Passing Through Perfect

by Bette Lee Crosby

  On Monday the Klaussner household went back to its normal routine: hot oatmeal with brown sugar and canned peaches was served for breakfast. Before the table was cleared everyone began wandering off to start their day. Sid and Benjamin were first to leave. They started for the store at seven-thirty; a short while later Paul headed for an accounting class, and Jubilee tromped out to wait for the school bus. She’d asked to take Isaac along, but the answer was no. Carmella knew she could do what she wanted in her own house, but the Virginia schools were segregated and there was no way of getting around it.

  “How come I ain’t got school?” Isaac asked.

  “You’ve got to be a permanent resident before you can register,” Carmella answered. It was a lie of convenience, because she knew there was no colored school in Wyattsville. The closest was two towns over and twenty miles away.

  Isaac looked up. “What’s a permanent resid—”

  “Someone who’s lived in the town for a long time,” Carmella said lightly.

  “How long?” he asked hopefully.

  Carmella squatted down and looked into the boy’s face. How could she possibly tell an innocent child the truth?

  “I don’t know exactly how long,” she said, “but for now you can study your lessons right here at home.” She pulled Isaac to her bosom and held him there for almost a minute. When she finally let go, she began telling him how at one time she’d been a teacher.

  “Of course, that was a long time ago,” she said. “Before Sidney and I started thinking about having a family.”

  They sat at the kitchen table, and Carmella handed Isaac a notepad and pencil. “Let’s start with spelling.”

  In the Grinder’s Corner School there was never a time when a teacher gave a student such one-on-one attention, and Isaac wallowed in the specialness of it.

  “When you didn’t be a teacher no more, was that ’cause Mister Paul got born?” he asked.

  “No,” Carmella laughed. “Paul and Jubilee came to live with us two years ago”

  “They ain’t your real babies?”

  “I’m not their birth mother,” Carmella said, “but they’re my babies. God gave them to me as a present.”

  “You figuring God’s gonna give you any more babies?” Isaac asked.

  Carmella chuckled. “You ask way too many questions. Now stop stalling and let’s get to that spelling.”

  ~ ~ ~

  By mid-morning Benjamin had already swept the store and the sidewalk in front of it. He’d also restocked the shelves, cleaned the front window, and polished the brass handle on the front door.

  “There’s not much else to do right now,” Sidney said. “Take a break; grab a cup of coffee if you want.”

  As far as Benjamin was concerned, unless a river of sweat was rolling down your back and your legs were too weary to be walking taking a break was the same as sitting idle.

  “How about I clean up that other refrigerator instead,” he suggested.

  “Don’t bother,” Sidney replied. “It’s broken. I think the motor’s gone.”

  Benjamin’s face lit up. “Might be I can fix it.”

  Sidney gave a pessimistic shrug. “Try if you want, but I think it’s shot.”

  Once Benjamin disappeared into the back storeroom, Sidney went on about the business of waiting on customers. Other than a bit of banging around back there, he didn’t hear from Benjamin again until almost three-thirty.

  When he finally came from the back of the store, Benjamin’s overalls were spotted with oil and a large clump of gray dust clung to the side pocket. Beaming with pride, he said, “I got her going.”

  Sid looked up with astonishment. “You fixed the refrigerator?”

  Keeping that same prideful grin, Benjamin nodded.

  “Well, if that’s don’t beat all,” Sid laughed. “I figured that thing was ready for the junkyard.”

  Still proud of his achievement, Benjamin went step by step explaining how he’d gone about fixing it, and although Sid listened he didn’t understand most of what was said. When Benjamin finished, Sid said an achievement such as that called for an ice cold Coca-Cola. He pulled two from the refrigerator case, opened the bottles, and handed one to Benjamin.

  As they stood there talking, Sidney asked Benjamin if he’d ever had a civilian job as a mechanic. “Appliance repairman, garage mechanic, or working on airplanes maybe?”

  “No, sir,” Benjamin laughed. “Just in the army.”

  “Shame,” Sid said thoughtfully, “because you sure are good at it.”

  They finished up the Coca-Colas and talked for another twenty minutes, but Sid never once mentioned the thought that had come to mind.

  Carmella

  Prudence Wentworth is a trouble-making busybody. I know it’s not right to say such things about a neighbor, but she is someone who truly deserves it. I have never heard that woman say a kind thing about one single person.

  Why, she even complained when little Nancy Kellerton came knocking on her door to sell a few boxes of Girl Scout cookies.

  I know she’s lonely and unhappy being by herself all the time, but maybe if she’d be a bit nicer people would be more inclined to stop by for a visit.

  She’s never even laid eyes on little Isaac, but she’s up in arms about him being here. Well, as far as I’m concerned she can just kiss my butt. I don’t care what color that little boy’s skin is, he’s a damn sight more pleasant to be with than Prudence Wentworth.

  I haven’t mentioned this to Sidney or anyone else, and I don’t intend to.

  The truth is I like having Isaac here, and I like teaching him. The way he wriggles around and tries to get past answers he doesn’t know makes me laugh. If I ask him to spell a word he doesn’t know, he’ll say he’s got to go to the bathroom or ask for a cookie. It’s a game we play; I give him the cookie, then ask him the same word all over again. He starts giggling; then I start giggling too.

  I can tell you this. The moon would turn blue before Prudence Wentworth said anything worth so much as a snicker.

  A Simmering Situation

  On Sunday evening Prudence Wentworth stood at her front window watching for Martha Pillard’s return until well after midnight. She tried telephoning several times, but still there was no answer.

  It made no sense. Martha was retired and did little more than putter around the kitchen. Once a week she went grocery shopping and there was the occasional Tuesday night bingo game at the church, but Prudence could not remember a time when Martha was gone for more than a few hours. Monday morning she returned and rang the doorbell again but this time when there was no answer, she circled around to the back and peered through the kitchen window. There was little to see. A yellow dishtowel folded across the rim of the sink, everything neatly in place, but no Martha.

  Prudence began to worry. She and Martha were both widows. Widows were easy prey. Any stranger in the neighborhood would have been cause for concern, but a Negro stranger was doubly so. Anything could have happened. She walked around to the side of the house and stood with her foot in the flowerbed to peer into the bedroom. No signs of a struggle. Prudence returned to the front, tried the doorbell one last time, then decided to call the police. She was starting back across the street when Darlene’s car pulled up and Martha stepped out.

  “Where in God’s name have you been?” Prudence shrieked.

  “Visiting Darlene and the kids,” Martha replied.

  With a begonia petal still stuck to her shoe, Prudence exclaimed, “I’ve been calling since yesterday, and when you didn’t answer I assumed the worst!”

  “What worst?”

  Grabbing hold of Martha’s arm and leaning in, she whispered, “There’s a big black Negro living next door to me, and he looks a lot like the one who stabbed poor Tommy.”

  Martha’s face turned white as a sheet, and her expression was just as flat. “That’s not one bit funny,” she said. “You know that man was sent to prison.”

  “For twenty years,” Prud
ence replied. “It’s been almost twenty-five.”

  Martha let out a huge whoosh of air and clutched her hand to her heart. For a moment she swayed like a woman about to faint, but Darlene got there in time and grabbed her mama’s arm. She turned to Prudence with an angry glare in her eye.

  “What have you done to Mama?” she shouted.

  “I told her the truth,” Prudence answered. Then she explained about the Negro who had moved in with the Klaussners. “They have no idea who he is or where he came from,” she said, “and from what I’ve seen of the man he could easily as not be the same one who stabbed your brother.”

  Hearing it for a second time made Martha feel woozier than ever. “I’ve got to go inside and sit down,” she said.

  As Darlene helped her mama through the door, Prudence followed.

  “I don’t like upsetting people,” she said, “but people have a right to know what’s happening to our neighborhood. If we’re not careful…”

  Martha listened to the words trailing off and thought back to the night Tommy was killed. He was barely eighteen and as far as she knew not much of a drinker, yet they’d said it happened in a bar fight. Five Negros and a white bartender all claimed Tommy was drunk and fairly belligerent when the fight started, but she’d doubted the validity of that story. Tommy wasn’t the type. Despite the testimony of all six witnesses, Martha believed then and still believed her boy was simply a victim. A white boy killed for the money in his pocket.

  After the trial Martha spent weeks, months, and years bemoaning the fact that Tommy’s assailant had gotten off with just twenty years when he should have been put to death. Over time she stopped talking about it, but she never forgot. The hatred she felt was still there, just under her skin, and it throbbed like the pounding of a kettle drum.

  “Carmella Klaussner never had a boy stabbed by a nigger,” she said angrily. “What right does she have to bring one into our neighborhood?”

  “It’s not just him,” Prudence said. “He’s got a kid with him, and that surely means trouble. Next thing you know we’re gonna have colored schools and a neighborhood so thick with them we’ll be afraid to step out at night.”

  “That couldn’t happen here in Wyattsville,” Darlene said.

  “Oh, couldn’t it?” Prudence replied. She swore there was an area of Portsmouth that five years ago was a nice neighborhood and had now turned all black. “Once they get a foothold in a neighborhood, they take over,” she warned.

  Darlene had been an impressionable fourteen-year-old when Tommy was killed, and through the years she’d heard only her mama’s version of the story.

  “I don’t want a nigger living next door to Mama,” she said. “We’ve got to do something.”

  For seven months prior to the arrival of her first-born, Darlene worked as a typist in a downtown law office; this, she felt, gave her the necessary expertise for drafting a petition demanding the Klaussners move.

  Prudence hadn’t expected anything quite so drastic.

  “Maybe we ought to just say not have any colored people living in their house,” she suggested.

  But by then it was too late; Darlene had already pulled out her daddy’s old typewriter and started clacking out the letter.

  “We’ll ask everybody on the street to sign it,” she said. “That way they’ll have no comeback.”

  When Darlene finished the letter she handed it to Prudence. “This ought to get rid of the problem,” she said pompously.

  Prudence stood there and read it. “Blight on our neighborhood? Legal action? Forced eviction? Don’t you think this is a bit too strong?”

  “Not one bit,” Darlene answered.

  Martha of course agreed with Darlene. But after a good bit of discussion and three more revisions, they ended up with a letter requesting the Klaussners remove their house guests to avoid the necessity for legal action. Prudence wanted to remove the threat of legal action, but Martha and Darlene stood firm on that.

  Darlene was a lot like Martha, and once she set her mind to hating a thing there was no stopping her. On Tuesday morning she arrived at her mama’s house with the twins in tow and a clipboard tucked under her arm. Arm in arm she and Martha walked up and down the street knocking on doors and asking folks to sign a petition to keep coloreds out of the neighborhood.

  Their first stop was at Rodney Edwards’ house. “Hell, yeah,” he said and signed his name without bothering to read what was written on the petition.

  Once that happened Darlene’s confidence grew, and she regretted softening up the language of the petition.

  “We should’ve insisted they move,” she told her mama.

  Martha gave a barely perceptible nod. The truth was she’d spent a sleepless night tossing and turning. Hour after hour she thought of Tommy and could almost feel the knife being thrust into his chest. The problem was her memory of it got muddied when thoughts of Carmella Klaussner crept in.

  They’d been friends for thirty years. After Tommy died, Carmella was the one who came with baskets of fresh-baked muffins and sat alongside her during those long and lonely days. And then four years ago when Tommy’s daddy keeled over with a heart attack, Sid Klaussner handled everything. They’d always been good neighbors, friends even, but now there was this.

  When Martha’s heart began to go soft she considered giving up the angry petition, but then she called to mind thoughts of Tommy and the fire of hatred flared again.

  At the Burkes’ house there was no answer so they moved on to the Lamberts’. Sylvia and Dale Lambert were younger than many of other homeowners. Before they’d moved to Wyattsville, Sylvia had spent seven years as a social worker in the city of Philadelphia. The moment the door opened, Darlene thrust out the clipboard and asked Sylvia to sign the petition.

  “It’s to keep our neighborhood safe,” she said.

  Instead of signing Sylvia read every word, then started asking questions.

  “This man in question,” she said, “is he a convicted felon?”

  Darlene shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “Possibly?” Sylvia repeated. She went on to ask a dozen different questions, none of which Darlene could answer affirmatively.

  “You’ve got nothing against this man,” Sylvia finally said. “There’s no way I’m going to—”

  “My son was stabbed to death by a nigger,” Martha offered up feebly.

  “But it wasn’t this man,” Sylvia replied. Without further ado, she closed the door.

  At the end of the day Darlene had four signatures on her petition, six houses where there had been no answer, and five homeowners who’d flat out said no. Alexia Franklin had looked Martha square in the eye and said she ought to be ashamed of herself, turning on a friend in such a nasty way.

  As they walked home Martha’s shoulders were slumped and her head bent. Darlene put her arm around her mama’s shoulders and gave a soft squeeze.

  “Don’t worry, Mama,” she said. “We’ll get the rest of them tomorrow.”

  Ugly Anger

  It took nearly two weeks for Darlene to get to every house on Bloom Street and present her petition. She knocked on the Millers’ door nine times before she finally caught them at home on a Sunday morning. After a week of working night shifts at the hospital Pamela Miller was in no mood for conversation when the doorbell rang at seven o’clock that morning. She listened to the first half of Darlene’s speech about saving the neighborhood then told her to stick that petition where the sun don’t shine and slammed the door so quickly it hit the tip of Darlene’s nose.

  For a moment Darlene stood there too stunned to move; eventually she grumbled, “There’s no need to get snippy.” But by then Pamela was back under the blanket.

  For the first week Martha trudged along arm-in-arm with Darlene, but when it began to seem that half the people she counted as friends weren’t willing to sign such a petition she lost her enthusiasm for the project and said she didn’t think she could continue. Wearily lowering herself into a chair, Mar
tha gave a sorrowful sigh.

  “They just don’t understand how different Negros are,” she said, “I guess you’ve got to come face to face with their meanness before you understand it.”

  “That’s why you’ve got to come with me, Mama,” Darlene begged. “You can make them understand. You can tell them about Tommy, about how awful—”

  “You do it, Darlene,” Martha replied. “It’s too much for a woman my age.”

  Knocking on the doors by herself, Darlene got a much cooler reception. On the day that it poured rain, she went to five houses and didn’t come back with a single signature. Alfred Spence said he wasn’t in favor of colored folks moving into the neighborhood, but since Darlene didn’t actually live on the block he wasn’t signing anything.

  “Send your mama back,” he said. “If she asks, I might be willing to sign it.”

  As the days passed, a strange hush settled over Bloom Street. Just weeks earlier there were residents coming and going, placing pumpkins on their doorsteps, sweeping leaves from the walkway. Now there seemed to be no one. Neighbors passed one another with little more than a nod. Those who’d signed Darlene’s petition spoke to the others who had, but those whose names were missing from the petition were tagged “Bleeding Heart Liberals” and avoided. That single sheet of paper created a divide in the community as palpable as a string of burning crosses stretched across the lawns. On a drizzly morning when Martha stepped outside to fetch the newspaper, Sidney saw her and waved but she ducked her head and scurried back inside as if she hadn’t seen him.

  ~ ~ ~

  Things began falling apart that second week. One night the Klaussners’ garbage can was overturned and the trash strewn across the side lawn. That Carmella blamed on a raccoon.