by Han Nolan
"Okay," I said. "I just thought that maybe—"
"Well, don't think. Don't think about it, you hear?"
King-Roy looked so angry that I just swallowed and nodded and didn't say anything, but I was thinking that it still seemed like, to me, that maybe his mother thought King-Roy did kill that man and she was keeping him out in Westchester with us as some kind of protection from the people down south who were after him. That's what I was thinking, but I didn't say anything about it. Instead, I changed the subject, kind of, and said that I was planning on going to the march in Washington DC. "You know, the one for freedom and jobs, on the twenty-eighth?"
I expected maybe King-Roy would yell at me some more, but he laughed. He looked at me and pointed at me and laughed. "That silly march? You go on ahead, Esther. You and maybe a bunch of other white folk's all who's gon' show up at that, and you know why?"
I shook my head.
"'Cause as Malcolm said yesterday, you can't find one hundred nonviolent black people anymore. He said we're at war now. This is a race war, and the whole country is on the verge of breaking into violence. The black man isn't gon' just sit quiet anymore while they get bashed on the head and their women get raped. No, ma'am. As Malcolm said, 'What's good for the goose is good for the gander.' If a white man wants bloodshed, we'll give him bloodshed. So you go on to Washington, Esther, but you'll be the only one standing there. We're not waiting around anymore for no white devils to give us what we've deserved all along. We don't want no integration; we want separation. So you go to that march, but if there's any black people there, you watch out because they're gon' be after your blood."
"I don't believe you," I said, feeling tired of King-Roy's all-the-time negative talk. "You know what? All you ever do is talk about what you hate and what you're against, but this march with lots of Negro leaders coming like Martin Luther King Junior, this march is for something, and I'd rather be for something than against something."
King-Roy crossed his arms. "Oh, I'm for something all right. I'm for the Negro. I'm for segregation. I'm for a race war that lets every blue-eyed devil know that we aren't gon' just lay down and play dead anymore. That's what I'm for."
"Well, your for something sure looks a whole lot like against something to me. Look at you." I pointed my finger at King-Roy. "You can't be for anything with a face like that on. You should see in the mirror what being all full of hate and mean thoughts makes you look like. You've got the face of a monster all of a sudden, or ... or a bull. You look as mean as a bull. And I don't know how acting like a bull is going to get you what you want."
"That's because you're a child and you don't understand anything at all. You're white and you're living out here rattling around in your big old mansion, not knowing what the real world is like out there. You're sitting on high while we Negroes live in ghettos, ten to a room, just so we can pay the high rent that our Mr. White-devil landlords charge us."
"Oh! Yakety-yak, don't talk back!" I yelled at King-Roy in frustration. I couldn't stand any more of his talk.
"What did you say?"
"I said, 'Yakety-yak, don't talk back,' from the song. Don't you know the song?"
King-Roy laughed.
"What?" I stood with my hands on my hips and watched him laugh at me. "What are you laughing at?"
"You," King-Roy said, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Yakety-yak. Esther, you sure know how to make me feel better."
I smiled. "I do?"
"Yeah, you do."
"Then, you can't hate me completely."
King-Roy grabbed his glasses off the bed and put them back on. "I don't hate you at all. I never said I hated you."
"Well, I'm white," I said. "And you hate the blue-eyed white devil."
King-Roy nodded, "Yeah, I do. I sure do." King-Roy paused and stared down at his feet a moment. Then he looked up with almost a smile on his face and said, "It's a good thing you've got brown eyes, then, isn't it?"
I nodded. "Then, we're friends?"
King-Roy sat back down on his bed. "Just as long as you understand, Esther, we can't ever be real friends. We could never know each other as real friends, you know that, don't you?"
I stamped my foot just the way Sophia would do, and I said, "That's only because you won't let us. Of course we can be friends. We were friends until Ax and Yvonne and Malcolm X got hold of you and turned you all around. We are friends, King-Roy, and if you'd actually clean those glasses of yours instead of smudging the grease around on them with your dirty handkerchief, you'd see the truth. You'd see that there are plenty of white people around willing to be your friend. But all you see when you see white is some fireman with a hose in his hands. And I'm not him!" I stamped my foot one more time and made my exit, just like a good dramatic actress would do.
THIRTY-THREE
The next two weeks were full of ups and downs. I enjoyed practicing my tap dancing, but I did it in secret, sometimes out in the pavilion and sometimes in the laundry room, or in my bedroom or the ballroom, depending on where I could get the most privacy. I wore socks instead of my saddle oxfords, so that no one would hear me, and sometimes I got King-Roy to watch me to see if I was doing it right. I also got him to teach me a few more steps that I thought would look impressive to my mother and father, which King-Roy did grudgingly, since he wanted to spend his whole life reading Nation of Islam stuff all of a sudden.
I watched Sophia and Stewart practice their parts after dinner, although most of the time we watched Stewart because Sophia thought she was already perfect and she was tired from working at the theater. I didn't have to take Sophia to the theater anymore after Wednesday and the funeral, which was good for me and bad for Stewart. Since Mother or Dad took Sophia to the theater, Stewart had no chance to take classes anymore, so he just practiced at home. He said he hoped that I was right that once my parents saw how good he was they'd approve of him taking lessons. I hoped I was right, too.
The funeral for Madeline was the saddest funeral in the whole world. It was much sadder than my grandparents' funerals. I cried and cried just thinking about how we were all there only because Mother made us come and not because we wanted to be there. And I cried because I wasn't sad she was dead. Well, I was sad, but not because I was going to miss her. That was it. I cried because I didn't miss her and I never would, and neither would anyone else standing around her casket except Mother.
On the way home from the funeral, I asked Mother why Madeline didn't have more friends, and Mother said, "She's always been a strange bird. She never really fit in anywhere. She was just a strange bird."
I poked my head up to look at myself in the rearview mirror, and I thought I saw a strange bird staring back at me.
My father caught my eyes in the mirror and said, "Esther, get your fat head out of the way, I can't see behind me," which was the way Dad always talked to everybody, and I never usually took offence. I knew I didn't really have a fat head, but that day I felt just like a goon. I felt like a big long-necked, fatheaded ostrich goon plopped down in the middle of a family of lovely swans.
As we approached the entrance to our driveway, I looked across the street at Pip's house the way I always did, and I saw him out in the yard. I had called his house the week before, but his mother had said Pip was staying on in the Catskills a while longer. I rolled down my window and yelled out to him, but then Mother yelled at me to get my head back in the window before it got knocked off by the entrance gate, and anyway, Pip didn't even turn around and wave, so I pulled my head back in.
I asked my father if he would let me out so I could run over to Pip's to talk to him, and after Mother warned me not to scuff up my good shoes or tear my dress, they let me go.
I ran as fast as I could, calling to Pip as I ran, and finally he turned around and saw me, and all he did was kind of nod in my direction. That slowed me down. I walked the rest of the way over to where he stood leaning against his favorite climbing tree, which faced my favorite climbing tree, which was why they were
our favorites. When I caught up to him, I hugged him and said, "I'm so glad you're back. How was your vacation? Did you have fun?"
Pip didn't hug me back. He gave me this careful kind of look as if checking me out, and he said, "Yeah, my vacation was fantastic. I don't know when I've ever had a better time in my life."
"Well, that's great. I sure missed you," I said.
"I bet you did," Pip replied, walking away from me toward his house.
"Hey, Pip," I said, trotting after him. "I did. I did miss you. What you saw in the ballroom that day was—"
Pip whirled around and said, while walking backward, "I'm in love with Randy, Esther. You may as well know. We're going steady."
"Going steady? You said you'd never do that. You're too young to go steady. What do you mean you're going steady? Have you kissed her?"
Pip didn't answer my questions. Instead he stopped walking and said, "And I'm going to the Hackley School in the fall."
"The Hackley School! That's all the way away in Tarrytown! That's a private school. You don't like private schools. And it's a boys' school. How can I go with you if it's a boys' school?"
"You can't. I'm going alone."
"But we said we'd always stay together. We were even going to go to the same college, remember? Hackley boys go to Harvard. You said you didn't want to go to Harvard. You said you didn't want to go to an Ivy League college."
I didn't know what to think. I didn't recognize the Pip in front of me at all. He looked the same, only taller and tanner than I usually thought of him as looking, but he sure wasn't acting like Pip.
"It's like your whole self has changed, Pip. Like you don't value the same things you used to value. Private schools and Harvard, and what will you do; will you board there? Will you stay at Hackley all the time and only come home on weekends, or will your parents drive you there every morning? Pip, how could you do this?"
Pip shrugged and said, "Things change, Esther." Then he turned around and walked again toward his house.
"I know!" I yelled, following behind him. "I know things change! Everybody changes! The whole world is changing! I know it, okay? Remember? I know it. And I'm getting left behind. I can't go to Hackley. If you all of a sudden have to go to a private school, at least pick one that I can go to, too, Pip."
"What for?" Pip said, his voice cold.
I stopped walking. "Pip!"
Pip turned around and said, "You've changed, too, Esther. You're not being left behind. You're just going in another direction. We both are."
"What? No, I'm not. I'm not going in any direction. I want to go with you. Pip, I want to go with you."
Pip shrugged again. "Well, you can't, and I don't want you to, anyway." He turned and walked up the steps to his house with his hands dug deep into his safari shorts.
I called after him. "Why are you so mad at me? What have I done? That time in the ballroom with King-Roy, I was just comforting him. His sister had died, Pip. I was just comforting him."
While I was explaining all this, Pip opened the door of his house and stepped inside and let the screen door slam behind him so that my last words, "I was just comforting him," I said to myself.
I called after him, "Pip!" I ran up the steps and opened the screen door and yelled into the foyer, "Oh yeah, well we're moving to California, anyway, in case you didn't know. Just in case you didn't know."
Pip's father, Dr. Masters, stuck his head out of the living room and glowered at me. "Esther, we're in the middle of a meeting here."
"Sorry," I said. I backed away, holding the screen door so that it didn't slam after I had backed through it. Once I made it back out onto the porch, I turned around and ran home, and while I ran I wondered, if I was being the change I wished to see in the world, why did I keep seeing changes I didn't wish to see?
THIRTY-FOUR
I was so upset by Pip's news that I had forgotten to invite him to our show. I wanted him to see me tap dance. Maybe he would like me again if he saw me dance and he thought I was good. I wanted Laura and Kathy to see me, too. I wanted to impress them, but I knew they wouldn't be home until the thirty-first of August.
I called Pip's house the next day, knowing Pip wouldn't come to the phone unless it was for him. I didn't want to speak to him until after he had seen me dance, so I just asked his mother to tell Pip that he was invited to our show on Saturday the twenty-fourth.
By the end of the week, I got a letter from King-Roy's momma and so did King-Roy and so did my mother.
I opened my letter and my twenty-dollar bill fell out. I knew that meant that she wasn't coming, and I flopped down at the kitchen table and thought how everything was going wrong in my life. Then I heard both King-Roy and Mother calling to me, and I yelled out that I was in the kitchen. Mother and King-Roy both reached the pantry door entrance at the same time and tried to fit through the doorway together, so that for a moment they got stuck. But then King-Roy backed up and let Mother go first. King-Roy almost shoved her through, though, to get at me and have his say. Both of them held their letters from Mrs. Johnson in their hands, and they were both talking, or, I should say, yelling at me at the same time.
As far as I could make out, this is what they said.
KING-ROY: Esther, Momma says that you invited her to the March in Washington.
MOTHER: Esther, Luray says that you invited her to that march in Washington.
KING-ROY: How could you do that without asking me first?
MOTHER: How could you do that without asking my permission?
KING-ROY: DO you realize what you've done? She's coming and she expects me to be there, too.
MOTHER: Somehow she got the notion that we are all going to be there. (Mother held up the letter and shook it at me) You told her we were going to be there, and now my hands are tied. She's already made the arrangements.
KING-ROY: (He shook his letter at me) She's already made the arrangements. She's got her tickets for the whole family. Everyone is coming, so now my hands are tied. I have to be there. I could be disqualified or excommunicated from the Nation for this.
MOTHER: Now we have to be there. Esther, I am fit to be tied, I'm so angry with you. The very notion! Wait till your father gets home!
KING-ROY: I'm fit to be tied I'm so angry with you. The very idea! Wait till Ax hears about this!
Both of them waved their letters in my face some more and yelled at me till their veins popped out in their necks, and then both of them left, trying to push back through the door of the pantry at the same time again. I watched them struggle together, neither one backing down, so that they burst through into the pantry at the same time and stumbled over one another and fell onto the floor, with Mother in her pretty pink shift, and King-Roy losing his glasses in the fall.
They looked like a comedy routine, but I didn't laugh. I watched them collect themselves and leave, and then I picked up my letter. I read that Mrs. Johnson had been planning to come all along. Their whole church was coming, and they had buses that would bring them, so she didn't need my money, but it was very thoughtful of me, she said. She also said that she looked forward to meeting me and seeing my mother after so many years. "It's been a long time, but at last your mother and I will be able to walk hand in hand again, just like we used to when we were little. Just as it says in the song, 'We'll walk hand in hand, someday.'"
I decided once King-Roy and Mother had cooled down a little bit, they'd be excited to be going, since King-Roy would get to see his family again and Mother would get to see her old best friend. And then I realized that we were going; we were actually going to the march! My plan—my great idea—had worked. Maybe at least one thing would turn out right.
THIRTY-FIVE
Excitement was in the air. We had our performance coming up and then our trip to Washington DC. We planned to take two cars to the march—the 1947 Ford Super Deluxe station wagon, which King-Roy had fixed so that it ran forward again, and the new Plymouth Fury. Mother told me I would have to help her prepare th
e picnic baskets so that we'd have food and something to drink while we were in Washington, and I was to gather up umbrellas and raincoats and sweaters in case it was cool out or it rained. Then we had to go into town to buy sunglasses for me, in case it was sunny, and comfortable walking shoes for Mother, Sophia, and Beatrice. Mother and Beatrice didn't own anything comfortable enough to be on their feet in the heat or rain all day, and Sophia had outgrown her Keds. I had pointed out to Mother that my Keds had big holes in the toes, so I thought I should get a new pair, too, in navy this time, and Mother said, "If I bought you new sneakers every time you poked holes through the toes, I'd have to buy a new pair every week. You'll get new Keds when you grow out of the old ones."
I tried explaining to Mother that my feet had stopped growing years ago, but she wasn't interested. I could get sunglasses and that was all.
I didn't feel too bad, since the whole trip to Washington—my great idea—had become a big production, and even Dad and Monsieur Vichy had grown excited about it. They were going as observers, they said. Dad got his camera ready, and Monsieur Vichy bought a new notebook so that he could take notes.
King-Roy had become nervous because Malcolm X had announced that anyone who chose to go to the march would be asked to leave the mosque, which is where the Muslims prayed and gathered together. Malcolm X said he would give them ninety days to get out.
"I only just got in, and look what you've done to me, Esther," King-Roy said. "Look how you've messed things up for me."
"But don't you want to see your family?" I asked.
"Course I do. That's why it's such a mess. And don't think this is all gon' go well, either. There'll be riots and beatings, and then how will you feel, Esther? How's it gon' be when you realize you risked my life and maybe your own family's life just so you could be the change, as you keep saying. You'll be the change all right. You'll be the change from safe to dangerous, or maybe to deadly. Now you think about that. There could be hundreds of angry people at this march, Esther. You don't know what that's like. You don't know what could happen."
