The cheerleaders all came from well-to-do families, Ruth said. They were the daughters of the doctors, the lawyers, the car dealer, the man who owned the country club. Mill hill boys sometimes made it onto the football team, but no girl from the hill had ever become a cheerleader. It simply didn’t happen. A cheerleader had to be a certain type, and that type just wasn’t found on the hill. All the girls on the hill knew this, so they never even tried out.
“Until now,” Ruth said. “Because if some of the cheerleaders who are the right type quit, saying they aren’t cheering for any niggers—pardon my French, that’s the word the girls use, I know you’re not supposed to call them that—other girls will have a chance to make the squad.” She started screwing lids on the jars Aunt Al had filled. “And that there’s the silver lining in the whole integration thing. So I’m planning to try out for the cheerleading squad. I don’t have any problem cheering for the colored boys.”
A bunch of the other hill girls were going to try out as well, and they were all meeting in a little while to practice. “Why don’t you all come practice with us?” Ruth asked.
“You bet,” I said.
“Sure,” Liz said in that voice she used when her heart wasn’t really in something.
“Well, okay, then,” Ruth said. “But we’ll need to fix your hair.”
“You all go on,” Aunt Al said. “I’ll finish up here.”
Ruth led us to the back of the house, where part of the porch had been turned into a tiny bedroom with a slanted ceiling. The three of us could scarcely fit in. On her dresser was a photograph of a guy wearing black-rimmed glasses and a khaki uniform. Ruth picked it up. “This is Truman,” she said.
Liz and I studied the photograph. Truman had a serious expression, dark eyes, and wide lips.
“He’s got eyes like yours and Bean’s,” Liz said.
“Most of us Wyatts got those same dark eyes,” Ruth said. “There’s an old rumor we got some Jew blood in the family, but Mom says it’s just black Irish.”
“He looks smart,” I said. “Not like a soldier.”
“That came out wrong, in typical Bean fashion,” Liz said. “She meant it as a compliment.”
Ruth laughed. “Truman is smart. Maybe that’s also the Jew blood. The other soldiers call him Poindexter the Professor because of his glasses and the books he’s all the time reading.”
Ruth put the photograph back. She said she wanted to show us her hope chest, for when she got married. She pulled a small trunk out from under the bed and opened it. Inside were dish towels, bath towels, place mats, a blanket, and an oven mitt. She was planning for the future, she said, but she wasn’t counting entirely on marriage. She was a top student in the secretarial track at Byler High and could type ninety-five words a minute. She had no intention of working at the mill, she said, not to disparage her ma, of course. It was her ma who encouraged her to get herself a good office job.
“I’ve been doing some office work for Mr. Maddox,” Liz said.
“I heard,” Ruth said. “I worked for that family for a while. Watch yourself around him.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Just watch yourself.”
I looked at Liz to see if she was going to say anything about Mr. Maddox telling us he had to fire Ruth. Liz gave me an almost unnoticeable shake of the head, like she thought the whole subject was too awkward to bring up, and then she said, “So what is this we’re supposed to do with our hair?”
“You can’t have it flopping all over the place if you’re going to be a cheerleader,” Ruth said, and opened a jewelry box full of barrettes and ponytail holders. She carefully sorted through and found a pair of baubles and barrettes that matched the blue shirt I was wearing, then a set that matched Liz’s yellow shorts. She brushed my hair back, pulling it into a ponytail so tight that I felt like it was stretching my eyebrows back. Then she turned to Liz, whose reddish-blond hair was thick and wavy and fell halfway down her back.
“I never wear a ponytail,” Liz said.
“You do if you’re a cheerleader,” Ruth said.
She pulled back Liz’s hair into another tight ponytail and used barrettes to pin the stray ringlets in place. Without all of her flowing hair, Liz’s face looked smaller and a little forlorn. She studied herself in the mirror inside the lid of the jewelry box. “I’m not sure this is me.”
“You look real cute,” Ruth said. “All nice and tidied up.”
A little while later, a group of about eight girls showed up at the Wyatts’. Ruth had us form a line on the street in front of the house. She took off her cat’s-eye glasses and set them on the front steps, saying she cheered without them even though she could barely see, because there was no way on God’s green earth she’d make the squad wearing glasses that everyone knew came from the state’s free clinic. Without those ugly glasses, Ruth’s dark eyes were large and beautiful, but she sure did blink a lot.
Ruth stood facing us. She knew the words for all the chants, and she knew the moves and the names for the moves. She showed us the eagle, the Russian jump, the candlestick, the pike, and the bow-and-arrow, calling out the names in a loud, energetic voice. I had always been a little uncoordinated, but I gave it my best shot, and to tell the truth, it was actually fun. Liz, however, started out half-heartedly, flapping a limp hand when she should have been pumping with her entire arm, and the little enthusiasm she had steadily dwindled until she gave up altogether and went to sit on the Wyatts’ steps.
Ruth finished up by showing us the cartwheel split, which was the finale for some of the big cheers. It was difficult, she explained, but required if you wanted to make the squad. All of us except Liz lined up to try it, but none of the other girls was as coordinated and flexible as Ruth, and they couldn’t get their legs either up or apart. When it came my turn, Ruth stood next to me and grabbed me by the waist as I came through the cartwheel, then lowered me to the ground for the split.
“You’ve got it, Bean!” she said. She turned to Liz. “Now, don’t be discouraged,” she called out. “Practice makes perfect. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll work on it some more.”
“Right,” Liz said. She started pulling out the barrettes and ponytail holder.
“You can keep those for next time,” Ruth said.
“We can get our own,” Liz said. “If we need them.”
I wasn’t used to wearing a ponytail, but I liked it. It made me feel ready for action. However, the way Liz included me in her answer made me think I had to give my barrettes and holder back, too, so I pulled them out. “Uncle Tinsley’s got a ball of rubber bands on his desk,” I said. “I can use those.”
The other girls wandered up the street, and Ruth went inside to help Aunt Al finish up the canning. After a drink of water from the Wyatts’ garden hose, Liz and I got on our bikes.
“So you’re going to become a cheerleader now?” she asked.
“Maybe. What’s wrong with that?”
“All that rah-rah stuff. It’s excruciating.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When we showed up for work one day shortly after that cheerleading practice, Mr. Maddox ushered us into his office and closed the door. He handed each of us a thin little booklet with a blue leatherlike cover and fancy gold lettering that said BYLER NATIONAL BANK.
“I opened up a savings account for each of you,” he said. “These are your very own passbooks.”
I turned to the first page of mine. JEAN HOLLADAY was typed on the first line, along with JEROME T. MADDOX. There were columns marked “Deposits,” “Withdrawals,” “Interest,” and “Balance.” The deposit column had $20.00 typed in blue ink, and so did the balance column.
Now, Mr. Maddox explained, he could deposit our pay directly into our accounts from one of his own accounts. It would be simpler and more efficient, not to mention safer, because there was no chance that the deposited money could be lost or stolen. It would allow us not only to save money but to earn interest, accumulating wealth rather than s
quandering our earnings on soda pops and records.
Liz was examining her book. “It all looks very official,” she said.
“It’s a rite of passage,” Mr. Maddox said. “Like getting your driver’s license. Since neither of you girls has a dad—and Tinsley Holladay, whatever his virtues, ain’t much help in that department—I’m stepping up to show you the way things work. Welcome to the real world.”
“If it’s my passbook, why is your name on it?” I asked.
“They’re joint accounts,” Mr. Maddox said. He needed to be able to make direct deposits. He didn’t expect us to know all this because we’d never had savings accounts, but that was banking. “This is my way of helping you move along to becoming an adult, understanding the way the system works.”
“But I like getting money,” I said. It was fun fingering the worn bills that had passed through hundreds or even thousands of other people’s hands, looking at the eye over the pyramid, wondering what the heck that was all about, and studying the signatures and serial numbers and complicated little scrolly stuff. “If your money’s locked away in some bank, you can’t look at it and feel it and count it,” I said. “I like cash.”
“Cash is what smart investors call ‘stupid money,’ ” Mr. Maddox said. “It’s just sitting in your pocket, tempting you to piss it away. It’s not working for you. You got to make your money work for you.”
“Maybe so. But I still like getting cash.”
“You’ll be earning interest, Bean,” Liz said.
“There, someone’s using her brain,” he said. “And not just interest but interest on the interest. Compound interest, is what that’s called.”
“I don’t care. I just want the money.”
“Your choice. But it’s the loser’s choice. Typical Holladay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I didn’t make the cheerleading squad.
Tryouts were held a couple of weeks before school began, and I could tell from the moment I got to the gym just how seriously the other girls took cheerleading. They were wearing the red-and-white Byler colors, they had their hair held back with little baubles in the shape of bulldogs, the school mascot, and some had bulldogs painted on their cheeks. They limbered up with stretches, handstands, and backflips, the black girls in one group and the whites in another. The white girls eyed me suspiciously as a newcomer. The JV coach barely looked my way when it came my turn, as if she already knew which girls she would pick.
Afterward, I sat in the bleachers to watch the varsity tryouts. Three of the girls who’d been on the squad had followed through with their threat to quit, which meant there would be three open slots for girls from the mill hill and Nelson High.
Ruth took her turn late in the morning, and I thought she nailed it. She had taken off her cat’s-eye glasses, but that didn’t affect her performance at all. Her voice was loud, her routine was flawless, and she was so limber that when she did her final cartwheel split, everyone heard the slap of her thighs against the gym’s wooden floor. There was no way she wasn’t making the squad, I thought. Then the black girls took their turns. Six of them had been varsity cheerleaders at Nelson, and they really knew their stuff. They acted sassy, swinging their hips and shaking their heads, almost like they were dancing, and I wondered if that would help them or hurt them, judged against the white girls.
The results were posted a couple of days later, and Ruth made the team. So did two of the black girls. When I went over to the Wyatts’ to congratulate Ruth, she gave me a big Wyatt hug. Folks on the hill, Aunt Al told me, were over the moon that one of their own had finally up and made the cheering squad. The cheerleading coach’s selections had also created a lot of grumbling. Some whites in Byler had been willing to accept a single black cheerleader but thought that two was too many. At the same time, the Nelson students felt they should have had at least three cheerleading slots, since they were half the school now and had supplied key new players for the football team. A black girl and a white girl had gotten into a catfight over it in front of the Rexall.
“Don’t quite know what this bodes for the school year,” Aunt Al said.
Aunt Al was mixing up a bowl of pimento cheese for sandwiches when Uncle Clarence came through the front door, clutching a bottle in a paper bag. He had a huge grin on his face, and he was doing a bent-legged jig. He kissed Aunt Al and his kids and hugged me, talking all the while in the tones of a preacher man, asking how everybody was doing on this glorious day, going on about his beautiful daughter and how the mill hill finally got itself a cheerleader. “That there’s reason for a celebration. Let’s celebrate. Let’s have us some music. Somebody get me my guitar!”
Joe came back with an ancient guitar, the body worn black in places from years and years of playing. Uncle Clarence took a long slug from the bottle, then picked up the guitar and started to play it like nobody I’d ever heard. He didn’t seem to be thinking about what he was doing. He was plucking and strumming and twanging away, almost like he was in a trance, the music flowing up out of him.
I was stunned. This crazy dancing guitar player wasn’t the Uncle Clarence I knew.
“There’s mean drunks and there’s sad drunks,” Aunt Al said. “When my Clarence drinks, the spirit moves him. He’s a dancing drunk.”
The rest of the Wyatts started clapping and shouting and jigging, and I joined in. We all circled around Uncle Clarence, who was playing so fast that his hands were a blur. Then he threw his head back and began to howl.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Doris’s pregnancy was getting along, and one day in late August, Mr. Maddox told me she had a doctor’s appointment. He wanted Liz to stay at the house to answer the phone, but I needed to come with them to take care of Randy, the baby, while the doctor saw Doris.
Mr. Maddox had given Doris her clothes back a few days after he had me put them in his car, and she was wearing one of her flowered housedresses. He told her to get in back of the Le Mans with the baby, and he had me sit up front next to him. He gunned the car and it shot out of the driveway, the tires squealing. We were just going to a routine checkup, and we weren’t even late, but Mr. Maddox drove like a demon, swerving through turns so hard it threw you against the door, tailgating the car in front, passing in no-passing zones, and keeping up a running commentary about all the incompetent fools and idiots in his way.
About halfway to the hospital, Mr. Maddox pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. “I’m getting chips and sodas for everyone,” he announced. “What do you want?”
“You decide, honey,” Doris said.
“I want an orange soda,” I said. “Nehi, Orange Crush, or Fanta, it doesn’t matter. And Cheetos. Not the puffy baked ones but the crunchy fried ones.”
“Sit tight,” Mr. Maddox said, and climbed out of the car.
A couple of minutes later, he returned carrying a brown paper bag. He got into the car, reached into the bag, and handed me an RC Cola and a little cardboard cylinder.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Chips and soda.” He passed Doris the same.
“This isn’t what I asked for,” I said. “I asked for orange soda and Cheetos.”
“That’s RC, which is the best cola on the market, and those are Pringles. They’re just out, and they’re better than Cheetos.”
“But that’s not what I wanted.”
“I asked what you wanted, but I didn’t tell you that I was going to get you what you wanted,” he said. “You have to pay attention to exactly what I’m saying. That’s important if you’re working for me.”
I examined the container of Pringles, which had a little tab on the tin lid. I pulled back the tab, and it let out a whoosh. Inside was a perfect stack of saddle-shaped chips. I ate one. “This tastes funny,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Mr. Maddox asked. “Pringles taste better than Cheetos. But it’s not just the taste. They’re far superior in every way.” He started lecturing me about the technological
advances that Pringles represented. They were uniform in shape, he said, and they didn’t break and crumble, because they were stacked neatly inside the cylinder instead of rattling around in a bag that was filled mostly with air. You didn’t have to deal with the sharp edges or burned spots that you sometimes found on regular potato chips. With Pringles, you knew precisely what you were getting. Consistency of product. Pringles were the wave of the future. “What’s more, you don’t get that orange crap on your fingers.”
“I like that orange crap,” I said. “It goes with the orange soda that I also asked for but didn’t get.” And, I continued, Cheetos were in fact better than Pringles—in my opinion, anyway. They came in a variety of sizes, so you could choose big or little, depending on your mood at the moment. And they came in all sorts of different shapes, so you could have fun trying to figure out what each one looked like.
Mr. Maddox was gripping the steering wheel, and I could see a vein on his temple pulsing, like his head was going to explode.
“That’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He pointed a thick finger at my face. “I’m telling you, Pringles are better than Cheetos.”
“He’s right, you know,” Doris piped in. “Jerry knows what he’s talking about. You’d be best off listening to him rather than trying to argue. And just be grateful he bought you anything at all.”
Mr. Maddox nodded. “You made a bad choice about the Cheetos, so I had to overrule it. That’s what I have to do when the people around me make bad choices.” He paused. “So shut up and eat your damned Pringles.”
Later that afternoon, when Liz and I were riding our bicycles side by side back to Mayfield, I told her about the Cheetos-versus-Pringles debate.
The Silver Star Page 11