Seeing Red

by Kathryn Erskine

  She whipped her head towards me, and her voice was sharp. “I mean you’re makin’ history every day, Red.” She slammed her cane on the floor and leaned both hands on it, peering at me through the flickering light. “When I was young I wrote letters, along with the white women of Atlanta, to tell politicians that we women wanted our say. We wanted to be able to vote just like men could. And guess what? We won. Oh, yes, we did. That was 1920. My letters counted, you better believe it. Nothin’ in my letters said I was black, so those politicians read them just like the white women’s, and my letters made a difference. I made history for me and all women after me.” She stared at me hard. “What kind of history you goin’ to make?”

  I sure didn’t want to be a part of the history that was in Miss Georgia’s scrapbook, but I didn’t know what to do about it, either. Walking home from Miss Georgia’s, I turned around and looked into the blackness where I’d come from. I’d never really thought that I had anything to do with history. For the first time I could see why Miss Miller could get excited about history. You couldn’t be a part of science the way you could be a part of history. You’d have to be some science genius to really be a part of science, and that would end up making you a part of history. So when it came right down to it, it was all about making history.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Dunlops

  I saw the light on in the shop and a picture of Emmett Till flashed into my mind again, being dragged into someone’s shed at night. I shuddered. Inside, Beau was just finishing up changing the oil in Mr Harrison’s car. I guess my face looked so dark he thought I was mad.

  “Now, Red. I know you don’t feel too kindly towards Mr Harrison, but he’s just giving us some business. He’s trying to help in his own way.”

  I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t really Mr Harrison I was thinking about. I looked at the hymn Daddy had put on the wall. Buried in sorrow and in sin. That line always made me think of Mr Dunlop. And I thought about how he was just the type of man who would’ve gone after Emmett Till and lynched him.

  Beau was tugging on my sleeve. “Ain’t too many people in this world who are all bad, Red.”

  I turned away from the hymn and looked at him. “There’s Mr Dunlop.”

  “I think he’s as much sad as bad.”

  “He’s downright mean, Beau!”

  Beau shrugged. “He is kind of a bully.”

  “Kind of?”

  “He’s mostly hot air, like most bullies. If you stand up to them, they usually back down. You know what? Sometimes, I even feel sorry for him.”

  “Sorry for him! Beau, you—”

  The shop door creaked open, and Mama said, “Beau, I can take you home whenever you’re ready.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Miz Porter, thank you. I’ll be right there.”

  “Red, your supper is warming in the oven,” Mama said, before crunching her way through the gravel over to our car.

  Beau wiped his hands off on a rag. “Besides, there’s good Dunlops, too, right? Like Rosie?” He started to smile, then stopped midway. “How come I ain’t seen you with Rosie lately?”

  I picked up a socket wrench from the workbench, holding it by the socket and spinning the wrench part around, listening to the rapid click-click-click-click-click. “We had a fight.”

  Beau’s eyes got real big. “You didn’t hit her, did you?”

  “Naw, not that kind of fight. She said some stuff that made me mad and I…I guess I said some mean things to her.” I stared at the wrench as I kept spinning it.

  “Rosie’s a sweet girl, Red. You want to lose her like that?”

  I dropped the socket wrench and it banged onto the bench. Lose her? That’s what people said when someone died.

  Beau tugged at his hair. “If Rosie ain’t hanging out with you, then you know who she’s spending all her time with?”

  I was still staring at the wrench. “Probably Darrell.”

  “Uh-huh. And his gang.”

  My head jerked up, and I watched Beau lumber over to the door, the fluorescent light shining off the bald patch on the back of his head.

  He turned to me as he put his cap on and said what I already knew too well. “That gang is always getting into trouble, Red.”

  “Rosie wouldn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I know, but my mama says, if you wallow with pigs expect to get dirty.” He touched the bill of his cap and gave me one last stare before leaving.

  I followed the line of trees from the shop, and when I got to their shed I could already hear Mr Dunlop yelling inside their house. I couldn’t tell what he was saying at first, but then his words came clearer.

  “You’re the fattest, laziest, ugliest thing I ever seen. You gonna eat me out of house and home.”

  I was thinking that was a pretty bad way to talk to Mrs Dunlop, until he said, “I feel sorry for them boys in your class. I bet they can hardly stand to have you sitting in the same classroom,” and I realized he was talking to Rosie.

  I ran for their house and up the front steps real fast, as if what he was saying was poison and I was scared Rosie might die of an overdose before I got there. I banged on the door loud and hard, not like usual, and I kept pounding until the door opened.

  “What you making all that racket for?” It was Mr Dunlop. His eyes were small and dark, like they were hiding something inside of him at the same time they were trying to see inside of you.

  “Can Rosie come outside? Now?”

  I was hoping he wouldn’t slam the door in my face on account it was after dark already, but he said, “Huh! If she can still fit through the door.”

  I was standing there shaking on the front porch, not because I was freezing. I felt like punching Mr Dunlop, but I knew I couldn’t get away with it. It seemed to take Rosie for ever to get her coat.

  “Come on!” I hollered.

  Mr Dunlop squinted at me. “What’s your hurry, boy?”

  I wasn’t going to answer him, not even look at him.

  Mrs Dunlop said in her pansy little voice, “Oh, Ray, let the poor child come in. It’s freezing out there.”

  “No, thank you, ma’am!” The words were polite, but I didn’t say them too politely.

  Finally Rosie got to the door, and I took her hand and pulled her down the steps and started running, stumbling because it was dark. Still I had to get us as far away as possible.

  “Slow down, Red! I can’t see! Why are we running so fast?”

  “To get away from him!” I jerked my head back to her house, glaring at the shed as we hurried past.

  She didn’t say a word, just let go of my hand and looked at the ground.

  I kicked some leaves. “You shouldn’t listen to your daddy. That stuff he says is a bunch of lies.”

  “Daddy’s just upset right now. That’s all.”

  “Seems like he’s always upset!”

  She nodded sadly. “He is, Red. You know he wasn’t always like this. He was real happy when he was a trucker.”

  I never thought he was real happy, but she was right that he didn’t used to be so bad. “Why doesn’t he go back to being a trucker then?”

  She crossed her arms and stared at me. “He can’t. Ever since Mama got sick he feels like he has to take care of her.”

  “But you know how to do that. You don’t need him around.”

  She shook her head fast. “I tried telling him that, but he doesn’t trust leaving us for any length of time because of Darrell.”

  I kicked some acorns off the path.

  Rosie let out a big sigh. “Being stuck, not going anywhere, that’s what makes him mean. And,” she added, barely loud enough for me to hear, “he hates not making any money.”

  Rosie looked away, and I remembered that argument Mama and Daddy had years ago. They hardly ever argued. It was about hiring Mr Dunlop to work at the What-U-Want. Mama said we should help him out. Daddy said he couldn’t stand Ray and, at the time, I was sure glad that Daddy won. Now I could see Mama’s
point a little bit, at least, and I wished life weren’t so complicated.

  Rosie was beautiful in the moonlight, and it killed me to see her looking so sad. Feeling bad reminded me why I’d come to see her in the first place.

  “Listen, I’m sorry I said that stuff about you guys buying the shop.”

  She shrugged. “It’s all right.”

  “Your daddy’s still wrong to talk to you like that. Why don’t you just walk away?”

  She stared up at the moon. “You wouldn’t understand, Red. You come from a perfect family.”

  “What? My daddy’s dead! I have a bratty little brother, my mama’s trying to move us to—”

  “I mean, before.” She hugged her arms around her chest. “And even now. Your mama still cares for you and J, and you’ll always have good memories of your daddy.”

  I knew she was right about that. My daddy called me things like Boy Wonder. You wouldn’t want to remember the things her daddy called her.

  She sniffled. “My family isn’t like other families. We’re not exactly The Brady Bunch.”

  “No one is.”

  “Yeah, but my family is…a whole lot different.”

  “I know,” I said quietly. “Everybody knows that, Rosie.”

  Her voice was even quieter. “But nobody does anything about it.”

  I shrugged. “Well, it’s nobody else’s business, so they can’t do anything.”

  “Sometimes I wish they would.” Her head dropped down and she spoke so softly I could barely hear her. “I’m so tired of it. Sometimes I feel like nothing will ever change.”

  I tried to think of something to make her feel better. “In a few years you can leave. You don’t have to stay there for ever.”

  “But I’ll worry about Mama. And what about Darrell?”

  “What about him?”

  She gazed back towards their place. “What if he ends up just like Daddy?”

  I couldn’t say much to that. Everyone figured Darrell would end up just like Mr Dunlop.

  Rosie looked at me. “See? That’s what I mean. Nothing’s ever going to change.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Fight

  Miss Miller had already explained the whole Foxfire project, and most people had started talking with their families and interviewing people. A lot of kids didn’t even mind the project, but some of them were still stuck on what to write, so Miss Miller decided we need to brainstorm.

  She went to the blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk. “Who are some pillars – important people – of our community? Living or dead.”

  Emma Jean raised her hand. “My daddy. He’s the sheriff.”

  As if we didn’t know.

  Miss Miller wrote SHERIFF SCOTT on the board in her perfect cursive handwriting.

  Kids called out other names like Reverend Benson and the principal, Mrs Pugh. Emma Jean said Lou Anne’s mama.

  Bobby Benson asked why.

  Lou Anne rolled her eyes. “She’s the head librarian at the county library.”

  “Why is that important?” he asked.

  Miss Miller rubbed her forehead. “Please tell me that’s a rhetorical question – one that doesn’t need to be answered because the answer is obvious.”

  Bobby shrugged. “Okay, fine, librarian can go on the list.”

  “Thank you, Bobby,” Miss Miller said.

  Lou Anne raised her hand and said my daddy was an important person in our community.

  Bobby snorted.

  “He was a deacon,” she said, “and a store owner and he was Local Businessman of the Year.”

  I smiled at Lou Anne, and she turned a little pink.

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Red?”

  “Miss Georgia.”

  Bobby snorted again. Some kids laughed.

  “Why is that funny, class?”

  “Because,” said Bobby, “she just an old black woman.”

  Miss Miller took in an angry breath and stared him down. “Old means she’s wise. Black simply means her race. And woman means she’s the half of the population that is capable of having babies, which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is how you got here in the first place.”

  While the class giggled, she turned to the board and wrote MISS GEORGIA in even bigger letters than the preacher.

  Someone called out, “Mr Reynolds,” and Miss Miller, her face turning pink, started writing his name on the board.

  “He’s not really part of our community,” Emma Jean said.

  Miss Miller shook her head, blushed some more, and let out what sounded almost like a giggle except that she was a teacher. “Of course, Emma Jean, you’re right. He’s a contributor to our community, but he’s not exactly a part of our community.”

  “And,” said Emma Jean, “my mama said we shouldn’t be listening to him, anyway.”

  Miss Miller swallowed hard and tried to smile, but it looked more like she had one of Mama’s sick headaches. She picked up the eraser and started wiping Mr Reynolds’s name off the blackboard.

  Bobby piped up, “My daddy said Mr Reynolds is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

  Miss Miller dropped the eraser and it bounced off her green dress, leaving a big chalky white mark down the side of it. It felt like we were all holding our breath, except Bobby, who had a big smirk on his face. I wanted to smack him.

  “Why does your daddy say that?” Miss Miller’s face was pink, but her voice was real quiet and even.

  “Because he spouts off dangerous stuff.”

  “Dangerous?” she said.

  “Yeah, he’s one of those Black Power people, demanding rights for no good reason.”

  “Well, apparently, you weren’t listening very well, Bobby,” Miss Miller said, “because people have been dying in the past decade just to earn equal rights.”

  “Still, like my daddy said, they’re happier in their own place.”

  I wheeled around in my desk to face Bobby. “How do you know they’re happier? Did you ask them?”

  “My daddy knows what’s best for them.”

  “That’s plain ignorant, Bobby! How can he know—”

  “Are you calling my daddy ignorant?” Bobby stood up.

  “Boys!” Miss Miller said. “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. Mr Reynolds is only telling people what the court decisions are and what the law says. I’m sorry if your daddy doesn’t like it.”

  “Dumb-ass lawyer,” Bobby muttered.

  “What did you say?” Miss Miller asked.

  “If the lawyers hadn’t messed things up, everybody would be happy.”

  “What?” Lou Anne said, her voice all screechy. “What about all the kids who couldn’t even go to school for five years? You think they were happy?”

  Bobby grinned. “Sure. They were lucky!”

  “Some of them probably wanted to learn something,” she said, “unlike you, Bobby.”

  “Nah,” he replied, “they’re not that smart, and we shouldn’t go wasting our money on them. They’ll just end up as janitors, anyway, like Monkey Man.”

  I stood up fast. “Shut up, Bobby! And his name is Mr Walter!”

  “Aw, quit acting like you care, Porter. We all know you’re part of –” he stopped to give the class a sly grin before turning back to me – “the Brotherhood.”

  I lunged across my desk at Bobby and everything was a blur of arms and faces, and I honestly don’t remember what happened, exactly, but I know my fist hurt something fierce and I felt the pain on my chin as my head jerked to one side and then the other.

  I do remember hearing a lot of voices, including Miss Miller’s, until there was banging on the door and Mr Walter burst in, booming, “WHAT’S GOING ON?” We got quiet real quick and that’s when I heard the principal’s high heels clicking down the hall. And her voice. “I will not continue to have this mayhem in my school!”

  Miss Miller went white and clutched her peace necklace. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something to Mr Walte
r but closed it again.

  Mr Walter turned back to the hallway. “It’s just what I thought, Mrs Pugh,” he called out. “It’s that mouse again. That’s why they’re all in an uproar. I’ll set some traps this evening and hope to get it this time.”

  The high heels stopped and there was sputtering until we heard, “Well, see that you do!” and the high heels started up again, but got further away.

  Mr Walter turned back to the classroom and said loudly, “Sorry about the interruption, Miss Miller.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He nodded as he backed out of the room, his voice still loud, maybe for Mrs Pugh to hear, or maybe for me, “Go on back to your learning, now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Map

  Mama was real mad about me getting in a fight at school and spent so much time on the phone talking with Miss Miller you’d think they were best friends. Miss Miller talked Mama out of punishment at school because she said I was only defending myself and trying to show “the other boy” what was right. Mama knew it was Bobby and that helped my case a little because she wasn’t overly fond of the reverend or his family.

  She did give me a punishment at home, though.

  “Red, you’re going to clean out that shop so it’s ready for selling!” She slammed the kitchen door after me, and I slammed the shop door loud enough for her to hear. No way was I packing up the shop. We were staying right here in Stony Gap.

  I decided I could do one thing, though. I’d clear out the desk, because if we did move I wanted it empty and ready for the truck. We wouldn’t need all the receipts and invoices, anyway. I got an old oil-filter box and threw in all the stuff from the top of the desk and the middle drawer – pencils, stapler, paper clips, scissors, rubber bands. The bottom drawer was Daddy’s file system and had all those envelopes with the notes about each car we serviced, sort of like how a doctor keeps track of each patient’s problems. I threw them all in the trash, except for the one that said RAMBLER, Miss Georgia’s car.