—Maniac Magee—
by Jerry Spinelli

Chapter 41

 

The McNab boys didn't know whom they did expect Maniac to bring to the party, but one thing for sure --- they did not expect him to come walking through the front door with a black kid.

And that was only half of it. From the way the kid swaggered in, from the candy bar that jutted like a chocolate stogie from the corner of his mouth, from the rip-stone-evil scowl on his face, the kid had to be none other than Mars Bar Thompson himself. If black meant bad, if black meant in-your-face nastiness, if black meant as far from white as you could get, then Mars Bar Thompson was the blackest of the black.

Here. In the middle of their living room. Stopping the party --- the neighborhood kids, the Cobras, even George McNab --- stopping them dead as traffic. Just walked in through the front door, the steel door. Breezed right on in. Past the bars. Standing there, I-own-this-jointing there, before they knew what was happening, before anyone could reach for anything.

Which, of course, is just what Maniac had had in mind. Remembering how little Grayson had known about black people and black homes. Thinking of the McNabs' wrong-headed notions. Thinking of Mars Bar's knee-jerk reaction to anyone wearing a white skin. And thinking: Naturally. What else would you expect? Whites never go inside blacks' homes. Much less inside their thoughts and feelings. And blacks are just as ignorant of whites. What white kid could hate blacks after spending five minutes in the Beales' house? And what black kid could hate whites after answering Mrs. Pickwell's dinner whistle? But the East Enders stayed in the east and the West Enders stayed in the west, and the less they knew about each other, the more they invented.

It hadn't been easy: finding Mars Bar, taking all his lip about cheating on the race, taking some bumps, some shoves, Mars goading him to fight. But keeping his own cool, matching Mars Bar glare for glare, telling him he wasn't as bad as he thought he was. Really stoking him now, making him slam his candy bar to the ground. "No? You wanna tell me why I ain't so bad, fish? Go ahead, 'fore I waste ya." Chest to chest.

Keeping cool. Letting Mars do all the huffing. "Simple. You don't cross Hector. You stay over here, where it's safe. How bad would you be over there?"

Stepping back then, folding his arms, smugging it up just enough, standing there in his white skin, gazing nonchalantly about, six-blocks-deep in the heart of the black side: "Guess that makes me badder than you."

 

They did not go straight to the McNabs'. First they went to the Pickwells'. Maniac wanted Mars Bar to see the best the West End had to offer.

The little Pickwells made as much fuss over Mars Bar as over Maniac. They believed, as did all little kids in the West End, that he carried a hundred Mars Bars with him at all times. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Pickwell never batted an eye when she saw who was coming to dinner.

It was quite a sight, all right --- sixteen Pickwells plus Maniac, plus a down-and-out golf caddie --- eighteen so-called white faces and Mars Bar Thompson. To his credit, Mars Bar didn't use the words "fishbelly" or "honky" once, though on one occasion he did bend the truth a mite. When a Pickwell kid asked him if it was true about the famous race in April, did Maniac really beat him going backward? --- Mars Bar studied his fork for a minute and said, "Yeah, he went backward. But you got the story wrong. Wasn't me he beat. Was my brother, Milky Way." The little kids couldn't understand why the grownups laughed for five minutes after that.

As for Mars Bar himself, his expression never changed until the dinner was almost over, when the littlest non-baby Pickwell, Dolly, called him "Mr. Bar." And even then it wasn't so much a smile as a crack in the glare.

Even if Mars wasn't letting on, Maniac could tell he was pleased to learn his fame had spread to the West. When they left, half the Pickwell kids followed them, begging Mars to perform his legendary feat of stopping traffic.

"Don't," Maniac warned. "It might not work over here."

But the Pickwells persisted, and when they reached Marshall Street, Mars Bar commanded, "Stay here," and stepped into the traffic.

Not only did he shamble, jive, shuck, and hipdoodle at his own sweet pace, he did something he had never even done in the East End - he came to a complete and utter halt halfway across and let nothing; but the evil in his eyes take care of the rest. He stood like that for one full minute. By the time he finally moved on to the far side, so the legend goes, twenty three cars, several bicycles, and a bus were stacked to a dead stop in both directions. Maniac hurried across while the Pickwells stood at the curb, cheering and waving good-bye.

But no one was cheering now in Fort McNab. And Maniac knew that despite the swagger and the scowl and the chocolate stogie, Mars Bar Thompson was one uneasy dude.