Gone to Green (16 page)

“Miss Lois, I’m calling as your friend to tell you to let things stay the way they are. People pay for their memberships, and they have the right to invite whoever they want to join. If someone does not want to join because of club policies, that's his or her choice.”

I waited for him to continue, certain the pause was not the end of his speech.

“Those people have all sorts of clubs that let them in,” he said.

My voice trembled when I answered him, but I hoped it did not show. I acted as though I had totally misunderstood his point.

“I look forward to your support on this issue,” I said, “knowing you represent so many of the fine people of Green in your police jury district, women and men, African Americans and Whites. I know that as a Realtor and a public official you do not believe in discrimination because of the color of someone's skin or their gender. I’d appreciate you reminding your friends at Oak Crest of that.”

And I hung up on him.

It was the only time in Green I ever hung up on anyone. I was not proud of myself, but I did not want him to know I was crying. His call came just after I had taken a contentious call from a preacher who told me how wrong I was. The two combined were too much. Between offending people by trying to bring some equality to Green and offending small-town businesses by “playing favorites,” I was homesick for the anonymity of the city desk at a big paper.

Several downtown businesses had gotten their feelings hurt that they were not included in a group advertisement we ran, promoting the upcoming Homemade Ice Cream Social and Downtown Dollar Days. The other bank, where the paper did not have its accounts, complained to the chamber of commerce that I was trying to “take over,” and the chamber should do something about it. While some people, such as the Baptists and Methodists, seemed thrilled and were planning downtown activities for children every Saturday in July, others were annoyed and thought the efforts a waste of time and energy. The grumblers came out in full force.

I was discouraged, but not deterred.

I had expected this to be a tough job and a rough year, but I was stunned by how raw some of the issues left me, how I doubted myself and the people around me. Over and over I asked myself if I was doing the right thing, if it was my right to try to change this little town where I was basically a visitor. I cried to my dead mother and asked what she would do. I sought out like-minded people to tell me I was doing the right thing, and people who disagreed with me to try to talk sense into me. I thought about Pastor Jean's sermon on wisdom and tried to figure out what she might have been telling me.

In the end, I prayed—deep, heartfelt, on-my-knees prayer, for the first time since the day my mother was buried.

Amazingly, interesting dominoes began to fall. First Methodist Church pastors had traditionally been members of Oak Crest, but now the pastor was a foreign man who never wore a suit and sometimes still wore what looked like a skirt. He did, however, like to play golf. His church leaders stepped forward to recommend him for the church's membership slot at the club and included a letter announcing their support of the membership of Miss Lois Barker and Dr. Kevin Taylor. The congregation at Grace Community Chapel, most of whom had only been to a wedding reception or high school reunion at the club, wrote a moving letter, signed by nearly thirty-five members, an accomplishment, considering the average attendance at worship.

Kevin's elderly partner endorsed her with vigor. Although he had expressed some reservations to her in private, in public he told the world such prejudice had to be wiped out. The chamber of commerce wound up endorsing Eva Hillburn as a full member, pointing out her leadership stature.

By the time we were voted in, the country club battle seemed somewhat shallow and the victory a bit hollow. But Aunt Helen stopped by the newspaper to meet me face-to-face and remind me history was being made.

“It takes brave people to stand against a crowd,” she said, holding out her wrinkled hand to shake mine. “I’m proud of you, girl. When you taking me out there for lunch?”

I had little time to go to the club now that I was a member because of the upcoming festivities downtown. I worked with Tom on our Green Forward editorials and invited each of the downtown merchants to write a short guest column about why they liked being part of the heart of Green. I hired a freelance artist to design a cute map of downtown that could run in the paper and be distributed by each business. Tammy went on a building-wide cleaning campaign that was astounding in its results, and Iris Jo organized newspaper tours for the day of the Ice Cream Social.

The event had turned into a fund-raiser to buy sidewalk benches and to replace a few hideous modern streetlights with expensive old-fashioned ones that suited the character of the town better. The occasion had begun to pick up steam, literally, since the July weather was the hottest on record.

Kevin called. “I can do free blood-pressure checks in the lobby of the paper,” she said. Someone from the school board office called. “May we have a table for school registration dates, the Parent-Student Association and other education news?” The high school athletic booster club had leftover spirit ribbons they wanted to sell. The Green Fire Department asked to bring one of its trucks and agreed to shoot fireworks that the chamber had somehow come up with. “We got the art guild to put together a great exhibition,” Rose said, “with some very nice work for sale.”

The 4-H Club volunteered to do a petting zoo, but we wound up turning down that offer. “Have you ever smelled goats in summer?” a member of Green Forward asked.

“Maybe we’ll do something in the fall,” I told the nice student who called. I was probably losing my mind even to suggest the fall event, but he seemed so disappointed about not being part of this.

I ran into Katy several times on the streets downtown, and she had begun to be marginally friendlier. She even introduced me to her friend, Molly, an African American girl I had seen getting on and off the school bus near the paper.

“She rescued me from some bullies at school,” Katy said, poking the other girl in the ribs. Clearly the two had become good friends before school let out for summer. I wondered sometimes if it were easier for Katy to make a new friend than to try to pretend she wasn’t sad around her old friends.

They sat on the loading dock one day, Katy smoking and Molly fiddling with an old CD player. “Hey, girls,” I said. “We need some help, and Tammy said you might be the answer. How about running the snow cone stand during our downtown festivities?”

I tried to assess their interest. “You get to keep half of what you make. The other half goes to the downtown fund.”

Both girls seemed pleased, as though looking for something to shake off their boredom. During the next few days, they were in and out of the paper a half dozen times, planning with Tammy, asking for materials for signs, copy paper for flyers, tape, and scissors and a variety of other things. Their enthusiasm rubbed off on others at
The News-Item
, and interest in the festivities picked up.

The day of the celebration turned out to be the hottest ever recorded in Green. The newspaper, Eva, and the hardware store had scraped up enough money to buy all the volunteers green T-shirts with “Go Green!” on the front and a list of our downtown association members on the back.

By mid-morning most of the shirts were soaking wet, and volunteers were wiping their faces with the white handkerchiefs still carried by most men in Green.

The homemade ice cream helped. When we tried to count how many dishes of ice cream we served, we would start laughing—“get tickled,” as Tammy said—and have to start over. The best I could figure, we had about three dozen ice cream freezers in action, with a backup supply in the freezers at the Cotton Boll Café. Some of the ice cream cooks were purists, turning up their noses at the suggestion they make anything but vanilla. Others were somewhat famous in Green for their Fresh Peach or Butterfinger ice cream. The unofficial taste tests had an underlying competitiveness.

By the middle of the afternoon, the thermometer at the bank read 103. I worried that people might drop from heat exhaustion, but the heat steered more people into businesses. The churches turned on their lawn sprinklers for the children to play in.

The one person who didn’t seem hot was Eva, who wore white linen slacks and a sleeveless silk shirt and looked as though she were ready for a day of bridge at the club. The only thing I could find wrong with her was a little lipstick on her front tooth.

“My mother told me that ladies don’t sweat,” she said with a laugh. “They glow.”

“Well, that explains it then,” I said. I do not recall ever sweating so much in my life.

Some of the people I had begun to think of as friends made it a point to show up. Pearl and Marcus and most of the members of the Lakeside Neighborhood Association were there, wandering around, meeting and greeting with years of experience. Mr. Marcus ate a Blue Raspberry snow cone, turning his lips and tongue blue and generally distracting from his dignified appearance—one of the funnier things I saw that day.

Aunt Helen arrived in a nursing home van with a half dozen other women and stayed for an hour before it got too hot. “You did it,” she said. “You drew a crowd downtown. Fine work.”

Several of my newspaper regular visitors came and contributed cookies for Tammy to serve in the lobby. Even the usual local politicians showed up, including Mayor Oscar, who had achieved hero status with his retirement announcement, and Major, shaking hands with one arm and wiping his face with the other.

Pastor Jean brought a trio of small boys. “Meet my friends, Miss Lois. They live near the church, and we’re having a special day today because they’re such special fellows.” They looked like urchins from a poor nation, with dirty clothes that were too small and ragged tennis shoes. I bought each of them a snow cone and made sure they got to sit inside the fire truck and sound the siren.

Iris Jo visited nearby with several people at the school tables, including Katy's mother and Craig, the catfish farmer and coach, who smiled and walked over to visit when he saw me. Or was his name Chris?

I was surprised at how happy I was that he had made it.

“Nice to see you again,” I said, holding out my hand. “I owe you a big thank-you for cleaning up my yard months ago. I’m sorry I haven’t stopped by to say thanks.”

His handshake was firm, and his hands calloused. “Good to see you again too. You are one busy lady, aren’t you?” He gestured toward all the activities. “Congratulations on pulling this off.”

“Oh, lots of people did this. Thanks for coming.”

“Iris Jo told me you have been a ball of fire to get this thing going. She said you put it together by sheer force of will. My guys are sure enjoying themselves. They need a little something to do in the summer.” He nodded over to where the football team clowned around at the booster table.

“Craig, I mean Chris.” I stumbled on his name.

“Two first names,” he said. “Happens all the time. No problem.”

“Well, anyway, you gave me directions that day out past my house, and you had your dogs with you. I understood Mannix and Kramer, but Markey?”

“Markey Post, the actress. My brother loved her and named my puppy for her.”

Just then Katy came up to ask where to find more ice. “Hey, coach,” she said. “Want to buy a snow cone?”

The two of them walked off, and I shook my head, amazed at how connected I suddenly felt to so many people.

As I stood there, Rose came up and gave me a big hug. “We’re having our best day ever at the Holey Moley,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

For the rest of the day, I flitted around, thanking people for coming and offering discount subscriptions to the paper. I gave away coupons for free classified ads, passed out surveys asking people to tell us what they wanted to read about, and drew names for door prizes.

If I thought I had been in the middle of things on the city desk in Dayton, I was mistaken. I felt like an air-traffic controller who suddenly gets a chance to take a flight after years in the tower. It was as though I had been sitting on the sidelines before I came to Green, a spectator in my own life.

Being on the field was a lot more intense, harder really, but on most days it was more fun.

Bayou Lake is low due to the recent drought, but spirits
are high because Billy Ray Cyrus will be here performing
his hits from the early nineties at the Bouef Parish Fair.