Blue (10 page)

September 1944

The next morning Imogene must have woke up before the breakfast cooks got out of bed. My eyes wasn't open long enough to get the blurry out before I heard her talking.

“Why didn't you tell me about your brother?” she demanded.

Who did Imogene Wilfong think she was, anyway? If I could've rolled over and turned my back on her, I would have. Was I supposed to tell her every little thing about my life just because I got stuck in a hospital beside her?

She lay there under that white sheet, flat on her back with her feet poking up against the footboard and only her head sticking out, all full of wisdom. “Your brother dying of polio ain't no little thing,” she said.

“Well, maybe that's why I didn't tell you.”

“Don't you know when something hurts that bad you got to tell somebody. You don't want to bust wide open, do you?”

That's what it felt like. Like the guilt was filling me up and looking for a way to bust loose. I didn't say nothing for a long time. But finally I said, “Well, now you know. My brother died and it was all my fault.”

Thank goodness the volunteers come in then with our breakfast. They saved me from having to talk about Bobby.

But Imogene can be downright nosey when she wants to. Oh, she let me alone for a while—till after our cereal was gone and the nurses put on our Kenny packs. Then she brought it up again.

“It's not your fault about your brother.”

Something about Imogene—I can't ignore her for long. “You're just like my neighbor, Junior Bledsoe,” I said. “Thinking you know everything.”

“Well, answer me this—where was your momma when your brother got polio?”

“At home, cooking and cleaning and washing.”

“Right there with you and your brother and sisters? Right there when you was working him in the garden? How come she didn't pick that child up and put him in his bed and make him sleep?”

“'Cause he didn't seem like he was sick. He had a cold at first, but then it seemed like he was over it.”

“And where was your momma when
you
got sick?”

“At home. Helping me when she could keep her mind on it.”

“And did she put you to bed? Did she tell you to go lay down and stop working your daddy's garden?”

“My momma didn't know I was sick. To tell you the truth,
I
didn't even know it.”

“Well, then—is it her fault you got polio?”

I thought about my momma wandering around the house like a lost child and I knew I couldn't blame her for my misery.

“Just like I thought,” said Imogene. “It's not your momma's fault you got polio. It's not her fault your brother got it. It's just yours, ain't it? You the only one who done wrong. And you done it all on purpose, didn't you?”

The way Imogene said it, she almost made sense. But it wasn't that easy for me. I could see us, clear as yesterday—Bobby sitting in the dirt, lifting his chubby little hand full of dust and dropping it on Pete's tail. Telling me he was sick. And me, getting all mad and making him work till he dropped.

“I reckons when your Daddy went off to the war he give you that pair of overalls you told me about so as you could be God while he gone. I reckons stepping into a pair of britches means you gets to decide who lives and who dies.”

“Of course not!” I said. “If it was up to me, wouldn't nobody die.”

“Well, all right then. So you not a murderer after all.”

Between the hot wool and Imogene being such a smart aleck I was feeling real irritable.

“I never said I was a murderer.”

“No, but it all your fault. Like you was supposed to know things only God could know.”

Since Imogene seemed to know so much about everything, I went ahead and asked her about God Himself. “Do you think God even knows we got polio?” I asked.

Imogene laid there all wise and wonderful with them pieces of army blankets and white cloths wrapped all around her—practically up to her neck. She didn't move a muscle, not even to turn and look at me when she spoke. She just stared at the tent roof and said, “He sees it.”

“Maybe He turns His head,” I said. “Maybe He can't stand to look.”

“Maybe,” said Imogene. “But that ain't what my momma say. She say that God looks straight onto our sorrow. And when He sees our suffering, it hurt Him bad.”

I thought about that for a while. And just when I noticed
that my hot packs had started to itch me, I heard Imogene say, “Ann Fay, are you telling me you don't know nothing about God's bottle collection?”

“God's bottle collection? Imogene, what in the wide world are you talking about?”

“I thought you go to church.”

“I do—every Sunday except when there's an epidemic. But my preacher ain't never said nothing about God's bottle collection.”

“Well, maybe white peoples just never needed to know. But my peoples—we have so many tears, we knows all about it from way back.”

“Imogene, you're talking nonsense is what you're doing. What does your people's tears got to do with bottles?”

“Well, it's not just for my peoples. I reckons the Bible be for everybody in the world. It say in the book of Psalms that God has put all my tears in His bottle. My momma told me that God has got a whole row of bottles up on His big fine windowsill—one for every one of His childrens. She say when we cries, He catches our tears in His big gentle hands and pours them into our own personal bottle.”

When Imogene said that, I started in laughing again. I just couldn't help it. I tried to think how big God's windowsill must be if it could hold a bottle for every one of His children. And I laughed because I liked what I seen in my mind's eye. I seen a whole row of bottles—from here to across the ocean, I reckoned. And every one was a different shape and size. And all colors too. I seen the tears of the whole world in them bottles. And I seen the sun shining up a rainbow on their tears.

And all of a sudden I felt so good I couldn't hardly speak. My heart was so full I wanted to get out of my bed and hug
that Imogene. But, of course, I couldn't move. So I just laid there and watched the sun make a sparkly pattern all over her from where it was shining through the tree leaves outside our window.

Imogene seen me staring at her and said, “What? Why you got so quiet?”

“I was wondering,” I said. “What color is your bottle?”

“Hmmm,” said Imogene. “I reckons I ain't thought about my bottle having a color. What color is yours?”

“How should I know? I didn't even know I had a bottle till just this minute.” We both started laughing again. Then I said, “Well, how about I pick you a color and you pick me one.”

So that's what we done.

When I thought about choosing a bottle for Imogene, I thought right off about a vase that Mamaw Honeycutt keeps in her corner cupboard. It's made of carnival glass and it's sort of light brown with rainbow colors bouncing off it. You can't see through carnival glass. So when I imagined it sitting on God's windowsill, I couldn't see how full of tears her bottle was. But that seemed right to me, because I didn't know nothing about the troubles her people seen. But I knew God could see right through that glass. He could see every tear.

Then Imogene said my bottle had to be blue—like them overalls my daddy give me. Like the sky above. Like the color of truth and faithfulness—because that's how I was. When she said that, I cried all over again.

And this time I knew my tears wasn't soaking into my bedsheets. My tears was rolling right into the hand of God.

October 1944

Peggy Sue wrote to me at the hospital, and I let Imogene read the letter. I told her how Peggy Sue's mother took us to the picture show sometimes on Saturday afternoon. Before the epidemic made her nervous, anyway.

“Maybe when we get out of here, you can go too,”

I said. Well, you should've seen the look Imogene give me then. First her mouth dropped open so wide I could've stuck my arm—Kenny pack and all—right in it. Then she busted out laughing.

“What's so funny?” I asked.

“The polio done gone to your head,” said Imogene. “Has your Peggy Sue even seen the whites of a colored girl's eyes? And what about her momma? How many coloreds has she carried in her fine car?”

“At least one,” I said. “They have a colored maid.”

“Well, I reckons anyone who has a colored woman washing her floors ain't likely to let her girl go to the picture show with me.”

“Hey,” I said. “Mrs. Rhinehart is a Christian woman.”

“Oh,” said Imogene. “Well, I reckons that changes everything. So just supposing she and her little girl thinks it's a wonderful idea. When we gets to the picture house, which door we gonna use?”

“Huh?”

“Is you going in the back door, up them rickety steps to the balcony? 'Cause I can't go in the front door. And where we gonna sit?”

“Oh,” I said. I knew the colored folks always sat up in the balcony. But for a little bit there, I almost forgot how things was outside the hospital.

“That's okay,” said Imogene. “My momma wouldn't let me go with you to the movie house anyhow.”

“Why?” I asked.

Imogene looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Don't forget. You white.”

“Yeah?”

“My momma say she ain't never met a white person she could trust.”

“That's not very nice,” I said.

“And that's what my momma say about white peoples. They not very nice.”

“Maybe your momma ain't seen the whites of our eyes neither. Maybe she thinks all white people are like the slave owners. But that was a long time ago.”

“Maybe,” said Imogene. “Or maybe it's because she can't hardly visit her momma in South Carolina because she can't find a place to use the bathroom along the way. Maybe it's because her childrens have to ride over an hour on the schoolbus and drive past three white schools getting there. I hope you know there's a muddy wide river between your people and mines.”

I ain't never thought about the way coloreds had to do before. But I still thought it was wrong of Imogene's momma not to trust some white people.

“Well,” I said, “it's just a few white people that makes
them decisions. Most of us are not like that.”

“I know you right,” said Imogene. But by the sound of her voice, I knew she didn't mean it. I was feeling put out with her just then.

“Tell me something, Imogene Wilfong,” I said. “If you and your momma think white people are so bad, how come you're my friend?”

Imogene thought about that question for a minute. “Well, Ann Fay, it's like this. My momma don't have to be friends with white folks if she don't want to. She got plenty of coloreds to turn to. But when they brung me in this hospital, they wasn't nobody but whites all around me. I know there's other coloreds here, but I don't see none in contagious, do you? What was I gonna do—lay here and keep my mouth shut or make me a friend?” She laughed. “I know you not colored, but you right there beside me, so I reckons you the next best thing.”

October 1944

I reckon me and Imogene would never've been friends if we hadn't got stuck with each other. But it didn't take long for either one of us to be glad we did.

There was other girls all around us, and we played guessing games with them and told stories to pass the time of day. But it was different with Imogene. I got to know her in a way I never did know the other girls. I got to know her fighting spirit that wouldn't let me get by with thinking the way I used to about things—especially about coloreds. And I learned lots of little secrets about her life because we kept each other awake at night, talking and giggling after the lights was out.

We both knew we was going to be in that hospital for a long time—months and months, maybe. And we wasn't one bit sad about spending them months together.

Then one day some hospital helpers come to get me and Imogene and a few other girls.

“Good news,” said one of the helpers. “They're letting you out of contagious. Ready, set, go!” And just like that, they started gathering us up and getting us disinfected for the move. They took Imogene out first and pushed me right behind her.

We had to go outside and down a long wooden ramp to get to our new ward. The minute we was outside I felt like
I was home. The sound of birds singing and the smell of the pine trees washed right over me. “Oh,” I begged, “please let us stay out here.”

“Well,” said the helper, “now that you're out of contagious, you can go outside sometimes for sunshine. But right now we need to get you settled in your new home.”

I laid on my bed and drunk in the sight of the tall pines overhead. The pine needles made a lacy curtain between me and the sky. A bird whistled and I said hello back to him.

I watched the volunteers that was pushing Imogene's bed. They was heading for the rock building—it was the camp building from before this place was a hospital. I started thinking how me and Imogene was gonna feel downright rich in that place.

But then the people that was pushing my bed started up a different ramp, into a new ward that was just barely built. “Stop!” I said. And they did stop. That is, the ones that was pushing my bed stopped. But them that was pushing Imogene just kept right on going.

“Imogene!” I hollered. “Stop!” I seen Imogene turn then, and her eyes and mouth went into big circles when she seen they was putting us in different places.

“Ann Fay!” she called, and I seen on her confused face everything I was feeling in my heart.

The volunteers that was moving Imogene slowed down for a minute and looked at me. They seen our arms reaching out to each other, one black and one white, but they just shook their heads and started pushing her bed again—pushing it away from me.

The volunteers that was moving my bed started pushing again too. And the blond woman explained. “When you leave contagious, Negroes and whites have separate wards.”

For the last couple of weeks, me and Imogene was looking forward to getting out of contagious, and nobody ever said, “You won't see each other after that.” And it never crossed my mind that my bed wouldn't be right beside Imogene's the whole time I was in that hospital.

“No!” I said. “I want to go where Imogene's going.”

The volunteer at the foot of my bed stopped and put her hands on her big hips. She squinted those green eyes and shook that head with its tight red curls like she knew what I wanted better than I did. “No, you don't,” she said and the sound of her voice made me think Imogene was going someplace dreadful.

“But why?” I moaned. It was just like the warm sun and the pine trees and the birds disappeared off the face of the earth. All I seen was the metal bars at the head of Imogene's bed and a big wide volunteer blocking her from my view. All I felt was a bumpy ride up that ramp. I heard Imogene's bed bumping up another ramp, going in another direction.

I didn't pay no mind to where they put me in the new ward or who was in the bed next to me. I didn't want to find out. But I knew for sure she was a white girl.

I laid back on my bed and cried till the tears run off the side of my face and dripped into my ears and back out again. I told myself God was catching them tears for His blue Ann Fay Honeycutt bottle. But with Imogene gone, it was harder for me to believe.

At suppertime, my new nurse—her name was Amanda—set the food tray on the table beside my bed. “Believe me, honey, it's better this way,” she said. “Whites and coloreds aren't supposed to share the same hospital. It's just that with the epidemic, they didn't have any choice but to put you together.”

Well, it seemed to me like that emergency hospital was
doing things the way the world ought to be. How come when there was an emergency they could break all the rules? And when things got better, why did they have to go and put things back in the same old mess the world was in before?

I asked Nurse Amanda was they going to take Imogene to another hospital.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Most hospitals don't take polio patients or coloreds. This hospital is very unusual. But don't worry. Imogene is in Ward Eleven. She'll be better off there, with her own kind.”

“Well, I'm her kind,” I said. “Why don't you take me to Ward Eleven?”

Nurse Amanda looked downright shocked when I said that. She shook her finger at me like I was a naughty child and said, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and eat your dinner.”

That was easy for her to say. She hadn't been in contagious with us. She might not know whites and coloreds could get along. The longer I laid there, the madder I got. And the madder I got, the more I wanted to do something about it.

I didn't have no idea what to do until they brought me the
Hickory Daily Record,
which I had been reading every day, same as before I come to the hospital. That's when I got the idea about writing a letter to the Open Forum section of the paper. I seen how other people wrote letters and complained about things they thought was wrong in the community.

So I asked for a paper and pencil. I wrote:

Nurse Amanda mailed it for me, but she told me I was wasting my time. I reckon I thought the editor would at least take the time to write me back. But he didn't. I seen my letter in the paper about a week after that, and I asked the nurse would she please take it to Imogene so she could read it too.

From then on, me and Imogene started writing letters back and forth. It wasn't as good as having her there beside me. But it was something to look forward to each day. The nurses said they was losing weight running back and forth with our mail.

I'll say one thing for the nurses at that hospital—they would do just about anything for their patients.

Imogene wrote that they moved her with the other coloreds to a ward in the basement of the rock building. She said it was cool and damp and she hated it.

I wrote back and said that now I knew what she was talking about before—about how her people was treated. I told her when I got out of that hospital I was going to do something about it.

Then one day she wrote and said water was leaking into the basement. The next day she said they moved all the coloreds to a better ward.

“Well,” I said, “at least somebody has got a little bit of decency about them.” But I would've felt a lot better if they moved her back with me.