“Andy swears he’s gonna get you next time.”
“Yeah, he frightens me.”
“Look, we better hurry and get this car thing over with. Andy is suspicious that you drove away in my car. I told him no—it’s a coincidence that it looked like mine. But I need to make sure he sees me driving my car.”
“Whatever you say.” I whispered a prayer that Andy hadn’t called the police.
“Why don’t you drop it off in front of Double Deck Ice Cream. Nobody would give it a second thought if we were there at the same time.”
“May I ask you a question?
“Shoot.”
“Why did you do it?” My curiosity was killing me. I had to ask.
“Because he was real serious about killing you. Don’t take his threats lightly! He means it! Hey, gotta go—be there in a half an hour.”
We couldn’t risk asking a neighbor’s help, so even though I didn’t have a license, I had to drive Link’s car downtown. I wondered what he must be like. The inside of the car was what Conrad called “cherry”—clean and polished as if he’d washed it twice a week. The record albums on the backseat were the same ones I might have chosen . . . Johnny Mathis, Sam Cooke, Elvis, and Pat Boone. Who was Link, anyhow? Suddenly I felt frightened. Maybe he was a member of the Klan—maybe they were waiting with him for me to bring this car back, and they were gonna grab me. I concentrated on my driving to get rid of those thoughts.
I pulled up in front of Double Deck Ice Cream. Mama was right behind me. I looked all around to make certain there were no Central students who might recognize me. I parked Link’s car at the curb, a little ways down from the front entryway. Leaving the keys beneath the floor mat on the driver’s side, I walked back to our car. I couldn’t resist taking a quick look around to see if I could spot Link. If he was there I couldn’t see him. I climbed into the passenger’s side of our car, and we were safely on our way home.
The next day when I saw Andy, he was walking past Mrs. Huckaby’s office. There were two other teachers standing nearby, so although he growled at me, threatening that he would get me before the day was over, he kept walking.
Each time I passed Link in the hallway, he winked at me. It was the one kind gesture in a morning filled with hellish activity. In the days that followed, every time I saw Link, he acknowledged me in some way. His wink or pleasant expression sometimes came just at the moment I needed to know I was alive and valuable. Otherwise, my days seemed to end with awful diary entries.
March 11
Today we had a film in gym.
Shorthand class got very rough because my favorite teacher was gone. A boy entered the classroom to deliver a package. He began making a speech: “You’all mean you’re gonna let that there nigger sit there peaceful like that.”
March 14
Typing class is horrible. One girl tells me every day in a loud voice, “I don’t believe in race mixin’, especially with niggers.”
March 15
Maybe the weeks following in which we have a little free time will help me feel better. I must have time to figure out why life is like this for me.
March 18
Today, Tuesday, was my worst day in a long time. Ernie and I always leave the cafeteria together. Today he wasn’t there so I had to go alone. The crowds on the stairs called names—“Nigger—spick—Indian.” My knees shook so bad I thought I’d fall over. I had no choice but to walk up the stairs and through the thick of them.
March 22
Went with Mom to the cleaners again today. The clerks are beginning to be very mean to us. We must stop going there immediately. They stare and talk too loud to us and attempt to make us appear silly. It’s enough that I go through that at Central, why should I have to endure it at the cleaners.
March 23
The AME churches gave the eight of us white Bibles with our names engraved on them during afternoon services. It made me feel like my people are supporting me.
An article in the Gazette said that in a letter to Army Secretary Brucker, Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, said there had been forty-two reported incidents of harassment of us from October to February. Of course, we knew that the number of incidents reported paled in comparison to what we really experienced as we walked the halls of Central High. These days hostility was more often than not expressed through physical rather than verbal punishment. I had begun wondering once again whether or not we would make it through the year. Urgent calls to the President were not bringing about any change.
Then one night as I sat studying, Link called. Mother handed me the receiver with a questioning look.
“Don’t sit in your regular assigned seat for your first class tomorrow,” he told me. “Take the seat nearest the window. I know you like to sit in the back of the third row so you can protect your back. But do as I say, just this one time.”
“How do you know where I usually sit?”
“Never mind, just do what I tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because the segregationists have got real plans for you. You’re definitely their new target because you’re tall, you’re pretty, you’re uppity, not meek—the way they think your people should be—besides, you hung around with Minnijean.”
“What do you mean, uppity?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Why are you warning me? What do you care?”
“I don’t know. I gotta go—my dad’s coming,” he whispered. “Don’t forget what I said.” He slammed down the phone abruptly. I sat for a moment thinking about our conversation. I wondered why a white boy would take such risks.
The next day as I entered the classroom, I noticed something was different. The boys and girls who had earlier set my books afire, thrown spitballs, dumped water on my head, and called me names were all sitting in the usually empty seats surrounding my assigned seat. I paused for a moment, and then my instincts told me to do as Link had said. I crossed the room to the opposite side and took a seat in the front row.
“Put the nigger back in her cage . . . make her take her regular seat,” one boy shouted.
The teacher looked up at me for a moment, then looked back at the boy voicing the complaint. All along, she had shown she was not someone I could count on for any protection. She remained passive when students threw things at me or dumped water on my head.
“Melba, take your regular seat,” she demanded.
“Yes, ma’am.” I stood obediently and walked toward my seat. What else could I do? To defy her order directly would be to risk expulsion. I got past the hurdles of feet stuck in the aisle to trip me. As I approached my seat, I could see there was something on it. Peanut butter . . . a two-inch-thick layer of peanut butter with shiny objects that looked like broken glass laced through it. How could Link have known about this plan ahead of time? He must be a part of their group.
I moved back toward the seat I’d originally chosen. “There’s something on my seat,” I told the teacher.
“Take it off,” she replied.
“Oh, I think I’ll let somebody else do that,” I said, as the group surrounding the peanut butter seat snickered. I slid back into my new seat by the window even before she could respond.
“Why’s the nigger special . . . why doesn’t she have to obey orders?”
I raised my hand. The teacher acknowledged it. “Why are they special?” I asked. “Why are they allowed to be out of their seats today? It’s musical chairs.” I looked her in the eye with an expression that telegraphed a message I hoped she’d understand. I wasn’t about to move again.
As class ended, members of the hecklers’ group sitting around the peanut butter seat were all whispering to each other. I was curious about how they planned to clean up the mess before the next class. When the bell rang, I stood, collected my books, and calmly walked out of the room. Chalk one up to Link, I thought to myself.
En route to lunch, as I approached my locker, I noticed the door was open; someone had hammered
the lock and dumped out my books. I had to go to Mrs. Huckaby’s office to report the incident. I would need new books for afternoon class, and I would miss being with my friends for the full lunch period.
I walked into the cafeteria, after reporting my loss to Mrs. Huckaby and getting new books, to find that my friends had already left. I wondered why they had left early. Could it be that they had gone to look for me? As I settled down in my seat and began to unwrap the sandwich Grandma had made for me, I noticed a group of boys moving in close to me, much closer than usual. There had always been a wide path of empty chairs immediately surrounding our eating area because other students shunned us during the lunch period.
Maybe they felt free to harass me so openly because this was one of those days when school officials were experimenting—seeing whether or not we could survive without uniformed federalized troops or school officials posted where everyone could see them. There were no guards in the halls when we changed classes, no guards just outside the cafeteria doors, within shouting distance, as they often were. There were no officials pacing the floor or hugging the walls observing what was going on.
I began to get nervous. I could tell it was no accident that I was being surrounded by the group of sideburners who appeared to have mischievous plans for me. Were they gathering to block my way, to taunt me in front of all the others? In order to get out of the cafeteria I would have to trudge through whatever barriers they erected: I would be in the same position Minnijean had been in.
My palms were perspiring, my heart racing. Was there no way out? Just before the bell rang to end the period, a second group of about five of the same sort of boys entered the cafeteria and moved directly to a spot I was eyeing as a possible escape route. Now I was completely surrounded. The hostile gang glared and hissed at me. It was beginning.
As I looked around, suddenly I saw him. There was Link, seated among my attackers, laughing, joking with them, behaving as though he were a regular member of the group.
I studied him, waiting for his eyes to catch mine, and when they did, he looked down quickly. It both frightened and saddened me to see Link among those hoodlums. I stared at him in disbelief and anger. Had he pretended to be a nice person when he was just one of them? I struggled to regain my composure. As usual, I was seated near the main entryway, with my back as near to the wall as I could get so that my rear would be protected; but with those boys becoming more vocally hostile every moment, and the guards absent, my safe seat seemed to be a trap. I looked off into the distance, where some of my people were serving food from behind the counter. There was no way any of them could help me.
There must have been a thousand or so students in that huge room. It was near the beginning of the second lunch period, a time when the cafeteria was most crowded. Even above the ear-shattering levels of conversation that blended into a hodgepodge of unsettling noise, I could hear my attackers’ comments shouted at me.
Over and over again they were saying how they were going to come and get me, and what they would do with me. I was trying to ignore them, concentrating instead on a plan for my escape, when a milk carton came flying at me, hitting me on the forehead. It was followed by something that pierced my cheek. It took a moment to realize one of the boys had a bean shooter. I flinched, but braced myself so I would not show a reaction, even though the prick was painful.
I had to look straight at the group in order to keep tabs on them. I looked directly at Link sitting there as big as you please, a part of their group. Lending me his car must have been part of a master plan, I decided.
I ducked down quickly to avoid a hard white object that came whizzing through the air. I narrowly averted the missile, and when I reached to examine it, I found a golf ball wrapped in paper. Remembering my discussion with Grandma about playing mind games, I examined it as if it were a precious treasure. I smiled and gushed, loud enough for those sitting closest to me to hear. “It’s just beautiful, thank you. It’s just what I need.”
My hecklers began mumbling among themselves. They were far enough away that I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, but I watched the puzzled expressions on their faces. They looked at me as if I had lost my mind. I glanced at Link to see his reaction. It was hard to read. I had to stop wondering about Link and figure out what to do. “Don’t do anything,” the voice in my head kept repeating.
I reached into my satchel and pulled out the book on Gandhi that Grandma had given me, along with some blank sheets of notebook paper, and pretended I was studying. I decided I would make my attackers believe I was settling in for a long study session. After all, my next class was study hall, and if I cut it, I wouldn’t be missing anything important.
Recently school officials had issued a warning about students who initiated attacks. The penalty was suspension. I suspected that as long as I remained in my seat, no one was going to walk over and dump soup on my head or attack me. With all those other students seated close enough to watch what was going on, my attackers would want it to appear that I made the first move, forcing them to retaliate.
When the bell rang, the room became even more noisy with people shoving chairs, finding their books, and rushing toward the exit. I desperately wanted to get out of there, but I knew full well I couldn’t move or the group would start a fight and set me up for expulsion, for sure. Word was they had psychological experts training them in ways of forcing us to respond.
I was willing to sit in that spot until the end of time rather than risk a fight. I was already wearing Band-Aids on my heels from the heel-walkers the day before, and I was sore up and down the backs of my legs from being kicked. I felt I couldn’t take anymore. I knew I couldn’t help but fight back against the next person who attacked me.
I pretended to become intensely involved in my book. I was reading about Mr. Gandhi’s prison experience and how he quieted his fears and directed his thoughts so that his enemies were never really in charge of him.
All at once I was aware that one of my hecklers was coming toward me.
“Niggers are stupid, they gotta study real hard, don’t they?” he said in a loud voice.
“Thanks for the compliment,” I said, looking at him with the pleasantest expression I could muster so he would believe I wasn’t annoyed.
“Study hard now, nigger bitch, but you gotta leave this place sometime, and then we got you.”
“Thank you,” I said again, a mask of fake cheer on my face. He seemed astonished as he slowly started to back away.
I felt myself smiling inside. As Grandma India said, turning the other cheek could be difficult, but for me, it was also beginning to be a lot of fun. Somehow I had won a round in a bizarre mental contest.
My heart slowed its rapid beating, and my hands stopped shaking. I felt safer, even comfortable, as something inside me settled to its center. I had a powerful feeling of being in charge. I was no longer allowing hecklers’ behavior to frighten me into acting a certain way. For that moment, I was the one making decisions about how I would behave. A little choir of voices in my head was singing, “Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!”
The second bell rang for the beginning of the next period; by that time students were expected to be settled into their seats. I saw Link beckon the hecklers into a huddle. From the expressions on their faces, I could tell there was serious conversation about what to do next. All at once, the group, led by Link, made their way to the door.
“Hey, I’m not gonna stay in detention hall every morning for a week just for a little nigger-beating pleasure,” I heard Link say as he passed close by me. I heard them arguing with each other, heard some of them agree that it would be worth it if they could get me once and for all. But I heard Link’s voice as he said it was better to leave now and he’d help them get me later for sure.
25
“I DID it,” I shouted with excitement as I raced in the front door where Grandma was standing in her usual place to welcome me home after school.
“Did what?�
� she asked.
“I tried to do some of the things Gandhi talks about—you know, keeping calm in your own mind no matter what’s going on outside.”
“Phone’s for you, Melba,” Conrad yelled from the hallway. I hoped it would be someone I could share my victory with, maybe Vince, but it was Link. I slammed the receiver down. Right away the phone started to ring again. I picked up and said, “Don’t bother to call again!” I slammed the receiver down once more. Again it rang and rang. Grandma walked into the hallway and eyed me suspiciously. I picked up the receiver for fear of having to explain to her.
“Five minutes, that’s all I ask!” Link said. “I saved your skin. At least you owe me a chance to explain.”
“Absolutely not—” I said, but he cut me off before I could finish.
“I didn’t want to be there, but I heard they were gonna do something big to you in the cafeteria. So I thought if I was there I could do something to help you.”
Warriors Don't Cry Page 28
