Mama and Daddy were real quiet and acting like their chairs were too hard. I tried to think of something to say about church or school to change the subject. Nothing came to me, but I jumped in anyway.
“Meemaw? Meemaw?” It came out too loud.
“What, honey?”
“Um…that decorated pumpkin thing in the middle of the table, is that for Halloween?”
“Oh, it’s just part of my harvest theme. Haven’t you noticed all my harvest décor around the house?”
“Yes, ma’am, looks real good,” I said, which was sort of a lie since I wasn’t clear on what “décor” was. “I thought it might be for Halloween. Do y’all get very many trick-or-treaters?”
“Oh yes, we get quite a few.”
“Us too. Will you be making special Halloween cookies like last year, or anything?”
“I ’spect I will.” She made the same tight lips and big eyes Mama does when I’m supposed to get all excited about something.
That was all I could think of to say about Halloween and she was right back on Kansas City again. Mama explained that it was just a possibility that she and Daddy thought they ought to look into, and Daddy said his friend Glen was such a wonderful guy and a great doctor. They were both stiff and talking soft at first, but they got louder.
Then Papaw finally said something about the Rebel game, and by the time Meemaw brought out the blackberry cobbler and ice cream, things had calmed down a little, at least for me. We were all the way to dessert, and it looked like the grandparents didn’t know what happened yesterday at the country club. I knew Mama wasn’t going to bring it up. Then Farish said, “By the way, did you hear what happened yesterday when Trip took Willie Jane’s little boy to the country club?”
If Mama could have reached that far across the table, she would have stuck her fork in Farish’s forehead.
Farish smiled at me and showed me her fingers under the table. Dangit! I forgot to say “No crosses count.” It wasn’t that she was still mad about me riding her bike without permission, it was just such an easy way to get me in trouble.
“What?” Meemaw looked at Farish like she had said something in Chinese.
“Trip and his colored friend tried to have cheeseburgers in the Golliwog,” Farish said. “They got kicked out, though.”
“His colored friend!” said Meemaw.
I wasn’t trying to exactly blame it on Papaw, but I had to explain it:
“Papaw said if I knew a colored person who was hungry, to bring him to the club and he’d buy him lunch.”
Meemaw looked hard at Papaw. I’ve only seen her call him by his name, Bill, when we come back too late from fishing at Ratliff’s pond.
“Bee-yul?”
“What’s that?” Papaw looked real confused.
“I looked for you, Papaw, but I couldn’t find you,” I said. “I knew you’d say it was okay.”
Everybody was frozen solid—except for Farish, who smiled at me like she just adored her big brother, and Ginny Lynn, who was digging into her cobbler and never knows what’s going on anyway.
Finally, Papaw said, “I think I did say something like that to Trip the other day. We were havin’ a conversation about the Negroes.” He looked at me and laughed a little. “I didn’t know he would take immediate action on it. Nothing to get woiked up about, though, just a little miscommunication. Right, partnuh?” He winked at me.
“My stars,” Meemaw said. “How in the world—?”
“I’m sure Trip didn’t mean to do anything wrong.” Mama gave Farish the black-eyed glare.
“No, ma’am. I sure didn’t,” I said.
Nobody said anything.
Then Daddy said, “I think Trip was trying to do a good thing—maybe he didn’t do it the right way, but a good thing.”
Nobody talked.
Then Papaw said, “To bring Negroes to lunch is a good thing? I suppose those Negroes trying to eat lunch at Walgreens last year were also doing a good thing?”
“Y’all, please…,” Mama said.
“Maybe they were,” Daddy said. “Sitting there for hours with a bunch of idiots yelling at them and pouring salt and sugar and mustard on them…I mean, they clearly believe in what they’re doing. Medgar Evers shot dead in his driveway…”
“I see,” Papaw said, but he didn’t sound like he wanted to see.
Meemaw said, “Well, I swan,” and nodded and looked hard at Daddy like she always knew he would say something like that.
“Y’all finish up, children,” Mama said.
“Martin Luther King…,” Daddy said.
“Martin Luther King! Time magazine’s Man of the Year!” Papaw smiled real big. It wasn’t a real smile.
Mama begged Daddy with her eyes. Meemaw said something to her plate. Then all you could hear was chewing.
I wanted so bad to explain to Meemaw why I took Dee to the club, but I didn’t want to give her a heart attack. Anyway, I’ve heard Daddy say you can’t explain anything to Meemaw, that she lives in her own special world.
“You see what you did?” I pinched Farish’s arm on the way to the car. She knew better than to complain to Mama, too. Mama was more outdone with her than me now and would have been glad to pinch her other arm. We got on the backseat with Ginny Lynn between us.
“Well, that was certainly a delightful meal and loads of fun,” Daddy said, like an announcer on TV.
“I didn’t think it was that much fun,” Farish whispered to me.
“He’s being sarcastic,” I told her.
All the way home it was that thick, terrible quiet when something is all your fault.
“Do you hate Mississippi?” I said to Farish, trying to whisper.
“No.”
“I do.”
Mama heard. “Trip Westbrook, your mother’s side of the family has lived in Mississippi for two hundred years.”
“Does that mean we have to?”
“I don’t want to move to Kansas City, I’ll tell you that,” Farish said.
“Y’all have both said enough for one day. Just hush.”
I changed out of my scratchy suit when we got home and made sure the creases were together on the pants when I hung them up. Then I went down to the creek. The water was pretty low and I thought maybe I could spot that snake. Stokes says they’ve all gone into hibernation by now, but I still had this feeling it was around somewhere. I walked from the pine stump at one end of the yard to the bridge at the other. Nothing out there but a lizard.
Mama fixed salmon croquettes for supper, which I love. Her mood had definitely changed.
Daddy said the blessing, which is always exactly the same: “Dear God, we thank you for this food. Bless it to the nourishment of our bodies and us to thy service. In Jesus’s name. Amen.” If he ever needs me to fill in, I’m ready.
He said he was tired of trying to talk Dr. Freeman and the other doctors into getting rid of the separate waiting room for colored patients. He said that situation, along with everything else, was about to send him over the edge.
“Where will you be when you’re over the edge?” I asked.
“Crazy.”
—
Word got around at school about my colored friend. People kept their distance like I had a special disease. But Miss Hooper looked at me like she never noticed me before and was so glad I was in her class.
She was telling us about Ponce de León and the Fountain of Youth and somehow started talking about Roderick, the one colored kid who goes to our school. She said it was time everybody was nicer to him. He’s the first one ever to go here. I’ve been trying to figure out why he would want to.
Bobby Watson raised his hand and asked why it was even okay for him to be here.
“Because it’s the law! We’ve been over this!” Nancy Harper said, like she was the teacher.
“Y’all need to be nice to Roderick,” Miss Hooper said. “I mean normal nice. I see people treating him like the school mascot or somethin’. Just be real to him.”
I know people who flat-out hate Roderick for being here and want him gone. I bet they’re “real” to him when nobody’s looking.
“It would be nice if y’all took the initiative to sit by Roderick at lunch and try to get to know him a little bit. He’s doing a brave thing being here, probably braver than any of us would ever do.”
Bobby Watson raised his hand again: “Maybe Trip could take him to lunch at the country club,” which made everybody laugh except me and Nancy and Miss Hooper.
Miss Hooper looked hard at Bobby and said, “Maybe he could,” like she was taking him seriously. Then her eyes went to the back of the room, right to me, and stayed there. I knew what that meant.
I’m not afraid to talk in class, but I sure didn’t want to talk about what happened with Dee. All I could think was Please no, please no, please no….
“Trip?”
“Yes, ma’am?” Pleasenopleasenopleaseno…
“I wonder if you would be willing to share your recent experience with the class? I know I’d like to hear about it. I think everyone would benefit from hearing what happened.”
She looked at them like they all needed to learn something, and here I was, teacher’s special prize, ready to teach it to them. I almost asked her if she was willing to be my friend now and hang out with me, because after this nobody else would.
“Well, I mean, my maid’s son, Dee…uh, he plays football with us, me and Stokes and Andy and the guys….”
But Stokes and Andy don’t have history that period. I was all on my own.
“Stand up and tell us.”
“Ma’am?”
“Stand up. I want to make sure everybody hears.” She frowned at Bobby.
“Well, uh, my papaw said he’d buy a colored person lunch if they were hungry, and I don’t know, I thought it would be okay to take Dee to the club for a cheeseburger.”
They were already snickering and whispering. Miss Hooper was smiling at me like I was some kind of angel.
“And what happened?”
“They told us to get out. They said it was closed for a party. Not at first.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
“It made me mad and then Dee got mad at me and…Miss Hooper, do I have to talk about this?”
“That’s okay, Trip. Thank you.”
I sat down and took a big breath. My fingers were trembling.
Miss Hooper looked around to make sure the lesson had been learned, and went back to Ponce de León. I thought she would say how brave I was or something. I bet there are rules on how much a teacher can say, even Miss Hooper, if she wants to stay a teacher.
It was hot and sticky outside. The sky was solid white and hung right in my eyes. Roderick sat on the low wall in front of the school, away from the after-lunch crowd, looking like he wished somebody would rescue him from this place. I told myself I would go up and talk to him and be real, like Miss Hooper said—just not today.
Then Nancy pulled herself up on the wall and started talking to him. I couldn’t let her beat me. I went over there and sat on Roderick’s other side.
“How’s it goin’?” I said.
He nodded.
“Tell Trip what you were just telling me.” Nancy leaned forward and looked at me. “You are not going to believe this.”
Roderick didn’t seem too sure about talking to me.
“It’s okay. I have a colored friend,” I said.
“Really?”
“We play football together. I took him to the country club.”
He smiled. “So you’re the one, huh?”
“I’m the one.”
“Be careful. You don’t want to push too hard. What I was telling Nancy, my mama’s worked at Remington’s downtown for twelve years, and when she went in last Monday they told her she doesn’t have a job anymore.”
“Why not?”
“They said it was because she was letting colored ladies try on hats, but she’s been doin’ that a long time—what it is, they found out I go to this school. I told her I like comin’ here but I didn’t want her to lose her job because of me.”
“You really like it?” I didn’t see how he could.
“I mean, I don’t like being the only colored kid, but this is so much better than my other school. My other school didn’t even have enough books for everybody. They didn’t even have enough chalk for the blackboard.”
“Maybe your mom can find a place to work with better people,” Nancy said.
“Maybe. My daddy’s a dentist, and a man called the house last week and said I better go back to the school where I belong or they were going to blow up his clinic. And the last few days, three white men in a Chevrolet have been stoppin’ in front of my house.”
“Why?”
“Maybe they want to blow the house up too, I don’t know. But they stay out there.”
“Have y’all called the police?”
“Police would bring ’em refreshments.”
“You should get a bunch of guys together and go out there and tell them to get the heck off your street,” I said. “I’ll help you.”
“Oh, come on,” Nancy said. She said “on” “ahn.”
“I will,” I said.
Roderick looked like he believed me. I think I even believed me. People were staring at us when they walked by, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even care if the Bethunes saw us: the Yankee girl, the colored guy, and me.
—
When I was a little kid, I had a color for every day of the week. Monday was orange, the worst color. Tuesday was green. Wednesday was unlucky yellow, like certain dog doo. Thursday was light blue because it was almost Friday, Friday was blue like the sky, and Saturday was the deepest blue. Sunday was golden for the Lord.
If the little kid version of me walked in here right now, I would tell him, “Listen, stupid, you don’t get to say what kind of day it’s going to be. Wednesdays are not always unlucky, and Saturdays are not always that great, no matter what color you give them. You don’t get to have control over the days of the week or much else. It’s all a lot messier than you want it to be. When you’re twelve, LSU is going to beat Ole Miss 11–10 on Halloween, and that’s not the scariest thing that’s going to happen.”
That night the phone started ringing and wouldn’t stop. For some reason nobody in the house would answer it. I ran into the den and grabbed it.
“Hello?”
There was some kind of quick, muffled talk, not into the phone. Then nothing.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
I hung up.
Mama came into the room with her robe half-buttoned and her hair all messed up.
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t say anything.”
“Wouldn’t say anything?”
“How come I’m the only one who can answer a telephone around here, anyway?” I asked her, but she was already halfway back down the hall.
When I got home from school the next afternoon, Willie Jane had The Secret Storm blaring all over the playroom. It’s one of her “stories” she always watches when she irons. Farish and Ginny Lynn were sitting in front of the TV, ignoring a pile of pick-up sticks. I am 100 percent positive they don’t understand soap operas, but they sat there anyway, staring with their mouths open.
“Where’s your mama?” asked Willie Jane.
“Mama went on to the Sunflower after she let me out.”
“You don’t want to help your mama buy groceries?”
“Very funny.”
“You sure don’t mind eatin’ ’em, though.”
I nodded. Then I said, “Farish! Come on and throw me some passes.”
“I’m busy.”
“Busy doing nothin’.”
“I’m watching this.”
“That’s a bunch of junk.”
“Don’t you be talkin’ about my stories,” said Willie Jane.
The phone rang.
“There it goes agai
n,” Willie Jane said.
“What?”
“I’ve been runnin’ to that phone all day, and soon as I say ‘Westbrook residence,’ they hang up. They do it every time.”
“They did it to me last night.”
“I wish there was a way to tell who’s callin’ you on the phone. With everything they’re comin’ up with these days, I wish they could come up with that. People ain’t got nothin’ better to do than try and scare us with the phone?”
“Nobody’s trying to scare us, Willie Jane. Let me answer it.”
I had to prove to myself that nothing weird was going on, probably just some idiot dialing the wrong number. If I fooled them with my voice, they might get too confused to call anymore. I was trying for chief of police, but it came out more Englishy, like somebody’s butler.
“Halllooo?”
Willie Jane laughed.
“Tree-up?”
“Meemaw!”
“Hey, sweetheart! Is ya mama home?”
I could see Meemaw holding the phone against her ear with her shoulder, fiddling with her nails and smiling while she talked. It was the most beautiful smile in the world.
I handed Willie Jane the phone and let her tell Meemaw when Mama would be home.
“See?” I said when she hung up. “Now you can relax.”
“I hope you’re right.”
The phone rang again. We looked at each other.
“It’s probably Meemaw again,” I said. “Something she forgot to tell us.”
R-i-i-i-i-ng!
“You answer it then,” she said.
R-i-i-i-i-ng!
I picked it up.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
I was about to put the receiver down when a voice said,
“You better watch your back, nigger lover.”
It was a flat, cold voice, like somebody who had crawled out of the woods to find a phone just so he could threaten me. How did that voice know my telephone number?
“Leave us alone!” I yelled into the phone and slammed it down.
“Did they say something? What did they say?” Willie Jane grabbed my arm.
I didn’t want to tell her what he said, but she made me repeat it word for word.
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