All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

by Mildred D. Taylor

  A scowl shadowed Flynn’s face as he looked after the man. “I should have laid him out.”

  “He didn’t touch me, Flynn. I’m okay.” I hooked my arm into his. “Come on and let’s do something fun,” I coaxed, trying to get him to forget about the man. “I’m feeling so good about my exam, I’m not going to let anything spoil it. I got an “A”! Come on, let’s go celebrate! Let’s do something special!”

  The scowl still on Flynn’s face, we walked to the car. I wasn’t yet ready to go home. Since we were already in Westwood, close to the wealthy neighborhoods of Beverly Hills and Bel-Air, I suggested we drive through the area and look at the beautiful houses. I wanted to celebrate my “A” and dream of what might be. I also wanted to lighten Flynn’s mood and get his mind off the would-be masher. Flynn hesitated at the suggestion and said that might not be a good idea, but I wanted to see the glittering lights of the massive mansions, the places of dreams of the very rich, and he gave in to me. But Flynn was right. It wasn’t a good idea.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  As soon as we had made our tour of several of the residential streets and turned back onto the main street of Wilshire Boulevard, a police siren blasted behind us. Lights flashing, the police car tailed us until Flynn pulled over and stopped. The police car stopped right behind us and two policemen got out. The headlights, still on, shone through the Mercedes, almost blinding us. One of the policemen stopped at the rear of Flynn’s car, looked at the license plate, and took out a pad. The other came to the driver’s side of the car. Flynn rolled down his window. The policeman took a moment studying the two of us, and I had no doubt he had realized we were colored before he stopped us. “You’re kind of out of your neighborhood, aren’t you?” he said to Flynn. “Let’s see your license.” Flynn pulled his wallet from his jacket and handed the license to the officer. The officer checked it under the boulevard lights. “Registration,” he said. Flynn handed him that too. The officer looked at it, then again at Flynn. “This is a mighty fine car you’re driving. Foreign, isn’t it? Step on out.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What did he do?”

  The officer ignored me. Flynn got out without a word and the officer said, “Hands up against the car.” Flynn, as if he had been through all this before, placed his hands against the roof of the car. The officer patted him down.

  I was furious. I jumped out of the car. “What are you doing? He didn’t do anything!”

  “You, girl,” said the officer at the back of the car, “you best shut your mouth.”

  “But he didn’t do anything!” I continued to protest. I figured I should be able to speak my mind here in Los Angeles.

  “Cassie,” said Flynn, “Cassie, be quiet.” His voice was calm, but I felt anything but calm.

  “Turn around,” the officer next to Flynn ordered. “Step away from the car.” The other officer at the rear came forward and stood directly behind Flynn. The officer who had checked the license and registration now began to check inside the car. The first place he checked was under the driver’s seat.

  A gun was beneath the seat.

  “All right, cuff him,” he said to his partner as he took the gun from the car.

  “I’ve got registration for that too,” said Flynn.

  “We’ll check it at the station.”

  “I’ve got it with me.”

  “We’ll check it at the station,” the officer repeated. “We’ll check the car registration too. Foreign car, could be stolen. Meantime, the car stays here until we do.” The officer pulled the keys from the car as the other officer pulled out his handcuffs and ordered Flynn to put his arms behind him.

  I stared in disbelief. This was not Mississippi. This was Los Angeles. Maybe I had been studying the law a little too much, but I pressed them with my frantic questions. “What’s he done? What are you charging him with? You need to let him go!”

  The officer holding Flynn glanced over at me and said, “Gal, you know, we can take you in too.”

  Flynn interceded. “Look, she’s done nothing! She has nothing to do with this!”

  As the policeman clasped handcuffs on Flynn, my blood ran hot and I ran around the car toward Flynn. The officers saw me coming, and the one with Flynn’s gun grabbed me and shoved me hard back against the car. At that, Flynn, already handcuffed, wrenched away from the other officer and lurched toward the one holding me. “Get your hands off her!”

  The officer holding me turned. “What you say?”

  And the other officer countered, “Nigger, you resisting arrest?” Flynn was given no time to reply. The officer, holding my arm with one hand, lifted the other holding the gun and slammed the side of Flynn’s head with the butt of the gun. The other officer, with his hand on the back of Flynn’s neck, slammed Flynn’s face against the top of the car, jerked his head back, and slammed his head down again.

  I stood frozen, horrified.

  The one officer pulled Flynn away from the car. Blood was dripping from Flynn’s scalp and running down the side of his mouth. His eyes looked dazed as he stared at me. The policeman yanked Flynn toward the police car.

  “Flynn!” I cried out, not knowing what to do.

  Flynn managed to speak, his voice low, sounding gargled. “Drugstore few blocks down. Call Justine, come get you.”

  The policeman holding me let me go. Then the two officers pushed Flynn into the back seat of their car. The door slammed and the police car sped away.

  I was left alone on the streets of Los Angeles.

  CASSIE’S LOVE STORY

  CHAPTER III

  (1949)

  I did as Flynn had instructed. I walked as fast as I could toward the drugstore. I wanted to run, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself from passing motorists than I already was doing. After all, I was colored in a white neighborhood. I walked one block, then two. They were long blocks, and I saw no sign of a corner store up ahead. Well into the third block, a car filled with white teenage boys slowed on the other side of the street, then made a U-turn and pulled slowly alongside me. I did not turn to look at them.

  “Hey, girlie!” one of them shouted. “Need a lift?”

  “We’ll take you wherever you want to go,” yelled another.

  I kept on walking. The car kept pace with me.

  “Yeah, and, hey, we’ll give you whatever you need too!”

  There was laughter from the car. “Say, maybe what we need to be asking is how much you want for the four of us?”

  I wanted to run. I knew I shouldn’t run, show my fear. I thought of the white boys on the Mississippi road down home who had followed me years ago. I wanted to cry out, but was afraid to do that too. I wanted to turn and scream into their faces and tell them where they could go, but I knew I shouldn’t stop or acknowledge their insults. My face burned hot, but I kept on walking. They continued to follow, laughing and hurling their obscene remarks. I reached the end of the block and was fearful they might turn and cut me off as I crossed the street. They didn’t.

  In the fourth block now, I searched for lights on the next corner, for any indication that there was a store. Still, I saw nothing, only houses with long rolling lawns set back some distance from the street. I thought about running up to one of them, but what good would that do? They were all houses occupied by white people.

  The car stopped. I guessed the boys were tired of their game of cat and mouse and I feared they were now about to take a different action. As the front passenger door opened, I was about to break into a run when I saw an elderly man and woman emerging from a driveway, walking their dog. I hurried toward them, speaking before I even reached them. “Excuse me. Excuse me, please! Can you tell me where there’s a pay phone near here? I understand there’s supposed to be a drugstore nearby.”

  The couple stared at me, I’m sure knowing as well as I that I was out of place here in
this Westwood neighborhood. “Do you work near here?” the woman cautiously asked.

  “No,” I answered, quickly glancing back toward the carload of boys. “My car had trouble and I had to leave it a few blocks down. I need to call someone to pick me up.”

  The couple’s gaze followed my glance. “Well, we’re going down that way,” the man said, his eyes on the car. “About a block and a half. You can walk along with us.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

  The car with its load of boys took off.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  At the drugstore I called Justine, and within thirty minutes she and J.D. arrived to get me. The elderly couple stayed at the drugstore while I waited. They sat sipping sodas at the ice cream fountain, and even offered me one. I declined their offer but thanked them profusely for their help. Although I had not spoken of the car following me and they hadn’t mentioned it either, I knew that they stayed at the drugstore because of me. I didn’t know their names. They didn’t give them, and I didn’t give mine to them, but I knew on that night, when I was alone in a white world, they had been my guardian angels. I knew now that angels came in all colors.

  When Justine arrived she told me that she would go to the police station to see about Flynn, but she figured nothing could be done until Monday morning. I wanted to go with her, but she adamantly said that she was taking me back to Mrs. Hendersen’s. She told me not to worry about Flynn. She would get him out. “You don’t know ’bout these things,” she said. “You been a protected girl. I’ll handle it.”

  Flynn was in jail for three days.

  On Monday evening Flynn arrived at Mrs. Hendersen’s. I went right into his arms. His face was terribly bruised and swollen, his lip was cut, and he looked tired, but his first thoughts were of me. “Are you all right, Cassie? Justine told me what you went through.”

  “I didn’t go through anything, not really, nothing like you.” I pulled away to look at him again. I gently touched his face. “How are you?”

  He enfolded my hand in his. “I’m all right, Cassie. I’ve been through it before,” he said, dismissing the beating he had taken. “But I was worried about you. I should have been there for you. Those boys—”

  “I’m all right too. They never even got close to me.”

  Flynn pulled me back to him. “That’s all that matters,” he whispered.

  I asked him about the arrest, about the charges, about his car. He said the police had charged him with resisting arrest. He said he would have to go to court and, like Justine, he said he was taking care of it. He told me not to worry about any of it.

  “But I do worry. Your face . . .”

  “It’ll heal. What I need now is sleep.”

  “Then you need to go home and sleep.”

  Flynn cupped my face in his hands and stared into my eyes. “Not without you. We can sleep at Justine’s. She says she’ll clear out a room for us. She’s sending the children over to a friend for the night. Sleep, that’s all I mean. Tonight, that’s all I need and want . . . and for you to be with me. I don’t want to be without you tonight.”

  “Why Justine’s? What about your place?

  “It’s better for us to be at Justine’s.”

  I was silent.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll bring you back here before I go to work.”

  “Flynn—”

  “I’ve hardly slept in three days, Cassie.” He held my face. “Will you come with me, Cassie? Everything else, we can talk about tomorrow.”

  I pulled from his arms and went and told Mrs. Hendersen I would not be spending the night at her house. “He’s out there, isn’t he? Then you do what your heart—and God—tells you. But you put God first. He won’t guide you wrong.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Flynn fell asleep minutes after we lay down. We were fully clothed, not even under the covers except for a blanket that Flynn had thrown over us. For some time after he fell asleep, I studied the outline of his face, shadowed from the moonlight shining in. I studied him and pondered our future. I lay against his chest and wondered if this was what marriage would be like. I felt such warmth and comfort lying next to him. With him, I felt protected and secure. Finally, I too fell asleep and rolled over on my side, but when I did, Flynn stirred and, without a word, pulled me back to him. We both fell back into sleep. We were jolted awake when a voice screeched into the night. “What’s that?” I said.

  Flynn didn’t answer as we heard Justine’s voice loudly saying, “Get outta my house! That fool J.D. had no right to let you in!”

  And then the voice that had woken us, the voice of a woman screaming, cried out, “I want to see him! I know he’s here! His car’s out front!”

  Suddenly Flynn was out of bed.

  “Flynn—” I started.

  “Stay here, Cassie,” he ordered, but I too got out of bed and followed him to the door. He turned before opening it and looked at me. “Do what I say, please.”

  Flynn opened the door and closed it behind him. A moment later I heard the woman’s voice again. “I knew it! I knew you were here!”

  At that, I cracked the door open. The hallway leading to the living room was dark, and only a small lamp was lit there, but I could see Flynn standing beside Justine. I couldn’t see the woman.

  “See there! You gone and woke him up!” admonished Justine. Then, in a softer voice, she said, “You didn’t have to get up, Flynn. I can take care of this. That fool J.D. let this crazy woman in here!” J.D. sat on the sofa, his head lowered, looking chagrined.

  “I knew you were here!” the woman cried. “I went to your apartment. Why didn’t you come home?”

  Justine turned on the woman. “Why don’t you just shut up and get outta my house?”

  Flynn touched Justine’s arm. “It’s all right, Justine,” he said quietly.

  “It’s not all right!” exhorted Justine. “You need your sleep!”

  “I needed to see you, baby!” the woman exclaimed. “I need you to come home!”

  “And we need sleep!” Justine retorted. “You got any idea what time it is?”

  “Look, Justine,” Flynn said, “you and J.D. go on back to bed. Faye and I’ll go outside.”

  “Not going back to bed ’til that crazy woman’s out of my house and you’re back there getting yourself some sleep!”

  Flynn said nothing else to Justine, but passed by her and away from where I could see him. I heard the door open, then close. After that, there was only silence as Justine plopped down on the sofa beside the forlorn J.D. For a few minutes I waited quietly beside the cracked door, then finally closed the door and sat down on the side of the bed. I sat there for some time. I glanced at the clock. It was ten past two. I watched the hand on the clock slowly turn as I waited out the minutes for Flynn to return. I wanted to turn on the light, but was afraid that somehow the light would be seen outside, that maybe that woman would see it. I left the light off. At two thirty-six, I got up and sat in the chair beside the bed. At two fifty-six, I heard muffled voices down the hall, then a few minutes later the door to the bedroom opened and Flynn came in.

  “Cassie,” he said softly.

  “I’m here.”

  Flynn came over to the chair and touched my face with the back of his hand and sat on the bed in front of me. “That was Faye,” he said as he turned on the lamp beside the bed.

  “I gathered that. Is she why you didn’t want to go to your apartment?”

  He nodded. “I told her it was over between us, but she’s not willing to accept that. She keeps coming by there, calling my friends. One of them told her I was in jail and she wanted to bail me out.”

  “Did she?”

  “No. That was Justine.” He sighed. “Look, Cassie, while I was in jail those three days I did a lot of thinking about my life, about
us. I’ve been trying to get things straightened out concerning Faye before I made a commitment to you, but I’m thinking now I’ve gone about this all wrong.” He took both my hands into his. “Cassie, I want us to be married.”

  I had not expected this, not tonight. I said nothing.

  “I’ve never thought about a woman the way I think about you.” He bowed his head and was silent before he looked at me again. “You remember I told you it’s more than your body I want and you asked what else I wanted? It’s a family I want with you, Cassie. I want us to have children together. You’re the only woman I’ve ever envisioned being the mother of my children. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I want. I love you, Cassie.”

  My voice was barely a whisper. “I love you too, Flynn.”

  Flynn leaned closer to me. “I want us to get married right now, before the week’s out. I don’t want to wait.”

  I pulled from him. “What?”

  “I don’t want you to slip away from me or anything to come between us.”

  “I’m not going to slip away, Flynn, and what could come between us? Faye?”

  “Not if we don’t let her. Cassie, a lot of things in my life have slipped away. My brothers in a heartbeat, and being in that war, I learned that we can’t count any days beyond the day we’re living. In a heartbeat I could have been killed. Getting beaten by the police, being in that jail away from you, not knowing what was happening to you made me do a lot of thinking. I want you now. I don’t want to wait. Why should we? I love you and you love me. There’s no reason to wait. I want to begin my life with you.” His eyes fixed on mine. “Marry me now, Cassie.”

  “Not without my family!”

  He held my hands again. “Cassie, I know it won’t be the kind of wedding you want, but I promise I’ll work to give you everything else you want. I want to take care of you, to be there for you, to do the best to give you whatever I can. You can trust me on that. You can always trust me.”