Who am I?
He leaned in and whispered, You that dude they call Juba.
I shook my head and smirked a bit. I’m not Juba, I said. I’m not him at all.
It’s okay, he said. I ain’t a yauper. I can keep it to myself, my nig-nig.
The man pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down some words and phrases. They were things a Cross Riverian might say. He nodded and crinkled the paper into my palm and I accepted it, folding it away in my left breast pocket.
The Legend of Ezekiel Marcus
I
A month after school opened — when the most coveted boys had paired off with the most coveted girls and, for the majority of us, our affections were going tragically unreturned — Mr. Coles, the new art teacher, decided he hated Ezekiel Marcus. It was in the way he shied from addressing Zeke whenever he could, the upturned curve of his lip when he was unable to avoid talking to him, and his clear relief during Zeke’s frequent absences. Mr. Coles wasn’t like most of the other teachers at Alfred McCoy Middle School; he was essentially a good and decent man, so he would have never admitted what was plain to me. Even to this day — wherever he is, certainly no longer a teacher — I bet if I were to ask him about these old times, he’d deflect with his signature joke, I hated you all equally. Then, thinking twice, he’d take the edge off and add, I loved you all equally, too.
We called him Mr. Cold. A name, I think, Zeke made up. Anyway, Zeke was the first one I heard say it during third-period art one day, and my laughter turned from tittering to inconsolable, if laughter can be called inconsolable. Mr. Coles had a young, elfin face with tidily groomed hair on his cheeks and chin, none on his upper lip. He was handsome. Impossibly, even freakishly, handsome — strong cheekbones and a smooth dark complexion — a fact I had to reluctantly admit and one that most of the girls never let anyone forget. Hair all black while most of his peers sported grays and bad dye jobs. And Mr. Coles always smiled, even when angry and trying to be stern, especially when angry and trying to be stern.
All of this is why we treated him poorly and why he overcompensated, first attempting to come across as a pal, a trustworthy big brother, and when that failed turning into a hard-ass for a time, though he was a phony hard-ass, one we could see clear through. Rarely, if ever, did we tremble in fear at his silly yelling and stiff pointing finger. Marshall, Mr. Coles called to me as I choked on laughter after he grew upset from Zeke’s taunting. Marshall, it’s funny, but that’s enough. This just caused us to laugh more. The warmest man in the school, Mr. Cold, then sent Ezekiel into the hallway as his mentor, Mr. Drayton, probably advised him to do. Damn, that’s cold-blooded, Mr. Cold, a proud and smiling Zeke said on his way out to another rise in laughter.
The next time we saw Mr. Coles, he was stiff and stern. Even his movements changed to reflect the new him. We talked through the roll as usual, and by the fifth name he stopped and looked up. In spite of his contrived scowl, he still managed to appear somehow smiling. He stared at Zeke, though we were all speaking. There were always five of us at the front table: me, Zeke, a Puerto Rican girl with curly hair named Jana, and two jokers named Ernesto and Tommy.
Hey, Zeke, you want to go stand in the hallway again? Mr. Coles asked.
I didn’t do nothing, Zeke said. I’m not the only one talking. Why don’t you pick on Tommy and Ernesto?
Either you be quiet or go stand in the hall. Those are your two options. I’m not here to argue with you, Ezekiel.
When Zeke kept talking to us, Mr. Coles ordered him into the hallway. Zeke stood swiftly so that his metal stool toppled to the floor. On his way out he said, Man, we were going to stop calling you Mr. Cold, too, but you keep showing us how cold-blooded you are, so you’re gonna be Mr. Cold from now until whenever.
Zeke, be quiet or it’s the office instead of the hall.
Zeke spent most of the class in the hallway rapping the uncensored version of a dirty song that played every few minutes on the radio stations we all listened to. Shake that ass buck naked, bitch / don’t you fake it, bitch / Shake that ass buck naked, bitch… Mr. Coles pretended not to hear him, and that’s how we all knew that this new Mr. Cold was a put-on. His demeanor was a lie, a desperate one. I could understand, Mr. Coles’s true self earned him zero respect, but still, a lie was destined to fail. It was no wonder he was so adrift in the classroom. Much of his behavior was straight from the manual of so many of our educators, but particularly Mr. Drayton, who was old and stiff and smelled vaguely of urine. I’d often see Mr. Coles sitting in the cafeteria joking with this crumpled old white man. Chatting in the parking lot outside their cars. In each other’s classrooms between classes. Mr. Drayton needed an ego stroke and Mr. Cold needed a clue.
Near the end of class, Mr. Coles called Zeke back into the room and asked us all to pay quiet attention.
You may have noticed that I am not as open as I once was, Mr. Coles said. Less apt to listen to excuses. More likely to punish. I never wanted to be this kind of teacher. I figure you’ve all had enough hard-ass drill sergeants, but you guys have been so damaged by that kind of teaching that you don’t respect anything else. Not your fault. And it’s not all of you, but enough that I’m forced to change my approach. From now on, if you are not in your seat by the time the bell rings, I am marking you tardy. Too many tardies means you lose credit for the semester. You talk when I am talking, I’m sending your ass out of the classroom. Not to the hallway, but to the office. You don’t work on your art, I’m sending you out of class. We can have a good time, but it’s something you have to earn now.
Damn, he’s Mr. Cold for real, someone in the back said, and Mr. Coles shot Zeke a stone look.
And, Mr. Coles said as the bell rang signaling the end of class, my name is Mr. Coles. Please address me as that and nothing else.
That afternoon during gym class, while the sixth-graders were having lunch, me and Zeke placed bets on how long Mr. Coles would keep up his hard-ass persona. It was a soccer week, and we competed to show the girls who could keep the ball in the air the longest using just our feet, heads, thighs, and chests. Zeke was already a soccer star and could out-dribble even the best of the high school students. As we kicked the ball around, we compared notes with others, and it seemed Mr. Coles had given similar speeches in his other classes, but thanks to the presence of Zeke in our class, third period got the harshest lecture.
It’s because of that fucking Mr. Drayton, Zeke said. I know he got in Mr. Cold’s ear and turned him against us. I bet ol’ piss-breath was like, You got to break Zeke’s spirit. I hate going to Mr. Drayton’s fucking class.
Yeah, I said, and now we’re going to hate art class too.
Zeke pointed to Mr. Drayton overseeing the sixth-graders’ post-lunch recreation time and said, I bet I could hit him right in the nose with this soccer ball from here.
You think you Pelé, I replied.
He tapped the ball gently ahead of him. Just strike it in the right spot, you can place it wherever you want. That’s what my coach says. What would you give me if I knocked the shit out of him with this ball?
I had no doubt that Zeke could make the ball sail from the top of the hill down to Mr. Drayton’s face — I had seen him score some impossible goals — but I pretended I didn’t hear him so he’d drop it, and he did.
For the first week of Mr. Cold’s new persona we worked in silent misery most of the time. In history class we learned about the Soviet work camps, and during third period I imagined we were in one, fashioning cheap, meaningless trinkets out of wire and then out of clay or papiermâché. Mr. Coles taught us to make animals out of newspaper, paint, and lacquer. Zeke chose to work with wire, bending it into a little man on a little bicycle, while most of the rest of our table continued to work with clay. I think that was the most peaceful I had ever seen Zeke, and Mr. Coles complimented him more than once for his demeanor, but to me it was all wrong. Zeke was happiest when he was causing chaos. I made a human out of newspaper and painted it brown and joked that I was creating an Ezekiel Marcus doll.