The Swan House (41 page)

Granddad looked more than content. “Of course, with the extra point, that made the score twenty to twenty. Only a minute and a half left. Georgia fumbled the ball and Tech recovered it. Got it down to the thirty-five. It was fourth down . . .”

“And in came Granddad. You guessed it! He kicked the goal and scored. All the Tech fans started flooding onto the field while there was still fifteen seconds on the clock!”

Robbie, always polite, had followed the whole story with seeming interest. “That's really impressive, Mr. Middleton!” he commented enthusiastically. And with the ritual of Granddad's moment of glory behind us, we settled in to watch this game, which in the end proved no less exciting.

All of the fans were already in a frenzy of expectation because the week before, Tech had upset Alabama and Georgia had upset Auburn. They were hoping for something even more explosive in this game. Tech kicked off. Bobby Dodd was the coach, and Billy Lothridge from Gainesville was the quarterback. He scored the first touchdown, and everyone started chanting, “Mr. Cool, Mr. Everything!”

I was huddled as close as possible to Robbie, covered by blankets and protected from the wet seat by a cushion. Our only problem was the drunken man sitting behind me would cuss and stomp when Tech made a bad play, and half of his bottle of bourbon would splash onto me. But Robbie and I just laughed and laughed, and Jimmy and Andy ate hot dogs, and Daddy and Amanda screamed their hearts out. And Granddad let loose a string of curse words when Georgia scored first, and Grandmom just laughed and said, “Frank! Please calm down!” and the men sipped their flasks of whisky and kept warm that way.

Until the second half. By that time, the Tech fan behind us had drunk himself into oblivion. He stopped one of the young black boys who was coming down the concrete stairs with a tray full of peanuts around his neck. “Whatcha selling, black boy?”

I turned around immediately and glared at the man, but he didn't notice.

The boy looked nervous. “Peanuts, sir.”

“Well, go on. Give me a bag.” He thrust out a fat red hand.

“Yessir. Heah ya go. That'll be fifteen cents, sir.”

“Fifteen cents! That's highway robbery. I ain't givin' you no fifteen cents.”

Fear sprang into the boy's eyes. “Well, sir, that's the price.”

The big drunk man stood up and towered over the boy. “I told ya, boy, I ain't got no fifteen cents for peanuts.”

By then everyone around the man had stopped watching the game and was staring at the scene going on around them.

“Robbie, make him quit!” I whispered. “He's awful. He's gonna hurt that kid.”

But before Robbie or Daddy or anyone else could do a thing, the drunk man grabbed the boy by his jacket and shook him hard, so hard that bags of peanuts tumbled off his tray.

Granddad stood up then. “That's enough, mister. You'd best be going.” I guess the fact that Granddad was every bit as big as the drunken man, combined with the eyes of a dozen people on him, made him reconsider. With a killing look, the man grabbed his flask and his blanket and left the stadium. The boy had laid down his tray on the steps and was frantically trying to salvage a few bags of peanuts off the ground.

Granddad motioned to him. “Come here, boy.” He handed him several dollars and said, “Don't you worry about it, ya hear? Everything is going to be okay.”

The boy muttered a “Thank ya, sir,” and continued down the steps, calling out, a little less enthusiastically, “Peanuts! Get yore peanuts heah. Fifteen cents.”

Tech won the game easily, thirty-seven to six, and by the time we left Sanford Stadium all of us were hoarse from screaming, chilled to the bone but good-humored. But, of course, I couldn't wipe out the image of the boy selling peanuts. That scene as well as several others kept playing in my mind on the way home. And I remembered what Carl had told me once:
“You whites think that handing these guys a wad of bills will help. But it's not the money. It's our dignity that matters. It's not pity we want. It's equality. It's not having to cower to another man and keep your mouth shut just because his skin is white and yours is black.”

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, right when I got home from school, Ella Mae handed me a letter that had come in the mail. I tore it open and held up the card triumphantly—my invitation to the Piedmont Driving Club Christmas Dance! I ran upstairs and called Rachel.

“Mine didn't come today,” she stated.

“Oh, it'll come tomorrow. You know how the mail is, Rach.”

“Sure. I know.” We talked for a half hour about what we would wear and going shopping at Lenox Square at Davison's and getting our dresses together.

“And whom are you going to invite?” Rachel asked at last with a hint of teasing in her voice.

“Robbie, of course, you idiot.”

“Not Carl? For sure?”

“How can I invite Carl, silly? He'll be playing in the band. You're the one who helped me work that out. Don't forget that we're supposed to take Carl and the rest of the band to meet with Mrs. Appleby next week. I sure hope Larry and Carl will be in shape to play.”

“I won't forget. But you're pretty sneaky! You'll have both of your men at the party. You better watch out, Swan.”

“I've been thinking about that, Rach. What if they meet? They can't. They just can't.”

“Don't worry. I'll be there to help you out.”

But she was wrong.

That Thursday night I was stretched across my bed working on a trigonometry problem when Jimmy called up to me, “Robbie's on the phone.”

That pleased me because we rarely talked on the phone on school nights. “Hi there!” I answered enthusiastically.

“Hi, Mary Swan. How's everything?”

“Fine, I guess. Except for trigonometry.”

He chuckled a little. “Listen. I wanted to talk to you about something—ever since we went to the Mt. Carmel church service, I've had some ideas for helping in the inner city.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like why don't you get a group of girls from Welly to volunteer some time at Grant Park? They could go Christmas caroling or raise money and deliver turkeys or repaint Miss Abigail's house. And I could talk it up at Mendon. Wouldn't that be great? I mean, the spaghetti meals are a good start, but there's so much more that could be done. Tons of ways to help out.”

I was astounded by his enthusiasm. “Do you really mean it? You think kids from Buckhead would go down to Grant Park?”

“Well, of course! You're doing it. Sure. It'd just take a little organization and a well-defined project.”

“Robbie, I'd have no idea how to organize something like that. I mean, it's a great idea, but I don't have a clue how to begin.”

“Well, I do. We've done that kind of thing a bunch of times in the Boy Scouts. Community service, you know. If you talked it over with Miss Abigail and the pastor and found out what would be most helpful, well, we could get something going for just before Christmas, maybe right after school gets out, volunteer a day down in Grant Park.”

I could feel a smile spreading across my face. “That is one great idea, Robbie. You're brilliant! I've been wondering what else could be done down there. My efforts seem so small and insignificant. But all I came up with was wishing I could write Ella Mae or Miss Abigail a check for a million bucks and tell them to divide it evenly among the poor. Pretty realistic, huh?”

“Not bad. Only problem is that you gotta come up with the money. Other than that it sounds like a piece of cake.”

I liked the good humor I heard in his voice.

“But seriously, Robbie. The more we can do to promote civil rights, the better. I never used to even care, but now, well, you've seen it. The poverty, the cruelty, the prejudice. It makes my problems seem so minor.”

“True, but then I don't think you can really compare your problems with the inner city. They're both real and hard. Think of Buck-head. It'll take years for everyone to get over Orly. We won't ever really get over it. Bad things happen to rich people too.”

“I know it. Of course I know it. The whole reason I started going down there was because Ella Mae was trying to help me out of my problems. But it's become just one more thing that makes me feel awful. These people have become my friends, and it hurts to know what they're going through and not be able to help. I wish I didn't care so much.”

“That's insane, Swan. It's great that you care. Someday you may be able to use your experience to influence others, to help them care too.”

“Maybe, but sometimes it all just seems too complicated for my pea-sized brain. So many things don't make sense, Robbie. First, my mom had a long, difficult mental illness that never was cured. And my family did the best we could to survive, but Mama never really got better. Then she dies in an airplane crash, and she's gone forever. Forever. And to get my mind off that, I go down to Grant Park, and what do I find? Poverty. And hate. Nice guys getting beat up because of the color of their skin. And what in the world can I do to help any of those things? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I have no control over anything. I didn't know it before but it's true—no control.”

I could hear Robbie's breath in the phone as he contemplated my questions. “True. Not a lot of control on a big scale. You're talking about a lot of different things. A tragic accident, a serious psychological condition, poverty, and prejudice. That's a lot of things to digest. Of course, you can't do much about any of it. Not on a big, national scope. But if you just started on a small level, one project at a time, well, that's helping. Like the spaghetti meals. And taking care of those black children when their brother got hurt. Surely that's important. That matters.”

“Maybe. But nothing big is changing.”

“Don't think big right now, Mary Swan. Think little. Let's plan something to help Miss Abigail. What d'ya say?”

I hesitated. “Well, I can try to get some girls interested, but according to most of the ones in my class, all I'm supposed to be thinking about is what I'll wear to the dance and how to fix my hair.”

“I like it long, just how it is.”

“What?”

“Your hair. I like it long.”

“You do?”

“Sure. You'll look great.”

I had absolutely nothing to say to that. Finally, Robbie spoke again.

“I didn't mean to change the subject, Mary Swan. You've got good questions. I've got a lot of questions of my own. I'm stuck in a mold, with all of these expectations. With all the pressure to succeed. To be at the top of the class. To keep up the good reputation of my brother, the straight-A student who was captain of the state champion track team. Not to mention Daddy's reputation as top financial consultant in Atlanta. It feels sometimes as if I'm carrying a lot more than just a football in my hands. It feels like the Bartholomew good name is going to depend on where I go to school and what I major in and coming back home to help Dad. And everyone thinks that I'm just doing a great job, exactly what I'm supposed to do.” There was dead silence for a moment. Then he sighed as if he was getting ready to confess something to a priest. “But these aren't the things that really motivate me, Swan.”

“Well, spit it out. What is it you
really
want to do?”

“I want to make things happen in the city. Work with people and projects. A city planner, ya know? Trouble is, it doesn't pay well.”

We both groaned at that.

“Well, take your own advice and start small,” I suggested. “I'll talk to Miss Abigail and then you can plan the day at the park. Yeah, that's what we'll call it. A Day at the Park. It's a good idea, Robbie.” Then I added impulsively, “You know something? You're really great.”

I imagined that his cheeks turned bright red with the compliment.

“Thanks, Mary Swan,” he mumbled, suddenly sounding flustered. “See you soon. And don't forget, wear your hair long.”

I hung up the phone with a smile on my lips. Robbie had the same rumblings in his soul that I was having. Some indefinable feeling, something out of reach, a heart-wrenching longing for something more.

On Friday morning Rachel yanked me into the bathroom after homeroom. Her eyes looked all puffy and red.

“What's up?”

“When did you get your invitation to the PDC Christmas Dance?” It was more of an accusation than a question.

“Duh, it was Monday. Remember? I called you the minute I opened the envelope.”

“I still haven't gotten one.”

“So, neither have some other girls. It'll come.”

“No, it won't.” When Rachel was sure about something, she was adamant.

“And why not, Miss Know-It-All?” I wouldn't have teased her if I'd known what was coming. But it was so unusual to see Rachel this upset that I couldn't resist.

“Because I'm Jewish! That's why!” And then she started sobbing. I mean it. Bawling her eyes out.

My eyes got wide and I felt queasy inside and I knew right away that it was true. Just as I'd known about Mama when Herbert had slurred those insults.

“I hate this school! I hate it! Do you understand me, Mary Swan? I hate Wellington!” She spit out that word. “And I hate all these stuck-up hypocrites.” She couldn't go on because she was heaving so hard, and her face was contorted with a terrible kind of anguish that made me afraid. I thought she was going to vomit. Instead, she just stood leaning her face over the sink and splashing water on it over and over again.

“Why in the heck does it matter what you believe? I mean, why do people who just happen to be born into a wealthy Protestant family on the right side of town naturally assume that they are better than someone born into a Jewish family?” Her sentences were coming in little gulps, so I had to pay close attention to get every word. “What makes them better? Just the nametag WASP? I think that is the most idiotic notion our society has. You know some of those girls. They're not worth the time it takes to say their names.”