Driving the King (9 page)

In the copy of Mattie's newsletter I'd taken, the right column listed names of harassed and assaulted bus riders. Claudette Colvin. Geneva Johnson. Viola White. Katie Wingfield. Epsie Worthy. Mary Louise Smith. Hilliard Brooks. The police shot and killed him when he wouldn't get off. The stories were followed by a question. “Do we want these to end up like Emmett Till?” I rolled the newsletter in my hands as a woman passed me on the way to the stop.

“You didn't see the bus coming?”

“No ma'am. Can't say I did.”

“Thanks all the same.”

“Ma'am,” I told her, “something to read along with your paper.”

I showed her the newsletter.

“Thank you, sweetheart, but that's all right.” She told
me this as she pulled from her pocketbook a copy of the same. She slipped it back in and retrieved her fare from an inside pocket. From the sound of the rattling, she had enough change at the ready and wouldn't have to search while the driver waited. They gave people hell for that.

“And don't look so sad,” she told me, and smiled enough for the both of us.

Then I saw it coming over her shoulder. It shifted gears to take the hill, and the noise announced it to anyone who had not yet seen. She heard it but didn't turn around. Her face went blank, and she was ready to get on. After she climbed the steps, she dropped her fare. The driver didn't wait for her to find a place to sit. She was still walking to the back as the bus rolled away.

I
had already packed the car for California, so my trunk dipped as Dane and I sat parked on High Street. Dane had ridden with me up Highway 31 and back, while I burned the carbon off my engine. We took it up some of the back roads in pine country, about half a tank's worth of driving, and then we came on back to town. Evening settled in outside my window, and brought with it my last Saturday night in Montgomery.

We parked across from the State Theater, where a group stood, teenagers and college kids, deciding which of the movies to see. One side of the marquee said
Blackboard Jungle
, and the other listed a James Dean double feature.
Rebel Without a Cause
and
East of Eden
ran back-to-back. When I'd gone the day before, the girl making popcorn had told me why. He had died two months before. I wish I hadn't known, because I thought about
it the whole time I watched him fighting on a mountainside. I didn't stay for the second show.

The third screening room wasn't listed on the marquee, and Dane told me why. A coalition too new to have a name had rented it out to discuss the busses. They talked about staying off for a day and asking for Negro seating that was first-come, first-serve, from the back to the front. Some wanted more, and some wanted nothing. Folks had been gathering separately all over the city. Professors. Taxi drivers. Voters League. Women's Council. And for the first time they would be in one place at one time to talk about what to do next. They did not want to attract the attention of the police or informants, so they hid their meeting in the middle of Saturday night, on a strip of town where it was easy to blend in.

The taxi drivers had learned the hard way. When I was young, they had tried to organize to get Negro drivers in the taxi line at Union Station. They had meetings, too many and too public, and before long the taxi commission and the police got wind of it. Any number of things could make a driver think twice. Sugar in the gas tanks, broken windows, and slashed tires were the kinds of things done in the dark. The rest the police did in broad daylight without the slightest hesitation. A handful of parking tickets left a driver owing the city more than he made. That was enough to make most think twice about changing things.
With the busses, they had learned to be more careful. No more meetings in schools or homes. It was better if a meeting looked like a party or a funeral or a picture show, where cabs lined up on a side street was to be expected.

Dane had been elected sergeant at arms for the Taxi Guild. In the early days, he was just in charge of bringing the folding tables and coffee cups. But the job had changed as the times required. He still showed up at every meeting, but he sat outside in his cab. He watched who was going into the State Theater, and he looked out for anybody cruising and paying too much attention to cars and license plate numbers.

“There,” Dane said, nodding. “Blue Ford. Sam Collins. Can't say he's the last one I'd suspect, but, you just don't know 'til you know.”

ALLIED TAXI
was hand-painted on the side of his car. Sam had driven by slowly once before, but he wasn't looking for fares. A couple coming out of Hilltoppers Barbeque had their hands raised, and the man even whistled. Sam Collins didn't even see or hear them, because by then he was off the brake and heading back around the corner.

I remembered him. He had worked for Centennial off and on, but he'd worked for pretty much anybody who'd let him pick up a shift or two. He couldn't hold his liquor any better than he could hold a dollar. Dane heard he'd had a couple of misdemeanors, and he'd done a little time in
county jail. I had done time with men just like him. If the only thing between getting out and dropping some years was to give the police a name, then they'd tell everything.

He came back around and stopped right next to us. He stared right in my face, and then he saw Dane.

“All right now, Sam.”

“Hey there, Dane. Heard some of the guild folks called a meeting over this way.”

“Yeah. You know Rita Tucker? Owns a little hot dog stand down on Catoma?”

He nodded, kind of.

“Wants to make a little parking lot and a cabstand on her property. Getting her paperwork together for the zoning board. She asked the guild to come down and speak at the hearing.”

“Oh.”

“Be nice, won't it? Shed and a picnic table. Pay phone. Won't have to worry 'bout parking tickets on your windshield down at Union Station.”

“Didn't know a thing about it. Heard some of the boys say they were headed over here.”

“I just got called this morning. Rita just got word from zoning yesterday. They meet Monday. All kind of paperwork.”

He nodded, and then he looked at me for a good little while.

“Been a while, Nathaniel.”

“While and a half, Sam. Good to see you.”

“How long you been home?”

“Couple-three days.”

“I know you happy to be out from 'round there.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“I know the feeling.”

There was something in Sam's face that I didn't want to read, so I looked away. Maybe he was working the only hustle he had. Tell his handlers old news too stale to hurt anybody. Maybe he loved the way it made him feel to tell something. Maybe it was just money.

His Ford idled too hard. Most folk who made a living driving a car wouldn't let it ride that bad. He kept looking back toward the theater. A couple of drivers from Metropolitan and Carver Park walked inside. While Sam looked away, an old woman walked out of the tobacco store with a carton of Old Golds under her arm.

“Evening,” she said. Looked at us and said it again.

Sam didn't pay attention to the woman until she opened the door and was halfway in the backseat.

“Evening, ma'am.”

“You working?”

Seems like he had to think about it. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Washington Park, please. Roosevelt and Hill.”

He looked at us, and was still glancing toward the theater.

“Go ahead and make your money, Sam,” Dane told him. “Stop by the stand Monday, we'll have some minutes typed up for you and the boys who couldn't make the meeting.”

And with a last look and a so long, he was off.

“What happens when he finds out you lied to him?”

“No lie. If he carries his ass to the zoning meeting, he'll see Rita Parker waiting for a hearing. If he's telling on us, whatever he says has to be right. Not all the time, but enough. Else they'll find another one we don't know about.”

With Sam Collins gone, Dane could relax. He had been sitting up looking stiff and a little nervous, too tense to sink deep into his seat. He leaned back on the headrest and took in some of Saturday night. Thanksgiving was coming, and the cool weather had brought out the heavy coats. The football team had a game that afternoon, and college kids had come from campus in black-and-gold sweaters. Some stood in front of the movie house, and others gathered at Hilltoppers, waiting to get a bite to eat before curfew came and the dorm mothers locked the doors.

“Hope you plan to say good-bye before you leave,” Dane told me. “I know you lied and said Monday, but this trunk is too heavy.”

“I figured I'd say good-bye tonight without you knowing. Hugging and crying ain't the way to start a trip. Plus Eleanor might try to feed me before I go in the morning.
Have me nodding off to sleep and in a ditch somewhere in Mississippi.”

I tried to make light of it, but I couldn't say a proper good-bye to family I hardly knew. I had been a stranger to my brother's children. I had heard family stories that were new to me. So many times over those days, my loved ones told stories that started with remember when. And for me, the answer was a silent no, but I listened, hearing things that were unfamiliar, painfully so. Every story fell into the hole left by the things I'd missed.

“It'll be good for you out there,” Dane said. “You'll see some things. Might see Nancy Wilson.”

“If I do, I'll tell her Dane said hello.”

“Autographs. The kids say they want some. Doesn't matter who, just anybody famous.”

“I'll send as many as I can. Pictures, too.”

Around the time the meeting let out, a delivery truck pulled up and left a bundle of evening papers in the box outside Parker's Pharmacy. Dane got out and bought one. While he stood there, reading and flipping, a young man spoke to him. I'd seen him leave the bus meeting a while before. He was dressed like a professor in that tweed the teachers wore, but the clergy pin gave him away. He had a paper bag in one arm, and in the other, a topcoat and a briefcase with corner marks in the leather from a multitude of books.

I could tell what they were saying without hearing a word. My brother pointed to the car, offering a ride, and the preacher pointed toward the corner, saying he was fine walking. Dane shook his head and took the paper bag and the young man followed. I leaned back and popped the door before Dane had to reach for it.

“Martin, my brother Nathaniel. Nat, this is Reverend King. The new Improvement Association—the folks meeting across the street. Rev's running it.”

“It's running me, I believe.”

I turned to shake his hand. As young as he was, he looked just as tired. Saturdays could be hard on a preacher. Weddings and funerals, maybe both in a day. On top of that, figuring what to say the next morning. The day had caught up with him. New stubble covered his face along with the razor bumps that hadn't healed all the way.

“Welcome home,” he said, nodding into his hello. “I saw your picture on the wall in Malden's. I saw you standing next to Nat Cole and thought you were a musician. Then somebody told the story. One said it was a trombone and the other said trumpet.”

“In actuality, Rev, it was a microphone.”

He settled back in his seat. “A microphone.”

He wore the clothes that concealed a day's worth of rumpling. Tie and a vest, that same sturdy wool, so the
top layers of his clothes could keep him looking fresh long after he was spent.

“They tell me Nat Cole's father used to preach here.”

“Over at First Baptist, matter of fact,” I told him.

“Reverend Abernathy's place,” he said.

“Nat played piano fifth Sundays with the children's choir,” I told him. “Couldn't have been more than six years old. Had as many people showing up for him as they had for communion.”

“I get on that upright every now and again, but I could never play like that. Good to calm the nerves,” Martin said.

He was quiet for a minute, and then he pulled himself toward us with both hands, his arms resting on the back of our seat.

“I need to ask you all something. I couldn't ask any of the preachers or association folks. They might think I'm—well, unappreciative. Why do you think they chose me for this? All the people to put in charge, and they chose me.”

We'd reached his house by then, and Dane pulled to the curb before he answered.

“From what I heard, everybody thinks you're smart. The white reporters love to quote some ignorant preacher. You ain't that. That's the first thing. Second, you're from Atlanta. And I got to be honest, Rev. If the white folks run you out of town, you'll have somewhere better to go.”

“Not a thing wrong with honesty. Better to hear it to my face, I imagine.”

I heard him gathering up his things then, and that satchel had some weight to it, too much to be carrying around all day. As much as folks talked about walking, they would have to learn to travel light.

“Been in a few Packards, but I've never seen a pinstripe seat,” he said.

“This is Nathaniel's car. He always wanted a hat like this, but with a skull as large as his, it wasn't feasible. Mama said if she bought that much fabric, she could just reupholster a car instead. He could roll his head around the headrest and the seat and be satisfied.”

The young preacher looked at us like we were crazy, but that good kind of crazy that he preached about. Fiery furnaces and lion's dens and that kind of crazy.

“No shame in a big head. The sign of a thinking man,” he said.

The porch light came on and his wife peeked through the curtain while she cradled a baby. All I could see of the child was an arm, a small hand around the mother's thumb. The curtain moved like Mrs. King did, back and forth to keep the baby calm.

“How old?”

“Three weeks.”

“Your first?” I could feel him smiling before I saw as much in the rearview. Smiling and saying yes.

“The young girl who was put off the bus back in March, the Colvin girl, you all know her?”

“Know some of her people,” I told him. “Good folk.”

“I guess you don't have to know her for it to be a shame.” He looked toward the house. “Well, next time. I figure we'll be ready.”

It was a neat little place, and it had been the parsonage for as long as I had been alive. The preachers had all been old before, so his was the first young family. The first baby born in that house.

“Porch looks good,” Dane told him.

“Had some paint left from the nursery. I thought the swing might be good for Yoki. They tell me it might not be a good idea, sitting on my front porch. Things might get ugly.”

“It's been ugly for a while, Rev.”

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was half a block from the State Capitol, but the parsonage was a mile away, on the last block of Centennial Hill. The distance made that house feel more like a home, no different than the ones of the doctors and professors who lived in the houses next door. It was quieter that I would have expected, even with Saint Margaret's emergency room across the street.

I looked back at the preacher, and I thought at first he was looking at his family. His house. But that tiredness had made its way to his eyes, and he was sound asleep just that fast.