afford this right now. Honestly.”
“If it’s
really
a tuition thing, just join the center. Work for it. That’s why I came to your silly panel in the first place: we need a part-timer in art. I mean, you know, if you don’t think you’re too black for us.”
“See, work,
Pops
. That’s what being a
dad
is all about. Working for your kids.” Tal stops Sun’s sniping to contribute.
“That’s it? I teach some classes, and conceivably she can go here for free?”
“Not free, nothing’s free. But I’ll talk to Roslyn. And you’d have to take the Balance Test.” And with that she finally lets go of my daughter, and leans into me.
“Because she really needs to be here,” Sunita Habersham says, her voice hushed but firm. That smell: tea and a mouth of honey.
“Did she say something offensive?” I whisper back, but I don’t get a verbal answer. Just raised eyebrows and that wide mouth silently pantomiming,
Oh yeah
.
“I can take a dance test. I have an audition routine I’ve been working on,” Tal interjects.
“Not dance, honey: balance. The Balance Test. Everyone has to take it.”
I stand on one foot, make a show of it. Balancing shakily, I put my arm out then bring my finger to my nose, giving a little chuckle. Sunita Habersham doesn’t join me. I look at Tal as she turns to Sun and asks, “If he fails or otherwise makes an ass of himself, does that reduce my chance at admission?” and I laugh loudest and rustle Tal’s hair like she’s an adorable four-year-old and that shuts her up again.
—
The first question on the quiz is,
Was O. J. Simpson guilty?
That’s all it says.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” I ask. Neither Sunita nor my daughter responds, so I stare back at the test. There are no boxes to fill in.
“Should I just put yes or no?” I ask, and at the other end of the dark little trailer room, Sunita says, “Just put your answer,” not even looking up from whatever she’s working on. Tal is writing away, so I get back to it. I write,
Probably, I don’t know, but I do know white folks were a little too excited about a black man murdering a blond white woman
. I turn the page and the next question is
Name the most important musician of the twentieth century and explain your justification
.
“Is this some kind of pop-culture scorecard?” I ask. No response, once more. I see Sun write something again at her podium, and then I get paranoid that her notes are part of the test too, that I’m being tested on taking the test, so I keep going. I write
Bob Marley
, and a note about seeing his image across Africa more than paintings of White Jesus, and you see a lot of those in Africa. This proves very prescient because on the next page the question is
What race was Jesus?
The thing keeps going. The next page features a picture of a black man and a white man running through the streets, the black man in front. The white guy behind him is a cop. I know this picture. It wasused in an ad campaign against racism in Britain, I saw it across the tracks on a wall in Charing Cross station. It’s a mental trap. The black guy in the front turns out to be an undercover detective. There’s no way anyone can know that without being told. Next to
Describe Scene
I write:
They’re both cops, but that is irrelevant. A picture of anyone who isn’t wearing a suit running from a police officer would imply guilt, because businesspeople are the only criminals the law doesn’t care about. Hence the question then becomes one of class. We assume middle- and upper-class people don’t run from the law, because they defend themselves by manipulating the law. Like O. J. Simpson did
.
This answer pleases me.
My daughter is turning pages before I am, but I am exasperated before her. The questions keep coming:
What do you eat New Year’s Day? What card games do you know? What are your feelings about mayonnaise? What do you do with these?
—and a picture of dominoes. With every
“If it’s
really
a tuition thing, just join the center. Work for it. That’s why I came to your silly panel in the first place: we need a part-timer in art. I mean, you know, if you don’t think you’re too black for us.”
“See, work,
Pops
. That’s what being a
dad
is all about. Working for your kids.” Tal stops Sun’s sniping to contribute.
“That’s it? I teach some classes, and conceivably she can go here for free?”
“Not free, nothing’s free. But I’ll talk to Roslyn. And you’d have to take the Balance Test.” And with that she finally lets go of my daughter, and leans into me.
“Because she really needs to be here,” Sunita Habersham says, her voice hushed but firm. That smell: tea and a mouth of honey.
“Did she say something offensive?” I whisper back, but I don’t get a verbal answer. Just raised eyebrows and that wide mouth silently pantomiming,
Oh yeah
.
“I can take a dance test. I have an audition routine I’ve been working on,” Tal interjects.
“Not dance, honey: balance. The Balance Test. Everyone has to take it.”
I stand on one foot, make a show of it. Balancing shakily, I put my arm out then bring my finger to my nose, giving a little chuckle. Sunita Habersham doesn’t join me. I look at Tal as she turns to Sun and asks, “If he fails or otherwise makes an ass of himself, does that reduce my chance at admission?” and I laugh loudest and rustle Tal’s hair like she’s an adorable four-year-old and that shuts her up again.
—
The first question on the quiz is,
Was O. J. Simpson guilty?
That’s all it says.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” I ask. Neither Sunita nor my daughter responds, so I stare back at the test. There are no boxes to fill in.
“Should I just put yes or no?” I ask, and at the other end of the dark little trailer room, Sunita says, “Just put your answer,” not even looking up from whatever she’s working on. Tal is writing away, so I get back to it. I write,
Probably, I don’t know, but I do know white folks were a little too excited about a black man murdering a blond white woman
. I turn the page and the next question is
Name the most important musician of the twentieth century and explain your justification
.
“Is this some kind of pop-culture scorecard?” I ask. No response, once more. I see Sun write something again at her podium, and then I get paranoid that her notes are part of the test too, that I’m being tested on taking the test, so I keep going. I write
Bob Marley
, and a note about seeing his image across Africa more than paintings of White Jesus, and you see a lot of those in Africa. This proves very prescient because on the next page the question is
What race was Jesus?
The thing keeps going. The next page features a picture of a black man and a white man running through the streets, the black man in front. The white guy behind him is a cop. I know this picture. It wasused in an ad campaign against racism in Britain, I saw it across the tracks on a wall in Charing Cross station. It’s a mental trap. The black guy in the front turns out to be an undercover detective. There’s no way anyone can know that without being told. Next to
Describe Scene
I write:
They’re both cops, but that is irrelevant. A picture of anyone who isn’t wearing a suit running from a police officer would imply guilt, because businesspeople are the only criminals the law doesn’t care about. Hence the question then becomes one of class. We assume middle- and upper-class people don’t run from the law, because they defend themselves by manipulating the law. Like O. J. Simpson did
.
This answer pleases me.
My daughter is turning pages before I am, but I am exasperated before her. The questions keep coming:
What do you eat New Year’s Day? What card games do you know? What are your feelings about mayonnaise? What do you do with these?
—and a picture of dominoes. With every
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