by Terry Kay
“She’s taken,” I said proudly.
“You ever tried dancing with both legs broken?” Art snarled. “I hear it ain’t easy to do.”
“You have a point,” I admitted. “You care if I dance with Sally?”
Art stared at me in disbelief. “Cole, I’ll trade you on the spot, and throw in my Ford to boot and even give you the bottle of vodka I’ve got in the trunk.”
It was a funny, almost-desperate line and I laughed, took two cups of punch from the table, and turned back to look at Marie. Wormy and Hugh Cooper and Jody Turner surrounded her. Cone Bailey was standing behind her, leering, tugging subconsciously at his trousers. He did not have the look of a chaperone. Marilyn Pender stood beside him, an expression of awe frozen in her face.
“No trade,” I said, “but if she wants to dance with you, that’s her business.”
“I’ll kiss you flat on the lips if she does,” Art moaned. He hurried away toward a glaring Sally, the punch sloshing over the glass rims.
An hour later, I had danced with Marie only once, a close-fitting, barely moving slow dance to the music of Hey, There. Those who watched us believed she was murmuring love sighs into my ear. She was not.
“Oh, my God, Cole,” she whispered, “do you see them? I told you. They’re all talking about us.”
“Not us,” I corrected. “You. And, to be honest, I think you’d better ease off a little. You’ve got Sally nipping at Art’s bottle of vodka.”
Marie giggled, nestled her face against my neck.
“That’s her problem,” she said. “Personally, I think she’s jealous because I’m with you. I saw you dancing with her. A lot of rubbing, Cole. A lot of rubbing.”
“I told you. She’s a little drunk,” I warned. “Do me a favor, okay?”
“What?”
“Don’t dance with Art again.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want any trouble,” I said. “He’s my friend.”
We turned, bumped against Lamar and a girl named Peggy Colquitt, who was the daughter of Ben Colquitt, the newspaper editor. Lamar grinned, blushed, looked away, forced Peggy into a spin. He gazed over Peggy’s shoulder at Marie, rolled his eyes to me.
“All right,” Marie said.
“Thanks,” I told her.
“You’re not mad at me for dancing with other people, are you?”
“No.”
“I’m with you, you know. There’s no one else here I’d be seen dead with.”
“I’m not mad,” I assured her.
“Do you really like this dress?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to save it for our wedding.”
“Good,” I said.
“You don’t believe we’re going to get married, do you?”
“I do not.”
She laughed, snuggled against me, tilted her head, blew softly over my ear.
“Stop it,” I said, using my annoyed voice.
Marie broke her promise about not dancing again with Art, but I knew it was not her fault. Art had cut in on Sidney Witherspoon and Marie, nudging Sidney aside with a powerful sweep of his elbow.
“Well, pissant, looks like you’re losing your woman,” Cone Bailey whispered in an evil snicker.
Cone Bailey had made his way across the room to stand with me. A heavy air of cologne swam around his face.
“Naw,” I said easily. “Art’s just aggravating Sally.”
“Doing a good job of it,” Cone Bailey said. “She’s been ducking outside to the car. Probably got a bottle.”
“Don’t know,” I lied. I also had watched Sally leave the hall and return a few minutes later. I had danced with her. The faint, hiding odor of vodka was on her breath and in the fire that blazed in her eyes.
“You getting that, Cole?” Cone Bailey asked.
“Sir?”
“Shoot, Cole, it’s me you’re talking to,” Cone Bailey said. “Coach and quarterback. Coaches and quarterbacks got to be up front with one another.” He snickered again, reached into his pocket and drug out his handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “It was me, I’d be on that like white on rice.”
“We’re just friends,” I said.
Cone Bailey nodded his head and pushed his handkerchief back into his pocket. “You never had none, have you, Cole?”
“Sir?”
“You talk too much. It’s the quiet ones that’s getting it all.”
“I guess you’ve got me there,” I told him.
Cone Bailey clucked his tongue. His eyes closed to half-lid. He stroked his mouth, his chin. “Take my advice, boy, start out being a Southern gentleman,” he said after a moment.
“Sir?”
“You ain’t a Southern gentleman until you have you some colored stuff,” Cone Bailey said. He nodded again. “Uh-huh. You should’ve seen me in Africa in the war. I went from being a Southern gentleman to being a Confederate Colonel.” He snorted happily.
The music stopped.
“You better go get her before old Art drags her off to the woods,” Cone Bailey advised.
“I guess so,” I said.
The familiar sound of Hank Williams singing Your Cheatin’ Heart began to blare from the juke box.
I reached Marie at the same time as Sally Dylan, who jerked at Art and pushed him aside. She glared at Marie.
“You got a date,” Sally snapped. Anger trembled in her lips. “Why don’t you leave mine alone?”
Marie did not reply. She smiled patiently.
“Jesus, Sally, I’m the one dancing with her,” Art protested. “I cut in on Sidney.”
Sally whirled to Art. “Is that right? Well, do you know who you’re dancing with?”
“Come on, Sally,” I said gently. “They were just dancing.”
“She teaches little niggers,” Sally hissed.
Hank Williams sang, “When tears come down like fallin’ rain…”
“What?” Art said, a look of confusion curling across his face.
“She teaches a bunch of little pickaninnies after school,” Sally repeated triumphantly.
“Where’d you hear that?” Art asked.
“Our maid, Lois, knows all about it,” Sally said.
Art turned to look at me. A puzzled, dumb look. He said, “Cole?”
“It’s not true,” I said. “She—”
Marie touched my arm. “Don’t,” she urged quietly. She looked at Sally, smiled softly, sadly. “It’s been such a lovely evening, hasn’t it?” She turned to look at Art. “Thank you for the dance.” She slipped her hand under my elbow. “I think we should be leaving now.”
“Now?” I said.
“Now,” she repeated.
“But—”
“Your cheatin’ heaaart will tell on you…”
“Good night,” she said to Sally. She stepped back, pulled on my arm, turned me gently.
“Maybe you ought to go to the colored prom,” Sally hissed.
I could feel Marie’s body tensing. She raised her chin, forced a smile, and began walking away, pulling me with her.
We had driven for several minutes without speaking before Marie said, “I love my orchid, Cole.”
“Thanks,” I told her. “I’m glad.”
“You look very handsome tonight. I can’t wait to see the pictures.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“If they turn out well, I’m going to frame one,” she said. “I may never look this beautiful again.”
“You look the same way you do every day to me,” I said.
She smiled and pulled close to me, leaning her head against my shoulder. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me, Cole Bishop. In fact, that’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I mean it,” I insisted.
“Of course you don’t. You’re a great liar.”
I remember taking her hand and feeling her fingers lace into mine. Oddly, it was the first time in all of our game-playing that we had hel
d hands.
“You want to talk about it?” I asked.
“About what? Sally? No. I don’t want to be sad, Cole. Not tonight. I don’t want to talk about anything that’s sad.”
“I just wanted you to know—”
“It’s all right,” she said. Then she added, “But do you know what I would like to do?”
“What’s that?”
“I want to go see Jovita.”
“Who?”
“Jovita. The woman who works for us. You saw her at my house.”
“Sure. I remember.”
“I want to go see her.”
“Now?”
“Now. She wanted to see me in my dress, but she had to go home early. Littlejohn was sick. Do you remember him? Littlejohn?”
“I do, yes,” I said. “But it’s kind of late, don’t you think?”
“If the lights aren’t on, we won’t stop.”
“All right,” I told her.
The lights were still on in Jovita’s home.
It was a small house, located on Freeman Street in a neighborhood known as Milltown. Once, the homes had belonged to white mill workers who worked long, solemn hours and lived short, solemn lives, enduring the taunting of being called lintheads. Cole remembered his mother talking about the workers, calling them beat-down. Don’t ever make fun of people like them, she had warned. It’s sad, what they have to put up with. If they didn’t have some pride, they’d have nothing at all.
And then the mills had moved to another location and another mill village had been constructed for whites, and blacks had taken over their old, abandoned homes on working arrangements that gave them shelter in exhange for the same kind of menial labor that had enslaved their forefathers. After that, Milltown had become, for many, Niggertown.
I could see a face staring out of a window as I turned off the lights to the car.
“You want to wait out here?” asked Marie.
“No. I’ll go with you,” I said.
The door to Jovita’s house opened as we reached the porch steps.
“Miss Marie?” Jovita said from under the door arch.
“Marie,” Marie corrected.
“Yes ma’am,” Jovita said. An edge of worry was in her voice.
“I wanted you to see my dress,” Marie told her.
Jovita stepped onto the porch. She put her hands together, palm to palm, and drew her hands to her chin. Her eyes covered Marie. “Oh, my,” she whispered. She repeated, “Oh, my.”
“You like it?” Marie asked.
“Child, you look like a picture. You the prettiest thing I ever saw.”
Marie giggled. “Can I show the children?” she asked.
“Honey, they all asleep, but Littlejohn.”
“Can I show him?”
Jovita looked at me, hesitated.
“You remember Cole Bishop,” Marie said. “He’s the lucky man who gets to date me.”
Jovita nodded, smiled nervously.
“How are you?” I said.
“Fine,” Jovita answered cautiously. Then, to Marie: “Honey, y’all come on in. But the place is a mess. I been taking care of Littlejohn.”
“Is he feeling better?” I asked.
“He’s fine now. Had him a little cold, but he’s been sleeping so much he don’t want to go to bed,” Jovita said.
“Well, I’m glad,” Marie said. “And don’t you say another word about your place being a mess. You see my room all the time, and you know what that looks like.”
Jovita laughed lightly. “Come on,” she said.
We followed Jovita into the house. The room was small, but immaculately clean. I could smell the lingering odor of the cooked and finished dinner, the almost-sweet scent of biscuits, of chicken that had been pan fried, of greens that had bubbled in hot water. It had the same scent of my mother’s kitchen.
Littlejohn was curled in a worn armchair near a lamp. He was coloring on a sheet of tablet paper.
“Look who’s here, honey,” Jovita said.
Littlejohn looked up, saw Marie. His eyes flared open in an amazed stare.
“Hi,” Marie said. “What’re you doing?”
Littlejohn did not answer. He seemed mesmerized.
“Say hello, honey,” Jovita said.
“Cat got your tongue?” Marie teased.
“Somebody done turn you to a princess,” Littlejohn whispered.
Marie smiled, knelt before Littlejohn and embraced him. “Thank you,” she purred.
“Say hello to Mr. Cole,” Jovita urged gently.
“It’s just Cole,” Marie said. She pulled away and stood beside me.
Littlejohn grinned.
“How you doing, Littlejohn?” I said.
“I been drawing,” Littlejohn told me.
“Can I see it?” I asked.
Littlejohn nodded, handed the sheet of paper to me. The drawing was of a turtle with an orange shell.
“Hey, I like this,” I said. “This is a great turtle. Looks a lot like Brer Turtle to me.”
“What’s a Brer Turtle?” he asked.
“Why, he’s my friend,” I said. “I see him all the time.”
Littlejohn’s grin spread. His eyes flashed.
“You started it,” Marie said. “You finish it.”
“Honey, they ain’t got time to talk about no turtles to you,” Jovita said softly.
“Of course we do,” Marie countered. “In fact, I want to hear this myself.”
“Well,” I said, “the first time I saw Brer Turtle, he was sitting on a log down by the creek where I live.”
Littlejohn laughed.
“I’d never seen an orange turtle, and I’d never heard a turtle that could talk, but Brer Turtle could.”
Littlejohn’s eyes stayed on me like bright beams.
“First thing he said to me was, ‘I’m losing my orange.’ Now, that surprised me, of course. I said, ‘How come?’ And Brer Turtle, he said, ‘Too much sun. The sun’s making me fade.’”
“Uh-uh,” Littlejohn whispered in amazement. “Ain’t so.”
“That’s what he told me,” I said seriously. “He said the sun was so hot it was making the orange on his shell just fade away. So I said to him, ‘Well, why don’t you just get out of the sun? Crawl over under the shade somewhere?’ That made Brer Turtle laugh. ‘In case you didn’t notice, I’m a turtle. I’m too slow,’ he said.”
Littlejohn put his hand to his mouth and giggled.
“I told him I’d sure like to help him out, but I didn’t know what to do,” I continued. Then I reached over Littlejohn and picked up the short stick of orange crayon.
“You know what Brer Turtle said to me?”
Littlejohn shook his head.
“He said, ‘Does your daddy have any orange paint?’ and I said, ‘Well, now, I think he does.’ And Brer Turtle said, ‘I sure could use a paint job.’ So I ran to the house and found my daddy’s bucket of orange paint and an old paint brush, and then I ran back down to the creek.”
I began scrubbing the orange crayon over Littlejohn’s drawing, making it brighter.
“And I painted Brer Turtle until he looked like the sun just before it turns red and goes down, and he was so happy, he crawled down to the creek and looked at himself in the water.”
I handed the crayon and the drawing to Littlejohn.
“And since that time, we’ve been great friends. I talk to him all the time. He’s the one who told me I should ask Marie to go to the prom. He said I wouldn’t believe how pretty she would be.”
Littlejohn laughed again. He tucked the drawing to his chest.
I turned to Marie. I saw tears rolling over her cheeks.
“Was it that bad?” I asked.
Marie stepped to me. She touched my arm. “It was beautiful,” she whispered.
I do not know if I have ever felt as grand as in that moment.
Yet there is a bitter memory of the night. As we were leaving Jovita’s house a police car from the city o
f Overton stopped us and the policeman—a man named Julian Overstreet, who would later become the county sheriff—demanded to know what we were doing in the neighborhood.
“Visiting a friend,” I told him.
His face took on a hard, suspicious look. “In Niggertown?” he said incredously.
“In Milltown,” I replied.
“You Cole Bishop, ain’t you?” he said. “On the football team.”
“Yes sir, I am,” I answered.
“Boy, don’t you know better than to come down here at night?” he snarled.
Marie leaned forward, said, “Are we breaking any laws?”
“Was I saying anything to you?” Julian Overstreet snapped.
I could see Marie’s face flaring in anger.
“It’s all right,” I said to her. Then to Julian Overstreet: “But I guess it’s a good question, sir. Are we? Breaking any laws, I mean.”
“I don’t need your lip, boy,” he said. “Who was it you was seeing?”
I hesitated before answering. “A woman named Jovita Curry. She works for Marie’s parents. Marie wanted her to see her prom dress.”
Julian Overstreet leaned close to the car window, aimed his flashlight at Marie. He said in a low voice, “You get this car out of here and don’t let me catch you back down this way at night. You understand me?”
I could feel the thundering of my heart, not from fear, but from the same anger Marie wore on her face, and I remembered all she had said about the South, about its inequities, its mentality of power over blacks and poor whites.
Still, I knew what needed to be said, and I said it: “Yes sir.”
I had never felt awkward standing at Marie’s front door at the end of a date. Our dates had always ended with laughter, with a fencing match of words, with a feeling of comfort.
Now, it was awkward.
“Don’t worry about that policeman,” I told her. “That’s just the way he is. He likes the power.”
“No, Cole,” she said softly. “That’s the way it is. I don’t know how anyone lives in this kind of world.” She paused. “I really don’t understand it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She touched my lips with her fingertips. “Don’t be. We wouldn’t have seen Jovita and Littlejohn if things hadn’t happened the way they did, and seeing them was the best part of the night.”
“It was nice,” I said.