All-American (18 page)

“Have you talked to them?”

“Not yet. I only heard about it this noon.”

“Why don’t you talk to them? I bet they’ll feel the same way, they’ll think it’s rotten, too.”

“By gosh, I’ll try. We might organize the school if only we could get the kids started. Is there anyone else we could get in on this to help?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

“You?”

“Yes, me. I feel it’s terrible, the whole thing, just as you do.”

“Thanks lots, Sandra. That’s pretty swell. But there isn’t much a girl can do.”

“So you think. Ronald, you don’t know this school very well. It isn’t like the Academy. Down here the girls help run things and they’re important. Also, they’re my friends. Like Jessie Stokes, she’s the editor of the
Mercury
, and Helen and Lorena, the head cheerleaders. I’ll get right after them. Then there are others that are important, and I know ’em all. Meanwhile you get together with Meyer and Jim...”

Actually Meyer and Jim were waiting for him as he parked his bike before the school the next morning. They looked worried. Their first words showed they were all worried about the same thing.

“We called you up last night. Have you heard about Ned LeRoy?”

“Yeah. I heard yesterday. It’s rotten, isn’t it? What we gonna do?”

“We oughta do something.”

“We oughta get up a petition.”

“We oughta see Mr. Curry and...”

“We oughta call a meeting of the Student Council...”

“No, here’s what we oughta do, we oughta...”

“Look here, first off, couldn’t we have a talk with the coach?”

“Nuts to that. I spoke to him yesterday.”

“Wha’d he say?”

“Same old line. Can’t do anything...”

Inside the first bell rang and the sound came faintly to their ears.

“Look, we’ve got to move quick. Let’s us three have a meeting first of all. We’ll get together at lunch instead of going upstairs.”

“OK with me.”

“I’ll be there.”

“All right. Outside the room when the second lunch bell rings...”

“Attention, please!” As the voice of the principal came over the loudspeaker above Mr. Kates’ head, the teacher ceased talking. The dullish tones continued. “There will be a meeting of the football squad directly after school. That is all.”

Once school was dismissed for the day, a feeling of a thunderstorm hung in the air. Classrooms and corridors buzzed and hummed, the building quivered with excitement. Not merely the excitement of the projected journey; but the excitement of clash and conflict. In a day and a half a sharp division in the student body had become apparent. On one side were the majority who were in favor of the trip; who were on the squad, the band, or the drill team, besides those who wanted to go even if they couldn’t. On the other side was the small knot against it, led by Ronny and Meyer and Jim. In the halls and on the stairs and by opened lockers groups of intense boys and girls surrounded every supporter of canceling the Miami trip.

On his way to the locker room, Ronald found the coach waiting at his door. He called him in and shut it, making Ronald feel almost like a prisoner at the bar.

“Ronald! What’s all this nonsense about? First I heard was last night—yesterday afternoon. Seems a few of you boys are trying hard to upset our game with Miami.”

Ronald squirmed. That must be the way it looked to an outsider. “Well, Coach, a few of us are pretty upset about Ned LeRoy: Meyer and Jim and me.”

“But I thought I explained all that to you day before yesterday. You’re up against life now. In life there are certain situations which we all have to accept.”

“Uhuh. Yessir. We’re planning to talk it over this afternoon. That’s the reason Jim called the squad together.”

“There’s nothing to talk over. We can’t back out of this game now. You must realize we’d be letting the Miami team down if we failed to show up. Think of it; the game has been officially scheduled for over a week, they’ve sold something like ten thousand tickets, printed programs, and spent hundreds of dollars getting ready for us. What is there to talk over?”

Ronny was silent. This he had never fully considered, neither had Meyer nor Jim. But then, all Miami had to do was let LeRoy compete. Besides, he felt in a strong position. This was his last year of football, his final game. No penalties could be swung against him if he refused to play.

“Now see here, Ronald, I want you to go in there and explain things to the rest of the boys. You have a great influence with the team, coming the way you do from the outside, and then you’re older than most of them. They’ll take a lot from you, they’ll follow your lead.”

I only hope they will, he thought. “Afraid I can’t do that, Coach.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I think we oughtn’t to go to Miami without Ned.”

“You mean to say you’d... you mean to stand there and look me in the face and tell me you’d wreck... you’d ruin our chances against Miami... now look here, get one thing clear. What you propose doing is insubordination. Insubordination to school discipline. We’re going down to play Miami. If you don’t care to go along, that’s your affair. I’ll slap Jack Train in your place. We don’t need you, we don’t need to win, we’ve never needed victory so much we had to go back on our principles in this school. Just fix that in your mind.”

He was angry. Recalling his talk on the opening day of practice, and having sat on the bench beside him through several games, Ronald realized how little truth there was in his remarks. He let him bluster on but refused to promise a thing. Yet he didn’t like the position; insubordination was an ugly word.

The coach raved and stormed and threatened but gradually saw he was getting nowhere. Before long Ronny was in the locker room, the gang ready and awaiting his arrival. There they were, Jim and Mike and Don and Vic and Bob and Meyer, subs and all. Many still bore tangible evidence of Saturday’s battle. Jim was hobbling round with a cane. Meyer had a taped gash above his eye where he had been cut. Dave’s leg was stuck out stiff and straight from the bench on which he sat. Mike had his right arm in a sling, and several others bore patches of plaster across their cheeks. Everyone was there save LeRoy.

“Hi, Ronny. We’re waiting for you,” said Jim. “Now let’s see, men, how’ll we go about this? Suppose first of all you tell the gang how you feel, Ronald.”

He stood up beside Jim before the two rows of benches. “Well, gee, fellows, it’s something like this. You all know the facts just as well as I do. We’ve been invited to play Intersectional against Miami High. They don’t allow colored boys to compete on their teams, so Coach intends we should leave Ned home. I think it’s a dirty trick, especially on a player like Ned.”

He stopped and nobody spoke. Everyone in the room felt the coming crisis but no one felt like bringing it to the front. The silence became embarrassing. One sub blurted out, “Aw, so what? What can we do?”

They all looked at Ronald who looked back at them; at Mike and Dave who’d made the holes for him all fall, at Don who’d faced and outplayed the best center the Academy had ever had, at all that crowd who’d taken a beating so he could help score the winning touchdown in the game. Good kids, most of them. Yet disturbed more by the possible sacrifice of the trip than by an injustice done to a team member.

“Look, you guys. How would you feel? Suppose you’d been on the team three years and given all you’ve got. You’ve won the game against the Academy after we were licked and beaten. Then they tell you that you can’t play Intersectional. Is that right? Is that a decent thing?”

“You can’t very well change human nature, Ronny,” piped a voice from the back bench.

He was disgusted. “Aw, you heard your old man say that last night.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.”

“Look, I think we oughta...”

“Seems to me if we could...”

“Gosh, kids, can’t you see, don’t you understand?” He looked round at some of their faces, obstinate, mulish, mouths set, many of them frowning already at the thought of giving up the Miami trip. Why, some of these kids are as bad as the older folks, he thought. As bad as the kids at the Academy.

“It’s tough on Ned, but what can we do?”

“Sure, what can we do?”

It angered him. “I’ll tell you. Here’s what we can do. We can all refuse to go to Miami.”

The thunder rumbled. There was lightning in the air. A flash. Another flash. Silence before the storm. Then it burst. Everybody was talking at once, all together; soon they were yelling, shouting. Their indifference had vanished. The storm had swept over them and drenched everybody.

Ronald watched. He knew the ones who were anxious to go like Mike and Jake Smith and one or two subs, the ones who were more or less uncertain like Vic and Bob, and the two staunch ones who would stand beside him. They’d stand together, the three of them—Ronny and Meyer and Jim.

Right then Jim came to his rescue. He rose. “As captain of the team, I’d like to offer a suggestion.”

“Hey, you guys, shut up, listen...”

“Keep quiet, fellas...”

“Listen a minute, will ya?”

“It’s just this. We all know now a lot’s involved in this in many ways. I think the fair thing for us to do would be go home and think about it carefully overnight, and then come back and hold a meeting tomorrow after school to vote on this question. Isn’t that the best way?”

Good for Jim. He could see that Jim feared bringing it to a vote at that moment, that he hoped some could be persuaded to vote with them by the next afternoon. Mentally he checked over the members of the team and the subs of whom the two chosen were also eligible to vote. It looked bad. It sure looked bad. The kids just didn’t want to give up the trip for a principle. For nothing; that’s what it seemed like to most of them.

They went down the deserted corridors, still arguing among themselves, when there was a flutter of feet on stone and a feminine voice behind them. “Perry!” It was Miss Robbins from the principal’s office. “Mr. Curry would like to see you a minute, and Stacey and Goldman, too, please.” They turned, went back down the hall, and as they passed through the outer office Ronny recognized Jack Malone, sports editor of the
Courier
, sitting on one of the benches reading a magazine. This was really getting hot.

Within was a solemn group. As he was introduced, Ronald remembered one man, a friend of his dad’s. It was Mr. Swift, the president of the Trust Company whom he had not seen since that day at the station. The other man he knew by name, everyone in town knew his name. Henry J. Latham was the head of the pump factory, and he had often heard him mentioned by his father. People in town spoke of Mr. Latham in tones of gratitude, dislike, affection, and dismay. He was president of the Chamber of Commerce, active in business, and the political boss of the city.

They got away to a rapid start. Mr. Curry spoke first. “Ronald, these gentlemen are somewhat upset about our plans for the coming trip to Miami. You’ve been on the team, and you’ve been prominent in the whole thing; suppose you tell them your story.”

Yes, this was certainly getting hot. First the
Courier
, then Mr. Swift, and now old man Latham. The bank and the Chamber of Commerce. He looked at Jim and Meyer. They looked back, approval in their faces, and he saw he had them behind him. Ronny and Meyer and Jim. Well, here goes. Here’s the works.

“There isn’t much to tell, sir. This is our point of view. Y’see, sir, we feel, that is Jim and Meyer and I... and one or two others... we feel on the team it’s pretty darn hard luck on Ned LeRoy, his not getting a chance to go in against Miami next week.”

Mr. Latham, white-haired, well dressed like Mr. Swift, explained patiently. “My boy, aren’t you Rob Perry’s son? I thought so. Well now, I think I can explain this to you. It seems they don’t permit colored players to compete down there.”

“Yessir, I know all that, sir. Only we don’t hafta play them, do we?”

Then Mr. Swift broke in. “You surely wouldn’t want them to break a law of their State just for us, would you, boys?” He looked from one to the other and back again, at Ronny and then at Meyer and at Jim. Ronald hardly knew what to say. He hadn’t realized it was a law. Maybe if it was a law they couldn’t do anything. Then Meyer saved him as he had often done on the field.

“Are you sure it’s a law, Mr. Swift?”

He got no answer. Mr. Swift brushed the question aside. “These are all technicalities. But I’ll answer that question of Perry’s. Yes, I’m rather afraid we do have to play them. You see, a thing of this kind isn’t arranged overnight. It takes considerable planning. Now this special train, for instance. Do you boys realize that four to five hundred businessmen from town are going down just to support you on the field? Know what that means? It means about thirty cars—diners, sleepers, club cars, lounges, baggage cars, and so on. You can’t throw a train like that together in an hour. There’s a good many thousand dollars involved in a thing of this sort. D’you understand, boys?”

The boys understood. Mr. Latham then added his angle. He was, Ronald decided, just another old smoothie. Why was it older folks got that way? “Let me ask you a question, Perry. Do you think it’s better to disappoint one colored boy or forty thousand people?”

“How d’you mean, sir?”

“It’s simple. The entire town is heart and soul behind this team. Five hundred citizens putting up their own money to go down to Miami. Moreover the Chamber of Commerce has voted enough cash to enable the drill team to go along at a minimum expense. Now...”

Mr. Swift, on the edge of his chair, interrupted. Their anxiety over the thing was plain enough, for neither would let the other finish a sentence.

“Last year we outfitted the band completely. We’re proud of this school. We think it’s the best high school in the State. We’re proud of the team. Naturally you wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt the town, would you? Of course not.” He smiled a fishy kind of smile. Ronald disliked him. He looked at Meyer and Jim and could see they disliked him also. Well, he thought, we’re sticking together.

Mr. Latham continued his argument. “I said just now it was a question of disappointing one colored boy or forty thousand people in town. Maybe I should have said a hundred and sixty thousand folks here in the County who want to see you go down there and clean up those Southern crackers.”