The Last House on the Street(20)

“How could they possibly be ‘fine with things the way they are’?” I asked. “I think you just tell yourself that to feel less guilty about their situation.” I couldn’t remember a time I’d spoken back to my father and for a moment no one said anything. Buddy finally broke the silence.

“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “The Klan’s probably gearin’ up to make those students turn tail and go back where they came from.”

“And exactly how are they going to do that?” I asked.

“You’re being na?ve,” my father said. “Buddy’s right. No one in Derby County is going to take kindly to that sort of interference and you have absolutely no need to be a part of it.” He set down his fork and leaned toward me. “Why the hell would you put yourself in that vulnerable position?”

“Daniel!” my mother admonished him for the curse word. I thought it was the first time I’d ever heard my father use it. His voice was still deceptively calm, which made his words that much more intimidating to me.

“Let the Martin Luther Kings of the world sort it out,” he continued. “It’s not your battle. If you feel so strongly about wanting to do volunteer work this summer, you could work at the Girls’ Club in town. Teach little girls how to sew or whatever they do over there.”

“I want to do something more important than that, Daddy,” I said. “I want to do something that makes a difference on a bigger scale. Not teach a girl how to hem a skirt.”

“Well, you’re not doing this,” my father said. He got to his feet, tossing his napkin on the table. “That’s my final word.”

It had been years since my father’d raised his voice to me. Buddy was the rebel in the family, not me. I felt close to tears and was angry with myself for my weakness. Right now, it seemed there was nothing else I could say. I could sit there and be cowed or I could leave the table. I folded my own napkin in silence, set it on the table next to my plate, stood up, and walked slowly and deliberately to my room, their silence following me like a ghost.



* * *



I was climbing into bed that night when my mother came into my room. She sat on the edge of my bed. Smoothed my covers. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. Tucked me in. She smiled down at me.

“We love you more than anything in the world, you know that, don’t you?” she asked.

“Of course. And I love you, too.”

“And the volunteer work you’re talking about is unnecessary, Ellie. There’s that new bill coming soon that’ll make it easy for Negroes to vote, so what is the point of this SCOPE program?”

“It’ll take more than that bill to make it easy for them to register, Mama. A lot of them won’t know how to go about registering, or there’ll be obstacles in their way. They could lose their jobs or their homes or—”

“Why on earth would that happen?”

“Because their bosses or landlords don’t want them to have any power.”

She sighed but when she spoke again, her voice was harsh. “You’d be beating your head against a brick wall, trying to change things,” she said. “This is the way God made the world. Most Negroes know their place. Like Louise. We all loved Louise, didn’t we? But she never tried to overstep. She understood—”

“Mama, it makes me crazy to hear you talk that way!” I raised myself up on my elbows. “White people made the world this way. Not God. White people want to keep Negroes down. Louise probably had to bite her tongue the whole time she was saying ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘whatever you say, ma’am’ to you.”

She slapped me. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t much. But she had never so much as laid a hand on me before and I thought we were both in shock. For a moment, neither of us spoke, and I lay back on my pillow again, turning my face away from her.

“Louise knew her place,” she said finally. “That’s all I’m saying. And you should know yours.” She smoothed the hair back from my forehead. My cheek—and my heart—still hurt from where she’d slapped me.

“Does this have something to do with little Mattie?” Mama asked me now.

“What do you mean?” I asked, although I knew.

“Well, she and Louise were the only Negroes you’ve ever really known, and Mattie was your little friend and their story was certainly tragic, so I just thought, maybe you—”

“Mama, don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “UNC is integrated. My dorm is integrated.”

“Your dorm is…?” Her eyes widened.

“Yes. It is.”

She shook her head as though she couldn’t believe the state of the world. “Well, I just thought … you know … how bad you felt about Mattie. That maybe you’re thinking this is something you should do. A way to honor her or something. You never seemed to get it through your head that you were a hero that day.” She smoothed my hair behind my ear. I resented her touch after that slap. “An eleven-year-old hero,” she continued. “Why don’t you hold on to that? To what you did that day. Let it be your legacy. Your contribution to—”

“Mama, stop it!” I sat up, nearly knocking her off the edge of the bed. I couldn’t bear to listen to her go on about Mattie for another minute. Mattie had drowned in the lake at the end of Hockley Street and I hadn’t been able to save her. The newspaper wrote me up as a hero, though, and for years afterward, people would stop me on the street to tell me how brave I was to try to save “the little colored girl.”