Wingshooters (5 page)

“’Night, Mike,” he said, and I scrambled off to my room, ready to go to sleep.

I
didn’t
mind staying with them. I was comfortable there. Although I missed my father and wanted to see him, my grandparents were predictable and safe. As hard a time as I sometimes had in town and in school, their place, their house, was different. Even with what was happening at the elementary school, I felt, at least for that evening, like I was sheltered and protected; like everything could be all right.

THREE

T
he next morning—the substitute teacher’s first day—I got to school without a bit of interference. There were no new ink marks on the front of my locker, no older kids waiting to taunt me. It was as if I had suddenly vanished, and I might have enjoyed this new anonymity if the mood hadn’t been so tense. When I went into Miss Anderson’s class and sat down at my desk, the entire room was abuzz.

“Have you seen him yet?”

“No, have you?”

“I heard Jackie Sanderson’s mother wouldn’t let him come to school.”

“Well, if that was my teacher,
I
wouldn’t come either.”

“All right, all right, children, come to order,” said Miss Anderson, and she sounded frustrated—not a good sign so early in the day. There were bags under her eyes and her mouth looked pinched. The class quieted down quickly and we waited for whatever she was going to tell us. Our school was small—two classes per grade—so whenever a new teacher came, or even a long-term sub, our teachers usually told us so we’d know to be friendly, even though new people were always greeted more with giggles and pointed fingers than with smiles. But though we sat quietly and waited for Miss Anderson to give her assessment of the black teacher, she took attendance and asked us to open our reading books and didn’t mention him at all. We obeyed her and followed along in our books, but as we read about Chester the caterpillar, we were all more aware of what we hadn’t yet discussed; it hung there like a threatening cloud. Finally, at ten-thirty, after a spelling test and a math lesson, Miss Anderson released us for recess.

We spilled onto the playground slowly, my classmates suddenly unsure of how to do normal, everyday things like playing tetherball or working the swings. Mrs. Hebig’s fifth grade class wasn’t out yet, and it seemed that everyone on the playground, both teachers and children, was waiting for them to appear—waiting to see if they bore visible signs of having spent the morning in the company of a Negro. While I sat at the bottom of the stairs on my usual bench, I noticed a lone figure a bit farther down, standing with his back against the wall. It was Kevin Watson, Earl’s younger son, who was in the fourth grade. Although Kevin was my age, I’d always thought of him as younger. He was short and stocky, unsteady as a wolf pup stumbling out of his cave. Now, he put both hands behind him against the brick wall and rocked back and forth, his thick black hair, which was a bit too long in front, falling over into his face. Kevin often seemed at odds with the few friends he had, crying easily and throwing tantrums if he was left out of a game or passed over when they were picking teams for kickball. Judging from the rocking and the look on his face, that must have been what was happening now. He was sensitive and quiet, with brown liquid eyes and lashes as long as a girl’s. His older brother Jake was burly and tough, more like Earl; he was one of the boys who’d chased me on my bike.

Thoughts of the Watson family quickly left my head, though, when the fifth graders finally appeared. And as they ran outside—and that is exactly what they did, run—they were immediately surrounded by other students. The whole mass of children moved down the playground away from the door, each of Mrs. Hebig’s fifth graders flanked by two or three kids, as if they had just survived a spectacular accident and were being interviewed by throngs of reporters. The teachers who were outside on recess duty tried to look indifferent, but soon they too were inching toward the fifth graders. And I, who never joined in any gathering of students, just watched this from my bench. Although it bothered me how everyone was reacting to the new teacher, there was also a part of me that felt relieved. He and his wife, by attracting so much of the town’s attention, had drawn it away from me. I was ashamed to feel this way, to be enjoying this respite, but there was no question that I was being glared at less frequently now, shoved around a bit less often in the hallway. And it occurred to me that at that moment, I could have walked out of the school and down the street and left the town forever, and no one there would ever have known the difference. But I didn’t. What I did was sigh and stand up and walk back inside so I could spend a few minutes alone.

He was standing in the hallway across from the row of third grade lockers, reading something that was posted on the wall. He seemed amazingly tall, although in retrospect he was probably no more than 6’1” or 6’2”, and he was younger than I’d expected—maybe thirty. He was the brown of dark chocolate, a lush earth-brown, and the loose-shouldered way he carried himself suggested that he was friendly. What struck me most, besides his darkness, was that he was wearing a jacket and tie, which was more formal than what the rest of the teachers wore.

I must have stood there staring at him for ten whole seconds before he turned and saw me. From the front he looked slimmer but still solid and fit, like he might have been a track star in high school. And then I saw his face—the broad cheeks and strong jaw, the warm brown eyes, the hair cut almost military short. And I remember thinking, because I didn’t understand white people yet, especially white men, that Mr. Garrett’s good looks and physical impressiveness would make people like him better.

“Good morning,” he said, and his voice was resonant and deep; his smile revealed a set of brilliant teeth. He gave a little wave and I saw his mammoth hands, the long fingers, the lighter flesh of his palms. He seemed more relaxed than a man in his situation should have been, almost amused with himself.

I wanted to say something—like, it doesn’t pay to be friendly, Mr. Garrett, or, I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into—but I was terrified. Not of him, exactly—there was nothing threatening about him—but of something his presence was bringing out in people. And so I turned without speaking and ran back to Miss Anderson’s class, hearing him laugh gently behind me.

I don’t know what Miss Anderson talked about between recess and lunch, but none of us paid attention. While she tried to give her lesson, my classmates whispered and passed each other notes. I heard someone say that no one in Mrs. Hebig’s class had spoken all morning, that the colored teacher had just kept talking as if he didn’t notice. No one had actually seen him yet except for me—he’d gone back to his room by the time they came in—and had I shared my encounter, I could have enjoyed my classmates’ attention for a while. But I didn’t. It didn’t even occur to me.

At lunchtime, after I received my tray of pizza burger, French fries, and milk, I went to my regular seat. There was a corner table that the other students avoided, maybe because it was too far from the gossip and food fights that usually occurred during lunch. That was where I sat every day by myself, and from there I had a clear view of the rest of the cafeteria. But because I usually kept my eyes down and concentrated on my food, it took me several minutes to realize that Mr. Garrett had entered—and I noticed only because the room had grown so quiet. He sat in another corner, across from me, eating his pizza burger and reading the paper. I wondered why he wasn’t eating in the teachers’ lounge—was he on lunch duty? But there he sat, among three hundred students, who all whispered and stared, the whole mass of curiosity, energy, and attention directed completely at him. He must have felt it—it was like the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm—but maybe that was why he had placed himself there, to get the shock all over with at once. And he had that same ease about him I’d seen in the hallway—the inexplicable calm, the near-enjoyment of the stir he was causing. Again I wanted to warn him—I knew he was trying to act normal, but he had to be careful. After he finished eating, he carried his tray to the dishwashing lady and handed it to her, smiling. She received it as if he’d given her something dead. Then three hundred sets of eyes followed him as he brushed his hands on his pants and walked out of the cafeteria.

As soon as he was gone, there was an explosion of noise. I couldn’t make out clearly what anyone said; their voices and sneers and laughter all blended together. In Miss Anderson’s class that afternoon, the boys kept telling her they’d seen the Negro teacher—and she kept saying yes, I saw him too; yes, he eats the same food as us; now please pay attention and open your books.

That afternoon, our phone rang off the hook. Bob Grimson called to report that his son had seen the nigger, who’d actually had the nerve to eat with the students. Junie Scott, whose granddaughter was in Mrs. Hebig’s class, called to tell Charlie that her little Melanie had sat in the room with the Negro for hours and that she seemed to be developing a fever. Ray Davis called to say that people were asking if there was anything he could do legally to keep the fellow from teaching.

“Well, is there?” Charlie asked. “How’d he get hired in the first place? Why couldn’t they have brought in someone else?” He stood by the window with the phone to his ear, the furrow in his brow getting deeper. “Well, someone needs to talk some sense into that principal. For Christ’s sake, he grew up here, he should
know
better.”

I needed to get out—away from the talk of Mr. Garrett, and away from the tension. So as soon as I finished helping my grandmother with the dishes from supper, I took my bike and the dog and rode out into the country. It was a beautiful September evening, the sky still blue and endless, and the breeze felt good against my skin. I pedaled easily, taking the back roads behind the bank, the one-screen theater, the A&W drive-in, the trailer park, and the baseball diamond where the Deerhorn Bombers played. I rode to the state park just outside the town limits with the dog trotting steadily behind me, then took the road that looped for a mile around the middle of it. Here, in a large, protected pasture that was part of a wildlife preserve, dozens of bison grazed peacefully. Two white-tailed deer raised their heads, saw us, and darted off into the woods.

The park was where I always came when I wanted to be alone. Maybe because Deerhorn was surrounded by so much country, maybe because the townspeople saw animals as things to hunt and use, not observe and protect, it did not have many visitors, except for the swimmers and fishermen who went to Treman Lake in the summer. This was incredible to me. Having spent my first eight years in a dense, overcrowded city, all this space and quiet was a luxury. When I’d first come to Deerhorn the year before, there were things I’d had to adjust to, things that felt strange and disorienting—the heavy food; the way people gave full voice to their joy or anger; the sheer size of everything from houses to cars to residential streets, which were twice as wide as our little alley in Tokyo. But the landscape was an easy adjustment. I’d taken to the park immediately—to the whole countryside, really—and my love for it only grew the more time I spent there. Often I seemed to be the only human within its limits, and I didn’t mind this, in fact preferred it, for I felt an ease and a companionship out here in the country that I never felt in town. My father had thought differently about the country, I knew. All the open space made him feel restless, uneasy; he craved sidewalks and street noise, the sounds of human interaction. But I belonged out here, where there were no other people, only the trees and lakes and rivers, and grazing animals.

Brett belonged here too, and out in the country in the fading light, I loved to watch him run. Charlie had said he was from a line of dogs bred for conformation as well as hunting, and that careful breeding showed. He ran with a beautiful economy of motion, legs reaching forward and swinging back just as far as they needed to, no more and no less, in perfect synchronicity. The black of his coat looked like a blanket thrown over his body, but the hair on his chest was white, as if he were wearing an apron with ties that reached over his shoulders and met at the back of his neck. His head was mostly black but his muzzle was white, and a strip of white shot up between his eyes. When he stopped to look at something, he posed as if for a picture—chest out proudly, head up, long ears rippling in the breeze like a lion’s mane. His front legs were planted firmly and his back legs extended and set, like he would stand his ground in the face of an oncoming army.

But when we got out into the open fields, he’d break out of his perfect trot and bound like a puppy, bouncing from rear legs to front and back again in an uncontained expression of joy. Because his field trial career was over, Charlie let his hair grow out, and his long black-and-white feathers hung from his legs, rump, and chest nearly all the way down to the ground. Every two or three days, I would brush him out—standing him up at first while I ran the brush through the long hair, which attracted any number of branches and burrs; and then rolling him over to expose his stomach, where I separated mats while he watched me, sober and trusting, pressing one paw against my face when I pulled too hard.

There was another reason I liked to have Brett around, and that was for my own protection. While he was loving and gentle with my grandparents and me, and playful with the neighborhood’s female dogs (he would prod them with his snout or stick his nose up their butts until they snapped at him or hit him with a body check, which made him break out into a huge, panting grin), he was also protective. If we were outside and someone suspicious approached, he would shift instantly into a posture of challenge, tail raised and circling, low rumble in his throat. He had a deep, loud bark which could make people or other animals back away in fear. No loose male dog could approach without Brett chasing him off, and he once followed a boy who’d been teasing me all the way back to his house, grabbing a mouthful of the boy’s shirt for good measure. It was always startling to see the transformation of that goofy, affectionate spaniel into a dog that was capable of doing harm. But he never did—he never had to. The threat was enough.

I rode the loop twice, leaving the main path a couple of times to take side roads through the woods and fields. Brett ran back and forth in front of me, nose to the ground. Because of his hunting training, he never ventured more than about twenty yards in front of me or fifteen yards on either side, always staying within shooting range. That afternoon he startled a lone fat grouse; it made a sound like the click of a key starting the ignition, then the whirring of a motor as it flew away. He looked back at me as if to ask, why didn’t you shoot?—and then turned around and moved on. From there we went over to Six Mile Creek, which ran along the border of the park. When the water was high, Brett would make spectacular leaps from the bank and then swim back and forth happily, tail circling fast as a propeller. But it was low that day—there hadn’t been much rain in the summer—so he just ran down to the edge and took a quick drink. A bit further on there was a small gorge with a log as thick as a wine barrel lying across it. Brett ventured out onto the log, lost his footing, and slipped halfway off. He held on with his front legs while his back legs dangled free and circled the air like a cartoon character’s; then he fell rump-first to the ground. He caused a sizable
thump
when he landed, scattering leaves and small branches and a few irritated birds, and I was scared for a moment that he’d hurt himself. But he jumped right up, shook himself, and ran over to me, grinning.