"Scoby's eyes reddened and he started to sniffle. He was cracking under the pressure. Watching his hands shake, I realized that sometimes the worst thing a n----- can do is perform well. Because then there is no turning back" (118).
It's the first scene we see Nick starting to break. When you're perfect, all the pressure is put on you. So many are putting their faith and hope in you. After all, isn't perfection what we all shoot for? While some are putting their faith in you entirely, others despise you. They hate you for being the perfect one, especially if that you is black. Shouldn't the perfect one be the "racially perfect" one as well? It's sick, the hatred that's out there.
Gunnar, realizing both the consequences of perfection and the signs that his best friend can't bear that burden, takes Nick's spot. Gunnar definitely seems to be the second runner up, a follower of Scoby. Very self-aware, he recognizes his apathetic tendencies and knows that that's what will allow him to carry it for Nick. Nick is the truly reluctant leader. He should be the leader in this novel, but if he were, he wouldn't be able to handle it. He knows that's not where he wants to be. Yes, Gunnar is also a reluctant leader, but not as reluctant. Gunnar sees himself rising up and does nothing about it. He's reluctant more just because he doesn't care. All he cares about is Scoby, so he takes on the load for his friend.
Even then, he knows that Scoby's losing it. Gunnar can't take it all away, because Scoby's amazingness just cannot be concealed. While writing to Yoshiko during his time away for basketball, his concern shines through. "I think Scoby is going insane. The scrutiny he is undergoing is unbelievable....They would be a lot better off if they simply called Scoby a god and left it at that, but no way they'll proclaim a skinny black man God" (192). It has got to be hard getting cups thrown at you nearly every game. Gunnar just happens to have a special, unrecognized talent to not care about anything and make a joke out of everything. This, coincidentally, happens to be Scoby's weakness. Other people get to him easily. He wants to be a part of something, rather than apart from everything. Nick Scoby's a wonderful, well-developed character whose gifts drag him down into a depression that doesn't end until his death.
Gunnar is more or less able to take Nick's spot on the basketball team--the adulation bothers him, but not as much (and he's able to respond with wry, defiant, performance-art humor, as in his "minstrel" routine), but when he's made the "god" of black poetry in his one creative-writing class, he responds in a way that's quite reminiscent of Nick. Nick's decline--as with so many other things--gives Gunnar a kind of "lead" to follow.
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