One Mississippi (31 page)
Ten o’clock came and went, with no Mom.
“Sometimes women just need to blow off steam for no reason,” Dad said. “Janie, don’t you be like that when you grow up.”
“Okay, Daddy,” Janie said.
That night when I went to bed I kept seeing Red’s Mustang exploding, the fire blooming over and over on the insides of my eyes.
T
HE EARLY SUNLIGHT
cast a pair of delicate rectangles on the wall. I yawned and stretched and it came to me: last week of August, the first day of school! Remember what a thrill it used to be in Indiana, the first tang of fall in the air, excited hallway chatter, the chalkboards clean and fresh green as they never will be again the whole year?
Twelve years of school will bore that thrill right out of you. By the time you’re a senior, sleep is so much better — and I almost slid back down into it too, but then I got to wondering whether Tim was in jail, and then Janie was at the foot of my bed clanging a lid against a saucepan, yelling, “Get up, buttface!”
Buttface, arsonist, big brother — and a senior! This would be my last first day of school, not counting college, and at this rate who knew if I’d survive long enough to think about college. I kicked out at Janie, but she dodged my foot and went on clanging.
“Stop that, dammit! I’m awake!”
“Rise and shine, Danny,” she croaked. “First day of school!” She performed a mean imitation of Mom, who used to wake us up for this day singing at the upper end of her range.
School days, school days
Dear old golden rule days
Readin’ and ’ritin’ and ’rithmetic
Taught to the tune of a hickory stick
In younger years that song brought us bounding out of bed, rushing to crack open our new school boxes as if they contained presents from Santa Claus instead of pencils. Today we dragged ourselves down to the table for Cheerios. Dad didn’t bother to get up. He’d been awake till all hours, fiddling with the machines in the projector hut.
I balanced Janie on the handlebars of the stolen red Raleigh, which I had supposedly borrowed from a friend. “You’re too big for this, kiddo. Think one of your friends will loan you a bike for a while?”
“I’ll make Daddy drive me. He’ll have to get another car, won’t he?”
“You better get a bike.”
“Danny, you think Mom is ever gonna come back?”
“Yeah, I bet she will.”
“When?”
“A week? Two weeks? I don’t know.”
“I’m not so sure,” Janie said. “I think she might enjoy not having us around. She must not like us very much if she stays over in Alabama and won’t even call us.”
“She likes us okay,” I said. “She just needed a vacation from Dad.”
Traffic on the highway this early was nothing but log trucks — three big ones roared by us before we could turn off for Barnett Street. We bumped over the train tracks. I went the long way around to avoid the spot where Arnita fell.
A few houses before school, I pulled over to let Janie off. We didn’t want to show up together at school. Lowly freshmen don’t hang out with mighty seniors. “Have a fun day, Danny. Maybe I’ll see you in the hall or something.”
“If you do, be sure not to speak to me,” I said.
“Same here. Thanks for the ride.”
“See ya back at the ol’ drive-in.”
She said, “Will you please ride me home after school?”
“Yeah, okay. Meet me here after. Don’t make me wait!”
She stuck out her tongue. I rode on.
Today would be Arnita’s first day at school since the accident. What if we had classes together? Maybe she hated me forever, but then again —
If I tried to explain everything, she might give me a chance.
No. She hated me. And why not? Look what I did to her life.
Tim probably hated me too.
Wouldn’t it be better not to go to school today? Just drop out. Ride away on my bike and never go back. I could become a bad guy, a hoodlum. I could burn cars and rob liquor stores and snatch old ladies’ purses and make amazing getaways on my stolen bike.
The sign said
MHS
—
WELCOME BACK TITANS
A big crowd of kids milled in the courtyard, in front of the library. Standing up on my pedals, I noticed for the first time that the school library was just a larger version of the snack bar at the Twi-Lite — the same streamlined circular shape, the red-tiled landing pad on the roof. Who was this space-minded architect who had landed his flying saucer–shaped buildings all over Minor?
I made up my mind to go in and start my new life as a senior. If anyone asked where my family was living, I would tell them we lived behind the screen at the Twi-Lite Drive-In, and if they thought there was something silly about that, they could go to hell. I was a senior now. I had settled my scores. I would be nobody’s Five Spot this year.
I strolled across the courtyard behind the bouncy cheerleaders Mindy Maples, Lisa Simmons, and Molly Manning, my last-year buddies from Canzoneri’s government class. When Mindy saw me, she aimed her twinkle at me. “Oh my gosh, poor Daniel, we all heard what happened to your house! Are you okay?”
“Oh my gosh, Daniel,” Lisa said, and Molly said it too. They flocked around me cooing Daniel, poor Daniel, plucking at my shirt, patting my shoulder, telling me they’d been thinking of me, praying I was okay, how shocking it must be to wake up one day and your house is just
gone
and did you hear the other huge news?
We passed a knot of teachers gathered around the principal, Mr. Hamm, who seemed to have grown even fatter over the summer. His face was bright crimson and sweaty, as if the rigors of the first morning had worn him out already.
Some news came in the library line, some in the cafeteria. Teri Cooper lost her summer job as a log flume operator at Disney World, busted for smoking pot in a service tunnel. Gary Brantley, the star quarterback, got such bad grades in summer school that the coach was making him sit out the season opener against Magee. A black tenth-grader called Roland Simpson (whom no one quite remembered) had died in July when his car hit a tree near Yazoo City. Coach Atkins was no longer teaching driver’s ed, since someone informed the school board of his habit of buying a six-pack of Miller at the beginning of each driving session and drinking four or five bottles over the next fifty minutes as his students practiced their parallel parking. From now on the coach would teach only Mississippi History, where supposedly he could harm no one.
On the Fourth of July someone spray-painted a swastika on Bernie Waxman’s front door. Waxman was calm about it, according to Jeff Lehorn, but it upset Mrs. Waxman.
Marsha Lockner got pregnant by Mike Devoe and won’t be coming back to school.
Oh and did you hear somebody burned Red Martin’s red Mustang?
No shit.
Swear to God.
When?
Two nights ago. Burned up! Totaled! And his father’s brand-new pickup truck too!
Who did it?
Tim Cousins, I heard. Spent a night in jail for it. He’s out on bail.
Nobody came right out and told me this news. I overheard Bruce Dean and Johnny Henry in the line outside the gym.
“Fine with me,” Dean was saying. “Red is such a jerk.”
Chuck Watson said, “I bet Musgrove was in on it too.”
“You guys,” said Mary Virginia Ward. “He’s standing right here listening to everything you say!”
Our part of the line cracked up.
I said, “Did they really put Tim in jail?”
“Like you didn’t know?” Johnny said.
“I didn’t. Tell me what happened. This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I said. “I wondered why he’s not at school.”
Bruce said, “Come on, Musgrove. You had to have helped him do it.”
“Nah, that stuff is between Tim and Red,” I said. “I don’t let Red bother me.”
Some of the kids murmured their approval. The minute I left, they would all be discussing what a chickenshit I was.
The line inched forward. “I have to tell you guys, I don’t think Tim did it,” I said, as any loyal friend would.
Bruce Dean said, “Really? You don’t think so? What about if he admitted it?”
I gaped. “What?”
“Yeah, you don’t know anything,” Chuck Watson said. “He admitted the whole thing to the cops.”
“You and Cousins don’t talk anymore?” said Bruce Dean. “I thought you two were like married.”
“Go to hell, Dean. No more than you and Watson!” I play-punched his shoulder, trying to act as if my head was not reeling. What did he mean, Tim admitted it? How could that be?
It had to be wrong.
I burned the Mustang. I know, I was there. What I didn’t know was that on the ride downtown, when Jeff Magill asked Tim if he set fire to Red’s car, Tim smiled and said, Yes sir, I sure did. When asked if he acted alone, he said, Yes sir, I did. And I’m not sorry, either, he said. I would do it again in a minute.
Why would Tim admit to something he didn’t do? I couldn’t believe it. That was not in my plan. And I thought I’d been so careful to work out all the angles.
He was supposed to deny everything and put the blame on me. That’s why I called his house first, to make sure he was there before I burned the car — so his mother could swear he was right there at home with her. The trail would lead to me, after Jeff Magill put the fear of God into Tim first. Eventually I would pay for what I had done.
That was my plan, anyway. But then he took the blame and screwed it all up.
At the head of the line Coach Barnes thumbed through a box and came up with my schedule for my senior year at Minor High:
Homeroom, Deavers
(old hag)
English IV, O’Neal
(yes!)
Algebra II, Passworth
(aieee!)
Geology/Physics, Robichaux
(help me Jesus)
Spanish II, B. J. Allen
(nice lady)
American History, Coach Rainey
(long naps, head on desk)
Band, Waxman
(of course)
I had to call Tim and find out what the hell he was up to. I wanted to go to the band hall, say hey to Waxman and look for Arnita. But first I had to go to the auditorium stage to pick up my textbooks.
I walked through the echoey shadows to the back of the stage. I handed one copy of my class sheet to Mrs. Williford, then skulked about finding the right books among all the boxes. Once I had assembled my stack of knowledge, I carried it to Mrs. Williford’s table for the sign-out sheet.
Over her shoulder I saw Arnita step from the shadows onto the stage.
My God, look. She stopped the room dead. The lights suddenly brightened, conversation dimmed, all motion stopped for a moment. Her hair was still boyishly short. She wasn’t wearing her glasses — was she wearing contacts? The crisp line of white blouse against her brown skin. A short skirt followed by very long legs.
Her glorious smile was aimed at Mrs. Flora, the math teacher, not me. She didn’t see me there.
You would never guess this girl had spent any time in a hospital. She radiated health, intelligence, nerve. She was more beautiful than ever.
I was glad for the shadows to hide in. I felt ugly, oafish, and large. My heart filled with hurt. How could I ever think she belonged with me? Suddenly I knew how unworthy I was, how impossible any idea that we could have been together. Arnita had always been way beyond me. I felt as doomed as that dork Arthur Miller must have felt at the moment Marilyn Monroe said yes.
“Here, Daniel.” Mrs. Williford handed me a piece of paper. “Your locker assignment. Everybody’s packet is in their locker. Fill out the registration forms and have a parent or legal guardian sign the ones with the checkmarks, are you listening to me?”
I turned. Arnita was gone. Had she seen me and fled?
Shouldn’t flatter myself. More likely she didn’t care about me at all.
In the bottom of locker 318 I found the registration packet with my name Magic Markered on the front. Some papers had fallen out and ended up on top. I gathered them into the folder and joined the herd headed to the auditorium.
I
TOOK A SEAT
on the aisle in the back, in case I saw a chance to sneak out. First-day assembly was supposed to be inspirational and motivational, a way to build school spirit. But it was led by Mr. Hamm, who would have had trouble inspiring mold to grow. First he read a prepared talk on the topic of tornado safety. Then he began reading from a long list of new rules and regulations, many of them dealing with a crisis of chewing gum under the desks.
“It’s like urinating in the pool,” said Hamm, to cries of “ewwww” from the girls. “Nobody ever admits to doing it, but somehow the pool continues to turn yellow. Now I know everybody takes the chewing gum out of their mouth and sticks it under the desk so the teacher won’t catch you chewing it. It’s traditional. I did the same thing when I was in school. But what I didn’t consider, what I want you boys and girls to consider, is that it took our maintenance man Mr. Beecham one hundred and thirty-four hours this summer to scrape all the gum off the undersides of the desks. We’re starting the year off clean. There’s not a speck of gum on a single desk in this school. So the next time you take the gum out of your mouth, I want you to stop and think about Mr. Beecham having to scrape your gum off with his own two hands, hour after hour. Would you please do that for me, put your gum in a piece of paper and put it in the trash where it belongs?”
Next he announced that Mr. Waxman and the Mighty Marching Titans would be traveling to Jackson the second week in September to play for President Nixon at the Mississippi Coliseum. (Maybe ten people clapped, about the same number that hissed or booed.) The chess team was going to Columbus to play in a tournament with the Baptist Boys Home. Anyone caught trying to make drugs in the chemistry lab would be not suspended but expelled. And would the young ladies
please
not flush their sanitary napkins down the commodes, use the designated receptacles. (Massive groan from the guys.)
Hamm read the names of seven new teachers, a timid-looking lot who straggled up from their seats to wave at us. We clapped with an excess of courtesy, knowing how swiftly we would bend them to our will.
Mr. Hamm frowned and went on discussing the new policy of random locker searches. “This is for your own protection,” he said. “We intend to keep harmful substances out of our school at all costs.” A few potheads made oinking pig sounds, raising a big laugh from everyone else. “Okay, settle down,” Hamm said.
After the long weird summer it felt good to be back in a mass of laughing people my age.
“Before we get to the nominations for class officers,” Hamm called into the din, “we have a special visitor today. We are so pleased to welcome back one of our favorite students, who is making a fine recovery from a very serious injury. I’ve asked her to speak a few words about how glad she is to be back in school. Would you please welcome —” he glanced at the sheet in his hand “— Arnita Beecham.”
God what a round of applause as she walked to the podium. She turned on her megawatt beauty-queen smile and melted the place. Everyone knew she was lucky to be alive, and now look how much more lovely she is! Every school has a superstar, and now, forever, Arnita was ours.
She no longer belonged to me. But God I still loved her. I did. Even though she hated me. That changed nothing for me, except that seeing her made me want to cry. I felt so lonely. I’d blown it so bad.
She bent to the microphone. “Hey, y’all,” she said, and everybody said Hey. “I didn’t know I was going to be talking today. I didn’t write a speech. But I did get all those cards you sent to Arnita, and the flowers. And I heard you wrote songs. I want you to know I really appreciated all of that. But that’s not what I want to talk about.”
Uh-oh. I hunkered down in my seat. I heard another stir behind me, and turned to see Red Martin coming in, flanked by two lineman buddies. He made a big disruption by strutting into assembly, just as he had when the cops hauled him out of here, back in the spring. He swaggered like a prizefighter returning to the ring, smacking his gum, savoring all those eyes on him. He plopped in the third row with his friends.
Arnita watched him all the way to his seat. “I know the truth is not really what school is about,” she said. “But lately I’ve decided it’s the most important thing there is, telling the truth. So that’s what I want to do.”
Mr. Hamm came back into view at stage left with his arms folded over his belly.
She smiled. “Don’t worry, Mr. Hamm, I’m not gonna talk about school.”
Mr. Hamm pantomimed relief.
“The truth is, you’ve all been making a mistake about me,” she said. “I know you think I’m black. Probably thought so the first time you saw me. I may look black to you, but you have to understand that I’m not.”
Oh no. Not today. Why, Arnita — the first day of school? Tell the world? Make your life so much harder?
I would have gone up there to stop her, but she wouldn’t have listened to me.
“This is something I only realized after my accident,” she went on. “It’s not that I minded being black. Really, I love black people. They are the kindest, the best people I know. I’m not one of them, that’s all. I mean, think about it, who would choose to be black? Why would you choose to be the one everybody looks down on?”
Shanice James stood up. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Hey, Shanice. I’m just telling the truth —
my
truth, anyway. It’s just — something happened to me. Being black turned out to be all in my head. It’s just a part of my brain that got hurt. It doesn’t have anything to do with who we are. It’s a figment of our imagination. I think it may be that way for you too. You think you don’t have any choice about it, but you do. I’m not black anymore. And I’m never going to be black again.”
“Sit down!” hollered Red’s friend Carl. “Down in front!”
Shanice gave him a nasty look and sat down.
“You’re only black if you want to be,” Arnita said. “I’ve been a lot happier since I found out.”
Mr. Hamm said, “Arnita?”
She ignored him. “It’s just so much easier not to be black. You have a nicer house. You have more money. There are oak trees in the yard. The kids have plenty of toys. The dad sits in a recliner with his feet up.”
“Thank you, Arnita,” said Hamm.
“I’m not done yet,” she said evenly. “You asked me to talk, so let me talk.”
A few shouts of support, but I could tell that most of the assembly was on Mr. Hamm’s side. He shrugged as if he was afraid to stop her. She was pissing off the black kids. The white ones too. There was nothing in what she said to make anyone happy.
I hadn’t drawn a real breath since she’d started talking.
“You all should try it,” she said. “We could have a week where everybody can be who they’re not. If you’re black, you can be white. If you’re white, you could try being black. Find out how it feels. Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“What’s wrong with you?” That was Brian Fairchild, on his feet. “Why do you want to be white? Black is beautiful.”
“If black is beautiful, Brian, why do they have to force white people to go to school with you? If black is beautiful, why does everyone hate you? Why do people throw Cokes at you when you’re just sitting there minding your own business? You can say black is beautiful all day long, but wake up. The only people who think that are black.”
“That’s society’s problem,” said Brian. “That’s not
my
problem!”
“Oh yes it is,” said Arnita. “They want you to be black! That’s all. They don’t want you to be anything else!”
“For you to stand up there and say you ain’t black —”
“They can only make you black if you let them,” she said. “If you participate. Don’t you get it? There’s only one —” Her voice disappeared. Mr. Hamm had unplugged her mike.
“No, Brian’s right!” Shanice cried. “Who do you think you are? You’re as black as I am.”
“Hey!” Red stood up. “She wants to be white. Let her be white if she wants to!”
“Oh shut up, you stupid cracker!” snapped Shanice.
“Don’t you tell him to shut up, nigger!”
There it was. From Red’s buddy Carl. The word dropped like a bomb, like a great big stink bomb bursting over the heads of the assembly.
Mr. Hamm was paralyzed by the cloud of animosity sweeping the auditorium. I couldn’t see who threw the first punch, but soon there were lots of punches. As if on a signal white guys and black guys jumped over their seats and started whaling on each other.
Arnita was saying something into the dead mike. I couldn’t hear for the shouting.
There were a dozen boys fighting, six hundred kids stampeding for the doors. I was glad to be in the back corner — four loping steps and I could be out that door. I saw Arnita moving back from the edge of the stage, the trampling herd.
Janie. Where was Janie?
I parked myself inside the main exit and watched the flood of kids thinning out. To my relief I didn’t see any broken little-girl bodies littering the aisles. The male teachers waded into the edges of the fistfight and had it mostly broken up by the time the cops arrived — four cops in the first wave, then four more.
I found Arnita by the circuit breaker box behind the curtain, stage left.
She turned to look at me. There was nothing in her eyes for me, one way or the other. She was cold.
“I know you hate me,” I said.
She didn’t deny it. She didn’t say anything.
“Why did you do that?” I said.
“It was important. Listen — keep away from me, Daniel. You’re not my friend.” She turned and walked off across the hollow stage. Each click of her heel put another hole in me.
Then I saw who was waiting for her at the door. Dudley Ronald Martin smiled and gave me a little salute, an index finger tipped off his eyebrow. He put his arm around Arnita and escorted her out.