CHAPTER NINETEEN

No one noticed.

We went through the front door, and no one said a thing. Maybe it was because the place was almost empty, or because the Greyhound workers were busy.

I looked over at Jarmaine. She was blinking, and there were beads of sweat on her forehead.

“It’s fine,” I said.

She glanced around. “When I was little, my mother told me the rules. Now I’m breaking them.”

We went to the ticket window. A middle-aged man looked out at me.

I said, “Montgomery, going through Birmingham. Two, please.”

The man’s gaze slid over to Jarmaine, then back to me. He started to say something, then shook his head.

He told me the price. I paid my part out of the money I’d taken from my dresser. Jarmaine opened her purse and paid her part, and we took our tickets.

The man glanced at his watch, then up at me. He ignored Jarmaine.

“It’ll be the next bus,” he said. “Twenty minutes or so.”

I thanked him, and when I turned around, Jarmaine was headed for the door to the alley, where the bus would come. I followed her outside.

“We could wait inside,” I told her.

“I like it out here,” she said.

Over her shoulder I noticed a sign on the side of the building: Colored Waiting Area. There were no chairs or vending machines, just an alley. I wondered if Jarmaine really did like it, or if she was just used to it.

We stood and waited. The heat rose from the blacktop. I looked down the alley to the place where Grant had taken my picture, and I wondered what he was doing. I knew he wasn’t in church because his family didn’t go. Whenever I asked him what his religion was, he always said the same thing: justice.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go inside?” I asked Jarmaine.

“Not this time,” she said. “That’s something else my mother told me. Choose your battles.”

Finally the bus pulled into the alley. The door swung open, and an elderly white woman struggled down the steps. Behind her, the driver sprang to his feet and grasped her elbow.

“Careful there, ma’am,” he said.

Jarmaine stepped forward and took the woman’s hand, guiding her down the rest of the way. At the bottom, the woman smiled.

“Thank you, dear.”

The driver followed the woman down and got her suitcase from the luggage compartment. Then we gave him our tickets and climbed the steps.

There were just a few people on the bus—a young white family with a boy and a girl sitting next to the windows on one side, two old white men off to themselves, and a middle-aged Negro woman in the last row. Jarmaine moved toward the family, then hesitated. She was looking at a row halfway back, just staring at it, as if some detail might suddenly pop up to let her know it was all right to sit there.

I wondered how long she had thought about doing this. The whole thing seemed strange. To me, it was just a bus. It was just a seat. To Jarmaine, though, it was a lot more, and today I was seeing it through her eyes.

Jarmaine took a deep breath and slid into the row. Behind me, the bus driver cleared his throat. Jarmaine studied her hands.

“She’s with me,” I said and slipped in next to her.

Jarmaine leaned over and whispered, “You don’t have to sit with me.”

The driver, arms crossed, gazed at us for a long time. Maybe he thought about the way Jarmaine had helped the old woman. Whatever it was, he turned and took his place in the driver’s seat. He pulled a lever, and the door swung shut.

I pictured what it must have been like last Sunday—the Freedom Riders huddled inside; the mob outside, pounding on the bus; people screaming terrible things, their faces filled with hate. A few weeks ago such a scene would have been hard to imagine. Now, a week after Mother’s Day, it was easy.

The bus pulled out of the alley and into the street. We were on our way.

We took Gurnee Avenue south, past the Star building to Eighth Street. Everything we saw was familiar to me. I’d seen it a hundred times on my bike and from the car when I came downtown with Mama and Daddy, but it looked different from a bus. Maybe it was the high angle, or knowing that others on the bus might never have seen it before.

Across from us, the young mother was looking out the window. She probably thought that Anniston was a nice town. In the last row, the Negro woman looked out the window too. I wondered what she thought.

We turned right on Eighth and headed west, out of town. At the city limits, Eighth Street became the Birmingham Highway, the two-lane road where I lived. I saw West Anniston Park, where I used to play on the swing set, and the little green house at the corner of Marshall Street where my friend Alice Cole lived. Wayside Baptist Church came up on the right. I saw from the sign that Pastor Bob had been busy again:

Shouting “Oh God!” does not constitute going to church.

A few minutes later we topped a hill, and there was Grant’s house, with mine just beyond. A jolt went through me when I saw Mama and Daddy in our front yard, talking with Grant and his parents. Daddy looked worried. Mama looked sad. Seeing them, it was all I could do to keep from telling the driver to stop. As we rumbled by, Grant glanced up at the bus, then watched as we drove down the hill.

Forsyth’s Grocery was at the bottom. There was a blackened area in the parking lot made by the smoke of the burning bus. Next door was the little house where the Forsyths lived. Maybe Janie was inside, practicing for the national spelling bee. I wondered if spelling would ever again seem important to her.

“That’s where it happened, isn’t it? Right there at the grocery.”

Looking around, I saw Jarmaine gazing out the window. I nodded.

“I thought it would be bigger,” she said.

As we rode on, the store receded. Then we turned a corner and it was gone.

Jarmaine lifted the basket she’d been carrying and set it on her lap. Inside, wrapped neatly in waxed paper, were pieces of fried chicken, some deviled eggs, and pie.

“Why did you bring food?” I asked.

“We always bring food on the bus,” Jarmaine told me.

She glanced at me to see if I understood. I thought about the lunch counter at Wikle’s Drugs, where Jarmaine wasn’t allowed to eat, and I realized the Greyhound lunch counters would be the same. There were different rules for Negroes. The rules had been there all along, but I’d never thought much about them.

I looked into the basket, and suddenly I was starved. Jarmaine shared the chicken with me, and I recognized Lavender’s recipe, which included a beautiful brown crust and lots of salt. I watched the other passengers while we ate. Jarmaine did too.

She leaned over to me and whispered, “They’ve barely even noticed us. I thought they’d be upset.”

It might sound funny, but I was almost disappointed. The Freedom Riders had faced a mob. All we got was a couple of old men and a family.

I didn’t know it then, but I should have remembered what Mama always said.

Be careful what you wish for.