Black, White, Other

by Joan Steinau Lester

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” I call back. “Bye, Mom.”

  Silence. Until I hear feet coming up the stairs, and she rushes into the room. “What on earth is taking so long? I have to leave right now. I want to see you eating breakfast.”

  “Can’t you leave me alone for five minutes?” I bend down and tug on my socks. “I told you I’d be down in a minute. I’m getting dressed!”

  She hurries toward the door with a parting “Now!” But when she doesn’t hear me behind her, she stops in the doorway. “Nina?” She turns and stares, like she senses something, and I can feel the tension in me snap.

  “Leave me alone!” I explode. “You are always on my case, every second. Can’t I have some privacy?”

  “Nina Armstrong, stop screaming at me!” she shrieks. “I have to go. I’m running my staff meeting in one minute, and you will get downstairs and eat your breakfast. I am not going to have you going off to school on an empty stomach.” She puts her hands on her hips. “Now!” I hear a curse.

  “Stop telling me what to do,” I shout. “Don’t you trust me to eat breakfast by myself? You treat me like a child. You can’t order me around. I’m in high school now!”

  “Oh no? Watch me.” Her face is tight and she’s tapping her foot. “Nina, this is not the time for this. Just you wait until tonight—your insolence has gone too far. First with your father, now with me. But if I don’t leave in one minute I won’t catch the bus to BART and I’ll miss my meeting. Oatmeal’s on the stove.” Then she’s gone.

  I grab my suitcase, throw in my jeans and my Oakland A’s T-shirt, plus a blue ceramic bowl Jimi made me in kindergarten; I scoop the money out of my jewelry box and race downstairs. I have got to leave. Not one person, except maybe Jimi, understands me, and even he has no idea what’s really going on. I have to leave now, at the same time I always go out the front door, so no one will suspect I’m not on my way to school. But first I scoop out a handful of cornflakes—I will not eat her oatmeal!—slice a blackened banana, pour vanilla soy milk, and wolf it all down.

  I crack the front door just enough to listen outside. It’s quiet. Tirza, the next-door neighbor, must have left for work. The air is nippy today and the days are definitely shorter now, but the morning sun feels good on my face. I breathe deeply. From the corner of my eyes Mom’s silver car sparkles in the driveway and an inspired thought flashes: Why don’t I drive it? Even though I haven’t taken Driver’s Ed yet, I’ve had lessons from Mom. She was amazed how, after the first couple of times we were out, the car hardly lurched when I started up. And I parked on a hill once. In five months I can get my driver’s permit. That would be so much fun, to float down Highway 1 in the car, instead of riding on the stupid bus. I know I could do it.

  But a faint voice in my head says, almost as if it’s real: If you think you’re in trouble now, look out. What would your mom do when she discovers the car missing? You could have the whole California Highway Patrol after you, as well as your parents. Stuffing down the glorious vision of myself flying along the coastal road with ocean waves crashing below, I sigh and put my attention on locking the front door. Mom hates for it to be left unlocked.

  Just when I’ve released my happy fantasy and feel safe with the relief of knowing I’m in the clear with no one seeing me leave, I hear a clunk. It’s Tirza, in her bathrobe and slippers, pulling a dark-green garbage bag off her front porch, bumping it from step to step. Her white poodle is yelping from inside the screen door. “Good morning, Nina,” she calls. Her Israeli accent’s so thick I hardly understand her. She peers at me. “Going on a trip?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “To school.”

  Her eyes go to my feet. “With a suitcase?”

  “Yuh …” My mind is blank. “We have a science project—” Oh no. She’s a scientist.

  “Really?” She drops the garbage bag and shuffles over, looking up into my face, all curiosity. “What’s it about?”

  “Um … germs.”

  “Germs?” She looks fascinated, like she could stand here all day.

  “I have to go. I’ll tell you about it—later.” I grab my green suitcase and hurry to the sidewalk.

  “Germs?” I hear her behind me, sounding puzzled. “Why a suitcase?”

  I’m starting to sweat, and I haven’t even gotten off the block yet. “It makes sense, trust me.” I flash her my best grin, the one people say is a million-dollar smile. My face feels like it’s going to explode, I stretch my mouth so wide.

  “Nina—”

  I’m trying to act normal, but what is that? “I can’t be late!” I shout and flee down the street with my suitcase rolling against my heel. Jimi will be waiting for me when he comes home from school and unlocks the front door to discover an empty house. Should I have left him a note? But I can’t risk going back. I’ve got to keep going now.

  I bump my suitcase up the steps of the number 62 bus by the library, ride along Martin Luther King to Dad’s, and run around to the back of the building. Yup, there’s the red bike underneath the porch, shoved way in the back like Jimi said it would be. I look around: no one in sight. After I crawl under the gross porch, with spider webs tangling in my hair and leaves sticking to my knees, I manage to balance my suitcase on the handlebars and zoom back up to the hills. With all my attention and one hand on the green bag, I have a narrow miss in traffic: at the corner of Upton and Martin Luther King a car swipes close, terrifying me and tipping the suitcase, but I manage to get the bike stable. There, I make a mistake. Without thinking about my route, I turn automatically, and before I realize it I’m riding past the back of the high school, where lots of kids hang out. And who should be swaggering toward me but Tyrone, looking meaner than ever. The sun glints off the ointment from his newest tattoo, there’s a fresh scar on the side of his face, and even from a distance his eyes gleam with a hard look. He must be cutting school.

  I spin the bike around, balancing my ridiculous suitcase with one hand. I wish I hadn’t packed my favorite books and that ceramic bowl Jimi made me; they make the load so heavy. When I turn the bike it wobbles, the whole thing flips on top of me, and my luggage crashes, splitting open. Tyrone keeps strutting toward me, fast though not running, but I’m able to scoop everything in—except the blue bowl, which smashed into a million pieces—and jam the faulty zipper shut before he gets to me. While he’s lunging, I hop on, with one foot just out of his grasp, and pedal away as fast as I’ve ever ridden.

  “Stop!” he yells. “That’s my bike!”

  I don’t dare turn around long enough to tell him the truth: that I’m taking it to his house. And it suddenly hits me that my fear is only making the situation worse. Now I definitely look like a thief.

  He’s running behind me, screaming and swearing, but even with the bag I move faster than he can. Pedaling furiously, I’m grateful for my strong legs, made powerful thanks to my daily run. Thank you, I’m murmuring inside. Thank you, please let me make it. When I get across Allston I turn my head and howl, “I’m returning your stupid bike!”

  He shouts back something I can’t hear, throws up his hands, and stands in the middle of the street waving his arms, balling both hands into fists and thrusting them into the air.

  I keep pedaling east toward Cedar Crest.

  Once I dump the bike, propping it up by the side of Tyrone’s garage, I power walk as fast as I can without actually running, circling all the way around East Hill and across Redwood to avoid Tyrone or anyone else, until I can slip onto the commuter bus. I’m drained, but I walk with my head high, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world for me to be half jogging on a Thursday morning, pulling my green luggage, headed in the opposite direction from Canyon Valley High.

  After the bus drops me off at the BART station, I slide four crumpled dollar bills into the ticket machine, press Yes for my ticket, hop off the escalator onto the platform as the San Francisco train is pulling in, and pile into the half-empty train. Wiping perspiration from my face, I slouch i
nto a seat, lean back, and rip open my backpack for the Miss Sarah Armstrong folder. Let me get lost in her world for a while and be inspired by her courage. I’m going to need it.

  The Bird Man

  In the farthest high meadow, field hands sweated. Absorbed in cutting the big tobacco leaves to dry, most didn’t notice the peculiar, squat man who waddled toward them. But Sarah saw him.

  She instinctively moved away, aware that no unfamiliar white man had been out here before. She shifted position, moving slowly, trying—as Mama had taught her—not to call attention to herself. But the short, seemingly muddled man waved at her, lurched forward, and called out, “I’m from Ontario.”

  What’s that? she wondered. And why was he talking to her?

  “I’m a professor,” he continued, stumbling in her direction. “A teacher. In a big school. A university. I have free rein to walk all over here. Permission.” He stopped and waved his hands around. He had an accent, and a different way of talking. “To collect bird observations.” The pudgy man inched closer, until he almost touched her.

  She avoided his eyes, kept her hands busy and her head down while she continued to move away slowly. She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I’ve been welcomed by all of Virginia’s planters as an eminent scientist,” he said. His hands, continually in motion, waved to the sky as his blue eyes bored into her. “I’m an ornithologist.”

  Sarah turned her head away and kept working. Her fingers stuck together from the tobacco gum.

  “A bird-watcher. That’s what I do.” He pointed to a circling broad-winged hawk. “I study birds like that.” Next he gestured toward a goldfinch. “And that. I write books about them. Birds in flight. Flying free.” He turned to give her a penetrating stare.

  Why are you here? Sarah wondered. She thought he must be truly mad, and edged farther away while trying to brush tobacco gum off her fingers.

  “Have you seen any nests?” He kept following her, chattering. The driver seemed curiously unconcerned. As if the lunatic scientist could read her mind, he said, “All the planters know me here. They’ve given instructions …” He waved vaguely. “I can go anywhere and talk to anyone.” He paused. “Don’t you know of any nests I could look at?”

  Sarah didn’t know whether to answer.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said quietly. “A big, strong girl like you …”

  She was tempted to lie and say no. But she remembered Papa saying, “Don’t tell a lie for credit when you can tell the truth for cash.”

  “An eagle,” she mumbled. “Over by the side of the field.” She lifted her chin to point the way, but kept working. She noticed she was taller than he.

  “Can you show me?” He looked so awkward standing there in his suit, perspiration rolling down his red face. He kept mopping his fat cheeks and neck with the handkerchief crumpled in his hand.

  Sarah looked at him and shook her head. “I can’t leave!” she said. And I don’t want to, she thought. Not with you.

  “I’ll ask the foreman. I am sure it is all right.” At least that was what Sarah guessed he’d said. It was hard to understand him, with his accent.

  In minutes he was back, tugging on her arm. “Show me the nest.”

  Sarah turned to look at the foreman, Ol’ Sam. He nodded, pointing his leather riding whip. “Go on!” he said, then called out after her back, “Five minutes!”

  The two walked a hundred yards—Sarah striding, the man hopping to catch up—to a gnarled old tree by the edge of the field. Looking back, Sarah saw how small the field workers looked. She was hardly ever off this way alone. But she wanted to remain within sight and sound.

  Suddenly, Sarah heard her mother’s sweet, rich voice. “You have to make your own way.” The tone was so clear she turned her head, startled. Then her mother’s song pierced the air. “Steal away, steal away, steal away home.” Was she going mad?

  “Quick,” the bird man whispered, “listen to me. I’ve come here to help you run away. To the North. Or Canada.”

  “What?” Fear scoured Sarah’s body and closed down every vein. She couldn’t breathe. Even the sounds of the warbling birds stopped. Silence filled the world.

  “I’m an abolitionist,” he said in that funny way of speaking. He kept wiping his forehead and neck. “Dr. Ross.”

  Sarah’s mouth hung open.

  “I’m here to pass out compasses. And directions north.”

  Still she couldn’t speak. Was this a dream? Her stomach lurched; she was afraid she might slip to the ground. She tried to wake up, but he kept talking.

  “Make for the closest free land.” The man’s voice pressed in on her. “Washington, D.C. We have people to help you once you reach the city. Washington has a long bridge.” His words pummeled her ears, and she tried to remember what he said. As she did so another part of her brain wondered, Is this some kind of trick?

  The bird man advised her quickly, giving details. “If you can only get to that bridge, once you step onto the other side, there will be free black people and abolitionists and churches to help you.”

  “How will I get there?” she dared ask, hoping she wasn’t falling into a plot that would be yanked out from under her as soon as she let her heart hope.

  “On your way, look for lanterns in a window late at night,” he said, and bending awkwardly, the pudgy man sketched a map in the dirt with his cane. “Here’s the river. When you go to the woods behind the cabins, go upstream. Follow the North Star. Stay near the river. After three or four days you’ll see a lantern and a quilt hanging on the line, one that looks like this.” He drew the outline of a house that seemed to have a smoking chimney. “Just tell them you’re a friend of a friend.”

  Sarah felt the warmth of the sun on her neck, and heard the birds again. She felt pebbles and dry dirt under her bare feet.

  “The woman in the house with the lantern will tell you where to go next. Knock on her back door.”

  Before Sarah could absorb the news—and the fact that she was talking to an abolitionist—the man slipped her a tiny compass and hurriedly showed her how it worked.

  Suddenly, he said, “Point to the eagle nest.”

  Startled, she turned and stretched her arm out, her sticky fingers pointing to the nest high in the tree.

  He nodded, muttered, “I’ve got to go,” and seemed to vanish.

  She felt the hard metal in the center of her palm. If she hadn’t had this shiny new circle in her hand, with its needle pointing to the N, Sarah would have thought she’d dreamt it all. She slipped it into her pocket and staggered back to the field.

  Late that evening, Sarah told Amely and Ruth of the visitation. By morning she heard that Dr. Ross had also appeared to Stinson, a gaunt man working near the house, who’d received the same directions and two coins. And to Big Bertha, in the kitchen, he’d given a compass like hers.

  Feeling freshly awake, Sarah heard with new ears the song: “Follow the drinking gourd! The riverbank makes a very good road, the dead trees will show you the way. When the great big river meets the little river, follow the drinking gourd.”

  As she drank her evening tea a kind of grace began to settle, flowing like a healing balm into her bruised heart. Strengthened and inspired, she understood that if she focused all her energies on one point—freedom—a path would open. It was already appearing. Her numbed body tingled as blood flowed again. She felt she was coming back to life.

  Now she knew that when she had a chance, she’d be following the North Star and the heavenly gourd to freedom. To the Sweet Land she’d heard about, where she could walk wherever she wanted to, and where she might find her brother and sister. Snatched from the jaws of evil, she’d be doing God’s good works, like Mama said. He had, after all, sent another miracle.

  She learned more about Washington, D.C., from Preacher Thomas, who’d been recaptured years ago after living free for six months. He told her about whole communities of free black people and thousands of fugitives. She he
ard about churches that helped runaways and buildings that belonged to black people. This inconceivable city tantalized her.

  Could Albert and Esther be there, living free? But who would be taking care of them? Thoughts of her brother and sister—worry, and an ache—flooded her. As she daydreamed, she rejoined day-to-day life, catching fish and poaching rabbits. People in the quarters feasted, adding potatoes roasted in ashes, hot cornbread, fried eggs, milk, and whiskey. Sarah was reminded of the joyful feasts her mother used to oversee, of the Sunday dinners with her father, and those thoughts made her long for her parents, both so far from the promise of river paths and lantern guides. Sarah tried to make the food inside fill the empty place that was always there. But no matter how much she ate—even until her belly bloated—she couldn’t fill herself up.

  When Sarah watched others with their mamas and papas and brothers and sisters—the few who still had them—a lump rose up into her throat and she imagined herself in their places. When she saw beads of red glass on a charm string, like the one around Amely’s neck, jealousy burned her chest. A pretty necklace like that might make the lump go away, even for a while. One day, she did steal something: a small orange bowl carved from a gourd that Jeremiah’s sister had given him, which he’d whittled designs onto. He used it in his crowded cabin to hold pine nuts, or other days it sat empty. Sarah went into his room and picked it up, cupping it in her hands, feeling the smooth sides. Maybe if she took this totem of family love, her family, or at least her sister, might magically appear. When she heard someone walking near his door she thrust the bowl under her dress; later all she’d been able to think to do was bury it, so no one would see it. But instead of the lump dissolving, the pain in her throat got bigger.

  When the old man came after her the next Sunday, asking if she’d seen his bowl, she couldn’t hold back.

  “Yes,” she admitted, staring at the ground.

  He stretched out a reedy arm and tilted her head up. When he saw the tears pooling in her eyes, he said, “You keep it, little sister.”