by Robin Talley
It still makes me angry, but now that I know what real fear feels like, these hallway shouts don’t upset me as much as they used to.
This all just seems so silly.
It’s as though I’ve grown a shell around myself. Something for the shouts to bounce off of. Something the spitballs can’t penetrate.
I’m better than all this.
These people can do what they want, but they can’t hurt me. I’m stronger than all of them put together.
It’s a strange feeling, but once it came it didn’t go away. Not when Bo leered at me in the lunch line. Not even when someone left a crude drawing in my locker of a girl hanging from a tree with a note that said “You’re up next.”
At the end of the day, another strange thing happened.
It was after seventh period. I was walking toward the side exit with Ennis, both of us getting hit from all sides with balled-up pieces of paper. What was odd was that paper was flying all over the hallway—and not all of it was aimed at us. Everyone was talking about it, too. I couldn’t understand it all, but I caught a “bunch of lies” here, a “Coach Pollard” there and one “acting weird at Bailey’s” on the way out.
“What the Devil?” Ennis muttered, looking at all the trash.
He caught the next paper that flew our way and uncrumpled it. It was a copy of today’s school newspaper.
Ennis shrugged and passed it to me. There wasn’t a garbage can nearby and I didn’t want to throw trash around the school like everyone else, so I tucked it into my purse.
Then I forgot about it. Until now.
As we’re finishing our peach cobbler Daddy turns to Ruth and me and says, “So tell me, girls. Do either of you know this Linda Hairston? Bill Hairston’s daughter? Next time you see her at school, you tell her I said to keep it up, all right?”
Then he sits back, smiles and takes a long puff on his cigarette.
I look at Ruth for an explanation. She shrugs. “She’s your friend, not mine.”
“Oh, is she a friend of yours, Sarah?” The gleam is still in Daddy’s eyes. “Guess the apple fell far from the tree.”
“Is this the Linda who was over here on Saturday?” Mama looks at me sharply. “You didn’t tell me she was William Hairston’s daughter.”
“I didn’t—” My face flushes. Why is everyone talking about her? “Daddy, what do you mean, ‘the apple fell far from the tree’?”
“Didn’t you read your school paper today?” Daddy says. “Honey, I’m disappointed in you. It’s important to keep up with the news. Especially when the news is this good. I tell you, the story I’m writing about it for the Free Press is going to make Hairston sit up and take notice.”
Now Mama’s sharp look is pointed at Daddy. “You’re going to write an article about William Hairston’s daughter? She’s only a child, Robert.”
Daddy smiles again. “The girl went to the printer herself, on a Sunday, and told them it was a last-minute change. The school administration didn’t even know she’d done it until she started passing out copies at the end of the school day. It was all anyone was talking about at the meeting this afternoon. I’m telling you, Irene, if we don’t write on this we’re passing up the only positive story to come out of this entire ordeal. If it gets Hairston’s goat, well, that’s icing on the cake.”
Mama is still glaring. “Children, you’re excused.”
As soon as I get upstairs I take the crumpled newspaper out of my purse. When I turn to the editorial page I understand why everyone was so excited.
* * *
JEFFERSON HIGH CLARION
Monday, May 25, 1959
First, Do No Harm
By Linda Hairston, Editorial Page Editor
I never thought I would say this, but this week, I witnessed something that made me ashamed to call myself a Southerner.
I saw a gang of more than fifteen boys attack another boy. This boy was alone. He couldn’t defend himself against such a large group. He is in the hospital now, still unconscious. He has been unfairly expelled from school.
Why did the gang attack this boy, you ask?
The answer is simple: it was because the boy was a Negro.
Like my fellow students, I was upset when the courts forced the integration of Jefferson. I believed it was wrong. I believed it would hurt the integrity and traditions of our school and our state. I still hold those beliefs today.
But the brutality I witnessed this week hurts our integrity more than the courts and the NAACP ever could.
We all must stand up for what we know is right. It is up to us, as Americans and as the generation who will someday lead this country, to set the right path for those who will come after us.
I am still proud to be a Southerner, but I am not proud of the people who commit acts like this in the South’s name.
The South is better than that.
* * *
I put the newspaper down and rub my forehead.
Oh, Linda. Linda, Linda, Linda.
You’ll be lucky if you live through tomorrow.
Lie #25
Linda
THEY’RE ALL STARING at me.
I pretend everything’s normal. I pretend I don’t mind.
I’m sort of used to it, after all. I’m popular. When you’re popular, people stare at you.
But no one’s ever stared at me like this. Like I’m a creature from a horror movie. The kind you don’t really want to look at because it’s disgusting, but then you look anyway because you want to see what it’ll do next.
They’re talking about me, too. I see it in their faces, but I don’t hear it. Whenever I turn a corner, everyone shuts up and stares.
When I get to my regular table in the cafeteria, everyone goes quiet at once. That’s how I know my friends are talking about me, too. I’m not surprised, but it hurts all the same.
Most of them won’t even look at me. They’re glancing back and forth among each other.
Judy is sitting as far away from my seat as she can get, as usual, but she nods in greeting when I sit down. She hasn’t done that since that day in the back room.
“Sorry I missed your party Saturday,” I tell Donna. “I got home late and Mom wouldn’t let me go. Was it a fun time?”
Donna and the others just go on staring.
Finally Nancy says, “Yes, it was a fun time. Except half the boys there were limping. Some of them were hurt, you know.”
“Well, maybe they should think twice before they do something like that again,” I say.
Nancy rolls her eyes.
“I liked Linda’s article,” Judy says.
Now everyone’s staring at her.
“Well, I did.” Judy cups her hand over her cheek, but she doesn’t look down.
I’ve never seen her act this way.
She must know what she’s risking. Judy lives in New Town, and she wears a pound of makeup every day on top of the bright red blotch that covers half her face. The only reason Nancy and the others put up with her is because she’s my best friend. Or used to be.
But she keeps going.
“I don’t think it’s right,” Judy says. “The way they all went after that Nigra boy when he was by himself. It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“What Linda wrote, though?” Nancy says. “About the boys we’ve gone to school with all our lives? Who were defending girls like us against a dangerous colored man? I don’t want people to think I’d go around saying things like that about the nicest boys at this school. I don’t want them to think I’d be friends with someone who would, either.”
I shake my head at Nancy. Is this really all it takes to have someone turn on you? All because she wants so desperately to go steady with Bo Nash?
“Coach Pollard is bound to
be upset when he sees it,” Donna says. “A lot of those boys are on the team. Linda, if you don’t do something about this soon it could ruin your whole life.”
“And over that colored boy,” Brenda says. “After what he did to Kathy. It could’ve been any of us!”
“He didn’t do anything to Kathy,” I say. “She said so herself. That’s why the police let him go.”
“Do you know what people are saying about you?” Donna shakes her head. “What they’re calling you?”
“Let me guess,” I say. “Nigger-lover?”
Everyone gasps, shocked I said it out loud.
The truth is, I’m shocked, too.
That’s not what I am. I’m not an agitator or a Communist or an integrationist. I still don’t think it’s right for the NAACP to tell us what to do in our own school.
But no one asked me what I really believe. They’ve already decided.
“You do know?” Donna says. “Then, Linda, please, let’s go to the newspaper and have them print an apology. You can say you were sick or something. Or that it was a joke, or—”
I stand up. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just know I don’t want to listen to this anymore.
I grab my lunch tray. I haven’t eaten, but I’m not hungry. I turn to leave.
Then I remember that only a short time ago I didn’t think about these things any more than my friends did. I turn back around.
“Go home and think about it,” I tell them. “Really think about whether what happened on Saturday is right. That boy, Chuck, is in the hospital. He might not ever wake up. Please, just think it through. Then we can talk again.”
Nancy shakes her head sadly. The rest of them act as if they didn’t even hear me.
That’s all right. I’m done now.
I go to dump my uneaten food. My heart is still pounding.
When I wrote the editorial I wasn’t thinking about this part. About how it would look to my friends, or Jack or everyone at school.
I thought about how it would look to Sarah, though.
I thought it might make her start to forgive me.
I thought it might make her see that I’m not the girl she thinks I am. That there’s more to me than that girl.
But even more than that, I thought about how it would look to Daddy.
I thought about him reading it in his office over his morning coffee. How his mouth would turn down. How his brow would furrow. How he’d throw the paper down and reach for his phone to order every copy rounded up and burned.
I was up all night. Terrified of what Daddy would say, what he’d do, when he saw it.
Terrified. And hopeful.
The truth was, I wanted to make Daddy angry. I wanted to make him something.
But that still hasn’t happened. Because he hasn’t read it yet.
It’s been a full day since the article came out, but he doesn’t even know about it. Daddy hasn’t read anything I’ve written in years.
Before long, someone will tell him. “Hey, Bill, your daughter playing a prank on you? Don’t tell us you’ve got one in your own family. You better whup some sense into that girl.”
After that, something will happen.
The waiting is almost worse than the something will be.
Someone shoves a lunch tray in my back roughly. I have to grab on to the counter to avoid falling into the trash can. “Hey!”
“Hey, nothing.”
I turn around. It’s Bo Nash.
“Or should I say, ‘Hey, nigger-lover.’” He tilts his head to the side.
“Leave me alone, Bo.” I dump my tray and slide it onto the counter, trying to act as though I’m not afraid.
But I am. After what I saw on Saturday, anyone would be afraid of Bo.
He won’t do anything to me. Not here. He knows everyone would see. He wouldn’t hurt me.
Right?
“You best not go around spreading lies,” he says. “We hear one word about you telling tales to the principal, trying to make trouble—”
“If I did it wouldn’t be a lie,” I say. “I was there. I saw it.”
Bo steps closer to me. Too close. I step back. My spine is up against the counter.
“Don’t think we won’t come at you,” he says, his voice low and rough. “I’m not scared of your little boyfriend. I’m done playing football for this school. And I’m not the only one.”
All right. Now I’m afraid.
“I have a question for you, Bo,” says a sharp voice behind him.
It’s Sarah.
I will her to stop. To leave.
Bo might not hurt me in front of everyone, but that won’t help her.
She doesn’t stop.
“Do you ever fight fair?” she says. “Or are you always going after girls? Or twenty against one? Is it that you’re too scared for a real fight?”
I don’t think Bo is scared of any kind of fight, but Sarah’s certainly got his attention.
“Hey there, nigger bitch.” He turns to her and raises his voice so the tables nearby can hear. “Been singing any more of that coon music for your nigger friends? Or, wait, you’ve hardly got any nigger friends left, have you? They’re all getting beat out of town. Guess you and that shrimpy little sister of yours’ll be next.”
Sarah flinches at the mention of Ruth. Not enough for Bo to notice, though.
“You know what you are?” Sarah puts her books on the counter and stands facing him, her hands on her hips. She looks just like her mother. “You’re nothing but a coward.”
“Oh, yeah?” Bo’s still smiling, moving closer to her. Waiting for her to back away, like I did. “How you figure that?”
Sarah stays put. “You only go after people you think are weaker than you. People you think you can scare into not fighting back.”
Half the cafeteria is watching now. Sarah’s talking just as loudly as Bo. They’re only inches apart. I grip the counter, wondering if I should run for a teacher. If it would be safe to leave them here.
“You know you’ll never make it out of this town,” Sarah tells Bo. “You’ll never be anybody. So try to make everybody else feel bad. I bet you feel so bad you cry yourself to sleep every night.”
A couple of the boys watching from the next table snicker. Bo glances at them.
“What have you ever done that’s been good for anyone else?” Sarah says. “Or are you just taking up space at this school? Trying to have some fun while you wait until you’re old enough to be the town drunk, slumped over on a bench in front of the hardware store at ten o’clock in the morning?”
More snickers. No one in the cafeteria is talking now. They’re all watching Sarah and Bo.
I can tell from the way she’s tapping her heel that Sarah’s nervous, but she doesn’t let Bo see. She keeps her chin high, her expression fixed.
Bo glances around at the people watching. After a long moment, he sneers at Sarah.
“Well at least I’m not a doggone ugly nigger,” he says.
Sarah looks at him.
Then she starts to giggle.
Bo’s eyes narrow. “Stop laughing, nigger.”
That only makes her laugh harder.
Then I’m laughing, too. So are some of the girls at a table two rows down.
They’re not laughing with Sarah and me. They wouldn’t dare openly laugh at Bo.
But they’re laughing all the same. And Bo isn’t.
Sarah turns away from him, still giggling, and retrieves her books from the counter. She glances my way. Our eyes meet. I nod, and in the same moment, we turn on our heels and walk out of the cafeteria as the laughter spreads from table to table.
Not a single person tries to trip us on the way out.
For half a secon
d, it feels like we might have won.
Then I look back and see Bo watching us. This isn’t over.
Even so I can’t help smiling when the cafeteria door closes behind us and Sarah and I are alone in the hallway.
I try not to think about what everyone must be saying about me back there. It doesn’t work, but I keep smiling anyway.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I say.
Sarah smiles at me, but her smile is shaky. So are her hands.
“Listen,” I say, talking fast before I can change my mind. “My dad works late and my mom will be at her bridge club until dinner. Can you come over after school? We could—talk.”
I don’t expect her to say yes. I don’t expect her to even think about it. She’ll probably just get that same pitying look she gave me at her house on Saturday.
Instead, she nods, slowly.
Maybe something really is about to change.
Lie #26
Sarah
LINDA’S HOUSE LOOKS exactly like mine.
It’s obvious that it’s a white house, of course. It’s in Ridgewood, for one thing. And for another, there’s a Negro woman in a uniform cleaning the kitchen when we arrive.
When we first walk in the door the Negro woman looks as though she expects me to pick up a rag and join her. Then her eyes go wide and she offers us iced tea, as polite as you please. Linda says no and looks embarrassed as she leads me down the hall to her room.
Other than that I could just as easily have been in any of the houses in my neighborhood. Linda’s house and mine even have the same carpet in the front hallway. Hers is older, though. “More established,” Mama would say.