Fire from the Rock (23 page)

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Authors: Sharon Draper

BOOK: Fire from the Rock
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“I met him at a jitterbug contest!” Sylvia's mother admitted with a grin.
“You're kidding!” Sylvia almost fell off the bed.
“I was sixteen, and he was the best dancer in the county. All the girls wanted to take a spin on the dance floor with that handsome hunk, Lester Patterson.”
Sylvia couldn't picture it. Not her solid serious father. “Grandma let you go to a dance contest?” Sylvia asked incredulously.
“I was supposed to be at the library, but Bessie let me tag along that night. Even she wasn't supposed to be there, but she was older and always has been the saucy one. Grandma would have killed us both if she had known.” She chuckled at the memory.
The image of her mother being a teenager and sneaking into dance halls was almost too much for Sylvia to handle. “Did Grandma ever find out?”
“Yes, eventually. Mothers have a way of always figuring out everything. But by that time he was courting me proper, and coming to church with me every week. Grandma was crazy about him. She told me, ‘That boy is more than breath and britches, Leola. Hang on to him.' She was right.”
“When I find a boy like that, will you tell me?” Sylvia asked.
“Absolutely! I guarantee to make sure you know my opinion on every young man who shows an interest in you from now on.”
“I shoulda kept my mouth shut,” Sylvia said with a grin, feeling easy and comfortable with her mother for a change. “Not that there's much chance of me finding a boyfriend at Central,” she added ruefully.
“You're going to school to learn, not find a husband,” her mother replied, a briskness returning to her voice. “I want you to stand tall, walk with dignity, and feel the pride the whole community carries for you.”
“Not everybody thinks this integration stuff is a good idea,” Sylvia said carefully.
“You have to live by your own set of standards, Sylvia. You can't let others make decisions for you.” Mrs. Patterson tidied up the room as they talked, picking up her husband's socks and tossing them into a laundry hamper.
“I feel so stupid sometimes—like I'm walking around knee-deep in mud and haven't got sense enough to get out of the cornfield.”
“Like I've been trying to tell you—your father and I were young once, Sylvia. And we made lots of mistakes. Your road is not an easy one. Nobody expects you to travel it perfectly.”
“It's hard to imagine you and Daddy as ever being young and foolish. I figured you just appeared one day, fully grown and knowing all the answers,” she teased.
“I was silly and headstrong like you can be sometimes, and your father was very much like Gary—always conscious of insults and discrimination. Your father rarely did more than complain, however. Gary's got more guts.”
“What about DJ?” Sylvia longed to keep her mother talking.
“She's a great mix of both of us—opinionated and outspoken, but needing constant reassurance that she's on the right track. She'll be the lawyer of the family.”
“We'll probably need her to get Gary out of jail one day!” Sylvia said, only half-joking.
Mrs. Patterson sighed. “I hope not. Maybe this whole situation with the fire has calmed Gary down a little.”
“Would you be disappointed in me if I ran away from all this racial confusion and joined the circus?” Sylvia asked.
“Now your brother I'd almost expect to see on the back of a decorated elephant,” her mother replied with a smile. “But I would expect you to be in the front office of the circus, running the show and collecting ticket money. You're just that kind of young woman, Sylvia.”
“What's this I hear about a circus?” Gary asked as he popped his head in the bedroom door.
“Want to run away with me to perform for Barnum and Bailey?” Sylvia asked. “I hear they have openings for flame-throwers and trapeze artists. We could be a dynamic duo!”
“Would Mama come with us?” Gary asked with a grin.
“What's the sense of running away from home if you take your mother with you?” Sylvia asked, feeling silly.
“Well, who would fix us blueberry muffins every morning?” He strode across the room and enveloped his mother in a bear hug.
“Quit, boy,” she replied, but it was clear she was enjoying the moment.
He released his mother and looked at Sylvia. “I'd love to run away with you, kid, but I gotta stay here in stupid old Little Rock. This is my senior year and I'm gonna fool everybody by settling down and graduating!”
Mrs. Patterson beamed. “That makes me real happy, Gary.”
“I know, Mama. But I'm still gonna keep an eye on Sylvie and all the folks who plan to use violence to stop integration. I'm not going to let anybody at Central hurt her. The circus might need her one day.” He winked at his sister.
In spite of the lightness of the conversation, every time the mention of Central High School came up in conversation, Sylvia felt the mud thicken around her.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1957
The weather had been amazingly hot and humid all week. Sylvia and DJ took turns trying to cool each other with a cardboard church fan, but all it did was stir the hot air around their faces.
After dinner, when the family was well-fed and relaxed, Sylvia decided it was time to tell them her decision. She smiled to herself, marveling over how many important discussions in their family were settled over plates of macaroni and roast beef.
It's a good thing we eat so much—we'd never get anything figured out in this family otherwise!
“I'm going to call Miss Daisy Bates this afternoon,” Sylvia began without introduction, “and have my name removed from the list of students who will integrate Central High School.”
“I'm glad,” DJ whispered.
Sylvia's mother moved next to her daughter and hugged her. “You know you've got your family behind you, no matter what you decide.”
“I know, Mama,” Sylvia said, her shoulders shaking.
“Did Reggie have something to do with your decision?” Gary asked.
“Probably a little. But this is about me, not Reggie.”
“You know you're smart enough and brave enough, and probably even cute enough to make it at Central,” Gary teased. “Are you sure you want to drop off the list?”
“Yeah, I'm sure.” Sylvia looked at her brother, her head tilted to one side. “You know, Gary, although I really wanted
you
to be the one they chose, there's a reason they didn't ask you to be one of the students to go to Central.”
Gary started pacing, his long legs striding nervously across the floor. He grabbed the broom from his mother and started sweeping. “I know. Too hotheaded for my own good,” he mumbled over the swooshes of the broom.
“Reggie looked up to you and your friends. He wanted to be like you—a quick-change artist of problems that have been around for hundreds of years. I don't think he was ready for the big time. He's just a kid.”
“Is Reggie still your boyfriend?” DJ asked.
Sylvia smiled sadly. “I guess he'll always be my very first love. But he can't be my today love. It's not like in the songs on
American Bandstand,
DJ. Sometimes love gets all messed up.”
“That's the saddest thing I ever heard,” DJ said wistfully.
“But I'm not leaving the list because my boyfriend was the one who tried to burn down Little Rock. It's because of me. I'm not the person I thought I was. I'm not brave and noble, like everybody seems to think.” She took the broom from her brother. It gave her something to do.
“What do you mean, Sylvia?” her father asked. “Nobody could ask for a finer young lady than you—you're smart and pretty and poised and confident. Those Central people couldn't find a better prospect than my Sylvia,” he said with sincerity.
“Thanks, Daddy. That means so much to me.”
“So what's the real reason you're not going to try to be one of the integrators, Sylvia? Is it because of the fire? Because of people like the Crandalls?” Her father leaned forward in his chair.
Sylvia took a deep breath and leaned on the broom. “I almost died in that fire. Even though I was really scared, I found out I'm not afraid to die, which really surprised me. And I'm not afraid of the Crandalls or people like them. What terrified me when I was lying on that floor is that I'd never get the chance to learn what I needed to learn, never have the time to do what I needed to do.”
Her father beamed. “That's my girl! You've been paying attention to my sermons, haven't you?”
“Not really, Daddy,” Sylvia admitted with a chuckle.
“I don't get it,” DJ said.
“I need what the colored school will give me for the next four years. I have to suck up as much pride and dignity as I can while it's there for me. Integration will happen eventually, and we're gonna lose something when it does—that feeling of being special when we walk in the school yard because it's just us.”
“Isn't that what I've been saying all along?” DJ screeched. “Nobody listens to me!” She rolled her eyes dramatically and flopped on the sofa.
“I hear you, little sis,” Gary said. “I just don't pay any attention to you!” He tossed a sofa pillow at her.
Sylvia smiled at them, then continued. “I want to go to college. I want to be a teacher like Miss Washington—only with better clothes,” she added with a laugh, “so little colored girls like me can grow up proud of their brown skin and fuzzy hair. I don't think I can suck that in like I need to from teachers and kids at an all-white high school.”
“What about the kids who
are
going to go?” Gary asked.
“I'm behind them one hundred percent! For them, it's the right thing to do right now.”
Sylvia's mother, weeping softly, hugged her daughter once more. “I've never been so proud of you, Sylvie.”
Sylvia pulled away. “Thanks, Mama, but I did some stuff I'm not proud of last week. I lied to the police. I'm not so great.” She glanced at Gary.
“You didn't lie, Sylvie. You just left out some of the truth. I would have done the same thing,” Gary insisted.
“Yeah, but this is me, not you. You still want to fight and protest.”
“True, but I've given up firebombs!” Gary said with a wry smile.
“I guess we can thank Reggie for that,” Sylvia replied, smiling back at her brother. “But I have to feel good about myself when I look in the mirror. I like feeling proud, and last week I didn't.”
“Nonsense,” her mother said. “That was a day of incredible stress and trauma. Trespasses are forgiven with each dawn. Tuck that in your heart, you hear.”
Sylvia nestled close to her mother, and they joined DJ on the sofa.
“Mama?” DJ asked.
“What, sweetie?”
“Can we take the plastic off the sofas and sit on the real fabric just once before we die?”
The whole family laughed heartily then. Gary ran over and started tickling his two little sisters, and their parents joined in—all five of them rolling on the living room floor.
 
 
Saturday, August 31, 1957
School starts next week,
but it's not going to be the same. Not having Reggie around is like having one of my legs cut off—everything is all crooked. Now that I don't have the Central decision to worry about and think about, I feel lighter-like a bowling ball is gone out of my lap, but heavier, too, because I feel like I let them down.
I found out that seven other kids from the seventeen that had met at Daisy Bates's house back in June had also withdrawn from the list. Some decided they wanted to be able to participate in activities. Some had parents who were scared. One moved away, I think. That leaves just nine students to try to integrate Central High School. All of them excel in academics, sports, music, and service.
Ernest Green is the oldest and will be entering Central as a senior. He'd been in the National Honor Society at Mann, played the tenor saxophone, and he was an Eagle Scout. He'll be giving up a lot by letting go of his senior year with friends he'd been in school with since kindergarten. Jefferson Thomas, a track star, and Carlotta Walls, active in the National Junior Honor Society and the Student Council, are the youngest and will be entering as tenth graders. Gloria Ray, Melba Pattillo, Minnijean Brown, Terrence Roberts, Thelma Mothershed, and Elizabeth Eckford will be juniors.
I'm scared for them. I envy them.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1957
It was Labor Day, the last official day of summer. It was traditionally a time for picnics and hot dogs and watermelon, for children to play hopscotch and jacks, and for teenagers like Sylvia to plan what to wear on the first day of high school. But here in Little Rock, most of the Negro families stayed in their homes, talking in hushed voices, worrying about what would happen the following morning.
“Governor Faubus has called out the Arkansas National Guard,” her mother told Sylvia as she got out of bed.
“Why?” Sylvia asked sleepily. “We got soldiers marching in the streets of Little Rock? That's crazy.”
“He says it's ‘to preserve the peace and avert violence,' but it seems to me he's asking for trouble.” Her mother, of course, had a broom in her hand and was sweeping the floor furiously.
“Has anybody threatened anything violent?” Sylvia asked her, dodging the broom so it wouldn't sweep over her toes. Aunt Bessie had told Sylvia once that it was bad luck if somebody brushed over a person's feet. She never told her what would happen—Sylvia figured she didn't know herself.

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