Graduation
1968
I TOOK A HUGE chance on graduation night at Adams High School. With Marianne’s help, I disguised myself in one of Tootsie’s dresses with a head scarf wrapped around my red hair. Marianne sneaked me into the gym through the girls’ locker room and I stood in the little hallway just off the gym floor and watched Rodney march down the aisle with his class, two gold ropes with tassels hanging from his neck. He was so handsome. I stayed long enough to hear him give the salutatory speech and to receive the Christian athlete award, then I crept out into the dark night and made my way through the trees and shrubs to Mama’s station wagon parked near the projects, about a block behind the school.
Marianne told me about the rest of the evening. She said that every time Rodney sat down, his name was called to receive another award—Math Award, Athlete of the Year Award, Literary Award. She said that he told her at the party afterwards that the only thing missing was me.
If I wasn’t sure of it before, I was sure after that night what a special person Rodney Thibault was, and it made me love him more than anything. For that reason I had to get away, away from any temptation to see him. I couldn’t love him, I had to forget him.
Rodney had other thoughts that I wasn’t aware of until months later. He said that, in his mind, I was there at his graduation. In fact, he said he thought he saw me slip out of the gym after his speech. I didn’t admit to anything.
As for my own last year of high school, it flew by. At the beginning of May Mama took me to Alexandria to buy new clothes for graduation parties and to take to college. We rode the train from Mansura and had lunch at the Bentley Hotel. She told me about her first year at LSU and how frightened she was at my age, sixteen.
“At least you have a family to come home to on weekends,” she said. “I stayed on campus. It was either that or go back to the home in New Orleans.” She told me about how difficult it was to live in a girls’ home, and that she spent most of her time alone, reading and writing poetry.
I understood her loneliness and why she had retreated to books, and I guess I had a better grip on why she married a control freak like Daddy, who screamed at her, too. When I was eleven I heard her yell. I ran into the kitchen to find him holding her against the wall by the throat, a butcher knife in his free hand. I remember asking her later why she stayed with him and she said, “Where will I go? I have five children and no family.”
I knew what it felt like to be trapped and I suffered for Mama. It was funny how, when she was away from home and it was just the two of us, she seemed so different, almost loving and motherly.
When we got home and Daddy found out how much money she spent on me, all hell broke loose. I thought we’d have to return all my new clothes, but Mama stood her ground and, after a couple days things settled down, although I don’t know what type of insanity Mama suffered from Daddy’s anger.
Graduation plans sort of took over. We didn’t have a big celebration—just a few of my parent’s friends and our family. My grandmother came from Shreveport and James came home from college with a girlfriend, who stayed in my room with me. Sissy slept with Mama and Daddy. The adults got drunk and we teenagers swam in the pool and ate grilled burgers that James had to rescue when Daddy forgot about them.
The Banner, Jean Ville’s only newspaper, covered both graduations, Jean Ville and Adams High. My high school’s story was on the front page, with pictures of all the graduates. I didn’t receive a lot of awards or recognition since, technically, I didn’t have a senior year—but my grade point average was in the top five and I garnered a number of certificates of achievement.
Rodney’s name was mentioned as receiving the most awards at Adams High School graduation, but there was no mention of what they were in the one paragraph on page six, at the bottom. Whether anyone in Jean Ville knew how special he was didn’t matter to me. I was so proud of him.
Rodney said that the summer following graduation passed by slowly for him. It was hot and humid as he pumped gas, cleaned windshields, made small-talk with the customers and swept the concrete in the evenings. He told me that he dreamed of Southern University, of sitting under huge live oaks with a breeze on his skin while he read Chaucer, Twain, Joyce, Fitzgerald. Mrs. Jones told him that the library at Southern University held all of the classics and that students could borrow them, at no charge. It seemed like a dream, one Rodney was excited about, and that was one of the things that got him through that hot, humid summer.
It was mid-August when we finally saw each other again. I drove up to the gas pumps in the new 1967 white Camaro Daddy had bought for Will and me. Rodney hadn’t seen the new Chevrolet model until now, so he was busy admiring the car, not concentrating on who was behind the wheel. When he reached my window to ask what I needed and realized it was me, he couldn’t speak. He just stared at me as if I was a mirage. I laughed. It had been almost a year since that night in the hospital.
I was older, more mature, more confident. He did a double take.
“Hi, Rodney,” I said. I tried to sound nonchalant but my voice came out a whisper and seemed to float in the air. I wasn’t sure he heard me.
“Susie?” He stuttered. His eyes blinked several times as if to focus. He said he was afraid the image would disappear and leave him with that familiar feeling of waking from a dream.
“Remember me?” I laughed.
He stood riveted to the concrete, with his lips parted.
“Hello? Anybody there?” I laughed again. The sunlight hit the green flecks in his eyes and created prisms of color that danced in front of his face. It was like seeing a triple rainbow, so close I could almost touch it.
“Hello, yourself,” he stammered. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you all summer.”
“I’ve been in Baton Rouge—went to summer school at LSU.”
“Oh. No one told me.” He thought for a moment. “Uh,” he stammered. “How are you?” He looked at me so intently I thought he might see right through me
“I’m fine. And you?”
“Good. Good. Glad to be done with high school.”
“Yeah.” I said. I smiled at him.
“How’d you do? “
“In high school?
“Yeah.” I figured he’d read the newspaper and knew I received some commendations. The one I was most proud of was the volunteer award—for literacy work with underprivileged children, most of them colored. Of course the textbook program was a secret, no one knew how that happened.
“I did fine. Ancient history. I’m really glad to be done.”
“I know, I read about you. Congratulations,” he said.
“I read about you, too. I’m really proud of you. I’ll bet you dad is, too.”
“Hmmm.” We just stared at each other for a minute, neither of us knowing what to say next.
“Did you like it?”
“LSU?” I asked.
“Yeah. Baton Rouge. Being away from here?”
“It’s a big school, but it wasn’t too intimidating this summer. I understand that when all 30,000 students show up in the fall, it will be a zoo. But anywhere is better than here.”
“Yeah.” He just stood there. He seemed content to look at me. Neither of us talked or moved. We just stared. Who would blink first?
“Hey, Rod!” His dad called. “You going to fill up Miss Burton’s car or you going to stand there?” There was a sharpness in his voice.
“Oh, yeah.” he said under his breath. He looked at me and could probably tell I wanted to laugh. He grinned. “Do you want me to fill it?”
“Sure,” I said. He pumped the gas and stared at me through the side mirror. I stared back. Our connection was so strong that he forgot about the fuel until it bubbled out of the tank and onto the pavement. He jumped back and took his hand off the trigger. I laughed. He looked around to see if anyone else saw. His dad and brother were sneering at him near the car of another customer. They didn’t look happy.
Rodney put the pump back and grabbed the windshield cleaner and squeegee. First he cleaned up the gas spill off the car then he came around to wash my front windshield. He asked about the car. I told him that it was Chevrolet’s newest model called, Camaro, and that Daddy bought it during my senior year for me and Will.
“Will gets to keep it when I’m at LSU. He still has three years of high school and Daddy says he needs it more than I do.”
“That’s not fair,” Rodney said.
“Nothing in my life is fair,” I said and laughed. He looked at me with concern and I realized he probably thought I meant that there had been more violence. He didn’t ask. Maybe he didn’t want to know.
“When do you go back to Baton Rouge?” he asked.
“In two weeks. I have orientation before the fall semester begins. What about you?”
“Less than three weeks.”
“Excited?”
“Yes. But I hate to leave my family. Dad really needs me, and I offered to stay, but he insisted I go. I’m going to miss them.” When he said that it reminded me that I didn’t have a loving family. I was jealous and it was a sore spot for me. “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I mean, really, Susie. Are you really okay?”
“I just have to survive two weeks.”
“Can we talk sometime?”
“I’m not sure, Rod,” I said. I looked off, through the front windshield, at the sky and beyond. I was trying to decide whether to go through with my plan.
“Okay. Whatever you want,” he said. He looked sad and defeated as he stood with the wet rag and sprayer in one hand and put his other arm above my window. He leaned his forehead on it his forearm. I could smell him, the familiar oozing of all the scents I loved drifting through the car window. He was only a few inches from me. I had to look up to see his face. I wondered whether he knew the effect he had on me.
“It’s not what I want, Rod. It’s what has to be.” I whispered and I knew I wasn’t very convincing.
“Please, Susie, let’s not go there, again. Laws are changing. Do you read current events?”
“Yes, I know about integration and anti-miscegenation, but this is still Louisiana. Things change slowly here.”
“How will I know where you are, at LSU?”
“I have an address.” I reached in my pocket and removed a small, folded piece of paper I had prepared in case I had the nerve to give it to him. It fit in the palm of my hand and I passed it to Rodney by extending my hand to shake his. I wanted things to look platonic, like we were just friends. I didn’t want his dad to worry. Rodney took the note and after he released my hand, put it in his back pocket. I drove off.
I watched through the review mirror and saw Rodney stand still and stare at the license plate on the back of the new white Camaro until it disappeared in a vapor of gas and heat and moisture that radiated from the blacktop. Other cars, pedestrians and heat fumes swallowed him up the further away I got, but I watched through the review mirror as he continued to stare, his arms by his side.
That night Rodney said he sat at his desk with a tablet and pen and wrote.
August 19, 1967
Dear Susie.
I saw you today for the first time in almost nine months. You are more beautiful than ever and I’m more in love with you than ever. We can do this on your terms.
We can be friends and have coffee while we listen to beatniks recite poetry and play bongos.
I can pretend to be your servant from the plantation. I’ll carry your bags and call you, “Miss Susie.”
I’ll be your student, you can tutor me, call me illiterate, unfortunate, pitiful.
I’ll be the yardman at your dorm and you can tell me to cut certain flowers, to trim the hedges, to mow the lawn.
I’ll walk your dog, feed your cat, change the water for your goldfish. I’ll do or be whatever you’ll let me; just let me—Be, that is. Be in your life. In any role that works for you.
This is my address at Southern University. I’ll be there August 30th
Please say there will be a letter waiting for me when I arrive.
I miss you.
He signed it, Yours, Forever, Rod. He told me later that he put it in an envelope and wrote my name and address at LSU on the front and his return address at Southern on the top, left corner, without his name. He walked out of the front door and headed to the post office, about two miles away, in the center of town. It was dark. He didn’t notice his Dad and Mom on the front porch as he skipped down the steps.
“Where do you think you’re going this time of night, Rod?”
“Oh, I’m going to the post office to mail a letter.”
“Do you have a stamp on that letter?”
“No, Sir. I’ll buy one at the post office.”
“The post office won’t be opened until eight in the morning. Are you planning on waiting outside the building until then?”
“Uh, no. I guess not.”
He stood in the lane in front of their house and fingered the letter. He walked slowly up the steps, through the screened door and made his way up the stairs to his room. He slept with the letter under his pillow. It was in the mail at 8:01 the next morning.