One Mississippi (17 page)

“Ain’t gonna play no slave songs,” said Brian Fairchild. “There’s a million other songs we coulda played, and he knows it.”

“Shut the hell up, Fairchild,” said Jeff Lehorn, big red-haired baritone sax, “unless you want me to come over there and kick your black ass.”

Several white guys made a move to help Lehorn do that. The groups drew apart, everybody slapping at pants pockets. I edged away, thinking, Uh-oh, here comes the knife fight at last!

Waxman charged into the middle. “Stop it! Keep walking. Move your butts!” He actually swatted Jeff Lehorn to get him moving.

Jeff hurled his mouthpiece. It bounced off the pavement with a
ching!
and rolled into the gutter.

We split into two bands, facing off across the courtyard. We muttered at each other and paced back and forth, awaiting the judgment of the loudspeaker on the wall.

The Frillingers sobbed as if someone had died. Most of the girls on the white side of the plaza were crying, the boys cussing. The boys on the black side were having their own loud discussion with some of the girls. Everyone knew we had been on the verge of winning Ones, possibly the first straight Ones in Minor history, when they put down their horns.

I stood with the angry white kids — hell, I was one of them, wasn’t I? Admit it! I was trembling mad. What gave them the right to do that — just to prove their stupid point? Okay, maybe not a totally stupid point about Stephen Foster and his minstrel music being demeaning, if you happen to be black. Maybe Waxman did brush off their objections too lightly. We all did. Did that give them the right to plot against us? To lie in wait, and ambush us at Contest? It was their sneakiness that shocked me — they caught us off guard, they betrayed us at the moment when we were all trying so hard, for once in our lives, to be excellent.

Couldn’t they have made the same point at the final rehearsal?

No. Because that wouldn’t have hurt us. They wanted to hurt us.

We glared at them like they were traitors. They glared back at us like we were oppressors.

Just for that moment, I hated them. Not because they were black, oh no — I was a Yankee, remember, I couldn’t be prejudiced. I hated them for blowing our big chance. And for splitting our one big happy band into two bands that stood hating each other across this plaza.

I saw Brian Fairchild standing over there with that other band. This morning he had teased me when we were getting off the bus.

Now our eyes met. He gave a tiny shrug. Apology? Not really. More like: I’m over here. You’re over there. Different sides, nothing personal. Just the way things divide up in Mississippi.

The speaker squealed. A woman’s voice said, “Following are the results of competition for Minor High School. The judges’ decisions are final. Performance, four. Musicality, four. Presentation, four. Marching band, one. Thank you, and travel home safely.”

A shout went up from the black side of the band. They hugged and hammered on each other and did little dances of joy.

The scores proved their point perfectly. Without their participation, we were nothing. Straight Fours. With them, in marching band, we had scored the near-impossible One.

Suddenly I didn’t hate them. They had simply stopped being good sports who went to the back of the bus without being asked. No matter how cruel it seemed for them to spoil our big day — just to prove their point! — they had taught me a lesson I would not have learned otherwise.

Waxman stepped onto the stretch of concrete between us.

Shanice James said, “Mr. Waxman? Excuse me?”

He turned. “What?”

“Are you gonna tell us again how we need to be like the Confederate Army? Cause we heard enough about that on the way over here.”

“You shut up, Shanice.” Waxman’s voice was soft, deadly. “You’re out of the band, okay? We don’t need you or your attitude. You haven’t got any Pride. Go get on the bus.”

“But Mr. Waxman —”

“I said shut up! You’ve lost your right of free speech, okay? This is my band. I’m the one who says who can be in this band. Now you go!”

Her eyes flashed, but she went.

Waxman expelled a chestful of air. “Now, the rest of you on this side, listen good, cause I’m only gonna say this once. What you did to me today — hell, I guess I had it coming, didn’t I? Didn’t pay enough attention to your extremely important objections, isn’t that right? I plead guilty to that.”

“Mr. Waxman,” tried Lionel Wooten.

“Be quiet,” Waxman said. “So yeah, maybe I had it coming. But your friends over there, on that side, what did they do to you? What kind of spite would lead you to throw away a whole year of their hard work? Just because I didn’t pay enough lip service to your ideas of what music we should or shouldn’t play? Why not come to me and try to talk to me seriously, instead of —”

Lionel tried to answer.

“Don’t!” Waxman cried. “I’m talking now. Y’all think I’m some kind of bigot? You are so wrong. I’m a Jew, for God’s sake, I’m the best friend you will ever have in this town. And you tricked me. But I’m older than you, and I happen to have the power here. And I’m sure as hell not afraid to use it just because I’m white!”

Blacks would ride on one bus, he declared, whites on the other. “I always thought color-blind was the way to go. Obviously I was wrong. You want separate but equal? You got it. Move out!”

We moved unwillingly, both sides still aching to fight. The only thing that kept us apart was the hot righteous glow of Waxman’s anger. I had a dull toothache sensation that I should do something to stop this happening — but let’s face it, I was not that kind of boy.

We crept onto the buses. Waxman rode in the car with his wife. The silence on our bus came as a relief. I can’t imagine any words that would have made that trip better.

12

W
HEN I TOLD ARNITA
what happened in Vicksburg, she laughed. “Wow, a revolution! That sounds like fun.”

“Fun? It was terrible, don’t you get it? We got Fours. We should have had Ones. And now everybody hates each other.” Evening was descending on the river bend. Lightning bugs winked in the trees. We sat in our favorite spot, propped in the crook of the log.

“It’s just a contest,” she said. “Not the end of the world.”

“Not to Waxman. You should have seen his face. The black kids said, ‘Either you let Shanice back in the band or we all quit.’ He said, ‘Okay fine, you just quit.’”

“All of them?”

“Yup. Suddenly we’re the All-Whitey Mighty Marching Titans.”

“Can he do that?”

“He didn’t do anything,” I said. “They’re the ones who quit.”

“But he said, ‘Okay, fine.’”

“They hit his sore spot. He has this idea that he can’t be prejudiced because he’s Jewish.”

“Everybody’s prejudiced,” Arnita said. “Everybody looks down on somebody else.”

“Who do you look down on?”

“Everybody,” she said. “That’s why it’s so great to be white. We have so many different kinds of people to look down on.”

“Aw come on, stop fooling. You’re not white, and you know it.” Wrapping my arms around her, I nudged her forward until we were leaning out over the water. “Look there. Who do you see?”

She squinted at the reflection. “Linda and Daniel.”

“No. Your face.” I nudged her with my head. “Tell me what you see.”

She tried to wiggle free. “I hate this game. Let me go!”

“Not till you tell. And you have to be honest.” I mashed my face into her shoulder, breathing her sweet pink sweater.

“A blonde,” she said softly. “See? I’m a honey blonde. My eyes are set a little too far apart. But I have good skin, and I like my new nose. Don’t you? Little turned-up Barbie nose . . .”

Her nose was not new, of course, nor was it little, or turned up. Her skin was a lovely dusky chocolate milk. Her smile was spectacular. She’d kept her hair cropped short since the hospital.

“Okay if I kiss you?” I said.

“Sure.”

“You like the way I kiss you,” I said.

She nodded.

We kissed for hours every day. Now that school was out, we had even more time for kissing. Generally I took her into the shadows under the bridge, but now it was getting dark, nobody around, so we kissed and kissed in the open, in front of the trees, the river, God, and everybody. You learn to kiss by doing and doing it. She puts her whole mouth into you, you put your mouth into her, the world narrows down to this hot jumping junction of mouths, the maximum sloppy sensation of feeling each other up with your tongues.

If sex is a whole lot better than this, I thought, I will die.

When Arnita touched me, I got hard as a big rock candy mountain — sometimes she brushed my leg and I thought my skull might explode. When we made out, she pretended not to notice that big old thing rambling against her thigh, but a few times I could have sworn she pushed back against it.

So here was I, weeks later, still standing there by the river kissing the hell out of her. She liked the way I did it. By that time I was the virgin of a thousand handjobs, the readiest, horniest virgin on earth, a walking throbbing pillar of unquenchable readiness. But the idea of actually doing it with a real girl — my delicious strawberry candy– tasting girl as opposed to the parade of gorgeous fevered girls in my head — that still scared me. As much as I was dying to try it. I had to watch out or the next kiss might spin out of control, getting hotter and wilder each second, a little whimper —

I broke it off. “God! Cut that out!”

She chuckled. “You are kinda sparky today. Can I call you Sparky?”

She was crazy. Not just brain-damaged, but pure sexy crazy. She had caused me to lose all interest in normal girls. Dianne Frillinger had been like kissing a refrigerator. Give me hot-blooded crazy Arnita any day, confusing my lips, driving my fingers to the brink of insanity.

We were not getting much homework done.

“Whoa, slow down,” she said, coming up for air.

“Mm, that feels good.”

“Take your hand off there, mister!”

That made me laugh. “Mister?”

“Mister Bad Guy, that’s you.” She tried to slide her arm through mine.

I pulled away and walked out in front to let my problem subside.

Headlights flashed over us. My neck hairs stood up — you didn’t see many fastback Mustangs in this park after sunset.

Red Martin parked by the swing sets. He got out and walked a straight line toward us.

He wore his Titan jersey, number 42. A fresh crew cut made his head appear even pinker in the gloom. “Hello Five Spot, how you doin’, ol’ pal?”

I ducked the hand snaking out toward my face. “Well, if it ain’t Dudley Ronald Martin.”

He smirked at my boldness. “Arnita, looking good. I dig the short hair.”

“My name is Linda,” she said.

“Yeah? Since when?”

She caught my warning glance. “No, you’re right, I am Arnita,” she said. “Sometimes I get it mixed up. Do I know you?”

“I sure as hell think so. You’ve only got me arrested twice now,” said Red. “We heard you might be a little bit —” He drew a circle around his ear with one finger. “More than a little, I’d say. I can’t wait to tell my lawyer you didn’t even recognize me. Five Spot, you’re a witness to that.”

“You’re Red Martin,” she said. “I know who you are. But you shaved off all your hair.”

I stood up straighter. “What are you doing here, Red?”

“Hey, if y’all gonna do the interracial love thang in a public park, you can’t act surprised when word gets out. Or did you forget you’re still in Mis’sippi?”

“Oh so you’ve joined the Klan?”

“Ha ha, so funny. I came to talk to her.”

“What about?” said Arnita.

He glanced over his shoulder, then back to her. “Look, this is serious shit you started. The district attorney would like to drop the charges, but your mother won’t let him. She calls him two or three times a week. It’s bullshit, Arnita, and you know it. I didn’t hurt you. It wasn’t me. No matter what the hell you think you remember.”

“Sure it was.” She eyed him. “You knocked me off my bike and drove off.”

“When I drove off, you were okay,” said Red. “You were mad, you were cussing me, remember? I came back around the block to see if you were all right — that’s when I saw you laid out on the ground. And the cops pulled me over.”

“That’s not how it happened,” she said.

“But you don’t remember exactly? You don’t know for sure.” His voice was dead calm. “Look at me. Do I seem dangerous to you?”

Arnita looked him over. “Not at the moment.”

I edged between them. I wasn’t exactly helpless, but Red was big enough to toss me in the river if he wanted to.

“Look, Arnita, you’re gonna mess up my life and yours too,” he said. “You were kinda drunk that night, you mighta fell off that bike on your own. If you press charges, it’ll all have to come out. Understand? The drinking, the white boyfriends, the pot you were smoking at Charlene’s that night — everything would have to come out in court. Is that what you want?”

I saw a glimmer of fear in Arnita’s eyes.

Red said, “That brain damage must be worse than I heard, you down here making out with ol’ Five Spot. I mean, come on, if you want a white boy, you can have me. I am offering you a chance to be smart here.”

“Don’t listen to him,” I told her. “He’s not supposed to even talk to you, much less threaten you. They can put him in jail just for that.”

“Down, Spot,” he said. “I ain’t threatening anybody.”

Arnita blinked her deep brown eyes at me. “You don’t believe anything he says, do you?”

“No. And neither should you.”

She glanced at Red, then me. “Do you think — is it possible I could be wrong about that night?”

Red’s eyes lit up. “Damn right it’s possible.”

“What?” I cried. “No!”

“Red knocked me down. He drove off and left me. But I do remember yelling at him as he left. Does that mean something happened after that?”

“No!” I seized her hands. “Don’t do this. He’s trying to confuse you.”

She blinked. “You know the whole thing has always been real hazy for me.”

“Don’t let him put ideas in your head.” I clasped her shoulders. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll take you home.”

“Oh, that’s fair,” Red said. “Just when she decides to start telling the truth?”

“Fair, Red?” I lashed out. “Did you just use the word
fair?
”

“Aw come on, Five Spot, you know all that other was kid stuff. Okay? That was all in good fun. Arnita’s right. This whole thing is just a big misunderstanding.”

“That’s not what I said.” Arnita crossed her arms. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

He loomed over her. “Drop the charges. All you have to do is tell your mother you’re not sure, and the whole thing goes away. Just like that. Everything goes back like it was.”

“Not me,” she said, with an unhappy smile. “I don’t go back like I was.”

“I guess not.” Red squared his shoulders. “Look, whatever happened, it was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Don’t send me to jail.”

“You don’t have to listen to this,” I said softly. “He’s just trying to save his own hide.”

She turned to study me. “Why are you so suspicious of him?”

“Why do you think? He’s devoted his life to making Tim and me miserable.”

“Aw come on, that was playing around,” Red said. “I was just having fun. You play ball with me, I guarantee I will leave you alone.”

“I think it was brave of him to come here and talk,” Arnita said.

Red preened at the word “brave.” I didn’t like the way this was headed. “He’s not brave, he’s scared,” I said. “And desperate. He’ll say anything to get you to drop those charges.” Of course scared and desperate applied even more directly to me. I would say anything to keep Arnita from knowing that my hand grabbed the wheel of that car.

I had to protect her, even from myself. “Don’t listen to him,” I said. “Don’t listen to me either. You have to do what’s right.”

“All I’m asking,” Red said, “is for you to think it over. I’ve got your number, I’ll call you.”

“Oh, no.” I felt my blood heating up. “If you try to call her, or come anywhere near her again, I swear I will call the police.”

“Woooo. Five Spot, why so uptight? You need to get a hobby or something.”

Arnita glanced between us. “Why do you call him that?”

“Tell me you never noticed?” Red’s smirk widened into a grin. “You been spending too much time on the front of his head. Take a look around the back sometime.” He hiked up his jeans, strolled off to his Mustang.

The roar of his unmuffled engine trembled the ground. His tires shrieked as he fishtailed out of the park.

To me Red seemed ridiculous, even a little pitiful, but I could tell he had made an impression on Arnita.

“I never noticed there were five of them.” She spread her fingers to touch all the spots. “Why does he tease you like that?”

“Why don’t you ask him? You guys are so chummy. Which I really do not understand, considering he ran over you and left you for dead.” I meant this to sound casual and ironic but it came out childish, sullen.

“Daniel, are you jealous of him?”

“No. I’m worried about you. Your mother won’t be all that thrilled to hear you’re hanging out with Red Martin.”

“You are! You’re jealous!”

“Red’s dangerous. I don’t want you talking to him.”

“Hush,” she said, touching my lips. “Don’t tell me who I can talk to. Okay?”

“Okay. Wow. Excuse me,” I said.

We walked home in silence. I tried to make it light again, but her mood had changed. Maybe my sarcasm, or the subject of Prom Night. It felt like our first fight.

Mrs. Beecham sang from the porch: “Musgrove, you’re late! Where have y’all been?”

Arnita walked up the steps and threw herself down in the swing. I followed her up on the porch and stood with my arms folded, looking down at her.

“Uh-huh,” said Mrs. Beecham. “I see.” Her slow blink evolved into a stare that settled on me.

I coughed. Was I supposed to say something?

“Musgrove?” she said.

“What?”

“What is going on here?”

“Nothing!”

“Yes there is.” She drilled new holes in me with those eyes.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe there is.”

Arnita got up and went into the house. She slammed the door behind her.

Her mother lowered her voice. “What the hell is the matter with you? She’s not all right and you know it. Does she seem all right to you? Does she seem to have control of her mental faculties to you? No. But here you come, taking advantage of her. I thought you were better than that.”

“I love her, Mrs. Beecham.” I said it loud enough for Arnita to hear.

Ella Beecham winced. “Aw, shit. No you don’t, crazy boy! You might think you do, but you don’t.”

“She loves me too, I’m pretty sure.”

“Are you out of your mind? You think you can go with a colored girl? Well, just forget it. You can’t. Not with
my
girl.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen. But now I’m just . . . I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“No, now, I ain’t having that kind of mess. Not from you.” Ella shooed me off her porch. “If that’s how it is, don’t be coming around here.
No
sir. You stay away.”

Panic laid a cold finger against my neck. Stay away? Was she joking? I couldn’t stay away from Arnita. Nothing could keep me away. If Ella Beecham locked the door I would climb through a window. If she locked the window I’d break it. If she boarded it up, I would go find an ax.

When I was with Arnita I was vibrating, every atom of me whizzing, sending off sparks. Riding my bike to her house, knowing I would soon taste her lips . . . it made the pedals fly under my feet.

“Go on home now,” her mother was saying.

I climbed onto my bike. “Tell her I’ll call her tonight.”

“Don’t call,” she said. “She don’t need to hear from you.”

“I will call,” I said, “and I’ll be here tomorrow, like always.”

A furrow opened in her brow. “Musgrove, try to hang on to whatever little shred of dignity you have left. Don’t you get it? We don’t need you around here. We got no more jobs for you. You just ride on home.”