New Boy (26 page)

"He left early," Mom replied. "Something he had to do."

The doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," I said. "Must be Russell." I opened the door, and he was standing there.

"Let's go, man," he said. He was impatient to leave. "I want to get down there." I went into the kitchen to say goodbye to Mom. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and hugged her. "I know we haven't seen eye-to-eye this weekend, Mom, but I still love you." I looked at her and saw that her eyes were a little teary. She nodded and handed me a paper bag.

"Here's some fruit for you and the others while you're down there," she said. "Now you be careful, and I'll see you when you get back." I took the bag and thanked her and hugged her again, and then I left. Russell and I walked quickly to the bus stop. I could tell something was wrong.

"What's the matter?" I said.

"Trouble," he said, shaking his head. "Joseph called me this morning and said the president of Virginia State suspended forty students who attended the protest yesterday. Joseph already called the lawyer to see if there's something he can do."

"Damn," I said. "Were any of them a part of the sit-in?"

"Three," said Russell. "Joseph talked to them too. They're worried, but they're coming back this morning. But that's not all." We were almost at the bus stop, and Russell was looking up and down the street the way Joseph had the day before. "Joseph said he heard that the whites are gonna try to break it up today. The Klan may show up." The bus arrived and we climbed on. Even though we were wearing ties and jackets, the bus driver, who was an older white man with thinning hair, gave us a long look as we paid our fare and found seats in the back.

"What are we going to do?" I said after we sat down.

"Well, Sylvia made up some leaflets with instructions on how to protect yourself if you're attacked, how to cover up and so forth. We gotta make sure everyone gets a copy and reads it," said Russell.

"Now I know why there was only one police car yesterday," I whispered. "If it gets bad, the cops aren't going to do anything." Russell looked at me and nodded. When we arrived at the stop for Woolworth's, we got off the bus and hurried down the side street. The five cars were there again and everybody was standing on the sidewalk, gathered around Joseph.

"We have information that a group of whites are going to show up sometime today to disrupt the protest. If you're inside sitting at the lunch counter, remain seated at all times. If one of us is taking a heavy beating, you can try to cover him with your body, but just remember to cover up yourself. Otherwise, remain seated and be prepared to drop on the ground and go into a ball and cover your head and your face with your arms and hands, like this," and he dropped to the sidewalk like a cat, quickly drew his knees up to his face, and curled himself into a ball. He was lying on his side and his hands were clasped, covering the back of his head, with his arms shielding the side of his face and his knees under his chin. "Take a good look," he said as he lay on the sidewalk. "This is how you have to protect yourself." As we stood around him watching, I tried to imagine how I would keep my cool and follow his instructions if I was attacked. I knew that my instinct would be to run home as fast as I
could. "
At the first sign of trouble,
" my father had said, "
I want you to promise me you will leave.
" I had given him my word that I would. But how could I leave Russell and the others if there was violence?

At nine o'clock we were standing in front of Woolworth's waiting for it to open. The day was warm and sunny again. A group of students from the day before were already standing around in front of the store, and others were arriving. The manager appeared and unlocked the revolving door, and Joseph and his group solemnly walked by him and took their seats at the counter. The closed signs were still sitting on the counter and the kitchen was dark. The manager stood by the door with a toothy smile, as though he was trying to be hospitable. After Joseph and the others took their seats, he disappeared.

For most of the morning, as the students continued to arrive, Russell, Sylvia, and I stood outside passing out the leaflets that explained how to protect yourself. We tried to talk with each person there to make sure he or she understood the instructions. Even though a lot of people were showing up, we managed to talk to everyone. I saw again a lot of friends I had grown up with and gone to school with, and they asked me about Draper and why I was back, and I told them this was something I didn't want to miss. I even ran into Charlene. I hardly recognized her without her mother around. She actually looked happy, and kind of pretty.

Occasionally a few white people appeared: young men driving by, hanging out the windows of their old cars, smart-aleck
types with crewcuts, wearing T-shirts and waving Confederate flags and yelling "Nigger" and "Coon" and "Go back to Africa." The students on the sidewalk looked at them with curiosity, and a few even laughed, but we had to ask them to stop when we noticed, because, as Joseph had explained to us, "Laughter will set them off. They can't stand for you to laugh at them." Eventually the whites disappeared, and we started to take up a collection for lunch.

"Hey, what's coming down the street?" said someone in the crowd. People were straining to get a look up Main Street, where a long line of cars was approaching with their headlights on. At first I thought it might be the Klan, but there was a big black hearse in front. "It's just a funeral," someone said, and I resumed collecting contributions for lunch. As the hearse got closer, however, I could see the gray velvet drapes on the side window and the big silver letters w.k. evans. I saw several cars in the procession that looked familiar, including a Buick Roadmaster just like ours. The hearse turned the corner at Woolworth's and disappeared down the side street, and as the other cars in the procession followed, I looked into the Buick as it went by and saw my father behind the wheel. I was astonished and I rushed around the corner to follow. The procession stopped on the side street and cars were lined up at the curb for almost two blocks. The drivers got out of their cars and they were all men I had known all my life, professional men like my father, all dressed up in suits and ties colored men who had come up the hard way and had lived to tell about it. After they assembled on the sidewalk, W.K.
Evans himself, a somber little brown-skinned man in a dark suit, stepped out of a limousine. He held a folded white handkerchief up to his mouth while several of his assistants, also wearing dark suits and chauffeur's caps, stood behind him. The crowd had started to work its way around the corner to get a good look at what was going on. "Where you want to serve it, Garrett?" I heard W.K. call to my father.

"Why don't we serve them right here," my father replied. "We'll put the food on the hoods of the cars. That way, they can't arrest us for obstructing the sidewalk." W.K. motioned to his men and they started to remove platters of food from the hearse and from the limousine—fried chicken, corn bread, all kinds of sandwiches and potato salad-and blankets were produced to protect the hoods from scratches. My Brooklyn Dodgers bedspread covered the hood of the Buick. When the crowd realized what was taking place, they formed a line next to the cars, and W.K.'s men passed out paper plates and napkins and paper cups for lemonade that was dispensed from a cooler by a handsome, light-skinned man whom I recognized right away as Paulette's father, and they helped themselves to food. By now, the sidewalk was packed with students. I worked my way through the crowd until I reached my father standing alone near the hearse. I went up to him and we embraced, and I was as proud of him as I have ever been in my whole life.

"Dad, why didn't you tell me about this?" I said, putting my arm around his shoulder.

"Well, you got me thinking after you said at the dinner table
that maybe it would be good for the adults to show their appreciation for what you young folks are trying to do. So after you went over to Paulette's, I got on the telephone and made a few calls." Dad was smiling proudly, and the students were talking and eating and drinking lemonade, and several of the professional men had taken off their suit coats and loosened their ties. It was really a sight, everyone talking with each other. The adults who were talking with the students had tipped back their hats and were even helping to serve the food. It was like a church picnic. I was just beginning to put some plates of food together to take to Joseph and the others inside the store when a piercing scream from the direction of Main Street froze me dead in my tracks. Everyone looked toward the corner where a colored woman was standing, motioning furiously for help. "Come quick! Please, somebody help!" she screamed, pointing to the entrance to Woolworth's. "They got jumped! Some white boys jumped 'em," she shouted. "They hurt 'em
bad.
" The crowd began to surge toward her but the sidewalk was so congested that I knew I couldn't get through. I saw Russell cut between two cars and race up the street. I did the same thing and was right behind him when he went through the revolving door into the store. The first thing we saw was Albert and then another student seated on stools with their backs to us, lying face-down on the blood-spattered lunch counter. Then we saw the others, crumpled together on the floor, their shirts soaked with blood, their clothing ripped. A few were still curled up in balls with others lying
on top of them for protection. At some point their attackers must have taken a bag of flour and scattered it over them like lime, the ghostlike faces of the students indistinguishable, eerie, like clowns at the circus, but at least they were stirring. Russell and I rushed to untangle the trembling limbs, and one boy shrieked in pain. Another boy was unconscious, with a wound freely bleeding at the base of his skull. We turned him over and saw it was Joseph. I held him in my arms to try to comfort him, even though he was unconscious. His eyes were rolled back in his head. I felt for his pulse and was relieved to find one. Sylvia rushed in and saw him. She gasped and began to sob, and I sent her back out for the doctors. "Tell them to come right away," I yelled. A few students who had entered the store were standing around crying, their backs against a locked display counter for small appliances, electric fans, hair dryers, and the like. Their hands covered their mouths in shock. The store saleswomen huddled in a, corner clearly frightened. The doctors rushed in carrying their bags, first Dr. Gentry, then Dr. Braxton, followed by several others, including my father, and the first two started to work on Joseph. Dr. Gentry was shining a little flashlight into his eyes and holding a bandage against the back of his head and Dr. Braxton was taking his blood pressure, until Joseph came to blinking his eyes and shaking his head, while the other doctors questioned each of the students carefully and consulted among themselves cleaning the wounds and smearing them with salve helping to their feet those who could stand
My father examined the teeth of those who said they had been struck in the mouth, and he found a couple that were loose and one that was broken, and told the boys to call his office for an appointment. Dr. Braxton arranged with W.K., who had entered the store and who had seen such carnage before, to transport the most seriously injured to Northside Hospital. "Looks like World War Two in here," said W.K. when he first saw the blood and the students lying on the floor. Northside was a small colored hospital that had only five beds, but there was an x-ray machine and a small operating room and if you went there, at least you felt safe. W.K. told his men to bring the hearse and the limousine around right away. "And collect those blankets," he shouted, wiping his mouth with the handkerchief. "So's we can make pallets for 'em if we have to."

By now the store was full of students, and when they saw what had happened they were angry. "Let's go get those white motherfuckers!" someone shouted. By that time the saleswomen had slipped out and there was nobody white anywhere in sight. Russell went over to calm the angry students. When I looked outside, I saw a sea of brown faces pressed against the window as if they were looking at a display; other people were milling around on the sidewalk. Russell went to the door and spoke to the crowd. "They are injured," he said, "but the doctors say they are gonna be all right. We
cannot
retaliate.
I mean it.
If we stoop to the level of the people who did this, we'll destroy everything we're trying to accomplish. Now please, go home, and don't forget to come back on Monday morning." A few of the students outside grumbled, but slowly the crowd started to disperse. In the midst of the commotion, a dark-haired, older white fellow in a jacket and tie worked his way through the crowd, followed by a baldheaded white man with a Speed Graphic camera. Everyone was staring at them. As they came through the revolving door, the dark-haired fellow took a pad and pencil out of his jacket pocket and made his way over to Joseph, who by now was sitting on a stool at the lunch counter with a big white bandage wrapped around his head. The side of his face was all swollen and dusted with flour, and he looked like a character in a horror movie. The photographer was going around popping his flashbulbs and taking pictures with the Speed Graphic, and the dark-haired fellow introduced himself as Phil Robbins and said he was a reporter for the
New York Times.
He asked Joseph if he wanted to make a statement. Joseph looked at the reporter for a long time, squinting at him as though he was trying to figure out who the man was. Finally he said, "Tell 'em we'll be back on Monday morning. Nine o'clock sharp."

Dad waited around until we had arranged for Joseph and the others to get rides to the hospital. Five, including Joseph, needed x-rays or stitches. W.K. put them in the back of the limousine, which seemed to please them all greatly, but there were two fellows who weren't able to walk, and they had to lie inside the hearse on their backs. From the looks on their faces, they weren't happy about that at all, although someone said at least W.K. wasn't taking them to the cemetery. By that time most of the students had left. Russell, Sylvia, and I organized a few of those remaining to pick up the trash on the side street. Some of the professionals who were still there helped out and then offered to take the rest of the students home. We found a ride for Sylvia. Russell and I rode home with Dad in the Roadmaster. When Dad dropped Russell off at his house, I felt a knot in my throat as I said goodbye. "Keep up the good work, Russell," I said. "I wish I could stay."