Swann does not remember what dinner was that night. He remembers his feelings, which were hopeful. H would pass algebra. He would have friends, He was not sure about the bonfire. Black people don’t do bonfries.
“Don’t you dare say that!” Jack said, more serious that Swann had see him. “Don’t be one of them.”
“One of who?” Swann said, his back not quite up.
“You know what I mean. Every time there’s something happening, Black people don’t do this, Black people don’t do that. Why would you define yourself by what you don’t do? If you go to the bonfire, then Black people go to bonfires.”
“Will there be guitars and folk songs?”
“Probably,” Jack said, his face a combination of merriment and obstinate insistence.
“But… I will be the only Black person there.”
“You’re the only Black person at his table! What’s the big deal?”
In the future, Jack would concede that now he understood what the big deal had been, that he’d had no idea what it meant to not be popular and not be white and not be him, but at that time it didn’t occur to him, and actually, for Swann that was just as well.
“I will be there,” Jack said, instead. “What else do you need?”
The truth was he was completely mesmerized by Jack Rapp. Swann didn’t need anything else.
It rained all Friday, and math was at the end of the day. In the future he would note how the math teachers who failed him seemed indifferent to his failure, but Mr. Burnor was delighted to grade papers and hand them back right away with good grades. When the grades weren’t good he looked genuinely disappointed. Mr Burnor was twenty five at the time, but old enough for them to think of him as a Mr. All the male teachers wore shirt and tie. Few of them were past thirty.
“I knew you could do it,” he said to Swann.
Swann blinked in surprise at a B.
“You’ve just got to remember to not rush through things and–”
“Show you’re work.”
“You gotta show your work.”
After that, the rest of the rainy day didn’t seem so bad. He wondered how in the world there was going to be a bonfire. Swann did what he’d never done before and got his math homework out of the way. He didn’t plan on dinner with Jack that night because there was a football game. Ben knocked on his door.
“You going?”
“To the game?”
“Yeah.”
Swann was about to say that football wasn’t his thing, but he realized how many things hadn’t been his thing, and said, “Are you driving?”
“Just got the car back,” the homely Ben Forrester jiggled his keys.
“Then I suppose I am,” Swann said.
Ben’s eyes bugged out. “It’s not the guillotine, Swann. It’s a football game. I’m gonna grab dinner in a half hour, then we can go to the game and the bonfire from there.”
“That’s still a thing?”
“Don’t be such a stick in the mud,” Ben said, heading out of his room without closing the door. “Of course it’s still a thing.”
Ben slugged him in the shoulder.
“I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
His math was done, but there was still history and Latin. Swann was enough of a stick in the mud to realize that if he wasn’t going to be eating candy and watching Dr. Who tonight, he might as well do as much of his homework as possible and not have it hanging over his head for the weekend.
Jill and her crew met Swann, Ben and a few of the other boys, and they all went in a van to the game.
“I don’t usually do this,” Jill confided in Swann.
“And I don’t ever do this,” he said, “which is why I called you for company.”
“No one invited us, though.”
“I feel like it’s a thing anyone can go to.”
“Well, anything for a friend,” Jill said as she and Aubrey climbed into the backseat and they all drove across Calverton into Ashby and arrived at the large old structure of Washington High School.
Someone put a beer in Swann’s hand, and pressed a hand to his back and he felt what he had only awkwardly felt for the first few times in the last few weeks, acceptance. A pair of spectacles waved at him, reflecting the light, and Swann went over in the direction of Pete Agalathagos.
He was with his cousins Harry and James Lung. James had a huge nose and, Swann had noticed in swim class, the largest, messiest bush he’d ever seen.
“Isn’t this great?” Pete said and, “Where did you get the beer from?”
“I honestly don’t know. Someone just handed it to me.”
“You’re doing everything this year, Portis.” Pete said.
“Huh?”
“We all heard about the party,” James declared, grinning. “In Lafayette. And you were with seniors and the girls across the road.”
“Yeah, and now you sneak over to the senior bonfire!”
“How did you get here?” Pete demanded. “If I’d known you could have come with us.”
Swann wasn’t sure if he should say, frankly, that there had been no sneaking, and he hadn’t known it was a senior bonfire.
Someone out of the blue, someone Black, Swann noticed, slapped him on the back and said, “What’s up, Swann?”
“That was Jerome Bakely!” Pete exulted.
“Who?”
Harry shook his head.
“You don’t know anything! How does a guy get popular keeping his nose in a book all day and not know anything?”
“I do not keep my nose in books and I am not popular.”
“Well, you’re not
not popular,” Pete said.
“And most Friday nights you’re locked in your room doing…. Whatever.”
The implication was masturbating, but Swann felt silly rebutting, “I watch Dr. Who and British comedies on PBS!”
“Well,” Pete said in half mockery, but only half, Swann perceived, “Our Swann has better shit to do, that’s clear, and it’s gotten him to the senior bonfire. By the way, Jerome Bakely is on the basketball team. He’s probably going to Purdue on a full ride next year.”
“Must be nice,” Swann began when he distinctly heard his name called.
He looked around a little, but his sight wasn’t the best, and a moment later, Ben, Forrester, floppy haired and long faced, was running toward them in his huge flannel. Derek Hunter, dark haired and angular was beside him and he said, “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
Because Ben was dragging him, Swann smiled at Pete and his friends, and said, “I guess I’ll see you all soon.”
“There he goes,” was the last thing he heard Pete say.
“Swann!” Jack was sitting on a log with two pretty red heads. The seniors really looked like grown ups, he thought. When he was a senior, he would not feel the same.
“How did you like that game!” Jack threw up a hand for a high five, and then at the smile on Swann’s face, he almost laughed and said, “You didn’t even watch it, did you?”
“You did great!” Swann said. “I watched you a lot. And… him,” Swann pointed to Jeremy Reinhart, “And I knew some good stuff was going on…”
“He was basically talking to these girls from Saint Anne,” Ben reported.
“Really?” Swann looked sharply at Ben,
“And then they actually went out and smoked cigarettes with kids from the other team.”
“You’re such a tattle tale.”
Jack burst out laughing and pulled Swann down beside him.
“Em, Sue, this is Swann Portis. Mad man and genius…”
There was no accounting for how some people perceived you…
“And Swann, these are the beautiful Emily Castor and Suzanne Wanamaker.”
And Swann found himself bowing and then kissing each other their hands.
Emily laughed out loud and Suzanne tittered.
“I love you!” Suzanne declared. “You are officially my favorite
Freshmen. Fuck that, favorite Frannie!”
“Hey!” Jack jested, “I thought I was your favorite Frannie!”
“You never kiss my hand.”
“Jack used to think kissing hands gave you cooties,” Sue Wanamaker confided in Swann.
“How long have you known him?” Swann asked.
“Since kindergarten. We all went to Regina Coeli.”
“Yeah,” Emily waved it off, “we’ve known Jack and Ben forever.”
“What school did you go to, Swann?” Emily asked him.
“Swann’s not from around here,” Jack cut in.
“He’s from the City,” Ben said, and Swann poked him in the side.
“Indy or–”
“Chicago itself,” Jack said.
“What part?” Emily asked.
“He’s from–”
“God, Jack let him talk. Jack’s been talking about you for the last two or three weeks,” Emily said.
“Really?” Swann looked at him
“Shut up,” Jack said.
“I’m from up north,” Swann said. “Right outside of Chicago, right across the line. We live on the lake.”
“Oh, like Evanston?”
Swann did not expect them to know Evanston.
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Oh, you’re rich!” Emily half teased.
“Rich enough for this place,” Swann returned.
“Fair!” Emily said.
“But a lot of times I stay with my mom’s family on the South Side, closer to Indiana. It’s by the lake too.”
“Do you miss it?”
Swann was surprised to be asked the question, surprised that, happy as he was at this moment, the answer was, “Yes, I miss it a lot.”
