Authors cautionary note:
Some derogatory terms are going to be used in this; which many people are not going to appreciate and others are going to be offended by. So, if you happen to be one of those namby-pamby individuals in this country, who have developed super-sensitive thin skins over the last half century, you might want to pass on this story.
I'm also going to start employing some bench markers in my writing. ~ & ~ will stand for a passage of time. It'll be up to you to keep reading and figure out if this passage of time was only a few minutes, an hour, a day, a full week, an entire month, or even a couple of years.
Something like this ~ &@%# ~ will signal either the end of a chapter, or the end of the story itself. It's a four letter profanity and you can supply which profane epitaph best suits your mood at the moment.
*
There were three inner-city schools in our district; the Bulldogs, the Sharks, and the Panthers—my school. So, no matter which school was playing against which, it was always considered to be a bitter cross-town rivalry.
We, the Panthers, were playing the Bulldogs in the semi-final round of the city championship this particular Friday night and, since it's not an uncommon occurrence in predominately black schools, mine and the head cheerleader for the Bulldogs were the only non-black faces on the court. I didn't give much thought to this racial imbalance; that's just the way things were. Like it or not, the ethnic minorities in our school either allowed themselves to be assimilated into the school's culture, or life was made extremely unpleasant for them. Period. End of story.
Now, you can consider this to be reverse discrimination and, in the proper use of the word, you would be absolutely correct. But, no one ever said life was fair and balanced... regardless of which side of the color line you happen to be on at the time, or the particular circumstances thereof.
Anyway, cutting straight to the chase; we (the Panthers) finally won in double overtime by one point. Even though it had been a hard fought game, there hadn't been any out-and-out brawls out on the court; nothing more serious than one of our guys getting up in the face of a Bulldog, or vise-versa, showing them that they were "The Man" and the other guy was nothin' but a pussy Nigger. Basically, guys dissipating some of their pumped up testosterone with braggadocios trash talking, which was a lot better than sitting out the rest of the game in the locker room for clocking some guy just 'cause he called you a Nigger.
{ Nigger. Now, there's a word with an awful lot of convoluted connotations to it. In days of yore, it had to do mostly with a person's skin color; something a person has absolutely no control over. Now days, it can have a whole 'nother connotation; instead of complexion, it has a lot more to do with a person's attitude. Perception being everything in this modern world, if you come off to others in a niggardly fashion—in-your-face rude and arrogant—this is how you're going to be perceived by them, plain and simple. Therefore, you can have black Niggers and white Niggers, as well as brown and red Niggers. And, yes, even yellow-skinned Niggers.
Nor, is the application of this derogatory word (which I'm only going to use sparingly from here on) gender specific... just in case any of you women who may be reading this get the foolish idea that you're being left off the racial discrimination hook. We "ladies" can be far more discriminatory than any testosterone-overloaded male clique can even come close to, especially within our own sex... and I don't mean just racially.
However, everything I've just said is so much debatable bilge-water and has almost nothing to do with what I'm going to tell you. It was just me venting... in convoluted fashion. So, back to the story at hand... }
It was only after the game, while we Panther cheerleaders were impatiently waiting for our winning guys to come out of the locker room, that the real trouble began brewing. And, it had everything to do with my mouth... or, a serious lack of mouth, in one respect.
The head Bulldog cheerleader (her name was Naomi) had gotten up in my face gone off on our school in particular, and me personally; the intentionally inflammatory terms "Asian slut" and "chink whore" being liberally and repeatedly thrown in my face. The trouble was, I didn't have the ammunition to fire right back in her snarling face.
You see, even though I grew up surrounded by black culture, I had never mastered the intricate art of "doin' the Dozens". This was mainly my mother's fault... or, she's who I blamed it on, anyway. My mother was a teacher and, from the day I was old enough to speak coherently, she forbid me from using the rapid fire, hip-hop patois of the street. She had insisted (more like demanded) that I read, write and speak correct English. I wasn't going to get anywhere in life if all that came out of my mouth was a lazy-ass soliloquy of "dis" "dat" "dem" "dos" and "dees".
In the Asian culture, one does not dishonor one's family by disobeying one's mother. This is also known as self preservation. Native Americans can boast all they want about Indians being on the warpath. An Asian mother, who has vowed to count some very serious coup of her own, meaning it would be my scalp hanging on her lodge pole if I didn't toe the line academically... Trust me, this is not a threat to be taken lightly. Therefore, either I was going to amount to something, be someone important in this world, or one of us going to die in the attempt... and that "one" would be 我, not 母 親
{Written in correct English, instead of Mandarin calligraphy, that would read, "me, not Mother".}
Of course, mother was right—as always—and I thank her everyday for pushing and prodding and brow-beating me relentlessly to better myself by getting an education. I haven't reached a level of prominence where my name is recognizable to a large audience—few people ever attain that lofty a goal—but I am somebody. I'm a teacher, just like my mother, and this makes me damned influential to the most important audience in the world; my students.
But, back then, being known as some sort of brainiac was not exactly the "stand out" sort of person most girls want be. This did not mean I was unpopular, though. I was very popular, especially with the basketball team... and it wasn't just because my relentless, no-nonsense tutoring is what kept most of the guys eligible to play round ball.
So, anyway, there I was—all five foot nothing, 88 pounds of me, not holding my own (not even a little bit) against a 5' 7", 150 pound bitter rival. But then, the black cavalry rode to my rescue... in the form of the captain of our team (6' 6" 210 pound Tyrone) shoving both of us apart and demanding to know, "What the fuck's goin' on here?"
"Figures," Naomi had scornfully snorted to her side," big guns gotta be called in 'cause their slant-eyed bitch ain't got the mouth to back her skinny yellow ass up."
"I'll put Suzy's mouth up again' yours any day," Tyrone had retorted. Digging some bills out of his pocket, he shoved them in Naomi's face and demanded, "You got the money to back up yours, bitch!"
The statuesque blonde was caught flat-footed. She had run her mouth loud and abusively in front of her people, and mine, without expecting to be called on it. Now, Naomi was going to have to either put up, or shut up and slink off to their team bus with her tail between her legs.
My confidence in myself, on the other hand, had gotten a serious kick start. I might not be able to go toe to toe with this mouthy bitch verbally, but where the unspoken implication of Tyrone's challenge was concerned, I was standing on rock solid ground.
Naomi warily eyed the money in Tyrone's fist and fudged. "I don't have twenty-five dollars on me."
