Read Online Call Me by My Name by John Ed Bradley - Free Book Online Page B

again. We need team players like you, Rodney.”
    Tater left the building moments later, but Coach let him walk right on by. Head bowed, hands nervously jiggling the coins in his pockets, Tater was waiting in line for a bus ride home when I caught up to him. “You going out for football?” I asked.
    â€œI’d planned on it until a minute ago. Did you see that, Rodney? He looked right through me, like I was invisible.”
    â€œHe can’t be expected to know the black guys yet. Cut him a break, will you?” I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of line. “Come with me,” I said.
    He followed me back to the front of the school where the coaches were hitting up more prospects, all of them white.
    â€œThis is Tater Henry, Coach Cadet,” I said.
    The way he looked at him, Coach might’ve just been introduced to a female tryout. “Your name is Tater, as in po -tater?”
    â€œMy real name’s Tatum, Coach Cadet. But I couldn’t pronounce it very well when I was little and the mispronunciation stuck.”
    Coach seemed to find the explanation less interesting than I did. He glanced at his watch and checked the doors again to see who was coming out. “You play ball, son?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œWhat position?”
    â€œQuarterback.”
    â€œYou said quarterback or cornerback?”
    â€œQuarterback.”
    Coach Cadet smiled at the absurdity. “You don’t want to be a quarterback,” he said. “Our playbook is eighteen pages long.”
    They stood looking at each other: Tater silent; Coach Cadet smacking gum. “However I can contribute, Coach,” Tater finally said.
    â€œThat’s what I want to hear,” Coach answered.
    About seventy guys turned out the next day. We sat in the bleachers in the gym, and Coach Cadet and his staff looked out at white players grouped together on the left and black players huddled on the right. At the center of this arrangement was a divide a few feet wide, with only Tater and me sitting next to each other about halfway up.
    For twenty minutes Coach harangued us about the differences between team players and turds. He’d played guard at Texas Christian many years ago, before helmets came equipped with face masks, and the tip of his nose was a cauliflower mass, the bridge a lumpy knot. Because his skin sunburned easily, he covered himself with cold cream to soothe the pain and protect from blistering. Today he was wearing so much of the stuff he looked like a Kabuki dancer, with a bright pink undertone peeking through. A whistle hung by an orange-and-black cord from around his neck.
    Turds had no place in football, he said now in closing, and he vowed to run any off. “Are you a turd?” he asked one guy, pointing. Then he confronted another: “What about you, Nestor? You look like a turd to me.”
    We all had to deny it. “Not me, Coach,” I said when it was my turn.
    â€œI ain’t no turd,” Tater nearly shouted when Coach Cadet came to him.
    â€œTurds have been the ruination of many a fine football team,” Coach said in summation. “I’d rather have a bunch of team players without much talent than a bunch of turds with all the talent in the world.”
    Next, Coach had his assistants form a half circle behind him, and he instructed the junior and senior players to come down from the bleachers and stand behind the coaches according to their positions. That left thirty sophomores, and now Coach had each of us stand for an eyeball test. He assessed our overall appearance and assigned us our positions without bothering to ask where we wanted to play. As expected, he sent me to stand behind the offensive line coach, and he had Tater join the defensive backs coach. Our entire future in football depended on a once-over that lasted no longer than five seconds, and after a while I noticed a pattern. White kids got the marquee jobs, such as quarterback,