“You think I’m afraid of him?” Greg asked.
“No,” said Thomas. It couldn’t be a matter of fear. Greg still played in pickup games every Saturday and Sunday. He could guard anybody, go anywhere, try any move. He probably could have played varsity if he’d wanted to. “I mean, you let him run you off from the team.”
“It wasn’t Staines,” said Greg. “It was everybody else on the team. All you other guys who defer to him.”
That lofty moral tone irritated Thomas. “That’s your opinion,” he said. “You’re the one to miss out.”
“Miss out on what?”
“Earning our respect,” said Thomas. That one would hurt. Not being respected was the worst thing Thomas could imagine. “We respect people who have a talent and aren’t afraid to use it.” That will get him, Thomas thought. But Greg just scoffed.
“How about people who stand up for their own principles?” he asked. “Do you guys have any respect for them?”
Thomas asked if Greg thought of himself as the Man of La Mancha.
But instead of getting mad, as Thomas had expected, Greg became calmer. “Let me spell it out for you in large print,” he said. “I don’t want to be known here for being good in sports. Everybody takes it for granted—I’m a good athlete because I’m black. I make a good catch or a good shot, they figure it’s because sports come naturally to me. That’s not respect. That’s spectating.”
Thomas had never heard anything like it. “Are you some crazy militant or something?” he said. “People admire good athletes. It’s hero-worship.” He pointed out the recent Olympics in Seoul: Carl Lewis, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Greg Louganis.
“You admire Carl Lewis because he trained so hard,” said Greg. “You see him setting a goal and then reaching it.”
“Exactly.” Thomas hated it when somebody stated his argument better than he could.
Greg said his own goal was to be a good actor. “Why should you and your friends decide otherwise?” he said. “Why do you keep tying me down to athletics?”
“Nobody’s tying you down.”
“No? Then why haven’t you ever congratulated me for getting cast as Othello? Why do you keep picking at me about basketball?”
Thomas started to respond but halted when Greg’s words registered. He could think of no good answer. He had never met somebody with a two-foot vertical jump for whom drama was more important than basketball.
All of a sudden the momentum had shifted. For the first time in his life, Thomas considered that perhaps talent alone was not enough for some people, that maybe being naturally skillful did not automatically make you naturally satisfied. “You’re gifted at sports,” he said finally. “You could make a name for yourself in sports.”
“There you go again,” said Greg. “Why do you keep suggesting that my only chance to make a name for myself comes through the athletic department?”
Thomas hesitated again. Was it true? Was he writing Greg off as a good athlete? As nothing but a good athlete?
“Okay, correction,” Thomas said. “Sports are not the only way you can be prominent around here. They’re just the most logical way. They’re the easiest for you.”
He thought that was a good response until Greg’s comeback: “So how can taking the easy way earn me anybody’s respect? How could I respect myself?”
Thomas realized with discomfort that he was getting his consciousness raised. It didn’t feel so great to have all your assumptions dismantled, but he had to consider Greg’s argument. You watch a pro athlete—black or white, it didn’t matter—make a great play, and you admire his skill, but you don’t actually respect him for it. You respect him for his dedication and his character and his reputation after the contest is over. Thomas had thought he was going to demolish verbally this arrogant roommate of his. Instead, he was getting taken to school. He had served up what he’d thought were killer points, and Greg had smashed every one back into his face.
“I guess ‘respect’ was the wrong word,” said Thomas.
“It’s exactly the right word for what I want,” said Greg. “But I need to earn my respect. The hard way. By succeeding in theater.”
It was time for one last attempt at self-defense. “Don’t you think it’s unusual for a good athlete not to play a sport?” said Thomas.
“Yes,” said Greg.
Thomas was encouraged. “So can’t you see how weird it is for you to ignore me when I ask you to go out for basketball?”
“No,” said Greg, “not when you ask me to play because there isn’t a single black guy on the team.”
He could remember saying that. And an hour ago, if somebody had asked him what was wrong with it, Thomas would not have been able to say. He had thought of it as a compliment, an appeal to racial pride based on the assumption that everybody knew black guys were the best basketball players. He’d never considered that being a good basketball player wasn’t necessarily every black person’s goal.
Oh, hell. It was like asking a guy to be club treasurer because he’s Jewish, or hiring somebody to be your cook because she’s female. It was the worst possible reason.
Thomas felt like a toilet seat.
“I never meant that to be a racist remark,” he said.
“What else could it be?” said Greg.
What else indeed.
“I apologize,” Thomas said. “I see your point.” He could see several points. “All this time I thought you were being moody. You’ve been as mad at me as I’ve been at you.”
Greg said he just wondered how Thomas had been so brainwashed by Robert Staines.
“I wasn’t brainwashed,” said Thomas. “I was just, I don’t know, unobservant.”
Greg said he had been wondering why Thomas
