New Boy

by Julian Houston

  "Why don't we serve them right here," my father replied. "We'll put the food on the hoods of the cars. That way, they can't arrest us for obstructing the sidewalk." W.K. motioned to his men and they started to remove platters of food from the hearse and from the limousine—fried chicken, corn bread, all kinds of sandwiches and potato salad-and blankets were produced to protect the hoods from scratches. My Brooklyn Dodgers bedspread covered the hood of the Buick. When the crowd realized what was taking place, they formed a line next to the cars, and W.K.'s men passed out paper plates and napkins and paper cups for lemonade that was dispensed from a cooler by a handsome, light-skinned man whom I recognized right away as Paulette's father, and they helped themselves to food. By now, the sidewalk was packed with students. I worked my way through the crowd until I reached my father standing alone near the hearse. I went up to him and we embraced, and I was as proud of him as I have ever been in my whole life.

  "Dad, why didn't you tell me about this?" I said, putting my arm around his shoulder.

  "Well, you got me thinking after you said at the dinner table that maybe it would be good for the adults to show their appreciation for what you young folks are trying to do. So after you went over to Paulette's, I got on the telephone and made a few calls." Dad was smiling proudly, and the students were talking and eating and drinking lemonade, and several of the professional men had taken off their suit coats and loosened their ties. It was really a sight, everyone talking with each other. The adults who were talking with the students had tipped back their hats and were even helping to serve the food. It was like a church picnic. I was just beginning to put some plates of food together to take to Joseph and the others inside the store when a piercing scream from the direction of Main Street froze me dead in my tracks. Everyone looked toward the corner where a colored woman was standing, motioning furiously for help. "Come quick! Please, somebody help!" she screamed, pointing to the entrance to Woolworth's. "They got jumped! Some white boys jumped 'em," she shouted. "They hurt 'em bad." The crowd began to surge toward her but the sidewalk was so congested that I knew I couldn't get through. I saw Russell cut between two cars and race up the street. I did the same thing and was right behind him when he went through the revolving door into the store. The first thing we saw was Albert and then another student seated on stools with their backs to us, lying face-down on the blood-spattered lunch counter. Then we saw the others, crumpled together on the floor, their shirts soaked with blood, their clothing ripped. A few were still curled up in balls with others lying on top of them for protection. At some point their attackers must have taken a bag of flour and scattered it over them like lime, the ghostlike faces of the students indistinguishable, eerie, like clowns at the circus, but at least they were stirring. Russell and I rushed to untangle the trembling limbs, and one boy shrieked in pain. Another boy was unconscious, with a wound freely bleeding at the base of his skull. We turned him over and saw it was Joseph. I held him in my arms to try to comfort him, even though he was unconscious. His eyes were rolled back in his head. I felt for his pulse and was relieved to find one. Sylvia rushed in and saw him. She gasped and began to sob, and I sent her back out for the doctors. "Tell them to come right away," I yelled. A few students who had entered the store were standing around crying, their backs against a locked display counter for small appliances, electric fans, hair dryers, and the like. Their hands covered their mouths in shock. The store saleswomen huddled in a, corner clearly frightened. The doctors rushed in carrying their bags, first Dr. Gentry, then Dr. Braxton, followed by several others, including my father, and the first two started to work on Joseph. Dr. Gentry was shining a little flashlight into his eyes and holding a bandage against the back of his head and Dr. Braxton was taking his blood pressure, until Joseph came to blinking his eyes and shaking his head, while the other doctors questioned each of the students carefully and consulted among themselves cleaning the wounds and smearing them with salve helping to their feet those who could stand My father examined the teeth of those who said they had been struck in the mouth, and he found a couple that were loose and one that was broken, and told the boys to call his office for an appointment. Dr. Braxton arranged with W.K., who had entered the store and who had seen such carnage before, to transport the most seriously injured to Northside Hospital. "Looks like World War Two in here," said W.K. when he first saw the blood and the students lying on the floor. Northside was a small colored hospital that had only five beds, but there was an x-ray machine and a small operating room and if you went there, at least you felt safe. W.K. told his men to bring the hearse and the limousine around right away. "And collect those blankets," he shouted, wiping his mouth with the handkerchief. "So's we can make pallets for 'em if we have to."

  By now the store was full of students, and when they saw what had happened they were angry. "Let's go get those white motherfuckers!" someone shouted. By that time the saleswomen had slipped out and there was nobody white anywhere in sight. Russell went over to calm the angry students. When I looked outside, I saw a sea of brown faces pressed against the window as if they were looking at a display; other people were milling around on the sidewalk. Russell went to the door and spoke to the crowd. "They are injured," he said, "but the doctors say they are gonna be all right. We cannot retaliate. I mean it. If we stoop to the level of the people who did this, we'll destroy everything we're trying to accomplish. Now please, go home, and don't forget to come back on Monday morning." A few of the students outside grumbled, but slowly the crowd started to disperse. In the midst of the commotion, a dark-haired, older white fellow in a jacket and tie worked his way through the crowd, followed by a baldheaded white man with a Speed Graphic camera. Everyone was staring at them. As they came through the revolving door, the dark-haired fellow took a pad and pencil out of his jacket pocket and made his way over to Joseph, who by now was sitting on a stool at the lunch counter with a big white bandage wrapped around his head. The side of his face was all swollen and dusted with flour, and he looked like a character in a horror movie. The photographer was going around popping his flashbulbs and taking pictures with the Speed Graphic, and the dark-haired fellow introduced himself as Phil Robbins and said he was a reporter for the New York Times. He asked Joseph if he wanted to make a statement. Joseph looked at the reporter for a long time, squinting at him as though he was trying to figure out who the man was. Finally he said, "Tell 'em we'll be back on Monday morning. Nine o'clock sharp."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dad waited around until we had arranged for Joseph and the others to get rides to the hospital. Five, including Joseph, needed x-rays or stitches. W.K. put them in the back of the limousine, which seemed to please them all greatly, but there were two fellows who weren't able to walk, and they had to lie inside the hearse on their backs. From the looks on their faces, they weren't happy about that at all, although someone said at least W.K. wasn't taking them to the cemetery. By that time most of the students had left. Russell, Sylvia, and I organized a few of those remaining to pick up the trash on the side street. Some of the professionals who were still there helped out and then offered to take the rest of the students home. We found a ride for Sylvia. Russell and I rode home with Dad in the Roadmaster. When Dad dropped Russell off at his house, I felt a knot in my throat as I said goodbye. "Keep up the good work, Russell," I said. "I wish I could stay."

  "You do the same, Rob," said Russell. "I'll see you this summer." Dad pulled the car away from the curb, and a few minutes later we were home. Mom had a meat loaf with gravy and mashed potatoes waiting for us. We sat around the dinner table devouring every bit of the food and washing it down with iced tea as I told my mother everything about the day.

  "And don't you know, Clarissa," said Dad, "we didn't see a single police officer the whole time this was going on."

  "Did anybody think to call them?" she asked.

  "Mom, yesterday they had a patrol car outside the store all day," I said. "Today there was nobody. That was more tha
n a coincidence."

  After dinner I stood at the sink helping Mom with the dishes. "Too bad you're going back tomorrow," she said. She was washing and I was drying, and again I felt as though I had never left.

  "I'll be home before you know it, Mom," I said, and then the doorbell rang.

  "Who could that be?" said my mother. It was almost eight o'clock.

  I said I would get it and opened the door to find Paulette and her parents standing on our front porch. Paulette looked a little embarrassed, but she gave me a big smile.

  "We thought we'd come over to say goodbye before you go back to school," said Dr. Gentry. "Are your parents at home?" I was so surprised to see them that I was speechless. "Mind if we come inside?" added Dr. Gentry, so I opened the screen door to let them in. My mother appeared, drying her hands on her apron, and Dad was right behind her with a toothpick in his hand. Everyone stood in the living room for a moment as though they were getting used to each other, and it was fine in the silence.

  "Won't you have a seat?" said my mother at last, and we all sat down. I wanted to sit next to Paulette, but she was stuck between her parents on the sofa, so I sat across from her on the hassock that Dad often stretched his legs on, while he sat next to me. "I just made a lemon meringue pie," said Mom. "Would you care to have a slice?"

  The Gentrys looked from one to the other and nodded. "Why, certainly," said Dr. Gentry. "Thank you." Mom started into the kitchen and Mrs. Gentry stood up.

  "Clarissa, let me give you a hand with that," she said, and followed Mom out of the living room.

  "Garrett," said Dr. Gentry, as if he were going to make a speech, "I want to thank you for asking me to participate in that endeavor today. I was proud to be a part of it." I looked at Paulette and she looked at me, rolling her eyes at her father's choice of words. "And I want to thank you, Rob, for your work in helping to organize the protest. I'm sure it wasn't easy to interrupt your studies to come down here. Paulette tells us that you're quite a student." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Paulette's eyes rolling again as she looked, all the while, out the window. "Have you considered a career in medicine?" said Dr. Gentry. "We could certainly use a fellow like you." Paulette's mother appeared carrying two silver pitchers, which she set down on the coffee table.

  I shook my head no to make it clear I didn't want to be a doctor.

  "Tell me, Rob," said Dr. Gentry, "have you started to think about college?"

  "Not really," I said. "A lot of the fellows at Draper go on to Yale, but I don't know if that's the best place for me."

  "Yale's a fine school," he said, with a smile that seemed a little forced.

  "Where did you go to college, sir?" I asked.

  "Dartmouth," he said. "Then medical school at Howard. I applied to the Ivy League medical schools, but, even with an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth, I couldn't get one to accept me. And when I finished medical school, I couldn't get a residency either, but the United States Army saved me. Six years of my life I gave them, but I got the training I needed to become a surgeon." He was having iced tea with his pie, and he took a swallow. "It's given me a good life too, a comfortable life for my family, but I've often wondered what would have happened if I'd chosen a different path."

  "What do you mean?" asked Dad. His eyebrows were raised at the comment.

  "When I was at Dartmouth, I wanted to become an English teacher. In my senior year, I won the English literature prize for a paper I wrote on Milton. The faculty made a big fuss about it and told me I could have a brilliant future as a professor, but when I came home—my people are from South Carolina—everybody in my family was out of work and hungry, and my mother told me she couldn't wait until I finished "that school," as she called it, so I could get a job and help out. I worked my way through medical school and I've been able to help the family and take care of my mother, but I've often wondered what would have happened if I'd listened to my heart instead of my head. I still read Milton, when I get a chance."

  "'How soon hath Time,'" said my father, "'the subtle thief of youth, stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year.'" Everyone except Mom looked wide-eyed at Dad. With a little smile, Mom was looking at her hands in her lap. "Milton," said Dad, with a smile of his own. "I was an English major, too." He leaned over and put his hand on my shoulder. "You have to listen to both your heart and your head, son."

  "Rob, why don't you and Paulette clear the dishes and take them into the kitchen," said Mom, after everyone had finished their pie. We put the plates and silverware on the tray and collected the napkins, and Paulette started to pick up the crystal glasses.

  "Handle those carefully, honey," said her mother. "They're very delicate." We carried everything into the kitchen, and we took our time cleaning up. I was washing and Paulette was drying, and we were laughing and sneaking kisses every so often. I told her about the sit-in, and how the men had arrived with lunch and how her father had served lemonade. She laughed, but when I told her what Russell and I saw when we ran inside to the lunch counter, her eyes filled with tears.

  "Daddy said Joseph was knocked out," said Paulette. "I hope he's going to be all right."

  I told her what Joseph said to the reporter.

  "Well, then, he can't be hurt too bad," she said, and we both laughed.

  "Joseph will be there on Monday morning," I said, "even if W.K. has to bring him in the hearse!" When Mrs. Gentry appeared at the kitchen doorway, we were leaning against each other giggling.

  "Paulette, we're getting ready to go," she said.

  "I'll be right there, Mama. We're almost done." Her mother smiled and went back to the living room. Paulette put her arms around my neck and we kissed, and I could hear our parents chuckling in the front of the house.

  "I'll be home in six weeks," I said, "and we'll have the whole summer together."

  "Does that mean you've definitely decided to go back to Draper next September?"

  "I think so. I'll see how I feel about the place when I get back."

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It was raining the next morning when I climbed aboard the train to return to Draper. As the train pulled out, my parents stood on the platform under a big black umbrella that my Dad was holding. I gave them one last wave from my seat inside the coach before they vanished. The rain came down in sheets. When we passed through little towns, streets were flooding and people were standing in the windows of row houses looking up at the sky.

  In New York, it was still raining when I switched trains and boarded the coach that would carry me the rest of the way. It was empty and there were scattered pieces of the Sunday paper discarded on the seats and on the floor. I picked up a front section and took it with me to my seat. As the train pulled away from the station, I leaned back and opened the paper. It was the New York Times. Under the headline "Student Sit-ins Spread, Violence in Virginia," there was a photograph, printed in crisp tones of black and white, of the Woolworth's lunch counter at home, the row of vacant stools, the closed signs, the empty pastry case— objects I had seen just the day before with my very own eyes. It was thrilling to see them on the front page of the Sunday paper, but when I studied the photograph more closely, I could see the bloodstains on the floor, the spattered drops on the counter, and the flour that had been spilled on the vinyl seats of the stools, and my eyes filled with tears.

  The cab driver was waiting for me when the train arrived at the stop for Draper. He was wearing a yellow slicker and holding an umbrella as I stepped down from the coach with my suitcase, and he ushered me to his station wagon.

  "Helluva mess out there today," he said when we were both inside the cab. He started it up and headed for Draper. We rode together for a while without speaking. "How much longer you got at the school?" he said, breaking the silence.

  "Two years," I said, "if I decide to stay." It was still light out, and a small herd of dairy cows was standing in a pasture.

  "Them cows have been gettin' wet all day, happy as can be," said the driver
with a laugh, and he drove on. "Whatsamatter?" he said lightheartedly. "Don't ya like it up there?" I took a long time to reply because I had been thinking that I would never like Draper, even if I decided to stay, but that maybe I could manage to put up with it and graduate, if it meant I could do whatever I wanted with my life when I left. And at that moment, it dawned on me that I was free, as free, it seemed, as it was possible to be.

  "It'll do," I said, as the cab pulled into the school driveway. It was dark, but all the campus lights were on. He stopped in front of my dormitory, and I got my suitcase and paid him, including a small tip for his company. He offered to escort me to the door with his umbrella, but I turned him down and walked up the footpath alone.

  It was quiet inside the dormitory, and I was exhausted from the trip. I decided to prepare for bed, even though I hadn't studied at all for my classes the next morning. I climbed into my pajamas and was about to turn off the lights when I heard a knock at the door. "Come in," I said, having no idea who it could be at that hour. It was Gordie.

  "How'd it go?" he said. He was wide awake and curious. "I heard something about it on the radio. WQXR. And there was a front-page article in the Times today. Did you see it? I guess some people got hurt, huh?" He wanted a blow-by-blow account, but I was bushed and in no position to give him one.