Kevin Walker walked slowly onto the campus of Harriet Tubman Senior High School. The school was bigger than any other he’d ever attended. Right in front of the building was a large statue of a woman in a long dress with high button shoes and a cape. She had a determined look on her plain, kind face.
“That’s Harriet Tubman,” a girl offered. “Our school is named for her.”
“Oh,” Kevin said.
“She led a lot of slaves to freedom in the eighteen hundreds. They called it the “Underground Railroad.” It wasn’t a railroad though. It was a string of safe houses where the slaves hid in the daytime. The slave catchers were after them with dogs and everything. So they traveled by night and hid during the day,” the girl explained with a smile. “You’re a new student, huh?”
“Yeah. I just moved here from Texas. Oh, my name is Kevin Walker,” Kevin said.
“I’m Alonee Lennox,” the girl introduced herself. “Welcome to Tubman High. It’s a good school. We got some great teachers and some okay ones. Lot of friendly kids. That’s what I love about Tubman.”
Kevin nodded. The girl seemed nice enough—friendly to be sure. Kevin tended to be shy, and he smiled and thanked her and then moved on. Kevin felt uncomfortable talking to people he didn’t know, or maybe to anybody. Before moving to Tubman, he and his mother had lived in a small town in Texas, Spurville. His mother was a registered nurse. There were just the two of them. Kevin had gone to Spurville High School, which was about one-fourth the size of Tubman. While Tubman had trees and a nice green lawn, Spurville High was shabby without much landscaping. Still, Kevin missed it. He missed everything about Spurville. He felt like a fish out of water, having trouble breathing.
Kevin looked at his class schedule. He had English first. In Spurville Mrs. Roberts, an elderly woman, taught English. It was Kevin’s favorite class. On hot days she put out a bowl of lemonade with ice floating in it, and the students were welcome to dip in and fill their paper cups. Kevin read the name of the teacher here: Mr. Pippin. He wondered what he was like. Probably he wouldn’t be as nice as Mrs. Roberts.
When Kevin walked into the classroom, he felt many eyes on him. He was arriving in the middle of the school year, which was uncommon. He wasn’t dressed like the other guys in the room. Instead of the new styles, he wore old jeans and a white shirt. He didn’t see anybody else wearing a white shirt. Everybody else wore T-shirts. But Kevin’s grandmother insisted he wear a nicely pressed white shirt.
Kevin heard snickering when he sat down. He saw three boys staring at him and laughing. Kevin’s face warmed. He wished he were back in Spurville. Twenty times a day he wished that, but he couldn’t go back to Spurville until he finished high school. He wouldn’t have minded being here in California for a visit, but to think Spurville was not home anymore made him sick to the core of his being.
Kevin noticed the girl who told him about Harriet Tubman was in this class too. She smiled at him, and she seemed worried about him. Kevin knew who Harriet Tubman was even before Alonee explained her importance. Kevin had listened out of politeness. Kevin’s mother taught him a lot of things, including the story of the “Black Moses,” Harriet Tubman’s nickname.
Mr. Pippin appeared at the front desk, sliding in like a gray ghost. Kevin liked him immediately. He was old and worn looking. His suit was shabby. Kevin thought he must have a lot of knowledge, like Mrs. Roberts did. Kevin and Mr. Pippin had something else in common too. Kevin was nervous being in this classroom, and for some reason Mr. Pippin seemed uneasy too.
“We will be discussing the “Rocking-Horse Winner” today,” Mr. Pippin announced. “A fine story by D. H. Lawrence. Does anyone wish to start?”
A boy in the back of the room rocked back and forth in his chair, making a squeaking noise.
“Marko Lane,” Mr. Pippin said, “stop that.”
“I was trying to get into the mood of the story, Mr. Pippin, you know, the rocking horse,” Marko replied. His friends laughed.
Kevin felt sorry for the teacher, who looked stressed. Mr. Pippin looked like an outnumbered soldier on the battlefield, bravely fighting on though he knew in the end he was doomed. Kevin was shy in social situations, but he liked to participate in class discussions. He was articulate when he had something to say. By a happy coincidence, Mrs. Roberts had introduced her English class to the “Rocking-Horse Winner” a few weeks ago in Spurville. So Kevin raised his hand.
“The story has a very powerful message about how needing more and more money can destroy people,” Kevin stated.
Mr. Pippin stared at the new boy. The dead, dull look in the teacher’s face flamed with a look of hope. “Yes! Give us an example of this. . .” —he consulted the roster—“Kevin.”
“Well,” Kevin went on. “The mother. She never felt she had enough money. She was driven to search for more. And this destroyed her son.”
“The mother,” Alonee added, “felt the family was unlucky because they didn’t have more money.”
“Yes, yes,” Mr. Pippin said.
“Even the walls seemed to be crying for more money,” Jaris Spain, another student, offered.
“Yes, yes,” Mr. Pippin encouraged. A real class discussion was going on, and Kevin had started it.
Marko Lane moved his desk with a scraping noise. Usually that kind of antic brought laughter from his friends. But now it seemed everybody wanted to talk about the story.
“The boy in the story—Paul,” Mr. Pippin interjected. “How did his mother’s obsession with success affect him?”
“He like caught the disease of wanting more money for his mother’s sake,” Kevin answered. “He rode that wooden rocking horse in his room, and he got the names of real horses, and he bet on them and won money for his mom. And eventually he died riding that horse.”
When the class ended, Kevin decided he really liked Mr. Pippin. He reminded Kevin of Mrs. Roberts. He was an interesting, intelligent man.
As Kevin walked from class, Marko Lane stuck out his foot and made Kevin stumble. Then Marko said with exaggerated concern, “Hey, I’m sorry dude. I didn’t see you.”
“Where you from man?” Marko asked.
“Texas,” Kevin replied. He walked a little faster. He hoped to lose Marko Lane and the boys who trailed along with him.
“Texas!” Marko repeated. “I never met anybody from Texas before.” He looked at his friends and asked them if they knew anybody from Texas. They shook their heads, laughing. Marko was on top of his game.
“You got a whole lot of cows down there, don’t you man?” Marko asked.
“Uh, not where I lived,” Kevin said.
“Then how come you smell like cow pies?” Marko asked, causing an eruption of laughter from his friends. “Not to offend you or anything dude, but I think you been spending too much time on the range.”
Kevin knew they were baiting him, but he ignored them. He saw a teacher just ahead. At least he thought she was a teacher—a smartly dressed woman carrying a briefcase. He hurried to catch up to her, “Excuse me, ma’am, where’s Room 24?” he asked, “I got American history there.”
The woman was beautiful. She smiled at Kevin and said, “I’m going there now. I teach the class. I’m Torie McDowell. And you are—”
“Kevin Walker,” Kevin responded. He glanced back and saw Marko and his friends falling back into the shadows. For some reason they seemed afraid of this woman.
“Welcome to Tubman High, Kevin. We just go around this corner and we’re there,” Ms. McDowell said.
Kevin took a seat in the middle of the classroom. He was glad not to see Marko Lane and his buddies. Back in Spurville, there were boys like Marko. Kevin developed a deep hatred for them. He tried to avoid them, but sometimes things got too bad. Then Kevin had to deal with them.
Once Kevin Walker almost killed a boy. He hoped it would never get that far with Marko Lane.
Kevin liked American History I. Back in Spurville, he liked most of his classes. He was not brilliant, but he was a good student and he enjoyed learning. Kevin’s mother had worked hard as a nurse, but she had always made time to get books from the library for herself and Kevin. “We need to stimulate our minds all the time,” she used to tell Kevin. So they read books about astronomy and archeology, as well as the biographies of famous men and women. At night, when she got home from the hospital, she would sit with Kevin. She used to say things like, “Kevin, did you know that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the same day, July 4, 1826? Isn’t it amazing that they would both go like that on such an important holiday?”
Kevin had loved to hear his mother talk. She had a lilting, musical voice. She led the Voices of Praise choir at the local church. When she sang, her voice would soar. But when she talked, her voice was soft and comforting.
Before Ms. McDowell started class, a boy came up to Kevin’s desk. Kevin recognized him from Mr. Pippin’s class. “I thought I heard Mr. Pippin call you Kevin,” he said.
Kevin looked warily at the tall, handsome boy who stood beside his desk. Did he have a problem with Kevin? “Yeah, my name is Kevin,” he replied.
“My name is Jaris Spain. I wanted you to know that we just had the best English class in ages because of you. Most times it’s a zoo in there. Some of those guys really harass Mr. Pippin, but you set a good tone right away and it changed everything. I just wanted to thank you,” Jaris said.
“Uh . . . thanks,” Kevin murmured.
When it was time for lunch, Kevin did what he usually did in Spurville. He found a quiet spot, put his nose in a book, and read. Mom had always made wonderful sandwiches for Kevin. They were interesting, with different kinds of cheeses, condiments, and maybe a lettuce leaf and radishes or hot chili peppers. But now that Kevin was making his own lunches, they were made of salami and cheese or peanut butter and jelly. Grandma was not a good sandwich maker. “Make what you like, boy,” she once told him. “I know what Grandpa likes, but I don’t know what a boy like you likes.”
Kevin opened his book and began eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He hoped Marko Lane or somebody like that wouldn’t come along to disturb his peace. Instead, a big, pretty girl with braided hair appeared. “Hi there, stranger!” she boomed. “I never seen you around Tubman before, so you must be brand new. I’m Sami Archer. And I just wanted to let you know I’m here if you need any help—if you get lost or something.”
“Thank you,” Kevin responded. “I’m okay.”
“So what’s your name, stranger?” Sami inquired.
“You’re not from around here. You got a cute little twang to your voice, boy. Texas or Oklahoma. Am I right?” Sami asked.
“Texas,” Kevin said.
“Well, like I said, just holler if you need anything,” Sami offered, strolling off. She seemed to sense that Kevin just wanted to read his book and have lunch.
Kevin thought the girl had very beautiful eyes. They reminded him of his mother’s eyes. Kevin closed his book and lay back on the grass, looking up at the sky. Clouds were tumbling around in the blue. Kevin could hear his mother’s voice.
“See the cirrus clouds, baby? Firm and curly, way up high. Now your cumulus clouds, they look more like whipped cream or fluffy mashed potatoes. And the stratus, low and gray, and very serious.”
Kevin missed his mother. He missed her every day and every night. Sometimes, after he went to bed at night, he cried for her like a little boy although it had been three months since she died.
Kevin had come to California to live with his grandparents—Roy and Lena Stevens—because there was no other family to take him in. Kevin’s grandparents were in their seventies, and they lived in a modest little home on Iroquois Street. Kevin and his mother had come every year to visit them in California, and sometimes his grandparents had come to Spurville to visit Kevin and his mother. They had a pickup truck with a camper on the back, and the four of them traveled in that truck when they went on vacation together. In those days, his grandparents never expected that one day they would be caring for a sixteen-year-old boy. But they did their best to make Kevin feel at home.
“It’s been a good long while since we had a teenager in the house,” Grandma remarked. “That makes for some changes, you bet your boots boy. Been ’bout thirty years since your mama was a teenager in our house. And she was such a good girl. Quiet and wanting to study all the time. Never give us a bit of trouble. We were so proud. She was wanting to be a doctor, but there was no money for that. So she became a nurse, a registered nurse, a wonderful one. You’re a lot like your mama, Kevin. Studying, quiet. Not like those crazy wild youngsters who want to be hopped up and drinking whisky and scaring the living daylights out everybody.”
“Praise the Lord you’re not like your daddy, boy!” Grandpa would exclaim. “All I can say is praise the Lord for that.”
Kevin’s mother did not speak very much about Charlie Walker, Kevin’s father. She never kept the truth about what happened from Kevin either. When she spoke of Charlie Walker, she was respectful. She didn’t try to sugarcoat the truth, but she refused to demonize the man.
Charlie Walker was sent to prison for second-degree murder when Kevin was three years old. He died in prison during a riot when Kevin was six.
“Your father was not a bad man,” Kevin’s mother said. “He was a proud man. He wouldn’t be any man’s fool. He had a fierce temper, and one day another man insulted him and there was a fight. The other man fell into the street and hit his head and died. It didn’t matter that the other man was a bully and that he’d started the fight. Your father got ten years for second-degree murder. Well, there was a riot at that prison, and some of the guards were hurt badly. Seven of the men imprisoned there died, and your father was one of them. Just remember this, Kevin. Your father was not a bad man. He was a man who loved his family. He loved you and he loved me. He just had a very bad temper and it got the best of him that day. It was like a wild thing inside him, and he never tamed it. . .”
Whenever Grandpa Roy was thanking God that Kevin was not like his father, Kevin didn’t say anything. But what Grandpa said was not entirely true. Kevin thought that a lot of his father’s temper stirred in his own soul too.
Back in Spurville there were some boys like Marko Lane. They had tried to bait Kevin, just like Marko did today. Kevin avoided people like that as much as he could. Maybe his father tried to avoid fighting too. Maybe there were many days he tried to ignore the bully he eventually killed by accident. And then one day the bullying became too much.
Kevin remembered Buck Sanders from Spurville. Kevin and Buck were both thirteen, but Kevin was a bit taller and stronger. Buck could sense weakness in a person from a mile off. He learned early that Kevin was something of a loner with a lot of shyness in him. He began teasing Kevin in small ways. At first Buck snatched one of Kevin’s sandwiches—the good ones his mother had made—and tossed it onto the roof of the school library. The next day he deliberately spilled half his cola into Kevin’s backpack. Then, finally, as Kevin was taking a report he had carefully written from his binder, Buck snatched it up and ran. Kevin couldn’t catch him to retrieve it until Buck had torn it into many pieces and cast the pieces to the wind.
Kevin had demanded that Buck leave him alone, but Buck wouldn’t. He laughed and said he wasn’t afraid of Kevin. And then one day, when Kevin was walking down a dirt road leading from school on a Friday afternoon, Buck Sanders jumped out of nowhere and spat in Kevin’s face.
The two boys were alone. It was a hot, dusty afternoon in June. Kevin stared at his tormentor for a long second, then lunged at him and got Buck down into the dirt. Buck struggled, but Kevin was beating him with his fists. Kevin’s rage grew. Suddenly he didn’t want just to beat up Buck Sanders. He wanted to do more. He needed to end the abuse forever. Kevin got his hands around Buck’s throat and squeezed. Buck’s eyes bugged out and filled with terror. Kevin almost killed Buck Sanders that day.