by Robin Talley
No. Tonight isn’t like all those other nights when I could play the part. Make Ennis think I was just as interested in him as any normal girl ought to be.
Up on that stage, when I saw her clapping for me, I felt the start of a change inside.
It’s frightening. I don’t know what it means.
I miss everything about her.
I don’t miss her reciting her father’s editorials, but I miss that look in her eyes. The one that said somewhere inside—maybe so deep she didn’t even know it was there—she knew better than to believe her own words.
By the end I really do think she was starting to figure it out. Up until it happened.
“There she is!” a new voice says behind me. “The lady of the hour, the star of the show, Miss Sarah Dunbar!”
It’s Chuck, wearing a pressed button-down shirt and a wide smile. I smile at him and gesture for him to lower his voice. Linda and her father are only a few feet away. I don’t need Chuck drawing any more attention to me.
Chuck follows my gaze. He sees Linda, too. There’s a nasty look in his eye.
“You know, Sarah, you were way better than that white girl,” he says, too loud. Daddy tries to catch his eye, but Chuck ignores him. “Don’t be fooled by all that applause she got. There wasn’t a soul in that auditorium who didn’t know you had her beat. They’re just too scared to clap for a colored girl.”
“Shush, Chuck,” I say, but it’s too late. It’s clear from the hurt look on her face that Linda heard him. So did her father.
“You want to watch your tongue when you talk about white girls, nigger,” Linda says. I’ve never heard her call anyone a nigger before. It sounds worse when she says it than when other people do. “Everyone knows what you did to Kathy Shepard.”
Time stands still.
No one moves. No one speaks. Every eye in the room is fixed on Chuck.
I look from Linda, to Chuck, to Mama, to Linda’s father. Every face is grave except Mr. Hairston’s. He’s smiling.
Chuck steps backward, as if Linda shoved him. Then everyone is talking at once.
Brenda Green shrieks. Linda turns, and from the surprised look on her face it’s clear she’d forgotten Brenda was nearby.
She’d probably forgotten anyone was watching at all. Except her father. I’d bet a thousand dollars she only said what she did because he was there.
Not that it matters now.
The picture flashes in my head before I can stop it. Emmett Till. The fourteen-year-old colored boy in Mississippi who whistled at a white woman.
The men there beat him. Shot him. Gouged out his eye. Tossed him in the river.
Brenda runs over to a girl in a band uniform and whispers in her ear, looking over her shoulder at Chuck the whole time. The band girl shrieks, too. They turn and run toward another group, boys and girls both, clustered together near the exit doors. Soon all of them are whispering.
Everyone moves very fast after that.
Mr. Hairston is already gone. Linda and her mother are speeding out after him. The rest of the Negroes are headed toward the exit behind the stage, away from the white people. Ennis’s head darts from side to side as he searches for his parents. Mama hefts Bobby up into her arms and says, “All right, girls, time to go. Quickly, now.” Daddy puts one arm around Ruth and one around me and walks us fast toward the far exit, dodging through the crowd.
I don’t see Chuck. I look back toward where he was before, but I can’t catch a glimpse of him. All I see is the gang of white students by the main exit. They’re looking around for someone, too.
“Come on now,” Mama says when we get outside. “We’ll go over to Frances’s and have some cake and celebrate how wonderful Sarah was. Won’t that be fun?”
No one answers her.
Frances’s house isn’t fun at all. Hardly anyone is there. Frances and I don’t have any more to talk about than we did at Stud’s. The adults bring out food and drinks and try to talk about the concert, but they keep ducking out to answer ringing phones and talking in hushed tones in the kitchen when they think we aren’t looking.
There’s so much going on that I manage to talk to Ennis quietly in the hall where the others can’t hear us. I ask him where he thinks Chuck is.
“Oh, don’t worry about him,” he says. “I saw him go out the side door quick. He’s probably hiding out until things die down. He’ll be back at school on Monday and we’ll all have a good laugh.”
I can’t tell if Ennis believes what he’s saying.
“Is there any truth to it?” I ask. “Tell me, now. This is what you were talking about with Paulie that night at Stud’s, wasn’t it?”
Ennis nods slowly. “I told him he’s a doggone fool, but he says they love each other.”
I shake my head. I can’t believe Chuck would be so thoughtless. This is the white people’s worst fear. Their pretty white daughters running off with Negroes.
I think about that photo of the boy in Mississippi again. I wish I could scrub that picture from my brain.
Finally Daddy announces that it’s time to go. Bobby has already been sleeping for half an hour on the Morrisons’ love seat and Ruth is yawning up a storm. Mama looks like she’d just as soon stay at the party longer, though.
“Are you certain about this?” she says.
Daddy nods. “Sure as sure can be.”
But he doesn’t drive us straight home. Instead he takes us through Davis Heights, ten minutes out of our way. Ruth and Bobby are so sleepy they don’t notice. Mama’s sitting up straight in the front seat, shooting looks at Daddy that he’s pretending not to see.
I don’t like this. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.
“There,” Daddy says under his breath. He pulls the car over with a jerk. On the other side of the street there’s a crowd gathered, but it’s too dark to see what’s going on. Bobby wakes up with a small sound of protest.
“Don’t, Robert,” Mama murmurs in the front seat.
Someone runs up to the car. I jump back, remembering the man who tried to open our car door on the first day of school, before I see that it’s a Negro man. He glances at me and Ruth and Bobby in the backseat, then gestures silently to Daddy.
Daddy gets out of the car and goes across the street with the man, his long legs striding fast.
“Mama, what’s going on?” Ruth says, panic in her voice. “Where’s Daddy going?”
Bobby starts to cry.
“Hush, all of you,” Mama says. “Be still.”
Then she gets out of the car, too.
My heart thuds in my chest. They can’t leave us here.
“Sarah, what’s happening?” Ruth shrieks. Next to her, Bobby sobs.
The car door on my side opens. I’m about to shriek, too, but it’s Mama. She gestures for me to get out.
I’m afraid to. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I climb out anyway. Mama closes the door behind me and hands me her car key. Her hand is shaking, but just a little.
“I need you to be in charge now, Sarah,” she whispers. “Just like at home when you’re the babysitter, all right? I need you to do exactly as I say.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Over Mama’s shoulder I can see people gathered in the front lawn of a house. Others are running from the house to the street and to the alley on the other side. The wind shifts. I smell smoke.
“You drive Ruth and Bobby home and put them straight to bed,” Mama says. “Lock all the doors as soon as you get inside, and don’t turn any lights on. Don’t open the door for anyone, do you understand me?”
I recognize the house we’re parked in front of. It looks different in the dark, but it’s Chuck’s house.
“I understand,” I say.
“Your father and I will be home as soon as we
can.” Mama puts her hand on my cheek and meets my eyes. She bends down to press her hand against the car window, looking hard at Ruth and Bobby. Then she turns, gathers her skirt in her hand and runs toward where Daddy is standing on Chuck’s front lawn with two other men.
I stare at the car key in my hand. I’ve never driven on the street before. Daddy has taken me for a few practice drives in the church parking lot after services but that’s it. Mama said there was no use getting me my license before I turned eighteen. She said a young girl didn’t need to be driving around where she could get into trouble.
I open the car door with shaking hands and get into Daddy’s seat. It takes me two tries to start the engine.
“Sarah, what’s going on?” Ruth asks from the backseat. She’s crying. Her voice quivers the way it did when she was five and saw something scary on the television. Bobby wails even louder than before.
“Mama said for me to drive home,” I say. “Can you make Bobby be quiet?”
There’s a cross burning in Chuck’s yard.
That’s what Daddy and the others are doing. Making sure the fire’s out. And trying to find the white men who set it.
I pray Daddy and Mama aren’t the ones to find them.
I don’t know how we make it home. There are hardly any streetlights in this neighborhood, and I don’t know how to turn the headlights on, so we’re driving in the dark. The car moves at a crawl as I squint to look for street signs and run over curbs with every turn. Each time we hit a bump, Bobby shrieks louder. Ruth is sobbing next to him, no help at all. When we finally get to our neighborhood there are more lights to see by, but I’m just as frightened as I was before. It’s only by luck that I find our street and pull into the driveway without hitting anything.
This is why we went to Frances’s after the concert. Mama and Daddy knew something like this might happen tonight. Even before Linda said what she did about Chuck, they knew. They knew the white people wouldn’t let us have even one night to be happy.
I’m shaking harder than ever when I get out of the car. When Ruth climbs out of the backseat I grab her by the shoulders and whisper, “I need you to get yourself together and help me. Can you do that?”
Ruth’s eyes are wild in the dim light, but when she speaks she has enough sense to keep her voice down. “Where are Mama and Daddy? Why did they leave us?”
“They’ll be home soon. We need to get Bobby in bed, but Mama said not to turn any lights on. Can you help?”
Ruth’s eyes are still shiny, but she nods. I lock all the car doors while she lifts Bobby out, carrying him like a baby. He’s fallen back asleep.
I use Mama’s key to let us into the dark, silent house. I can’t remember ever being this frightened.
It’s worse than the first day of school. Then we were surrounded by people. Being alone is much scarier.
What if someone already broke in through the back and they’re in here waiting for us? What if they’re hiding upstairs? Would they hang us, even though we’re only children?
I can’t think this way. I can’t let Ruth and Bobby see me afraid.
I lock the front door behind us and take Bobby out of Ruth’s arms. Together, we climb the stairs. Bobby’s much heavier than the last time I carried him. We creep up in the dark, the lights from outside casting in through the windows, making me want to jump. But I can’t. I’m responsible for my brother and sister. I have to make sure we all stay safe.
Bobby’s room is pitch-black except for the tiny square of moonlight coming through the gap in the window shade. Ruth starts to raise it, but I shake my head. We get him over to the bed and tuck him in. He groans in his sleep, but his eyes stay closed.
Ruth leaves without a word and goes to our room. I follow her, suddenly exhausted. She climbs into bed without getting undressed and pulls the blanket up over her head.
I lean against the door frame and gaze out the moonlit window. My limbs feel like lead, but I should stay up and wait for Mama and Daddy to get home. I should be awake in case the phone rings, or someone knocks on the door. Even though Mama said I shouldn’t open the door for anyone. No matter what.
I change into a robe and go back down the dark stairs, feeling my way with the banister and trying not to flinch at the lights from passing cars. The dark, silent house is just as frightening as it was before, but I keep my head high, the same way I do at school.
The wait goes on for hours. Or that’s what it feels like. Every set of headlights passing could be a driver slowing to throw a brick through the window. Every creak of the house settling could be an angry white fist thumping at the back door.
When I was Bobby’s age, during the war, there used to be blackouts. I’m too little to really remember it, but Mama told me stories. I used to get so scared I’d cry for hours, walking around the dark house, bumping into things, thinking I saw monsters lurking in every corner.
But I’m not a little girl anymore. The monsters that lurk now are real. And I can’t let them see that I’m afraid.
Lie #22
BOBBY COUGHS ALL through breakfast. I glare at him.
“Stop faking,” I say as Ruth gathers up the dishes. I was up late, sitting on the couch waiting for Mama and Daddy and trying not to think about what might have happened to them. I have a Saturday full of laundry ahead of me. I don’t have the patience for another of Bobby’s imaginary sicknesses. “I’m onto you.”
Bobby puts his head down on the table and coughs some more.
“I’m not faking,” he mumbles.
“Don’t you remember the boy who cried wolf, Bobby?” Daddy says. His face is hidden behind the morning Gazette. He’s got to be even more exhausted than I am. When he and Mama finally got home, he made Mama and me go on upstairs to bed. Everything was all right, he said, but he was going to stay in the living room and keep a watch out, just in case. I don’t know if he slept at all.
Bobby coughs again.
“He just needs a cough drop,” Mama says. “Sarah, run on over to Bailey’s and pick some up. We’re all out.”
I haven’t been to Bailey’s since that day.
“I have to do the laundry,” I say. “It’s going to take all day.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you disobeyed, shouldn’t you?” Mama says, sounding way too pleased with herself.
Ruth sets a stack of plates down on top of the newspaper, bending the front page back. Daddy yanks the paper out from underneath and shoves the page under the table.
But it’s too late. I already saw.
Daddy shakes his head at me. He saw it, too.
I think fast. I don’t want Ruth to know. Not until she has to.
I need to read it, though. I need to know everything.
I nod at Daddy to show I’ll keep quiet. After a second he nods back and passes the paper to me under the table.
Mama sees. “Robert, do you really think that’s a good—”
I ignore her and go outside to the back porch, the paper tucked under my arm.
My hands are shaking. As much as I want to know what it says, there’s a big part of me that would just as soon stay ignorant, but it’s too late for that.
I turn to the photo I saw before. It was taken at night, and it’s hard to make out exactly what’s happening, but it’s definitely Chuck in the photo. His head is bowed. White policemen are on either side of him, holding his arms. One of the officers is bald and looks familiar.
The other policeman is younger. He’s smiling at Chuck. The kind of smile that makes you shiver.
The story is only three paragraphs.
* * *
Negro Boy Questioned in Assault
By Gazette Staff
Charles Irving Tapscott of 16 Butterwood Lane in Davis Heights was questioned last night by police in connection with an
assault on Miss Katherine Shepard of New Town.
The Negro Tapscott and Miss Shepard are both students at Jefferson High School. Tapscott is among the nine Negro students integrating the school.
Police are conducting a thorough investigation. Tapscott is in police custody to ensure the public’s safety. Charges are expected to be filed.
* * *
In police custody.
What does that mean? Is he in jail? Or is he locked up in some policeman’s shed somewhere?
Ennis said Chuck had gone somewhere safe. He was only trying to make me feel better. I was a fool to believe him.
When Daddy was a boy his family lived in Alabama. The Thanksgiving he was six years old, people around town started saying one of Daddy’s grown-up cousins had stolen a turkey. The white men who came to his house that night weren’t police. They didn’t file charges, and they didn’t conduct any investigation, but after that night, Daddy’s cousin never walked again.
Daddy told me that story three years ago. We were in the middle of another round of integration hearings and I was tired of going to court every day. It was summer, and I didn’t want to sit in a hot, stuffy room listening to white people talk about us. I wanted to go swimming with my friends in the creek by Clayton Mill.
Daddy sat me down and told me about his cousin. He said that was why we had to keep fighting, even when it seemed like we’d never win. Because his cousin never got the chance to fight.
When Daddy first told me the story, I felt guilty. I nodded and apologized and promised I’d go back to court. I’d listen to every second of it, even when the thermometer reached eighty-five and the sweat dripped into my eyes.
Today that story means something different to me altogether.
What if I never see Chuck again?
Things like what happened to Daddy’s cousin aren’t supposed to happen here. That’s why my parents moved from Alabama to Chicago in the first place. They didn’t want us to grow up the way they did. That’s what they always say.