The Lions of Little Rock (13 page)

25

BETTY JEAN'S SON

On Monday, I gave JT his homework. I didn't look at him. I didn't like him anymore. But after what had happened on Halloween, I was too scared not to do it.

As soon as I stepped inside the house after school, I knew something was wrong. There was unfolded laundry in the living room, and the breakfast dishes were still in the sink. In the kitchen, Betty Jean had her head down on the table.

“Betty Jean?”

She sat up when I called her name. Her face was gray.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“It's nothing.” She jumped up and straightened her apron. “I'm sorry I haven't . . . I wasn't feeling . . .”

When she couldn't even finish her sentence, I realized something was really wrong. So I did what she'd done for me. I found some cookies in the cupboard, put them on a plate and poured us both a cold glass of tea.

“It's Curtis,” she said, sitting back down.

I sat down with her. “Who's Curtis?”

“My son. He's fourteen. He's in ninth grade at Dunbar Junior High.”

Betty Jean had never mentioned a son before. That was another one of those unspoken rules: maids didn't talk about themselves.

“He's been arrested.” Betty Jean looked like she was going to cry.

“Arrested? For what?”

“Egging Mrs. Jefferson's house on Halloween.” She sobbed once, then took a sip of tea. “He didn't do it. I was making deviled eggs for a ladies luncheon at church, and I asked him to go out and buy some groceries and—” She choked down a sob again.

Egging Mrs. Jefferson's house. I knew who
had
done that. And if having to do JT's homework wasn't bad enough, now someone else had gotten into trouble too.

“But if you explain to the police that—”

Betty Jean shook her head. “A white woman gets her house egged and the police find a colored boy nearby, that's all they need to know.”

It wasn't fair. Betty Jean had helped me at the movie theater. And afterwards too. There had to be something I could do for her.

Betty Jean drained the iced tea and wiped her face with a corner of her apron. “I'm sorry. Time got away from me. I'll hurry now to get my work done.” She went into the living room.

I saw the list of emergency phone numbers posted on the fridge—Mother's school, Daddy's school, police, fire and so on. If this wasn't an emergency, I didn't know what was. My note cards were upstairs, so I scribbled a few sentences down on a napkin and picked up the phone.

“Forest Heights Junior High,” said a woman's voice.

I froze and gulped down air. It was just a stupid phone call. Why was I so nervous? And then I was mad at myself for being nervous, which made things worse and—

“Hello?” said the woman again. “This is Forest Heights Junior High.”

I looked down at the napkin. “May I speak to Richard Nisbett, please?”

“I'm sorry, he's in class now. May I take a message?”

They got out later than we did. But luckily I had thought of that. I read, “It's his daughter. It's an emergency.”

I hoped that was all I would have to say, because I was already sweating, and I didn't have anything else written down. The woman said something else, and then there was a long pause, and then Daddy was on the phone.

“Marlee,” Daddy asked, breathing hard, like he'd run all the way to the phone. Which he probably had. “What's wrong?”

“It's Betty Jean,” I said. “Her son was arrested.”

“What?”

I tried to explain, but Daddy made me put Betty Jean on the phone, but then she started crying, so I had to get back on the phone and tell him what had happened.

“I see,” said Daddy when I was finally done. I couldn't quite tell if he was annoyed or just worried. “Tell Betty Jean I'll go to the police station right now and see what I can do.”

After I hung up, I helped Betty Jean fold the laundry and do the dishes. Her hands were shaking so badly, she couldn't hold the iron. Finally, I told her to sit down, and I'd press Daddy's shirts. An hour later, we were done with all the jobs, and Daddy still wasn't there. Mother played bridge on Mondays and wouldn't be home until late. We sat at the kitchen table and stared at the clock, until I went and got a deck of cards.

“You play hearts?” I asked Betty Jean.

She nodded.

I won the first two rounds. I was counting cards in my head, which was probably cheating, but it kept me from worrying too much. With all those numbers and suits in my mind, there wasn't room for anything else. I was just dealing the third hand when the front door flew open and my father came inside. “Don't worry,” he said to Betty Jean. “I got him.”

A tall colored boy stepped into the house. His clothes were crumpled, as if he'd slept in them all night.

“Oh, thank God,” exclaimed Betty Jean, and ran to hug him. He was taller than she was, and she had to pull him over to kiss him. He looked embarrassed. Finally she let him go and said to my father, “I'm so sorry. My husband is out of town, and when they arrested Curtis last night, I didn't know what to do.”

“It's all right,” Daddy said kindly. “I'm glad Marlee thought to call me. I paid the fine, and they dropped the charges.”

“Thank you so much!” She turned to me. “Thank you, Miss Marlee. I—”

“But I didn't do anything!” Curtis interrupted. “And the fine was fifty dollars!”

“Curtis,” my father muttered, “I thought we agreed to keep that to ourselves.”

Fifty dollars. That was a lot of money.

Betty Jean shook her head. “You'll have to take it out of my salary.”

“Betty Jean, right now you don't have to—”

“Yes, Mr. Nisbett. Yes, I do.” Betty Jean took a moment to think, then said, “Would a dollar a week be okay? I know it'll take almost a year for us to repay you, but . . .”

Daddy nodded. “A dollar a week will be fine.”

Betty Jean reached over and gave me a hug. “You got a good daughter here,” she said.

“That,” said Daddy, “I already know.”

Daddy sent Betty Jean and her son home early, and we made cold pork sandwiches for dinner. “Daddy,” I asked as I sliced some bread, “why did you help Betty Jean's son?”

He thought for a long moment. “I've been a member of the Arkansas Council on Human Relations for a few years now,” he said finally. “I met Pastor George there.”

That wasn't really an answer. “But why did you join that group?”

Daddy looked at me, then sighed. “I suppose you're old enough now. Have you ever heard of Emmett Till?”

Emmett Till. I had heard of him. A few years ago, in whispered conversations that stopped as soon as I walked into the room. “Something bad happened to him?”

Daddy nodded. “He was a young Negro boy who went down to visit some relatives in Mississippi. One day someone saw him talking, some say flirting, with a white woman.” Daddy stopped, like he didn't want to tell me what happened next.

“Did he get hurt?” I asked, thinking of JT and Red and the egg cartons.

“He was murdered.”

“For talking to a white woman?”

Daddy nodded again. “He was only fourteen years old. About the same age as David was then.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“I know,” said Daddy. “That's when I realized I had to do something. So I joined the Council on Human Relations. It's an integrated group and in 1955, when Emmett Till was killed, the council was active in providing legal advice to school board members in Hoxie, Arkansas. Their schools were integrated that year, and the group helped get injunctions filed against protestors who were trying to disrupt the process. Overall, things went fairly smoothly in Hoxie. When problems started here in 1957, we were hopeful that the council could help again. But the Little Rock officials refused to talk to the committee.”

The kitchen was warm, but I felt cold. I guess I'd heard about things like what Daddy was telling me, but when you read it in a newspaper, it was different. “Curtis is fourteen too,” I said.

“Yes, he is.”

Liz had done worse than talking to a white boy. She'd fooled a whole school of white people. I wanted to confess and tell Daddy everything, but I couldn't. Liz needed me. I had to teach her how to keep her mouth shut when got mad so she wouldn't feel embarrassed. So she wouldn't anger people like Red. So she wouldn't get hurt.

Mother came home then, and we didn't talk about it anymore. But that night, after I was supposed to be asleep, I heard Mother and Daddy arguing again.

“Fifty dollars!” Mother exclaimed.

“We had the money saved,” Daddy said quietly.

“It was for Judy's college fund,” said Mother.

“Betty Jean will repay us.”

“Why didn't you ask me first?” snapped Mother.

“Maurine, the boy was in jail and scared. Now, I got in trouble once or twice as a boy. Curtis is a good kid. He just needed someone to help him out.”

“Why did it have to be you?”

“Who else should it have been?” Daddy asked.

Mother didn't have an answer.

I lay awake a long time, waiting for them to go to sleep. The lions started to roar, and I had a new thought. Maybe Mother wasn't selfish or uncaring. Maybe she was scared. Maybe she masked it like David did, not with a grin, but with a frown.

When my parents had finally gone to bed, I got up and copied the quote from Peter onto a pretty piece of pink stationery. Then I snuck into the kitchen and placed it inside Mother's purse, where she'd be sure to see it the next morning.

26

BEING QUIET

When I walked into Mr. Harding's room on Tuesday, I still didn't know how I was going to teach Liz to be quiet. But once lunch started and Mr. Harding and I spent fifteen minutes on
x
and
y
and solving for the unknown, I felt like a new person. A better person. One who could do things I didn't normally do. If numbers could do all that for me, maybe they could help Liz too.

Liz was waiting when I got to the rock crusher that afternoon.

“I have an idea,” I said as I walked into the clearing.

“What?”

“You asked me how I managed to be so quiet. It's numbers. I count prime numbers in my head and—”

“That's when you
want
to talk,” said Liz.

“It's when I'm trying to do something I'm not good at,” I said. “And what you're not good at is being quiet when you're angry.”

Liz thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don't even know the prime numbers. And if you tell me to count to ten before I speak like my mother always does, I will scream.”

Okay. So counting was out. “How about times tables?” I asked.

“What about them?”

“Well, which ones do you like?”

“I don't like any times tables!” exclaimed Liz.

Every once in a while, I just couldn't relate to her at all. Who didn't like the times tables? Such beauty! Such patterns! Such organization! Okay, so I knew it wasn't normal, but it was how I saw them. “We'll do the nines then,” I said, rummaging in my purse for a pen. “Hold up your hands in front of you with your thumbs together.”

With the pen, I labeled each of her fingers with a number from one to ten, left to right, starting with her left pinkie (one) and ending with her right pinkie (ten).

“Now put down your pinkie on your left hand,” I said. “The one with the number one on it.”

“How is this going to help me be quiet?” asked Liz.

“Just do it.”

Liz sighed and put down her pinkie.

“How many fingers do you have left?”

“Nine.”

“Exactly. One times nine is nine.”

“I knew that,” said Liz.

“Now put down your ring finger on your left hand. The one with the two.”

Liz did so.

“How many fingers do you have to the left of the one that is down?”

“One.”

“And to the right?”

“Eight.”

“Two times nine is eighteen.”

Liz gave me a look. “Does it work for all of them?”

“Try it.”

She put down her middle finger, labeled three. Two fingers to the left; seven to the right. Three times nine is twenty-seven.

“Okay, so that is pretty cool,” said Liz.

“So every time you feel words starting to creep out when you don't want them to, look down at your hands and recite the nines times tables. By the time you're done, you won't even remember whatever it was you wanted to say.”

Liz wasn't listening. She had her thumb on her right hand tucked in and was counting. “Six times nine is fifty-four. I could never remember that one!”

“That's the point.” I laughed. “You don't have to remember a thing.” I wiggled my fingers at her. “All you have to do is count.”

Liz liked the trick I had taught her, but I wasn't sure it was enough. When I got home, I found Mother in the kitchen, going through the mail. “Did you put this in my purse?” asked Mother, holding up the pink piece of stationery.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh,” said Mother.

I waited for her to ask why, so I could explain what Miss Winthrop had said about Peter and tell her why I had joined the WEC. But she didn't. She just passed me my mail.

I was disappointed. I'd imagined us sitting down and having a long chat, talking and laughing like we'd done when I was little. Still, if she wasn't going to say anything, I wouldn't either.

I had two pieces of mail. The first was another postcard from Judy:

 

Dear Little Sis,

I hate it here. I didn't make pep squad, and I'm failing math. (Not really. But I have a C!) Please send two PayDays and a deck of cards. I'm playing a lot of solitaire. Lots of love.

Judy

The second was another flyer from the WEC. It read “People who care about their teachers, their children's education, their city's future, want open public schools.”

I cared. Helping Liz and leaving notes for Mother and sending candy bars to Judy was nice, but it wasn't enough. Not when there might be more that I could do.