CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

That stupid rooster.

He woke up at sunrise every morning, which was fine during the week. On weekends, though, I liked to sleep late—or as late as Mama would let me before rousting me out of bed to help with breakfast.

When the rooster crowed that morning, I remembered it was Sunday. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. It was pink and orange, the color of the horizon.

In an hour or so, Mama would come in. We’d go to the kitchen and make Daddy’s favorite coffee cake. Then all of us would dress up and go to church, where Pastor Bob would pray about loving our neighbors.

I loved my neighbors. I loved my town. But how far did love go? Did it stretch to Fifteenth and Pine where Jarmaine lived? Did it stretch to Birmingham or Montgomery?

Maybe love wasn’t the answer. If you asked the Freedom Riders, they might say they just wanted respect. Ignore me, even hate me, but let me live. Give me a chance. Surely people could understand that. Somehow, though, my town didn’t.

I had spent my life watching. When you watch, you notice. You think. You get restless. I wanted to do something.

Reaching over to the nightstand, I opened the drawer and took out the bus schedule. The Birmingham bus was leaving at nine fourteen, and Jarmaine would be on it. From there she would connect to Montgomery, where she would arrive by midafternoon. The trip wasn’t long, but if you were by yourself, it might seem like an eternity.

It might go faster if you were with a friend.

The thought popped into my head like the flash on Grant’s camera, freezing the action and lighting up the shadows. For as long as I could remember, I had watched the bus drive by my house. I had dreamed that someday I’d get on it and leave. I would go anywhere and do whatever I wanted. I would have perfect freedom.

Jarmaine wanted freedom, but it wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t perfect. It was something to fight for. It was a seat on the bus, and I could help her get it.

If I asked permission, Mama and Daddy would say no. Sometimes, though, you don’t ask. You just do it, because you have to.

I put away the bus schedule and went to the window. The sky had turned bright red, flooding the yard with color. A nuthatch sang, and a pair of downy woodpeckers tapped on a tree trunk.

The day was just beginning. It could be any old Sunday, or it could be special. I took a deep breath. I looked off in the distance toward Montgomery.

I was tired of watching. I wanted to be a rider.

I found Jarmaine in front of the Greyhound station, sitting on the curb with a basket next to her. She had seemed so strong the day before, when she had talked about her plans. She seemed smaller now, like a young child.

I thought of a day at the state fair when I was seven years old and wanted to go on the Rotor. It was a giant cylinder where people would file inside and stand against the wall. When the ride started, the cylinder would tilt, then spin faster and faster. The floor would fall away, and the people inside would be pinned against the wall, staring down into blackness, held up by the laws of physics and nothing more. They screamed their guts out. It frightened me, but something about it was thrilling.

Daddy had seen me watching, my hands and face sticky with cotton candy.

“Are you scared?” he asked.

“I could never do that.”

“It seems impossible,” he told me, “but thousands of people do it every year. You know how?”

He looked down at me with a sweet smile on his face.

“They take one step, then another, then another. Before they know it, they’re inside, whirling around and having the time of their lives.”

I rode the Rotor that day. Daddy was beside me, screaming his guts out, grinning, and holding my hand.

Today Daddy was across town, sleeping next to Mama. I knew because I had peeked through the doorway and seen them. I had gone to my room and taken some allowance money from the top drawer of my dresser. Then I’d put on a dress, tiptoed to the kitchen, and gulped down some orange juice. I’d written a note telling them I was fine and would be back soon, but I hadn’t said where I was going. I’d propped the note up on the counter and slipped out the door, feeling like a thief.

“Hey,” I said to Jarmaine.

She looked up from the curb, startled.

“Want to take a trip?” I asked.

“You’re going?”

“I think so. I’m scared.”

“So am I,” said Jarmaine.

She glanced over her shoulder at the station, a little brick building with an awning on the front and an alley on the side where the buses pulled in and out.

She said, “My mother wouldn’t do this. My grandmother wouldn’t. My grandmother’s grandmother couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t?” I asked. “Why not?”

“She was a slave.”

The word hit me like a slap across the face. Jarmaine’s great-great-grandmother, maybe very much like Jarmaine herself, had lived in a world where you could be bought and sold like a sack of potatoes. I thought of what I had learned in history class and realized that Jarmaine’s idea of American history must be very different from mine.

Jarmaine straightened her shoulders. “I’ve decided to use the front door.”

“Okay,” I said.

She studied my face. “You don’t understand. The colored door is around the side, on the alley.”

I’d seen the signs all my life at the bus station, in parks, at the movies: Colored Only. The signs were posted over doors and restrooms and drinking fountains. I’d never thought much about them. They were part of the landscape, like sidewalks and traffic lights. At the city pool, there was even a day called “colored only,” when, once a month, Negroes were allowed to swim there. The next day, the pool was drained, then filled up again so white people could use it.

I didn’t think about the signs, but Jarmaine had to. When she went to the bus station, she couldn’t go through the front door. Neither could Lavender or anyone else who shopped at Fifteenth and Pine. If Jarmaine walked through that door, she would be breaking the law.

“I was planning to do it last Sunday,” said Jarmaine, “but instead I stood across the street. The mob rocked the bus and dented it with pipes. They broke the windows and slashed the tires. The riders could have been killed, and I didn’t even go through the front door.”

I thought of the times I’d walked through the front door of a store or the library or city hall. I’d never stopped to think about the people who couldn’t, or how it made them feel. I’d just walked on through like I owned the place. In a way, I did. It was given to me, and to all the other white babies, on the day I was born. Meanwhile, across town, another group of babies was born. Their parents worked and bought homes and paid taxes like mine, but they didn’t own the place.

It was my town. But it was Jarmaine’s too, wasn’t it?

Each day I did a thousand little things without thinking, while Jarmaine and her friends had to think and weigh and decide. If they didn’t, they could get into trouble. They could be hurt. They could end up like the song. Strange fruit.

I stood there in front of the bus station and imagined the town of Anniston spread out before me, split in two. White only and colored only. Us and them. Safe and scared. I had lived my life in the safe part, ignoring the rest. When bad things happened, I didn’t notice. When the bus burned, I stood to the side and watched.

What would happen if I stepped out of the safe part? Would I be scared? Would I be hurt? If I was, what would I do?

I’d been asking questions my whole life. It was time to get some answers.

“You can go through the front door,” I told Jarmaine. “We’ll do it together. Then we’ll go to Montgomery.”

She eyed me, weighing my words.

“It might be a hard trip,” she said.

“I think we can do it.”

Jarmaine climbed to her feet and brushed off her dress. She picked up the basket, then turned to me.

“Let’s go,” she said.

I fell in beside her. We took one step, then another, then another.