Pretty soon, his mother had them all laughing, and by the time the lights of Memphis appeared on the horizon, Bob was beginning to feel a little better. Yes, conversation stuttered to a stop when they entered the restaurant with Janeka in tow, but they were able to ignore that. And yes, at one point, some man two tables away did stare at Janeka as if she was some odd species of dog and he was trying to figure out how she had gotten in to such a swank restaurant. But by this time, Bob’s father was feeling so protective of her that the mild-mannered dentist from Minneapolis threw down his napkin and went over there, ignoring his wife’s, his son’s, and Janeka’s protests. They heard him promise to knock the man’s teeth out if he didn’t find something else to stare at.
The other man said, “Well, shit fire.” But he stopped staring.
Robert Carson, Sr. came back to the table and calmly finished his coffee. Bob’s mother stared at him as if wondering who he was and what he had done with her husband. But the expression on her face was not displeased.
A little over an hour later, the rented station wagon pulled up in front of Bob’s dorm and disgorged him and Janeka. He leaned into the passenger window to accept his mother’s kiss and to promise that he would join them for Christmas at the hotel in the morning. It struck him dimly that his parents or his brothers might wind up sleeping tonight on the same bed where he and Janeka had made love. The thought made his stomach hurt and he resolved to never think it again.
As the station wagon pulled away, he turned to face Janeka and saw what he expected. Her face had gone to stone.
“I’m sorry,” said Bob, cold smoke leaking from the side of his mouth. “I apologize for them. They’re not usually that bad.”
Janeka was incredulous. “You apologize for them? You need to apologize for yourself.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Never mind,” she said. “Just forget it, all right?”
Janeka spun around to walk away. It was the first inkling Bob had of just how angry she was. He put a hand lightly on her shoulder. He had misread something—that much was obvious. But what it was, he had no idea.
“Janeka, what is it?”
She came back around, her eyes large and filled with anger. No. It wasn’t anger, was it? Disappointment. That’s what was in those eyes. Somehow, he had let her down. But…how?
He felt himself teetering as at the edge of a cliff. “Janeka?” There was a soft insistence in his voice. “What did I do? If it was the surprise, I’m sorry. I didn’t know anything about it.”
She shook her head and there was pity in the gesture. “Bob,” she said, “why didn’t you tell them I was black?”
It surprised him. “That’s what you’re upset about? Why should I tell them that?”
“Are you ashamed of it, Bob? Is that it?”
Panic stabbed his heart that she could even think such a thing. “No!” he said. “Never. Of course not.”
“Then why didn’t you tell them?”
“Because,” he said after a moment, “if I tell them, it’s like I’m warning them. It’s like I’m saying, ‘Oh, here’s something you better prepare yourself for. You might want to sit down for this. She’s…black.” He waggled his fingers on the last word, pronounced it with horror movie exaggeration, like the name of some monster from a black lagoon. He waited for her to laugh. Instead, she regarded him with sober, unblinking eyes.
“That’s exactly what you should have done, Bob. You should have warned them. The way you did it was extremely unfair.”
Bob sighed. But she had a point, didn’t she? “I guess you’re right,” he said. “That was unfair to you. But in my own defense, I didn’t expect them to just show up out of the blue.”
She shook her head. “You still don’t get it,” she told him. “It wasn’t just unfair to me. It was also unfair to your family. Your poor mother, I felt sorry for her. Did you see her, for heaven’s sake, stammering about how much she loves Bill Cosby?” Janeka chased the memory with a sad laugh.
“I didn’t tell them,” said Bob, “because telling them is like saying it means something.”
“It does mean something,” she said.
“It doesn’t,” he insisted. “It can’t. That’s the whole point of what we’re doing, isn’t it? With the voting rights and the whole freedom movement? We’re saying it doesn’t matter. I’m Bob, you’re Janeka, and we love each other and that’s all that’s important.”
She didn’t answer. She folded her arms across her chest and looked away. A thought struck him then. “So wait a minute,” he said. “Are you’re saying you’ve told your parents that I’m white?”
Janeka looked at him as though he were an idiot. “Of course I have,” she said.
Bob was shocked. “And?”
“My mother’s okay with it,” said Janeka. “Daddy’s trying to be okay with it, but it’s going to take him a minute. But my older brother, David…” The words dissolved in a rueful, private smile.
“He doesn’t like it?”
“He said he’s ashamed to see a sister of his consorting with the white devil. He said if I ever bring you home, he’s going to knock your block off.”
“Nice guy,” said Bob.
“David’s been hanging around with the Black Muslims. I think he ate too many bean pies or something. Mom and Daddy are really worried about him.”
She regarded Bob for a moment. Her arms were still folded. “You should have told your family,” she said. Her voice was quiet but definitive. “The fact that you didn’t makes me wonder if you really understand the struggle the way I thought you did.”
“Wait a minute,” said Bob. This was going too fast, veering off into crazy new directions that made no sense. What did this have to do with the struggle? “Of course I understand,” he said. “I told you: I just didn’t want it to mean anything.”
He hated the pity he saw in her smile just then. “But it does, Bob. You have to see that and deal with it. It has always meant something and it always will, even when people are well intentioned, even when they don’t want it to mean anything, even when they say it doesn’t mean anything. It always does.”
Her words set off a dull ache inside of him. “So, is that what you think of me?” he asked. “Just some clueless white boy who doesn’t get it?”
She looked up at him. “What I think of you,” she said, “is that you are the sweetest, gentlest, most thoughtful and caring man I have ever known, and I am truly crazy about you. But I also think you’re naïve and you really haven’t thought about what it means for us to be together, what it means for you to be with me.”
“Because it doesn’t mean anything,” insisted Bob. He was conscious of repeating himself, but he could not understand why she didn’t see this.
“My God,” she said, incredulous. “You don’t even see it, do you? The ability to say that, and to believe it, to think it’s true, that’s a luxury you have only if you are white. Only then.”
“Janeka…”
“I don’t have that luxury, Bob.”
“Janeka, come on…”
But she was already moving away from him.
“Janeka, please…”
But she was already gone.
Christmas Day dawned bleak and cold. Bob rose early. He got dressed and hiked over to the girls’ dorm on the far side of campus, hoping that a night’s sleep had soothed her. He rang the bell, got the dorm monitor out of bed (she was not happy about this), and asked her to ring Janeka’s room and tell her Bob was there. The dorm monitor did this. Then she listened. Then, instead of handing the receiver to Bob through the sliding glass window of her booth, she hung it back on the wall.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” she said.
“But…”
The middle-aged face that stared back at him from beneath a crown of pink curlers was unyielding. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Can you try her again? I’m sure there’s some mistake.”
This, t
he woman didn’t even deign to answer. She simply stared at Bob until he got the message. His shoulders rounded. He left the dorm and dutifully hiked into town to meet his parents and brothers at their hotel. The Carson family sat in the lobby beneath a fir tree, one of three or four clusters of people unlucky enough to spend the holiday in this place. They exchanged gifts and talked about maybe driving down to Jackson for dinner.
Bob barely heard any of it. All he heard was the woman at the dorm pronouncing his doom over and over again.
She doesn’t want to talk to you.
She doesn’t want to talk to you.
She doesn’t want to talk. To you.
“Honey?” His mother approached him delicately now, the way you might an unfamiliar dog. He caught his father and his brothers exchanging worried glances. “Where’s Janeka? We had thought she was going to be with you today.”
“She couldn’t come,” said Bob.
His mother’s face creased. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I must have made a terrible impression, didn’t I? I don’t know what got into me, rattling on like that about Bill Cosby. And the funny thing is, we don’t even like him that much. It was just the only thing I could think of to say.”
Bob looked up at his mother. “It’s not you she’s mad at,” he said. He felt tears pooling in his eyes and turned away so that she would not see.
“She’s angry with you? What did you do?”
Bob only shook his head. He could not have answered the question even if he’d wanted to.
His parents and brothers flew home the following day. They stopped at Bob’s dorm on the way to the airport to say goodbye, the back of the station wagon crammed with suitcases. Standing there on the sidewalk in front of the dorm, Bob’s mom kissed his cheek and promised him everything would be all right. His father clapped his shoulder and told Bob the same thing he had always told him for 19 years whenever things got rough.
“This too shall pass,” he said and went to get behind the wheel of the rented car. Then he seemed to think better of it. He came back to Bob and leaned his mouth toward his son’s ear. “Do you love this woman?” he asked in a private voice.
“Yes, sir,” said Bob. He was afraid to say more.
“You really think she’s the one?”
Bob nodded.
“Then go get her,” his father said. Like it was the simplest, most obvious thing in the world.
Bob’s head came up. Father’s eyes met son’s. Father nodded once, as if in confirmation. Bob nodded once, as if in receipt. Then his father got behind the wheel and, with a chorus of goodbyes and arms waving from every window, the car pulled away from the curb.
Bob watched them until they were out of sight.
Go get her.
Three words, but it was like a pep talk from Vince Lombardi.
Go get her.
Bob marched over to the women’s dorm under a full head of steam and asked the dorm monitor to please call Janeka Lattimore and tell her Bob Carson would like to see her. The dorm monitor did this. Janeka would not see him. Bob nodded and marched away.
He marched back the next day, Wednesday. Janeka would not see him.
He marched back on Thursday. Janeka would not see him.
He marched back on Friday. Janeka would not see him.
He marched back on Saturday. Janeka would not see him.
He marched back on Sunday. The dorm monitor listened at the phone for a long moment before returning the receiver to its cradle. She gave Bob a searching look.
“Well?” he said.
“She said she’ll meet you tonight on The Hill at 11:30.”
Bob pumped his fist at the news. He thought the dorm monitor almost smiled.
The Hill was the closest thing the campus had to a make-out spot. It was, as the name suggested, the highest point on campus—in fact, the only high point on campus—a grassy slope at the top of which a 15-foot-tall white granite Christ stood with palms spread in a “come unto me” gesture. During the day, people went up there to read or have lunch or nap in the grass. At night, they went up there to kiss and, well…not much more. It was difficult to think of rounding the bases with a girl when Jesus himself was watching you.
Bob climbed the slope at precisely 11:30. Janeka was already there, sitting in the grass leaning against Jesus. Lights from the walkway below painted the scene in a faint orange glow.
“Hey,” said Bob.
“Hey,” said Janeka.
Bob sat down next to her, careful not to be too close. He didn’t know if closeness was allowed. “Listen,” he said, “I just want to thank you for meeting me.”
She gave a little smile. “You’re persistent. I’ll give you that. You impressed the heck out of Mrs. Hooper.”
“The old lady with the glasses?”
“Gladys Hooper, yeah. I think she was secretly rooting for you.”
“Nice to know I had somebody on my side,” he said.
They were silent together for a long moment. They had The Hill to themselves tonight, which was not surprising. It was New Year’s Eve, after all. Most people had gone home for the holiday or they had found parties to go to, or they were in their dorm lobbies watching Guy Lombardo on television. Faintly, Bob could just make out the sound of a party from somewhere in town. “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees was playing on the stereo.
Janeka’s right hand was on the grass between them. Bob covered it with his own. “I’m so sorry,” he began. “I’d rather die than hurt you. You have to understand that. I guess there’s just things I didn’t know. And the worst part is, I didn’t know I didn’t know them.”
She looked at him, and his heart thumped when he saw she was smiling. “It’s my fault, too,” she said. “I shouldn’t have assumed you would somehow magically understand. I should have taken more time, explained it to you.”
He shot a frustrated breath through his nostrils. “It shouldn’t be this hard,” he said.
“Should be and shouldn’t be have nothing to do with it,” she told him. “You’re white and I’m black and as long as that’s true, it’s going to be hard. We may love each other, we may want the same things and believe the same things, but we’ve come from different worlds and we bring different perspectives and expectations to the table.”
Bob tried to swallow past the golf ball that had lodged in his windpipe. “Does that mean it’s hopeless?” he asked her.
She scooted over, closing the distance between them until their shoulders were touching. “No,” she said, “of course not. But it does mean we’re going to have work at it.”
He thought about this for a moment. “I think we’re worth it,” he told her.
“I think so, too,” she said.
He put an arm around her and they sat quietly for a long time, not speaking and not needing to. The tinny sounds of music still drifted up from the house party in town. Lulu was singing “To Sir With Love.”
Bob looked at his girlfriend. Relief flooded him. He felt a fullness, a rightness, unlike anything he had ever known in his life. “I love you, Janeka,” he said, because it seemed to need saying.
Her eyes were large and tender in the soft light. “I love you too, Bob.”
All at once, from below, there came the sound of whoops and cheers. Car horns blared and there was scattered gunfire.
Bob and Janeka were kissing as 1968 began.
“Would you like an appetizer while you wait for your friend?”
Bob shook off the memory. The lanky server with the long hair was standing above him, placing a basket of warm black bread on the table.
“No,” said Bob. “That’s fine.” He glanced at his watch. It was a little after noon. “She’s late, though.”
“Your wife?”
“A friend,” said Bob.
“Tell me what she looks like and I’ll keep an eye out for her.”
“I have no idea,” said Bob. When the young man gave him a quizzical look, he explained, “I haven’t seen her in 40 years.�
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“Wow,” said the server, impressed.
“Yeah,” said Bob. “‘Wow’ is right. All I can tell you is that she’s about my age. She’s African American.” Pause. “And she’s beautiful.”
Something in his face as he said this made the server grin. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll steer her your way if I see her.”
Bob was embarrassed. He was grateful when the young man—boy, really—walked away. He picked a piece of bread from the basket, thought about butter, thought about cholesterol, decided to eat it dry. Idly, he watched the server bantering with the couple at the next table. So young he was. Probably not yet 25. Probably not even 23. Barely bruised yet. Probably thought that because things were a certain way, they would be that way all his life—because he felt a certain thing now, he would feel that thing always. Too young to understand how life can turn itself inside out and upside down so that all the things you thought you knew, the bedrock upon which you built, could come tumbling out and flying about like the contents of a woman’s upended purse.
And you could learn that you didn’t know nearly what you thought you did.
Kissing Janeka in those first seconds of 1968, he had been absolutely certain they stood at the beginning of something transformative and new. He’d had no way of knowing that they actually stood very near the end.
They threw themselves into their voter registration program, trundling in his car down the back roads of the Delta, walking the black earth of January-dead cotton fields to the tar-paper shacks where shoeless children watched from corners as he and Janeka made the case to wary-eyed parents and grandparents that they should support the formation of a new political party that had their interests at heart.
They listened patiently, the women sometimes bringing their hands up self-consciously to cover gapped teeth when they smiled, the men often flinty and suspicious but not willing to simply turn polite, well-mannered young people away from their door. Especially when one of the young people was white.
Still, it was frustrating work. For every person who agreed to sign a petition of support—an “Agreement for Change,” Janeka titled it—there were five who nodded when the presentation was done and then said they would have to think about it. Which, in practice, meant no. And the two of them would have to trudge on down to the next tar-paper shack and try again.
Grant Park Page 22
