COLUMN: Behind the Flyman's mask

From Nathan Smith's, "White Lightning," Fall '96 From Nathan Smith's, "White Lightning," Fall '96 Wednesday marked the death of Lee McNear, or "Flyman" as many students know him. Only two weeks ago I got to know him a lot better. He played lucky four, if I remember correctly. It bothers me that I may not remember correctly. It troubles me that even these meager details have started to fade in my mind. I want every detail to stick -- accurately. Of course, they will not and cannot. "Damn, that's close but close just ain't good enough. They probably got four million [tickets] that's close and two that's the jackpot." None of his tickets won. As the steam wafted up in from our coffees to our faces, we talked about gambling. I told him I'd never even gambled for pennies. He told me about Atlantic City, how it's a showy rip-off but sometimes it can be fun. Though I've never been, I had an instinctive feeling he was pretty much right. As he and I didn't have a whole lot of common ground yet, I turned to the familiar. I asked him if he ever missed the South. He seemed to share with me a sort of disdainful love of the South, a beautiful place overpopulated by small and closed minds. I inquired about the cafeteria and how things were going there. He told me about the incompetence of some of his co-workers. He complained of the managers breathing down his neck for work they themselves couldn't do properly. In short, he said all the things I used to say when I worked in food service. You can't help but complain about the people you work with when you work day in, day out, manual labor. As open and warm as I am, I never held a job like his without growing weary and critical of everything associated with it, from the architecture of the building to the way my co-workers smelled. It's an innocent sort of criticism, one that comes not so much of maliciousness, but from the slow agony of repetitive labor. We talked a little about the Eagles. I have little knowledge of football, so it didn't last long. Soon enough it came out that I don't really like watching sports on tv, an admission which between men often gets a suspicious reaction. Lee proved no exception; he threw a sideways glance. In a moment of awkward silence, Lee slurped a sip of his coffee. We chatted a little about weather, and then got up and said our awkward goodbyes. "Bye Flyman." "It's Lee, homey. Call me Lee." It was a first step towards seeing eye to eye, one in which Lee finally told me his real name, and asked me to call him by it. A couple of days ago he bumped into me by the Stouffer salad bar and said "Excuse me ma'am." He did a double take as I laughed, and said, "Woah man, excuse me. It's just my man Curly. How you doin' today, Nathan?" His embarrassed change of topic revealed something I didn't expect. In an ocean of undergrads who probably even now don't notice that the man has died, a sea of students who never bothered to wonder if he had any name other than Flyman, he remembered mine. I suddenly understood Lee wasn't just biding time talking to me. When anyone came along and saw him as a man, not a jester, he responded by seeing them as a human, not just another condescending student. He reached out to people who reached out to him. Maintaining even that vulnerability is a testament; it's not easy prevent the soul from growing callous in a world of pain and abuse. I spoke to a friend about Lee today. This friend told me how he always felt ambivalent about Lee, because he seemed to be "cooning." For those of you who don't know, cooning refers to playing the role of the black buffoon in a white establishment, soaking up the affection whites tend to reserve for the "lovable, clowning, harmless black man." "Let the dead man rest, for god's sake!" So I thought but would never say. This response welled up out of a respect for all those recently fallen; it would have shocked my friend but certainly not challenged his thoughts on Lee. So instead I related to him my understanding of Lee. Ralph Ellison narrated a moment in Invisible Man during which the protagonist's grandfather sums up the survival strategy for black men in America. To poorly paraphrase, he advised the protagonist to wear a mask, a big smiling mask through which whites could not see. Underneath the mask, one can whisper all the condemnation and plans for revolution one wishes. Whites tend to be so elated to see blacks happy in "their place," that they refuse to question the person beneath. In my mind, Lee practiced something similar. If you knew him as Flyman, you knew his mask. You saw the Lee who made life livable for a black man in a mostly white, elitist, unapologetically classist university. If you ever had a serious conversation with him, if you ever asked the sorts of questions that dignified and humanized him rather than egging him on for more comedy, if you saw behind the sunglasses, you may have seen the real eyes of Lee McNear. Lee wasn't some cafeteria clown. He wasn't a dispensable service person whose passage should go unnoticed. He was a man; a flawed, friendly, funny guy who genuinely cared about people and life. He was a good man, perhaps a better man than I. But he has gone and I am here. This is the most fundamental fact which slaps me in the face today. Ultimately, one can take from another's death only selfish and personal gain. After all, one can offer nothing to the dead. I have gained merely the reminder that all people are very real and whole, as is our inevitable departure from this life.

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