Night on Fire

by Ronald Kidd

  Next to the young man, wearing the kind of dress you might wear to church, a girl was staring at me. She was my age, with skin the color of copper and a pale blue ribbon in her hair. At first I thought her gaze was simple curiosity, but when she kept staring, I realized it was more than that. The gaze was proud and defiant, and it was directed at me. She watched me all the way to my seat and kept watching. Finally, when I went to the drinking fountain, I looked up and saw her standing nearby.

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  She said, “You’re Billie Sims. You’re a tomboy, and your next-door neighbor is Grant McCall.”

  Now it was my turn to stare. “Who told you that?”

  “You go to Wellborn High. You ride your bike to school, you read the newspaper, and your room is a mess.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  Her eyes were brown, almost black. Suddenly I realized I’d seen them before but in a different face, one as familiar as my own.

  “Lavender,” I said.

  The girl gave a little nod. “I’m Jarmaine Jones, Lavender’s daughter.”

  I guess I had known that Lavender had a daughter, but it was a shock to see her standing there.

  “You know all about me,” I said, “but I don’t know anything about you.”

  Jarmaine studied me, waiting. I thought she might tell me something, but she didn’t.

  Finally she said, “I heard what happened at the grocery store.” She glanced toward her group of friends, where the young man was watching us.

  “That’s Bradley,” she said. “He’s one of the best students at Cobb High. Now he can’t go into that store.”

  “I saw it,” I said. “It was an accident. He didn’t mean anything.”

  “Did you say that?”

  “At the store? Well, no.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  Because they were adults. Because I would get in trouble. Because in my town you just didn’t do that.

  I shrugged. “It’s not my store.”

  Spinning on her heel, Jarmaine turned and walked away.

  Why was she upset? I was trying to be nice. Couldn’t she tell?

  About that time, one of the judges tapped on the microphone, and I hurried to my seat. The contest was starting. The spellers took their places on the stage, where Grant snapped their pictures. Then the contestants were called up, one by one, and given words.

  Janie sailed through the first couple of rounds, but I couldn’t imagine how. I’d never heard such words: Precipitous? Jejune? Cloture? Where did they come from? Obviously Janie’s dictionary was different from mine.

  As spellers missed words, the group got smaller. Finally, after two hours and over twenty rounds, the only people left were Janie and a girl from Montgomery named Charlotte Campbell. Then Charlotte missed, and it was up to Janie.

  Mama grabbed my hand and held on for dear life. Down the row, Mrs. McCall was sweating, and it looked like Mr. Forsyth was about to have a heart attack.

  The judge read Janie’s word: “Cloisonne.”

  I glanced at Daddy. He looked at me and raised his palms. We were clueless.

  Amazingly, Janie wasn’t. With confidence she said, “Cloisonne: C-L-O-I-S-O-N-N-E.”

  The judge boomed, “We’ve got our winner!”

  Janie grinned. We leaped to our feet, cheering. The judge raised her hand high, like she was heavyweight champion of the world.

  He leaned down to the microphone and said to Janie, “If you give me your address, we’ll mail your prizes. Congratulations!”

  Janie thanked him, waved to the crowd, and started to walk off. But the contest wasn’t over. As we turned to leave, someone tapped the microphone, and a young girl’s voice boomed out over the loudspeaker.

  “Hello. Excuse me.”

  I looked back and saw Jarmaine standing onstage.

  “My name is Jarmaine Jones,” she said. “I’d like to say something.”

  All around me, people stopped and stared, including Mama and Daddy. At first I wondered if they knew who she was, but from their expressions, it was clear they didn’t.

  Jarmaine seemed nervous but determined. She took a deep breath, then said, “We have a white champion. Now let’s find out the state champion.”

  The crowd erupted. Down the row, Mama and Daddy frowned.

  Jarmaine didn’t budge. She nodded, and the young man I’d seen at the store strode up onstage.

  She said, “This is Bradley Thomas, the spelling champion of Cobb High. We challenge you to a runoff.”

  “Get ’em out of there!” someone shouted.

  The judge, who had walked away, stepped back onstage and leaned in to the microphone. “Sorry about this, folks. We’ll take care of it. The contest is over.”

  Jarmaine said, “It’s not over. It’s only half a contest.”

  “Young lady—” said the judge.

  Bradley Thomas came up behind them. “Sir, what’s wrong? If your winner is such a good speller, what are you afraid of?”

  The judge said, “If you want to be in the contest, send me a letter.”

  “So you can disregard it,” Bradley said. “Disregard: D-I-S-R-E-G-A-R-D.”

  “We’re not going to spell,” said the judge. “The spelling is over.”

  Bradley said, “You can’t prevent it. Prevent: P-R-E-V-E-N-T.”

  “Stop that!” said the judge.

  Jarmaine grabbed the microphone back. “Ignorance: I-G-N-O-R-A-N-C-E. Prejudice: P-R-E-J-U-D-I-C-E. Segregation: S-E-G-R-E-G-A-T-I-O-N.”

  With each word, there were more shouts. Some of the men in the audience edged toward the stage. As they got closer, Bradley chimed in. “Liberty: L-I-B-E-R-T-Y. America: A-M-E-R-I-C-A.”

  The other Negro students, who had been drifting toward the stage, mounted the steps and surrounded their friends. There were more angry shouts from the audience. The judge looked around desperately.

  Out of the crowd, a small figure appeared. He tucked a notepad into his pocket and climbed the steps. It was Mr. McCall. Jarmaine said something to the other students. They stepped aside, and he approached the microphone.

  “Folks,” he said, “it’s been a good contest, and we’ve got our state champion.”

  The Negro students murmured unhappily.

  “But these kids have a point,” he went on. “I propose that next year, we expand the contest and let everyone participate.”

  Bradley called out, “Participate: P-A-R-T-I-C-I-P-A-T-E.”

  Jarmaine grinned and shouted, “Victory: V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.”

  The Negro students cheered.

  The judge stepped back up to the microphone. “We’ll consider it,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The crowd spilled out of the YWCA, still buzzing. Daddy glanced over at Mama and shook his head.

  “What a shame. It was Janie’s day, and they stole the spotlight from her.”

  He didn’t have to say who “they” were.

  “Why weren’t they in the spelling bee to start with?” I asked.

  “They’ve never been in it,” said Mama.

  I thought about what Mr. McCall had said. “What do you think it’ll be like next year?”

  “Maybe there won’t be a next year,” said Daddy.

  Mama rolled her eyes. “Charles, it’s just spelling. Anyway, it’s not like they were carrying guns.”

  There was a flash, and I looked up. Grant was hurrying around with his camera, taking pictures of us and the other people in the crowd. He snapped a few last photos, then joined us as we headed for the car.

  “What did you think of Jarmaine Jones?” Grant asked.

  “You know her?” said Daddy.

  “She’s Lavender’s daughter,” I said.

  Daddy’s eyes opened wide.

  “Oh my goodness,” said Mama.

  Grant said, “I met her at the Star. She’s a student intern there. They’ve had an internship program with Cobb High for a couple of years now. Jarmaine just sta
rted. Sometimes she helps my dad with his stories. He tells me she’s good.”

  Mama said, “She has nerve, I’ll give her that.”

  Daddy shook his head. I couldn’t tell if he was amazed or disgusted. Maybe both.

  I dropped back beside Grant and lowered my voice. “I met her before the spelling bee. She seemed angry.”

  He said, “Think about how Negroes must feel. Their fathers and brothers fought in the war, and when they came home, nothing had changed. Separate but equal. Colored only. The courts say it’s illegal, but we keep right on doing it. Then all the little things, like the spelling contest. Wouldn’t it make you mad?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. It was like trying to play a game when you didn’t understand the rules.

  Larry Crabtree understood the rules and thought it was his duty to enforce them. That’s what he was doing at school on Monday when I went looking for Grant. I found the two of them tangled up on the floor in front of Grant’s locker, with a group of students gathered around, watching.

  Larry yelled, “Got it?”

  Grant said, “No!”

  Larry slugged him.

  “Got it?”

  “No!”

  Larry slugged him again.

  I jumped on Larry’s back and started pounding him on the shoulders.

  “Hey!” he screeched.

  I put a choke hold on his neck, and when he reached back to stop me, Grant gave him a shove and struggled to stand up. I let go and stood next to Grant, facing Larry.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Grant.

  “They’re mad at my father. They don’t like what he did on Saturday.”

  Larry said, “We don’t want any Negroes in our spelling bee.”

  “You weren’t even there!” I told him. “There was going to be trouble. Mr. McCall stopped it. You should be thanking Grant, not beating him up.”

  “They’re trying to change things,” said Larry. “We like the way things are—white on one side, black on the other.”

  Grant said, “White on top, black on the bottom.”

  “Maybe,” grunted Larry. He gathered up his books and motioned to his friends. They moved off down the hall like they owned it. It made me want to hit him again.

  I turned to Grant. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his cheek, where a bruise was starting to develop.

  I said, “Larry Crabtree’s an idiot.”

  “He’s scared,” said Grant. “They all are.”

  I reached out to touch the bruise. Grant flinched.

  “Hold still,” I said.

  I ran my fingers over the bruise, then pulled a tissue from my pocket, moistened it on my tongue, and wiped the dirt from his cheek, the way I’d seen Mama do. It felt good, like I was taking care of him.

  His chin was strong and his eyes were bright. Sometimes they were angry, like when he thought people weren’t being fair. Today, up close, I saw something new and giggled.

  “What are all these little hairs?”

  He pulled away. “Stop it.”

  I leaned in and ran my fingers across his chin. It felt rough.

  “They’re whiskers!” I crowed.

  He looked around, embarrassed. “Hey, shut up.”

  “Grant McCall has puberty!” I said.

  Actually, I thought it was pretty cool. I didn’t know how to tell him though, so I kept quiet. He headed off down the hall, shaking his head. I hurried after him and stuck close for the rest of the day, watching for Larry Crabtree and his friends. Maybe Grant didn’t like me touching his cheek, but he didn’t mind having me in a fight.

  After school I found Grant sitting by his locker, studying the baseball card he had bought on Friday. It showed a picture of Frank Robinson on the front and his statistics on the back.

  “Guess what Robinson hit last year,” said Grant. “Two ninety-seven. How many home runs? Thirty-one. How many triples?”

  “Hey,” I said, “give me a chance to answer.”

  “Okay, how many triples?”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  He glared at me. It was part of our ongoing baseball war. I was a Detroit Tigers fan, and Grant rooted for the Cincinnati Reds, from the city where he had grown up.

  Shaking his head, Grant got the camera from his locker, slung it over his shoulder, and walked with me to the bike rack. I liked it when we rode home together, telling what had happened during the day and complaining about assignments. I didn’t like it when he went off by himself, riding his bike or taking pictures or spending time with anyone but me.

  I asked him, “Want to go downtown?”

  “Why?” he said.

  “I have an errand to run. Plus, I want to see your dad.”

  “You’re not going to tell him about Larry Crabtree, are you?”

  When Grant had problems, he didn’t go running to his parents. I’d always admired him for that.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s something else.”

  Grant shrugged. “Let’s go.”

  He loaded his books onto the metal carrier behind his bicycle seat. I did the same. Then we swung up onto our bikes and headed out of the parking lot, past the football field and the sign that said Home of the Panthers.

  Wellborn High, made up of brick buildings on a hillside several miles west of town, was still pretty new. It had been built a few years earlier when the army depot had expanded, bringing hundreds of new families into the area. It seemed funny that we had decided to call ourselves the Panthers, because everyone knew that Cobb High, the Negro school, was known as the Mighty Panthers and had been for years.

  Grant and I pedaled down Eulaton Road, past pin oaks and loblolly pines, until it flattened out and turned into Tenth Street. As it did, we got a good view of Anniston, where the tallest buildings were churches. Anniston was beautiful and it was my home, but I still found myself looking over the steeples and wondering what lay beyond.

  We found Mr. McCall at his desk, hunched over a typewriter with boxes stacked on the floor all around him. It had been almost a year since the Anniston Star moved to its new headquarters, but he’d been too busy writing to unpack.

  The new building, on Tenth Street at the edge of town, was made of bricks and glass, with a white rectangle jutting out over the entrance. It was just one story tall but covered most of a city block, with the reporters and sales offices up front and a big open area in back for the presses. Mr. McCall had walked Grant and me back there once to see the presses pounding away like pile drivers, churning out the news.

  Mr. McCall looked up from his typewriter and smiled.

  “Hey, kids. What brings you here?”

  “I liked your article about Janie,” I told him.

  For years, the only time I had read the newspaper was when Daddy and I checked the sports section. But when Grant and his family moved next door, I had started reading the articles by Mr. McCall. This one had appeared on the front page of the Sunday edition, the day after the spelling bee. It had described the contest, as well as what had happened afterward. In Mr. McCall’s articles, even if you knew the subject, you always learned something. In the case of Janie, I found out she was excited about facing the Negro students next year.

  I nodded toward Mr. McCall’s typewriter. “What are you working on now?”

  His face lit up. “It’s about the first American in space, Alan Shepard. You know, the local angle. After all, Huntsville is just a couple of hours up the road.”

  Thanks to Mr. McCall’s stories, I knew about Huntsville. They called it the Rocket City. A rocket designed there had launched America’s first satellite, Explorer 1. Just the year before, they had opened a big space center there, run by a scientist named Wernher von Braun.

  “Where do you get all that information?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “That’s the best part of the job. I ask questions.”

  “Miss Hobbs, our English teacher, says to write about what you know.”

  “For me, it’s
just the opposite,” he said. “I write about what I don’t know and want to find out. So I learn something every day.”

  I thought about all the things I didn’t know. Why do I hate homework? How do you throw a curve? What’s it like to live in New York City? Why do people get mad when you try to be nice?

  “Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual, “I heard that Jarmaine Jones works here.”

  “That’s right. Sometimes she helps me out. Jarmaine’s good.” He glanced around. “She was here a minute ago.”

  I lowered my voice. “Can I ask you something? How come Cobb High has an internship program and Wellborn doesn’t? I wouldn’t mind working here myself. And I know Grant wants to. Right, Grant?”

  I glanced over and saw that he was fooling with his camera. I poked him with my elbow. “Right, Grant?”

  “Huh? Yeah, I guess.”

  Mr. McCall shrugged. “That’s no big secret. Mr. Ayers, the owner of the Star, believes in equal rights for Negroes. He thought the program would help the students at Cobb, and the paper too.”

  “Some people call it the Red Star,” I said. “You know, like communist.”

  I thought Mr. McCall might laugh. Instead, he leaned toward me, his expression full of feeling.

  “Don’t you believe it, Billie. Equal rights isn’t communist. It’s as American as you or me. Or Jarmaine.”

  I glanced around, partly to avoid his glare and but mostly to look for Jarmaine. She wasn’t there.

  Just then, David Franklin walked by. He was a staff photographer and one of Grant’s heroes.

  “Hey, Mr. Franklin,” said Grant. “I got that new lens, like you suggested.”

  The next thing I knew, he and Grant were lost in conversation. Figuring Grant would be busy for a while, I turned to Mr. McCall. “There’s something I need to do. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  He straightened his shoulders. “Sorry about my little outburst. That stuff about the Red Star gets my goat.”

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you care so much about your job. I hope I care that much someday.”

  Mr. McCall smiled, then turned back to his typewriter, ready to learn.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I went through the lobby and out the door. Next to the entrance was a bench, and on it sat Jarmaine.