Four Spirits (57 page)

GLORIA STIFFENED HER SPINE; SHE ROTATED ON THE
counter stool just enough to see Christine lead Arcola and Charles Powers and a few others through the door. The white girl shrieked like a siren, “Sit-in!”

At Gloria, at Cat, at the whole establishment, Christine was grinning ear to ear. How she did love to be in the vanguard! Even Mr. Parrish was behind her. He was holding the door to let all the others in, but then he came in, too, the rear guard.

Christine sat right beside Gloria and reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.

“We'd all like Palace-patties, please, ma'am,” Christine said pleasantly.

“I can't serve y'all.” The pretty brown-headed girl, who looked sort of like Stella, tried to explain. “I don't know what you want to gain, but I lose my job if I fix you anything.”

Mr. Parrish seated himself next to Christine. He didn't look at the defiant white girl, but he spoke affectionately to Christine. His chin down, his head cocked a little on one side, Mr. Parrish said, “I guess we'll have to eat a little salt and pepper.” Then he looked down the row at the others.

Gloria looked, too. There they were in a row. Just a line of friends. Dark faces, her people, sitting peacefully, respectfully, at the counter of White Palace. After Mr. Parrish sat Arcola, then Charles, then the other three boys who had all claimed that day when Cat and Stella first came to teach that they, too, were named Powers.

Mr. Parrish was speaking with the back of his head turned to Gloria now.
She loved the back of Mr. Parrish's head, his crisp salt-and-pepper hair. “I don't know 'bout y'all, but this is the first time in my life I ever sat down inside a White Palace, and I'm just gonna eat a little something.”

Christine poured a little sugar from the glass canister with the flip spout into the palm of her hand. Gloria thought,
It's like she's pouring the sands of timeout of an hourglass. This is change. Like the song promises, “The times they are a-changing.”

Mr. Parrish turned back toward Gloria and Christine.

“Wait a moment,” he said quietly to Christine. He put a restraining finger on her forearm. “Let's give thanks.” He held up his other hand, closed his eyes, and prayed, but Gloria kept her eyes open. “I thank you, Lord, that we are here. Guard and guide us, Lord. Give us thy gentle spirit.”

Everybody said Amen.

“Y'all are crazy!” the pretty girl said.

“This is spooky,” the big girl said. She looked scared, as though she'd seen a haint.

They both unpinned their White Palace headpieces, set them on the counter, and fled. Gloria tried not to laugh. As the girl brushed past Cat, she said vehemently, “I don't know you!”

The man with the newspaper suddenly folded it up, lay it in his slouch bag, and picked the bag up by its wide cloth shoulder strap. He paused to put the strap over his head and position it on one shoulder. As he fled, Gloria thought he looked like somebody with a grain sack across his body, like she'd seen in paintings from the nineteenth century. Millet. Now the news of the day was the seeds of the future.

Every detail seemed of historic importance to Gloria, though she knew many Negroes had already held many lunch counter sit-ins all across the South. Still, it was historic for her, and time seemed to be slowing down. The white people were gone, except for Cat, and suddenly the place did seem spooky.

Christine said, “Looks like we got the joint to ourselves.”

Charles Powers looked down the row at her. “How 'bout you cook us some Palace-patties, Christine?” he teased.

Then Gloria heard the warning for the first time. She heard danger because she was looking at Arcola, and the composure on Arcola's face collapsed like a bombed wall, all at once. A second before, Arcola had looked confident. Gloria listened hard till she heard it: the faint barking of dogs. She took a deep breath.
So this was what she'd missed, the terror of May, over a year ago, when Arcola was bitten by a German shepherd.

Christine heard nothing. She teased back at Charles. “You hungry, you cook 'em. I'm sitting here, man.”

“You know,” Mr. Parrish said, “Christ once addressed this same question. I believe it was at the Last Supper. ‘Which is the greatest,' he asked. ‘He who serves the meat, or he who eats it?' ”

None of them but Gloria and Arcola had heard the barking. Arcola jumped off her stool, and Gloria feared she would run. She looked very nervous. But she didn't run; she was making herself be brave. She put her hand to the back of her head and prissed around the end of the counter. Gloria saw that Arcola's hand was trembling. She stood in front of the grill, where the french fries were still cooking.

Arcola lifted up the wire basket by its long handle and hung it over the empty pan to drain. Now Gloria noticed the faint sound of grease bubbling in the deep-fat fry pan. It too had a long handle.

Arcola said with nervous good cheer, “And Jesus said, it was he who served who was the greatest, didn't he, Mr. Parrish?” She shook her shoulders flirtatiously. “Being the greatest—me and Cassius Clay—I guess I better serve you all some french fries and burgers.”

“I don't know if you should go back there, Arcola,” Cat said.

Christine said sharply, “Let her have her day.”

Then they all heard the dogs barking.

Quickly, Gloria took her burger out of the little white bag and unwrapped it. She bit into it ravenously. With her mouth full, she said, “Any of y'all want some of my and Cat's burgers?”

“Pass 'em on down,” Mr. Parrish said grimly.

“Might as well eat 'fore we go to jail,” one of the boys said.

Another said, “My mouth sho is dry.”

“Pretty Miss Arcola,” Charles said, trying to distract her, “would you mind to fix me a Coca-Cola?”

“Now y'all got to pay,” Christine said, “if you gonna eat or drink anything.”

Gloria could feel Christine trembling beside her.

“That's right,” Cat said slowly. “No need to get booked for petty theft.”

“Mr. Parrish,” one of the boys said, “could you spare some Coke money?”

Slowly Mr. Parrish stood up. “Hush, everybody,” he said. “They're coming.”

Gloria heard the heavy sound of feet marching. Not marching like protest marching. Marching like soldiers marching. Fast and hard.

Without taking a bite, Christine stretched herself over Mr. Parrish's place and over Arcola's empty stool to hand a burger to Charles Powers. She said softly, “It sounds like a storm coming.”

“Nonviolence,” Mr. Parrish said. “Remember nonviolence. We don't want to make Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King ashamed of us.”

“Malcolm X,” one of the boys said. “I don't think he'd be shamed of us.”

“Leave now, if you want to,” Mr. Parrish said sternly. “You took the pledge. Leave if you can't keep it. I don't want to be ashamed of us.”

Gloria thought about Gandhi, how when his people in India were violent to one another, he himself had gone on a fast. He had fasted nigh unto death, till all the rioting stopped. Maybe Mr. Parrish was just such a leader as Gandhi. And could she herself find a way to lead? Her heart hurt. With the gesture of her grandmother, she pressed her hand against her chest. “For Susan Spenser Oaks,” Gloria whispered and then lay her palm tenderly against her own cheek.

“Make it cool,” Mr. Parrish said. “Play it cool.”

The thrumming of the marching feet and the barking dogs grew louder. Then it suddenly stopped. A bullhorn voice spoke in a snarl.

“This is Birmingham City Police Sergeant LeRoy Jones speaking. You are all trespassing on White Palace property. By authority vested in me by the people of this city, I order you to come out in one minute.”

When he paused, no one moved. Gloria could see the big end of the megaphone, just on the other side of the glass door. He didn't need the megaphone. No one inside moved.

“This is your first warning,” he said slowly and distinctly. “And it will be your last warning. Come out one by one with your hands clasped behind your heads.”

“Don't nobody move,” Christine said.

Frozen behind the counter, Arcola said, “Don't nobody even think 'bout moving.” She looked at Charles and tried to flash her smile, but her face seemed to be cracking.

Gloria said, “Let's all hold hands.”

When she reached out and took Cat's hand, she could feel how unsteady Cat was on the stool; on her other side, Gloria took Christine's. Cat's hand felt
boneless; Christine's was long and hard. Mr. Parrish snapped his hand into Christine's, as though he was catching a fly. He had to tell Arcola to step forward, so she could be part of the chain. Gloria hoped maybe Arcola would be a little protected from the dogs behind the countertop.

Though she couldn't open her mouth, Gloria made her voice box hum. Christine heard her and began to sing off-key “We Shall Overcome.”

Everybody joined in: “We shall overcome;we shall overcome someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, that we shall overcome someday.”

Gloria saw the first megaphone man pass the horn to an older man.

“This is Captain Reese.” He spoke rapidly. “Your time's up and we're gonna have to come in there and clear y'all out. If I was you, I wouldn't let that happen. I'd walk on out now at the end of your song while I was still walking.”

On the other side of the plate glass, Gloria saw the newspaper-reading man take a radio telephone out of his satchel. He turned a crank fast and began to speak into it. He was standing on the edge of the street, looking first one way, then the other. A clump of blue-uniformed policemen were pushed up around the door. The dogs were standing stock-still, not straining, just barking over and over, like they were bored.

On Twentieth Street, somebody stopped his car, tried to back up. Horns were honking.

“I don't believe that was even a minute,” Mr. Parrish said.

Gloria felt the sweat in Cat's hand, in Christine's.

A command was given, and the dogs were suddenly all lunge, fangs bared, and the door opened back and three policemen burst in at once. They entered with the noise of a tornado.

When a policeman grabbed Gloria by the shoulders, she let go of Cat's hand, and, quick as a wink, Gloria crashed against the floor.

“Go limp, go limp,” Gloria heard Christine yelling through the noise of attack, but Gloria snugged into the quiet space between the stools and the counters, out of the way, so she wouldn't be stepped on. She was small enough. Blue legs hurried past her, and one of the boys down at the other end crashed to the floor.

Clubs whacked stools and the counter. The shouting clanged like metal voices. Somebody else squatted down beside his stool to hide. A policeman kicked the squatter in the chest till he unfolded and sprawled out on the floor. Everywhere shiny shoes were scuffling and kicking.

Christine was down on the floor, covering her head, but she was calling through the noise, “When they touch you, go down. Go limp.”

But Mr. Parrish was holding to the edge of his stool with both hands, and they had skipped him, maybe because he was older, with gray in his hair. Everybody else was down now, and Gloria hoped Arcola was hidden behind the counter. Everybody else sprawled on the floor. They were like a carpet of bodies. Some were protecting their heads, and the police were kicking and kicking, and some were hitting shoulders, heads, ribs with their brown clubs.

“I like to see 'em like this,” one policeman chortled. He was bent over, and she read his name on a bar:
LEROY JONES
.

He straightened up. “Tell 'em to pass those 'lectric cattle prods now.”

“Y'all like joy juice,” another said. People were bleeding, and Gloria closed her eyes, but still she heard the whacking of the billy clubs, and groaning.

“Nigger white girl!” somebody said. Somebody was talking at Cat. “Little princess on her throne.” Was it LeRoy Jones? Gloria wasn't sure. Now they all sounded alike.

“Get in the floor with 'em or get yourself out of here.”

Clear as a bell, Gloria heard Cat's voice. “No.”

Then Cat was jerked off the stool, and Gloria saw her hit, headfirst, and her neck bend abruptly sideways.

“I'll shock your white ass same as theirs!” one of them yelled. And he rammed the prod into Cat's thigh. “Yankee bitch!” he yelled. “Tough girl, tough girl,” he hollered. And he touched her in a new place.

Christine jumped to her feet. “Stop it!” she yelled. Christine was standing up, yelling in their faces. “She can't feel in her legs! She's crippled!”

“You next, nigger,” and he tried to thrust the cattle prod at Christine.

Quick as a majorette, Christine grabbed the shaft of the prod, twirled it, and rammed the electric end into the policeman's stomach. Almost as fast, the sound of a gun went off, and Christine's blue dress was covered with blood, all over the front. The jacket and her white blouse, too, and she was sinking sideways.

Gloria couldn't help herself; from safe between the stools, she reached out toward his genitals, her hand was in the air. And then she stopped. She wouldn't.

Mr. Parrish was standing up, he was holding up his prayer hand. “Stop,” he shouted. “In the name of Jesus, stop!” Gloria saw blood, like an exploding rose, bloom in the palm of his hand.

Then the dogs came in. One of the dogs crouched just in front of Gloria, and a rain of smoking grease showered down.
Arcola!
The dog yelped and then sprang over the counter. And another dog crouched and leapt fluidly over the counter. His long dog chest and stomach blurred past Gloria's eyes as he rose.

Out on the street, a white boy with nubbins for fingers pressed his hand and nose and agonized lips against the glass as though he wanted in. Gloria closed her eyes.