Long Division(5)

“It’s just a book,” she said.

“I thought you said we were never supposed to say ‘just a book’ about a book.”

Principal Reeves made that rule up last year. She had every book in her bookshelf placed in alphabetical order but on the floor underneath the shelf was a book called Long Division. There wasn’t an author’s name on the cover or the spine. I couldn’t tell from looking at it if it was fiction or a real story. The cover had the words “Long Division” written in a thick black marker over what looked like the outside of this peeling work shed behind my grandma’s house.

“Who wrote that book?”

Principal Reeves ignored my question and just looked at me.

“Please stop looking at me, Principal Reeves.”

“I’ll stop looking at you when you start looking at you. You’ve got to respect yourself and the folks who came before you, Citoyen. You,” she paused. “You know better. Didn’t your mother, you, and me sit right here before the state competition and talk about this? What did your mother tell you?”

“She said, ‘Your foolishness impacts not only black folks today, but black folks yet to be born.’ But see, I don’t agree with my mama…”

“There are no buts, Citoyen,” Principal Reeves said. “You are history. Kids right around your age died changing history so you could go to school, so you could compete in that contest tonight, and here you are acting a fool. The day of?”

“Is that a question?”

“Fifty-one years ago, black students took responsibility for the morality and future of this country,” she said. She was so serious. “They organized. They restrained themselves. They put themselves in the crosshairs of evil. They bled. And when the cameras were on, they were scared. But they stepped up and fought nonviolently with dignity and excellence, didn’t they?”

I just kept looking down at Long Division and started to smell the french fries coming from the cafeteria.

“Nevermind that book, Citoyen. Is it too much to ask of you to respect those students today?” she asked. “Look at me. Those that are still alive are watching. You know that, don’t you?”

“You mean tonight?” I took my eyes off the book and looked at Principal Reeves. “Tonight, they’ll be watching?”

“Yes. Tonight, they’ll be watching, along with the world. But they’re always watching, so you must behave and compete accordingly. This is just another test. I’m not gonna suspend you or tell your mother. However, if you act a fool one more time this semester, I have no choice but to reach out.”

I hated when folks used the word “however” in regular conversation. You knew that the person you were talking to was so much wacker than you thought as soon as you heard that word. “I know,” I told her.

“One more thing,” she said and closed the office door. “I hear from LaVander Peeler and a few other teachers that you’re spending a lot of time alone in the bathroom stalls.”

I looked down at the stains on my brown Adidas.

“Have you been—”

“What?”

“Touching yourself inappropriately at lunch time?”

“Lunch time?”

“Yes. I’ve heard that after many of the boys go into the bathroom to yell ‘Kindly pause,’ that you go in there and … listen. We don’t want to halt natural human functions at Fannie Lou Hamer, but that activity might be better suited for home, possibly before you go to sleep or maybe even when you wake up.”

I raised my eyes to Principal Reeves.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Citoyen?”

“I’m good,” I told Principal Reeves. “You’re telling me not to get nice with myself on school property. I hear you. Wish me luck tonight.” I started walking out of her office, then turned around. “Wait. Can I borrow that book? I’ll bring it back tomorrow. I just never really seen a book with a cool title like that and no author before.”

Principal Reeves slowly reached down and handed me the book. “I haven’t finished it yet,” she told me. “Be careful with that, Citoyen.”

“Why?”

“Just be careful,” she said.

Principal Reeves had acted weird before, but this was the first time she was acting like she was sending me off to Syria. “Some books can completely change how we see ourselves and everything else in the world. Keep your eyes on the prize.”

“I’m good,” I told her before walking out. “Don’t worry about my eyes. And that prize is mine.”

At 3:15, LaVander Peeler and I waited on the curb for his father to pick us up. I had Long Division in my hands. LaVander Peeler had on these fake Louis Vuitton shades and he kept looking down at my book.

“What you looking at?” I asked him.

He asked me if I had figured out the difference yet between sweat and piss. I looked up at LaVander Peeler and noticed two continent-sized clouds easing their way through the sky behind his fade that didn’t fade. I thought to myself that a lot of times when you looked up at the sky, you’d see nothing but bluish-gray shine, and a few seconds later continent-sized clouds would slowly glide up and take every last bit of shine out of the sky.

I didn’t like the drippy ache in my chest that I was starting to feel, so I opened up Long Division and read the first chapter while LaVander Peeler and I waited for his father, LaVander Peeler Sr., to drive us to the Coliseum.