The Lions of Little Rock (19 page)

The blood drained from Mother's face, like I'd seen it do only once before, the time she'd got the phone call telling her that Granddaddy had died.

“Marlee,” Mother said, her voice breaking, “I thought you liked JT?”

“I did,” I said. “About four months ago.” I hadn't said this much to her in years.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to interfere.”

I waited for her to lecture me about cheating on homework, or say I shouldn't be scared of Red, or at least ask what I meant about Sally's hair. But Mother didn't. She didn't say another word.

38

SECRETS ON THE BUS

Judy came home for Easter. Things were still odd between us. We'd only exchanged a few postcards since Christmas. I did an extra-thorough job cleaning up my room the night before she arrived, just in case she wanted to be roommates again. But Daddy put her bag down in David's room, and she didn't tell him to move it.

So I was kind of surprised when she suggested we take the bus across town to see David at college one evening. Mother and Daddy agreed and gave Judy some money for dinner, and before I knew it, we were on our way.

The bus wasn't crowded. We sat next to each other, not touching. In the old days, Judy would put her arm around me, and I'd lean my head on her shoulder. I kept expecting her to start talking, to give me advice like she always did. But she didn't. I wanted to tell her something—anything—so we'd have another secret to share.

“Judy?” I said.

“Hmmm?” It was raining outside and the bus was warm.

“You know that friend I had? Liz.”

“The one who was colored?” asked Judy.

“Yeah.”

“What about her?”

I glanced around the bus to make sure there was no one I knew. There wasn't. “I'm still friends with her.”

“What?” Judy sat up.

“Sometimes we talk on the phone. And on Tuesdays we meet in the rock crusher.”

“Marlee!”

“Don't tell Mother and Daddy.”

“Of course not. But why—”

“You're the one who was always telling me to find someone I had stuff in common with, someone I liked. Well, I did. It's not my fault she's not exactly who I expected.”

Judy gave me a long look. Before she could say anything else, the bus reached our stop and we stumbled out into the rain.

David was waiting for us. “Hey, sis one and sis two,” he said. “Long time no see.” I ran over and gave him a hug.

We went to a cafeteria near his dorm. I ordered fried chicken and chocolate pudding and pecan pie, and no one said a word about me not selecting a single vegetable. It didn't take long before David was talking all about the high schools being closed. “Most of the displaced white students have found somewhere to go to school. Like ninety percent or so.”

“Not Red,” I said.

“That's his choice,” said David. “His parents could totally afford to send him to private school. But fifty percent of the colored students haven't been to school at all.”

“Where'd you learn all this?” asked Judy.

“Meetings.”

“What kind of meetings?”

“There are a couple of colored students here now. I talked to one and—”

“I work for the WEC,” I said. “That's the Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools.”

“I know,” said David. “Daddy told me. That's how I got the idea. One of my friends knows a professor at Philander Smith. That's a Negro college in town. We all got together for a meeting at the house of one of the professors. He served us wine and everything. Anyway, everyone's in a tizzy over Act 10.”

“What's that?” asked Judy.

“It's a new law requiring all state employees to turn in a list of all the organizations they belong to. It has to be notarized and everything.”

“So?”

“So!” said David. “The governor and his friends are going to use those lists to fire anyone they suspect of being an integrationist.”

“But I thought people were allowed to associate with anybody they wanted, long as the group wasn't doing anything illegal,” I said.

“Exactly!” said David. “A couple of the professors are refusing to submit a list.”

“I'll have to ask Miss Winthrop about it,” I said. “See what the WEC is planning to do about—”

“Can we talk about something else?” said Judy. “I'm only home for a little while.”

So we did. We joked and poked at each other and talked about nothing in particular. It was wonderful. When it was time to go, David pulled me aside and said, “Keep up the good work.”

“Will do,” I said.

Judy was quiet on the bus ride home.

“I'm sorry we made you feel left out,” I said.

“What?”

“I mean, when David and I were talking about the schools being closed. I know you're suffering the most. Being sent away from home and living with Granny and . . .” I tried to think of something positive. “But at least you have Robert. I bet you spend a lot of time with him.”

Judy picked at a thread on her skirt. “He broke up with me.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “When?”

“Last week. He asked me to give back his jacket and everything.”

“Oh, Judy, that's awful.” She started to sniffle, and I patted her back like she was a lost puppy.

“He wanted to give it to Lou Ann.” Silent tears started rolling down her checks like the rain on the windows of the bus.

“Is this a good time to tell you I always thought he was kind of goofy looking?”

Judy snorted.

“And he smiled like a raccoon,” I added.

Judy hiccuped as she tried not to laugh. “See, Marlee?” she managed finally. “You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

“You're the older one. I thought that was your job,” I said.

“Shut up,” she said.

Sometimes it's good to have a sister.

39

ROBES IN THE CLOSET

Every Sunday afternoon in April I spent at Mrs. Terry's house. The first week when I arrived, there was a young woman in the dining room balancing a toddler on her lap as she tried to type a letter. The child was fussing.

“I'll take her,” I said.

“Thank you.” The woman stood up and handed her daughter to me. “I'm Mrs. Knowlton. Her name's Jackie.”

“Hi, Jackie,” I said. “I'm Marlee.”

The child screamed.

“I'll take her back,” sighed Mrs. Knowlton.

“No, let me try something.” I scooped up Jackie under her arms and spun her around in a circle, just like my father used to do with me.

Jackie was so surprised, she stopped crying. I stopped spinning.

“More! More!” she cried.

I started spinning again. Jackie laughed.

“Hey, Miss Winthrop,” called Mrs. Knowlton.

Miss Winthrop poked her head in the room.

“Got any more volunteers like her?” she said, pointing at me. “'Cause if you do, we'll have these schools opened by next week.”

Jackie and I kept spinning, spinning, until we fell down, laughing in a heap. The room spun, but the compliment remained. Since I was the youngest, I'd always wanted a baby sister or brother. I cradled Jackie, and she put her head on my shoulder as I walked around the parlor. When she was finally asleep, I put her down on the couch and went back to the dining room.

“You got her to take a nap?” her mother asked.

I nodded. “I sang to her.”

“What?”

“The times tables,” I said.

Mrs. Knowlton laughed.

I watched Jackie every week after that, and once she was asleep, I'd sit down with the others at the huge, dark oak table in the dining room to help with paperwork. Mrs. Brewer was usually there, talking on the phone, and Mrs. Terry, of course, and Miss Winthrop and Jackie's mother, and Mrs. Dalton, silently putting flyers into envelopes.

I looked at the flyer. It had a picture of a child with a suitcase in one hand and said
Will this be your child next fall? Over 1,000 children had to leave Little Rock to go to school this year. There is no substitute for Public Schools.

“My brother was telling me about the Act 10 thing,” I said as I started folding. “Is the WEC going to do anything about it?”

“I believe,” said Mrs. Brewer, “that Mr. Shelton—he's a colored teacher at Horace Mann—is working on filing a suit with the NAACP.”

“Yes,” said Miss Winthrop. “And Vice Principal Powell from Central is going to join him.”

“Until the suit is filed and the courts rule on it,” said Mrs. Brewer, “public employees will have to sign or not sign as they see fit.”

Mrs. Terry walked into the room then and placed a large pile of mail addressed to the WEC in front of me. “Marlee, would you mind opening these?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Thank you. Just put them into a pile and let me know if there's anything you think needs my immediate attention.”

I nodded and pulled my silver letter opener out of my purse. Miss Winthrop hummed softly as we all worked. The first few letters I opened were just routine correspondence, bills, membership applications, stuff like that. But the next three . . . “Some of these aren't very nice,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Terry asked.

“
If you go out today, you will be hit by a car and killed,
”
I read.

Mrs. Terry plucked that letter from my hand.

“There's also
Say good-bye to your loved ones
and
I thought you were a good Christian woman. I'm ashamed of
you.
”

Mrs. Terry took both of those too. “I'm sorry, Marlee. The threats go in a separate file. I'm afraid this is not an appropriate task for you. Perhaps you could go back to stuffing envelopes?”

Miss Winthrop took over the mail-opening duties, and we all went back to work. But no one hummed anymore. I wanted them to think I was mature and grown-up, but I couldn't help asking, “All those letters. Aren't you scared?”

“Of course we're scared,” said Mrs. Terry. “But you can't let that stop you.”

“It's like the phone calls,” said Mrs. Brewer. “The first one is awful, but by the hundredth, well, you hope those people are all just talk.”

“What is it your husband does again when he gets the calls?” asked Miss Winthrop.

“Oh, sometimes he reads them poetry. Or he starts talking to them in French. Or singing an aria from an opera. Mr. Brewer has quite a good voice.”

We kept working in silence for a while. “Another one for your file,” said Miss Winthrop.

I glanced at the letter before anyone could stop me.
You and all the others who think like you should be tied to a car and dragged down Ninth Street, as did happen once before.

“What's it talking about?” I asked.

Mrs. Terry sighed. “The lynching. The last one in Little Rock was in 1927.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“No,” Mrs. Knowlton said. “She's too young to know.”

“She's helping us,” said Miss Winthrop. “I say that makes her old enough.”

Mrs. Terry sighed. “A colored man, John Carter was his name, was taken by a mob of people. No one did anything. Not the police or anyone watching. Nobody even tried to save him. They hung him and shot him and dragged his body down the street and then burned him. It happened at the edge of the Negro district, on Ninth and Broadway. This house is only eight blocks away. From my front porch, I could see the glow of the fire and hear people screaming.”

We were all silent then. I heard the ripping of the paper as Miss Winthrop opened the envelopes. The squeeze of the sponge as Jackie's mother wet a stamp. Someone cleared her throat, and I looked over to see that it was Mrs. Dalton. She hadn't said a word the whole time.

“I'm here, helping,” she whispered, “because once I found white robes in my husband's closet. I was too ashamed to ask him what they were. I guess I knew. And I was too scared to throw them out. But when the schools were closed, I realized I had to do something.”

“If your husband is part of the Klan,” Miss Winthrop said, “aren't you worried he'll find out you're helping us?”

“Yes, I was.” Mrs. Dalton shook her head. “But according to him, this is just a ladies group. Harmless. We won't accomplish anything.”

The baby woke up then, and I was glad to get up and give her a bottle. I even started whispering the times tables again. I might have claimed it was to soothe her, but really, it was so I didn't have to think about lynchings and death threats and robes in the closet.