Fire from the Rock Read online

  “You’re going to have to get over that and move on,” Gary said harshly. He ignored the hurt look on Sylvia’s face. He walked over to the sofa then, knelt down, and said gently to his youngest sister, “It won’t always be like this, DJ, but I will always protect you, understand?” She looked up at him solemnly and nodded. He kissed her on the cheek, then walked back out of the door, saying nothing more to the rest of them. The door slammed loudly.

  Sylvia trembled a little as swirls of his fury seemed to settle on the carpet. They finished tending to Donna Jean without speaking. Finally, when the child was all bandaged, had been given an aspirin and some hot tea to drink, they tucked her in with a warm blanket and she finally fell asleep.

  Sylvia’s mother and aunt moved to the kitchen table, sipping the cinnamon tea that Sylvia had made for them. Sylvia poured a cup for herself, hoping they would invite her to join them. She was pleased when they nodded in her direction.

  “I worry about Gary,” Sylvia’s mother said as she sipped her tea. “He is angry and impetuous at a time when we need to be patient. The Bible says blessings come to those who wait.”

  Sylvia felt like groaning, but she didn’t. She was sick of her mother’s Bible verses and platitudes, but she knew better than to say anything.

  “We’ve been waiting a long time, Leola,” Aunt Bessie said. “Maybe the young folks have a point.”

  Sylvia wished her mother would be more understanding of Gary’s need to fix the world in a hurry. As far as she could tell, not much had been accomplished in Little Rock by waiting.

  Sylvia’s mother ignored her sister and said, “And Lester is going be really upset that his baby girl got hurt.”

  “Hmmph! Angry enough to confront old Crandall?” Aunt Bessie asked as she flashed her eyes. “I doubt it. Probably just pray himself into a corner like he usually does.”

  Mrs. Patterson got up, walked over to the sink, and began to scrub her favorite iron skillet. Sylvia knew that anytime her mother got angry or upset, she’d start to clean something-dishes, rugs, walls—anything to channel her emotions. “Lester is a good man. Don’t belittle his beliefs,” Mrs. Patterson replied sharply. “If we don’t depend on our faith, haven’t we sunk to the level of people like Crandall?”

  “That whole pack of dogs he keeps ought to be shot!” Aunt Bessie said angrily. “I’m getting tired of feeling helpless all the time, and praying just isn’t enough anymore!”

  “Are we going to call the police?” Sylvia asked, finally speaking up. She ached to see Mr. Crandall punished, but she didn’t look directly at her aunt or her mother as she sipped her tea.

  “We’ll let your father decide when he gets home,” her mother replied, “but I doubt it. They won’t do anything to Crandall, and Donna Jean is going to recuperate.”

  “So he’s just going to get away with this?” Sylvia almost choked on her tea. “Maybe Gary is right! It’s been almost a hundred years since slavery was over. This is 1957 and we shouldn’t have to put up with treatment like this!” Sylvia couldn’t believe she was raising her voice to her mother, and even more, that her mother was letting her do so.

  “They will say it was an accident, Sylvie. Just a case of a dog protecting its property. We have to save our calls to the police for real life-threatening events.”

  “I don’t get it!” Sylvia cried out to her mother and her aunt. When she thought about her little sister lying there with her leg wrapped up, she understood how Gary wanted to fight rather than pray.

  Her mother didn’t respond, only continued to scrub pots that already gleamed, and Aunt Bessie finished her tea. The kitchen was silent.

  Finally Aunt Bessie began to hum an old spiritual that Sylvia heard every Sunday at church. Sylvia’s mother joined her gradually, her alto voice low and full of sorrow. Sylvia, feeling unsettled and confused, sat there quietly, picking at the pattern in the tablecloth, listening to their voices drift up like soft smoke.

  Wednesday, January 2, 1957

  I love my new diary. Mama seems to know what I need even before I ask. When I looked in my stocking on Christmas morning, there it was-a pale green, leather-looking, golden-trimmed little book with a tiny lock and key.

  The pages are thin—all clean and smooth with little blue lines just waiting for me. I had planned to fill the first page with lovely words and ideas, but instead I’m forced to write about that dog, that blood, my sister’s screams. I hate old Crandall! Is that a sin? I’m sure Daddy would say so. I don’t care. Crandall needs to be put in a pen full of vicious snakes with poison fangs or something horrible like that—maybe even wolves or tigers or hyenas-and left there overnight! But maybe not. When I really think about it, it’s not hatred I feel, but hurt. Why do people have to be so mean?

  I don’t know how adults deal with stuff like this every day. Mama is very proper, which gets her in trouble with white folks sometimes. They say she’s “putting on airs,” but she’s really just being herself. She won’t go out of the house without her white gloves and a black straw hat. When we take the bus downtown to shop, she makes me wear my white gloves, too, even though for the life of me I cannot figure out why we need gloves in the middle of summer. But she says if you think of yourself as a lady, then no matter how the world treats you, you will always know that you are a lady inside. Mr. Crandall’s dog didn’t care whether Donna Jean was a lady or not. It just saw a little colored girl and jumped on her, the way it had been trained to do. White gloves and thinking like a lady would not have helped.

  Even Daddy doesn’t get much respect. He’s so smart he could quote the whole Bible, and his sermons get everyone in church rocking, but nothing outside the church ever changes. White folks like the Crandalls don’t care how hard we pray or how loud we scream hallelujah. They still hate us.

  I need more than hot, sweaty emotion. It’s time for something real to happen.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1957

  Mama, do I have to wear that new dress to school?” Sylvia asked at breakfast. “Why can’t I wear something really neat, like a poodle skirt? I am so tired of being in junior high!” Sylvia was anxious to get to Horace Mann High School, where she hoped everybody would stop treating her like a kid.

  “Youth is a treasure that’s wasted on the young,” Sylvia’s mother said absentmindedly.

  Sylvia sighed with exasperation.

  “Who’re you trying to impress, Sylvie?” Gary teased. “I’ve seen Reggie Birmingham looking at you at church like you were a hot roast beef sandwich!”

  Sylvia smiled and blushed. “Like you look at Anita Carver?” It was Gary’s turn to smile. “I dress to please myself!” Sylvia replied with as much dignity as she could.

  She could tell she wasn’t fooling her brother, and she really did look forward to seeing Reggie again. Since she saw him almost every Sunday at church, and every day at school since kindergarten, she’d never even considered him as a member of the opposite sex. He used to be just Reggie—as inconsequential as a bug. But somehow this year things had changed. Reggie had muscles, and a faint shadow of mustache, and eyes the color of maple syrup—things Sylvia had never noticed before.

  “Anita is the only thing in Little Rock that makes me feel special. She makes me feel like a man,” Gary said quietly.

  “I really don’t think you need one of those silly skirts, Sylvia,” Mrs. Patterson told her, ignoring Gary’s reference to both Anita and Reggie. “Somehow the girls who wear them just seem a little, well, fast. You know what I mean? You know what the Bible says about loose women.”

  “No, Mama, I don’t. Rachel Zucker has three poodle skirts, and you don’t think she’s fast or loose, do you?”

  “Rachel doesn’t live under my roof, and I don’t sew her clothes,” Mrs. Patterson replied sharply.

  Sylvia started to retort, but she thought better of it when she caught Gary’s eye.

  “Don’t bring white folks into our kitchen,” he hissed at her, low enough to be out of their parents’ earshot.

/>   Sylvia gave him a dirty look, but said nothing.

  Mrs. Patterson had made fresh blueberry pancakes and the family was finishing up its long, delicious Christmas holiday of the last two weeks—filled with homemade cookies, cakes, pies, and tons of Mama-made fried chicken. Sylvia’s father slurped his coffee, nibbled on the crisp, pan-fried bacon, and read a copy of the morning paper, mildly unaware of normal breakfast chatter.

  Gary was unusually talkative and cheerful. No one had asked where he had gone when he stormed out of the house on Tuesday, and he had volunteered no information.

  “My leg feels better,” Donna Jean said as she licked the blueberry syrup off her fingers. “Will I be going to school? I don’t want to get behind in my classes.”

  “How far behind can a kid get in third grade?” Gary teased. “What do you learn when you’re eight, DJ—how to count on your fingers?”

  Donna Jean grinned at him and tossed a spoon at his head. He caught it in midair and then balanced it on his nose, making her laugh.

  “We’ll see, little one,” her mother replied. “I want to make sure none of your wounds gets infected, and I suppose we just have to hope that awful dog has no disease.” Just talking about Donna Jean’s injuries made her get up and start sweeping the floor, Sylvia noticed.

  “Hey, Gary,” Sylvia asked her brother, “would you take me to one of Mann’s basketball games this season?’ Horace Mann had a terrific team, and Reggie’s older brother, Greg, was their top scorer. And somehow, now that she was older, the thought of watching sweaty boys run across a shiny gym floor made Sylvia’s heart beat a little faster. She covered her smile, knowing her mother would never understand.

  “I wanna go, too!” Donna Jean piped up.

  “You’ll have time enough for such,” her mother said. “Finish your breakfast.” Donna Jean poked out her lip.

  “Maybe I’ll let you come,” Gary told Sylvia. “If I don’t have a date. You going for the basketball, or the boys?” He grinned at her.

  “Your mind stays in the gutter, boy. I’m thinking of trying out for cheerleader when I get to Mann, and I want to watch their moves. So there!” Sylvia grabbed the last piece of bacon off his plate and gobbled it.

  “I’m gonna get you for that, Sylvie. Just wait until you get to school and open your lunchbox. Instead of a big fat slice of Mama’s apple pie, all you’ll find is a big old rock. I’ll be eating your pie while I watch the cheerleaders practice!” He laughed good-naturedly. It gave the kitchen a soft, relaxed feeling.

  “High school must be so much fun,” Sylvia said wistfully as she imagined hanging with kids at the corner drugstore, listening to records, and going to dances and games and parties.

  “Yeah, if you like coffee-breathed, homework giving teachers who wear pearls and smell like Cashmere Bouquet dusting powder,” Gary said, breaking her reverie. He poured way too much syrup on his pancakes.

  “Even the men teachers?” Donna Jean asked, laughing.

  “Speaking of school,” Gary said to his parents, “you know there’s been talk about integration.” His sentence hovered above the kitchen table, threatening to ruin the pleasant morning.

  “Nonsense, boy,” his father mumbled. “That’s going to take years to happen.” He continued to read the paper, but Sylvia could tell he was no longer concentrating.

  “Maybe not,” Gary kept on. “Some folks say they might try to integrate Central High School by this September. And I think it’s way past time,” he added. Gary was good at pushing his father just over the edge.

  “Don’t rile your father, Gary,” their mother warned. “Would you like some more eggs?”

  Gary didn’t look at her. His eyes were intent on his father’s face. “Dad, listen. When they make a list of Negro kids who get to go to Central High, I want to be on it,” he announced. The kitchen was silent except for the bubbling of the coffee in the percolator.

  Their father almost choked on his bacon. “Why would you want to do a fool thing like that?” he asked. He looked at Gary as if he had grown a second skull.

  “Because I deserve to go to a big, modern school, and have new books and desks and the best education in Arkansas,” Gary retorted.

  “It was good enough for me when I was your age,” his father said, his voice tight. “We had strong Negro teachers who taught us pride in our heritage, our history, and our culture. No white school will ever do that for you.”

  “That was a long time ago, Dad. Things have changed.” Frustration marked Gary’s face. “Is it wrong to want more?”

  “Maybe not wrong, but certainly dangerous,” Mrs. Patterson told her son. Her voice was laced with fear. “‘Danger lurks in the heart of the evildoer,’” she muttered.

  Sylvia rolled her eyes at her mother’s quote. She wasn’t sure she should speak up, but she figured things couldn’t get much worse. “Maybe Gary is right,” Sylvia said quietly.

  Both parents jerked their heads to look at Sylvia in amazement. “You keep out of this, young lady,” her father told her.

  Sylvia took a deep breath. “But, Daddy, even though Negro schools might be better, shouldn’t colored kids have the right to go to a white school if they want to?”

  “Why would they want to? Why ask for trouble?” her father replied. He looked exasperated.

  Gary considered her with surprise. “Thanks, Sylvie. I thought you were scared of integration.”

  “I am. Terrified. Crazy scared. But what you’re saying might be right.” She picked at the eggs on her plate.

  “Horace Mann was just built last year,” Mr. Patterson countered, drumming his fingers on the tablecloth. “It’s pretty nice, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not as nice as Central!” Gary retorted. “Our schools are segregated, Dad! They built Mann just to keep us out of Central High School and the rest of their high schools! Don’t you get it?”

  “Oh, I understand, son, more than you know. You have no idea what indignities I have had to endure in my life. I, too, was an angry young man like you. But I swallowed my anger.” His father’s face looked pained.

  “That can’t be healthy, Dad,” Gary said.

  “Segregation is the law,” Mrs. Patterson said then. “You must admit, son, that it would be very hard to fight against something that the majority of folks think is the way things are supposed to be.”

  “Who passed that law? White folks!” Gary declared angrily. “Well, my fight is just beginning! Segregation in schools is unfair, and since 1954 it has been illegal!”

  “There’s a lot more to think about than new desks, Gary,” his father said gently. “If they decide to integrate the schools here in Little Rock, it won’t be easy. There will be strong opposition, even violence. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Folks like Mrs. Crandall and her anti-integration committee have lots of power,” Mrs. Patterson added. “They sip sweet tea over there in her kitchen, while they make plans for keeping the races apart. The latest I heard, they were telling folks that white children might catch some kind of disease if they go to school with black children.”

  “They are the ones suffering from a disease,” Mr. Patterson said as he buttered his pancakes. “But what pill will get rid of the hatred they’ve got inside?”

  “I’m not afraid of white people,” Gary said, pouting a little. “They go to the bathroom just like we do!”

  “Gary!” Mrs. Patterson said sharply. “I will not have you talking nasty at the breakfast table, or anywhere else. Apologize!”

  Picturing Mr. Crandall on the toilet nearly made Sylvia giggle, but she held it in.

  Gary mumbled something that sounded like “sorry,” then he said, quite clearly, “I heard one of the Crandalls’ dogs got into some poison last night. The word on the street is it died.”

  Sylvia looked up from her plate of eggs. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Did he?

  “How do you know that, son?” his mother asked carefully.

  “I was at Anita’s last night.
Her father told me,” Gary replied.

  “Was it the dog that bit me?” Donna Jean asked, her voice almost hopeful.

  “I don’t know, DJ, but I hope it was,” Gary told her. He asked to be excused from the table then. The lovely breakfast mood had been destroyed.

  “What’s gonna happen, Daddy?” Donna Jean asked.

  “Nothing, child. Nothing. The price is too high.” Her father stood and stretched, but he didn’t look very relaxed.

  “I don’t get it, Sylvie,” Donna Jean said, leaning over. “Isn’t it better to go to school with kids who look like you and know what you’re talking about when you say you got nappy hair or ashy legs?”

  Sylvia laughed. “Look at it this way, DJ,” she began, “the doors to schools like Central High are all locked up. Only the white kids get to have keys. If Gary decides that he wants to open one of those doors, he ought to have the right to do it. You see?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She folded her napkin and pushed away from the table. “Is Rachel coming over on Saturday?” she asked, changing the subject.

  Sylvia nodded. “Yeah. She and I are going to paint our fingernails and toenails. Bright red.”

  “That’s dumb. You gotta wear shoes and socks. Who’s gonna know you have pretty toes?” Donna Jean picked up a stack of plates. “Besides, Mama won’t let you wear red fingernail polish. She’ll say you look like a floozy.”

  “Mama wouldn’t know a floozy if she rang the doorbell, and you wouldn’t, either,” Sylvia said with a laugh. “I’ll do my nails in pale pink. She’ll never see my toes!”

  Donna Jean paused and looked at her sister. “Hey, Sylvie, does Rachel have one of those keys you talked about?”

  “Yep! A key, a magic door opener, and an engraved initiation to enter!” Sylvia admitted with a sigh. “Now go read a book, since you’re so eager to go back to school.” Donna Jean disappeared behind the swinging door. Sylvia picked up the cups and glasses and listened to her parents’ worried tones.