Brother Hood
1
The high-speed train raced towards the city through woods of poplar and pine, passing local stations, fenced yards, brick houses, and distant, lean horses that vanished from view almost as soon as they came into focus. On a typical Friday afternoon it would be transporting graying professors rustling through papers, restless sales reps negotiating on cell phones, and tired domestics staring out the windows. But on this day, which marked the beginning of a weekend break, the train was bustling with students from the private schools and elite colleges tucked away in the slopes of Edessa Hills, a wealthy community north of Manhattan.
"All tickets, please," called the conductor. "Have your tickets ready."
He reached the last row of the car and repeated himself.The passenger didn't respond. Bent over his book, he was aware of nothing but a panicked Raskolnikov crouched behind a door with noises on the stairwell and bodies a few feet away from him on the floor. The young man had close-cropped hair and was wearing a freshly ironed white dress shirt, a tan tie, black slacks, and the obligatory black blazer with the Fletcher School crest emblazoned on the breast pocket.
"Ticket ... please."
Nathaniel Whitely jumped, then handed over his ticket. He had been engrossed in the novel they were reading in his literature classics course.
The conductor punched two little holes in the student's ticket and moved into the next car calling, "Tickets! Your tickets, please!"
A blond head popped up over the seat in front of Nathaniel's. It belonged to Spencer Adams, the lacrosse team's goalkeeper, and the younger student's mentor and French tutor. His school blazer swung from a window hook. The hazel Izod dress shirt he was wearing was nicely laundered, the black Brooks Brothers tie was silk, and the Cottonport twill khakis were perfectly crisp.
"Oh, that's what you're doing. I was wondering why the guy had to keep asking for your ticket. What's got you hypnotized?"
Nathaniel held his place with his finger. "Crime and Punishment. This guy Raskolnikov, a law student no less, killed two old women for money, then somebody shows up outside their unlocked door while he's still inside. He barely manages to get the latch on in time. That's where I was when the conductor appeared. I'm sweating through my shirt. What's crazy is that he did it mostly to prove to himself he could get away with it--you know, the perfect murder kind of thing. That's sick."
"I loved that book, even though the guy's a jerk. At least he's more interesting than Holden Caulfield, whom you'll get to know and loathe if you take sociology next year. He's the main character in Catcher in the Rye, this whiny, shallow boy with major hostility issues and an unwarranted superiority complex. You're supposed to feel sorry that he's alienated and lonely, but he's so obnoxious you want him to end up in the Central Park lake with the ducks he's so worried about. If I carried on like him, you know what my dad would do to me?"
"Yep. You've told me a hundred times."
"Heir today, gone tomorrow," they both said at once, laughing so hard a couple of passengers couldn't help but smile.
Adams Global Electronics, a major manufacturer of electronic products, had provided two generations ofthe Adams clan with the kind of sumptuous lifestyle that only the most monied white Anglo-Saxon Protestant moguls could buy. Private jets flew the family to European capitals, where they stayed in homes they actually owned. A small army of domestic staff ensured that none of the children would ever learn to cook a meal, clean a room, or fix a broken toy. As if a room with video games, a DVD player, two digital video cameras, a flat-screen TV, and a luxury cell phone with MP3 player, photo caller ID, and a stereo earpiece weren't enough, Spencer not only was already guaranteed a spot at Harvard, he was also due to inherit a fortune on his twenty-first birthday.
The train heaved to a stop. Commuters in light coats carried computer cases and lugged shopping bags through the aisles. The man who'd been asleep next to Nathaniel opened his eyes suddenly as if an alarm had gone off, snatched his briefcase from the overhead rack, and hurried to the door. Spencer hopped into the empty seat.
"Look out that window, Nathaniel. See those cool cars parked over there, Alfa Romeos, Benzes, Jaguars? See those lovely ladies inside waiting for their husbands? See those three-story colonials in the distant bucolic hills? And the bright sun beaming down approvingly on it all? That's our future you're looking at. My ancestors founded this country, yours built it, albeitagainst their will and for that I offer my profoundest apologies. But today, in this moment, you're what, sixteen?, and I'm seventeen. Cool. Today our destiny is one--shaped by Fletcher, honed at Harvard, and released on the world to rule!"
"Yeah, right. You're tripping like that megalomaniac Raskolnikov. And anyway, I want a Hummer. Silver-gray."
"Hummers are tacky. And Raskolnikov's a loser. A broke Russian peasant turned failed law student who knocks off a couple of defenseless old broads for a handful of rubles, then freaks out and confesses. Violence doesn't make you superior, it makes you common. Everyone's violent. It's boring. We are decidedly not common. We are Fletcher Falcons! And like golden flèches we shoot straight to the bull's-eye."
"Maybe your flesh is golden, Adams ... Mine is black."
"Flèche, Nathaniel, flèche. How are you gonna learn French if you won't study the vocabulary words I give you?!"
Nathaniel laughed. "Oh, you mean flèche, as in arrow."
Spencer Adams and Nathaniel Whitely rode into Grand Central Terminal, the one chatting on his cell, the other reading. The world they shared abruptly split apart the moment the train came to a stop. They shookhands and said, "See ya." Spencer hurried towards the taxi-stand exit. Nathaniel headed in the opposite direction. It was funny, he and Spencer had become friends right away when he first arrived at Fletcher as a freshman. And they both lived in New York, but neither had ever invited the other to his home. It just never came up, as if they had an understanding, an unspoken agreement.
When Nathaniel was sure he'd blurred into the rush-hour throng, he stopped and waited at the four-faced clock. A young woman with long black hair and a cashmere coat asked him how to get to the concourse photo exhibition. He said he didn't know. She smiled. Thanks anyway. A police officer on foot patrol nodded at him. Nathaniel returned the nod. An old man breathing hard tapped Nathaniel's arm. How the hell, he wanted to know, did one get out of this place? Nathaniel showed him to the nearest exit and scanned the vast terminal. Spencer was long gone, maybe already at his parents' East 86th Street town house. Confident he wouldn't be seen, Nathaniel took the ramp to the lower level, his crammed knapsack slung over his shoulder, and headed to the men's room.
Moments later, he strolled out of the men's room and made his way through the long, busy corridors that ledto the Times Square--bound shuttle. Now he was met with nervous looks and wary glances from some--most simply stared straight ahead. As if they weren't scrutinizing him. As if they weren't measuring the potential threat. As if from the corners of their eyes they weren't keenly aware of every move of the homeboy. The Fletcher School student had stripped off the private-school uniform and donned full urban regalia. Precariously low denim jeans dangled off his hips underneath an oversized black sweatshirt and red leather bomber. A white nylon do-rag hung like a blond mane from beneath a black cap turned slightly to the side. As a final touch, he'd put on a pair of Police brand shades.
Waiting on the packed platform of the IRT uptown number 2 train, Nathaniel smiled to himself at the empty space left around him and the other young black guys waiting, a circle outside of which safely stood the other straphangers. A crowded train squealed to a stop. Those eager to push their way into the cars eyed those desperate to get out. The doors opened and a chaos of intimacy ensued as the two groups shoved, squeezed, and slid against each other. Nathaniel liked the forced closeness of the subway, the way it made people say polite things like "Excuse me" and "Oops, sorry," even if purely out of fear.
Packed in as they were, the passengers had nopersonal space to jealously guard, only their simple, vulnerable humanity seeking respect. And no one respected it more than Nathaniel. Maybe that trait came from the way his parents had raised him and his brother--to look out for each other and for their friends and neighbors as well. On the subway, if he saw an old person or a little kid or a girl getting crushed, he'd use his body like a barrier to keep a cushion of space around them. They rarely noticed but it made him feel good to do it.
The subway train roared through the dark tunnel, snips of colorful tags and graffiti art flitting by like images in a child's cartoon flipbook. Riders leaned against doors marked DO NOT LEAN or grasped the overhead handles, swaying with the car's movement. People reading newspapers artfully unfolded a half page at a time. Those lucky enough to be sitting closed their eyes or stole looks at whoever wasn't looking at them. Some read books, glancing with irritation at neighbors listening to music so loud it blasted from their headphones. The space above the sooty windows was papered with ads in English and Spanish touting every completely safe procedure, incredible opportunity, and low-cost service from affordable cosmetic surgery to accredited business schools specializing in the careers of tomorrow to lawyers to call immediately in case of an accident in the workplace.
When the train at last reached his stop, it was full of black and brown folks traveling to Harlem and on to the Bronx. The only white riders left were a scattering of Columbia University students drawn to cheap uptown housing. Maneuvering through the crowd, Nathaniel took the steps two at a time and came out onto 125th Street in the heart of Harlem, USA.
Copyright © 2004 by Janet McDonald
