Seeing Red (17 page)

I still had that baby girl voice. “No sir, never.” And I meant it. I’d have to find another way.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Retribution

On Monday morning I had to meet with Miss Miller before class so she could tell me what my punishment was going to be for skipping school. Mama drove me in early, telling me all the way how disappointed she was in me and asking me what Daddy would say, reminding me how he always said he could depend on me. I’d rather have had ten rides to school with the sheriff than one ride like that one.

I stood slumped in front of Miss Miller’s desk and got ready for a long lecture from her, too. She was taking her sweet time writing stuff down while I sweated. I stared behind her at the quote she put on the top of the chalkboard the first day of school and still hadn’t erased.
The truth will set you free
.

“I don’t condone what you did,” she said, finally, her head still bent over her papers, “but I do admire your persistence. It’s very important to you to preserve your heritage, isn’t it, Red?”

I tried to be truthful like the quote said, but I wasn’t sure I understood her. “I guess, if that’s what you mean by my house and the shop and the What-U-Want.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” She smiled and looked up at me. “That’s your history, and you don’t want to lose it. In fact, you’ve given me a wonderful idea for a class project!” She held up a piece of paper that said
FOXFIRE: STONY GAP
, and it had a lot more words but she laid the paper down again. “There’s a high school teacher in Georgia who published some articles in a magazine about his students interviewing people in their Appalachian community so they can preserve their heritage. The articles are so popular, they’re being made into a book called
The Foxfire Book
. And we’re going to do the same thing – record and preserve the history of this community. It’ll be a class project that’ll go on all year! And it’s all thanks to you.”

I groaned inside, and I could already hear the groans of the whole class, too. “You won’t tell anyone it’s all my fault, will you?”

She rolled her eyes like a teenager. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” I turned to leave, but she cleared her throat real loud and I turned back around.

“There’s also the matter of punishment for skipping school. Your mama and I discussed it, and we’ve decided retribution here at school would be best.”

I found out that retribution is just another word for punishment or, as Miss Miller put it, “paying back to your community”. Lucky for me, the paying back was helping Mr Walter rake leaves for three hours after school the next day. I tried hard not to smile.

Miss Miller read to us some more from her
Animal Farm
book. It turned out, there was a lot more to it than a bunch of talking farm animals. She explained that the book was criticizing how societies tell people what to do and how to think.

When we reached her favourite part Miss Miller slowed down and looked around the room at us before she said, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

I thought it was a pretty dumb line because equal meant exactly the same. How could some animals be
more
equal if they’re all exactly the same?

Lou Anne laughed out loud. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Excellent, Lou Anne!” Miss Miller’s smile was so proud as she gazed at Lou Anne that I wished I’d said it first.

After that we talked about our society and our rules, in the Miss Miller way, which meant we could mostly shout out our answers without raising our hands.

“We had to pass a law to have equality,” Lou Anne said, “because women and minorities weren’t allowed to do the same jobs as men.”

Bobby Benson snorted. “Where’d you hear that?”

“It was on the news. You know, that TV show we’re supposed to watch for homework,” Lou Anne said with a smirk. I had to smile myself because it shut Bobby up. “The president signed the law this year that says women and minorities have to be treated just the same as men.”

Some of the boys had stuff to say about that, and Miss Miller smiled and even laughed about our “lively discussion” until the door opened and the principal walked in, her lips puckered up so tight I swear a Kiss of Death was about to come out.

“What is going on in here? I can hear you all the way down the hall!” Mrs Pugh’s nostrils flared as she looked at Miss Miller and then at all of us. I noticed Miss Miller slide her copy of
Animal Farm
under a folder on her desk before the principal looked back at her for an answer.

Miss Miller twisted her peace necklace. “We’re talking about democracy, Mrs Pugh.”

“And equality for women and minorities!” Lou Anne said, but shut up quick when the principal narrowed her eyes at her.

Still looking at Lou Anne, Mrs Pugh said, “Miss Miller, I never hear disruption from other classrooms. You need to learn to control these children. I’ll see you in my office after school.” And she slammed the door.

The class was real quiet. Miss Miller’s face was pink. When the bell rang at three o’clock, she headed for the principal’s office and I knew her punishment was going to be a whole lot worse than staying after school one day and raking leaves.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Catch-22

Mr Walter looked like he was about to bust out laughing when I walked over to him in front of the school, dragging a rake. He tightened up his face enough to say, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company today, Red?” even though his eyes were still smiling.

I grinned. “I skipped school. Three times!”

I swear he looked like I’d punched him in the stomach. He bent over a little and his eyes lost any hint of a smile. He didn’t say a thing, just raked for a while in the same place, over and over, long after the leaves were off that patch. I was watching him because if he raked any more he’d pull up what little grass was left.

Finally he stopped, took a wallet from his back pocket, and pulled out a photo.

“You in sixth grade, right?”

I nodded and he handed me the photo.

“This is my grandson when he was about your age.”

I looked at the school picture of a boy in a jacket and tie, smiling.

“He was a lot like you – real smart and had some spunk. He knew what he wanted.” Mr Walter took the photo and stuck it back in his wallet. “ ’Course what he wanted was to get an education. We all figured he’d be a teacher or a lawyer or maybe even a doctor for sure.”

I started raking alongside Mr Walter because it sounded like he was on a roll.

“Yep, smart as a whip, that Leroy.”

I kind of tuned out and just raked until I heard him say, “Stopped going to school right before sixth grade.”

I stopped raking. “He quit?”

“I didn’t say he quit.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, there was a time…you were just a baby…when schools closed for years.”

“What?”

“Well, for some folks. Like my grandson.”

“Where was this? ’Cause if my mama’s going to make us move, I’d like to move there!” I was joking, but he didn’t even smile.

He gave his head a nod to one side. “Farmville area. Over towards Richmond. They didn’t want him in a white school.”

Then I understood. It was because his grandson was black. Mr Walter raked the long line of leaves we’d been gathering over towards the woods where he always dumped them.

I followed him. “Didn’t they have one of those Rosenwald schools?”

“It was shut down back in ’58 or ’59.”

“How come?”

“Because the Supreme Court said there wasn’t supposed to be separate schools, so the state didn’t have to provide teachers or anything for the Rosenwald school.”

I stopped raking again. “But they wouldn’t let him go to a white school.”

Mr Walter nodded and kept raking. “Catch-22.”

“
Catch-22
?” I said. “Isn’t that a movie?”

“Sure is.”

I remembered Daddy telling me about it. This World War II pilot pretends to be crazy because he doesn’t want to fly any more missions, knowing he’ll get shot down. But they told him, if you know it’d be crazy to fly those missions then you must be sane, and since you’re sane, you can’t get out of it.

Mr Walter gave a little laugh, but he wasn’t smiling. “Caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“So what happened to Leroy?”

“Oh, the government got involved and finally made the states open the schools to black kids or the schools wouldn’t get any money at all. Took years.”

“How could it take that long?”

“With all deliberate speed. That’s how fast they had to integrate.”

“What does that even mean?”

He shook his head. “Exactly, Red. Exactly.”

We raked a little more before I asked him, “Did he go back again – Leroy – once they finally let him in?”

“Well, if you were sixteen, would you like to join a class of sixth graders?”

“No. That’s crazy.”

“I guess that’s how he felt.” He paused and looked at me. “Do you know what he is now?”

I figured it was going to be one of those stories like Martin Luther King Jr. Maybe he skipped high school and went right on to college. “What?”

“A janitor.”

“Just a janitor?” As soon as the words came out of my mouth I knew they weren’t real respectful, considering that’s what Mr Walter was.

“Just a janitor,” Mr Walter repeated.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a janitor,” I said quickly.

“No, there’s nothing wrong with being a janitor.” He stopped raking and looked over at the front door of the school. “What’s wrong is not having a choice.”

The breeze picked up and there was a chill in the air as we finished raking in silence. When he shook out his rake for the last time he bent down and picked something out that was caught between the tines. “See this?” He held it out to me, and I opened my hand. I barely felt the acorn fall onto my palm.

“You know what that can become, right?”

“Sure. An oak tree.”

“Not all of them, though. Some of them get left on the ground.” He took the rake from my other hand and eyeballed me. “Thank you, young man, although I hope you won’t be needing to help me out again any time soon. You understand me?”

I rolled the acorn between my thumb and fingers. “Yes, sir, Mr Walter.”

It was getting dark as I sat on the front steps of the school, waiting for Mama to pick me up. I heard the door open behind me and looked around to see Miss Miller, her flower-power bag loaded up with papers and her suede purse slung over her shoulder. She surprised me by sitting down on the step next to me. “Are you waiting for your ride?”

“Yes, ma’am.” It was weird having a teacher sit right next to me. It felt like we were a couple of teenagers or something.

She smiled. “How did it go with Mr Walter?”

“Fine.” I was still twirling the acorn around in my hand.

I guess my “fine” didn’t sound too fine because she said, “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking…”

“That is like music to my ears, Red.” She put her purse down next to her flowered bag and leaned over, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on one hand. “ ‘Just thinking’ is about the best thing anyone can do.” She turned her head towards me and rested her head on her palm. “Do you want to let me in on what you’re just thinking about?”

I shrugged. “Those kids – black kids – who weren’t allowed to go to school for four or five years. How could that happen?”

She lost her smile and didn’t sound like a teenager any more. “I wish I had a good answer for that.”

“I don’t see how people could get away with it. I mean, not here. Not this country. Not in Virginia.”

She looked down at her nails, clenching her fingers into a fist. “Virginia was one of the worst states. It was a Virginia senator who introduced the Southern Manifesto.”

“The what?”

“It was a document all about the different ways to keep schools from integrating. The senator – Senator Byrd – and his buddies in other southern states wanted to keep blacks out of the schools.”

“You mean it wasn’t just in Farmville?”

“Farmville – Prince Edward County – was the worst, but it happened other places. Lots of other places.” She stared at the steps.

I shook my head. “That’s just crazy.”

She was still staring at the steps, like she didn’t hear me.

“How come I never heard of it before?”

She turned her head and stared at me like she’d just realized something. “That’s a very good question.” She was making me uncomfortable the way she kept staring at me. I was glad when her ride showed up, until I saw that it was Mr Reynolds and how big they smiled at each other.