CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Everybody talked about it at school the next day. They called it “the burning bus,” like it was a movie or TV show. They were excited, and all I could think about was the way the passengers had been stretched out on the ground, bleeding and moaning. I tried to explain, but no one wanted to listen.

“They got what they deserved,” said one girl.

“I wasn’t surprised,” said another.

Someone else said, “We’re good people. We just don’t like to be pushed.”

The words had a hollow ring, and I realized why. Kids were just repeating what their parents had said. I pictured dinner tables all around town where opinions were dished out like casserole.

The strange thing was that while the rest of us talked about it, the teachers didn’t say anything. They acted as if nothing had happened. Turn to page forty-three. What’s the value of x? Describe the Peloponnesian War. While they droned on, I thought about what I’d seen and heard.

The ambulance called by the officer had arrived as Daddy and I left. Grant, who stayed to watch, told me the driver refused to accept any Negroes at first, but finally the white riders convinced him, and he took the most seriously injured to Anniston Memorial Hospital.

Grant and his father followed the ambulance to the hospital, where the riders were given rooms and the situation calmed down for a while. But when the sun set, a crowd gathered outside the hospital. Things got ugly, and the Ku Klux Klan threatened to burn the place down. At that point, hospital staff asked the riders to leave. The riders called around desperately, trying to find someone who would take them.

Finally, in the middle of the night, a caravan of cars pulled in from a Negro church in Birmingham. The riders limped out of the hospital and, while the police held back the crowd, were helped into the cars and driven off into the darkness.

I learned something else from one of the boys at school. He told me the Klan had struck a deal with the police. The police, he said, had allowed the crowd fifteen minutes to do what they wanted to the bus passengers before stepping in. That would explain why the officers had leaned against the patrol car while the riders were beaten and the bus was burned.

While I was talking to the boy, Janie Forsyth walked by. The boy snorted and looked away. She continued down the hallway, and the others turned their backs to her.

“What are they doing?” I asked the boy.

“Sending a message,” he said.

I rode home from school that day with Grant. When I told him how the students had treated Janie, he shook his head. “That’s stupid. They just do whatever their parents do.”

I thought about Mr. McCall moving through the crowd with his notepad, and Grant close behind with the camera.

“So do you,” I said.

I pedaled on ahead of him, eager to get home and see the afternoon paper. When I arrived, it was on the front porch, courtesy of Arthur the Arm. I tore off the string and opened the paper. Reading the headline and seeing the pictures confirmed it: what seemed like a bad dream had really happened.

Mob Rocks, Burns Big Bus

In County Racial Incidents

ANNISTON – Racial mob violence that drew the nation’s attention to Anniston Sunday saw a Greyhound bus burned and sent at least a dozen passengers to Memorial Hospital.

The article, written by Mr. McCall, went on to describe what had happened in front of Forsyth’s Grocery. Next to the story were some of Grant’s pictures.

“Congratulations,” I shouted to Grant. “You made the paper.”

He rode up behind me and looked over my shoulder. His father’s front-page article was good, but what brought the scene to life were the photos. They told the story in a few terrible images.

Smoke billowed from the bus while the Freedom Riders sprawled on the ground outside. A highway patrol officer raised his pistol to warn the crowd. A fireman, too late to help, inspected the charred seats inside the bus. The ambulance driver tried to give first aid while one of the riders was carried off on a stretcher.

“Congratulations?” said Grant. “I wish it had never happened.”

We sat on the front steps and read the other articles. There had been two groups of Freedom Riders, one on Greyhound and another on a Trailways bus. The Trailways group had made it through Anniston and as far as Birmingham, but an angry crowd waiting at the station had attacked the riders, some of whom were now in critical condition. There were photos, and one showed a group of men clubbing a rider until his face was a bloody mess. The men in the photo looked a lot like the people who had attacked the bus in our own neighborhood. The faces were different, but the looks of anger and fear were the same.

Grant spotted another article next to the photos. “Hey, listen to this,” he said. “The FBI is investigating what happened. They’re in town talking to the Klan. Some people are saying the FBI is here because of Robert Kennedy, the attorney general. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

“If Robert Kennedy’s involved, then so is his brother, John F. Kennedy. The president knows what happened on our street!”

Grant pointed to an article. “They’re even talking about it in Russia, on Radio Moscow. They’re using it as propaganda, saying what a bad place the United States is. They mentioned Anniston by name.”

The thought of people in Moscow knowing about my town gave me the creeps.

A few minutes later, Grant’s mom called him and he headed home. I looked down at the paper and saw the photos again. One of them showed the crowd, and I recognized Uncle Harvey Caldwell. His expression reminded me of that day at Forsyth’s when I had told him about the Freedom Riders. It was the first he had heard of them. Maybe he told some friends and they had told others. Maybe it was all because of me. I’d been trying to push the thought away, but it kept coming back.

I gathered up the paper and went inside, where Lavender was feeding the baby. When I set the paper on the dining table, she glanced at it, and a look came over her face. Or rather, it was no look. Her face was blank, like she’d pulled a curtain across it.

I didn’t know what to say. “I guess you heard what happened,” I told her.

She nodded, then dipped a spoon into the little jar of baby food and fed it to Royal.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I think what they did was awful.”

She took a towel from over her shoulder and dabbed his chin.

I watched her face, looking for signs of the Lavender I knew. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

She grunted. “Nothing to say.”

I wanted to ask what Jarmaine had seen at the Greyhound station, but Lavender wasn’t supposed to know Jarmaine had been there. For that matter, Lavender might not even realize I knew her daughter.

“I met Jarmaine,” I said.

The curtain lifted for a moment. Lavender seemed nervous, and I wondered why.

I said, “I talked to her at the spelling bee. Then I went to see Mr. McCall at the Anniston Star, and she was there. I like her.”

“She’s a good girl,” said Lavender.

“Is she at the paper today?”

“No.”

“What does she do after school?” I asked. “Is she at home?”

Lavender nodded. “She’s all alone.”

There was something about the way she said it. I thought she’d been saying those words in her head for a long time, like the refrain to a sad song.

I said, “I wish you could be with her.”

Lavender blinked, then dipped the spoon into the jar and fed Royal.

I sat with her a few more minutes, then went into the kitchen, where Mama kept Lavender’s address and phone number taped to the side of the refrigerator. I copied the address on a scrap of paper, tucked it into my pocket, and headed out the door.