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son,” she snapped. “If only some of this wit could translate into solid achievement on your Scholastic Aptitude Test.”
    “Leo does not test well, darling,” my father said.
    “But isn’t he the life of the party,” she said. “This afternoon I want you to report to your principal’s office and meet your new football coach.”
    “You are my principal, Mother,” I said. “And Coach Ogburn is my football coach.”
    “He resigned yesterday.”
    “Why on earth?” Father asked. “He was so close to retirement.”
    “He refused to coach when he learned his assistant was going to be a black man,” my mother said. “So I hired Coach Jefferson from Brooks High as head coach, and made him athletic director too. They’re not pussyfooting with integration this year.”
    “Why do you want me to meet Coach Jefferson?” I asked.
    “Because you’re his first-string center.”
    “I’ve always played second-string behind Choppy Sargent.”
    “Choppy and three others are following Coach Ogburn to a new segregated academy west of the Ashley. Coach Jefferson wants you to try to keep any other of the white boys on the team from following suit.”
    I was making a mental list: chocolate chip cookies, the orphans of Polycarp, Coach Jefferson. “Anything else, Mother?”
    “You’ve got iced tea duty after the hospital workers’ march. We’ll eat a late dinner.” My mother gave her lipstick a final glance in her mirror, and then met my eye evenly. “Your probation hearing is set for June twenty-sixth. You’re finally finished with probation.”
    My father added gratefully, “Your record is clean, son. You have a clean slate again.”
    “Not with me, young man,” Mother inserted quickly. “I don’t know how you sleep at night, after what you put your father and me through.”
    My father’s voice lowered as he said, “Darling.”
    “Leo knows what I mean.” Mother did not look up.
    “Do you know what she means, Leo?” Father asked.
    “He knows,” my mother shot back.
    “Are you talking about my hatred of James Joyce?” I asked.
    “You pretend to hate James Joyce because it’s an easier way to say you hate me,” she retorted.
    “Tell your mother you don’t hate her, Leo.” Father was a man comfortable with the formulas of scientific law, but lost at sea when it came to engaging the tidal forces of the emotions. “No, tell her you love her. That’s an order.”
    “I love you, Mother,” I said, but even I could measure the perfect note of insincerity I sounded.
    “Meet me at my office at four this afternoon, Leo,” she said. “You have your other tasks for the day.”
    My parents left the table at the same time, and I watched as my father paid Cleo for the meal. Cleo then came over and sat across from me.
    “Here’s all the wisdom I got to share, Leo: Being a kid’s a pain in the ass. Being an adult is ten times worse. That’s Cleo the Greek, who came from the people who brought you Plato and Socrates and all those other assholes.”

CHAPTER 2
New Friends
    A fter leaving Cleo’s, I rang the ivory-white button of St. Jude’s orphanage in the warren of intersecting streets behind the cathedral. Its buzz was irritating and subhuman, insectlike. I associated the orphanage with all things Catholic, from rectories to convents.
    A huge black man named Clayton Lafayette answered the door and smiled when he saw me. Mr. Lafayette played out a dozen roles at the orphanage, but one was marching the high school kids each day to Peninsula High, a task he performed with military precision and relish. Though his disposition was sunny and affable, his body was brutish.
    “Leo the Lion,” he said to me.
    “Count Lafayette.” We shook hands. “I’ve got an appointment to see Sister Mary Polycarp.”
    “The orphans already call her the Pollywog,” he whispered. “She told me your mama was sending you over.”
    “You be careful around the Pollywog, Count,” I whispered back. “She’s bad