Chapter Twenty-One

Ida

 

Trouble closes in from every angle. I am surrounded by guards while several tourists take pictures. The flag is removed from my shoulders, and I am escorted to an office. Trudy and Vel are detained, too, and Les Lester has Paris by the arm.

Minutes before I took the flag from Paris, I had tears in my eyes. I felt useless, and I hated myself for being old and letting down the children. Then Paris ran through the rotunda with the flag soaring behind him, and it brought more tears to my eyes. Different tears. Happy tears. What a beautiful moment that was.

Trudy and her friends actually did the impossible. Then, it seemed, I was to play a part in it after all. An action was called for. An action taken for all grandmothers of every color in the name of justice and honor. We all hope for a moment when we meet our potential. This was clearly mine.

After having regrets for most of my life that I didn’t pursue a singing career, I sang as though my life depended on it, as though everyone’s life depended on it, my heart wide open. If only Ted Senior had been a witness to all this. He would have been so proud of me. Tears come to my eyes again. This time they are bittersweet.

But it seems now a price must be paid for that moment. Les Lester orders Wally to resume business as before. The flag is draped over his desk. It looks so innocent lying there. A lifeless piece of faded fabric instilled with meaning. Meanwhile, the four of us are left alone in the room with the blinking and the non-blinking eye staring straight at us—thankfully from its socket and not the floor. It is then that I notice a piece of lint stuck on the outside of the glass eye, picked up from the rotunda floor. I take off my glasses and wipe my eyes so that maybe Les Lester will take the hint and remove the fuzz stuck to his left eyeball. No luck. I cringe. Things like this make my teeth itch.

“What did you think would happen?” Les Lester says. “Did you think you would get away with it?”

“It was all my idea,” I say, wiping my eye again. “You should let the children go. They didn’t do a thing.”

“No, it was my idea,” Trudy says.

“No, I put them up to it.” Paris’ voice wobbles in and out of a southern accent. His eyes are dark and serious, as if Les Lester is the latest Sunbeam Bread truck to endanger Trudy.

Les Lester lets out something that sounds like a growl.

Am I really being detained? Until now, I have gone my entire adult life without even a speeding ticket.

“Let the children go,” I say again. “You can take me to jail if you want.” I can’t resist wiping my eye again, and then I wink. His good eye looks offended or perhaps intrigued. It is hard to see past the floor lint.

As the adult in the mix, I am clearly the one responsible. I imagine Abigail packing my bags as soon as she and Ted Junior get the call to come and bail me out of jail.

“Nancy, tell them it was my idea,” Trudy says to Vel.

Why did she call her Nancy? I wonder.

“I think you’re confused, Ida,” Vel says. “It was Martin’s idea.”

Martin must be Paris. Evidently, names have been changed to protect the innocent. Then who am I?

Trudy grits her teeth and glares at Vel, who shrugs her betrayal of Paris. In the meantime, Les Lester looks pleased thinking the whole thing was Paris’ idea. Perhaps putting him away is preferable to putting away two girls and a grandmother.

“Martin didn’t do anything wrong,” Trudy says. “I was the one who took down the flag. I took it down myself while Wally watched.”

The blinking eye narrows.

“Do you honestly think these children are the ones who thought this up?” I say.

Les Lester looks at Paris. “I doubt anyone would have done anything without the boy’s input.”

“For goodness sakes, he’s twelve years old,” I say.

“Enough of this,” he says. He asks my name.

“She’s Doris,” Trudy says, before I have time to answer. “Doris Day-vis.”

My partners in crime smile. Fake names are one thing, but how do we get out of this office?

Les Lester leaves the room to talk to Wally and the other guards. They take turns looking through the glass at us until he comes back.

“You can all leave except for Martin,” he says.

“No way.” Trudy stands next to her chair, one fist clinched.

“Let me handle it,” I say to her and look back at Les Lester.

“You have no right to detain this young man,” I say.

“Actually, we do,” Wally says. “Anyone who defiles the contents of the State House faces Federal prosecution.”

The alarm in Paris’ eyes causes me to stand, too.

“But what about me? I carried that flag, too.”

Both men ignore me.

“I’d like to telephone my son in Charleston,” I say. “He’ll tell you what a misunderstanding this is.”

“You can do that, Doris, once you leave the State House grounds.”

For a moment I wonder who he is talking to. This is hard enough without having to keep all the names straight.

“But I refuse to leave without, uh, Martin,” I say.

Another guard enters the room to escort the girls and me out. He towers over us.

“We can’t just leave him here,” Trudy says to me as we leave the room.

Paris sits straight in the chair as if he has no regrets. But I am worried about leaving him behind. Does the state of South Carolina prosecute children for running with a flag? Surely not.

Once we get outside it must be a hundred degrees. I miss the breeze from the coast, even if it is a hot breeze. Les Lester steps forward again.

“Look, I understand you want to help the boy, but it won’t do any good.” He sounds halfway sympathetic, and I am relieved to see the lint on his eyeball is finally gone.

“I want to telephone my son,” I say again. “Aren’t I allowed one telephone call?”

“You aren’t being arrested,” Les Lester says.

“What about Martin?” Trudy asks.

“The authorities are just going to ask him some questions,” he says.

“The authorities?” I ask.

Trudy and I exchange a look, and I am reminded of the night the cross was burned in the front yard. Vel is silent, her knuckles white from clutching her book. Les Lester tells us to go on home.

“Let’s go,” I say to Vel and Trudy.

“But we can’t leave Paris,” Trudy whispers to me.

“We won’t,” I say. “We’ll get help. We’ll figure this out.”

She doesn’t look like she believes me—and who can blame her after my earlier disappearing act?

Vel pulls Trudy out the door, but then Trudy runs back into the building. A guard grabs her arm and escorts her back outside.

“Stop it,” I say to the guard. “That’s my granddaughter you’re manhandling.”

He doesn’t let go.

“We have rights,” I say. “You’re violating our rights.”

The guard releases Trudy’s arm with a scoff.

“Who do you people think you are?” he asks.

“Patriots,” I say.

Trudy comes to my side. Vel looks frightened as well. We are in a dilemma even Nancy Drew can’t solve.

I tell the guards that we will be back, but I feel shaken, too. We leave the building and walk down the steps and regroup under one of the giant oaks on the grounds.

“Why didn’t you take up for Paris?” Trudy asks Vel.

“Because he’s the reason we did it,” she says.

“No, he’s not,” Trudy says to her.

“Are you telling me that if Paris hadn’t saved your life, we would have come to Columbia to take down that stupid flag?” she asks.

“That doesn’t mean you abandon your friend,” Trudy says.

Vel lowers her eyes as though she might have a point.

“We need to stay calm,” I say, exuding calmness, though that’s not what I feel at all. I clean my glasses hoping it will clear my thoughts.

Vel holds up a nickel.

“I don’t want to call my parents yet,” Trudy says.

“What are you waiting for?” Vel asks. “It can’t get much worse than this.”

They both look at me.

I don’t want to telephone Ted Junior, either. Nor do I want to give Abigail fuel for the fire.

There’s got to be a way to outsmart these nitwits, I say to myself.

We sit on a wooden bench underneath a giant magnolia tree. Metal stars are hammered into the outside of the building to mark where General Sherman’s cannons tried to destroy the place over a hundred years ago. This was one of the bits of information from Les Lester’s tour. At the top of the dome the American flag flies by itself. I point to it, and Trudy smiles.

“You wanted to take down that flag, and you did it. At least you can be proud of that,” I say.

As if the old guard planned it, the tiny window opens at the top of the dome, and the Confederate flag is reattached.

“So much for a rebellion,” Trudy says, her voice soft with our defeat.

“I hope that Wally guy gets stuck up there,” Vel says.

Trudy looks at Vel as though she is not yet ready to forgive her for selling out Paris.

“What do you think they’ll do to Paris?” Trudy asks me.

“I honestly don’t know,” I say.

“Well, I hope he doesn’t tell them his real name,” Vel says. “Wait. Can you get in trouble for using a fake name?”

“Surely not,” I say, still thinking.

“Maybe I should go get Paris’ Uncle Freddie,” Trudy says. “I got Paris into this mess and want to get him out.”

“Not yet,” I say. “We don’t want to get Freddie in trouble, too. We’ve got to come up with a plan to save Paris ourselves.”

“We?” Vel asks. “You can count me out, Nana Trueluck. I don’t want to end up in jail. My parents will kill me.”

Trudy aims her disappointment in my direction.

“Okay, kiddo, it looks like it’s up to us,” I say to her. I always thought she would be the one to do great things, but maybe it is not too late for me to have a chance at it. We need a rescue plan, but I am empty of thoughts. The urgent look on Trudy’s face doesn’t help.

Seconds later, a black sedan pulls up in front of the State House. Three men wearing dark sunglasses get out of the car with the letters FBI on their shirts.

“Uh, oh,” Trudy says.

“H-e-double-hockey-sticks,” Vel says, her words soft.

A hot flash confirms the trouble we are in. I fan myself. All this for running through the building with a flag draped behind you? What about me? I had my hands on that flag, too. When I think of Paris in a room surrounded by white men pushing their authority around, I get mad. Boiling mad. Charleston mad. And the whole problem of how to rescue him gets much more serious.