We were also in the advanced social studies class

together, and it was actually a really good class, which was

unusual. We had a good teacher too, Mr. Fisher, which was

also pretty unusual. Jonathan excelled in social studies,

and he did it with a minimal amount of blacknosing. He

got into a lot of arguments with Mr. Fisher about the war

in Vietnam. Mr. Fisher went into a detailed explanation

about something called the domino theory, which was

supposed to explain why the United States was sending

troops over to fight in Vietnam. Jonathan said he had

developed his own theory called the Parcheesi theory,

which said that if all the politicians who wanted to send

troops to Vietnam would just sit down and play a simple

game of Parcheesi, then nobody would get hurt. Jonathan

said he had decided that dominoes were far too dangerous.

Jonathan was also into politics. He told me last winter

that President Johnson was going to have a pretty hard

time getting reelected if he kept the war going. Jonathan

said that now would be a good time for a black man to

run for president, but he was a little too young to run.

He said that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be a good

candidate except that all the honky white folks wouldnever vote for him because he was black. We had a mock

presidential election last fall to preview the upcoming reallife

1968 presidential election. We had Democratic and

Republican primaries. There wasn’t much interest in our

Republican primary, and Rockefeller got our nomination.

However, in the Democratic primary, there was a lot of

debate, with Jonathan supporting Martin Luther King Jr.

and mean-mouthing President Johnson. Mr. Fisher tried

to explain to Jonathan that in real life, Martin Luther

King Jr. would have no chance of getting the nomination,

because he didn’t even participate in party politics, but

Jonathan wouldn’t hear of it. He said that the classroom

exercise wasn’t real life and that the rules of the game were

that we could nominate whoever we wanted—except, of

course, Mr. Fisher wouldn’t allow the nomination of crazy

comedian Tommy Smothers. Jonathan was pretty sly in

accusing Mr. Fisher of being prejudiced for questioning

Martin Luther King Jr.’s credentials. We had speeches and

assigned delegates and went through the whole bit. We

even had one kid act like Walter Cronkite, and he gave

a news report on the proceedings. Jonathan wanted to

get some balloons, but Mr. Fisher said no way. When we

finally took the vote, the results were extremely close, with

Bobby Kennedy just beating out Johnson. Martin Luther

King Jr. got only two votes. King’s two votes seemed

strange because there were three black kids in the class,

and everybody had expected them to vote as a block for

Dr. King. I expected Jonathan to put up a stink over the

missing vote, but he didn’t make much of it and seemed

content with the way the vote had turned out. Later on, Igot him to confide in me about why he wasn’t concerned

about the vote.

“Oh, I know who didn’t vote for Brother Martin. It

was me,” Jonathan said with a huge grin.

“What?” I said.

“Yeah, of course. I knew the Doc wouldn’t win, so I

voted for Bobby. Out of all the whites, Bobby’s the only

one who cares a hoot about us black folks. Sure, LBJ

seemed like he did until he started messing around with

that war of his. As for Dr. King, I just wanted to scare you

white folks into thinking that if we blacks voted together,

we’d cause you a heck of a lot of trouble. So then you guys

decided to vote for the only one of your candidates who

could appease us black folks without us getting one of

our own in office, so we wouldn’t go around rioting. So

I figured I’d jump on board and give old Bobby a little

push. And it worked. That’s politics, my friend.”

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but I thought

everybody had voted for Bobby Kennedy just because he

was the best looking. Bobby easily beat Rockefeller in our

general election.

Jonathan was not exactly our best baseball player, but

he managed to get the job done most of the time. There

wasn’t much chance he’d be a starting pitcher for JV, but

I thought the coaches kept him more because he looked

mean than anything else. The coaches either thought

Jonathan looked so mean that opposing batters would

be afraid to hit against him or were too afraid to cut

him. Jonathan didn’t have to put on any nice, intelligent

black kid act to play sports. The coaches weren’t muchinterested in intelligence to begin with since most coaches

weren’t too intelligent, and they certainly didn’t want a

bunch of high school kids to outsmart them. So Jonathan

was content to just act mean. He said that as a black

person, it was his true nature to act mean in the unjust

white-dominated society. He said, “That’s the real reason

why black kids do so good in sports. It’s not because

they’re dumb or because they’ve been educationally and

culturally deprived. And it’s not because they are better

natural athletes, having spent so much time running

away from wild animals in the jungles of Africa, running

away from wild slave owners in the South, or running

away from wild cops in the cities. Blacks are good in

sports because it is the easiest socially acceptable way to

be mean.” According to Jonathan, since being mean was

natural for blacks in the unjust white-dominated society,

it was natural for them to excel in sports. Well, Jonathan

didn’t exactly excel in sports, but he sure did excel in

meanness when he wanted to.

Jonathan didn’t talk much during practice, and he

was usually serious—except when he was pulling one of

his practical jokes. He didn’t even talk much to the other

black kids. They were a little suspicious about Jonathan,

not because he was mean but because he was so different.

Jonathan could jive around a lot if he wanted to, but they

also knew he hung around with a lot of white kids and

was in all the smart classes. But Jonathan was careful not

to be condescending to the other black players. Although

he was worlds apart in many ways, he did know the basic

behavior, and that was to act mean. Jonathan was a realchamp at that. He told me he would practice his scowl

in the mirror for hours, and anyone who ever caught a

glimpse of Jonathan’s scowl would have to believe him.

Jonathan’s favorite baseball player was Bob Gibson.

Jonathan said he liked a lot of the black stars, such as

Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Elston Howard, but

he liked Bob Gibson the most because Gibson was the

meanest. Anyone who ever watched Gibson pitch would

see that Jonathan was right. Now that Sandy Koufax had

retired, Gibson probably had the best fastball in the major

leagues, except Gibson didn’t seem to have quite as much

control as Koufax had. Gibson had a reputation for hitting

batters. Some people thought it was because Gibson just

didn’t have good control. Jonathan said Gibson had great

control and hit so many batters because he tried to hit

them. Jonathan said Gibson tried to hit batters because

he was mean. Jonathan really admired that. Jonathan had

the same reputation for hitting batters in our league, and

everybody knew he could be pretty mean, but we also

knew that Jonathan hit so many batters because he had

lousy control. Jonathan had a real good fastball. A lot of

times, he threw his fastball way inside, and he proudly

called it his Bob Gibson brush-back pitch; however, he

also threw his fastball way outside, into the dirt, and over

the catcher’s head sometimes. Jonathan didn’t have any

names for those pitches.

Jonathan’s family was reasonably normal, except

maybe for his dopey kid sister, Lendora, who was eleven

years old and a real pain. Jonathan once confided that

he could handle almost anybody and could even havehandled Adolph Hitler if he’d had to, but sometimes he

just couldn’t handle Lendora. Last year when Jonathan

ran an unsuccessful campaign for class president he got

nonstop criticism from Lendora. She kept saying that

Jonathan didn’t know how to successfully connect with

his voters.

“She’s a real dang know-it-all,” Jonathan complained.

“But I have to admit she warned me about having my

father help me write my stump speech. He had me going

on and on about having a dream that tenth graders and

ninth graders could get along. Lendora said the speech

was too idealistic and boring. She said I should have just

promised everybody a wild Christmas party. After losing

the election, I hate to admit it, but I think that little

pipsqueak was right.”

Actually, despite her nagging, I thought Lendora

was a big fan of her brother. She came to several of our

freshman baseball games, and a person had to be quite

a fan to come to one of those games, especially if he

or she was rooting for Jonathan. But we could always

hear her in the bleachers, though of course, she didn’t

do much cheering, because there wasn’t much to cheer

about the way we played. She especially liked to pick on

old Mr. Gonzo, which was all right with us players. We

all thought Mr. Gonzo could use a little criticism. She

was also great at booing the umpire. No matter what an

umpire called, if the call was against our team, Lendora

would boo him. One time, an umpire actually stopped

the game, came over to the bleachers, and asked Lendora

to keep quiet. She looked pretty darn scared when hecame over to her, and she shut up real fast—but not for

long. About an inning later, she started all over again.

One time, she almost caused a real rhubarb when

Jonathan was pitching. Jonathan started out pitching

okay but soon began having his usual control problems.

Of course, Lendora kept cheering him on. At one point,

she really started to get on this one batter, calling him a

chump and a puppy dog. Then she yelled for Jonathan

to throw one under his chin, and sure enough, Jonathan

chose that time to throw one of his patented Bob Gibson

brush-back pitches, which was so inside that the batter

had no chance whatsoever to get out of the way, and the

ball hit him right in the back. Well, the batter didn’t take

too kindly to being hit in the back, and he was already

pissed because of Lendora’s razzing, so on his way to first

base, he started yelling at Jonathan and coming at him.

Jonathan didn’t say anything. He didn’t even move, and

actually, it looked like he was pretty scared. Then, all of a

sudden, some of the guys from the other team got off the

bench and started to head out toward Jonathan, so then

our guys started coming from their positions. It looked

like Jonathan was scared and in need of some help, and it

also looked like we were headed for a genuine rhubarb, but

then I saw that old Jonathan, just as the guy was getting

right up next to him, put on one of his all-time meanest,

nastiest scowls. The batter put on the brakes super fast. At

the same time, some of the other guys on our team who

were black put on their meanest oppressed-black-person

scowls, and the other team, which was all white kids,

slowed down a bit. Well, by that time, the stupid umpiresand coaches had jumped up and were trying to calm

things down. They tried to act all professional and kept

saying, “Calm down, gentlemen”—as if calling this wild

bunch of adolescents gentlemen would somehow make

us act like gentlemen. The other team’s coach actually

tried to restrain the batter from going at Jonathan, but

everybody could see that it was just an act because the

batter was too scared to go at Jonathan with Jonathan

looking so mean and he was probably pretty darn happy

his coach was there to help with his little act. There was

a little more yelling and stuff, but things quieted down

soon enough. Jonathan went on to pitch a pretty lousy

inning. The other team scored three runs, with Jonathan

providing three more walks but, fortunately, no more hit

batters. However, we had won a moral victory, which we

liked to consider more important than winning a game,

since we were always more likely to win a moral victory

than a ball game. When we got back to the bench, of

course Lendora had to add her two cents.

“Next time, hit ’im in the head,” she said.