by Kia Corthron
“I didn’t look at his paper!”
“Your eyes were right on it.” Earl’s dark irises hard on me.
“Not seeing it! I didn’t. I finished my exam early, I was thinking about something else! I didn’t know my eyes. You saw my paper was turned over, I was thinking about something else!”
“I said very clearly, ‘Eyes on your own paper.’”
“Yeah!”
“I know! I’m sorry! It was an accident, I’m sorry! But I didn’t. My paper was upside down! I was done!”
“Well I wouldn’t know about that cuz I kept my eyes on my own paper!”
“It was upside down! I was done! I was done!” I stare at tense, silent Mr. Westerly, my shining eyes begging him to intercede. He knows my grades. He knows Earl’s grades. Mrs. Vaughn and Earl also stare at the principal.
Then I remember how everyone just loves Earl, and a cry I hadn’t anticipated escapes my lips.
“Well.” Mr. Westerly clears his throat. “What Randall says is true. Given his grades, and given Earl’s, it’s difficult to imagine that Randall copied from Earl. Randall, as a matter of fact, has been chosen as valedictorian of the class.” Mrs. Vaughn looks at me, surprised. It’s doubtful she keeps up with the valedictory business since the honor is never bestowed upon someone based on her expertise at opening a near-empty cupboard and whipping up a grand dinner for eight. “We will turn in the standards to the board as they are. If Earl’s and Randall’s scores are close, we will reinvestigate the matter. But if Randall’s score is significantly higher, the scores will stand and will average into the curve.” Earl groans, slamming back in his chair, arms crossed. I finally breathe.
But Earl would never so easily back down from a fight. “The rule was—”
“I’m getting to that.” Mr. Westerly’s eyes are on me. “Randall. I am of the opinion that you’ve told the truth, that Earl perhaps mistook your wandering mind for cheating. However, rules are rules, and they are not to be suspended to allow for daydreaming. Peeking at another student’s test, whether inadvertent or not, is a serious offense. And not becoming of a valedictorian of our school.” He leans forward. “I hope you have not already wasted too many hours with the speech.”
Apparently Earl couldn’t fathom just how devastating Mr. Westerly’s words were to me, that the athlete had already exponentially exacted his revenge, because when I return to my hall locker—how he had gotten my combination I’ll never know—my War to End All Wars Sopwith model aeroplane inside is smashed, demolished, a wheel among the tiny bits. My Amelia, like the Amelia, missing.
I have a plan. I have a plan and if I had any qualms about it, the universe confirms my decision: when I get home from school the house is empty—no deterrents. My father at work, my mother having left a note.
Lily had the baby. Be back around 6. ITS A GIRL!
And no B.J., no Benja. Guess they all went to meet their new cousin. I go to the closet and I find the sheet, I twist the sheet I make the noose.
I consider the pretension. I could jump off a building instead, except nothing’s higher than two stories around here, best I’d do is break my leg. I could throw myself into the river but it’s twenty miles away, I’d have to walk or hitchhike to it, plus I’m a pretty good swimmer so it would take a lot of will not to. Not to.
I don’t want Ma to find me. Maybe I should leave a note for Benja. “Could you come into my room for a minute please?” Yeah, then I’d go down in history as the creep who did that to his sister. Anyway be just like her to holler through the wall, “No!” and go on painting her fingernails as my body swayed until supper when my mother would yell and yell for me until she lost her patience and came up herself. I know it’s selfish but. I’m not going to the mill next year! And what if Pa did let me go to high school? How do I really know it wouldn’t be just four more years of this?
I need a note! Can’t just leave my family with nothing.
I love my family.
The kids at school are
Uh-uh. Why give them the power, thinking they pushed me over the edge? Rip it up.
I love my family.
This has nothing to do with them.
Not good. They’ll be home soon, I’m pressed for time but I take a breath. I put in all that effort for the debates, for the valedictory speech, the least I owe my family is this last bit of care. It needn’t be long, but it has to be right.
And I realize my struggle is in trying to find a reason. My family will want a reason. But it’s too complicated, a suicide note the size of the Bible. Miss Dawson’s favorite composition word: “Simplify.”
This is the hardest thing I have ever done.
Because I love love love love my family.
I will miss you all very much.
Okay. No other business. I move my desk chair to my closet, remove the hanging clothes from the bar. For once I’m relieved I’m short so when I knock the chair out from under me, there will be a few inches between my outstretched toes and the floor: no turning back.
I stand on the seat, noose around my neck. Close my eyes. Next week is B.J.’s birthday. It won’t be a happy one for him. Don’t think don’t think, get through this you’ll never have to worry about another thing. I stand on the chair backwards, facing out into the room, keep my left foot down but not too much weight, lift my right foot, place it on the chairback to push, take a breath I push
“RAN UL!”
My eyes snap open. Where did he come from? Gaping wild, his entire body trembling.
“RAN UL!”
We stare at each other, frozen. Then he snatches Madeline lying on his made bed, Madeline which he checked out of the library the umpteenth time. He sits cross-legged in front of my chair, and through his sobs he begins to read.
In an old house in Paris
that was covered with vines
lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.
In two straight lines they broke their bread
and brushed their teeth
and went to bed.
With his right hand, he clutches my left ankle tight, his face down in the book. His voice, his horror coupled with his deafness, is wildly distorted, yet through it all he evinces a certain forced calm, and I’m feeling gradually soothed, for the first time hearing what the rhyme must sound like in his mind. Late in the tale, I gently slip the noose up and off, and I step down from the chair, and by the time he gets to
and that’s all there is—
there isn’t any more
B.J. and I are sitting on the floor cross-legged next to each other, the book shared between our laps, me wordlessly listening to my big brother telling me a story, marveling at the exquisite vividly colored illustrations catapulting Paris right into the bedroom of two sons of America.
12
We live in a time of war. As we eighth-grade graduates walk down the steps of Prayer Ridge School for the last time, weighing heavily on all our minds are our servicemen, the brave men and women fighting in Europe and the Pacific in the name of freedom for the world, and for all of us back home in America.
When I say “and women” I look right at my mother the veteran and watch her beaming smile become incredibly brighter. My speech advisor Mrs. Braden said women were understood as part of the generic “servicemen,” that adding the phrase meant clutter for an already too-long sentence. Women, she said, was not a necessary word. I said it was.
It’s quite warm this morning in early June, the sun high and bright over the temporary amphitheater. Many church fans rapidly flutter in the audience. For this outdoor ceremony I work hard at projecting my voice, and I am heard.
Mr. Hickory intervened. I don’t know what was said between him and Mr. Westerly, and I heard their voices had become progressively louder, but the Monday following my attempted suicide, I was again summoned by the principal who revoke
d his previous decision. I, and no one but me, would deliver the valedictory address. Doubtless also related to Mr. Hickory’s intercession, the principal made a point of introducing Prayer Ridge’s inaugural debate team, and Lucille gave a short speech before mine. It felt to me only fair, her one and only slipup being that PE incident, and I was nearly as happy to hear about her oration as she.
We are all praying this Second World War will be over swiftly. Still, for ever how long it takes, we as a country vow that in this struggle against tyranny, we will emerge victorious. We are not in this conflict by any foolish aggression on our part, but rather because we were forced into it. And now we will not come out of it until we bring about democracy for all those who have been oppressed by totalitarianism. Emma Lazarus wrote a poem called “The New Colossus,” which famously begins, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Emma Lazarus also said, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”
My mother and sister in white gloves and hat, Ma wearing a navy dress with white polka dots, Benja a white dress with navy polka dots. Benja’s idea. They bought the material and pattern together, each sewing the other’s.
My sister got another pen pal soldier, somebody from right here in Prayer Ridge, whose mother died in childbirth when he was five, and whose father died of polio a few years back. He was thirteen then, he and his siblings divvied up among relatives, he sent to a depraved farmer uncle who worked him and beat him like a slave. This soldier, Aaron Sprigg, was ever grateful for Benja’s letters, and she has proven herself an enthusiastic correspondent. She prays for his safety.
B.J. wears a gray suit, pale blue shirt, blue tie. We told him over and over the function would be long, that if he came he’d have to be still and quiet. He signed it and signed it and after he finally started speaking it, “I come! I come!” my mother said, “Then get dressed.” He sits next to her.
And, astonishingly, wearing the only good outfit he owns, the black suit he reserves for funerals, my father sits between my mother and Benja. I had to leave the house earlier than my family today, so I had no idea he would be here until I looked out from the stage. Thank the Lord I glimpsed him before things started, before I was called to the lectern, because at the sight of him I almost burst out weeping.
Young though we may be, we at Prayer Ridge School are not removed from the tragedy of war. There are those among us already who have older brothers who will not come back. Matthew Donovan. Jeffrey Willetts.
Suzanne Willetts behind me breaks into huge sobs. Her family just received the news four days ago. A funeral yesterday, a graduation today. Despite our differences, hearing her grief I must rally the utmost effort not to cry myself. Many in the audience lose the battle, putting down fans and picking up hankies.
Last night Pa said it, direct as he ever would be: “I hope after you graduate the twelfth grade they still got openins at the mill.” And he left the room. I closed my eyes, releasing a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding for months.
B.J. grins and signs, My brother My brother My brother. When I thank my family in my speech I smile and, though no one but my mother and siblings will understand, I sign for all to see: B.J. He mentioned nothing to the rest of the family about the noose in our bedroom. He never would.
After the ceremony I’m stunned to finally meet Henry Lee’s father. “At long last, the famous Randall Evans!” He shakes my hand warmly and even gives me a quick embrace.
In the afternoon, we picnic at the park as do several other graduates with their families. My father tends steaks and burgers on the grill, such a feast implying this is a milestone indeed. My mother was almost in tears this morning, her cake skimpy from the rations, but I told her about Henry Lee’s mother’s recent experiments with baking, how I had gotten stuck having to eat a big slice of rock-hard coffee cake she’d made, and how much better to have just a little of my own mother’s scrumptious devil’s food. I think Ma knew I’d exaggerated the Mrs. Taylor story a little, but still she laughed gratefully and tousled my hair.
The sun has slipped behind gray clouds, the humid threat of rain. B.J. and I sit on a blanket in the grass playing rummy. He keeps score, an arithmetic lesson I’m giving him. His penmanship is much improved, as well as his English syntax. Yesterday when I got home from Henry Lee’s after school there was a note in his handwriting.
Ma and I gone to the market for eggs.
B.J. wins 545–410 and wants another hand. But I’m tired of sitting still. In the old days my quitting would have been cause for a major tantrum, but B.J.’s demeanor seems to have become increasingly calmer in conjunction with his access to communication. Benja, who has been surprisingly amiable all day, comes over to take my place. She points at our brother and good-naturedly hand-spells “Dead meat.”
Mr. Wright and Mr. Stewart and Mr. O’Brien, Pa’s secret society buddies, come over to talk privately with him. Mr. O’Brien wears a suit because his daughter Renna also graduated from the eighth grade today. Renna won no awards. She barely passed. But Mr. O’Brien was there to hear them call her name and to whistle and cheer, despite the fact that everyone was asked to withhold applause until after all the graduates had been recognized. Mr. Wright and Mr. Stewart have no graduating children today so are dressed casually. I grab a pickled egg from the bowl my mother just set on the table and head for the woods. My Christmas binoculars hang around my neck. Bird watching.
The truth is I never used the spyglasses as I thought I would—to peek at lovers in the woods, to see if that one glimpse I accidentally captured so long ago might be repeated. While I had no problem glancing from afar, the idea of zooming in with the binocs seemed to have a particular moral corruptness about it.
I find my favorite oak and scale it. She’ll shoot me for getting my good suit dirty but at least I avoid tearing the fabric. The moment I reach the top, the clouds part, and the sun beams down, and I interpret the perfect synchronization of my summit with this solar emergence as a very good sign for my future. I tilt my face back to soak up all the rays, eyes closed, and I remember my mother saying that I may be leaving Deb Ellen and Buppie behind, that I will find my own tribe among the other college-educated. As I lower my face, I look down to the left, where I just came from. Through my binoculars, I see my mother talking to Aunt Pearlie. I’m glad she’s here, my favorite aunt, and glad she left her unruly brood behind. I see B.J. tallying up the score from the last rummy hand and Benja shuffling for the next. I see my father flipping the meat while his Klux chums continue their talk. I take off the magnifiers and turn to the right.
Oh my Lord. A young couple in the clearing. I smile. They don’t appear to be touching though. Just sitting up on a blanket, books lying around them. Still, something close about it: intimate. With the naked eye, I can’t distinguish their faces.
There’s something odd about the scene, even from a distance. I believe my eyes are playing tricks on me and I rub them, and then I look through the binoculars again. No invasion of privacy since they aren’t doing anything, I reason. The lenses are out of focus, but even in the first blurry glimpse I can see what felt amiss. That which couldn’t have been what I thought, was.
Black and white.
I twist the lenses clear as I can. And when I peer through my handset again, my mouth slowly opens wide.
Emily Creitzer from High School Visitation Day. And Roger.
So this is the “boy” Roger said was loaning him books. But it doesn’t feel like loaning so much as...sharing. I was with Emily half that day, and even in the Latin class where she got to teach, I never saw her look so happy. And Roger? I didn’t know it was in him to smile like this. They look at their schoolbooks and they talk and they smile.
And then they kiss.
I take down my spyglasses, look away! Oh my God. Something flutters my stomach oh my God! Oh my God maybe. Maybe I didn’t see it. I must’ve mistook it. Maybe she
was whispering something to him. But why even be sitting that close? And why whisper here alone with no one else around, and why are they alone together with no one else around? I take a breath, bring the binoculars back to my eyes. The metal trembles in my hands.
They just seem to be talking now. But who laughs that much doing homework?
And they kiss again. His black lips against her pink.
And she opens three buttons of her blouse, and he touches her there.
I snatch the lenses away breathing breathing oh my God! This is not just some vicarious lust, wrong as that is, white man with a colored streetwalker. This is. This is a black male and white female oh my God. Oh my God!
I hate them! They’re both smart, they know better! All I have to do . . . All I have to do . . .
I could right now. Yell for my father. And for Mr. Wright and Mr. Stewart and Mr. O’Brien, they’d be here quick. Course Roger and Emily’d hear my shouting and run, get away. Or I could quietly slip off the tree, get Pa and them and bring em all back for a surprise greeting, give Roger and Emily what’s what. All on me. To make what’s what come about, set it all in motion.
They kiss again! I feel sick, Jesus! Didn’t Sally ever teach Roger anything? I know she did! I was never clamoring for the white robe, I’m not! But there’s decency, there’s— Why would Roger and Emily do something like this? Disgusting! And if they had no sense of respectability themselves, then they know damn well everyone else does, how in the hell can they just flaunt it, antagonize all of white society? Idiots! Trash! Through my binoculars, I look to my left now, the four of them, my father and his Klan cronies, Mr. Wright fanning his hat in front of him to cool off, clumsy with his three fingers. One whistle I could send for them, one move. Would make my father proud. Now B.J. stands looking around, no doubt for me.
A crow soars overhead, low and cawing loud, moving from the park out to the woods, coaxing us all to look up. Ma and Aunt Pearlie and B.J. and Benja and Pa and Mr. Wright and Mr. Stewart and Mr. O’Brien raise their eyes a moment before I raise my eyes, a moment before Roger and Emily raise their eyes, and there we are. For five seconds, all eleven of us seeing exactly the same.