you. So we tried to keep things together, but we stopped talkin’ to one another an’ really stopped havin’ anything for one another exceptin’ the fact that you were a link b’tween us.’
‘I’m s’pose to be grown now?’ the fifteen-year-old Earl had asked.
‘Grown enough to understand, I reckon,’ his father had replied.
‘I really don’t,’ Earl had confessed.
‘Whoa!’ John Thomas said laughing a bit. ‘Neither do yo’ mama an’ me. Folks don’t never really understand themselves, but they always rely on havin’ someone that they love understand. Thass what we wuz doin’.’
Earl pulled away from the curb thinking about his father. He would have to write the man a letter and admit that he had received some valuable information. Things were happening in his life that he didn’t understand. Yet he was the only one who could be held responsible for them.
In the rear-view mirror Earl caught sight of a black Ford that seemed to be trailing him. He was brought back to the present, hoping that the car was the Ford supplied by the school to members of the Sutton newspaper staff who had to travel to get their stories. Just as he was about to pull over and allow the Ford to draw abreast of him, the trailing car pulled off down a side street.
But now Victor Johnson was on his mind again. Somewhere at that moment he knew Vic was working on a backbreaking story against him. The move by MJUMBE would probably be built up as a great blow against the Sutton establishment, which included the SGA. It didn’t matter that Earl hated the establishment as much as any of the rest of them or even more since he knew exactly how it sucked in Black students and warped their minds. It only mattered that during the course of the election none of Earl’s speeches had made reference to faculty members as ‘racist bastards’ and that he hadn’t filled students’ ears with militant denunciations of Calhoun or the administrators. To many narrow-minded students anyone who didn’t carry out the flimsy, outraged rhetoric of a television revolutionary was a Tom. It was just circumstance blown up out of proportion to truth. Earl could already picture the front-page story in the student paper asserting that his inactivity had spurred MJUMBE’s movement.
‘Shit!’ he swore loudly.
Earl’s mind was busy trying to organize strategy. It was too late for any of the moves that came readily to mind. He was now under the eight ball. The only thing that he could do was wait.
‘One more week,’ he grumbled again without conviction. ‘Johnson would have had the story of his life. There would be no way for any demands to be turned down!’
MJUMBE COUP D’ETAT! the headline would scream.
‘Goddamn hick bastard Johnson,’ Earl breathed. ‘Goddamn hick bastards! I need a damn drink!’
When Earl Thomas arrived on Sutton University’s campus for the very first time he had in his pocket a letter that he had received over the summer from a junior named Kenny Smith. The letter was actually a mimeographed note from the Dean of Admissions office designating Kenny as a student orientation assistant who should be looked up when the newcomer arrived; he was the person who would help the incoming student find his way around campus.
Kenny Smith had been easy to locate. Earl found him sitting in the Admissions Office reading a copy of the special Statesman that welcomed freshmen and transfer students. The thing that immediately warmed Earl to his orientation assistant was the young man’s dress. Kenny was wearing a pair of low-cut sneakers, no socks, cut-off blue jean shorts, and a Sutton sweat shirt. He was a world apart from the other orientators lining the walls dressed in slacks, shirts with collars; even a suit and tie or two could be seen.
‘My whole wardrobe is odds and ends,’ Kenny told Earl when the transfer student pointed out the contrast.
It had become understood between the two young men, who hit it off immediately, that Kenny could not be held to tradition and conformity of any description. Kenny did not seem to care in the least what any other students did, thought, wore, or acted like. He was his own man and described himself as the odd one even in his family circle. The nickname ‘Odds’ became quite natural between them.
At approximately the time that Earl was leaving Mrs Gilliam’s boarding house for his meeting with MJUMBE, Odds was just learning of the day’s political activities. Earl’s campaign manager had been in bed all day with a cold and had managed to sleep through the afternoon MJUMBE announcements in his room. Only a trip to the bathroom and an open dormitory door gave him any inkling of the ingredients that were bubbling in the political cauldron.
‘Wonder why Thomas let Baker take over?’ someone was asking as Odds passed the open door.
‘Aw, bruh, c’mon,’ was the reply. ‘Thomas ain’ lettin’ Baker do nothin’. Thomas ain’ never been nowhere. Baker just dug that we was gittin’ ready to have another bullshit year an’ did his thing. The bullshit intellectuals voted for Egghead Hall, the brothers voted for Baker, and the bitches put Thomas in office from the col’ ass jump.’
Odds tried to place the voices and couldn’t. He wanted to hear more about the ‘takeover’ they were discussing and he didn’t particularly like being referred to as a bitch. He had voted for Earl.
‘Ya gotta be tough to deal wit’ Calhoun, man. You know what happened to Peabody las’ year,’ the voice went on. ‘He bullshitted an’ Tommed jus’ like Thomas an’ in the end didn’ nuthin’ git done.’
‘As usual,’ someone added.
‘An’ Baker’s gonna mess with Calhoun?’ Odds asked entering the room.
‘Whuss happ’nin’? … Fuckin’ right!’ The speaker went on. He was a tall, bearded boy wearing sunglasses. ‘Baker’ll git over.’
‘Kin I git a match?’ Odds asked.
‘Yo, bruh. I got one,’ a second student with sunglasses offered.
‘Did’joo see the thing today when MJUMBE got it together? They came out on that platform bad wit’ capital letters!’
‘I didn’ dig it, man,’ Odds admitted. ‘What happened?’
‘Man,’ came the enthusiastic reply. ‘You missed a helluva thing. Lemme tell you. All day long they was announcin’ this meetin’ for fo’ o’clock in fronta the SUB, right? Nobody knows who’s callin’ it or what it’s about. So at four bells damn near the whole school is millin’ ’roun’ in front a the platform steps leadin’ t’the SUB, but the only thing there is a mike. No people. Up through the crowd comes Baker and King an’ them. They all dressed in black dashikis with gold trim. All five of ’um got bald heads except my man from New York, whuss his name? Abul. Abul Menka. You know that dude wit’ the big ’fro an’ the T-bird? … well, they read out this list a deman’s, grievances that they got t’gether for the Head Nigger an’ they say they gonna lay the shit on ’im t’night. That mean this muthafuckuh gonna be jumpin’ in the mornin,’ Jim.’
‘Or
