Paul Beatty - The White Boy Shuffle

Athena, gray-eyed goddess, then replied:

Take heart: you need not fear such things.

But now, in the recess of that beguiling cave,

let’s set your treasures, there they will be safe.

Not the ironic profundity I hoped for, but it portended better times. Junior high started in a week; I couldn’t wait. I wondered what the nurse’s name would be and if she disinfected cuts and slashes with Mercurochrome or the wimpy ouchless spray. I’d have to remember to ask my mother to call the office to ensure they knew how to make butterfly bandages out of those “flesh”-colored Band-Aids.

I ARRIVED forty-five minutes early for my first day of school at Manischewitz Junior High. A tattered and faded U.S. flag snapped solidly in the wind, full of bluster despite bearing only half its original fifty stars. The stars that remained hung on to the blue field by only one or two points. The putrid pink, dirty gray, and filthy baby blue of Old Glory had seen better days.

I opened the steel front door and stepped into the deserted vestibule, looking for some middle school guidance. There was none to be found. No smiling faces welcomed me to the smelting factory of young widgethood. No signs directed me toward fall registration. I walked through the metal detector and went looking for the dean’s office to pick up my schedule. Walking through the halls, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the glossy panorama photographs of Manischewitz graduating classes past that adorned the walls.

CLASS OF ’23: Scads of white students and teachers dressed in pleated flannel skirts and pants. A young colored custodian with a mop in his hand stands next to a metal bucket. The name tag on his overalls reads “Melvin Samuels.” A close examination of the principal reveals the outline of a flask in the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

CLASS OF ’41: Other than the smattering of Asian faces lousing up the Anglo homogeneity, very similar to the previous photograph. A student in the front row holds a sign that reads, “Get out of jail soon, Melvin. The wastebaskets miss you.”

CLASS OF ’42: There are only two male teachers, one of whom has his arms wrapped around the waists of two female teachers. The other stands in the middle of the nursing staff, holding a stethoscope and smiling from ear to ear. There are no Asian students.

In the years following 1944 the staff gets fatter and there are always three or four black and Chicano faces dotting the photos like grease smudges. Each year’s colored faces bear a striking resemblance to those from the previous year. Unless there is a change in sex, it’s hard to tell if the minority kids are the progeny of single families passing through the school system or the same kids repeating ninth grade year after year.

CLASS OF ’67: The first class photo in color. The student population is still overwhelmingly white, but they no longer wear staid plain white shirts and blouses to school. Instead they sport groovy colorful tartans, stripes, and paisleys. One teacher in the front row is wearing an African dashiki and giving the peace sign. Standing in the back next to a metal bucket and holding a mop is a graying janitor outfitted in a blue jumpsuit. His name tag reads “Melvin Samuels.”

CLASS OF ’68: If it weren’t for the same crew-cut gym teacher and bifocaled principal standing like bookends in both photographs, this picture could be a negative of the Class of ’67’s portrait. The faces of these graduating ninth-graders are dark and overwhelmingly Latino and black. Mr. Samuels is standing in the back, dressed in a bright orange leisure suit and smoking a cigarette, with a mop slung over his shoulder like a rifle. The teacher with the dashiki has a black eye and his arm in a sling.

CLASS OF ’86: The last photograph in the series. The number of students in the picture is smaller than ever before. The faces, including those of most of the staff, are Latino and black, with a sprinkling of Asians. A man in gray overalls whose name tag reads “Mr. Samuels, Jr.” is standing in the back, mopless and sharing a joint with a couple of kids. Every boy in the front row has his penis sticking out of his button-fly jeans. Close inspection reveals the outline of a flask in the breast pocket of the principal’s suit.

* * *

The dean’s office was just around the corner. The receptionist awoke when he heard the heavy wooden door slam shut. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he looked up at the clock.

“Damn, you early.” He asked my name and retrieved my schedule from a thick leather binder with “Gunnar Kaufman — Records” embossed on it in shiny gold flake. I’d never seen my records. Supposedly filled with my black marks, accolades, test scores, and aptitude results, this fabled folder was preordained to follow me throughout my entire life, passing from school to university to employer to jailer and finally ending in the hands of Saint Peter or the Devil.

“You’re the first one here. The principal hasn’t even arrived yet. Is there some trouble at home?”

“No.”

The receptionist skimmed my file, using his tie as a reading ruler. He glanced up at me, shook his head, returned his gaze to the file, and spoke.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Nope.”

Handing me my schedule, he grabbed my wrist and, in the sympathetic voice adults use to raise money for handicapped and troubled kids on late-night television, said, “Boy, you know if you find yourself having trouble getting to and from class, the school provides an escort service and you can be placed in protective custody.”

“No thanks,” I said. I couldn’t stop smiling at the irony. The police thought I was a potential criminal mastermind and the school district thought I was an easy target for junior high hit men in training. Seeing that I’d touched a protective nerve, I pointed toward my records and asked the receptionist, in the helpless voice teens use to ask adults for a favor, “What’s the aptitude part say?”

“I’m not allowed to reveal that without state and parental consent.”

“Come on, man. Be cool. I won’t tell. You can trust me. Look, I’m the first kid in school on the first day of school — is there anything less intimidating than that?”

He opened the eternal dossier, placed his glittery synthetic tie on the page, and started reading. “Okay, it says, ‘Despite his race, subject possesses remarkable intelligence and excellent reasoning and analytical skills. His superb yet raw athletic ability exceeds even the heightened expectations normally accorded those of his ethnicity. Family background is exemplary, and with the proper patriotic encouragement Gunnar Kaufman will make an excellent undercover CIA agent. At a young age he already shows a proclivity for making friends with domestic subversives and betraying them at the drop of a hat.’ Satisfied, Double-O Seven? Your homeroom is on the first floor of the Science Building, next to the vineyard. You’ll see a sign saying Vitis vinifera on your left.”

Amazed at what the government can glean from a few timed tests and laps around the track, I slunk to homeroom imagining I was wearing dark glasses and a trench coat. The halls began to fill with Manischewitz Junior High’s administrative and security personnel, and my best espionage moves served me well. Pressing my back against the walls and peeking coolly around corners, I managed to avoid detection and made it to homeroom twenty minutes early. I opened the door slowly, index fingers loaded and ready to blast holes into any purveyors of injustice not taken in by my stealth. To my disappointment, there were no enemy agents wearing headsets and minding computer consoles.

Homeroom was an antiseptic classroom buzzing not with hostile anti-imperialist activity but with humming overhead fluorescent lights. A pair of dingy felt banners hung at both ends of the room. The purple-on-gold one at the back of the room read, “Karibuni! Bienvenidos! Welcome!” Its obverse gold-on-purple cousin at the front read, “Conceive It! Believe It! Achieve It! Imagina! Cree! Realiza!” I took the middle seat in the middle row. The desk looked like a modern Rosetta stone, etched with penknifed legacies that begged to be deciphered.