Paul Beatty - Tuff

The first family rift occurred over two decades ago, when Spencer spurned legacy status at the alma mater of his father and grandfathers before him, Morehouse College, and chose to attend Theodore College, a small, overpriced New England white liberal-arts school geared toward molding the minds of the wealthy A-minus student. During his freshman year Spencer became what his dad termed “a lapsed Negro” and fell in love with Belgian ales, easy-listening radio, and a ponytailed, athletic redhead named Hadar Nepove.

Hadar and Spencer met in front of the dorm during a late-night fire drill, two sleepy first-year students waiting for the all clear. Hadar’s frisky bosoms were poking out of her cotton nightgown like curious kitten heads. Spencer’s pants bulged like a wind sock in a hurricane. Hadar stuffed her breasts back into her frock and winked at a leering Spencer.

“When opportunity knockers …”

“What?”

“You know, that’s the first time anyone has ever winked at me. It’s very unsettling. I’d rather you grabbed my ass. Then I’ll know I’m not misinterpreting your signals.”

“You wanna get a beer?” Hadar asked, nodding toward the campus pub, the Rathskeller.

Spencer bowed. “After you, m’lady.”

They waited out the remainder of the fire drill dressed in their pajamas, drinking wheat beer and listening to German oompah-pah music. The conversation was brisk, since Spencer had prepared for such a moment by spending most of his free time at the local kiosk reading every magazine and was ready to fake a knowledgeable discussion on any topic from the situation in the Middle East to Victorian antique furniture.

Hadar was not as eager to please. Though Spencer’s Motor City swarthiness was of some primal appeal, she didn’t quite trust him. He seemed too comfortable. Here they were, Jew and black, in a loud faux-Bavarian beer hall, drinking from steins served by Rubenesque barmaids clad in dirndls, and Spencer was saying how relaxed and at home he felt: “It’s like I’m really Lutheran.” Spencer never questioned whether he fit in; if he was there, he belonged. A southern Jew surrounded by New England bluebloods, Hadar put up a brave front. She felt obliged to throw herself into the bastions of Gentile superiority — Theodore College, the Rathskeller, the crew and rugby teams — not sure whether she was being self-affirming or self-hating. Sometimes when Hadar phoned her family in Nashville, she’d say “regatta” and her grandmother would cry.

Spencer was agendaless, and his cultural neutrality made Hadar uncomfortable, yet envious of his unwillingness to be labeled. “Hadar, the only time I feel black is when I look at my hands,” Spencer said, spreading his fingers out in front of him.

“How do you feel when you aren’t looking at your hands?” Hadar asked.

“Normal.”

For three years Spencer loved Hadar from afar, happy to lend her his notes and cheer on her scull from the riverbank. Late one night, after a regatta victory party, a drunk Hadar asked Spencer to walk her home. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he flipped through her music collection. “Hadar, we’ve got identical taste in music. Every album you have, I have — well, not the album, but the eight-track.”

“No way! Nobody listens to my music — my friends won’t let me near a radio,” she said, packing the bowl of her bong with a soggy clump of black hash.

“Then your friends don’t have any taste. This is real music. Music that puts you in touch with your feelings. Man, you can’t hide from Barry Manilow, Dan Fogelberg, Art Garfunkel, Karla Bonoff, Jackson Browne. And this Leo Kottke album is — dare I say it? — nonpareil.”

“Hold this.” Hadar passed Spencer the bong and pulled a top-of-the-line Ovation acoustic guitar from under her bed. She placed the guitar on her lap and expertly plucked a few familiar chords. She began to sing, “All we are is dust in the wind.…” Spencer lifted his thumb from the bong’s air valve, carbing the thick column of smoke into his lungs. He exhaled just as Hadar was fading out of the last chorus as if a sound man were hidden away in the closet. When the d in “wind” melted away like a snowflake on her tongue, Spencer proposed.

Spencer and Hadar moved out of their respective dorms and scheduled the marriage for a year hence, the day after graduation. They took turns announcing the impending nuptials to their parents. Spencer went first. “Hello, Dad, I’ve got a new girlfriend, her name is—”

“That’s great news, son, but I’ve got something to tell you. You’ve got a new mother, Niecee Walters. Say hello to the boy, you fine, foxy thing, you.” Spencer squeezed Hadar’s hand, swearing lifelong allegiance, no matter the sacrifice.

The call to the Nepove household went somewhat smoother than the one to Spencer’s father. “Hello, Mom, Dad, Grandma — can you hear me? Everyone all there?” Hadar’s mother answered in an exaggerated southern accent: “We’s all assembled, darlin’, like kittens in a basket. What is it you is so giddy about? Vandy’s playing Georgia in two minutes — got a new running back this year, Clovis Buckminster. Boy big as the sultan’s house, so be quick about it.”

“Mom, I’d like to introduce my fiancé, Spencer Throckmorton.”

“Hello,” greeted Spencer from the extension phone, exuding confidence, “Mom, Dad, Nana.” From the other end came the sound of something tumbling to the ground.

Hadar gasped, “Mommy, what happened?”

“Uh, nothing, bubeleh . Everything’s fine.” Mr. Nepove responded, “That’s, er, good news,” then to the hired help, “Melba, prop Grandma’s head up with a book or something and get her some water.”

“What’s wrong with Nana?”

“Nothing — she had an attack. Hadar, this Throckmorton isn’t a member of the tribe, is he?”

“Nothing to fear, Mr. Nepove, I’m very sympathetic to the plight of Jewish people around the world. You’ve heard of Jews for Jesus, well, consider me a—” Spencer racked his brain for an appropriate alternative alliteration. “Consider me a Zairian for Zionism.”

“Spencer, you’re black?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you know what they say: ‘If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.’ ”

“Mom?”

“That’s wonderful news, Hadar. And don’t worry about Nana, she’ll come around. Christ, our kick-return coverage is pitiful this year! Someone tackle that boy!”

Grandma did come around, on the condition that Spencer convert to Judaism. During that last semester before graduation, Spencer began his conversion by meeting with the Hillel House’s clergyman, Rabbi Eisenstadt, on alternate Thursdays. Together they studied the tenets of the Jewish faith, reciting passages and prayers applicable to the conversion. One Thursday, Rabbi Eisenstadt asked Spencer how he, as a Jew, would spend Christmas Day. Spencer said he’d go to the movies like everyone else, and Rabbi Eisenstadt pronounced him fit to be an American Jew. Mikveh , the ceremonial cleansing, was held in a stagnant pond on the college’s south campus. Spencer exited the waters, sopping wet, dripping with algae, silt, and soggy underbrush, physically dirtier than when he went in, but spiritually purified. “Congratulations, Spencer,” Rabbi Eisenstadt said proudly. “I’ve forgotten to ask you one thing, Spencer, but it shouldn’t be a problem. You’re circumcised, aren’t you?” Spencer blanched, slowly shook his head no, and was handed the business card of a Mr. Epstein, emergency mohel.

The bris had all the backroom horrors of a 1950 Mexican-border-town abortion: the mailed instructions, code words to be exchanged at the rendezvous point in front of a corner pharmacy. Spencer and Hadar climbed into a minivan already seating two other blindfolded goy/Jew couples. During the long, meandering ride to the clandestine medical offices, Spencer tried to memorize auditory landmarks, just in case.