The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 by Curtis Christopher Paul

Author:Curtis, Christopher Paul [Curtis, Christopher Paul]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780385382953
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

9. The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963

That Sunday I got up early. There weren’t any cartoons on then but it was always fun to wake up and not have to worry about going to school.

When I got into the living room I was surprised to see the front door open. I looked outside and saw Dad sitting in the Brown Bomber. I guess he was listening to records because he had his arm across the seat and was beating his hand up and down like it was a drum.

I ran back upstairs to the bedroom and changed out of my pajamas. I peeked out of the bedroom window to make sure Dad hadn’t left. He was still in the car so I ran downstairs and through the front door. I remembered and caught the screen just before it slammed.

I tapped on the window and Dad turned and smiled at me, then pointed to the passenger side for me to get in. I ran around the car and climbed in.

“Hey, Kenny.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“How’d you sleep?”

“O.K., I guess.”

“Go on in and get ‘Yakety Yak’ and sit with me for a while.”

“That’s O.K., I’ll just listen to what you’re playing.”

We listened to a couple of jive songs and then I said, “Dad, does Byron really have to go to Alabama? Couldn’t we just drive down to about Ohio and pretend we’re going to leave him to scare him?”

Dad looked at me and smiled kind of slow. He reached over and turned the Ultra-Glide down a little bit. “Kenneth, I know you’re going to miss Byron, we all will, but son, there are some things that Byron has to learn and he’s not learning them in Flint, and the things he is learning are things we don’t want him to. Do you understand?”

“No.”

Dad turned the Ultra-Glide down a little more. He looked like he was thinking whether or not he should tell me something. He was looking straight at me, and even though it was real hard, I looked right back at him.

I tried to look real intelligent and I guess it worked ’cause finally Dad said, “Kenny, we’ve put a lot of thought into this. I know you’ve seen on the news what’s happening in some parts of the South, right?”

We’d seen the pictures of a bunch of really mad white people with twisted-up faces screaming and giving dirty finger signs to some little Negro kids who were trying to go to school. I’d seen the pictures but I didn’t really know how these white people could hate some kids so much.

“I’ve seen it.” I didn’t have to tell Dad I didn’t understand.

“Well, a lot of times that’s going to be the way of the world for you kids. Byron is getting old enough to have to understand that his time for playing is running out fast, he’s got to realize the world doesn’t have a lot of jokes waiting for him. He’s got to be ready.”

Dad looked at me again to make sure I was understanding.

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