Ignore that. It’s all one word, ma’am. No need to call me ma’am. Yes, ma’am.

AS WAS EXPECTED OF VALEDICTORIANS, he had spoken of choices, though not his personal choices. His desk was stuffed tighter than a turducken with acceptance letters, but to list those would have been smug and boastful when most classmates were going to State or to stay. He instead pontificated on abstract opportunities to be grabbed, snatched out of the air like so many feathers, of the choices life extended to those who dared dream, of new worlds awaiting, of hopes to be fulfilled and expectations met, of how they would go forth and put B-ville, GA, squarely on the map. Never mind that it was ninety-two degrees, never mind that they could drink the air, never mind that, as Nana used to say, it was so greatly humid a cat wouldn’t stretch its neck to lick its own juniors, he carried on about wishing over dandelions, and their delicate floating spores, and how they multiplied, superstitions taking seed even without belief — where he had heard that he couldn’t recall — and explained that our eyes move when we dream, and, lastly, with a smile, advised the audience to, Always use sunscreen. His parting blow: an open invitation to visit him at My future alma mater, until then unknown to his father. Teachers applauded vigorously; peers clapped listlessly, more with relief than appreciation, but they didn’t understand, and that was why he was glad to be leaving. He stepped from the podium a free man, at long last deaf to their tongues, and later thanked with aplomb the classmate who sidled up to the smoking steel drum and congratulated him on his engagement.

Of course there were the Bulldogs or the Yellow Jackets or the Panthers, or even the Tigers. And after a week as a Golden Bear, he wondered if one of those might have been a better choice. Long accustomed to the teacher calling on him after his classmates proffered their feeble responses, D’aron sat in the front row but never raised his hand. He was not called on to moderate disputes, to weigh in on disagreements, to sagely settle debates. He was not called on at all, even when the subject in American History turned to the South, a topic on which he considered himself an expert, being the only Southerner in the class. (Not even when D’aron resorted to what the prof called a Horshack show.) The professor rationalized his reluctance to call on D’aron on such occasions as a resistance to essentializing. Said resistance D’aron found puzzling, and said affliction he apparently had developed no resistance to, constantly provoking the professor to ask, Am I the only Jew? Mika the only black? You the only Southerner? If the professor said he was Jewish, well, D’aron would take his word for it. Mika, though, was obviously the only black in class, and D’aron the only Southerner. Wasn’t he essentially Southern? Wasn’t that the core of his being, his essence, as it were? At least that was how he felt now that he was in California.

He held doors for the tender gender and all elders. Thank you and Please and May I adorned every conversation. Ma’am was an escape artist extraordinaire, often slipping out midsentence. Professors wagged their fingers, but even the one who claimed it aged her, Only slightly less subtly but just as permanently as gravity, appeared at moments to relish this memento of a bygone era, this sole American who, like foreign students and athletes, recognized the instructors as ultimate authorities, approaching their bunkers as shrines bearing cookies and other gifts in outstretched hands, like a farmer leaving a peck of apples or a pair of just-plucked broilers at his lawyer’s back door. Sir he could utter without censure.

Yet this inbred politeness was not what set him apart. Every student at Berkeley — all 36,142, he believed — played an instrument or a sport or volunteered for a social justice venture or possessed some obscure and rare talent. Or all four. Students raised in tents in Zimbabwe by field anthropologists and twin sisters who earned pilot’s licenses at age fifteen and Olympians from as far afield as Norway. One student athlete, a track star, upon being asked, Are you considered fast in your country? smiled charitably, I am the fastest.