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Show 5, Jeffries, Islamorada at Blueboy in his stairwell. "Maurice we're losing it-tell me do you think that the language arts classes. . .across the city there, I'm talking about the fat cats at Whiteflight Memorial, do you think that they're messing--" "Basketball!" Maurice objected. "Correct me if I'm mistaken but don't you come from that graffiti time when the name of that tune was Be True to Your School? Yet I saw you duck out the gym last Tuesday start the second quarter we be leadin1 Whiteflight twenty-six to two? Mercy. Bless me! The man was showin' his colors. . ." "Hoooo!" they started, "Yassuh!" Thick-skinned enough by now to ignore that stuff. Polished and detached like in the old three-minute rebuttal, Mr- Clayton began, "Sixteen, Maurice, and time to be movin' up out of the eighth grade, and insofar as it reflects on me-" Jefferson shot his cuffs, blew open his umbrella, fixed it on the back of his chair and sat there like some tropical power broker. He took from an inside suit pocket a small metal cigarette case or casket in which rested an unpleasant totem which he put on his desk as the boys and girls gathered around. |