The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

by Kristin Levine

  All the kids gasped. Course we had all heard Uncle Wiggens’s stories a million times before, but Mrs. Seay was new in town and didn’t know that. We were smart enough to figure we’d best put on a good show for her or she’d send Uncle Wiggens home and make us go back to arithmetic.

  “And when they won the war, the Yankees freed all the Negras. Talk about stamping on Southern honor! Why, those gosh darn son of a—”

  “Now, Uncle Wiggens,” said Mrs. Seay, standing up quickly. “This is a school.”

  Pearl and a couple of the other girls giggled nervously.

  “But ma’am, it could happen again. Those Yankees could—”

  “No one is going to burn down our school,” Mrs. Seay said firmly. “Especially since we have a good lawman like Big Foot protecting our town.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Uncle Wiggens said sheepishly, rubbing at the place where his wooden leg attached to his stump. “It just makes me so angry, I sometimes get carried away.”

  Mrs. Seay brought over a chair and helped him sit down. “It is upsetting to think about the time we lost the best of a whole generation.”

  I was still imagining dying soldiers that evening after supper when I went over to Emma’s. We usually did our homework together while Mrs. Walker washed the dishes. Emma made me repeat just about every little thing that happened at school so she could learn it too. I said I didn’t ask her to tell me everything she learned at her school, but Emma just rolled her eyes and told me to get on with it.

  So I started telling Emma about General Sherman and him burning schools. Even wiggled my hands like Uncle Wiggens. But when I got to the part about us losing the best of a whole generation, Mrs. Walker jumped in. “What did you say, Dit?”

  “I was just telling Emma what Mrs. Seay said,” I explained. “About how sad it was that the South lost the war.”

  “Sad for whom?” Suds dripped off Mrs. Walker’s hands and onto the floor, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Why, for everyone.”

  “Maybe to men like Uncle Wiggens it was a sad day,” Mrs. Walker hollered, “but not for us Negroes! Dit, do you have any idea where we’d be if the South hadn’t lost the war?”

  My hands were sweating. I’d never even heard Mrs. Walker raise her voice before. “Back in Boston?”

  “Picking cotton on a plantation in South Carolina!” She threw down her dishrag and began to pace the room.

  “Your great-grandmother used to get up before sunrise and work in the fields all day without a rest,” Mrs. Walker said to Emma. “If she didn’t work fast enough, she was whipped until the blood ran down her back. That could have been your fate.”

  “I know, Mama,” Emma said quietly.

  I tried to picture it, but it was hard. I could see Buster in the fields or even myself, but Emma?

  “After that war was over, my grandmother and her children and their children could hold their heads up high and be treated like people instead of animals!”

  I shook my head. “But Mrs. Seay said—”

  “I don’t care what she said! The day the Confederate army surrendered was a good day.” She picked up the wet rag from the floor. “You’d better go home now, Dit.”

  Emma walked me to the door. “What’d I say?” I whispered. I liked Mrs. Walker and felt bad that I upset her. Also, she made the best biscuits in town.

  Emma shrugged. “You just repeated what Mrs. Seay said.”

  “Then why’s she so angry?”

  Emma bit her lower lip. “Maybe Mrs. Seay’s wrong.”

  I shook my head. “She’s a good teacher, Emma. You said so yourself. Ain’t that why you make me repeat everything she says?”

  “Even the smartest people make mistakes,” Emma insisted.

  I thought maybe I just didn’t explain it right, so we decided to meet up the next day after school and talk to Mrs. Seay. Surely the teacher could explain things so that Emma would understand.

  But that night in bed, I did some more thinking. Big Foot had been wrong to steal that hair tonic from Doc Haley. And Mrs. Pooley shouldn’t have told me to drown those kittens. It was just possible, I decided, that Mrs. Seay was wrong about the war.

  29

  A DAY IN JAIL

  THE WILSON SCHOOL WAS TWO MILES away, so when Mrs. Seay let us out the next day, I sat down under a tree to wait for Emma. I was planning on taking a little nap when Chip walked up to me. “Hey, Dit,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said. Chip had hardly spoken to me since he’d switched desks.

  “Haven’t seen you around much,” said Chip.

  “No.”

  “Baseball’s not as fun without our best pitcher.” Chip grinned, showing off his straight, white teeth.

  I looked at him suspiciously. “You trying to be nice?”

  “And what if I am?” said Chip. “We been friends a long time.”

  That was true enough.

  “Come on,” said Chip. “I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Nah.” I had to wait for Emma.

  “Why not?” asked Chip.

  “I’m meeting someone.”

  “That Negra girl?” Chip asked.

  “No.” But I think he knew I was lying.

  “Aw, come on, Dit,” said Chip. “It’ll just take a minute.”

  He was being nice. Besides, I would probably be back before Emma came.

  “All right,” I said finally, and stood up to follow him.

  Chip led me over to city hall. It was an old wooden building, not much used, but Chip’s pa had an office there. The back door was open and we crept into the basement.

  “What you want to show me?” I asked. “There’s only spiders and rats here.”

  “You’ll see,” Chip said.

  I took a few steps forward, almost bumping into Chip when he stopped in front of an old jail cell. “Here we are,” he announced.

  The old jail hadn’t been used in years. Weren’t too many crimes committed in Moundville. It’s kind of hard to break the law when everybody knows your business. “Why’d you bring me here?”

  Buster stepped out of the darkness. “We wanted to play a little baseball,” he said. He glanced at Chip and together they shoved me into the cell. Before I could scramble to my feet, Buster slammed the door.

  The floor was dusty and I sneezed. “Why didn’t you just ask,” I said, wiping my dirty hands on my pants. “I’d be happy to give you another bloody nose.”

  Buster snickered. The sound bounced off the dark walls till it sounded like a thousand tiny mice squealing at me.

  I stood up and tried the door. It was locked. “You’re gonna get in big trouble,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “Go get Big Foot. He’ll have the key.”

  “We don’t need Big Foot,” Buster said.

  “Then how you gonna get me out?”

  Chip pulled out a key on a string around his neck. “My dad’s the mayor.”

  Of course. Chip would have it all planned out. “Fine,” I said. “You had your joke. Now let me out.”

  “Not till you say it,” Buster growled.

  “Say what?” I taunted. “How much I want to beat you up again?”

  “You gotta admit you love that nigger girl,” said Chip.

  “I do not!”

  “Then we won’t let you out,” said Buster. Chip tucked the key back under his shirt.

  It was probably only an hour or so, but it seemed like forever. Buster and Chip sat on the stairs, watching me. I crossed my arms and stared back at them. I wasn’t gonna speak first.

  “Come on, Dit,” Chip said finally. “It’s getting cold down here.”

  “I ain’t gonna say it.” I wasn’t cold. I was steaming. My “best friend” had locked me in a jail cell.

  “Then we’ll let the rats eat your bones,” said Buster, sounding a little tired.

  We sat in silence a while longer. There were rats, and I watched a fat one
make a nest in the corner of the cell. “I got to get home,” I said finally. “It’s past time for chores.”

  “You hang out with her sometimes, right?” asked Chip. Guess he was tiring of the game.

  “Yes.”

  “Say she’s your very best friend and we’ll let you out.”

  I considered this. I didn’t like admitting it, but I didn’t like being locked in a cell even more. “All right. Emma’s my very best friend.”

  Buster snickered again. But this time it sounded hollow.

  Chip took the key from around his neck and shrugged. “Anyway, I got to get the key back before my dad notices.”

  Chip unlocked the door. I stepped out of the cell and swung at him. Didn’t even realize how angry I was at him till my fist was in the air. I understood why Buster was upset—I’d beat him up in front of everyone. But Chip was my friend. We’d pulled a hundred tricks like this together. And the truth was, till now, I’d never given a thought to what it was like to be the one on the other side.

  My fist hit Chip square in the jaw. He fell to the ground. Buster bent down to help him. I ran up the stairs and didn’t look back.

  That night, I didn’t go over to Emma’s. Me and Pearl sat at the dining room table doing our homework. About a quarter to eight, there was a knock at our door. I didn’t move. There was another knock. Finally, Pearl slid off her chair and went to answer it.

  She returned a moment later with Emma. “Where were you today?” Emma asked.

  I wanted to tell her about Chip and Buster, felt the words building up like a pressure in my chest. But I didn’t know what to say. Me and Chip had been friends for just about forever and suddenly everything had changed. “I forgot,” I lied. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, it’s all right,” she said. “I just introduced myself to Mrs. Seay.” She put a huge book down on the table.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Emma smiled. “I told her I thought she was wrong about the war. She pulled out this old book and told me if I read the whole thing and wrote an essay on it, she’d discuss the issue with me further.”

  Pearl laughed. “She thought you wouldn’t do it!”

  “No.” Emma grinned, fire sparkling in her brown eyes. “She thought I couldn’t read!”

  Course Emma started on the book that very night. First, she read the entire table of contents. Out loud. Me and Pearl ’bout fell asleep, but Emma said it was important to know where the book was going. I said that book was too heavy to go anywhere. Emma rolled her eyes and turned the page to chapter one.

  30

  THANKSGIVING

  THE NEXT DAY WAS THANKSGIVING, AND Mama woke us all before dawn. There was a lot to do if we were gonna eat at noon. Why we had to eat at noon was beyond me, but you didn’t argue with Mama, especially on a holiday.

  While Mama and the girls were busy cooking the turkey, shelling peas and baking pies, Pa and us boys scrubbed the floors and washed the windows, in addition to all the normal chores like chopping wood and milking the cows. Even little Robert and Lois helped Mama get out the good tablecloth and set the table. We usually ate in shifts, but on holidays Pa moved the card table from the parlor into the dining room and we all squeezed in together.

  Right in the middle of the turkey, Pa asked if anyone had anything they were thankful for. Della gushed on and on ’bout Mr. Fulton’s boy and how he was gonna ask for her hand any day now. Ollie liked the new dress she’d got for her birthday, Ulman was grateful for Mama’s mashed potatoes, Elman was thrilled he hadn’t failed his math test and Raymond was thankful for the pumpkin pie he could smell in the kitchen.

  Finally, it was my turn. I cleared my throat, just like Mrs. Seay did when she was trying to make sure everyone was listening. “I’m thankful for my new job.”

  “You got a job?” said Pa. He sounded surprised, and I thought a little proud too. “Doing what?”

  “Driving Dr. Griffith into Selma. He’s got to go once a month to pick up supplies.”

  “Driving?” said Elman. “Dit don’t know how to drive.”

  “I do now,” I said. “Dr. Griffith taught me.”

  “Why’d he do that?” said Raymond. “Could have just asked one of us.”

  I’d wondered the same thing myself. “Guess he likes me better.”

  Raymond threw a pat of butter at me.

  “Boys!” Mama said sharply. “This is my good tablecloth!”

  Pa shook his head. “So my boy knows how to drive. Well, I’ll be—”

  But just when he was about to say something nice (or at least I think he was), Robert decided to imitate Raymond and throw a pat of butter. Only he knocked over his glass of milk instead. It spilled all over the tablecloth. Mama started wailing, so Ollie jumped up to get a towel, but she ran into Della, who’d had the same idea, and they knocked over a chair. Then Pearl reached for a drumstick and tipped over the green beans, and Earl started whining ’cause he wanted a drumstick and there weren’t no more left, and the subject of me driving didn’t come up again.

  That evening me and Emma sat down on our front porch. She had eaten dinner with her family over at the church. I was complaining about my family and how loud they were and how I never got to say nothing and how irritating and—

  “I don’t know, Dit,” Emma interrupted. “It doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

  “That’s ’cause you don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

  “Yeah.” She bit her lip.

  “What?”

  “I think my mama always wanted more children.”

  “Why you think that?”

  “Once, when I was real little, she told me I was gonna have a brother or sister. Then a couple weeks later, Daddy had to get the doctor in the middle of the night. They never said anything more about it after that. They thought I forgot ’cause I was so small, but I didn’t.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Emma shrugged. “Reverend Cannon says we ought to be thankful for what we do have instead of cursing what we don’t.” She sighed. “It’s not always so easy.”

  “Least we both got families,” I said. “Think about poor Jim Dang-It, out in that cabin all alone.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Do you think your mama has an extra pie?” asked Emma.

  “Shoot, Emma,” I said. “My mama has so many, I could steal one and she wouldn’t even notice.”

  “We brought home some extra chicken from the church.”

  “Think Jim would mind some visitors?” I asked.

  “There’s one way to find out.”

  So that’s how me and Emma found ourselves knocking on the door of Jim Dang-It’s cabin late that night.

  “What you dang kids want?” Jim growled as he pulled the door open.

  “We brought you dinner,” said Emma. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  Jim broke into a grin, bigger than two arms held wide. “In that case, come on in.”

  “It ain’t much,” I said as we sat down at his tiny table in front of the fire.

  “Just some chicken and an apple pie,” Emma added.

  Jim Dang-It was thoughtful for a moment. “An Indian, a Negra and a white boy sitting down to share some chicken and an apple pie.” He nodded. “Sounds like a pretty good Thanksgiving to me.”

  And it was.

  31

  SELMA

  ME AND DR. GRIFFITH SET OFF EARLY THE next Saturday on our first trip to Selma. We were lucky—it was sunny and hadn’t rained for a while, so the roads were good. In towns, people spread gravel on the roads to keep down the mud, but in between the towns, there was only hard-packed dirt.

  Dr. Griffith let me drive the first half of the trip. I liked driving, mainly ’cause it took all my concentration and I couldn’t worry ’bout nothing else. When we switched drivers, Dr. Griffith said I had done a great job. “I might even let you drive alone one of these days.” I smiled so big, I thought the skin on my cheeks was gonna split.

  We got to Selma just
before noon. Selma is an old wealthy town that saw lots of action during the War Between the States. About eighteen thousand people live there. I bet Emma could figure out how many times bigger than Moundville that is, but if you ask me, all that matters is that it’s real big. I had only been to Selma once before, and I was so little, I couldn’t remember much.

  Me and Dr. Griffith ate lunch at the drugstore, where he bought me a hamburger and a root beer float. When we were done eating, Dr. Griffith went to pick up his orders and I wandered around Main Street. Next to the drugstore was a fancy hotel. On the other side of the hotel was a general goods store, three times the size of Mrs. Pooley’s. After that was an ice cream parlor. They had a room in the basement where they made the ice cream, and the man behind the counter told me I could go watch. It was cold as a winter morning in that room, all year long.

  Across the street from the ice cream parlor was Pearson’s Pool Hall. There was a big sign in the window that read, NO ONE UNDER 21 ADMITTED. Maybe Chip wasn’t lying about the pool hall after all. I was just getting ready to sneak inside myself when Dr. Griffith walked up and said it was time to go.

  We were back in Moundville before suppertime. He gave me four dimes for the day’s work, even though I would have gladly driven the car for free. I was gonna enter the Fourth hunt next year, and I was gonna win.

  But the dimes reminded me of the one Mrs. Pooley had given me for getting rid of the kittens. The Fourth hunt wasn’t the same thing at all. I knew that. Drowning kittens was just wasteful, and the Fourth hunt, well, it was a tradition. It was how we knew who was the best hunter in town, and hunting was important ’cause that’s how people got their meat. Besides, how else was I gonna get Pa to stop calling me “Della, Ollie, Ulman, Elman, Raymond, uh, I mean Dit”?

  Monday was gonna be my first day back at school since Chip and Buster had locked me in jail. I was so nervous, I woke up before dawn. My hands were sweating as I did my chores, and I dropped a bucket of coal all over the clean kitchen floor.