Yard War (13 page)

Mama fixed salmon croquettes for supper, which I love. Her mood had definitely changed.

Daddy said the blessing, which is always exactly the same: “Dear God, we thank you for this food. Bless it to the nourishment of our bodies and us to thy service. In Jesus's name. Amen.” If he ever needs me to fill in, I'm ready.

He said he was tired of trying to talk Dr. Freeman and the other doctors into getting rid of the separate waiting room for colored patients. He said that situation, along with everything else, was about to send him over the edge.

“Where will you be when you're over the edge?” I asked.

“Crazy.”

—

Word got around at school about my colored friend. People kept their distance like I had a special disease. But Miss Hooper looked at me like she never noticed me before and was so glad I was in her class.

She was telling us about Ponce de León and the Fountain of Youth and somehow started talking about Roderick, the one colored kid who goes to our school. She said it was time everybody was nicer to him. He's the first one ever to go here. I've been trying to figure out why he would want to.

Bobby Watson raised his hand and asked why it was even okay for him to be here.

“Because it's
the law
! We've been over this!” Nancy Harper said, like she was the teacher.

“Y'all need to be nice to Roderick,” Miss Hooper said. “I mean normal nice. I see people treating him like the school mascot or somethin'. Just be real to him.”

I know people who flat-out hate Roderick for being here and want him gone. I bet they're “real” to him when nobody's looking.

“It would be nice if y'all took the initiative to sit by Roderick at lunch and try to get to know him a little bit. He's doing a brave thing being here, probably braver than any of us would ever do.”

Bobby Watson raised his hand again: “Maybe Trip could take him to lunch at the country club,” which made everybody laugh except me and Nancy and Miss Hooper.

Miss Hooper looked hard at Bobby and said, “Maybe he could,” like she was taking him seriously. Then her eyes went to the back of the room, right to me, and stayed there. I knew what that meant.

I'm not afraid to talk in class, but I sure didn't want to talk about what happened with Dee. All I could think was Please no, please no, please no….

“Trip?”

“Yes, ma'am?” Pleasenopleasenopleaseno…

“I wonder if you would be willing to share your recent experience with the class? I know I'd like to hear about it. I think everyone would benefit from hearing what happened.”

She looked at them like they all needed to learn something, and here I was, teacher's special prize, ready to teach it to them. I almost asked her if she was willing to be my friend now and hang out with me, because after this nobody else would.

“Well, I mean, my maid's son, Dee…uh, he plays football with us, me and Stokes and Andy and the guys….”

But Stokes and Andy don't have history that period. I was all on my own.

“Stand up and tell us.”

“Ma'am?”

“Stand up. I want to make sure everybody hears.” She frowned at Bobby.

“Well, uh, my papaw said he'd buy a colored person lunch if they were hungry, and I don't know, I thought it would be okay to take Dee to the club for a cheeseburger.”

They were already snickering and whispering. Miss Hooper was smiling at me like I was some kind of angel.

“And what happened?”

“They told us to get out. They said it was closed for a party. Not at first.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

“It made me mad and then Dee got mad at me and…Miss Hooper, do I have to talk about this?”

“That's okay, Trip. Thank you.”

I sat down and took a big breath. My fingers were trembling.

Miss Hooper looked around to make sure the lesson had been learned, and went back to Ponce de León. I thought she would say how brave I was or something. I bet there are rules on how much a teacher can say, even Miss Hooper, if she wants to stay a teacher.

It was hot and sticky outside. The sky was solid white and hung right in my eyes. Roderick sat on the low wall in front of the school, away from the after-lunch crowd, looking like he wished somebody would rescue him from this place. I told myself I would go up and talk to him and be real, like Miss Hooper said—just not today.

Then Nancy pulled herself up on the wall and started talking to him. I couldn't let her beat me. I went over there and sat on Roderick's other side.

“How's it goin'?” I said.

He nodded.

“Tell Trip what you were just telling me.” Nancy leaned forward and looked at me. “You are not going to believe this.”

Roderick didn't seem too sure about talking to me.

“It's okay. I have a colored friend,” I said.

“Really?”

“We play football together. I took him to the country club.”

He smiled. “So you're the one, huh?”

“I'm the one.”

“Be careful. You don't want to push too hard. What I was telling Nancy, my mama's worked at Remington's downtown for twelve years, and when she went in last Monday they told her she doesn't have a job anymore.”

“Why not?”

“They said it was because she was letting colored ladies try on hats, but she's been doin' that a long time—what it is, they found out I go to this school. I told her I like comin' here but I didn't want her to lose her job because of me.”

“You really like it?” I didn't see how he could.

“I mean, I don't like being the only colored kid, but this is so much better than my other school. My other school didn't even have enough books for everybody. They didn't even have enough chalk for the blackboard.”

“Maybe your mom can find a place to work with better people,” Nancy said.

“Maybe. My daddy's a dentist, and a man called the house last week and said I better go back to the school where I belong or they were going to blow up his clinic. And the last few days, three white men in a Chevrolet have been stoppin' in front of my house.”

“Why?”

“Maybe they want to blow the house up too, I don't know. But they stay out there.”

“Have y'all called the police?”

“Police would bring 'em refreshments.”

“You should get a bunch of guys together and go out there and tell them to get the heck off your street,” I said. “I'll help you.”

“Oh, come on,” Nancy said. She said “on” “ahn.”

“I will,” I said.

Roderick looked like he believed me. I think I even believed me. People were staring at us when they walked by, but I didn't care. I didn't even care if the Bethunes saw us: the Yankee girl, the colored guy, and me.

—

When I was a little kid, I had a color for every day of the week. Monday was orange, the worst color. Tuesday was green. Wednesday was unlucky yellow, like certain dog doo. Thursday was light blue because it was almost Friday, Friday was blue like the sky, and Saturday was the deepest blue. Sunday was golden for the Lord.

If the little kid version of me walked in here right now, I would tell him, “Listen, stupid, you don't get to say what kind of day it's going to be. Wednesdays are not always unlucky, and Saturdays are not always that great, no matter what color you give them. You
don't get to have control over the days of the week or much else. It's all a lot messier than you want it to be. When you're twelve, LSU is going to beat Ole Miss 11–10 on Halloween, and that's not the scariest thing that's going to happen.”

That night the phone started ringing and wouldn't stop. For some reason nobody in the house would answer it. I ran into the den and grabbed it.

“Hello?”

There was some kind of quick, muffled talk, not into the phone. Then nothing.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

I hung up.

Mama came into the room with her robe half-buttoned and her hair all messed up.

“Who was it?”

“I don't know. They wouldn't say anything.”

“Wouldn't say anything?”

“How come I'm the only one who can answer a telephone around here, anyway?” I asked her, but she was already halfway back down the hall.

When I got home from school the next afternoon, Willie Jane had
The Secret Storm
blaring all over the playroom. It's one of her “stories” she always watches when she irons. Farish and Ginny Lynn were sitting in front of the TV, ignoring a pile of pick-up sticks. I am 100 percent positive they don't understand soap
operas, but they sat there anyway, staring with their mouths open.

“Where's your mama?” asked Willie Jane.

“Mama went on to the Sunflower after she let me out.”

“You don't want to help your mama buy groceries?”

“Very funny.”

“You sure don't mind eatin' 'em, though.”

I nodded. Then I said, “Farish! Come on and throw me some passes.”

“I'm busy.”

“Busy doing nothin'.”

“I'm watching this.”

“That's a bunch of junk.”

“Don't you be talkin' about my stories,” said Willie Jane.

The phone rang.

“There it goes again,” Willie Jane said.

“What?”

“I've been runnin' to that phone all day, and soon as I say ‘Westbrook residence,' they hang up. They do it every time.”

“They did it to me last night.”

“I
wish
there was a way to tell who's callin' you on the phone. With everything they're comin' up with these days, I wish they could come up with that. People ain't got nothin' better to do than try and scare us with the phone?”

“Nobody's trying to scare us, Willie Jane. Let me answer it.”

I had to prove to myself that nothing weird was going on, probably just some idiot dialing the wrong number. If I fooled them with my voice, they might get too confused to call anymore. I was trying for chief of police, but it came out more Englishy, like somebody's butler.

“Halllooo?”

Willie Jane laughed.

“Tree-up?”

“Meemaw!”

“Hey, sweetheart! Is ya mama home?”

I could see Meemaw holding the phone against her ear with her shoulder, fiddling with her nails and smiling while she talked. It was the most beautiful smile in the world.

I handed Willie Jane the phone and let her tell Meemaw when Mama would be home.

“See?” I said when she hung up. “Now you can relax.”

“I hope you're right.”

The phone rang again. We looked at each other.

“It's probably Meemaw again,” I said. “Something she forgot to tell us.”

R-i-i-i-i-ng!

“You answer it then,” she said.

R-i-i-i-i-ng!

I picked it up.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

I was about to put the receiver down when a voice said,

“You better watch your back, nigger lover.”

It was a flat, cold voice, like somebody who had crawled out of the woods to find a phone just so he could threaten me. How did that voice know my telephone number?

“Leave us alone!” I yelled into the phone and slammed it down.

“Did they say something? What did they say?” Willie Jane grabbed my arm.

I didn't want to tell her what he said, but she made me repeat it word for word.

“Who was it?” she asked. “Bethune boys?”

“I don't know.”

I ran to the living room windows and looked out, almost expecting to see a dirty-looking man under the streetlight with a phone in one hand and a gun in the other. I pulled the curtains on all the front windows. Then I ran back to the den and pulled the curtain over the sliding glass door.

That night, Mama and Daddy got into an argument, which almost never happens. They were loud and
talked about us like we weren't there. Mama wanted to call the police right away. It was her angry voice but scared, too, which I had not heard before. I was sorry I had told her how the voice on the phone scared me.

“To call the police would be an overreaction,” Daddy said. “It's probably just kids. Or some of Pete Bethune's redneck buddies who don't know their hind ends from a hole in the ground.”

“They are terrorizing our children, Sam!”

“We should play it cool and give whoever it is a chance to get bored. They will.”

Mama tromped back to her room.

Daddy sat, looked around and saw us, and told Ginny Lynn to get up in his lap. He gave her a hug and said not to be worried or scared about this phone business. We were just going to have to wait it out and not answer any calls ever. He or Mama would answer the phone at night, in case it was a patient or somebody from the hospital.

After supper I got through as much homework as I could stand and was trying to go to sleep when Mama came in and sat on the bed.

“Honey, I've thought about it and I wanted to tell you I'm sorry for getting so upset about you taking Dee to the club. I know you were trying to do something good, like your daddy says. You just went about it the wrong way. You see that, don't you?”

“Yes, ma'am. Good night.”

“Are you sure you see?” She raised her eyebrow like she thought I was hiding something. I just wanted to go to sleep.

“Yes, ma'am. It's against tradition.”

“That's right. Trip, you don't really hate your home state, do you?”

“Doesn't Daddy hate it?”

“He…definitely gets
impatient
with it.” She sighed and looked like she wasn't sure she should tell me this. “Your daddy says he's been trying to drag me out from behind the ‘magnolia curtain' ever since we met. Well, I'm getting there. I never knew he meant
physically
drag me until all this talk about Kansas City.”