No Crystal Stair (31 page)

But her heart wasn't in it.
I don't have their kind of courage
, she thought as she moved with the throng of students, now singing “We Shall Overcome.” She thought of the troopers waiting at
the capitol. Would she shame Bobby—turn on her heel and run or, more likely, wind her arms around him and hold him back? She marched with the cheering crowd, feeling the heat of the on her face and a cold chill running down her spine.

 

 

The sun glinted on the twirling red light of the Atlanta police car parked across Hunter Street, burned against the motorcycles and helmet of the policemen who stood quietly by. Deputy Police Chief Frank Malloy took off his helmet, wiped the sweat from his brow and watched Chief Jenkins pace. They waited. This was the intersection where the students planned to make their fatal turn toward the capitol.

Damn fool kids! Those troopers would beat the hell out of 'em. Just as soon kill a nigger as swat a fly!
Something between wrath and pain burned in Malloy's gut, formed a tight band around his chest.

One of those students was his son. Luke Matthews. The boy didn't know it. No one knew except Luke's maternal grandma, who had taken him in when Gussie died. Gussie. He'd loved that skinny black gal... anyway, he couldn't quite abandon their son. Not even after he married Maybelle and started a legitimate family. God, Maybelle would skin him alive if she even suspected. Not that he'd had any direct contact with the boy since he was two. The grandma, grateful for the support money, was sworn to silence. Frank, watching secretly, found himself growing proud of his nigger child. Hell, he hadn't been to college himself. Luke was a senior now, with a part-time job in that nigger bank and a scholarship to the University of Chicago for a master's degree in economics.
If he doesn't get his head busted today?

Crazy kids. Guts, though. Pushing in and thumbing their noses at everybody, even the Klan. Frank chuckled, thinking of the day the Klan had marched outside the restaurant while the kids were being evicted. The Klan had been in full
regalia, carrying signs reading SEGREGATION FOREVER, INTEGRATION NEVER. The police force was on riot alert, and he'd expected a riot for sure when the kids jeered at the Klan, especially when that one kid threw a white tablecloth over his head and yelled. “Boo!” But it didn't happen. The Klan had just stood there looking foolish, and the police had had one hell of a time getting those niggers into the paddy wagons. Not that they'd resisted. They'd just stretched out prone on the ground. Dead weight.

Yeah. Guts. But if they didn't have the chief and his police force between them and the Klan, between them and everybody else, for that matter...When I think of all the crap we're taking, especially when the merchants gang up on us. He He'd had to attended one meeting with angry merchants a couple of weeks ago. The Chief had been away on an emergency, and Frank had sat in for him. The meeting had been held in the conference room of the most influential department store owner in town. Tough? No. Hell!

“These sit-ins have got to stop,” Les Abbott had growled.

“Yes sir. We're trying sir.”

“Well, y'all ain't trying hard enough,” Les had said. “What are you—a cop or a damn baby-sitter?”

“I like to call myself a peace officer, sir.”

“Well, your failure to keep the peace is messing with our profits.”

“Hear, hear!” the others chimed in.

Les frowned. “Sales are down twenty percent since this mess started.”

“That's them boycotting niggers,” boomed Mr. Bailey, CEO of a dime-store chain. “Ain't there a law against that?”

“Nothing on the books forcing people to buy, sir.”

“Well, there's a law against niggers sitting in white folks' restaurants.”

“Yes, sir. State law.”

“So call in the state troopers if you can't handle it.”

“Some of those boys can get pretty rough, sir.”

“Good. It's time to bust some of them kinky heads.”

“Hell! Can't hurt a nigger in the head.”Mr. Craft of Pickways Buffet laughed. “Bust their legs and they stay home where they belong.”

Malloy countered, “Sir, a lot of violence might upset your lady shoppers. And you sure wouldn't want your tearooms busted up.”At that point the merchants had looked pretty frustrated. One of them, Stanly Hutchinson, the owner of a men's clothing store, had said. “Why don't you try serving them?”

They'd burst out laughing like he'd plumb lost his mind.

A distant familiar sound brought Molloy's musings to an abrupt halt. Chief Jenkins stopped pacing, stood in front of his car, head lifted. Frank heard it, too.

Marching feet. Singing voices. “We shall overcome...” If he heard that damn song one more time! Damn fool kids.

He looked at his chief, who so far had kept the peace. Who'd been keeping the peace for a long time—before some of these kids were born. And keeping it while trying to be fair to both sides. Hell, he'd integrated the golf courses—quietly, with no fanfare. He'd cleaned up the Klan-dominated police force, instituted training classes, even hired a few niggers.

But these kids... Damn! Didn't they know he was on their side? Didn't they have any idea what he was going through? Catching hell from the merchants, niggers and politicians. Working like hell to hold off the Klan. Working overtime trying to dispatch the right men to the right place at the right time. Not easy, when the students kept popping up all over the place. Got us jumping like cats on a hot tin roof!

Now, here they come. All ready to march up to the capitol, as much as to say,
Here I am, Kill me.
Shit! Didn't they know those troopers might do just that?

Despite his apprehension, pride welled within him as the crowd of students marched up, their eager young faces alight with brave determination. Malloy's own eyes lit. There, right near the front on the right, was Luke. He almost felt like pointing him out. That tall boy, that one in the yellow T-shirt—that's my son. But he couldn't do that any more than he could stop the fear that was almost choking him.

Damn! He did not want a bloodbath.

He wasn't a churchgoer. He never prayed, but he guessed that was what he was doing right now. And maybe, just maybe, somebody up there was listening. He hoped so.

He saw Chief Jenkins climb to the hood of his car and point a commanding finger down Hunter Street, away from the route to the capitol. The leaders of the mob halted respectfully, and Malloy moved closer to hear.

“Sir,” said a tall brown-skinned young man, “I have to report to you that we took a vote and we have decided to go by the capitol.”

“Didn't you get my message?”The chief asked.

“Yes, sir,” the youth replied. “But you see, sir, it's a matter of principle with us.”

“Principle, huh?” the chief growled. “Suicide, more likely.” The boy raised his head and two others slipped in beside him. “We are not afraid to die, sir.”

Damn, Malloy was thinking, maybe the chief should call out the riot squad. Then he saw a woman move forward. Not one of them obviously, in that yellow sundress. Older. He'd bet a dollar she was somebody's mother. Anyway, she talked like one when she confronted the three leaders.

“So you're dedicated to nonviolence, are you?” she asked.

Looking a little surprised, they nodded.

“Then tell me, why are you so determined to invite violence?” The boys started to talk about courage and she scoffed. “So you
just want to prove you can take it, huh? What are you trying to do—integrate a city or thumb your nose at bullets?”

She had them. Malloy could tell they were listening. Maybe the riot squad wouldn't be needed, after all.

Now she gestured toward the chief. “Chief Jenkins has played fair with you and you ought to play fair with him. Especially since he's just asking you not to get yourselves killed. He cares about you. He cares about this city. He wants to keep the peace for all citizens and you ought to help him!”

That got them; they looked at one another, nodded, then the tall boy saluted the chief. He beckoned to the crowd and they proceeded down Hunter Street as the chief had directed, singing as they went.

Frank Malloy sighed with relief, surprised tears staining his cheeks. Surreptitiously he wiped them away.

Ann Elizabeth walked fast to keep up with Bobby's long legged stride, her hand clinging to his. The sun felt good. She felt good. They were walking with dignity through the streets of Atlanta, no bullets or billy clubs. No battered and bruised young people. Yes, she'd played a part, but it was really due to Chief Jenkins. If he hadn't stopped them... Shivering, she suddenly wanted to run back and thank him. A white police chief. Once again she remembered her thought when she'd looked into the serious face of that white boy with red hair so long ago.
We're doing all right without your help
. It wasn't true. We do need your help. If she could see that boy now, she would tell him so.

 

 

Stanley Hutchinson stood at the window of his office on the top floor of the men's clothing store that had borne his family's name for three generations. He stared down at the busy streets of midtown Atlanta and thought of the bravery and dedication of those college students, who were about to bring the city to its knees. Only the young had such zeal.

His mouth twisted wryly as he thought back to his own college years and those black-white seminars. He thought of his father, dead three years now. Always a cantankerous man, he'd become downright belligerent when he heard Stan was going to attend one of those seminars on the race question. That was back in 1942, but he remembered the conversation well.

“What you doing discussing anything with a bunch of uppity niggers? In the first place it's against state law. Second place, what you gonna say to ‘em? They're all lazy an' ignorant. Ain't worth a tinker's damn!”

“That include Lucy?”

“Oh, shit, don't you go bringing Lucy into this. She ain't out here trying to tell me to treat her like she's white.”

Stan had defied his father and gone to meetings, anyway. Not that it did any good. Everybody talked about what was wrong, but nobody knew what to do about it.

Funny. The person who had impressed him most was a girl who'd said nothing through most of the meeting. A Negro girl from Spelman. She'd sat there, aloof, mostly silent, as if she resented the whole thing. When she did speak, he'd been surprised by her vehemence. “How dare you sit here discussing how to treat me? I'm a person. Treat me like one.”

He'd seen her later, in a play at Spelman. She was a good actress; he'd told her so. She'd said she had no desire to be a movie star. He wondered what had happened to her, what she'd become.

He turned away from the window and his musings. Time to get to the meeting. Time do decide what to do about these college kids who did more than talk. Yes, sir, this was a new breed of Negroes and it seemed they'd found the solution. He chuckled. All the merchants were frustrated as hell. But they'd acted like it was some kind of joke when he suggested they simply serve Negro customers.

“You expect
me
to serve niggers?” Les Abbott had croaked.

“Not you personally, Les. Aren't all your waitresses colored?” That was a low blow, and Red knew it. Of course they were colored, handpicked by Les, just the way he like them—smooth chocolate or golden tan and very shapely. His favorite locker-room talk was of how many he'd seduced.

Red picked up his briefcase and started for the meeting. It had been a couple of weeks ago that he suggested they serve colored, and they'd laughed. They weren't laughing now. They were hurting too much. Not only from the Negro boycott, but from a drop in white sales, as well.

Red smiled as he got into the elevator. Yes, sir, those kids had got them where it hurt most—smack-dab in the cash register. Not only would all the merchants attend today's meeting, so would a contingent of Atlanta's leading and most influential Negroes, there to reach a viable solution.

Yes, sir, it was going to be very interesting!

The protests, in their various forms, lasted eighteen months, until Atlanta was fully integrated. Not such a long time, Julia Belle contended, considering how long segregation had been the law of the land.

 

 

September 1962

 

At an American air base in Seville, Spain, Robert Metcalf sat with Colonel Lemons, briefing him on some details of the most important assignment Rob had received since his entry into government service. The Soviets' erection of the Berlin Wall had compelled the NATO allies to act quickly to ready themselves for any emergency resulting from the blockade. The U.S. Air Force was assigned to transfer certain weapons and planes from bases in the States to bases at Seville and Ramstein, Germany. The aircraft had to be partially disassembled for transportation
to the respective bases, where they'd be reassembled, test-flown, armed and readied for combat within thirty days.

After his meeting with Lemons, Rob, as project manager, returned to the States for quick stops at participating bases to inform officials of plans and procedures. When he arrived at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, he was greeted by the commanding officer, General McCall, with easy familiarity and his usual, “Two hearts, partner! Two hearts!”The two mean had often worked and traveled together, and the greeting was an inside joke, dating back to a bridge game on a flight from Hawaii a couple of years earlier, when the general, as Rob's partner, had missed a two-heart cue bid and a grand slam.

At Tinker further details of the project were made known, and the command's YC-97 transport was assigned to carry the ninety mechanics and technicians to the assembly sites. General McCall briefed the team members, wished them Godspeed and informed them that Robert Metcalf would manage the show.