“Yes, the states’ right to own human beings!” I had shouted in the middle of one of his lectures last year, to stunned silence.
My mind wandered as he went on about the New Deal, walking up and down between the rows of desks. I loved history, but truth be told, I wouldn’t fully pay attention unless we were studying the Civil War or Stalingrad or the Battle of the Marne. Wars fascinated me. How on earth could a sane man charge into a volley of bullets—say, at D-Day? Weren’t they terrified? The odds of surviving something like the Marne or Shiloh were so, so small. Didn’t the men know that? Standing there, waiting for death? Knowing they were walking straight into harm’s way? Didn’t they know that it didn’t matter who they were or whom they loved or what else they’d gone through, bombs or bullets would take them down just the same. Like me, I thought suddenly. Like me walking into Auntie August’s house six years ago, when I knew what lived inside.
“Joan,” Mr. Harrison said warningly. He had made his way over to my desk and was looking down at my notebook, where I’d been sketching the maple in one corner of the page.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m listening.”
I felt guilty, hearing the frustration in his voice, and started taking notes from the board as he returned to his lecture. We had an agreement, my teachers and me. I would not draw in class as long as I could access all the art classes Memphis had to offer a junior. What my school lacked in art supplies, I made up for in other ways, drawing on whatever I could—scratch paper, the back of exams—sifting through Memphis five-and-dimes with Mya, searching for brushes. My teachers knew I had a gift. Knew Douglass could not provide for this gift. So I was now enrolled in my first AP course—Art. I took the class on Saturdays, at the Rhodes College campus. Auntie August took me, since Mom was always working or studying. We’d drive our family’s classic Coupe de Ville up North Parkway to the stone fortress that was Rhodes. I loved those rides. Auntie August would sing along to the radio, the pride on her face hard to conceal.
Today was only Tuesday, which meant another four whole days before I’d get to go again, feel the relief that being in a functional art room brought me. Douglass High simply did not have the facilities for the kind of art study I craved. I needed easels the length of rooms, canvases as big as men. I needed nude models of every race and gender and shape and size. Oils were expensive, and I wanted a rainbow’s worth of them. A set of ten colors could run up to fifty dollars or more. And the brushes I needed were made from the tails of an unbroken pinto. My passion was not a cheap one.
A man named Professor Mason had been the broker of my art deal. A rather eccentric, tiny bald Black man the color of a camel, he’d slowly become a mentor to me. “What the hell are we doing if we’re not letting someone with this talent into college classes, high school student or not?” I’d overheard him saying to a Rhodes admissions officer. And that was that. I was in.
I had never felt so respected. Even though these were college kids, and most of them white, and I was only sixteen, we all addressed each other as “Mr.” or “Ms.” And they offered helpful critiques and criticism of my work. “Try this brush” or “Have you tried etching? It may give you more freedom than you thought” or “You’ve got a knack for watercolors, Ms. North.” The long hours I had spent working alongside fellow serious artists had garnered me enough respect to be allowed to choose the radio station while we all worked.
I chose the Cubs game. Each and every time.
Professor Mason had had enough one day. He stamped his cane down in a fury, went to a closet, and brought forth headphones, forced them in my face. “Use these.”
“But Zambrano is pitching!”
His look was something fierce. I took the headphones.
And now, it seemed like U.S. History class was crawling by. I tried to focus on Mr. Harrison’s lecture, but the maple leaf glittering in the sunlight vied for my attention, making me wish for the thousandth time that I could just be free to draw all day long.