Night on Fire

by Ronald Kidd

  “You know what I think?” said Jarmaine. “There are two kinds of people in the world—the watchers and the riders. You and me? We’re watchers.”

  “I want to be a rider,” I said.

  “So do I,” said Jarmaine.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was Boat Day in social studies class. At least, that’s what the kids called it.

  Mr. Duffy, our teacher, had been talking all year about the Greeks and Romans and Mesopotamians. He had arrived at the Middle Ages in March. Gutenberg invented the printing press in April. The climax came in May, when Columbus sailed three boats to discover America, the event that all of world history had been leading up to.

  Each year when his class studied that event, Mr. Duffy brought in his models of the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, which he had constructed out of toothpicks when he was thirteen years old.

  Boat Day.

  Mr. Duffy was a short, balding man who loved history and tended to sweat. He paced back and forth at the front of the class, describing Columbus’s ships and wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Think of it, kids,” he said, pointing to the models. “I did this when I was your age. You can accomplish great things—all of us can.”

  As Mr. Duffy gave us a guided tour of his boats, I sat in the back row, thinking of things I could accomplish and the courage it could take.

  Someone giggled.

  It was Arlene Nesbitt. She sat next to Bubba Jakes, and he was whispering to her.

  Mr. Duffy stopped his presentation. “Mr. Jakes, is there something you’d like to tell us?”

  “No, sir,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”

  Arlene glanced over at Bubba. “I’ll tell them.”

  Grinning, she looked around at the class. “We were just talking about the boats. We wondered if the Negroes sat in back.”

  The others laughed, and Mr. Duffy suppressed a smile.

  “Let’s stay on the subject, shall we?”

  It made me mad—not just their laughter but my response. I didn’t want to sit quietly anymore.

  “What is the subject?” I found myself asking.

  Heads swiveled around. People stared at me.

  I said, “It’s history, right? Well, what about the history taking place right here?”

  “Miss Sims—”

  “Two days ago, something happened in our neighborhood. People all over the world are talking about it. And what are we doing? Looking at boats made out of toothpicks.”

  Nobody said anything. Shifting in her seat, Arlene looked nervously at Mr. Duffy. “I like the boats.”

  “Columbus discovered America, but what about now?” I asked. “What’s it like to live here? What’s it like to ride on a bus and sit in back?”

  Around me, people shook their heads and whispered.

  “Some of you disagree with the Freedom Riders,” I said. “I’m not sure what I think myself. But you have to admit, they’re brave. They don’t watch or laugh. They do something. They won’t stop. They’re not going away.”

  Mr. Duffy got a funny expression on his face.

  “Oh,” he said, “but they already have.”

  I looked up, confused.

  He said, “Didn’t you hear? It was on the news this morning. The bus drivers refused to take them farther because it was too dangerous. So the Freedom Riders went to the airport and took a flight out of Birmingham. Now they’re in New Orleans. The rides are over.”

  I just sat there. I didn’t know what to say.

  Arlene said, “That’s good, isn’t it? The people are safe. The trouble’s passed.”

  She was wrong. The world was a mess. Bad things happened, even in Anniston. Good people stood by and watched. Some of them laughed.

  I wanted to be a rider, not a watcher. But the riders got scared and ran away. They weren’t so brave after all. They were like the rest of us—drifting along, seeing problems but not really doing anything.

  Mr. Duffy went back to his boats. I barely noticed. I was sinking into a deep hole. What was the use? Why bother? What good was hope? Why have dreams if you don’t do anything about them?

  The Freedom Riders had given up, and so had I.

  A hole is a nice place to be. It’s dark. It’s warm and comfortable. You don’t have to move or think or feel. You can’t get hurt.

  I stayed there all day and into the next. My body walked and talked and rode a bike. Things moved around me, but I didn’t care. I was in the hole.

  When I got home from school on Wednesday I went straight to my room. I had homework but didn’t feel like doing it, so I looked through my record collection. I wasn’t in the mood for an itsy-bitsy bikini or a hound dog. I wanted dark. I wanted sad. I found it in “Teen Angel,” a song about a girl who gets run over by a train. At the end, her boyfriend moans, “Answer me, please.” Like the boy in the song, I needed an answer, and I wasn’t getting one.

  I played the record thirty-seven times, then went out on the front porch and slumped in the swing, rocking back and forth, back and forth. After a few minutes Grant came pedaling up the driveway, dumped his bike, and hurried over.

  “Billie!” said Grant.

  He peered into the hole from far away, his head the size of a BB.

  “I’ve got the paper,” he said breathlessly. “You need to see it.”

  “You’ve always got the paper. Why don’t you just staple it to your forehead?”

  “There’s an article about the Freedom Riders!”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. “They’re done. It’s over.”

  “That’s just it,” he exclaimed. “It’s not over.”

  He held the paper up so I could see it. The article, just a headline and one sentence, was tucked in a corner of the front page.

  BULLETIN

  BIRMINGHAM (UPI) – A group of Negroes from Nashville, Tenn., attempted to resume anti-integration protests today at the Birmingham Greyhound bus terminal but police would not let them get off.

  The word “Nashville” sent an electric charge up my spine. The corpse sputtered to life.

  Grant said, “My dad’s at his office, trying to get more information. He’s working on a story.”

  Someone else was working on it too, I was sure.

  “We need to find out,” I said. “Come on!”

  We raced to the phone, and I dialed the Star. Jarmaine was there, just as I had hoped. Grant leaned in so he could hear.

  “Is it true?” I asked her. “Are the Nashville students coming?”

  “They took a bus to Birmingham to continue the ride,” she said, breathless. “They got there this morning, ten of them.”

  “Is Diane Nash with them?” I asked, remembering their leader.

  “Mr. McCall says she’s in Nashville running things. He’s been on the phone with her. But there was trouble. Bull Connor, head of the Birmingham police, wouldn’t let the students off the bus. When they finally got out, he arrested them and took them to the city jail. That’s where they are now—in jail, singing freedom songs.”

  There was pride in her voice and determination. I tried to imagine what it must be like in jail. If I had been there, I didn’t think I’d be singing.

  “What’s going to happen?” asked Grant.

  “They’ll keep the Freedom Rides going,” said Jarmaine. “And this time, no one will stop them.”

  Over the next two days, Grant and I followed the new Freedom Riders. Through phone calls with Jarmaine, we learned that the riders had stayed in jail all day Thursday. Then, in the middle of the night, Bull Connor woke them up, herded them into cars, and drove them off into the darkness. No one had seen them since.

  Friday after supper, I called Jarmaine and asked, “Where do you think they are?”

  Her voice sounded choked off and distant. “Have you heard of Billie Holiday?”

  “Billie? Like me?”

  “That’s right. She was a singer. Died a couple of years ago. They called her Lady Day. We have some of her re
cords. She had the most amazing voice. So beautiful. So sad. She was a drug addict. People mistreated her. You could hear the pain in her songs.”

  “I’d like to hear them sometime,” I said.

  “There’s one song called ‘Strange Fruit.’ I can’t sing it, but I know the words:

  “Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

  “Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

  “Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,

  “Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “I think you do,” said Jarmaine.

  My mind, groping for an answer, slammed up against a wall. The wall was tall and wide. I think it had always been there. On this side of the wall we smiled and prayed and helped each other. We were nice. And on the other side? I tried to imagine what was there. It was dark and mean. It was filled with shadows. People whispered about it. I didn’t dare look.

  Jarmaine said, “You’ve heard the stories. I know you have. A mother is hungry and steals something. A man speaks disrespectfully. He looks at a white woman the wrong way. Then, late at night, they disappear. Someone finds them a few days later, hanging from a tree. Strange fruit.”

  I shivered. “You mean lynching? It really happens?”

  “If you grew up the way I did, you wouldn’t ask that question.”

  “You think the Freedom Riders might have been lynched?”

  She said, “They disappeared in the middle of the night. This is Alabama. What do you think?”

  Alabama. To me, it meant football. The Crimson Tide. Coach Bear Bryant. It meant my town and my neighborhood, places I loved. But for Jarmaine, the word was different. It scared her, I could tell. How could two people live in the same place and see such different things?

  When I got off the phone I went to the window. The neighborhood looked calm, like it did every Friday evening. Next door, Grant and his parents sat on the porch, talking and sipping lemonade. The crickets chirped. The wind blew and the trees swayed.

  Just another night in Alabama.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I went to my room and lay down. Closing my eyes, I saw the Freedom Riders dangling from trees. Nearby was the burned-out shell of a bus.

  I guess I fell asleep, because when I woke up, the room was cool and someone had put a blanket over me. I glanced at the clock. It was after midnight. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and went to the window. The McCalls’ house was dark. Somewhere, in another dark place, Bull Connor was dealing with the Freedom Riders.

  My mouth was dry, so I headed for the kitchen and got some water. I needed something to do. Remembering Daddy’s words, I turned on the light, drew some water in the sink, and washed the dishes. It would help Mama, but it would also take my mind off strange fruit.

  When I finished, I switched off the light and padded back down the darkened hallway, passing the little table where we kept our phone. It was all I could do to keep from lifting the receiver and calling Grant. Maybe he knew what had happened to the Freedom Riders.

  I stared at the phone. Finally I took it off the table and, leaning against the wall, slid down to the floor. I cradled the phone against me and rocked it gently.

  “Billie?”

  I opened my eyes. Sunlight streamed through the window. Mama stood over me, clutching her bathrobe around her.

  “Did you spend the night here?” she asked.

  “I guess so,” I mumbled.

  “Silly girl.”

  She leaned over and kissed my forehead, then went back to her room to get dressed.

  I thought of the Freedom Riders, and suddenly I was wide-awake. Bracing the phone against my legs, I picked up the receiver and dialed the McCalls’ house.

  There was a click, and Grant’s mom answered.

  I said, “Hey, Mrs. M., is Grant there?”

  “Hi, Billie. He and his dad are at the office. They went early this morning.”

  “On Saturday?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was something about the Freedom Riders.”

  “Thanks,” I said and hung up.

  I had scribbled Mr. McCall’s work number on a pad by the phone. I started to reach for it, then changed my mind. I jumped to my feet, put the phone back, and hurried to my room. I threw on jeans and a T-shirt, then ran my fingers through my hair and hurried down the hall. Mama was just coming out of the bedroom.

  “Have to go,” I said.

  “Billie—”

  The screen door slammed. I was out the door and on my bike, pedaling for town.

  As it turned out, it was a good thing I didn’t telephone Mr. McCall, because I probably wouldn’t have gotten through. When I arrived at the Star, he was on the phone. So were Grant and Jarmaine. As soon as they finished one call, they would hang up and dial another.

  Mr. McCall saw me, nodded, and kept right on talking. “How many? Are they still in Birmingham?”

  He took notes on a pad. “Uh-huh. Bull Connor? Right. So, what’ll he do? Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it. Kennedy? Really? Okay. Keep me posted, huh?”

  He hung up and started to dial again.

  “What happened?” I asked him.

  He kept dialing. It was Jarmaine, just finishing a call of her own, who answered my question.

  “They came back,” she told me.

  I said, “The Freedom Riders? I thought Bull Connor was going to … you know.”

  Jarmaine shook her head. “It turns out that when he took them from jail Thursday night, he didn’t hurt them. He just drove them to the Tennessee state line and dropped them off, luggage and all. Middle of the night, middle of nowhere. He told them, ‘There’s the Tennessee line. Cross it, and save this state and yourselves a lot of trouble.’”

  I pictured the scene and tried to imagine how the riders must have felt, miles from home, with no idea where they were or what would happen.

  “What did they do?” I asked.

  “They gathered up their bags, found a phone, and called Diane Nash.”

  “So they went home?”

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “Home? Lord, no. She sent cars to pick them up, and they rode back to Birmingham.”

  “Really? They’re in Birmingham?”

  “They were in Birmingham.”

  Grant, off the phone, chimed in. “They left. They’re riding on!”

  Mr. McCall, who had just hung up, saw the look of confusion on my face. “There were twenty-one of them, including eleven more from Nashville. They decided to catch the first bus from Birmingham to Montgomery, but when they got to the station, there was an angry crowd, and the drivers refused to go. That’s when Robert Kennedy got busy.”

  “You know, the attorney general,” said Grant. “The president’s brother.”

  Mr. McCall nodded. “He was on the phone for hours, talking to the governor and the head of Greyhound. Kennedy threatened to bring in federal troops, and finally they made a deal. Greyhound would drive them, and the highway patrol would protect them. Early this morning, before the mob could gather again, the riders got on a bus and headed for Montgomery with a police escort.”

  The phone rang, and Mr. McCall picked it up.

  I turned to Jarmaine. “So they’re all right?”

  “I hope so.”

  Next to her, Mr. McCall said, “What!”

  He tucked the receiver under his chin, grabbed a pad, and began taking notes. “Uh-huh. Right. Oh my God.”

  Grant and Jarmaine glanced at each other.

  Mr. McCall scribbled. We waited. Finally, he replaced the receiver and looked up at us. His face was pale.

  “There was a riot in Montgomery,” he said, and referred to his notes. “A crowd was waiting for the bus, and they attacked the riders as they got off. Men had pipes and chains, women swung their purses, and children scratched with their fingernails. Meanwhile the cops were off to the side, calmly directing traffic. Twenty people were hurt, some seriously. A
few are unconscious.”

  “Is the riot over?” asked Jarmaine in a small voice.

  “Seems to be,” said Mr. McCall. “The riders were taken to the hospital. The crowd gathered up the suitcases and built a bonfire in front of the bus station.”

  Jarmaine stood motionless, her expression stony. Tears ran down her cheeks. Grant put a hand on her shoulder.

  She said, “How can people do that?”

  Mr. McCall shook his head sadly. “I don’t understand. I truly don’t.”

  “You think the riders will keep going?” I asked.

  Jarmaine blinked, and her expression changed. She gazed at me, her eyes flashing.

  “They won’t stop now,” she declared.

  “There’s a mass meeting tomorrow night at First Baptist Church in Montgomery, to show support for the Freedom Riders,” said Mr. McCall. “The riders will be there. So will the Negro leaders. Martin Luther King is coming in from Atlanta.”

  Jarmaine said, “Dr. King? Really?”

  “Isn’t he a preacher?” I asked.

  “Dr. King is more than just a preacher,” Grant told me. “He leads protests, like the Montgomery bus boycott. He’s an activist.”

  The way Grant said the word made it sound like an honor. I’d heard Uncle Harvey Caldwell talk about Martin Luther King, but when Uncle Harvey called him an activist, it sounded different.

  “Are you planning to write this up for the paper?” I asked Mr. McCall.

  “You bet,” he said, flipping through his notepad, “but I need more information.”

  He turned to Jarmaine. “We’ll put a news flash in this afternoon’s paper. Then, once we’ve got all the facts, I’ll do an article for the Sunday edition.”

  Mr. McCall went back to his desk, pulled out a sheet of paper, and fed it into his typewriter. Grant reached for the phone. Jarmaine headed to the door, and I followed. She took a seat out front, on the bench where I’d found her that first day. That had been less than two weeks ago, but it seemed like another lifetime in a different town, a place where people were kind and wouldn’t hurt you. Thinking back on it, I wondered if that town had ever existed.

  I sat down next to Jarmaine. She opened a brown paper bag, pulled out some peanut-butter crackers, and offered me one. She ate one herself, looking over the trees toward Montgomery, where the riders were healing and getting ready to continue their trip to New Orleans.