Detroit, September 1963
“Nora, I just don’t think running is the answer.” William shut his car door and handed her a red and white paper tray filled with fries.
“It’s not running,” she said, placing a napkin across her lap. “It’s a new start. Think about it. The house is paid for. It’s furnished.”
“It’s your father’s.”
“Not exactly.”
“What, ’cause your uncle owns half? Psh. Don’t you want a place of our own?”
“But that’s what makes it so perfect. We would be on our own—no judgment, no commentary from anyone else.” Then she added loudly for the benefit of the couple in the car next to them, “No staring.” They turned their heads back toward the expansive movie screen, where cartoon food advised them to visit the snack bar before the feature started.
“If you think they stare in Detroit at a black drive-in, just wait till a bunch of white country bumpkins get a load of us.” William dropped a fry into his mouth.
Nora sighed. “You’re not getting it.”
He swallowed. “Yeah, I am. I get it. I get that you want to escape. I know you’re not used to jeers and sneers and name-calling. But I am. I been getting that my whole life one way or another.”
“William, not two days ago a complete stranger said you should be lynched!”
“No one’s lynching a black man in Detroit. Anyway, how am I gonna change that if I run from it? How we gonna change people’s minds when there ain’t no people around to change? For that matter, what will I photograph when I’m living in a field with no people around? What are we gonna do all day out there?”
“You could get a job in Flint. We can start a family.”
“And what would we tell our kids when they’re at an all-white school in the boondocks? That their daddy could have helped get Detroit schools integrated, but instead he hid out in a field ’cause it was easier and so now they’re the only black kids in the county?”
Nora had nothing to say. She had thought William would jump at the chance for a fresh start in a new place. She hadn’t even considered his photography or the fact that he would be even more of a minority than he was now.
“Look, baby, I ain’t saying no, all right? I just need more time to think about it. That house ain’t going nowhere.”
They turned their faces away from one another and focused on the screen, where a caravan of military vehicles traveled a lonely road that bisected a farm field. Enormous red block letters spelled out The Great Escape as a spirited military air played over the speakers. Nora imagined the landscape of Lapeer County must look quite a bit like the German countryside behind those big red letters. It looked so pleasant and green and inviting. But then the trucks reached their destination and the rows of plants were replaced with rolls of barbed wire.
It wasn’t long before William leaned over and said, “I’m going to get some popcorn.”
He slipped out of the car. A moment later he slipped back in. Then Nora realized it wasn’t him at all.
“You have the wrong car,” she said to the man.
“You got that wrong, missy. You in the wrong car. And you at the wrong theater.”
Nora’s heart raced. “My husband will be back any minute,” she said with conjured courage. “Perhaps you can sort it out with him.”
“I’d rather sort it out right now.”
The man drew a knife from his pocket and opened it to reveal a short blade. On the screen a German officer told Steve McQueen that to cross the warning wire surrounding the prison camp was death. Then the blade was at her throat.
“I don’t want to see you at this drive-in again, you understand?”
Nora swallowed hard and felt the lump in her throat scrape across the blade as it went down.
“You belong up at Ted’s or Maverick’s. You don’t see any of us up there. And we don’t wanna see you down here. Got it?”
Nora nodded slightly, her eyes fixed on the screen. She didn’t want to look at this man, didn’t want to remember his face.
He pulled the knife back. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just better for everybody that way.”
She nodded again, and the man slid out of the car as quickly as he had slid in. Nora’s hand shot to her neck and her entire body shook. The car door opened again and she cowered.
“What’s the matter with you?” William said. He looked at the screen with confusion, then looked back to his wife. “What’re you crying at, baby?”
Through shuddering breaths, Nora managed to say, “Someone told me to leave.”
William scowled. “Who?”
He craned his neck, searching for the source of her terror. Then he tucked her still trembling body beneath his arm. “Baby, don’t worry about that. Whoever it was, he’s all talk, just like the rest of ’em.”
He pulled away and took both of her hands in his. Then they saw the blood on her fingers.