New Boy (24 page)

Finally he said, "Well, son, if that's how you feel about it, the money's on its way. But the minute you see there's going to be any trouble, I want you to promise you'll leave. Is that a promise?"

"Don't worry, Dad, I promise," I said, and I really meant it at the time.

"Now, tell me about this girl you're coming to see."

"Her name is Paulette Gentry. She's a freshman at the high school. Her father's a doctor."

"Oh, yes, I've met Dr. Gentry. He's a surgeon. Seems like a nice fellow. How long have you been sweet on her?"

"I met her at the Braxtons' New Year's Eve party," I said. "We've been writing to each other since then."

"Is she going to be at Woolworth's too?" said Dad.

"I think so," I said. "If her parents will let her go."

On March 10,1 received a letter from Mr. Spencer informing me that my request for a weekend furlough had been approved. I was so excited that I ran back to my room and wrote a quick note to Paulette. "Meet me in front of Woolworth's on March 19. I'll be there handing out leaflets."

The days leading up to my departure flew by in a blur. I did my best to keep up with my assignments, but I was so excited about taking part in the protest that it was hard to concentrate. I thought about famous Negroes like Marian Anderson and Reverend King, the ones who had to stand up before big audiences, and I wondered how they did it, how they maintained their composure on the stage while representing the race.

The night before I was scheduled to leave I called Russell. "Hey, man," he said. "I was wondering what happened to you. Are you coming down?"

"I wouldn't miss it," I said. "My bags are already packed. How do things look?"

"Lookin' real good so far," said Russell. "Since the news about Greensboro, a lot more people want to get involved. We got about two hundred kids signed up to do leafleting. Joseph said he's already got seventy-five from the college that's willing to sit down at the lunch counter, and he's sure he can get more. We're gonna do it, man. We've been trying to keep it quiet, but it seems like everybody around here knows about it. I just hope the white folks don't lock the doors to keep us out."

"Have you heard from Paulette?" I asked.

"Talked to her the other day," said Russell. "She's been passing your messages along to me. I think she's having some trouble with her parents about showing up on Friday." In her letters, Paulette had said her parents didn't want her to go, but they were leaving it up to her. At least, I thought, they hadn't threatened to punish her like other parents.

"Anything you want me to do?" I asked.

"Naw," said Russell. "Just get yourself down here."

On Thursday afternoon, I took a cab to the station to catch the train to New York. The driver was an old, overweight white guy in a plaid shirt and suspenders. He was wearing a faded red baseball cap and driving a beat-up tan station wagon. A pair of old hunting boots and a tool box lay on the floor in the back.

"Where you headed?" he said after we'd driven for a while. He glanced at me through the rear-view mirror.

"Virginia."

"Long trip."

"Fourteen hours," I said. "If I'm lucky."

He was driving quickly, steering with one hand. I was gazing out the window at the landscape, which was finally turning green after the long winter. "That Joe Louis is the greatest fighter that ever lived," he said abruptly. "Now they're saying he's on drugs." He took his cap off and scratched his head. "You never know what to believe anymore." I didn't know what to say. The remark about Joe Louis caught me by surprise. I knew he had lots of problems, but I had never heard anything linking him to drugs. I wondered if it was true. The cab driver certainly had a point. You never know what to believe anymore. Or who.

"People believe what they want to believe," I said. "Even if it isn't true."

"I know just what you mean," said the cab driver. "And it's a rotten shame." When we arrived at the station, I paid him and boarded the train. I put my suitcase in the luggage rack, took a seat, and leaned back to try to take a nap. It was going to be a long trip and I was already tired from weeks of studying late into the night. But I was finally on my way home.

The sun was starting to come up when the train arrived in town. I hadn't been able to get much sleep on the ride down, but I was so worked up that I didn't feel tired. My dad was waiting inside the station.

"How was the trip?" he said with a warm smile.

"Long," I said, yawning. "I wouldn't mind a cup of coffee."

"Your mother's making breakfast right now," he said. We started off for the parking lot. "All ready for the big day?" Despite his reservations, I could tell how pleased he was that I had come home.

"I sure am," I answered. "Did you hear about Greensboro?"

"Been all over the papers," he said. "Wouldn't surprise me if there's quite a crowd down there this morning." When we reached the Buick, I put my suitcase in the trunk and we climbed in front and headed home. "Russell called last night. He said he would stop by the house this morning at eight o'clock to pick you up. Woolworth's opens at nine, but he wants to get there early."

When we arrived home, Mom greeted us in the kitchen. She gave me a quick hug and a kiss and then went back to the stove. The rich, salty smell of bacon and eggs saturated the room. I took my seat at the table and waited hungrily as Mom filled my plate. I started eating right away.

"You want coffee?" she said, standing over me with the pot. My mouth was full but I nodded, and she poured me a steaming cup. I took a gulp, washing down the food with the hot liquid. When I finished that cup, she poured me another and sat down at the table across from me as I finished the bacon and eggs. Dad was in their bedroom getting ready to leave for his office. Mom seemed wistful. "I don't suppose we'll be seeing too much of you while you're here," she said. "Between going to that protest and seeing that young lady, you'll be mighty busy."

"It's just a weekend, Mom," I said, but I knew what she
meant. I felt the weight of her presence, but it seemed lighter, as though the anchor was slowly being raised before the boat sailed out of the harbor.

The doorbell rang and I went to get it. "Guess you made it," said Russell, standing in the doorway with a grin. He was dressed, as I was, in a tie and jacket, so the white folks couldn't say we looked like troublemakers. "You ready?" It was almost eight o'clock.

"Come on in," I said. "I'll be ready in a minute. I just want to give Paulette a call." I went to the telephone in the hallway and dialed Paulette's number, and she answered.

"I was hoping it was you," she said. "I'm so glad you called. I want to see you so much. When are you going downtown?"

"Russell is here waiting for me," I said. "We're leaving in just a minute. Are you coming?"

"My parents won't let me. They say I'm too young." She sounded anguished. "I tried to convince them it was okay, but they keep saying if I go, I could get hurt." I wanted to talk to her more, but I couldn't keep Russell waiting.

"I wish you could come," I said. "I'll tell you all about it when I get back."

"I'll be waiting," said Paulette. "Please be careful."

I said goodbye to Mom and Dad, and they also told me to be careful.

"Remember what you promised me," said Dad. "At the first sign of trouble, you'll come home."

"I'll remember, Dad," I said.

Russell and I caught the bus downtown. The sidewalks were filled with people going to work. The stores along Main Street were starting to open, and a few whites were sweeping the sidewalks in front. The morning sun was full in the sky. "Now when we get down there," said Russell, "we're going to meet Joseph and Sylvia around the corner from Woolworth's. Sylvia's got the leaflets."

"Wait a minute," I said. "I thought Sylvia's father wasn't going to let her do anything."

"Changed his mind," said Russell with a wink. "She stood up to him. Quoted Scripture to him, from the Prophet Isaiah: 'They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. They helped every one his neighbor; and everyone said to his brother, Be of good courage.' Nothing he could say after that one. He even let her use the mimeograph machine." Russell clapped his hands and we both laughed.

We got off the bus in front of Woolworth's and went around the corner to a side street where it seemed nothing was going on. There was a luncheonette and a barbershop, both of which were closed. The air was dry and sweet with the smell of tobacco curing in the warehouses nearby. We walked down the street and at the end of the block we found Joseph and Sylvia sitting in a car
with cardboard boxes in the back seat. Behind their car were four more filled with young Negroes dressed like they were going to church. Joseph got out of the first car and came over to us.

"We got twenty people ready to go in as soon as they open," he said, "and there's more back at the campus just waiting for a call." He looked at his watch. "Five minutes left." He kept looking up and down the street. "Soon as we go in, Russell, y'all start passing out the leaflets. We can keep an eye on each other through the store window. If anything goes wrong inside, call lawyer George Cox. He's in the phone book. He works with the NAACP. I already talked to him and told him what we're doing. He said he had to file some papers in court today but he'd come down if he had to." Joseph looked at his watch again. "It's time," he said. Like a platoon leader in a war movie, Joseph motioned to the first two cars that were filled with students. "All right, I need the first ten," he said, and ten young men with various shades of brown skin climbed out. They were all wearing jackets and ties and their hair was cut so short you could see their scalps. Most were slender but a few were stocky, built like athletes. I recognized Albert in the group and waved to him but I didn't know any of the others. Albert looked grim, like the others, and he nodded back but didn't wave. Everyone gathered around Joseph, who was smaller than the others, and dead serious. "All right," said Joseph. "As soon, as they open the door, we're going to walk silently inside and take seats at the lunch counter. If someone comes over to tell you that you have to leave you say 'This is America and we have a right to be served like anybody else and we intend to sit here until we get served.' Everybody got that?" Joseph looked around at the group and everyone nodded. "One more thing," he said. "If anybody puts their hands on you, if they beat on you or kick you or hit you with something,
you cannot strike back.
We cannot stoop to their level. If you can't live with that, speak up now and we'll get somebody to replace you." Again Joseph looked at the group, but no one spoke up. They were somber like young soldiers about to enter battle for the first time. Their eyes were bright, but their jaws were set and their skin was drawn against their faces. "Russell, y'all get those leaflets and follow us. We're going in," said Joseph, and he took off briskly up the street with the first ten protesters following him. A few were carrying schoolbooks but most were empty-handed. Sylvia and I each took a box of leaflets out of the car and quickly followed Russell up the street.

When we reached the front of Woolworth's, a few white shoppers were already entering through a revolving door, and Joseph and the others entered behind them, one by one, and walked straight over to the lunch counter. They took the first eleven seats in a long row of stainless-steel stools that were covered with maroon vinyl. Sylvia and I put our boxes down on the sidewalk and looked inside the store window with Russell to see what was going on. There were two waitresses behind the counter, blue-haired old white women in pink uniforms. As Joseph and the other students sat down, the waitresses moved immediately to the far end of the counter, watching the students from a distance and talking to each other with their arms folded. They seemed surprised, as though they didn't know what to do. Within seconds, a skinny white fellow dressed in a short-sleeve white shirt and a bow tie showed up. He went right behind the counter and took out several signs that said closed and put them on the counter in front of Joseph and the others. Then he sent the waitresses away and stood behind the counter talking to Joseph and the other young men, waving his arms up and down. His hair was falling in front of his eyes and he looked nervous, but Joseph and the others paid him no mind and continued to sit. One student took out a book and started to read.

"We better get started," said Russell. We each took a handful of leaflets and started to pass them out to people on the street. Most of the white people refused to take them, walking by quickly without even looking at us. Others took one, balled it up, dropped it in the street, and walked away. On the other hand, colored people walking by reached for them and smiled when they finished reading. The leaflets said,

WOOLWORTH'S LUNCH COUNTER
PRACTICES RACIAL SEGREGATION
SUPPORT THE SIT-IN
WE ARE HOLDING INSIDE
DON'T BUY WHERE YOU CAN'T
GET SERVED

Some Negroes were curious about the sit-in after reading the leaflet. "Where is it at?" they asked. We pointed inside the store,
and they went over to the store window and put their hands against the glass to shield their eyes and peer inside. When they had satisfied themselves that there really was a sit-in going on, they turned away from the window with a broad smile, and their eyes lit up as though they had seen something wondrous, like a sword swallower at the circus. Others were more adventurous, entering the store to witness the event in the flesh, pumping Joseph's hand and then the others' and patting the protestors on the back. But the Negroes we saw that morning seemed to be working people who happened to walk by. They were wearing simple clothing, uniforms or blue jeans and thick-soled shoes. Negro professionals like my parents, most of whom I would have recognized, were nowhere to be seen.

By the middle of the morning, a crowd had formed on the sidewalk outside Woolworth's. The word must have gotten out that the sit-in had begun, because more high school students were showing up to help pass out leaflets. College students wearing varsity sweaters and windbreakers with Greek letters were also arriving to show their support. I saw friends I hadn't seen since I left high school, and I even saw some students from Parkside in the crowd. The air was electric, charged with the presence of so many young colored people in one place. It felt as though it would be only a matter of time before Woolworth's would give in and the skinny white fellow would come outside and brush the hair away from his eyes and invite everyone in for a cup of coffee and a slice of pie. "Sit wherever you like," he would say. As the day wore on, however, it became clear that Woolworth's wasn't going to budge.
The lunch counter was deserted except for Joseph and the other students. The coffee urns had been drained. The pastries had been removed from the glass cases and the lights in the kitchen had been switched off. Closing time was approaching, and I realized that I didn't know what the plans were for tomorrow, so I looked for Russell and found him in the crowd.