Chapter Five

A jarring hitch in the Zephyr’s velocity caused Amy to awake with a start. She had tried hard not to doze off during the daylight portion of her train ride, but she’d spent most of the night tossing and turning in her seat. The train’s sleeping berths were “For Whites Only.”

She managed to make her teachers and classmates believe that she was white —what colored people referred to as passing—but she could tell by the way the school’s Negro maids looked at her that they knew better, because most Negroes could detect someone who was passing. It was almost like they had the key to a secret code, which is why Amy avoided as much as possible, the Negro men who worked the railroad.

Many of the men stayed at her mother’s rooming house during Denver trip changeovers, and out of respect for her mother, felt it was their duty to look after Amy. If any of them ever caught Amy carrying on such a charade, he’d be quick as lightning to let her mother know.

Amy had learned this fact the hard way, four years ago during the ninth grade, when she’d come home for Christmas.

Since then, no matter whether she was traveling from Denver back to her boarding school in Chicago, or vice versa, the sixteen-hour train ride between the two cities always felt insufferably long to her.

She felt the train begin to decelerate, then saw the large Wynkoop Street steel archway that greeted passengers of Denver’s Union Station with a brightly lit “Welcome” sign. She favored the opposite side of the sign that read, “Mizpah,” the Hebrew salutation meaning “May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.”

Amy’s stomach cramped and her palms turned clammy as in October when she’d played Desdemona in the annual seniors’ play, “Othello.” Only this time her bout of nerves had nothing to do with stage fright, and everything to do with having to face her mother.

She recalled the discussion with Elaine, the woman who had sat across from her in the dining room of the Chicago station during breakfast as they waited for their departure times.

Elaine spoke with a southern drawl so thick that Amy had had to strain to understand her. They ordered Danishes and coffee, and had fallen easily into conversation. Amy wondered if Elaine had used a whole bottle of peroxide to achieve bleached hair so blonde that it was nearly white. Elaine’s bobbed haircut, a version of the Gibson Girl style popular with cinema actresses, had given Elaine a deceptively sophisticated appearance.

The illusion Elaine had created had disappeared when out of the clear blue, she had confided that her daddy, a dirt poor tobacco farmer, whose great-granddaddy had once owned a big Virginia plantation and lots of slaves, probably had the sheriff and his gang of deputies on a statewide hunt for her by now.

“But honey,” she had said, “I’m on my way to Hollywood. All there was for me in Virginia was the same life as my mama, and her mama, and her mama before that. If I never drink or hear of mint julep again in life, it still won’t be long enough.”

Elaine insisted that Amy share a secret too, which, of course, Amy knew was coming because she had never met a white girl who had thought twice about divulging her most private matters, even to a stranger. Inevitably, the person who had been an involuntary confidante was expected to tell some equally personal story.

Amy considered shocking Elaine by revealing the reason she was expelled from school, which was something that would be obvious to everyone sooner or later anyway. Instead, for the sake of letting Elaine know that Negro parents were just as strict and concerned as any other parents, all Amy told was that her mother was going to have one holy fit when she found out, and especially when she found out it was too late to do anything about it.

Elaine had just stared Amy straight in the face, and shrugged. “Well, honey, I don’t see where you really have a problem. A simple little lie will fix all that. It’s not like your mama actually wants to know the truth. Leastways, my mama never did.”

For a heartbeat, Elaine’s advice made sense. Just as quickly though, Amy remembered that the whole purpose of her diligently carried-out plot had been exactly how things turned out—getting kicked out of school with no possibility of ever going back.

It was that same instant when Amy finally had a deeper realization. The consequences of what she’d done were going to last well beyond graduation day. They were going to affect the rest of her life.

The shock of such a reality caused Amy to feel as if the blood in her limbs and face turned icy cold. For once, she had been glad that her skin was so ... beige. Otherwise, she would’ve had that blood-drained look so many of her classmates got when they felt embarrassed or scared.

The passenger car jerked again and snapped Amy out of her thoughts of the past, which was just as well, because what was done was done.

She looked out the window and saw detached boxcars abandoned on nearby stretches of crisscrossing tracks. The train’s speed ebbed still more, and came to a stop, as it pulled alongside the concrete platform.

A dull ache throbbed at the back of Amy’s head. She just didn’t feel ready to cope with her mother. It was bad enough that the two of them were as different as burlap and silk, but the truth was that her mother mortified her.

Her mother talked like a plantation field hand and dressed with about as much class as a dime store mannequin. And that imported rosewater she always splashed on; it just blended with the smell of those putrid hair chemicals she was in up to her elbows every day, and created an even more nauseous scent.

All that was happening in her life was her mother’s fault anyway. In the end, perhaps getting pregnant wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but at least this way she wasn’t going to have to live down the shame of her mother showing up for her graduation.

She didn’t even want to think about what if her plan had failed and what she might have been forced to do. All Amy knew was that she was willing to consider anything if it kept her classmates and their families from learning the truth about her.

She’d been able to make them believe she was as well off and high bred as they were; that she was being raised by a wealthy great-aunt after being orphaned as a baby. She was determined to keep it that way.

Her fancy boarding school and stuck-up classmates were now a thing of the past. If her mother taught her anything, it was that looking back was useless. For all their mismatches as mother and daughter, at least they agreed on that.

Everything else they talked about just ended up causing a lot of loud arguments and slammed doors.

Amy had sworn since she was a child that she wasn’t ever going to say to her own children the kind of hurtful things her mother had said to her. She would only tell her children the good things about themselves.

She placed a hand on her imperceptibly rounded stomach. The time was going to come sooner than she ever imagined. She swallowed hard and gazed out the window again.

Another passenger train, a stainless steel Zephyr, like the one she was on, sped by only feet away on a parallel outgoing track. Observing the opposing motion made her feel so queasy and disoriented that she had to close her eyes and take a few deep breaths.

Could morning sickness happen in the afternoon?

A young boy and a young girl, accompanied by a young woman, who was perhaps the children’s nanny, occupied the seats ahead of Amy. The boy and girl began to pound their small fists against their section of window, yelling, “Mama, Papa, Mama, Papa,” in unison.

Amy’s moment of respite was gone. She opened her eyes and looked out as the train screeched to a halt. The station was crowded with people and baggage carts.

A smartly dressed man and woman were smiling and waving furiously to the boy and girl. The woman’s voice was muffled by the coach’s thick window glass, but Amy could still make out her words. “They’re home, they’re home. My babies are finally home.”

Other people on the platform began to crowd the exits from the train. Amy couldn’t help but notice the eager looks on many of their faces.

Amy’s fellow passengers were standing in the aisle, gathering their belongings. In no time, they were pressing to exit. Only Amy remained seated.

Ever so casually, she glanced out the window again. There was no sign of her mother. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or hurt. There, unavoidably, in the forefront of her mind was her heart’s most troubling question. Why did it all have to turn out like this, anyway? All she had ever wanted was to attend Mitchell Elementary like all of the other children in the neighborhood, but no-o-o, that wasn’t good enough for Rowena Johnson’s daughter.

Then, last year, as she was packing to return to school in the fall, her mother made a surprise announcement.

“Sweet baby,” her mother had said in her familiar, I done made up my mind on this so you might as well not even waste your breath, tone of voice, “I been waitin’ and prayin’ fo’ your graduation day since before you started school. Ain’t one person in this family ever got them a high school diploma before. So, come June, I jest wants to see for myself when my precious daughter changes all that.”

That was the first time Amy had ever experienced pure panic. After a week of self-torment, she’d come up with a surefire way out. Only, who would have known that by March, she would feel so differently?

She felt someone gently tapping on her shoulder. “Miss, miss. Is everything all right? This is Denver, the last stop.” Amy looked up into the face of the most handsome colored boy she had ever seen. He was wearing a porter’s crisp white jacket and cap, and though he was tall, he couldn’t have been any older than she was. His raven dark eyes were intent, but kind. A deep cleft in his chin gave his face a chiseled appearance.

Automatically, she checked off the major objections her mother would voice against him: too dark, too nappy-headed, and judging by the Pullman porter’s uniform, more than likely poor.

“Uh … yes,” she answered, “everything’s perfectly fine, thank you.” Although her heart was pounding, she desperately wanted to maintain the poise that had been drilled into her at school. “You could hand me my hat box, though, if you wouldn’t mind.” She pointed upward, to the overhead rack.

“Not at all,” the young man said, grabbing a large round Saks Fifth Avenue box by its gold cord. He offered Amy his free hand. “Is there anything else I can assist you with?” he asked.

“No, I’m sure not, but thank you anyway,” Amy said, and refused his hand. She couldn’t help but notice that his shoulders were too broad and muscular for his jacket. She had to avert her eyes from him as she rose from her seat. She strode ahead of him to the door.

After inhaling and exhaling a deep breath, she turned and entered the passageway, descending the train’s steps to the station platform. To her surprise, her mother was standing there waiting for her. Her mother was amazingly well-dressed, as if she’d been tutored for the occasion. She had on a tasteful gray woolen suit and a fashionable fox stole. Even her shoes were matching gray pumps.

“Sweet Baby,” Rowena said, flinging her arms wide.

“Mama,” Amy responded weakly to her mother’s exuberant greeting and embrace.

Right away Amy could tell that her mother’s concentration wasn’t wholly on her, that the porter had caught her mother’s disapproving attention.

With her usual command of things, Rowena quickly looped arms with Amy and handed a five-dollar bill to a porter standing in front of them, an elderly stoop-shouldered man who was given a description of Amy’s luggage and told where to find Rowena’s car.

Before Amy had a chance to speak again, her mother was pulling her in the direction of the station stairway. “We’d better hurry home, child,” Rowena said. “I done cooked you all your favorites—hot water cornbread, candied yams, fresh picked collard greens, and smothered pork chops. And, of course, banana crème pie.”

“That’s nice, Mama,” Amy said, forgetting about the young man and her hat box, “but I’m not really hungry right now. Maybe I’ll be a little later. Right now, I was sort of hoping that when we got home we could just sit and talk.”

“Sweet Baby, you know I ain’t got time for sittin’. My club’s open tonight. You and me’ll have more ‘n enough time for chitchat later on.”

Amy hid her disappointment behind a half-smile. She’d been right not to get her hopes up. She followed her mother’s backward glance and saw that the young porter was busy helping other passengers. Her mother wasted no time regaining her attention.

With her hand gripped firmly under Amy’s elbow, Rowena steered them through the crowd.

Amy could almost hear her mother thoughts … Ain’t any no ‘counts with big ideas goin’ to latch onto this child.

In less than a quarter-hour Amy’s luggage was loaded into the trunk of the Packard, and they were on their way home.

As they drove away from Union Station, Amy felt hardpressed to believe that the welcome sign’s greeting included her. She cast a sidelong look at her mother and wondered if things between them would ever improve. So far it didn’t seem like it.

Rowena slammed on the Packard’s brakes. She’d come within a foot of an elderly Mexican couple crossing the street at Wazee. Instinctively, she’d reached across the seat to prevent Amy from flying into the dashboard and window.

“Damn foreigners,” Rowena protested and pummeled the steering wheel.

Before the couple had gotten as far as the curb, Rowena’s foot was back on the gas pedal. She continued driving up Seventeenth Avenue, turning left on Lawrence.

The streets were unusually congested with traffic, and a horde of people that seemingly came out of nowhere, was running up the sidewalks in the same direction as Rowena and Amy were driving.

Two white men crossing together, darted between the cars, and ran in front of the Packard without looking. Again, Rowena had to brake suddenly. She started to honk at the men, but instead, muttered a string of curses. She seemed oblivious to Amy’s distress.

The situation was rapidly becoming unmanageable. Other drivers were literally abandoning their vehicles in the middle of the street to join the crowd. Rowena’s own auto had become completely hemmed in.

Amy scooted up to the edge of the Packard’s front seat, and strained for a better view of whatever was going on. “Mama, what is it? Something awful must have happened.”

“Sweet Baby, this ain’t no main stop like St. Louie or New York. This is Denver. Probably ain’t nothin’ more ‘n a couple of prairie hicks beatin’ up a drunk Indian.”

Amy glared at her mother with disgust. Nothing had changed. Well, maybe the times, but certainly not her mother.

Rowena looked at her daughter with a sly smile, but Amy turned away. Rowena offered a second guess. “Well, I did hear them talkin’ in the shop today ‘bout how President Coolidge was goin’ to be visitin’ here a day or two. Maybe that’s what’s causin’ all the commotion.”

“Why don’t we go see for ourselves,” Amy suggested, anxious to get out of the car. The steady stream of people was quickly turning into a surging river. As they brushed past, the Packard was thumped and jostled. Their mingled voices escalated into an incomprehensible din. “I suppose if the rest of the city is in on it we might as well go too,” Amy yelled, trying hard to mask a need to remain calm.

Rowena shrugged, and yelled back. “That ain’t a bad idea. Just be careful gettin’ out. These white folks ‘d jest as soon trample us to death.” Amy started to respond to her mother’s comment, but was distracted by swelling numbers of hurrying pedestrians.

“Now!” Rowena shouted and pushed open the door. Amy hesitated, but her mother gave her a reassuring glance. After finally managing to escape the car, Rowena took hold of Amy’s elbow once again, and led her daughter forward.

“Mama,” Amy shouted, “doesn’t all of this excitement kind of remind you of when you closed the shop for the day and took me to Lincoln Hills? It was for that big Fourth of July picnic. We had so much fun. Remember?”

Rowena attempted to answer, but the sound of her voice was drowned out. She tried again, only louder. “Ain’t no way I could forget, but it was the Juneteenth picnic; most of Five Points was there,” she said, practically yelling into her daughter’s ear. “You was just six years old, and cute as can be in that yellow jumper I sewed for you, least that’s what everyone of them judges for the “Little Miss” contest decided. Guess that’s why my precious won first place, huh?”

For once, Amy and Rowena looked at each other and smiled. Rowena tenderly pushed a strand of Amy’s hair away from her face.

“I’ll bet if those judges saw my Sweet Baby all growed up, she’d win whatever contest they got for all growed up girls. All them other missys just have to go on home. Speakin’ of which, I think we jest oughta make plans to go on up to that picnic again this year. Might be kinda fun. What’d you say, Sweet Baby?”

Her mother’s voice sounded oddly sincere to Amy, yet Amy didn’t answer. She’s heard it all before. Instead, she ran ahead of her mother, like she used to when she was a little girl and they would spend Sunday afternoons walking through City Park. Her curiosity was getting the best of her.

She reached the wall of onlookers and nudged her way closer to the front, but a phalanx of men attired in business suits and homburgs still blocked most of her view. She had to stand on her tiptoes and peer over their shoulders to see anything. All that was visible from her vantage point were the tops of rows and rows of pointed white hoods passing by.

She looked back for her mother but could see that Rowena was stranded behind the outer layer of onlookers and had a curious, almost pained look on her face.

Amy started to call her, but a man who was standing behind Amy, pushing to get through, leaned into her and accidentally shoved her forward to the front of the wall of viewers.

The shock of what Amy saw was nearly too much to comprehend. An army of Ku Klux Klansmen, dressed in their white robes and pointed hoods was tromping by. Whomp. Whomp. Whomp.

All anyone could see of the men’s faces were their eyes and mouths through cutouts in the hoods’ masks. The thought that any one of these Klansmen could be a milkman, or a teacher, or a judge — but that his identity and membership in the Klan could be kept a secret — sent a chill down Amy’s spine.

In the last few years, there had been numerous newspaper stories about the Klan inciting race riots in other cities, and reports from around the country about Negro men who had been abducted from their homes or off public streets by local Klansmen, and then coated with boiling tar and rolled in feathers, or even lynched. Amy just hadn’t wanted to believe any of it.

During her visit home at Christmas, Amy overheard a conversation in her mother’s beauty shop about the cross burnings on Ruby Hill in South Denver and the ones taking place west of Denver on Table Mountain, but she hadn’t wanted to believe that either.

After all, like her mother said, this is 1925, and this is Denver … Denver, Colorado. The place where less than a hundred years ago great Indian tribes camped at the base of the beautiful Rocky Mountains, and massive buffalo herds roamed the open plains for as far as the eyes could see.

Where, now, tourists came to visit the famous Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaur skeletons, take souvenir coins home from the U.S. Mint, visit the homes of Buffalo Bill and the Unsinkable Molly Brown, or stop by sites where America’s largest gold or silver or cattle fortunes were made and lost, and made again.

Denver. Frontier territory. Land of the free, home of the brave. Not some part of the backward South.

Amy looked up the street to determine how much of the parade had passed by. The men’s brigades extended up Seventeenth Avenue as far as the eye could see. The rows of men marching by were just the tail-end of the company.

Following behind the men, a large squadron of girls and women marched in robes and hoods, but their faces were uncovered. They smiled and waved as if in a beauty pageant. All the onlookers gleefully smiled and waved right back — all, except Amy, who was still trying to make sense of it all.

Next, troops of boys and young men were outfitted like their mothers and sisters in robes and hoods and also revealed their faces. The first section consisted of grade-school boys; the next section, junior high school boys. Despite their youth, they were as regimented as well-trained soldiers.

Bordering both sides of these sections was a drum and fife corps playing the anthem, “Dixie.” The corps members wore three-cornered hats along with vests and breeches reminiscent of those worn by their colonial brethren, which evoked stirring thoughts of the American Revolution. Their drums and lutes were festooned with red, white, and blue ribbons that fluttered like Old Glory. The parade-goers lining the sidewalks cheered and saluted the Klan’s display of patriotism.

The man next to Amy began to whistle to the drummers’ and pipers’ music, and began to march in place and sing.

I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away Dixieland, his voice rang out.

One of the man’s flailing elbows almost jabbed Amy in her face. She managed to duck just in time. The next thing she knew a number of those standing along the parade route were singing too.

In Dixieland where I was born early on one frosty morning, look away, look away, look away Dixieland. I wish I was in Dixie, hooray, hooray, in Dixie and I’ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie.

The sound of the music trailed off as the boys’ unit and the drum and fife corps moved on, but many in the crowd, especially the man next to Amy, sang on.

Away, away, away down south in Dixie. Away, away, away down south in Dixie. Away, away, away down south in Dixie.

Behind the children, the women, and the musicians, came an even more earnest group, an infantry of young men. Amy had never seen anything like it. Their faces appeared cold and stone-like and the perfectly executed one, two, one, two of their steps resounded like thunder.

Amy looked into their faces. For the most part, they looked so clean-cut and all-American, as if they should have been playing a game of baseball at a church picnic or working the soda fountain at a Dolly Madison creamery.

None of them could have been older than eighteen or nineteen. If she’d gone to school in Denver, to East High or Manual, some of them might have been her classmates. She felt compelled to search for just one who was out of sync.

She looked down at the young men’s feet, but rows and rows went by in absolute precision.

Finally, there was one marcher, about midway into a row who seemed distracted and out of step with those surrounding him.

Amy quickly looked up to see his face. At almost the same instant the boy looked directly over at her. His blue eyes were shockingly familiar. Amy could see that he was just as stunned. His face went pale.

He marched on and the ground beneath her became unstable. The pounding of the marchers’ boots thudded mercilessly in her ears and she had to gasp for air.

“Kyle!” she cried in disbelief. She felt lost and uncertain. Frightened. Thankfully, she felt a comforting touch on her shoulder. Rowena had pushed through the crowd and was at her side.

“Humph,” Rowena said at seeing the marchers up close. “I thought I left all this in Alabama. Let’s get back to the car.”

Amy hoped her mother hadn’t seen the look on her face. She wasn’t ready to do any explaining.

They hurried back to the Packard and were grateful to find that some of the cars around them had already left, leaving them a way to drive out of the quagmire of those still parked.

Rowena put the key in the ignition and started to turn it, but a violent shake to the car caused her hand to be flung off of the key.

Rowena and Amy looked up simultaneously. There at the front of the Packard was a rosy-cheeked boy wearing a backward applejack cap and a tattered sweater. He couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old. His palms pressed onto the hood of the automobile and his mouth screwed into a wicked grin.

“Beat it, kid,” Rowena shouted and jammed the heel of her hand against the car’s horn.

The unexpected blare of the car’s horn caused the boy to jump backward in alarm, but he quickly regrouped and came forward again; he used all of the might in his juvenile body to rock the car back and forth.

“Niggers!” he shouted.

BLEEP, Rowena fought back with the car horn.

“Niggers!”

BLEEP. BLEEP. BLEEP.

“Niggers! Niggers! Niggers!”

BLEEP.

The rosy-cheeked boy kept on rocking the car, and Rowena Johnson kept on blaring her horn.

Amy, hunkered low in her seat, was clutching her stomach. “Not Kyle,” she said, weeping. “Oh no, Lord, not Kyle.”