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VINCENT
Until not so long ago, the Mississippi delta region was still the centre of the worst excesses of racism in America, and it was a place of many undocumented lynching. In 1955, in the hamlet called Money, a fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, on summer holidays from Chicago, was beaten, shot and had his tongue torn out for allegedly wolf-whistling or saying ‘bye, baby’ to a white shopkeeper. His body was dumped in a river with barbed wire and a metal part of a cotton gin tied around his neck.
Although the racial violence and fears of the 1950s are a dim memory for most white people today, beneath the surface, racial division remains. Just down the road, Greenwood has a black mayor and a black police chief, but back when, white people rarely crossed to the black side of town.
In Charleston, where I live, white folk fought tooth and nail against the reforms of the civil rights era. Here they have proved more resistant to change. Despite the rulings of the US Supreme Court dating back to 1954, white residents saw it as an outrage that black students and white students would have to sit side by side in class. Only since 1970 – after a sixteen-year extension against integration on the grounds of economic hardship – have white and black students shared the corridors, classrooms and playing fields of the town.
Many white residents just packed up and left and today, the town is predominantly black, and integration has not come easily to the white families who stayed behind.
Recently racial tensions were boiling over in the Louisiana town of Jena when black students were told they could not sit in the shade of a tree where white children gathered during the school break.
After an assault, the authorities cracked down on black pupils, who received shockingly long jail sentences and before long, the Jena Six had become a national cause.
Racial tensions are like an itch no one dares scratch.
We start with auditions, and the queue outside the hall is exceedingly long.
Not long after we start, I develop a headache, so I close my eyes for a second after Anne walks off the stage, and I hear the next girl walking across the stage.
Sighing softly, I open my eyes and then I hear Mr. Johnson next to me exclaim Chrissie’s name.
I smile up at her. She looks so nervous, and she looks at me. It is as if she really sees me. She looks at me, and not the usual through me. My heart stops beating briefly.
I feel Sabrina move closer to me and then she puts her arms through mine on the armrest. Yanking myself back to reality, I turn to Sabrina and I smile at her reassuringly.
Chrissie starts to sing, and her heart is in the song. I can feel her every emotion as the words fall easily on my ear. Her voice sweeps me away and when Mr. Johnson thanks her, his words are suddenly too loud in the hushed atmosphere, and I get a fright.
She walks off the stage and when she hesitates to say thank you for the opportunity, I laugh softly because she is so unbelievably cute. Sabrina looks at me reproachfully.
I whisper to Sabrina, taking my eyes off Chrissie, even though it is the last thing I want to do, “She’s funny, what do you want me to do?” For some reason, this placates Sabrina, and she sits back into her chair.
After dinner – Maria insists on having dinner at the same time every day because she says routine is good – I sit next to the pool in my back garden.
The full moon has just risen above the horizon and is reflecting in long stripes on the surface of the water.
My phone is in my hand.
I am indecisive and I do not know if I should text her or not. I have gone through a great deal of trouble to get her number. I went through the audition lists inconspicuously when Sabrina was preoccupied with her phone. It was a unanimous decision when we chose Chrissie to sing as the backup singer for ÉLastique.
I start texting, and then I re-read the text a few times. She might get the wrong impression if I text her, and I do not want her to get the wrong impression. I heave a sigh as I contemplate holding her in my arms, or even kiss her full lips fleetingly.
I press the sent button.
Unbelievably, she replies, and my heart jumps violently. She might as well be in the room with me so nervous I am—my palms feel sweaty.
I cannot wait to start rehearsing with her, but then I also remind myself it would surely be foolish to have these hopes and crazy dreams of a girl I can never be with. It can never go anywhere.
Sabrina and I spend the entire break together.
At one point, I convince myself I am over my ridiculous attraction for Chrissie.
How foolish I am, because on the first day back at school when I see her walking to me along the corridor and then past me, without giving me a second glance, I know I am only deceiving myself. Every glaring emotion I have for her is still there. It is racing through my body with my every heartbeat.
I hear all the rumours about Chrissie and Johnathan. He hooked up with her during the break and then the day school started up again, he went back to Tanya. I see the hurt in her eyes, although she is smiling happily and laughing loudly. I can see her eyes fill with pain every time she looks at Tanya and Johnathan.
Sabrina is constantly with me, and so I try to reinforce our relationship by showing her more affection than what I feel.
That afternoon, though, when Chrissie walks into the Music Centre, I know I am forever hopelessly lost to her. I introduce her to Simon, George and Dennis and we practice the song due for release in July.
Simon, George, and Dennis always leave at five o’clock and depending whether I have plans with Sabrina, I usually stay later.
Chrissie is about to leave, but I do not want her to go, so I ask her if she would practice a piece of music—irrelevant music. When I hear her sing the song, I feel inspired and I ask her to sit next to me on the bench in front of the piano.
She sits down and her arm brushes against mine. Surely, she must notice how I feel about her.
Later, when her ringtone echoes through the room, I smile because it is one of those silly tunes. She looks down at her phone, and a look of instant guilt glow across her features. She gets up abruptly and then she leaves saying her dad is here to collect her.
I want to follow her—to be courageous and tell her how I feel, but that would just be brainless because then everything would be out in the open where now I still have a chance to just let it go away, to pretend it does not exist.
