The lunch room was always jam-packed with kids going every which way – some to the tables, some to the hot lunch line, some to the vending machines, and some to mingle with friends. Me, I preferred the emptier tables at the far end of the cafeteria. So that’s where I went with the lunch I’d packed – it was a lot healthier to make my own than eat what the school gave you (especially if you planned to hit the vending machines). I settled in at a table far in the back with a quiet girl who always studied and this Eastern-European guy who talked to everybody (and had a thick accent).
“Hey, Sharon,” Elidian greeted me. “Guess what? I hear we have a – how you say? – pop quiz after lunch. It’s going to be on sound.”
“Science quiz, huh?” I replied. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“That’s what I’m studying for right now,” chimed in Beth, who sat across from Elidian with an open folder full of notes and worksheets. “Want to review with me?”
“Sure, why not?” I replied cheerfully.
“That oreo ain’t got to study,” taunted an obnoxious guy who always sat at the next table. “She do fine as it is an’ make us look a fool.”
I glared at him. “If you don’t want to look like a fool, you should do some studying, yourself,” I snapped.
“I ain’t no two-faced oreo,” he retorted. “If I ain’t smart, I ain’t smart. Nothin’ I can do ‘bout it.”
He was really pushing my buttons. I stood up and let him have it. “Don’t say that when you can do something about it! That isn’t bein’ two-faced!” I yelled.
“Then why you talk different?” he asked pointedly. “Huh?” Why was he getting under my skin so bad? ‘Cause I used to know him. He was a friend of mine before a bad experience I’d had a few years before. His name was Devon. And he didn’t used to be like this. “Just say ‘ain’t’, why don’t you? You used to say it.” Another pause. My hands balled into fists at my sides. “Hey, Sharon,” he continued, getting up to face me. “You change for the white folks who took yo’ daddy?”
I snapped. “Don’t you talk ‘bout my pops!” I yelled. Inadvertently, I threw the first punch.
That’s right. Devon had seen the whole incident a few years ago. I was seven years old when that bunch of white cops burst into my house. My mom was screaming when they stormed in and pinned down my pops. I was so scared I fell to my knees and watched while the cops yanked him up and dragged him out the front door. What had my pops done? Nothing. Yet, they locked him up for a fifteen-year sentence, and the guy who was really responsible for the crime went free.
