Ray laughed with his hands in the air. “My bad…just wanted to check in on you, welcome you to Greens Driving Range. You good?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Zaire answered, sitting up straighter.
Ray nodded and gave the room a quick glance, then grabbed the chair by the small table. He lowered himself into it with a grunt that only men who’d lived long could make sound distinguished.
“You settling in okay?” Ray asked.
“Yeah,” Zaire said. “It’s real nice…peaceful.”
Ray chuckled under his breath. “That’s code for ‘not what I’m used to,’ huh?”
Zaire smirked. “Something like that.”
Ray nodded, folding his hands over his knee. “Good. You look like you need peace…got the weight of a whole empire on your back.”
Zaire didn’t answer, didn’t know how.
He just looked around the room while Ray’s eyes assessed him.
After a little while, the older man leaned back and sighed. “You know…bein’ a Black man in a white-ass sport is somethin’ they ain’t never gon’ write no manual for. You wake up every day bein’ told you don’t belong. Then when you prove ‘em wrong, they tell you - you shoulda been humble about it.”
Zaire’s jaw flexed, because it was true. Scouts and coaches praised him, told him he could and would make it to the top. The part they missed was how racist America still was. They didn’t warn him about the locker room jokes tailored only for him. Then add the hood edge he had to the mix, and they watched his every move under a microscope.
Ray watched his face take him through a range of emotions within seconds. “You got a gift, son. Ain’t no question about that. But gifted Black boys always get taught the same two lessons - be better and even when you are better, somebody gon’ hate that you are.”
Zaire looked down at his hands. “I can’t be perfect,” he muttered.
Ray shrugged. “Ain’t nobody ask you to be perfect. They just expect you to survive the backlash. Black men don’t get grace. We get lessons…hard ass lessons.”
“Feels like everything I worked for is slipping through my fingers.”
“Then grip tighter.” Ray sounded like Lesha, “or change what you holdin’. But don’t you ever let a room full of people who couldn’t last ten minutes in your shoes make you believe you ain’t built for this.”
Zaire heard every word, but that was all it felt like…words. The league wasn’t trying to hear words. They didn’t respond to that shit. They just wanted his Black ass to blend in with their White boys.
Ray rapped his knuckles against the table, leaning forward. “Let me tell you somethin’ I told my daughter once…the world gon’ talk. That’s what the world does. You can’t stop it. But you can pick where you want to stand when the noise hits. You got two choices, either fold cause you scared or stand solid with your head up and your chest out.”
Zaire looked up.
Ray nodded toward him. “And son…you look like somebody who ain’t never been scared.”
Zaire swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “What if I ain’t got nothin’ left to prove?”
Ray laughed unbothered. “Oh, you got plenty left. You just forgot who the hell you were for a minute. It happens to the best of us.”
Zaire rubbed a hand over his beard. “What if I messed up too bad this time?”
“You punched a man,” Ray said plainly. “It’s not the end of the world. I done punched twenty,” he laughed, “…stayed married through it all.”
Zaire snorted before he could stop himself.
Ray smiled. “See? It ain’t over. You just hurt. And when Black men hurt, we isolate. But you’re here now. This land gon’ give you room to think. And maybe,” he lifted his brow, “someone here gon’ give you room to feel.”
Zaire caught the hint.
Ray didn’t call attention to it.
Older men never did.
