“We?” Mama laughs a short laugh.
Though I am certain she is pointing the finger at Nana Trueluck, she doesn’t look at her.
“This is all my fault,” I say.
“No it isn’t,” Nana Trueluck says, finally looking up. Her eyes are rimmed in red. I want to help, but I don’t know how.
“That reporter tricked us,” I say.
Daddy taps the kitchen table with his index finger. “They are a tricky bunch,” he says, glancing at Mama.
I haven’t asked my father if he likes being mayor, but from the looks of things, he wishes he at least had the chance to a second term.
Teddy kicks the chair leg with his sneaker, and Mama makes him stop. Teddy forgoes his stunts and smiles at me as though enjoying me getting in trouble for a change. He asks to be excused and goes into the backyard. With all that has been going on, he has been practically invisible this summer, which is fine by me.
“I should have known better,” Nana Trueluck says.
“But there must be something we can do,” I say.
“I doubt it,” Daddy says. “The good news is it will die down eventually.”
The kitchen is quiet. Contriteness is called for, and I lower my eyes. But like Paris, I don’t feel sorry at all. I am glad we went to Columbia and took down that flag, even if it was for only a few minutes. And I am glad we told the newspaper the truth, even though they didn’t print it. We were modern-day rebels who believed in our cause and got in trouble for it.
“There is some good news,” Nana Trueluck says. “Yesterday, Madison Chambers met with the FBI in Columbia and because of the young ages of the juveniles involved and the advanced age of the grandmother—”
She pauses to roll her eyes, which I am pretty sure she learned from me.
“Well, somehow, Madison talked them into not filing charges.”
My relief comes out in a short squeal. “Nobody is going to get arrested?” I ask.
“Well, that is good news,” Daddy says.
Mama agrees, but she still won’t look at Nana Trueluck.
After dinner Daddy doesn’t go up to the attic like he usually does, but sits with us in the living room. We wait for The Andy Griffith Show to begin. Nana Trueluck loves Aunt Bea and Barney Fife makes her laugh. She knits, and even Teddy acts like a normal kid and isn’t tripping over the rug. I try to relax, but feel uneasy. If we are not in trouble, then why do I feel like something bad is about to happen?
Seconds later, right in the middle of a Kraft macaroni and cheese commercial, something crashes through the picture window. Mama screams, and Teddy jumps behind the couch as if someone has just thrown a hand grenade. We all drop to the floor, including Nana Trueluck, who brandishes her knitting needles like weapons.
A rock the size of a softball sits in the center of the living room. Shards of glass cover our living room rug.
“Stay down!” Daddy says. He runs out onto the porch just as a car speeds away.
Tires screech at the end of the road in front of Vel’s house, and we hear glass shatter in the distance. Mama pulls Teddy and me close to her like a mother hen gathering her chicks. Nana Trueluck’s eyes are wide. We are all shaking. The car turns around and speeds back past our house. The hair prickles on the back of my neck. Is Daddy in danger? Through the hole in our picture window I watch a blue Ford Torino drive by with two white men inside. They whoop and holler like they are at a Carolina football game.
Daddy runs back into the house repeating the numbers and letters on the license plate. He finds a pen and paper in the kitchen to write them down. Then he returns to the living room to make sure we are okay. Somehow a rock thrown through the window feels much scarier than a burning cross in the yard. It is like these men threw their meanness right into our living room instead of leaving it outside on the lawn.
“I need to check on Vel,” I say. I walk toward the door, glass crunching underneath my sandals.
“You’re not going anywhere without me,” Daddy says, joining me at the door.
Before we leave, he picks up the rock. A string is wrapped around it attaching the first page of the newspaper where the story ran. Words are written in black magic marker on the newsprint. When he reads it his face turns red, and he makes a fist. He shows the note to Mama and Nana Trueluck.
“Don’t do anything crazy,” Nana Trueluck says.
“What does it say?” I ask.
Daddy hesitates as though deciding if I am old enough to see it. Then he hands the note to me. It contains the most hateful words I have ever read. So hateful I figure I will still remember them when I am a hundred years old. Jagged, handwritten letters goad us from the newspaper page:
GOD HATES NIGGER LOVERS
“Why would anybody say something so mean?” I ask. My hands continue to shake from the scare, though the shaking is lighter now.
“Pure ignorance,” Nana Trueluck says. “They’re scared of what they don’t understand.”
“But I don’t see how someone being scared could make them throw a rock through a window,” I say.
“Beats me, too, sweetheart,” Daddy says. He starts to say more, but Mama stops him.
I have been told I am wise beyond my years and also that I am too young to know certain stuff. I wish my parents would make up their mind.
Daddy and I walk down the street to Vel’s house where all the lights are on, inside and out. Vel’s dad and older brother stand outside with baseball bats like they are waiting on the car to come back. Vel is on the porch in her pink pajamas, holding a note that looks exactly like ours. The look on her face says again, I told you so. To Vel, making friends with Paris was never a good idea.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ida
While Vel and Trudy huddle together on the porch swing. I sit unmoving in the nearby rocking chair. A cross burnt in our yard was unnerving enough. Now they have thrown a rock through our window with a hateful message attached.
“What is this world coming to?” I say to no one in particular and think about how the national news has become more and more alarming since the Kennedy assassination.
Abigail stands in the doorway with an arm around Teddy. “I wonder the same,” she says to me, an apology in her glance.
The porch light casts shadows into the yard, and the darkness takes on a sinister look. Trudy and Vel look so young sitting on the swing, and I question why I went along with their Columbia plan. Ted Senior used to say I can be naive, but I would call it wishful thinking. I like to pretend the world is a nicer place than it actually is.
Trudy stands, an urgency evident in her look.
“I need to call Paris and warn him,” she says. “What if they’re headed over to his house?”
Of course she would think of Paris. He is her friend. Trudy goes into the kitchen to use the telephone, and I follow her there. “Would you like me to make the call?” I say. “I could talk to Miss Josie.”
Trudy looks relieved at my suggestion and goes back outside to sit with Vel.
I dial the number she gave me, and Miss Josie answers. She sounds like I do when I am fighting mad.
I introduce myself as Trudy’s grandmother. “Did you get a rock thrown through your window, too?” I ask her.
“I don’t, for the life of me, know what gets into some people,” she says.
I hear Paris in the background ask, “Are Trudy and Vel okay?”
I relay that they are, and that they are concerned for him, too.
“They got our house and Vel’s, too,” I tell Miss Josie. She sounds like someone I would like. Someone who could be a friend.
“I’m afraid this is because of what my grandson told the newspaper,” Miss Josie says. “But I have to respect his choice to do that.”
“I respect his choice, too,” I say.
A police car pulls up in front of our house, red and blue lights flashing, a repeat of the week before. The policeman gets out and walks over to Ted Junior.
“The police are
here,” I tell Miss Josie. “I guess I’d better go. Have they come to your house, yet?”
Miss Josie pauses. “Mrs. Trueluck, the police don’t come when colored people call about something like this, so we don’t even bother calling.”
I pause. It never occurred to me that people like Miss Josie wouldn’t get the same protection as white citizens. Perhaps naïve is exactly what I am. Next time Ted Junior and I have time to talk, I am going to mention this to him. In the meantime, I apologize for the ignorance of those people and get off the telephone.
At the street, I listen in on Ted Junior talking to the police officer. The officer sounds sympathetic, but just like the one who came when the cross got burnt in our yard, he doesn’t write a report.
“If you want to catch these people, why aren’t you writing anything down?” I ask the officer.
He aims an angry look at me, and Ted Junior puts an arm around my shoulder, which I take as my signal to keep quiet, that he’ll handle it.
I think of Miss Josie again and the daily injustice she has to live with. Ted Senior used to say that you can never understand a person until you walk a day in their shoes. I try to imagine what it would be like to have dark skin and live in a place where a majority of light-skinned people think they are better than you every minute of every day. At that moment, I feel the need to apologize to more than Miss Josie.
The only thing that keeps me from weeping is knowing that my family is different. They aren’t perfect, that’s for sure, but we believe in basic freedoms. We believe that everybody should be treated with fairness and dignity. When I think of the dignity Miss Josie and her family don’t get, it makes me spitting mad, as Trudy would say.
Within minutes the reporter and his photographer show up again and flashbulbs begin to go off. Abigail takes the children into the house. Trudy protests, of course. She doesn’t like being treated like a child, but I agree with Abigail that they have witnessed enough.
The reporter stays on the other side of our fence, but yells questions at me like: Do you know who did this? Was it the same people who burned the cross in your yard? I think about how his article in the newspaper skewed everything I said. I charge up to the fence. Only a few white pickets separate me and the reporter.
“I want to tell you how unfair your interview was,” I say, looking up at his tall frame. His five o’clock shadow is pronounced, as is his accomplice’s, who aims the camera in my direction. I lift a hand to block his view and give him a look that says he may be singing the girl parts in his church choir soon. He backs away, his camera now to his side.
“I was just doing my job,” the reporter says to me.
“Bull malarkey,” I say. “Manipulating the truth isn’t your job. Your job is to report the news—truthfully—not twist what someone says to make the most sensational story. And now here the two of you are back like vultures circling. You should be ashamed of yourselves,” I add, looking them both in the eye. “Would your mothers and grandmothers be proud of you right now?”
I hear myself speak the words and can’t believe I actually said them. In the past I might have thought these things, but I never would have spoken them. Is it possible that after seven decades I am finally growing a backbone?
The reporter shows no remorse and walks over to ask Ted Junior the same questions.
The photographer, however, apologizes. He tells me that the reporter is trying to keep his job, and that the editor at the newspaper is the one who wants more controversial stories. I thank him for telling me.
In the background, Widow Wilson is in full view in her window. I give her a wave that she doesn’t return. Since we are both widows, and of a similar age, you would think we could be friends. Of course, she may believe I am the reason for all this trouble, since it seemed to start after I moved in.
Finally, the policemen, reporter, and the photographer leave, and Ted Junior and I walk back toward the house.
“They think it was the Klan again,” he says to me on the porch.
“Makes sense,” I say. “Their whole reason for being is to keep everybody off balance and afraid.”
“Well, they’re doing a good job of it,” he says.
Ted Junior looks tired. I imagine these last few days have been hard for him.
“You okay?” I ask him.
“I’ve been better,” he says. “How about you?”
“I’ve been better, too.” Truth is, I thought I was awake before, but it seems I have just been sleepwalking, with no idea what my neighbors on the other side of the city have been dealing with. My face grows warmer just thinking about it.
Ted Junior and I go inside. On the television, the end credits run and the theme music plays for The Andy Griffith Show. Has it only been thirty minutes? What would Aunt Bea have done if a rock had been thrown through her front window?
When Trudy looks over at me, her face reveals the same spark she had at the State House. Looks like this roller coaster ride isn’t over yet. Not that I ever liked roller coasters. But once you are strapped in, it is not like you can get off. For now, I guess I’d better hold onto this ride with both hands.
Chapter Thirty
Trudy
We spend the morning sitting in the cemetery talking about what we should do next. Paris and I sit on the grave marker of the unknown girl, while Vel sits against a tombstone that serves as a back rest as she reads.
We stay hidden so our friendship won’t be noticed and we won’t get rocks thrown through our window again. In the daytime, the cemetery isn’t the least bit scary. Turns out the scariest things happen outside a cemetery, perpetrated by people who are living not dead.
Paris sighs. “We’re fighting a losing battle,” he says.
I can’t say I blame him for his frustration. I haven’t a clue what to do next, either, and tell him so.
While Paris sits nearby, I lie across the large, flat crypt and stare up into the limbs of a live oak tree that was probably a seedling during the Revolutionary War. Its arms stretch and cover the whole back corner of the cemetery. Even through wars, beautiful things grow.
The ancient grave marker is cool and leaves its texture imprinted to the back of my legs. With the help of the wind, a ray of sunlight breaks through the leaves. I hold up a hand to block the sun.
“Do you think Martin Luther King Junior ever wants to give up?” Paris asks finally.
“I bet he does,” I say. “I don’t think he’d quit, though.”
Paris stands. “Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe we need to ask ourselves what Dr. King would do in this situation.”
“Uh, oh,” Vel says. She looks at Paris before turning a page.
Then I have the craziest idea I have ever had. So crazy I wonder if I should even voice it.
“What is it?” Paris asks.
“It’s even bigger than taking down that flag,” I say to warn him. “And we’re going to need Hoot Macklehaney’s help.”
“Why in heaven’s name would we need his help?” Vel asks. “You going to pretend to be his girlfriend again?”
I pretend to gag, which makes her laugh.
“We need Hoot to help us get the names of the people in the local Ku Klux Klan,” I say.
“What?” Paris raises his voice before lowering it again. “The Klan is dangerous, Trudy,” he whispers.
“I overheard Daddy tell Nana Trueluck that the Klan was responsible for the rock through our window,” I say. “And the burning cross.”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea, Trudy,” he whispers again.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I ask.
“I end up like my cousin in Mississippi,” he says.
We both get somber.
“By the way, since when did you become fearless?” he asks.
“I learned it from you,” I answer, which is true. Paris is brave every day of his life just by walking down the street.
“What did you learn from me?” Vel asks, with a huff.
I
put a hand on my hip, poof my hair, and roll my eyes. A perfect imitation of Vel. Paris laughs. For about two seconds she acts angry, but then she laughs, too.
In the distance someone comes out of the side door that leads to the church office. I shush everybody. We wait until the sound of footsteps fade and the creaking gate opens and closes. I wonder what Nana Trueluck will think of my latest plan. She seemed as shaken up about last night as I was.
Before bed, when we talked in her room, she said that something had to be done. But this plan could prove more dangerous than taking down that flag, and I question if I should even mention it to her.
“Think about it, Paris,” I begin again. “Every club has a list of its members, right?”
“I guess so,” he says, like he has never even thought about it.
“And this is a secret club, so the list is even more important. None of the members want anyone to know who they are,” I continue. “This is how we catch them by surprise. We get that list of names and then release them somehow. They’ll be like ants that scatter when you put cornmeal on their mounds.”
“But these aren’t ants, Trudy,” he says. “These are more like hornets. Hornets don’t scatter, they attack.”
For several seconds we are quiet. Whether we are dealing with hornets or ants, I am convinced we can pull it off.
Vel snaps her book closed and puts Nancy Drew back in her purse. “Are you seriously trying to get a membership list of the KKK?”
I nod.
“Trudy Trueluck, you are out of your mind.”
Like Mama, Vel only uses my full name when she wants to keep me in line.
“You can’t do this, Trudy. This is dangerous. Dan-ger-ous,” she repeats.
“But somebody’s got to do something,” I say to her.
“If smart grownups haven’t been able to do something, what makes you think that you can?” She stands and puts a hand on her hip and poofs her hair, but leaves out the eye-rolling.
I pause to think up a good answer. “Because nobody even notices when kids are around, Vel. It worked at the State House didn’t it? We got all the way out the door with that flag.”
Trueluck Summer Page 18