Coffee Will Make You Black (14 page)

“Respect” came on, and I decided to take matters into my own hands. “Melody, Linda, Patrice, Tanya, Carla, let's do a line.” To my surprise the other girls followed me onto the floor. Denise and Gail wanted to know if they could join in. I nodded, willing to let bygones be bygones. Soon practically all of the girls and some of the boys were dancing in lines.

“Jimmy Mack” was playing, but everybody had formed a circle. I peeked through to see Roland come out of his blue suit jacket and get down. The way he was wiping up the floor, you would've sworn he was James Brown, Jr. It was like watching Clark Kent turn into Superman. If a square like Roland Anderson could become the life of the party, then anything could happen, I thought.

Graduation had come and gone. “Pomp and Circumstance” had made Mama cry. I had gone to Riverview with my crowd to celebrate. I'd had enough money and enough nerve to ride the roller coaster twice. Carla had teased me, saying I was nigger rich counta I had $10 in my pocket. I'd given Carla a dollar to ride the bumper cars again, and that had shut her up.

It was only eleven in the morning but it was already hot. You could tell today was going to be a scorcher. Me and Grandma were alone in the kitchen playing checkers. I was wearing shorts and a halter top and she was in her slip. There was no breeze except for the little metal fan blowing in our faces. Daddy was at work, David was out collecting for his paper route, Mama had gone to the post office, and Kevin was in the living room watching TV.

“You study long, you study wrong,” Grandma said as I stared at the checkerboard.

I didn't pay Grandma any attention, she would say anything to win. I carefully picked up one of my black plastic checker pieces and moved it a space forward.

“Well, Merry Christmas, you finally moved. And I'm still gon jump you.” Grandma snatched my checker piece and slammed hers on the board.

Grandma thought she was slick. She usually was, but I was determined to beat her for a change. I studied the board. Grandma had jumped me and left herself wide open to get jumped twice!

“How do you like them apples?” I laughed, holding up two of her red pieces.

Grandma wrinkled her forehead and wiped the sweat off her face with a paper towel. “That's okay, you ain't winning this game. 'Cause it's many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

Mama dragged into the kitchen waving an old church fan. She was wearing a white sleeveless blouse and a pair of beige shorts. She looked good; she'd lost ten pounds recently. Grandma glanced up at Mama after moving her king.

“Thought you got lost. Did they have a long line at the post office?”

“No longer than usual, but you won't believe what I saw! I mean I thought I had seen and heard everything, but this beat Bob's tail.”

“What did you see, Mama?” I looked up from the game. When Mama said something beat Bob's tail, she was as close as a Christian woman could get to needing a drink.

“It was spray-painted on the side of a building. It said
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL
, in big, bold letters!”

“Black is beautiful?” me and Grandma repeated.

“Yes, ‘Black is beautiful.' Have either one of you ever heard such a thing before?”

Me and Grandma shook our heads.

“I didn't think so,” Mama said, fanning herself.

“Black is sho-nuff beautiful! Crown me, Grandma!”

“Jean Eloise, stop acting silly, this is serious. I've been asking myself over and over, What would possess a person to write something like that?”

Grandma crowned me, but she was quiet, probably because she was losing.

I turned away from the game. “Maybe he just got out of the insane asylum,” I teased.

Grandma winked at me and smiled.

“Jean, I hadn't thought of that, maybe that explains it,” Mama said, walking toward the refrigerator.

“Oh, Evelyn, Jean was just pullin' your leg.”

Mama shook her head as she cracked open a tray of ice.

“‘Black' is supposed to be a fighting word. I've heard, ‘Black get back,' ‘I don't want nothing black but a Cadillac,' and ‘Coffee will make you black.'”

“What does ‘Coffee will make you black' mean, Mama?”

“The old folks in the South used to tell that to children so they wouldn't want to drink coffee. The last thing anybody wanted to be was black.”

“I never told my children any mess like that,” Grandma cut in. “I told y'all, ‘The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.'”

“Well, anyway, getting back to the wall, I wasn't the only one who noticed it. I saw plenty of folks peeking out of the corners of their eyes, like they were being drawn by a magnet. Seemed like people were just making excuses to parade past that wall,” Mama said, sucking on an ice cube.

“Lord have mercy! I never thought I would live to see the day when ‘black' would be called beautiful! It makes me damn proud!” Grandma shouted.

“Well, you know I don't condone your cursing, or folks defacing property, but I have to admit that when I saw
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL
on the side of the A&P like that I couldn't help but feel … well, sort of proud myself.”

“Mama, Grandma, times are changing, I've heard some people say ‘black' instead of ‘negro' or ‘colored.'”

“Jean, you can tell your children stories about what it was like, once upon a time when we were negroes,” Grandma said, her eyes twinkling.

“I'll tell them everything,” I promised.

“You two don't think this stuff is going to catch on, do you?” Mama asked between sucks on her ice.

“Hey, everybody,” Kevin yelled from the living room, “there's somebody black on TV!” Me and Grandma fell out laughing.

“See Mama, what did I just get through telling you?”

Mama looked scared and excited at the same time. Maybe like a virgin, I thought.

PART TWO

fall 1967

fall 1968

chapter 12

I was actually in high school! I changed classes every time the bell rang. I only had one class with Carla and that was Art. Southside High School took up a whole city block. There was even an enclosed campus just for the seniors.

I'd looked out of the girls' bathroom window yesterday and watched them standing around looking cool. The seniors were royalty as far as I was concerned. I'd seen a girl hugged up with a boy in a purple-and-gold school sweater against the big willow tree in the center of the campus. Carla had already told me that was where couples liked to go and kiss.

There was a big difference between grammar school and high school. At my elementary school you had to bring your lunch from home. But at Southside you could buy a hot lunch for thirty-five cents or cookies, potato chips, and soda pop from the canteen in the back of the lunchroom.

In the school hallways, some of the monitors were middle-aged women instead of students. They got paid to ask you where you belonged this period. They also worked in the attendance office. You had to go there and get a pass if you were late to your first class. There was even a security guard.

At Southside, we had a school band, clubs, sock hops, football and basketball teams, cheerleaders, the whole bit.

This morning, the window had been open during my Spanish class. We could hear the cheerleaders practicing their cheers while we struggled to say, “como está usted” and “bien, gracias.”

I recalled the cheers better than my Spanish lesson. “Two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar, all for the Bobcats, stand up and holler! Went to the river, yeah man, started to drown, yeah man. Started thinking about the Bobcats, yeah man, and I just couldn't go down. Went to the railroad, yeah man, had my foot on the track, yeah man, started thinking about the Bobcats, yeah man, and brought my big foot back, yeah man!”

It was exciting to be one of the three thousand or so students at Southside High. But right now I felt small and lonely, as I searched for my study hall. And even though I looked cool in my turquoise velour top and my straight skirt, hoop earrings, and fishnet stockings, I was afraid to ask anyone for directions for fear that they would send me the wrong way because I was just a freshman.

“Stevie, hey, Stevie.”

I turned around, smiling, glad to hear my name called in the packed, noisy hallway.

It was Roland, wearing a white shirt and tie and a navy sweater. He was overdressed even for the first week of school. But I was glad to see a familiar face.

“Hi, Roland.”

“Stevie, where are you headed?”

“I'm trying to find my study hall.”

“I've got study hall this period too. Is yours in room 256?”

“Yes, but I'm not sure where that is.”

“Follow me, I know where it is. It's by the Boys' Gym.”

“I'm glad I ran into you.”

“So, Stevie, what are you going to get involved in?”

“Carla's already planning to join the Pep Squad. She says then she'll have a better chance to become a cheerleader.”

“Sounds like a good strategy. But what about you, Stevie? I didn't ask you about Carla.”

“Okay, if I get up the nerve, I'll join the Drama Club.”

“You always said a good Easter piece at church as far back as I can remember.”

“Thanks. Well, what about you, Roland? What do you want to get into?”

“I'm seriously thinking about joining the Afro-American Club.”

“The Afro-American Club?”

“Yes, it's new this year.”

“I know. But if I were you, I'd check into it before jumping on the bandwagon.”

“Why? What's there to check into?”

“Did you see those students who refused to stand for the ‘Star-Spangled Banner' at the assembly this morning?”

“Yeah.”

“And the ones who stood up but turned their backs and raised their fists.”

“Yeah, they were cool.”

“I heard they got suspended.”

“That's more reason why I want to stand up to injustice.”

“You could pay a price. It could keep you out of the Honor Society. It could keep you from getting a college scholarship. You never know. There's a girl in my Spanish class who wears her hair natural,” I continued. “She's in the Afro-American Club. This boy named Donald yells ‘nappy head' every time the teacher calls her name. A lot of students laugh. I feel for her.”

Roland shook his head. “That's sad. The white man has really done a job on us. We'll never be free until we stop hating ourselves.”

“Amen to that,” I agreed, as we turned the corner.

I couldn't believe it. I was hip. I was cool. But I was alone. I wasn't even walking home with a square or two from my Honors English or Honors Algebra classes, but alone, all alone. I would've even settled for having Roland all over me like a cheap suit. Where was he when I needed him? I felt so embarrassed. Girls in twos and threes moseyed along past me as though I were invisible. Boys strutted in groups, jumping up to make imaginary baskets, not giving me the time of day. I couldn't help envying the couples strolling along with silly grins on their faces.

How could this have happened to me? Let's see, Carla was with Tyrone. She walked home with me on the days he was in band rehearsal. My tenth-period Biology class had been packed with sophomores. Most freshmen were enrolled in General Science classes. I hadn't known hardly anyone. That's why I was in this situation now.

I decided to enjoy the crisp fall air and take in the sights and sounds along my new route. A group of street-corner men sitting on crates asked me if they could walk with me. I shook my head and smiled.

I noticed that the same three Jehovah's Witnesses I'd seen this morning were standing in front of the Currency Exchange holding copies of
The Watchtower
.

A woman outside a phone booth yelled, “How long do it take to tell a nigger to go to hell?” The young woman inside, cradling the receiver and a crying baby, didn't bother to answer.

I looked down at the sidewalk when my foot stumbled over a large crack. I suddenly noticed that there was an incredible amount of old gum stuck to the sidewalk.

“Come on, baby, I'll let you have one for five dollars.”

I looked up to see a red-eyed man who smelled like booze, showing me some gold chains glistening in the sunlight. I shook my head and said, “No thanks.”

“Come on, baby! Two for eight! They charge you twice as much for 'em in Jew Town.”

“Sorry, but I'm broke,” I said, walking away. Even if I had five dollars, I wouldn't buy a stolen chain that probably wasn't even gold, I thought. I went back to checking out the gum on the sidewalk.

“Say, honey.”

I turned around to see a petite, brown-skinned man with a face full of powder. As Mama would say, he had some “sugar in his tank.”

“Yes,” I answered, surprised.

“Peek in that window over there and tell me if you see a tall, fine-looking man. He's a redbone, darling. I know he's in there, 'cause I watched him go in. I want you to tell me if it's a high-yellow woman in there with him.”

I hesitated. I couldn't believe this man. Then again it beat looking at old gum spots. “Okay,” I answered mechanically. I peeped through the slit in the heavy red curtains of the Peek-A-Boo Lounge. I looked for a man with a reddish complexion. The tavern only had about six people in it. I spotted him, sitting at a booth across from a woman who looked to be high yellow from where I stood.

I turned around and looked at the smooth-faced man. “Does he have on a brown leather jacket?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, he's with a woman,” I reported.

The man scrunched his face up. “Ted really acted like he cared! He really acted like he cared! I got half a mind to kill both of them!” he fumed.

“That wouldn't solve anything.” I tried to sound calm.