Betsey Brown

by Ntozake Shange

  6

  Jane had never been in and out of the refrigerator so much in her life. Nobody wanted anything they usually ate.

  “I never eat baloney, Mama,” Margot pouted.

  “I do, I eat it all the time,” Allard said.

  “Y’all shut up, and get out my way. I’ve got to see if my bus is coming.” Sharon pushed her way to the window, paper bag lunch in hand.

  “You in that much of a hurry for the crackers to spit on you?” Charlie asked.

  “But, Mama, I don’t like tuna.” Margot still hadn’t found a luncheon meat that satisfied her taste. “I don’t want cheese, either.”

  Betsey was roaming among them like a prelate. “It’s the law. Integration is the law.”

  Jane reached her limit.

  “This is it. Here are your lunches. It’s the law. Go to your bus stops and have a good day.”

  Greer lifted Allard off the floor to the ceiling and let him play Spiderman. Allard was frightened, one could tell by the solemn gleam in his eyes.

  “Come on, Allard. We don’t want the white folks to say that a gifted colored child was late, now do we?”

  “Daddy, do I have to go? I don’t want to go!”

  Vida wasn’t much help. She cleaned behind Jane, who was folding the lunch bags, muttering, “I don’t understand this. I just don’t understand this.”

  “Daddy, I am not colored. I am a Negro,” Allard announced while clinging to the ceiling.

  “That’s my boy. That’s exactly what you tell them, too.” Greer chuckled.

  Vida kept on, “I don’t know why they have to go to the white folks’ school. I just don’t understand.”

  Greer patted Vida on her shoulders, sighing, “It’s the law, Mama. Remember, I told you separate and equal was not separate and equal, just separate? Remember that?”

  Jane looked at every one of her youngsters. Were they all ready? Did they look nice and clean and just like she wanted to remember them? She mustn’t think like that. Nothing was going to happen.

  “Mama, my shirt don’t fit.” Allard fidgeted.

  “Your shirt doesn’t fit,” Jane said.

  “No. It don’t.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Betsey chimed.

  “That’s what I said,” Allard answered, indignant.

  “Why does my child have to live round all these niggahs and talk so low?” Vida asked Jane in her most sincere voice.

  “Mama, he’s on his way right now to a white school.” Jane was getting mad with everybody.

  “But he talks like a niggah.”

  “Allard, you must be the niggah them white folks talk about. Grandma says you sound like one. Pickaninny. Blackie. Boot.”

  “Charlie, you shut up. You’re going to scare Allard to death.” Jane was ready for them to go now.

  “I was just practicing, Aunt Jane. I was preparing Allard for what’s coming round the corner.”

  “All that’s coming round the corner is the bus, Charlie. Stop filling the children’s minds with mess.”

  “Aunt Jane, it’s not mess. Look at all these colored children being an experiment. What do you think those white folks gonna say? We aint nothing permanent. Niggahs come and go and die. Emmett Till was my age, Aunt Jane.”

  “That’s enough, Charlie. The Lord will see us through all this.”

  “But Aunt Jane, you think they’re gonna pass us by, cause Betsey’s gifted or Allard’s so smart, or Sharon’s only so dark? You think we can’t be lynched? You think they don’t see us for who we are? That’s being fool—”

  “Hush up that nonsense, you hoodlum northern trash,” Vida interrupted.

  “Mama, please don’t say that. The children are agitated, that’s all.” Jane pulled her hands through her hair, which was dampened with tears and sweat she’d been pushing up her forehead.

  “Greer, let’s go. Please, can we go?”

  “The children don’t seem so organized, Jane.”

  “Dammit, Greer, between you, the Supreme Court, the buses, and the boys, I think I might die. I swear, I think I just might die.”

  Charlie leaned over to Allard, whispering, “We gonna get some white tail and say we did it for Emmett Till.”

  “Tail, I don’t want any tail, Charlie.”

  “Hush your filthy mouth, you hear me? Hush!” Vida shouted.

  Jane pulled Greer close to her. “Let’s get out of here.” As she went out the door, Jane turned and waved kisses back to her children. She wept on Greer’s shoulder all the way to work.

  Vida watched the children line up, military style, to go to their individual bus stops. She shook her head as the chant she heard them shouting reached into the quiet of the house.

  “All they can say is it’s the law

  All they can say is it’s the law

  Do they do it? Do they do it?

  Naw.”

  Then Charlie’s voice saying: “Does a peckerwood hit you in the head during math?” Margot echoing, “Do the police watch you count your own money at the store?” Then Betsey adding, “Do white boys pull up your dress to see a niggah’s behind?”

  “No, not to see your behind. To see if you got a tail,” Charlie answered. “It’s the law and it’s a mess. Hey, we gonna miss our buses,” Charlie cried, alarmed.

  “So what?” Betsey shouted for the whole neighborhood to hear: “We misst our buses. Who would give a damn? White folks wish our feet didn’t even touch their holy ground. So what, we miss our buses? Who you think gonna come, Eisenhower, Faubus? Po’ white trash with guns gonna escort us to our classes and make us eat the flag, while they tell us how slavery really wasn’t quite so bad.”

  Off they went, belligerent, afraid, and feeling totally put upon.

  The brigade scattered at Union Boulevard.

  “I get the number four.”

  “I’m catching the twelve.”

  “I’m heading southwest.”

  “I don’t wanta go,” Allard pleaded.

  “So what, niggah? It’s the law.” That’s all Charlie had to say. And they went their separate ways.

  Vida wandered round the house picking up this and that: a ribbon, a crayon, a dustball. They got some nerve, those foolish urchins. They’ve got the honor of being Americans. They free and smart. They got good blood. And all they got on their minds is how it was in slavery times, as if we came from slaves. What a mess they’ve made of our genealogy, everybody knows we were freedmen. Then Vida stopped that train of thought, cause in order to be a freedman somebody would have had to be a slave and that concept did not compute.

  When Betsey got to her new school, it loomed like a granite tomb over her head. Nobody spoke to her, so she didn’t speak to them. It was like they were all dead. The white children weren’t dirty or anything. They didn’t even have red necks as far as she could tell, but they didn’t smile at her the way she was usedta Susan Linda grinning at the corner of the schoolyard. This time Betsey had the whole corner to herself. Wherever she stepped, the other children found somewhere else to go. It was the first time Betsey knew she was someplace, yet felt no evidence of it. Maybe they couldn’t see her. No, Betsey knew better than that. They chose not to, like the color of her skin was a blight. Betsey wisht it would rub off. She’d rub coloredness all over the damn place. Then where would they go to get away from the niggahs?

  Mrs. Leon was the first person to address her by her name, Elizabeth Brown. In a linen suit and a tailored blouse with a blue bow at the collar, Mrs. Leon looked like a big little girl to Betsey. But at least Mrs. Leon didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about her.

  “Class, this is our new pupil, Betsey, I think she likes to be called. Is that right?”

  “Yes, M’am.”

  “Well, you have a seat behind Jan there at the right, and we’ll start our geography lesson. All your books should be in your desk. Let me know if you are missing anything.” Mrs. Leon smiled.

  Betsey thought maybe Mrs. Leon wasn’t white at all, maybe
she was passing, like in that book Imitation of Life. Or maybe she was what Jane called “well-meaning white people.” At any rate Mrs. Leon broke the ice and the thrill of a new place and new faces came over Betsey as easily as the shadows had blackened her path.

  It was luck or planning on Mrs. Leon’s part, but the geography lesson had all to do with Africa. Greer had insisted that his children know every emerging African state’s name and location, so Betsey was soaring with information. It turned out that the children didn’t hate her actually, they just didn’t know what to do with her. They’d never seen colored who didn’t work for them or weren’t playing in some part of town nobody wanted to live in. But as the words Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Senegal rolled off Betsey’s tongue, they sounded as romantic and elegant as France, Germany, Alsace-Lorraine, or Bulgaria. Nobody could sing the words to “Rockin’ Robin” at recess, but they played hop-scotch the same. One girl with wavy blond hair kept kosher, which Betsey didn’t understand. She’d ask Jane. Another girl with brown hair and blue-green eyes, Randa, asked if Betsey would show her how to jump double-dutch. Betsey did her best, but the rhythm just wasn’t coming from the rope-twirlers. Then the bell rang.

  Betsey went back to Mrs. Leon with hopes things might get even better. The children who stayed away from her were as unswerving in their obstinance as Betsey was becoming optimistic about her new experience. Would she become one of them? Betsey often thought Susan Linda was most colored, cause she was too poor to be really white. There was the possibility of them rubbing off on her instead of her rubbing off on them. A fast trip to the girls’ lavatory relieved Betsey of that dilemma. She’d go home just as brown as she’d arrived. Everybody at home would recognize her. No two ways about it. She was still Betsey Brown.

  But the new school, Dewey School, would never be like her real school. It wasn’t till the bus eased up Delmar Boulevard and the colored people were going on about their business, carrying things from the dry cleaners, going up the stairs to their apartments or the beauty shops, lingering by the corners exchanging tales, waiting in line for fried fish or shrimp, slinging barbeque sauce over ribs and burgers, playing honest-to-God double-dutch and liking it, that Betsey felt like she was at home. When she got off the streetcar Veejay and Eugene were waiting for her.

  “Girl, we been here for three trolleys. How far is that place?”

  “Oh Veejay, I’m so glad to see you.” Betsey hugged her lost friend for dear life. It was so good to be around her own kind, friends who understood her already. Eugene was pleased nothing had happened to disturb his girl. Mr. Robinson served them all chocolate sundaes with cherries and teeny nuts all the way around.

  “You made a step forward for the race today, Betsey. I’m real proud of you.” Mr. Robinson knew most of Betsey’s comings and goings. His pharmacy was right next to the trolley stop, so if you were going somewhere Mr. Robinson knew. He also knew if you didn’t go somewhere. One time Betsey’d tried to make-believe she got on the trolley to go to her piano lesson, but she just stood at the door and then jumped off. She stayed the whole time in the store with Mr. Robinson and then tried to walk home as if she’d been to her lesson with that fat old Mr. Benjamin who had nine children and a wife who sang opera. But Mr. Robinson had already called her parents to say she was staying in the pharmacy an awfully long time.

  Jane let Betsey go on about the Benjamin children and their West Indian accents, how well she was doing with her scales and the new Chopin piece, when Greer mentioned casually that Mr. Robinson had said what good company she’d been all afternoon, business was kind of slow, Betsey was a wonderful child to talk to. What a licking that led to. So Betsey never tried to do anything in front of Mr. Robinson anymore. He stuck with the grown-ups, but today he was proud of her. Maybe he’d call Jane and Greer and tell them that, too.

  Eugene walked Betsey home after they’d walked Veejay round to Charlotte Ann’s where she was visiting till her mother got off work.

  “I can’t wait for you every day, Betsey. I’ve got practice, but I was worried today. What with all them white people. Never know what they’ll do.”

  “They weren’t nearly as bad as I thought they’d be, Eugene. Honest. Why I even made one friend, Randa. But they’re not like us. That’s the truth. They can’t dance or play rope. They don’t talk the same. It’s almost like going to another country.”

  “Well, you be sure and tell me if one of those white boys messes with you, you hear?”

  “Uh huh. I’ll tell you.” Betsey wanted to throw her arms round Eugene’s neck and kiss him a Roscoe and Regina kiss for saying what he’d just said. He was willing to protect her. He wanted to know if anything happened to her. She held herself back, smiling from one braid to the other.

  “Eugene, I’m really glad you like me that much.”

  Eugene blushed a bit and was on his way. Betsey didn’t know from day to day when she’d see him, but she knew he was there if she needed him.

  The children’s commutes put the dinner back by an hour and a half. Jane and Greer were home before everybody except Allard, who kept exclaiming: “Mama, they didn’t kill me. Look, Mama, I’m alive.”

  “Yes, you are, Allard. You are very much alive. I told you not all the white people were evil. There’s evil in every group.”

  “Yeah, Charlie’s evil.”

  “No, Charlie isn’t evil. He’s having growing pains, that’s all.”

  “Look, Daddy, I’m alive. The white folks didn’t kill me.”

  Margot and Sharon luckily had each other for support at their school, where nothing in particular happened. They were just dirty and fuzzy-headed enough to let Jane know they’d spent their time playing and were out of danger. The missing Charlie changed the scene entirely, when he walked in with a torn shirt and a black eye. Everybody ran up to him. Vida went to get a piece of cold beef to put over that eye. Jane hugged him as she loosened the remnants of the pressed shirt from her nephew’s back.

  “Those dirty guineas callt me a niggah, Uncle Greer. They callt me a niggah. I didn’t have any choice. I had to defend myself.”

  “All you could think to do is use your hands, Charles. Is that all you’ve learned? Fighting white folks won’t change their minds. It just makes them meaner. Now you sit down and let’s take a look at what’s happened to you. How many were there, Charlie?” Greer asked, quite serious.

  “Five greasy-headed wop bastards.”

  “Charlie, you didn’t learn that language here, and I won’t have it in my house.” Jane was exasperated. Of all the children she’d been worried about, Charlie was the last one she thought would have trouble. It was his temper. No. That was a lie. It was the white people. No. It was Greer filling the children’s heads with stories of heroes and standing up for yourself at any cost. Jane didn’t know what to do but soothe the aching bones of her sister’s son and listen.

  “Why didn’t you get the principal or the school guard, Charles?” Greer went on.

  “What for? So they could all gang up on me? I’m not going back there.”

  “Yes you are. What’s the point of having stood up for yourself if you’re going to back down for your next move.”

  Greer was thinking maybe he should have taken each of the children to school himself. That way everybody would know that there was somebody to be reckoned with if so much as a hair on the head of a Brown was put out of place. Jane didn’t quite know how to handle this. She’d promised Catholic schools at the first sign of trouble, but she and Greer also had a pact, which was not to contradict each other in front of the children.

  “But Uncle Greer, there’s more of them than there are of me. I’m gonna carry me some of my fellas back over there. Let them see what a pack of ‘niggahs’ can do to their greasy-just-off-the-boat asses.”

  “Charles, I did say that was quite enough of that language. The other children don’t need to hear you talking like that. It won’t help anything.”

  “Look, Charlie, the guineas didn’t
kill me either,” Allard jumped in.

  “See what I mean, Charles, you’ve got to be careful what you say.”

  When Vida returned with the meat for Charlie’s eye, she chirped: “See, there’s no sense going where you’re not wanted. White folks are enough trouble far off, no need to be all up under them too.” With that Vida set the little steak on Charlie’s face and examined the bruises on his chest.

  “Looks just like when they pulled my great-uncle Julius out his house to lynch him. That’s what it looks like.” Vida just shook her head.

  Jane looked up, startled. “Mama, you weren’t even alive when that happened.”

  “There’s some things you never forget, Jane. It runs in your blood memory. That’s what it does.”

  “Oh, Mama.”

  “Charlie, tomorrow you and I will be going to that school together. We’ll see who wants to take on the Golden Gloves Champion of 1941 and the latest hero of the race.”

  “Really, Uncle Greer? You’ll go there with me? I don’t want it to look like you’re seeing to a little guy like Allard or nothing.”

  “No, we’ll go, two men together.”

  “Y’all best leave those white folks alone.” Vida slipped away to the yard where there were only green things. They understood her ways of thinking. Grow in your own patch. Stay put and blossom.

  Jane suddenly realized there was no dinner ready. She left the family staring at Charlie, while Greer tried to make the best of it, boosting the spirits of the new pioneers with the family chant, “The work of the Negro is never done.”

  Yet Charlie’s bruises brought home what they’d all been worried about. The vengeance of the white people. It could have been any one of them, Mrs. Leon or no Mrs. Leon. Were there enough “well-meaning white folks” to outdo the ordinary ones who’d attack a boy like Charlie five to one?

  Betsey counted her blessings. She looked at her sisters and Allard, grateful no harm had befallen them. She thought not being spoken to was the kindness of the Lord compared to what Charlie’d faced. But now there was the issue of safety. Daddy couldn’t be everywhere with everyone every day. Somebody had to earn a living. It was clear to Betsey the police weren’t earning theirs.