[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
you got all that locked up inside you.
Tell her we have to go home. It s all right, Alva. Please, Mother.
Say good-bye. Good-bye.
When I was carrying Parry and her father left me, and I fifteen years old,
one thousand miles away from home, sin-sick and never really believing, as
still I don t believe all, scorning, for what have it done to help, waiting there
in the clinic and maybe sleeping, a voice called: Alva, Alva. So mournful
and so sweet: Alva. Fear not, I have loved you from the foundation of the
universe. And a little small child tugged on my dress. He was carrying a
parade stick, on the end of it a star that outshined the sun. Follow me, he
said. And the real sun went down and he hidden his stick. How dark it
was, how dark. I could feel the darkness with my hands. And when I could
see, I screamed. Dump trucks run, dumping bodies in hell, and a convey
line run, never ceasing with souls, weary ones having to stamp and shove
them along, and the air like fire. Oh I never want to hear such screaming.
Then the little child jumped on a motorbike making a path no bigger than
my little finger. But first he greased my feet with the hands of my momma
when I was a knee baby. They shined like the sun was on them. Eyes he
placed all around my head, and as I journeyed upward after him, it seemed
I heard a mourning: Mama Mama you must help carry the world. The
rise and fall of nations I saw. And the voice called again Alva Alva, and
I flew into a world of light, multitudes singing, Free, free, I am so glad.
2
Helen began to cry, telling her husband about it.
You and Alva ought to have your heads examined, taking her
47
o yes
there cold like that, Len said. All right, wreck my best handkerchief.
Anyway, now that she s had a bath, her Sunday dinner. . . .
And been fussed over, seventeen-year-old Jeannie put in.
She seems good as new. Now you forget it, Helen.
I can t. Something . . . deep happened. If only I or Alva had told
her what it would be like. . . . But I didn t realize.
You don t realize a lot of things, Mother, Jeannie said, but not
aloud.
So Alva talked about it after instead of before. Maybe it meant
more that way.
Oh Len, she didn t listen.
You don t know if she did or not. Or what there was in the experi-
ence for her. . . .
Enough to pull that kid apart two ways even more, Jeannie said,
but still not aloud.
I was so glad she and Parry were going someplace together
again. Now that ll be between them too. Len, they really need, miss
each other. What happened in a few months? When I think of how
close they were, the hours of makebelieve and dressup and playing
ball and collecting. . . .
Grow up, Mother. Jeannie s voice was harsh. Parialee s col-
lecting something else now. Like her own crowd. Like jivetalk and
rhythmandblues. Like teachers who treat her like a dummy and white
kids who treat her like dirt; boys who think she s really something
and chicks who. . . .
Jeannie, I know. It hurts.
Well, maybe it hurts Parry too. Maybe. At least she s got a crowd.
Just don t let it hurt Carol though, cause there s nothing she can do
about it. That s all through, her and Parialee Phillips, put away with
their paper dolls.
No, Jeannie, no.
It s like Ginger and me. Remember Ginger, my best friend in
Horace Mann. But you hardly noticed when it happened to us, did
48
o yes
you . . . because she was white? Yes, Ginger, who s got two kids now,
who quit school year before last. Parry s never going to finish either.
What s she got to do with Carrie any more? They re going different
places. Different places, different crowds. And they re sorting. . . .
Now wait, Jeannie. Parry s just as bright, just as capable.
They re in junior high, Mother. Don t you know about junior
high? How they sort? And it s all where you re going. Yes and Parry s
colored and Carrie s white. And you have to watch everything, what
you wear and how you wear it and who you eat lunch with and how
much homework you do and how you act to the teacher and what
you laugh at. . . . And run with your crowd.
It s that final? asked Len. Don t you think kids like Carol and
Parry can show it doesn t have to be that way.
They can t. They can t. They don t let you.
No need to shout, he said mildly. And who do you mean by
they and what do you mean by sorting ?
How they sort. A foreboding of comprehension whirled within
Helen. What was it Carol had told her of the Welcome Assembly
the first day in junior high? The models showing How to Dress
and How Not to Dress and half the girls in their loved new clothes
watching their counterparts up on the stage their straight skirt, their
sweater, their earrings, lipstick, hairdo How Not to Dress, a bad
reputation for your school. It was nowhere in Carol s description,
yet picturing it now, it seemed to Helen that a mute cry of violated
dignity hung in the air. Later there had been a story of going to
another Low 7 homeroom on an errand and seeing a teacher trying
to wipe the forbidden lipstick off a girl who was fighting back and
cursing. Helen could hear Carol s frightened, self-righteous tones:
. . . and I hope they expel her; she s the kind that gives Franklin
Jr. a bad rep; she doesn t care about anything and always gets into
fights. Yet there was nothing in these incidents to touch the heavy
comprehension that waited. . . . Homework, the wonderings those
times Jeannie and Carol needed help: What if there s no one at home
49
o yes
to give the help, and the teachers with their two hundred and forty
kids a day can t or don t or the kids don t ask and they fall hopelessly
behind, what then? but this too was unrelated. And what had it
been that time about Parry? Mother, Melanie and Sharon won t go
if they know Parry s coming. Then of course you ll go with Parry,
she s been your friend longer, she had answered, but where was it
they were going and what had finally happened? Len, my head hurts,
she felt like saying, in Carol s voice in the car, but Len s eyes were
grave on Jeannie who was saying passionately:
If you think it s so goddam important why do we have to live
here where it s for real; why don t we move to Ivy like Betsy (yes, I
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]