New Boy

by Julian Houston

  Chapter Fifteen

  On the day that Christmas vacation began, I took the train with a group of schoolmates down to New York, where I was going to catch a Seaboard Railway train to Virginia. Gordie and I sat next to each other as far as New York. His parents were taking the family to Florida for the Christmas holidays. His sister, who was a Vassar student, was studying in France for her junior year, but she was flying back to New York the next day to join the family for the trip to Florida.

  "We're coming back home a few days before New Year's Eve," said Gordie as we were walking into the station carrying our suitcases. "If I get a chance, maybe I'll run up to Jinxie's one night to see if that waitress is around." I wasn't sure why he wanted to go without me, and then I thought, Maybe he wants to talk with her himself.

  The train home was crowded. Before arriving in Virginia, it was scheduled to stop in Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and after my stop, it would continue south. I found an empty seat next to an elderly white woman wearing a black wool hat. "Excuse me, madam," I said. "Is this seat taken?"

  She had been thumbing through a copy of the Ladies Home Journal, and when I spoke she looked up at me. She seemed startled by the question. "I don't's'pose it is," she said, in a deep southern drawl, and she went back to reading her magazine. When I sat down, she was careful to smooth the material of her skirt underneath her thigh, and she leaned against the coach window, with her elbow on the armrest, so that she was as far away from me as the seating arrangement would allow. After a while I simply ignored her, and, to my surprise, she fell asleep.

  "Washington, Washington," sang out the conductor as he entered the coach. I had not seen him when we left New York more than two hours earlier. He was dressed in a rumpled navy blue suit shiny from wear, with a vest that had dull brass buttons down the front and a watch chain loosely draped between the pockets. As he walked slowly down the aisle, he was checking the tickets of the passengers. When he reached my seat, he first spoke to the old lady, who had been awakened by his announcement. "How far you going, ma'am?" he said, extending his hand for her ticket.

  "Atlanta," she said, rummaging through her purse. She found the ticket and handed it to him. The conductor looked it over and handed it back to her with a nod. "End of the line, huh?" he said. She was fingering a plastic candy cane that was pinned to the front of her blouse. "Goin' home for Christmas?" he said.

  "Well, you're partly right," she said. "Actually, I'm trying to get to Alabama. That's where I'm from. I'll feel a lot better when I get there, too." She quickly glanced in my direction. Again the conductor nodded, and then he looked at me.

  "Ticket?" he said in an even voice, with his hand now extended toward me. He smelled of cigars and hair tonic and there were ashes on his coat sleeves. He looked at my ticket and then returned it to me. "You know, when we get to Washington," he said in a confidential tone, "you'll have to move to the back of the train." I knew what the rule was, and, in my heart, I yearned to refuse to obey it, the same way that woman down in Montgomery had refused to move to the back of the bus a couple of years earlier. I tried to recall her name. Miss Rosa something. I nodded to the conductor and he continued down the aisle, but the idea of refusing to move to the back of the train was taking root, and I sat there trying to imagine what would happen if I actually went through with it. The train would be stopped in the darkness in the middle of nowhere, and the sheriff would be called, of course, about some crazy nigger refusing to sit in the colored coach, and the deputies would show up, red-faced and impatient, in marked cruisers with their yellow lights flashing outside the coach's windows, and at least a squadron of perspiring, mostly overweight white men in uniform, a few chewing toothpicks, would climb onto the train and hustle their way down the aisle to surround me while I sat. Their first act would be to help the old white lady out of her seat. Trembling but mad as a hornet, wearing her hat awry she would clutch her magazine her purse and a satchel with one hand and nervously finger the plastic candy cane with the other. "Has he got a gun?" she would ask repeatedly in a hectoring, impatient voice as she was escorted down the aisle and off the train. The police would then force me to stand and would search me thoroughly right there on the train, going over every inch of my body while the other passengers gawked, and, finding nothing, they would open my suitcase, empty the contents on the floor, and sift through the garments in search of any hard object they could call a weapon. Satisfied I was not armed, they would confiscate my schoolbooks and papers to be studied for codes or secret messages. And then, while I was still on the train, they would interrogate me. If I had made the mistake of sitting down, I would be required to resume standing.

  "Get up, Nigger! Stand up when I'm talking to you!" my interrogator, a gaunt white man with hard eyes, smoking a Camel and chewing gum, would shout at me. "What are you trying to prove, anyhow?" He would inhale his cigarette deeply, expertly, and blow the smoke in my face, the way they do in the war movies when they catch a spy. "Are you one of them troublemakers the Communists have been sending down here to agitate? Where are you from anyway? What's your address? Phone number? Where are you coming from? What stop did you get on the train at? You ever been arrested? How old are you anyway? What school do you go to? Where can I find your momma? Your poppa?" The questions would come at me like a flock of starlings, quicker than I could hope to catch, until I gave up trying, my only response a beatific smile, although inside, I would be preparing for the worst. I was, after all, a child of the South, and I was aware of the dark retribution it could impose. But I had made my point. I had refused to obey the rule and I was willing to accept the consequences, even though I had no idea what they would be.

  The train lurched forward and we left the station. Most of the passengers in the coach had gotten off by the time we departed Washington, and there were lots of empty seats. The old woman had fallen back to sleep, snoring loudly this time, so that I was forced to move several seats away from her, a decision I was certain would please her when she awakened. It was dark outside. There were a few stars scattered far off in the sky, but no moon. As the train crossed the bridge that spans the Potomac River to enter Virginia, I looked down at the water and shuddered. It was pitch black, like a bottomless pit.

  Eventually, the train began to slow down. The engineer blew the whistle several times, and up ahead I could see a clearing with a few streetlights and a little wooden building next to the tracks, and several buses parked in a nearby field. The buses were olive-colored, and on their side was painted united states marine corps. As the train slowed to a stop, soldiers got off the buses wearing dark olive uniforms with tan shirts and tightly knotted tan ties and medals, and there were brightly colored battle ribbons pinned to their chests. On their shoulders they were carrying olive green duffel bags stuffed with God knows what, and they quickly climbed aboard the train, noisily filling the empty seats. By the time the train started to roll again, all the seats in our coach were taken. A dark-skinned soldier took the seat next to me, and two more colored soldiers were sitting across the aisle. I took a quick look behind me at the old lady to see who was seated next to her. A boyish white soldier had sat down and was talking to her, and as I looked around the rest of the coach, I could see that nearly half the soldiers were colored. Most were sitting with one another, but a few were sitting with white soldiers. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes and smiled.

  "Tickets, please. Tickets," was the next thing I heard. I opened my eyes and saw a conductor slowly coming down the aisle. He was old and stooped, with a pinched pink face and white hair and steel-rimmed glasses on his nose. He sounded like an old-time southerner. As I watched him work his way up the aisle toward me, I could see he was giving the tickets of the white soldiers a quick once-over before returning them, but he examined the tickets of the colored soldiers like a jeweler appraising a gemstone. As he returned the tickets to the colored soldiers, he said something to each one and pointed toward the rear of the train. Most of the soldiers i
n the coach, colored and white, were only a few years older than I was, and, except for the military uniforms and the mixing of the races, they could easily have been mistaken for a high school football team headed to a game. There was lots of lively chatter and good-natured joshing, and a few card games had started up, but not a single colored soldier got up to walk to the back of the train. When the conductor reached my seat, he examined my ticket slowly and returned it. "The colored section is yonder," he reminded me, without conviction, pointing to the rear of the train, and that was it. No order to get up and move, boy. No threat to call the police or throw me off the train if I didn't move. No plea to cooperate with a poor man who was, after all, just doing his job. "There it is," he seemed to be saying, "if you want to take advantage of it." He might as well have been pointing to the dining car.

  "Ticket?" said the conductor to the soldier seated next to me. He was a handsome fellow with a short haircut and mahogany skin, clean-shaven, wearing cologne, with two olive chevrons on a scarlet patch attached to his coat sleeve. Two rows of battle ribbons and a bronze star decorated his chest. He smelled like a lady's man, but he looked like a real soldier. He was sitting straight up in his seat, and when the conductor spoke, he reached into a small canvas bag that was lying on the floor between his well-polished shoes, handed him the ticket, and resumed his perfect posture, with his eyes looking straight ahead. The conductor examined the ticket slowly and returned it to the soldier.

  "I see you got that there medal on your chest," said the conductor.

  "Yes, sir," said the soldier, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

  "Where'd you get it?" said the conductor.

  "Korea, sir. Inchon."

  "Is that so?" said the conductor. He stood looking down at the soldier as though he had something more to say, although the soldier kept his eyes straight ahead. "That's where my boy was," said die conductor, his voice breaking. "Inchon. But he didn't make it back." His eyes welled up, and with his coat sleeve he wiped away a tear from his cheek. The soldier noticed the movement and looked up, then reached into his back pocket and took out a crisply folded handkerchief and handed it to the conductor.

  "Sorry to hear that, sir," said the soldier. "We lost a lot of good men at Inchon." The conductor took the handkerchief, lifted his glasses, and wiped his eyes.

  "Well, he was one of'em," said the conductor softly, and he returned the handkerchief to the soldier. He stood there for a moment to steady himself, putting his hand on top of the soldier's headrest. "You know about the colored section?' he said quietly, nodding toward the rear of the train.

  "Yes, sir," said the soldier, his eyes still dead straight ahead.

  "Don't pay it no mind," said the conductor, giving him a pat on the shoulder, and he turned to the soldiers seated across the aisle and asked them for their tickets. As the train rolled along, I leaned back again in my seat and thought perhaps things really were changing in the South. The conductor moved on to the next coach. Nearby, someone had a portable radio turned up loud so that everyone in our coach could hear it. After a while, Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters came on the air. Clyde McPhatter was singing his silky, falsetto rendition of "White Christmas" and the Drifters were singing the background, and after a few bars, all the colored soldiers were singing along. "I'm—doop doop—dreaming of a white—doop doop—Christ-ma-as, with ev-er-ry Christmas ca-a-rd I write." In their spit-polished shoes and their trim uniforms, some of the colored soldiers were even standing in the aisles and swaying back and forth, popping their fingers to keep time with the beat, and, as we barreled down the tracks in the darkness, it seemed that life in the coach had entered a state of temporary suspension. The rules had been relaxed and the burdens of history had been lifted. Those who could reach the high notes were singing the lead with Clyde McPhatter, rearing back and hitting them on the nose, while others were hunched over and singing background with the Drifters. Everybody, including me and the soldier seated next to me, and even some of the white soldiers, sang along, keeping time with the music, as though we were all in the show together, on the stage at the Apollo or the Majestic or on a. corner under a lamppost. Everybody was keeping time with Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, waiting for Christmas to arrive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was almost midnight when the train arrived in town. A few colored soldiers got off with me, although I didn't recognize any of them. I got my suitcase and stepped down onto the nearly deserted platform and started to walk toward the station. There was a fizz of steam escaping, and as I walked through the vapor and the lingering odors of diesel fuel and body sweat, I could see my parents up ahead, inside the station. They were standing next to each other, smiling and waving at me. When I entered the station, my mother rushed over and hugged me, and my father took my suitcase from my hand.

  "Well, look who's here," he said, "finally come back home."

  "Did you have a good trip?" asked my mother.

  "It was okay," I said. "A lot of marines got on the train just outside Washington and they were singing and carrying on most of the way here. Quite a few of them were colored."

  "Must have come from Quantico," said Dad. "Big marine base up there. Were they acting up?"

  "No," I said. "They were fine. One of them had a portable radio and everybody was listening and singing along. Some of the white marines were singing, too."

  "You don't say," said my father. "I never heard that before."

  "Did you have anything to eat on the train?" said Mother. "I've got some tuna casserole in the oven if you're hungry." We walked out of the station toward the parking lot.

  "I had a quick bite in New York when I switched trains," I said. "I'll see how I feel when I get home." It was warm outside and a soft breeze was blowing through the parking lot. The cold weather had already arrived in Connecticut, and the warm Virginia air felt good. Dad opened the trunk of the Roadmaster and put my suitcase inside, and we headed home. Main Street was almost deserted but the streetlights were on, as were strings of Christmas lights, wrapped around the lampposts like glowing serpents. At the top of each lamppost was an illuminated lantern of the head of Santa Claus with rosy cheeks and a jolly smile, which seemed to be suspended in midair. A couple of old white men in shabby clothes were stumbling along and looking in the windows of storefronts, and in several of the windows there were big posters announcing a Christmas Eve rally at the fairgrounds.

  COME ON OUT

  TO THE STATE FAIRGROUNDS

  TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR STATES RIGHTS!

  The posters were printed in bold black letters with a big picture of the Confederate flag underneath and "Merry Christmas!" at the bottom. All along Main Street, there were beauty parlors and clothing stores and coffee shops that I had been told were forbidden territory, and as we continued, we passed Pritchard's, the biggest department store in town, with its display windows dressed for the Christmas season and a poster for the rally in the corner of each one. Finally, at the end of Main Street I saw the sparkling lights of the Hippodrome, the only colored movie theater in town. I spent many Saturday afternoons as a child seated in its clammy darkness, transfixed by second- and third-run films, biblical epics like The Robe and The Ten Commandments, Westerns during which we would always root for the Indians, and horror movies that made me afraid to leave my seat and go home in the daylight.

  The streets were dark and empty when we arrived in our neighborhood. The colored lights and Santa Claus lanterns were missing from the lampposts and all of the shops were dark. There were lights on in a pool hall, however, and through the windows I could see a couple of fellows with cigarettes in the corners of their mouths, leaning over the tables with their sticks to line up shots, but otherwise it seemed that everyone had gone home for the night. I thought of Harlem and the stream of people flowing endlessly along 125th Street, the late-night crowd at Jinxie's listening to Coleman Hawkins blow the roof off the place, and that cute waitress working her way between the tables to take orders for drinks, a
nd I wished that I, too, was there.

  Dad parked the car in our driveway and we got out. I took my suitcase from the trunk and we entered our house, as usual, through the back door. It was a brick ranch house with an attached garage and a screened-in porch that looked out onto the back yard, which contained a picnic table and a patio and a brick barbecue pit and pink crepe myrtle trees and blue hydrangeas that my mother had planted. When we walked into the kitchen, Dad said he was tired and went off to get ready for bed, but my mother stayed with me. As I stood in the kitchen and looked around, it felt as though I had never left. The air in the kitchen was heavy with the smell of tuna casserole, and it seemed as though the fluorescent fixture overhead had frozen everything in place, the kitchen table and chairs, the refrigerator and the stove, even the salt and pepper shakers and the sugar bowl all preserved in the lavender light.