Betsey Brown (11 page)

“Girl, we been here for three trolleys. How far is that place?”

“Oh Veejay, I'm so glad to see you.” Betsey hugged her lost friend for dear life. It was so good to be around her own kind, friends who understood her already. Eugene was pleased nothing had happened to disturb his girl. Mr. Robinson served them all chocolate sundaes with cherries and teeny nuts all the way around.

“You made a step forward for the race today, Betsey. I'm real proud of you.” Mr. Robinson knew most of Betsey's comings
and goings. His pharmacy was right next to the trolley stop, so if you were going somewhere Mr. Robinson knew. He also knew if you didn't go somewhere. One time Betsey'd tried to make-believe she got on the trolley to go to her piano lesson, but she just stood at the door and then jumped off. She stayed the whole time in the store with Mr. Robinson and then tried to walk home as if she'd been to her lesson with that fat old Mr. Benjamin who had nine children and a wife who sang opera. But Mr. Robinson had already called her parents to say she was staying in the pharmacy an awfully long time.

Jane let Betsey go on about the Benjamin children and their West Indian accents, how well she was doing with her scales and the new Chopin piece, when Greer mentioned casually that Mr. Robinson had said what good company she'd been all afternoon, business was kind of slow, Betsey was a wonderful child to talk to. What a licking that led to. So Betsey never tried to do anything in front of Mr. Robinson anymore. He stuck with the grown-ups, but today he was proud of her. Maybe he'd call Jane and Greer and tell them that, too.

Eugene walked Betsey home after they'd walked Veejay round to Charlotte Ann's where she was visiting till her mother got off work.

“I can't wait for you every day, Betsey. I've got practice, but I was worried today. What with all them white people. Never know what they'll do.”

“They weren't nearly as bad as I thought they'd be, Eugene. Honest. Why I even made one friend, Randa. But they're not like us. That's the truth. They can't dance or play rope. They don't talk the same. It's almost like going to another country.”

“Well, you be sure and tell me if one of those white boys messes with you, you hear?”

“Uh huh. I'll tell you.” Betsey wanted to throw her arms round Eugene's neck and kiss him a Roscoe and Regina kiss for saying what he'd just said. He was willing to protect her. He wanted to know if anything happened to her. She held herself back, smiling from one braid to the other.

“Eugene, I'm really glad you like me that much.”

Eugene blushed a bit and was on his way. Betsey didn't know from day to day when she'd see him, but she knew he was there if she needed him.

The children's commutes put the dinner back by an hour and a half. Jane and Greer were home before everybody except Allard, who kept exclaiming: “Mama, they didn't kill me. Look, Mama, I'm alive.”

“Yes, you are, Allard. You are very much alive. I told you not all the white people were evil. There's evil in every group.”

“Yeah, Charlie's evil.”

“No, Charlie isn't evil. He's having growing pains, that's all.”

“Look, Daddy, I'm alive. The white folks didn't kill me.”

Margot and Sharon luckily had each other for support at their school, where nothing in particular happened. They were just dirty and fuzzy-headed enough to let Jane know they'd spent their time playing and were out of danger. The missing Charlie changed the scene entirely, when he walked in with a torn shirt and a black eye. Everybody ran up to him. Vida went to get a piece of cold beef to put over that eye. Jane hugged him as she loosened the remnants of the pressed shirt from her nephew's back.

“Those dirty guineas callt me a niggah, Uncle Greer. They callt me a niggah. I didn't have any choice. I had to defend myself.”

“All you could think to do is use your hands, Charles. Is
that all you've learned? Fighting white folks won't change their minds. It just makes them meaner. Now you sit down and let's take a look at what's happened to you. How many were there, Charlie?” Greer asked, quite serious.

“Five greasy-headed wop bastards.”

“Charlie, you didn't learn that language here, and I won't have it in my house.” Jane was exasperated. Of all the children she'd been worried about, Charlie was the last one she thought would have trouble. It was his temper. No. That was a lie. It was the white people. No. It was Greer filling the children's heads with stories of heroes and standing up for yourself at any cost. Jane didn't know what to do but soothe the aching bones of her sister's son and listen.

“Why didn't you get the principal or the school guard, Charles?” Greer went on.

“What for? So they could all gang up on me? I'm not going back there.”

“Yes you are. What's the point of having stood up for yourself if you're going to back down for your next move.”

Greer was thinking maybe he should have taken each of the children to school himself. That way everybody would know that there was somebody to be reckoned with if so much as a hair on the head of a Brown was put out of place. Jane didn't quite know how to handle this. She'd promised Catholic schools at the first sign of trouble, but she and Greer also had a pact, which was not to contradict each other in front of the children.

“But Uncle Greer, there's more of them than there are of me. I'm gonna carry me some of my fellas back over there. Let them see what a pack of ‘niggahs' can do to their greasy-just-off-the-boat asses.”

“Charles, I did say that was quite enough of that language.
The other children don't need to hear you talking like that. It won't help anything.”

“Look, Charlie, the guineas didn't kill me either,” Allard jumped in.

“See what I mean, Charles, you've got to be careful what you say.”

When Vida returned with the meat for Charlie's eye, she chirped: “See, there's no sense going where you're not wanted. White folks are enough trouble far off, no need to be all up under them too.” With that Vida set the little steak on Charlie's face and examined the bruises on his chest.

“Looks just like when they pulled my great-uncle Julius out his house to lynch him. That's what it looks like.” Vida just shook her head.

Jane looked up, startled. “Mama, you weren't even alive when that happened.”

“There's some things you never forget, Jane. It runs in your blood memory. That's what it does.”

“Oh, Mama.”

“Charlie, tomorrow you and I will be going to that school together. We'll see who wants to take on the Golden Gloves Champion of 1941 and the latest hero of the race.”

“Really, Uncle Greer? You'll go there with me? I don't want it to look like you're seeing to a little guy like Allard or nothing.”

“No, we'll go, two men together.”

“Y'all best leave those white folks alone.” Vida slipped away to the yard where there were only green things. They understood her ways of thinking. Grow in your own patch. Stay put and blossom.

Jane suddenly realized there was no dinner ready. She left the family staring at Charlie, while Greer tried to make the
best of it, boosting the spirits of the new pioneers with the family chant, “The work of the Negro is never done.”

Yet Charlie's bruises brought home what they'd all been worried about. The vengeance of the white people. It could have been any one of them, Mrs. Leon or no Mrs. Leon. Were there enough “well-meaning white folks” to outdo the ordinary ones who'd attack a boy like Charlie five to one?

Betsey counted her blessings. She looked at her sisters and Allard, grateful no harm had befallen them. She thought not being spoken to was the kindness of the Lord compared to what Charlie'd faced. But now there was the issue of safety. Daddy couldn't be everywhere with everyone every day. Somebody had to earn a living. It was clear to Betsey the police weren't earning theirs.

“Girls, come help me with the supper,” Jane shouted from the kitchen.

“All right, Mama,” but none of them moved. They were waiting for some sign from Charlie that everything was all right again.

“You heard Aunt Jane, go get dinner ready, would you? I'm hungry.”

Charlie could talk fine, but his words were slurred cause he wanted to cry too. He couldn't bear the burden of the whole race all by himself. Not every day. Alone. He was so glad Uncle Greer had decided to go with him just once. He'd let those guineas, oh, those people, know he wasn't alone in this. Not by a long shot.

Vida'd come in from her garden and run everybody, including Jane, out of the kitchen. She said there was too much mess going on in the house, and cooking gave her peace of mind. The children needed to do their lessons, so the white folks would know they weren't any dummies.

“Look, Grandma, the white folks didn't kill me.”

“Of course not, Allard. They only kill little boys who don't mind.”

“Mama! That was an inappropriate answer,” Jane said, irritated.

“Well, I told him what I think.”

“Allard, the white people aren't going to kill anybody. What happened to Charlie happens everywhere, even between Negroes themselves. Remember what I told you: there's evil folks in every walk of life. Their color has nothing to do with it.”

“That's not what Charlie said. He said there was five of them and one of him.”

“Allard, Charlie's mad right now. Everything he says when he's mad isn't true.”

“No, I saw it. He's got a black eye.”

“Mama, you know those white boys beat on Charlie,” Sharon added adamantly.

“See what I told you bout messing with them white folks.” Vida was sprinkling the greens with cayenne, thinking maybe she ought to give each of the children a little bit to throw on the whites who bothered them.

“Mama, this is not the time to discourage them.”

“I'm not discouraging them. I'm encouraging them to mind their ways round those people.”

“They are not ‘those people,' they are just some other people. Mama, please, let's not argue.”

“Well, if they bother me, I'm gonna set em on fire, that's what I'm gointa do,” Allard declared.

“You'll do no such thing.”

“Yes I will. They go up in flames to glory. Won't they, Grandma?”

“I'm not sure that's where they'll go, Allard.”

“Mama, how could you say such a thing when you know Allard has a predilection for fire-setting. I just can't believe it.”

“Well, why don't you take a look at Charlie's eye and see what's to be believed, then?”

“Greer, Greer, take me out of here. I have to go somewhere and clear my head. Tween the white folks, Mama, the Supreme Court, the buses, the boys, the girls at that stage, oh my God, Greer, please get me out of here.”

Greer stood in the doorway of the kitchen toward the back steps.

“Come on upstairs, Jane. It's quiet. I'm going to take all the children to school tomorrow, make no mistake. Right now, though, I think I better take care of you.”

“I just don't know how much of this I can take,” Jane murmured as she and Greer slowly walked to their room.

“It's not that bad, is it?” Greer stopped at the bend in the stairs where the children couldn't spy on them and wrapped his arms around her.

“It's not my idea of a quiet family life.”

“These aren't peaceful times, Jane.” Greer kissed her temple and held her face in his hand. “You're as strong as I am. We'll make it through this and we'll reminisce bout the evening you were storming about, saying you were losing your mind. The evening I asked for a little bit of loving at quarter of six.”

“Now?”

“Yep.”

“What about dinner and the children?”

“They'll be right there, believe me, they aren't going anywhere.”

“Must be you think I'm crazy, too. All you can think I have
to do is to go off making love to you at quarter of six in the evening. I couldn't have conceived this is where we'd be thirteen years from then. And thirteen years from now?”

“We'll still be together, sweetheart. How about a tango, a bolero, a samba, a mambo?”

Jane snuggled up to Greer. “Just nothing too African, you hear. The bed can't take it.”

Betsey peeked around the corner of the landing they were on before they ran off and locked their door.

“There's never enough when you're really in love, is there Mommy . . .”

The burnt-orange and clay dried leaves fell as quickly as the days went by, there wasn't enough time to catch up with her old playmates, not enough time to dig to China, never enough time to tell the white folks what she really felt about them, walking around like they owned the world. There was never any time to see Eugene. Basketball. Basketball. Basketball. Even Charlie didn't get to see him. Plus, she was to keep her mind on her studies, now she was competing with the white children—as if that hadn't been the case in the beginning. Who did they think she was gonna grow up and compete against, Rodan? Grown-ups made such little sense. Why go lock yourself up in a room when there were sycamores and white oaks to nestle under. Why throw things and scream and holler on account of some white man coming to the door saying that the John Birch Society represented all Americans.
Mama liketa jumped down the man's throat and Daddy wasn't too keen on the explanation of separate but equal that the tiny little white man presented from a global perspective. Daddy said the only way to really understand white folks was to listen to them.

Betsey thought she must know all about the white people by now, she listened to them all day long. Every day. Not the way a blues gets in your bones and has ya inchin along in tune to the smells and sways of a colored day, so it's pleasant and downright comforting, but the way the gnats be coming at ya at night if no one has any bug lotion. White folks got on ya like gnats. She missed everything on account of them. She thought on what she could do as hard on the white folks as they were hard on her.