14
They were on their dilapidated bus headed to Memphis for another concert. Shar leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, hoping that she’d be able to get some sleep during the bumpy ride.
“Hey baby, can I talk to you for a minute?”
As Shar opened her eyes to the sound of Nicoli calling her “baby,” she almost wanted to put her finger to her lips and shush him. They were supposed to be engaged, but Nicoli still hadn’t received her dad’s permission, so it just didn’t seem right and proper for Nicoli to be so casual with her. But nothing she said ever stopped him from doing exactly as he pleased, so Shar decided to just go with the flow. It was exciting being with a man like Nicoli, someone who took chances and wasn’t always doing what was expected of him.
“I’ve been thinking about some things.” Nicoli adjusted himself in the seat. “Now as far as I can tell, it’s been your voice that has been carrying this choir from town to town.”
Shar’s eyes grew wide as she looked around trying to determine if anyone else heard Nicoli’s bold claims about her voice. “Don’t talk like that, Nicoli. Mr. Dorsey has plenty of great singers in his choir. I’m just grateful to be here.”
“Okay, okay, baby. I love your modesty, but you need a manager, somebody who will look out for your best interest . . . cause ain’t nobody else doing it.”
“Why you talking like this? We’re just gonna make the other singers mad, and then Mr. Dorsey’s gonna put me out of his choir.”
Nicoli leaned back in his seat and stared at Shar as if seeing her with new eyes. “You aren’t putting on, are you? You really don’t know how special you are. Matter of fact, if I was managing you, I’d make sure that Dorsey gave this choir the right billing. We should be calling it,” he lifted his hands in the air and spaced them apart as if viewing marquee signage. “I can see it now: Shar Gracey and the Thomas Dorsey choir.”
Now she did shush him. “Hush all that foolish talk.” Her family was depending on her. They needed that little bit of money she was able to send home. Shar couldn’t afford to anger Thomas Dorsey with Nicoli’s foolishness.
“Baby, you’ve got to trust me.” He put his arms around her and leaned in closer as he said, “And here’s something else I been pondering. We need to start putting our money together so I can get some things going for us.”
The bus drove over a pothole, which shook the bus and jerked Shar out of Nicoli’s embrace. She turned to him with concern in her eyes. “I don’t have any money, Nicoli. I send everything I make home to my parents.”
“But now that we’re engaged, I think we need to be more concerned about us, rather than your folks back home.”
Shaking her head vigorously, Shar spoke up, “My mama needs that money. She’s in poor health, and if I can’t send money home, who knows when she’ll be able to get to a doctor.”
“Calm down, baby.” He put his arm around her again and pulled her back toward him. “I just wanted to find a way to help us, but I would never jeopardize your mama’s health.”
Shar breathed a sigh of relief. Nicoli wasn’t trying to take money from her family; he just wanted to make things happen for them. She couldn’t blame him for his ambition, now could she? “Thank you for understanding, Nicoli.”
The bus stopped. Shar turned to look out the window, thinking that they had reached the farm they were all spending the night at. Shar wasn’t looking forward to getting off the bus, because they wouldn’t be spending the night in the farmhouse. That night, they would be sleeping in the barn with the livestock. Her home in Chicago was drafty and creaky, but at least she didn’t have to share it with animals.
“Oh my God!” Nicoli shouted as he slumped down in his seat.
Shar heard the fear in Nicoli’s voice and watched as he slunk down in to the seat next to her, but she couldn’t grasp what was causing all the fuss. Then a rock crashed through the back window. As Shar reflexively glanced toward the back, she was shocked to see white men running toward the bus carrying rocks and sticks and yelling hateful, ugly things at them.
“Get down, girl. Do you want them to blow your head off?” Nicoli yelled.
In slow motion everything was coming into focus for Shar. They were being attacked by mad, hateful men.
“Why are we just sitting here?” someone yelled from the back of the bus.
“The engine cut out on me. I’m trying to get it going,” the bus driver screamed back at everyone as the bus began to rock back and forth.
“They’re shaking the bus.”
Terrified, Shar whispered to Nicoli, “Do something. Stop them.” But as Shar looked into Nicoli’s eyes, she saw the same horrified look that colored folks got when they experienced hate from white folks that had no reason to hate them. In a world where a colored man could get lynched just for looking like he wanted to say something back to an up-to-no-good white man, Nicoli was powerless and so was she.
They pounded on the bus and screamed, “Get out of here, niggers.”
“No jiggaboos allowed on this street,” another angry, hate-filled man screamed at them.
Hank, the bus driver, stood up and grabbed his baseball bat. Shar lifted a hand to try to halt him. “Don’t go out there, Hank. Those men are full of hate. They’ll kill you.”
Hank huffed, gripping the bat tighter. “I got no choice, Shar. The battery done shook loose again. Got to clamp those plugs back on it so we can get moving.”
“Them fools out there gon’ clamp something on top of your head if you go out there,” a woman shouted from the back of the bus.
Nicoli leaned over to Shar and said, “Stay right here. No matter what happens, don’t get off this bus.” He then stood up, straightened his brown button-down shirt, and balled his fist.
It looked to Shar as if he was gathering strength from some place down deep inside of him as he prepared to walk off the bus with Hank. The old hateful white men on the outside of the bus were still chanting and spewing evil, but that didn’t seem to bother Nicoli.
“Hank won’t get his head knocked off if us men go out and help him,” Nicoli said as he turned a challenging eye toward the two men seated in the middle of the bus and then another at the front.
“You talking big now, but that’s just how Matthew got his arm busted up,” Pete, the piano player, said.
Nicoli grabbed Pete by the collar and barked in his face. “Keep my brother’s name out of your mouth.”
“Are you two going to fight, or are you going to come outside and help me get this bus started?” Hank asked as he opened the double doors, took a deep breath, and marched outside.
“I’m coming,” Nicoli said as he let go of Pete’s shirt.
Shar wanted to beg Nicoli to stay on the bus with her, but as the other men got up and walked off the bus with him, she turned her eyes toward heaven and prayed for the safe return of Nicoli and all the rest of the men who were determined to face this injustice head-on.
“Get back on that bus,” one of the white men demanded as Hank lifted up the hood.
Hank leaned his bat against the grill of the bus and ignored them as he adjusted the corroded plugs on the battery.
“Did you hear me, nigga? I said git.” The white man bent down, picked up a big rock, and threw it at Hank.
Nicoli blocked the rock. “He’s just trying to fix the battery. We will be leaving your upstanding town as fast as we can, believe me.”
Hank put the hood down, and the men formed a semicircle around Hank as they attempted to get back on the bus.
“You shouldn’t have stopped here in the first place. We don’t want your kind around here,” Shar heard one of the white men say. The next thing she knew, fists were flying, and people were running this way and that. As Shar looked out the window in horror, she saw Pete fall to the ground. A couple of the men pushed their way back onto the bus. Hank and Nicoli grabbed hold of Pete as the white men kicked and punched him. They took a few punches themselves as they lifted Pete off the ground and shoved their way back onto the bus.
Hank pushed the lever, closing the doors so no one else could get onto the bus. He pumped the gas pedal and then turned the ignition. The engine turned over slowly, but as Hank pumped the gas again it finally roared to life.
Shar let out a loud, “Thank you, Jesus,” as the bus started moving. The men walked back to their seats; she sat back down next to Nicoli. He had a cut above his eyebrow. Shar lifted her index finger and attempted to wipe away the blood, but Nicoli turned away from her. She looked to the front of the bus and saw that Hank was using his left hand to drive the bus while his right hand held a bloody rag against the back of his head.
Two of the choir members were tending to Pete’s wounds, but no one said a word. Even the engine, which had been roaring its way from city to city, seemed to quiet down a bit. Shame was plastered on the menfolk’s faces. They kept their eyes averted, not looking at any of the women for the longest time. They had just witnessed the men being attacked for no good reason. They had to just take their lumps and run back inside the bus because each one of them knew that if they so much as raised a hand to one of those white men, the town sheriff would have ignored how beat up they were and hauled them off to jail, accusing them of starting a fight.
Shar closed her eyes as a tear drifted down her face. At home, sheltered by her parents, she’d never known just how much evil was in the world. It was starting to get to her, causing her to feel so much hate in her heart that she might just burst open with all the evil thoughts roaming through her mind. She didn’t know how she could go before another church and sing praise songs when she had so much hate in her heart. But the saddest thing about it was that she didn’t even know if she still wanted to sing praises to God. How could she, when He was allowing people to treat them in such an ill manner?