Nobody's Family is Going to Change (7 page)

Willie stopped abruptly when he saw someone else in the apartment. A white man in a black turtleneck sweater sat with his back to the window. The sun poured in past him, so that his face was in the dark and Willie couldn't make out his features.

Dipsey led him across the room. “This is Mr. Diamond, Willie.”

“Call me Pete.” The man didn't move, but Willie could see his face now, could see he was smiling.

“Tell you what, Willie Boy. I'm going to give you a lesson. Okay?”

“Sure!” Willie looked over at the man named Pete.

“Never mind him. Come on, Willie, take off your coat. Let's go!”

Dipsey already had the record started. Before Willie got his jacket off, he could see Dipsey all over the place. The music was ragtime, slow and fast at the same time.

“Come on!” said Dipsey. “This here's the ‘Fig Leaf Rag.' That's Scott Joplin's music. You won't hear any better than that! That's right, Willie, nice and easy, now here we go, gentle like, first we give it to them, then we take it back, that's it, don't let them know your secrets, let them guess, that's it, boy, let's go now, hit it, let 'em have it, let 'em have it good!”

Willie took off, doing just what Dipsey was doing. It was wild. He forgot anybody was in the room at all.

“That's it, build, gently, build and build, and now, break, break, Willie. Hit it!”

The record that came on next was so fast that Willie thought he would lose his mind. He and Dipsey pounded the floor and got lost completely in the sound. It went on and on, faster and faster. Willie had never felt anything like it. He felt his soul would bust in two and his head fly right out the window, but he kept following Dipsey and doing just exactly what Dipsey was doing, in and out of time steps and breaks and shuffles and cakewalks.

“Now we going to slow down, here we go slower down to the end of the music. That's right, Willie Boy, nice and slow like syrup pouring, easy and smooth and out. Stop.”

Willie managed to stop at exactly the moment Dipsey did, and he felt prouder than he ever had in his life.

Pete applauded. Willie had forgotten all about him.

Pete winked at him. “You pretty good, kid.”

“Okay, Willie, go get yourself a soda in the icebox. Bring me a glass of water while you're out there.”

Willie ran to the kitchen. As he got the soda out, he could hear Dipsey talking.

“What do you think, Pete?”

“I think he's terrific, but you know how it is, Dipsey. We got to have the director, the producer, the writers. I'm just the press agent. I don't have anything to say, you know that.”

“Yeah, but what do you think?”

“I think he's great. What do you want from me? You know this business.”

“Yeah, even the janitor gives notes.”

“Right, and if the director, God forbid, has a nephew, I can see him now, ten years old, fat and pimply, with a case of the cutes, not able to dance his way out of a bag, that's the one that will get the part.”

Dipsey took the water as though Willie were a midget waiter, not noticing him at all.

“They want
me,
don't they?” Dipsey took a big gulp of water.

“Sure. You're signed, aren't you? I know they talked to your agent. You're set.”

“Well, how about they want me they got to take Willie here?”

“Aw, come off it, Dipsey. You're kidding! You wouldn't pull that, would you? Besides, this is a good spot for you. This
one's on Broadway! You can't afford to do that to yourself. I mean, the kid's good, but—I think that would be stupid. The kid's got a lot of years ahead of him. If he doesn't make this, there'll be a lot of other things for him, but what about you? How many parts come along for you? This is tailor-made for you. You'd be an idiot not to do it. I wouldn't even risk it by suggesting such a thing.”

“I'm not saying I would, I'm not saying I wouldn't. I just wondered what you thought.”

“Well, that's what I think. I think your agent would agree with me. I got to go.”

Pete got up. He put his hand on Willie's head. “Thanks for the show, kid. Someday you're going to knock 'em dead.”

Willie moved away. He hated having his head touched. He also hated the way this guy was sounding. He made everything sound hard, impossible even. What seemed simple before, spending the summer with Dipsey and dancing, now sounded like the hardest thing in the world. He went over and sat by the window while they said goodbye at the door.

Dipsey came back. “I know. It ain't all sugar candy.” He walked away a little. “I'll tell you something, Willie, don't nobody ever hand you a dream. You've got to fight for a dream, and you've got to keep on fighting way after you have any strength. You got to get more strength, and pick yourself up again, and you got to go on. It's the only way.” He did a fast, happy step. “Now come on, let's get you ready for this audition!”

At the same moment Willie went into the phone booth, Emma went into the phone booth at her school.

“Hello?”

“Hello? Is this Harrison Carter?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Are you the Harrison Carter that's good in physics and that was on TV last night?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Do you really believe all those things you said last night?”

“Listen, if you're another one of those creeps calling about the show, let me tell you that you're not very original. Everybody and his dog has called me to tell me I'm un-American, I ought to be shot, why don't I cut my hair—”

“Wait a minute! I liked the show!”

“Oh?” Harrison Carter paused. He sounded suspicious.

“I thought it was great. I want to come to a meeting.”

“You do? What's your name?”

“Emma Sheridan. I'm eleven.”

“How do you do. You want to join us?”

“Yes. What do I do?”

“Where do you live?”

“Seventy-ninth and East End.”

“Then you'd be in the Anne Frank Brigade. They meet on Eighty-first Street. You want the address?”

“Is that just for girls?”

“No. We don't have segregated brigades. Each one is named after a famous victim, real or literary, like Oliver Twist or Peter Jensen.”

“Who's Peter Jensen?”

“He was killed at Watts. His mother'd sent him out to the bakery and he was shot down.”

“Wow.” Emma paused. “What do these brigades do?”

“See, we've organized ourselves into the Children's Army, which is made up of brigades decided by neighborhood because, as you know, our people have trouble getting across town alone without thousands of questions from parents, but they can go around the block. This is all Top Secret, by the way. You're not to tell anyone, nor are you to recognize other members on the street if you or they are with a parent. Hey, you want to come to the rally this afternoon? All the brigades will be there, so you'll meet everybody.”

“What time?”

“Four
PM
in a warehouse not far from you, at Seventy-ninth and the river. You go around the back and there's a door. There's a very small sign on the door, about as large as a stamp, and the sign says
HERE.
Everybody has to bring a box of cookies.”

“Cookies?”

“Cookies. We'll explain later.”

“What kind of cookies?”

“Any kind.”

“What do I wear?”

“Anything.”

“Is there anything else I have to know?”

“No. You'll find out everything when you're there. I look forward to meeting you in person.”

“I'm large and I'm black,” said Emma hurriedly.

“You saw what I look like, a flamingo with acne.”

“Nobody's perfect,” said Emma. “I'll be there.”

“Right. Glad to have you with us.”

Emma got out of the phone booth as though she were in Prague, had on a trench coat, and were being followed by Peter Lorre. She sped down the hall and into her English class, which seemed now, although she had always liked it before, like so much child's play, sandbox time.

When school let out, she ran to the delicatessen on the corner. The crippled man who owned it was sitting on a stool. His hard-working wife was scrubbing as usual. Emma went to the cookie section. She pondered the boxes. Personally she preferred Mallomars, but what did revolutionaries eat? It would be awful to appear holding some kind of reactionary cookie that everyone had stopped eating years ago, like those pink puffs there looking a bit like Zsa Zsa Gabor, obviously capitalist cookies.

Other kids began to come in after school. Emma stood pondering, pushed here and there as kids crowded through the small space left between Emma's body and the wall.

Chocolate grahams looked stodgy, little Wall Street men all lined up. European cookies? The powdered-sugar German ones would never do, no sir, not in the Anne Frank
Brigade. French? Too decadent, possibly, too reminiscent of “Let them eat cake.” Let them eat cookies.

Emma burst out laughing at the thought. She laughed silently, however, so all anyone saw was her huge body rocking to and fro in front of the cookie section.

An arm reached in front of her for a box of cookies. The idea hit Emma that any one of these kids in the deli could belong to the Children's Army and that here she was, and would be forever remembered, laughing herself to death in front of the cookie section.

She grabbed a box of Mallomars. Two? Should she take two boxes? Had he said bring a
box
of cookies, or had he said bring
cookies?
Better not take two, they might think she was some rich snot, better to be poor than rich in this group. She took the box up to the counter and paid for it.

A girl in a green raincoat holding a box of cookies eyed her, then quickly looked away. Aha! thought Emma.

She left the store. On the way to Seventy-ninth, she opened the cookies absentmindedly as she thought about the curious trait in her character which always made her angry at whatever it was she was about to commit herself to. She could do it even about small things—for instance, choosing a book in the library. If she started to like the book very much, she would suddenly get suspicious and say all sorts of terrible things to herself about the book, such as it's probably a bore, who would read that anyway and I never really liked the cover, what am I standing here holding it in my hand for? She would put the book back on the shelf and
then take it out again. This indecision didn't always plague her. If she just went into the library and picked up a book without thinking about it very much, there was no problem. It was when she suddenly wanted to read that book more than anything else in the world.

So it was today. The idea that there was a group of people intent on fighting all the injustice she saw around her, a group to which she could actually belong (that is, she was a child and this was a children's army, so nobody could say she couldn't belong), and not only that, the idea of a group which was aware of all the things she was aware of, the unfairness of being a child, the blindness of parents, how hard it all was, the idea that this seemed to be a perfect group for her, sent chills through her and at the same time made her balk, made her wonder if she was deluding herself and this was just a bunch of crazies. If she got down there and they were all sitting around making bombs, or even spitballs, she would Jeave and she would tell them why she was leaving too. She, Emancipation Sheridan, was a pacifist. She didn't believe in doing all the same stupid things that adults did. There had to be a better way.

If, furthermore, they were all sitting around in that warehouse eating cookies and serving tea like a bunch of Mad Hatters and this was a social thing, where you met all the right people, she would leave too, because they would be an impossibly deluded bunch.

She crossed East End Avenue, putting a cookie into her mouth.

If, on the other hand, they really were going to accomplish something, if they really would stick behind each kid and make it easier somehow to get through this business called childhood, and if they really were trying to do something to make life better for children, like that guy Harrison Carter had said on TV, then she would join them.

She saw a trash basket and threw the cookie box. As she watched her arm throw the box, she realized what she had done. She stood, dumbfounded, looking at the empty box lying in the bottom of the basket. She'd eaten every cookie! How could anybody be so stupid? How in the world could anybody be so incredibly dumb as to do such a thing? She looked around to see if anyone had seen her.

God forbid. Here came three girls from her school, all carrying boxes of cookies.

Emma turned her back on them. She pretended to be examining the river. They were laughing and talking to each other. She didn't know them well, because she didn't know anyone well. She had been the only black girl in her class for as long as she could remember. She got smiled at a lot, too much, and people made a point of asking her to eat lunch with them. She would sit down and eat with them, but then she would have eaten lunch if George Wallace had asked her. She never wanted to talk while she was eating, and she never had anything to say to these girls anyway. She had had a friend once, but he had moved away. She just didn't make friends easily.