RYDER JONES HAD HOPED TO SEE HIS BROTHER ON TV. He’d had Bobby, his little son, stay up late, in hopes of seeing Uncle LeRoy. Bull Connor had sent LeRoy’s division downtown, and LeRoy claimed he’d whacked plenty of niggers, but the camera just showed a stupid press conference with nigger ministers, and then replays of the dog-handler police and droves of niggers singing “We Shall Overcome.”Over my dead body, Ryder muttered, his jaw muscles so rigid they hurt. He kissed his son on his cheek and sent him to bed.
He heard the snip of his wife’s sewing scissors in the kitchen. He didn’t want to talk to Lee; he wanted to be alone, to think about the world and what it was coming to. His feet took him to stand before his bedroom closet. He took down his Klan robe on its hanger and made the robe flutter in the air like a ghost. The way it rippled was noble, like a flag. Over their dead body.
That first time he had stepped out from behind a tree wearing his white robe, he had relished the man’s terror. When Smith had stepped out, and then another, and another, each from behind a tree, it must have looked as though they were passing through tree trunks. And Ryder himself had said slowly, “Time to teach you a lesson, nigger. Think you can learn a lesson?” Then the black fella saw the whips, the belts dangling from their hands and started to run. But they were on him, dragged him to the cemetery to do it.
Alone in his bedroom, Ryder lifted his robe high over his head. He wiggled the coat hanger so the air would swivel the cloth. He twirled around in fast circles, bumped his leg against the side of the bed. He wished he really could fly. While he played with his robe, he hummed, “An old cowpoke went riding out, one dark and windy night.” Ryder sang softly—he really loved that song, this part of it: “Ghost riders in the sky.” He sang the song twice before he flew his robe back into the closet and sauntered back to the living room. Then he felt foolish. That was the way Bobby played, using a towel for Superman’s cape.
TV was showing some jungle place; he turned it off. Black soldiers under netted helmets.
He heard Lee’s scissors opening and closing. From a bolt of white cotton cloth she’d gotten on sale, she was cutting out robes on the cook table. She made gowns nice and full and stitched them sturdy—double seams. Starched and ironed them so a man would be proud to wear his robe. They gave them away—Christmas, birthday presents. But this was a rush order. He told her she could stay up till eleven-thirty working on them. All the uppity nigger trouble meant new Klan members. He had told Lee she had to do her part, had to finish up those robes.
No need to check on her. Ryder was back in their bedroom. Wasn’t much place to go in the house, a rectangle divided into four parts. Quadrants, he remembered his high school math;he’d been good at it. Their bedroom was on the front and opened into the living room. The kitchen also opened into the living room, the three kids shared the smaller back bedroom that opened into the short hall to the kitchen. The bathroom had a window on the back of the house, and its plumbing backed up against the kitchen plumbing of course, and its door opened into the short hall. The two bedrooms were divided by two closets, one opening their way, one opening toward the kids. It was a neat house plan.
Here he was back in their bedroom. He glanced at the bedside Big Ben, on top of his stack of comic books, and saw it was 10:00 P.M. He had to be ready to pump gas by 6:00 A.M. No, tomorrow was Sunday. Rest. He was already tired because they’d called him in early to the filling station; somebody sick on Ryder’s off-day. He was afraid not to go, afraid he’d lose his job. Some gas stations in white neighborhoods were letting the black window-washer boys start to pump gas. They’d do it for fifty cents an hour instead of sixty-five.
When they pumped, the colored boys took the money right out of white customers’ hands.
Ryder went to the kitchen calendar on the closet door to be sure the next day was Sunday. The calendar had a fine picture of the Grand Teton Mountains, Jackson, Wyoming, with snow on top and green grass in front. Yes, on the wall calendar Saturday had a big X through it. First thing he did every morning was cross out the day. Made it seem like it was over, with the work already done. His spirit leapt ahead every morning after he x-ed out the day. Then he didn’t have to think about what he had to do. He just had to make his body go on and do the work.
Snip-snip, nice little sound, steady but careful. You could hear anything all over the house. She had her work; he had his. He went to the kitchen to watch. Hi, he said softly. Hi there, she answered, but she didn’t look up. She was absorbed—clipping the inside of a curved seam. Her forehead was frowned up. She ought to have looked up, been glad to see him. The points of the scissors were perpendicular to the machine stitches. Perpendicular. He’d always liked that word, so long but easy to say. Learned it from his high school math teacher. Math, that was a high school word, not Arithmetic. On his report card, all spelled out:Mathematics. And then a big capital letter A.