Sometimes, when a bad event was reported on the news, something that a white man had done to a Black person, or when President Reagan used one of his inside terms meant to low-rate Black folks, like “welfare queen” and such, my mother would get to talking about Ruby Bridges. How, even at six years old, she’d been so brave. To hear my mother, the way she wrapped her words in intimacy, you’d think she and Ruby had been best friends.
That afternoon, as my mother and I drove away from Braithwaite Friends School, I fumed in the car, afraid to snap, to tell her what I really thought of her betrayal. Not only that, but the deception involved. My mother didn’t drive straight home. She wheeled around the City to out-of-the-way places and began to talk of Ruby Bridges, the patron saint of integration.
“I know Braithwaite doesn’t have a lot of Black kids. But look how brave Ruby must have been. This’ll be a walk in the park compared to what she went through. It’s 1987. And you don’t transfer until next fall.”
I said nothing.
“And these white kids at Braithwaite? They all come from good families. Wealthy families. They’re nothing like those crackers that used to stand outside Ruby’s school. Coco went to Braithwaite, and see how great that worked out? She’s at Yale!”
I took in a deep breath, as my aunt did when she was trying not to yell at my cousin Veronica, whom we called “demon child” behind my aunt’s back.
“I don’t want to go to school with all those honkies. I don’t care how rich their families are.”
“That’s not nice, Ailey. Your aunt’s a white lady. What would she think if she heard you talk like that?”
“I think Aunt Diane would agree with me. She married Uncle Lawrence, didn’t she? And have you ever seen any of her white friends? Like that lady she loves so much at her counseling job. The one she talks about all the time. Have you ever met a white lady named LaTavia?”
“That’s beside the point, Ailey. The point is, you’re being prejudiced—”
“Oh, my God! I know you did not just say that! Besides Aunt Diane, you can’t stand white people—”
“That’s not true! What about Miss Cordelia from down home? She’s white, and there’s Father Dan at church here—”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to play this off!”
“Ailey Pearl Garfield, are you calling me a liar?”
Oh, damn.
I took another deep breath.
“No, Mama. I’d never. But aren’t you always telling me that besides Aunt Diane, white folks aren’t to be trusted? That all white men do is go after us? And now you want to send me to school with them? Like, what about what happened to Uncle Roscoe—”
“Don’t you dare bring that up!”
For twenty minutes, she said nothing, but when we pulled up to our street, her mouth was trembling. She told me she didn’t know how I could take her dead brother’s name in vain, just because I wanted to win an argument. That was so mean, especially when she only wanted the best for me, the way any mother would.
Inside, I stomped up to my room, though when the smell of chicken hit the hallway, I came down to dinner. The meal was a quiet, tense affair, even with my extra chicken breast and sweet potato pie for dessert. After I finished eating, I left the table without excusing myself and made a production of walking out of the room, my hand to my forehead, like the white girls on television. Then my father knocked on my bedroom door. Come on down. I could bring my book if I wanted, but in his office, he’d set up the board.
I lay on the beat-up leather couch.
“I don’t feel like chess, Daddy. I’m in a very unfortunate mood.”
“I see. Well, we can just sit here. I don’t mind. I enjoy your company.” He put his pipe in his mouth. He liked to suck it after dinner. It had been years since he’d filled it with cherry tobacco, but he liked the taste of the stem. My mother called it his sugar tit.
I kicked the back of the couch. “How can you be so calm when my life is being ruined?! I don’t want to transfer schools!”
He took the pipe out, setting it on his desk. “Darling, come on now. It’s okay.”
“But I want to stay at Toomer! I can’t be at that other school with all those honkies!”
“All right, now. Don’t be upset. Let’s look at this logically.” He closed both his hands into fists, and I sat up on the couch. “Let’s weigh the pros and cons. Let’s say you go to Braithwaite Friends. You can call up Coco. Get her notes and rap about the social situation.”