The War Between the Classes (Laurel-Leaf Contemporary Fiction)

by Gloria Miklowitz

  “What happened to them?”

  “Papa said they'd ‘survive,’ that the mother would have to go to work and in time the husband would find some way to help. But that all their dreams for a better life were smashed with that arm because now all they could do was struggle to keep food on the table.”

  Adam said nothing, staring thoughtfully out of the window, and in the dim light I wondered what he was thinking.

  “I remember most what Papa said later,” I added. “In America, and maybe everywhere in the world, we're judged by two things … by how much money we have … and by our color. Money is power. If you have enough of it people won't forget your color but they'll at least pretend to.”

  Adam nodded. “Yes. Maybe that's why I feel so inadequate. Otero's set it up so Oranges have so little money to begin with that we're scared we'll lose the little we have. I'm not used to feeling … insecure. I thought, when the game started, that all I had to do was work hard and I'd move up. People do. My grandfather started as a poor English immigrant, and look what he built! But I'm not willing to take garbage, to grovel. From now on I'm going to fight the system, somehow!”

  “How?” I turned toward him so I could see his face better. Suddenly I had a terrible thought—that I should report Adam's plans to the G4's. Blues wanted to keep things as they were, and if there was unrest … any sign of uprisings or protest among the poor … they needed to know about it. As soon as the thought surfaced, I pushed it away. How could I even think of betraying Adam?

  A light flashed through our window and then a police car pulled up alongside. I sat straighter and inched away from Adam into the shadows.

  A policeman beamed his light into our car, illuminating Adam's face, then mine.

  “Is there some problem, officer?” Adam asked without a trace of fear or servility.

  “This is a no-parking area. May I see your license, please?”

  Adam didn't even reach for his wallet. “I live here. I'm Adam Tarcher.”

  “Oh, Mr. Tarcher, I wasn't sure!” The policeman's manner changed abruptly and he started to put his notebook away. He glanced at me but spoke to Adam. “Just checking, you know. Don't like strangers loitering in this neighborhood.”

  I tugged at Adam's sleeve and whispered, “I have to get home, Adam. It's late.” A memory of another time and place started me shivering. Hideo had been stopped by a policeman on a motorcycle. The officer's manner hadn't been so polite. Before he left us he chewed Hideo out and gave him a ticket. This policeman wouldn't do that. Not to Adam, one of the Valley Vista kids.

  “We'll be leaving in a moment, officer. Thanks for checking,” Adam said.

  “No trouble.” The policeman got back into his car and in a moment drove away. Suddenly I hated being in this neighborhood, getting privileged treatment just because of Adam. It made me feel alien and vulnerable and angry. I could hardly wait to get home.

  7

  That evening I phoned Carol. My head buzzed with all kinds of half-formed thoughts to talk with her about. I couldn't really accept that she'd be willing to forget old friends just because she was a Dark Green trying to move up. I wished she'd want to help the lower colors. After all, she knew what it was to be poor and a minority, to be always put down.

  “Want to go shopping with me tomorrow?” I asked. One of the things we used to do before Adam and I became so close was browse around the shopping mall on a Saturday and stop for lunch at the taco stand, where Carol said the tacos were almost as good as those her mother made at home.

  “I don't know,” she said quickly. “Where?” “The mall, I thought. There's a new store opened for teens. Melissa says they have some cute things.” “We might be seen. I don't want to be reported.” “Oh, Carol!” I protested. “We're upper class. The G4's hardly pay any attention to us anymore. Besides, what would you lose? You'll get criticized, or maybe fined a few dollars.”

  “That's easy for you to say. You're a Blue and they won't penalize you.”

  I sighed. It was very clear from her attitude that there wasn't the slightest chance she'd be open to an idea I'd been playing with. Yet I couldn't give up. Carol was one of the most thoughtful, caring people I'd ever met. You don't just change personality because of a game. “Maybe we could meet somewhere else. If I could borrow Hideo's car for a couple of hours, we could drive to the Beverly mall. That's far enough away to be safe.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you mean, maybe? Maybe you'll come, or maybe it's safe?”

  “Well, you know, Amy. We can't always tell if someone's a G4, can we?”

  I didn't answer. My silence must have reached her conscience because she finally said, “Oh, shooti It is stupid not being able to talk. It's funny. I'm able to talk to a whole lot of people who never noticed me before, just because I'm Dark Green and they're lower colors than me. I'm even finding they're kind of nice.” She thought a moment, then giggled. “You know what? It's kind of ridiculous. I'll meet you, why not?”

  “Wonderful!”

  “Sure. And let's be daring. Let's leave our armbands and notebooks home and the devil with the Color Game. In fact, let's just go to the nearby mall. I'm just dying to talk to you again.”

  And so we agreed to meet Saturday at the mall. When I hung up I found myself grinning at the phone, feeling terribly excited, as if I were planning a revolution. The first thing I did was take out my journal.

  Keeping my journal up to date hadn't been at all hard. I liked the chance to tell Otero what I really thought and felt. He collected the journals once a week and commented on them.

  Last week I'd written, “Power corrupts. I realize that because now I'm a Blue I could get back at Juan for throwing me in the pool and he knows it. He slinks around, avoiding me, and it hurts. We used to be such good friends, laugh together so much! How could he think I'd use my power now to hurt him? Yet I see other Blues taking advantage of former friends and actually seeming to enjoy it.”

  Otero liked that entry. He'd written, “Good insight. You're starting to grow with this experience.”

  Since the third day of the game we'd really separated into our color groups. Even our lunch crowd. We no longer sat together because G4's were constantly harassing Justin and Adam just because I was sitting with them. Now Justin sat with a group of his regular friends, and other Light Greens. They whispered and laughed a lot together while Adam's Orange friends seemed angry and grim most of the time. I could see why; they hardly got time to eat because someone was always coming by and expecting them to bow or do something for them. I didn't know how Adam stood it!

  Lately I sat mostly with Blues—Paul and Gwen, Raul and Tony. Not always, but at least one or two of them seemed to join me each lunchtime. When I said how rotten I felt having friends bow to me they laughed me down.

  “It's only a game, girl,” Paul said. “That's the way it's supposed to be, so just play it. How will those rich dudes know what oppression's like if we don't play our part?”

  “But that's not the way I'd be if I really was an upper-class person.”

  “Yeah? You think so?” Raul answered. “I just bet.”

  “Let's sabotage the game,” I suggested to the whole group one day. “Put up signs—ALL COLORS UNITE!—and see what happens. Maybe there's a whole bunch of us who'd secretly like to show Otero that society really isn't the way he's set us up.”

  “But it is,” Gwen pointed out. She's a big-boned girl who wears her hair in little braids laced with beads. “Men don't understand women, and they don't even try. They don't have to. They have the power. And it's the same with white people. Whites don't feel they need to understand blacks. Yet my survival rests on understanding whites.”

  “That's just it,” I said. “As long as there is this power difference, men won't be interested in understanding women and whites won't care about understanding any other race.”

  “You're getting too deep for me, Amy,” Paul said. “All I see is what is … and what is, is that nobody gives a
darn about this black boy and what he thinks. Gets so I don't even care anymore. When you have nothing you have nothing much to lose.”

  No one at the table even blinked an eye at what Paul had said, so I guess they agreed. “Can't we change things so you won't feel that way?” I asked timidly. “I mean, if we all got together and refused to let the G4's harass the lower colors we'd be doing something.”

  Paul laughed and put a hand on mine. “Amy, girl. You're a good kid, but you're just one and that's not enough, see. As for me, I like things just like they are. I feel so good ‘bout myself these days that even my English teacher noticed. She said, ‘Paul Thomas, what got into you? You've been quiet as a mouse all term and all of a sudden you've got opinions.’ For the first time I got an A in an oral report. Being Blue makes vat feel like someone.”

  Paul's intense, honest gaze held me for a long moment and I realized that, for him, the Color Game could go on forever, as long as he was a Blue. I turned to the others. “Do you all feel that way?”

  “You're just sore ‘cause you can't play with that rich white dude,” Paul said, winking and nudging me. “How ‘bout comin’ out with this boss man? We equals now, you know,” he said, using black jive.

  I smiled and looked to the others. Raul crushed a crumb with his finger. Gwen was the only one who gave me any real answer. “We got it made, being Blue. No one bothers us. We don't have to bow to anyone. We can talk to whoever we like and they gotta pay attention. We've got respect. Even the tests Ray gives us seem easy. We're getting better grades than the Oranges. Why rock the boat?” She patted my arm. “Just relax and enjoy your power, Amy, honey. It'll all be back to normal in a couple more weeks.”

  I stopped to visit Sue and Hideo before going to the mall to meet Carol Saturday. Hideo was vacuuming while Sue ran a wash. “How come you're such a liberated male?” I teased my brother above the vacuum roar. “Where'd you learn it from? Papa?”

  Hideo grinned and picked some papers off the floor before running the sweeper under them. He held the papers in one hand, uncertain where to put them, and finally dropped them back on the rug.

  “Sue's not gonna like that,” I chided.

  “Oh, no?” He turned off the vacuum and pretended to chase me. I scooted between chairs and into the kitchen and from there to the bedroom and finally hid in the bathroom, where he caught me and started tickling.

  “What's going on here?” Sue asked. She leaned against the doorframe, a load of clothes on her arm, trying to look severe. “Is my husband molesting you, Amy?”

  Giggling, I nodded, while trying to escape Hideo's fingers. Tickling fights had been part of our fun since I was a little girl. Mama would stand by and protest mildly but she really seemed to appreciate the fun. At some point, though, Papa said it was improper for a young lady and put a stop to it.

  “Okay, you two. Enough,” Sue said. “I've got a pot of coffee brewing and some fresh cinnamon buns. If you can pretend to be grown-ups for a minute, join me.”

  We sat at the card table in the tiny kitchen eating rolls and drinking coffee and talking and laughing. I thought again how good Hideo and Sue were together.

  “Did the fact that Hideo isn't the same color as you ever matter?” I asked Sue.

  “Never.” She licked a sugar strand from one finger. “What first attracted me was his intelligence and kindness and that quiet strength, and …”

  “Oh, Sue, come on,” Hideo protested, laughing. “You know that's not true. The first thing you thought was ‘What a hunk!’ “

  Sue suppressed a grin and squinted thoughtfully at my brother. “If I'd noticed your looks first, you'd never have had a chance.”

  Hideo hugged her.

  “Sue, really. Didn't it mean anything that we were Japanese?”

  “Well, yes, come to think of it, it did. I was worried that he'd notice I was white … and that it would matter to him.”

  “Hideo? Did it?” I hadn't known about Sue until Hideo married. He kept her such a secret, and because he was away at college, we never guessed.

  Hideo's face turned serious. “Yes, it did. I tried very hard not to love Sue, knowing what it would mean to Papa and Mama. For a while I even broke it off, using some flimsy excuse … working too hard, or something. But it didn't help. She was on my mind, in my heart, in my blood, every minute of the day and night.”

  “And he in mine,” Sue said softly. “The brightness went out of the day when I couldn't see him.”

  “I thought about it a lot,” Hideo said, serious eyes on mine. “I believe in tradition. It adds meaning and richness to life. Going against Papa meant breaking with tradition, a frightening and enormous step to take. I didn't want to hurt the family, I didn't. But the fact is, I'm a different generation from Papa, with different history and different attitudes. I'm not afraid like he is.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Yes. That stuff Papa carries inside him about how the Japanese-Americans were treated during World War II is his poison, not mine. I can't let it warp how I feel. It's made him fear ‘outsiders,’ anyone who isn't Japanese. And it's time he got over that.”

  Sue put a hand on Hideo's. I guess she knew about the internment camps, about our family's life there, something we didn't speak about even to each other.

  “Under the skin people all want the same … food on the table, a good job, a family to love, peace in the world. What's color got to do with it?” Hideo asked.

  “Color does, darling,” Sue said. “It's so much harder to make it when you're not white. It's possible, sure, but prejudice runs deep. Maybe that's what this game Amy's playing at school is all about. Maybe those kids will go away realizing how much prejudice hurts and they'll judge people for what they are, not by their color or class.”

  When I left Sue and Hideo to meet Carol, my head swarmed with things to think about. Despite what Hideo said, I wanted to show Otero we shouldn't treat each other so badly. I could hardly wait to tell Carol about some of my ideas.

  We met, as usual, in front of the mall bookstore. Carol arrived early. She was already at the checkout, paying for some books.

  “Look,” Carol slipped three books out of the bag and fanned them out for me to see. Each had a typical romance cover, a girl and two boys, or two girls and one boy. Carol buys all the new titles when they come out each month and insists on telling me what's in them.

  She frowned this time as she put them away. “I never noticed before, but they never show a black or Latino girl on these covers—or Asian. Don't they think we fall in love, too?”

  Arm in arm we wandered through the mall, which was mobbed with shoppers. Usually, half the kids in school hang out there Saturdays, mostly looking each other over. That's how I met Adam. Last summer I was a salesgirl at the Toy Factory and he came in to buy something for Bettina's birthday. I caught him watching me while I served three customers and when he finally asked my help, he had me completely flustered. Just thinking of him now made me glow.

  “You left your armband home, right?” I asked Carol as we headed for the fast-food section.

  “Yeah, well, not exactly.” She gave me a sheepish grin. “At the last minute … I …” She held her arm out with its dark-green band. “I figured you'd probably bring yours.”

  “Well, I didn't. Not my journal, either.”

  Carol stopped short, so that a woman pushing a stroller bumped into her. “I'm sorry. What do you want to do? I don't want to get you in trouble. We can eat somewhere else.”

  A feeling of excitement, not unlike fear, raced through me. Without my journal and band I felt almost naked. “No, no. It doesn't matter. In fact that's what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Let's get out of here. This place is too public.”

  We turned away from the colored tables and stools in the center of the food concessions and went to McDonald's. There we settled down with Big Macs and colas in a back booth. I breathed a sigh of relief when it appeared that we were the only members of Otero's class there
.

  “Juan's coming over tonight,” Carol said, scraping onions off her burger. “We're having an engagement party for my brother and Laura.” She licked a finger, then took a bite of her Big Mac. Mouth full, she added, “Laura doesn't know it yet, but when she marries my brother and changes her name to Rodriguez, it's gonna be a whole new ball game.”

  I nodded. “She knows, but if they love each other, they'll survive. Look at Hideo and Sue. I think Otero's game means to exaggerate. Just look how he's set us off against each other. How can you even go with Juan, when he's a Light Green?”

  Carol gave me a lopsided grin. “Where Juan's concerned, nothing can come between us. We're too close. Except,” she said, more seriously, “in school. There I expect him to treat me with the respect lower colors should show to their superiors!”

  “Carol …”

  She giggled. “I'm just playing Otero's game … that's all … just going by the rules.”

  “Why don't we unite … rebel against this dumb game and show Otero that people don't have to do what he expects them to?”

  Carol gave me a suspicious glance. “What's this? Since when have you become an activist?”

  Tm not!”

  Carol ran her tongue around the ends of the Big Mac. “Anyway, what could we do?”

  “Stop wearing our bands. Bow back to those lower than us. Ignore his rules and talk to anyone we want to, no matter what color.”

  “Whoops,” Carol warned with a nod of her head. “G4.”

  “Well, hello, you two,” Brian said, smiling down at me. “Enjoying yourselves?”

  With a kind of glee Carol raised her right arm and showed off her band. “See, I've got it. Want to see my journal, too? Have it right here.”