by Ronald Kidd
She wore a simple peach-colored dress and was eating a snack from a brown paper bag. I recognized the snack. It was peanut-butter crackers, the kind Lavender made for me. I imagined Lavender getting up early to fix Jarmaine’s lunch before she came to our house. I wondered what it would be like to run two households and juggle two lives.
I hesitated by the bench. “I just wanted to talk.”
Jarmaine eyed me warily. “About what?”
“You seemed mad when we talked at the spelling bee. You know, about the grocery.”
Jarmaine’s eyes flashed. “You were there. You could have said something.”
“Like what?”
“This is wrong. It isn’t fair.”
“Mr. Forsyth owns the grocery,” I said. “He wanted your friend to leave.”
“It’s a store! You can’t pick and choose your customers. You just open the doors and let people in.”
“He’s actually a very nice man,” I said.
There was that word again: nice. Was Mr. Forsyth nice? Was I?
“He’s a cracker,” said Jarmaine.
I’d heard the term at school, whispered in the hallways. A cracker was ignorant, like a redneck or poor white trash. I’d never heard a Negro say it before.
Jarmaine sighed and shook her head. “Mama doesn’t like me calling people names. She says if we do it, they’ll call us names too.”
I studied Jarmaine. She had her mother’s eyes, but there was a difference. When Lavender was angry or scared, her face was like a mask. You couldn’t tell what she was thinking. But something about Jarmaine’s face let you see right through. It made me nervous, and when I’m nervous, I talk. I needed something to say and remembered what Grant had told me after the spelling bee.
“Look, I know you’re upset,” I said. “After all, your father was in the war; then he came home and nothing had changed. Separate but equal. Colored only.”
“My father left when I was a baby,” Jarmaine said. “I never met him.”
I looked around for something to crawl under. Maybe the bench. Maybe I could just lift up the lawn and pull it over me.
I said, “Am I blushing? I do that sometimes. Do Negroes blush? How can you tell?”
I wanted to shut up but couldn’t. “Do you get sunburned? If you can’t see it, is it really a burn? What about zits? Can you stop me, please? Can you just grab my foot and pull it out of my mouth?”
She stared at me for the longest time. Then she laughed. Not giggles or chuckles, but big laughs. Finally, after a long time, she stopped.
“Yes. Yes. And yes,” she said.
“Pardon me?”
“We blush. We sunburn. And, I can personally tell you, we have zits.”
“I’m a jerk,” I said.
“My mother told me you have a good heart,” said Jarmaine. She offered me a cracker. I ate it in one big gulp, the way I always did.
“Those are my favorites,” I said. “She makes them for me too.”
“I don’t like sharing her,” said Jarmaine.
I don’t know why that surprised me. In a way it made sense. I didn’t like sharing my things or my friends. But sharing Lavender was different, like sharing the sun.
I said, “So, you’re an intern.”
She nodded. “They pick two of us at school each year. I was lucky.”
“Mr. McCall says you’re good.”
“He’s a good reporter,” she said. “I like helping him.”
“He lives next door to me.”
“I know,” said Jarmaine. “I know all about you.”
That made me feel funny, like there was some kind of shadow world next to mine, where Jarmaine lived and watched.
“There are some things you don’t know,” I said.
“Like what?”
“All kinds of things. My dreams.”
Jarmaine gazed off into the distance. “Let’s see. You dream of a house. A husband. Kids playing in the yard.”
I smiled. “Nope. I dream about going to Montgomery or maybe New York or Washington, DC. I’d meet new people, try new things. I’d do whatever I wanted to.”
“Such as?”
“Things. Big things. Be a writer.”
The idea just popped out. I hadn’t really thought about it, but it sounded good. I could work and learn at the same time, the way Mr. McCall did. I could write stories like Miss Harper Lee. I could dream, then try to catch the dreams on paper.
“My dream is a place,” said Jarmaine. “Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.”
“A college?”
“I want to do something with my life. Be a journalist or a lawyer like Thurgood Marshall.”
“Who’s he?” I asked.
She looked at me as if I’d stepped off a flying saucer. “Brown versus the Board of Education? The Supreme Court decision? ‘Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.’ Thurgood Marshall was the lawyer. What do they teach you at your school?”
“Not that,” I said.
“Things are happening at Fisk. There’s a group called the Nashville Student Movement. They integrated the lunch counters last year. They met with the mayor, and he backed down. I’m going to join them.”
“The mayor backed down? To some students?”
Jarmaine nodded. “Their leader is a woman, Diane Nash. She’s a Fisk student. She led a demonstration at the capitol.”
“You couldn’t do that here,” I said.
“The demonstration?”
“Any of it. Not in Alabama.”
Jarmaine picked up a section from last week’s paper that was folded next to her on the bench and pointed to a small article.
Negro Group Sets Bus Mixing Tour
WASHINGTON (UPI) – More than a dozen Negroes and whites planned to board buses today and head south to break the color barrier on Dixie’s highways.
The travelers, picked and trained by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), will ride the commercial buses through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
So Lavender had been right. It really was happening.
“I heard about that,” I said. “Your mother told me. She said they’re called Freedom Riders.”
Jarmaine nodded. “They’ve been trained in nonviolence, like Mahatma Gandhi. No matter what people do to them, they won’t strike back. They started their trip last Thursday in Washington, DC, and plan to finish in New Orleans. They’re coming through Anniston this Sunday. They’re making history, and I’ll be at the Greyhound station to see them.”
“Does Lavender know you’re going?” I asked.
“No,” said Jarmaine, “and you’re not telling her.”
I shook my head quickly. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
Her eyes bored into me. She was strong, I could tell. But she was nervous. She was proud but not used to showing it.
I know because she blushed.
CHAPTER NINE
Afterward, Jarmaine and I walked inside, where she went back to work. I found Grant leaning against his father’s desk, fooling with his camera. We said good-bye to his dad and headed for our bikes. As we did, I noticed Gurnee Avenue just a block away. I reached for Grant’s hand, squeezed hard, and dragged him up the street.
“Hey!” he croaked.
Halfway up Gurnee was a yellow-brick building with an awning and a sign: Greyhound. It was the Anniston bus station, where buses stopped before heading down the Birmingham Highway, and where Jarmaine planned to come on Sunday to see history being made.
Next to the building was an alley, and in the alley was a bus. Stopping in my tracks, I gazed at the bus.
Where was it going? Who would be on board? What did they dream of?
Beside me, Grant wrenched his hand free.
“Geez,” he muttered. “The grip of death.”
“Poor baby,” I said.
I approached the bus and saw that it was empty. Glancing around, I reached for the door. It was locked. Apparently the bus was between
trips. I ran my fingers along the silver stripes under the windshield. For years I’d been watching buses drive past my house. It wasn’t often that I got to see one up close. I wanted to remember what it looked like and how I felt standing beside it.
As I touched the bus, I saw a road, maybe the Birmingham Highway or one of the new interstates they were building. It curved out of sight, and I wondered what was at the other end—hope, happiness, questions, pain? Someday maybe I’d climb on the bus and find out.
Behind me, Grant asked, “What are you doing?”
I turned around to face him. “Take my picture.”
“Here? Now?”
“Yes!”
He stifled a grin. “All I’ve got is color film. I hate to waste it.”
I slugged him.
“Okay, okay.”
The picture seemed important, not just because of what it showed but who took it. I was there. Grant was there. The bus was there. They were all pieces of my future, if I could just figure out how to put them together.
“Take it,” I said.
He shrugged, took the camera from over his shoulder, and peered through the lens. “Say cheese.”
“That’s stupid,” I said. “I’ve got a better word.”
He lined up the shot.
“Freedom,” I said.
Click. And it was done.
The bus station was just a block from Noble Avenue, where people in Anniston went to shop. It reminded me of something.
“You go on home,” I told Grant as he carefully wiped the lens and put a cap over it. “There’s something I need to do.”
We said our good-byes, and I walked back toward the shopping district with one question on my mind.
What should I get Mama for Mother’s Day?
I’d been thinking about it since Daddy had slipped me the money on Friday. I had scanned ads in the paper, but nothing seemed right.
Reaching Noble Avenue, I passed Havertys Furniture, Goold’s Hat Shop, Clark’s Credit Clothiers, and finally came to Wikle’s Rexall Drugs, where they had a little bit of everything. I looked over the products but couldn’t make up my mind. I almost bought some perfume but decided not to. Mama liked things that worked, things that had a function.
Next I tried Charlie’s Lucky Shopping Center, then Mason’s Self-Service Department Store. Finally, in a corner of Mason’s, I found it. They had a big display of straw handbags, and I spotted one with a picture of a duck on the side. I was pretty sure Mama loved ducks, or was it peacocks? Anyway, this was something useful. It could be a present from Royal and me.
I grabbed the bag, then picked out Mother’s Day cards from Royal, Daddy, and me. I went to the counter, where I took Daddy’s five-dollar bill from my pocket and handed it to Mrs. Jutson, who had sold me my first Easter bonnet.
“It’s for Mother’s Day,” I told her.
Mrs. Jutson nodded, smiling. “I’m sure your mama will be very happy. Please tell her hello for me.”
“Yes’m, I will.”
I left Mason’s proud of myself, glancing at the bag and imagining what Mama would say. As I did, I bumped into someone.
“Oops! Excuse me,” I said, looking up.
It was Jarmaine, carrying her schoolbooks.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I wasn’t paying attention either. I was just going home.”
“Finished for the day?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I have to do some homework.”
I thought of the times Lavender had helped me do my homework, while Jarmaine had been at home doing her own. It didn’t seem right.
I said, “Hey, Mother’s Day is coming up, right?”
Jarmaine nodded.
“I could help you pick out a present for Lavender.”
“That’s nice of you, Billie, but I already have one.”
“Well, then, here’s an idea. Maybe I could get her a present myself. After all, she takes care of me too. She’s kind of like my mother.”
I thought Jarmaine might smile. Instead she winced as if I had hit her.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said.
I wondered how often Negroes in my town had said those words when they weren’t fine at all. I wanted it to be different with Jarmaine and me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Jarmaine studied me. “You don’t know, do you?”
“What? Tell me.”
“She’s not your mother. Hearing you call her that makes me feel bad.”
I stepped back, surprised. Talking with Jarmaine was like walking on ice—you never knew when you might fall through and come up shivering.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
Reaching into my pocket, I felt the two dollars in change that Mrs. Jutson had handed me and thought I might be able to use it as a peace offering.
“You want a milk shake?” I asked. “We could get one at Wikle’s.”
She looked at me and shook her head. “Wake up, Billie. Look around. This is your street, not mine. I’m a Negro. I don’t shop around here—look what happened to my friend Bradley. And Wikle’s? If I sat at the lunch counter, they’d arrest me.”
“For having a milk shake?”
“Welcome to Alabama.”
Jarmaine lowered her gaze and started up the sidewalk.
I called after her, “It shouldn’t be like that.”
She hugged the schoolbooks to her chest and kept going.
CHAPTER TEN
Darkness is your friend.
Daddy used to tell me that when I was little. I was afraid of the dark, like a lot of kids. So when Daddy came to my room to kiss me good night, I always begged him to stay. He would sit for a few minutes on the edge of the bed, holding my hand. When he got up to leave, he would say those words in a kind, gentle voice.
I began to believe him. I guess I still do. Darkness is mysterious. It’s promising. You can wrap it around you like a shawl.
Grant had a room full of it, a darkroom.
I was thinking about it later that week when Grant and I rode to his house after school. Mrs. McCall must have seen us coming, because she pushed open the screen door and came out carrying two glasses of lemonade. She was tall like Grant, with a handsome face, pretty eyes, and a quiet manner.
She handed us each a glass of lemonade, then went back inside. The glasses were sweating. It reminded me of what Mama always said: “Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow.” After bicycling home on a warm day, I was glowing like mad.
I took a gulp of the cold, delicious lemonade. It was the McCall family’s favorite drink. Grant’s mom bought lemons by the bushel basket from old Mr. Bell, who had a fruit stand down the street. You could smell the lemons whenever you were around the McCalls—clean, fresh, a family with zest.
A bicycle rider coasted down the hill, with a heavy bag hanging from his handlebars. It was Arthur the Arm, a neighborhood kid earning a few bucks as a paperboy before moving on to his true calling, star pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. He reached into the bag, grabbed a rolled-up newspaper, and sent it spinning toward the porch, where it landed with a plop in front of Grant.
“Nice shot,” called Grant, and Arthur nodded.
Grant opened the paper and scanned the front page. He looked off into the distance, then down at his camera, which he was carrying with him as usual.
“I’m going to be a news photographer,” he said.
“When did you decide this?” I asked.
“I guess I’ve always known. I’ll tell stories with pictures, the way my father does with words. I’ll show what’s good and what’s hurtful. I’ll fight for justice. I’ll make people think.”
I imagined Grant at City Hall, snapping photos of the mayor, with his sleeves rolled up and a hat pushed back on his head. In the hat was a card that said Press. I had to admit, he looked good.
“Speaking of pictures,” I said, “what about that other one?”
“Which one?”
�
�You know, me at the bus station. Could you develop it?”
“I suppose so. I need to do some work in the darkroom.”
“Could I come with you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “If you want.”
It was a little room at the back of the house where Grant developed and printed his photos. Grant’s dad had helped him cover the window and any cracks around the door so no light would enter. When we went in, Grant switched on a lamp and showed me some equipment. On a table there were trays that he called baths and a large metal device attached to a pole, which was an enlarger.
Closing the door behind us, Grant turned off the lamp and flipped a switch, and the room turned red. He explained that you can use red light when developing black-and-white photos because it helps you see but doesn’t hurt the pictures. I watched while he developed and printed some shots he had taken at school. The photographic paper was blank, but then pictures appeared like magic.
There was the school band. There was the principal, Mr. Stephens. There was Phil Carruthers, the student body president, and crouched behind him, giggling, was Lisa “Big Baby” Barnes, the class clown. The pictures were everyday scenes, but something about them was thrilling. I was seeing the world through Grant’s eyes.
“What about the bus station?” I asked.
“That’s different,” said Grant. “I was shooting color.”
“So?”
“I have to change the chemicals. And we can’t use the red light—that’s only for black and white. It would ruin color photos.”
He spent a few minutes setting things up. Then he turned to me. “Ready?”
“I guess.”
He turned off the light, and the room went away. It wasn’t red. It wasn’t any color at all. It was what you see when you close your eyes at night.
Darkness. Deep, deep darkness.
“This is how you develop color photos,” he said.
How odd, I thought. Red for black and white, black for color.
I heard Grant rustling around next to me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Working.”
“How am I supposed to watch? I can’t see.”
Grant’s hands touched mine and guided them around the table. “Here’s a tray. Here’s the enlarger. Here’s the paper I’ll print on.”