Thomas turned to face the angry teacher.
“Are,” Meyers said.
“Are,” Thomas repeated, raising his voice and using the same angry tone.
“Are.”
“Are.”
Meyers stared at the boy suspiciously. It was almost as if he thought that this slender black child was pulling a joke on him.
“Constantinople,” the first-grade teacher said, suddenly jutting his head forward like a striking snake.
“Wha’?” Shauna said.
“Constantinople,” Thomas said easily.
“Sit down,” Meyers said.
As Thomas did so he noticed that many of the children were staring at him with the same concentrated frown that the teacher had on his face.
“You talk funny,” Bruno whispered.
A f te r th e f i nal bell Bruno showed Thomas where the big front door was. But when the new boy got out in front of 8 9
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
the school, he found himself in the midst of a thousand running and shouting children. In all that confusion he didn’t know which way to go.
“Where you live at?” Bruno asked him.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ont know where you live at?”
“My dad walked me here today,” Thomas said. “He was tellin’ me how I shouldn’t be in trouble and I didn’t look.”
“Where you near?” Bruno asked.
Bigger children were pushing by them. They were laughing and yelling, and the sun shone down from the western sky. Thomas felt his heart beating, and he clenched his jaw to stem the onset of tears.
“There’s a gas station that’s closed,” he said. “It’s got a horse with wings in front of a big
“I know where that’s at,” Bruno said with a reassuring smile. “You go on down that street there.”
Thomas looked in the direction that Bruno was pointing.
There were dozens of children that they had to get through to get to the crosswalk. There stood an old black man with a red handheld stop sign.
“You sure is lucky,” Bruno was saying.
“What?”
“The nurse let you stay an’ you wasn’t even sick.”
Thomas giggled.
“See ya, Bruno,” he said.
“See ya, Lucky.”
H al f way dow n th e block to Elton’s house, Thomas ran into a knot of four boys. They were all dark-skinned like him 9 0
F o r t u n a t e S o n
but a year or two older. None of them smiled, and they all walked with exaggerated limps.
“Who you, mothahfuckah?” one of the boys asked.
He was moving his head from side to side and wore black jeans and a white T-shirt that was at least three sizes too big.
Hearing the anger in the boy’s tone, Thomas didn’t answer, only stared.
“Don’t you heah me talkin’ to you, mothahfuckah?” the boy said, and then he slapped Thomas — hard.
Thomas tried to run, but after only three steps, he felt a fist in his back. One more step and something hit him in the right calf. Thomas fell and the boys set on him. He put his hands up around his ears, and with nothing else he could do, he counted the blows.
One, two in the back. Three on the ear. Four, five, six on his shoulder. Seven was his head bumping the concrete.
And then it was over. No more hitting or cursing. Thomas looked up and saw the four boys limping away from the battle scene. The smallest one (who was still much larger than Thomas) looked back. Thomas ducked his head, not wanting to make eye contact.
When he got home he had a bloody scrape on the side of his head and pains in his back and leg. His pants were torn at the knees, and his injured nose throbbed.
Elton got home at seven.
“What you mean them boys beat up on you?” he asked his son. “Did you hit’em back? Did you?”
