The White Fence

2. The Novel Reader

"My grandma and your grandma, sittin' by the fire, my grandma says to your grandma, 'I'm gonna set your flag on fire'." 

"Talkin' bout 'hey now'." 

"Hey, now-," 

"Hey, now-," 

"Buh-bruh you bet git inside fo' mama-" 

"I can't help muh-self-, I-" 

"I like coffee...and I like tea...I like a pretty boy...and he likes me-," 

The slapping of feet hitting the sidewalk, was chorused by kids imitating their favorite singing groups, joined by the sounds of bats against balls, and was chased by the footsteps of those that were running, dashing after each other, and hoping to get caught up in the endless games of summer time. The voices crept up to the front door, the back door, and the windows, the same way the heat crept up and clung to the body, cloying, jockeying for attention in the stiff heat of the afternoon.  

There was a war going on in a land that few of us had ever heard before, a kid our age sat alone and scared in a prison cell, there were still scorch marks and debris in the heart of our community from the weekend before, and more questions than answers hovered about the future, but you wouldn't be able to tell it by looking around, because it was the last day of summer, and no one wanted to see it go to waste.  

Tomorrow, Patrice and I would start our first day of high school at Mason High, where an old slave master with a wooden cane named 'Dixie', hung over the entrance of the front hall of a school whose inhabitants were proudly nicknamed the Rebels. When Marcus had started school there, there had been mothers and ministers, shop owners and church goers alike, lined up across the street, loaded down with rocks, eggs, trash, picket signs and hate. He had been one of only a few, handpicked by the community to be one of the first black students to attend school at Mason High. He had walked silently past signs that likened him to an ape, called him a jigga boo, a bush monkey, and worse. Tomorrow, Patrice and I might have to face the same degradation, but that was tomorrow.  

Today, all the hate that was going on with the world, the country, the state, didn't penetrate into our private little sphere of living. The singing, jump ropes, cans, bats, and balls, had been vocal all day, and I'd mostly succeeded in tuning them out until I realized that one of the calls was personalized.  

"Tracy! 'Ey, Tracy!" I stuffed my pencil in my notebook, going to the window. "Tracy! Can you hear me?" 

I opened my window. "The whole neighborhood can hear you! I'll be right out!" 

"Hurry up!" she yelled back at me.  

I located my shoes from beneath my desk -really it was just an old table, with a milk crate for storage- before I chased down my coin purse, and my school class schedule. I was halfway out the door before I remembered to grab my bathing suit, turned, and went hunting down that, a towel, and the latest book my Grandpa had sent me.  

"What'choo doin' in tha house?" Patrice wondered once I'd made it outside, indicating that such behavior was sacrilege. "You tha on'y one that's inside." 

"I was writing," I said in answer.  

"What you writin'?" she demanded. "School ain't even start yet!" 

"Just writing." 

"Wastin' away tha end uh tha summah," she remarked. "I on't know whats to do wit you sometimes."  

We dropped my clothes off at her house, before we turned towards the Trick. To everyone's surprise, Mr. Johnson had announced that the regular back to school block party was going on as planned. On Sunday, after church, all the local black congregations had come out to help repair the damages that had been done by the rioters the night before. The Trick wasn't just where we shopped, it was our pride and joy, and it reflected that. Just like a rising tide, Bakersfield's growth and prosperity had meant a certain elevation for the Blacks in our society as well. Banned from the White stores, the shopping district had risen to become a place where we could shop, congregate, and exist, without being made to feel as if we were less. A place where we could buy groceries without having to wait for the shop owner to get done with his white customers first, or where we could look at and try on clothes, without being carefully watched by the cashier. Last Sunday, by the time the last person had gone home, the Trick might not have looked the way it normally did, but at least it didn't look as defeated as it had the day before.