“Scholarship student, huh?”
“Yeah. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, not at all. I’m a legacy.”
“A what?”
“My great-grandfather went to school here, as did my grandfather, my father, and now, I’m here. As long as there’s been a St. Junior, there’s been a Weber.”
“Family tradition.”
“My family is all about tradition. So, where you from? What’s your major?”
Before Roman could answer, Alex pulled out a silver flask of whiskey.
“You want a drink?” asked the legacy.
“I’m undeclared,” said Roman.
“About the drink or your major?”
“I don’t drink.”
“More for me.”
Roman looked at Alex’s side of the room. All of the white boy’s possessions still carried price tags.
“Well,” said Alex. “Get your stuff unpacked, that shouldn’t take too long, and let’s head upstairs where the lovely young women make their abodes.”
“I’m not much for parties,” said Roman. “I think I’m just going to hang around the room.”
“Suit yourself. But I’ve got to get a little tonight, you know what I mean?”
“I assume you’re referring to sexual intercourse.”
“You make it sound so romantic. Listen. My great-grandfather had sexual intercourse on his first night at St. Junior. As did my grandfather, my father, and now, me.”
“You’re a legacy.”
“Exactly. See you later, Chief.”
With a nod of his head and a click of his tongue, Alex left the room. A little stunned and bewildered by his roommate — how had the personal-tastes questionnaire put them together? — Roman sat down on his bed. Then he noticed a box sitting on the desk. It was a “WELCOME TO ST. JUNIOR” care package.
He opened the box and discovered its contents.
“Donuts,” said Roman.
Six months into their freshman year at St. Junior, Roman and Grace made love for the first time. Afterward, squeezed together in his narrow dorm room bed, they’d nervously tried to fill the silence.
“So,” he’d asked. “You must be the only Indian in New York City, enit?”
“There are lots of Indians in New York City. Lots of Mohawks.”
“Are you full-blood?”
“No, I’m Mohawk and Chinese.”
“Chinese? You’re kidding.”
“What? You have something against Chinese?”
“No, no. I just never heard of no Chinese Indians. I mean, I know black Indians and white Indians and Mexican Indians and a whole bunch of Indian Indians, but you’re the first Chinese Indian I’ve ever met. Was it some kind of Bering Strait land bridge thing?”
“No. My mom was Chinese. She was playing piano in this bar in Brooklyn. That’s where my mom and dad met.”
“Where are they now?”
“Gone, all gone.”
Over the next four years of college, they’d slept together maybe twenty more times without formal attachment, and each of them had run through quick romances with a few other people, and each had also experienced the requisite homoerotic one-night stand — both with Hawaiians, coincidentally — before he’d run up to her after his last college game, still in uniform and drenched in sweat, and hugged her close.
“You’re the best Indian I’m ever going to find,” he’d said. “Marry me.”
Not the most romantic proposal in the world, to be sure, but a true and good moment, demographically speaking.
“Okay,” she'd said.
In bed, on the Spokane Indian Reservation, eighteen years after their graduation from St. Jerome the Second, Grace ate her salmon mush, drank her coffee, and read the newspaper aloud. Roman laid back on his pillow and listened to her. This was one of their ceremonies: she’d read aloud every word of the newspaper, even the want ads, and then quiz him about the details.
“Hey,” she said. “What’s the phone number of the guy who is selling the Ping-Pong table that has only been used once?”
“Harry.”
“Uh, good remembering. That earns you a kiss, with tongue.”
“A hand job would be better.”
“God, you’re so charming.”
She smacked him with a pillow. He kissed her cheek, then walked from the bedroom into the kitchen. Still holding the basketball, he opened the refrigerator, pulled out another big bottle of Diet Pepsi, and swallowed deeply. He breathed the sweet fluid in, as if it were oxygen. He set the Pepsi back on the shelf, among a dozen other bottles, and then pulled out a donut. A maple bar. He sniffed at it, took a bite, spit it back out, and threw the donut back into the fridge.
Roman slammed the fridge shut and walked outside into the backyard. Two feet of the first snow had covered the basketball half-court. Roman looked at the snow, at the hoop and backboard rising ten feet above the snow.
Smiling, Roman gave a head fake, took a step left, and dribbled the basketball, expecting it to bounce back up into his hand.
When the ball didn’t return to his hand, Roman stared down to see the orange Rawlings embedded in the white snow. The contrast was gorgeous, like the difference between Heaven and Hell.
He had always been a religious man, had participated in all of the specific Spokane Indian ceremonies, most involving salmon, and in many of the general American Indian ceremonies like powwows and basketball tournaments. He’d also spent time in all three of the Spokane Reservation’s Christian churches, singing Assembly of God hymns, praying Presbyterian prayers, and eating Catholic Communion wafers. Roman had always known that God was elusive. All his life, Roman had been chasing God and had never once caught sight of him, or her.
During her first night at St. Junior, Grace was standing in the middle of a room full of drunken white kids when Alex Weber, the drunkest white kid, stepped up to her.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he slurred.
“Hey,” she said, a little nauseated by the whiskey smell of his breath. She’d never even sipped a glass of wine at dinner.
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me. Have you enjoyed your St. Junior experience so far?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
He kissed her then, a wet kiss that was meant for her lips but landed on her chin. She pushed him away.
“Hey, listen,” she said, strangely polite. “You’re drunk, man, and you’re making a big mistake. Why don’t you just leave before you do something really stupid? How does that sound?”
She didn’t understand why she was negotiating. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked.
“Yeah, you ask one question. I answer once. Then you leave. Deal?”
“Did you get in here because of affirmative action?”
“What?”
“Really. I want to know, did you get in here on account of some quota or something? Because you’re Indian, right, excuse me, I mean, Native American?”
“I belong here. Just as much as you or anybody else.”
“No, no, no, I’m not questioning your intelligence. Believe me, I’m not. Honestly. I just want to know if you got admitted because of affirmative action.”
“If I tell you, will you leave?”
“Yeah.”
“No, man, I got perfect scores on my CAT.”
“Really?”
“Truth.”
“I got in because of affirmative action.”
“What do you man? You? You’re white.”
“Well, not because of affirmative action, not exactly. I got in here because I’m a legacy. Do you know what that is?”
“Yes, I do.”
“My father went here. My father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather. I’m a legacy.”
“So what?”
“So, they let me in because of my family’s money. Not because I deserve to be here. I don’t have the grades. My test scores were, like, lower than football players’.”