· 8 ·
IN THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY it starts to rain. Not the dibble-dibble-dop kind you can run around in. This is a crack-open-the-sky rain, with wind that flips umbrellas inside out and puddles so deep your socks never dry. It rains so much we’re stuck inside for a whole week. Mrs. Valentine’s class is playing word games, holding story contests, and learning how to square-dance. There’s laughter and noise and a whole lot of bumping up against our shared wall. It’s like the kids next door have a stash of sunshine all their own.
Meantime, our class stays in the dark. Mr. Mitchell puts on filmstrips and reads his Los Angeles Times by flashlight while we’re in a coma of atomic energy, oil refineries, and the colonial era in American history. When the lights come on, we get to do math exercises, spelling drills, and grammar work sheets. By the fourth day our heads are dripping with decimals and prepositional phrases, like those gutters are dripping with rain.
On day five, when the classroom feels like the hospital where my mama works, Mr. Mitchell brings out the record player.
“Today you’re going to meet a great American songwriter,” he says.
“Jim Morrison,” somebody shouts.
“Joni Mitchell,” says somebody else.
“Cat Stevens?” Shelley wonders.
“Stevie Wonder!” I say.
Mr. Mitchell wags his head at every guess.
He holds up an album cover, and I can see a white man with a straight nose and dark eyes and a banjo in his hand. “Stephen Foster,” Mr. Mitchell says.
A stack of song sheets gets passed around the room, one for every table. Mr. Mitchell slides the record out of its sleeve and eases it onto the turntable. The disc starts to spin. The needle comes down and rides over scratches and dust. This must be a really old record.
Music fills the room. And I see Charlie Ross’s face change like the tune brought him a memory.
The voice on the record, like the words on the song sheets, sings:
Camptown ladies sing this song,
Doo-dah! Doo-dah!
Camptown racetrack’s five miles long,
Oh, doo-dah day!
But in my head I’m singing the words me and Andy made up to this same tune:
Mammoth Mountain, here we come,
Doo-dah! Doo-dah!
Mammoth Mountain, here we come,
Oh, doo-dah day!
We’re in the way way back of the station wagon, loaded up with winter clothes, snacks, board games, ski and after-ski boots, Andy, and me. My hand is pressed to the car window, the temperature dropping with each curve. Out that same window I see the shadows of four sets of skis pointing their tips up Highway 395, reaching for the mountain ahead. And just past those shadows, brightening the side of the road, is a bank of stark white snow. We’re going skiing. All the doo-dah week long.
Dad always let us explore the mountain on our own. “As long as you ski on the buddy system,” he said.
We liked the back of the mountain, over on chair 9. It was the longest ride and had the shortest lines. Each chair had a safety bar you could pull down, with a footrest for your skis.
On sunny days we’d kick back and work on our tans.
On snowy days we’d bundle up. Andy was the Masked Marvel in his facemask, goggles, and scarf. The harder it snowed, the louder he sang “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles.
Once I skied ricochet way too fast, caught an edge, and flipped over. I landed with my arms stuck in two feet of snow up to my shoulders.
I started to panic. Andy was there in a flash.
“Charlie,” he said, “you okay?”
He lifted me out of the snow, cleaned my goggles with his lens cleaning paper, and helped me back into my skis.
“That’s a little fast for this run,” he said. “You should try it again when the light’s better, and maybe take it slow next time.”
The record crackles to the next song, and a woman’s voice sings:
The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home.
’Tis summer, the darkies are gay,
The corn top’s ripe and the meadow’s in the bloom
While the birds make music all the day.
It’s one song sheet per table, so Armstrong and I share. During “Camptown Races” he was singing along, tapping the floor with his left foot and joining in.
He’s not singing along now.
The time has come when the darkies have to part,
Then my old Kentucky home, good night!
The record spins. Two tables over, Shelley Berman is mouthing the words but not singing them. Then her mouth closes. Otis is slumped in his chair. Alex Levinson isn’t singing. Armstrong’s still not. And now neither am I.
Mr. Mitchell is walking around the room, adding his deep voice to the song.
The head must bow and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darkey may go.
A few more days and the trouble all will end,
In the field where the sugar-canes may grow.
Mr. Mitchell stops behind our table and rests his hand on Armstrong’s shoulder.
“How come you’re not singing?”
Armstrong shrugs. Mr. Mitchell steps to his desk and lifts the needle off the record. The room is silent except for the rain.
“Stephen Foster is a great American songwriter. He’s part of our culture.”
“He ain’t a part of mine.”
Mr. Mitchell comes back to our table.
“It’s that word, isn’t it?” he says, pointing to “darkies” on the song sheet. “He doesn’t mean it in a bad way. Language is constantly changing, boys and girls. When Stephen Foster wrote ‘My Old Kentucky Home,’ the word darkies just meant black people. His lyrics actually gave them a new dignity they hadn’t had before in song.”
I glance at Armstrong. The look on his face is more like shame.
“If you don’t feel like singing, Armstrong, you can just listen.”
“Can I leave?”
“Excuse me?”
“Can I leave the class?”
Mr. Mitchell laughs. “Where would you go?”
“Outside in the hall. Until the song ends.”
“And be unsupervised?”
“I’ll just stand there. When it’s over, I’ll come back in.”
Mr. Mitchell stares at Armstrong. Armstrong stares back. Then Mr. Mitchell sweeps his hand toward the door.
He puts the needle back down. The song starts over. He turns the volume way up.
. . .
By lunchtime kids are splashing around in puddles and warming up in the sun. The yard is still wet, but I check out a sockball and declare myself captain of one team. Jason says he’ll be captain of the other. He gets first pick and chooses Armstrong. I get next two and take Otis and Leslie—Otis because I want to win and Leslie because I want her to know she’s my first pick. As the rest of the players get chosen, I notice Armstrong off to the side, bouncing the ball in a steady rhythm, his hand in a hammer fist.
Our team wins rock-paper-scissors, so we’re up first. Otis comes to the plate and socks the ball through an opening between Armstrong and Alex. Jason runs it down, but by the time he throws it in from the outfield, Otis is standing calmly on second base.
Being captain gives me a chance to do what I’ve been waiting all year to do: whisper something, anything, into Leslie’s ear. So when it’s her turn to be up, I tap her shoulder, lean close to her shiny black hair, and bring my lips within kissing—I mean, whispering—range.
“Bunt,” I breathe.
She lifts her eyes toward mine and nods. It feels like a yes to a boy on one knee.
I don’t know how, but Armstrong must’ve overheard. Because when Leslie lifts the ball with her left hand, Armstrong creeps forward from third base. And when she gives the ball a tiny tap, he’s already racing toward it.
“Go, Leslie!” we shout from our bench. She runs like a gazelle, her feet slapping the wet ground. In sockball there are two ways you can get out: either the baseman catches a throw from the field before you step on the base, like in baseball; or you get hit by the ball, like in dodgeball.
Leslie is halfway to first when Armstrong fires. Not at the baseman.
Leslie limps home to our silent bench.
But her sacrifice brought Otis to third and me to the plate. I size up the outfield, see Shelley daydreaming in right, and—
BLAM! I smack that rubber ball so high that astronomers are about to discover a new planet.
Otis skips home while I round second. Jason covers for Shelley, fielding the ball after it bounces off the back fence. He throws it in to Armstrong just as I’m rounding third.
“Charlie, look out!” Leslie screams. The ball hurtles toward me at a speed faster than a meteor—the speed of Armstrong’s right arm.
So I freeze. My untucked Wilson tennis shirt flaps in the wind as the ball whizzes by in a near miss. I skip the rest of the way home.
“OUT!” a voice roars from behind.
“Nice try, Armstrong,” I say.
“That ball touched your shirt.”
“Its breeze touched my shirt. The ball missed. The run’s ours. Two nothing. One out.”
“You’re a damn liar.”
“You’re a sore loser.”
“Come over here and say that to my face.”
The last time we faced each other like this, I backed down out of fear. But I’m not about to this time. Some things are worth fighting for.
I turn around and walk right up to him.
“You’re a sore loser,” I say.
My hands form fists, just like my dad’s did in the navy. Armstrong and I circle each other, boxers in the first round. If one steps forward, the other steps back. If one steps left, the other goes right.
The crowd rings us so fast it’s like they were always there. And then I hear someone start to chant:
“Fight, fight! Darkey and a white!”
For half a second Armstrong’s eyes leave mine to make a mental note of who said it first. But soon the chant gets taken up from behind him.
“Fight, fight! Darkey and a white!”
He jerks his head around to see who else said it.
The circle around us feels like a cage, the chant like a drum. “Fight! Fight!”
But in my head I hear a song. The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home . . .
Suddenly I don’t want to fight Armstrong anymore. It’s Stephen Foster I want to fight. And Mr. Mitchell. And this crowd that won’t stop shouting, “FIGHT! FIGHT! DARKEY AND A WHITE!”
Just then, a ball flies over my shoulder and bashes Armstrong on the head. He spins around and looks at me with rage in his eyes.
His fist flies up. It strikes me in the jaw.
My head whips back. Blood splatters the blacktop. Armstrong knees me in the gut. I try to breathe but there’s ice in my chest. My feet get swept out from under me.
The fight is over. The white is on the ground.
INCIDENT REPORT
Submitted by: Edwina Gaines, Yard Supervisor at Wonderland Avenue School
Date of Incident: Friday, January 17, 1975
Time:12:50 p.m.
Location: the lower yard
The children were playing sockball and Charlie Ross was rounding third when Armstrong threw him—well, that’s just it—either he threw him out or he threw and missed and Charlie would have scored a run. The boys disagreed. There was loud shouting and insistence that each was correct. I drifted over, but soon a wall of other students enclosed them. Then a cry roared up from the crowd that went something like “Fight, fight!”—and then a word I don’t care to put on paper—“and a white.”
I blew my whistle and made my way through that wall of students. I discovered Charlie Ross on the ground, folded over with the wind knocked out of him. I gave him my full attention and, once he recovered, escorted both boys to the office of the principal.
“Here,” I say, handing Ross a paper towel with a little red stain. “Your tooth.”
We’re side by side in the office, waiting for the secretary to type Mrs. Gaines’s Incident Report. Ross is trembling and I don’t blame him for that. I know what it feels like to get the wind knocked out of you.
He looks at the paper towel. Doesn’t take it, though.
“I saw it on the ground while Mrs. Gaines was tending to you. Since I’m the one who popped it out of your mouth, I’m the one should give it back.”
I hold it out to him some more. He still doesn’t take it.
“Might be worth something at home.”
He won’t look at me, but he takes the tooth and tucks it in his pocket. Snot trailing down his nose. Streams drying under his eyes. Here comes another shaky breath.
The thing is, I wasn’t that mad at Ross. I was mad at whoever said that word. And at Stephen Foster for writing the song. And Mr. Mitchell for playing it. Everything got messed together. Though I still think Ross was out on my throw. And that was cheap, hurling a ball at my head when it was turned.
Man, I wish he would just breathe.
Sometimes one word’s so hard to say. I can say it in my mind. Sorry. I can think up other words to go along with it. Ross, believe me when I say I am sorry I knocked the wind out of you. And the tooth.
But between the mind and the mouth is a long way.
“You all right?” I say.
No answer.
“I’ll take that as a maybe. Look, Ross—”
“Shut up,” he says. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Looks like we won’t be talking, then.
In the principal’s office Mrs. Wilson’s glasses hang by that heavy chain. She sees me still trembling. I’ve got snot trails on my upper lip. My mouth tastes like blood.
She looks at Armstrong, perfectly calm. Could he be scared? I hope he’s scared.
“Sit down, boys.”
We sit. She hands me a tissue from the box on her desk. I blow my nose as quietly as I can.
“The punishment for starting a fight at Wonderland,” she says, “is expulsion from the school.”
Armstrong looks right at her. “Send me back, then, if that’s your rule.”
They stare at each other. Mrs. Wilson sighs, leans back, and looks at us both.
“Do you boys know why Wonderland is an Opportunity Busing school? I requested it. I asked to be part of this experimental year. You should have seen the mob of parents in here. What’s wrong with Wonderland the way it is, they said. A neighborhood school. A strong community. Kids who’ve grown up together. Why bring in another element? This is Laurel Canyon, they said. Not Little Rock. Not Boston. Exactly, I told them. It’s Laurel Canyon. Where everyone can learn to get along.”
She looks at Armstrong. “Was I mistaken?”
He looks away.
“I’ve read Mrs. Gaines’s report. I know that a hurtful word was chanted on the yard. It can’t have been easy for you to hear, Armstrong. But physical violence is never acceptable at this school. You made a boy bleed. You put him on the ground. A kid who reacts like that . . .”
She’s really going to kick him out. If I don’t say anything, Armstrong’ll be gone for good. I’ll never have to deal with him again.
Just as wrong to ignore an injustice, Charlie . . .
My dad’s voice in my head. But what about my voice? The one that couldn’t talk twenty minutes ago because I couldn’t breathe?
Just as wrong . . .
I look at Armstrong, at Mrs. Wilson, at Armstrong again. Then I say the words. Not loud. But I say them.
“He didn’t start the fight.”
“What’s that, Charlie?”
“Armstrong didn’t start the fight.”
“He threw the first punch. That’s what the witnesses said. It’s here in the report.”
“Only after somebody threw a ball at his head.”
Armstrong snaps his head my way. I can feel his anger rising.
“Why say ‘somebody’ when you know it was you?”
“It wasn’t me. It came from behind. I don’t know who threw it.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
“Honestly,” Mrs. Wilson says, “I don’t see how it matters where the ball came from. What matters is your reaction, Armstrong. End of story.”
But it’s not the end of the story, I think. There’s another part that wasn’t in Mrs. Gaines’s report.
“The word didn’t come from the school yard,” I say. “It came from class. From a song Mr. Mitchell played. It upset Armstrong. He asked to leave the room.”
“What was the song?”
“‘My Old Kentucky Home.’”
Her eyes close. She lifts her glasses to her mouth and bites down on the frame. She sits there thinking for so long that the clock does its backwards tick and its forward tock as a whole minute goes by.
“Well,” Mrs. Wilson finally says, “I can’t exactly expel a song.”
Under her breath, I think I hear her say, Or a teacher. But I’m not really sure.
We come out of the office, and I get a drink of water from the fountain. It’s a long fountain with three faucets so more than one kid can drink at a time.
Armstrong steps up and turns the knob on the last spout. I drink at my end. He drinks at his.
“I’m surprised you lasted this long,” Mama says when she tucks me in.
“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?”
“You lost your temper, I suppose.”
“Aren’t you going to ask why?”
She doesn’t. But I tell her anyway. I’ve got to so she’ll know it was different this time.
Afterward she sighs and says, “He had to pick that song.”
“He said language is changing all the time. And Stephen Foster didn’t mean any harm. But it felt like harm to me. So I asked could I leave the room.”
“You left the room?”
“Old Mr. Khalil says to be who I am, not who they expect me to be. Mr. Mitchell expected me to just sit there and listen. But that’s not who I am.”
“You did the right thing, Armstrong.”
“The anger came out later, during a game. And then somebody—I didn’t see who—called me the word from the song. Only it wasn’t just one somebody, Mama, but a whole crowd. The whole school, it felt like.”
You can hear the train whistle from over by the tracks. Most nights that’s the sound I fall asleep to. We wait for the train to pass.
Then Mama says, “You know, Armstrong, this program, it’s not mandatory. If you have to, if you want to, you can go back to Holmes anytime.”
I don’t answer right away. I got to think about that.
“A funny thing is,” I say, “Charlie Ross—that’s the boy I got in a fight with—he told the truth. All of it.” I got my cheek on the pillow, so I can’t see Mama’s face. But I can picture the wrinkles that show up every time she’s lost in thought.
“Scratch my back?”
The covers come down. My shirt lifts up. Here come her nails, light and soft, the way I like it.
“I wish I could tell you that’s the last time you’ll hear that word,” she says.
“I know.”
“Or others, even worse.”
“I know.”
“They’re our shadow words.”
She scratches some more.
“You think his people got a shadow word?”
“What do you mean, ‘his people’?”
“Back in September, Charlie Ross was out of school for one day. Ten days later, he was out for another. Said his mama made him go to temple.”
“That means they’re Jewish. Yes, they have a shadow word.”
“You know what it is?”
“I do. But you don’t need to.”
The Tooth Fairy catches me tucking my tooth under my pillow. She wants to know what happened.
“Armstrong and I got in a fight. It didn’t last long. One punch was all it took.”
“What precipitated the fight?” the Tooth Fairy’s husband wants to know.
I tell them about the song and the game and the chant. I tell them I’m glad I don’t have to lift weights anymore or stand up to Armstrong in front of the school, because now everyone knows I’m a wuss who could never kick his ass anyway, so why try?
“Is there anything we can do for you?” Dad says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’d like fifty cents for my tooth so I can buy some candy from the Helms Man.”
“Look under your pillow tomorrow. Is there anything else?”
There is something else. Something I thought of when we were in Mrs. Wilson’s office and she almost threw Armstrong out of school.
“I want to go to Carpenter with Keith. Can we use Aunt Trudy’s address in Studio City so I don’t have to go back to Wonderland?”
There’s a long silence while Mom and Dad just look at each other. Sometimes parents can look at each other for only a few seconds and have, like, a twenty-minute conversation.
“We’re not going to do that, Charlie,” my dad says.
“Why not? Why can’t we be like the other families? There are no Armstrongs at their schools.”
“Because we’re not like those other families. We don’t run away from problems. We deal with them.”
I turn away to the wall. All I want to do is sleep.