New Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    "In the bathroom," he said. "They put one over a basin that
says VINNIE'S SINK and another on the door to a stall that says VINNIE'S TOILET ." Up until now, Vinnie had been able, with effort, to maintain his composure in the face of such indignities, but I could tell from his voice that he was starting to unravel. His face still held the lopsided smile that he often wore and his skin still bristled with acne, but his small, dark eyes were desolate, haunted. "What did I do to deserve this? Rolf told me they had a floor meeting and decided to give me my own sink and toilet and I'm not supposed to use the others. What can I do?" he said, in despair.

    "Did you call your folks?" I said.
    "I call my folks every night. My dad has already talked to Spencer several times," he said.
    "What did Spencer say?" I asked.
    "'Nothing to worry about. Boys will be boys. Everything's under control.' Meanwhile, I'm a nervous wreck. My grades are terrible. They're tossing shaving-cream bombs into my room at three A.M. , so I can't sleep. Nobody on the floor will speak to me, and the rest of the school thinks I'm impossible to get along with."
    "I think your father ought to come up here and meet with Spencer face-to-face," I said. "That will get his attention."
    "My father already suggested that to him," said Vinnie. "He even suggested a meeting with Spencer and him and all the kids on the floor to clear the air, but Spencer didn't want to do it. He said it wasn't necessary, and he didn't want to give the impression things are out of control. He said the school has traditions to
maintain and a reputation to uphold, and then he said something that burned my father up. He said, 'We all experience challenges in our lives, and character is measured by how we face up to those challenges and overcome them. Vince'—he never calls me Vinnie—'should think of this as just another challenge along the road of life.' I guess my dad got really hot when he said that. He told Spencer if things weren't straightened out soon, he was going to talk to a lawyer."

    I was intrigued by Vinnie's mention of a lawyer. We never put much faith in lawyers at home. If you needed to draft a will or pass papers on a piece of property, you would hire a lawyer, but if you were colored and had a serious problem that involved the law, you were better off handling it yourself. It was cheaper, for one thing, and for another, the white lawyers couldn't be trusted, and neither could many of the colored ones. The courts were the worst of all. The judges thought it was their solemn duty to preserve segregation, and that was all that mattered. I didn't know anything about lawyers or courts in the North at the time, but if Vinnie's father was going to talk to a lawyer, I thought he must know what he's doing.
    The next evening I had returned to my room after dinner when there was a knock on my door. It was Dillard standing in the doorway with a broad smile.
    "Got a few minutes?" he said.
    "Sure," I said. "Come on in." Although I didn't have any classes with Dillard, I had seen him around the campus often
since that first day, and he had always been friendly. He walked in, closed the door behind him, and took a seat on the bed.

    "How's it going?" he said.
    "Not too bad," I said. "Latin is a lot of work, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. And science is pretty tough, but everything else is under control." I was seated at my desk, and as I looked at Dillard hunched over on the edge of the bed, with his forearms resting on the tops of his thighs and his hands clasped between his legs, I began to wonder about the reason for this visit. "How about you?" I said.
    "Pretty good. Team's doing pretty well. Made the honor roll." Could it be, I thought, that he still wants me to come out for the football team? "Say, you're a friend of Mazzerelli's, aren't you?" he said. I said I was. "Well, what's his problem, anyway?" Dillard was still smiling, but his tone of voice was