Trueluck Summer

by Susan Gabriel

  I look back through the store toward the door. Nobody is waiting. In fact, there are several empty tables.

  “Officer, we have just as much right to be here as everybody else,” Nana Trueluck says, reaching for reason.

  “The coloreds pick up their food and drink out back,” he says. “They aren’t welcome in the main dining room.”

  “This young man is with me,” she says.

  “I don’t care if he’s with Abraham Lincoln, he’s not allowed in the dining room,” the sheriff says.

  Head lowered, Paris slides out of his chair to head for the door. I take his arm and tell him to wait, and Faye gasps as though I have touched a live electric wire. As a result, the sheriff rests his hand on his gun like we are four hardened criminals who stand in front of him instead of three kids and a grandmother.

  “I’d like to speak to your superior,” Nana Trueluck says.

  The sheriff chuckles. “My ‘superior’ is on about the sixth hole of the country club by now, and I doubt he’d want to be disturbed.”

  “My son is the mayor of Charleston,” she says.

  “Is he?” the sheriff asks, like he couldn’t care less. “Maybe you could call your son from the station and tell him about how you got arrested in Woolworths.”

  “But you seem to be forgetting about Greensboro,” I say, remembering Walter Cronkite’s report. A series of nonviolent sit-ins took place in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. Those protests led to the Woolworth chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the South. I remember Nana Trueluck and I talked about what a big deal it was.

  “This isn’t North Carolina,” he says to me. “This is Columbia. We do things different here.”

  “Let’s go,” Paris whispers, and I can tell he isn’t acting this time.

  The sheriff takes a step closer. His belly stretches the seams of his shirt and there are large half-moons of sweat under each arm. He smells like Vitalis hair grease. From his belt, he unhooks a pair of handcuffs like he might use them on Nana Trueluck.

  I gasp.

  “Come, children,” she says, her teeth gritted.

  Last year a photograph appeared in the Charleston newspaper of local students from the College of Charleston being arrested for having a sit-in at a local lunch counter on King Street. I imagine a similar snapshot of the four of us pulled out of the Woolworths in handcuffs.

  Before we leave, Nana Trueluck opens her purse and slides four dimes on the counter to pay for our sodas. Then we edge past the smelly sheriff, Nana’s firm jaw tilted upward, and a look on her face I have never seen before. The sheriff follows us to the front of the store. His shoes squeak as if screaming for mercy.

  We step out of the Woolworths into the sunny, muggy day. Vel squints as though coming out of a cave. It feels ten degrees hotter than it was fifteen minutes ago. The sheriff follows us outside.

  “Move it along,” he says to Nana Trueluck, who clutches her yellow purse like she would like to hit him with it.

  I take her arm and lead the way across the street. A block away, we stop and Nana Trueluck asks if we are okay. We say we are, though all of us seem shaken. When I look back the sheriff is still watching. We keep walking.

  Once inside the State House grounds again we collapse onto the soft cool grass under the shade of an oak tree. I have never seen this side of Nana Trueluck. The side that will break the law if need be. Nearby, the old colored man still rakes leaves, but he is watching us from the corner of his eye as if he is a soldier and reinforcements have finally arrived at the scene of a long and difficult battle. Reinforcements wearing the uniforms of summer and that include three twelve year olds and a seventy-year-old grandmother.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ida

  “Who knew rebellions involved so much waiting?” I say, while Trudy checks her watch again.

  As usual, Vel is reading, and Paris sits on the State House grounds as if deep in thought.

  “I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you’re upset about what happened in the Woolworths,” I say to him.

  He shrugs like he doesn’t want to talk about it right now. I try to imagine what it is like to be him and realize I can’t.

  “If I had known it would cause such a ruckus I never would have suggested we go inside that store,” I say to him. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Paris says. “That old guard Mr. Chambers told us about really hates me.” He looks at Trudy.

  “I forgot you two talked to Madison,” I say.

  “We asked him for ideas of how to take down the flag,” Trudy says. “He said an old guard protected it. Not an old man but old ideas.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, Madison was part of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts,” I say. “He worked with a team of lawyers to challenge bus segregation laws.”

  “Do you think he met Dr. King?” Paris asks.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” I say.

  Paris nods as though this pleases him.

  “If that sheriff had taken us to jail I would have been okay with that,” Paris says. “Dr. King has been in jail many times.”

  “Well, I’m not okay with going to jail,” Vel says, in case we hadn’t figured that out by now.

  “I have to admit that really scared me,” Trudy says. “Do you think he would have arrested us?”

  “I doubt it,” I say, though at the time I thought it was a definite possibility. I don’t mention how frightened I was in there, underneath all that anger. Or how powerless I felt. A woman. An old woman, at that. I think of Paris again. What must it be like to have almost an entire nation intent on keeping you in your place? I am not sure white women have it much better, but at least we can go into a Woolworths and order a Coca-Cola without being threatened with handcuffs.

  I begin to hum “Sentimental Journey,” one of my favorite Doris Day hits. Pressure builds in my chest, the sadness that revisits me from time to time now that Ted Senior is gone. Or perhaps it is the sadness of such a lovely boy as Paris who just wanted a drink, not being welcome in a store.

  “You know, it’s okay if y’all want to forget about it,” Paris says. He lifts his head from his knees, the sadness in his eyes meeting mine.

  “Well, that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Vel says before anyone has time to answer.

  Trudy rolls her eyes at Vel and then looks at Paris. “Is that really what you want to do?” she asks him.

  He doesn’t answer.

  I think about the March on Washington last year, and Medgar Evers’ murder in Mississippi, and the four girls killed while attending Sunday school at a church in Birmingham. All things that have happened in the last year. It suddenly occurs to me what a dangerous game we are playing. While a part of me wants to run back to the safety of my room, another part of me needs to do something.

  Also, it is important for people to know that not all southerners are like those images on television. Some are, that’s for sure. But some aren’t. And the Trueluck family wants everybody to have a fair chance no matter what color they are.

  “I wish I could teach that sheriff a thing or two,” I say to break the tension. “Maybe put a box of Ex-Lax in his next plate of brownies.”

  The laughter that follows shifts our seriousness, and I realize how much I sounded like Trudy.

  “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Paris says.

  Even Vel is smiling and not reading her book.

  Perhaps old people and children can not only be friends, but even change the world together. But first we need to get inside the building.

  Two guards approach the side doors to the State House and knock to be let in. The door opens, closes, and locks again. According to Trudy, we have three minutes until they open. The dome soars several stories above us. Two flags hang limp at the top of the flagpole. The American flag is on top with its fifty stars. It was forty-nine for the longest time, and then Hawaii joined us four years ago. Below it is the Confederate battle flag put up in 1961 as
a statement against desegregation. At least that’s what Ted Senior believed.

  “I wish I understood why that flag is so important to some people,” Trudy says, as though reading my thoughts.

  “I think it’s about heritage more than anything,” I say. “A lot of families lost loved ones in that war. But any symbol that hurts people is not going to help. Ted Junior used to say that it would be like flying a Nazi flag after World War II, not caring how it might hurt Jewish people.”

  Trudy moves from where she sits and puts her head on my shoulder. I am reminded again that she is only twelve. Everybody needs someone older to tell them things will be all right. But who do you turn to if you’re the oldest person in the room?

  “I still have no idea how we’re going to get it down,” Trudy says, “but I think it’s important that we try.” She looks at her watch and sits up as though an alarm clock has awakened her passion for justice. “It’s not only Paris’ dignity that’s at stake. It’s everybody’s,” she adds.

  With that statement, I no longer see a little girl, but the woman Trudy will become. A lump of pride sits in my throat.

  “So how do we get there?” Paris looks up at the dome.

  “I guess we find the stairs and just keep heading up,” Trudy says.

  “Don’t we need some kind of signal for if we get in trouble?” Paris asks.

  “You mean besides screaming bloody murder?” Vel closes her book with a snap.

  “No, he means like a hand gesture or something. Right, Paris?” Trudy asks.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Paris says.

  The four of us pause. All I come up with are Doris Day songs, none of which seem to fit the occasion.

  “How about we whistle?” Paris puckers his lips.

  “That’s a great idea,” Trudy says.

  I agree. “But what do we whistle?” I ask.

  We pause for another few seconds, as if thumbing through a file folder in our brains labeled: songs to whistle while in deep trouble.

  “How about ‘Dixie’?” Vel says.

  We turn to look at Vel, as if her brilliance has caught us by surprise.

  “‘Dixie’ is the song people always sing in the South when they want to remember the good old days of cotton fields and plantations. The old guard probably loves it.” She whistles the first two lines.

  Paris tells her she is good at whistling, and Vel laughs.

  For the next few minutes we all whistle “Dixie” at different times and out of key. We sound like a bunch of drunken songbirds and practice until our jaws are sore. Then the giggles start and cause us to lose all ability to pucker. The laughter chases my fear away.

  At nine o’clock the front doors open and a man in a blue uniform pulls out a metal sign on a stand that lists the times of the tours.

  “Maybe we could take a tour,” I suggest. “Who knows, they may take us up to the top of the dome.”

  “I should stay here,” Paris says. “I don’t want y’all to get in trouble.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Trudy says. She gives Paris a hand up from the ground. “We need you, Paris Moses. You’ve got to lead us to the Promised Land, like that Moses guy in the Bible.”

  “No relation,” Paris reminds us.

  We walk up dozens of steps to the front entrance, and I wish I were twenty years younger. A tall guard opens one of the big glass doors and tips his hat to us. I remember what Madison told the children. You would think the old guard would look meaner, but he actually looks a little bit like Ted Senior.

  My companions push me gently from behind. Evidently, I am appointed spokesperson.

  “Good morning, Officer.”

  I swallow the quiver in my voice. Trudy steps up and holds my hand, squeezing courage into my palm.

  “My friends and I would like to take a tour,” I say, my voice stronger.

  The guard opens one eye wider than the other. It takes a moment to realize that he has a glass eye. One eye blinks and the other one doesn’t. When the children notice it, Trudy shudders, and Vel backs toward the door like she and Nancy Drew may make a run for it. The blinking eye turns to look at Paris and hovers there for a while but he doesn’t say anything. I wonder if perhaps the guard is color blind as well.

  I can’t decide which eye to look at but start to speak anyway.

  “We’re here from Charleston,” I say. “My granddaughter and her friends work for their class newspaper.”

  The blinking eye doesn’t look impressed. “What about the colored boy?” he says.

  “A friend of the family,” I say.

  The guard answers a question from another tourist, and Trudy pulls me close to whisper in my ear. “He reminds me of that alligator who ate Miss Myrtle Page’s unfortunate poodle.”

  I chuckle, and she makes a chomping noise that makes Paris jump.

  The guard turns to us again, his one good eye looking skeptical.

  “Our school newspaper is called the, um, Gator Gazette,” Trudy says to him. “We’re writing a story about our wonderful State House and the fabulous people who work here.”

  She smiles at the blinking eye as if to tame it.

  “Can the children have your name for their story?” I smile and look at the others, who aim their pearly whites at the guard as well.

  The blinking eye blinks and then blinks again.

  “Les Lester,” the guard replies.

  “Excuse me?” I ask.

  “That’s my name,” he says. “If they want to put it in their newspaper.”

  A smile now accompanies the blinking and unblinking eye. The four of us exchange a look of surprise. Vel pulls her notepad and pen from her pink purse. She makes a big production out of writing the man’s name, asking him exactly how to spell it, like a real reporter might do and then repeating it back.

  The guard’s glass eye threatens to mesmerize me. I don’t want to forget why we are here. Les Lester offers to give us a personal tour. We agree. As we walk into the rotunda he tells us facts about when the State House was built, about the governors who have worked here and about the paintings on the walls. Meanwhile, Vel writes everything down as if interviewing a curator for the Smithsonian, instead of a one-eyed, color blind guard.

  For the next twenty minutes Les Lester shows us different rooms off the rotunda as well as the law library and the courtroom where cases are presented to the state Supreme Court. We sit in the balcony and overlook the court. Les Lester delivers information as fast as Vel can write it down, like how many windows and doors there are, as well as how many books are in the law library. He drones on. What we need to know is how to get up to the dome.

  Trudy and I exchange impatient looks, and Paris stifles a yawn. When I look over Vel’s shoulder I see that all this time instead of taking notes on Les Lester’s tour, she has been writing her name over and over again in every way possible. Velvet Ogilvie is spelled out in cursive and block letters, as well as upside down and sideways, with little flowers drawn inside the O of Ogilvie.

  “Too bad you don’t have a camera.” Les Lester straightens his Frankenstein hair. “I take a good photograph.”

  Trudy covers her mouth and swallows a giggle.

  I smile at the non-blinking eye, then correct myself and smile at the blinking one. When I tire from watching his mismatched eyes, I notice the brown divot that sits on the top of his head, one of the worst toupees I have ever seen.

  Just when I think I am destined to doze off, he finishes the tour and asks if we have any more questions. Trudy steps forward.

  “Mr. Lester, how do those flags get up on the top of the dome?”

  Paris and Vel and I freeze like the statues of dead statesmen who litter the place. Why did it never occur to me to simply ask for what we want, instead of waiting all this time for Les Lester to reveal it? In my defense, women my age were never taught to ask for what we want in life. But perhaps it is time for that to change. I take a step closer to Trudy, aware that I can learn from her, just as sure
ly as she can learn from me.

  Meanwhile Les Lester’s bushy eyebrows meet in the middle of his forehead. Is he onto us? I pucker, ready to whistle. Once “Dixie” starts, we have agreed to meet back at the farmer’s market in whatever way we can get there. Not that I actually run anywhere anymore.

  Les Lester motions for us to follow.

  The jig is up, I say to myself.

  He takes us into a large room where men in suits talk and wait around for the next session to begin. A well-dressed young woman sits at a large information desk to the side. Her job must include friendliness because she is all smiles.

  “Would you like a chair?” she asks me.

  “No thank you, dear,” I say.

  My eyes dart like a bank robber casing a bank, learning where the exits are and where the guards stand in case we need to make a quick escape. The impossibility of the task never leaves me. How did I let Trudy talk me into this? Besides, I have no idea what I am doing. I haven’t thought clearly since Ted Senior died. Or perhaps I have never thought clearly. Ted Senior always offered a dose of reality to my ideas. I counted on him for that. And maybe I also resented him for it. At least a little. If he were here now he’d tell us to forget this foolishness. But sometimes the fools in life are the truly sane ones. They can see things the rest of us can’t.

  Les Lester picks up the black rotary telephone and dials a number. The four of us wait for him, our eyes unblinking. Is he calling the old guard to come take us to that awful sheriff from earlier? I can only imagine that if Abigail and Ted Junior find out, the situation of me living in their home may be short-lived. Where will I end up then?

  “Wally, I’ve got three kids and their grandmother down here that are asking about how we get the flags to the top of the dome.”

  Les Lester pauses and listens. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too.” He chuckles. “Can you take them up there and show them in person?”

  Our eyes blink in unison, and the four of us exchange disbelieving looks. Is it possible that a guy named Wally is going to take us right up to the flag?