True Allegiance

“I said,” Yard growled, “did you just call me nigger? Because I just heard you call me nigger.”

The entire room turned to watch the impending carnage.

Yard’s hand came down on Brett’s shoulder, heavy as doom. Brett could feel his bowels begin to give way when a smallish hand emerged on Yard’s shoulder. A black hand. Yard swiveled ponderously to face down the person connected with the hand.

A small person, slim, wearing glasses and a wide smile across his face.

“Yard, man,” he said, “he didn’t call you nigger.”

“What you talking about, Derek?” rumbled Yard.

“It was me, man! I called you nigger.”

Yard looked puzzled. “No,” he said slowly, “it was the white boy.”

“Oh, yeah, man,” said Derek. “It was. I’m white. You just mixed us up.” He moved around to stand next to Brett. “See? We’re twins. Identical. Anybody could mix us up. Even though I’m more handsome.”

Yard’s eyes glazed over with confusion. The giggling started at the back of the room. Yard’s hands clenched and unclenched as the wave rose over the room, until the kids were slapping each other on the back. Yard’s fists closed tight.

But as they did, Derek leaned forward, reached out, and lightly tapped Yard’s hands—and then started singing at the top of his lungs that Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder song, “Ebony and Ivory.” “Come on, sing with me, Yard! You be ebony, I’ll be ivory!”

But Yard was backing away now, a look on his face asking, who is this nut job?

Derek turned to Brett and continued singing.

And Brett smiled and crooned back, in warbled harmony.

That’s how Brett met his best friend, and learned how to talk his way out of violent confrontation. He’d become a master at it over the years, learned to stick and move with his words, disarm the enemy, keep him laughing rather than fighting. It was a tool that he’d deploy with soldiers and presidents.

It also brought him Ellen.

Between junior and senior years of high school, Brett finally hit his growth spurt. Like his dad, he bloomed late—but when he did, he put on muscle and height like a racehorse. He sprouted five inches, to six foot two; he broadened through the chest, filling out to a healthy two fifteen. The coaches had ignored him in high school, but at The Citadel, he quickly became their favorite. He didn’t pick the college because of its military background. He picked it because he read a Pat Conroy book, and because South Carolina seemed gothic and romantic compared to the South Side of Chicago.

It was. But the college was brutal, especially for a kid lacking discipline. He bridled at the orders, bridled at the system. He bucked it whenever he could, and found himself on the wrong end of a lot of forced runs and extra burpees and early morning wake-ups. Fortunately, the extra meat on his bones helped.

On one of his rare off days, Brett found himself at Charleston’s bustling City Market. The shops were heavy with traffic; rain outside had forced everyone into the covered complex of artists hawking their pictures and crafts. He was wearing his Citadel uniform, standing out conspicuously among the women in their summer dresses and the men in their jeans and seersucker sport coats. Reluctant to run back out into the rain, he leaned back against a bookcase.

“No loitering, cadet.”

The voice was musical—for some reason, the image of a woodwind came to mind. A southern woodwind, since her accent sang of long summers and lemonade.

Brett didn’t care about that. He turned, irked—and found himself face-to-face with a beautiful young woman, about seventeen, staring aggressively at him.

“No,” she said, “I expected better from a cadet. Hanging around here, driving away all the customers.”

“And what if I do drive them all away? What if I was the last man left on earth, standing right here, at this shop?” He couldn’t believe his mouth was moving this well, considering his tongue had turned to glue against his molars. “Would you do me the honor of letting me take you for a walk along the pier?”

He flashed what he hoped was his most charming smile.

“I’ve been asked by cadets before, and I’ll be asked by cadets again,” she shot back, without hesitation. “And if you’ll wipe that grin that looks like you’re eating tacks and manure off your face—and if you buy one of these here pictures—I’ll think about it.”

The smile disappeared. His hand flashed to his wallet. He took out a $20 bill, fingered it, then handed it over, pointing at a watercolor of a palmetto-lined road along the shore. “I’ll take that one.” She handed it over. “So, how about it?”

She raised an eyebrow in mockery. “No. I think I’ll pass.”

He felt the frustration rise in his chest. “But I just bought the picture!”

“I’m not that cheap a date,” she laughed. This time, the musicality of it pierced him.

So maybe his way with words didn’t win Ellen. But his persistence did. By the time he bought his fifth picture, she agreed to a walk. By the tenth, they were going steady. Two years later, they were married.