She put her hands on the table and pushed herself up. “Excuse me. That’s my son. Again.”
I wasn’t trying to listen, but the phone was on the wall just inside Miss Georgia’s bedroom, and there were only three rooms in the house – the kitchen and living area were one room, the bathroom was behind the kitchen, and the door to her bedroom was right by the living-room fireplace. I wasn’t but ten feet away.
“I’m fine, George. I was fine yesterday, and I’m still fine today. Probably be fine tomorrow, too. When you comin’ to visit?” There was a long pause. “Uh-huh, I thought so. Well, you give my best to my grandaughter and her boy. Is she keepin’ him out of trouble?” There was another pause. “Well, if she’d raise him up in the country she wouldn’t have those city problems.” She glanced over at me then looked away. “ ’Course we have our own type of problems here. But I’d sure like to have them close-by. You tell her that. Uh-huh, yes, Mama. I’m sure you will. All right, well I got young Red sittin’ here at the kitchen table, so I better go keep him company. I love you. You’re an ornery old thing, but I do love you.”
Miss Georgia stretched the phone cord out of her bedroom and held up a pink receiver pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Look at this! George had it installed because he says, ‘Mama, you all alone in the middle of nowhere.’ Huh. It ain’t exactly the middle a nowhere. Plus, you mean to tell me he just noticed I live by myself? James, what am I going to do with that boy of yours, huh?”
“It’s good to have a phone, Miss Georgia.” Daddy had always been worried about Miss Georgia living on her own without a phone.
“It’s called a Princess phone. Do I look like a princess?” She held it in front of her face, turning it around and scrunching up her nose at it like she was eyeing a rotten melon. “Fool thing only fit for a teenage girl. I told him I didn’t want no phone, but he’s as stubborn as I am. I’d rip it out except he’s taken to callin’ me every day, and he’d just have them come put in another one.” She glared at the phone. “Might be a tiara on that Princess, so I better quit while I’m ahead.”
She shook her head and hung the phone up right inside her bedroom door. “ ‘Centrally located,’ he said. I told him I don’t care how centrally located it is. If I fall in the kitchen I’m not goin’ to be able to reach it here, or if I’m outside—” She stopped herself. “Shoot, I suppose I just don’t want to admit I’m gettin’ old.”
I guess my face showed what I was thinking, because she laughed and said, “Okay, you right, I’m already old! Well, how about you carry the dishes to the sink for this old lady, huh? Then she might just have the energy to scoop out a couple of bowls of mint chocolate chip ice cream.”
We sat out on the porch eating our ice cream when we heard Mr Dunlop’s rebel yell, screeching and hollering at something.
Miss Georgia rolled her eyes. “Oh, Lordy.”
“I hate when he does that,” I said.
“You and me both.”
I started picking at the paint on her porch like I always did. There was something satisfying about getting a whole strip of paint chip, like peeling a long strip of orange rind.
She scraped the last drips of ice cream out of her bowl. “Why you always doin’ that?”
“Doing what?”
“Peelin’ the paint off my porch?” She roughed up my hair. “I’ma make you paint it someday, seein’ as how you’re the one who made it look this way.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” I said. “What colour do you want? Psychedelic pink?”
She chuckled as I lay down on the porch and looked up at its ceiling. “I could paint you a giant peace sign up there.”
“I don’t care what you put up there, long as you keep it sky blue.”
“How come?”
“Because I want to look up and see the sky. Free and open. Makes me feel like anythin’ can happen.” She nodded at the distance. “Makes me feel like I can see Freedom Church.”
Just then, Mr Dunlop let out another yell and we both groaned.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The New Plan
After school, I was in the shop, lying down on the creeper, rolling back and forth, thinking about the TV news now that I had to watch it all the time because of Miss Miller. Walter Cronkite was Mama’s favourite news guy, so that’s who we always watched. He said a larger voter turnout was expected for the presidential election in November, seeing as how the Twenty-Sixth Amendment had passed last year, moving the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. I remembered when that happened. Daddy had said, “Imagine, Red, you’ll be able to vote in seven years, when you’re still a teenager.”
Earlier this summer, while he was fixing the timing of a Dodge Dart’s engine, he’d said, “I wish you could vote now, Red.”
“How come?” I’d asked.
He turned on the timing light. “I don’t trust that Nixon. I’d vote for Shirley Chisholm before I’d vote for Nixon.”
“Who’s she?”
I watched the frantic flickering of the timing light, mesmerized, as Daddy told me she was this black congresswoman who didn’t take any guff from anyone.
“So why don’t you vote for her?”
“She won’t make it as a candidate.”
“Why not?”
He turned off the light and chuckled. “Red, weren’t you listening? I said she’s a black woman. Do you think this country is ready to vote for a black or a woman, never mind both together? Maybe in your lifetime, son, but not in mine.”
A week later he was dead.
I rolled around on the creeper, listening for Daddy’s voice, missing him more than ever. “Why did you have to leave now, Daddy, when everything’s so confusing? I’m finally old enough to understand the news, and now I can’t ask you about the election or Vietnam or—”
The shop door jiggled, and Rosie’s face appeared. She looked like an angel in the shadow.
“Hey, Red.”
“Hey, Rosie.” I sat up on the creeper.
She shut the door behind her and smiled. “How are you liking Miss Miller now?”
“About the same.”
Her smile turned down a little. “I think she’ll grow on you. You do think she’s pretty, don’t you?”
“Well, sure, but—”
“That Mr Reynolds thinks so, too.”
“The lawyer?”
She tilted her head and gave a sly smile. “Uh-huh. Wouldn’t they make a cute couple?”
“No.”
“I think they would.”
“Why would she want a slimy lawyer, anyway?”
“He’s not slimy!”
“All lawyers are.”
She shook her head. “He’s real nice, Red.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s been over at our house.”
“What was he doing at your house?”
“He was there with Mr Harrison.”
“Why?”
Her little heart mouth exploded into a grin. “Because Daddy’s talking about buying the shop!”
“What?” I stood up, the creeper flying out from under me. “He can’t do that!”
Her grin disappeared. “Why not?”
“I’m not having your daddy take over my shop!”
“But, Red—”
“This is my daddy’s special place, and he worked hard to make it what it is. Your daddy would ruin everything!”
She grabbed my arm. “But don’t you see? If Daddy buys the shop, then you don’t have to sell the house. We’d run the shop, and you all could still live here. I want you to stay, Red!”
I wanted to stay, too, but I looked around the shop and pictured Mr Dunlop spitting tobacco and kicking things and talking mean to Beau – Rosie was tugging at my arm again because I guess I’d quit listening to her.
“Mama said it’d be great work for Darrell to have and might keep him out of trouble. I think so, too, and Darrell said he’d like doing that kind of job.”
“What job?”
“Darrell doesn’t know how to fix cars!”
“Well, not yet, but he could learn.”
“All Darrell’s good at is messing things up!”
“That’s not true!” She let go of my arm and took a step back. “Maybe no one ever gave him a chance to try putting things together.”
“Sorry, Rosie, but I’ll die before I let your daddy take over our shop.”
Her eyes flashed. “We were just trying to do you a favour!”
“A favour? To have Mr Dunlop take over my shop? Don’t do us any favours. And don’t go destroying the shop, either, thinking you’re doing us a favour.”
“That was your idea, Red!”
“Just spray-painting is all, and I don’t even want that any more!”
“Well, I don’t go around spray-painting things!”
“Oh, like you don’t go around spray-painting gravestones?”
“That wasn’t me! That was Darrell and his gang!”
“But you were there. You had to be. How else could you have stopped them from painting my daddy’s gravestone if you weren’t right there?”
I knew I was right because she didn’t have an answer. Plus, she looked a little scared.
“I’m through doing you any favours, Red!” She turned and ran, slamming the door so hard the hinges cried.
“Good!” I hollered after her.
After she left I had a chance to think through what she said. Mr Reynolds. And Mr Harrison. Together. Talking with Mr Dunlop about buying our property. So Mr Dunlop was the client? I knew Mr Reynolds was as slimy as Mr Harrison! Well, there was no way I was letting him buy our property for Mr Dunlop. Not in a million years. I’d keep their nastiness off of our land if it was the last thing I did.
“Nobody’s taking our shop!” I yelled. I paced around the shop, banging the metal shelves that held all the tools. It felt good to hear those mad thoughts coming out, and I banged and kicked until there was so much noise that you wouldn’t think you could hear anything.
Except I did. I swear I heard Daddy say, I hear ya, son. It made me stop all my noisemaking and stand still so I could hear him again. But the shop was silent.
I stood there for a long time, trying to figure out what he meant. He always said, “I hear ya, son,” when I was spouting off about something. He’d never give me the answer, but he’d ask some questions and eventually I’d come up with what to do. So I asked myself questions until it finally hit me.
Mama didn’t think we could handle the shop and store so we had to move. Sure, I’d told her that me and Beau could handle it, but, just like a mama, she wouldn’t believe it. I had to show her. I had to show her that it was no big deal keeping everything going, even without Daddy. Sure, Daddy could fix any car problem and with lightning speed, and there were only certain things me and Beau could fix, but still, we could handle some business. After school and on weekends there were three of us – what with Beau and me and Mama – and when I was at school, they could put a sign on the What-U-Want to say go to the shop or go to the house if you needed help. Maybe I didn’t have such a big problem after all.
Except the bookkeeping part, which was the money stuff that Daddy always did and Mama hated. She spent all day Sunday, after church, working on the books and by suppertime she was spitting nails. But it wasn’t something Beau or I could do. Yet.
So I came up with a plan. First, show Mama that me and Beau could handle the shop and the store ourselves. Second, do real good in math so I could take over the books for Mama.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Miss Miller
In math the next day, I realized pretty quick that Miss Miller’s word problems weren’t going to help me one bit with our accounts. What use was it to find out how long it’d take sixty protesters to get to Washington, DC, if their bus went forty-five miles per hour and they had one hundred and fifty miles to go?
“Now,” Miss Miller said, “we’re going to talk about how songs are like poetry and do our own writing!”
We all groaned, except Emma Jean, because she was a teacher’s pet from way back. “That sounds like fun, ma’am,” she said, all perky.
Miss Miller gave her a tired smile. “Some might question why a teacher is assigning her students rock songs for homework.”
That made all of us sit up as perky as Emma Jean.
Miss Miller opened up her flower-power bag and it was full of albums, the kind of albums you’d expect in a flower-power bag. We’d never had a teacher play real music before. Sure, we’d listened to stupid little kid songs in first grade, and one time in fifth grade Mrs Riley made us listen to The Wartime Speeches of Winston Churchill, but this was different.
Holding up an album cover, Miss Miller put the record on the turntable and lifted the record player arm. The whole class hushed while we waited to hear Marvin Gaye sing “What’s Going On”. So when Miss Miller couldn’t get the record player working, we all groaned.
“Get the monkey to fix it!” Bobby said.
Miss Miller looked puzzled. “What monkey?”
“The janitor,” Emma Jean explained. “He can fix anything.”
Miss Miller’s head jerked and she stared at Bobby. “What did you call him?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “How could you be so disrespectful?”
“Well?” he said, shrugging. “I forget his name.”
“Then you’d best learn it.”
Miss Miller was still smouldering when Mr Walter came into the room and fiddled with the record player cord. I saw him raise his eyebrows at the Marvin Gaye album. I bet he was as surprised as us that we were listening to cool stuff.
In just a couple of minutes, he had the record player working.
Miss Miller smiled. “Class, this is Mr Walter. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been properly introduced. I’m sure there’s something you’d like to say to him.”
We looked at each other, then at Bobby. Did she want Bobby to apologize for calling him a monkey?
Emma Jean raised her hand. “Thank you?” she said, looking at Miss Miller for approval.
Miss Miller only gave a half smile back and said, “You’d address him and say, ‘Thank you, sir’, or ‘Thank you, Mr Walter’. Shall we try that again, class?”
I bet not a one of them had ever said sir to a black man or a janitor before. But most everyone did now. Some kids rolled their eyes or looked away or made faces. I don’t think Miss Miller noticed because she was too busy smiling at Mr Walter. I know Mr Walter saw, though. I slunk down in my seat because I felt embarrassed for him that he had to see that. But he didn’t act embarrassed. He said, “You’re welcome,” nodding at me and then at Miss Miller, and walked out of the classroom with his head held high, even with kids still making faces at him.
Miss Miller turned to us. “How many of you can fix a record player in two minutes?” She looked at Bobby. “How many of you can get up at five o’clock in the morning and work all day cleaning up behind children who call you names?” Still looking at Bobby, she added, “In a town where even some of those children’s parents call them names?”
Bobby was looking down at his desk.
It seemed quiet for a long while before Miss Miller started playing the Marvin Gaye song.
After it was over, Miss Miller asked, “What’s the subtext?”
What was she talking about?
“I mean, what’s he really saying? What’s the bigger story behind this song, hmm? Why is he saying too many of his brothers are dying?”
We stared at her blankly.
She explained that Marvin Gaye was really talking about guys, especially black guys, coming back from Vietnam and nothing had changed for them. There was still prejudice, even after these guys had risked their lives for freedom and democracy. That’s why he was asking, “What’s going on?” It made me think of Thomas’s Missing In Action bracelet and why he decided to wear it.
At least the homework Miss Miller gave us was okay: pic
k a song and write what it was really saying underneath the words. I already knew what mine was going to be – from the Edwin Starr album Thomas gave me, War & Peace.
Class got boring again when Miss Miller pulled a paperback book out of her flower-power bag, acting as if she were Santa Claus. “This is one of my favourite, favourite books, and I want to read it out loud to you.”
I looked at the cover. It looked like a baby book with a goofy barnyard on the front. It was called Animal Farm.
Bobby Benson screwed his face up at it. “I’m beyond talking-animal books.”
“You can’t judge a book by its cover,” Miss Miller said with a smile.
I tuned her out while she read and looked at the posters around the classroom. There was one of John F. Kennedy with the quote Daddy loved. Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
Miss Miller had put up a picture of Harriet Tubman, who rescued nearly three-hundred slaves using a secret network of safe houses and hidden routes, and had handwritten a quote by her. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
The one I liked best was by Martin Luther King Jr., because it was short but said a lot. The time is always right to do what is right.
Which is exactly what I was going to do to make sure we stayed in Stony Gap. By the time history rolled around, I was figuring out a schedule for me and Beau to cover both the shop and the What-U-Want. I was wondering why I was even wasting my time in school because I could be working at home when I heard Miss Miller say, “Then the property has to be preserved just the way it is. That’s what the National Register of Historic Places is all about. They can’t be changed or destroyed. So if a site has historic importance—”
I shot my hand up in the air even though I hadn’t really been listening to the whole story.
“Is something wrong, Red?”
“Does that mean you can’t sell the property?”
“Well, there certainly would be restrictions on a sale—”
“Restrictions?” That was all I needed to hear. “So how do you get on that register thing?”
Seeing Red Page 11