CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The town of Anniston was really two towns.

There was the part I knew, with Wikle’s Drugs, the Anniston Star, and Mason’s Self-Service Department Store. Then there was another part, centered around the intersection of Fifteenth and Pine, where the faces were black.

I rode my bike down Fifteenth, passing Cobb Avenue High School, Golightly’s Barber Shop, and Jubilation Car Repair. When I came to Pine Avenue, I stopped to rest. It was a warm day—“close,” as Mama would say, which meant the wet, hot air pressed against you like a blanket. I looked around and saw low brick buildings. People drifted in and out, shopping and passing the time. A young mother with four children entered a big church building made of gray stones. The sign said Miracle Revival Temple.

According to the paper in my pocket, Lavender’s house was just a few blocks farther, at 1605 Moore Avenue. When I turned onto that street, a woman with brown skin and gray hair stopped in her tracks and gaped at me as if she’d spotted some exotic bird. I smiled. She just stared.

The house, a white wooden bungalow with redbrick steps, was old but neat. I could see Lavender’s touch on the front porch in a jar of pansies. She came to my house nearly every day, but I had never seen hers.

I parked my bike on the sidewalk, went up the steps, and knocked on the screen door. I heard footsteps, and Jarmaine appeared behind the screen, wearing a summer dress. When she saw me, her eyes opened wide.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Visiting.”

Jarmaine glanced up and down the street. “People might not like it. You know, after yesterday.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

“There’s nothing to say,” she told me.

“Mr. McCall wrote about it. Did you see the paper?”

Jarmaine nodded.

I said, “You were at the bus station. What happened?”

She looked past me. I turned and saw the woman with gray hair watching us from the sidewalk.

Jarmaine pushed open the screen door, her face tense. “Come on in.”

It was warm in the house. An electric fan turned from side to side, barely moving the air. It reminded me of the way our house had been before we got air-conditioning.

The living room was perfectly straight and clean. I got the feeling that, like my grandmother’s living room, you only sat in there on Sundays or if somebody died. Beyond it was the dining room, where Jarmaine’s notebook and papers were spread across the table. Her social studies book was battered and worn. I recognized it as one we had used at Wellborn before we got our new textbooks.

“I’m having a Dr. Pepper,” said Jarmaine. “You like RC Cola, right?”

“Did your mom tell you that?”

“She tells me everything.”

While Jarmaine disappeared into the kitchen, I took a minute to look around. I’d never been in Lavender’s house, but I recognized a dozen details: the way she stacked coasters by the lamp, kept a folded quilt in the rocking chair, lined up family photos on the mantel.

Jarmaine returned from the kitchen and approached the table. She picked up two of the coasters and used them for the soft drink bottles. Then she settled into a chair, and I sat across from her.

I took a gulp of RC. It tasted good. Mostly, it tasted cold.

I said, “You told me you were going to the Greyhound station to see the Freedom Riders.”

Jarmaine nodded. “I thought it would be exciting. It was awful.”

She studied her bottle but I could tell she was seeing a very different scene. “When I got to the station, the first thing I noticed was the cars. They were parked up and down Gurnee Avenue like there was a concert or a festival. I had expected just a few people, but there was a whole crowd milling around the station. They were white, and they carried clubs and chains.”

“Were there any Negroes?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Maybe they were still in church. Maybe they’d heard there would be trouble. Anyway, it was just me. I was scared, so I watched from across the street. When the bus turned the corner, the crowd started yelling. ‘Go home!’ ‘Communist!’ Things like that. Hateful things.

“The bus pulled up next to the station, and the crowd surrounded it. They beat on the side of the bus. One man lay down in front to keep it from leaving, and another one slashed the tires with a knife. Somebody threw a rock and broke a window. I was across the street, but I could feel the hate. I wondered what it must be like inside the bus.

“About that time, the police got there. I can’t imagine what took them so long. You know what they did? They joked with the crowd. Didn’t arrest anybody. Told that man to get off the ground, then waved the bus on through. When it left, people ran for their cars and followed it out of town. There must have been thirty of them, like some kind of caravan.”

“Did you see Mr. McCall?” I asked.

“I certainly did. He was in the middle of it all, watching and writing in his notebook. I would have talked to him, but I didn’t know what the crowd would do.”

Jarmaine looked up at me, then back at her Dr. Pepper. She lifted it and took a sip. I could see her hand shaking.

We sat there for a minute; then I told Jarmaine what I’d seen—how the caravan had come over the hill and the slashed tires had given out, and the crowd had finished the job they’d started at the station. When I described Janie Forsyth, Jarmaine perked up.

“You know what they’re calling her, don’t you? The Angel of Anniston.”

Janie Forsyth, the unlikeliest hero. An angel who wore glasses and won spelling bees.

There was something I’d been trying to say. Thinking about Janie, it finally spilled out.

“I think it was my fault,” I said.

“What was your fault?”

“The bus, the riot—I think I caused it.”

“That’s crazy,” said Jarmaine.

“I told them about the Freedom Riders,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand. Who did you tell?”

I described the Tall Tales Club and my trip to Forsyth’s with Lavender.

“The men were talking about what had happened at the grocery—you know, about your friend Bradley. They were being mean to Lavender. I wanted to do something, so I mentioned the Freedom Riders. I said they were coming to Anniston on Sunday. The men seemed surprised. I don’t think they knew. I’m the one who told them. I did it.”

Jarmaine didn’t say anything. She was thinking.

I said, “Word travels fast. They probably told their friends. Somebody made a plan. It was my fault.”

Jarmaine shook her head. “The Freedom Riders want people to know. That’s the whole point. You helped them.”

“I did?”

“You spread the word. What people did about it was their problem, not yours.”

I helped the Freedom Riders. Maybe instead of feeling guilty, I should feel proud. Then I thought of Daddy, standing in the crowd with Uncle Harvey Caldwell. What would he say?

“What do we do now?” I asked Jarmaine.

“I wish I knew.”

“My father was there,” I said. I don’t know why, but I had to tell her.

She stared at me. “In the crowd?”

“He didn’t hurt anybody,” I said quickly. “He was just watching.”

Jarmaine looked past me, out the window. “You know what they say, don’t you? All you need for evil to win is for good people to do nothing.”

I pictured Daddy standing there with his arms crossed. The bus burned, and the riders got beat up and nearly killed. All the while, he just watched.

Then it hit me. “I did the same thing. I stood by and watched.”

Jarmaine nodded. When she spoke, I could barely make out her words. “I did too. I saw the mob at the station, beating on the bus, yelling bad things. I didn’t even cross the street. I was too scared.”

Children shouted in the distance. Someone plucked a banjo. The fan creaked as it turned one way, then the other.

“You know what I think?” said Jarmaine. “There are two kinds of people in the world—the watchers and the riders. You and me? We’re watchers.”

“I want to be a rider,” I said.

“So do I,” said Jarmaine.