Rite of Passage

There was one thing that irritated me about Jimmy, but that in a way I admired. Or, perhaps, something I marveled at. On at least two occasions, I had called Jimmy and left a message, once to call me back, once to say I wasn’t going to be able to make our meeting with Mr. Mbele. Neither time did he get the message, because neither time did he stop to look for one. That irritates me. I also feel envious of anyone who can be so unanxious about who might have called. Jimmy simply says that he’s so busy that he never stops to worry about things like that.

Jimmy liked the idea of going to the first meeting on Friday together. To this time, at least, we were not close friends — there was an element of antagonism — but we did know each other and we had Mr. Mbele in common. It seemed to make sense to both of us to face the new situation together.

As we were on our way to Mr. Mbele’s, I said, “Do you remember when I got back from Grainau and I was talking about that boy and his sister to you and Mr. Mbele?”

“The one with the weird ideas of what we’re like?

“Yes. One of the things they said was that we went around naked all the time. I was objecting to all the things they were saying. I wonder what I would have said if they’d been here to see you on the vid without even your socks on.”

“I suppose they would have thought they were right all along,” Jimmy said reasonably.

“Yes. But they weren’t.”

“I don’t know. I was naked, wasn’t I?”

“Sure, but that was in your own room. I go naked at home, too. They thought we never wear clothes.”

“Well,” Jimmy said brightly, “there’s no real reason we ought to, is there?” He started to pull his shirt off over his head. “We could be just what they think we are, and we wouldn’t be worse because of it, would we?”

“Don’t be perverse,” I said.

“What’s perverse about going naked?”

“I’m talking about your contrariness. Are you going to eat dirt just because they think we do? I shouldn’t have brought the subject up in the first place. It just struck me as something incongruous.”

“Incongruous,” Jimmy corrected, putting the accent on the second syllable where it belonged.

“Well, however you pronounce it,” I said. This comes of reading words and not having heard them pronounced. This also was a matter of talking about the wrong things to the wrong people. It seemed that I might do better just to leave Grainau out of my conversations completely. Just after I’d gotten back home, I’d made the mistake of saying what I really thought about the Mudeaters in front of Jimmy and Mr. Mbele.

“Do they really stink?” Mr. Mbele asked.

Jimmy and I were seated on the couch in Mr. Mbele’s apartment. I had my notebook with notes on my reading, subjects I wanted to bring up, and sOme book titles that Mr. Mbele had suggested. I realized that I’d just said something I couldn’t really defend, so I backtracked.

“I don’t know if they do. Everybody says they do. What I meant is that I didn’t like what I saw of them.”

“Why not?” Jimmy asked.

“Is that a serious question, or are you just prodding?”

“I’m interested, too, Mia,” Mr. Mbele said. In his case, I could tell that it was a seriously intended question, not just digging. Mr. Mbele never did any ganging up with either one of us against the other.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “We didn’t get along. Do I have to have a better reason than that?”

“Of course,” Jimmy said.

“Well, if you think so,” I said, “give me one good reason you have for being so antagonistic.”

Jimmy half shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

“You don’t have one,” I said. “I just said something you didn’t take to. Well, I didn’t take to the Mudeaters. I can doggone well say they stink if I want to.”

“I guess so,” Jimmy said.

“Hmm,” Mr. Mbele said. “What if it doesn’t happen to be true? What if what you say damages the other person, or if you are just building yourself up by tearing another person down?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Would you agree that it isn’t a good policy?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, it’s my personal opinion that saying the Colons stink is simply a self-justifying myth invented to make us feel morally superior and absolutely in the right. Your statement is likely to keep me from listening to any valid arguments that you might actually have. That certainly wouldn’t do you any good.”

Jimmy had been following the argument. He said, “How about this? It’s all right to dislike people for poor reasons, but not to call them names. You don’t have to justify your dislikes, but you have to justify your contentions.”

“That’s a little oversimplified,” Mr. Mbele said.

For the moment I was off the hook, and since I was struck by a thought, I brought it forward. “What about the people whom you ought to like — only you don’t? And the people you ought not to like that you do?”

“And what does all that mean?” Jimmy asked.