Four Spirits

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  “Oh, is that who you are?” He returned the sting. “I hadn’t noticed. You’re not Martin Luther King, you’re not him, Christine.”

  “Move aside. Out of my way, Mr. H-O-P-E. These ain’t your buildings. You made me leave the classroom, and I was ashamed afterward. You stand in the White Palace door like George Wallace if you want to, but I’m walking right over you. Like we did him. I’m gonna order a big juicy hamburger.”

  Suddenly Lionel laughed. It was the only thing to do; his saving grace was humor. “Well, if you not Martin Luther King, I sure ’nuff ain’t George Wallace.”

  Saturday: Cat

  JUST GETTING INSIDE THE WHITE PALACE, CAT THOUGHT, would be a partial victory. “Hold the door open, please, Charles, so Gloria and I can get in,” Cat said.

  She wanted to be first. This time she wouldn’t hang back. She’d lead the way. She and Gloria would get settled before the others came in.

  Cat wondered if Gloria knew anything about maneuvering a wheelchair. Well, Gloria had gotten her down the steps at school, once Cat told her to revolve the chair.

  “We be in there with you soon,” Christine reassured. “You all get settled. Folks still gathering. We be there in five minutes.”

  Cat was in no rush. No rush at all. Stella’s words still burned in her ear. I won’t do this, Cat. I’m going to work. Remember, Cat, I’m the survivor. I know what not to do. I’m begging you. Please don’t go. And Cat had simply replied that she’d call Gloria to come get her. She understood. She’d stalled, too, after the threat—the bullhorn voice in the dark.

  So that her knuckles wouldn’t scrape the sides of the doors, Cat drew her hands in and put them in her lap. There ought to be laws about the width of doors into public places, Cat thought, to make them more easily accessible to people propelling their own wheelchairs. It always made her feel helpless to fold her hands passively over each other, to look down and see them nested in her lap.

  Gloria had trouble pushing the chair over the threshold, though it wasn’t really any obstacle. The front wheels just tried to turn aside instead of bumping over. Gloria lacked confidence about managing the chair. Two bored countergirls watched them enter. At the end of the counter, a big man sat with a newspaper opened up wide. Usually men jumped up to help her with the slightest problem, but this man was absorbed in his reading. A gray satchel full of papers slumped on the floor beside the post for his counter stool.

  Cat noticed the white hexagonals of the floor tile looked grimy. Judging the height of the counter stools, Cat knew she was going to have trouble getting up there. Even if she stood, the stool would be higher than her hip.

  She could just see the headline: “Wheelchair Sit-In Sits in Wheelchair.” But that was too long for anybody’s headline. To Gloria, Cat remarked, “It’s obvious this place wasn’t set up for people in wheelchairs.”

  “Looks like they’d have a table or two, doesn’t it?” Gloria replied. She sounded relaxed and friendly, almost like Arcola. Cat half listened for the crack of gum, but that really was Arcola’s trademark.

  The pretty countergirl blurted out, “Hey, don’t I know you from somewheres?”

  Cat said she didn’t know. “I don’t think so.”

  The girl was unfamiliar, with brown hair done in a flip, like Stella’s. She wore a little white cap that was crenellated across the top to suggest a castle wall. The other countergirl was tall and looked strong; she looked like a country girl come into the city to work. Cat spoke to her. “You’re not from around Gadsden, are you?”

  “Sylacauga,” the girl answered. She smiled, and a little gap showed between her front teeth. Cat had one just like it. She smiled back, showing her front teeth.

  The other girl, the one with the flip hairstyle, said, “I know you. I know you from school.”

  “Which school?” Cat asked. The girl seemed pushy. Cat really didn’t want to get in a conversation with her.

  “P-H-S. Phillips High School. Only you was on crutches then.”

  “I guess I stood out.”

  “We all thought you was the smartest thing alive,” Miss Flip said.

  Cat rolled up beside the high end-stool and set her brakes. “Gloria, would you come around to the front? Take my hands and pull?” Gloria tried, but she wasn’t firm enough, and Cat sank back into her chair. Humiliated, she glanced at them. The countergirls were staring. The man with the newspaper had lowered it a little so that just his eyes were peeking over the top.

  “I can help you,” the bigger countergirl said. Her face was round and pleasant as a pie. “I used to help my old granny what was in a chair.”

  Before Cat could decide how to respond, the big girl had her hands up under Cat’s armpits and lifted her up on the stool. “Steady now,” the strong girl said. Then she pinched Cat’s cheek. “Just want to be like everybody else sometimes, don’t you, hon.”

  Awave of fury swept over Cat, but it was followed by a bigger wave of gratitude. She put her hands flat on the counter to help her with her balance.

  “Gloria, you can fold up the chair and put it against the wall,” she said. “Stand up the cushion, grab the seat sling, and pull up.”

  With her hands on her hips, the big girl watched Gloria struggle, then she said, “I know how.” She brushed Gloria aside, released the slide on the cross braces, grabbed the seat in the middle, and jerked up. The big wheels moved closer together. She stood the cushion up on one end, between the wheels. “ ’Bout time for a change on that cushion cover,” the girl said. While Cat felt her cheeks blush with shame, the girl dusted her hands together.

  Her old classmate Miss Flip said, “I still remember your name—Kittycat Cartwright.”

  “It’s just Cat, now. This is Gloria Callahan.”

  Because they assumed she was Cat’s maid, neither of the girls acknowledged Gloria, nor did they offer their own names. Cat didn’t think it was intentional rudeness. They each just assumed that Gloria knew enough: they were the white countergirls.

  “Did you go to college?” Miss Flip asked.

  “Yes. I work at Miles College now.”

  “That’s the colored college.” She looked puzzled.

  “Yes, it is,” Cat said, and she was pleased with herself. Just that simple, it was just that simple to let people know where you stood. But she could tell her heart was speeding up. She felt a little dizzy. Suppose she fell off the high stool? If she did, she hoped ruefully that it was just a leg that she broke.

  Her classmate was shaking her head. “I wouldn’t like that,” she said. “Couldn’t you get a job at a regular school?”

  “No.”

  Cat wondered if Gloria had known that she was a reject, not simply an activist. She glanced at Gloria, but she was looking down, effacing herself in the familiar way of Negroes who felt out of place. How many minutes? How many minutes had passed since they came in? Both Cat and Gloria glanced out the window. Standing with her back to them, Christine was speaking to a small group. Cat felt disappointed that the group was so small. Turning her body had unbalanced her, and she grasped the metal rim of her stool.

  “Could we have two Palace-patties?” she asked.

  “Two to go,” the girls sang out in unison.

  “No, we’ll have ’em here.” Cat looked at Gloria. Cat hated to ask her to do it, but she said gently, “Don’t you want to sit down, Gloria?”

  Quick as a wink, Gloria was on the stool. She flashed her green eyes just once at Cat. Gloria was pleased that Cat had helped her to do it; her eyes said thank you.

  “I can’t serve her,” Miss Flip said. “You smart enough to know that, Kittycat.”

  The country girl said, “We can make it, and she can take it outside to eat.”

  Cat said sternly, “White Palace Grill sells to black folks but won’t seat them.”

  They both just stared at her.

  “Suppose she sat in my chair and ate a burger-to-go.”

  “No,” her classmate said. “They can’t eat in here.”<
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  The big girl had hastily put two patties on a waxed sheet and was about to wrap them. Cat could tell the country girl was scared. This was the sort of thing people had warned her might happen if she were foolish enough to go to the city to work.

  “Do you like onion?” Cat quickly asked Gloria.

  “Yes, please,” Gloria said, and she looked up.

  Nervously, the country girl strewed diced onions over the meat and mashed the bread lids down. Her hands flew noisily over the waxed paper, folding it shut. She crammed the oval burgers into a white to-go bag and placed them on the counter in front of Cat.

  “She can stand up in here,” the pretty classmate said, “but she can’t sit down anywhere.” She was trying to be nice, matter-of-fact.

  “Of course the wheelchair is my property,” Cat said. “It doesn’t belong to White Palace.” She wished Christine would come in now.

  The big girl babbled, “That chair is on White Palace floor.”

  Gloria mumbled, “My feet are tired. I want to sit down.”

  “What does she mean?” the country girl asked, almost hysterical. Her pleasant pie face was a mask of anxiety, and Cat felt guilty.

  The newspaper reader had lowered his paper all the way to his chin. He was staring at her with avid interest. She felt like saying, What’s the matter, buster? Haven’t you ever seen a handicapped person stand up for herself?

  Through the plate glass, Cat saw that Christine was moving toward the door. And there was Mr. Parrish. Now her heart began to race with joy.

  “She means,” Cat said as evenly as she could, “we’re going on with our sit-in.”

  Saturday: Gloria

  GLORIA STIFFENED HER SPINE; SHE ROTATED ON THE counter stool just enough to see Christine lead Arcola and Charles Powers and a few others through the door. The white girl shrieked like a siren, “Sit-in!”

  At Gloria, at Cat, at the whole establishment, Christine was grinning ear to ear. How she did love to be in the vanguard! Even Mr. Parrish was behind her. He was holding the door to let all the others in, but then he came in, too, the rear guard.

  Christine sat right beside Gloria and reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.

  “We’d all like Palace-patties, please, ma’am,” Christine said pleasantly.

  “I can’t serve y’all.” The pretty brown-headed girl, who looked sort of like Stella, tried to explain. “I don’t know what you want to gain, but I lose my job if I fix you anything.”

  Mr. Parrish seated himself next to Christine. He didn’t look at the defiant white girl, but he spoke affectionately to Christine. His chin down, his head cocked a little on one side, Mr. Parrish said, “I guess we’ll have to eat a little salt and pepper.” Then he looked down the row at the others.

  Gloria looked, too. There they were in a row. Just a line of friends. Dark faces, her people, sitting peacefully, respectfully, at the counter of White Palace. After Mr. Parrish sat Arcola, then Charles, then the other three boys who had all claimed that day when Cat and Stella first came to teach that they, too, were named Powers.

  Mr. Parrish was speaking with the back of his head turned to Gloria now. She loved the back of Mr. Parrish’s head, his crisp salt-and-pepper hair. “I don’t know ’bout y’all, but this is the first time in my life I ever sat down inside a White Palace, and I’m just gonna eat a little something.”

  Christine poured a little sugar from the glass canister with the flip spout into the palm of her hand. Gloria thought, It’s like she’s pouring the sands of timeout of an hourglass. This is change. Like the song promises, “The times they are a-changing.”

  Mr. Parrish turned back toward Gloria and Christine.

  “Wait a moment,” he said quietly to Christine. He put a restraining finger on her forearm. “Let’s give thanks.” He held up his other hand, closed his eyes, and prayed, but Gloria kept her eyes open. “I thank you, Lord, that we are here. Guard and guide us, Lord. Give us thy gentle spirit.”

  Everybody said Amen.

  “Y’all are crazy!” the pretty girl said.

  “This is spooky,” the big girl said. She looked scared, as though she’d seen a haint.

  They both unpinned their White Palace headpieces, set them on the counter, and fled. Gloria tried not to laugh. As the girl brushed past Cat, she said vehemently, “I don’t know you!”

  The man with the newspaper suddenly folded it up, lay it in his slouch bag, and picked the bag up by its wide cloth shoulder strap. He paused to put the strap over his head and position it on one shoulder. As he fled, Gloria thought he looked like somebody with a grain sack across his body, like she’d seen in paintings from the nineteenth century. Millet. Now the news of the day was the seeds of the future.

  Every detail seemed of historic importance to Gloria, though she knew many Negroes had already held many lunch counter sit-ins all across the South. Still, it was historic for her, and time seemed to be slowing down. The white people were gone, except for Cat, and suddenly the place did seem spooky.

  Christine said, “Looks like we got the joint to ourselves.”

  Charles Powers looked down the row at her. “How ’bout you cook us some Palace-patties, Christine?” he teased.

  Then Gloria heard the warning for the first time. She heard danger because she was looking at Arcola, and the composure on Arcola’s face collapsed like a bombed wall, all at once. A second before, Arcola had looked confident. Gloria listened hard till she heard it: the faint barking of dogs. She took a deep breath. So this was what she’d missed, the terror of May, over a year ago, when Arcola was bitten by a German shepherd.

  Christine heard nothing. She teased back at Charles. “You hungry, you cook ’em. I’m sitting here, man.”

  “You know,” Mr. Parrish said, “Christ once addressed this same question. I believe it was at the Last Supper. ‘Which is the greatest,’ he asked. ‘He who serves the meat, or he who eats it?’ ”

  None of them but Gloria and Arcola had heard the barking. Arcola jumped off her stool, and Gloria feared she would run. She looked very nervous. But she didn’t run; she was making herself be brave. She put her hand to the back of her head and prissed around the end of the counter. Gloria saw that Arcola’s hand was trembling. She stood in front of the grill, where the french fries were still cooking.

  Arcola lifted up the wire basket by its long handle and hung it over the empty pan to drain. Now Gloria noticed the faint sound of grease bubbling in the deep-fat fry pan. It too had a long handle.

  Arcola said with nervous good cheer, “And Jesus said, it was he who served who was the greatest, didn’t he, Mr. Parrish?” She shook her shoulders flirtatiously. “Being the greatest—me and Cassius Clay—I guess I better serve you all some french fries and burgers.”

  “I don’t know if you should go back there, Arcola,” Cat said.

  Christine said sharply, “Let her have her day.”

  Then they all heard the dogs barking.

  Quickly, Gloria took her burger out of the little white bag and unwrapped it. She bit into it ravenously. With her mouth full, she said, “Any of y’all want some of my and Cat’s burgers?”

  “Pass ’em on down,” Mr. Parrish said grimly.

  “Might as well eat ’fore we go to jail,” one of the boys said.

  Another said, “My mouth sho is dry.”

  “Pretty Miss Arcola,” Charles said, trying to distract her, “would you mind to fix me a Coca-Cola?”

  “Now y’all got to pay,” Christine said, “if you gonna eat or drink anything.”

  Gloria could feel Christine trembling beside her.

  “That’s right,” Cat said slowly. “No need to get booked for petty theft.”

  “Mr. Parrish,” one of the boys said, “could you spare some Coke money?”

  Slowly Mr. Parrish stood up. “Hush, everybody,” he said. “They’re coming.”

  Gloria heard the heavy sound of feet marching. Not marching like protest marching. Marching like soldiers marching. F
ast and hard.

  Without taking a bite, Christine stretched herself over Mr. Parrish’s place and over Arcola’s empty stool to hand a burger to Charles Powers. She said softly, “It sounds like a storm coming.”

  “Nonviolence,” Mr. Parrish said. “Remember nonviolence. We don’t want to make Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King ashamed of us.”

  “Malcolm X,” one of the boys said. “I don’t think he’d be shamed of us.”

  “Leave now, if you want to,” Mr. Parrish said sternly. “You took the pledge. Leave if you can’t keep it. I don’t want to be ashamed of us.”

  Gloria thought about Gandhi, how when his people in India were violent to one another, he himself had gone on a fast. He had fasted nigh unto death, till all the rioting stopped. Maybe Mr. Parrish was just such a leader as Gandhi. And could she herself find a way to lead? Her heart hurt. With the gesture of her grandmother, she pressed her hand against her chest. “For Susan Spenser Oaks,” Gloria whispered and then lay her palm tenderly against her own cheek.

  “Make it cool,” Mr. Parrish said. “Play it cool.”

  The thrumming of the marching feet and the barking dogs grew louder. Then it suddenly stopped. A bullhorn voice spoke in a snarl.

  “This is Birmingham City Police Sergeant LeRoy Jones speaking. You are all trespassing on White Palace property. By authority vested in me by the people of this city, I order you to come out in one minute.”

  When he paused, no one moved. Gloria could see the big end of the megaphone, just on the other side of the glass door. He didn’t need the megaphone. No one inside moved.

  “This is your first warning,” he said slowly and distinctly. “And it will be your last warning. Come out one by one with your hands clasped behind your heads.”