Chapter Six

Trudy

 

Vel and Paris and I walk in silence, as if getting used to the idea of becoming friends.

“Paris is a weird name,” Vel says.

“So is Vel,” he answers. They exchange a quick look that reminds me of alligators.

“Trudy Trueluck is pretty silly, too,” I offer. “Who has a name like that?”

Paris shrugs, and I notice how skinny his shoulders are. “It sounds like a perfectly good name to me,” he says.

“Well, my name is okay, but my birthday is unfortunate,” I say, perfectly serious.

Paris’ confusion rises to meet Vel’s boredom.

“You see I was born on the first day of April—April Fool’s Day,” I begin. “So every year on April Fool’s day, people make lame jokes and tell me Happy Birthday and then say ‘April Fools!’ right after. Or they ask me what it’s like to be an April Fool. As you can imagine, the jokes get old.” I appreciate how carefully Paris listens.

“When my brother came along six years later, he was born on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday,” I begin again. “A much more respectable holiday. His real name is Theodore Trueluck the Third, but everybody calls him Teddy.”

“What I want to know is why girls can’t have numbers after their names, too?” Vel says.

Every now and again Vel says something that surprises me.

I agree with her that it makes no sense and wonder what it would be like to be the fourth Trudy Trueluck in my family. Actually, I wouldn’t mind if Nana was a Trudy, too, but her real name is Ida.

“My name is Paris because my mother wanted to go there.” His accent is as thick as one of Mama’s apple pies. He kicks a pebble that ricochets off a tree, and the sweat on his brown skin glistens. The day is warming up.

A few steps later, Paris takes a big breath like he is about to recite Shakespeare in a southern drawl.

“Didn’t you say you were looking for a summer adventure?” he asks.

“I did. You got an idea?”

“I do,” he says.

“Well, out with it.” Vel sounds just like her mother.

Paris hesitates. “Never mind,” he says.

“No, Paris. You can’t do that,” I say. “You can’t bring something up and then drop it.”

“Well, you probably won’t like it because it’s something really big,” he says. “Maybe too big.”

Nothing gets my attention more than a big idea. Vel and I stop walking and turn to wait. Boredom is usually our big summer pastime. Boredom with an extra scoop of monotony on the side, though having a new friend has already changed that—even if we do have to keep it a secret.

“Tell us, Paris,” I say.

“Well, I had a dream last night that I went to Columbia and took down that rebel flag that flies over the State House,” he begins. “Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was in the dream, too. He even shook my hand afterward.”

Paris puts a hand over his heart like this is the highest honor he can imagine.

“I know the flag you’re talking about,” I say. “It flies over the State House in Columbia. Two months ago our class went there on a school field trip, and we saw it for ourselves.”

Vel was on the same field trip, though she read her way through most of it and probably doesn’t remember a thing.

“Our school doesn’t go on field trips,” Paris says, “but my Uncle Freddie told me about it.”

“You really dreamed that?” Vel asks Paris, looking skeptical.

Paris makes a cross over his heart with his finger like it is a solemn swear, and he hopes to die if it isn’t true. I wonder if Vel even knows who Martin Luther King Junior is. Just yesterday Nana Trueluck was talking about him in the kitchen because he won the Nobel Peace Prize and was Time magazine’s Man of the Year.

I think about Paris’ idea. I have to admit it intrigues me. It also sounds impossible. The three of us can’t even take a walk together in downtown Charleston without getting in trouble. How in the world are we going to get to Columbia and take down a flag in broad daylight?

“I think we should do it,” I say, taking a giant eraser to my doubts.

“Do what?” Vel asks.

“Take down that rebel flag,” I answer. “It’s been a hundred years since that war, and it is darn well time to move on.”

I am struck by how much I sound like Nana Trueluck, but it doesn’t bother me one bit. Maybe I can even talk her into helping us take it down. She needs something to take her mind off of how much she misses Grandpa Trueluck.

“Let’s do it,” I say. “Let’s take that flag down.”

Vel looks over at me like I suggested we fly to Mars and hang out with Martians.

“I have to admit it’s the boldest idea for a summer adventure we’ve ever had,” I say, “but at least we won’t end up counting freckles like we did last summer.” I look at Vel, who has 344 freckles as of our last count.

“What’s a freckle?” Paris asks.

I laugh until I realize he is serious. It occurs to me that white people are foreigners to him in some ways, like he is a foreigner to us. I show him the crop of freckles on my arms that always get darker in the summer. It feels like show and tell.

In the next second something rustles in the marsh and the three of us take off running like the ghost of Chester is chasing us. After the length of about two football fields we stop, gasping for breath.

Between breaths, Paris and I laugh about how scared we were. Vel doesn’t see the humor and puts her hands on her hips like she was simply pretending to be scared. It dawns on me that even brave people are cowards sometimes, even the ones who save people’s lives. I imagine most people are a mixture of both.

A few steps later, Paris and I collapse into the arms of one of the live oaks and sit on a low limb that creaks like a rickety porch swing. Vel leans against the wide trunk and begins to read again. Then Paris grabs a long strand of the gray Spanish moss hanging in the branches and puts it on his head like it is a wig. Before long he is singing and stroking an imaginary guitar, pretending he is Elvis Presley singing “All Shook Up.” I laugh so hard I hold my sides and beg him to stop. All Vel manages to do is tap her foot.

“You are a piece of cake, Paris Moses,” I say between laughs.

“What kind of cake?” Paris asks as though enjoying the idea of being a dessert.

“Chocolate, of course,” I answer. “Maybe devil’s food if we pull off this dream of yours.”

He strums his make-believe guitar one last time and bows. Vel refuses to clap, but I applaud enough for both of us. The live oak holds Paris and me, and its massive limbs sag down to touch its roots.

In the heat of the day my imagination revs up. “I bet Rebel soldiers rested under this tree during the Civil War,” I say. “I bet their guns leaned against that branch.” I point to a branch about waist high that is as thick as Paris and me put together.

Paris shudders. Vel turns another page but briefly looks at me as if it is one of my more interesting made-up stories. Living in Charleston means there is a ghost story that goes along with nearly every mansion, church, and bridge. Nana Trueluck has told me a bunch of them.

A hot breeze shakes the leaves. Sun and shade dance on the ground underneath us.

“Y’all want to hear a secret?” Paris asks.

I nod, glad I am not the only one with secrets. I didn’t tell either of them how scared I was when that guy spat at my feet.

Vel looks up from her book and closes it. Secrets always get her attention.

Paris lowers his voice like he is going to tell us the most delicious confidence ever. Even Vel licks her lips.

“My great-great-grandmother was a slave,” he whispers.

Vel and I look at each other and then back at Paris. “Your great-great-grandmother was a slave?” I whisper back, like maybe I didn’t hear it right the first time. “I’ve never known anybody who was related to a slave,” I add.

“Miss Josie told me about it.”

“Miss Josie?” I ask.

“She’s my grandmother. Everybody calls her Miss Josie, colored and white folks alike. Even I call her that.”

I wonder briefly if Nana Trueluck would prefer I call her Miss Ida. Then I shake the thought away.

“My great-great-grandmother was a house slave at Magnolia Plantation.” Paris’ voice remains soft.

“Don’t joke about things like that, Paris.”

“I’m not joking,” he says.

I pause to imagine it. “I went there with my family once,” I say. “Somehow it never occurred to me that slaves worked there.” I wonder what else has never occurred to me just because I am white. I try to connect the dots in my brain and get nowhere. Then I realize that maybe Martin Luther King Junior is carrying on the work of Abraham Lincoln. Maybe that’s why Paris admires him so much.

Nana Trueluck is a big fan of Abraham Lincoln. An old photograph of him is in a trunk in the attic that belonged to my great-great-grandmother. It was given to her by President Lincoln himself for the work she did as an abolitionist. It occurs to me how different Paris’ ancestors had it than mine, and I wonder if maybe they ever ran into each other on the streets of Charleston, not knowing that someday their great-great-grandchildren—one black and one white—would become friends.

“Miss Josie said my great-great-grandmother was finally freed, but she died thirty-six days afterward.”

“Oh my, that’s awful,” I say to him.

Hearing about Paris’ great-great-grandmother makes me regret all my complaints about having to clean my room. What must it be like to clean up an entire plantation every day of your life? Not to mention being owned by somebody and not having a choice over what kind of life you have.

I hug the massive arm of the tree; its rough bark scrapes against my arms.

“Miss Josie also said that as long as that flag flies anywhere in the country, it is a reminder from the masters to the slaves about who is boss.”

Vel stops reading, her eyes wide.

Being around our new friend Paris is an eye-opener for sure.

“I never thought of it that way,” I say.

Truth is, until today, I never thought about that flag at all. I just thought it was something from the past that didn’t mean anything.

For the longest time we are silent, as though holding a private memorial for Paris’ great-great-grandmother. I think about how lucky I am that I wasn’t born with darker skin and about how we don’t have any choice about who our parents are.

The smell of the ocean mingles with our salty sweat, and the sadness feels as thick as the trunk of the live oak. I am thirsty and have the urge for lemonade. Lemonade always makes me feel better no matter what is going on. Not knowing what else to do I suggest we head toward home for lunch.

The three of us turn and go back in the direction of town. At the end of the sandy road along the marsh, we say our goodbyes, knowing we have to part. I hate that I don’t have the courage to walk down the streets of Charleston with my new friend. Instead, Vel and I walk several steps ahead pretending we don’t know Paris, while he hangs back, pretending he doesn’t know us.

A few minutes later we arrive at the Esso station at the corner of Mary Street and wait in the shade. This is the dividing line in town between the whites and the coloreds. Even though it is invisible, everybody knows that line is there. It has been this way for as long as I can remember. This is where Paris will go one way and Vel and I will go another.

He passes us without even glancing in our direction. Ahead, a man and a woman pull out of the Esso station in their Ford Fairlane with Georgia license plates. They stare at Paris like he is doing something wrong simply by walking on the sidewalk.

To the side of the Esso station is the pickup truck that passed us earlier. Paris walks faster, as if to avoid the truck.

“Not so fast, boy!” somebody yells.

Hoot Macklehaney walks out of the gas station. Hoot used to ride my bus until he dropped out of school. Now he hangs out in front of the gas station all day drinking RC colas and bumming cigarettes off the mechanics who work there—apparently one of whom is the guy who spat near my foot.

In the distance, the spitting guy walks out and stands next to Hoot. They must be brothers because they both have pointed noses, and when they smile they have small, uniform teeth that look like a row of yellow corn kernels.

“What should we do?” Vel whispers to me.

“Just ignore him,” I whisper back.

Vel ducks behind her book.

“You some kind of hero, boy?” Hoot says to Paris.

Hoot’s brother smiles at Hoot like he is proud and then puts a quick elbow to his ribs that makes Hoot flinch.

Paris looks over his shoulder as though wishing Martin Luther King Junior would all of a sudden appear and help him out.

“Leave him alone, Hoot,” I call out.

Vel takes a swipe at me with Nancy Drew and warns me to keep my mouth shut.

Hoot used to brag on the bus about how his uncles wore white sheets from time to time. When I asked Nana Trueluck what he meant, she said that the Ku Klux Klan hates colored people and burns crosses in their yards if they do anything they don’t like. They wear white hoods when they do mean things so nobody will recognize their faces. Nana Trueluck says they know they are doing something wrong or they wouldn’t hide behind sheets. She also says the Klan is one of those things that white people pretend doesn’t exist or they would have to do something about it.

“Let’s walk away.” Vel’s voice sounds urgent.

“But that’s wrong,” I say. “What if Paris had just walked away when that Sunbeam Bread truck was coming straight for me?”

I leave Vel in the shade of a crepe myrtle tree and walk toward Paris. I stand close enough to hear his shallow breathing.

“Does your daddy know you have a little colored boyfriend?” Hoot asks me.

Hoot and his brother laugh, and I want to knock their corn-kernel teeth right out of their heads. Hoot has the worst case of chin pimples I have ever seen. They look like tiny volcanoes ready to erupt.

“Does your daddy know you are the most disgusting human being alive?” I say to him.

Shock registers on their faces like they never expected a girl to stand up to them. Hoot aims his volcanic pimples in my direction, but then a police car drives up to the pump to get gas. Hoot’s brother goes to the pump.

“Go home, Trudy,” Paris whispers.

Sweat glistens on Paris’ forehead and upper lip, and I don’t think it is from the heat.

“I can’t,” I say.

“What do you mean, you can’t? You’ve got to. This is my business, not yours.”

“How is this not my business, Paris Moses? You saved my life. I owe you.”

“Well, now you can save my life by walking away,” Paris says.

We exchange a brief look, and his eyes beg me to stay out of it. I let out a long sigh and join up with Vel again. We walk down the invisible line that divides our city. Paris is on the other side, and I can feel the wall between us. My life isn’t any more valuable than Paris’ is, yet he is treated totally different than I am. The unfairness of this makes me want to kick something, and I look at Vel’s leg before thinking better of it. In the distance, we see Paris make it safely past Hoot and his brother, and my relief comes out in a sigh.

On the way home, I feel a growing determination to rid the State House of that Confederate flag, a glaring symbol of an invisible barrier between me and Paris. And I want to talk Nana Trueluck into helping us.