—
What is there in Mookie’s face, when he staggers away from the scene of Radio Raheem’s death, picks up the garbage can, and carries it, like a javelin thrower, to its launching point, to the window of Sal’s Famous? Why, that is, doesn’t he have any expression at all? As if he’s watching his life flash by on TV. As if he’s watching an old, old movie. His whole body sags with the effort of acting out the script. And I, even then, even at fourteen, knew that I was supposed to hate him, and couldn’t. And wanted to be him, and couldn’t. Here we go again, his face says. I don’t want you to witness this. He is alone. He doesn’t want to be the Representative Black Man. But he can’t be anything else. The credits roll, I wipe my popcorn-greasy hands on my shorts. I walk out of the theater in a daze. I’ve glimpsed something. But a glimpse, as it turns out, is not enough.
—
I lived in white dreamtime. I have been living in white dreamtime. And the problem with dreaming, the epistemological problem, is: when you think you’ve woken up, have you really? Is this waking, or a deeper, more profound state of sleep, the state of the most vivid and palpable dreams?
—
There’s something else I forgot. Or, rather, something else I can’t remember. I can’t remember what caused me to fight the boy; I was seven, we were at some school summer camp, not in Newton but nearby, he appeared out of nowhere, and like that we were grappling in the dust, the only fight I’d had in my life up to that time. He elbowed me in the shoulder, pushed me over, and walked off; I was blinded, howling. That nigger, I said, when my counselor picked me up, and he put me down immediately and pinned me against the wall by my shoulders. Don’t ever say that again, he said. He had greasy shoulder-length black hair, a knobby nose, a Ziggy Stardust T-shirt fraying at the collar. You understand? Say it again and I’ll beat the shit out of you myself. I’ll fucking kill you. You understand?
How is anyone supposed to understand?
—
Thus ends my confession.
8
When I interviewed for the job at WBCC last fall, the Monday of Thanksgiving week, the board could have paid for me to take a cab from the airport, or, more likely — this is public radio — instructed me to take the MARC train and a cab to my hotel. They didn’t. Winnifred Brinton-Cox, the chairwoman, met me at the baggage claim and drove me into town herself, a trip of nearly three hours in afternoon traffic. It was a strange and uncomfortable position, sitting inches away from a stranger who was offering me a job; it meant my interview began the minute I stepped off the plane. That was — that is — Winnifred’s style. She was born in Negril, moved to Brooklyn as a child, but she still speaks with West Indian flourishes, a kind of expansive, jovial quality combined with a certain stiff English hauteur, and she has a beaming smile that she bestows on all sentences equally, whether she’s delivering good news or saying something cruel and gratuitous. Her day job is in community affairs for the Johns Hopkins Medical Centers, which, as I understand it, entails explaining to very poor people why their houses have to be demolished to build the world’s most advanced, most expensive hospital. It’s hard to be on the side of progress, she told me, when I asked her about it. On the side of development. On the side of the inevitable. But God didn’t put me on this earth to be Santa Claus.
It was within fifteen minutes of leaving the airport that she told me the job was mine, if I wanted it; I was the most qualified candidate and the most exciting. What I like about you is that you have an outside perspective, she said. You come from a place of success. Efficiency. A functional station structure.
You make that sound exotic.
You’d be surprised, she said. The question is, are you ready to be unpopular? Because let me make a prediction. If you take this job, no one’s going to invite you out for happy hour. You might not even get a birthday card.
If you’re asking if I depend on my work for self-esteem, I said, the answer is no. Work is work.
You sure about that? she asked. You sure that hasn’t, eh, changed?
I’d forgotten that in my phone interview with the board, when asked why I wanted to make a move, I’d explained, in the briefest possible terms, what had happened with Wendy and Meimei.
Sorry to be so direct, she said. But I want you to think this through. These people smell indecision, understand?
I’m not undecided, I said, a patent lie. I want this job. I’m here.
—
Two nights ago Winnifred called me at eight forty-five — on the late side, for a business call, but I had nothing better to do, as she surely guessed. I’m wondering if you could come down for a quick breakfast meeting, she said. Henry’s, at eight sharp?
There was no way I could refuse, of course, though I longed for the days of daycare drop-offs and family responsibilities, so painfully, so wetly, that I could hardly hold up the phone.
When I turn around the pastry counter into Henry’s seating area I see immediately that this is no ordinary meeting: Winnifred is squeezed into a corner table alongside Walter Avery, the college president, whom I’ve met only once before, and a tall stranger in a navy blazer and polo shirt, a pudgy, bulbous-nosed man in his forties who looks like a high school football coach, complete with bristly red hair and a sawtooth mustache. They have in front of them a platter of assorted danishes, croissants, pecan rolls, bâtards, and scones, and the table is already scattered with crumbs and wadded napkins lumped from coffee spills.
Kelly, Winnifred says, let me introduce you to Ron Dwyer. Ron, Kelly.
Kelly’s a good Irish name, Ron says, pumping my hand.
I think my parents chose it out of a hat. We’re Dutch and German all the way back.
New Amsterdam Dutch?
Ellis Island.
I can’t imagine why we’re having a conversation about genealogy in front of two African Americans, but Ron looks pleased to have the details in order.
Kelly, Walter says, Winnifred’s told me that you’re scheduled to have a meeting with the staff this week about the accreditation issue, and so I felt we needed to have this conversation first, just so that there’s no miscommunication anywhere along the line. I’ll keep it simple, because I know you have places to be. BCC has opted to embrace a new arrangement for the WBCC license. This is an opportunity we’ve been thinking about for a while, and the letter from NPR gave us a window of time. Now we’re about to act.
Walter is also a big man, with very wide features — his nose in particular is like a lump of pancake batter dropped onto the griddle of his face — and I have the sensation, at this moment, of being a place kicker facing three linebackers across the line of scrimmage. All three of them have hunkered down at the same moment, waiting to hear what I will say, and I feel as if they could upend the table at any moment and reach out for my throat.
I’m sorry, Walter, I say — what else can I say? — can you clarify that a little? I don’t quite follow.
BCC is selling the station, Winnifred says, with one of her characteristic Teflon smiles. It’s a very difficult decision, and one I’ve questioned all the way along the line. But in the end I think it’s a disservice to the community and the college to keep things going the way they are.