WE DON’T WANT NO INTEGRATION
SEND THESE NIGGERS BACK TO AFRICA
Tacker stared at the message until the silence was broken by a faint sigh followed by a crack. He wheeled around. A large pine limb lay fallen in the parking lot. Tacker turned back to the door, observed the entrance, no footprints but his own, damage perpetrated before the sleet. He walked back to the street, looked both ways. No one anywhere. His knees felt weak as he retraced his steps. The cold key slipped easily into the lock. Broken glass inside. No rock. A baseball bat? Or a stone swaddled in a sheet, slung against the door. Some means more personal than a rock thrown from a distance. Up close. To leave the sign, too.
Tacker was glad for his boots, but still he tried to avoid the glass. He took off his coat to test the air. Not too cold. Back out. Close the door. Lock it. Go around to the back entrance. Call the police. Don’t sweep. Wait.
* * *
• • •
THE POLICE WERE there in twenty minutes. He didn’t hear them from the register where he was filling the cash drawer but suddenly two officers were standing just inside the door, observing the damage. They must have parked down on Hawthorne. One young and willowy, the other one gray-haired and broad, carrying an air of experience. Tacker didn’t recognize either of them.
“Officer Lunsford,” the gray-haired cop said, extending his hand to Tacker.
The young cop lit a cigarette. “Not likely to get anyone on this,” he said. “Don’t see much vandalism in this part of town.” He exhaled a spiral of smoke. “You got any ideas? Why anybody would break your door? Leave a sign like this?” His eyes narrowed as if he were practicing for Dragnet.
“It’s my dad’s store.”
“I know that,” Officer Lundsford said.
“What do you fellas think?” Tacker said, dodging. “We’ve been here for years. My whole life.”
“I’m asking you the question,” Lundsford said. “That’s the way. Think it over. Any reason for this?”
Tacker cracked his knuckles.
“You nervous?”
“Do you think I should be?” Probably, almost certainly, the broken door was pushback against the sit-ins. Someone had seen him and waited and planned. Tacker stuffed his hands in his pockets. His chest felt cold. The breaking pine bough had sounded like bone.
“You have a place for us to sit?” Lundsford said.
The young willowy cop was out front making notes.
“Sure. In the back. But can you tell your partner not to let anyone in?”
“No one’s coming in. Streets are too bad. Still, you might want to turn that sign against the wall.”
They sat on the couch in the lounge.
“There is one thing,” Tacker said, feeling safer with Lundsford in the familiar space.
“What’s that?”
“I went to two of the sit-ins. Woolworth’s and Kress.”
“You bet I know. Hadn’t seen you to remember, though. You sympathetic with colored folks?”
Here we go. Guilty of sympathy. Tacker’s mind darted. “Went with a family friend.”
“This friend. He’s from Wake Forest College?”
Of course he would think that. A white friend. A good college boy. “Actually, a fellow who works for me, a Negro.” He probably said that a bit too saucily.
“You said a friend.”
“His aunt works for my mother, or she did. She died recently. “
“Sorry to hear that,” Lundsford said, his lips a straight line. “Your friend’s name?”
“Why do you need it? He didn’t do anything.”
Tacker considered Billy the banker, once second-string footballer who had seen Gaines leaving the store that night. But Billy wouldn’t risk his precious bank job doing something like this. The thugs who beat up Gaines, maybe. He told that story, as briefly as possible.
“And you’ve seen them again?” Lundsford said. He seemed bored now, ready to move on, get back to the station, put his feet up, eat a doughnut.
“No, sir.”
“You didn’t get their license plate by chance?”
“No.” Tacker could still see the Buick pulling away, the woman in the blue suit, Gaines on the ground holding his stomach.
“There’s no telling. Though if it’s only your business that’s been harmed, someone’s got a score to settle.”
Why not give Lundsford a little more to think on? “There’s one more thing. I spoke up when Reverend Ransom preached here recently. All I said was that it seemed more Christian to me to allow Negroes to sit at lunch counters than not to.”
“So maybe someone from the church?”
“Really? You think that’s possible? White church folks go around vandalizing? Wow. I wouldn’t have thought.” Tacker hoped his sarcasm wasn’t lost on Lundsford.
“Anything’s possible nowadays,” he said, standing, signaling that he was through. But halfway down the center aisle he stopped. “I could help you wrap that door,” he said, turning around. “Keep the cold out. Got some butcher paper? Tape?”
“Yeah. Let me take a look,” Tacker said.
He found an old tarp and some twine. Lundsford was a pro at wrapping a door, his face softened as he folded and tucked.
“Hey, thanks,” Tacker said when they were finished.
“Doing my job,” Lunsford said, back to his stern face. The younger fellow had hardly met Tacker’s eyes.
“What about tonight?” Tacker said.
“We can have someone drive by,” Lunsford said. He pulled out a handkerchief, blew his nose, refolded the handkerchief, and put it back in his pocket. “I’d advise you to stay away from those protests. The mayor is working on that thing. Give it time. Hate to see a good boy like you get hurt.”
They left and Tacker stood looking out the raft of windows onto the street. The taste of brine came into his mouth as it had on deck crossing the Atlantic. He waited for the cold in his chest to thaw. The Osun. The heat. Kate. Gaines’s face like the sun when the arrests began. I’ve been involved.
* * *
• • •
CONNIE SHOWED UP. A few customers arrived. His father stopped by in the afternoon. Tacker watched the way he opened the broken door, took his hat off, rubbed an eyebrow, replaced the hat, walked into the store, picked up the board behind the customer counter, looked at it, and turned it back against the wall.
“Dad,” Tacker said, coming down an aisle to greet him. “I’m mighty sorry,” he said.
“Son, we have to talk.”
“I’ll pay for the door.”
“Things are getting out of hand, son. You’re trying to do too many things at once. You’ve got that nice girl, Kate, you’re interested in. You can’t be in the middle of this lunch counter protest and meet your obligations here.”
“It’s not that much really, Dad. I can handle it.”
“Son, you’ve got your rent, that cycle. This sit-in business isn’t a game.”
“I know that.”
“Think about your future. I don’t know any profession where reputation isn’t paramount.”
“Dad, Wake Forest students have been at the sit-ins. They came from their ethics courses. The professors are behind them.”
“They’re four years younger than you are. And they haven’t already had their hats handed to them.”
His father looked as if it pained him to speak. “You’ve got to focus on this store and your future. You’re going to get arrested. It just won’t work. You might think about my reputation and not just yours. The grocery business is our livelihood.”
“You might as well know,” Tacker said. “I’m not seeing Kate right now. I guess she agrees with you and Mom.”
His father put a hand over his eyes, then removed it. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll let you tell your mother. I’ll call a gl
ass man to come fix the door. Insurance will cover it.”
“What about Gaines?”
His father looked haggard and Tacker thought about his health scare.
“You’re the manager here. You decide.” He put his hat on, picked up a Milky Way on his way out, and left a dime on the counter.
* * *
• • •
GAINES CAME INTO the store around noon.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“No sweat.”
“What happened to the door?”
“A prankster.”
“It’s the movement.”
“Nothing changes,” Tacker said. “You’ve still got a job.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Things could get worse.”
“We’re cool,” Tacker said, though he felt he needed to get away, slow everything down. What was he trying to prove? The silken thread Samuel talked about, the one that held everything together. It used to be excelling at everything. Now he wasn’t sure what it was.
Chapter Twenty-two
AND THEN TACKER got a letter from Thomas Driskell Architects. Tom had been a senior in State’s School of Design when Tacker was a freshman. He opened it at the table in his dining room. I wondered what had happened to you. Great to hear you’re in town. I’m doing a lot of residential work. You ever hear from Howard Makino, our old prof? At the bottom of the letter, below the signature: Come on out to my house, 720 Pine Valley Road. My studio is in the back—just follow the path. Give me until the first of April—finishing a big project right now.
“Thank you, Jesus.”
Tacker felt an acute desire to share his joy with someone other than his parents. He recalled Kate’s ankle, its firm tenderness, their first long kiss. They hadn’t spoken since before Frances died. He still felt an itch of anger and he headed down to the Indian in the garage. For some while he’d needed to change the oil. He rolled the machine outside. Using a coffee tin, he drained the old oil, then punctured a new can and sent fresh oil through the funnel. He screwed the lid in place and polished the engine with a rag. He could see his reflection in the glaze of the fender. “Hell,” he said. “You’re going to call her. Go ahead and do it.” He was surprised to hear Kate pick up on the second ring. “Hello,” he said.
“Hi,” she said.
Did he detect a chastened tone?
“How have you been?”
“Okay, I guess. Pretty busy with the library.” She paused. “I felt like an idiot after I threw that pot lid. I’ve never done anything like that.”
“Good thing your aim’s not better,” he said, relieved by the familiarity of her voice.
“Yes. Still.” She paused and he thought he could hear her breathing. “I’m doing some work for the Journal.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“Thanks. I’m not on retainer or anything. More like project to project.”
“We should celebrate. Tomorrow night. I know a great barbecue place.”
* * *
• • •
THE SUN WAS setting when they pulled into the parking lot of Hill’s Lexington Barbecue. They sat at a small table and Kate ordered a sandwich; Tacker got the barbecue plate. He loaded it up with hot sauce.
“My goodness,” Kate said.
“I picked up a taste for hot food in Nigeria,” he said. “Want to try a bite?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Come on,” he said, offering her a fork-load of pulled pork.
Kate gamely took the offer. She chewed for a moment and stopped; her eyes widened and she grabbed her drink. The glass was full and she spilled Coca-Cola on her plate and her lap but she kept drinking. “I’m on fire,” she said, tears forming in her eyes.
“Here,” Tacker said, half laughing, offering her his glass.
She drank more, and then suddenly she was spewing the Coca-Cola back out, waving her hand. “Oh my God,” she said. “It went down wrong.”
“Bread,” Tacker said. “Eat some of your bun.”
Kate tore the top of her bun in half and started in on it. “What have you done to me?” Finally she calmed down, blowing her nose into her napkin. “Okay, now we’re even.” She refolded the napkin. “I have a wonderful talent for embarrassing myself with you.”
“It was my fault. We can move straight to ice-cream sundaes.” He reached across the counter and pushed a wayward strand of hair from her forehead. She pressed her face into his cupped hand and he could feel the lift and release of her breath. They stayed so until Kate lifted her head.
“Go ahead and eat. I’ll nibble.” She picked up a French fry. “I didn’t mean to hit you with that pot lid. In the split second that I threw it, I made myself miss.”
“I don’t know if that should make me feel better or worse,” Tacker said, setting his fork aside. “Hey, I might be freelancing, doing renderings for Tom Driskell.”
“Do I know him?”
“He was ahead of me at State. He’s got his own firm now.”
“I wondered,” Kate said.
“What?”
“When you were going to get back to architecture.”
“It sure is good to see you,” he said, smiling.
Over coffee, he told her about Frances. He didn’t tell her about the broken door or the sign left at Hart’s or the donations of ravioli. She needed time, he rationalized. So did he. How much time he wasn’t sure.
Chapter Twenty-three
IN KATE’S DREAM, she walked out the front door and there was her father. He looked ten years younger than she last remembered him and his face shone. Through a communication that was not speech, she asked why he was here and he told her he might apply to teach at Wake Forest College. He wore a hat with a yellow feather in the band that didn’t seem quite appropriate for a job search. Clay pots lined the front porch, filled with red blooming geraniums and she knew he had brought them. She also knew that her mother was in the house and they would work things out between them. Though she stood right beside him and the door was open, her father rang the doorbell.
It was her phone in the middle of the night.
“Kate?”
“Hello?” Her heart was in her throat. Who was dead now? Brian?
“Kate, it’s me, James.”
“You scared me to death. Where are you?”
“In Stockholm. You know where I am.”
She was silent, waiting for her heart to calm down.
“Did you get my letters? I’ve been worried about you.”
“Yes. I did. I’m sorry I didn’t write.” She wasn’t sorry. He’d left after that night of angry driving when he pressed her too far and she did not regret the ocean between them. “I’ve been awfully busy. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine. Sweden is charming and elegant. It’s like you.”
She didn’t have an answer.
“Katie? Come on. Talk to me. Is there a chance?”
“Look.”
“I’m listening.”
Kate had no experience letting a man down. “It’s just that we haven’t really done much but fight over the phone since last August. We’re not moving in the same direction anymore.”
“Are you dating your old flame from the grocery? Is that it?”
“He’s not an old flame.”
“But you’re in love with him.”
“I didn’t say that. No. Please don’t call me in the middle of the night again.”
“Can you just tell me what’s so attractive about staying in a tobacco town where you grew up with the people you knew when you were eight? There’s a big world out here, Katie.”
“I’m well aware of that. But did it ever occur to you that when a woman’s had her parents stolen from her, she might need to spend some time dwelling in
familiar territory? I like it here. I’m at home. It’s what I need right now.”
“I hope you don’t settle for less than what you deserve.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Well, that’s just fine. Don’t let me cause you any more trouble.”
Kate heard the dial tone. He’d hung up.
There was no point in trying to sleep. Her mind skipped from one thought to the next. What if Tacker never got past working at Hart’s? Just because he hadn’t talked about it at Hill’s didn’t mean he wasn’t still involved with the sit-ins. She revisited the question of her father’s death, his betrayal, and what it meant. She’d promised the Journal she’d get some casual shots of the Reynolds High prom for the evening edition. To be taken seriously, she’d have to make her pictures stand out and she’d need to keep plying the editor with more serious photographs he hadn’t asked for. She recalled the boy asking for a book—far more important to him than a treat from a drugstore. She needed a car.
At nine a.m., she went to the bank and made arrangements for a withdrawal from her mother’s trust fund. At noon, she called Mr. Fitzgerald. “Do you have time to help me look for a car today?” He picked her up an hour later and they went straight to Hull/Dobbs Ford downtown, where Kate’s father had purchased his cars and Mr. Fitzgerald knew the manager. As soon as they pulled onto the lot, Kate saw what she wanted and she didn’t drive another car. By two o’clock, she was the owner of a green-and-white secondhand Nash Metropolitan. It was a stick shift and the clutch was a little slippery, but James had taught her to drive on a stick shift when she was at Agnes Scott. A cloak of joy descended on her shoulders as she drove the car out of the lot, waving back at Mr. Fitzgerald.
Chapter Twenty-four
FIRST WEEK OF April. Tacker hoped to make a good impression on Tom Driskell. He tightened the knot of the tie around his neck. From a shelf in the music room, he retrieved a copy of his résumé, slipping it into his jacket pocket: high school, State College, all of the achievements, then Clintok—he couldn’t leave that out, a little over a year and a half of his life, though the reminder still opened a hole in his chest. Sometimes Tacker thought he would never get over it. Impossible to explain. Not his fault; or was it? He had moved out of the faculty house and into Samuel’s room, had eaten Nigerian food and started speaking pidgin English. He had spent his spare time sketching Nigerian architecture, including structures in the far north city of Kano, where Muslim influences were evident: the central dome of the emir’s palace flanked by smaller minaret-like cones, a surrounding wall that repeated the minaret-like cones, and an arched entryway. He had argued against burning the old gods. Argued against Shell Oil. A woman painted his arm in henna—a woman he had never spoken of to anyone at home.
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