In the Family Way by Tommy Hays

Author:Tommy Hays [Hays, Tommy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-55703-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Test the Air

Henry and I watched our change trickle into the glass case, and as the bus pulled away we followed Della toward the back. She sat next to a thin, gray-haired Negro woman in a maid’s uniform. Della never wore a uniform—one of the many reasons I didn’t think of her as the maid. Della was less a keeper of the house than a keeper of the family.

She sat us in an empty seat behind her. I let Henry have the window, knowing that if I didn’t, he would make a stink. Henry had an artful way of making a stink, especially in public, that made me appear selfish and brutish while he came off as innocent and above the fray.

“I have to talk to Santa Claus.” Henry stared out over the neighborhood, looking worried. He was dressed in Mitchell’s red winter coat and floppy-eared hat.

“Santa Claus doesn’t come till the end of the parade.” I looked up the aisle. Most of the passengers were Negroes except for a lone white woman who sat up front, talking to the driver. It was still the law in Greenville in 1963 that Negroes sat in the back, filling seats toward the front, and that whites sat in the front, filling seats toward the back, and if there were not enough seats for whites, then Negroes had to stand.

“I hope he got my list.” Henry had mailed his Christmas list to Santa Claus in early August, believing Santa was impressed by promptness.

Della opened her big pocketbook and took out a pack of gum. She offered the other woman a piece. Then she gave a piece each to Henry and me. Chewing, we pressed our noses against the cold bus window, watching the neighborhood pass, but from a much higher angle than usual. The maids and the yardmen talked and laughed across the aisle. Riding the bus with Della was like being levitated to a slightly higher, more social realm.

I stared out the window, thinking about what had happened at school that morning. When we returned to school after Thanksgiving, we found a new teacher. Miss Hawkins had retired and gone to live with a cousin in North Carolina, or at least that is what we were told. At first, the mood of the class was jubilant. But after two weeks, the bump on Norma’s forehead disappeared, Mr. Keener stopped dropping by our classroom so often, and we returned to geography, long division, and spelling. Mrs. Watts was a young red-haired woman who, whenever one of us misspelled a word, would shake her head and press her hand to her forehead in mock despair.

The most difficult aspect of school for me was Norma. Ever since we had taken her home from Dr. Norton’s office, my feelings toward her had gradually changed. Somehow our roles had reversed. Now when I tried to talk to her, she buried her head in a book or got up to sharpen her pencil.

On this particular day at recess, when I saw her walk across the playground, I had made up my mind to speak to her.

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