Being Clem Read online

  “He’s gotta pay,” Lymon said, and started walking toward Langston with Errol right behind.

  “You gonna be the only one paying,” I said.

  Lymon stopped and looked at me. “What’re you saying? You want to stand over here and let someone treat you like you nothing and you just take it?”

  I stared at him. Wondering if he remembered it was him who beat up on Langston every day. And it was Langston who took it. I knew right then it wasn’t Langston he was mad at and fighting. It was everybody who beat on him and treated him like nothing.

  “I didn’t think so,” he said, and kept walking. Me and Errol followed behind. I prayed Langston would look up from his book. Prayed Langston would see us coming and go inside. Prayed that just for once, Langston would do something.

  But Langston finally looked up only when Lymon was standing right over him.

  “What you doing over here all by yourself, Country Boy?” Lymon asked him. I could hear Errol chuckling. “Bet you and your daddy thought I’d be gone for good, huh?”

  I’ve seen a lot of fights in the school yard. Fights with blood and cursing, and once I even saw someone lose a tooth. But I ain’t never seen someone lose a fight without one punch being thrown. But when Lymon reached out, snatched Langston’s book out of his hand, ripped out page after page after page, something in Langston finally came alive, like it did that day in the library. He stood up and fought back. Not for himself, but for his book. His book. He twisted Lymon’s arm like it was a pretzel and Lymon, who never once backed down from anyone, was on one knee, his twisted-up arm in Langston’s hand and tears running down his cheeks. And when I looked around, everyone was quiet. I ran for Miss Robins, who came screaming for the two of them to get inside. Errol looked like he was ready to cry too. I’d prayed Langston would do something, anything, to fight for himself. But I never expected him to do that.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Up above my head, the pages from Langston’s book floated on the wind like leaves. No one was quiet now, everybody was laughing and acting out how Langston twisted Lymon’s arm behind his back, taking turns with who played each part. But whoever acted out Lymon’s part had him begging for mercy and sounding nothing like what really happened.

  I reached up and grabbed some of the pages floating above me. Then I grabbed all of the ones on the cement. Pages were flying all around the school yard, and some kids grabbed a few and I snatched them back.

  Lucille from our class was standing on one. “Get off me, Clem!” she yelled when I tried to move her leg. Finally, she stepped away and I grabbed that one too.

  “Help me get these,” I said to Errol, who was still looking at the door Miss Robins took Lymon and Langston into.

  “He’s gonna get suspended again,” Errol said to me, not moving.

  “I told him to leave Langston alone,” I said, moving him out of the way to grab another page between his legs.

  “Langston? Since when you start calling him Langston? And why you picking up those pages?” Errol said, looking down.

  I stood up with one whole handful and looked at Errol. “What did he ever do to us, to Lymon, to deserve this?”

  Errol looked back at me. “He ain’t got to do nothing. Sometimes that’s just the way it is.”

  “Is it?” I asked. “Some people just deserve to be beat on, even if they don’t deserve it?”

  I saw Errol blink hard. Twice. Then he looked away and at the door.

  “Maybe they do,” he said, facing the school. Then he turned and looked at me. His eyes were dry now, and mean, daring me to say something to him. Just think of something else. Something that makes you mad. Errol already knew Kendrick’s rules. Being mad always stops the tears. I looked back at Errol, thinking about all those nights I could hear his mother crying in our kitchen after his father hurt her. I wondered if Errol thought she deserved it too. Maybe because she stayed too long talking to my momma. Or she didn’t cook the dinner the way his daddy liked. If he believed that, then I guess he did believe Langston had it coming too. I could see the teachers coming out now and knew I didn’t have long before the bell rang and we’d have to go in.

  “Guess we both better go on about our business, then,” I said to him. He nodded and walked away while I raced to the corner of the school yard where I saw more pages blown up against the fence and pulled those off. Just as the school bell rang, I saw one last page up at the top of the fence about to blow away. I climbed fast as I could to grab it.

  “Mr. Thurber!” I heard a teacher yell. “Get down from there this instant!”

  I jumped down from the top and took one last look around to see if there were any more pages I missed. One more page, nearly ripped in two, was over in the corner where Langston was sitting. I grabbed it and ran into school before the last bell rang. Errol was nowhere in sight.

  Back in the classroom, everyone was still talking about the fight like Langston was the new heavyweight champion. I heard Ruby even call Langston handsome. It was like everybody except Errol had been waiting for someone to take down Lymon, but no one was brave enough to do it.

  “Settle down, class,” Miss Robins said, rushing back into the room, her face shiny and bright red. But there ain’t no settling down after a recess like the one we just had.

  After school, for the first time, I didn’t wait for Errol, I just walked on ahead by myself. It felt good to finally be alone, not trying to be funny or make up things to talk about, just think. I kept playing over in my head the fight between Lymon and Langston. Each time I did, Langston got bigger and bigger till he was almost like a giant standing tall over Lymon. When I got home, I opened the front door quiet so that Clarisse and Annette couldn’t hear me and went straight to my room. From my satchel, I took out all the pages from Langston’s book and laid them out on my bedspread. I flipped through them, wiping off footprints and dirt, then lining them up by page number and reading some of the words on the pages.

  I couldn’t count how many times I’d seen Langston by himself, in a corner at the library, or at lunch reading one of his books. Once he didn’t even hear the bell ring, and Miss Robins had to go out and tell him it was time to come inside after recess. I keep my reading to myself, at home in my room, but Langston seemed like he read every place but home.

  When I got all the pages in order, I put them back neat in my satchel. Lymon didn’t get a chance to rip up the whole book, so I was hoping with the pages I saved, the book could still be fixed. I stretched out on my bed with my arms behind my head, tired. Just thinking about Lymon, Langston, and Errol made me want to close my eyes and wake up when seventh grade was over. But when I thought about how Langston was beat on nearly every day, the funny poems he read about black beauty and thou and hast and how now, after all these months, it was Langston who was a hero, my head started pounding. Just when I thought I knew the rules, something changes, making me think I don’t know anything at all.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I waited outside in the school yard for Langston, but he never showed up. The wind was whipping up something good, but I was so proud I found all the pages to his ripped-up book, I didn’t pay attention to the wind or the cold. Errol had gone on home. Neither one of us made a plan to stop walking together, but after yesterday, we both knew things between us weren’t ever going to be right again. Now I just had to figure out a way to tell my momma. When the school yard was just about empty, I zipped up my jacket and started home by myself.

  Today Momma told me instead of going home, I had to walk to DuSable High and wait outside while she was inside speaking to the principal, because Momma didn’t want me home alone without Clarisse or Annette. I knew Clarisse was in some kind of trouble. I just didn’t know what kind and how much. But it was the kind of trouble that meant Momma had to leave work early and that meant it was big trouble because if Momma lost hours with the Franklins then she lost pay. Annette was staying after school for her French Club meeting, and I don’t know why anyone would want to sit aroun
d for an hour every week after school speaking in another language, but Annette said of course I wouldn’t understand because it was for “enrichment.” When I told her that enrichment reminded me of summers with our aunts and sounded “boring,” Annette called me an imbécile. And I sure didn’t need to speak French to know imbécile meant dumb.

  I sat in front, on the steps watching high schoolers go in and out, walking down Wabash, some holding hands, all of them talking loud, and I opened my book, wondering how long Momma could take to hear bad news from the principal. I just knew it had to be something about Clarisse and her new boyfriend, Ralph. At home, I tried to listen in, but hard as I tried, I couldn’t get as many details as I wanted. I did find out that Ralph went to DuSable High with Clarisse. He played on the basketball team, and of course, all Clarisse could talk about was how “fine” he was and that he was a senior, one year ahead of Clarisse. She told Annette he might have a friend for her too.

  I saw him only once when Clarisse snuck him in the house before Momma got home from work. I don’t know about “fine,” but he looked all right. He was heads taller than Clarisse, skinny, and he barely had two words to say, but I’m not sure if that’s because Clarisse doesn’t let anybody say much. She was all sweetness and smiles. She was even nice to me.

  “And this is my little brother, Clemson,” she said, introducing us.

  “Clem,” I told him.

  “What’s up, little man?” he said, giving me skin.

  His hands were big and ashy, and he had the whitest, straightest teeth, like he was in a toothpaste commercial. Clarisse gave me a look that said get lost, so I went in my room and waited till it was quiet, then I poked my head out and saw them in there on the couch kissing. I didn’t have Annette this time to set Clarisse straight. My stomach hurt so bad thinking what would happen if Momma came home and found Clarisse in there with Ralph. I could see Momma being led off to jail after she strangled Clarisse or both of them to death. One of Momma’s rules was no company when she was at work. She didn’t have to say No Boyfriends on My Couch Kissing Like You Are Grown Married Folks for Clarisse to know that wasn’t allowed either. There isn’t much I hate more than lying to my momma and keeping secrets from her too, and here was Clarisse making me do both in one day. But I owed Clarisse a favor, so I shut my mouth, held my stomach, and didn’t say a word.

  After all the smiling and kissing with Ralph finished and Clarisse said goodbye at the door for I don’t know how long, I came out to finish my schoolwork in the kitchen and pretend it was just any other day. Annette was at her French Club meeting, so Clarisse gave me a look, daring me to open my mouth when Momma came home and asked how our day went.

  “Pretty quiet, right, Clem?” she said.

  “Mmmhmmm,” I said.

  Momma looked at us both funny, but she didn’t ask anything more. I couldn’t even eat my dinner.

  Thinking now about Clarisse and Ralph and Momma and the principal made my stomach start up again. I got up and moved from the steps to wait inside the school.

  I’d only been inside DuSable a few other times, when Momma had meetings with teachers and twice when I had to sit through watching Clarisse in a play and Annette singing in the spring chorus. I walked down the hallway where I thought the principal’s office was, but I only saw classrooms and lockers, so I made a left and wound up at the gym. Just as I was turning around, I heard the sound of a whistle.

  Next to the gym was a window partly fogged up. I wiped it off with my sleeve and could see some kids lined up through the blurry window. I walked around to the big double wooden doors and opened them. And then I smelled the bleachy smell that always made me sick. A pool.

  Inside was so hot and steamy I could barely breathe. Standing along the edge with matching swim trunks were about a dozen DuSable High School boys, each one wearing glasses over their eyes with a strap around back. They stood in a line while a man with a whistle around his neck stood next to them and waved each of them into the pool. One after the other they dived in from a board at the edge, so smooth, you barely heard them hit the water. Then they would swim like fish, smooth as could be, I bet like my daddy used to swim, to the other end of the pool. They looked like a musical group, all in perfect rhythm.

  “Young man!” the coach yelled to me. I looked up. “This is a closed practice for the swim team only. You’ll need to leave.” I stepped back, still watching.

  “Come back for the meet,” he told me. He whistled again as the boys began swimming back to the other end.

  I turned quick and left out. Back out in the hallway the air was cool again. I found my way back to the principal’s office. Momma was sitting on a chair waiting.

  “Where were you?” She looked half-mad, half-worried.

  “I got lost, looking—”

  “Come on,” she said, walking ahead and out the door. Outside, when I was waiting for Momma, I could barely wait to find out what Clarisse was in trouble for. But that was before I saw the DuSable swim team.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I don’t know when the house had been so quiet. When we got home, Clarisse went straight to her room, and Momma went to the kitchen to start on dinner. Annette got in from her club and came into my room.

  “Ooowee, Clarisse is in trouble,” Annette whispered after she closed the door.

  “All Momma said on the walk home was ‘Learning means using your ears and not your mouth, Clarisse,’ and then she didn’t want to hear nothing Clarisse had to say,” I whispered back.

  “Well, Clarisse ain’t saying much now, but I heard she ran her mouth off to Miss Cunningham the other day.”

  “Who is Miss Cunningham?” I asked. I tried to keep track of all of their teachers, so I’d know who to look out for when I had them.

  “She’s the English teacher. Miss Cunningham may be old, but she does not play,” Annette said, looking serious. In my head, I hoped Miss Cunningham was long gone by the time I got to high school.

  “Anyhow, she got sent to the principal’s office,” Annette finished.

  “So Momma had to go to the school just because Clarisse was mouthing off in class?” I asked.

  “Well… ,” Annette said slow. “It wasn’t the first time.”

  “So it didn’t have nothing to do with Ralph?” I asked.

  Annette smiled slow at me and tilted her head to the side. “What do you know about Ralph?”

  “Not much,” I said, wishing I had kept my big mouth shut.

  “Clem-son,” she said slow. “Did you tell Momma something about Ralph?”

  “No! I didn’t tell Momma nothing. I promised Clarisse!”

  “Okay, relax,” Annette said. “Just checking. Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait to find out what happens next.”

  As she turned to leave, I said, “Annette…”

  “Yeah?” She smiled. “More questions about Monsieur Raoul?” I hated when she started in on her French talk.

  “No. You ever been to one of those swim meets at the high school?” I asked her.

  “The swim meets? A couple of boys from my class are on the team, and my friend Linda’s brother is the captain. They have one of the best records in the state. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  She put her hand on her hip. “You’re just wondering about DuSable High’s swim team?” When Annette put her hand on her hip she reminded me of Aunt Dorcas.

  “Yeah… well, no… when I was at the school today… I just didn’t know they had a swim team,” I stuttered.

  “Well, keep up with your swim lessons and maybe I can go to your swim meets in a few years,” Annette said, and of course added, “and watch you lose.” She closed the door behind her, laughing.

  That night in bed, I thought I’d never fall asleep, thinking about Momma and Clarisse. But just when I thought I’d be seeing the sun rise, I found myself in a big pool, swimming with my daddy.

  As soon as the coach blew the whistle, the two of us dived into the pool and started swimming, raci
ng each other to the end. At first, my daddy was out in front, swimming just like he was that day on the lake with long, smooth strokes. But the faster I moved my arms and legs, the closer I got to him. In the water, I felt as light as air, and my body seemed to know just what to do. My arms were bent at the elbows, my legs out long behind me with my feet kicking the water just like the swim team swimmers did, and my head turned to the right side for air each time my arm lifted out of the water. Standing on the edge were Momma, Clarisse, and Annette, bent down and cheering, though I couldn’t tell who they wanted to win. Pretty soon I was swimming side by side with my daddy, looking right at him, our arms going in and out of the water at the same time. He wasn’t wearing the swimmer’s glasses, so I could see his eyes smiling right along with his mouth. Clemson Junior, I saw his mouth say, and he looked proud I could keep up with him. He smiled more as little by little I moved ahead, and before I knew it he was behind me, his head near my feet. When I looked ahead, the edge of the pool seemed a mile away, and when I looked behind, Daddy was too. The harder I swam, the smaller Daddy got, until finally he was so far away, I couldn’t see him at all.

  “Daddy!” I yelled. “Daddy!” But he was gone.

  I stopped swimming. When I looked up, Momma, Clarisse, and Annette were gone too and there was just me and the coach with the whistle telling me, “Come on, son, you’re almost there.” But just like that I forgot how to swim. It was like my arms and legs stopped working. I could feel myself sinking to the bottom of the pool.

  “Daddy!” I tried to scream. “Daddy, help!” But there was no sound because my mouth filled up with water.

  I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, coughing. The light was coming through the window in my bedroom. I sat up breathing hard. The room was hot and stuffy, but I felt cold. It had been months since I dreamed of my daddy. I climbed out of bed, dizzy, and looked down. In the middle of my bed was a big wet spot. Not since I was little had I wet the bed and here I was in junior high, dreaming of my daddy, and drowning and feeling like a baby all over again.