Yankee Girl

by Mary Ann Rodman

  “Well, yeah.” What did she think would happen? “Why not?”

  Mary Martha stared into the carnations.

  “Why not?” I repeated loudly. “You’re not scared, are you?”

  “I can’t. I just can’t,” Mary Martha whispered.

  “But you’re a million times braver than me. You got Valerie her curtain call in the Christmas pageant. Remember?”

  “That was different.”

  Voices crowded my head.

  Mary Martha. White people in a coloured neighbourhood. Who knows what could happen?

  Jeb. Buses ain’t for white people.

  And everyone else, over and over. That’s just the way things are. That’s the way they’ve always been.

  I was mad. At Mr. Culver. At Mary Martha for finking out on me. At the stupid rules about white people and black people.

  Time for my rules. The Alice Rules.

  “Give me those flowers.” I snatched them from Mary Martha. “I’ll go by myself.”

  Mary Martha’s eyes looked sad. I knew she wanted to come with me. She knew it was the Right Thing to Do. She just couldn’t.

  But I could. I was mad.

  Mad enough to put one foot in front of the other all the way to the bus stop.

  “Excuse me, does this bus go to Pearl Street?” The maids looked at each other, like this might be a trick question from a smart-mouth white girl. Finally, a young woman in beat-up Keds said, “Yeah. It go that way.”

  A green city bus roared up in a cloud of exhaust.

  “Little girl?” said the driver as I dropped my emergency dime into the fare box. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Pearl Street.” I sounded a lot cooler than I felt.

  He eyed me and the flowers. “Do your mama and daddy know where you’re going?”

  “Yessir.” What was he going to do? Call them up and ask?

  The only empty seat was at the back. I staggered down the aisle, holding the flowers in front of me like a shield, passing seat after seat of uniformed maids. Were they whispering about me? Was I the first white person to ride a city bus?

  Don’t be chicken, Alice. Remember the Alice Rules.

  A tall woman with reddish brown hair swayed down the aisle, clutching at the seat backs as she went. Inez Green, the Mateers’ maid.

  “Miss Alice?” Inez slid into the seat beside me. “Where you goin’ with them flowers?”

  I told her. I waited for her to say I was crazy. Or to ask if my mama knew where I was. She didn’t.

  “You know what stop to get off at?” she said.

  “Pearl Street, wherever that is.”

  “I’ll get off with you. I want to pay my respects to the Reverend myself. Now, less us open this window ’fore we smother to death.”

  The bus groaned through white neighbourhoods, stopping every couple of blocks to take on more maids. Down Capitol Street, past Kennington’s Department Store, the Paramount Theatre, and the King Edward Hotel, then through the railroad underpass.

  On the other side of the underpass, the world was all Negro. Barbershops and beauty salons and a corner grocery with Negroes bustling in and out. We stopped at a red light. Through the open bus window, Junior Walker and the All Stars’ “Shotgun” blared from a loudspeaker outside a record store. I didn’t like that song. It began with a shotgun blast. I shivered, glad when the light changed.

  We rode down narrow streets lined with unpainted shacks. Up streets with houses so bright and tidy they reminded me of birdhouses.

  “Pearl Street,” announced Inez, standing up. “We getting off here, Miss Alice.”

  Pearl Street didn’t look like the other neighbourhoods. Big old-fashioned houses with wide porches, set far back from tree-shaded kerbs. Velvety, terraced yards. Sweet-smelling, big-headed hydrangeas drooped in the afternoon shadows.

  “You sure this is the right street?” I asked.

  “You tellin’ me I don’t know my own part of town?” Inez smiled, so I knew she wasn’t mad. “This be where the doctors and lawyers live. There’s well-off coloured people, y’know. We ain’t all dirt-poor.”

  Well-off coloured people. It was something I’d never thought of. I knew Valerie wasn’t dirt-poor. Her dresses were as nice as anyone else’s in 6B. Her parents’ station wagon was no fancier than our Chrysler. I figured Valerie probably lived in a house that looked a lot like mine. Not too big, not too small. Nothing like the houses on Pearl Street. These were big, old-fashioned two-storey houses, with Cadillacs and Lincolns gleaming in the driveways.

  At the end of the block sat the biggest house of all. A blue neon sign on the lawn announced HARRISON’S FUNERAL PARLOUR, SINCE 1919. A stream of Negroes trudged up the terrace steps and into the house.

  I felt very, very white, just like that day at the football game. Unlike that day, though, everyone was too sad to notice a white girl in school clothes carrying carnations.

  Inez and I joined the line of mourners that snaked up the block. People in their Sunday best, hats and gloves, suits and ties. Men in overalls and uniformed maids coming from work. The line crept silently along. It was spooky, that many people, and nobody making a sound.

  On the street, cars and pick-up trucks crawled by, honking, Confederate flags snapping from radio antennas. Over the horns, white men and boys leaned out the windows, screaming. A long string of sounds, but I couldn’t pick out words.

  A mud-splashed truck pulled up to the kerb. A teenager yelled out the window. “Hey, white girl. You lost?”

  “Nah,” shouted the driver, leaning across the boy. “She must be one of them nigger-loving Yankees.” They hooted as they gunned the truck back into traffic.

  More cars. More trucks. More screaming. Now I could tell what they were saying. White men screaming ugly words at the Negroes, who never looked up. Words hard and hateful enough to kill.

  Then I knew. They weren’t just words. Words show what’s in your heart. Words spoken. And words unspoken.

  All the words I left unsaid. Have to find Valerie. Tell her about the words.

  The line slowed at the terrace steps, stretched up to the porch and into Harrison’s. We shuffled forwards. I was glad to be away from the street.

  I had plenty of time to look around. News cameras rimmed the yard. Some white people stood on the lawn, smoking cigarettes and sipping from Dixie cups, as if this were a sad kind of garden party.

  Inez nudged me. “Look over there.”

  I followed her gaze. A Negro man with a handsome round face leaned against a magnolia tree, talking to a shorter man with light brown curly hair.

  “Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman,” said Inez.

  Reverend Taylor knew movie stars? Valerie never mentioned it. Valerie told us nothing.

  We don’t know you at all, Valerie.

  A Negro girl and woman came down the porch steps, tears streaking their faces. Where had I seen them before? La Petite. The girl who wanted the pink lace dress. Today, she wore a white shift with daisies embroidered on the hem. I wondered where she bought it. New Orleans?

  One step and another and we were on the porch. Two steps more brought us into the dim front hall. Fans on tall poles whirred in the corners, but they didn’t help unless you were standing right under one.

  I wasn’t. My blouse was soaked with sweat, the skirt waistband limp and soggy. My hair stuck to my neck in damp strings. My sticky hands reeked of carnations. A blanket of smells smothered me: candle wax and furniture polish, hair pomade and a hundred clashing perfumes.

  Valerie. Have to find Valerie.

  At the head of the line stood a tall Negro gentleman in a dark suit. “You are here for…?”

  “We’re here to see the Reverend,” said Inez, as if she did this every day.

  “Parlour two.” The man waved us to the left, where even more people stood in line. “There are so many flowers, we are putting them in parlour three.” He pointed to the other side of the hall.

  The flower room was empty of
people, late-afternoon sun slanting through the ruby-coloured windowpanes. Empty of people, but floor-to-ceiling with flowers.

  Roses and gladiolas and lilies and chrysanthemums. Wreaths with ribbons that said OUR FALLEN LEADER in glittery script. Sprays like ours, only bigger and fancier.

  I tucked the carnations next to a gigantic basket of roses. The only bouquet smaller than ours was a bunch of garden flowers tied with package ribbon. “From the First Grade of Parnell School,” said the card, manila drawing paper folded in half. I wondered how the first grade got their flowers here.

  “Look a’here.” Inez stood before a mass of calla lilies, a florist card dangling from her fingers. “From Marlon Brando, the actor. The Reverend sure did know a lot of famous folks.”

  I stuck my nose in the flowers. Calla lilies do not smell pretty. Something rotten lurked beneath the perfume. It made my head hurt.

  Inez’s eyes widened as she inspected a spray of white roses. “From President Johnson hisself,” she whispered. Then she sort of shook herself and said, “We best be payin’ our respects. Buses stop running out your way at six.”

  Back to the packed hallway. Sweat trickled down my back as bodies pressed me on all sides. The humming fans and moans from the viewing room jumbled together in a nightmarish way.

  My stomach roiled. Black fishlike spots swam before my eyes. I had skipped lunch to buy the flowers.

  I will not pass out.

  “Child, you all right?” Inez flapped a hanky in my face. “You look like you fixin’ to faint.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I will see Valerie. I will.

  The line inched forwards. I stared at the dusty toes of my shoes. The black fish spots went away, but my head still hurt. Cold sweat prickled the back of my neck.

  Have to find Valerie. Tell her I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.

  A familiar scent drifted over the stink of sweat and too many flowers. Yardley’s English Lavender. A brown dress brushed past me.

  “Miss Gruen?” Was I seeing things? “What are you doing here?”

  Miss Gruen didn’t look surprised to see me. “I am paying my respects to a student who has lost her father.” She smiled. I didn’t know she even knew how to smile. “I’m happy to see you, Alice. It will comfort Valerie to know a classmate is here.” Then she was gone, lavender scent trailing her.

  A door creaked open, and men’s voices mumbled. One, a little clearer than the rest, said, “I’ll see if she can see you. No one will know you’re here.”

  Men in dark suits elbowed past us. The crowd parted, and for a minute I saw Valerie, expressionless, in her beautiful white Class Day dress. She sat with her mother and Lucy next to the closed casket.

  The men whispered with Mrs. Taylor, then started hustling people outside. Next thing I knew, Inez and I were back out on the porch.

  “Y’all wait outside,” said one of the men. “Some folks want to speak with Miz Taylor in private.”

  “What’s going on?” I whispered to Inez.

  “I ’spect some big shots is wantin’ to see Miz Taylor without a bunch of people gawkin’. Maybe the vice pres’dent or Martin Luther King. Somebody like that.” She squinted into the setting sun. “You need to be goin’, child, if you want to make that last bus. Is there somethin’ I can tell that little Taylor girl for you?”

  “Sorry,” I said as I turned towards the bus stop. “Tell her Alice Ann Moxley says she’s sorry.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  JACKSON DAILY JOURNAL, Monday, May 17, 1965

  REVEREND TAYLOR BURIED IN ARLINGTON CEMETERY

  Mama had a fit about my going to the funeral home, even after I explained about Mr. Culver and Mary Martha and Inez.

  “What did I do wrong?” I asked over and over.

  Mama couldn’t tell me. All she said was, “All those screaming rednecks. So unpleasant.” The news cameras hadn’t just filmed movie stars.

  I looked at Mama, and I didn’t see just her. I saw a grown-up who didn’t know the answer and didn’t know the question. Because she didn’t want to. Because it was unpleasant. Mama never wanted to see anything unpleasant.

  I felt sorry for Mama.

  Reverend Taylor was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. I saw Valerie and her family on Walter Cronkite with President and Mrs. Johnson at the White House. Valerie looked so sad, I bet she didn’t even know where she was.

  A couple of days later, Mary Martha brought a copy of Life to school.

  “Look,” she called, waving the magazine. “Look who’s on the cover.”

  The sixth grade crowded around Mary Martha and Life. Valerie and her little sister were on the cover! Valerie’s arm was around Lucy, who clutched a white Raggedy Ann doll.

  Mary Martha riffled the pages until she found the story: SORROW IN MISSISSIPPI: CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER REVEREND CLAYMORE TAYLOR ASSASSINATED. It was mostly pictures from the funeral. Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier shaking hands with Mrs. Taylor. Martin Luther King preaching. The girl in the daisy dress hugging Valerie. The caption read “Daughter Valerie Irene is comforted by her cousin Demetria Taylor”. So that’s who that girl was.

  The first bell shrilled across the playground. Mary Martha closed the magazine.

  “I didn’t know Valerie’s middle name was Irene,” I said as we lined up.

  “There’s a lot we don’t know about Valerie.” Mary Martha’s eyes looked sad. “Alice, about not going with you that day…”

  “S’okay,” I mumbled.

  “No, it’s not okay,” Mary Martha said firmly. “I let you down.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “I mean, the flowers were your idea in the first place.”

  Mary Martha swallowed hard before she answered. “You know, the only reason I took up that flower money was manners. It was poor manners not to.”

  “But wasn’t it poor manners not to take them?”

  Mary Martha gazed off across the street at a yardman on his knees, weeding a flower bed. “The thing about manners is they’re easy. It’s easier to be nice to people than nasty. If you’re nice, people think you’re a good person. But sometimes manners aren’t enough, I guess.”

  “Yeah.” Feeling brave, I said, “So when Valerie comes back, maybe we should try to be her friends? She’s really nice when you get to talking to her.”

  “Friends? Us?” Mary Martha sounded scared. “It’s not that easy, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. But maybe if there are two of us being friends with her, it won’t be so hard. Just think about it, okay?”

  “Okay. I’ll think about it.” Mary Martha smiled. “We both need some new friends.”

  She had that right. If it weren’t for Mary Martha, I could go a whole school day with no one speaking to me. Not even Jeb. I missed him.

  Then one morning on the bus, he slid into the seat next to mine.

  “Sorry I’ve been such a goob,” he said, staring at the back of Ralph’s head.

  “Oh yeah? What changed your mind?” He wasn’t getting off that easy.

  “Inez. She gave me what-for. Said riding that bus by yourself was the bravest thing she’d ever seen a white person do. She also said she wasn’t making pimiento cheese until I apologized.”

  We looked at each other, then burst out laughing. I knew it wasn’t the pimiento cheese; Jeb really did think I was brave. That was better than wearing his ID bracelet. Well, almost.

  I wasn’t the only one in trouble over Reverend Taylor’s funeral.

  “Mama says Miss Gruen has lost her mind, going to a nigger funeral,” said Saranne.

  “My daddy said the same thing.” Debbie flipped her sheepdog bangs out of her eyes. “Says public schools is going to the niggers. He’s sending me to Council School next year.”

  Other classmates would not be going on to Belson Junior High. Skipper’s daddy was sending him to military school in Alabama.

  “All that marching and saluting. Might as well join the army and get it over with,”
Skipper griped.

  No one was surprised when Leland announced he was going to Council. Karla said she wanted to, but her parents couldn’t afford it.

  “I reckon I’ll be stuck going to school with niggers for ever,” she grouched.

  And I’d be stuck with Karla and her fingernails for ever. I hoped she’d find someone else to torture in seventh grade.

  Junior-high orientation was the last day of school. The sixth graders would ride the bus over to Belson to get our schedules and lockers and find the rest rooms. Could anything bigger possibly happen in our lives?

  Something did, the Sunday before orientation.

  “Alice, would you bring in the paper?” Mama asked as I staggered out to the kitchen. I hated getting up early, but Sunday school started at nine.

  “I’m not dressed.” I poured myself a bowl of Cocoa Krispies.

  “You’ve got your robe and slippers on.” Mama sipped her coffee. “Who’s going to see?”

  A lot of people. Namely, Jeb.

  “How come Daddy didn’t bring in the paper?” Usually Daddy finished the crossword puzzle before I got out of bed.

  “Because he came in very late. Big arrests last night. Now, scoot.”

  The paper lay at the end of the driveway in the storm gutter. I hoped I could grab it and hurry back inside before anyone saw me.

  I clutched my nylon robe, which was missing buttons, scurried down the drive, and snatched up the paper. The flimsy rubber band holding the rolled paper snapped, and paper sections exploded all over the yard.

  “Rats, rats, rats,” I muttered as I gathered the sports and comics and want ads. Last, I picked up the front news section.

  That’s when I saw Miss LeFleur. Two pictures. Dead centre of the front page.

  The headline: TEACHER ARRESTED IN CLAN RAID: BEING HELD IN TAYLOR SLAYING.

  I forgot to hold my robe shut. Forgot who might be watching. Forgot about breakfast and Sunday school. I stood in the driveway and read about Miss LeFleur.

  The first picture was from her college yearbook. It looked just like her; hair in a perfect flip, a string of pearls around her neck.

  The other picture…well, if the paper hadn’t said it was Miss LeFleur, I wouldn’t have guessed. She was flanked by two policemen gripping her upper arms. Her hair was all messed up. She crooked her elbow over her face so no one would recognize her. I did. I recognized her charm bracelet.