George Washington Carver Technical High School opened its doors in 1943, the same year its namesake passed away. Since then, several offices and a handful of classrooms had undergone freshening up. Anthony sat in one such room, beneath a spinning ceiling fan. It was the final period, and his gaze rested on the silhouette of the statue of George Washington Carver in the front yard—a dull olive figure, shoulders mottled with pale and tan. Carver’s left hand clasped a book close to his chest, while his right hand stretched outward in an empty gesture. The inscription on the pedestal suggested an invitation to join a journey of learning. To Anthony, it looked like Carver was reaching out for more, asking, “Is this all there is?” The statue functioned as Anthony’s sundial: when autumn arrived, the school day ended just as Carver’s right hand’s shadow neared the base of the flagpole.
The whole day had left Anthony numb, as if he were in a daze with nothing to trade or barter. He couldn’t fathom how someone had singled him out for theft. At Carver, no one knew what he did, and he kept to himself, steering clear of the school grounds beyond. Except for Uncle Frank, no one could enter their apartment without Knuckles barking like a maniac. Anthony kept returning to the simplest explanation, though he did not want to admit that his mother might have stolen from him. And he certainly did not want to admit that she might be using again.
When the bell finally rang, Mr. Travers, who also taught his homeroom, asked him to stay after. Anthony lowered his gaze to dodge the smirks of the others. He bore little resemblance to the wiry Mr. Travers, who wore his hair in a wild, study-bag of brown curls and thick eyebrows, yet Mr. Travers remained one of Carver High’s few white teachers, which led most classmates to call him “Anthony’s daddy.” If someone needed a hall pass, they’d say, “Anthony, go ask your daddy.” As everyone else shuffled out, Anthony pretended not to notice 2-Cent glowering at him. Until he faced Pepper, he wouldn’t have protection in the hallways.
Mr. Travers directed him toward the seat beside his desk. Anthony sank into the chair and slouched, trying to catch his breath in the breeze from the desk fan. The dull thuds of the varsity squad’s scrimmage drifted through the barred windows, a chorus of basketballs knocking rims and bricks, punctuated by jeers and cheers.
“Glad you’re here,” Mr. Travers said.
Anthony wished for a pep talk to be spared. Yet the beads of sweat on Mr. Travers’s brow and the dark ring at the collar told him a talk was coming, and he listened. He often felt sympathy for the man—his shirts’ armpits were thin and yellowed, his black sneakers scuffed, and his ties looked contrived even when the air was so humid that tape peeled from the walls like snakeskin. Morning after morning, Anthony walked in to find Mr. Travers reciting the same joke about atomic weight as he rehung a warped periodic chart. Why would anyone go to college just to end up here? Anthony would graduate and Mr. Travers would still be here. He didn’t understand teachers.
“You seem distant today, Anthony, fatigued,” Mr. Travers said. “Everything’s cool, you know how it goes, it’s just like—”
The lines over Mr. Travers’s eyes wrinkled. He quipped, “It be just like we have an agreement.”
Anthony perked up slightly. “Sorry, Mr. T.”
Mr. Travers grinned, as he did whenever someone called him “Mr. T,” even when sarcasm was obvious. Anthony had promised him he wouldn’t perform. He tried to remember to be “himself” and to speak “the right way” for Mr. Travers, though most times he could not tell when he was himself and when he wasn’t. “I’m probably just feeling senior-year pressure.” The old standby—the catch-all explanation. Mr. Travers nodded, understanding. “We need to bolster your confidence.”
“When you get to college, you’ll ascertain that most people there aren’t half as smart as you.”
“Yeah.” Anthony didn’t believe it, and he didn’t intend to test the claim’s validity. He longed to leave high school and thought little about another four years, though he did not want to disappoint Mr. Travers. Despite the taunts, he enjoyed the attention from teachers, so he smiled.
“Are you reading those books I gave you?” asked Mr. Travers.
“The word one.” He found the career guide dull, but the word guide interesting.
Mr. Travers nodded. “The word one?”
“Diurnally.”
“Huh!” Mr. Travers exclaimed.
“Tenacious?”
“Persistent.”
“Intrepid?”
“Fearless.”
Mr. Travers leaned back. “Good. You’ve earned your wings,” he said, grinning as he rummaged through his desk and then his duffle bag, his smile widening as he slid an envelope toward Anthony. “As promised, your one-way ticket out of town.”
Anthony tore open the small end and pulled out a registration form for an SAT II prep course. Mr. Travers had assured him a scholarship slot if he didn’t miss any more classes. That was what Anthony valued most: a mentor who didn’t just tell him he could be somebody, but showed him how. A flicker of triumph warmed him; he felt a surge of happiness at the thought of succeeding in school.
“You’ll attend every session, right?”
“Yes, sir.” The course would meet at Riverview High from 6 to 8 p.m. for three nights—Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. He could still make the fight afterward, which began around 10 p.m. or later, though the closer it drew, the less he wanted to go. Everyone knew what happened to the loser of a dogfight. He sank deeper into the chair.
Mr. Travers eased back and offered his usual closing line. “Anthony, education is the only hope for you and your mom. With your income, the government will pay for all of it—that’s if you don’t blow your chance with a scholarship.” He snorted and shook his head as his hair swayed. His eyes widened, and he pointed to the ceiling, asking, “What’s the best revenge?”
Anthony grinned. Although Travers was white, he spoke as if sticking it to the system was a sport. “The best revenge is an education on Uncle Sam’s dime.”
“Correct! Remember, Anthony, in a year there will be no more here.” Anthony moved his fingers along the carved edges on Mr. Travers’s desk: one inscription read, “George Washington Jonson 1988.” Another, “Mustafa Kennedy 1996.”
Mr. Travers mouthed the words, “There will be no more Pepper.” Anthony lowered his gaze in shame.
Mr. Travers patted his shoulder. “You don’t have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life. That will come. Today, we dream about your perfect SAT score.” He pulled his hair into a faux mohawk, leaned close, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I pity the fool who doesn’t go to college.”
“Loud and clear, Mr. T.” Mr. Travers always urged him to hold on to this college dream, to cling to it even when it hurt. Anthony liked the cadence of the phrase, even if it rarely felt true. A sound like bones rolling near the window reminded him of the world outside. He dropped his gaze toward the door, but his teacher’s jaw seemed to indicate there was more to say.
Mr. Travers leaned forward, the corners of his mouth turning down, and said, “You have the greatest blessing a young person can have.”
“Yeah?”
“Being good at things you don’t care about.”
“Yeah,” Anthony replied, though he did not understand. He rose as Mr. Travers nodded, opened the door, and walked into the dim hallway, letting the sounds of the corridor swallow him as he melted into the flow of traffic, like cream dissolving in coffee.
*
Riverview High sat in Dawnswood, a suburb reached after three bus rides. The #5 carried him from the Korean shops to the northern edge of downtown, the #142 rolled through MidCity where package stores yielded to wine shops, and the #12 threaded wide, sunlit streets as houses spread out and lawns expanded. He arrived at the Riverview stop on Peachtree Street, about half a mile from the campus. The route to the school was a blacktop ribbon under a canopy of red oaks, tracing through a residential stretch, skirting a high-walled golf course. Only a few black nannies waited at bus stops along the way, and a narrow strip of grass functioned as a sidewalk for him—beside him, only Mexican laborers and joggers passed by. A tall, tan-tanned blonde in a ponytail jogged past, a burst of perfume in the air as she moved into a beam of sunlight, her running form framed by spandex shorts and a matching top. He caught himself staring, the habit of watching someone running often masking a deeper motive in The Bricks.
Riverview High presented as a glassy, modern building tucked into a shallow valley, its grounds fenced off by a curved drive and neat green turf where a flagpole rose amid azaleas and a flowerbed spelling RIVERVIEW in bright marigolds and carnations. The parking lot looked wealthier than most, filled with cars that bore numbers instead of make. From the steps, the skyline of distant downtown seemed to hover above the treetops, an isolated outpost in a sea of trees that claimed Riverview as its center. He stowed his keys and coins inside his backpack since there were no guards or metal detectors, and then he slung the bag over his shoulder to hide the damp patch in the small of his back. Opening the door, a blast of refrigerated air wrapped around him, gooseflesh erupting where his skin had sweated. Inside, students wandered the sunlit two-story lobby without much supervision. A floor-mosaic of the school’s mascot—a red-and-white centaur named Max E. Muss—stood under a skylight, a wild mane spilling from a football helmet, clutching a basketball in one hand and a lacrosse stick in the other.
Friendly greeters sat behind folding tables draped with red-and-white fabric, stacks of manila folders piled high. The J–M line was empty, but when he whispered his name to the gray-haired man at the desk, the man’s eyes flicked from the roster to Anthony and back again in a way that made him flinch. He pocketed his name tag and moved down the hall to a bulletin board featuring a volleyball team photo: blondes and brunettes in long sleeves and tight shorts. A news rack displayed the Riverview Rag, a glossy magazine bursting with color photos and schedules for clubs—the Japanese Club, the Greek Club, the Ski Club. At Carver, physical education had been cut for budget reasons, and that made Anthony feel a sting of resentment. For the first time, he wanted to conquer the SAT and bring pride to George Washington Carver by excelling.
In Riverview, his assigned classroom housed computers instead of desks, with one station per student. Three Black students filled the room. Anthony was pleased to see Leon Williams, a classmate who felt as out of place as he did. They weren’t friends, but they had shared the same sparsely populated honors classes: English, the only gifted track their school offered. Some students at Carver accused Leon of acting “too white” because he always sat up front and carried a paper clip and a tiny stapler. Anthony, who usually sat in the back, respected Leon’s seriousness and his willingness to call out dealers as traitors to their race. Leon acknowledged him with a nod toward the computer next to him, a silent invitation to check it out, but when Anthony spotted Lawrence Berg at the end of Leon’s row, he diverted his steps. He glanced at the back door and decided he wouldn’t risk facing Mr. Travers; instead he slid into the rear of the room, out of sight of Lawrence. Leon’s look of curiosity faded into a blank stare as Anthony shrugged. He counted the Black faces in the room and estimated the percentage as a mere sliver of the class; he told himself that Leon—quiet, neatly dressed, and surrounded by staples—fit in better than he did anyway.
The next student asked where he was from, and Anthony answered, “Grady,” without a moment’s hesitation.
Grady was the city’s downtown public school, known for its IB program and a library rumored to be a sanctuary for Ivy League alumni. To kill the conversation, he rested his head on the desk and pretended to be exhausted, letting roll call pass him by. Lawrence Berg’s real surname, Lawman, drew a few giggles, and a student named Phat Lai drew mention as well, but Anthony’s name drew the most snickers, especially as the instructor repeated it as if he were trying to recall a memory. Did he want to be called Tony? Or T?
“Anthony is fine,” he finally offered, keeping his head down.
“Whatever you say,” the instructor teased with a wink. “We wouldn’t want to upset you.”
Once the giggling subsided, the instructor explained that the first test would be a diagnostic with a ninety-minute time limit. They would be grouped for study based on their scores, which would be available online by midnight. The sound of everyone feverishly typing reminded Anthony to hurry. He noted the URL and focused. When the test began, the only sounds were keystrokes. He found his rhythm quickly and completed the exam in fifty minutes, the earliest finish in the room. He slipped quietly away, keeping his back turned to the side where Lawrence and Leon sat.
__________________________________
From The Occidental Book of the Dead by T. Geronimo Johnson. Copyright © 2026 by T. Geronimo Johnson. Excerpted by permission from William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
