The Color of Water by James McBride Page A

tittering, cackling torturer of me to a handsome, slick high school kid who was an outstanding tenor sax player. He got accepted at Music and Art High School in Manhattan and had reached a point in his life where jazz was the beginning, the end, and the middle. He took to wearing a leather jacket and a porkpie hat like legendary tenor man Lester Young, joined a neighborhood R&B band, and Ma had increasing difficulty in getting him to go to school. The dudes in the neighborhood called him “Hatt” and respected him. The girls loved him. He was bursting with creative talent and had ideas he acted upon independently without the approval of, or the knowledge of, Ma. A few blocks from our house was an eight-foot-high stone with a plaque on it that commemorated some civil historic event, and one morning on the wayto the store, Mommy noticed that the rock had been painted the black-liberation colors, red, black, and green. “I wonder who did that,” she remarked. I knew, but I couldn’t say. Richie had done it.
    All my siblings, myself included, had some sort of color confusion at one time or another, but Richie dealt with his in a unique way. As a boy, he believed he was neither black nor white but rather green like the comic book character the Incredible Hulk. He made up games about it and absorbed the character completely into his daily life: “I’m Dr. Bruce Banner,” he’d say as he saw me eating the last of the bologna and cheese. “I need a piece of your sandwich. Please give it to me now or I’ll get angry. I must have it! Please don’t make me angry. Give me
that sandwich
!!! GIVE ME—Oh no! Wait…ARRHHHHHHGGGHHHH!” and thereby he’d become the Hulk and if I hadn’t gobbled my sandwich by then, well, the Hulk got it.
    One morning in Sunday school Richie raised his hand and asked Rev. Owens, “Is Jesus white?”
    Rev. Owens said no.
    â€œThen how come they make him white here in this picture?” Richie said, and he held up our Sunday school Bible.
    Rev. Owens said, “Jesus is all colors.”
    â€œThen why is he white? This looks like a white man to me.” Richie held the picture high so everyone in the classcould see it. “Don’t he look white to you?” Nobody said anything.
    Rev. Owens was stuck. He stood there, wiping his face with his handkerchief and making the same noise he made when he preached. “Welllll…ahh. Wellll…ahhh …”
    I was embarrassed. The rest of the kids stared at Richie like he was crazy. “Richie, forget it,” I mumbled.
    â€œNaw. If they put Jesus in this picture here, and He ain’t white, and He ain’t black, they should make Him gray. Jesus should be gray.”
    Richie stopped going to Sunday school after that, though he never stopped believing in God. Mommy tried and tried to make him go back, but he wouldn’t.
    Mommy took great pride in our relationship to God. Every Easter we had to perform at the New Brown Church, playing our instruments or reciting a story from the Bible for the entire church congregation. Mommy looked forward to this day with anticipation, while my siblings and I dreaded it like the plague, always waiting till the morning of the event before memorizing the Bible story we would recite. I never had problems with these memory-crunching sessions, but one year my older brother Billy, whose memory would later serve him well enough to take him through Yale University Medical School, marched to the front of the church wearing suit and tie, faced the congregation, started out, “When Jesusfirst came to …” then blanked out completely. He stood there, twitching nervously, dead in the water, while my siblings and I winced and held our breath to keep from laughing.
    â€œOh, that’s all right now …” murmured my godfather, Deacon McNair, from his seat on the dais next to the minister, while Mommy twitched in her seat