Paul Beatty - The White Boy Shuffle

“This our trick, nigger poet with a bourgeois following on the East Coast,” Scoby crowed.

“Nicholas, be quiet,” my mother broke in. She liked Ms. Jenkins, but she wasn’t about to sell me down the river to any second-rate institution. “Now you said Boston University is Ivy League, but I don’t recall its being an Ivy school.”

“Well, BU is not an original member, but we recently paid to join the Ivy League.”

“What?” said Psycho Loco incredulously, laying a three of hearts on the growing stack of cards and staring me in the eye. “You can’t buy your way into the Ivy League.”

“You know how colleges have endowments that they invest in the stock market and futures, right? A couple of months back, the Massachusetts lottery was up to five hundred million dollars. The trustees of BU decided to buy thirteen million dollars’ worth of lottery tickets, figuring if they covered every possible number combination they would win at least their money back, if not more. As luck would have it, BU was the sole winner. A little hush money in the right pockets, a few well-publicized millions to each member school, and Boston University is in the Ivy League. Of course, we had to offer tuition remission to all the students with IQ’s under 125 we kicked out, but they’ll get into other schools, if they don’t snort it all away.”

“Oh shit,” I said and slapped down a five of spades.

Ms. Jenkins picked up the book. “‘Oh shit’ is right. So we’re looking for some black students who are going to turn shit out. You down, Gunnar?”

My mother broke in. “Sounds good to me.”

“Ma!”

“What about me? Can I go?” asked Nicholas, handing Ms. Jenkins a copy of his transcript and SAT scores.

“Scoby!” I whined.

“With grades and test scores like these, Nicholas, you’re a shoo-in, full ride and all.”

“What about married couples’ housing?”

“Psycho Loco, what you talking about? Married housing!” I shouted, throwing down a jack of clubs.

“When you turn eighteen, Gunnar?”

“June twenty-seventh.”

“Then you’ll be married, nigger.” Psycho Loco stood and flung down a queen of spades with such force it landed on the table with a loud pop. “Get up on that, Ms. Jenkins. You know a dirty bastard such as meself is cutting clubs.”

Ms. Jenkins laughed. “Fool, you ain’t said shit if an ace of spades has yet to be played,” and she blanketed Psycho Loco’s queen with the ace of spades, followed reluctantly by Scoby’s nine of clubs. “We have married housing. Gunnar, you and the missus can live in one of our luxury on-campus condominiums.”

“I’m not getting married!”

“Gunnar, I like the sound of your going back to Boston and following in the footsteps of your great-great-great-great-great-greatgrandfather Euripides. It’s as if the Kaufman legacy has come full circle.”

“Ma!”

“So it’s settled, Gunnar’s going to BU. Mr. Loco, why don’t you attend Boston U? I’m sure I could get you admitted under the auspices of our Unique Quality Life Experience Program.”

“Naw, I don’t think college is for me. I’d get in there and have to shoot the entire history department. ‘What you mean, remember the Alamo?’ Blam! Blam! Blam! That be some multiculturalism for yo’ ass.”

“I’m not getting married.”

* * *

With my immediate future assured, I stopped going to class and steadily began to lose interest in playing basketball. During games, when I wasn’t playing I sat on the bench reading. Coach Logan threatened to fail me if I didn’t commit myself to basketball. Psycho Loco suggested I take the GED and forget school, which I did. I decided my last day of school at El Campesino would be the playoff game at Phillis Wheatley. The papers tried to create a civil war atmosphere by depicting Nicholas and me as best friends fighting on enemy sides. There were ugly undertones to the whole affair. The headlines read “Kaufman Seeks to Demystify B-ball Prestidigitator.”

By now Coach Shimimoto had convinced Scoby not to be ashamed of his talents and to play hard, not to please others but to please himself. In the past two years Scoby had scored over a thousand straight baskets, and a local media usually clamoring for perfection from its athletes couldn’t accept the perfect athlete. Instead of appreciating Nicholas’s gift, they treated Scoby as an evil spirit, an idiot savant with a bone through his nose who made the basketball sail through the hoop by invoking African gods. Scoby denied that he was a demigod and told his falling-out-of-the-tree story, but the rumors persisted. One report had him drinking chicken blood and kissing shrunken heads before games. Another had him commiserating with a witch doctor and practicing in a grass skirt. In a failed attempt to inject some humor into the situation, Coach Shimimoto told the news services that during a trip to Africa he had found Nicholas throwing coconuts into a hollowed-out tree trunk from seventy-five feet away and that at age four Nicholas could thread a needle in one try every time. I was portrayed as the Golden Child, white society’s mercenary come to teach the pagans a lesson. “Starting at guard for El Campesino Real Conquistadores, Hernán Cortés-Kaufman.”

On the morning of the big game, the El Campesino cheerleaders rousted all the white players out of bed for a unity breakfast at a diner in the Valley. They called me from the restaurant to say they wished I could be there eating pancakes with the rest of the team but I lived so far away. While the whities pep-rallied over banana pancakes, I planned my first rebellious act.

During the pregame shoot-around, I walked over to the scorer’s table and made some changes to the starting lineup sheet. The horn sounded to signal the start of the game, and as the team huddled around Coach Logan for instructions I stood on the outskirts, slipped on a pair of white gloves, smeared my lips with cold cream, and hid my head under my warmup jacket. The crowd quieted as they announced the starting lineups.

“And now the visiting El Campesino Real Conquistadores. At center, Lawrence O’Shaughnessy.” Larry, the lone white starter, ran out to center court, nervously clapping his hands and jumping up and down waiting to greet the rest of the starting team. “At a forward, Anthony ‘Rastus’ Price.” A few people in the crowd laughed as Anthony jogged to his spot with a quizzical look on his face. The announcer continued, “At the other forward, Anita ‘Aunt Jemima’ Appleby. At guard, Tommy ‘Nigger T’ Mendoza.” Anita and Tommy peeled off and ran to their stations, red-faced but chortling with the crowd. The laughter died down as the fans strained to hear what the announcer would say next.

The band went into an extended drumroll as I sat alone on the bench, my head down and hands folded under my armpits. “At guard, first team all-city, second team all-American, Hillside’s own Gunnar ‘Hambone, Hambone, Have You Heard’ Kaufman.” I lurched from the sideline, shuffling through the gauntlet of astonished teammates as slowly as I could, my big feet flopping in front of me, my back bent into a drooping question mark. My gloved hands slid along the floor, trailing behind like minstrel landing gear. The gymnasium erupted. People rolled in the aisles with laughter; light bulbs popped. I don’t suppose they could hear me whistling “The Ol’ Gray Mare” through the powdered doughnut that was my slack-jawed mouth. I stood at center court and gave a hearty “Howdy, y’all.”

Coach Logan tried to get me replaced, but it was too late. The scorebook listed me as a starter, and the referees could find nothing in the rulebook about playing with white shit on your face, and I successfully argued that if you could play in a wrist brace, you could play in cotton gloves. Larry won the opening tip-off and out of force of habit passed the ball to me. I streaked past everyone and threw down a thunderous slam-dunk. Someone called a time out and Coach Logan substituted for me. I shuffled off the court in a somnambulant gait and headed straight to the locker room to cheers of “Gunnar! Gunnar!”