by Kim Reid
I’d long ago let go of the silly idea of a hooded Klansmen coming down from Stone Mountain, or driving in from Douglas County and going unnoticed cruising through all-black neighborhoods picking kids off, but I still believed it was a Klansman. The quiet type who didn’t wear his affiliation where you could see it. The dangerous kind no one paid much attention to when he drove utility trucks into black neighborhoods, delivered mail, painted project apartments. I suspected the smarter breed of racists, the closet-racists I later learned to detect as an adult, those who worked next to me every day, smiling and asking about my weekend, all the while wishing I worked somewhere else.
*
One day after school I was waiting at the bus stop wondering if the creek that bordered the school was going to flood its banks again and turn the soccer field into a marsh, which always happened after a good rain. A man drove past slowly, looking at me hard as if he knew me, but we both knew he didn’t. He was white and not one of the teachers from school, so I knew we didn’t know each other. But I wasn’t afraid of him or the way he slowed when he drove past me, not the way I was afraid of the black man on my street who’d done the same slow drive-by. For one thing, the man on my street didn’t scare me until he came back around again, because I thought he was just making some play on the first pass, the way men do when they call to a girl from passing cars: What’s up, shorty? or Hey, slim. And in the moment I saw that man’s car crest the hill to make the second pass, I thought of the killer and how his victims didn’t live so far from me.
But the killer didn’t come out to this part of town; it was far away from his hunting ground. If the killer was black, he’d be an easy mark around here. And if he was white, he’d know that black kids who needed to hustle for the day’s dinner and were willing to get into a stranger’s car were scarce in Ashford-Dunwoody. I knew right off that this man was watching me because he wondered what I was doing in his neighborhood where the only black folks were gardeners and twice-a-week maids. I knew he’d move on once he took in my uniform and realized I was no menace, just buying a piece of his world for eight hours of the day. He’d notice that I was standing at the bus stop on the side of the street that took me away from his neighborhood and not further in. Then he’d speed up and drive on. And I was right, because that’s just what he did.
*
In late January, Ma told me that the Task Force was going to be doing surveillance of certain shopping centers around Atlanta, looking for cars driven by black men with black boys riding with them, or being picked up by them.
“I thought the killer was a white man. What about the white man who claimed he killed that boy in Rockdale County?” I asked. Had my guard been up against the wrong people all this time?
“That didn’t turn up anything concrete, but we’re still looking into it. We have enough witnesses who last saw the boys alive in the company of a young black man.”
“Can you believe these witnesses?”
“Right now, it’s all we’ve got.”
The shopping centers to be watched were places where some of the boys had disappeared from, or visited, or tried to make a little money at, or had been found dead. There were several victims who fit into one of these categories, and just as many shopping centers. These were run-down strip malls with vendors providing services and selling products that the people in the neighborhood needed: grocery stores that took food stamps and WIC coupons; beauty supplies so a relaxer and manicure could be done on the cheap in the kitchen instead of the beauty salon; payday check cashing and money orders, both of which lessened the sting from the difficulty of opening a checking account when you never had enough for the minimum required deposit, or because the only jobs you could get didn’t last long enough to create an employment history. Ma told me the place on Moreland Avenue where I bought my hair supplies was on the list, and now I couldn’t go anymore unless she was with me. I knew that meant I’d never be going to any of the places on the list because Ma and I hardly went anywhere together anymore. It seemed she never had time.
On top of watching boys in front of shopping centers, the Task Force enlisted the help of boys who fit the victim profile, using them as decoys at the shopping centers in an attempt to catch the killer while surveillance officers sat in cars watching the boys just a few feet away. This stirred up all kinds of controversy among citizens and police alike and so didn’t last very long. The mayor also made the curfew from the previous fall permanent on the first day of February. He may have had good intentions, but in the few months the curfew had been in place, it still hadn’t stopped the killer. Five more children had either been killed or abducted. We kids figured it didn’t matter whether we were off the streets by dark or not. If the killer really wanted to get us, the curfew wasn’t going to stop him, even in broad daylight.
Chapter Twenty-one
Even though the list of things I hated about my school seemed to grow daily, I couldn’t deny there were some things about it I’d come to like, things I’d never experienced if I’d gone to school in my neighborhood. They were small things, but still changed some of my perceptions: an appreciation of music I’d never bothered to listen to because it was supposed to hold no interest for me, the realization that rich white people had problems too, although they didn’t always look like mine.
Some of this discovery frightened me, made me wonder if I hadn’t crossed over as some friends had suggested I might. As a direct result of going to the school in the suburbs—at least this is what I blamed it on because I could find no other reason that made any sense—I found myself with a crush on a white boy. When I started going to the school, Ma would say in a teasing way that made it clear she wasn’t playing around, Don’t come home with a white boy. There’s nothing but trouble and heartache in that. I was told by older women in my family that white men were blue-eyed devils, and didn’t mean me anything but harm in the end, no matter what sweet things they said. As a young girl, I didn’t pick up on the conviction they used in giving me this advice, a nuance I later decided must have come from some first-hand experience, some first-hand hurt. Ma warned me about the white boys’ underhanded ways, collectively, even though we’d once had a white woman as a roommate before Ma was a cop, a friend of my aunt’s who needed a place to stay for a few months and ended up becoming Ma’s friend, too. When I reminded her of this, Ma said that was different—she was a woman.
That must explain why I played it safe and had my first crush on a white boy I had no chance of ever meeting, although I gave it a good try. The guinea pig for my cross-cultural adventure was Jimmy Baio from Soap, a TV show I loved, which I also blamed on the influence of my white friends. Before knowing them, I’d never have considered watching a TV show about rich white people with a black butler and ridiculous problems that black folks didn’t have time for because we were busy just trying to get by. But I gave Soap a try because even though Good Times was one of my favorite shows (finally, a show about us, I thought when it first aired), I had to admit if only to myself that sometimes it was just depressing. Sometimes it’s enough knowing in real life that your family is just one paycheck between having a warm bed, lights on, phone working, and food on the table and not having those things. Sometimes it’s too much watching another family going through the same worry on TV.
I’d read that Jimmy Baio was staying in a hotel downtown. Sitting in my health class, I imagined him inviting me to dinner in a fancy restaurant that Ma could never afford. My fantasy had me pointing out which buildings made up the Atlanta skyline since I knew downtown like it was my second neighborhood. He’d take me up on my offer to show him the city the next day. He’d be happy to join me in my first-time skipping of school. He’d help me explain it all to Ma when the school called to say I’d cut class. I’d ask him if I was his first black girlfriend.
I made up some illness to get me out of my last two classes, and took an earlier bus downtown. My plan was to stake out the hotel lobby and wait for him to walk by. What I’d do then
I wasn’t sure. When I visited the hotel that time with Ma, I didn’t feel out of place. I never felt out of place anywhere with Ma because she could make it seem like we owned wherever we were, were born simply to be there, no matter how inhospitable. Walking around the hotel lobby alone, I felt like I was being watched. What’s she doing here?, I imagined the front desk clerks wondering. When I walked past the concierge desk, I was glad I’d learned the word in my French class, in the chapter where the American girl takes a trip to Paris. Speaking a little French made me feel less like an intruder.
When I finally settled on a leather sofa with a view of both the front doors and the elevators, I made a big production of taking off my coat. I wanted the concierge and the front desk clerks to see my plaid, private-school skirt. I hoped the distance blurred the cheapness of my jacket, but gave them a good view of the fancy crest on the pocket. Yes, I was a fifteen-year-old black girl sitting in a fancy hotel lobby where the only other black folks I saw were opening the front doors and pushing luggage around on carts, but I belonged here. See my uniform? Here is the proof that for at least eight hours a day, we travel in the same circle.
I studied the elevator doors, not only looking for Jimmy Baio but also hoping it would provide an explanation for my presence, that I was waiting to meet a friend, someone with no concept of time and who was willing to make me wait for hours. Each time the doors opened, I hoped I appeared expectant to the hotel staff, because I was. There was a shift change during my wait, for which I was grateful. For all the second shift knew, I’d arrived in the lobby just minutes before they had.
To pass the time during my elevator watch, I imagined what my life would be like with Jimmy Baio. When we went to fancy places like this, no one would question whether I belonged. Shopping trips to Lenox Square would end with me buying more than a pair of socks. When he introduced me to his parents, they’d say “Oh Jimmy, she’s so articulate,” and I’d have to pretend I took it as a compliment and not an insult. In time, I’d get used to the incongruity of pale white skin against warm brown when we held hands. But I wouldn’t have to worry about him being caught by the killer.
At school, I’d become instantly popular. The whole time the other popular kids smiled in my face, they’d be asking themselves why Jimmy Baio chose me. The girls would toss their corn silk hair and smile at him, then at me, and wonder what he saw in me with my kinky hair. Some of the racist kids would probably be thinking nigger-lover while asking him for his autograph. When he left my side to talk to a group of boys (only briefly because he couldn’t stand to be away from me for too long), one might ask him what it’s like to be with a black girl, because they’d heard how easy we were, how wild in bed, and is it true? The minute Jimmy told me that it wasn’t going to work out, him living in Hollywood and me in Atlanta, the popular kids would forget about me. I’d go back to being part of the group no one invited to parties, and I’d be even more of a mystery to them than before.
At home, people would change the way they talked around Jimmy and me. They’d start talking “proper English” the way some blacks folks will do instinctively around white people because they already think we’re illiterate, and why give them any more reason? I’d have to stop calling Keds tennis shoes “White Girls,” which is what all my friends called them even though we wore them, too. At Thanksgiving dinner, I’d have to explain to him that chitlins are pig intestines, but they’re so tasty, especially when sprinkled with a little hot sauce. When some crazy news story came on TV about people in England jumping off bridges while attached to a bungee cord, or a parachute failing to open when someone jumped from an airplane, we’d have to stop saying, “Only white people.”
Because they didn’t watch Soap, I’d have to tell my friends who Jimmy was, that he was a celebrity. They wouldn’t be impressed until I explained he was the cousin of the boy who played Chachi on Happy Days; even then, only mildly so. I imagined trying to join a pickup basketball game with Jimmy in tow. To be polite, David, my friend with the basketball hoop in his yard, might choose him for his team, but would wonder what I was doing with a white boy. Since I was going to that fancy private school, was I no longer interested in black boys? One of my girlfriends would ask me how rich he was. He must be rich, or why else bother with him? Another would ask what we talk about: “Do you have anything in common?” Cassandra would say, “I knew this was going to happen.” Ma would say, “Nothing but trouble in that.”
I hung out in that lobby for hours, not noticing I’d missed the last bus from downtown to my house. When I finally gave up on ever meeting Jimmy Baio, it was dark, cold, and I didn’t have cab fare. I probably never even considered a cab then, having never been in one and certain I’d never seen one go down my street. All I could think to do was run like crazy to the Task Force and hope Ma was working late like always. The nine or ten blocks gave me time to make up some lie about why I missed my bus. I don’t much remember the lie or Ma’s reaction, or even the disappointment of missing Jimmy Baio. Even though it was just a fantasy, I realized dating him would have been too much work. Trying to manage him within my two worlds likely would have brought nothing but trouble and misery, just as I’d been warned.
Most things about my home life I didn’t share with school friends, including the dead boy found on my street, even though dreams of him still kept me up an hour or more each night. I wasn’t proud of the reason I’d never told, but it didn’t keep me from thinking it just the same. Though I never expected it to really happen, I always left open the possibility that I’d one day introduce my school friends to my other life, when I got to know them well enough to bring my two lives together, if only for a short time. But I knew that they’d never leave the comfort of the suburbs to come hang out with me on a street where nine-year-old boys were dropped over bridge railings like nothing, even if I was dating Jimmy Baio.
*
When I told my friends at work I wasn’t going to a historically black college because the business world was white and there was no sense in putting off that fact for four years, they said I’d turned. I never believed this for a second, but just being suspected of it hurt. First, my friends made comments about how my speech had changed, how I “talked white.” No, I talk right, was my response and all the rational conversation I had with myself about it didn’t keep what they said from hurting. Now my goals were being questioned, the future I’d planned for myself didn’t sit right with the folks who, at the end of the day, were the people I came home to.
This is what I was thinking about while I sat in a lit class taught by a man I had some sort of perverse attraction to even though I was certain he was a racist. Maybe it wasn’t so much an attraction as a mission to make him see his ignorance, that whatever grievance he had against me was misplaced. I worked on being an attentive student, tried to get the best grades, as if I had to prove something to him. Now he was talking about significant American writers and poets. Suddenly I didn’t appreciate the fact that he didn’t include a single black writer on the list—no mention of Baldwin, Wright, or Hurston, writers I’d learned about at my old school. As usual, we were insignificant at this school, and whatever it was I thought attractive about him had faded away. Right in the middle of his sentence, I stuck my arm in the air and began talking before he could acknowledge me.
“Don’t you think we should include some black writers in the discussion? They made a lot of contributions to American literature.” Even I wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from because it surely wasn’t something I’d say, definitely not in the middle of a classroom where mine was the only dark face.
“Say what?” I wasn’t sure if he hadn’t heard what I’d said or if he’d heard but like me, didn’t believe I’d said it right in the middle of his lecture.
“I was just thinking we should cover more than just the white writers. Maybe we should cover Richard Wright or Langston Hughes.” I was saying the words, but with each syllable, I could feel my resolve leaving me, though I never knew
where it had come from in the first place. I looked around at the class for the first time and saw that they were looking at me the same way they did that first day I arrived on campus to buy my books. Where did she come from? It was clear that no one in the room wanted to discuss black writers any more than the teacher did, and that before my little episode, they’d been counting the minutes before they were released from the last class of the day. And as strange as my behavior was, it still didn’t hold more interest than whatever plans they had for Friday night and the weekend beyond.
When the bell rang, they all rushed from the room, leaving me there staring at the teacher. I still wasn’t sure why I hadn’t followed the herd, but I guessed it could be the voices of my friends from work still playing in my head. That’s some fucked-up thinking.
“Don’t you have another class to get to, Kim?” He’d dismissed me long before the bell had rung, long before the class had even started. Dismissed me and all the people and effort that helped me to reach that moment in his classroom.
“All I was suggesting is that maybe we can include all the significant writers. They’re a part of American lit too.”
“I teach the class according to the lesson plans, not the students’ wishes.”
I felt lonely and separated from everything that made me certain there was a place for me.
“Apparently, it’s only one student’s wish.”
I left before he, or I, could say anything else.
*
The next day, I got a ride home from school because Ma had to meet with the principal about the demerits he’d given me for disrupting a classroom. Father had brought in my teacher for backup, which he probably didn’t realize he truly needed until he met Ma.
