Buses Are a Comin' by Charles Person

Author:Charles Person [Person, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

“Nigger!” Dr. Bergman sneered at me as I sat on a stool representing a lunch counter setting.

It meant nothing to me. It was nothing. I had heard that in Atlanta countless times. It meant less than nothing because unlike those yelling at me in Atlanta, I knew Dr. Bergman didn’t mean it. He was trying to prepare me for something that was already a part of my natural environment. He might as well have turned an electric heater on me to acclimate me to temperatures in the South. No need. I knew Southern temperatures, and I knew Southern vernacular.

“Nigger lover!” I would scream at him when we switched places. That was odd. It did not make sense to me that a Negro would say that to anyone, but I think the idea was to have us coarsen our language to desensitize us to what might be coming.

It was funny when it was Mrs. Bergman’s turn.

“Get your Negro backside to the back of the bus!” she would try to scream at me when I sat in the simulated bus seats. She was too kind to say nigger, too refined to say ass, too gentle to scream. If she had been ordered to knock me to the floor, she would have apologized and helped me up.

And it was difficult to swear at her. What would my parents think if I swore at a fifty-seven-year-old woman? What would they think if they knew this was the “advanced training in nonviolent, passive resistance” I had told them I was learning? But here I was raining vulgarities down on Frances Bergman.

As hard as it was to curse at Mrs. Bergman, it was harder to shove a sixty-one-year-old gentleman—gentleman—off a stool and obey instructions to kick him. My pushes were more slow-motion hugs followed by landing him softly on the floor. My kicks were more in the style of a professional wrestler’s pretend blows. I did not really kick Mr. Bergman. My parents would have killed me if they knew I had, but they wouldn’t because I couldn’t.

Mr. Bigelow didn’t seem to have such hesitations in knocking me to the floor when I teamed with him. When Al Bigelow pushed you, the floor was your next destination. John Lewis poured ketchup on me. Ed Blankenheim spit on me, or at least on my clothes. Genevieve Hughes swore at me. That was shocking. To me and to her. We were supposed to be serious, but we could not help but laugh when Genevieve used vulgar language. Even John cracked a smile.

As interesting and new as these physical-confrontation drills were to me, I think our orientation practices were disappointing to John. He had gone through the Reverend James Lawson’s workshops in Nashville, and I think John found those much more centered and serious. I remember thinking of him as being detached, almost disinterested in practicing at the level Mr. Farmer required. I found it hard to connect with John across the days we were in training. Even though we were closest in age, the two of us didn’t spend much time together.

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