"No, sir," I said.
"Then tell us, if you will, what were the factors that brought about the Civil War." He was standing in the front of the classroom, looking out the window with his arms folded.
"The inability of the northern states and the southern states to compromise on the issue of slavery was one," I said. "The fact that the economy of the South was heavily agricultural and the North's was more diverse and becoming more industrial was another, and the other was the fact that the South could not accept being a part of the Union."
"Why couldn't the South accept being in the Union?" said McGregor. He was still looking out the window as though he was the master of all he surveyed. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the sparrows dancing in the air. I would have loved to have been among them.
"Because they knew the North was stronger," I said, with a faltering voice.
"What evidence do you have to support that statement?" said McGregor, his right eyebrow arching on his otherwise impassive profile. I could feel him closing in on me.
"Well, the North was stronger," I said. "More people, more wealth. They must have known it."
"Yes, yes," McGregor said impatiently, cutting me off. "But what leads you to say that this was the cause of the South's resistance to being a part of the Union?" I knew he had a specific answer in mind, a point that he wanted me to make on his behalf for the class, but I didn't have any idea what it was. In the past, he had often called on me to supply just such an answer, but this time I couldn't help him. Instead I sat mute, for what seemed to be an eternity.
"Did you read the assignment, Garrett?" he said in a cold, sharp voice.
"Yes, sir," I said. "I did." I was lying.
"Then why are you unable to answer my question?" he said.
"I don't know, sir," I said.
"Bingham?" said McGregor. Marty Bingham was overweight and wore thick horn-rim glasses. His beard was so heavy he had to shave twice a day. He sat in the front row of all his classes and always had the answer to every question on the tip of his tongue.
"The South wouldn't accept being a part of the Union because the Southern people found it politically unacceptable, sir," said Bingham. McGregor turned away from the window with a tight smile and went on with the class discussion, mercifully not calling on me again. When the class was over, I stayed behind until the other students had left the room.
"Sit down, Garrett," said McGregor. I took a seat in the front row. He sat on the edge of the desk with his arms folded. "Garrett, I don't know if you realize it, but you have been the subject of considerable discussion recently among the faculty." I was trying to guess what he was driving at. I couldn't think of any rules I had broken.
"How's that, sir?" I said.
"Well, as you know, you're the first colored student we've had at Draper, and there is a great deal of interest among the faculty in having you succeed." This was the first time I had heard anyone mention the faculty's interest in me. In fact, this was the first time anyone at Draper had brought up the subject of my being the first colored student or what was expected of me, except, of course, in a general sense when Spencer gave his talk to new boys at the beginning of the year. At Draper, there seemed to be an understanding, among the students as well as the faculty, that everyone here was on his own, to sink or swim as best he could. If you had a sound character, you would swim; if you didn't, you would sink. Life was as simple as that.
"I do my best, sir," I said, looking up at him.
"You certainly have," he said, and he cleared his throat. "That is, until recently." He paused, and then continued. "Since you returned from Christmas vacation, you've appeared distracted. I've noticed it and your other teachers have as well. Your papers have been satisfactory, but they are not what we are used to seeing from you. And when you're in the classroom, much of the time you're looking out the window as though your mind is a million miles away. If this keeps up, Garrett, you'll have trouble making the honor roll again." There was another pause. "Is something wrong? Is everything all right at home? If there is something your teachers can do, something we should know about, I assure you, we stand ready to assist you in any way we can."
I didn't know how to respond. Of all my teachers, I liked McGregor the best. I knew that I hadn't been working as hard as before, but I thought I had been doing my best to keep up, and I was turning my papers in on time. I wasn't about to tell him everything that was on my mind. There was a long, uncomfortable silence, and for some reason I thought of my mother, when she had hugged me in the kitchen.
"Is there anything else, sir?" I finally said.
"There is one more thing. You have an exam coming up at the end of next week. Judging from your performance so far this marking period, you'll have to do very well on it to receive an honors-level grade in this course." He gave me a long, somber look with his gray eyes until his face eventually broke into a little half-smile. "Your work's cut out for you," he said, sounding almost apologetic.
As I walked back to the dormitory, I kept thinking about what McGregor had said. It was as though he knew something about me, some secret that he was keeping to himself. I also contemplated the reality that once anyone made the honor roll, there was always the danger of falling off. But if you were colored and trying to succeed, the fall could be terrifying, a long, long way down. Even for professionals like my parents and their friends, or famous Negroes whose pictures were in magazines and hanging on the walls of church basements, or colored entertainers who appeared on television sometimes, or even if you were a Negro whom nobody had ever heard of but who had managed to survive, there was always the risk of falling.
McGregor had put the challenge squarely before me, and it was up to me to respond. But the more I thought about it, the more his challenge bothered me. Hadn't I committed myself to the struggle to end segregation? If I wasn't thinking about my courses all the time, it was because I was often thinking about something more important. I wasn't just whiling away the time in the television room, like some students. Of course, McGregor couldn't know about my involvement with Russell and Joseph, but he could certainly look at me and see that I was different from the others. He had said as much himself. I decided that for the time being, at least, I wasn't going to change a thing. I would still do my schoolwork, but I would also continue to spend time thinking about the future and what it held for me.
On the night before the big exam, I got my homework for my other courses out of the way, and then took a break to read the newspapers. Before I realized it, it was almost midnight. I decided I would have to pull an all-nighter if I was going to study for the exam. I considered not studying at all, just going into class the next morning and taking it cold, but that seemed too much like throwing myself over the edge of the precipice, so I opened my notebook and my classroom texts at 12:10 A.M. and began to study. By 3:00 A.M. I could barely keep my eyes open. My head was leaning to one side, and several times I almost fell off my chair. I stumbled downstairs to get a cup of coffee from the vending machine in the dormitory basement. It tasted awful, scalding and burnt, but I drank it anyway, right there in the basement, and it brought me back to life like an elixir. The dorm was silent as a tomb. I trudged back upstairs to my room with only the echo of my own footsteps to accompany me. I resumed, studying, but by five o'clock, I was falling asleep again in my chair. I knew I had to get a few hours of sleep before the exam or I wouldn't be able to get through it. I set my alarm clock for 8:30 and fell onto the bed. The exam was scheduled for 9:00 A.M. At 8:30 the alarm went off. I reached over and shut it off and lay on my back, trying to clear the cobwebs from my brain, but my fatigue was too great and I slowly drifted back to sleep. I have no idea what awakened me. Perhaps it was the instinct for survival, but at 9:05,1 opened my eyes and looked at the clock and realized that I was already late. I grabbed my notebook, put on my jacket, and raced down the stairs and out of the dormitory to McGregor's classroom. When I entered, the other students in the class were already writing
in their exam books. McGregor was seated at his desk in the front of the class and looked annoyed when he saw me. He nodded at me and pointed at the edge of his desk to the test questions and the exam books, and I walked over and took them and found a seat. As soon as I read the questions, I knew that I would do well on the exam if I could stay awake. I was yawning for the entire hour, which drew several angry looks from classmates who were seated nearby. I held my head in my hand the entire time, but I wrote and wrote and wrote. Somehow the answers came to me, and by the end of the class I was sure I had done well. I was giddy with fatigue and relief when I handed in my exam book. I stumbled to my next class, took a seat in the back of the room, and slept through it with my eyes open.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A few days after I returned from Christmas vacation, I stopped by the mailroom to check my mailbox. The mail usually arrived in the late morning but it had to be sorted, so it wasn't in the mailboxes until after lunch. I had a free period before lunch and I was hanging around the Dutch door to the mailroom, the top half of which was always open, watching Connie sorting. Connie was in charge of the mailroom. He was a crusty old man, so badly stooped from arthritis he had to lean his head to one side to look you in the eye. Connie knew every boy in the school. Finally he took the stub of a cigar out of his mouth, stopped sorting for a moment, and leaned his head to one side to look at me standing in the doorway. "Where does she live?" he said.
"Virginia," I said, surprised that he knew I was expecting to hear from a girl. "Connie, how did you know I was expecting a letter from my girl?"
"Happens all the time after vacations," he muttered. "Won't be hearing from Virginia for at least another three, four days though. They're slow as hell down there." I was stunned. My parents had written to me, but I'd never paid attention to how long it took their letters to arrive. I didn't know if I could last that long. I was certain Paulette had already mailed a letter, and the thought of having to wait another three or four days to read it was agonizing. "If it gets too bad, you can always call her," said Connie, and he put the cigar butt back in his mouth and resumed sorting.
Since I was saving my money to send to Russell, I decided to hold off on calling, and, by some miracle, Paulette's letter arrived the next day. I whooped and showed the envelope to Connie. "Must have mailed it early in the morning," snorted Connie. On her way to school the morning that I left, I thought, looking at the postmark. I tore open the envelope and walked over to a hallway window to read the letter.
Dear Rob,
I just can't believe you have left. I miss you so much already. When are you coming back?
After you left last night, my grandmother kept asking me about you. She wanted to know what you are studying in school and whether you are going to be a doctor like my dad. I told her I didn't know and it didn't make any difference to me, anyway. She said I would be better off to know something like that now, rather than later. I wanted to tell her to mind her own business, but I knew if I did, my mother would have a fit. Old people think they can say whatever they want.
When I went to sleep last night, I dreamed that we were climbing a mountain together. We were climbing through these woods and every time we got close to the top, the mountain got higher, and when the sun started to go down, we could see it set through the trees and the sky turned black and it was so dark I was afraid we wouldn't be able to find our way back, and I was holding your hand like I did in the living room yesterday afternoon, but when we looked the sky was covered with stars and the moon was glowing like a big silver lantern, and the woods were as bright as day, and we walked all the way back down the mountain holding hands until we reached the bottom, and when I woke up this morning, I felt like I still holding your hand and I still do.
Please write me a letter as soon as you can.
Love,
Paulette
For the next month, I heard from Paulette two or three times a week. I tried to keep up with her, but I was also trying to stay on the honor roll. When I sat down to write her, she was all I could think about for the rest of the day. So I wrote her once a week, on Sunday afternoons when I had finished studying. My letters would go on for five or six pages, describing what life at Draper was like and how much I missed her. I always made sure I asked her about Russell and what was happening with the plans for the sit-in, and she always wrote back to me with the latest news. "Russell says there is nothing new to report." "Russell talked to Joseph and they want to start it in April, but some students at the college are backing out because they don't want to be in jail during exam time (beginning of May)." "Russell says thanks for the money. Sylvia bought paper for the leaflets and she taught herself how to run the mimeograph machine without her daddy finding out." But at the beginning of February, Paulette wrote to say that something had come up and there might be a problem with the plans for the sit-in. She said she couldn't go into it then, but she would write to let me know as soon as she could find out more.
A week went by and I still hadn't heard from her, and I was becoming anxious. I was able to keep up with my schoolwork, but I knew it was going to become harder and harder for me to concentrate if I didn't hear something soon. I finally decided one morning that if I didn't get a letter by the end of the day, I'd follow Connie's advice and give her a call. Just before lunch, I stopped by the mailroom to check my mailbox. Connie was still sorting, but I thought I'd ask anyway. "Anything for me, Connie?" I said.
"Dunno," he muttered, without looking up. "Come back after lunch."
Lots of Draper students subscribed to their hometown newspaper, but the most popular, by far, were the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. Newspapers were usually picked up from the mailroom in the morning, glanced at to see if there was anything interesting on the front page or the sports page, and then either discarded or tucked under the arm to take back to the dormitory. I was on my way to the dining room for lunch when I noticed the headline "Negro Students Stage Sit-In" on the front page of a discarded copy of the New York Times. The paper was lying on the floor in a hallway and I picked it up to read the article. It was about four students from North Carolina A&T who had started a sit-in at a lunch counter at Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina. There was even a picture of them sitting alone at the counter, with a handful of white people looking on warily, as though they weren't sure what to do next. And then I read a passage in the article that shocked me. "A Negro woman kitchen helper walked up, according to the students, and told them, 'You know you're not supposed to be in here.' She later called them 'ignorant' and a 'disgrace to their race.'" So this is what it's going to be like, I thought. My heart was pounding with every sentence I read, but when I finished the article, I felt a strange sense of calm. The Greensboro sit-in simply confirmed the importance of what we wanted to do Now it was up to us to make sure that everything fell into place at home I folded the newspaper tucked it under my arm and walked into the dining room.
At lunch, I had to sit through an explanation of the different kinds of igneous rock provided by Mr. Bellard, the geology instructor, to whose table I was assigned. It was so boring. I don't think anyone at the table listened to a word of it, although we all pretended to be on the edge of our chairs. All through the meal, I was thinking of the article in the New York Times and wondering if the Greensboro sit-in had anything to do with why I hadn't heard from Paulette.
As soon as lunch was over, I went back to the mailroom, and sure enough, there was a letter from Paulette in my mailbox. I opened it and read it. I felt like a spy who had just received a secret message. "The sit-in is set to start on Friday, March 19, at the big Woolworth's downtown on Main Street. Joseph and Albert are going to lead a small group of students from the college inside the store to sit down at the lunch counter when it opens, but there are some problems. If the first group gets arrested, right now there are only a few students at the college who are willing to show up and take their place, and if there are no replacements, the sit-in will be over. The ot
her problem is that the parents of some of the high school kids found out that we are planning to be at the store to support the sit-in, and they are trying to stop us. Roosevelt's daddy told him if he went out there he was going to get a whipping he would remember for the rest of his life, and Reverend Newsome told Sylvia if she went, she would have to stay in the house for three months. My mother hasn't said anything to me about it so far, but I'm sure she will. Right now, we're trying to keep it quiet so the people at Woolworth's don't find out and try to stop it before it starts. Russell has been telling everybody 'Don't talk about it anymore,' but a lot of kids in school know about it already and they say they want to help. Did you hear about Greensboro? Their sit-in has made everyone around here even more excited. I hope you are able to come down on March 19.1 miss you so much." I started to read through the letter again, to make sure I hadn't missed anything. When I came to the part about Roosevelt, I wrinkled my nose, since Roosevelt was a half a foot taller than his daddy, and I began to wonder if some kids had other reasons for backing out.
"Must be pretty important," said a familiar voice over my shoulder. "Anyone I know?" It was Gordie. I hadn't seen much of him recently, and it seemed like ages since the night we had gone out on the town in Harlem. He had told me that after Christmas, he had gone back to Jinxie's to try to find the waitress for me, but it turned out that she no longer worked there. He was still my only real friend in the school, but I also felt my life was speeding past him, just as it was speeding past Draper.
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